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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Harzel" data-source="post: 7111482" data-attributes="member: 6857506">My personal preference is to use the first method, but still allow the roll to drive the narration without retroactively changing or embellishing the PC's declared actions.  The way (or one way) to do this is to take advantage of the fact that even a world built with great attention to detail will inevitably be greatly underspecified; that is, there is much about the world that has not been determined.  The DM's job in this view is to invent new state for the world that is consistent with what has already been determined, including the PC's declared actions, but also is consistent with and explains the result of the die roll**.  Ideally, the explanation also makes the world a more interesting place and adds to the story.This new information about the world may be explicated in the narration through the reaction of an NPC or some other environmental factor, or it might only be hinted at, or it might for the moment remain purely a part of the DM's notes - something for the PCs to work at discovering if they are curious about the fact that, for instance in a social interaction, they said all the 'right' things (based on what they knew at that point), but still failed to get the result that they wanted.Doing this well is hard, or at least it seems that way to me, and I do not by any means claim that I do it well.  I just think it is an interesting thing to shoot for.** At least in the case that the die roll points to a result that an observer (particularly the PCs) would consider unlikely, which is what I think the OP was identifying as problematic.</blockquote>

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