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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fuzzlewump" data-source="post: 5084166" data-attributes="member: 63214">(Hypothetical) I feel like if D&D really wanted to go the route of no matter if you succeed or fail, it's fun! then a lot of skills shouldn't really exist. Why would you want to be a bard with his +diplomacy ability when it doesn't really matter if you succeed or fail? If both routes are going to interesting, might as well not even get any social stat or skill. What's the point of changing the probability of paths if both are going to way-super-awesome?Here are some possible different reasons why structures like skills and abilities that increase your probability of succeeding at a skill exist, and I would appreciate anyone's insight: 1. People want to succeed at what they are trying to do, even if failing would be interesting too. They aren't reading a book, and so some players will want to succeed at everything they do, going to measures like just letting the guy with diplomacy talk. Even if, to outsiders reading the scenario like a book, it seems boring.2. Failing, a lot of the time, is not fun in published adventures, and may take a lot of work to become fun, and takes a lot of work outside of published adventures to be sure that every conflict has at least two fun outcomes. This is especially true for skills like "Climb" and whatnot, the physical skills. Climbing up a cliff or a wall and then falling isn't fun, unless by falling you smash open the floor and a new room is open. That's a good idea actually. But it would become stale if used a lot. 3. Failure should not be fun. That's why you can die in combat, and that's why you have feats, abilities, weapons, etc etc to make sure you don't die. It's what the game is based on in a way. People can dying fun, maybe, but that's probably not the intent. (Or is it?!)4. People will think of a concept and create it, no matter how crappy it may be in the system. If they want to be a smoothtalker, they will make it, even if it doesn't really have any effect on the outcome of the game. (Different from the outcome of the story.)5. People want the story to go their way, and will get the skills and abilities necesarry to make sure that happens. Sure, they'll have fun even if they fail, but their primary goal is swing things their way. This actually seems like the best answer, to me, but it's also hard to pin down.</blockquote>

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