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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7054636" data-attributes="member: 42582">Nor do I. Obviously setting a DC affects player success, but I do it all the time, and in my OP distinguished that sort of judgement call from railroading.The check is to find out whether or not the PC, looking for a vessel in the room, is able to notice one.If the check fails, then (as a GM) I have to narrate failure. Obviously if the check is failed, then the character has failed to spot a vessel in the room. But as a general rule there has to be some other consequence that drives the action onward (as <a href="https://www.burningwheel.com/?page_id=2" target="_blank">the BW website put is</a>, "the consequences for failure lead to the next conflict. There are no dead-ends"). This is the basic premise of so-called "fail forward" or "no whiffing" adjudication.Sometimes I indicate in advance what these consequence of failure will be; sometimes I leave it implicit in the situation; sometimes I just make something up. The night watch apprehending the PCs after the failed check to lug the bodies through town is an example of the second (ie it is implicit in the situation that if you tire and slow down lugging bodies through a town at night, you might encounter someone, including the watch); but in the case of looking for the vessel, it would really have had to be in category three - I would have made something up. (Handling communication of consequences of failure, and expectations around that, is another important domain of GM judgement calls.)I don't know what I would have done at the time - I can't remember if I had anything in mind, and it's a bit hard to put myself back into that situation and recapture the feel. But possibilities I can think of now would include (1) "Yep, there's a jug on the table - but as Jabal [the mage whose tower it is] backs away from Halika [the assassin, who having killed the unconscious mage was now trying to escape by cutting down Jabal], he knocks the table and the jar falls to the ground and breaks", or (2) "You can't see any vessel, but in a disgusting display you can see Jabal's familiar, a bony raven-like creature, licking up the blood as it flows under the divan."(1) would create a new context for decision - eg maybe the PC can summon a spirit that can put the jar back together again. (2) would increase the pressure on the PC to save the blood - not only is there no vessel, but the blood is getting eaten!Either way, the player has to make a new decision about how (if at all) the PC is going to make sure that the naga gets the blood.</blockquote>

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