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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6208614" data-attributes="member: 27160">If a skilled swordsman character's player rolls a &quot;1&quot;, what happens? There will be some reason why the attack failed here, too, but we don't typically decide it beforehand. I don't see why a range of unknowns cannot be subsumed into the die roll in social encounters in exactly the same way.In other words, there is a &quot;third way&quot; in addition to those you outlined, and it works like this:- game setup determines DC from situation. level of encounter, or whatever- player decides what will happen if the roll succeeds (possibly by stating what the character says, or just by describing the story that the character tries to sell)- GM decides what failure vectors might exist, which might include any of the above- roll the dice; on a success the guards buy the story described by the player (possibly, on a &quot;partial success&quot;, with some twist or complication added by the GM)- on a failure the GM describes why the attempt fails using one of the &quot;vectors&quot; selected earlier (and, possibly, on a partial failure the player gets to add a twist or mitigation)If pertinent facts are known by both GM and player beforehand these may modify the DC, but unknown complications generally don't need to. The direction of the modification can be pretty moot, actually, since knowing the Baron likes young goblins (for instance) can either mean the story just won't be tried or may allow a bonus for a disguise kit...Universalis has, perhaps, the most comprehensive system like this. Successes and failures both earn story coins that can be spent to define/describe consequences by both the winner and the loser players (there is no &quot;GM&quot; in Universalis). It works pretty well once the players get used to the paradigm.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 6208614, member: 27160"] If a skilled swordsman character's player rolls a "1", what happens? There will be some reason why the attack failed here, too, but we don't typically decide it beforehand. I don't see why a range of unknowns cannot be subsumed into the die roll in social encounters in exactly the same way. In other words, there is a "third way" in addition to those you outlined, and it works like this: - game setup determines DC from situation. level of encounter, or whatever - player decides what will happen if the roll succeeds (possibly by stating what the character says, or just by describing the story that the character tries to sell) - GM decides what failure vectors might exist, which might include any of the above - roll the dice; on a success the guards buy the story described by the player (possibly, on a "partial success", with some twist or complication added by the GM) - on a failure the GM describes why the attempt fails using one of the "vectors" selected earlier (and, possibly, on a partial failure the player gets to add a twist or mitigation) If pertinent facts are known by both GM and player beforehand these may modify the DC, but unknown complications generally don't need to. The direction of the modification can be pretty moot, actually, since knowing the Baron likes young goblins (for instance) can either mean the story just won't be tried or may allow a bonus for a disguise kit... Universalis has, perhaps, the most comprehensive system like this. Successes and failures both earn story coins that can be spent to define/describe consequences by both the winner and the loser players (there is no "GM" in Universalis). It works pretty well once the players get used to the paradigm. [/QUOTE]

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