What exactly should a Roll Represent?

[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!

[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?