As I have said - I have been playing these games for a good few years and with that, hopefully, comes some maturity. One of my pet hobby-horses is the constant abuse of dice. It seems that when a player gets into difficulty s/he automatically looks up the most relevant statistic on her character sheet and says "I use my incredible score in (x stat/skill) to talk my way out of this" while selecting the appropriate dice and throwing them on the table. The player then scowls in frustration when the dice don't give her the required outcome. Alternatively - the player shrieks in delight and regales the crowd, later, with how well she did in that scene with the two Hydras and the renegade Monk of Sif. Yeah babe you sure can roll dem bones.
As a storyteller I can tell you all about the look on peoples faces when they scream in triumph as they roll the critical that cuts through the torso of their foe. The vision of triumph is heart warming, really, I mean - after all we are there to have fun aren't we? and if rolling pieces of plastic with numbers on them and consulting tables to mechanically deal out death to the unsuspecting if not undeserving hordes of nasties does it for ya - then why not?!
Because it is far more fun to actually use your imaginations and come up with the solutions via storytelling - ROLE PLAYING. The predicaments may be court intrigue, a who done it, it may well be a fight that you have on your hands. By storyteller and player narrative you can play out a scene with minimal dice and maximum affect. I say minimal dice 'cos in all these systems there is the element of chance - no one can tell to the final degree what will actually happen, but you can go along way towards ensuring a beneficial outcome. The most problematic is the fight scene. Any good story will have some action. I would ask GMs everywhere not master adventures that are just a string of fights - leave that to B-Grade movies. On the other hand, movies are a good analogy - ask yourself "would this make a good movie scene?" I will try to illustrate ...
Our intrepid heros must board the ship, rescue one of their
party while procuring the navigators log book. The situation ( as always ) looks
grim. The ship, "Brandied Justice", has a full crew of 60 able-bodied
cut-throats one mandatory peg-legged load mouth and an even louder mouthed parrot.
Given that the party out numbered the crew at about 1 to 10 - they brazenly
jumped onto the ship and demanded that the bad-guys give up the girly and hand
over the goodies. Does this sound familiar? Players
all to often assume that they are going to win any confrontation and refuse
to look at any other option. Not one of my players looked to see if they could
sneak onto the ship - they all threw back their capes of flourishing, smiled
for the cameras and jumped in! Now, of course the logical conclusion of this
action is to mob the foolhardies and make their deaths violent and sticky. This
would be justified but short and plainly no fun. I found that it was far better
to make them realize what kind of pooh they were in an make them sweat for a
while [Gordon displays his best sadistic grin]. I will reiterate - we are there
to have fun, the storytellers job is to ensure that, so if he spends his time
tromping all over the characters, not giving them any free will to act then
the game will end up with sulking players and crumble without further ado. As our likely lads land on the deck and loudly proclaim their edicts,
the crossbow men on the bridge calmly hamstring all but one. Wesley notes that he now outnumbers
the pirates 1 to 60 and promptly calls for their surrender. The crew start to
laugh and Gordon smiles as he shakes his head. It's
not that I didn't expect this from Wesley/Allan it's just that I knew what was
coming next. Out of the well armed crowd steps two
very well dressed buccaneers, they are twins - each one is a chiselled jaw hero
type, you know - like a player character. They are sporting sabres and stiletto
knives along with intelligent, if manic, glints in their eyes. So Now Wesley
gets the picture - a duel, if he wins - presumably the party is allowed to retreat
and if he loses - well then all sorts of wicked things could happen, death is
one of many horrifying options. Our valiant hero takes stock of the situation
and thinks to 
pick
up two swords This is the first intelligent thing
anyone has done so far Wesley strides forward and starts
to sing his favourite sea shanty "The ox and the vicars daughter"
- with Wesleys' singing voice - this does very well as a battle cry. Everyone
else on the ship is quite stunned at just how awful his song is. The twins,
however, deal with it and get on with the task in hand. One of them does a brilliant
display of acrobatics and executes a flying somersault right over Wes. "Hah!
Easy" shouts Wesley as he goes to cut Twinny from the air. Doh - he just
plain forgot number two, just for that crucial moment when he feels himself
being tripped and tossed onto the deck - embarrassing! It is now that Wesley
realises that the twins are not only good but
co-ordinated it is now that Wesley begins to
sweat. The next intelligent action : Allan asks for
props - inside I am smiling all over, now we can see some fun - I describe the
layout of the deck, where the bridge is, how far away the cargo hold is - there
are barrels as of yet unidentified contents. The sails are furled and tied down
to the mast, there are sheets leading off here and there. This ship has railings and beside the
railings are cannons and balls. Forever curious, Wesley
springs and rolls over to an open barrel - he finds fish, not immediately useful
but he keeps it in mind. As he walks out to meet his opponents he does notice
that the fish are preserved in oil - this, he is interested in. The duel continues,
our sea shantying hero was not proficient in the use of two swords - but he
is learning, the hard way. It becomes apparent that his foes have more than
a numerical advantage, they keep blurring to his vision and the wounds that
he does inflict don't seem to have the effect that they should have. At last
Wesley suspects paranormal foul play. Allan shouts
"Magic users" and spits - at this point the other players wake up
from their maisma and collectively say "Oh yeah... we can do that".
It seems to be a point of psychology that if you tell someone that they are
physically helpless - they believe you ... and give up. On the other hand they
could have been enjoying watch Allan physically sweat at his predicament. Wesley works his way back around to the barrel of fish. He
manages to tip the barrel over, soaking the twins and littering the deck with
fish - just as one of the partys' magic users manages to make the yard-arm swing
over the on going duel. Wesley just can not resist the Errol Flynn shtick and
catches a ride to the other side of the deck. The twins demonstrate how difficult
it is to walk, run or perform acrobatics when you are covered in oil and fish.
The fight comes to an explosive end when one twin gets mad and tries to cast
a fire bolt at Wesley. The bolt causes the deck to go up in flames and a general
state of alarm -go figure. Our heros bring hasty healing magic and get away
in the confusion. Now - can you or can you not see
this scene in movie terms. Picture Mr Van Damme taking the Wesley character
( although 'the ox and the vicars daughter' in his accent does not bear thinking
about) and two martial arts babes/hunks being the twins and have them fight
up and down the decks jumping around being generally impressive. By the
end of that scene - we had used up the playing session, that is how it
goes but every one was smiling and Allan thanked me for scaring the pants off
him, again and he was looking forward to the next time.
The party jumps on board with shouts of 'EX PEE!!!' and "I Ready my bow..." Everbody reaches for dice and the lead figures come out. The next hour or so is wasted by people rolling percentile dice and looking up tables and reading out the horrible if amusing critical things that happen to people when you roll the right numbers. Then the GM spends two playing sessions trying to sew the story back together with some amount of credibility because your star character died on an unfortunate saving throw and nobody had the right spell to save him. OR the players who lost their characters roll up new one for you to slaughter next week. Whoopee Wahoo, c'mon guys get a grip at least take your dice to where they belong ... at a craps table!