Big Skills

[MGuy]

Dead. If you lock your content behind a search you know no-one can get then also put it somewhere else then it doesn't matter that the players with search could've found it. They chose not to invest in search and so don't use it. Any content you put behind that gate and nowhere else won't matter. Even the fact that you hid it there won't matter because no player has the ability to ever uncover it.

[deaddmwalking]

Dead. If you lock your content behind a search you know no-one can get then also put it somewhere else then it doesn't matter that the players with search could've found it. They chose not to invest in search and so don't use it. Any content you put behind that gate and nowhere else won't matter. Even the fact that you hid it there won't matter because no player has the ability to ever uncover it.

You can't know that.

First off, your players, if given choices, can invest in a skill or set of skills they previously chose not to invest in. They could also create new characters with different priorities than others. The players can return to a place that they visited before, perhaps specifically to try to find something that they missed the first time.

[ishy]

And I've agreed to that point. I absolutely think that giving everyone a passive 'take 10' on all search checks to auto-detect things is good. I just don't think that it's as good if you don't allow a chance to find something that is hidden in a more difficult way. I like a gray area in the middle. It means that as a DM I'm not certain what will happen, which tends to mean the game is going to have more options.

Actually, it is the exact opposite. By using an RNG you're limiting the options your players can choose from. Thus, you know they have less options and there is less player agency.

[Username17]

By using an RNG you're limiting the options your players can choose from. Thus, you know they have less options and there is less player agency.

That's just more Philosopher King Fallacy bullshit. We have games without an RNG (Amber) or where the RNG does not have prescriptive outputs (BearWorld). And in those games, player agency is basically a lie.

Since games that actually use RNGs like D&D, Shadowrun, Champions, and fucking almost all of them have a metric shit tonne more player agency than the ones that don't, your thesis is fucking insane.

-Username17

[ACOS]

Just going to inquisitively throw this out there for consideration (RE: gated content):

Premise: different players have different preferred modes of engagement (so, I guess YMMV).

Say the GM has some stuff really wants the players to have (and has already decided he's giving it out no matter what). If he first tries to gate it behind a skill check, he has now created the opportunity to "reward" players who went out of their way to explore and bang up against the walls of your setting (dungeon, city, people, whatever). Now the players feel validated in having went through that labor, and (at least for players that enjoy that type of engagement) much fun was had.
But if your players decided to just stick to the Yellow Brick Road ... meh, here you go. At least you, as the GM, were prepared for/with the aforementioned opportunity.

There is also the issue of the 3 Clue Rule.

Point being, as a GM, you need to be as proactive and open to creating as many opportunities for engagement as you can.

/2cents

[Kaelik]

By using an RNG you're limiting the options your players can choose from. Thus, you know they have less options and there is less player agency.

That's just more Philosopher King Fallacy bullshit. We have games without an RNG (Amber) or where the RNG does not have prescriptive outputs (BearWorld). And in those games, player agency is basically a lie.

Since games that actually use RNGs like D&D, Shadowrun, Champions, and fucking almost all of them have a metric shit tonne more player agency than the ones that don't, your thesis is fucking insane.

-Username17

The Frank Trollman Fallacy:

1) D&D lets you cast Wall of Stone without rolling dice.
2) Bear World does not let you cast wall of stone at all.
3) D&D has dice rolls elsewhere in the game.
3) D&D is a game with more agency than bear world.
4) Therefore, making players roll dice before allowing them to cast Wall of Stone INCREASES PLAYER AGENCY!

Surely the player agency couldn't possibly come from all the explicit rules for things your character can actually just do, either with or without rolling dice. It must actually come only and solely from DICE ROLLS!

[PhoneLobster]

Surely the player agency couldn't possibly come from all the explicit rules for things your character can actually just do, either with or without rolling dice. It must actually come only and solely from DICE ROLLS!

You put together the rolling to use wall of stone thing as an extreme example of how crazy the implications of that stupid argument are. Like no one would go there without realizing the insanity. But....

Remember WoF?

[MGuy]

WoF and each and every time the diplomacy comes up.

[DSMatticus]

Try thinking about what happens if the players fail to get the letters. You claim that if the adventure fails because of it that's bad design. PL would agree. So the show goes on. They continue on unaware that they missed anything at all and the campaign or you invent another way to get the content. If you do the latter then it doesn't matter that the skill was ever used ( and failed). If you let the former happen then it doesn't matter that the skill was used and failed because the content never materialized and the game still happened.

You are the thickest motherfucking person I have ever met. You are not a brick wall, you are an impenetrable fortress. People tell legends about the brave few who have managed to penetrate the dread keep that is your mind and actually speak with the obnoxious idiot who dwells within. Let's go through the clusterfuck that is the above quote bit by bit.

If the players fail to find the vampire letters, you cannot give them a game over screen. The session - and the campaign - has to continue. We can all agree on that. So far so good.

If the players fail to find the vampire letters and you retroactively put them on top of the desk as a freebie - or introduce an identical freebie clue which gives the PC's identical information and pushes the story in an identical direction - then it doesn't matter that the PC's tried and failed, because they found the letters (or an identical clue) anyway. When success and failure have the same outcomes, there is no difference between success and failure. That's basically true - you can concoct some edge cases if you try hard enough but it's not really worth it. So we can all agree on that. So far so good.

If the players fail to find the vampire letters and they continue on unaware of their existence, then it doesn't matter that they tried and failed because the game still happened (just without that content). And here is where you fucking lose it and veer into crazy land. The argument "the player's successes and failures changed the content that they played through, but they still played other content instead so ultimately it doesn't matter" is fucking stupid. That is the exact opposite of something that doesn't matter. That the content changes when people succeed or fail on checks is the exact thing the people you are arguing with have declared as valuable.

You need to remember that this is not a videogame. The goal is not to reach the end of the level by any means necessary. It's an interactive and collaborative experience and it really isn't supposed to have an "end of the level" to begin with. The goal is to think of inputs into the story, and then make those inputs happen using your character abilities. So when you succeed on a check, hurrah. You are now (presumably) in a better position to influence the story the want you want to. And when you fail on a check, aww. You are now either in the same position to influence the story you were before you failed, or worse. Sure, the story will continue regardless - but the specific alteration you bid on making didn't happen, and that's the sort of thing that fucking matters, because being able to make those alterations is one of the major things that makes playing a TTRPG worthwhile compared to reading a book.

[Ice9]

If the players fail to find the vampire letters and they continue on unaware of their existence, then it doesn't matter that they tried and failed because the game still happened (just without that content). And here is where you fucking lose it and veer into crazy land. The argument "the player's successes and failures changed the content that they played through, but they still played other content instead so ultimately it doesn't matter" is fucking stupid. That is the exact opposite of something that doesn't matter. That the content changes when people succeed or fail on checks is the exact thing the people you are arguing with have declared as valuable.

I think there's something there though. Player agency that the players had no idea existed doesn't really benefit anyone.

If the vampire letters are in a safe, and the PCs do / don't have the lockpicking skills to get them, then that's the PCs' abilities making a difference, and the players are aware of that. If they failed to notice the letters at all, and have no idea there were any to find ... how is that different, in the player PoV, from a game where there never were any letters to begin with? Unless this is a published module and they play it with different characters later, but that's more the exception than the rule.

So skill checks gating content - sure, I'm for it. Checks to notice that content even existed - seems like a waste of time.

Edit: This doesn't mean Perception/Search checks are never good. If you strongly suspect something was there but fail to find it, that's visible to the player and therefore not pointless. Or if the lack of finding it becomes obvious - because "it" is the pit trap you just fell into, for instance. It's when you walk past the letters and then go the whole rest of the campaign without ever knowing there were letters that you could have found.

[PhoneLobster]

You are the thickest motherfucking person I have ever met. You are not a brick wall, you are an impenetrable fortress. People tell legends about the brave few who have managed to penetrate the dread keep that is your mind and actually speak with the obnoxious idiot who dwells within.

... er... isn't a, if not the, central point of your screaming content free outrage against MGuy that he has actually dared to be marginally convinced by something I said?

Isn't that, I don't know, the opposite of being an impenetrable fortress? Or is it just that it doesn't count if he is convinced by people you dislike, he has to agree with you or else?

Do you ever argue anything from any perspective but tribalism and personal vendetta?

[Kaelik]

Mguy is literally the only person in this entire thread that has a different position than the last time we had this conversation.

[Mord]

Let's say that the letters allow the players to catch wind of the bbeg's plan and the details of that plan will have far reaching effects on the game. You WILL want the players to find this info because it'll present a host of choices that will have the player's decisions effect the world at large. If you are a reasonable person you will make sure the players are able to get this information. You may or may not use any number of gating techniques to make them "earn" it but however you do it you will have to make sure that failing one avenue or another is negligible because not getting this info cuts off a multitude of actual player empowering choices. Now it may be a bit of hyperbole to call that game over/dead end but it's pretty shit design to have impact heavy content because the dice landed on a low number instead of a high number. It's especially shitty if it happens despite the players chose to invest in the skill and actually put it to use.

Emphasis mine.

You are wrong. Just because one particular plot coupon allows the story to advance along some set X of paths, does not mean that particular plot coupon has to be put in the players' hands. As long as there is another set Y of paths along which the campaign can proceed in the event that the plot coupon is missed, there is not necessarily a problem with that plot coupon being missed.

It is certainly not mandatory for a person who wants to qualify as "reasonable" to make sure the adventure proceeds along a path in set X as opposed to a path in set Y. Forcing your players into set X is really just railroading cast in a favorable light, especially if you just can't be assed to come up with anything to put in set Y.

---

Not directly addressing anyone in particular below:

Randomness has a part to play in RPGs because uncertainty is part of the fun of collaboratively crafting a story. Yes, you can have different characters with different Search proficiencies without rolling dice. Whether or not your skill system uses dice, I can create Searchocles the Searchbarian and put all my character ranks into Search, or a guy who puts a few ranks in Search, or nothing whatsoever. When we enter a room in which the GM has hidden a secret wall panel, there are three possibilities:

1) Auto-success. With diceless, if my Search skill exceeds the threshold, the DM just tells me where the panel is. With dice, if my Search skill is so great as to make failure impossible, the same thing happens.

2) Auto-failure. With diceless, this means my Search skill is too low and the DM stays mum on the panel. With dice, if my Search skill is so low as to make success impossible, the same thing happens.

3) Potential success. This scenario is only possible with a random element such as dice involved. In diceless, there is no way in which I might or might not see the panel. With dice, I can roll to see if I can beat the hidden difficulty, and if I manage it, I get to feel like a badass even though the dice did all the work and my input to the situation consisted solely of choosing the character attributes (expending the resources) needed to get whatever bonus I had.

No shit that people can implement searchable things poorly in such a way that it simplifies to a GAME OVER or a piece of shitty fluff. But it's also possible to implement searchable things that create alternative options and branching pathways, even if any specific searchable doesn't change the fact that you're going to Point B from Point A.

Maybe I'm sneaking into an abandoned oil tanker full of goons because they have my dog tied up in one of the inner rooms. At some point, a failed Search check might mean I fight some particular handful of goons on my way through the ship, but a passed Search check means that before that encounter, I notice a loose grating that I can use to crawl through the vents and get behind the door those goons are guarding, bypassing those specific goons completely. Or maybe the vent lets out in the room the goons are guarding, but using the vent lets me drop on the goons from an unexpected direction and get myself a surprise round, or a chance to stay silent and slip through the doorway undetected.

If I put 5 ranks in Search, maybe I'll find the vent no matter what, and if I put 1 rank in Search, I can't ever find the vent. But I think I'd get more enjoyment from a game where 3 ranks in Search means I have a chance to find the vent, if I try my luck with the dice.

[MGuy]

Mord. Reread what you quoted. Seriously, read the sentence right after the one you bolded.

[Kaelik]

1) Auto-success. With diceless, if my Search skill exceeds the threshold, the DM just tells me where the panel is. With dice, if my Search skill is so great as to make failure impossible, the same thing happens.

2) Auto-failure. With diceless, this means my Search skill is too low and the DM stays mum on the panel. With dice, if my Search skill is so low as to make success impossible, the same thing happens.

3) Potential success. This scenario is only possible with a random element such as dice involved. In diceless, there is no way in which I might or might not see the panel. With dice, I can roll to see if I can beat the hidden difficulty, and if I manage it, I get to feel like a badass even though the dice did all the work and my input to the situation consisted solely of choosing the character attributes (expending the resources) needed to get whatever bonus I had.

1) Actually, you are wrong. To search requires an action in many systems, including D&D 3e. So the other possibility is that you don't search.

2) "I feel like a badass when I roll dice" is a fine thing to say, it is just demonstrative of the fact that you are an idiot who doesn't understand the point of the conversation at all.

Now don't get me wrong, people who feel like badasses when they roll dice are fucking idiots, but they certainly exist, and you have to take them into account when designing your game.

The point is that some things are so minor and/or disempowering when failed that the game is better if you don't waste time rolling dice on them at all and they just succeed (or fail if they are one of the minor things, but not if they are the disempowering things) so you can roll dice on other things that are more important and are a better focus of the game.

Rolling to jump a chasm is literally death when you fail, and so it totally sucks, and the game is better when you devote the extra effort to literally anything else. Searching for some minor gold or notes or a minor shortcut or something, the most common non-trap use for search, is really minor. Traps are really dumb for reasons that have nothing to do with rolling for search and everything to do with all the terrible ways people use traps in games, and the way action costs for search work, but whatever trap system you use probably should involve opposed rolls, but first you have to actually design a competent trap system.

No shit that people can implement searchable things poorly in such a way that it simplifies to a GAME OVER or a piece of shitty fluff. But it's also possible to implement searchable things that create alternative options and branching pathways, even if any specific searchable doesn't change the fact that you're going to Point B from Point A.

Maybe I'm sneaking into an abandoned oil tanker full of goons because they have my dog tied up in one of the inner rooms. At some point, a failed Search check might mean I fight some particular handful of goons on my way through the ship, but a passed Search check means that before that encounter, I notice a loose grating that I can use to crawl through the vents and get behind the door those goons are guarding, bypassing those specific goons completely. Or maybe the vent lets out in the room the goons are guarding, but using the vent lets me drop on the goons from an unexpected direction and get myself a surprise round, or a chance to stay silent and slip through the doorway undetected.

If I put 5 ranks in Search, maybe I'll find the vent no matter what, and if I put 1 rank in Search, I can't ever find the vent. But I think I'd get more enjoyment from a game where 3 ranks in Search means I have a chance to find the vent, if I try my luck with the dice.

When I play Styx, Master of Shadows, searching for alternative paths and loot is a critical part of the experience, and if you were trying to play a game like that in tabletop form, you would not want to obviate the entirety of searching for loot and alternate paths to nothing.

But if you play Orcs and Men, that's a waste of your fucking time.

Step 1 is to figure out whether search is important enough to your game to need rolls or if that time is better spent elsewhere.

But every cocksucking idiot in this thread is so committed to their hardon for dice rolling that they refuse to even consider the idea that any part of their game might be improved by removing dice, because admitting that dice is not the solution to all of the worlds problems is fucking sacrilege.

[PhoneLobster]

handful of goons, top secret vent, utterly unpredictable vent outcome

And, so what? A handful of goons. A hidden object that you could never have predicted would be there back when you took the search skill. An outcome to interacting with the hidden object that is unpredictable. A variation in outcomes that is exceptionally minor at best.

Your example of choices that matter is itself just a non choice that doesn't matter.

The entire existence and effect of the vent is utterly GM controlled and arbitrary, the values it can reasonable give are minor variation within level appropriate challenge and reward for the same fucking adventure and encounters.

And every insignificant option that vent hands you it COULD have handed you more reliably without a needless chance of failure.

I'd say that your example was poorly chosen, but it wasn't because you can't really give us one that actually matters because at that point it's pretty obvious that the search roll is just screwing everyone for no reason.

[Mask_De_H]

Isn't hyperbole fun, kids?

At this point, these kinds of threads aren't actually meant to solve anything or advance anything; they're just ritualized pissing contests. Like bucks headbutting each other, but without the attracting mates part.

[DSMatticus]

If the players fail to find the vampire letters and they continue on unaware of their existence, then it doesn't matter that they tried and failed because the game still happened (just without that content). And here is where you fucking lose it and veer into crazy land. The argument "the player's successes and failures changed the content that they played through, but they still played other content instead so ultimately it doesn't matter" is fucking stupid. That is the exact opposite of something that doesn't matter. That the content changes when people succeed or fail on checks is the exact thing the people you are arguing with have declared as valuable.

I think there's something there though. Player agency that the players had no idea existed doesn't really benefit anyone.

If the vampire letters are in a safe, and the PCs do / don't have the lockpicking skills to get them, then that's the PCs' abilities making a difference, and the players are aware of that. If they failed to notice the letters at all, and have no idea there were any to find ... how is that different, in the player PoV, from a game where there never were any letters to begin with? Unless this is a published module and they play it with different characters later, but that's more the exception than the rule.

So skill checks gating content - sure, I'm for it. Checks to notice that content even existed - seems like a waste of time.

Edit: This doesn't mean Perception/Search checks are never good. If you strongly suspect something was there but fail to find it, that's visible to the player and therefore not pointless. Or if the lack of finding it becomes obvious - because "it" is the pit trap you just fell into, for instance. It's when you walk past the letters and then go the whole rest of the campaign without ever knowing there were letters that you could have found.

I want to point out that "if the players don't know what they're missing, then does it really matter?" is an argument that invites quantum bears. You can totally engineer a bunch of seemingly meaningful choices that all end in bear attacks and the players will be none the wiser. What are they going to do, quickload and try the other choices? It's not "okay" just because the players haven't figured out that it's all smoke and mirrors, but you can totally get away with it. Players don't have perfect information, and all of their choices are going to be at least partially blind. There are aspects to each choice they might know, there are aspects to each choice they might have reasonable suspicions about, but there are also going to be aspects that surprise them. And it is better if the surprise behind each curtain is different, instead of just having one surprise ("it's a bear!") and moving that surprise around behind the curtains to match the players' choice.

But I think the "confusing" issue here is that search is an information gathering skill. It doesn't change the game state on its own; it reveals information that the players can use (in conjunction with their other abilities) to change the game state. And just like those "other abilities" might fail (and therefore you don't get to change the game state in the way you wanted to), your information gathering abilities might fail (and therefore you won't be presented with that specific opportunity to use your abilities to change the game state in the way you wanted to). I don't really see this as a problem. It's fine that abilities don't always work.

Think about it this way: if you put information gathering skills in the game, then you risk players not investing in them or investing in them and failing anyway because that's what an RNG does. If that bothers you, then you have two options:
1) Don't put information gathering skills in your game at all. The DM just tells the players what he thinks they should know and they act on it.
2) Put information gathering skills in the game, but quantum-bear all the information you want the players to know into their path regardless of whether or not they succeed or fail. This is actually identical to the above, and your information gathering skills are just pretend.

Do you really like either of the above two choices more than "sometimes the players fail, and you have to keep some information from them?" Because I do not.

[Mord]

Mord. Reread what you quoted. Seriously, read the sentence right after the one you bolded.

Maybe you could clarify your original post, because this is how I parsed it: "the players absolutely have to get information on the BBEG's plan, whether through ghost letters or some other means TBD, because his plan will affect the setting in a big way."

On closer reading, it's not clear to me whether you think that "catch[ing] wind of the bbeg's plan" is the info that I "WILL want the players to find" or whether "the details of that plan" are the info you consider a reasonable person to be required to deliver to the players. And indeed, it's not clear whether the specific details contained in these specific letters are the ones that you consider crucial, or whether non-overlapping details about the same plan acquired from a different source would satisfy your requirements. Please advise.

In any case, I disagree with the notion that the players must be forced to "succeed" in some particular preordained, predefined channel, and I don't think this makes me unreasonable. There are some BBEG plans that require detailed advance information for the PCs to be able to thwart, but there are also plans that can be foiled with sufficient application of violence. There are also plans that come to fruition, the results of which must be undone after the fact. I don't know the particulars of this BBEG plan, since it was your idea, so I'm not sure whether it's any of those kinds.

I'm perfectly willing to let players make a string of poor choices that result in Gandalf falling into a big hole, and I'm perfectly willing to let the players get phenomenally unlucky at critical moments with the upshot being that Gandalf still falls into a big hole. As long as the world itself has not ended, the story can go on, and hey, maybe Gandalf shows up again later. Sure, Han Solo is frozen in carbonite and you fucked up your rolls to stop Boba Fett before he escaped, but you can try to rescue Han from Jabba's palace instead...

---

1) Actually, you are wrong. To search requires an action in many systems, including D&D 3e. So the other possibility is that you don't search.

OK, yes, that is also a possibility. If you want to consider that a failure state distinct from auto-failure due to insufficient Search modifier/level, sure. Is that a distinction with any practical difference?

The point is that some things are so minor and/or disempowering when failed that the game is better if you don't waste time rolling dice on them at all and they just succeed (or fail if they are one of the minor things, but not if they are the disempowering things) so you can roll dice on other things that are more important and are a better focus of the game.

Yes, this is so. Whether you're diceless or not, your MC can decide to fuck you if he's coming up with difficulties on the fly - e.g. every searchable thing has a DC set exactly 1 too high to fall in your autowin range - but he can do that anyway, and the solution to that social problem is orthogonal to whether you're rolling dice.

Setting appropriate check difficulties (and deciding which things should be put behind checks that may or may not be passed) is crucial to scenario design whether or not you use dice, and the best scenarios will have multiple ways to skin any cat whose pelt is mandatory for victory.

Rolling to jump a chasm is literally death when you fail, and so it totally sucks, and the game is better when you devote the extra effort to literally anything else. Searching for some minor gold or notes or a minor shortcut or something, the most common non-trap use for search, is really minor. Traps are really dumb for reasons that have nothing to do with rolling for search and everything to do with all the terrible ways people use traps in games, and the way action costs for search work, but whatever trap system you use probably should involve opposed rolls, but first you have to actually design a competent trap system.

You say "really minor" in reference to non-critical shortcuts, loot, and infodumps; I say "to-mah-to." I think such things can liven up a scenario and greatly enhance a play session when used appropriately, though not all sessions are appropriate for such things. As you say below, it's down to what game you're playing.

I'll pass on designing a competent trap system.

When I play Styx, Master of Shadows, searching for alternative paths and loot is a critical part of the experience, and if you were trying to play a game like that in tabletop form, you would not want to obviate the entirety of searching for loot and alternate paths to nothing.

But if you play Orcs and Men, that's a waste of your fucking time.

Step 1 is to figure out whether search is important enough to your game to need rolls or if that time is better spent elsewhere.

Agreed. If your game consists of "you are tiny pink men, go kill tiny green men," you don't necessarily need to bother with skill checks at all, much less a search chance mechanic.

Personally, when I'm playing a game with four archetypal characters and one of them is called a "Rogue," I expect there to be some kind of mechanical system for finding hidden things that doesn't always collapse to determinism and for there to be enough tangible benefit to investing in that system for it to be competitive with putting those same character resources in alchemy or use rope or whatever else. If I'm following in Garrett's footsteps in TTRPG form, the best method available to simulate the experience of scouring every nook and cranny of a room for hidden levers or compartments is dice rolling. Sure, it doesn't conform to realizarm, but dice rolling also doesn't fucking map to swinging a sword, so what fucking ever.

[PhoneLobster]

Setting appropriate check difficulties (and deciding which things should be put behind checks that may or may not be passed) is crucial to scenario design whether or not you use dice, and the best scenarios will have multiple ways to skin any cat whose pelt is mandatory for victory.

Oh for fucks sake. This is the dumbest thing you said yet, well, aside from the "nuh uh no backsies" moment with the stupid arse tomato comment.

OK. So there are "multiple ways to skin a vital cat". Right. Is every one of those walled behind a content gating skill check roll? Right. Well if you understand any fucking thing about what random means then that means that you actually genuinely are generating, in some cases and eventually, "you failed a star trek trivia roll, GAME OVER".

If even ONE of those ways is a non-random gimme cop out out for groups that fail all the stupid ass star trek trivia rolls... then the value of ALL those checks is trivialized. You were always going to hand them the same result anyway. And then you did.

This is the whole point. You do NOT get to cop out with "well, multiple ways to ski..." because fuck you that IS the "search skill is meaningless" scenario.

[MGuy]

Mord. The letters themselves were never the point. The information is the actual content that I've been on about. That information leads to the players choosing to take route X, Y, or Z. That's why it's important. That's what you will want the players to have. That's why I said no matter what way you lock it from them or how you have them earn it you will want them to have it so the players can make informed choices on actual major plot points.

[virgil]

Why have dice rolls in combat? You know the final outcome. What are you going to do, declare game over because they rolled poorly? What makes combat, a part of the game with less forgiveness of failure than finding love letters, acceptable to have random elements that Search should not have?

[PhoneLobster]

Why have dice rolls in combat?

What a genius argument. You win. It's the same thing. Now lets all go write D&D rules that make sure that the ability to shoot lightning bolts is of equal value to and fully interchangeable with the ability to make star trek trivia checks.

Wait. That seems wrong. I. Wonder. Why.

[MGuy]

Why have dice rolls in combat? You know the final outcome. What are you going to do, declare game over because they rolled poorly? What makes combat, a part of the game with less forgiveness of failure than finding love letters, acceptable to have random elements that Search should not have?

I believe this was mentioned before.

In a game like DnD, combat is literally the only place where making checks make sense because the results of those checks always mean that you get the content (the fight). The skills that interact with setting either work to restrict player action and engagement or are just shams concealing meaningless rolls.

Combat is a series of choices AND the results of checks average out and are rendered meaningless over time. Skills are binary and failure locks away content.

That being said, skills also need to have a high chance of failure to feel relevant, where combat almost always results in player success. In a very real way, DnD combat is designed for the rolls to not matter because the overall odds are so stacked in the player's favor even when the individual rolls have a high chance to failure.

[Username17]

By using an RNG you're limiting the options your players can choose from. Thus, you know they have less options and there is less player agency.

That's just more Philosopher King Fallacy bullshit. We have games without an RNG (Amber) or where the RNG does not have prescriptive outputs (BearWorld). And in those games, player agency is basically a lie.

Since games that actually use RNGs like D&D, Shadowrun, Champions, and fucking almost all of them have a metric shit tonne more player agency than the ones that don't, your thesis is fucking insane.

-Username17

The Frank Trollman Fallacy:

1) D&D lets you cast Wall of Stone without rolling dice.
2) Bear World does not let you cast wall of stone at all.
3) D&D has dice rolls elsewhere in the game.
3) D&D is a game with more agency than bear world.
4) Therefore, making players roll dice before allowing them to cast Wall of Stone INCREASES PLAYER AGENCY!

Surely the player agency couldn't possibly come from all the explicit rules for things your character can actually just do, either with or without rolling dice. It must actually come only and solely from DICE ROLLS!

There is both a Concentration check and a Reflex save for Wall of Stone. There is a roll for both the caster and the target. Why do you got to be such a stupid asshole?

-Username17