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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8752424" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I'm not [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] , but, while succinct, its not clear to me what you're trying to resolve with your question?Pemerton (I have to assume) used prays because (a) "that is what is happening in the fiction" and (b) that triggers going to the adjudication procedures and mechanics to resolve the declared action (in this case Religion check)?Something I threw into Discord yesterday that is relevant here (which dovetails with my checklist I listed above):I hope we can all agree that when it comes to situation framing and action resolution adjudication and consequences, these are the inputs that govern GM decision-making (changing to some degree depending upon the game):* game logic (consideration for compelling gameplay or game engine sensitivities)* drama logic (intersecting with a particular character’s dramatic needs or the game’s overriding premise)* genre tropes (the logic that intersects with theme and motif)* internal causality (naturalistic extrapolation of physical cause & effect within the imagined space)* social contract (whatever extra-game features that entails).So the situation has already been framed (some kind of D&D, 4e or 5e, combat) and has evolved to a point where a PC is at 0 HP and/or making Death Saving Throws. The player makes the improvised action outlined in the lead post "I pray to the gods to heal my friend" and provides whatever embelishment/extra details is required/asked of them.So now the GM has to go through the checklist (or matrix as some will converge and conflict) to govern their decision-making.  Mine would be as follows:* Game Logic - It doesn't cause the game engine to buckle (quite the contrary in fact given how suboptimal this is for an Extra Attack Fighter) and it leads to compelling gameplay.* Drama Logic - This is something that this player is signaling they care about.  They care about the possible course(s) that this could lead to with respect to faith/bonds/apotheosis with respect to the characters involved here (their PC, the PC they're trying to save, the god/patron/whatever, those beholding the event) because (a) they're declaring it in the first place and (b) they're sacrificing gamestate advantage (possibly significant gamestate advantage) to do so. Lets discover where this goes.* Genre Tropes - As I outlined above (in the post you xped), if this doesn't play to the romantic themes and motifs of a world shot through with miracles and desperate heroes finding hope/belief (or faltering) as they sacrifice for love/companions and rising and falling (physically, emotionally, ethically, and with respect to cosmological consequences) in the crucible of those precarious moments....then I don't know what does.* Internal Causality - Again...world filled with miracles and magic in breadth and in potency.  The idea that there has never been a (mundane) mother who has begged for the life of her dying child and had that answered (either overtly or indirectly) and legacy/apotheosis born out of such myth strikes me as an absurd contradiction and a brutally artificial and sterile world governed by the silly conventions of a TTRPG user interface meant to resolve play.  So...yeah, I find this move MUST be on the table for such a world to be even remotely plausible from an internal causality perspective.* Social Contract - Now this is table-specific stuff so I can't speak for other tables.  But every 4e/5e D&D game I've run (and off-brand D&D like Dungeon World, Stonetop, 13th Age, and the brutally unforgiving Torchbearer) could functionally interact with and resolve this action declaration and it wouldn't cause a "stink-eye" at those tables I've GMed.</blockquote>

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