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<blockquote data-quote="77IM" data-source="post: 8279693" data-attributes="member: 12377">[USER=6779196]@Charlaquin[/USER] you made a lot of really good points in response to my post but I wanted to explore this one because I think it cuts to the heart of the matter. The only reason I roll dice is to add uncertainty to a situation that &quot;ought&quot; to be certain. We could decide everything in an RPG by DM fiat or group consensus (and there are diceless games that do exactly that) based on logic and/or drama. Adding dice means that no-one can totally predict what will happen, which is good from both a game-play perspective (because decisions are more interesting when you have partial information) and a narrative perspective (because predictable stories are boring, like a movie that follows the formula too closely). I don't need to roll dice to add this uncertainty/unpredictability (and there are diceless games that still have uncertainty/unpredictability) but dice seem to work really well, and they're fun.I guess my main suggestion is that you can broaden &quot;only roll when there's a meaningful consequence of failure&quot; to a more generic and widely applicable &quot;only roll when there are multiple meaningful outcomes.&quot; Usually that's the success/failure of the PC's stated actions because the game play puts that front-and-center. But I like rolling (and more specifically, players rolling ability checks) to decide between multiple meaningful outcomes even when &quot;success&quot; or &quot;failure&quot; are not among the outcomes.Like I said, this works well in some situations and really poorly in others. It works best when the PCs are interacting with something complex (like the mind of an NPC) and their actions may have meaningful consequences beyond simply succeeding or failing. It works worst in situations where the stakes are obvious, and can break immersion pretty badly by having the die results not match up with the expectations.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="77IM, post: 8279693, member: 12377"] [USER=6779196]@Charlaquin[/USER] you made a lot of really good points in response to my post but I wanted to explore this one because I think it cuts to the heart of the matter. The [I]only[/I] reason I roll dice is to add uncertainty to a situation that "ought" to be certain. We could decide everything in an RPG by DM fiat or group consensus (and there are diceless games that do exactly that) based on logic and/or drama. Adding dice means that no-one can totally predict what will happen, which is good from both a game-play perspective (because decisions are more interesting when you have partial information) and a narrative perspective (because predictable stories are boring, like a movie that follows the formula too closely). I don't need to roll dice to add this uncertainty/unpredictability (and there are diceless games that still have uncertainty/unpredictability) but dice seem to work really well, and they're fun. I guess my main suggestion is that you can broaden "only roll when there's a meaningful consequence of failure" to a more generic and widely applicable "only roll when there are multiple meaningful outcomes." Usually that's the success/failure of the PC's stated actions because the game play puts that front-and-center. But I like rolling (and more specifically, players rolling ability checks) to decide between multiple meaningful outcomes even when "success" or "failure" are not among the outcomes. Like I said, this works well in some situations and really poorly in others. It works best when the PCs are interacting with something complex (like the mind of an NPC) and their actions may have meaningful consequences beyond simply succeeding or failing. It works worst in situations where the stakes are obvious, and can break immersion pretty badly by having the die results not match up with the expectations. [/QUOTE]

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