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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 9504778" data-attributes="member: 7006">Let's also remember the real point of all of this-- these checks are not the game unto and of itself.&nbsp; Their entire point is to vary the speed in which players acquire narrative advancement in the story they are participating in.The entire game is a story that is happening at the table.&nbsp; That's why every single mechanic in the game has a narrative description layered on top of it-- so the players can imagine an interesting meaning for what these numbers represent that we are adding together all the time.&nbsp; A player rolling a twenty-sided die and then adding two numbers to it to get another number-- which is then compared to another number the DM has chosen-- is then given meaning by treating those numbers as something imaginable in the fiction.&nbsp; A d20 roll plus a number described as &quot;the character's strength&quot; plus a number described as &quot;their skill in athletic actions&quot; is acquired to beat a number the DM has decided in the fiction is &quot;climbing over that wall to get to the other side&quot;.&nbsp; If the player can accomplish that... then the story can continue on from there.&nbsp; The players are now on &quot;the other side of the wall&quot; and they can make their next set of narrative decisions.&nbsp; And if the player can't accomplish that &quot;getting their number higher than the DM's number&quot;... then the story of what is &quot;on the other side of the wall&quot; has to stop for the time being and the player(s) have to imagine and come up with some other way to get past this &quot;barrier&quot; to see the story continue (if they even decide whether they want to do so.)So it doesn't really matter what are the numeric totals the players can reach on random die rolls plus other numbers... nor does it matter what the numbers are that the DM just cooks up to decide whether or not the players can possibly succeed... because in both cases these are just dictating whether or not the players can &quot;advance&quot; in the story.&nbsp; These numbers and rolls are merely just narrative pacing issues.At no point do any of us NEED to roll dice and add numbers to them to advance the narrative.&nbsp; We could all, if we really wanted to, just push the story forward whenever we wanted by just dictating that everything the players wish to do is accomplished.&nbsp; We don't NEED players to make &quot;Perception checks&quot; for example... the DM could just tell the players the pertinent information that their character &quot;sees&quot; and thus allows them to advance the story forward with the information they needed to make their next series of informed choices.&nbsp; But if that makes the story advance too fast... then the DM can throw in a &quot;Perception check&quot; to slow down what info they are going to pass on to the players, thus rendering their next decisions having to be made without &quot;perfect information&quot;.The game isn't actually &quot;the acquisition and comparing of numbers&quot;.&nbsp; &quot;The numbers&quot; are merely a TOOL-- a tool that tells us what is happening in our imagination at any point in time.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 9504778, member: 7006"] Let's also remember the real point of all of this-- these checks are not the game unto and of itself. Their entire point is to [I]vary the speed in which players acquire narrative advancement in the story they are participating in[/I]. The entire game is a story that is happening at the table. That's why every single mechanic in the game has a narrative description layered on top of it-- so the players can imagine an interesting meaning for what these numbers represent that we are adding together all the time. A player rolling a twenty-sided die and then adding two numbers to it to get another number-- which is then compared to another number the DM has chosen-- is then given meaning by treating those numbers as something [B]imaginable[/B] [I]in the fiction[/I]. A d20 roll plus a number described as "the character's strength" plus a number described as "their skill in athletic actions" is acquired to beat a number the DM has decided in the fiction is "climbing over that wall to get to the other side". If the player can accomplish that... then the [I]story can continue on from there[/I]. The players are now on "the other side of the wall" and they can make their next set of narrative decisions. And if the player can't accomplish that "getting their number higher than the DM's number"... then the story of what is "on the other side of the wall" has to stop for the time being and the player(s) have to imagine and come up with some other way to get past this "barrier" to see the story continue (if they even decide whether they want to do so.) So it doesn't really matter what are the numeric totals the players can reach on random die rolls plus other numbers... nor does it matter what the numbers are that the DM just cooks up to decide whether or not the players can possibly succeed... because in both cases these are just dictating whether or not the players can "advance" in the story. These numbers and rolls are merely just [I]narrative pacing issues[/I]. At no point do any of us NEED to roll dice and add numbers to them to advance the narrative. We could all, if we really wanted to, just push the story forward whenever we wanted by just dictating that everything the players wish to do is accomplished. We don't NEED players to make "Perception checks" for example... the DM [I]could[/I] just tell the players the pertinent information that their character "sees" and thus allows them to advance the story forward with the information they needed to make their next series of informed choices. But if that makes the story advance too fast... then the DM can throw in a "Perception check" to slow down what info they are going to pass on to the players, thus rendering their next decisions having to be made without "perfect information". The game isn't actually "the acquisition and comparing of numbers". "The numbers" are merely a TOOL-- a tool that tells us what is happening in our imagination at any point in time. [/QUOTE]

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