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How can you add more depth and complexity to skill checks?
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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8091266" data-attributes="member: 16814"><p>Fair enough, I'll accept I jumped the gun.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't think that's a good reason, though, or one that shown to be applicable. The duality you set up doesn't actually show which side of that your example of asking for a skill check falls on -- the pro writer expertly using brevity to convey all appropriate information or the amateur not using enough words. I interpreted as talking about me because the alternative interpretation didn't do anything at all except imagine that there may be a case without saying your approach specifically enables or maximizes it. I've used your approach, I don't think it does any more than any other approach does or doesn't. Lousy description or great description aren't hinged on asking for skill checks.</p><p></p><p>However, my as GM not having to guess what the player's thinking does hinge on not allowing asks for skill checks. I can point to more than a few arguments over what a PC did or didn't do in pursuit of an ask for a skill check.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't think this is very supportive of your original point, though. Here, instead of tight pacing being the outcome, you're saying that letting players ask for rolls can be a catalyst for getting the GM to make up more stuff that might be appreciated. It's a bit loose as a reason to allow for asking for rolls. I mean, if the weird animal is unimportant, but you want to build a mystery by having players ask for a roll where they get you to make something up if they roll well enough (and well enough is a weird thing, too, what is well enough?), then what happens on a failure?</p><p></p><p>I follow the 5e advice that rolls should happen when there's a chance of failure and a meaningful consequence. I don't see either here under the theory it's just a fun little side mystery where the GM might make up some stuff for a good roll. That implies a failure just doesn't do anything. Why ask for the roll, then, just make up the fun stuff?</p><p></p><p></p><p>It wasn't bizarre, I was pointing out a current thread on the exact phenomenon caused by skill checks being 'too good' and moving through the story the GM had prepared too quickly. I was also leaning on experience and many other threads on this board that talk about games getting stuck because a roll was allowed that should have been allowed and failed, causing the game to come to a halt. We agree that design should avoid this, but it's still a facet of the game play that allows for player's to ask for rolls for the GM to allow the roll and then be stuck with the result. You show this above with making up stuff for a good roll while skipping what happens on a bad roll. If it's really just an amusing bit, a bad roll might suddenly spiral into the players thinking this is important and spending time on it.</p><p></p><p>What's funny is that I love games like Blades in the Dark, where things are often like this -- made up in the moment -- but I hesitate to agree here. That's because this is premised in a game where players are allow to ask for rolls, and that means that the changing of stuff is predicated much more on randomness than I like. Blades has strong principles that focus what's happening like a laser on the PCs, and builds the fiction in a very structured way even though every roll can go in multiple directions, those directions are constrained by what the PCs tried to do and only adjudicated by the random roll. Just allowing rolls with no clear statement of intent and action means that the directions the game can go is way more unfettered by the players and too open to the GM to just make stuff up even in opposition to what the players want. I view an ability check as the player attempting to make their desired outcome true, and to adjudicate that I need to know both what they want and how their doing it. A skill check doesn't tell me either, and can lead into me describing a successful roll in opposition to what the player actually wanted.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 8091266, member: 16814"] Fair enough, I'll accept I jumped the gun. I don't think that's a good reason, though, or one that shown to be applicable. The duality you set up doesn't actually show which side of that your example of asking for a skill check falls on -- the pro writer expertly using brevity to convey all appropriate information or the amateur not using enough words. I interpreted as talking about me because the alternative interpretation didn't do anything at all except imagine that there may be a case without saying your approach specifically enables or maximizes it. I've used your approach, I don't think it does any more than any other approach does or doesn't. Lousy description or great description aren't hinged on asking for skill checks. However, my as GM not having to guess what the player's thinking does hinge on not allowing asks for skill checks. I can point to more than a few arguments over what a PC did or didn't do in pursuit of an ask for a skill check. I don't think this is very supportive of your original point, though. Here, instead of tight pacing being the outcome, you're saying that letting players ask for rolls can be a catalyst for getting the GM to make up more stuff that might be appreciated. It's a bit loose as a reason to allow for asking for rolls. I mean, if the weird animal is unimportant, but you want to build a mystery by having players ask for a roll where they get you to make something up if they roll well enough (and well enough is a weird thing, too, what is well enough?), then what happens on a failure? I follow the 5e advice that rolls should happen when there's a chance of failure and a meaningful consequence. I don't see either here under the theory it's just a fun little side mystery where the GM might make up some stuff for a good roll. That implies a failure just doesn't do anything. Why ask for the roll, then, just make up the fun stuff? It wasn't bizarre, I was pointing out a current thread on the exact phenomenon caused by skill checks being 'too good' and moving through the story the GM had prepared too quickly. I was also leaning on experience and many other threads on this board that talk about games getting stuck because a roll was allowed that should have been allowed and failed, causing the game to come to a halt. We agree that design should avoid this, but it's still a facet of the game play that allows for player's to ask for rolls for the GM to allow the roll and then be stuck with the result. You show this above with making up stuff for a good roll while skipping what happens on a bad roll. If it's really just an amusing bit, a bad roll might suddenly spiral into the players thinking this is important and spending time on it. What's funny is that I love games like Blades in the Dark, where things are often like this -- made up in the moment -- but I hesitate to agree here. That's because this is premised in a game where players are allow to ask for rolls, and that means that the changing of stuff is predicated much more on randomness than I like. Blades has strong principles that focus what's happening like a laser on the PCs, and builds the fiction in a very structured way even though every roll can go in multiple directions, those directions are constrained by what the PCs tried to do and only adjudicated by the random roll. Just allowing rolls with no clear statement of intent and action means that the directions the game can go is way more unfettered by the players and too open to the GM to just make stuff up even in opposition to what the players want. I view an ability check as the player attempting to make their desired outcome true, and to adjudicate that I need to know both what they want and how their doing it. A skill check doesn't tell me either, and can lead into me describing a successful roll in opposition to what the player actually wanted. [/QUOTE]
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