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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8285181" data-attributes="member: 6779196">Right. It doesn’t “leave those situations out,” implying that it gives no advice for how to handle them. It tells you specifically how to handle them: narrate success.If the only options are positive change or no change, that isn’t a challenge, it’s a missable bonus. And kindly don’t call the way other people like to play garbage. I expect that kind of nonsense from Lanefan, but not from you.Not by (the way I and others interpret) the rules of D&D 5e. If you lack the knowledge or skills to do something, it isn’t possible, and therefore you fail to do it without a roll. If you have the knowledge or skills to do it, a roll might be called for, if failure is possible and has a meaningful consequence. Otherwise you succeed.It’s excellent advice. I have been playing by it for years and it has improved my games immeasurably since adopting it. I was skeptical at first, as I think most people are. It seems like it would make the game too easy. Like you’re giving something away for free. But in reality, it cuts through all the pointless rolls and keeps the game focused on meaningful, interesting challenges. It also encourages you to create challenges that are meaningful and interesting.Maybe it wouldn’t be to your liking. If so, that’s fine. But it is definitely not bad advice.Why? What’s the harm in letting them have it? If there’s no consequence for failure then getting it is the more interesting outcome anyway because at least then something happens.What a boring (non-)consequence for failure. Nothing has changed, nothing has been lost or gained.This is why you have to disallow retries if you call for checks when there’s no consequence for failure. Because otherwise the roll would be literally nothing but a waste of time. By disallowing retries, what you’re doing is introducing a consequence for failure. That consequence being that success becomes impossible. That keeps the roll from being pointless, but it doesn’t actually make “nothing happens” an interesting outcome. Add in a guard who might find you if you take too long, now we have some actual dramatic stakes!</blockquote>

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