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<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 6671722" data-attributes="member: 97077">I think it's a combination of monkey-see-monkey-do and believing that a check is an action. Certain games and certain DMs promote this way of playing more than others. Even some of the designers' games have the players asking to make ability checks and the DM saying it's okay - it's that common. Often it's in the form of &quot;I want to make a Perception check to...&quot; This mistakes the purpose of ability checks: They aren't there to enable people to do things. It's the fictional action taken that enables a character to do a thing. If the thing you're doing has a certain outcome, then there's no roll. If the thing you're doing has an uncertain outcome, then you're going to roll and your characters' stats and proficiency help you take some of the uncertainty out of it.A lot of DMs also roll for practically everything. It's mentioned in the DMG as the &quot;Rollling With It&quot; method (page 236). The DMG is smart to point out a serious drawback to this approach, however: &quot;...roleplaying can diminish if players feel that their die rolls, rather than their decisions and characterizations, always determine success.&quot;A further influence on this probably has something to do with ability checks frequently having no cost attached to failure. If it doesn't cost you anything to fail, then why not just give it a shot? I try to always have a failed ability check mean the scene changes in some way and often not for the better (for the characters).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="iserith, post: 6671722, member: 97077"] I think it's a combination of monkey-see-monkey-do and believing that a check is an action. Certain games and certain DMs promote this way of playing more than others. Even some of the designers' games have the players asking to make ability checks and the DM saying it's okay - it's that common. Often it's in the form of "I want to make a Perception check to..." This mistakes the purpose of ability checks: They aren't there to enable people to do things. It's [I]the fictional action taken[/I] that enables a character to do a thing. If the thing you're doing has a certain outcome, then there's no roll. If the thing you're doing has an uncertain outcome, then you're going to roll and your characters' stats and proficiency help you take some of the uncertainty out of it. A lot of DMs also roll for practically everything. It's mentioned in the DMG as the "Rollling With It" method (page 236). The DMG is smart to point out a serious drawback to this approach, however: "...roleplaying can diminish if players feel that their die rolls, rather than their decisions and characterizations, always determine success." A further influence on this probably has something to do with ability checks frequently having no cost attached to failure. If it doesn't cost you anything to fail, then why not just give it a shot? I try to always have a failed ability check mean the scene changes in some way and often not for the better (for the characters). [/QUOTE]

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