Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 8795361" data-attributes="member: 1465">If you fail, you have to find another way.This is already a penalty, even when failure doesn't harm you directly or put a dent on your resources. It might anyway lead to wasting time, having to take a longer or more dangerous route, or even leading to an extra combat that could have been avoided.I don't roll checks only when there's a cost for failure. The reason I ask for a check is that I as a DM am undecided on what the outcome should be. There's a little fork in the story and I don't want to be the one to decide which way the story goes. Other times instead I do: especially in social encounters there is often a hidden 'code' or two that will let you get what you want without a chance for failure, if your intuition serves you well: maybe the queen has a personal story of family loss and will sympathise if one of the PC had the same, or maybe she has a secret lover and will concede if she feels her secret is in danger. When the players hit the right 'code' (pr have a brilliant idea of their own that catches me off guard and I find amusing) I go with an automatic success. This is typically beyond rules, no rules system ever works well in all circumstances because challenges are very varied and almost all systems make the mistake of wanting uniform solutions. Some systems however can really get in the way and worsen things. For example I am especially against systems that regulate 'retries'.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 8795361, member: 1465"] If you fail, you have to find another way. This is already a penalty, even when failure doesn't harm you directly or put a dent on your resources. It might anyway lead to wasting time, having to take a longer or more dangerous route, or even leading to an extra combat that could have been avoided. I don't roll checks only when there's a cost for failure. The reason I ask for a check is that I as a DM am undecided on what the outcome should be. There's a little fork in the story and I don't want to be the one to decide which way the story goes. Other times instead I do: especially in social encounters there is often a hidden 'code' or two that will let you get what you want without a chance for failure, if your intuition serves you well: maybe the queen has a personal story of family loss and will sympathise if one of the PC had the same, or maybe she has a secret lover and will concede if she feels her secret is in danger. When the players hit the right 'code' (pr have a brilliant idea of their own that catches me off guard and I find amusing) I go with an automatic success. This is typically beyond rules, no rules system ever works well in all circumstances because challenges are very varied and almost all systems make the mistake of wanting uniform solutions. Some systems however can really get in the way and worsen things. For example I am especially against systems that regulate 'retries'. [/QUOTE]

Verification