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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8607055" data-attributes="member: 42582">In many systems that have a GM, the GM's job is to narrate the consequences of failed checks. I'm thinking here especially of 4e D&D (skill challenge resolution), Classic Traveller, Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, and PbtA games.This is a perfect example of why I prefer checks over resource expenditure to settle these things.I've had exactly this scenario come up in both Burning Wheel and Cortex+ Heroic (ie a fantasy adaptation of MHRP).In the former, the PC was examining a feather that was being sold by a peddler at a bazaar as an angel feather. The Aura Reading check failed; so I narrated the player discerning a curse on the feather- that is, in response to the failed check I establish some fiction that pushes against what the player was hoping for.In the latter, the PCs had been teleported deep into a dungeon by a Crypt Thing. I described some weird markings on the wall (a Scene Distinction, for those who know the system). One of the players decided his PC would try and decipher them, to see if they provided a clue as to how to escape the dungeon. His check succeeded, and so his "hunch" was correct - and he got to eliminate the Lost in the Dungeon complication that his PC was suffering from.I think making rolls to find out if the player gets what they want or not is, generally speaking, just more exciting than spending a resource to fiat something.See what I've written just above.Of course if its low stakes, or the lead up to something more interesting, I tend to just say yes.In my last Torchbearer session, one of the PCs wanted to find his enemy and debate with him - the topic didn't matter, the point being simply to humiliate the enemy in front of his girlfriend. The system has the option to require a check to see if the PC can find the enemy, but I didn't bother. The player having made his preference clear, we cut straight to the debate.</blockquote>

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