Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
There are a few reasons. One is that this is the kind of failure state that kills momentum. Like the example earlier in the thread where my friend who’s learning to DM called for a Perception check to find a location that we needed to find to progress. Being more experienced than my friend, I build my adventures in such a way that if one avenue gets cut off there are other ways to proceed, but these situations can still really take the wind out of the players’ sails.Can I raise a practical question at this point?
Why can't a consequence of failure be that the PCs miss a clue that would make their ongoing task (whatever it may be) considerably easier than it'll now otherwise be? The thing is, this consequence will not be apparent right now, and - depending how things play out down the road - may never be. Doesn't make it any less significant.
Not knowing something is also a dissatisfying end state, because it only maintains the status quo. It’s the same outcome as if you just hadn’t rolled, except that I guess now you know you don’t know. If failure only means “no progress,” I prefer for the attempt to consume a resource, and an in-universe resource, not a metagame resource like a limited number of attempts or a building penalty on repeat attempts.
In my games, if a PC is literate with the script and fluent in the language it’s written in, they can read it with no uncertainty. If they know the script but not the language (not typical, but can happen with exotic languages that use the same scripts as common languages, and when the writer intentionally used a different script to disguise their message), that can be translated with enough time, and a successful check if time is a limited resource. The translation will be imperfect, however - I’ll give the general meaning of the message, but not the specific phrasing.And for me, anything like remembering the stones and-or their significance would require a check of some sort. Deciphering the runes would require at least one of: a) someone in the party to be literate in that language, or b) a Thief to succeed on a Read Languages roll (in 1e), or c) someone to cast Comprehend Language.