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Taking 20 Too Often
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<blockquote data-quote="Schmoe" data-source="post: 3359568" data-attributes="member: 913"><p>One of my pet peeves is DMs who aren't comfortable with "taking 10" and "taking 20". A Search check takes 6 seconds. That's a quick search. If someone wants to take the time to do a more thorough job, why disallow that? How do you model taking more time? The rules already provide a mechanic, alternately re-rolling 20 times or "taking 20", so why re-invent the mechanic?</p><p></p><p>Taking 20 does not take away the risk of failure and doesn't give away "meta-game" information. Even if you take 20 on a Search check and don't find anything, that doesn't mean there's nothing to find. However, there's no penalty for not finding something, other than not finding it, so the situation is much different than, say, disarming a trap, where you may kill yourself before you successfully disarm it.</p><p></p><p>Same thing for other skills, such as Use Rope. I can quickly tie someone up in 6 seconds and hope that I do a good job. Alternately, I can decide to take 2 full minutes to check the ties, tighten the knot, and verify that I've done the best that I can. Certainly, if I want to spend more time verifying the quality of my work, the quality of my work should be better. The tradeoff is time.</p><p></p><p>I think that taking 20 is a brilliant mechanic that helps to speed along gameplay. Maybe it would help to think of it, instead of "taking 20", as "taking as much time as I need to so that I'm confident I couldn't have done a better job." </p><p></p><p>Sorry for the rant. It's just that I came to this perspective as a DM and found that it freed the players to focus on more interesting parts of the game, and I wish more of the DMs I met felt the same way.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Schmoe, post: 3359568, member: 913"] One of my pet peeves is DMs who aren't comfortable with "taking 10" and "taking 20". A Search check takes 6 seconds. That's a quick search. If someone wants to take the time to do a more thorough job, why disallow that? How do you model taking more time? The rules already provide a mechanic, alternately re-rolling 20 times or "taking 20", so why re-invent the mechanic? Taking 20 does not take away the risk of failure and doesn't give away "meta-game" information. Even if you take 20 on a Search check and don't find anything, that doesn't mean there's nothing to find. However, there's no penalty for not finding something, other than not finding it, so the situation is much different than, say, disarming a trap, where you may kill yourself before you successfully disarm it. Same thing for other skills, such as Use Rope. I can quickly tie someone up in 6 seconds and hope that I do a good job. Alternately, I can decide to take 2 full minutes to check the ties, tighten the knot, and verify that I've done the best that I can. Certainly, if I want to spend more time verifying the quality of my work, the quality of my work should be better. The tradeoff is time. I think that taking 20 is a brilliant mechanic that helps to speed along gameplay. Maybe it would help to think of it, instead of "taking 20", as "taking as much time as I need to so that I'm confident I couldn't have done a better job." Sorry for the rant. It's just that I came to this perspective as a DM and found that it freed the players to focus on more interesting parts of the game, and I wish more of the DMs I met felt the same way. [/QUOTE]
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