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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 8285232" data-attributes="member: 6704184">Yeah those are the same thing. IMO, it’s just semantics. That doesn’t follow. It’s an obstacle with stakes and a chance of failure. Yeah, we know that you and I handle this stuff differently.  If failure is meaningfully possible (not just technically possible), and success is meaningfully different from failure, then it should be rolled. I’ve played with it and run with it and IME it’s terrible. It noticeably reduces engagement, players view the world more like a video game that exists for their PCs, which is the opposite of what I want from the game. Rather, it forces the GM to morph the world around the arbitrary need for every scene to have dramatic stakes and and makes the world make less sense as a result. Meanwhile, my way leads to fun moments, leads to PCs finding alternate ways around obstacles, and encourages the DM to make even unimportant success states interesting.  It’s never going to matter that my character from a lost Fey kingdom found a song book from the apex of his people’s golden age, in Old High Sylvan, but it’s a fun moment that happened because the DM responded to us spending more time trying to get into the damn library room by adding something interesting to the room. Had I just shrugged and said, “well we don’t need in the library, I was just curious about it bc I’m a nerd and this guy is known to have a rad library. Let’s just move on.” I wouldn’t have lost anything, but I’m glad that I had to roll for it because; A) I don’t want the world to exist for the benefit of my character. B) It lead to a fun moment that doesn’t “matter”, but is interesting. Something happens either way. Failure is interesting. In-character frustration is interesting, both in itself and in terms of what it adds to success. A world that just rolls over when my character has nothing particular at risk is not, IMO, interesting. At all. Sure it has. The characters and players know that room might have cool stuff, and they’ve been frustrating in getting to it. What do they do next? Do they leave it, or investigate other methods of gaining entry? Well, no. Success requires trying something different or otherwise changing the circumstance. And no, this doesn’t necessitate disallowing retries. I used to allow retries, but I still asked for rolls when success was uncertain but failure just meant the status quo was preserved.I very strongly dislike arbitrarily added drama. It’s up there with forcing a 6+ encounter adventuring day. I hate it as a player and as a GM. If there is a reason for there to be a guard there, great! If not, there isn’t one, no matter how dramatic it would be to add one.</blockquote>

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