Post originally by Wulf Corbett at 2005-04-21 05:44:06
Converted from Phorums BB System

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Using dice to dictate every interaction, however, is just plain foolish. There has to come a point where you start making choices not dictated by the roll of the bones, otherwise you might as well just be playing a computer game.
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Actually, a computer game does all the rolling for you, the only bit missing is the social interraction.

But, anyway, what you describe is just as fully applicable to all parts of any RPG. There is no need to let the dice dictate the outcome of every Climb, Jump, Hide, Listen - not even any need to roll for every combat, if the outcome is irrelevant or inevitable. There is equally no reason why roleplay and narrative cannot influence the outcome of any of these.

The rules for social interraction should be just as strict - NO MORE AND NO LESS - than for these actions. If they are not, you may as well be playing a computer game, since there would be just as little actual roleplay - except instead of just selecting answers from a list, it's just people talking, and the GM making an arbitrary decision what the result is. And it's that arbitrarity (is that a word?) that matters - without rules to direct results, you're just telling stories.

Wulf