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<blockquote data-quote="mearls" data-source="post: 3034934" data-attributes="member: 697">Jonathan Tweet also had a good idea with respect to failure. He called it exercising a character's Kirkliness, after Captain Kirk from the original Star Trek series.In essence, he advises describing a PC's failure in terms other than ineptitude.For example, in my D&amp;D games I try not to just say &quot;You miss&quot; or &quot;You aim poorly and shoot wide.&quot; Instead, I emphasis the opponent's skill, like this:&quot;You make an attack that would chop the typical orc in two. King Graag barely catches your blade with his axe's haft, and stumbles back under the force of your strike.&quot;I think descriptions like this emphasize &quot;This NPC is really tough&quot; rather than &quot;Your character sucks at fighting.&quot;Against a weaker foe, I might say &quot;You swing your sword in an arc. The orc desperately lunges to the side. You slice his cloak in half and tear off part of his armor, but miraculously his hide is still intact.&quot;That description emphasizes that the orc was lucky, or conversely the PC was unlucky.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="mearls, post: 3034934, member: 697"] Jonathan Tweet also had a good idea with respect to failure. He called it exercising a character's Kirkliness, after Captain Kirk from the original Star Trek series. In essence, he advises describing a PC's failure in terms other than ineptitude. For example, in my D&D games I try not to just say "You miss" or "You aim poorly and shoot wide." Instead, I emphasis the opponent's skill, like this: "You make an attack that would chop the typical orc in two. King Graag barely catches your blade with his axe's haft, and stumbles back under the force of your strike." I think descriptions like this emphasize "This NPC is really tough" rather than "Your character sucks at fighting." Against a weaker foe, I might say "You swing your sword in an arc. The orc desperately lunges to the side. You slice his cloak in half and tear off part of his armor, but miraculously his hide is still intact." That description emphasizes that the orc was lucky, or conversely the PC was unlucky. [/QUOTE]

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