Take 10/20 hate

[Kaelik]

Let's try it again more slowly. A guy sits at the chess table, and 'takes 20', making the best possible move. He then gets up and leaves the room.

Another guy comes in, looks at the board, and 'takes 20' for the best possible move based on the board, and leaves the room. They go back and forth like this, neither one knowing that they're even playing a game against the other.

He makes 20 moves? So what. He can't tell which ones work out an which don't from just sitting down and making 20 different moves.

Next up, a skilled kicker on the practice field of football. He takes 20 every time, kicking 50 yard field goals with perfect accuracy, every single kick identical.

No penalty for losing, using a physical skill, and makes every single kick, 10,000 in a row if need be, with no variation...and yet, somehow, I don't think it really works that way.

I guess just can't express the idea that there really is a possibility of randomness in skill execution, above and beyond other issues with the no-die roll system...but I've have no trouble finding folks that don't freak out at the concept like this.

He kicks 20 field goals and for sure makes one of them. Not very useful in an actual game.


Seriously fucking retard. Learn to read. taking 20 requires you to do something 20 times with no penalty for failure, because you automatically fail 19 times.

[Doom]

No. If you absolutely ransack a drawer, literally taking everything out of it, examining every item closely, and you satisfy yourself beyond a shadow of a doubt that your car keys aren't in there, that's taking 20.

Now you may complain that that should take more than two minutes. But the fact still remains that searching a drawer as thoroughly as possible should have a maximum amount of time associated with it. Whether that's 2 hours or 20 minutes or 2 minutes is moot.

And the fact still remains, I can do this twice, and get different results.

That's the issue...there's randomness here, and I think a completely deterministic system is less credible because of this, in addition to being less fun

[Zeezy]

I don't understand what "take 20" means.

I sincerely hope you're trolling, because it's insulting how ignorant your recent argument is.

Taking 20 doesn't mean you spend 20 times as long to line up the perfect whatever. It means you do the same thing 20 fucking times. The chess player isn't analyzing 20 moves in his head; he does more than that every time he rolls the d20! Taking 20 in this case would mean, at best, actually executing 20 moves, which is impossible because the penalty for making a poor move is losing the game. At worst, it means playing 20 games, in which case, yes, the guy with the higher skill check will come out on top, and rightfully so, because he is more skilled at the game. He will lose some rounds, but that's to be expected, because his opponent is a worthy foe.

Taking your football example: no, he won't land it every time. If he takes 20, he will miss some shots, and he will score some shots; but, if he's good enough, he'll make at least one goal. Yes, he can take 20, because no penalty for failure exists; but, when he's actually in a game, the penalty for failure means your team did not score that 3 points, which could very well cost them the game.

That's what taking 20 means: you do the same thing 20 times and hope you succeed at least once. It's the law of large numbers in action. That's why you can't take 20 if there's a penalty for failure, because you will fail at least once. If you can't fail, then you wouldn't be taking 20. You would auto-succeed on the first try.

[Doom]

I don't understand at all

No problem, really not that big a deal.

[Zeezy]

I don't understand at all

No problem, really not that big a deal.

OK. Burden of proof: what's wrong with my reasoning?

[LR]

I don't understand at all

No problem, really not that big a deal.

Taking 20

When you have plenty of time (generally 2 minutes for a skill that can normally be checked in 1 round, one full-round action, or one standard action), you are faced with no threats or distractions, and the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure, you can take 20. In other words, eventually you will get a 20 on 1d20 if you roll enough times. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, just calculate your result as if you had rolled a 20.

Taking 20 means you are trying until you get it right, and it assumes that you fail many times before succeeding. Taking 20 takes twenty times as long as making a single check would take.

Since taking 20 assumes that the character will fail many times before succeeding, if you did attempt to take 20 on a skill that carries penalties for failure, your character would automatically incur those penalties before he or she could complete the task. Common “take 20” skills include Escape Artist, Open Lock, and Search.

Stop pretending that the rules do not say what they say. Your own personal interpretations of them to do not fucking matter, and we have no duty to entertain your misconceptions about the ruleset. Support your position within the ruleset or concede your point.

[Doom]

I concede the kicking thing doesn't work, my bad...trying to so hard to get the simple idea across that I went a direction that doesn't work.

Anyway, when the guy takes 20 to pick a lock, he tries 20 times, and the only picking that counts is the 20. The other 19 don't count for anything.

When the guy takes 20 to make the best possible chess move at a given table, he makes 20 moves, but only the best move counts...the other 19 don't count for anything. He only keeps the best move, and makes it, and this isn't an opposed check, because there is no opposition.

Now, focus: not a chess game, not a chess game, not a chess game, not a chess game, not a chess game. Anyone who thinks it's a chess game, instead of a move, and a move, and a move (eg, a series of chess drills), is a moron.

There's no penalty for failure, not even playing a game, but that's the point, only one thing is happening at each step: just making the best possible move at a given board setup. The 19 failed moves? He just picks up the pieces and restarts, much like a failed lockpick roll...he's the only guy in the room, it's ok to do that. He then leaves the room, leaving his best move behind, just as a thief would leave the picked lock open.

Then the next guy comes in and does the same. It's really easy to get confused here, I suppose, and think this is a bad example by thinking this is playing a game, or that feedback based on the next move is relevant in some way...but it's not a game as described. Each person is using their skill to determine "the best move", using 'take 20'; it doesn't necessarily take 20 times longer here any more than in picking a lock, of course. The fact that the end result is identical to a game, and leads to the conclusion that all chess games in a 'take 20' system play out identically every time based on the skills of the players is the point, however.

If you still can't get it, I'm sorry for my lack of ability in this matter, and I don't care, and concede that I can't explain it any better than this because it's just not worth my time.

[Zeezy]

Getting back on track...

I'm actually in a group that frowns upon taking 10. After doing it a few times in one game, the DM chided me for not wanting to roll my die. Apparently, wanting to take 10 on a task where I can succeed more often than not is badwrongfun. Taking 20 is fine so long as it doesn't eat up too much in-game time, though.

AS DM, I also allow players to "take 1." For example, the party's rogue has sufficiently high Hide and Move Silently that even if she rolled a 1 and the target rolled a 20, they wouldn't see/hear her. In those situations I don't see any reason at all to waste time by having both of us roll a pair of d20s, find the modifiers, and do the quick math -- all to say, "you don't think it sees or hears you."

My group actually supports that house rule, and I love it because it makes sense.

[norms29]

Let's try it again more slowly. A guy sits at the chess table, and 'takes 20', making the best possible move. He then gets up and leaves the room.

Another guy comes in, looks at the board, and 'takes 20' for the best possible move based on the board, and leaves the room. They go back and forth like this, neither one knowing that they're even playing a game against the other.

No penalty for failure whether they know or not, of course (just a game), each one is taking 20 every time, the same game plays out every time, the guy with the +1 bonus wins every game.

how can you write your posts when you can't read? I know you can't read because you clearly haven't read ANY of the explainations of what take 20 is and does. OR when it's allowed.
the reason take 20 takes 20 times as long is because you're literally doing it over 20 times.

You've already been told REPEATEDLY that any situation where retries aren't allowed, taking 20 isn't allowed. there's no way to retry in this example.

Next up, a skilled kicker on the practice field of football. He takes 20 every time, kicking 50 yard field goals with perfect accuracy, every single kick identical.

No penalty for losing, using a physical skill, and makes every single kick, 10,000 in a row if need be, with no variation...and yet, somehow, I don't think it really works that way.

no... not even close. try again when you've finished first-grade.
then maybe you can read the relevant part of the SRD

Taking 20 means you are trying until you get it right, and it assumes that you fail many times before succeeding

It's not 'stupidity' to toss 'take 20' when it leads to automatic success. The stupidity is bothering to have scenarios where the players need to waste time on 'take 20'. If it's automatic, I don't waste time on rolling or forcing my players to say "I take 20, durrrr"..."it's a simple lock, you find the golden egg, you smash the door in.", no reason to waste time in such stupidity, at least for me. But sometimes, some players, actually like getting lucky as opposed to an endless series of either impossible or trivial pseudochallenges, like in the no die roll system.

how about the distinction of a fucking time limit? if the theif/rogue/locksmith rolls he might unlock the door THIS ROUND, where's ifhe takes twenty it takes 20 rounds.

I, for one, have no objections to the guy whose character basis is picking locks and disabling traps being able to guranteed to pick a lock when he's taking his sweet time and trying everytrick he knows, while still having a question as to whether he can do it RIGHT-FUCKING-NOW because if it's not done in the next 3 rounds the guards will grab him/the princess will be sacrificed/the herp will destroy all of his derp.

[Quantumboost]

When the guy takes 20 to make the best possible chess move at a given table, he makes 20 moves, but only the best move counts...the other 19 don't count for anything. He only keeps the best move, and makes it.

I'm not sure what kind of ridiculous chess variant you're playing, but the chess player *can not* take 20 on a move. Once you perform a move on the chessboard (the first "round" of "taking 20"), that move is done, over with, and you have to deal with a new configuration. No take-backsies.

[PoliteNewb]

I'm not sure why understanding Doom's position seems so difficult for people. He prefers a situation where your skill rank is not a 100% predictable measure of what you can succeed at.

Just because you have a +15 Open Locks should not (in his opinion) mean you can open any lock with a DC of 35, given unlimited time.

He wants to interject a random element, wherein a person can sometimes succeed and sometimes fail at the SAME TASK, when they have the same level of skill and the same amount of time. Sometimes you're on your A-game, and sometimes you're not.

You may think this is stupid, but surely it's understandable, no?

For the record, I already stated I have no problem with taking 10, and I don't generally have a problem with taking 20...but I can see where he's coming from, and I have to kind of agree with him.

[virgil]

The last few groups I've seen that dislike Take 10 called it metagaming and "thinking about the numbers." At least one decries it because it makes everything so certain.

I've never heard of someone ever using a check for each individual move on the chess board. I'm damn certain you don't make a game move unless it's an opposed roll (whether or not you ever see them), which makes Take 20 non-applicable. Really, that's a terrible example.

EDIT: Yes, there are random elements which can make you fail at the same task. That's the entire bloody point of Take 20. You retry and retry until you do the best you're able to do. Having Open Lock at +15 means the best you're able to achieve is a result of 35, an upper limit given the circumstances. Making whatever the single result on your d20 roll represent your upper limit, for the Take 20 skills, is WAY TOO BIG of a range of highest capability; you are saying that a cutpurse with +1 Open Lock could be absolutely better than a master thief w/+15 for several locks.

[Sashi]

No, it is not understandable at all.

One of his "critiques" of the Take 20 rule is based off of a fundamental and deliberate choice to misunderstand the rule.

The other "critique" is that he doesn't like that take 20 always takes exactly 20 times longer than trying the check once, because if you actually physically roll a d20 sometimes it takes only three tries and sometimes it takes three hundred. This is a completely stupid reason because it fundamentally misunderstands the entire point of Take 20 (which is to have as simple a rule as possible for the players to overcome challenges that they're guaranteed to overcome if the Player rolls the die enough times).

[Zeezy]

I concede the kicking thing doesn't work, my bad...trying to so hard to get the simple idea across that I went a direction that doesn't work.

Anyway, when the guy takes 20 to pick a lock, he tries 20 times, and the only picking that counts is the 20. The other 19 don't count for anything.

Correct.

When the guy takes 20 to make the best possible chess move at a given table, he makes 20 moves, but only the best move counts...the other 19 don't count for anything. He only keeps the best move, and makes it.

There's no penalty for failure, not even playing a game, just making the best possible move at a given board setup.

And you're wrong. Again. He won't make 20 moves. He can't make 20 moves, because he receives zero feedback about the efficacy of any one move he makes until his opponent moves -- and by then, he can't take back his first move. That's why you can never take 20 on Disable Device, even if you'd only fail to disarm the trap on a 1: if you roll a 1, you'll merely think you've disabled the trap, when in reality you barely failed, and the trap is still armed. There's no direct penalty for failure, but there is still a penalty for failure: misinformation. He might be able to take 20 if he can see far enough ahead to guarantee checkmate, but there's no way a human can model a game of chess 34+ moves in the future. Our chess player isn't Deep Blue. He can take 10, but he can't take 20.

Taking 20 is a realistic model of trial-and-error, and I'm sorry you can't realize this.

[erik]

Why is chess being used as an example for Take 20? Taking 20 in an opposed check is rarely allowed.

Do people really roll a chess skill to determine each move? Or do they determine each game? As an aside I should warn y'all that there is a special level in hell that is reserved for people who don't understand chess and use it as an example or metaphor.

I could shudder and try to see the most honest way to adapt a Take 20 in the context of an opposed skill test such as that. I reckon the way to resolve Take 20 in an opposed skill check that the rules allow is to make the opposed skill test 20 times (so 20 cooking competitions, 20 chess matches, 20 arm wrestling matches, etc.), you fail 19 of them and your DC for the 20th will be against a random DC set by the opponent (representing whatever effort that they mustered when you happened to get lucky and get a 20). That would honestly represent you attempting something 20 times to get your best performance. But it pretty much breaks down once both participants decide to take 20.

As a rule I would probably just put the kaibosh on using take 20 on opposed checks because there is no set DC, and it models poorly.

On the given list of opposed checks it seems like all of them are disallowed for Take 20 or at best, very questionable rulings.

Bluff: retries generally not allowed.
Disguise: you don't know how well you did until examined, so you cannot attempt it until you "succeed". As such, take 20 doesn't make sense.
Forgery: retries not allowed
Hide: does not say regarding retries, but it seems reasonable to treat it disguise is treated. Also is a part of movement, and it may be that you cannot retry movement.
Intimidate: retries generally ineffective
Move Silently: as Hide
Sleight of Hand: increases DC by 10 for failure. Also you are noticed.
Use Rope: check is rolled only when escape is attempted. So no retry possible.

[RobbyPants]

Because I think Doom is having an epically hard time understanding the rules against which he's arguing:

From the SRD

Taking 20

When you have plenty of time (generally 2 minutes for a skill that can normally be checked in 1 round, one full-round action, or one standard action), you are faced with no threats or distractions, and the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure, you can take 20. In other words, eventually you will get a 20 on 1d20 if you roll enough times. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, just calculate your result as if you had rolled a 20.

Taking 20 means you are trying until you get it right, and it assumes that you fail many times before succeeding. Taking 20 takes twenty times as long as making a single check would take.

Since taking 20 assumes that the character will fail many times before succeeding, if you did attempt to take 20 on a skill that carries penalties for failure, your character would automatically incur those penalties before he or she could complete the task. Common “take 20” skills include Escape Artist, Open Lock, and Search.

There you go.


As others have said several times, taking 20 both assumes there's no penalty for failure and that you fail many times before succeeding. It's not like you sit there analyzing the situation for one minute and fifty-four seconds, and then suddenly roll a nat 20 on a single six-second action at the end. You try and fail quite a few times during that period.

Ergo, your chess example is stupid bullshit. Also, your Knowledge(Math) check from earlier was stupid bullshit. Do us all a favor and read and become familiar with those above rules before posting another sentence on the subject. Seriously.

[hogarth]

No. If you absolutely ransack a drawer, literally taking everything out of it, examining every item closely, and you satisfy yourself beyond a shadow of a doubt that your car keys aren't in there, that's taking 20.

Now you may complain that that should take more than two minutes. But the fact still remains that searching a drawer as thoroughly as possible should have a maximum amount of time associated with it. Whether that's 2 hours or 20 minutes or 2 minutes is moot.

And the fact still remains, I can do this twice, and get different results.

No, because you're thinking of it the wrong way. It isn't "I search the drawer for 20 minutes and then after 20 exactly minutes I automatically succeed", it's "I search the drawer for 20 minutes and then I give up if I don't find the keys". If you always give up after 20 minutes (or 2 hours or 20 hours -- I don't know how OCD you are), then you get the same result every time (each time either you find the keys in 20 minutes or you give up, depending on whether the keys are there or not).

Another example: if you're trying to dunk a basketball for the past hour and you haven't even got within 1 foot of the rim, a sane person would give it up as impossible. That means that you "took 20" (over the course of an hour) and your Jump skill level wasn't high enough.

[Doom]

Ergo, your chess example is stupid bullshit.

More accurate to say just not understood at all.

Also, your Knowledge(Math) check from earlier was stupid bullshit.

Actually, if you understand math is a skill, instead of knowledge (note: talking from a real world situation, not what it says in the rules), the example is just as valid. It is a skill, much like playing music, even if, like many skills, it can be supplemented by knowledge. You can find a small child or savant that plays music or does pretty amazing mathematical things despite having no possibility of having knowledge; on the other hand, I don't know if there're any savants that demonstrate great understanding of history (i.e., a knowledge based 'skill'), despite having no knowledge.

Do us all a favor and read and become familiar with those above rules before posting another sentence on the subject. Seriously.

Hey, I was wrong with the football thing. If you ask a guy to explain 2 + 2 = 4 a dozen different ways, chances are good one way won't be good at all. It happens, get over it. I could try to explain it again, I suppose, but it's clear minds are pretty closed on this topic, there's an excluded middle here that's beyond my ability to cross.

Anyway, take 20 has its uses, I just prefer not to force my players to say "I take 20, durrrrr" all the time, I think it's silly, but I respect that other folks think it's fun to do that. Restricting take 20 as a concept opens up options, as discussed, and has other advantages, but it's reallllllllly not that big a deal, you can have fun however you like. Jeez.

[Zherog]

It's not that "I take 20" is fun; it's that the alternative -- rolling until I get a 20 on the die -- is decidedly not fun. Not only is it not fun to keep rolling my d20 until I get a 20, it interrupts the story, pulling everybody out of the moment and forcing them to wait for my dice to cooperate.

[Doom]

Absolutely, which is why I don't bother with that, either. If it's a sure thing, it's a sure thing, just do it and move on already.

[violence in the media]

Anyway, take 20 has its uses, I just prefer not to force my players to say "I take 20, durrrrr" all the time, I think it's silly, but I respect that other folks think it's fun to do that. Restricting take 20 as a concept opens up options, as discussed, and has other advantages, but it's reallllllllly not that big a deal, you can have fun however you like. Jeez.

Wait a minute, why are you phrasing it as "force my players" like that's a bad thing? What do your players think about their ability to make use of Take 20? What does having a PC fail some pressureless task (especially one that only fails on a roll of 1) really add to the game?

I mean, I understand putting things into the game that the PCs never see as a result of choices and decisions they make, but what is the fucking point of writing something up if the chokepoint is solely whether or not they roll a 16+ on the d20?

Going back to your mention of the locked chest--WTF? I'm really curious how your players decided that lugging the chest all the way back to town was the best course of action? It could have been loaded down with copper coins for all they knew.

You keep mentioning that restricting Take 10/20 beyond their existing restrictions "adds options" to outcomes in the game, but so far you haven't made a compelling case for why those additional options need to exist. It's like you're trying to maintain Schrodinger's cat after someone has checked the box. Or maybe turn it into Schrodinger's nesting dolls.

[Murtak]

I'm not sure why understanding Doom's position seems so difficult for people. He prefers a situation where your skill rank is not a 100% predictable measure of what you can succeed at.

Just because you have a +15 Open Locks should not (in his opinion) mean you can open any lock with a DC of 35, given unlimited time.

He wants to interject a random element, wherein a person can sometimes succeed and sometimes fail at the SAME TASK, when they have the same level of skill and the same amount of time. Sometimes you're on your A-game, and sometimes you're not.

You may think this is stupid, but surely it's understandable, no?

Actually in this context it is not. the Take-20 rules assume that you can retry at will and that you actually do so. I think this actually translates well from real life. If you can retry over and over and over again and you are willing to invest the time to do so you will eventually solve any problem you are capable of solving.

If you are trying to pick a lock you just keep trying slightly different things until it works. If you are carving an arrowhead you litter the ground with your discarded arrowheads until you get it just right. If you are lifting weights you shift your stance or grip each try, until you lift the weight. As long as you are actually able to perform the task in question you eventually will, period. The Take-20 rules simplify this process, and they do it well.

Now, if you actually want players to be able to succeed but not always succeed you need a situation where endless retrying is not a recipe for success. This is just as true in real life as it is in DnD. In DnD this is handled by time and consequences. If there are negative consequences to failing a check you actually have to roll. So if you want to defuse a bomb you need to roll, even though one of the wires is sure to defuse the bomb - you can't safely try them all. But if you simply want to disable a device you can take 20, even if the wiring is completely identical. Time is the other constraint - sometimes you really do need to perform a task right now.

Both Take-20 and Take-10 work well and make sense, even if applied to real life situations. How long they should take and what specific edge cases should allow which kind of roll is debatable. But that's it. The rules work.

[Doom]

Wait a minute, why are you phrasing it as "force my players" like that's a bad thing? What do your players think about their ability to make use of Take 20? What does having a PC fail some pressureless task (especially one that only fails on a roll of 1) really add to the game?

Well, forcing players to say "I take 20, durrr", seems to be the recommended method here of giving players things that are guaranteed. I just skip that part and give it to them, I don't see the fun of power tripping like that.

I don't know what they think of the ability to make use of Take 20--I usually don't power trip into making them say that, I just give it to them first.

And I never said anything about having PCs fail some pressureless task...I just think it should be possible to fail, sometimes, is all. Some things should be beyond player ability, sometimes, possibly decided by a die roll (in a game with so many dice, no less!), above and beyond some number written on a page relative to some number written on some other page. I'm not sure why this concept is so offensive.

I mean, I understand putting things into the game that the PCs never see as a result of choices and decisions they make, but what is the fucking point of writing something up if the chokepoint is solely whether or not they roll a 16+ on the d20?

Never said anything of this sort, either. Putting an arbitrary chokepoint in an adventure with an arbitrary cutoff like that is a bad idea. Obviously.

Going back to your mention of the locked chest--WTF? I'm really curious how your players decided that lugging the chest all the way back to town was the best course of action? It could have been loaded down with copper coins for all they knew.

Well, they really wanted the copper, apparently. I can't even remember the contents of the chest, to be honest. But, hey, now they got to have fun playing in a side adventure that can't happen under a "I can always roll a 20 eventually" scenario.

You keep mentioning that restricting Take 10/20 beyond their existing restrictions "adds options" to outcomes in the game, but so far you haven't made a compelling case for why those additional options need to exist.

And I fully conceded that wanting options is merely a matter of opinion; I can make no compelling argument as to what someone else's opinion should be. If you don't want options, that's fine with me.

Let's have some more fun with another approach at considering what "take 20" means in a world:

Case (1) What can happen is completely determined by character ability.

In this situation, suppose a character of a certain ability has a 5% chance of kicking down a particular door when he tries to do so. Under "take 20", he just kicks repeatedly until the particular door collapses, and take 20 makes sense here.

Case (2) What can happen is completely determined by the structure of the universe.

In this situation, suppose 5% of doors have structural defects so that a character of a certain ability can kick them down, and doors are either defective in this way, or not at all. Now, if I use "take 20", the character is actually manipulating the fabric of the universe with each kick, eventually getting a universe where the particular door he's at is of the defective sort. This, to me, is ridiculous. When he tries to kick the door down, and makes the roll, he's fixing the universe, and should have to deal with the universe, rather than manipulate reality. In my opinion.

Now, in both cases, when a character comes up to a door, he has a 5% chance of being able to kick it down in one round (please, for the love of all that's holy, let's not bring in battering rams or whatever, and instead focus on the actual example).

Both of these cases are equally ridiculously extreme, and the reality is, worlds are a mixture of these two cases, but 'take 20' assumes case 1 is all there is.

In my opinion, I prefer a world where character abilities matter, but not to the point they bend all reality around them. I prefer a rules system where whether a person can kick down a door depends on the person, AND the door, and I want that person to sometimes have a chance, not necessarily 0 or 1, which are basically the only options of the take 20 system. (note: there are absolutely situations where 0 or 1 are reasonable probabilities, I just like sometimes to have other numbers, although I concede I have no compelling reason why you should do so as well).

A 'take 20' system makes it all about the person, and makes the chance either 0% or 100%, with nothing in between.

The initial idea of this thread was to discuss why people can have 'hate' for take 10 and take 20, and that's what I've been addressing here. Take 20 drains randomness, causes weird quirks that don't jive with reality, and, ultimately, changes the nature of the game in ways that some people don't much like.

[Zherog]

Absolutely, which is why I don't bother with that, either. If it's a sure thing, it's a sure thing, just do it and move on already.

How is this any different from "I take 20?"

Rogue has +5 to Open Locks and all the time in the world. (maybe he's picking the lock on a chest they found and brought back to their inn.) The DC on the lock is 25. Whether your player says, "I take 20" or you say "you fiddle with the lock for a while, and finally figure out its secret and drop the tumblers into place" doesn't really matter -- it's the same thing. The rogue eventually getting the lock open is a sure thing. That's exactly what "take 20" is meant for, and if you "just do it and move on" in that situation then you're using the take 20 rules, even if you don't want to call it that.

[RobbyPants]

Ergo, your chess example is stupid bullshit.

More accurate to say just not understood at all.

There's two ways to look at a chess roll:

1) single move

2) single game

If it's a single move, then you take 20, and the +5 guys simply comes up with a better move than the +4 guy.

If it's a single game, then you can't take 20 because there is a penalty for failure. You know, losing the fucking game.