"Suggest whatever stat you want but I'll reject what doesn't make sense to me" is a group-killer when the dynamic is otherwise bad. For healthy adults who jam well together it's not just great for evocative story moments, it can open up tons of high-level, immersive problem solving!

"But stat substitutions justified by clever narrations blur the line between mechanical archetypes and makes PCs less special"

By making them kick ass at everything they can imagine their character kicking ass at?

"So who decides if the justification is acceptable?"

Probably the GM!

(The "printed page" thing is only from like the last fifty years or so, by the way. It gets much fuzzier every decade before that, unless there's a photo of a flapper drinking a Bee's Knees, but from 1500-1850 I'm still generally inside 50 years)

One thing I think is annoying about the internet's concept of a "hyperfixation" is its association with received knowledge — the "reciting detailed facts" trope. But I don't usually study the subjects I care most about. The beauty is in perceiving the thing. It drives me to do nothing else.

Every time I see a printed page out of context I play a game where I guess when it was printed, and I'm usually about 3-6 years off. I suspect many people could do this, but also that they probably don't

I'm sitting here looking at scratches and nicks from a bad copy job, spacing out the margins, zeroing in on a place the border's frayed, and internally I'm just going "yes, yes, fuck yes, let's go"

Certainly don't write it up one-on-one on my account; I'm maybe years from needing this info!

(But hadn't opened DMs, evidently)

I'm also interested.

I have kinda played so many characters I'm blasé about bad outcomes, thought. Oh no should Gabber Horsethief technically not have been killed when he ate dire jellyfish meat, oh dear, let me phone my wrongful death attorney he is very expensive

Are you mad the GM's verdict on the rules is unfair, or are you mad that they are generally unfair and provide frustrating scenarios without caring how you feel about that

I've been in bad games where I hated the refereeing, but I've also been in a stupid number of good games, and I can't think of a single one of them where if the GM made a miscall I would've been like "hey this WAS fun but I'm mad now" so I guess who cares basically

I'm trying to add "grim determination" to my build

I'm trying to read more books, but if I could only read ones put out by publishers I was paying a large monthly subscription to I would check out of the entire conversation instantaneously

Blockbuster was more convenient and customer friendly than this, and it was famously neither of those things

You can't have it, we'll just let you use it. Ten bucks a month. Twelve. Fuck it, fifteen. Would you eat bugs. Would you eat bugs for The Da Vinci Code or are you just gonna watch clips of The Office on YouTube

It's such an accounting success and a marketing disaster. Oh, you like our movie? You owe us money forever you deadbeat motherfucker. You can't even buy it. Pay us a monthly fee or forget our product exists. We will repo your nostalgia at 6AM on Sunday

If you ever want to bounce drafts off people, I'm down!