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How Difficulty Class and the D20 engine ruined roleplaying
(mythlands-erce.blogspot.com)
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this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
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Different GMs can handle the same system completely differently, even the same GM playing the same system but using different a adventure/modules might run the game differently. While one GM might have you roll dice just to cross the street, another won’t roll a single die for hours on end.
If anything, the biggest issue I’ve had with D20/D&D is how it seems to incentivize combat over most everything else, but that’s kind of what the system is for. Though that complaint is like trying to use a hammer for a screwdriver and then complaining that it doesn’t work that well on screws, from the beginning it was really made with one thing in mind, combat.
It may be that the system is too dependent on the GM to make things work and that it’s experience system pushes the players towards murder hoboing (XP-based) or just mild apathy (milestone). Just saying “These are all issues that can be fixed with a good GM,” kind of reinforces the point that the system is too dependent on the GM for people to have a good time. How it fixes that though, I’m not really certain.
I ask for die rolls in roleplaying either for the lols on flavoring moments that don't impact the narrative deeply, or when something could and couldn't work.
For example, my players tried to convince dragons to make business with their own tribe. I had made them roll for Persuasion. Not only have they succeeded, the result was incredible. So from that moment and on and on, one of the dragon is deeply in need of shrooms and their tribe actually produce a lot of shrooms. Since then, that dragon was pressuring it's brothers and sisters to do trading with the tribe for delicious shrooms. Even to the point of sabotaging communications in an attempt to get more of them.