You select the level of abstraction for different things based on what is and isn’t the most fun to delve into. If your group enjoys poking every surface with a 10 foot pole, it’s not wrong to play with that level of granularity. It’s just that all the interesting things you can do with a 10 foot pole are pretty mined-out after 50 years so we tend to direct our attention elsewhere.
I wonder if there’s an RPG out there that has complicated and precise rules for diplomacy, but then once combat starts you just make one roll to see who wins.
Yeah… It’s important for the group to be on the same page about what’s fun.
Me, I don’t really want to do a blow by blow conversation with every NPC. I just want to say “I dazzle him with my brilliant smile and wit, and after some small talk try to learn about what’s going on with the royal stable”. I emphatically do not want to roleplay that small talk.
First part hard yes, but that’s actually explicit in OD&D. The slow adventuring pace in the dungeon accounts for probing etc.
Last part hard no, you just need to get more creative with obstacles. Like “traps” don’t have to be hidden pitfalls. They can be wizardly match stick puzzles of doom and so can a 10 foot pole be incorporated into the puzzle by delicate magical manipulation by a magic user giving you a free move?
I’m not very creative, I just steal from media I like, but the sky is the limit when you stop playing character sheets and start playing the characters that the sheets abstract the wrote bits of.
You select the level of abstraction for different things based on what is and isn’t the most fun to delve into. If your group enjoys poking every surface with a 10 foot pole, it’s not wrong to play with that level of granularity. It’s just that all the interesting things you can do with a 10 foot pole are pretty mined-out after 50 years so we tend to direct our attention elsewhere.
I wonder if there’s an RPG out there that has complicated and precise rules for diplomacy, but then once combat starts you just make one roll to see who wins.
Dramasystem?
Be the change and send me a copy
Yeah… It’s important for the group to be on the same page about what’s fun.
Me, I don’t really want to do a blow by blow conversation with every NPC. I just want to say “I dazzle him with my brilliant smile and wit, and after some small talk try to learn about what’s going on with the royal stable”. I emphatically do not want to roleplay that small talk.
Some people, that’s the whole point they show up.
First part hard yes, but that’s actually explicit in OD&D. The slow adventuring pace in the dungeon accounts for probing etc.
Last part hard no, you just need to get more creative with obstacles. Like “traps” don’t have to be hidden pitfalls. They can be wizardly match stick puzzles of doom and so can a 10 foot pole be incorporated into the puzzle by delicate magical manipulation by a magic user giving you a free move?
I’m not very creative, I just steal from media I like, but the sky is the limit when you stop playing character sheets and start playing the characters that the sheets abstract the wrote bits of.