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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 9050671" data-attributes="member: 6779196">So, I think this comes down to different conceptions of what a check is. For a lot of DMs, checks are like a means of interface between the players and the fictional world. To do things, you have to make checks, which tell you if you did them successfully, and sometimes to what degree of success. This is not how I conceptualize or use checks in my games. My games take a fiction-first approach, wherein (to paraphrase Apocalypse World), to do something, you have to say you do it, and if you say you do something, you do it. Then, I as DM follow the internal logic of the fiction to determine the results. If it’s uncertain what those results would be, a check is used to resolve that uncertainty. “Automatic success” is the default state of affairs - if you say you do it, you do it. Checks are only called for when what you say you do involves a degree of risk, and it’s not clear from following the fiction alone whether or not you will suffer the possible negative effects. It therefore doesn’t really make sense in this model to talk about criteria for making checks, because checks are dangerous things to be avoided if possible. They represent a possibility that you might actually fail to do what you said you do, and suffer some consequence as a result. It’s not that you have to describe your action well enough to earn a check, it’s that if you take a risky action, you might have to make a check.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 9050671, member: 6779196"] So, I think this comes down to different conceptions of what a check [I]is[/I]. For a lot of DMs, checks are like a means of interface between the players and the fictional world. To do things, you have to make checks, which tell you if you did them successfully, and sometimes to what degree of success. This is not how I conceptualize or use checks in my games. My games take a fiction-first approach, wherein (to paraphrase Apocalypse World), to do something, you have to say you do it, and if you say you do something, you do it. Then, I as DM follow the internal logic of the fiction to determine the results. If it’s uncertain what those results would be, a check is used to resolve that uncertainty. “Automatic success” is the default state of affairs - if you say you do it, you do it. Checks are only called for when what you say you do involves a degree of risk, and it’s not clear from following the fiction alone whether or not you will suffer the possible negative effects. It therefore doesn’t really make sense in this model to talk about criteria for making checks, because checks are dangerous things to be avoided if possible. They represent a possibility that you might actually fail to do what you said you do, and suffer some consequence as a result. It’s not that you have to describe your action well enough to earn a check, it’s that if you take a risky action, you might have to make a check. [/QUOTE]

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