Getting rid of "Taking 10"

[ForeverSlayer]

Still missing my point. Why make the player just keep rolling until he makes the roll?

Who says you have to? After the rolls have been made and nobody found the door then it would be time to move on.

 

[Agamon]

Who says you have to? After the rolls have been made and nobody found the door then it would be time to move on.

LOL. I can't draw very well, so I'll try to explain it better.

Bad guy runs into a room. PCs follow. Room is empty! Players won't leave until they know there isn't a secret door. Roll, roll, roll, until they roll a 20. Or maybe a take 10 or take 20 to speed things up.

Or would you only let them roll once and then tell them they have to leave?

 

[ForeverSlayer]

LOL. I can't draw very well, so I'll try to explain it better.

Bad guy runs into a room. PCs follow. Room is empty! Players won't leave until they know there isn't a secret door. Roll, roll, roll, until they roll a 20. Or maybe a take 10 or take 20 to speed things up.

Or would you only let them roll once and then tell them they have to leave?

My players roll once, if they don't make the DC's then I tell them they don't find anything. Now I don't reveal what the DC is so the players don't know if they succeed or not unless they actually find a door.

 

[Croesus]

I have never liked the taking 10 rule because I feel that all things should have a chance of failure. Sometimes PC's would get to the point that they maxed out certain skills and then would just take 10 vs something that was meant to be a big deal.

Take 10 isn't about success or failure, it's about GM adjudication. Some GM's make characters roll for everything, some will handwave simple things. This rule simply codified what those GM's have always done.

Player: I look at the clerk's desk. What do I see?
GM 1: You see an inkwell, two quills, several sheets of parchment, some with writing. You're too far away to read any of the text on the papers.

Player: I look at the clerk's desk. What do I see?
GM 2: Roll a spot check.
Player: I got a total of 9.
GM 2: You see some papers scattered on his desk.

Either way of GMing works, they're just different styles of play. GM's who don't like Take 10 can easily ignore it.

 

[El Mahdi]

Taking a 10 works IMO if:
A: you're not under pressure. If you're under pressure, roll it.
B: it's something simple that you can take your time to figure out.

A is how it works for taking 10. You can't take 10 if you are threatened or distracted.

B is how it works for taking 20. You can't take 20 if you are threatened or distracted, or don't have sufficient time (at least a couple of minutes). And you can only take 20 if there is no adverse effect for failure (if there is an adverse result for failure, you can only take 10).

 

[Agamon]

My players roll once, if they don't make the DC's then I tell them they don't find anything. Now I don't reveal what the DC is so the players don't know if they succeed or not unless they actually find a door.

Yeah, if it's some random room that they have no reason to suspect there is a secret door, that sounds about right. But what if the PCs want to try again because they are pretty sure there is one? We are talking about the d20 rules, right?

If the roll is for something that can only be rolled for once and then no more tries, then I agree that Taking 10 shouldn't be done. But then, that's part of the Take 10 rule. Edit: no wait that's the Take 20 rule...actually, I don't mind this either, if the PC has the time.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Yeah, if it's some random room that they have no reason to suspect there is a secret door, that sounds about right. But what if the PCs want to try again because they are pretty sure there is one? We are talking about the d20 rules, right?

If the roll is for something that can only be rolled for once and then no more tries, then I agree that Taking 10 shouldn't be done. But then, that's part of the Take 10 rule.

If they want to roll one more time then I may let them. If they still find nothing then it's time to move on. Now if it comes down to the player using his brain instead of his character's then I will just say that there is no secret door so please move on, I don't like meta-gaming.

 

[Agamon]

If they want to roll one more time then I may let them. If they still find nothing then it's time to move on. Now if it comes down to the player using his brain instead of his character's then I will just say that there is no secret door so please move on, I don't like meta-gaming.

You keep going there. Why? My example has nothing to do with the players. If I lose my keys, I think they are somewhere in a room, and do a cursory glance around and don't see them, I should give up? No, I'd keep looking until I'm sure. The PCs (not the players, I better add that) would do the same thing.

But then, I also don't tell my players when it's "time to move on". They can do whatever they want, and their actions bring consequences. I like that better than saying, "No." YMMV, of course.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

The thing is it's not always about you failing to do something. If you try and lift a heavy gate and you fail, that failure could be anything from the gate slipped off the track or it became stuck. Also doing certain tasks you may do everyday is still inclined to failure at some point, that bad roll is supposed to represent those uncommon instances when something does happen. Professionals do mess up at times, professional isn't another word for perfection.

The d20 mechanic isn't well suited to representing the rare occasions when a professional character fails as something they're good at. The results of a d20 roll are very wild and unpredictable, so characters don't get reasonably predicable results until their bonus is nearly equal to the DC. Traditionally, that has required a high level character in order to reliably perform modest tasks.

So an automatic success mechanic fulfills this role. It simply assumes that you're going to perform according to your skill, sacrificing the low chance of failure for ease of play. A worthy sacrifice in my opinion.

 

[Greg K]

I am in the "Take 10" and "Take 20" are awesome camp. It had better exist in some form in 5e.