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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8271204" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, more to the core point, and this is why in my own homebrew HoML system there are ONLY challenges, without a rules context in which to gauge the valence of checks, or other similar mechanics, they really don't MEAN anything. It can be the system of moves and the principles and procedures of PbtA, or 4e's SC system, etc. Without SOMETHING along those lines, a way to know what the player's intent is, what the risk and reward (effect) of the action taken is, there's no real mechanical or fictional meaning to it.Back in the dim old days when we were running 1e, we would sit behind our DM's screens, and the player would say "yeah, I go talk to the bartender about it." and then I would just pick up some die or other and think in my head "well, maybe if I roll a 6 on this die, he'll tell the character something interesting." Its no different from that. I didn't have to roll that die, nobody saw it, nobody can say what any number that came up means. It  was no more than a mental tool to use, or a whim perhaps. Skill checks, taken in isolation, or similar types of isolated unstructured resolution techniques are really no more valent than that. Sometimes I wouldn't like the number I got on my idly pitched die, and I would ignore it. Or maybe it would inform some trivial bit of fiction that didn't come to anything. It was all just my choice.I don't mean this to sound too judgmental either. We got good stories out of almost nothing, and we had fun. 5e-style skill checks certainly have SOME sort of relationship to fiction, and will most likely color the overall outcome in some degree. It isn't a meaningless tool, but in a sense it is hard to say that games like 5e or 3e are either good or bad at any operational kind of play. It is really 100% up to the GM, and the players if the GM is willing. I guess one could say there's more raw storytelling than if mechanics really have bite! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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