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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9866489" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think this is an important question about a core mechanic: what does the outcome of the mechanic tell us about the fiction?[USER=907]@Staffan[/USER]'s post assumes that the result, in the fiction, of the player failing their roll is that their PC fails to perform the task that they attempted. But that's not the only possibility. Going right back to one of the earliest mechanical systems in RPGing - the "alternative combat system" in original D&D - a failed roll doesn't mean (or at least doesn't necessarily mean) that the PC failed at what they attempted. That is, a failed attack roll might mean that, while the strike was swift and deadly, the opponent is just as puissant and dodged at the last moment. That is, a series of failed attack rolls in D&D can be imagined as looking like the duel in The Princess Bride as much as like a comedic pantomime performance.It's eminently possible for a RPG to take a similar approach to non-combat resolution.I've often been puzzled by the notion that modern D&D has a uniform resolution system, when it clearly doesn't: there is no analogue, in the 3E and 5e non-combat resolution systems, to the crucial place of the damage roll vs the hit point total in combat; and thus, while a low-level PC might have a modest-to-slim chance of climbing the wall that present little obstacle to the high-level PC, they have no real chance of surviving a fight with a pit fiend.And in 4e D&D, while successes/failures in a skill challenge are somewhat analogous to the tracking of hp loss, the skill challenge and combat resolution systems are still clearly different. The game relies on mechanical components of creature stat blocks - defence numbers, hit points totals and damage dice - to mark the difference between fighting a kobold and fighting a pit fiend - while it relies on the more abstract interplay of the tiers of play and the DCs by level table to mark the difference between the non-combat endeavours of low- and high-level characters.There are plenty of RPGs that are more uniform than these versions of D&D, but plenty of these still treat combat outcomes in a distinctive way - eg harm in Apocalypse World, or wounds in Burning Wheel. Some RPGs I can think of that are strictly uniform are Agon 2e, Cthulhu Dark, and Marvel Heroic RP (although this last one still has many more abilities on the typical PC sheet that feed into physical conflict than feed into social/emotional conflict).</blockquote>

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