D&D 5E What 5E needs: Let it Ride and Make it Interesting...

[Ranganathan]

Let it Ride is a great rule that come from a few indie games but was popularized by Burning Wheel. It basically reads that unless the situation actually changes, don't make players roll several times for a single action. So sneaking into the castle, one roll, that's made after the character has moved into the castle. What's at stake (i.e. the roll) is if they were stealthy about it. No more rolling dozens of times just to do the same thing over and over, no more failing early and switching plans either.

Related to that is Make it Interesting, which simply means make success or failure of that one roll mean something, make the results interesting no matter what. That stealth roll? Not interesting every 5 squares when you're dozens of turns away from the castle. But it is very interesting if the roll, and results, are made/revealed once the character is inside the castle. A large section of dungeon lays on the far side of a locked door but the thief and fighter failed their attempts to gain access? That's boring, make it interesting. The guards hear them and open the door leading to an new situation, fight or flee, hide or stand...

Let it Ride and Make it Interesting. Please.

 

[Gold Roger]

That's DMing advice, not rules.

I'd like it in adventure design though. Really, even the best adventures I own rely to heavily on stale and choking resolutions for my taste.

 

[howandwhy99]

Let it ride manifested from the long, highly critical analysis of D&D by the indie theorists a decade ago. It operates under the assumption that many skill games use, that there are rolls that become cumulative Dice Pools where success is required for every die. Success is statistically improbable so sneaking or hiding, for example, is made ridiculous. That's not really how that stuff is done, but there are some people who played that way.

Make it interesting is really advice like "Be interesting when role playing". If there are multiple results possible, then you're probably rolling a die. Make sure each result is relevant really.

 

[pemerton]

Let it Ride and Make it Interesting. Please.

This is also being discused in this thread. Come and join in!

That's DMing advice, not rules.

I don't agree. Nor do I think the boundary between advice and rules is as clear as you're making out here.

But anyway, in BW Let It Ride is a rule. As the rulebook says, if a GM is calling for multiple checks, the players are expected to quote Let It Ride to make the GM stop. And vice versa, when it is players and not GMs who are check-mongering.

Making the consequences of failure interesting is closer to a guideline than a rule, but in BW it depends upon a rule - namely, that every action must have both a stated intent and a stated task whereby that intent will be achieved. The GM is then encouraged, in adjudicating failure, to focus more on intent than on task. (Eg if you failed you did what you wanted, but it didn't play out quite the way you expected!)

 

[KidSnide]

Let it Ride is a great rule that come from a few indie games but was popularized by Burning Wheel.

Much like taking 10 and 20 in 3.x, this strikes me as one of those really useful rules that can make skill gameplay a lot less annoying. Of course, skill challenges (mulligans on the 1st two failures provides a much greater chance for success) is the answer for this problem in 4e, but D&DN also needs a solution to the multiple-skill-check problem.

-KS

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Not only is Let it Ride a rule, it is a rule that requires mechanical underpinning. It can't be merely advice, though if the mechanical underpinning is there, you could then choose to treat Let it Ride as a rule, guideline, advice, or as a mere occasionally useful suggestion.

As I said in the other thread, I doubt it Let it Ride is perfectly adaptable to a d20, task-oriented system. But I know it is somewhat adaptable, because I use it every session in my 4E campaign.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

There was a really interesting thread on this some time back, which can be found here

I'm also going to paste in some Take-20ish mechanics I suggested that I think would be neat in the new edition.

I like to take "let it ride" one step further. The roll, i.e. the random number rolled by the player, stands forever, for the whole party. The players can change their fail roll to success by adding enough modifiers to achieve success with that original roll. E.g. a PC fails to move the rock, but when he comes back with friends and a crowbar the new modifiers may be enough to make the original roll a success. This eliminates some gaming of the system and makes intuitive sense to me. It's possible that additional time on the task will provide a modifier, but that's a DM call.

An idea I played with in my homebrew is that every skill check succeeds given enough time. The skill, difficulty, modifiers, and roll just tell you how long it tales to succeed. The player makes the roll, states how long he's going to work on it, and if it's enough time he succeeds. The player doesn't know how long the task will take until he achieves success. The penalty of course is time. The thief may be able to pick that lock in 6 hours, but if the area is crawling with wandering monsters, the resources required to stay at that location and get the job done may be prohibitive.

 

[BobTheNob]

I never knew about this line of logic. Interesting that its there.

What I leanred to do back in the 3e days was not to roll the players success, but to roll the difficulty. Want to pick that lock? Well, the lock came with a "base" which a d20 is then rolled and added to. That difficulty was only determined the first time something was attempted and was then permanent.

After that, skill was just compared to the difficulty. If your skill was high enough you could, otherwise you couldnt.

Found it much easier that way.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Sounds interesting. How would Let it Ride apply to a challenge that takes a long time, such as climbing a mountain?

Though it occurs to me that are different kinds of lengthy challenge. Crafting armor is a lot less interesting than scaling a peak, for example, though both take a long period of time in the game world.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Sounds interesting. How would Let it Ride apply to a challenge that takes a long time, such as climbing a mountain.

It is difficult to discuss without stakes and framing, and thus the consequences of failure.

First, it entirely depends on how big a scene you want it to be--or maybe even multiple scenes, if the mountain is the backdrop to other action. If this is a bit of a challenge before you get to the summit and start the next part of the adventure, it might be one roll (or in D&D, a set of rolls). Or you might have trudging on the lower slopes one thing, while navigating the snow near the peak is another thing. Let it Ride applies to the scene as framed, which means how you frame it determines how long the roll "rides".

(In Burning Wheel, you may also allow a roll to stand even when circumstances change, but the mod may change the outcome. You had enough success to climb the first part. Then the fight with the snow apes on the slopes damaged your equipment. You don't reroll the climb check, but your result is modified to show that your equipment is damaged. This is largely a matter of taste in d20 applications, since unlike BW, they don't have major resources embedded into the original roll. The closest in 4E would be someone using a daily power or item.)

Second, the way I handle something like climbing is to make modifiers to the roll(s), based on how long the climb is. Then the consequences of failure are agreed based on what those modifiers are.

For a simple example, there is a 150 foot, near sheer climb, with no good places to rest better than a narrow ledge with a piton hammered in. Failure is falling, the lower the overall roll, the higher up when the fall occurs. We might start with a +10 to the DC for this. Then the party deploys their ropes, climbing materials, magic, and so forth. There is no pressure in this example except the risk. So they take their time (+2 circumstance mod). But it's a long climb, so a group Endurance check is required (+2 or -2 depending on results). They probably choose to use a certain amount of their resources to mitigate failure (e.g. tie that poor wimpy wizard off with ropes). I'm probably leaving stuff out, but you get the idea.

It's all negotiated based on the fictional challenge and the resources the party brings to bear. Then whatever rolls are in that are rolled, including one climb check per character, to establish the baseline. You either make the climb without injury, you get hurt but the party gets you to the top anyway, or if everything really goes sour, someone might die. The Let it Ride part happens in that you don't call for the climb check multiple times.

For a more complex example, consider a 50' tower of rough stone, climbed at night, with guards on the walls. Failure is getting spotted (with predictable consequences). Sucess is getting over the wall without being spotted. Certainly, the climb check factors into success, as making an easy, quick climb minimizes exposure. But the main thing is the sneaky party. Unless someone rolls a 1 on their climb check, a failed check means that the person slides several feet (before someone's rope saves them from a fall), drops a piece of equipment, etc.

Now, to make the "Let it Ride" part more interesting, let's say that the tower is an outer wall, but the party needs to also climb down the wall on the inside, sneak across the court yard, and then climb a shorter wall into a third floor manor window (this being their plan). Here, there is still only one Climb check per character (though obviously other checks for being sneaky, observing the guard patrol, etc.) Make a good climb roll, you do the climbing part alright. Make it really well, you do it quickly, thus making it easier to be stealthy. Fail it, the other stuff gets harder, but you still get over the walls.