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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7733957" data-attributes="member: 29398">As the PCs in character don't know whether something's at stake until hindsight says it wasn't, the obvious default would be that something might be at stake - and as "might be" is enough to trigger a roll, then roll.  Even if it's fake.Good on your players!Not all would take this approach. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Because whether or not something is at stake is often an unknown variable until sometime after the fact.Take the example of someone sneaking down a passage in a hostile castle.  You-as-DM might know there's no danger, no traps, no monsters, and nothing at stake because the foes are all at dinner in the great hall on the other side of the castle - but the character doesn't know that and thus the player doesn't know that.  From the player-and-character perspective there's doubt - so you can either DM-narrate an auto-success or you can go through the motions of rolling.  Either way, I think the player (and the game) is being shortchanged if this is just handwaved or skipped over.Even in your system, if they roll and fail that'll bring about some complication e.g. an unexpected guard walks around the corner ahead of the PC.I guess that points to a rather nasty tradeoff in a system where dice can introduce complications - you can either roll for everything that really should be rolled for (i.e. anytime there's reasonable doubt as to whether something's at stake or not, along of course with when something really is at stake) and risk a series of failures bogging the game down; or you can skip these rolls at cost of realism and dramatic tension.So, the sneak in the passage could be handwaved straight through to where she's searching the Duke's chambers while he's at dinner; or she can be made to roll for her sneaking (likely more than once, depending how far she has to go), her navigation (how quickly she finds the Duke's chambers), her care in hiding signs of her passage, and so forth...each of which could fail and introduce complications that'll slow her down or even prevent her from achieving her goal.  To me this second option would be far more interesting and engaging.Hell, if things go badly it might take half a session to sort out what becomes of her (so probably best done in a separate one-off session if there's any warning this is coming) and-or how many hornet's nests she stirs up that the rest of the party might have to deal with later.Lanefan</blockquote>

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