What exactly should a Roll Represent?

[BRC]

A thought I have sometimes is how exactly the result of a die roll should be interpreted. I'll say ahead of time that the correct answer is probably "it depends", but it's interesting to think about.

A die roll represents all the various unaccounted for things that determine success and failure in a task. It's probably best if I use an example of a task

Bob tries to use an axe to quickly chop a hole in a wooden fence so he can escape from his pursuers. Mechanically, Bob has a strength score and the task is given a DC, Bob rolls the dice according to whatever system is being played and determines success and failure.

In this case Success means Bob get a hole big enough to squeeze through before his pursuers catch up with him, failure means he does not.

But narrative, the roll of the dice could mean any number of things

A) It could represent Bob's strength and skill in the moment. There's plenty of variables in how well a given person can do a task at any given time. A high roll might mean that he's surging with adrenaline, swinging the axe skillfully and with all the strength he can muster to break through the boards, a low roll might mean he's not feeling it right now, his muscles cramp as he swings the axe, his grip is wrong, or he's just tired and simply can't muster much strength to swing the heavy axe.

Often such things are represented beforehand with bonuses and penalties, but they can get wrapped up in the narrative resolution of the die roll.

B) We could also assume everything about Bob is represented by his character sheet and any circumstantial penalties. In this case, the die roll could represent external factors not previously established by the narrative. A high roll might indicate the fence is made of thin, fragile wood, or already has holes in it that Bob just needs to widen. Meanwhile a low roll might mean the fence is well built out of thick sturdy planks. Since the test here is not just "Can Bob break through the fence" but "Can Bob break through the fence in time", the die roll could also be measuring how fast the pursuers are catching up with him.

The downside of this approach is that, theoretically, all those things (The sturdiness of the fence, the sharpness of the axe, the time before the pursuers get there) should be accounted for when the GM set the DC for the roll.

C) the third approach is to say that the die roll must always narratively represent some form of dumb luck. Everything about the character should be represented by their stats, everything about the scenario should be represented by the DC, and the die roll must account for things that could not have been established before the attempt was made.
In this case, a high roll might indicate that the pursuers were slowed down in some way, while a low roll might indicate that Bob drops the axe at some point, or accidentally gets it stuck between two planks while he swings.


Which approach you use can make a pretty major difference. For example, if Alice is searching a crime scene for clues and fails, A strict use of Method A tells us that there are no clues Alice can find right now, Method B tells us that Alice simply isn't good enough to find any clues, and Method C tells us that Alice COULD have found clues, but happened to look in the wrong places this time around.

Under Method A, Alice might be able to find clues if she tries again later. Under Method B, the clues are too hard for Alice, or any less-skilled investigators than her to find, and under Method C, Alice, or anybody else, might be able to succeed trying again later simply by happening to look in different places.


It also depends on whether you allow die rolls to establish previously unestablished things. For example:


Bob has been bitten by a snake. Carol has received medical training, and is trying to identify the correct antidote for this snake's venom. For the purpose of this example, we assume that if Carol knows the correct antivenom, she is capable of acquiring or making it.

Under Method A, the test is whether Carol can, in the moment, recall (or otherwise make a good enough guess at) the treatment for this particular venom. Success establishes that she HAS been taught how to treat this particular venom, Failure means she may or may not know how to treat the venom, but she can't recall it right now.

Method B would assume Carol's competency is a constant, with the die roll determining how obscure this particular snake is. A success may indicate that the snake is common enough that Carol was taught how to treat it, while a failure may indicate that the snake is exotic, and only somebody with specialist training would know how to treat it.

Method C would basically be saying "What are the chances Carol was taught about the venom of this snake?" Success means it was one of the species she was taught about, failure means it wasn't.

This is relevant because if the next day, Alice gets bit by the same type of snake, Method A tells us Carol should get to reroll, while methods B and C say that we've already checked to see if Carol knows how to treat this venom.


As I said at the start, most GM's are going to use some combination of these three approaches, but I've got some general thoughts on when to emphasize different parts of the die roll


Method A is best when you want to keep a serious tone, and want to emphasize the general competence of the character in question. "With a surge of strength, Bob breaks through the fence and escapes" makes Bob's player feel good, similarly, "Bob is winded and exhausted from the chase, he can't quite muster the strength to swing the axe hard or fast enough" keeps the focus on Bob.

It's best used when the result lines up with what is expected from the character's stats. If Bob is a strong character and succeeds, as a GM you want to make the player feel rewarded for picking an approach that uses that strength. If Bob is a physically weak character and fails, keeping the focus on Bob is probably correct if you want to keep a serious tone.

Method B is the inverse of Method A, and is best used if you want to keep a serious tone, but the result of the roll is an outlier that goes beyond what is expected. If Bob has a high strength bonus but rolls exceptionally low, it makes more sense to put the focus of the failure outside the character. Rather than say "Oh, I guess Bob is just super weak right now", establish external forces that control the outcome. Similarly, if Bob succeeds despite a low strength, it can make more sense to say the fence was rotten and thin.

Method C is a tricky one. In general, it creates a more lighthearted, comedic tone. It's generally best used for extreme results, good or bad, and it's sometimes good for a quick chuckle, but overusing it can wear thin.
An especially big risk with it is that players can end up feeling robbed of credit for their character's successes. If a character is working within their specialty, but the GM keeps ascribing success to random chance, you'll reach the point where the player doesn't feel like they're playing master swordsman, just somebody who keeps getting lucky with their sword.

[NichG]

Ideally, a die roll represents the specific undetermined or random elements of that particular momentary action OR any previously undetermined things which the roll is intended to permanently determine going forward. Only for that case, do you not have side-effects of rolls which would make it matter e.g. the order in which rolls occur or whether a roll is provoked or not at different moments. So basically, that could be things whose details are going to be erased shortly after the moment of the roll (like someone's specific posture when an attack is incoming, etc).

However, that ideal isn't always realizable, or worth putting ahead of other considerations.

[PhoenixPhyre]

My default is a combination of B and C.

If I'm calling for a roll at all (yes, including saving throws and attack rolls), the outcome is uncertain in some material[1] way. The d20 represents that uncertainty. That could be either the pure sub-abstraction noise (no, I'm not going to include things like the exact footing[2] when you make an attack roll. Nor am I going to consider things like exactly all the distractions in the environment that may help or hinder one side.

In general[3], I start with the presumption that every actor is trying their best at that particular moment on everything they attempt to do (or refrain from doing). The parts of exactly what the "best you can do at that particular moment" that don't vary with time (or vary much more slowly than the action) are written on the character sheets or are part of the pre-determined Target Numbers (including circumstantial penalties/bonuses, although I happen to hate numerical circumstantial modifiers). So the d20 roll represents all those things that are either impossible to determine in advance with any accuracy or that vary on a similar timescale or faster than the action of the game. A characters' baseline ability to dodge, block, evade, parry, or otherwise deflect incoming attacks is summed up in their AC. Similarly, the character's baseline ability to harm another actor with an attack is summed up in their attack modifier. Everything else goes into the d20.

[1] I'm not going to call for a check if the uncertainty is, for example, much smaller than the range of the d20. If the best possible set of circumstances means that you have a 95% chance of success and the worst possible set of circumstances means that you have a 75% chance of success...I'm not going to make you roll unless the consequences for failure are very high. You just succeed. This is not symmetric, however--as long as the character has at least 5% chance of success (ballparked), I'll let them roll. Because I believe in heroic characters doing heroic things. What I'm asking is "is there any even remotely-plausible way they could succeed?" If so, they get to try. On the other side (auto-success), I'm asking "would failure make substantial sense for this character in these circumstances?"

Another factor is the consequences--if the consequences for failure aren't interesting (don't materially alter the situation in one way or another), you'll succeed without a roll. If success is meaningless...well...that's rare. But generally people try to do things they consider meaningful. Even if just for comedic effect.

[2] not just "standing on reasonable footing on dirt floors" but "there's a pebble 3 inches ahead of your right foot, just where you'd have to move to make that lunge".

[3] this is rebuttable, but generally if you're intentionally not doing your best but want to still possibly succeed I'll just call for disadvantage. If you're not trying to succeed, we'll just narrate what you're doing instead. Unless success would be extremely humorous[4]. In which case you'll roll if there's some chance you may succeed anyway. But probably at disadvantage.

[4] and the situation is generally harmless, except in extremely unusual circumstances. I'm not trying to make characters out as buffoons. They do that just fine on their own.

[Pauly]

Assuming for the moment that certain variables have not already been pre-determined because of story needs.

For tasks done in the moment, I generally prefer method A. If it’s a repeatable action the question shouldn’t be ‘can I succeed’ but ‘how long will it take to succeed’.

For tasks done with planning and deliberation I generally prefer method B. In which case the PC with their current state of information and equipment are unable to perform the task. Although I will allow the players to re-roll if they can get access further and better ability to handle the situation.

If the situation is exotic and unusual then I prefer method C. If I can’t reasonably explain it setting appropriate narrative terms, then the hand of fate intervened.

[Yora]

Dice rolls produce uncertainty. Some things will probably work out as you intend them, other things will probably not work out as you intend them. When a game includes dice rolls, the decision to attempt a given action needs to take into account the possible consequences of failing at it. Having to make a judgement between possible gains and possible costs is what creates tension.
By rolling dice, the consequences of actions are also partly taken out of the GM's hand. It means that the GM doesn't decide everything that happens on personal preference or whim, which gives the players agency in the game rather than having to guess what the GM wants.

[KorvinStarmast]

Bob tries to use an axe to quickly chop a hole in a wooden fence so he can escape from his pursuers. The roll represents whether the pressure of the situation gets to him or not. This is kind of like whether or not you make that five foot putt when you have ten dollars on the line but only five dollars in your pocket.

Notice: I used a lot fewer words to describe what the roll does for resolving the situation. I am inclined to feel that there is a lot of overthinking being engaged in here.

[Fiery Diamond]

I prefer a combination of A and C. I don't like B, because I very much dislike "but actually, there was a pebble there that you stepped on funny: that's why you failed your Reflex Save!" sorts of adding details to the scene after the fact. If Bob is chopping at the fence, the fence's sturdiness is a predetermined factor, it doesn't magically get more or less sturdy after he makes the roll. The only time I ever use anything resembling B is when a task should be nearly impossible, but I allow a roll anyway on the tiny chance they could succeed by the mechanics, and they end up succeeding: then I have it be a combination of A, B, and C: the roll then represents skill, luck, and the character having the in-the-moment burst of competence to take advantage of minute factors I hadn't planned for but add in to explain how success was possible in the first place.

[gbaji]

I think where B comes in (and someone touched on this earlier) is the time factor. There are going to be some things that, given enough time to act, the question is automatically solved (you can certainly break down that wooden fence with your axe). Your strength and weapon isn't in question, and how sturdy the fence is isn't in question. But that doesn't mean that you're going to be able to break a person sized hole into it in one round of chopping. I suppose we could lump a bit of A and C in there as well, but in this case, it's not whether you actually can do something or not, but whether you can achieve that thing in the time allotted.

There can certainly but a fair amount of C (dumb luck) involved, especially in combat situations, but I can also see a lot of A. I'm not sure if I'd describe that as just being stronger/better in that moment, but there are certainly cases where from moment to moment you just "see" a combat situation more clearly than you did a moment before. Some of that can be random lucky openings, but not all of it. From years of fencing, I know for a fact that sometimes you'll just get a sense for how the other fighter is going to react, and can literally see a sequence of moves that will allow for a hit (I extend into his 4, he will parry to his left, I'll redirect to 7, anticipate his move and shift to 8, then just slide up his blade as he more or less guides me right into his chest). That's not a random thing in the environment (no pebbles involved), but sometimes just normal movement in combat will open up opportunities and you take advantage of it. To me, that's what you're doing with a to-hit roll in combat. Obviously, if we were standing still and you were just swinging at a dummy, you'd hit, right? So it's something else we're determining here.

I think in broader terms, rolls are just abstractions. As a game mechanic, they allow us to exchange resources spent with gains achieved. You spend X time doing something, you get Y result. Each individual roll could include a lot of different factors, and I suppose you can make this as complex as you want. And yeah, it's never going to be perfect. And as a GM I never hesitate to just tell players "you can just do this", or "you can't possibly do this", if that's an appropriate answer. And as a corollary to the B condition, if they have enough time, they can just do things automatically. Even things that may be difficult. I hand any random person a Rubik's cube and enough time, and they will eventually solve it. I had you a set of lock picks and a basic lock, you'll eventually figure it out and open the lock. These may be things you have zero skill/experience with, but are things that as long as you understand the concept of what you're trying to do, you should be able to do, the only question is how much time it takes.

[Tanarii]

A die roll represents the GM being uncertain if a player's declared task for their character should automatically succeed or automatically fail. So they need some weighted randomness to determine if it's a success or failure. That weighting should be done based on the things the player has declared the character to be good or mediocre or bad at, and by the GM's judgement of the likely overall difficulty of the declared action independent of the character involved.*

That's it. It doesn't represent anything in universe. It represents something meta, rules for weighting a GM's uncertainty about success.

*Almost all systems have a method for the GM to adjust difficulty. It's just very well hidden or an easily overlooked footnote in some.

[Quertus]

I’m not even sure where to start. How about… Bob and the fence?

There can be rolls to determine formerly undefined variables, like how sturdy / rotten a fence is, or whether the docking shuttle is filled with imperial stormtroopers or federation diplomats or whatever. And I’ll make those rolls as GM. However, Bob’s roll to attack the fence should not establish such facts, because Bob’s attack has nothing to do with causing such.

However, what Bob’s attack roll could establish is whether he’s attacking a strong or weak point of a variable-strength fence. Like “critical success - Bob’s first swing opened the gate he didn’t realize he was standing at” if Bob is unfamiliar with the fence, and Bob’s player didn’t specify where they were attacking it (including the lack of a battle map). I accept this notion because such is technically part of Bob’s attack, even if it’s stretching things slightly.

Logically, if Bob attacks the fence long enough, eventually he will break it down. Trying to have the method you use to describe the action determine whether retries are possible is putting the cart before the horse. Of course Bob can retry… for as long as it takes the clown spider demons they’re fleeing to kill the civilians depending on our axe-wielding Hero.

And it’s probably fair for Bob to narrate that the approaching clown spider demons are getting to him as an excuse for why he failed? But doing so opens up whole new ranges of situational modifiers, like the clown spider demons taking actions to ratchet up that fear (or critically failing like a certain Horcrux), or others to try to calm that fear. So it’s… iffy.

Now let’s look at Carol and her venom treatment. “Does she know this particular toxin’s antitoxin?” I find this question as stupid as every other Knowledge skill.

So, imagine if Bob’s player made his Knowledge:GM roll, and had Carol’s player a) do research on snake venom, and b) talk about it in-character before this scene. Carol could have previously established, through exposition, that she knows the correct treatment for every kind of snake venom, and has the appropriate medicines packed (possibly longhand, actually manually listing every venom and antitoxin). So, if the roll is to determine what Carol knows, when Bob gets bitten, there’s no need for a Medicae roll, right?

As for spotting clues… some idiot off the street can often find things trained professionals miss on their first pass, so I reject the notion of “tried and failed means nobody of equal or lesser skill gets to roll anymore”, regardless of how it’s described. See also “Mulan succeeding by taking a different approach, despite being physically inferior”.

That’s it for my first pass. So obviously nobody of equal or lesser skill will ever contribute anything to this thread ever again.

[Telok]

Like Tanarii I'm taking the question at a different level. The op feels like it's answering a question about how to narrate the results of a roll, not what the roll represents.

To me, a roll represents the users of the system asking a question they don't all know and agree on the answer to. The question is generally one of three things;
1. Here and now, with one try, can the character(s), do this one thing.*
2. How long does it take the character(s) to do this thing.
3. How well can the characters do this thing.

You can frame the question you're asking the dice in different ways. Using the original bob-axe-fence-zombies (BAFZ from now on) you can ask;
1. In the time bob has before the zoms get there can he make a hole at all?
2. Will the zoms get there before bob makes a hole?
3. How fast can bob make a hole?
4. Can bob make a big enough hole before the zoms get there?
5. In the time bob has before the zoms get there can he make a big enough hole to squeeze through?
6. Can bob just whack you in the leg and run around the fence while you distract the zoms since you're apparently just standing there with a stopwatch & clipboard asking these stupid questions while he's trying to escape?

How the BAFZ question is put can dictate, depending on system, what precisely gets rolled. You can roll bob's axe &or strength damage against the fence, you can roll the fence making a save vs axe, you can roll the running speed of the zombies, you can roll how fast bob chops, you can roll to see if bob hits the fence skillfully enough to do anything to it.

Those all presume something d&d-like, I had a game once where players & gm got coins to bet over the session. A player would get free coins in a scene based on character traits, gear, or using major resources, and could throw in their per-session coins. The gm had coins for how many things were opposing the characters and... some other stuff. Then you tossed all the coins and went highest number of heads to lowest narrating what happened with the later narrators not getting to contravene anything already said. Its been a long time, pretty game & interesting setting, but not something a lot of people sermed to want to play. But it turns the "what a roll represents" answer into "well, all of it".

One general question I have is: How does the op relate to those game systems like the Star Wars one (sorry, unable to recall exact details tonight) with custom dice that generate a number of complications & bennies along with the standard pass/fail results? Or something like Paranoia where the players just roll to blackjack against their character's number for that activity and the gm doesn't (normal rules) get to say any numbers**?

* the 'now', 'one try', and 'one thing' don't have to be as fine grained & short as a sword swing. It just ought to be something using mostly one major variable, where you can't stop once started, and don't get a chance to retry any steps. So you could, in some systems, throw one do-or-die roll for an eight hour heart transplant surgery that depends on the surgeon's skill, has some factor(s) preventing stopping part way through, and there's no "well that isn't working let's try this other thing".

** for the unfamiliar; its a d20 'roll as high as possible up to your number' system. So shooting someone with a gun is "slug throwers (violence)", the character has a 4-19 rating in their "violence" stat and if they have a bonus or penalty to the "slug thrower" category then they use that. Thus a character with a 13 in "slug thrower" shoots a gun and rolls the d20, 1-12 is a hit, 13 is a really good hit, 14-19 is a fail, and 20 is a really bad fail. As a fast paced comedy system it works great.

[Jay R]

The die does not role-play. It just represents randomness. It's up to the GM and the players to interpret it in gameworld terms.

I once ran a game of Flashing Blades. The rogue decided to introduce himself to the duke's daughter, so he muscled his way through several of her noble suitors and asked to make an Etiquette skill roll. He did not have the Etiquette skill, which is the equivalent of cross-class for him.

So he was using a cross-class skill he didn't know, having already behaved badly, in direct competition with several masters of the skill. And then he rolled a fumble.

I said, "You introduce yourself, look into her eyes soulfully, take her hand, raise it to your lips to kiss it, and f*rt."

So does the fumble roll represent f*rting? No, of course not. It just represented the worst possible result. I, as GM, came up with the role-playing interpretation.

The die does not role-play.

[Fiery Diamond]

So does the fumble roll represent f*rting? No, of course not. It just represented the worst possible result. I, as GM, came up with the role-playing interpretation.

And some (many?) people would say that's a distinction without a difference. You wouldn't have come up with the fart if he hadn't rolled the fumble, therefore, the fumble was responsible for the fart. Whether you use the word "represent" or not, one caused the other. Just because you were a middleman who chose "fart" rather than something else to be the "worst possible result" doesn't change that.

[Jay R]

The die does not role-play.

That's my main thesis, which your argument doesn't address.



So does the fumble roll represent f*rting? No, of course not. It just represented the worst possible result. I, as GM, came up with the role-playing interpretation.
And some (many?) people would say that's a distinction without a difference. You wouldn't have come up with the fart if he hadn't rolled the fumble, therefore, the fumble was responsible for the fart. Whether you use the word "represent" or not, one caused the other. Just because you were a middleman who chose "fart" rather than something else to be the "worst possible result" doesn't change that.

Except that it is a clear, unambiguous difference. The die came up with, "There is a critical failure." Nothing else. Given a critical failure, I came up with the f*rting. Another GM with the same die roll might have said that he tripped, or just stammered, or got himself in a duel, or spilled her drink on her dress, or that his pants came down, or any one of a number of things.

Since other GMs would have given different results with the same die roll, then that specific result didn't come from the die roll. You cannot claim (with any justification) that the die was responsible for choosing that critical failure over any other possible critical failure.

You said that "the fumble was responsible for the fart." You could have said, with equal justification, that I was responsible for it. Or that the player was responsible for it. Or that the rule about critical failures was responsible for it. Or that the set-up of the ball was responsible for it. Or that the slipperiness of the table was responsible for it. Or that ...

But enough.

When I want a cold drink, the contents of the refrigerator is responsible for my range of choices. I am responsible for which choice I make within that range.
The contents of the snack machine determines which candy bars are available. I determine which of the available ones I will buy.
The 30-theater movie complex decides which movies are available to me. I decide which of those movies to go watch.
And the die determined that there would be a critical failure. I decided which critical failure it would be.

That's a distinction that is a clear, unambiguous difference.

I repeat: The die does not role-play.

[BRC]

One general question I have is: How does the op relate to those game systems like the Star Wars one (sorry, unable to recall exact details tonight) with custom dice that generate a number of complications & bennies along with the standard pass/fail results? Or something like Paranoia where the players just roll to blackjack against their character's number for that activity and the gm doesn't (normal rules) get to say any numbers**?


Question isn't really changed, although it does become more relevant


To use the BAFZ scenario, in a star-wars style system, Bob might succeed at breaking open the fence in time, but get a complication, what that complication looks like will change depending on how you interpret the role of the dice in the narrative.

Its' a difference between "You succeed but you screwed up somehow", "You succeed, but things are a bit worse than you realize" or "you succeed, but you had some bad luck".

The first scenario might mean that Bob breaks down the fence, but cuts himself getting through the hole. The second, Bob might break down the fence but there are a few zombies on the other side attracted by the noise. The third might mean that Bob's axe breaks as he chops down the fence.

In paranoia, we're dealing with the same as the basic scenario, the dice have produced a good/bad roll, it is up to the GM to translate that to the narrative.


The die does not role-play.

That's my main thesis, which your argument doesn't address.


Correct, the Die does not role-play, it produces a number which, in conjunction with the game system, produces a result. Pass or Failure, Triumphant success or critical fumble, succeed with consequences or fail with progress, ect ect ect.

The question I'm asking in this thread is how one should translate the die roll INTO some role-playing because, as you've noted, the die doesn't role-play, but the GM does, and how they choose to interpret the roll does matter.


The die roll comes up with "The worst possible result", you decided that would be a fart, something partially involuntary, so, a mix of A and C to use my OP, the result on the die means that the worst possible thing that could happen has happened. You could also have said "Unaware of the complex rules of decorum around initiating physical contact, You just grabbed the Duke's Daughter's hand without permission, that is the Worst Possible decision you might have made in this situation". The result on the die is translated to say that the PC's chosen approach was, in fact, the worst possible approach.

You could also have said "One of the Suitors you just shoved your way past is the famously short-tempered Captain Irrata of the Duke's Guard, you made him spill his drink on himself, he challenges you to a duel". The result on the die is translated to mean that the situation is as bad as it could be for what the PC did.

You chose the Fart, which means the "Worst Possible Result" is shame and embarrassment, effectively cutting the PC off from any further schmoozing at the ball, but they're not getting thrown out by the guards or anything.

Similarly, how would you have interpreted a very good roll in that situation? Perhaps the Rogue is just so charming that he managed to overwhelm the offense of his actions with dashing good looks and a gentle smile. Perhaps the Duke's Daughter was in the middle of a horribly boring conversation and is grateful that somebody came along to rescue her from it. These options produce very different experiences for the Rogue. The first is a power fantasy, saying "Yeah, you have no idea what to do here, but you're charming enough that you succeed anyway", the second says "Yeah, you got lucky".

[Telok]

In paranoia, we're dealing with the same as the basic scenario, the dice have produced a good/bad roll, it is up to the GM to translate that to the narrative.

Thanks for the bit on the SW system. I've been adjacent to it but never gotten to try it myself because I'm the only one I know for at least the last 15 years to run anything but d&d or direct derivatives. Your answers fit with the way I see rolls, asking the system a question & interpreting output, but neither of us was addressing it the way the op did.

With the op talking about the roll's modifiers & randomization representing one of; the character's abilities, situational conditions, or the nature of the obstacle... how do these other systems map to that? Like the Paranoia edition I have on my shelf doesn't do modifiers based on the situation or obstacle, the only number is the character's score that you're throwing the d20 at. It looks then like the character's ability is static and the situation & obstacle are ignored except that they exist at all (hence the call fir a roll).

I suppose it probably comes down to how much detail the system cares about simulating. A D&D sword swing cares about gear on both sides, skill on both sides, base natural ability on both sides, and environment on both sides, adding up to at least 8 different variables before magic & special abilities enter into it. On the other hand it only cares about the "difficulty" of something and the character's parts (and gear only in some editions) for most non-combat bits, for usually less than half the variables no matter what you're doing or how milti-step/complex it actually it. Other systems may only care about how good a character should be at something within the narrative.

[kyoryu]

I think the die represents unknowns.

That could be unknowns about the situation, things beneath the level of abstraction, unexpected events, whatever.

What the die and system give you, primarily is constraints on what happens, not an actual result. In some cases (GURPS) those constraints are pretty narrow, but mostly they're fairly wide.

So, if there's not enough unknowns to make it worth checking, don't roll. And, as a matter of taste "gross incompetence" is not worth rolling for.

So, in the case of failure, I typically prefer to narrate results as the result of opposing effort, environmental factors, or just the task being plain difficult. Master archer trying to hit a target? You hit it. Threading 20 axe handles? That's a roll, and you might fail, but that's because it's hard. Trying to hit a target while dodging things thrown at you? You might miss because something hits you, or you just might not get a chance to shoot at all. But it won't be because you're bad at shooting.

This can of course be tweaked for the specific genre you're playing.

[Easy e]

To me, the only reason to roll dice is for two reasons, and both must be in force:

1. I need to know if a character succeeds or fails at a task
2. Something interesting could happen if they fail

If neither of these things apply, no dice rolls are needed. The PCs and I can narrate it away, with the GM getting final say on the actual events that occur.

So, anything beyond that is semantics to me.

[Jay R]

The question I'm asking in this thread is how one should translate the die roll INTO some role-playing because, as you've noted, the die doesn't role-play, but the GM does, and how they choose to interpret the roll does matter.

The simple but uninformative answer is "DM judgment and imagination". You have split the options into three categories. I don't see how limiting my options to one of those three serves the game.

I choose the result that in my judgment will improve the game for the players.


The die roll comes up with "The worst possible result", ...

First, let me deal with a red herring. The die roll comes up with the worst of the twenty most likely results. The worst possible result would be far beyond what might reasonably expected to happen. As I said in my "Rules for DMs":


7. Rolling a 20 doesn’t mean a one-in-a-million result; it means a one in 20 result. Rolling a 1 isn’t automatic failure; it’s the worst of the twenty most likely results.

a. Rolling dice for the impossible assumes that there’s a 5% chance that you can jump to the moon. Rolling dice for the trivial assumes that there’s a 5% chance that you can’t open your closet door.



The die roll comes up with "The worst possible result", you decided that would be a fart, something partially involuntary, so, a mix of A and C to use my OP, the result on the die means that the worst possible thing that could happen has happened. You could also have said "Unaware of the complex rules of decorum around initiating physical contact, You just grabbed the Duke's Daughter's hand without permission, that is the Worst Possible decision you might have made in this situation". The result on the die is translated to say that the PC's chosen approach was, in fact, the worst possible approach.

You could also have said "One of the Suitors you just shoved your way past is the famously short-tempered Captain Irrata of the Duke's Guard, you made him spill his drink on himself, he challenges you to a duel". The result on the die is translated to mean that the situation is as bad as it could be for what the PC did.

You chose the Fart, which means the "Worst Possible Result" is shame and embarrassment, effectively cutting the PC off from any further schmoozing at the ball, but they're not getting thrown out by the guards or anything.

Good example. The "worst possible result" would be getting arrested and spending the rest of his life locked in a cell in the Chateau d'if. But that result is far less likely than 5%. I chose a legitimate result representing the bottom 5%.

The real answer is to treat it like a story-telling element. Possible reasons for a specific choice are:

It seems the most likely result.
To further the story.
For a brief moment of comic relief that doesn't permanently harm the PC.
To introduce a plot element.
To move past an incident that has no further entertainment value or plot significance.
... or a host of others.

But I won't limit my choices to fit into category A, B, or C. I will choose the best thing I can think of to improve the game for my players. In that case it was to get a quick laugh and move on, without permanent damage to the player (except messing up any chance with her).


Similarly, how would you have interpreted a very good roll in that situation? Perhaps the Rogue is just so charming that he managed to overwhelm the offense of his actions with dashing good looks and a gentle smile. Perhaps the Duke's Daughter was in the middle of a horribly boring conversation and is grateful that somebody came along to rescue her from it. These options produce very different experiences for the Rogue. The first is a power fantasy, saying "Yeah, you have no idea what to do here, but you're charming enough that you succeed anyway", the second says "Yeah, you got lucky".

If he had rolled the best number (which is a 1, in that game), I'd have come up with a somewhat unlikely result that fit within the situation of a clueless rogue, a cross-class skill he didn't know, and competition with several masters of the skill. He would probably have interrupted an insolent rival who was insulting her father, thereby pleasing the daughter despite her recognizing the PC's awkwardness. Later, that insolent courtier would probably have words with him, possibly leading to a duel, or some other plot hook. [The PC was not trying to charm the jerk, so the excellent roll doesn't affect him. Besides, I get annoyed when a rival makes me look bad in front of the girl we are both interested in; so would the jerk.] In the longer term, the daughter might decide to take the PC on as a project, to "improve" him. I could use that to generate lots of dangers and challenges.

But it's a judgment call, based on everything in the situation, as well as what the GM knows is coming but the players don't. I can't make a general rule for it. Also from my Rules for DMs:


10. A role-playing game is run by rules. But it isn't made out of rules; it's made out of ideas, characters, and imagination.

Don't invent a rule for handling the results of the die. Use your own ideas and imagination to invent a entertaining result that fits these characters.

But be careful to choose it to entertain the players, not you. One final quote from my Rules for DMs:


15. Your job isn’t to create something hilarious to you. Your job is to create something fun and challenging for the players.

I hope this long-winded discussion helps.

[PhoenixPhyre]

[snip good stuff]

But it's a judgment call, based on everything in the situation, as well as what the GM knows is coming but the players don't. I can't make a general rule for it. Also from my Rules for DMs:


10. A role-playing game is run by rules. But it isn't made out of rules; it's made out of ideas, characters, and imagination.

Don't invent a rule for handling the results of the die. Use your own ideas and imagination to invent a entertaining result that fits these characters.

But be careful to choose it to entertain the players, not you. One final quote from my Rules for DMs:


15. Your job isn’t to create something hilarious to you. Your job is to create something fun and challenging for the players.

I hope this long-winded discussion helps.

I completely agree with this whole post, and especially these last bits. The bold is most important IMO--it's too easy to try to interpret TTRPG "rules" like board game rules. As a binding thing that fully describes the possible interactions and "game state". They're...not. Rules are there to help the people keep track of how their situation fits into a could-be-real fictional state. Board game rules are the game; TTRPG "rules" are merely the UI elements and aids; the game itself lives in everyone's heads.

[BRC]

Good example. The "worst possible result" would be getting arrested and spending the rest of his life locked in a cell in the Chateau d'if. But that result is far less likely than 5%. I chose a legitimate result representing the bottom 5%.

The real answer is to treat it like a story-telling element. Possible reasons for a specific choice are:

It seems the most likely result.
To further the story.
For a brief moment of comic relief that doesn't permanently harm the PC.
To introduce a plot element.
To move past an incident that has no further entertainment value or plot significance.
... or a host of others.

But I won't limit my choices to fit into category A, B, or C. I will choose the best thing I can think of to improve the game for my players. In that case it was to get a quick laugh and move on, without permanent damage to the player (except messing up any chance with her).


Alright, good distinction, a 1 doesn't mean "The worst possible result" it means "The worst result you, as the GM, would give them in this circumstance"

And sorry if I'm implying that you MUST use A,B, or C, those are just the ways I thought of to conceptualize this concept, and I do say in the OP that in most cases you are going to be combining them in some way. I'd love for other people to tell me other systems for thinking about how to translate die rolls into narrative results. I made this thread because it's something I do countless times every time I run a session, often without really thinking, but that has all sorts of implications. I don't think there's any Rule for handling this, just different approaches which have different effects and are best used in different situations.


But going back into the talk of critical successes and fumbles, it does bring up another angle, and part of why I made this thread.

Lets assume a 20 is the best possible reasonable result. Using my system (Just as an example), that means the result is some mix of "You did this as well as you reasonably could have", "The situation was as suited for your approach as it could have been" and "You got as lucky as you could have", and which it is produces different experiences. If Bob goes to chop a hole in the fence and "Does as well as he reasonably could have", then he chops it down as fast as the GM can imagine somebody like bob being able to chop a bob-sized hole in the fence, taking maybe 30 seconds or so. If he gets as lucky as he reasonably could have, then when he goes to chop he finds that the fence has a gate in it, and he's able to get through in 10 seconds or so.


There is a related question about if the roll represents the degree to which you successfully perform the specific task, the degree to which you succeed at your general goal, or the degree to which the situation turns out to be a favorable result. Your example of the rogue and the duke's daughter is great for discussing this, but I'm going to build out the scenario a bit in ways that may very well not match your game to illustrate points.

For the sake of this example, The Rogue, despite not being trained in courtly etiquette, is attempting to, as best they can, follow the rules of decorum while introducing themselves to the Duke's Daughter. That is why he is making an "Etiquette" roll here, rather than something like "Charm", because what's being tested is his ability to follow the rules of this social situation.

His goal is to charm the Duke's Daughter, because it's known that her father dotes on her, and the PC's want him to believe their reports about some threat facing the land.

So the specific task is "Follow Courtly Decorum", the immediate goal is "Charm the Duke's Daughter", the greater goal is "Improve the chances the Duke might take your report seriously".

In one interpretation, the Rogue rolls a critical success, which means he flawlessly follows the rules of courtly decorum when introducing himself. By this result, he has established himself (perhaps falsly) as somebody that is familiar with the rules of this society, but that basically just puts him on even playing field with everybody else vying for her attention.

By another, he has charmed her. Maybe his interruption provided a convenient excuse for her to get away from some boring conversation, or maybe she's sick of stuffy nobles and finds this charming commoner fascinating. This might cause problems down the line, perhaps the Duke ends up seeing this scoundrel as corrupting his beloved daughter.

By a third, perhaps she politely brushes you off and returns to her prior conversation, but the Duke sees this and, recognizing the effort to show courtesy to his daughter, decides he likes you a little bit more.


Edit: Expanding a bit,



I choose the result that in my judgment will improve the game for the players.


What I'm trying to unpack here is how different approaches to resolving dice rolls impacts the game for the players.

Like, let's say you take a strict approach that the result of the die determines how good the result is for the players, with nothing else mattering.

So, the Rogue goes up to talk to the Duke's Daughter and gets a Critical Success. The DM then narrates the following sequence

"You stumble and trip, knocking into her as she takes a drink being offered by a servant, she accidentally splashes the drink in the servant's face and he starts freaking out, calling for a healer and shouting about poison! It's soon revealed that the servant is an assassin trying to poison the Duke's daughter! The duke is grateful that you saved his daughter and exposed this plot, even if you did it entirely by accident"

That's certainly a very good outcome for the players, but it's not an especially satisfying one. The Rogue wasn't trying to uncover an assassination plot, heck they were not even trying to charm the Duke in that moment, just start a conversation with his daughter. It's also breaks verisimilitude pretty hard, being as it is a series of wild coincidences created out of thin air to justify an outcome the DM thought "Worthy" of a Critical Success. I wouldn't call it a result that improves the game for the players.

Similarly, if the Rogue tries it, rolls a critical success, and gets told "You manage to introduce yourself without causing any problems, and are swiftly ignored", a not unreasonable "Best reasonable outcome" for somebody trying to do something completely out of their skillset, that's not great either. Sticking strictly to any given approach or rule is not going to work.

So I want to unpack what sort of things GM's should be thinking about in pursuit of that goal of "Improving the game for players"

[Gnoman]

A thought I have sometimes is how exactly the result of a die roll should be interpreted. I'll say ahead of time that the correct answer is probably "it depends", but it's interesting to think about.

A die roll represents all the various unaccounted for things that determine success and failure in a task. It's probably best if I use an example of a task

Bob tries to use an axe to quickly chop a hole in a wooden fence so he can escape from his pursuers. Mechanically, Bob has a strength score and the task is given a DC, Bob rolls the dice according to whatever system is being played and determines success and failure.

In this case Success means Bob get a hole big enough to squeeze through before his pursuers catch up with him, failure means he does not.

But narrative, the roll of the dice could mean any number of things

A) It could represent Bob's strength and skill in the moment. There's plenty of variables in how well a given person can do a task at any given time. A high roll might mean that he's surging with adrenaline, swinging the axe skillfully and with all the strength he can muster to break through the boards, a low roll might mean he's not feeling it right now, his muscles cramp as he swings the axe, his grip is wrong, or he's just tired and simply can't muster much strength to swing the heavy axe.

Often such things are represented beforehand with bonuses and penalties, but they can get wrapped up in the narrative resolution of the die roll.

B) We could also assume everything about Bob is represented by his character sheet and any circumstantial penalties. In this case, the die roll could represent external factors not previously established by the narrative. A high roll might indicate the fence is made of thin, fragile wood, or already has holes in it that Bob just needs to widen. Meanwhile a low roll might mean the fence is well built out of thick sturdy planks. Since the test here is not just "Can Bob break through the fence" but "Can Bob break through the fence in time", the die roll could also be measuring how fast the pursuers are catching up with him.

The downside of this approach is that, theoretically, all those things (The sturdiness of the fence, the sharpness of the axe, the time before the pursuers get there) should be accounted for when the GM set the DC for the roll.

C) the third approach is to say that the die roll must always narratively represent some form of dumb luck. Everything about the character should be represented by their stats, everything about the scenario should be represented by the DC, and the die roll must account for things that could not have been established before the attempt was made.
In this case, a high roll might indicate that the pursuers were slowed down in some way, while a low roll might indicate that Bob drops the axe at some point, or accidentally gets it stuck between two planks while he swings.


I think you're looking at it the wrong way here. To use your wood-chopping example, Bob's character sheet tells us how strong he is, if he has an axe suitable for chopping a wooden fence, and potentially how good he is at cutting through objects (system dependent). The DC or stats for the wood represent exactly what kind of wood the fence is made from, how good the condition is, and what sort of condition it is in. That's all fixed before the GM ever calls for a roll. What the die roll represents is the erratic nature of reality. People are not perfect machines that always execute every movment precisely as intended, so Bob might have failed to swing perfectly to use all his strength, or had the axe turn just slightly to rob some of the cutting power, or he might have missed the proper spot to split the fence just a little. A chunk of wood is not a homogeneous mass where every bit of it is identical, so Bob might have hit a subtly thicker or thinner part of the fence, or a section that's just a little bit harder because of a knot, or softer because of a void.

Similarly, in your "search for clues" example, Alice's sheet represents her ability and training to find hidden things, and the DC of the clues represents how well hidden they are, while the die roll covers things like "did the torchlight throw a shadow in just the right way to obscure something, or did the dust in the room settle in just the way to make something easier to spot, or was Alice distracted by something that kept her from giving full attention".

Fundamentally, nothing in reality is as cut and dry as raw stats would present it to be, and introducing a random element via die roll is an excellent way of reflecting all those nebulous factors that are way too fine-graned for any GM or system to directly reflect.

[gbaji]

So, the Rogue goes up to talk to the Duke's Daughter and gets a Critical Success. The DM then narrates the following sequence

"You stumble and trip, knocking into her as she takes a drink being offered by a servant, she accidentally splashes the drink in the servant's face and he starts freaking out, calling for a healer and shouting about poison! It's soon revealed that the servant is an assassin trying to poison the Duke's daughter! The duke is grateful that you saved his daughter and exposed this plot, even if you did it entirely by accident"

That's certainly a very good outcome for the players, but it's not an especially satisfying one. The Rogue wasn't trying to uncover an assassination plot, heck they were not even trying to charm the Duke in that moment, just start a conversation with his daughter. It's also breaks verisimilitude pretty hard, being as it is a series of wild coincidences created out of thin air to justify an outcome the DM thought "Worthy" of a Critical Success. I wouldn't call it a result that improves the game for the players.

Similarly, if the Rogue tries it, rolls a critical success, and gets told "You manage to introduce yourself without causing any problems, and are swiftly ignored", a not unreasonable "Best reasonable outcome" for somebody trying to do something completely out of their skillset, that's not great either. Sticking strictly to any given approach or rule is not going to work.

So I want to unpack what sort of things GM's should be thinking about in pursuit of that goal of "Improving the game for players"

I think the key is to include both elements. On the one hand, the roll represents something the player has stated that the character is attempting to do. Nothing more. The GM should absolutely roleplay out the outcome, but it should be based on what was attempted. So if the player is attempting to charm the Duke's daughter, then success or failure (and degree of success/failure) should be purely based on that.

Throwing in random external factors (like you stumbled and spilled the poison or something) is not a good way to do this. It's going to come off like the GM taking over the characters and narrating actions to them instead of just letting them run their own characters. If you want this to happen as part of your scenario, then by all means, run the charming the Duke's daughter bit, and then later have some fumbling NPC be the one to trip into the waiter and spill the poison. Having already charmed the daughter, this gives the PC an "in" to assist in the investigation of the plot, which is really the point of the scene in the first place.

If you want the PC to be more actively involved in the discovery of the poison, then you have them make whatever perception rolls you decide may be appropriate to discovering something is "up" with the wine in some way, and then allow them to interceded. Of course, you can always play both sides and have the whole "someone stumbles and spills the poison" bit happen if the PCs *don't* detect the poison wine ahead of time (or fail to take action). Or have the poison attempt succeed, and now you're helping the daughter discover who poisoned her father (and perhaps utilizing some skills to save his life from the poison).

There's tons of ways to do this, but the actual skill rolls should always be about the player telling the GM what they are trying to do, the GM determining an appropriate skill to use, difficulty involved, and whatever die roll and adjustments represent the attempt.

And yes, these should always be for things in which the outcome is not certain. In cases where the thing being attempted is normal and easy, there's no need for a die roll, and for things that are impossible, no die roll either. The assumption for any die rolling is that the PC is attempting something that is possible within their skill set, but not guaranteed. And for the record, there are a ton of people in any profession who still manage to make mistakes, even in their own specialty. If the thing being done is at all "complex", there's always a chance of failure. Even if the person is an expert, has all the right gear, etc.

Oh. And while it's not specifically in the topic of "what do die rolls represent", but is relevant to the example: I have a general rules for scenarios that I allow one and only one "unlikely event" to occur, typically the thing that sets off the scenario. So the random thing happening to reveal the poison plot works. The random badly injured stranger staggering over and happening to hand the PC the map to <whatever> before dying. Just happening to be there when the raid on the local village you were traveling through happens. These usually form "hooks" to adventures and are perfectly acceptable. I avoid allowing more random lucky/unlucky things to happen though, since that starts to feel to the players like you're leading them along, contriving chance to influence the flow of the adventure, and generally stomping all over probability *and* player choices/actions.

[Quertus]

So I want to unpack what sort of things GM's should be thinking about in pursuit of that goal of "Improving the game for players"

Ah, an actionable goal. Ok then.

Know your players. If they’re anything like me, minimize the number of rolls they need to make. Untrained Rogue Etiquette? Ask the Rogue how they would like to fail. Give them the rope to let their guaranteed failure have a point. Ork Bob takes his Choppa to the fence? Maybe the imperials get X meters closer, and, depending on distance, maybe that’s close enough that they get a salvo off at the grots following Hero Bob. Carol already rattled off every venom / antidote pair, and said she was carrying them all? Don’t have her roll a Knowledge check to see if she knows the correct antivenom, when obviously she does.

In other words, the first step of “what a roll represents” is, in the abstract, “something that there’s a need for a roll for”. And how much that roll is “needed” may vary greatly.

Once you understand why a roll is needed, well, seems to me everything will just flow naturally from that “why”.


I have a general rules for scenarios that I allow one and only one "unlikely event" to occur, typically the thing that sets off the scenario.

That’s a very good rule to have. Some people take it even further, and it’s limited to “one per adventure”, or even “one per campaign”.

[gbaji]

That’s a very good rule to have. Some people take it even further, and it’s limited to “one per adventure”, or even “one per campaign”.

I sometimes use "scenario" in different ways, but yeah, it's "once per adventure" with "adventure" being defined as the entire time that a group of characters meet up, decide to go do something together, and then proceed to do that thing. I'd also amend that to "random thing related to any one given adventure arc/storyline" as well. It's entirely possible that while our intrepid heroes are marching off following the map the random (now unfortunately deceased) stranger handed them, that some other completely unrelated random thing may happen. And that's allowable because there is always a chance of something else happening "along the way", right?

What's not allowable is having another totally random thing occur which is absolutely necessary for the initial "adventure" to continue or advance. One random thing along a story arc is a hook. It's why this particular group of people are following that arc in the first place. If it wasn't you, it would be some other random group that happened upon that random thing. A second random thing strains credulity.

And yeah. I get a "nails on the chalkboard" sensation when I see this happen (more frequently than it should) in TV shows and films. Grrr.... Bad writing! Bad writing! No biscuit!

[Witty Username]

Different abilities lend themselves better to different rulings:

-Recalling info lends itself well to variable competency, a bird watcher for example may not be able to recognize a particular bird species, but are more likely than a less interested person, the roll represents if they have studied a particular bird and how much

-Physical activities lends well to situational variability, even an experienced climber could be blindsided by a handhold giving and the like

-social situations, being able to execute in the moment will vary even for the competent, political speeches are a good example as much of the effort spent is to reduce human error but off the cuff statements and gaffs still happen (Tony roll Deception, <rolls a 1>, "I am Iron Man")

[Stonehead]

I want to add that A) wouldn't need to be strictly environmental factors. It could just be the fact that humans inconsistent creatures. IRL if you give me a bowling ball, I can get a strike probably 2 out of 10 frames. The environment for each frame is essentially the same, it's not like anyone heckles me or my shoes were untied when I miss. I just miss. No one hit's 100% of free throws, and there's usually not an easily identifiable reason why a player will miss one and not another. We as humans naturally look for justifications, even when they aren't always needed.

Strictly from a story perspective, it's not super satisfying to say "He missed. Some times people just miss" but it is realistic. One of the things I really like about TTRPGs is that everyone seeing the die land on a 1 is enough justification for a failure. It doesn't feel unsatisfying (at least to me) when the wizard can't remember the name of some town even though he's smart. Everyone saw him roll poorly. And besides, it's realistic for everyone to forget things some times.

Now, d20 systems go a bit overboard in variance some times, an 8 strength child should not beat an 18 strength bodybuilder in 30% of arm-wrestling contests, but that's a bit off topic.

[Tanarii]

Now, d20 systems go a bit overboard in variance some times, an 8 strength child should not beat an 18 strength bodybuilder in 30% of arm-wrestling contests, but that's a bit off topic.
If a GM has a question about the result here, that variance is on the DM.

Assuming that everything requires a roll was the 3e roll everything fallacy. And it didn't even in the d20 system, it was just a common fallacy under that system.

The rules / dice are not a simulation system. The dice only represent DM uncertainty about the result.

[kyoryu]

Strictly from a story perspective, it's not super satisfying to say "He missed. Some times people just miss" but it is realistic.


I think there's some subtlety involved here.

For me, personally, it depends on the difficulty of the action. If the character is attempting something very difficult (starting at somewhere between 50-80% chance of failure) and they miss? They just miss. You tried a hard thing and, surprise surprise, it was hard.

If they're trying something routine (starting at 50-80% chance of success) and fail? Blame the environment, the skills of their opposition, etc.

I don't think the bowling example is actually really good, to be honest. There's a wide range of results we can get from bowling a frame, and a strike is closer to a "critical success" than anything. A better model would probably be something like a roll to hit anything, modified by the pins left (so extremely low for the first ball), where the damage done is the number of pins knocked down, and then having skills to impact the number of pins hit, or determining that based on degree of success, or something like that.

And pro bowlers don't hit gutters very often.

[Stonehead]

If a GM has a question about the result here, that variance is on the DM.

Assuming that everything requires a roll was the 3e roll everything fallacy. And it didn't even in the d20 system, it was just a common fallacy under that system.

The rules / dice are not a simulation system. The dice only represent DM uncertainty about the result.

I agree. Taking a 10/20 are very important rules. Just didn't spell it all out because it seemed off topic.


I think there's some subtlety involved here.

For me, personally, it depends on the difficulty of the action. If the character is attempting something very difficult (starting at somewhere between 50-80% chance of failure) and they miss? They just miss. You tried a hard thing and, surprise surprise, it was hard.

If they're trying something routine (starting at 50-80% chance of success) and fail? Blame the environment, the skills of their opposition, etc.

I don't think the bowling example is actually really good, to be honest. There's a wide range of results we can get from bowling a frame, and a strike is closer to a "critical success" than anything. A better model would probably be something like a roll to hit anything, modified by the pins left (so extremely low for the first ball), where the damage done is the number of pins knocked down, and then having skills to impact the number of pins hit, or determining that based on degree of success, or something like that.

And pro bowlers don't hit gutters very often.

Look at NBA Free Throws then, or NFL field goals. They both have a strict success/fail binary (missing wide right gives you the same number of points as bouncing off the post), and even the pros miss them all the time. I only used bowling as an example because I've actually gone bowling myself.

I've never made a field goal myself, but as a viewer I can confirm that good kickers miss easy field goals all the time.



If they're trying something routine (starting at 50-80% chance of success) and fail? Blame the environment, the skills of their opposition, etc.


This line specifically is interesting. Maybe I'm just being pedantic but would something routine have a 50% chance of failure? I guess it does depend on the system, in DnD you can just set a trivially low DC, but in Apocalypse world you don't have that ability. I would argue though, that if you're attempting a routine task it probably doesn't justify a roll. You can just succeed.

[kyoryu]

Look at NBA Free Throws then, or NFL field goals. They both have a strict success/fail binary (missing wide right gives you the same number of points as bouncing off the post), and even the pros miss them all the time. I only used bowling as an example because I've actually gone bowling myself.

I've never made a field goal myself, but as a viewer I can confirm that good kickers miss easy field goals all the time.

So let's get clear. Yes, people fail tasks. That's a thing that happens.

Since we're playing games that are, in general, about cool people doing cool things, I generally prefer to have them fail due to external factors rather than simply bumbling. I think it goes over better with players, and makes sessions more fun.

Sometimes you can't. And, honestly, field goals and free throws are pretty much that situation.


This line specifically is interesting. Maybe I'm just being pedantic but would something routine have a 50% chance of failure? I guess it does depend on the system, in DnD you can just set a trivially low DC, but in Apocalypse world you don't have that ability. I would argue though, that if you're attempting a routine task it probably doesn't justify a roll. You can just succeed.

I'm not talking about making things easier. I'm talking about how we narrate failure. No more, no less. I'm not advocating for fewer rolls, or not making failure an option. I'm just saying that, in general, I prefer to narrate failure as due to some kind of external factor, rather than "haha you suck". My line here is more about when I start to think that "nope, it was just hard, you didn't do it" becomes more acceptable to me, and when I prefer to lean on "wow, you totally would have had it but..."

And, yes, even for a 50/50 I prefer to narrate failures as external rather than a lack of competence.

[NichG]

So let's get clear. Yes, people fail tasks. That's a thing that happens.

Since we're playing games that are, in general, about cool people doing cool things, I generally prefer to have them fail due to external factors rather than simply bumbling. I think it goes over better with players, and makes sessions more fun.

Sometimes you can't. And, honestly, field goals and free throws are pretty much that situation.



I'm not talking about making things easier. I'm talking about how we narrate failure. No more, no less. I'm not advocating for fewer rolls, or not making failure an option. I'm just saying that, in general, I prefer to narrate failure as due to some kind of external factor, rather than "haha you suck". My line here is more about when I start to think that "nope, it was just hard, you didn't do it" becomes more acceptable to me, and when I prefer to lean on "wow, you totally would have had it but..."

And, yes, even for a 50/50 I prefer to narrate failures as external rather than a lack of competence.

This seems to me more of something you need when there's a mismatch between what the odds are, and what the odds feel like they should be.

Like, if instead you think of things with a 20% chance of failure as challenging (and actually adjust the mechanics to align that with the character fiction), would it still feel necessary to use external explanations?

Basically the odd thing for me is that you're describing 50/50 cases narratively as things a character is good at, where for me 50/50 reads as quite difficult. Like, if I'm jumping across a stream or gap between rocks while hiking, I just wouldn't even try it if I felt less than 99% sure I could do it successfully. A jump I actually had only a 80% chance to pull off would be 'perilous'.

[Quertus]

So let's get clear. Yes, people fail tasks. That's a thing that happens.

Since we're playing games that are, in general, about cool people doing cool things, I generally prefer to have them fail due to external factors rather than simply bumbling. I think it goes over better with players, and makes sessions more fun.

Sometimes you can't. And, honestly, field goals and free throws are pretty much that situation.


And, yes, even for a 50/50 I prefer to narrate failures as external rather than a lack of competence.

If Hawkeye / Bullseye / whoever you consider “really cool” only has a 50/50 chance of hitting the target? That’d better be an eye slit in a 500’ tall giant in a Hurricane, else the rules have Captain Hobo‘d the character’s coolness. And, if the rules haven’t Captain Hobo’d the character’s coolness, then you don’t need to narrate extra reasons why they missed - they missed because they were attacking an eye slit 500’ up in a Hurricane.

Also, if you’re playing with players who try to flip a coin, need heads but get tails, and need some “external factor” excuse for why they failed? That’s a failure to understand probability, or terrible self-esteem issues. Play with better players.

[kyoryu]

This seems to me more of something you need when there's a mismatch between what the odds are, and what the odds feel like they should be.

Like, if instead you think of things with a 20% chance of failure as challenging (and actually adjust the mechanics to align that with the character fiction), would it still feel necessary to use external explanations?

Basically the odd thing for me is that you're describing 50/50 cases narratively as things a character is good at, where for me 50/50 reads as quite difficult. Like, if I'm jumping across a stream or gap between rocks while hiking, I just wouldn't even try it if I felt less than 99% sure I could do it successfully. A jump I actually had only a 80% chance to pull off would be 'perilous'.

But.... like, why?

What is the advantage of narrating as "you just can't?"

Why is "you try to cross the stream but miss the rock" better than "you try to cross the stream but slip on a wet and mossy part of the rock?" Why is "you shoot an arrow at the guy and miss wildly" better than "you shoot an arrow at the guy but he moves at the last second?"

What's the advantage?

[BRC]

But.... like, why?

What is the advantage of narrating as "you just can't?"

Why is "you try to cross the stream but miss the rock" better than "you try to cross the stream but slip on a wet and mossy part of the rock?" Why is "you shoot an arrow at the guy and miss wildly" better than "you shoot an arrow at the guy but he moves at the last second?"

What's the advantage?

The main reason is efficiency.

Combat often means a lot of rolls. If your Master Archer has a string of bad luck and keeps missing, it can get tedious to have the GM keep saying "The Arrow flies true but he brings up his shield at the last second" and "He turns his head at the right moment and the arrow soars past" ect ect. The issue with the External Factors approach is that you need to keep coming up with new ones each time.


"You just happened to miss" is kind of the default narrative, and the Null Approach of not providing a narrative explanation, just saying "You fail" or "You hit" will kind of default to that, technically. You don't get to add any flavor and the game can quickly become divorced from the narrative, but not elaborating also doesn't rub in "Your master archer missed the shot" the way a more elaborate explanation does.

[NichG]

But.... like, why?

What is the advantage of narrating as "you just can't?"

Why is "you try to cross the stream but miss the rock" better than "you try to cross the stream but slip on a wet and mossy part of the rock?" Why is "you shoot an arrow at the guy and miss wildly" better than "you shoot an arrow at the guy but he moves at the last second?"

What's the advantage?

I mean, one aspect has nothing even to do with how you choose to narrate, but is rather about noticing that the system isn't reinforcing the fiction that its trying to represent well. If you find yourself rolling for things where failure due to the character 'just not pulling it off' would feel like it depicts that character's skill incorrectly, that's a good sign that the system is misaligned with the fiction. It's saying in one place 'this person is more athletic in all ways than the world's top olympian athletes' and in another place 'this person has a 10% chance of messing up a long jump that is easily within Olympic records'. So absent everything else, I don't want to ignore that signal of misalignment - I'd rather adapt the system to the fiction or the fiction to the system so that in the long run there's lower overall dissonance. Or even adapt how I'm presenting situations - if the rules demand a 50/50 chance for metagame reasons, I should be narrating the jumps as being longer in the first place if it feels weird for that character to have a 50/50 chance for that jump.

Its not even that using an external factor now and then to rescue a really inane result is going to be terrible. That's a pragmatic solution to something going wrong that you hadn't anticipated, which is going to be necessary now and then. But in the long run, I would not want to be satisfied with that as a continual state of operation. Because as an ongoing thing, if that's the normal way things are resolved, it introduces these weird and predictable metagame dependencies which I really would only want to have if I were specifically running a 4th wall breaking campaign. Namely that because characters of differing skill (narrative) levels choosing to attempt a thing require different external consequences to explain away a success or failure, it is possible to influence the state of the external world outside of the instance of a single roll by choosing who makes the roll and when to make it. If external factors are only used inconsistently for explanation, that's not really an issue at all, and the pragmatics win. But if it becomes the standard of how the system is run, then that sort of effect potentially becomes an ongoing consideration from the point of view of the players, and that's (again, not game-breaking in any sense) a bit less good than the alternative of not having that dependency exist.

So basically, to me its a small flaw unless I specifically want to telegraph that kind of metagame consideration. If I can fix that flaw by better aligning the system with the fiction, I'd prefer to fix it than to lean into the flaw and build around it.

And I do think having something that feels like the person should succeed 99% of the time be a 50/50 chance because the rules say so is actually more of a major flaw, but again that's independent of the question of how you narrate it. But I would worry that if I find myself needing to narrate external factors, I might be blind to that sort of more extreme dissonance.

[Quertus]

The main reason is efficiency.

Combat often means a lot of rolls. If your Master Archer has a string of bad luck and keeps missing, it can get tedious to have the GM keep saying "The Arrow flies true but he brings up his shield at the last second" and "He turns his head at the right moment and the arrow soars past" ect ect. The issue with the External Factors approach is that you need to keep coming up with new ones each time.


"You just happened to miss" is kind of the default narrative, and the Null Approach of not providing a narrative explanation, just saying "You fail" or "You hit" will kind of default to that, technically. You don't get to add any flavor and the game can quickly become divorced from the narrative, but not elaborating also doesn't rub in "Your master archer missed the shot" the way a more elaborate explanation does.

Very much this. I’m in the “don’t waste my time with purple prose” camp, in the “let’s handle this in (close to) the most efficient manner possible” camp. Now, if Hawkeye and Bullseye both miss, but Aunt May happens to smack the villain with her purse, and the table has a skilled storyteller, and said storyteller happens to see some great moment here? Then, yeah, they’re welcome to slow things down with a, “guys, do you realize that…” moment.

Or even if someone has a “wait… didn’t we put the McGuffin / nitroglycerin / alien squeaky toy / whatever in Aunt May’s purse?” That’s an acceptable time to slow down, too.

[BRC]

Very much this. I’m in the “don’t waste my time with purple prose” camp, in the “let’s handle this in (close to) the most efficient manner possible” camp. Now, if Hawkeye and Bullseye both miss, but Aunt May happens to smack the villain with her purse, and the table has a skilled storyteller, and said storyteller happens to see some great moment here? Then, yeah, they’re welcome to slow things down with a, “guys, do you realize that…” moment.

Or even if someone has a “wait… didn’t we put the McGuffin / nitroglycerin / alien squeaky toy / whatever in Aunt May’s purse?” That’s an acceptable time to slow down, too.

Even if you don't want to take the Null approach, the "You missed" approach is a lot more efficient.
"You don't quite make the shot" or "The arrow doesn't penetrate their armor" is a complete statement on it's own. Coming up with external factors needs a little more elaboration and creativity.

[gbaji]

But.... like, why?

What is the advantage of narrating as "you just can't?"

Why is "you try to cross the stream but miss the rock" better than "you try to cross the stream but slip on a wet and mossy part of the rock?" Why is "you shoot an arrow at the guy and miss wildly" better than "you shoot an arrow at the guy but he moves at the last second?"

What's the advantage?

I think the big problem with narrating failure as an environmental factor external to the character rather than the character just failing is that it more or less curbstomps on the fact that most gaming systems have different levels of skill for characters (written on their sheets even!). I get that you're just saying to narrate things this way, but this suggests to us the somewhat absurd assumption that the guy with rank1 in archery is just as good at hitting as someone with rank5 in archery, but his targets just move more often, or things randomly get in the way more often because... reasons.

It also somewhat reduces the value of skill increases as well (at least narratively). I guess this somewhat depends on how you view skills in a game. You could assume that everyone is incredibly skilled and capable of always succeeding unless something happens that causes failure, and that higher skill represents being able to better account for environmental factors (what you're basically arguing for). Or we could assume that people start out being really terrible at what they are attempting to do, and then become gradually more competent over time and even good enough to counteract environmental factors as well. Both are viable methods, but mechanically most games allow the GM to apply some sort of difficulty factor (usually an adjustment to the target you have to roll, right?). Um... That's what's supposed to represent environmental factors, so using your method, you basically have two mechanisms that do more or less the same thing.


The first method also fails to allow for cases where people are just starting out, or not terribly good at something. What if you want to play a character who's never picked up a sword in his life, usually runs and hides, whatever. But this character is thrust into an environment where he has to fight. He's got to start somewhere, right? So he's going to suck at first. Missing a lot, just because he's not that good. But over time, if he survives, and perhaps with some assistance from his friends, he gets better. A skill system where low skill really just represents "low skill", and getting better means you actually get better (even at basic stuff), allows for this character development over time. Assuming that anyone with any skill at all is "perfect", and will always succeed unless something external causes them to fail somewhat steps on this as a game play mechanism.

I happen to think that the "you start out pretty terrible at things, and that's what low skill levels represent" is a more realistic way of running the game. But that's just my opinion. And frankly, I think that better matches skill development and progression in the "real world". There's a reason why boxers hit bags over and over, basketball players practice shooting over and over, baseball players practice hitting balls over and over, etc. You don't start out being able to hit a static bag cleanly and powerfully at all at first. You don't start out being able to get a ball in the basket even semi-regularly at all at first. And yeah, even just hitting a ball on a T is difficult when first starting out. A skill system that starts at the bottom and then progresses better simulates this than the other way around.

[Quertus]

Combining those last two posts, when Hawkeye misses his 50/50 shot at the eye slit of the 500’ giant in a Hurricane, “it bounced off the armored helmet”; when Aunt May missed her 0% success rate at the same shot, “the arrow missed the giant entirely”.

EDIT: and, again, the external factors of “it’s an eye slit, 500’ off the ground” and “there’s a bloody Hurricane” have already been narrated.

[NichG]

Funnily enough, I don't really agree with the reasons given by the people who are agreeing with me on the conclusion here. But I guess that happens.

[Quertus]

Funnily enough, I don't really agree with the reasons given by the people who are agreeing with me on the conclusion here. But I guess that happens.

It just shows that there’s lots of reasons to go down that path. Although I’m pretty sure I agree with you on this one bit, at least:


I mean, one aspect has nothing even to do with how you choose to narrate, but is rather about noticing that the system isn't reinforcing the fiction that its trying to represent well. If you find yourself rolling for things where failure due to the character 'just not pulling it off' would feel like it depicts that character's skill incorrectly, that's a good sign that the system is misaligned with the fiction.

[Fiery Diamond]

I get what people are saying about misaligned fiction and system, but that's not always something that's solvable. I mean, if I were to make a game where the fiction and system aligned, "untrained, has no idea what they're doing" would have a success rate of at least fifty percent for anything humanly possible in the real world, while "moderately competent" would have a success rate of closer to ninety percent for Olympic-level tasks, and "specialist" would never have a success rate for anything physically possible unopposed below ninety-nine percent. And that's for, in D&D terms, characters no higher than level five. And who else would actually want to play in that game? Nobody, that's who. Narrating away failure as external allows people who see even the untrained as hyper-competent to visualize their specialist as, you know, being good (by their own terms), without compromising the "it's a game, rolls actually matter" part so that people will want to play.

You have to realize that not everyone wants the same things out of the game, and that a misalignment between real probability and imagined probability is pretty much inevitable for a lot of people. If you can't fix the misalignment, your options are 1) play a game with drastically different mechanics or 2) use the almighty power of narrating roll results to reinforce the fiction in spite of the mechanics. I understand that many people prefer option 1, but that doesn't make option 2 any less valid. What if I want to play a game with D&D character abilities and spells, using D&D settings, but want the fiction to have the competence levels dialed up by an order of magnitude? If I can find a balance point where suspension of disbelief isn't broken for me, that's all that really matters, regardless of whether the mechanics are actually truly suited to my imagined levels of competence.

[NichG]

I get what people are saying about misaligned fiction and system, but that's not always something that's solvable. I mean, if I were to make a game where the fiction and system aligned, "untrained, has no idea what they're doing" would have a success rate of at least fifty percent for anything humanly possible in the real world, while "moderately competent" would have a success rate of closer to ninety percent for Olympic-level tasks, and "specialist" would never have a success rate for anything physically possible unopposed below ninety-nine percent. And that's for, in D&D terms, characters no higher than level five. And who else would actually want to play in that game? Nobody, that's who. Narrating away failure as external allows people who see even the untrained as hyper-competent to visualize their specialist as, you know, being good (by their own terms), without compromising the "it's a game, rolls actually matter" part so that people will want to play.

You have to realize that not everyone wants the same things out of the game, and that a misalignment between real probability and imagined probability is pretty much inevitable for a lot of people. If you can't fix the misalignment, your options are 1) play a game with drastically different mechanics or 2) use the almighty power of narrating roll results to reinforce the fiction in spite of the mechanics. I understand that many people prefer option 1, but that doesn't make option 2 any less valid. What if I want to play a game with D&D character abilities and spells, using D&D settings, but want the fiction to have the competence levels dialed up by an order of magnitude? If I can find a balance point where suspension of disbelief isn't broken for me, that's all that really matters, regardless of whether the mechanics are actually truly suited to my imagined levels of competence.

You can absolutely have games that don't hinge on there being high uncertainty dice rolls. Older versions of D&D were like this where basically 'if you have to roll for something, you already messed up'. You can use costs instead of binary success/failure for the resolution system. You can have 'roll to determine your damage multiplier' rather than 'roll to determine whether you hit'. You can anticipate that the players want Lv5 characters to represent the pinnacle of human competency and simultaneously show that by having the characters trivially and without failure do things which would be hard for real people, but also have lots of opportunities where they might have to stick out their neck and do things which would be hard even for mythological figures. Don't have the pinnacle of physical skill struggle with jumping over a 2 foot creek, have them struggle with jumping across a 15 foot chasm.

Have those external factors that you'd make up post-hoc to explain a weird failure already be there before the roll is even attempted. This guy doesn't just have a helmet with a narrow visor slit, he's got some sort of helmet that constantly moves and shifts around and uses optics to continually maintain his line of sight even as the weakspot flickers from place to place.Or bring the concept of the game down and treat even high level characters as within the bounds of real-world human ability so that it actually makes sense that even the Lv20 Bard has only a 50/50 chance of hitting a hole in one on a par 4 golf course.

But basically, being coherent is usually worthwhile in the long run. It's not always worthwhile to insist on coherency on every single little thing, but if you sacrifice it altogether, the ability to think about the world of a game as 'a place that makes some kind of (internal) sense' degrades more the longer you play.

[Satinavian]

I get what people are saying about misaligned fiction and system, but that's not always something that's solvable. I mean, if I were to make a game where the fiction and system aligned, "untrained, has no idea what they're doing" would have a success rate of at least fifty percent for anything humanly possible in the real world, while "moderately competent" would have a success rate of closer to ninety percent for Olympic-level tasks, and "specialist" would never have a success rate for anything physically possible unopposed below ninety-nine percent.How is that fiction and system aligning ? If those aligned, you would expect success chances that seem reasonable.

Yes, people complained about chances too low for competent characters doing routine tasks, but chances too high are a problem as well.

And yes, systems aligned to fiction tend to have significantly less randomness and more importance of skill than D&D. But there are enough of them out there.

[Quertus]

And yes, systems aligned to fiction tend to have significantly less randomness and more importance of skill than D&D.

I mean, I consider 2e D&D to be the best RPG of all time, and even I will admit that being unable to get off Arangee for skill checks is to its detriment.

Best I could ever do was to align the fiction to the mechanics, and create spoof worlds where NPCs failed to get dressed as often as not, where the “ancient ruins” was actually built last week on a failed skill roll, and Lawful ruled, as society was essential to ensure that someone succeeded at getting a fire started, or at cooking a meal for the community.

[Easy e]

Slightly off-topic, but I think many GMs try to narrate too much with purple prose, instead of just saying the result.

For example, "You missed" or "You did not succeed yet" is perfectly fine. There is no need to go into more detail, unless the player asks for it. Typically, players do not care beyond the success/failure of the action.

Really Off-Topic, GMs in general explain way more than they need to and instead should try "less is more" in more cases.

[kyoryu]

Slightly off-topic, but I think many GMs try to narrate too much with purple prose, instead of just saying the result.

For example, "You missed" or "You did not succeed yet" is perfectly fine. There is no need to go into more detail, unless the player asks for it. Typically, players do not care beyond the success/failure of the action.

Really Off-Topic, GMs in general explain way more than they need to and instead should try "less is more" in more cases.

I think there's a large, large middle ground between "pure mechanics" and "purple prose."

"The orc barely parries your attack" takes only marginally more time than "you missed", and, to me, keeps the game grounded in the fictional reality. You may not care about that, and that's also fine. I do, and I know a lot of people that do. I also know people that don't.

We can both agree that a result like "the orc sees your attack coming, bringing up his blade to meet yours in a shower of sparks. He grits his teeth and glares at you, an orcish bellow coming from his barrel chest as he raises his fist defiantly" is completely unnecessary.

[Quertus]

"The orc barely parries your attack" takes only marginally more time than "you missed", and, to me, keeps the game grounded in the fictional reality.

The problem (aside from the base Time spent) is when that narration doesn’t match the fictional reality: “but this sword can’t be parried”. Or, perhaps worse, when it does match the fictional reality, but triggers its own Rules calls: “so… when he parried my Doom blade, his sword rusted to uselessness, and he caught on fire?”

I’ve just Time and again seen negative value in GM narration, not only in the GM wasting my time, but in setting themselves up for failure. Once in a blue moon thought-through narration has value. Constant mindless drivel? Not so much.

Now, maybe you’re used to a better cut of GM than I am. Maybe you’re used to GM’s who could handle such things without painting themselves into a corner by parrying the Blade of Doom with the McGuffin we’re looking for. Who could introduce a boat, and handle physics to within an order of magnitude of believability when a Dragon lands on it. Who could remember the characters and effects they’ve placed in the game.

But my experience says, the less opportunity you give the GM to mess up, the better.

Of course, on the main topic, “a roll should represent all the things you’ve already narrated into the scene” - there’s rarely a need to be redundant, to repetitively state what the players already know, to reiterate the details of the scene. There’s an exception, when the GM uses this to good value, letting the PCs see something via “showing, not telling”, particularly when it’s not painfully obvious that they’re doing so because they’ve kept a consistent level of description up throughout the campaign.

Of course, again, I’ve never had a GM show that level of skill (no, not even myself), so I still see it as having strictly negative mechanical value.

[Telok]

The problem (aside from the base Time spent) is when that narration doesn’t match the fictional reality: “but this sword can’t be parried”. Or, perhaps worse, when it does match the fictional reality, but triggers its own Rules calls: “so… when he parried my Doom blade, his sword rusted to uselessness, and he caught on fire?”


I would just like to note in general that the above is only an issue in D&D-likes that don't allow the characters to take defensive reactions like parries & dodges. Systems where being a master sword user means you're better at parrying than an untrained mook will also have rules & tags & guidance on what can or cannot be parried and what special effects might then happen.

I have a half worked up system where I'm considering making all attacks opposed rolls. You can oppose an attack with weapon skill (bonus for a shield), dodgyness, or your armor rating. Still considering how it should interact with reaction actions & spending effort to get additional reactions.

[BRC]

The problem (aside from the base Time spent) is when that narration doesn’t match the fictional reality: “but this sword can’t be parried”. Or, perhaps worse, when it does match the fictional reality, but triggers its own Rules calls: “so… when he parried my Doom blade, his sword rusted to uselessness, and he caught on fire?”

I’ve just Time and again seen negative value in GM narration, not only in the GM wasting my time, but in setting themselves up for failure. Once in a blue moon thought-through narration has value. Constant mindless drivel? Not so much.

Now, maybe you’re used to a better cut of GM than I am. Maybe you’re used to GM’s who could handle such things without painting themselves into a corner by parrying the Blade of Doom with the McGuffin we’re looking for. Who could introduce a boat, and handle physics to within an order of magnitude of believability when a Dragon lands on it. Who could remember the characters and effects they’ve placed in the game.

But my experience says, the less opportunity you give the GM to mess up, the better.

Of course, on the main topic, “a roll should represent all the things you’ve already narrated into the scene” - there’s rarely a need to be redundant, to repetitively state what the players already know, to reiterate the details of the scene. There’s an exception, when the GM uses this to good value, letting the PCs see something via “showing, not telling”, particularly when it’s not painfully obvious that they’re doing so because they’ve kept a consistent level of description up throughout the campaign.

Of course, again, I’ve never had a GM show that level of skill (no, not even myself), so I still see it as having strictly negative mechanical value.

I feel like we need to step back a moment and think about different sorts of tests, because Combat is kind of a weird exception in two ways.

1) Combat usually means making a lot of tests in quick succession, with each representing a single discreet action (An arrow fired, a sword swung), with fully defined mechanics for resolving it.

2) The turn-based nature of Combat means that failing a test in combat has consequences built in (You spent your turn).

So, while narration in combat can provide flavor and keep the game from devolving into "I throw my number at their number until they run out of number", it's less necessary than it is elsewhere.

Part of the point of narration is to make sure everybody is on the same page as the scene transitions from the scene BEFORE the roll, to the scene AFTER the roll. every roll should advance the scene somehow.

"Bob fails to chop a hole in the fence before the zombies get here" can mean a lot of things. There may or may not be hole in the fence, the Zombies could be at the alley mouth or their rotting fingers could be closing around Bob, the fence could be unscratched or there could be a hole in it that Bob could squeeze through if he could get away from the Zombies.

For something like the BAFZ scenario, where the effort takes a period of time, it's relevant how long the character tries to succeed before they know they've failed. Do they have a chance to try something else, or do we assume they keep trying until the moment the consequences catch up with them. The GM's narration needs to bridge that gap and firmly set the new scene, and so the details about WHY the effort succeeded or failed are important.

In combat, that's not really necessary, The state of the scene before the attack + "You missed" tells us everything we need to know about the current state of the scene, because the rules already say how things get resolved.

That said, narration CAN be a tool to provide information. If you narrate the attack bouncing off the enemy's armor vs if the enemy is described as dodging tells you about the nature of the foe. And of course, some people enjoy a good cinematic narrative of the fight.

[Quertus]

I would just like to note in general that the above is only an issue in D&D-likes that don't allow the characters to take defensive reactions like parries & dodges. Systems where being a master sword user means you're better at parrying than an untrained mook will also have rules & tags & guidance on what can or cannot be parried and what special effects might then happen.

I have a half worked up system where I'm considering making all attacks opposed rolls. You can oppose an attack with weapon skill (bonus for a shield), dodgyness, or your armor rating. Still considering how it should interact with reaction actions & spending effort to get additional reactions.

Um… I think you’ve got it backwards: it’s the systems where weapons have tags that say “can’t be parried” where GM’s notoriously and hilariously **** this up. Where “parrying” ought to be an action, but they use it as fluff.

Note that 2e D&D did have rules for parrying, that were technically better than “block sword with face”, but not by much.

[Telok]

Um… I think you’ve got it backwards: it’s the systems where weapons have tags that say “can’t be parried” where GM’s notoriously and hilariously **** this up. Where “parrying” ought to be an action, but they use it as fluff.

Note that 2e D&D did have rules for parrying, that were technically better than “block sword with face”, but not by much.

Are we talking about the same sorts of systems? The ones I'm thinking of make stuff like parrying a roll. No roll = no parry = no saying parry & no interaction with a "may not parry" tag or other tags. Is there a particular system where someone declares a parry and its not an active thing?

Been there, works fine:
P1, "Attack" <roll> "is a hit?"
P2, "Parry" <roll> "successful parry"
P1, "Power weapon"
P2, "... crap, you hit then... does half a chainsword counting as a club sound ok?"

Also fine:
P1, "Attack" <roll> "is a hit?"
P2, "Parry" <roll>
P1, "Flail, no parry. Want a take back?"
P2, "Change to dodge?"
P1, "Ok"
P2, <roll> "Yuck... and that's why I wanted to parry. You hit."

[Quertus]

Are we talking about the same sorts of systems? The ones I'm thinking of make stuff like parrying a roll. No roll = no parry = no saying parry & no interaction with a "may not parry" tag or other tags. Is there a particular system where someone declares a parry and its not an active thing?

Been there, works fine:
P1, "Attack" <roll> "is a hit?"
P2, "Parry" <roll> "successful parry"
P1, "Power weapon"
P2, "... crap, you hit then... does half a chainsword counting as a club sound ok?"

Also fine:
P1, "Attack" <roll> "is a hit?"
P2, "Parry" <roll>
P1, "Flail, no parry. Want a take back?"
P2, "Change to dodge?"
P1, "Ok"
P2, <roll> "Yuck... and that's why I wanted to parry. You hit."

I’m pointing out the level of fail I’ve seen and expect from GM’s, who cannot remember that “parry” is a keyword in this system, and use it as fluff anyway.

P: “Attack” <roll> “I missed”.
GM: “it parries the blow out of the way, blah blah blah”
P: “but… it can’t be parried…”

The less rope we hand GM’s, the less they’ll hang themselves, IME.

EDIT: and, yes, if I were dumb enough to hand you a sword in 2e D&D with the property “can’t be parried”, and dumb enough to narrate combat, I’d likely be dumb enough to narrate someone parrying your blade at some point. That’s just the way such things go.

[Fiery Diamond]

How is that fiction and system aligning ? If those aligned, you would expect success chances that seem reasonable.

Yes, people complained about chances too low for competent characters doing routine tasks, but chances too high are a problem as well.

And yes, systems aligned to fiction tend to have significantly less randomness and more importance of skill than D&D. But there are enough of them out there.

I think you may have misinterpreted my use of the word "fiction." I didn't mean "like the stories it is inspired by," I meant "the agreed-upon mental construct of how competent the characters are within the world they inhabit." It's not about "reasonable" success chances. It's about "success chances that match what the players envision their characters to be capable of," with no regard for realism at all. Different people have different desires for where this sweet spot is, and "hyper competent power fantasy" is a perfectly legitimate sweet spot for someone to want. It's not what you want, clearly, but that's kind of irrelevant to the point.

[gbaji]

I would just like to note in general that the above is only an issue in D&D-likes that don't allow the characters to take defensive reactions like parries & dodges. Systems where being a master sword user means you're better at parrying than an untrained mook will also have rules & tags & guidance on what can or cannot be parried and what special effects might then happen.

Yup. D&D is a bit "odd" that it conflates several components of a combat hit attempt into one thing. All "hits" represent striking the opponent, well enough, and hard enough, to avoid any attempts at evading/dodging, also get through any assumed parry/block/whatever, *and* penetrate whatever armor the target is wearing, doing damage as a result. There's a single AC target number that is a combination of all different defensive things. It does simplify things a bit, but also leave an odd "all damage or no damage" element (excepting damage reduction effects in some versions).

Other systems break this down a bit. I play most often in RuneQuest, in which the attacker simply rolls his attack roll, based on the percentage with the weapon he's using. So simple. No real calculation. Look at the number on your sheet, roll a percentile die. If you roll under the percentage skill with the weapon, you hit. The defender chooses to dodge or parry. He looks at his sheet, picks the skill he's using, and then also attempts to succeed at rolling under that skill. If it's a parry, then the parry blocks X amount of damage from the hit, based on the weapon/shield being used (also written on the sheet). The remaining damage, if any, get through, at which point any armor gained from magic reduces the damage (protection and shield spells specifically). Any remaining damage then goes through and hits the armor on the location struck, and any damage remaining from *that* goes through and does damage to the location.

Dodges are a bit different, in that it's level of success that matters, but you either miss entirely, or hit entirely, with the reaming damage going on to hit magic defenses, then worn armor (oh, and I suppose skin armor if the target has that), then does damage to the location.

While it's a few extra steps involved (honestly, just two die rolls, one from each person), the results can be extremely well calculated. You know whether the weapon impacted the parrying shield/weapon, and if it has some special effect that does something in that case, it applies. You know if the damage got through the parry (or dodge) and impacted the magical defenses of the target (and could possibly have effect on those, for some strange artifact that maybe dispels stuff it touches). You then also know if the weapon impacts the worn armor (and could have yet more effects, like acid melting, corrosion, whatever). And you know how much exactly gets through and does damage to the target in the form of hps.

One extra roll, and a few simple bits of math and you can simulate a wide array of different effects accurately.


I have a half worked up system where I'm considering making all attacks opposed rolls. You can oppose an attack with weapon skill (bonus for a shield), dodgyness, or your armor rating. Still considering how it should interact with reaction actions & spending effort to get additional reactions.

Honestly, the biggest problem with "to hit" based systems is the concept that all defensive things tend to be "all or nothing" effects. So heavier armor just increases the odds that you take zero damage, and better skill at blocking/dodging does the same. But yeah, if that's already imbedded in the system you are using, then you're kinda stuck with it. Giving an option to spend an action (or half action, or whatever depending on the system you are using), to apply a defense and thus a bonus to AC/whatever works. It can be tricky to balance that into an existing combat system though. We implemented a "desperate defense" option into our game, where you could use that instead of attacking that round, had to retreat a space, but as long as you made your defensive skill, you were able to avoid all damage from opponents that round (new roll required for each attacking opponent though). It works ok, and allows for survival when characters find themselves in really really tough spots and just need to survive long enough for someone else to come and bail them out.

Some other roll rules for skill based (specifically percentage based) systems:

One of the house rules I added to the base RQ rules was that for weapons, natural skill over 100% could be used to subtract from the opposed persons skill (in both directions, so an attacker could make a parry or dodge miss, or a defender could make the attacker simply miss, which means that the attacker didn't even hit the parrying item. You're just that good). This allows the system to normalize skill rolls within a 100% range, while scaling up to relatively high skill levels. Allows for trivializing fights between extremely skilled people and "wimpy" opponents, while allowing for the same "do I hit or miss" dynamic in fights between similarly skilled folks. I find that this sort of mechanism works well in skill based (especially percentage skill based) systems. In RQ specifically, I limit this to "natural skill" (what's actually written on the character sheet), because there are a number of spells that can increase your chance to hit. I didn't want those being used. They still act to increase the chances for special or critical hits (and can soak up reductions from a higher skilled opponent), but can't themselves be used to subtract. Oh, and obviously, subtractions always reduce the opponents natural skill first, then any magic (otherwise you get bizarre cases where the resulting skills change based on who declares a subtraction first).

For non-combat skills, but still opposed skills, I do something similar. Basically, the first person rolls their skill. The amount they make it by becomes the difficulty factor for the opposed skill (feel free to round to easy numbers if you feel like making the math easier). So if the PC is attempting to sneak up on an NPC, you have the PC roll their sneak skill (applying environmental factors like light, cover, etc), then if they make it, subtract the difference from the NPCs spot chance. This also allows for scaling skill levels (otherwise everyone over 100% is like "I made my sneak" and "I made my spot", er,... "was I spotted, or not?". Most systems (RQ does this) introduce some sort of "level of success" bit, but I personally hate those. They work "ok" at low level, but at high skill level it basically turns into "lucky die roller wins". And still leaves us wondering which skill should "win" if both achieve the same level of success.

I've seen other percentage based systems that use a "best level wins, and highest roll at the same level wins", method. Which I also personally hate with a passion. Yeah. Technically, if you have a 40% skill, and I have a 60% skill, I can roll anywhere from 41-60 and always beat you, but I could also roll a 22, and you roll a 25 and now you win. Just because I rolled... lower? In a system where rolling lower is supposed to be "better"? And when you have levels of success (like RQ does), it gets worse. I rolling 41-60 win, unless you roll a 01-08, in which case you win. I rolling a 13-40 win, if you roll 41-00 *or* if you roll a 09-40 *and* I roll higher than you, but I lose if you roll a 01-08. I rolling a 04-12 win, if you roll 09-00 *or* if you roll 03-08 *and* I roll higher than you, but I lose if you roll a 01-02. I rolling a 01-03 win, if you roll 03-00 *or* if you roll 01-02 *and* I roll higher than you. OMG is that not the most obnoxiously silly set of rules and produces incredibly silly odds calculations? Yes, it is.

Yes. My method involves some math, but is not really a new concept. Most skills systems include some sort of difficulty factor that the GM can impose on the skill (that lock is particularly easy/hard, that climb is particularly easy/hard, etc). You apply plusses or minuses to the skill being attempted. This just gives you the same thing when using opposed rolls. And yeah, it naturally scales linearly based on skill rather than having odd bumps and odds shifts based on where the skills are relative to an arbitrary cap number. Oddly, in many ways, it's very similar to D&D's system of skill rank versus target roll, but allows that dynamic for a percentage based skills system. The "odds" are not based on the actual skill rank as a base, but the linear numerical difference between the skill ranks being used (one creates the target number for the other). It's elegant, relatively easy to apply in practice, and produces absolutely clear and consistent final success odds.


Oh. And someone earlier talked about issues with people failing simple tasks due to skill rules. Same concept applies though. The GM can assign plusses as well as minuses for target numbers. So, even in such systems, you just assign really high plusses to doing things that are "easy". So putting on your pants doesn't become about failing round after round. It's an easy thing. You can do it. You need a strength roll to pick up that tea cup? Well, it's got a +200 difficulty factor, so you just can't fail, no matter how weak you are. There. Done.

Um. I also introduced linear values at which it was increasingly less likely for "auto fail" or "auto success" numbers to work. This is heavily dependent on game system, but for D&D, it could be something like "if your target roll is double a 20, then a nat 20 no longer succeeds", and "if your target roll is -20, then a nat 1 no longer fails" (feel free to scale as needed though). In RQ, there's a concept that's the same 01-05 always succeeds, and 96-00 always fails. For certain opposed checks (stat checks typically), base percent if the totals are the same is 50%. For each one point higher/lower, the percent chance move 5% higher/lower. So being +10 points, gives you a 100% chance, but that's limited to 95% due to the whole "96-00 fails" bit. At +30 (effectively 200%), we reduce the auto fail to 00% only (1% chance to fail). At +50 (real chance 300%), there no chance to fail. The idea being that if you have 50 more strength than the other guy, you kinda can't lose. And the same occurs in the other direction. -30 means your chance to auto succeed drops to 01%, and at -50, you have no chance.

That does great things like prevent the 05% chance to "OMG I just hit that god with my spell" nonsense. And makes arm wrestling with a giant a bad idea. But, just like with everything else, it allows the system to scale up to giants arm wrestling with each other (or characters with a whole lot of strength enhancing magic).

Dunno. Lots of ways to do this, but I do tend to be a fan of various forms of linearly scaling probability rules for rolls in my games. I just find that it scales better than any other method, while still keeping the math relatively simple, *and* has the virtue of maintaining the same "high/low roll is always better" dynamic through all skill levels.

[martixy]

A roll should represent a moment of minor DRAMA.

If there is no drama to be had, there should not be a roll.

If the drama is too major, it should not be a roll.


Rephrased a bit:
You should never hang the fate of the world on a die roll.
And you should be looking for every opportunity to avoid die rolls.

[Quertus]

A roll should represent a moment of minor DRAMA.

If there is no drama to be had, there should not be a roll.

If the drama is too major, it should not be a roll.


Rephrased a bit:
You should never hang the fate of the world on a die roll.
And you should be looking for every opportunity to avoid die rolls.

Rephrased a bit more?
“A roll should represent things we cannot resolve otherwise, despite our best efforts.”


I feel like we need to step back a moment and think about different sorts of tests, because Combat is kind of a weird exception in two ways.

1) Combat usually means making a lot of tests in quick succession, with each representing a single discreet action (An arrow fired, a sword swung), with fully defined mechanics for resolving it.

2) The turn-based nature of Combat means that failing a test in combat has consequences built in (You spent your turn).

So, while narration in combat can provide flavor and keep the game from devolving into "I throw my number at their number until they run out of number", it's less necessary than it is elsewhere.

Part of the point of narration is to make sure everybody is on the same page as the scene transitions from the scene BEFORE the roll, to the scene AFTER the roll. every roll should advance the scene somehow.

"Bob fails to chop a hole in the fence before the zombies get here" can mean a lot of things. There may or may not be hole in the fence, the Zombies could be at the alley mouth or their rotting fingers could be closing around Bob, the fence could be unscratched or there could be a hole in it that Bob could squeeze through if he could get away from the Zombies.

For something like the BAFZ scenario, where the effort takes a period of time, it's relevant how long the character tries to succeed before they know they've failed. Do they have a chance to try something else, or do we assume they keep trying until the moment the consequences catch up with them. The GM's narration needs to bridge that gap and firmly set the new scene, and so the details about WHY the effort succeeded or failed are important.

In combat, that's not really necessary, The state of the scene before the attack + "You missed" tells us everything we need to know about the current state of the scene, because the rules already say how things get resolved.

That said, narration CAN be a tool to provide information. If you narrate the attack bouncing off the enemy's armor vs if the enemy is described as dodging tells you about the nature of the foe. And of course, some people enjoy a good cinematic narrative of the fight.

“Narration should represent necessary ‘change of state’ data we cannot otherwise assume the players know”?

If we move a mini on a battlemat, it’s probably safe to say that the players know that the corresponding creature moved, there’s probably no need to narrate that… unless that creature had previously just been scenery - a tree, rock, or building, for example - but now was an active participant in the fight. Darn Treebeard!

[Stonehead]

If Hawkeye / Bullseye / whoever you consider “really cool” only has a 50/50 chance of hitting the target? That’d better be an eye slit in a 500’ tall giant in a Hurricane, else the rules have Captain Hobo‘d the character’s coolness. And, if the rules haven’t Captain Hobo’d the character’s coolness, then you don’t need to narrate extra reasons why they missed - they missed because they were attacking an eye slit 500’ up in a Hurricane.

Also, if you’re playing with players who try to flip a coin, need heads but get tails, and need some “external factor” excuse for why they failed? That’s a failure to understand probability, or terrible self-esteem issues. Play with better players.

That's kind of what I was trying to get across by talking about "making the dc easier," which only ended up distracting from my point.

You made it much clearer, thanks.


But.... like, why?

What is the advantage of narrating as "you just can't?"

Why is "you try to cross the stream but miss the rock" better than "you try to cross the stream but slip on a wet and mossy part of the rock?" Why is "you shoot an arrow at the guy and miss wildly" better than "you shoot an arrow at the guy but he moves at the last second?"

What's the advantage?
Realism is an advantage, but only a few people care about that.

Everyone else has mentioned different playstyle preferences, but one concrete, non-subjective answer is that environmental factors often eliminate the possibility to try again while realistic luck doesn't. If you try to jump the stream but slip on the water, the water will still be there if you want to try again, or if the other party members want to try. If Robin Hood shoots at the arrow slit and misses, if the DM narrates that the weather is storming and making it impossible, it'll still be storming if he wants to try again. If he missed because everyone misses hard shots some time, he can try again in the future.

Now, sometimes you don't want to allow the players to keep trying until they get it right, in which case this becomes a drawback rather than an advantage. I personally like letting people keep trying if there's no time pressure or punishment for failure or anything. And if it's something that they aren't rushed on, and can try as many times as they want, I don't even ask for a roll, because it j

[Tanarii]

If someone fails because of an environmental factor already present, it should either already be an automatic failure or affect the chance of success from the go. Not retroactively start because one person failed.

Choose an Consequence that changes the state of the challenge if you want to make further retries for anyone impossible. If you fail to pick a lock, it should be something like it broke. Not that it suddenly turned into a Class IV Kingstomb Adamantium Lock because you failed.

Or make it a state-of-the-character check if you want just one character to not be able to retry. Like a 3e/4e Knowledge check, you know the thing or you don't know the thing, that character can't try again. Or a BECMI pick locks, you can't try again until you go up a level, because your character's skill is insufficient.

[Stonehead]

If someone fails because of an environmental factor already present, it should either already be an automatic failure or affect the chance of success from the go. Not retroactively start because one person failed.

Choose an Consequence that changes the state of the challenge if you want to make further retries for anyone impossible. If you fail to pick a lock, it should be something like it broke. Not that it suddenly turned into a Class IV Kingstomb Adamantium Lock because you failed.

Or make it a state-of-the-character check if you want just one character to not be able to retry. Like a 3e/4e Knowledge check, you know the thing or you don't know the thing, that character can't try again. Or a BECMI pick locks, you can't try again until you go up a level, because your character's skill is insufficient.

See, that's kinda what I'm saying. If Johnny Nimble the acrobat rolls a 4 and fails to jump the creek with his +10 bonus. And the reason given is because it's just too slippery, wouldn't it be just as slippery for Old Man Slowbones who rolls a 17 with his -1 penalty? Either the creek suddenly stopped being slippery when the old man tries to jump it, or it's too slippery for our acrobat, but not too slippery for our old man, at which point why invoke the environmental conditions in the first place?

If a group doesn't care about that kind of consistency, cool, more power too them. But invoking environmental conditions to justify a failure isn't a silver bullet that should be used everywhere.

As an aside, mostly unrelated to the discussion, if you actually wanted the "one roll per party" mechanic, it's not hard to narrate parts of the river bank collapsing when stepped on wrong. Changing the environment, instead of revealing new information.

[kyoryu]

See, that's kinda what I'm saying. If Johnny Nimble the acrobat rolls a 4 and fails to jump the creek with his +10 bonus. And the reason given is because it's just too slippery, wouldn't it be just as slippery for Old Man Slowbones who rolls a 17 with his -1 penalty? Either the creek suddenly stopped being slippery when the old man tries to jump it, or it's too slippery for our acrobat, but not too slippery for our old man, at which point why invoke the environmental conditions in the first place?

If a group doesn't care about that kind of consistency, cool, more power too them. But invoking environmental conditions to justify a failure isn't a silver bullet that should be used everywhere.

As an aside, mostly unrelated to the discussion, if you actually wanted the "one roll per party" mechanic, it's not hard to narrate parts of the river bank collapsing when stepped on wrong. Changing the environment, instead of revealing new information.

Sure it is. You don't blame it on general conditions. You blame it on specific conditions. If that makes sense.

You don't say "it's too slippery for Johnny Nimble to cross, but Old Man Slowbones can cross without issue!" That's a blanket statement. Instead, you say "Johnny Nimble crosses the stream, but as he steps on one particular rock, he hits a patch of moss that causes him to slip and fall into the river. Old Man Slowbones follow him, and carefully picks his way across the rocks - he almost slips a few times, but is able to catch himself before he slips into the river."

That's perfectly consistent.

[BRC]

Sure it is. You don't blame it on general conditions. You blame it on specific conditions. If that makes sense.

You don't say "it's too slippery for Johnny Nimble to cross, but Old Man Slowbones can cross without issue!" That's a blanket statement. Instead, you say "Johnny Nimble crosses the stream, but as he steps on one particular rock, he hits a patch of moss that causes him to slip and fall into the river. Old Man Slowbones follow him, and carefully picks his way across the rocks - he almost slips a few times, but is able to catch himself before he slips into the river."

That's perfectly consistent.

I would say that's more in line with the roll reflecting approach than environmental conditions.

When you say "The roll determines environmental conditions that may impact success", having the roll retro-actively determine how hard the task was to begin with, then the conditions must be at least decently general.

I guess your approach works if Johnny Nimble and Old Man Slowbones are crossing the river, taking different routes, at the same time, and you're saying the roll determines how difficult each of their chosen paths is. If they go one at a time, taking the same route, it doesn't really work unless they have a reason to choose different routes.


I feel like "Environmental Conditions" works best if there is some natural variability in the environment, either in the specific (Two people not doing the exact same thing, but SIMILAR things) or over time, and you take the DC to be an average for the situation. For example, if you've got Johnny Nimble and Old Man Slowbones both trying to scale different rooftops in the same complex of buildings, you can say "Johnny's rooftop turns out to be brand new and well repaired, offering few handholds. Slowbones's roof has plenty of damaged and missing tiles, so he's able to climb".

Or, alternatively, Johnny tries to sneak past a guard. The first time he rolls well, and the DM says "The guard looks kind of sleepy, he's not paying much attention". The second time, he rolls poorly, and the DM says that the Guard had a cup of coffee between the two attempts, so he's more alert now and notices Johnny.

Edit:
With all this talk of how hard "environmental factors" are to use well, I feel like I do need to make a point in their defense:
As a GM, the point of using "Environmental Factors" as the narrative is that it avoids putting words in your player's mouth, or downplaying their abilities.
If Sneaky Pete flubs a stealth roll and the GM says "Oh, you went to hide in the tall grass but accidentally step on a stick, breaking it and making a noise that alerts the guards". You've just said that Sneaky Peat, a character SO good at stealth that they just swapped how their name is spelled, failed to check for sticks when hiding in that grass.

If you say "The guards are extra-alert right now" or "It turns out this half-described courtyard is pretty short on good hiding places", you're no making decisions for Sneaky Pat's player, nor are you denying the character their expertise.

[gbaji]

A roll should represent a moment of minor DRAMA.

If there is no drama to be had, there should not be a roll.

If the drama is too major, it should not be a roll.


Rephrased a bit:
You should never hang the fate of the world on a die roll.
And you should be looking for every opportunity to avoid die rolls.

Agree to a point. I would maybe drop the "drama" bit, and just say "something of significance", instead. I commonly call for die rolls for things that aren't dramatic at all, but merely mechanical. The party is traveling along, and there's a pack of wild animals stalking them. Do they make their listen/spot rolls to see them coming? Perception rolls are extremely common rolls that I use in my game, that I wouldn't call "dramatic" at all, but are important for determining things like how many rounds warning (if any) the party has before they get attacked (or how many the NPCs have if it's the party sneaking up on them).

I agree 100% that the fate of the world should never hang on a single die roll. It's one of the reasons, in fact, why I argue for *more* die rolls rather than fewer. If you only ever call for die rolls when it's "really really important", allowing players to "look for every opportunity to avoid die rolls", then you are somewhat setting yourself up for the "fate of the world depends on the die roll" situations. If you use a lot of rolls, for pretty much everything, allowing probability to regularly adjust outcomes relative to attempted actions, then the fate of the world, is dependent instead on a series of decisions, actions, and die rolls, which are constantly in flux, and constantly adjusted to by both the PCs and the NPCs (and I guess the world in general).

To take the "court the dukes daughter" scenario, imagine if instead of just having a single roll (using some social skill), you instead called for a knowledge roll about court etiquette, then another roll to see if you can properly dress for the occasion, another for actually following through on the rules to be followed, yet another knowledge check about regional politics to be able to intelligently speak to the nobles in attendance, and yet another communication roll or three to properly impress said nobles (and duke) with your abilities. Add to this knowledge checks (and perhaps other information gathering checks) to learn about the likes/dislikes of the daughter). So when you finally approach her and make your "court dukes daughter" roll, you've already added a ton of adjustments, such that the roll itself is really just a formality to determine how well all your hard work actually pays off. Sure you could still blow the roll, but since you did all that homework, maybe it's just a minor set back instead of a catastrophe. The point is that it's the collective ratio of successes and failures over a number of die rolls that determine success, not a single "make it or fail" roll at the very end.

The same concept can be applied to a lot of different things in a game. And IMO, should be.


Sure it is. You don't blame it on general conditions. You blame it on specific conditions. If that makes sense.

You don't say "it's too slippery for Johnny Nimble to cross, but Old Man Slowbones can cross without issue!" That's a blanket statement. Instead, you say "Johnny Nimble crosses the stream, but as he steps on one particular rock, he hits a patch of moss that causes him to slip and fall into the river. Old Man Slowbones follow him, and carefully picks his way across the rocks - he almost slips a few times, but is able to catch himself before he slips into the river."

That's perfectly consistent.

Yeah. But to be honest, that's a lot of after the fact thinking to explain away a phenomena we're all familiar with anyway. The one where the pro basketball player hangs out with some kids, and shows them how to shoot a basket, and misses one. Then hands it to the 6 year old kid, who tosses it over her head without looking and gets a perfect swish. Everyone laughs. The pro chuckles and congratulates the kid, and we all move on. This sort of random stuff happens all the time. Sure statistically, the pro will hit far far more shots than the kid who's never picked up a basketball before, but every once in a while that sort of thing happens.

We can come up with elaborate environmental explanations for such things, or just conclude that sometimes dumb luck just comes into play. And that's what the die rolls represent. Don't need to explain it away. It's just there. We all know it's there. And the point of character skill is to increase the odds in their favor (and it absolutely does mathematically). But we never actually fully eliminate that dumb luck factor.

And to be honest, we never really fully should in a game. To do so is to make it a non-realistic simulation of "real life".

[Stonehead]

Sure it is. You don't blame it on general conditions. You blame it on specific conditions. If that makes sense.

You don't say "it's too slippery for Johnny Nimble to cross, but Old Man Slowbones can cross without issue!" That's a blanket statement. Instead, you say "Johnny Nimble crosses the stream, but as he steps on one particular rock, he hits a patch of moss that causes him to slip and fall into the river. Old Man Slowbones follow him, and carefully picks his way across the rocks - he almost slips a few times, but is able to catch himself before he slips into the river."

That's perfectly consistent.

Sure, but at that point you're just saying "He messes up the jump" in more words. Surely choosing the correct stones to step on when crossing a creek would fall under character skill, right? If it's moss on a stone, it's the character's fault for stepping on that stone, and if the moss can't be seen, then isn't that dumb luck? In depth descriptions are great and all, but going by the original post, that seems like a C to me, not an A.

If Jim McGreatsword fails to hit an opponent, I wouldn't say "Jim's sword catches in the air and strikes the armor at a bad angle, deflecting harmlessly away" is really blaming environmental conditions. It's just describing exactly how Jim failed.

Maybe this is just being pedantic, but if it is, than the objection was pedantic too.



With all this talk of how hard "environmental factors" are to use well, I feel like I do need to make a point in their defense:
As a GM, the point of using "Environmental Factors" as the narrative is that it avoids putting words in your player's mouth, or downplaying their abilities.
If Sneaky Pete flubs a stealth roll and the GM says "Oh, you went to hide in the tall grass but accidentally step on a stick, breaking it and making a noise that alerts the guards". You've just said that Sneaky Peat, a character SO good at stealth that they just swapped how their name is spelled, failed to check for sticks when hiding in that grass.

If you say "The guards are extra-alert right now" or "It turns out this half-described courtyard is pretty short on good hiding places", you're no making decisions for Sneaky Pat's player, nor are you denying the character their expertise.

Based on the mossy-stone example, "stepping on a twig" is an environmental factor after all. :P

Overall it's a good point though, blaming external factors shifts the blame off of the character.

Originally, all I meant was that seeing the dice on the table is sometimes enough of a "reason" for players to understand, without adding new things to the world. Depends on your play style and improv skills.

[BRC]

Agree to a point. I would maybe drop the "drama" bit, and just say "something of significance", instead. I commonly call for die rolls for things that aren't dramatic at all, but merely mechanical. The party is traveling along, and there's a pack of wild animals stalking them. Do they make their listen/spot rolls to see them coming? Perception rolls are extremely common rolls that I use in my game, that I wouldn't call "dramatic" at all, but are important for determining things like how many rounds warning (if any) the party has before they get attacked (or how many the NPCs have if it's the party sneaking up on them).

I agree 100% that the fate of the world should never hang on a single die roll. It's one of the reasons, in fact, why I argue for *more* die rolls rather than fewer. If you only ever call for die rolls when it's "really really important", allowing players to "look for every opportunity to avoid die rolls", then you are somewhat setting yourself up for the "fate of the world depends on the die roll" situations. If you use a lot of rolls, for pretty much everything, allowing probability to regularly adjust outcomes relative to attempted actions, then the fate of the world, is dependent instead on a series of decisions, actions, and die rolls, which are constantly in flux, and constantly adjusted to by both the PCs and the NPCs (and I guess the world in general).

To take the "court the dukes daughter" scenario, imagine if instead of just having a single roll (using some social skill), you instead called for a knowledge roll about court etiquette, then another roll to see if you can properly dress for the occasion, another for actually following through on the rules to be followed, yet another knowledge check about regional politics to be able to intelligently speak to the nobles in attendance, and yet another communication roll or three to properly impress said nobles (and duke) with your abilities. Add to this knowledge checks (and perhaps other information gathering checks) to learn about the likes/dislikes of the daughter). So when you finally approach her and make your "court dukes daughter" roll, you've already added a ton of adjustments, such that the roll itself is really just a formality to determine how well all your hard work actually pays off. Sure you could still blow the roll, but since you did all that homework, maybe it's just a minor set back instead of a catastrophe. The point is that it's the collective ratio of successes and failures over a number of die rolls that determine success, not a single "make it or fail" roll at the very end.

The same concept can be applied to a lot of different things in a game. And IMO, should be.


You've got to be careful with that sort of chain roll situation, it's not a bad idea, but if you don't construct it well you turn from "No one roll should be that important" to "Here are 6 rolls, ALL of which must be important!"

A knowledge roll about etiquette, if you fail that you're basically done, since you can't try to follow the rules if you don't know them. A roll to acquire a properly fashionable outfit, fail that and you won't get through the door. A roll for actually following the rules, fail that and you'll make a fool of yourself or offend somebody, ect ect ect.

That sort of Complex skill check system is good, but you need to approach it with purpose and clarity.

My preferred way to do it (In 5e) is to say "Okay, only the last roll, talk to the Duke's Daughter, actually matters, but each success on those supporting rolls will grant you a bonus on that roll" (Usually in the form of extra dice, similar to bless or bardic inspiration, because rolling lots of dice is fun), so that the variability of the final roll can be spread out over the whole process while keeping the ludonarrative connection of "This roll represents talking to the Duke's Daughter, and determines How good you are at Talking to the Duke's Daughter, all this other stuff provides bonuses to increase your chance of success at this important roll"



Based on the mossy-stone example, "stepping on a twig" is an environmental factor after all. :P

Overall it's a good point though, blaming external factors shifts the blame off of the character.

Originally, all I meant was that seeing the dice on the table is sometimes enough of a "reason" for players to understand, without adding new things to the world. Depends on your play style and improv skills.

Personally, I enjoy adding new details to the world through gameplay, it's a nice way to add depth and detail to a scene without needing to overload everything with a lengthy initial description and add a bit of character to things.
You failed because your clothing snagged on some thorns, well those bushes over there now have thorns. You succeed at breaking down the door because the wood was rotten, now this castle feels like it's old and in poor repair.

[Quertus]

I would say that's more in line with the roll reflecting approach than environmental conditions.

When you say "The roll determines environmental conditions that may impact success", having the roll retro-actively determine how hard the task was to begin with, then the conditions must be at least decently general.

I guess your approach works if Johnny Nimble and Old Man Slowbones are crossing the river, taking different routes, at the same time, and you're saying the roll determines how difficult each of their chosen paths is. If they go one at a time, taking the same route, it doesn't really work unless they have a reason to choose different routes.


I feel like "Environmental Conditions" works best if there is some natural variability in the environment, either in the specific (Two people not doing the exact same thing, but SIMILAR things) or over time, and you take the DC to be an average for the situation. For example, if you've got Johnny Nimble and Old Man Slowbones both trying to scale different rooftops in the same complex of buildings, you can say "Johnny's rooftop turns out to be brand new and well repaired, offering few handholds. Slowbones's roof has plenty of damaged and missing tiles, so he's able to climb".

Or, alternatively, Johnny tries to sneak past a guard. The first time he rolls well, and the DM says "The guard looks kind of sleepy, he's not paying much attention". The second time, he rolls poorly, and the DM says that the Guard had a cup of coffee between the two attempts, so he's more alert now and notices Johnny.

Edit:
With all this talk of how hard "environmental factors" are to use well, I feel like I do need to make a point in their defense:
As a GM, the point of using "Environmental Factors" as the narrative is that it avoids putting words in your player's mouth, or downplaying their abilities.
If Sneaky Pete flubs a stealth roll and the GM says "Oh, you went to hide in the tall grass but accidentally step on a stick, breaking it and making a noise that alerts the guards". You've just said that Sneaky Peat, a character SO good at stealth that they just swapped how their name is spelled, failed to check for sticks when hiding in that grass.

If you say "The guards are extra-alert right now" or "It turns out this half-described courtyard is pretty short on good hiding places", you're no making decisions for Sneaky Pat's player, nor are you denying the character their expertise.

If you, as GM, think that the only reason anyone would notice Johnny is if he stepped on a stick, something you feel he wouldn’t do? If you have to have the character hold the idiot ball in order for them to fail? Then don’t call for a roll, just say that they succeed without stepping in any sticks.

If you, as GM, think that the only reason anyone would notice Johnny is if he chose to try while the guards are extra attentive, something you feel he wouldn’t do? If you have to have the character hold the idiot ball in order for them to fail? Then don’t call for a roll, just say that they succeed by waiting until the guards relax their guard.

Or just make sure that the bonuses and DCs and system are aligned with the fiction, and if Johnny couldn’t fail to sneak, he couldn’t fail the roll to sneak.


I agree 100% that the fate of the world should never hang on a single die roll. It's one of the reasons, in fact, why I argue for *more* die rolls rather than fewer.

This is an interesting… point? Idea? Wording?

Breaking a task down into manageable chunks, seeing where that leaves you, and plotting a course accordingly? I can see that as much more rewarding than “roll to save the world”. But I don’t think I ever would have considered wording it as “more rolls”. More agency? Micro-transactions? Combat as War? Breaking a task down into individual components? Threat management? Intelligent planning? Fail forward? Failure is expected; it needn’t be the end of the game? I can see me using those phrases in relation to that process, regardless of the fact than many aren’t exactly definitionally identical.

But, yeah, “more rolling” is better, when done right. When it’s coupled with more decisions. (Ie, not a 4e skill challenge)


To take the "court the dukes daughter" scenario, imagine if instead of just having a single roll (using some social skill), you instead called for a knowledge roll about court etiquette, then another roll to see if you can properly dress for the occasion, another for actually following through on the rules to be followed, yet another knowledge check about regional politics to be able to intelligently speak to the nobles in attendance, and yet another communication roll or three to properly impress said nobles (and duke) with your abilities. Add to this knowledge checks (and perhaps other information gathering checks) to learn about the likes/dislikes of the daughter). So when you finally approach her and make your "court dukes daughter" roll, you've already added a ton of adjustments, such that the roll itself is really just a formality to determine how well all your hard work actually pays off. Sure you could still blow the roll, but since you did all that homework, maybe it's just a minor set back instead of a catastrophe. The point is that it's the collective ratio of successes and failures over a number of die rolls that determine success, not a single "make it or fail" roll at the very end.

The same concept can be applied to a lot of different things in a game. And IMO, should be.

I almost agree? That is to say, that’s kinda the way I like to play and run the game, except… it’s more bounded by an initial roll / hurdle, that, if you don’t know that how you dress is important, then you don’t think of it, and don’t get to roll for how well you dress.

Depending on precise implementation, we might have just said the same thing. But I focus on “do you know enough to ask the question”, as almost a roleplaying thing.


Yeah. But to be honest, that's a lot of after the fact thinking to explain away a phenomena we're all familiar with anyway. The one where the pro basketball player hangs out with some kids, and shows them how to shoot a basket, and misses one. Then hands it to the 6 year old kid, who tosses it over her head without looking and gets a perfect swish. Everyone laughs. The pro chuckles and congratulates the kid, and we all move on. This sort of random stuff happens all the time. Sure statistically, the pro will hit far far more shots than the kid who's never picked up a basketball before, but every once in a while that sort of thing happens.

We can come up with elaborate environmental explanations for such things, or just conclude that sometimes dumb luck just comes into play. And that's what the die rolls represent. Don't need to explain it away. It's just there. We all know it's there. And the point of character skill is to increase the odds in their favor (and it absolutely does mathematically). But we never actually fully eliminate that dumb luck factor.

And to be honest, we never really fully should in a game. To do so is to make it a non-realistic simulation of "real life".

Sure we do. I’m a genius, I check my work before I submit it, and I’ve got a spell checker. My spelling is prefect! :smallbiggrin:

[BRC]

If you, as GM, think that the only reason anyone would notice Johnny is if he stepped on a stick, something you feel he wouldn’t do? If you have to have the character hold the idiot ball in order for them to fail? Then don’t call for a roll, just say that they succeed without stepping in any sticks.

If you, as GM, think that the only reason anyone would notice Johnny is if he chose to try while the guards are extra attentive, something you feel he wouldn’t do? If you have to have the character hold the idiot ball in order for them to fail? Then don’t call for a roll, just say that they succeed by waiting until the guards relax their guard.

Or just make sure that the bonuses and DCs and system are aligned with the fiction, and if Johnny couldn’t fail to sneak, he couldn’t fail the roll to sneak.



This isn't a scenario where Johnny shouldn't be able to fail to sneak. He can, and there are countless reasons why a person skilled at stealth might get spotted by some guards. Different reasons given (or no reason, just a blanket "You fail") have different effects on the experience for the players at the table, and as a GM you have moments to think of your narrative. It's not a question of "The Only reason they might have failed" it's usually "The First reason you think of".

Part of the reason to think about narrating the failure as due to external factors (No good hiding spots at this moment, the guards are extra-attentive tonight), or bad luck, is that it nicely limits you to reasons somebody might have failed without making dumb mistakes, "Holding the idiot ball" as you say.
If you ask yourself "What might Johnny have done wrong", you might end up stepping on the Player's perception of their character. Johnny is a skilled thief, it would be uncharacteristically stupid of him to not to watch where he stepped when picking a hiding spot.

If you ask "What might have happened to cause Johnny to fail DESPITE his skill" you don't have to worry about that, you can give any reasonable answer to the question (Guards are being extra thorough, no good hiding spots, ect) without worrying about accidentally turning the suave super thief into a bumbling buffoon.

[gbaji]

You've got to be careful with that sort of chain roll situation, it's not a bad idea, but if you don't construct it well you turn from "No one roll should be that important" to "Here are 6 rolls, ALL of which must be important!"

A knowledge roll about etiquette, if you fail that you're basically done, since you can't try to follow the rules if you don't know them. A roll to acquire a properly fashionable outfit, fail that and you won't get through the door. A roll for actually following the rules, fail that and you'll make a fool of yourself or offend somebody, ect ect ect.

Sure. That is a risk. But that would also still require a series of failed rolls, not just one. You fail the knowledge check about proper dress, so you come in not quite as correctly attired as you should be. But you cover that with a communication skill and convince them that "this style is all the rage in the court of Atria", and pull it off as you being more worldly, rather than a total bumbkin. You make your politics roll and know everything that's going on, which scores you points, but you don't communicate it well, and some of the nobles maybe take offense at some implied position your statements suggested.

The point is that it's no single roll that matters, but a collection of multiple rolls. It's not "make every single roll", but a calculation of failures and successes that may affect the final result. Better yet, as you progress through these rolls you can make adjustments to what you are doing in response, and roleplay those out. And sometime, by putting in details like this, you can create additional "fun" inserts into your game. The next time you come by the Duke's court you find that folks are now wearing the sash in the "formerly wrong" position because they've decided to imitate the court of Atria's assumed style, or a whole plot between noble 1 and noble 2 has broken out because you incorrectly suggested that one's position was weak in an area, but he's responded to this by making a series of actions that have caused other fun things to happen.

And all that because you were just trying to shmooze with the Duke's daughter. I've found that often times, the most interesting and (often amusing) roleplaying hooks result from just this kind of interactive "roll" playing. You may get details and results (or even just future plot ideas) that would never have come up if you didn't do it this way. And that can also result in more player satisfaction since they will feel like their actions, even when the results are unintended, are having a real and dynamic effect on the world around them (obviously, don't let them get their heads too swollen with this sort of thing though).


My preferred way to do it (In 5e) is to say "Okay, only the last roll, talk to the Duke's Daughter, actually matters, but each success on those supporting rolls will grant you a bonus on that roll" (Usually in the form of extra dice, similar to bless or bardic inspiration, because rolling lots of dice is fun), so that the variability of the final roll can be spread out over the whole process while keeping the ludonarrative connection of "This roll represents talking to the Duke's Daughter, and determines How good you are at Talking to the Duke's Daughter, all this other stuff provides bonuses to increase your chance of success at this important roll"

Yeah. That's pretty much where I was going with it as well. You can certainly use it as a modifier to the final roll. Again though, it gives you the opportunity to play out each phase leading up to that point as well. Heck. You may fail so badly that you never even get a chance to talk to the daughter at all, but may have to find a completely different method to approach her instead. Or you may succeed at those previous rolls so well, that the talk with her is almost perfunctory, with her already having heard about this "new stranger, who is so smooth, and skilled, and knowledgeable", that she's anxious to talk to you and will more or less have a positive result no matter what you say.

You certainly can just call for a single social skill roll and move on. And in many games, that's perfectly acceptable. Somewhat depends on how much focus you really want on the courtly component of the game, and how significant the relationship with the Dukes daughter is to whatever else is going on. If the party is just passing through, and there's nothing really going on here other than "did you impress the locals while you were there", maybe just having your party face show up at the party, make a single roll, and then narrate the results works just fine. But if you intend for a longer series of events to occur, putting more detail into it can really add a lot of color to things.



This is an interesting… point? Idea? Wording?

Breaking a task down into manageable chunks, seeing where that leaves you, and plotting a course accordingly? I can see that as much more rewarding than “roll to save the world”. But I don’t think I ever would have considered wording it as “more rolls”. More agency? Micro-transactions? Combat as War? Breaking a task down into individual components? Threat management? Intelligent planning? Fail forward? Failure is expected; it needn’t be the end of the game? I can see me using those phrases in relation to that process, regardless of the fact than many aren’t exactly definitionally identical.

But, yeah, “more rolling” is better, when done right. When it’s coupled with more decisions. (Ie, not a 4e skill challenge)

Yeah. I honestly use this as a technique specifically to avoid absolute "pass/fail" situations at my table. But it also gives the players more opportunities to choose to use different skills/abilities they have, in different ways, and depending on applicability and success level, I can incorporate that into a "final outcome". And yeah, as I mentioned above, when you have your players go through more detailed planning/actions/executions, then it can also lead to more interesting "sub-results", which you may not have considered in a more simple "roll to succeed" approach.



I almost agree? That is to say, that’s kinda the way I like to play and run the game, except… it’s more bounded by an initial roll / hurdle, that, if you don’t know that how you dress is important, then you don’t think of it, and don’t get to roll for how well you dress.

Depending on precise implementation, we might have just said the same thing. But I focus on “do you know enough to ask the question”, as almost a roleplaying thing.

Sure. You don't know what you don't know. But what is the point of having knowledge skills in a game if they don't have relevance. You can simply have the players roleplay "I'm dressing up in proper court attire" and move on, but it's not so far off base to assume there may be some trick to this that the average person isn't going to automatically know. How many of us can spot the difference between different types of necktie knots? Probably not many. But some people can, and do, and may judge you on which style you use, whether it's appropriate with the style of suit you are wearing, and whether both of those are appropriate for the event at hand. And even if you know the correct styles and whatnot, can you actually pull it off? Ever seen someone at a formal event and you can't help but notice how they've mangled their tie? That's a "skill", that takes practice, just like everything else. People who think they can just "decide to dress up" and this will fly at a high level event are sorely misleading themselves. And that's just considering men and modern dress. That's about the most simple of things by historical standards.


Also, as I mentioned above, sometimes a good social/communication skill can offset a failed knowledge/execution skill combo (and it can ruin it in the other direction as well). I try to structure things so that no single failed roll spells disaster for the entire operation. Now, yes, a succession of failures at the initial phase could spell disaster for the whole thing (which, is to be fair, an accurate simulation of real life anyway), but by doing it this way, you give the players some possibility of changing course and doing something else instead. So if you fail at the knowledge skill, and the dressing correctly skill, and fail to pass yourself off somehow despite this, and aren't even allowed in the door, you can try some other method of impressing the Duke's daughter, right? You never actually encountered her directly, so no real harm (other than maybe lost time). It's not the same as one roll for "impress her" or "failed to impress her". Your initial failures just mean you have to try another way instead. So you switch tactics to staging a robbery and swooping in to "save her" or something. Or maybe you disguise yourself as the catering staff and get in that way. Or... <let the players figure this out>.

And yeah. Along the way, the players are engaged and affecting the world around them. Even if in minor ways. And I find that to be useful and interesting, and often can result in future adventure/plot ideas.

[Stonehead]

Personally, I enjoy adding new details to the world through gameplay, it's a nice way to add depth and detail to a scene without needing to overload everything with a lengthy initial description and add a bit of character to things.
You failed because your clothing snagged on some thorns, well those bushes over there now have thorns. You succeed at breaking down the door because the wood was rotten, now this castle feels like it's old and in poor repair.

For sure. That's a totally reasonable, and fairly common play style. In reality, I think most people (like myself) use a mixture of everything. If the DM can think of something elegant, maybe the bushes have thorns now. If nothing comes to mind in 5 seconds, you just fail. Everyone fails sometimes.


If you, as GM, think that the only reason anyone would notice Johnny is if he stepped on a stick, something you feel he wouldn’t do? If you have to have the character hold the idiot ball in order for them to fail? Then don’t call for a roll, just say that they succeed without stepping in any sticks.

If you, as GM, think that the only reason anyone would notice Johnny is if he chose to try while the guards are extra attentive, something you feel he wouldn’t do? If you have to have the character hold the idiot ball in order for them to fail? Then don’t call for a roll, just say that they succeed by waiting until the guards relax their guard.

Or just make sure that the bonuses and DCs and system are aligned with the fiction, and if Johnny couldn’t fail to sneak, he couldn’t fail the roll to sneak.

Failing at something you're fairly good at is not the same as "holding the idiot ball". My entire point was that in reality, people fail at things they're normally good at all the time. Narratively in a TV show or something, it might feel unsatisfying for the rogue to be noticed. At an rpg table though, everyone seeing the d20 land on a 1 usually gets the point across that Johnny Nimble isn't actually just dumb. Everyone fails some times, and this is just one of those times.

See the rest of the thread for failure situations more believable than stepping on a twig (which could be argued is environmental anyways).

Like, I agree that if you need some unreasonable coincidence to fail, you just shouldn't roll, but simply messing up is not an unreasonable coincidence.

[martixy]

Agree to a point. I would maybe drop the "drama" bit, and just say "something of significance", instead.
Drama is used in the sense of narrative drama.
Plot tension. Two opposing forces meet.


To take the "court the dukes daughter" scenario, imagine if instead of just having a single roll (using some social skill), you instead called for a knowledge roll about court etiquette, then another roll to see if you can properly dress for the occasion, another for actually following through on the rules to be followed, yet another knowledge check about regional politics to be able to intelligently speak to the nobles in attendance, and yet another communication roll or three to properly impress said nobles (and duke) with your abilities. Add to this knowledge checks (and perhaps other information gathering checks) to learn about the likes/dislikes of the daughter). So when you finally approach her and make your "court dukes daughter" roll, you've already added a ton of adjustments, such that the roll itself is really just a formality to determine how well all your hard work actually pays off. Sure you could still blow the roll, but since you did all that homework, maybe it's just a minor set back instead of a catastrophe. The point is that it's the collective ratio of successes and failures over a number of die rolls that determine success, not a single "make it or fail" roll at the very end.

You're describing a skill challenge. Which are pretty fun. (Though I don't know exactly how 4e's version works, so if those aren't fun, think of a fun version.)

I also find it funny that you try to support the idea, but still end up with a "roll to save the world". The point I was trying to make is, there should be NO "court dukes daughter" roll.

[Quertus]

This isn't a scenario where Johnny shouldn't be able to fail to sneak. He can, and there are countless reasons why a person skilled at stealth might get spotted by some guards. Different reasons given (or no reason, just a blanket "You fail") have different effects on the experience for the players at the table, and as a GM you have moments to think of your narrative. It's not a question of "The Only reason they might have failed" it's usually "The First reason you think of".

Part of the reason to think about narrating the failure as due to external factors (No good hiding spots at this moment, the guards are extra-attentive tonight), or bad luck, is that it nicely limits you to reasons somebody might have failed without making dumb mistakes, "Holding the idiot ball" as you say.
If you ask yourself "What might Johnny have done wrong", you might end up stepping on the Player's perception of their character. Johnny is a skilled thief, it would be uncharacteristically stupid of him to not to watch where he stepped when picking a hiding spot.

If you ask "What might have happened to cause Johnny to fail DESPITE his skill" you don't have to worry about that, you can give any reasonable answer to the question (Guards are being extra thorough, no good hiding spots, ect) without worrying about accidentally turning the suave super thief into a bumbling buffoon.


Failing at something you're fairly good at is not the same as "holding the idiot ball".

simply messing up is not an unreasonable coincidence.

Definitely, falling <> holding the idiot ball. But, my personal version of stealth? If my GM told my player, “<Quertus> failed because he moved while people were alert”, that would be handing me the idiot ball. Me personally failing stealth? Absolutely believable. Big’ol Vikings aren’t known for being ninjas. But my version of stealth focuses on the social; having me mess that up feels like handing me the idiot ball.

Messing up the characterization of the character through narration is far easier than one might suspect.

[GloatingSwine]

Which is why people talked about external factors. Remember that the dice also represent luck. Bad luck external to the character, like someone just out of scene calling the guard's name to ask if he wants a cup of tea and making him perk up and pay attention for example, can explain a fail for a competent character.

Especially where a competent character fails and a less competent character succeeds, everyone gets bad luck, and they know it was them because the dice says 2 not 20.

[gbaji]

Drama is used in the sense of narrative drama.
Plot tension. Two opposing forces meet.

Fair enough. But drama is usually something that's exciting or special in some way. Lots of skill rolls may just represent "things that happen", and "what are the outcomes" situations. There may be no emotional impact or major importance at all. I may just go in a radically different direction than others in this regard, but I actually prefer to have my players make a lot of rolls for a lot of different things, many of which may individually be pretty minor, but collectively give me as the GM a direction to go, and an idea of how well the group is doing something (or not doing something).

I also routinely have my players make various skill rolls (especially perception rolls) just to make them roll. There's nothing at all going on. That way they don't know when/if something is significant at any given time. If you only call for die rolls when something important and significant is going on, you're tipping your players off too much IMO. Heck. I've been known to just call for a player to roll a die for their character (while doing something mundane like walking down a hallway, or hanging out in a courtyard) and tell me the number. No other information. Then make a show of reading my notes, scribbling something down, clucking my tongue, then say "Ok. Nothing special seems to have happened" or "You don't notice anything out of the ordinary". Then move on.

Keeps them totally on their toes. It also reinforces the idea that the characters are walking, talking, and observing the world around them, even during all the times when there's no particular significance to if they happen to trip on something, or misspeak, or fail to notice something in the area. It's the opposite of the concept that rolls are for dramatic events, and it gets the players out of the mode of assuming that any die rolls being made means that something of significance is going on, and into the mode of "it's on when the GM says something is going on and not a moment sooner". And I suppose, on some level, it also discourages cheating and promotes honest play. And I've also seen this sort of thing lead to some very fun roleplaying bits. The story of how Joe the Mighty caught his boot in a branch and fell into a stream, with no enemies around to take advantage of it, and with water only 2 inches deep, so he's not drowning or anything, and nothing lost other than his pride, can add colorful depth to characters and interplay between the players during a game session.

I also usually let my players decide how to describe their occasional epic fails. They're often far more creative than I might have been, and also leads to some fun stories. Not everything is about how we defeat the bad guys. RPGs are also supposed to be a fun interactive social experience for the players.



You're describing a skill challenge. Which are pretty fun. (Though I don't know exactly how 4e's version works, so if those aren't fun, think of a fun version.)

I also find it funny that you try to support the idea, but still end up with a "roll to save the world". The point I was trying to make is, there should be NO "court dukes daughter" roll.

My objection is to single die rolls being of the "save the world or fail" variety. A series of die rolls, each one representing a portion of your overall success? Much better method IMO. As I said earlier, it deflects the "one bad roll" effect, but also allows for the potential of the players changing course along the way, if one approach isn't working (a few bad initial die rolls). It changes the scenario from "there is one plan and it either succeeds or fails", to "we start with this plan, see how things are going, maybe change to plan B, if that starts to look better, and maybe switch to some completely different crazy thing along the way instead". And that can lead to resolutions that fall well outside what I may have thought of initially, or what my players may have started out thinking they were going to do. Doubly so when I'm also roleplaying the NPC reactions to what the PCs are doing, and rolling for their outcomes as well. This can lead to some very unpredictable and interactive situations that could simply not have been predicted ahead of time.

Dunno. It just seems to lead to more flexible and dynamic play.

[NichG]

Failing at something you're fairly good at is not the same as "holding the idiot ball". My entire point was that in reality, people fail at things they're normally good at all the time. Narratively in a TV show or something, it might feel unsatisfying for the rogue to be noticed. At an rpg table though, everyone seeing the d20 land on a 1 usually gets the point across that Johnny Nimble isn't actually just dumb. Everyone fails some times, and this is just one of those times.

See the rest of the thread for failure situations more believable than stepping on a twig (which could be argued is environmental anyways).

Like, I agree that if you need some unreasonable coincidence to fail, you just shouldn't roll, but simply messing up is not an unreasonable coincidence.

This is the whole 'try to make sure the fiction is aligned with the mechanics and the way you run the game' thing. Different things have different susceptibility to random factors, but a single-die system uses a flat variance. So its useful to understand where those things aren't going to line up and use that to choose carefully whether a roll really is appropriate.

A baker who makes a thousand loaves a day and has been doing it for 20 years might still just be a Lv3 character in D&D. Yet they probably should not have a 5% chance of ruining a batch of loaves, much less the 20-25% chance you might see depending how you rendered that into skills and DCs and such. Or, take things like chess or Go rankings - the rankings are actually based in part on how likely it is for someone to screw up and lose to a weaker player, so a 2400 ELO player has a 9% chance of losing against a 2000 ELO player but only a 1% chance of losing against a 1600 ELO player the way the scale is calibrated. We could argue about normal vs logistic distributions for the tail end of uneven matchups, but the point is that even for intense, competitive things people are still capable of pretty low rates of messing up. On the other hand, for certain things even the best people who do them on a daily basis will have a higher base rate of failure or at least unpredictable negative consequences - some forms of surgery are just going to have uncontrolled random factors that mean the survival rate never gets above 90%. But other things like e.g. wisdom tooth removal if we saw a 1% death rate we'd probably ban the practice (people do die during wisdom tooth removal, but its about 1 in 300k).

So the point is to notice that some part of you is saying 'huh, it really wouldn't make sense for them to fail this roll' and recognize that that is actually something you know (or have decided) about the fiction or sense underlying the world that is being presented - and then you know to either adjust the mechanics or adjust how you run the game or even adjust the fiction so that things match up. Or if its a one-off thing maybe you just take note and move past.

[gbaji]

One of the things I do is adjust what a "success" or "fail" is based on the difficulty or commonality of the task at hand is. So yeah, you could still say that the baker has a 5% chance of failure, but a failure really just means that some loaves aren't quite perfect, not that they are complete failures and must be thrown out. As someone who does bake bread as a hobby (seriously, compare the cost of a crappy store bought loaf of bread to the ingredients to make your own), even after years of doing so, every once in a while you can make the exact same loaf, with the exact same ingredients, exact same rise times, oven temperature, shaping techniques, etc, and something will just be a bit "off" when it comes out of the oven. I don't think I've ever actually "failed" to make a loaf, but some just aren't as good as others (usually crust or internal texture to be honest). As you get better, it's not really about success or failure, but the consistency of the result.

What does a "fail" in a climb roll mean? Somewhat depends on what you are climbing, right? I might call for a climb roll when the PCs are scrambling up a steep hill. But failure just means that you didn't get up the hill as quickly as a success. You still can get up the hill. A fumble might mean you stumbled, or slipped, or otherwise didn't make any progress that round (or whatever time factor we're using). The same climb roll when using ropes to go up a cliff might have a failure meaning you don't make progress, and a fumble means you fell (and maybe the rope saves you, or maybe not, perhaps yet another roll is involved here). Yet another climb roll when free climbing up the side of an extremely tall without many handholds castle wall may have completely different results based on success/fail results (and maybe only someone extremely competent at climbing should even attempt this, right?).

The same concept can be applied to a lot of things you might roll in a game. The concept of a difficulty modifier is important, but IMO, a "result modifier" is also called for in many cases as well.

[Stonehead]

Definitely, falling <> holding the idiot ball. But, my personal version of stealth? If my GM told my player, “<Quertus> failed because he moved while people were alert”, that would be handing me the idiot ball. Me personally failing stealth? Absolutely believable. Big’ol Vikings aren’t known for being ninjas. But my version of stealth focuses on the social; having me mess that up feels like handing me the idiot ball.

Messing up the characterization of the character through narration is far easier than one might suspect.

That's interesting. It could be that different people are more sensitive to failure than others. My ego isn't particularly tied to my fictional characters, so I don't really get upset when they fail something. Especially when it's something like stealth, in which only one of the dozen or so guards need to notice you for it to count as a failure. And where the hero is usually noticed in popular media, because it adds to he tension.

I mean, you do you. Don't let an internet stranger tell you how to play. I don't think the argument that it feels bad is strong enough to dispel "people just fail sometimes" as a legit play style.


This is the whole 'try to make sure the fiction is aligned with the mechanics and the way you run the game' thing. Different things have different susceptibility to random factors, but a single-die system uses a flat variance. So its useful to understand where those things aren't going to line up and use that to choose carefully whether a roll really is appropriate.

A baker who makes a thousand loaves a day and has been doing it for 20 years might still just be a Lv3 character in D&D. Yet they probably should not have a 5% chance of ruining a batch of loaves, much less the 20-25% chance you might see depending how you rendered that into skills and DCs and such. Or, take things like chess or Go rankings - the rankings are actually based in part on how likely it is for someone to screw up and lose to a weaker player, so a 2400 ELO player has a 9% chance of losing against a 2000 ELO player but only a 1% chance of losing against a 1600 ELO player the way the scale is calibrated. We could argue about normal vs logistic distributions for the tail end of uneven matchups, but the point is that even for intense, competitive things people are still capable of pretty low rates of messing up. On the other hand, for certain things even the best people who do them on a daily basis will have a higher base rate of failure or at least unpredictable negative consequences - some forms of surgery are just going to have uncontrolled random factors that mean the survival rate never gets above 90%. But other things like e.g. wisdom tooth removal if we saw a 1% death rate we'd probably ban the practice (people do die during wisdom tooth removal, but its about 1 in 300k).

So the point is to notice that some part of you is saying 'huh, it really wouldn't make sense for them to fail this roll' and recognize that that is actually something you know (or have decided) about the fiction or sense underlying the world that is being presented - and then you know to either adjust the mechanics or adjust how you run the game or even adjust the fiction so that things match up. Or if its a one-off thing maybe you just take note and move past.

I agree with everything you said. I just think it points to the faults of the d20 system, and why nat 1's shouldn't auto-fail skill checks (which is actually RAW in most modern systems), and while we're at it, why 'taking a 10' is such a good rule.

A page or two ago, I said I wasn't going to derail this thread with lengthy discussions of dice distributions and the merits of 1d20 vs 3d6. I don't intend to now, so I'll try to focus on the original topic and say any check that doesn't have a believable failure scenario shouldn't be left to the dice. In a modern game, you shouldn't have to roll "driving" to go to work every day. You should just be able to do it.

On the topic of ELO ranking, if you just model a chess game as more than a single roll, the odds approach the numbers you gave. If chess is important to the game, it should be more than a single roll anyways.

Even more off topic, if baking bread is dc 10, a level 3 character can get +9 in profession fairly easily, making them RAW immune to failure. And besides, if it doesn't make sense for an experienced baker to burn 5% of his loaves of bread, then it also doesn't make sense for environmental factors to ruin 5% of his loaves of bread. In what kitchen are 5% of the dishes totally out of the hands of the chef who cooked it?