NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BryonD" data-source="post: 6799465" data-attributes="member: 957">If I may threadjack for a moment, Not long ago I was given quite a hard time for claiming that this approach was common and endorsed by the 4E approach.  [/threadjack]On topic, this point ties closely to the debate at hand.  I think there are larger issues than how to handle bad rolls which are mudding the water for this conversation.As has been discussed many times before, the willingness to change the world to fit the mechanics is a big deal.  Some people, myself included, feel strongly that the mechanics should serve the narrative structure.  A few pages back the concept of Schrodinger's mace was offered and is a good example here.  Failing a search can be a set back and a true meta problem for game play.  The "may or may not be there" approach solves that problem.  But if a problem is solved by a solution that does more harm to the fun than the problem itself, then it is a bad solution.  I make no claim whatsoever that the "harm to fun" is remotely the same for every group.  But there is a presentation of debate as if these issues may be taken for granted when they can't be.  For me, the mace is either there or it is not there.  There are much better solutions, such as simply having some other sideplot arise which presents hazards which were avoidable but will lead to a new chance to find the mace (anything from having it handed out with no roll to return to Go and try again, probably something in between).I think the key point is that solving the "failing" issue, or even having a productive conversation on it, requires some openness to different tastes and preferences on numerous contextual assumptions.</blockquote>

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