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Fuck autofailing skill checks (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago* by to c/rpgmemes@ttrpg.network
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[–] 47 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Part of the excellent case why you shouldn’t roll for the routine. Take “town downtime activities”.

If a character is a lifetime street urchin, they should be able to find a few “safe marks” versus rolling to snag some risky but lucrative pickpockets. A talented musician doesn’t flub every 20th note, but you can certainly reward bigger rolls with bigger tips.

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  • [+] [S] 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 child)
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  • [–] 24 points 2 years ago

    Critical failure doesn't have to mean the worst outcome imaginable, though.

    Rolling a 1 on a routine skill check that you've done a thousand times as an expert should reflect the circumstances.

    Landing a familiar model plane at your home airport on a sunny day with no wind? Rolling a 1 means it's as bad as it can be under those circumstances. Let's say, a bird flies into the windshield and obscures your view. New problem to solve! New roleplaying opportunity! Doesn't mean the plane insta-crashes. You might just deal with the failure creatively and carry on like nothing happened. Scary moment, but fun to play out.

    Now let's say you're the same experienced pilot, but you're landing an unfamiliar, stolen plane that your rogue hot wired, and you're trying to land on a beach littered with tourists and rocks.

    Rolling a 1 for a critical failure is a much different scenario this time.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It's more that it's just more work for the DM in this case. Every time a skill check is called or considered, the DM has to reconsider if the character considers this a routine or trivial task. You can see this in the stats: if the character's modifier is 5 or less than the DC, it's trivial. But you also must consider even without a high mod vs DC, is this a task the character has performed hundreds of times before? I try not to come up with solutions, or utilize WOTC solutions that make a lot more work for the DM. Especially if there's already a rule or slight tweak that makes sense and prevents this work: in this case, no crits for skill checks.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I suppose if the DM is running the game through a rigid preformed structure then yeah, having things make stuff more unpredictable is gonna be hard on the DM, but if they are already choosing to fly by the seat of their pants and roll with the incoming suggestions from the dice, it's totally fine.

    There are lots of different types of people that like to DM games. Something isn't automatically worse for all DMs.

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