D&D 4E 4e skill system -dont get it.

[hong]

Agreed. And I didn't say that a purely cooperative non-competitive RPG wouldn't make sense. I said that a purely cooperative non-competitive RPG would bore me. I can understand some people want to play RPGs where they can't actually die, but I'm just not one of them and don't want to see D&D go in that direction.

Claiming that the only meaningful way to provide challenge in a competitive RPG is by PC death is also nonsense.

 

[hong]

How would you define 'ten orcs' as something other than 'a challenge to overcome'?

"Monsters to kill". There is a difference.

 

[pemerton]

But you don't really need strict rules for that. Certainly not 400+ pages of rules in three books. Co-operative story-telling is no better or worse than any other style, but if that is the goal of D&D, it will fail miserably. Head over to the Forge and check out the co-operative style games they have. Typically, 32 pages or less. Minimalist rules and dice.

Not all narrativist-oriented RPGs are rules-lite: HeroQuest, TRoS, The Dying Earth, Burning Wheel I think are all counterexamples. I'm sure there are others that I don't have so ready to hand.

Strict and lengthy rules can serve various functions. For example, they can resolve questions of the allocation of narrative control in very fine detail. They can also provide a strong simulationist chassis to support some other variety of play. They can also bring pleasure to those who enjoy working within complex rules frameworks for the sake of it (maybe this is a special case of the second possibility, where what is being explored is the rules system itself).

As I mentioned above, if a particular group is looking to tell a rousing story of great deeds and daring, no edition of D&D really supports that well.

I'm not sure that those are the sorts of stories that much narrativist play is aimed at. Generally the goal is to evoke, epxress or resolve some thematic issue deemed important by the player(s). The story of great deeds and daring which playing D&D supplies (assuming that it does - 4e at least seems to be oriented to the production of such stories, and all editions of D&D have claimed - perhaps falsely, in the case of AD&D - to be oriented to the production of such stories) would be the vehicle for achieving that goal. It would not itself be the achievement of that goal.

How would you define 'ten orcs' as something other than 'a challenge to overcome'?

As I said in my earlier post, it is presumably7 a challenge to the PCs. Whether or not the players treat it as a challenge to them (posed, presumably, by the GM) is a different question.

If that is 'semi-adversarial', then the rules encourage that.

I am talking about adversity between GM and players, not between monsters and PCs. The latter goes without saying. The former is up for grabs, and varies dramatically with playstyle.

However, according to the stated design goals, they aren't there to much other purpose. That is simply how the ruleset is laid out.

The ruleset (by which I assume you mean the character build and action resolution mechanics) sets certain parameters for what players can do using their PCs as vehicles. It doesn't tell us what the point is of such activity. The stated design goal of 4e seems to be "have fun by having your PC overcome challenges". The fun could be derived from also overcoming a real-life challenge as a player. It could be derived from something quite different - for example, having one's PC overcome a certain challenge in order to resolve a certain quest might make a particular thematic statement.

I will grant, spells and steel aren't the only way to interact with this situation.

Which situation are you talking about? There is an imaginary situation, in which PCs wield spells and steel (and other things also, maybe). There is a real-life situation. At least at my gaming table we never interact with the situation using spells, nor steel. We use words, drawings and the occasional gesture.

Unless you are prepared to distinguish the circumstances of the PCs (who are confronting a challenge) from the circumstances of the players (who may or may not be confronting a challenge) you can't helpfully discuss what the point of play is - because you will automatically be led to attribute the desires of the PCs (success in overcoming challenges) to the players.

Which brings me to this:

I am not intimately familiar with RuneQuest, but you would describe a typical session as simply wandering about the countryside recording details?

No. The PCs explore and fight as they do in D&D. But the point for the players is not so much the overcoming of challenges - RQ is much less gonzo than D&D, and so the overcoming of challenges by the truckload is much less easy for PCs to pull off - but to explore the imaginary world of Glorantha. And they can do this even if their PCs are not always successful, or do not confront and overcome very many challenges per session.

RM also tends to support this sort of play.

the rules are in place to assist the referee in setting up situations in which the players interact with the game and associated milieu via their avatars or 'tokens'.

That is one thing the rules can be in place to do. It is not the only thing. For example, they might play the role of distributing narrative control.

Taking this point a bit further:

Using an applicable skill for a task is not 'adversarial'. Nor is it 'semi-adversarial'. It is more accurately 'using the rules as they are intended', which is to help adjudicate situations expected to commonly occur.

All the weight here is borne by the word "applicable". Who gets to decide applicability? That is, who has narrative control over the gameworld? If the GM is the sole - or even final -arbiter, we have a situation which is quite probably adversarial, or semi-adversarial, between players and GM - either at the character build stage, or at the action resolution stage, the players try to come up with ways to satisfy the GM that certain skills are applicable in the world that the GM is narrating.

If the players are themselves allowed to narrate questions of applicability, then the relationship between the players and the in-game challenge to their PCs becomes quite different. It no longer need be a challenge for them to solve. It may instead become an opportunity for them to make whatever point they were hoping to make in the playing of the game. In such circusmtances, it would not hurt the game that a player always favoured his or her PCs best skill, provided that the narrative the player provides to justify contributes to the making of the relevant point.

Primarily, this means that my Rogue will know that climbing a slippery wall will have a -10 penalty at my table, and if I play a Rogue at someone else's table, that same slippery wall will have that same -10 penalty. If the penalty is greater, non-existant, or is a +10 instead, I will have to re-adjust my expectations of how things work. Essentially, I will have to learn a new game that is similar to the one I know. It may sound some degree of adversarial when the DM says "The lock has a DC of 75". In fact, what it tells me is that this lock is exceptionally hard to pick, or the DM doesn't want people in there. If I decide to try picking that lock, I know how to calculate my odds based on the skills and equipment my Rogue possesses. But that lock will be the same challenge for any Rogue, and will be the same challenge across any table. The very opposite of 'adversarial'.

I don't fully grasp the sense in which you are using "adversarial" - the GM setting a DC at 75 in order to stop PCs entering a certain room - which is to say, in order to limit the narrative control of the players - looks to me potentially quite adversarial. I don't understand in what way it is the very opposite.

But in any event, the sort of play you describe in this example - the GM as sole determiner of the ingame reality - seems to me the sort of play from which departure will be facilitated by the 4e skill challenge rules, as Harr's example way upthread demonstrated.

Whether this is a good or bad direction for D&D to take is up for grabs. But I don't really see how it can be denied that it is a change of direction.

On the other hand, if everyone has to demonstrate how their skill is applicable to the task at hand, that will not only increase handle time, it turns into a legalistic system, where the player(s) and the DM are deciding the appropriateness of a skill, while the other players determine the validity of the points.

To echo (or at least harmonise with) Lost Soul, that is what some RPGers might call "playing the game" - that is, the players and GM together shaping (narrating) the gameworld. In such play (as I noted in my earlier post) the interesting question may not be so much whether the challenge is overcome, but how. And what you dismiss as a "legalistic system" would be the working out of that how. It would be the very point of such play.

Even if the DM simply allows most attempts of any particular skill, the other players (jury) are simply building up a body of 'precedent' while the 'defence' (DM) accepts most deals offered by the 'prosecution' (player).

I don't fully understand this analogy - why is the GM a defendant and the player a prosecutor? In what way are the other players, as jury, determining the GM's guilt or innocence? Does the body of precedent relate to the laws that determine guilt, or the laws that determine permissibility of sentence under a plea bargain ("deals offered").

In any event, if the point is simply that gaming groups develop shared understandings of what is permitted and what is not, that is true and (I would have though) uncontroversial. I don't see that it's an objection. (It's not really an objection to 3E that the absence of Hulking Hurlers and/or Pun Pun's from the table is in part a result of a mutual understanding between players and GMs that some things won't be done.)

Western legal traditions are anything but 'non-adversarial'.

It's mostly off-topic, but most legal systems in the modern world, including most European and (non-English speaking) American ones, are not adversarial in the technical sense but rather inquistorial, drawing on the Roman code tradition rather than the Anglo-American common law tradition.

 

[pemerton]

<snip explanations of what sorts of things count as rules?

Agreed.

Many of the things that designers have said are now fully supported by the rules are not in fact actually rules issues. For example, the notion of a trap as part of an encounter is not something that is a rule issue, but an encounter design issue.

By "rules" you seem to mean character build and action resolution mechanics (or perhaps some subset of them - for example, I don't know if you consider the alignment aspect of D&D, for example, which in 3E ramifies through character build, action resolution and encounter and campaign design to be part of the rules or not - or the treasure guidelines in so far as they pertain to scrolls, which in turn ramify importantly into Wizard character build mechanics).

I think the rules of an RPG are more helpfully conceived of as also including a good deal of what you are calling "guidelines", such as reward systems (which also ramify into character build, and in 3E - via aspects of the magic system - into action resolution), distribution of narrative control, the basic principles of scene/encounter design (this overlaps with the narrative control issue), etc. These further aspects of a game have a significant impact on how it is played.

I've seen alot of claims by fans that 4e will be 'rules light', 'streamlined', 'more flexible', 'faster', 'less preperation time', 'more narrativist', 'more character focused', 'roleplay enabling', 'player enabling', and pretty much anyattribute that someone can project in thier imagination on the new edition, and so far none of those claims seem to be rooted in much more than hope.

I haven't seen anyone suggest that 4e will be rules light. The least familiarity with the direction of late 3E in terms of cahracter build and action resolution mechanics would nobble that thought.

"Streamlined", "faster" and "less (GM) preparation time" seems to be related claims, and there is a growing body of evidence that these claims are largely correct - ie that GM preparation time is less per unit of game mechanical output (perhaps not less overall if the GM chooses to spend freed-up time on other tasks) and that real-world resolution time per player turn (though not necessarily per combat) is also less than in 3E.

"More flexible" is particularly ambiguous. I think the system is more flexible in that it reinforces 3E's support of gamist play while also offering a degree of support for narrativist play. (It undercuts simulationist play, but I'm one of those who is sceptical of D&D's ability, in any iteration, to provide strong support for such play without extensive house ruling.) The increased number of player turns per combat, combined with the wider availability of encounter powers and situationally-useful at-will powers also (I think) contributes to a sense that PCs are flexible in the way they respond to combat challenges. The skill challenge rules I suspect give a similar sense of PC flexibility in responding to skill challenges.

"More narrativist" and "player enabling" are related notions, as narrativism, like gamism, is an approach to play that can only thrive if players are enabled to make meaningful choices. I think 4e does this, through increased emphasis on character build, on player input into action resolution (eg skill challenge rules as discussed in this thread), on reduced GM control over worldbuilding (as strongly implied by the explanation of the gameplay signficance of PoL in W&M).

"More character focused" can mean a lot of things. Character build mechanics are being emphasised to at least the same degree as 3E, if not moreso. The emphasis on the sinlge PC as the vehicle for play (which 3E increased compared to eg 1st ed AD&D with its extensive henchmen and follower rules) is being increased, with the reduction in emphasis (at least early on) on Summoning and Cohorts. The only natural interpretation of this claim that makes it the case that 4e is less character focused is if "character focused" means "supports character immersion in favour of metagame". There is little doubt that 4e increases the prominence of metagame considerations in play.

"Roleplay enhancing" is equally ambiguous. If "roleplay" means "immersion" then we have a game that does not enhance roleplay. If "roleplay" means "player participation in meaningful decision making" then we have a game that does enhance roleplay. I don't find it helpful to debate what is really roleplaying, so would prefer that this sort of description of a game just be abandoned.

The new skill challenge 'system' is a rules laywers paradice.

<snip>

These aren't rule issues. They are gamesmanship issues. Rules can't fix what isn't broken in them.

I think that Lost Soul has answered this point well, so mostly I'll just voice my agreement with his replies: depending on how those parts of the rules that you prefer to characterise as guidelines are written, prickish behaviour can be made more or less overt (that is more or less able to cloak itself in the rules and thus present itself as non-prickish).

The notion that different rules cannot have different consequences in this regard - which I take it you are putting forward - I think is false.

Isn't the situation, "A guard is coming, what do you do?"

With responces like:

"I duck into the shadows of an alley, hiding as the guard passes by. I got a 25 on my Hide check."

"I tell him that "He went that away!" and point down the dark alley. I got a 25 on my Bluff check."

"I climb up the nearby buidling. I got a 25 on my Climb check."

"I draw my sword and attack. I have a 25 on my initiative check."

"I try to squeeze through the sewer grate. I have a 25 on my escape artist check."

"I try to cast sleep on the gaurd. I have a 25 on my initiative check."

Or whatever.

Don't we already have to use skills when they are applicable to the situation?

I don't think those are what LostSoul would describe as "cool descriptions in play". I think they are really somewhat banal descriptions, which it is the aim of the new skill challenge system to move beyond. The way that it moves beyond it is roughly this: instead of the player describing what action the PC performs (as in all your examples), and waiting for the GM to tell him or her the consequence of doing it, the player describes how his or her PC does something that contributes to the success of the party in relation to the challenge (which requires describing not just the action but various of its consequences, plus elements of the gameworld context in which it occurs) and the GM and other players then build on that description in resolving the rest of the challenge. Harr's example upthread illustrated this (eg as a result of the skill challenge, something is now known about the history of devious traps in the gameworld which otherwise would not have come to light).

 

[LostSoul]

In 3e if the skill check is to be considered applicable to resolving the skill challenge, it needs to be relevant to the situation. In 3e, the player can respond to the arrival of the gaurd with, "I use my Decipher Script to read the words on the uniform. I have a 25.", and such a proposition isn't necessarily relevant to the problem of the guard showing up in the way that the other examples I gave are. So how is 3e different that 4e in this regard?

There is no skill challenge in 3e. If the skill is relevant to the situation - if it will help resolve some sort of conflict, a conflict that is left unstated - that's all up to the DM. I can make a check and not know if it's an auto-failure, or an auto-success, or what's going on.

Compare to 4e: I know what I'm rolling for (what happens with success in the skill challenge). I know if my roll counts towards successes or not (the DM has to approve the skill). I know if I generated a success or a failure (well, maybe, maybe not).

Trying Decipher Script in a 4e skill challenge would have the DM saying, "You can't use that skill." In 3e, it's just a wasted action - like an auto-failure no matter how high the roll is.

In short, it's more explicit. Communication is helped because we know exactly what we are rolling for.

It isn't? So before, when the guard showed up and the proposition was, "I use my Decipher Script", the DM was obligated to consider the action relevant to resolving the challenge?

There is no skill challenge to resolve in 3e. What skill checks resolve in 3e is "how well" a character does something. Maybe the "skill challenge" is resolved, or maybe you end up making a hundred successful checks (or a hundred failures) and it's not.

 

[HP Dreadnought]

and the dryad thanks them and gives them some advice and the traditional wooden magic item that dryads always give as rewards

If 4E dryads are anything like previous dryads what I want as a reward is *NOT* some magic item and advice!

. . . of course that might require some additional skill checks.

 

[Celebrim]

By "rules" you seem to mean character build and action resolution mechanics (or perhaps some subset of them - for example, I don't know if you consider the alignment aspect of D&D, for example, which in 3E ramifies through character build, action resolution and encounter and campaign design to be part of the rules or not - or the treasure guidelines in so far as they pertain to scrolls, which in turn ramify importantly into Wizard character build mechanics).

I would consider 'alignment' to be something that has rules pertaining to it. If I have a known alignment, there can be rules consequences to having an alignment. How that alignment is expressed through role play is not a rules matter, and different tables and players will have very different interpretations of how chaoticness, lawfulness, goodness and so forth are to be narratively expressed.

Whereas the treasure guidelines are, as you have said, just guidelines intended to accomplish the goal of giving players sufficient resources to face the task they are expected to face. There are any number of ways to ensure that goal, but there is no game rule which demands that that goal even be met - much less in a particular way. There are however metagame expectations I would think at most tables that the goal be regularly met. That is however a different matter than a game rule.

I think the rules of an RPG are more helpfully conceived of as also including a good deal of what you are calling "guidelines", such as reward systems (which also ramify into character build, and in 3E - via aspects of the magic system - into action resolution), distribution of narrative control, the basic principles of scene/encounter design (this overlaps with the narrative control issue), etc. These further aspects of a game have a significant impact on how it is played.

I think concieving things which aren't related to action resolution as rules unnecessarily constrains the way the game is played, and it tends to force DMs (and often players) into saying 'no' to perfectly valid ways of playing with the rules set.

The notion that different rules cannot have different consequences in this regard - which I take it you are putting forward - I think is false.

I think I would like a more concrete example.

I don't think those are what LostSoul would describe as "cool descriptions in play". I think they are really somewhat banal descriptions, which it is the aim of the new skill challenge system to move beyond.

Obviously, I could have made 'cooler descriptions' if I wanted to. But I'm not sure that 'cooler descriptions' is really the heart of where Lost Soul is going with his argument. He seems to be aiming more for 'who has narrative control' than 'are people being expressive'. Obviously, people could be required to be expressive in either system. But if there are really changes in who has narrative control, that's actually a difference. I'm just not convinced that there are actually changes in narrative control.

The way that it moves beyond it is roughly this: instead of the player describing what action the PC performs (as in all your examples), and waiting for the GM to tell him or her the consequence of doing it, the player describes how his or her PC does something that contributes to the success of the party in relation to the challenge (which requires describing not just the action but various of its consequences, plus elements of the gameworld context in which it occurs) and the GM and other players then build on that description in resolving the rest of the challenge. Harr's example upthread illustrated this (eg as a result of the skill challenge, something is now known about the history of devious traps in the gameworld which otherwise would not have come to light).

I'm not sure yet that this is actually different than what already occurs when the players begin resolving a challenge. I believe that the above description hides behind semantics, but is functionally the same thing. I don't see a real difference between, "the player describing what action the PC performs" and "the player describes how his or her PC does something that contributes to the success of the party in relation to the challenge...and the GM and other players then build on that description in resolving the rest of the challenge". What distinction are you trying to make?

 

[Celebrim]

There is no skill challenge in 3e. If the skill is relevant to the situation - if it will help resolve some sort of conflict, a conflict that is left unstated

Ok, first question: Does a 4e skill challenge require that the DM to inform the players up front 'this is a skill challenge' and 'these are the stakes'?

that's all up to the DM. I can make a check and not know if it's an auto-failure, or an auto-success, or what's going on.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'not knowing what is going on'.

Compare to 4e: I know what I'm rolling for (what happens with success in the skill challenge). I know if my roll counts towards successes or not (the DM has to approve the skill). I know if I generated a success or a failure (well, maybe, maybe not).

Ok, second question: You have a skill challenge, say escaping from a prison. The guard shows up. Can I contribute toward the success of the party by killing the guard? Putting him to sleep with a spell? Or is a skill challenge required to be resolved by skill checks alone?

Trying Decipher Script in a 4e skill challenge would have the DM saying, "You can't use that skill." In 3e, it's just a wasted action - like an auto-failure no matter how high the roll is.

Third question: In 4e, if the attempt doesn't have a chance of success, is the DM required to inform the player ahead of time that his plan has no chance of sucess, and if so how far is the DM required to go to justify the reasons why the plan might not work?

In short, it's more explicit. Communication is helped because we know exactly what we are rolling for.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Surely you know why you are using the hide skill or why you are using the diplomacy skill, or any other skill which requires a player be 'active'.

There is no skill challenge to resolve in 3e. What skill checks resolve in 3e is "how well" a character does something. Maybe the "skill challenge" is resolved, or maybe you end up making a hundred successful checks (or a hundred failures) and it's not.

It seems to me that this is true if and only if the environment is abstractly defined. So, last question for now, can you have a skill challenge in a traditional dungeon, with a map and encounter descriptions?

 

[LostSoul]

Ok, first question: Does a 4e skill challenge require that the DM to inform the players up front 'this is a skill challenge' and 'these are the stakes'?

I think it will require the DM to say, "This is a skill challenge" and "This is what your goal is". I don't think the DM will have to spell out failure before the roll.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'not knowing what is going on'.

How my skill check is interacting with the situation.

Ok, second question: You have a skill challenge, say escaping from a prison. The guard shows up. Can I contribute toward the success of the party by killing the guard? Putting him to sleep with a spell? Or is a skill challenge required to be resolved by skill checks alone?

Probably. That's what I'm most interested in seeing in the finished product - how powers and attacks can be used to resolve skill challenges.

Third question: In 4e, if the attempt doesn't have a chance of success, is the DM required to inform the player ahead of time that his plan has no chance of sucess, and if so how far is the DM required to go to justify the reasons why the plan might not work?

I think so, yeah. It goes along with the fact that a DM can say that a skill doesn't apply to the challenge. Just because your idea of what skills can be used is different from the DM's doesn't mean that you should lose a turn or suffer auto-failure.

The DM only has to say that a skill can or cannot be used in a skill challenge just after the player announces the skill he's going to use. How much he has to justify his decision is something for a group to decide.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Surely you know why you are using the hide skill or why you are using the diplomacy skill, or any other skill which requires a player be 'active'.

I might be rolling Diplomacy to get a pair of Clerics to stop fighting each other. That's my goal, as a player, and my PC's goal too. Diplomacy, however, only allows you to change someone's attitude.

I could roll a 100 on my Diplomacy check and the DM could still rule that the Clerics duke it out.

I don't know if my goal (to keep the Clerics from fighting) is going to be resolved with the die roll or not.

It seems to me that this is true if and only if the environment is abstractly defined.

Probably why D&D works so well in the dungeon.

So, last question for now, can you have a skill challenge in a traditional dungeon, with a map and encounter descriptions?

Sure, why not?

 

[Celebrim]

Ok, this is going to go from honest inquisitorial to being somewhat confrontational. Let me say up front that however you want to play is fine with me. I'm explaining what makes me uncomfortable with this approach, and not that your way is wrong.

I think it will require the DM to say, "This is a skill challenge" and "This is what your goal is".

Doesn't that seem metagamey? As a DM I have no intention of communicating with my players on that level. As a player, I have no interest in playing a through scenario where the DM has selected how I will approach the scenario. I'd feel railroaded. My natural rebellious nature would tend to respond to any proclamation of "This is a skill challenge.", with, "I draw my sword." The notion of a 'skill challenge' works better I think in a system where everything that a player can do is just another skill and every event is just another scene.

I would also like my players to be able to create 'skill challenges' on the fly simply by approaching the problem as something to be overcome with skill.

How my skill check is interacting with the situation.

But that's just it. As a player I have no interest in how my 'skill check' is interacting with the situation. I only want to know how my character is interacting with the situation.

Probably. That's what I'm most interested in seeing in the finished product - how powers and attacks can be used to resolve skill challenges.

That will indeed be interesting, but until then the whole system seems very narrow and heavily constrained. It's like someone asked the question, "How can we integrate non-combat encounters into a tournament game such that they'll play roughly the same with different DM's?" That's about all I can see it useful for.

I think so, yeah. It goes along with the fact that a DM can say that a skill doesn't apply to the challenge. Just because your idea of what skills can be used is different from the DM's doesn't mean that you should lose a turn or suffer auto-failure.

Wow. So ill concieved plans should never be allowed to occur? This gets to be a problem when you combine highly descriptive language with non-abstract environments. The more specific your language, the more likely it is in an concrete environment that I know that the plan doesn't contribute to your success. I know that the murder weapon isn't in the pantry. Searching thier doesn't contribute to your success in finding out how killed Mr. Peabody except in the sense of being one of hundreds of places you can elimenate from consideration - the problem you are complaining about in 3rd edition.

I might be rolling Diplomacy to get a pair of Clerics to stop fighting each other. That's my goal, as a player, and my PC's goal too. Diplomacy, however, only allows you to change someone's attitude.

Wow. That is a very narrow and legalistic reading of the rules. So, you are saying that I can get them to stop fighting with Bluff, by getting them to believe that they are friends even though I don't myself believe it, but not by convincing them to be friends with Diplomacy? This would seem to be a specific problem with the admittedly ricible diplomacy rules (especially if so narrowly interpreted), than something that invalidates the general 3rd edition approach of skills being used to overcome specific problems in the current situation.

I could roll a 100 on my Diplomacy check and the DM could still rule that the Clerics duke it out.

Not in my campaign. A 50 would probably do it even in the worst case. I wonder how many DM's would agree with your assertion that Diplomacy can't be used to persuade. If it's the majority, then I've been playing much more radically differently than I realize.

I don't know if my goal (to keep the Clerics from fighting) is going to be resolved with the die roll or not.

But is this true in the general case, or is this just a problem with diplomacy (and specifically your interpretation of it). If for example, I roll a 100 on my climb check would I have no idea whether or not I could climb the roughened stone wall?

Sure, why not?

Suppose the dungeon is a literal donjon, and the PC's are trying to escape. Seems like a decent oppurtunity for a 'skill challenge', as the PC's are presumably poorly armed to begin with. So, 'skill challenge, escape from the donjon: 15 party successes/10 party defeats' or something like that. The PC's come to a locked door. The DM knows that the locked door leds to a dead end (an unused lower cell block with no exits). The PC decides to use his 'Theivery' to open the door, hoping to contribute to the parties success total. The DM knows that the door can be opened, but that it does nothing to advance the plan because as soon as the PC's are discovered missing, the whole complex will be searched. It's a 'wasted turn' unless the DM changes the description of the donjon to accomodate the turn of events - that is to say, he renders the concrete location abstract and morphable.