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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bill Zebub" data-source="post: 9880693" data-attributes="member: 7031982">Somehow missed this.That's still not quite what I'm talking about.  In the approach I'm describing checks need to have risk.  There needs to be a downside to trying, either because it costs you something to try (such as using your turn in combat) or because failing has a cost (of which falling to your death is an extreme but illustrative example).  In other words, the decision should be a non-obvious choice."Can I roll to see if I can read the runes?" is an example of an obvious choice.  Why wouldn't you try?  (Which is why we end up having to make rulings like, "Um...no, you can't...because, um, well because the Wizard couldn't and he has more skills and higher intelligence, so if he can't then you can't.")Now, I agree that it becomes even more interesting if there are multiple ways of overcoming a challenge, and each of them has a different risk:reward profile.  Then the players have to weigh the likelihoods of succeeding vs. the cost of failing not just to each other, but to all the other options.But as long as the one option under consideration makes the players pause and ask, "Hmm...is it worth it?" then I think the minimum threshold has been met.EDIT: And note that I'm not really talking about skills here, I'm talking about dice rolls, checks.  Clearly skills can be compatible with this approach.  My beef with skills is that they tend to undermine this gameplay, because instead of going through all the trouble of defining a goal and an approach, and having the GM come up with risks/consequences, that skill on your character sheet....Lockpicking, Stealth, Arcana, Hunting, whatever...becomes a tempting shortcut to avoid the whole thing.  "Can I roll Arcana?"  "Um, sure."  "Seventeen."  "Ok, you succeed."*  And adventure writers, without even realizing (I think) fall into the same trap.  "If the characters succeed at a DC 15 Perception check...." etc.*Or, alternately, "Eight". "No, you fail."  And all that cool backstory/history the GM spent time inventing doesn't get appreciated by the players.</blockquote>

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