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<blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 8441868" data-attributes="member: 11">Not to further muddy the waters here, but I think there is also an element of people who want D&amp;D to emulate &quot;a story&quot; and those of us who don't think of D&amp;D as a story-telling game. It might be a story-making game, but that story isn't known until afterwards. Thus the pacing and inclusion of color that I might be concerned with when writing a fantasy novel are not the ones I am concerned with at the table - and even if you are emulating stories you might prefer picaresque fantasy (as I do) over action-packed high octane scene to high octane scene - so how long we sit outside the door to the Mines of Moria in the growing gloom while Gandalf tries to figure out the password (making various rolls/attempts) could just as easily be &quot;that's one of my favorite parts&quot; as it could be &quot;that was boring, either know the password or not so we can get to the next stage of the adventure.&quot; In other words, what is &quot;superfluous&quot; varies.To get back to the subject of rolling checks:I can understand the desire to cut the fat a little bit or to get things moving when they feel like they are lagging - but I also, even as DM, don't always know what is going to be important in the short or long term. To use the above example, the history of dwarves and elves having once been friends and allies may not seem that important in the moment - but it could be important, esp. if we (both players and DM) spend some time engaging with something that calls on that history, but maybe without a roll we wouldn't know.So while sure sometimes too many checks can slow things down, I find that asking for checks can also help to move things along and make them definite one way or another - or make something important</blockquote>

[QUOTE="el-remmen, post: 8441868, member: 11"] Not to further muddy the waters here, but I think there is also an element of people who want D&D to emulate "a story" and those of us who don't think of D&D as a story-telling game. It might be a story-[I]making [/I]game, but that story isn't known until afterwards. Thus the pacing and inclusion of color that I might be concerned with when writing a fantasy novel are not the ones I am concerned with at the table - and even if you are emulating stories you might prefer picaresque fantasy (as I do) over action-packed high octane scene to high octane scene - so how long we sit outside the door to the Mines of Moria in the growing gloom while Gandalf tries to figure out the password (making various rolls/attempts) could just as easily be "that's one of my favorite parts" as it could be "that was boring, either know the password or not so we can get to the next stage of the adventure." In other words, what is "superfluous" varies. To get back to the subject of rolling checks: I can understand the desire to cut the fat a little bit or to get things moving when they feel like they are lagging - but I also, even as DM, don't always know what is going to be important in the short or long term. To use the above example, the history of dwarves and elves having once been friends and allies may not seem that important in the moment - but it could be important, esp. if we (both players and DM) spend some time engaging with something that calls on that history, but maybe without a roll we wouldn't know. So while sure sometimes too many checks can slow things down, I find that asking for checks can also help to move things along and make them definite one way or another - or make something important [/QUOTE]

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