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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Emberashh" data-source="post: 8986105" data-attributes="member: 7040941">Thats what I mean about it not being a perfect mechanism, ie, always works. This could translate into a Skill check mechanic. Its an issue where what works in a book doesn't actually translate to good gameplay.In a book, you can get away with something like this effectively always working, because typically the give and take of success and failure may not be important to the story being told.But in a game, theres more than one proverbial master that has to be served, not just story but gameplay. And the gameplay, fundamentally, must always be the chicken that gives birth to the egg that is story. If the gameplay is superflous, then why bother? You could still do such mechanics in a game, but the question then becomes what are you doing to fill the void in the gameplay you leave in doing so?Take, for instance, Hogwarts Legacy. The Spell Revelio is an example of this kind of mechanic. It always works and always does what it says it does, without fail. This is counterbalanced by the fact that what you can reveal with that spell has further gameplay to engage with. Solving puzzles, fighting baddies, etc. The combination ultimately works.  But now lets look at where this utterly fails. In 5e, the 2014 Ranger has two such mechanics, at least if you interpret the abilities and mechanics in such a way that it breaks the game, anyway. The first is the "Never gets lost except by magic", and the second "You get double food and water when foraging". Most people that try to interpret these abilities and their relevant mechanics find them wanting, calling the abilities a "skip". This is because, from their POV, there is no gameplay that makes up for the always on, always worke mechanics here. However, if you interpret the game more favorably, in a way that makes the game work, you can restore that gameplay void.  The Lost ability works in a Hex Crawl because you fundamentally always have to actively navigate a hex crawl; thats the entire point. Not being able to get lost only saves you the time penalty to right yourself when, in the course of navigating a hex crawl, a "Got lost" roll deposits you in an unintended hex. You still have to spend the time to navigate out of that hex, and so there is no gameplay void because the Rangers ability doesn't stop you from navigating into the wrong hex, but it does save you the 1d6 hours to figure out you're in the wrong hex. With foraging, you still need to be able to forage in wherever you are, and you still need to make the foraging checks in order to benefit, and you still have a potential to roll low on what you get. Getting double if you succeed simply doesn't induce a true gameplay void at all, but people assert it does because theres voids all over travel and survival rules, which makes it difficult for them to justify running the mechanics properly.</blockquote>

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