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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="pemerton" data-source="post: 9882117" data-attributes="member: 42582">Upthread, there were multiple posts about the use of Knowledge-type checks to learn backstory, or similar stuff. Reading stuff written in a strange language I think was one example; recognising a statue was another. You gave this illustration of the concern, in post 191:Or, alternately, "Eight". "No, you fail." And all that cool backstory/history the GM spent time inventing doesn't get appreciated by the players.I assume that the cool backstory/history you're talking about is stuff to do with the history of the dungeon, the reason why some dungeon-maker (or previous dungeon occupant) included a statue of X rather than of Y, etc. In that particular sentence, I don't think you were talking about picking locks. Or, if you were talking about picking locks, you were talking about picking the lock to the chamber where the statue, or the mysterious writing, or whatever, is to be found.And what I'm saying is that, if all that cool backstory/history matters in some way - eg if knowing it would give the players an advantage, say by allowing them to make preparations to help confront a challenging dungeon denizen - then the GM should be able to convey it to the players, in a more brutal fashion, when they fail or suffer for not having that information.Eg suppose that the players - perhaps because they fail a check to have their PCs read the secret writing, or to open the door to the room with the statue of Cthulhu in it - fail to learn about the Cthulhu cultists in the NW corner of the dungeon; in that case, when they get to that NW corner, they won't be ready for being mind-blasted. And then, when one of the cultists mind-blasts them, they learn the cool backstory/history the hard way.To me, at least, it seems that part of the skill of GMing is to use the material that the adventure writer has provided in your framing and your consequences.But if the adventure writer has included backstory/history that doesn't matter to anything - eg the dungeon-builder's mother was a furniture maker, but knowing that fact doesn't provide any advantage in actually doing stuff in the dungeon - then we seem to be once again looking at poorly-conceived/designed adventures.EDIT:Here's another bit where you talk about knowledge-type skill checks:The monologuing thing doesn't seem very interesting or exciting to me - it seems like mere colour - but I guess some people enjoy it.But in fairly classic dungeon play, I think the consequence for failing the knowledge check can manifest either immediately - misreading the runes triggers a curse, a soul-blast, whatever - or down the track, when you're not prepared for being mind-blasted.Whether the mechanic for being able to obtain the knowledge is a skill-check (say, the thief's Read Languages ability) or a memorised spell (a Comprehend Languages spell) or a magic item (say, a Helm of Comprehending Languages and Reading Magic) seems secondary - the classic dungeon-crawling game combines all of the above. When GMing Traveller in the past little while, where the information has been Imperial codes, I've used rolls modified by EDU skill: with a PC's backstory (of having served in the Imperial Navy) opening up the possibility of making the roll at all.</blockquote>

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