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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bawylie" data-source="post: 7795629" data-attributes="member: 6776133">That’s why it’s important for the DM and Player to agree on the stakes before the roll. There are scenarios where a player might want more than one thing to happen. In that case, I usually ask which of the number of things listed is the priority - the one they really want - and which are lower on the priority list. Once ranked, I set DCs. The highest priority of the player gets the lowest DC, and the higher they roll, the more of their priorities they achieve. I’ll give an example from one of my games. Player was a bard, in combat with an ogre on the back of a carriage in a chase scenario with other players attempting to escape. Bard wanted to fancy-dance past the ogre, drop down to the horse and sever the hitch, riding away with the unhitched horse and leaving the ogre to drift on the back of the carriage. I asked my player what one thing he most wanted to happen, and how he planned on making it work. Definitely he wanted to sever the hitch. Next he wanted to be on the horse after the hitch was severed, and last was getting past the ogre. He was going to rely on his natural agility and balance to tumble, vault, and land where he wanted to (that says a Dex check to me). I asked him to make a Dex (acrobatics) check versus DC 10 to sever the hitch (not at all complicated), 15 to sever the hitch while escaping on the horse (a bit trickier), and 20 to bypass the ogre unscathed. One check - whose outcome determined how many of those priorities he could accomplish. He agreed with my proposal. (He didn’t have to. Sometimes we refine it). If I remember right, he didn’t hit the 20 but got close. So the ogre took a swipe at the bard as the bard fancy-danced past it (some damage there), but he was able to get onto the horse, cut the hitch and leave the ogre drifting on the now-horseless wagon while the rest of the party escaped on mounts. That ended the chase. So it doesn’t have to be only binary. The die result matters, but I don’t use the die result to generate outcomes in the fictional scenario - just the mechanical scenario. We discuss outcomes first, set DCs as needed, and then roll on that. Once the mechanic is done, we go back to the narrative and reset into the next bit of play loop.</blockquote>

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