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Nov 27, 2012 -- 11:29AM, lokiare wrote:

Nov 27, 2012 -- 11:03AM, greatfrito wrote:

Couldn't Lancelot "whip his ass with any weapon" anyways?  I feel like little of what I've read paints Arthur as some kind of spectacular warrior (especially in comparison to many of his knights), Excalibur or not.

Actually Arthur had Excalibur and it sheath which didn't allow anyone to draw blood on him. He also had a suit of multicolored armor which some speculate was Damascus Steel. So Arthur was good because he used tech, not because of skill.

pretty much Lancelot and probably Gawaine were  better in spite of that but yes Arthur was still surrounded in his own form of awesome. A Warlord with Kings bloodline not always subtle magic fits him nicely. The scene in excaliber where he induces an enemy to crown him... is pretty sweet

Nov 26, 2012 -- 8:33PM, Saelorn wrote:

Lying is bad.  It is, by definition, not Lawful.  It is not what Superman would do, and it is not what I would ever do.

Sorry - have to go back to this.  If lying is unlawful and liars are not lawful then Superman is not lawful. 

If we accept that he goes by the name of Clark Kent then one could also presume that he has documentation to "prove" this identity yet, details in that documentation will be falsified.  I'm picking that if he gets quizzed on it he doesn't say "Well, actually, my real name is Kal-El but my parents... well, they aren't my REAL parents because I'm adopted (legally or not depending who made my backstory). Oh, yeah and it says I'm from Smallville, Alabama but really I'm from a far off planet called Krypton... funny story that..."

Superman is not only a filthy liar corroborating his false documentation but he is also an illegal immigrant and completely disregards air safety laws.

Nov 27, 2012 -- 11:25AM, lokiare wrote:

Nov 27, 2012 -- 8:57AM, SleepsInTraffic wrote:

The DM's Guide in fact tells you to do this:

Ignoring the Dice
If you’re an experienced gamer, you have seen the following situation happen before. Rachel, playing her halfling cleric, delivers a perfect speech rallying the barbarian tribes to aid a besieged city. When she’s done, everyone erupts in spontaneous applause. When she rolls her Charisma check, though, the die comes up a natural 1 and points to failure.
As a DM, remember that the dice are like the rules. They’re a tool to help keep the action moving. At any time, you can decide that a player’s action is automatically successful, even if the DC would normally be somewhere above 20. By the same token, a bad plan or unfortunate circumstances can transform even the easiest task into an impossibility.
The dice are neutral arbiters. They come into play when success and failure are far from clear. Think of them as impartial judges, ready to dispense a yes or no answer based on a character’s bonus and the DC you have selected. The dice don’t run the game. You do.
As a DM, you should think about the role the dice play in your game. Do you prefer the vagaries of fate, or do you prefer to reward a good effort with success and a poor one with failure? Use your style to help guide when you call for rolls and when you simply declare success or failure.

The above is a failure on the DMs part. They should have had the player roll, then role play a fumbling speech. It certainly is wrong in the fact that everyone applauded and cheered before the player rolled the check. At the very least the response shouldn't have happened until after they rolled.

If they had done that then the 'rousing speech' could have been played off as 'That's exactly what the last three adventuring groups said when they came through, and look what happened to us.' or 'We value truths over lies, you can keep your fancy words for yourself.'

Really that entire example is just a bad misunderstanding of the rules in general...

Wow, I'd far rather let the player RP her inspiration, letting her enjoy the moment in the game, than force her to follow a random roll. The game is about having fun. How fun would it be to roll a 1 and have the DM tell the person to RP the roll? Not much, I would think, and I'd start looking for a new DM if he told me to do it that way. Often my players come up with something so great I don't even bother rolling for the NPC's reaction. As the rules say, "The dice don’t run the game. You do." I and the players as a cooperative effort.