Player skill vs character skill?

[Maxperson]

In a manner of speaking, I suppose.

However, what I keep hearing here is that any situation where after a roll the DM narrates "nothing happens" is (or has somehow become) verboten; and I call BS on that.

What do you mean by that?

 

[Maxperson]

In this context, no meaningful consequence of failure is being taken as, "no meaningful difference between success and failure".

I roll to walk across the room. If success means, "I walk across the room" and failure means, "I walk across the room, but slightly less gracefully," then, in most circumstances, there are no meaningngful consequences and it's pointless to roll.

Similarly, a task you will succeed at eventually, when there is no time pressure and you get unlimited retries, has no meaningful difference between success and failure. However if, for some reason, you only get one try, then the opposite of success is meaningful, because you're now stuck dealing with that outcome.

I'm going to push back slightly on that last paragraph. You might have unlimited tries at something and be guaranteed to succeed eventually, but if there's a gold piece cost, you could take damage on a failure, etc., that's meaningful enough to warrant rolling. Resource loss is a meaningful consequence for failure, even if you are guaranteed to succeed eventually. That said, sometimes to speed things up I'll just have the player roll to see how many resources are used up. The higher the roll, the fewer resources lost before success.

 

[Voadam]

Ok, why should those situations be resolved by a roll?

Let's pick a simple scenario: there's a locked door, and no time pressure. The thief has a 60% chance to pick the lock. If he succeeds he opens the door and the party finds a treasure room and gets loot. (Yay!) If he fails, there's no change to the status quo.

Why (other than history/tradition) should this be resolved by a roll, rather than just letting the thief succeed? What does that actually add to the game?

I think the answer might be, "Because it creates a branch in the narrative: if he succeeds the story goes one way, if he fails the story goes the other." That's true, but why it important to leave that to RNG? You have a GM and a bunch of players all contributing to the story, which creates lots of branches.

If he has a 60% chance to pick it I expect him to not be able to pick it 40% of the time.

Giving the thief a 60% chance to pick a lock though is a style/preference choice to have success be random as opposed to certain on specific tasks.

It would be easy to have a power/ability/skill where you just know how to pick locks no roll necessary. It is how the knock spell works in many editions of D&D. In AD&D thieves have a chance to move silently that can increase per level but also has a (usually big) chance to fail in the attempt. In AD&D elves and halflings can just move silent with no roll. The difference can be to differentiate based on source of the ability (developed skill versus expendable magic resource or innate magical being nature).

The reason to have uncertainty at all can be as you say to create an uncertainty in the play so that things can play out differently and it can go either way of working or not. Maybe if they fail they have to find the key, or break down the door, or use magic to teleport inside. Maybe it is an unsolvable mystery for this party and it haunts and taunts them about what they might have been able to get.

For some things adding an element of uncertainty adds to the gameiness of the activity, making it a bit of a gamble and requiring some adaptability depending on how things go.

If you are DMing 14 5e and feel that people who know how to pick locks know how to pick locks and won't reasonably fail (a position I have seen people take) then don't call for a roll for those with proficiency in lock picks/thieves' tools, just say they pick it. A DM is well within their rights RAW to make such a judgement call. The 5e default though is that sometimes it works for a skilled person but not always and more experienced people are better at it.

 

[Bill Zebub]

However if, for some reason, you only get one try, then the opposite of success is meaningful, because you're now stuck dealing with that outcome.

Why is only one try possible?

One answer is that there is time pressure, which in my book counts as "meaningful consequence": you used up the time you had to do something useful, and now you're hosed.

The other answer is "because the GM said so". That happens all the time, right? In my opinion, that's a "hack" to create meaningful consequences. If there were actual consequences we wouldn't have to say that. "Sure...try again! Mwuhahahaha..."

 

[Bill Zebub]

For me, what it adds to the game is verisimilitude.

I don't buy that.

I mean, I buy that's your reason, but I don't buy that it's verisimilitude.

As we know from modern lockpicking, a trained lockpicker without time pressure will succeed almost all of the time unless it's an exotic lock. (Trying a 2nd, 3rd time is also verisimilitude.)

As we can surmise from the data on tunnel rats in Vietnam, they must have found and either disarmed or avoided the vast majority of traps.

On the other hand, what does sound verisimilitudinous to me is that if you add extra conditions (for example time pressure) then people who are expert at things are more likely to fail, which could bring success rates down in the range of what we find in RPGs.

 

[Voadam]

I'm with you on this, it's where the take 10/take 20 rules of 3e were a great addition because it gave an actual rule for it. Otherwise, for a 5e game, if there was no time pressure and there was someone trained in thief tools who could spend time working on the lock, I'd do the exact same thing as you and just make it automatic.

5e has a similar type optional rule.

The 5e DMG also specifically provides a variant option on automatic success using checks is on page 239:

VARIANT: AUTOMATIC SUCCESS
***
Under this
optional rule, a character automatically succeeds on any ability check with a DC less than or equal to the relevant ability score minus 5.
***
Having proficiency with a skill or tool can also grant automatic success. If a character's proficiency bonus applies to his or her ability check, the character automatically succeeds if the DC is 10 or less. If that character is 11th level or higher, the check succeeds if the DC is 15 or less.

 

[Maxperson]

If he has a 60% chance to pick it I expect him to not be able to pick it 40% of the time.

Giving the thief a 60% chance to pick a lock though is a style/preference choice to have success be random as opposed to certain on specific tasks.

It would be easy to have a power/ability/skill where you just know how to pick locks no roll necessary. It is how the knock spell works in many editions of D&D. In AD&D thieves have a chance to move silently that can increase per level but also has a (usually big) chance to fail in the attempt. In AD&D elves and halflings can just move silent with no roll. The difference can be to differentiate based on source of the ability (developed skill versus expendable magic resource or innate magical being nature).

The reason to have uncertainty at all can be as you say to create an uncertainty in the play so that things can play out differently and it can go either way of working or not. Maybe if they fail they have to find the key, or break down the door, or use magic to teleport inside. Maybe it is an unsolvable mystery for this party and it haunts and taunts them about what they might have been able to get.

For some things adding an element of uncertainty adds to the gameiness of the activity, making it a bit of a gamble and requiring some adaptability depending on how things go.

If you are DMing 14 5e and feel that people who know how to pick locks know how to pick locks and won't reasonably fail (a position I have seen people take) then don't call for a roll for those with proficiency in lock picks/thieves' tools, just say they pick it. A DM is well within their rights RAW to make such a judgement call. The 5e default though is that sometimes it works for a skilled person but not always and more experienced people are better at it.

Given RAW unlimited retries, barring some game element preventing it, the rogue will eventually roll a natural 20. That means that absent any pressures, if the lock is equal to or less than 20 + Thieves' Tools/Slight of Hand bonus, the DM should skip the roll and narrate an eventual success.

If the DM only allows one try, limited tries, or there is some sort of pressure, a roll should happen because the outcome is uncertain and there is a meaningful consequence to failure.

 

[SableWyvern]

I'm going to push back slightly on that last paragraph. You might have unlimited tries at something and be guaranteed to succeed eventually, but if there's a gold piece cost, you could take damage on a failure, etc., that's meaningful enough to warrant rolling. Resource loss is a meaningful consequence for failure, even if you are guaranteed to succeed eventually. That said, sometimes to speed things up I'll just have the player roll to see how many resources are used up. The higher the roll, the fewer resources lost before success.

Yes, that's a fair point. Instead of time pressure, it would be farier to say, resource pressure with time being one possible resource.