Player skill vs character skill?

[Micah Sweet]

THEN WHY HAVE YOU BEEN ARGUING WITH ME!?!?!?!?!?!

I wasn't arguing. I was explaining how I prefer to play.

 

[Voadam]

I'm confused. You bolded the part I was referring to: "Only call for a roll if there is a meaningful consequence of failure." Why do you read it "completely differently"?

EDIT:
Oh, I see. I bolded the part you wrote at the end. Yeah, I very much disagree that failing to find a door is a consequence of failing a check. You don't know the door is there before you roll. You don't know the door is there after the roll. Nothing has changed for your character, therefore there is no consequence of failure.

Not quite.

You are reading meaningful consequence of failure as requiring an evaluation of the significance of the failure.

The text seems to say that by meaningful consequence of failure if the result is uncertain, if there is a meaningful difference between success and failure. If it is assured then a check is not appropriate. If it is impossible a check is not appropriate.

A problem with taking your interpretation is you are ignoring the explanatory text immediately after the quoted meaningful consequence where they say when "a roll is appropriate"

When deciding whether to use a roll, ask yourself two questions:
Is a task so easy and so free of conflict and stress that there should be no chance of failure?
Is a task so inappropriate or impossible- such as hitting the moon with an arrow-that it can't work?
If the answer to both of these questions is no, some kind of roll is appropriate.

It does not say if failure is not significant, do not call for a roll and the players' succeed.

You can choose to extrapolate off the specific words of meaningful consequence and come up with players otherwise succeeding as a style of DMing, but that is not what the text seems to say.

Their advice on running things without dice checks is on page 236 and says:

IGNORING THE DICE
One approach is to use dice as rarely as possible. Some DMs use them only during combat, and determine success or failure as they like in other situations. With this approach, the DM decides whether an action or a plan succeeds or fails based on how well the player: make their case, how thorough or creative they are, or other factors.

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.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Not quite.

You are reading meaningful consequence of failure as requiring an evaluation of the significance of the failure.

The text seems to say that by meaningful consequence of failure if the result is uncertain, if there is a meaningful difference between success and failure. If it is assured then a check is not appropriate. If it is impossible a check is not appropriate.

A problem with taking your interpretation is you are ignoring the explanatory text immediately after the quoted meaningful consequence where they say when "a roll is appropriate"

When deciding whether to use a roll, ask yourself two questions:
Is a task so easy and so free of conflict and stress that there should be no chance of failure?
Is a task so inappropriate or impossible- such as hitting the moon with an arrow-that it can't work?
If the answer to both of these questions is no, some kind of roll is appropriate.

It does not say if failure is not significant, do not call for a roll and the players' succeed.

You can choose to extrapolate off the specific words of meaningful consequence and come up with players otherwise succeeding as a style of DMing, but that is not what the text seems to say.

Their advice on running things without dice checks is on page 236 and says:

IGNORING THE DICE
One approach is to use dice as rarely as possible. Some DMs use them only during combat, and determine success or failure as they like in other situations. With this approach, the DM decides whether an action or a plan succeeds or fails based on how well the player: make their case, how thorough or creative they are, or other factors.

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.

I'm having trouble following your logic. It seems like you are dismissing the line about meaningful consequences entirely, and instead only using the part about uncertain outcome (the two questions).

I'm interpreting the quoted passage from the DMG (from your post 161) to mean

• Are there meaningful consequences for failure?
  • No: don't roll
  • Yes:
    • Is the action either a guaranteed success or guaranteed failure?
      • Yes: don't roll
      • No: roll

In other words, only call for a dice roll if there are meaningful consequences for failure and the answer to both questions is no.

If not that, how do you interpret "Only call for a roll if there is a meaningful consequence for failure"? What does that mean, other than exactly what it says?