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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5650106" data-attributes="member: 42582">But how do you know that they didn't have the requisite "feat"/"skill talent"?It goes beyond this. The 4e approach to most skills (Athletics tends to be an exception) is to set DCs in relative terms ("This is Hard for 10th level PCs") and then to narrate the situation around this decision.This approach has very different implications for play from an approach of setting the DC in an "objective" way based on the physical details of the ingame situation. It's not just about trading off simplicity for predictability (DCs in 4e are generally pretty predictable!) but about what the intended relationship is between the action resolution mechanics and the fiction.And whether or not to be transparent with DCs is a part of this. It is pretty crucial to a 4e-style metagame approach. It's less obvious that it is essential to a simulationist approach.Is there a limit on the number of such bonuses that a player can lobby for? 4e generally assumes that +2 to the check is the best you will do from this sort of stuff. A simulation-heavy approach like Rolemaster doesn't impose limits - but then you get the problem of having to decide when benefits are cumulative and when they overlap.But whether it should be achieved through simulationist-oriented mechanics (as eg in Rolemaster) or through some other mechanical approach is an open question.An illustration from the BW Adventure Burner (pages 248-49, under the heading 'Roll the Dice or Say Yes"): In a recent campaign, our characters were crossing a narrow span over a chasm. The GM, Pete, described the bridge in vivid detail. One of the players, Rich, described his character hopping up to the railing and caperingalong. Should Pete have called for a [skill or attribute check]? No. Never. . . Certainly "in real life" there's a chance of falling, but in the story, it just didn't matter. . . [W]hat would the [check] have accomplished? He would have succeeded and stayed on the bridge. Success would have kept him at the same point. Or hw would have fallen and we would have had to save him. . . like . . . in a bad action movie. There would have been quick cuts and close ups but nothing really would have happened. . . Later those same characters needed to cross a narrow ledge to gain entry to a lost tomb. Pete described wind whipping along the cliff walls. We would have to make [checks] to cross and get in. This was a totally legit [check]. The tomb was the goal of a long quest. Would we get in unscathed? Or would this cost us? . . . If we failed, we'd lose . . . precious resources!How to handle failure, and the drama to which the possibility of failure gives rise, is a big question in designing a system.In my view no, because it's not just about the difficulty of things, but the way that the possibility of failure, and failure mitigation, and predictability of success, and player control over success or failure, is built into the system.</blockquote>

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