The definitive notion of Magical Tea Party

[Plebian]

also if you need anything to tell you how to roleplay you probably shouldn't be roleplaying to begin with. seriously, what is wrong with a book saying, "roleplay your traits," because that's basically golden information right there; you can't codify how a trait will be RPed without reducing it to pointlessness. WELP YOU SEE GUYS YOU CAN ONLY ROLEPLAY A GUTTERSNIPE IF YOU ARE LITERALLY OLIVER TWIST.

Ok, I'll bite. On your character sheet you have an ability that says you are "strong". Can you lift a crate of weapons? Turn over a cart? Break open a door? What about a "strong door"? In the absence of rules you are reduced to bargaining with the DM (and the rest of the table). And that is why we have carrying capacity, break DCs, bonus damage and all of these nice little numbers that give us a framework to roleplay in.

gonna totally rock your world with this one: those DCs your DM sets up to challenge you? he made those up specifically to challenge you. the HP of the monsters that you're using your strength modifier to damage? he sorted through a list and found the right mix of HP/defenses/attacks to challenge you.

it's all made up. magical tea party oh no!

[Wrathzog]

So... you have a locked door. In the party, you have three characters who can attempt to pick the lock. One is Very good at it, the second is sort of good at it, and the third is bad at it but could definitely pick the lock if given enough time.

How does the DM decide what the Lock's DC is?

-e-
Expanding on this... A year down the line, the party's gained some experience and they've become better adventurers. They come across a lock that is similar but not exactly the same as the lock from the first scenario.

What is the Lock's DC?

[LR]

gonna totally rock your world with this one: those DCs your DM sets up to challenge you? he made those up specifically to challenge you. the HP of the monsters that you're using your strength modifier to damage? he sorted through a list and found the right mix of HP/defenses/attacks to challenge you.

it's all made up. magical tea party oh no!

I'm very curious now. What would you do if the party decided to break the cycle of non-advancement and invoke their veto power of "we knock over a 1st level kobold warren instead"?

[Neurosis]

I'm glad this thread exists, it was actually really educational.

[DSMatticus]

gonna totally rock your world with this one: those DCs your DM sets up to challenge you? he made those up specifically to challenge you. the HP of the monsters that you're using your strength modifier to damage? he sorted through a list and found the right mix of HP/defenses/attacks to challenge you.

Wrong. The stats for a wooden door exist, and the stats for an iron door exist. The fact that characters progress from knocking one down to knocking another down literally does not fucking matter, because the stats for each exist, the players can look them up in a book. When you are making your character, you can look at your sheet and say, "I can knock down a wooden door by rolling an 8 on a str check, but I can't break iron doors at all." And then you go the fucking table, and the DM says, "there's a wooden door in your way," and you say "I kick it in," roll your die, get an 8, and succeed.

The fact that the DM COULD have said "iron door" when he said "wooden door" doesn't fucking matter. And when your DM ALWAYS says "iron door" instead of "wooden door", you know he's being a dick who faps about how awesome his doors are and doesn't want you to break them down because he likes being a railroading ass. But that still doesn't matter, because you still have a character sheet in front of you that clearly defines what your individual character is capable of doing.

And that is exactly the point - the numbers on your character sheet describe, to you and the gameworld, what they are capable of. Your argument is that, "well, the DM decides what sort of encounters you face, and because he decides what sort of encounters you face, he decides whether or not your capabilities actually come into play and to what extent." And that argument is fucking stupid, because it admits that you have defined capabilities, and those defined capabilities are exactly the goal and intention of having rules, so we can move on.