Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
Well, to be properly pedantic, no, a chance for success does not mean there's a chance for failure, nor vice versa. If the chance for success is 100%, the chance for failure is 0%. So, then, there's a range between no chance for failure (100% success), a chance for success AND a chance for failure, and no chance of success (100% failure). While what you're responding to is a bit wordy and a tad clunky, it's very accurate that the style calls for a chance of success between (but not inclusive) 100% and 0% and a corresponding chance for failure.May or may not have a chance of succeeding
May or may not have a chance of failing
May or may not have consequences
And you need all three? First, my pendantry side wants to point out that one and two are the exact same thing. If something has a chance at success, by definition it has a chance of failure.
Ergo, all three are, indeed, required. [/pedant]
No, that's not a consequence, it's no change. Before I failed, I didn't know and after I failed I also didn't know. No change. No change isn't really a consequence, it's just maintenance.So, let us look to consequences. This gets muddy.
See, the consequence of failing to know something is to not know it. Something might happen because you do not know something, but that is not a direct consequence of the failed roll, the consequence of the failed roll is not having access to the knowledge.
Now, this only applies if the knowledge is useful. Knowing why the Lady's heraldry contains a rose with five petals may or may not be useful, depending on the campaign. But, if it is useful, and a player asks to roll knowledge on that family's history. Well, they may or may not know the story, but the only consequence of failure is not having potentially useful information.
Is that lack of information enough of a consequence for you to call for a roll? Maybe, I can't say. But, is giving them useful information with no roll, just because a failed roll only means they don't know make sense either?
Consequence means there's actually a cost to failure. Your proposition has no cost for failure, just no gain.
It isn't that I don't use this philosophy from time to time. If a group wants to break down a door, and there is no time limit or major consequence to them breaking down the door, then they will not fail at breaking down the door eventually. The roll does tell me how long it took though, and the players might not know there is no consequence to their roll, so we might roll and a low number just means they struggle through it, but eventually succeed. After all, there is no point in having them keep rolling until they succeed, but that doesn't mean that I need specific consequences in mind for every roll either.
And, this is fine. I have plenty of stuff that is important, though, so I'm not going to spend time on things that don't. If there's no consequence for failure, then it's not important (in my game, natch). I find there's plenty of uncertainty in the game without me needing to make rolls to add more uncertainty.
Or, in another way, a door that only serves as device to increase player uncertainty just will not exist in my game. This is a strong preference I have -- my gaming time is limited and precious and I'd rather not use it in this way.
This also has little to do with goal and approach, except that such a method helps by already moving past anything like this I do accidentally include with a minimum of fuss.
Detail is a red herring, here. It's the approach that matters, not the details of the approach. How much detail you add to carefully licking the doorknob clean won't result in an autosuccess, ever (unless, maybe, you're immune to poison?). On the other hand, being skilled at poisoner's tools and wiping off the contact poison may very well result in autosuccess. Don't make the mistake that we're looking for a long, detailed explanation for anything done -- that sounds horribly boring.I think I'm curious about your approach as a player. Somehow, there seems to be a problem with how rolls are handled at some of our tables, and people keep insisting that they describe actions so fully that there is no chance of failure.
That somehow, given the scenario, a player can describe their actions in such detail that no roll is needed, because no failure is possible. And not in rare cases, such as wiping a poisoned handle and discovering a poison oil, but that it is more common for them to have scenarios that cannot possibly fail instead of ones that are uncertain.
How?
Yes, you are, and no, it's not. The game revolves around actions, not skill checks. Skill checks are used when an action is uncertain and there's a cost of failure. You don't call for a skill check when a player declares their character walks across a room, do you? Is this a case where hairs have been split because there should be a roll?So my only flaw in my approach is assuming there will be more uncertainty than certainty? That, in a discussion about how to handle skills, I am assuming that the dice will be rolled and a skill used instead of assuming that the approach given to me will be so certain of victory that no roll is needed?
That isn't putting the cart before the horse, that is splitting hairs.
In other words, I say that a discussion about how to handle skills has placed the cart before the horse because we do not yet know how we handle actions. Skills come after we get a handle on actions.
Yeah, agree to disagree. I've seen a lot of novels get so verbose in trying to describe things that it takes away from the narrative. The fact that the lady was frightened isn't important enough to spend more words on, how people react and the events that unfold are far more important and if you have every emotional reaction take 7-10 words it is likely to get bogged down.
I think there's a bit of an excluded middle here (things can be more verbose than 'You're scared of the dragon' and less verbose than a novel with flowery descriptions, after all). Still, it's a fair point and entirely a preference in play. I find myself using such descriptive shortcuts on occasion, and I'm pretty big about not telling a player what they think. My players know it's descriptive and they're free to have their characters react however they want.
Ugh, I wish I could think of a really good example of this.
It mostly happens when I'm tired, or having an off day, so part of that is on me. And rarely any of the physical skills, those have clear actions behind them that I can picture.
Insight and Investigation stuff? Knowledge checks? It happens when I know the DM is hinting at something, something that should be obvious, but I'm just not seeing it or understanding the significance of it. And I can usually narrow it down to 2 or 3 skills, and I ask if I could roll one of the list to see if I can break past whatever it is I'm not getting.
This is where I'll harp on my hobby horse of not hiding the game. There's always going to be information disparity between the GM and the players in any game where the GM has secret stuff the players are trying to learn (what's in the next room, what the Duke is up to, did this shopkeep steal his own jewels, etc.). This is because the GM already knows the secret and is trying to get the players to learn it in a fun way. Because of this, GMs tend to create mysteries that depend on the players not knowing stuff, and then err on the side of hiding too much information. This is what leads to players spamming knowledge skills or investigation and perception checks to try to convince the GM to give up this hidden information via a high roll. In reality, these checks aren't doing anything in the fiction except convincing the GM to drop the next bit of hidden information. I say, don't do this as a GM. Make your mysteries based not on hiding information from the players, but instead on what will the players do once they learn the information. Then the GM's motivation isn't to hide information because getting it gives away the game, so to speak, but instead get the information to the players clearly so that the game of what they do with it can be played.
If my players are asking for these things (or fishing for them with action declarations), then I take that as me not doing a good job presenting the world to the players. This doesn't mean I don't expect my players to have to do things to learn things, just that such events are clear that they need to do something and with enough detail they can readily form an approach to how they want to do it.
Well, that seems to benefit you.Very few people I play under bother homebrewing monsters to the point that I'd be remiss in making assumptions.
But there are two things I'm seeing here.
1) How is asking to recall lore not a asking to roll a check? Sure, I, as a DM, have sometimes told people after asking that there is no need to roll, because it makes perfect sense they would know the thing, but it is the same question. I don't imagine most DM's would be much more or less likely to give you the information if you prettied up your question by asking "Does my character know what a Black Pudding is?" versus "Can I roll Arcana to see if my character knows what a Black Pudding is?"
I agree with this analysis (surprise!). I hate the "knowledge" mechanic of D&D. There's no real consequence I could possibly level at this to justify a check under my preferred method (actions cause changes to the fiction on success and failure) outside of telling the player, that knows they just rolled poorly, that they know a wrong thing. Ew.
I'm pretty sure [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] just ignores this problem and uses knowledge checks as kinda freebies that don't have a consequence outside of not confirming your suspicions (or gaining new knowledge). As I've said, I strongly dislike this. So, I avoid it -- poorly. I tend to provide information based on proficiency and backgrounds for free. You see an X, and are proficient in that thing or have experience in an area, well, you know stuff about it -- here's some game stats. Again, I don't use hidden information as the point of an encounter -- my players can know everything about all of the badguys and the encounter will still be fun because I don't care to play gotcha with abilities. In fact, I dislike this as a player, so I avoid it as a GM.
This still leaves the knowledge skills in a weird place. So, I use them in the exploration pillar. You have religion? That's awesome for figuring out a ritual or ceremony detail that can help you do something. A recent example was a sarcophagus with a detailed carving around it in a a language none of the players could read. The Wizard reached for his Comprehend Languages ritual, but the Grave cleric tried to decipher what the carvings might mean based on her experience as a Grave cleric. She rolled poorly on her religion check, and so accidentally triggered a curse that resulted in the occupants of the sarcophagus animating as mummies. On a success, she would have discovered that those in the sarcophagus were sealed in to protect against a cursed axe found in the sacrophagus (a beserker axe). As it was, the party didn't get this information and the dwarven barbarian attuned to it. Later fun was had!
This would be a very poor assumption in my games. I freely reskin and repurpose creatures to fit themes, so assuming that you know something would be a poor choice. Of course, I'll probably just tell you anyway, so... eh?2) Assuming my character can know everything I know about a world and setting is a dangerous thing. I know A LOT more than most of the people who DM for me, and most of the other players. Usually, they don't mind me acting on my knowledge, but it is polite for me to ask them and get their permission. Even if it is only to assure them on some level that their plans weren't too simplistic, it was simply that I, as a player, know far too much about the game and how it works.