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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7797451" data-attributes="member: 4937">"One question that might arise is whether failing a stealth check, and thus failing to hide, really counts as a consequence. Isn't that the same outcome as not rolling at all?"Perhaps the confusion is on your understanding what I meant by my example. That is, for the purpose of my example, I am assuming that the player wants the pie, must get the pie, and that the only method of getting the pie involves getting past the orc. For that purpose, the decision to "not go in there" is the same as choosing to fail, in that the player fails in their goal, acquiring the pie."So I think a key feature is that the player has to actively / knowingly undertake a task with risk.  If the party hears something coming and they say, "Let's all hide!" my instinct would be to say "Ok, let's have stealth checks."  But in this case the failure state IS the same as not doing anything."I've never really understood why you perceive this as a big distinction. If I change my very simple Orc and pie example such that the Orc is on patrol and part of his patrol carries him past the position that the PC is in, then it is in my opinion still isomorphic to the first scenario. If the player in this situation chooses not to hide, then they receive the same outcome as if they had failed a stealth check, just as the player approaching the sleeping orc achieves the same outcome by choosing not to be stealthy as if they had failed a stealth check. And we still end up with the same two possible states:a) I have some advantage on the orc.b) I do not have some advantage on the orc. Both cases involve no change in the status quo on failure, but do have a change in the status quo on success. Is forgoing success a meaningful consequence of failure?</blockquote>

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