Snorter's page

There was a precedent for ideas like this, in the Alternity ruleset (TSR/WotC). Not d20, but the idea of skill tricks that you unlock in addition to the increased chance of success.

Don't know that I want to see a Dalek exposing itself.

"Put it away, mister. Umm, you are a mister, right? That's a ...but, no, isn't that a...ohh, that's not right."

So my wife was watching 19 kids and counting. The Dad - Jimbob - on the show says that overpopulation of the world was nothing but a myth and that the entire population of the planet could fit within Jackson county Arkansas. My jaw dropped. If we crammed everyone in this world into the population density of New York City then we would live like sardines in the area of the State of Texas. We would have no real way to have good food distribution of production and would run out of fresh water in very short order. I hope and pray that no one who watches this show listens to this idiot. Oh by the way she is having another baby.

"It's a fanny, not a clown car!"

I’m actually more of a fan of cool weather myself, but I do enjoy the plethora of hot pants and halter neck tops that come out with the heat.

Don't we all!

And may I say, the art for Marie-Helen is verrrry nice. Do you know the artist or source?

Some great work here; I second the appreciation for not restricting yourself to the NPC classes presented in the original BECMI text.

One of the biggest issues, when translating older adventures, is the assumed rate of xp gain.*
Have you calculated how many levels could theoretically be gained, and is the intention to use the slow xp track, or would even that be too generous?
Then again, given that so many of the encounters are with badass NPCs, maybe it's unlikely the PCs would actually be able to beat them in a fight. More likely they would have to carry out some BS and flattery, in which case, I'd suspect the GM would have to be very careful about handing out xp for 'defeating' the encounters, if 'defeating' them only consists of 'manage not to get slain, on a whim'.

*Rant on the changing paradigms from oldschool to new: When running a module in 1st Edition, the expectation was that you'd probably gain one level, if you did the whole thing, maybe two, if it were one of the thicker ones. Given that expectation, the writers could set the challenges of any part of the mod, confident that the PCs who encountered them would be in the right league to handle them.
That being the case, and along with other issues such as a much lower WBL assumption, it made little sense for PCs to expend their limited resources attacking the rank and file. All that you would achieve, would be to hurl yourselves in several waves of diminishing returns, crashing on the rocks of the ever-growing defences.
Better tactics would be to look for a way in, bypass the outer defences, do over the surprised BBEG, and escape/fight your way out past the leaderless minions with most of your resources intact.
That seemed to fly out the window in 3E; the faster rate of progression meant writers had to set challenges of quickly escalating ECL; the resulting disparity in ECL heavily implied the encounters shouldn't/couldn't be done in any other order, nor could they be missed, else the PCs would be 'behind the curve'. Because the BBEG is way out of the league of the PCs who first come to his entrance hall, he isn't allowed to face them, but must make excuses why he remains incommunicado for the whole scenario, till the PCs ping their level-meter.
Tactics have to be abandoned, in favour of metagaming; intelligent play that should be its own reward (not waking the guards) is now seen as crippling the party, so artificial methods have to be adopted (giving full xp for sneaking past a sleeping guard who couldn't make a DC0 Perception check).
Where once we tried to emulate 'Where Eagles Dare', we are now pressured if we try to deviate from 'Kick in the Door, Wake Every Foe, Follow the Follow the Follow the Follow the, Follow Our Leroy Jenkins'.

Are these sessions audio or video?
And can you watch them at a later date? I'm in the wrong timezone to sit up and watch you live.

and, cool avatar...

Can we move the munchkin vs role player to another thread, or at least spoiler it?

How can we, when it's the whole point and intent of the thread?

I've pretty much have had it to here with assigning an automatic status of evil to dark skinned races and "good" to pale-skinned ones. Leave that sort of nonsense to the old White Dwarf.

?

What did Grombrindal ever do to you?

The most incongruous thing about her name to me, is that she lives in the Land of the Linnorm Kings, as opposed to, say, Vudra.

This kind of GMing is what happens, when parents let their kids grow up without reading them bedtime stories for moral guidance.

Here's the Original Poster's situation, in a nutshell, as described several centuries ago.

If we go starfaring and encounter indigenous aliens, we'd probably do the same if they were technologically inferior to us. That's the premise of Avatar, after all.

I thought the premise of 'Avatar' was that we should 'sing with all the music of the mountains, paint with all the colours of the wind'?

Elves are cool... but the CON hit can really hurt... and infact cause you to FORCE Retire your character..

I had a 1/2 Elf 1st level Fighter/4th level Diviner(wizard) with a 11 CON killed in our Kingmaker campaign... reincarnated into an ELF..

Pathfinder Reincarnate = 2 Permanent Negative Levels (-10 Hitpoints) and I was changed into an ELF... so my CON went from a 11 to a 9... so another -5 hitpoints..

I think you got a bit stuffed there; the new physical mods replace what you had before, they don't stack.

A reincarnated creature recalls the majority of its former life and form. It retains any class abilities, feats, or skill ranks it formerly possessed. Its class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points are unchanged. Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores depend partly on the new body. First eliminate the subject's racial adjustments (since it is no longer necessarily of his previous race) and then apply the adjustments found below to its remaining ability scores. The subject of the spell gains two permanent negative levels when it is reincarnated. If the subject is 1st level, it takes 2 points of Constitution drain instead (if this would reduce its Con to 0 or less, it can't be reincarnated).

Put it another way; if you'd been playing a dwarf who was reincarnated as a dwarf, you wouldn't have your Con go up.

I knew a player who turned up one day, with an elf, called Elric.

He got a load of grief off the other players, but swore blind he'd never heard of the original character. I'm inclined to believe him, since he wasn't someone who read a lot of fantasy fiction. He'd probably heard the name used by someone else (someone who did have no qualms about ripping off a famous IP), and thought it sounded 'elvish'.

Should we realy be punishing these players, for an offence they don't even know they've committed?

A properly trained PFS Judge would not allow such things at their table.

PFS Judges go through training?

Fifteen years, in the Academy of Law, the harshest training programe known to man, before they get their white helmet and half-eagle shoulder pad.

I was looking at rewarding 12th level retired characters and/or GMs a reward to name a street, park, monument, etc. after their own characters. Unfortunately, since these would become canon, this goal will never be reached because of IP problems, as well as the fact we don't want silly names in prints products. So, enjoy naming your characters whatever you wish but know that it did come at a price.

Why couldn't you do something like this, with the caveat that any name submitted for canonization is subject to being 'golarianized' by paizo in order to protect against IP/silliness?

The staff won't always know if a name is a violation of someone else's IP.

Sure, for 'Luke Skywalker' or 'Drizz't', they can be weeded out, but you're asking them to gain an in-depth knowledge of all the works out there, in several media, just for the sake of policing this.

11) Cleave. 4 opponents north, south, east, and west of you are cleavable. Opponents NE NW SE SW are not, even though they're the same if there's no grid.

Not quite; all potential targets have to be adjacent to each other, not you.

Benefit: As a standard action, you can make a single attack at your full base attack bonus against a foe within reach. If you hit, you deal damage normally and can make an additional attack (using your full base attack bonus) against a foe that is adjacent to the first and also within reach. You can only make one additional attack per round with this feat. When you use this feat, you take a –2 penalty to your Armor Class until your next turn.

The changes to multiclassing, adding skills and feats, radical changes to initiative, the full-round action to make a full attack, altering casting times for spells (to go with the initiative changes), standardizing attribute bonuses, prestige classes, etc. I'm certain there is more that I am forgetting.

Both edition changes made radical changes. Far more radical than 1E -> 2E. The difference really comes down to if you liked the changes or not.

Most of what you listed is either aniche rule (multiclassing) or minor chanes. (Castintime). This isnot subjective, for example, most characters are not multicsse, so multiclassing is a niche rule.

Anyone who thinks the changes to casting time were minor, obviously never played much 1st/2nd Edition.

Instantaneous casting, rather than multi-segment interuptable casting, prevented anyone shooting the caster mid-spell, except via readied actions, and the ability to just 'step' away prevented melee interruptions.
This was a gigantic paradigm shift, that caused immense headaches for our groups at the time, who were used to 'wizard in melee=dead man walking', not seeing them break cover and auto-cast, and was a major contribution to the 3E 'God-Wizard' concept.*

*In addition to all the other benefits they were handed, such as being able to craft from day one, rather than after retirement; automatic spell learning, lifting the Int cap on spells known, allowing more than one chance per lifetime to learn each spell, the choice of opposition school.....truly 3E was The Caster Edition.

Gorgons are giant metal bulls. History is awesome!

I never have understood what they were thinking when they did that. If any knows, I'd love to be so enlightened.

They were Greek. They were also very strange.

Here you go.

Or this.

Yes, I know. How strange that I knew where to find that...;)

I thought the D&D 5E rumors all started via a April Fools job this last spring. Is there any actual substance to the rumors now since Gencon?

This may be something or nothing, but Stan Brown (sorry..., STAN! Brown) has also moved back there.

Not that this 'proves' a 5E is in the works, any more than it 'proves' they want him to update his d20 Modern work to 4E.

Oh, I totally agree. But option three was such a mess that it virtually screamed "don't choose me I'm terrible, see how terrible I am?!" I wholly support the vague essence of what option three should be. (Check out my post earlier in this thread on that, where I rewrote option three in a vastly superior way in just a few minutes). Effectively, option three is the best option... that's just terribly written. I'm just surprised it got as much support as it did on WotC's website when it's so terribly written.

But what's the alternative?

I'm not surprised that option three got votes, since options one and two were completely devoid of any content whatsoever.
Option three was the only one that even attempted to function as a description of what the skill check does.

Remove the chaff from Option Three, and you've got the minimum information to actually run the skill in play. My beef is that the chaff had no right to be there in the first place, it looked like a clumsy attempt to say "Look what happens when you let those awful roll-players have an input. You're forced to add lines of text to every skill, explaining how the bonus is calculated.".
Which is a total strawman.

Well, the poll is certainly much better. Much better!

I also find it interesting that option three received nearly so many votes as it did.
EDIT: The reason this is so interesting is because option three was so objectively terrible. I mean, it was awful. It was a perfect storm of "don't ever choose this one, 'cause it's awful". This indicates a much greater interest in high-complication set of rules than really option three warrants.

I've just been to look at it, and I found it a false dilemma.

Virtually all the text of Option 3 included essential information, such as the results of a failed check, the ability to risk a faster movement rate, and sample Climb DCs, but the baggage, of 'A Climb check is a skill check based on a character's Strength score plus the number of skill ranks he has devoted to the Climb skill, if any.' is utterly worthless drivel, that should be dealt with once, and once only, in the general rules for skill checks or character generation.

People voted for Option 3, because they want to know the DCs, they want to know that natural climbers can move faster, they want to know the results of a failed check, they want to know if one can recover from a fall.

It is patently false to imply that the only options are to have bare GM Fiat, handwavey, Magical Teaparty, or looooooong patronising rules that would put a coke fiend to sleep.
"Gawd, why would you ever need to know the results of a failed roll? Boooooooooring! Why would you need to see the DCs? SNOOOOOORE!"

Black and silver are only cool until You've gone to a transformers convention.

What about purple?

Purple's a good villain colour, right?

"Tremble before the Purple Impaler!"

The monk in 1e was NOT 'hilariously powerful'. It had a d4 hit die and got stuff like feign death as it levelled - not as spells, but as class abilities.

And you had to take time out of the campaign, to go off on a detour, to fight a potentialy lethal combat against one of your equals, for one of you to be allowed to level up! And even if you didn't accidentally die, losing sent you back a level.

What we need is some mechanics which makes something like dominate simply completely ineffective on the first round in a fight on a BBEG, but a good option against mooks and perhaps even against the BBEG once he is softened up a bit.

Villain Points.

Like Hero Points, but come in cooler colours.

Color me curious. What sorts of games do you mean?

Showing my UK roots here, but Heroquest? Space Hulk?

Games Workshop were always good for a fantasy/scifi game, when I was a lad.
Warrior Knights
Fury of Dracula
Rogue Trooper
Judge Dredd
Talisman

Basically the sort of games that 'gamers' would like the theme of, as opposed to stuff you'd play with your Gran*, like Monopoly, Scrabble and Cluedo.

*Unless your Gran was super-cool, obviously.

Thirdly, it takes an action to put a bayonet on or take it off, and you can't fire the crossbow when it has a knife on the front. It should be able to do more melee damage that way, though, as it isn't improvised.

Many crossbows had a spike on the front, to aid in bracing while loading. That shouldn't interfere with the firing.

Check out images of 'Cinderlander', and you'll see what I mean.

EXAMPLE

I wouldn't want to take a whack off that.

But I suspect that if the concept of RPG traditionalism was more widely known/acknowledged, it could have been more like this:

Blackborn: I'm a traditionalist; I like fighters to be fighters, wizards to be wizards, etc. Multiclassing doesn't fit that.

Someone else: Cool. To each his own.

And the last two pages wouldn't have happened (including the "sounded like you were being hateful stuff" that fortunately avoided turning into a flame war).

I ought to be lumped in with the traditionalists, since I've been playing so long.

Yet if I were laying my cards on the table, it would be more like;

Snorter: I'm a traditionalist, and I like my characters to resemble characters from the source literature that inspired the game. Single-classing often doesn't fit that.

Someone else: Cool. To each his own.

There seems to be a general belief in a false dichotomy, that all players must gravitate to one of two extremes; the younger players must all be Narutards, who try to cram more and more layers of awesome onto everything until it becomes a joke, like Dragonball "My saaaaves are at PLUS NINETHOOUUUSAAAAND!" "HAH! YOU ARE NO MATCH FOR ME! MY SAVE DCs ARE AT PLUS NINETHOOUSSAAAAND AND TWEEEEENTY!!!!!!",

or that anyone over thirty is a grognard fatbeard "If it wasn't in the original White Box in 1974, it's stupid, and you can't use it.".

Appeals to the 'original spirit of the game' come with the implication 'WWGD?' What would Gary do?

Well, what would he do?

Thing is, with the magic of our wayback machine, we can see what he would do. Check out The Rogue's Gallery (1st Ed). How many of those PCs, most from the original campaign, break the inviolable rules in some way, to better fit a concept, or reflect events in-game.
Check the Lankhmar setting, in which the multi-classing was a given for all races (even expected) and was enshrined in the stats of the iconic characters, as the only way to make them mechanically work close to the way intended by Fritz Leiber.
Check out the Deities and Demigods book, in which virtually every entry contains gestalt abilities, from the heads of the pantheons, down to the 'lowliest' mythic hero.

If someone doesn't want multiclassing in their game, they are always free to disallow it. But they really should avoid making it an issue of age, experience, or the edition one started with, since the feeling among older players really isn't as unanimous as they'd like.

I second a meeting outside of gaming, if possible, followed by a night with a board game or card game.

If someone is inclined to be a tool at an RPG, they'll likely reveal the same tendencies elsewhere.
Apart from obvious issues that apply in all social situations (politeness, cleanliness, respect for others property, etc) there are specifics that trip up a lot of potential gamers.
Do they take it personally, if they are targetted, in-game, in-character?*
Do they have stupid, die-rolling rituals?**
Do they constantly try to take other players turns for them?
Do they try to deliberately misinterpret rules out of any obvious context?

If so, it's best to find out early, when all you lose is a few nights of non-sequential gaming.
Rather than starting some long-term campaign, which has to be stopped and started, to allow PCs to be rebuilt to accomodate the now-absent PC, or undo the results of some dickish behaviour on the campaign setting. You can only really ever start each campaign once; having to rewind time, and pretend the last few sessions never happened isn't satisfying for anyone.

*Within reason, and assuming the game is about PvP, like Risk or suchlike. I admit, I have little patience for players who always tagteam with their BFF or SO, regardless of the tactical situation.

**I don't have all night, for you to bless every die, shake them a hundred times, roll up your trouser leg, invoke the Dice Gods, stand up, spin three times while rubbing yopur stomach and patting your head, before spazzily throwing the dice behind you into the sink.
Nor do I want to see the effects of your 'hilarious' half-kilo monstrosity on my table/maps/figures/drinks. If it can put a dent in any of them, we'll see if it makes a dent in your head as we hurl it after your fleeing ass.

This site provides an overview of the cards, their meanings, and the typical methods for taking a reading.

If you haven't yet obtained a deck, or haven't got it with you, it can be approximated, using a d6 for suit, and a d10 for alignment (ignore rolls of 0). Obviously, the same card can't be drawn twice.

I'd recommend this random method for determining the initial card drawn during 'The Choosing' (where the reader asks which stat is most appropriate to the task ahead), as it saves you digging through the pack for the nine cards of the relevant suit, then shuffling them back in.
Or, if that would ruin the immersion for you, you could create nine separate cards, chits, or runestones, marked with the nine alignments, and have the petitioner draw from them.
The dice method also allows readings over play-by-post, or virtual tabletop.

Carrion Crown also included ways for the Harrow deck to influence the flow of the campaign.

Doesn't the SAMURAI do this far, far better?

Seems if I wanna make a badass warrior who can REALLY take it to the face!, shrug off spells and be an all round badass, SAMURAI does this far better.

So,
Why the hell play an Unbreakable?

You might choose the Unbreakable over the Samurai, if you're one of those players who scream "GET YOUR DIRTY STUPID ANIME WUXIA POKEMON ASIAN CRAP OUT OF MY CAREFULLY RESEARCHED, HISTORICALLY ACCURATE MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN SIMULATION, COMPLETE WITH WIZARDS AND TALKING WOLVES!!!1!1!1!!11"

Or if you have to play under a GM who takes the same attitude.

And none of your group are capable of reskinning anything.

Say my marksdwarf (Dwarf crossbow-archetype Fighter) takes the Catch Off-Guard feat for his crossbow.

Just to be clear; Catch Off Guard applies to any improvised weapon, it doesn't have to be specified when taking the feat.

Is it not a mind-affecting ability*, that undead (and haunts) would be immune to?

*Not that it makes it any less silly vs regular opponents.
I second removing feats that force NPCs to react in suicidal ways. Especially when players are simply declaring themselves immune to any and all social skills.

(Whether or not Seoni likes my take on zero-g, however, has yet to be seen.)

Fixed that for you ;)

"11 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Staff response: no reply required."

Huh.

I think that is another way of saying "really? use common sense people". I have seen it before. I am not saying I agree with every case, but that is my interpretation for it.

Many times though I do agree. :)

Trouble is, it simply intensifies the debate.

If they won't specify which camp has the correct interpretation, then both camps will assume they are the ones being supported by the staff, as using their 'common sense' to come to the 'obvious' One True Interpretation.

Since scrolls could be randomly generated with more than one spell on them, we always took the rule to mean that the crafter could scribe 1000gp worth of spell scrolls per day.
I don't know any group in real life that played it differently.

A limit of one per day is quite a comedown from that; is this why there's a disconnect between the 'Wizards are God' camp, and the 'No, They're not' camp? Because they adjudicate this rule in different ways?

IMO, Appraise has been castrated, by having much of the negotiation elements taken from it and assumed to be part of Diplomacy.

IE, you see a lot of "I roll Diplomacy <roll> Oh yeah! 38!"
"The merchant sells you the stuff for a fraction of its value."

Roll that aspect back into Appraise, and you make that skill more attractive, plus anything that reduces the ubiquitous and egregious spamming of Diplomacy can't be bad.

Prices have always been an open book, in every edition of the game. Having the players know the usual price of anything is not a problem.
Problems arise from what you then do with that information.

In the old days, it was quite clear that any loot was 'worth' whatever the PCs could persuade someone to pay for it, just like in real life.

Thus, having an appraisal/bargaining skill would pay.

In 3.0 onwards, it was set out as a RULE that everything could always sold for half price, and bought for full.

Thus, any GM attempting to alter prices to reflect some kind of in-game boom or slump, shortage or glut, would get beaten over the head with the RAW.

Add to that, the WBL assumptions, and altering the final yield from fencing the loot is simply more trouble than it's worth, since even if the GM did persuade the players to accept that they could only sell that cart full of Resource X for less than 50% of book value, they would point at the WBL, scream that they were now below the OBLIGATORY wealth level, and the GM HAD to make up the difference.

<takes a bow>

Do the scrolls have the word 'BANG!' inscribed on them?

If I were to bet on which side in a combat would be better at coordinating their tactics, my money would be on a pack of antagonists, who've known each other for weeks/months/years, over a quartet of scabby vagabonds, who never met till that morning.

To me, making checks ISN'T part of playing the character. Getting into character, roleplaying, and making decisions IC is part of playing the character. The checks are just background noise detailing where you succeed and where you fail. "I'm totally sense motiving this guy" is so jarring to me. Speaking super casually might have a -5 or -4 penalty, speaking normally might be a -2, speaking slightly cautiously would probably be +/- 0, and focusing solely on that person would probably be a +2. But again, the character isn't making a check. The check is happening Out of Character to determine whether or not the character notices.

That's my take, as well.

The Player directs the character to do something.
The Character attempts it, to the best of their ability.
NOT to the best of the Player's ability (and that applies regardless of whether the Player would be better or worse).
If the Player is inexperienced, shy, dyslexic, or embarrassed about roleplay, does that mean their CHA 22 Bard with maxed out social skills in a dozen languages must also be assumed to speak in a halting monotone?
If the Player is a genius, does that mean they can dump the mental stats of every PC they play, since they can count on the GM adjudicating all skill checks in their favor, based on the quality of the Player's metagame decisions and (over-)detailed description of their PCs action?

The player has already made an investment (or not) in their PC's mental stats, in skills such as Sense Motive, Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, and any knowledge skills relevant to the creature being interacted with, and/or the subject being discussed. He already has modifiers for Favored Enemy, Stern Gaze, or other traits.

All of these choices, despite being made out of session, during character creation, or while levelling up, are signals to the GM, of how that PC carries themself, how they choose to interact with others, as a typical, default, way.

Whatever his Diplomacy bonus, is how diplomatic he is, at all times.
Whatever his Bluff bonus, is how convincing he is, at all times.
Whatever his Intimidate bonus, is how intimidating he is, at all times.
Whatever his Sense Motive bonus, is how cautiously suspicious he is, at all times.
Whatever his Knowledge bonus, is how much he knows about the subject in discussion.

As such, all those skills are considered to be default values, and are always 'switched on'. There is no need to 'activate' them, or 'initiate' them, or 'declare' them.
The player already telegraphed his intent to use all of the above, when he announced he is entering into conversation with an NPC.

Someone with a bonus to any of those skills, presumably practices them off-screen whenever they can; that's how they got the bonus. As such, is it a stretch to assume they will default to such behaviour, when the spotlight is on them in a game session?

I think of the Swords Trilogy and The Silver Warriors by Michael Moorcock, personally, as well as the aforementioned Barrier Peaks.

Are you referring to the Corum stories?

How about the Hawkmoon stories (The Runestaff series, and the Chronicles of Castle Brass)?

Flame lances, ornithopters, an emperor in a life-support tank, ancient humans with dimensional travel, and a hero captured by the Sorceror Scientists of Granbretan, fitted with a living jewel in his forehead, that transmits all he sees, and can be awakened at any time to EAT HIS BRAIN!

That's excellent; I'll post it to Charles via the Royal Snail Mail, once it gets to Blighty.

Thanks for sorting this out; I can't imagine it's been an easy week for you.

Zombie Gorilla?

And Snorter, yeah, if you want to know someone's feelings, gauge their opinions, guess their next action, yeah, you have to make a sense motive on them. If they are hiding something, your character must stop and make a sense motive on that npc. You should be using your sense motive to get the most from scenes and not to miss a great deal. Some dms will put a lot into sense motive, allow you to find out a lot, others won't, or won't prepare for it.

I posted this in another thread, about whether spamming Detect Evil was metagaming, but it applies equally well here;

There's a few threads on the go on similar subjects, and they do reappear regularly enough that I do wonder;
Do those GMs who insist on their players making specific requests, for specific skills at specific moments, actually have jobs, families, etc?

I can only assume they're unemployed, still at school, or have a giant trust fund, so they can play for 16 hours a day, and afford the time to waste half the session on the following;

"The butler steps forward, and tells you 'I have an important message..'..."
"Can I have a roll?"
<roll>
...<wait for player to find his skill bonus>...
"I got 16, do I notice anything?"
"No. As he was saying, I have an important message.."
"What about me? Can I have a roll?"
<roll>
...<wait for player to find his skill bonus>...
"I got 17, do I notice anything?"
"No. As I was saying, I have an important message.."
"What about me? Can I have a roll?"
<roll>
...<wait for player to find his skill bonus>...
"I got 14, do I notice anything?
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes"
"Dude, I already rolled 16 and didn't get anything."
"Oh, I wasn't listening."
"As I was saying, I have an important message.."
"What about me? Can I have a roll?"
<roll>
...<wait for player to find his skill bonus>...
"I got 18, do I notice anything?"
"No. As I was saying, I have an important message.."
"What about me? Can I have a roll?"
<roll>
...<wait for player to find his skill bonus>...
"I got 13, do I notice anything?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes"
"Dude, I already rolled 16 and didn't get anything."
"Oh, I wasn't listening."
"As I was saying, I have an important message....."

Did you track down and slaughter his children, to prevent them growing up 'always chaotic evil'?

Did you use the money for a down-payment on a weapon?

There's a few threads on the go on similar subjects, and they do reappear regularly enough that I do wonder;
Do those GMs who insist on their players making specific requests, for specific skills at specific moments, actually have jobs, families, etc?

I can only assume they're unemployed, still at school, or have a giant trust fund, so they can play for 16 hours a day, and afford the time to waste half the session on the following;

"The butler steps forward, and tells you 'I have an important message..'..."
"Can I have a roll?"
<roll>
...<wait for player to find his skill bonus>...
"I got 16, do I notice anything?"
"No. As he was saying, I have an important message.."
"What about me? Can I have a roll?"
<roll>
...<wait for player to find his skill bonus>...
"I got 17, do I notice anything?"
"No. As I was saying, I have an important message.."
"What about me? Can I have a roll?"
<roll>
...<wait for player to find his skill bonus>...
"I got 14, do I notice anything?
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes"
"Dude, I already rolled 16 and didn't get anything."
"Oh, I wasn't listening."
"As I was saying, I have an important message.."
"What about me? Can I have a roll?"
<roll>
...<wait for player to find his skill bonus>...
"I got 18, do I notice anything?"
"No. As I was saying, I have an important message.."
"What about me? Can I have a roll?"
<roll>
...<wait for player to find his skill bonus>...
"I got 13, do I notice anything?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes"
"Dude, I already rolled 16 and didn't get anything."
"Oh, I wasn't listening."
"As I was saying, I have an important message....."