Quote:
Originally Posted by Menchi
Which is pretty much my feelings too - my point is, though, that some people *do* feel that there should be mechanics that support roleplaying. And it is often these people who declare that D&D is not a roleplaying game.
My point is that if you are going to make a claim, you need to provide your personal definition and not assume that everyone thinks the same.
Conan
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I think there is some mileage to having rules for social interaction in role-playing games.
In essence, you are creating a character that is able to do things that you are not able to do, and the rules are there to simulate these abilities that you do not have. How much the rules do this is down to how much simulation you want your games rules to allow, and what kind of game it is.
For example, a shy, unassuming girl, playing a male fighter, should be able to intimidate others, even though the player has a quiet voice and issues regarding her confidence. That’s an awful stereotyped view of female role-players, and I apologise, but I’m sure that people can think of other examples. D&D supports that level of simulation via rules (generally, I don’t have my 4th PHB here so I don’t know if intimidate survived as a skill, I think it did), and that’s the level of simulation that I’m quite happy with.
In contrast I was never very happy with the use of things like virtues in world of darkness games, like conscience… why do I need the rules to tell me my character feels sorry for some thing I’ve done?
I like the review though, my only reticence is my general idea that no game should achieve a perfect score unless it is truly without flaw, something that is very rare. It’s hard to get that across on a 5 point scale.