D&D 5E My one and only houserule: consequences & opportunities

[PabloM]

I like games, a lot. I try to read and play everything within my reach. I usually run a weekly D&D campaign, and some short adventures using other options, of which I highlight Fate, Blades in the Dark, and some PbtA games (Burning Wheel is kind of my white whale).
This past year, because I paused D&D campaign due to quarantine, I had a chance to dig deeper into other games.
When I returned to run the D&D campaign I came up with a rule to make things more interesting. Well, it's not really a rule, it's a new perspective on a rule. From the most basic D&D rule:

A player rolls 1d20 + something vs a DC to determine the success of a PC over a given conflict.

And it occurred to me that, from the same game mechanics, we can make things narratively more interesting. Here's the new approach of the same rule:

A player rolls 1d20 + something vs a DC to determine the success of a PC over a given conflict.

If the roll passes DC, the PC is successful, but there is a consequence.
If the roll exceeds DC by 5 or more, the PC in addition to being successful can avoid a consequence or find an additional opportunity.
If the roll exceeds DC by 10 or more, the PC in addition to being successful can avoid a consequence and find an additional opportunity.

What is a consequence or an opportunity? what the circumstance requires to add tension to the narrative.

It is a simple protocol that does not add any additional complications to the game but adds depth.

The best thing is that the players will not even notice this new rule (ruling?), because they will only perceive it through the descriptions of the DM: "The DC to climb that wall is 15, make an Athletics check. Did you get 22? perfect! You manage to climb the wall, but up on the wall you see a guard. I give you a choice: the guard sees you but your spot the keys to the door to the castle on her belt or the guard does not see you but you see nothing. What do you do?"

 

[commandercrud]

Player: I choose that the guard doesn't see me.
DM: Okay, what now?
Player: I sneak up to the guard and look at his belt.

 

[PabloM]

Player: I choose that the guard doesn't see me.
DM: Okay, what now?
Player: I sneak up to the guard and look at his belt.

haha, so?

 

[GlassJaw]

Pretty standard degrees of success mechanic. Lots of other games have it built-in to their core mechanic. I do it all the time on the fly.

I've also started giving priority to those that have proficiency in a skill. Depending on the nature of the check, if two players roll the same result but one has proficiency, I might give them more info or a better result.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm a big fan of PtbA games, but not necessarily a big fan of this rule for two reasons:

1) You're going from pass/fail on every roll to pass/fail, then if pass is it 5 or 10 above the DC - which is the DM may well have to determine - the players probably don't know the DC for most stuff. That's going to drastically slow things down, and that's before the consequences and so on have even been invoked.

2) This strongly favours really seriously stacking up modifiers if you can get them. Right now, there's no difference between passing a roll, and passing by a huge amount, which means things like expertise, large stat mods and so on are mostly helpful in negating the extreme variance on d20s, but here you can accrue an actual benefit. This means expertise is vastly more valuable, as is anything that lets you roll an extra die - like Bardic Inspiration, Guidance, and so on.

3) Also presumably if a low/equal pass means success and a consequence, a fail also means a consequence (or "hard move" as they'd say in PtbA). That's also not currently the case in D&D, and the high randomness of d20s is going to make outright fails on things your PC is supposed to be good at quite common (whereas they are quite rare in PtbA games - more often it's success and consequence). This will have an impact on the game. Possibly a positive one, because it'll mean people who are unlikely to succeed at something won't attempt to roll it, because of the potential consequence. But unless you handle it with a lot of care, it'll also make players who are good at things very cautious about doing any kind of skill roll, because the odds of outright failure are good, and if you're adding a hard move on top of that... I could see a lot of more cautious players kind of wanting to get Guidance and someone "helping" them (i.e. giving Advantage) before attempting to say, search a library. YMMV whether this is good or bad.

 

[MNblockhead]

I like it for skill tests during social encounters and exploration. For combat, I still with using critical hit decks. Beyond that I wouldn't want to complicate combat any further.

I note that many adventure, both WotC and 3rd party, have tests where if you fail by more than X something particularly bad happens. So this is already pretty standard. However, I like your idea of making it a core mechanic. Some DMs may not be comfortable improvising consequences on the fly, but I think most people can come up with something to add a bit more flavor to non-combat rolls.

 

[PabloM]

I'm a big fan of PtbA games, but not necessarily a big fan of this rule for two reasons:

1) You're going from pass/fail on every roll to pass/fail, then if pass is it 5 or 10 above the DC - which is the DM may well have to determine - the players probably don't know the DC for most stuff. That's going to drastically slow things down, and that's before the consequences and so on have even been invoked.

2) This strongly favours really seriously stacking up modifiers if you can get them. Right now, there's no difference between passing a roll, and passing by a huge amount, which means things like expertise, large stat mods and so on are mostly helpful in negating the extreme variance on d20s, but here you can accrue an actual benefit. This means expertise is vastly more valuable, as is anything that lets you roll an extra die - like Bardic Inspiration, Guidance, and so on.

3) Also presumably if a low/equal pass means success and a consequence, a fail also means a consequence (or "hard move" as they'd say in PtbA). That's also not currently the case in D&D, and the high randomness of d20s is going to make outright fails on things your PC is supposed to be good at quite common (whereas they are quite rare in PtbA games - more often it's success and consequence). This will have an impact on the game. Possibly a positive one, because it'll mean people who are unlikely to succeed at something won't attempt to roll it, because of the potential consequence. But unless you handle it with a lot of care, it'll also make players who are good at things very cautious about doing any kind of skill roll, because the odds of outright failure are good, and if you're adding a hard move on top of that... I could see a lot of more cautious players kind of wanting to get Guidance and someone "helping" them (i.e. giving Advantage) before attempting to say, search a library. YMMV whether this is good or bad.

Fair points, especially 2) and 3). They will have to be tested in game to see if you are right.

Anyway, if there is no consequence in a failed check, why do it?

 

[prabe]

It sounds like a reasonable-ish way to run many ability checks, but I wouldn't want to use it for saving throws or combat. There might be ability checks where there's not enough range of consequences for the rule to apply, and it seems as though it's going to encourage not-rolling (aiming for auto-success) maybe more than you want. I think @Ruin Explorer makes good points about some knock-on effects, and I'll point out that the rules are written (and example DCs are set) with the idea that beating those DCs is an uncomplicated success--if the players are at all familiar with that, they might well notice as all these consequences start to accrue with what feel like good rolls.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Anyway, if there is no consequence in a failed check, why do it?

That's a totally valid approach, but it's not, in my experience, actually how people run D&D. Beyond personal experience, I don't think I've ever seen a stream of D&D run that way, or heard a podcast that worked out like that.

I mean, there's a huge difference in that some people call for no-consequence checks all the time, which I think is pretty silly, but what is much more common is that a decent percentage of checks won't really have any consequences.

I mean, I kind of like your idea on a certain level because there's little I dislike more than people who just shout that they're rolling X skill or whatever, and this would make them both think twice about doing that, and think more about the situation, because then they could gauge the consequences.

I'll point out that the rules are written (and example DCs are set) with the idea that beating those DCs is an uncomplicated success--if the players are at all familiar with that, they might well notice as all these consequences start to accrue with what feel like good rolls.

Yeah and I'd consider lowering the skill-check DCs by 2-3 points with this system, because a success becomes a semi-fail now.

 

[prabe]

I mean, there's a huge difference in that some people call for no-consequence checks all the time, which I think is pretty silly, but what is much more common is that a decent percentage of checks won't really have any consequences.

I do it sometimes. Usually it's in a situation where some success is assured and I'm gauging the extent of it. How much do you find out about [thing]?

Yeah and I'd consider lowering the skill-check DCs by 2-3 points with this system, because a success becomes a semi-fail now.

Yup. It's the semi-fail feel of success-with-consequences that can seem like a bit much if you don't adjust the DCs (and is why I think it's fine with ability checks but not saving throws or attack rolls).