Rolls determining reality a posteriori

[MoiMagnus]

While I mostly have D&D ability checks in mind, this question is more general than that.

Do you think the randomness of a roll only determines how good the character was at the task, or would you find it OK for a GM to also use this randomness to also determine all the unknown about the situation and fix them once and for all?

For example:

Clovis tries to understand the political context in which the temple they are exploring has been build. The GM fixes a somewhat average difficulty since they're uncertain if this check should be difficult or not. If Clovis rolls poorly, he doesn't remember it, and the GM decides that he never learnt anything about this temple as it was not covered by the books in his tutor's library, so trying again to remember will be useless. If he rolls good, then that's quite some luck that he happened to have read a book on this exact subject a few years ago, fact that he might use to remember some further informations latter.
Brutus tries to breaks its manacles. The GM might fix an average difficulty of the check. If you roll poorly, then you fail to break them, and the GM determine a reason for your failure, like the fact that those manacles are of high quality and essentially impossible to break appart, the reality is not "updated" with this fact and Brutus won't succeed at breaking the manacles even if he tries again. If you roll well, then you succeed and the metal was soft enough for you to break the manacles, and the GM might now "update" the reality accordingly.


What this is NOT about:
Clovis tries to remember something. The GM determines a difficulty for the check. After seeing the roll, the GM change the difficulty of the check to force a success or a failure. (Or alternatively, the GM didn't fixed a difficulty in the first place).
In other words, this is not a debate about the quantum ogre that the PCs will fight whatever the path they take or any other similar railroading.

So, what's this forum opinion about it? Do you hate how this stray away from simulationism, and think that a GM should determine the full extend of the situation before selecting a difficulty of a check? Or at the contrary to you like the possibility to justify the high randomness of some systems (like the d20 of D&D) by external factors that are not just the character's inability to be reliable? Do you find that it improves or sabotage narration?

[Frogreaver]

I think most people just don’t realize this is happening alot of the times the dm calls for a check.

I’m fine with it so long as it doesn’t lead into absurdity. Like a failed check to pick the lock ‘causes’ an earthquake that destroys that room. Stuff like that isn’t cool, but I think the result does mean some undefined fictional context normally gets added to the scene to explain the failure.

As long as it stays well grounded toward the task I actually prefer this to making PCs so incompetent that they fail because they just didn’t try their best.

[Melayl]

I would agree with the first example, but not the second. I, personally, would want to allow further attempts to break the manacles. Perhaps they didn't have a good stance or leverage the first attempt, or their foot slipped, or such (as a rationale).

[Psyren]

Brutus tries to breaks its manacles. The GM might fix an average difficulty of the check. If you roll poorly, then you fail to break them, and the GM determine a reason for your failure, like the fact that those manacles are of high quality and essentially impossible to break appart, the reality is not "updated" with this fact and Brutus won't succeed at breaking the manacles even if he tries again. If you roll well, then you succeed and the metal was soft enough for you to break the manacles, and the GM might now "update" the reality accordingly.


I'm going to speak mostly in a D&D context as that is what I know best. Focusing on the Brutus example, I find it difficult to put into words how much I abjectly loathe this approach to designing challenges specifically.


Probably preaching to the choir on this board, but in D&D 5e, ability check rolls are almost never at the player's option; rather, the player states what they want to do, and the DM is the one who determines whether a roll makes sense - first by asking themselves, is the desired task neither impossible nor trivial? If yes, then they ask, is there a reason the player can't simply roll over and over until they succeed? If it's possible and they can just retry with impunity, skip the roll. But if neither is the case, then call for a roll and narrate the results. (5e is not unique in this regard of course.)

So using the Brutus example, the DM - who both placed those manacles in the world in the first place and who knows Brutus' physical limitations - should know the answer to both questions. And knowing the answer to both of those, I would view calling for a roll for an impossible task to be a waste of time at best and taunting at worst. And the second follows on from that - if they fail the roll, declaring they only had the one shot and now reality has altered itself to justify their failure by saying they never had a chance to begin with - I find to be, if not outright mean-spirited, at the very least lazy. There are so many other more creative reasons you can employ to prevent retries of an attempt if that's what you're after, beyond putting the player in Schrodinger's Cuendillar/Livingsteel Manacles.

What I particularly dislike about this method is that more often than not it ends up screwing martials even more. There are a number of things that martials in 5e should be able to just do without needing to roll, especially as they go up in levels; A high level ranger shouldn't need to roll to quiet down a noble's guard dogs for instance, a barbarian shouldn't need to roll to climb a nondescript tree, a paladin shouldn't need to roll to have their warhorse jump a farmer's fence. By shrugging and saying "idk, roll" and then altering the farmer's fence to be the Black Gate of Mordor topped with barbed wire because the paladin rolled a two is just a middle finger to the player and would take me out of the game without fail.

TL;DR: Take the time to think about the obstacles being placed in your game ahead of time, and if you want them to be roll-worthy challenges, make them that way.

[False God]

Fine. Especially early on, as it establishes boundaries for both players and DMs, and can add plot hooks.

IE: in your first example, lets say I roll and fail. I never learned about the Big Bad Church of Darkness in my background. So in the future if questions about the BBCoD come up, if I haven't otherwise done some research*, I'll know, and them DM will know that I don't have this answer.
-Which helps establish narrative credibility, rather than simply giving the answer to any character who rolls well.
*This is the plot hook, now I have a little side-quest that if I want to have a better idea of how to deal with the BBCoD, I need to go learn about them.

Likewise, it can also establish that I DID learn about the BBCoD, and that info about the BBCoD are things that I may have answers to in the future. It becomes more reasonable if the DM (either by lowering my check or assigning me a bonus) continues to say "Yes, you knew about this." Rather than just having anyone at all who has no established reason to know it, blurting out the answer.

Later on as these things get established, both DM and player can fall back on them as guidance for how difficult checks are, who might know things, and how much they know about things.

IMO: as a DM, reality always starts out "in pencil" in my games. Until something comes up, there's no need to have developed a hard and fixed answer. I find this generally allows games to be more flexible with player interests and skills.

[Jay R]

Does it affect the continued play of the game?

Suppose there are two strong PCs. Brutus tries to break his manacles and fails, so the DM decides that they are high-quality manacles that cannot be broken. Then Diana has lost her chance to try.

But an explanation that is just flavor for the game description, and has no effect on the game? I don't care; I'm here to play, not to complain about narration style.

[Anonymouswizard]

Honestly I'm getting disillusioned on randomness as an inherent component of games, and think it would be better if Brutus's player had to decide if breaking out of the manacles is worth the cost of doing so.

In D&D5e it'll probably be something like 'gain a level of Exhaustion, but you can now start your escape without loads of guards around'.

But if you do roll the state of the game should change. I'm iffy about rolling at all in the first place compared to using passive [skill] with a +2 bonus for a relevant background. In the second case the roll isn't to break your manacles, it's to break out of them before something happens. Such as the guards coming to escort him to the torture chamber.

[KorvinStarmast]

Flippant suggestion:
Go back to a coin flip. :smallwink: Save your self the agonizing.

Actual answer:
Whatever keeps the game flowing and in context.

[RedMage125]

I would agree with the first example, but not the second. I, personally, would want to allow further attempts to break the manacles. Perhaps they didn't have a good stance or leverage the first attempt, or their foot slipped, or such (as a rationale).

I'm going to agree with this. Sometimes a low check just represents the idea that the character (while capable of succeeding) just failed this timeI.

There may be consequences to failed check though. Perhaps Brutus made a lot of noise clanging around in his manacles.

[Psyren]

Flippant suggestion:
Go back to a coin flip. :smallwink: Save your self the agonizing.

Seriously, this. Flip a coin and if the manacles come up unbreakable, just skip ahead in the narrative. If you want to procedurally generate your world this is much faster, and doesn't give Brutus any false hope.


Honestly I'm getting disillusioned on randomness as an inherent component of games, and think it would be better if Brutus's player had to decide if breaking out of the manacles is worth the cost of doing so.

In D&D5e it'll probably be something like 'gain a level of Exhaustion, but you can now start your escape without loads of guards around'.

Indeed. This is a good way to distinguish rolling (you get out right away without being tired) and not rolling (you get out eventually but now you have a cost for failing - being tired.)



But if you do roll the state of the game should change. I'm iffy about rolling at all in the first place compared to using passive [skill] with a +2 bonus for a relevant background. In the second case the roll isn't to break your manacles, it's to break out of them before something happens. Such as the guards coming to escort him to the torture chamber.

Correct. There's a reason for no retry (there is a limited window in which to make your attempt) and a meaningful consequence for failure (you're still shackled when they arrive.)


I'm going to agree with this. Sometimes a low check just represents the idea that the character (while capable of succeeding) just failed this timeI.

There may be consequences to failed check though. Perhaps Brutus made a lot of noise clanging around in his manacles.

If there are no consequences there's no need for a roll, because he's just going to keep trying.

If there are, then you can have those be the reason for him to roll rather than rolling to find out what the DM's world state is (presumably because they couldn't be bothered).

[mucat]

I would consider either approach kosher. The game world is inevitbly squishy, until facts are locked into place by appearing in the narrative. To say that a good GM will know every detail of the world in advance is both absurd and (imho) undesirable.

If it makes a better story for the roll to be "locked in" by newly discovered facts about the world and the past, great. If it makes a better story for a missed roll to be a momentary setback, that's great too. (Although unless time pressure is an issue, it raises the question of why the GM called for the roll at all, rather than just narrating, or letting the player narrate, the eventual success.)

Often, when neither of these approaches seems like an inherently better idea than the other, I'll merge "degrees of success/failure" with the squishy-world model. A modest failure -- say, within 5 points of succeeding -- means that with a little more time, the project could succeed. A decisive failure means the task is now impossible, either because the failed attempt broke or changed something, or because it turns out never to have been possible in the first place.

This assumes that the player trusts the GM to use this discretion wisely for the fun of everyone involved. But if that trust isn't there, why the hell are they playing at the same table in the first place?

I had one GM who took it further, and I really enjoyed the result. He would give a PC a new permanent perk or (if the player didn't mind) drawback as a souvenir of the memorable run of good or bad luck on the dice...and often these would be retroactive. I remember one character who racked up a streak of impressive Animal Handling rolls to befriend local cats. "You critically pet the cat. Again. Mark on your sheet that you're a cat whisperer." It came in handy a couple times when her devoted alley cat crew warned us of trouble.

Conversely, my mad surgeon who also considered himself a competent amateur violinist...wasn't. After several consecutive 1's and 2's on Perform (violin) checks, it was retroactively established that he had never been any damned good on the violin. Soon the rest of the PCs and our skyship's NPC crew were stealing his violins in self-defence, with Dr. Krauss acquiring a new thriftshop violin from each port we docked in, only for this one too to go mysteriously missing. It was way more entertaining than just saying "Substandard performance. Better luck next time."

[Grod_The_Giant]

Assuming that it's appropriate to roll in the first place, I think there is a place for this sort of retroactive explanation--to keep from humiliating the character. When someone fails a check that should be within their wheelhouse, I kind of like tweaking the scene to add an explanation that's not "well, you done goofed up." That way their image of their character as a badass [whatever] isn't tarnished.

Tried to swing from the chandelier and failed? You didn't lose your grip and fall, the whole chandelier gave way under your weight. Tried to restrain a sailor and failed? They didn't overpower you, an unexpected wave hit the ship and you had to stop and keep yourself from being knocked off the deck.

[farothel]

In the case of the manacles, in D&D 3.5 you had the take 20 option. If that is allowed for that skill or ability check then he should be allowed to try again. If not, than not. In the case of the first example (remembering) there it's clear that you can't retry (you either remember or not).

In the case of remembering, I don't have any problem with the GM post-hoc describing how or why he remembers and how the character learned this information (heard it, read it,...) depending on the character's background. This is actually a good way to bring the character's background into play. If the character was at a college of some sort, the GM can bring in that annoying professor you hated but who did impair some knowledge despite that.

[King of Nowhere]

I also would do it in the first case and not the second. In the second case, the character either can break the manacles given enough time, or cannot. I wouldn't ask a roll, unless there was a time crunch.

Generally, i am more prone to using such an explanation to justify an unlikely result; an untrained success thanks to a high roll, or an expert failing in his field of expertise.
But i rarely ask for rolls; more often i say "well, i see your character is very good at this, no need to roll".

[Vahnavoi]

The whole point of rolling dice, drawing cards etc. is to determine a detail you don't already know. Positing that the detail was determined a priori versus a posteriori does not make a practical difference. This is very simple to understand if you do consider a card drawn instead of a die roll for a moment: there's a card, face down, which tells you what happens as the result of an action. The writing on the card is already determined, flipping it face up won't change that, but since you do not know what's on it, it can only have its determined effect on your game after the fact of you flipping it and interpreting its result.

The actual distinction is in the detail you are trying to determine. Questions like "can Clovis understand this subject?" or "can Brutus break these manacles?" may have multiple valid answers, but which one you're looking for depends on what you don't already know about the situation. So why and what are you asking for? I'll focus on the latter example:

Do you know how tough the manacles are but don't know how strong Brutus is?

Do you know how strong Brutus is but don't know how tough the manacles are?

Do you know both how strong Brutus is AND how tough the manacles are, but think there might be some finicky detail that would add statistical uncertainty to the matter?

That last one is actually what "how good a character is at a task?" is. It's not a different kind of question from the first two - or rather, presuming it is requires presuming that rather than a die roll revealing some detail to explain what is happening in a game, it represents fundamentally unexplainable variance to each task.

In any case, fixing the result and deriving other effects from it is mostly a matter of applying logic to the answer you asked for:

If Brutus is not strong enough to break these manacles now, it follows he won't be strong enough to break them a minute later, or strong enough to break any other manacles of the same type, so on and so forth. No retries for Brutus until something about the situation changes.

If the manacles are too tough for Brutus to break, it follows no-one weaker than Brutus can break them either. So no retries for Brutus and no rolls for anyone weaker than Brutus either until something.

If the attempt fails because some failure in the moment by Brutus, like bad posture, then nothing follows. Brutus is allowed to try again because we presume he is going to change his approach a bit for subsequent tries. The unknown factor no longer is whether Brutus can break the manacles, it's how many tries it will take and whether he will give up before he succeeds.

The madness begins when you are not clear on what unknown detail you are trying to reveal, or when your game builds odd dependencies between things that usually aren't connected, or just never follow through.

For example, why would you add Brutus's strength modifier to Brutus's escape artist roll to determine how strong the manacles are?

Why would success on a roll answer that the manacles are weak, but failure on the same roll answer that Brutus is weak?

Or if you already rolled to determine Brutus isn't strong enough to break the manacles, why would you let a weaker character make the same kind of roll and randomly succeed?

Some games do one or both on purpose, some game masters end up doing one or both on accident simply because they don't pay attention to what they are describing or how. This leads to reversed causality or even outright contradictions. That's what you should be concerned with.

[Tanarii]

I would agree with the first example, but not the second. I, personally, would want to allow further attempts to break the manacles. Perhaps they didn't have a good stance or leverage the first attempt, or their foot slipped, or such (as a rationale).
Why? Is it because the first is mostly determening the state-of-the-character (did they ever learn something) but the second is mostly determining the state-of-the-world (are the manacles flawed)?

What if the second one was instead determine state-of-the-character: failure means the character isn't strong enough to break the manacles?
Or what if it was a check to pick a lock or disable a trap, and determined the character wasn't good enough to succeed?
Would it bother you less if retries weren't allowed in that case?

Note that in all examples, the world is being retroactively re-written or undecided details determined after the check succeeds or fails. It's just a matter of if the effect is limited to the character making the check or something external to them.

[NichG]

I'd prefer separate rolls for independent undecided things, rather than tying together multiple things with a single roll.

It doesn't matter in a one-off, but imagine a variation of the Brutus example where there are two characters who might try to pick a single lock of undecided quality, where those two characters have significantly different skill levels. If we use three rolls - one to determine the lock quality, one to determine the high-skill character's performance, one to determine the low-skill character's performance, then the success or failure chances of the low-skill character are independent of the order at which they attempt the lock. On the other hand, lets say the lock quality is also decided as part of skill check in order to narrate the reason for the success or failure. In that case, if the high skill character goes first and fails (and its determined to be 'because the lock is of surprising quality') and then the low skill character succeeds against the fixed DC, you get a more strained narrative than if the low skill character goes first and fails, followed by the high skill character. That only matters narratively and not mechanically, since the DC of the lock was fixed, but now what if after one character makes their attempt to pick the lock, someone else wants to try to break it with force? If the material of the lock can be decided by whether it was the high-skill or low-skill character who failed to pick it, then now the order of attempts actually had a mechanical impact due to the metagame process of resolution.

It's not a huge problem, but it's a subtle downside of that approach. Or you can intentionally play into it to make a very metagame/4th wall breaking campaign, with characters who actually say things like 'hey, let the amateur try to pick the lock first, that way its more likely to just be steel rather than adamantine' or 'lets find the most epic lockpicker we can and have him try to pick a bunch of locks until he rolls low, then harvest the failures for exotic materials'.

So as a baseline, unless I was specifically going for an effect like that, I'd rather roll separately to determine what kind of lock/manacles/etc it was. But I'd be fine with that separate roll taking place at the first moment where things like 'the quality of the lock' or 'the material the manacles are made of' becomes relevant.

[Xervous]

A is fine, B is weird. I’m much more likely to say that Brutus exhausted its options for the foreseeable future and will need to wait for circumstances to change to make another attempt. The result is not “nothing happens, get rekt nerd.” If you don’t catch the egg it hits the floor and breaks, if you don’t put out the fire all the logs burn, if you don’t escape the manacles the scene progresses. Changing scene details might permit more rolls (unobserved in manacles? Try again now), roll attempts might span multiple frames of a scene (unlocking the doom vault), subsequent roll attempts might take exponentially more time under the same circumstances (searching a library and exhausting the librarians’ helpfulness looking for some obscure material).

If there’s a roll involved, there’s something at stake (often time). My current group has been very consistent with putting themselves on the clock , so simply outlining how much time something will take to attempt tends to be enough to get the decision scales swinging.

[Psyren]

I would consider either approach kosher. The game world is inevitbly squishy, until facts are locked into place by appearing in the narrative. To say that a good GM will know every detail of the world in advance is both absurd and (imho) undesirable.

I don't think it's reasonable to need to know every single detail about the world in advance either. But if I put the barbarian in some manacles, I'm going to take a moment to think about whether it's possible for him to break them with brute force, because a barbarian trying to break their manacles with brute force is a common sense action to expect them to take. And if they're not possible to break, I'm going to narrate that if he tries (without asking for a roll) and then skip ahead to the next actual decision he gets to make.


If it makes a better story for the roll to be "locked in" by newly discovered facts about the world and the past, great. If it makes a better story for a missed roll to be a momentary setback, that's great too. (Although unless time pressure is an issue, it raises the question of why the GM called for the roll at all, rather than just narrating, or letting the player narrate, the eventual success.)

Often, when neither of these approaches seems like an inherently better idea than the other, I'll merge "degrees of success/failure" with the squishy-world model. A modest failure -- say, within 5 points of succeeding -- means that with a little more time, the project could succeed. A decisive failure means the task is now impossible, either because the failed attempt broke or changed something, or because it turns out never to have been possible in the first place.

"Broke or changed something" is a valid reason to disallow retries and one that I support.
"Never possible in the first place" should not have been a roll to begin with.


Assuming that it's appropriate to roll in the first place, I think there is a place for this sort of retroactive explanation--to keep from humiliating the character. When someone fails a check that should be within their wheelhouse, I kind of like tweaking the scene to add an explanation that's not "well, you done goofed up." That way their image of their character as a badass [whatever] isn't tarnished.

Tried to swing from the chandelier and failed? You didn't lose your grip and fall, the whole chandelier gave way under your weight. Tried to restrain a sailor and failed? They didn't overpower you, an unexpected wave hit the ship and you had to stop and keep yourself from being knocked off the deck.

I'm okay with both of these. The former falls under "broke or changed something" and therefore you can't retry. The latter is a combat scenario so there's a valid reason to call for a roll on every attempt (i.e. It's an opposed check, and the meaningful consequence for failure is built in.)


In the case of the manacles, in D&D 3.5 you had the take 20 option. If that is allowed for that skill or ability check then he should be allowed to try again. If not, than not. In the case of the first example (remembering) there it's clear that you can't retry (you either remember or not).

5e has it too, it just takes 10x as long instead of 20x (DMG 237). But if the manacles are impossible to break, then they'll still be impossible even if you do this.


In the case of remembering, I don't have any problem with the GM post-hoc describing how or why he remembers and how the character learned this information (heard it, read it,...) depending on the character's background. This is actually a good way to bring the character's background into play. If the character was at a college of some sort, the GM can bring in that annoying professor you hated but who did impair some knowledge despite that.

This is a good example of not calling for a roll either. If it's not possible for the character to have the knowledge in question - say, they're a barbarian who was quite literally raised by wolves as their background - saying "there's no way for your character to have learned this" before allowing a different PC with an educational background to roll is valid.

[farothel]

5e has it too, it just takes 10x as long instead of 20x (DMG 237). But if the manacles are impossible to break, then they'll still be impossible even if you do this.


If it isn't possible, then don't roll. Easy enough.



This is a good example of not calling for a roll either. If it's not possible for the character to have the knowledge in question - say, they're a barbarian who was quite literally raised by wolves as their background - saying "there's no way for your character to have learned this" before allowing a different PC with an educational background to roll is valid.

Absolutely. But depending on system, that barbarian won't have the knowledge skill and as you can't roll those untrained, he won't be able to roll anyway.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I tend to conceptualize ability checks more as "can X do Y under circumstances Z/without incurring cost Z'" rather than "can <abstract person> do Y" shorn of context.

So for both of the examples

1) It's not did you ever learn this, it's can you recall this information under pressure. As long as it's not impossible for the person to have learned the fact (in which case there'd not be a roll at all), they can try. But the DC will vary based on
a) what is being recalled (this is the context-free part)
b) and what is providing the pressure and interesting consequences.
Remembering an ancient elven house's motto so you can push the sigils in the right order as the room fills with poison gas is a very different check than recalling the same ancient elven house's motto while trying to impress a girl at a bar. And both are very different than trying to recall those same words while sitting in your easy chair in your extra-dimensional safe house (this one wouldn't need a roll at all, being auto-success). And someone whose background is "Scholar of ancient elven houses" is going to need a heck a ton larger pressure to even justify a roll at all, compared to an ordinary adventurer who has poked around and heard stories.

2. Instead of "Can Bill ever break the manacles", it's "Can Bill break the spiked manacles without substantial injury to himself?" or "can Bill break the manacles before the guard returns with the drugs?" etc. In the absence of the outside circumstances that prevent retry, the only issue is "is Bill's STR modifier >= 0"

And note that failure to reach the DC might just mean that he succeeds at a cost. Or partially succeeds (in case 1, that might be recalling all of the words but not the precise intonation, so the girl isn't as impressed as she might be).

The state of the world is fixed. It might not be known (even to the DM), but a PC's actions can't set what was ultimately possible. The tree had a particular configuration of limbs whether you were going to climb it or not. And deciding what that configuration of limbs was is (part of) what sets the DC in the first place. The rarity of the information (case #1) is a factor in setting the DC in the first place, as is the strength of the manacles and the environment (bricks, leverage points, etc) in case #2.

[kyoryu]

Why? Is it because the first is mostly determening the state-of-the-character (did they ever learn something) but the second is mostly determining the state-of-the-world (are the manacles flawed)?

What if the second one was instead determine state-of-the-character: failure means the character isn't strong enough to break the manacles?
Or what if it was a check to pick a lock or disable a trap, and determined the character wasn't good enough to succeed?
Would it bother you less if retries weren't allowed in that case?

Note that in all examples, the world is being retroactively re-written or undecided details determined after the check succeeds or fails. It's just a matter of if the effect is limited to the character making the check or something external to them.

I don't think it's a matter of the world being "re-written". It's more a matter of "undetermined things becoming determined".

It's more idiotmatic in more traditional games to have those be separate checks, while in narrative games those are usually boiled together.

Functionally, they're almost identical. In some cases, they are except for presentation - for instance "is there someone here I know?" is usually handled in traditional games by some kind of roll by the GM based on a lot of loose factors, while in a narrative game it's more player-facing - but either way you're rolling to determine if there's someone there. Note that presentation does matter, of course.

Similarly, "can I find a gun in these crates" is pretty similar - if the GM already knows the contents, then no, you can't.

If the GM doesn't know the contents, in a traditional game, the GM might determine a likelihood and roll a percentile, while in a more narrative game, they'd allow for a search roll at a particular difficulty.

I do agree 100% with [b]PhoenixPhyre[b]'s "can X do Y under circumstances Z/without incurring cost Z'" framing, though.

The usual solution for the "multiple attempts" issue is basically "don't let them, and the roll encompasses what they're doing until something happens that changes the situation". Let other people provide bonuses, but unless you're using a strict time-keeping system (ala 1e), the expert tries the lock until they succeed, they get caught, or there's no time left.


The whole point of rolling dice, drawing cards etc. is to determine a detail you don't already know. Positing that the detail was determined a priori versus a posteriori does not make a practical difference. This is very simple to understand if you do consider a card drawn instead of a die roll for a moment: there's a card, face down, which tells you what happens as the result of an action. The writing on the card is already determined, flipping it face up won't change that, but since you do not know what's on it, it can only have its determined effect on your game after the fact of you flipping it and interpreting its result.

The actual distinction is in the detail you are trying to determine. Questions like "can Clovis understand this subject?" or "can Brutus break these manacles?" may have multiple valid answers, but which one you're looking for depends on what you don't already know about the situation. So why and what are you asking for? I'll focus on the latter example:

Do you know how tough the manacles are but don't know how strong Brutus is?

Do you know how strong Brutus is but don't know how tough the manacles are?

Do you know both how strong Brutus is AND how tough the manacles are, but think there might be some finicky detail that would add statistical uncertainty to the matter?

That last one is actually what "how good a character is at a task?" is. It's not a different kind of question from the first two - or rather, presuming it is requires presuming that rather than a die roll revealing some detail to explain what is happening in a game, it represents fundamentally unexplainable variance to each task.

In any case, fixing the result and deriving other effects from it is mostly a matter of applying logic to the answer you asked for:

If Brutus is not strong enough to break these manacles now, it follows he won't be strong enough to break them a minute later, or strong enough to break any other manacles of the same type, so on and so forth. No retries for Brutus until something about the situation changes.

If the manacles are too tough for Brutus to break, it follows no-one weaker than Brutus can break them either. So no retries for Brutus and no rolls for anyone weaker than Brutus either until something.

If the attempt fails because some failure in the moment by Brutus, like bad posture, then nothing follows. Brutus is allowed to try again because we presume he is going to change his approach a bit for subsequent tries. The unknown factor no longer is whether Brutus can break the manacles, it's how many tries it will take and whether he will give up before he succeeds.

The madness begins when you are not clear on what unknown detail you are trying to reveal, or when your game builds odd dependencies between things that usually aren't connected, or just never follow through.

For example, why would you add Brutus's strength modifier to Brutus's escape artist roll to determine how strong the manacles are?

Why would success on a roll answer that the manacles are weak, but failure on the same roll answer that Brutus is weak?

Or if you already rolled to determine Brutus isn't strong enough to break the manacles, why would you let a weaker character make the same kind of roll and randomly succeed?

Some games do one or both on purpose, some game masters end up doing one or both on accident simply because they don't pay attention to what they are describing or how. This leads to reversed causality or even outright contradictions. That's what you should be concerned with.

All of this. I do think it's a good idea to make sure you never contradict anything that's established already.

IOW, there's three categories of things in an RPG:

1) Things we've established as true/existing
2) Things we've established as not true/not existing
3) Things we haven't established

That third category exists, and exists in every game. We just don't think about it much, and some people like to give themselves the illusion that it doesn't exist (on both sides of the screen). But it does, and how you deal with that is important.

Like in the crates example above, if the GM has determined there's weapons, then the roll is just encompassing "am I quick enough at finding them". If the GM has determined there's not, then there's not, and any roll is just for show. But a lot of times the GM hasn't decided yet, and so they either need to make a decision on the fly by fiat, or roll to see. That's that third category.

Though even when acknowledging that category, I do think it makes sense in most cases to try to present the facade of a pre-existing world as much as possible. Rolls "determining things" should only determine things in the third category.

Note that I'm not saying people not liking the "combined" rolls are wrong. It's perception and expectations, and those things are real. I'm just offering a way to reconcile that, if they want.


I don't think it's reasonable to need to know every single detail about the world in advance either. But if I put the barbarian in some manacles, I'm going to take a moment to think about whether it's possible for him to break them with brute force, because a barbarian trying to break their manacles with brute force is a common sense action to expect them to take. And if they're not possible to break, I'm going to narrate that if he tries (without asking for a roll) and then skip ahead to the next actual decision he gets to make.

Well, probably, but this is an example of a class of situations, and we can acknowledge that class exists even if its applicability to this concrete example may be unlikely. Or at least start "assuming the GM had a brain fart and didn't explicitly determine the condition of the manacles in advance...."


"Broke or changed something" is a valid reason to disallow retries and one that I support.
"Never possible in the first place" should not have been a roll to begin with.

Too many GMs are unwilling to just say "no that won't work". It's a useful tool. Learn to love it.

[Psyren]

If it isn't possible, then don't roll. Easy enough.

Indeed. Sounds like we agree.


Absolutely. But depending on system, that barbarian won't have the knowledge skill and as you can't roll those untrained, he won't be able to roll anyway.

Technically you can even in 3.5, but it has to be DC 10 or lower. As stated in my first post though, I'm mostly focusing on 5e here since that is more explicit about asking for rolls being the DM's province.


Well, probably, but this is an example of a class of situations, and we can acknowledge that class exists even if its applicability to this concrete example may be unlikely. Or at least start "assuming the GM had a brain fart and didn't explicitly determine the condition of the manacles in advance...."

Sure, no DM is immune from brain farts, but those are ultimately mistakes to be avoided rather than an expected/encouraged playstyle.


Too many GMs are unwilling to just say "no that won't work". It's a useful tool. Learn to love it.

Indeed. Sounds like we agree.

[Catullus64]

An interesting question! I use both approaches with roughly equal frequency, but I perhaps lean on the, as you put it, a posteriori method a little bit more. Firstly, it's more of an inventive exercise as the DM to come up with complications and unseen factors that intervene in a scenario, than to say "guess you can't do this even though you succeeded at an identical task yesterday."

The dice rolls, for me, aren't about randomness and variation within a character's abilities, they're a kind of fog-of-war for narrative drama. They're a controlled participant in the story, and if they're not permitted to add anything to the narrative of what's going on I think they're diminished in value.

Usually I assume that the dice result represents a character's best efforts at a given task (combat necessarily changes this, of course), hence avoiding the problem of endless retries. But I try to avoid scenarios where endless retries are feasible anyhow.

While I generally concur about not calling for rolls on impossible tasks, there are always exceptions. Sometimes the fact that a given task is impossible shouldn't be immediately obvious; sometimes it makes sense to mask that fact. For isntance, if the players are allowed to roll until they roll extremely well and still fail, it can serve as a good clue that there's something else going on here. It's for this reason I wish 5e had reintroduced the concept of "taking 20."

I do think that many Dungeon Masters would do well to open themselves up to random chance as a story element. By having important actions succeed or fail according to a roll of the dice, you kind of accept that you're telling a story in which chaotic things happen, and success or failure often comes down to factors beyond individual control. There are lots of fun adventure stories that can be told with that philosophy, if DM and players both embrace it.

[kyoryu]

Sure, no DM is immune from brain farts, but those are ultimately mistakes to be avoided rather than an expected/encouraged playstyle.

I don't think that's a fair statement of my point.

My point is that there are always going to be unknowns, and so thinking of it from that point is useful, rather than treating unknowns as some kind of weird edge case. This is especially true if you're giving your players a lot of agency, as that means you have to improvise a bunch more as players may not go down the "prepared" path (if there even is a "prepared" path).

So, no, you shouldn't assume brain farts, but for the purpose of that particular example, if you want to state "that should have been prepared in advance" I'm not even going to argue that, but the example is still usable if you presume that for some reason that wasn't determined in advance, even if it should have been.


Indeed. Sounds like we agree.

I run a lot of Fate, which leans heavily on permissions.

[Psyren]

My point is that there are always going to be unknowns, and so thinking of it from that point is useful, rather than treating unknowns as some kind of weird edge case. This is especially true if you're giving your players a lot of agency, as that means you have to improvise a bunch more as players may not go down the "prepared" path (if there even is a "prepared" path).

So, no, you shouldn't assume brain farts, but for the purpose of that particular example, if you want to state "that should have been prepared in advance" I'm not even going to argue that, but the example is still usable if you presume that for some reason that wasn't determined in advance, even if it should have been.


And my point is that "I put the PC in manacles" isn't something you should be improvising. Manacles are not naturally occurring. (https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/07/29/it-looks-delicious)

You're already taking away the PC's agency by employing restraints in the first place; thinking one step beyond that to "they're probably going to try to break out of these restraints" should be encouraged.

[kyoryu]

And my point is that "I put the PC in manacles" isn't something you should be improvising. Manacles are not naturally occurring. (https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/07/29/it-looks-delicious)

You're already taking away the PC's agency by employing restraints in the first place; thinking one step beyond that to "they're probably going to try to break out of these restraints" should be encouraged.

They can be in manacles because they went somewhere you didn't plan on (their choice), and events happened in such a way that they reasonably would have been captured and put in manacles. So yeah, you can have manacles without having prepped it prior to the session.

Yes, in that case, you should probably think about it in advance, but that doesn't change the fact that there are many scenarios where you won't have an answer pre-prepared. Even if you can argue that in this case, it should have been, that's not always the case.

[Luccan]

I do the first one because it's a more binary situation: you know or you don't. With potential levels on what all you know by degree of success, but if you fail you just don't know. In the second situation I apply context to limit retries. The manacles aren't unbreakable and if you're in a situation you can retry, go ahead. But the guard might hear you or if you take too long you won't escape to stop the ritual. If there's no consequence for failing the manacle breaking and they could reasonably do so, I just assume they have time to do it and skip rolling over and over. I may do one roll to get a rough idea of if it takes them a while.

[Psyren]

They can be in manacles because they went somewhere you didn't plan on (their choice), and events happened in such a way that they reasonably would have been captured and put in manacles. So yeah, you can have manacles without having prepped it prior to the session.

Yes, in that case, you should probably think about it in advance, but that doesn't change the fact that there are many scenarios where you won't have an answer pre-prepared. Even if you can argue that in this case, it should have been, that's not always the case.

I'm talking about manacles specifically. Obviously for other scenarios, I would judge the reasonableness of not having given them any thought beforehand on a case-by-case basis. But the rational response to "your character is forcibly placed into restraints" is "I want out of the restraints" so expecting a DM to think about that ahead of time is not outlandish.


I do the first one because it's a more binary situation: you know or you don't. With potential levels on what all you know by degree of success, but if you fail you just don't know. In the second situation I apply context to limit retries. The manacles aren't unbreakable and if you're in a situation you can retry, go ahead. But the guard might hear you or if you take too long you won't escape to stop the ritual. If there's no consequence for failing the manacle breaking and they could reasonably do so, I just assume they have time to do it and skip rolling over and over. I may do one roll to get a rough idea of if it takes them a while.

Yes.

[Tanarii]

I don't think it's a matter of the world being "re-written". It's more a matter of "undetermined things becoming determined".I'm not clear on your point (even with the follow up text I shipped for previously. Both are an example of determining something that was previously undetermined, effectively rewriting the world.

The difference is one is mostly rewriting the part of the world that is the character, with some possible implications related to how and where they learned the thing. And the other is rewriting the world that is the manacles ... unless you choose to instead reframe it in terms of the character.

And yet, despite that, ability checks for state-of-the-character are generally far more acceptable to people than state-of-the-world.

[kyoryu]

I'm not clear on your point (even with the follow up text I shipped for previously. Both are an example of determining something that was previously undetermined, effectively rewriting the world.

The difference is one is mostly rewriting the part of the world that is the character, with some possible implications related to how and where they learned the thing. And the other is rewriting the world that is the manacles ... unless you choose to instead reframe it in terms of the character.

And yet, despite that, ability checks for state-of-the-character are generally far more acceptable to people than state-of-the-world.

I don't think we're disagreeing that much, actually.

I just don't think that establishing something that was undecided is "rewriting". It's just writing, compared to changing something that was already established.

[Tanarii]

I don't think we're disagreeing that much, actually.

I just don't think that establishing something that was undecided is "rewriting". It's just writing, compared to changing something that was already established.Uh ... agreed. Looking back, that's why I used both terms. Because there is a difference between the two and different people might have different tolerances for one or the other.

The thing I was trying to focus on was character vs world.

[Vahnavoi]

And yet, despite that, ability checks for state-of-the-character are generally far more acceptable to people than state-of-the-world.

As discussed in my and NichG's replies, maybe the reason is because they're ability checks.

Rolling to see what the weather is, what kind of treasure is found, where and what enemies are present, what terrain is ahead etc. are classic state-of-the-world checks and generally unobjectionable expect to people who really hate procedural generation. You can replace rolling with improvization, drawing cards or whatever else.

It gets weird when you make the check dependent on something that it normally or intuitively isn't.

Or, again, this time with emphasis: why would you add Brute's strength score to Brute's escape artist roll to check how tough the manacles are?

Or, for contrast: presume two games, both of which use a character's perception ability as a modifier for state-of-the-world check to see if there are encounters during a night's watch. In one game, a good perception ability decreases number of encounters. In the other, good perception increases the number of encounters. Mechanically, the only difference is if a modifier is positive or negative. What difference does this make?

Well, in one game, if you don't want to get attacked at night, you have the most perceptive person take watch. You can presume all the creatures that would attack a less perceptive person are still there, just scared away by the perceptive character's vigilance.

In the other game, if you don't want to get attacked at night, you have the least perceptive person take watch, or possibly place no watches at all. A causal relationship has been inverted: rather than your ability to notice danger helping to keep you safe, it now directly places you in danger.

[Easy e]

I do both, and decide on whatever sets the right pace and tone for the game.

[kyoryu]

As discussed in my and NichG's replies, maybe the reason is because they're ability checks.

Rolling to see what the weather is, what kind of treasure is found, where and what enemies are present, what terrain is ahead etc. are classic state-of-the-world checks and generally unobjectionable expect to people who really hate procedural generation. You can replace rolling with improvization, drawing cards or whatever else.

It gets weird when you make the check dependent on something that it normally or intuitively isn't.

Or, again, this time with emphasis: why would you add Brute's strength score to Brute's escape artist roll to check how tough the manacles are?

Or, for contrast: presume two games, both of which use a character's perception ability as a modifier for state-of-the-world check to see if there are encounters during a night's watch. In one game, a good perception ability decreases number of encounters. In the other, good perception increases the number of encounters. Mechanically, the only difference is if a modifier is positive or negative. What difference does this make?

Well, in one game, if you don't want to get attacked at night, you have the most perceptive person take watch. You can presume all the creatures that would attack a less perceptive person are still there, just scared away by the perceptive character's vigilance.

In the other game, if you don't want to get attacked at night, you have the least perceptive person take watch, or possibly place no watches at all. A causal relationship has been inverted: rather than your ability to notice danger helping to keep you safe, it now directly places you in danger.

I don't think of it as two separate checks, in general. I think of it as a simple question - in the case of the manacles, "does the character escape the manacles?" Why is left as a separate question, up to GM discretion. Combining them doesn't matter in this case that much, becuase the end result is the same - does the character escape?

In the guard case, there is absolutely a difference. "Failing" means very very different things depending on whether or not there is an attack or not.

If it's not really one outcome, it shouldn't be one roll. "Did I find weapons in the boxes" is one question - whether it's because you failed at finding them, or because there weren't any, doesn't change the outcome - you didn't get a weapon. Or maybe another way of putting it is that in one case the "state" being "queried" is all a contributing factor to the end result, rather than something more orthogonal. Yeah, you can explode those into more than one question, but you can collapse them into a single question as well.

You can't collapse "is there an attack, and do they see it?" into one question in any reasonable way.

So, in other words, you're right. This technique doesn't work in that case at all. But that doesn't mean it fails in all cases.


Uh ... agreed. Looking back, that's why I used both terms. Because there is a difference between the two and different people might have different tolerances for one or the other.

The thing I was trying to focus on was character vs world.

Makes sense. I just prefer to ignore the "rewriting" part because it's an often-used strawman, and I don't know any games that actually allow rewriting previously-established things. Games do allow establishing of previously-unestablished things (including things that happened in the past), but I don't know of anything that lets you change something that we have positively established already.

So yeah, my focusing on that was probably just a tic from past discussions, and I apologize for that.

[NichG]

I don't think of it as two separate checks, in general. I think of it as a simple question - in the case of the manacles, "does the character escape the manacles?" Why is left as a separate question, up to GM discretion. Combining them doesn't matter in this case that much, becuase the end result is the same - does the character escape?

In the guard case, there is absolutely a difference. "Failing" means very very different things depending on whether or not there is an attack or not.

If it's not really one outcome, it shouldn't be one roll. "Did I find weapons in the boxes" is one question - whether it's because you failed at finding them, or because there weren't any, doesn't change the outcome - you didn't get a weapon. Or maybe another way of putting it is that in one case the "state" being "queried" is all a contributing factor to the end result, rather than something more orthogonal. Yeah, you can explode those into more than one question, but you can collapse them into a single question as well.


In isolation this makes sense, but when you take into account that the players will continue to act in the scenario, that's when you start to see things matter.

E.g. the outcome isn't just 'you didn't get a weapon', it's 'you didn't get a weapon (and no one will be able to either)' or 'you didn't get a weapon (but maybe someone else will be able to if they try)'. That's when the order of action starts to matter, which may be a desired feature or not a desired feature, but it at least is something you should be aware of. That doesn't mean 'never do it', it just means 'be aware that this can be a consequence of deciding to resolve things this way, and decide based on that whether that's what you actually intended'.

I had a game where this was actually an intended feature. It didn't have to do with random rolls, but rather the order of invention of ideas. There was a sort of combinatorial invention system that let you sort of 'systematize' Tier 1 technologies from a basic idea, Tier 2 technologies from combinations and modifications of Tier 1 technologies, and Tier 3 from Tier 2 and Tier 1 techs. The system capped out at Tier 3. However, depending on how you conceptualized the starting point, anything could be a Tier 1 technology. So someone could build 'time travel tech' as Tier 1 if they e.g. found a raw natural phenomenon enabling time travel in the world. Or, if they had to get there in stages, it could end up being Tier 3 or just totally unreachable. So the order of discoveries, the order of decisions to take something and systematize it, etc, mattered, and that was an intentional part of gameplay, something which the players were aware of and had to take into account.

If that were accidental, it could be really frustrating or end up in an unexpected exploit. An example of this is the 7th Sea character generation system, where you can either buy skill ranks directly or buy these sorts of packets of associated skills in the form of professional backgrounds. Backgrounds would raise skills to a minimum level but not past it, whereas directly buying ranks would cost points per rank. The exact same skill sheet could end up costing different amounts of character points depending on the specific order in which you took things during character generation. It rewarded system mastery in a way, but not necessarily in a way that corresponded at all to the intended fiction.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If that were accidental, it could be really frustrating or end up in an unexpected exploit. An example of this is the 7th Sea character generation system, where you can either buy skill ranks directly or buy these sorts of packets of associated skills in the form of professional backgrounds. Backgrounds would raise skills to a minimum level but not past it, whereas directly buying ranks would cost points per rank. The exact same skill sheet could end up costing different amounts of character points depending on the specific order in which you took things during character generation. It rewarded system mastery in a way, but not necessarily in a way that corresponded at all to the intended fiction.

CF 3e skill ranks, where to know if you had the right number above level 1 you had to know the entire history of the character because changes weren't retroactive. Makes for a right royal pain to track/audit for very little benefit. Plus weird things where X M/Y N had radically different skill points if you did X 1/Y 1...N or if you did Y 1/X 1/Y 2/X 2... or other methods.

[Vahnavoi]

You can't collapse "is there an attack, and do they see it?" into one question in any reasonable way.

So, in other words, you're right. This technique doesn't work in that case at all. But that doesn't mean it fails in all cases.


You can collapse them into a single roll and a lot of games do this. As for whether it's reasonable, it's sort of my point to showcase how this sort of game design can lead to something that seems unreasonable based on nothing more than sign of an integer.

For a more common example of such depency: see common advice to "only roll when there are consequences!"

Where's the weirdness? Well, a real risk evaluation matrix typically has two axes, one for frequency of risk, and other for severity of risk being realized - because it's understood there isn't necessarily a direct relation between the two. Imagine a boat sailing over warm shallow water versus icy deep water. As the boat moves from one water area to the other, it can be reasonably said that the severity of falling from the boat grows - but if other sailing conditions remain the same, it's not clear anyone is more likely to fall from the boat.

However, in a game, if players are advised to roll "when there are consequences!", this gives the impression that rolling, and hence introducing chance of failure, is more justified over icy deep water than warm shallow water. Generalized across all tasks, this creates a more linear and direct relationship between frequency of risk and severity of risk than might be warranted.

Another example: fumbles, or rather, one reason people hate them.

Some systems tie fumbling to auto-fail. So, for any die roll, you have flat chance of failure, and hence fumbling. However, at the same time, they make a more skilled character roll more dice (by making more attacks etc.), which as function of multiplied probability means the skilled character experiences auto-fail and hence fumbling more often.

[olskool]

As discussed in my and NichG's replies, maybe the reason is because they're ability checks.

Rolling to see what the weather is, what kind of treasure is found, where and what enemies are present, what terrain is ahead etc. are classic state-of-the-world checks and generally unobjectionable expect to people who really hate procedural generation. You can replace rolling with improvization, drawing cards or whatever else.

It gets weird when you make the check dependent on something that it normally or intuitively isn't.

Or, again, this time with emphasis: why would you add Brute's strength score to Brute's escape artist roll to check how tough the manacles are?

Or, for contrast: presume two games, both of which use a character's perception ability as a modifier for state-of-the-world check to see if there are encounters during a night's watch. In one game, a good perception ability decreases number of encounters. In the other, good perception increases the number of encounters. Mechanically, the only difference is if a modifier is positive or negative. What difference does this make?

Well, in one game, if you don't want to get attacked at night, you have the most perceptive person take watch. You can presume all the creatures that would attack a less perceptive person are still there, just scared away by the perceptive character's vigilance.

In the other game, if you don't want to get attacked at night, you have the least perceptive person take watch, or possibly place no watches at all. A causal relationship has been inverted: rather than your ability to notice danger helping to keep you safe, it now directly places you in danger.

This is my take on it as well.

Lindybeige had a video on what a dice roll means asking this very same question. He postulated that a successful dice roll to climb a wall could mean that you easily negotiated that obstacle and would NEVER have to roll for it again. In essence, you established the ABILITY to ALWAYS climb that wall. I DISAGREE with this and here is a real-world example of why. In the 90s, I was in my Uncle Sam's employ. We were in training doing some rappelling and "fast-roping." For the uninformed, fast roping uses a thick rope that you slide down WITHOUT being attached to said rope (unlike rappelling). I had fast-roped about a hundred times before. This time I lost my grip on the rope and fell. Yes, Virginia, I was hurt... BADLY. I recovered and went back to practice fast-roping to get over my new phobia of falling from a height. After a bit of work, I was back in the saddle doing "Air Assault" things. I NEVER fell again. By the "die roll modifies the world" approach, I would not have been able to ever fast-rope off of our training tower again because my failure had "set the standard" for that obstacle.

Think of the same thing in terms of cooking an egg for breakfast. You have done it a THOUSAND times. Today, however, you are distracted while cooking and BURN your egg. Does that mean that either you will now burn your egg forever or that anyone else cooking eggs from that carton will burn theirs too? That seems odd to me.

In my world-building, the DC is fixed and only changes IF environmental factors change it. Thus I would set the DC for the manacles at, perhaps a DC of 20 and EVERYONE would have to roll that. One thing I will do is give a bonus to the roll IF the player describes an action that I deem could modify the chance of success. IF the PC wrapped the chain of those manacles around a nearby beam and then used their body weight... say by either by hanging off of the beam [vertically] putting added strain on the chain or by using their legs to push off of the beam and "stretch" the chain using the longest muscles in their body, I'd give the PC a bonus to the attempted roll to break the manacles. This is dependent on the PLAYER'S description of their PC's action. Another way to reduce your DC is to do something repetitively for a long time. IF YOUR PC has been jumping over a certain fence every day for TEN YEARS, HIS DC might be a 5 or even a 2. The city guard who is chasing him would still have the default DC of 10 because he has no experience with that fence.

That's just my personal take on using die rolls to modify the world.

[Pex]

The elephant in the room not mentioned: We're presuming no DM malice.

I'm fine with either. For experienced DMs it's a style preference. A novice DM can also have a preference, but I would hope he understood the alternative and just chose which way he likes.

In my opinion a good concept for a DM to learn is for a given task it's possible the PC can always do it successfully. The only question is how long it takes. The die roll determines that. In 5E terms, if a success it happened that Action. If a failure the PC still succeeded, but it took extra time than normal or expected. If the time it took didn't matter hopefully the DM would understand a roll wasn't needed.

However, I'm also fine with a PC cannot reattempt a failure. It's what I grew up with and was the official rule in D&D past. Fail at something you cannot try again until you gain a level or increase a skill rank. Take 10/Take 20 helps in determining no roll was actually needed the PC is just that good and can do the task. Even without that, it can narratively make sense. The point of manacles, for example, is to keep someone restrained. Manacles wouldn't be manacles if every Brutus could break them eventually no matter how long it takes. Brutus tries and fails. Shucks darn it for him. These manacles worked perfectly as designed. Brutus has to think of something else.

To be cute, it's Shrodinger Skill Use. It's more than just flip a coin because a player's build choices in creating his character for whatever skills are meant to better his odds at succeeding. The die roll is the randomness factor to account for all unknown things undefined because they're unknown. That's the game part of the game. Once the die roll determines success or failure then the unknown things becomes defined. If success, the unknown things are irrelevant or weren't a factor this time and can be ignored. If failure, an unknown thing became known and now relevant as determined by the DM. It's a style. It's not right or wrong, just whether you like it or not. I like it.