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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6578189" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, there are 2 questions here. First, how does the character fail if he just keeps it up, surely he produces a boat at some point? If it really has no narrative stakes then success and failure are all of a kind anyway, so again why would you even make a check? I don't see how accomplishing rolling a d20 and getting a certain number is a big accomplishment that it matters. Its not a challenge even with a check!Secondly how does the CHARACTER know its infeasible? Do characters know DCs? Being ignorant of the process of boat making as he is its perfectly reasonable in my mind that he would set out to work on a project he cannot complete. Heck, I recall my father bought some plywood monstrosity from some guy that tried to build a boat, then he wrestled with it for years and found out HE COULDN'T EITHER, this kind of thing is part and parcel of life. D&D is really only about adventuring and downtime is merely a side concern. Sometimes downtime can be significant, but if it is then there's no reason why an SC can't govern something happening during it. I'd say anything significant is 'moving forward', as that is measured in terms of story-arc in some fashion. Even if the story-arc is simply "the things that the characters do" you'd surely make checks of some sort for the ones you thought were likely to alter the course of future play. 4e has the SC as a way to approach that is all. I think all the commentary on bias and etc that has gone before applies here. Yes, the PC could try to judge how long it will take the bad guy to build a boat. Of course in 4e the DM will have to determine that in SOME fashion as well, and the 4e PC can try to divine that too. Since we've agreed that the exact numbers aren't the prime thing here the DM can simply make up a reasonable-sounding number, there's no need to go do calculations using arbitrary numbers. And again, the SC raises its head. You don't need to decide how long the bad guy's boat building will take, the PCs can simply be told to go ahead and try to do whatever they need to do before the boat is finished, and the progression of the SC will stand in for any time constraint. This again focuses the drama on the players, tension is built by successes and failures, not guesses as to if the DM will give them enough time to do what they want.</blockquote>

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