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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8648803" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Those are the order of operations to determine whether you should trigger the Ability Check rules at all. The trigger for the rule is, &quot;Is this situation uncertain with meaningful consequences for both success and failure?&quot; Once that trigger applies, you engage the Ability Check rules. Once the Ability Check rules have been triggered and resolved (with either success, roll≥DC, or failure, roll&lt;DC), the DM might then choose to intrude.Certainty isn't about &quot;consequences&quot; as you have framed it; it is about success--specifically, success is guaranteed. Impossibility is likewise success and not consequence, it is that failure is guaranteed. Personally, &quot;Uncertain (solely)&quot; isn't even its own category, it's just the first category, certain, with more steps. &quot;Impossible&quot; is also a form of certainty, just certain failure.Note, though, that &quot;meaningful consequences&quot; has two words you've elided out (or four in my preferred phrasing): &quot;meaningful consequences of failure.&quot; (My personal preference is &quot;meaningful consequences of success and failure,&quot; because uninteresting success results are almost as bad as uninteresting failure results.) But in order for consequences to be &quot;of&quot; something, the &quot;of&quot; thing must occur first. That's what consequences are, they're a result from some preceding cause. In this case, the clear cause is &quot;success&quot; or &quot;failure.&quot;Do we though? Or do we just need to know that the consequences need to be meaningful, regardless of what they specifically are?Do you need to know what failure will specifically do when the player attempts to crack the safe, or do you just need to know that failure should do something more interesting than &quot;you fail and nothing happens&quot;? I would absolutely argue the latter. &quot;Fail forward&quot; does not demand that you know exactly what all possible results will be before the player has even attempted the roll. It just means you need to keep in mind that, whatever failures you describe, they should be interesting.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8648803, member: 6790260"] Those are the order of operations to determine [I]whether[/I] you should trigger the Ability Check rules at all. The trigger for the rule is, "Is this situation uncertain with meaningful consequences for both success and failure?" Once that trigger applies, you engage the Ability Check rules. Once the Ability Check rules have been triggered and resolved (with either success, roll≥DC, or failure, roll<DC), the DM might then choose to intrude. Certainty isn't about "consequences" as you have framed it; it is about success--specifically, success is guaranteed. Impossibility is likewise success and not consequence, it is that failure is guaranteed. Personally, "Uncertain (solely)" isn't even its own category, it's just the first category, certain, with more steps. "Impossible" is also a form of certainty, just certain failure. Note, though, that "meaningful consequences" has two words you've elided out (or four in my preferred phrasing): "meaningful consequences [I]of failure[/I]." (My personal preference is "meaningful consequences of [I]success and[/I] failure," because uninteresting success results are almost as bad as uninteresting failure results.) But in order for consequences to be "of" something, the "of" thing must occur [I]first[/I]. That's what consequences are, they're a result from some preceding cause. In this case, the clear cause is "success" or "failure." Do we though? Or do we just need to know that the consequences [I]need to be meaningful[/I], regardless of what they specifically are? Do you need to know [I]what[/I] failure will specifically do when the player attempts to crack the safe, or do you just need to know that failure should do something more interesting than "you fail and nothing happens"? I would absolutely argue the latter. "Fail forward" does not demand that you know exactly what all possible results will be before the player has even attempted the roll. It just means you need to keep in mind that, whatever failures you describe, they should be interesting. [/QUOTE]

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