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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8277172" data-attributes="member: 6779196">I understand that that’s the logic behind the “your first <s>try</s> roll represents your best attempt” approach. That’s exactly why I don’t like it though. It desynchronizes the player experience from the character’s experience. It’s what all the anti-4e crowd used to call a “dissociated mechanic”Yeah, but I can see my dice and it bothers me that what they say isn’t consistent with the fiction.I don’t think that’s true at all. Generally people who use progress with a setback do so to keep the game moving forward, not to mitigate risk.I figured you’d disagree. But, no, a given task isn’t necessarily always the same difficulty. It depends on your approach. Picking a lock is a poor example here because it’s actually an approach to the goal of opening a locked door - as opposed to, say, breaking it down, which might have a different DC and different consequences for failure. Or using the key, or the knock spell, which might not require a roll at all. Or using the wrong key, or like shouting at it to open or something, which also wouldn’t require a roll at all, though for a different reason. Each task must be evaluated individually to determine if a roll is necessary to resolve it at all, and if so, what the DC and consequences for failure are.That’s not true at all. Some failures just lead to the status quo being maintained, especially when there is no time pressure (note that I consider periodic checks for wandering monsters or other random encounters to be a form of time pressure.)Not in my game it isn’t. Again, I detest the “your first <s>try</s> roll represents your best attempt” approach.Right, this is another reason I don’t like the “your first <s>try</s> roll represents your best attempt” approach. It means failure often just halts the game’s momentum, rather than contributing anything interesting to the gameplay.I find the simplicity of pass/fail rolls* quite elegant. There are times when degrees of success/failure at different thresholds can be useful, but I find them pretty scarce.*note that pass/fail isn’t necessarily binary, because a failure sometimes means no progress and sometimes means progress with a setback, and always means some kind of cost must be paid or consequence must occur.That’s not a gameplay benefit. I understand that (for you) it’s more believable, I just don’t find that a compelling reason to use the technique when it creates ludinarrative dissonance and often causes failure to bring gameplay to a halt, and does nothing positive for gameplay in exchange.Sure, I can use that phrasing if you prefer.Yep. I suspect you’ll find a lot of 3e mechanics we agree we dislike, but come at from opposite directions. This is why I generally think agreeing on problems doesn’t really matter much if you don’t agree on solutions to them.</blockquote>

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