I appreciate that. Sorry if I came across as argumentative. Was there anything specific about my comment that bothered you? If my tone is sounding more confrontational than I mean it to, I’d like to try to fix that.
I think the issue was that both of us were approaching our statements in an argument format, and I fell into that pattern as a result, and perhaps came across as challenging your POV rather than trying to figure it out.
I’m getting the impression that “best effort” means something different to you than it does to me. But I’ll try to answer your questions.
I would say yes, it bothers me, because for some reason the check is “single-opportunity.” Why? If I don’t pick the lock after 10 minutes or however long the DM decides the attempt makes, what’s stopping me from just spending that much time trying it again (and again, and again, until I succeed)?
Nothing, if you’ve only got a single attempt worth of time.
I think I communicated poorly here. I was asking about the difference between rolling poorly when the roll represents a single attempt, and there is no time for another try. For instance, “fail on a 1” houserules break my immersion completely when they cause my character with a modifier higher than the DC to fail, even though he is so good at the thing that he could do it in his sleep. The d20 is too swingy for that to model anything believable.
No, because if you miss, you can try again on your next turn. Whereas, under what I’m calling “best effort,” you can’t just attempt to pick the lock again on the next interval of time that lock picking takes. As I understand it, the argument in favor of that resolution style is “you already did try again, that check represented your best effort.” And that is immersion breaking to me, because I cannot understand how a 2 out of 20 could possibly represent my character’s best effort. My character is literally capable of doing much better, so what gives?
so, yeah, that isn’t what best effort resolution refers to as I understand it. It’s not that you did the best job that you are hypothetically capable of doing, it’s that the roll represents you total efforts. The best you did
in that time was the die result.
So, the DM says, “okay make a check for a day of trying to get the lock open.”
You aren’t rolling to see how good you are in general, you are rolling to see whether you were able to perform at your top level, or if you just don’t have it that day. You’re rolling a single roll to represent many attempts.
It’s the same as an attack, in every way except the amount of time represented. Just like how some games will resolve a whole fight with one roll.
The net result of several sword strikes being represented by a single attack roll is not the thing I take issue with. I take issue with being told that I can’t take another several swings and get another attack roll, because the first one represented my best effort.
Of course, that never seems to happen in combat. For some reason, DMs who use “best effort,” only seem to apply it to skill checks.
Right, combat and out of combat resolution are always different in some ways. That can certainly lead to immersion issues related to consistency.
Right. I agree with this. The way to do that is to say “you (eventually) succeed.”[/quote] I disagree, but that’s fine. (For clarity, I think that “you succeed, and/but” with the “and/but” being determined by the die roll, is a better model)
I’m having trouble following this.
I wasn’t going to put it quite that bluntly because people who use this technique seem to object strongly to having it pointed out that it is contrary to 5e RAW, but yes, I agree. I also find it immersion breaking when DMs do that.
Right, if there is a roll there, it should be because the DM feels there is a consequence to rolling low.
In the example I gave, I was referring to the Xanathar’s Guide rules for downtime activities. Generally, if you want to mechanically resolve what happens as a result of spending the downtime gambling, you make 3 Ability checks with 1 or more proficiencies (skills, tools, etc). 1 success, 2 successes, and 3 successes all mean different things in terms of how the gambling played out.
This more closely models combat’s “many attacks in an Attack” method of resolution, but is also still pretty much a “best effort” resolution.
I disagree. They should be allowing me to pay the cost or risk the consequence of failure to try as many times as I like. Or, if there is no cost or consequence, they should be narrating my (eventual) success.
That’s what failing forward is, though.
Lastly, if your DM is treating that single die roll as immutable forever, they’re using that form of resolution wrong.
It’s meant to be your “best effort” within a specific span of time. Ie, “you didn’t crack it during the week of downtime you had, but you can try again next time you have some time to sit with it.”