Quote from: Imperator;421246Kyle's posts sum up pretty well who I run things.

Maybe I get lots of hate for this, but I don't expect everyone at my table to be a perfect immersive actor ready to go Stanislawski on their 1st level PC. If someone wants to RP his PC in 3rd person, I'm cool. If someone is less talkative, I let him have it.

The main goal is not immersion (though it is indeed a worthy goal), emulation of a genre (same), exploring some imaginary place or telling some dramatic story about people making hard choices. It is a game, and the goal is to be an enjoyable experience, which is something defined by the persons taking part of it.

So the Forgers are wrong, the OSRers are wrong, the immersion crowd is wrong and basically anyon who tries to narrow down the goal of this wonderful hobby to one simple factor is wrong. You can narrow it down once you take into account the concrete persons at the table.

HERESY! BURN THE HERETIC! BURN HIM!*

HE DARES TO SAY THAT WE PLAY THESE GAMES FOR...

=== FUN ===

HERESY!!!




* just kidding y'all

Storming the Wizard's Tower skirts around the whole issue in a way I really like. The player's good (or bad) roll don't determine the NPC's response to their character, but give the PC more information. It could be immersion breaking to some degree, but doesn't strike me as more so than any time a player asks for more information about the gameworld ("I take a quick look around. Is there any kind of weapon handy?")

QuoteCharged conversations
Whenever your character gets into a conversation with someone who
might turn out to be an enemy, or whom your character doesn't trust,
you roll your Perception. Count up your hits and hold onto them. Over the
course of the conversation, spend your hits to ask the GM questions, one
by one. You can:
• Ask if the person's lying;
• Ask if the person knows more than she's saying;
• Ask how the person feels about it;
• Ask what it would take to make the person feel a particular way;
• Ask what the person intends to do;
• Ask what the person wishes your character would do.
The GM has to answer you truthfully. The GM's character might lie to your
character, but the GM must not lie to you.
If the GM gives you an answer to the best of her foresight, and it turns out
to be false, you get to immediately ask a replacement question, for free

Quote from: Omnifray;420447Eloquent players have characters who persuade far better.

Players who are better at statistical probabilities and tactics have characters who fight far better.

And the big deal is?

I think the issue that crops up is the player who is bad at statistical probabilities can make a character that is great at math or fields, so the feeling is a character who is not terribly eloquent should have some way of playing a character who is eloquent.

At the end of the day, the character you are playing isn't you. So I don't have a problem with social mechanics. If I have a player who can't communicate very well, but wants to play a charismatic politician, I'll let him make the rolls in place of RPing great speeches. Where I have an issue, is when role playing stops because everyone is rolling dice instead of role playing. My general guideline is players should try their best to play their character, emulating their stats as best as possible.