As you are talking passionately of this technique, I expect you at least feel you have a deep understanding of at least one game where it is employed as part of the basic structure of the game. Also you were yourself introducing "picking a lock to get at the documents inside the safe" as a valid example for where this technique could come at play - ensuring that the docments will be still there on a full success. So pick your favorite game where this example would be a valid enforceable play.
Okay, finally here.
So: the game I know is Dungeon World.
In this post, I will not be talking about anything except Dungeon World. I have, technically, also played Masks some and a couple other PbtA games very minimally, and adjacent games like Ironsworn, but I'm not going to talk about them here.
Now, getting back to the example, we have the following information, and (as I understand it) ONLY the following information. Nothing further is known. No further context from the conversation applies. This is the ONLY information, full stop, nothing else:
- The player character, whom I will call Lilia Blanc, desires the Desert Rose ruby (which is unique etc. as mentioned previously)
- Lilia knows that the ruby is located in a particular house. I will call it "Chateau d'Ys" since that's more flavorful.
- Lilia is inside the house, in an otherwise nondescript room (as no fiction has been established about which room she's in)
- Lilia knows that this nondescript room contains at least one safe (or other locked storage container, e.g. chest/drawer/etc.)
If we are in agreement about that, then I can proceed.
Dungeon World has things called "playbooks"--what other games would call "classes"--which offer more-specific moves, or moves that modify or extend generic, aka "basic", moves. As an example, I have a player playing a Shaman (a playbook from the "GrimWorld" supplement), which includes the "Murmur" move: "When you Discern Realities, you can also ask: What do the spirits whisper here?" Discern Realities is, more or less, the move that corresponds to a "perception check" in D&D. It has a fixed set of six questions, which the players may ask either one question for partial success, or three questions for full success; its trigger is "When you closely study a situation or person", and the explicit advice from the text is that this "closely study" requires the player to specify what they are doing, e.g. looking for disturbances in dust, checking floor or ceiling for scrapes, watching a person's face for subtle facial expressions, etc. Per "you have to do it to do it" and "if you do it you do it", when the player has described actions which conform to this close study of a situation or person, this move fires, and we follow its mechanics. "Murmur" allows the Shaman a sixth question on the list; this does not mean that other players could not get answers involving the whispers of spirits, but the Shaman gets the ability to explicitly ask about that. (Note, per the rules, I as GM must answer these questions truthfully; that's the reason why there is a fixed set of questions, not just any question one might want, though the fixed list generally isn't an impediment.)
The reason I bring up all of this preamble is because what, exactly, Lilia is going to roll will depend in part on what playbook she's using, because the Thief playbook has specific moves for dealing with traps and locks, which other playbooks don't have. That doesn't mean other playbooks can't get through locks--it just means they have to accept the limitations that come from a basic move rather than a specific one.
If Lilia is a Thief, then in this context, she would use the following move (note, "DEX" means modifier, "Dexterity" means full score):
Tricks of the Trade
When you
pick locks or pockets or disable traps, roll+DEX.
✴ On a 10+, you do it, no problem.
✴ On a 7–9, you still do it, but the GM will offer you two options between suspicion, danger, or cost.
This move does not permit the Thief to declare what is on the other side of the safe, so the example is already negated before we even begin, as I have previously said, just in generic terms. The move does exactly what it says it does: on a 10+, you pick a lock, pick a pocket, or disable a trap "no problem". On 7-9, your picking/disabling still happens, but the GM will give you two options. Those options should, generally, be reasonably associated with one another. I referenced this much earlier with a slightly different example, but the idea was that Lilia hears voices far away on the other side of the door. She knows, now, that she doesn't have the time to finish picking with maximum finesse, so she has a choice: she can destroy the lock, which will be suspicious the moment anyone interacts with that door, or she can sacrifice one of her lockpicks, which (in context) makes sense to me as a -1 ongoing to picking locks.
Again, I want to reiterate: at no point in this move is there
anything which gives the player free rein to declare anything about the contents of the safe. Instead, the hoped-for subsequent description is, I should think quite plainly, that they pick the lock
without problems, meaning, no suspicion, no danger, no cost, as clearly defined by the move above. It's also worth noting that a failure (6- on the total roll result) means the GM should make a "hard move" (something bad definitely happens right now), or if they feel it more appropriate, a "soft move" (something bad is imminent unless prevented, which generally requires another roll). As with all things, whatever move the GM makes needs to follow from the fiction (and conform to the other Principles, that's just the most relevant one here).
Now we deal with the
else: Lilia
is not a Thief, and thus
does not have the Tricks of the Trade move. This corresponds to the idea that Lilia is not actually trained in picking locks, otherwise she would have that move or its equivalent (perhaps something that only specifies locks and not traps). Under these circumstances, discussion must occur between player and GM. Let's say Lilia is a Wizard. So she consults her books--which would be a "Spout Lore" move, one of the basic moves, functionally the equivalent of a "knowledge" check in D&D. This is the text of that move:
Spout Lore
When you
consult your accumulated knowledge about something, roll+Int. ✴On a 10+, the GM will tell you something interesting and useful about the subject relevant to your situation. ✴On a 7–9, the GM will only tell you something interesting—it’s on you to make it useful. The GM might ask you “How do you know this?” Tell them the truth, now.
So, on a full success, I would tell the Wizard something interesting
and useful about this situation, such as "the steel used in this lock mechanism is known to be brittle, especially when it's very cold", when this Wizard happens to be in possession of a wand of
ray of frost. Again, at no point in this particular move does the Wizard have
any ability to declare what is inside the safe. They instead have the hoped-for description of "something that helps me get this lock open".
Alternatively, maybe Lilia decides that she doesn't have time to mess about with figuring out the lock, she's just going to break it and damn the consequences. That, to me, sounds like Defy Danger--here, the imminent threat is one of
discovery, whether by making too much noise, or by being discovered soon after, or whatever else. Here's the text for Defy Danger (warning, it's a bit longer than most moves because it has many uses):
Defy Danger
When you
act despite an imminent threat or
suffer a calamity, say how you deal with it and roll. If you do it
- by powering through, +STR
- by getting out of the way or acting fast, +DEX
- by enduring, +CON
- with quick thinking, +INT
- through mental fortitude, +WIS
- using charm and social grace, +CHA
✴On a 10+, you do what you set out to, the threat doesn’t come to bear. ✴On a 7–9, you stumble, hesitate, or flinch: the GM will offer you a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.
Note that immediately after this move description, we get the following explanatory text: "You defy danger when you do something in the face of impending peril. This may seem like a catch-all. It is! Defy danger is for those times when it seems like you clearly should be rolling but no other move applies." So, trying to get through a lock when you don't know how to pick locks? That's a situation where it seems like you should clearly be rolling--because it's not something you should obviously succeed at--but no other move quite fits.
Naturally, some discussion will need to be had about what seems reasonable, what task the player is attempting to achieve, etc. If they just want the lock broken open, bashing it seems reasonable--that's probably STR. If they want to do this without leaving obvious evidence, that's probably a (clumsy) attempt to pick it, which might be DEX, INT, or WIS depending on their specific effort and what kind of lock it is (e.g. if it's a combo lock, you could listen for a click, which seems like WIS for evaluating the environment).
But regardless of whatever that discussion concludes, you will again see that there is no place--whatsoever--for the player to declare what is on the other side of the lock. No place at all. Instead, the hoped-for description is that
the calamity doesn't occur, and as generous as I try to be with my players, there is no world where "the ruby I want to steal isn't on the other side of this specific lock" is "an imminent threat" nor a "calamity" that one has "suffer[ed]".
I suspect this answer will be at least somewhat unsatisfying, because as noted the short version is what I already said: the rules themselves forbid even
trying to do the thing Lanefan proposed, and thus the example is invalid from the jump. But I hope that the thoroughness with which I have answered it is adequate for showing why this system is designed such that that obviously-ludicrous example is simply nonsense within the rules. Ideally, this would then give you reason to think that other systems would also preempt such an obviously ludicrous example.
