>From: Ian Cooper <ian_hammond_cooper_at_...>
>
> >>When its something that's quite unlikely, just saying 'well, we'll just
> assume you passed anyway' isn't very satisfying - it leads to loss of
> suspension of disbelief and verisimilitude and so forth.<<
>
> This is a style issue I think. Although note that I am not saying 'you
>passed anyway' I am saying 'no need to roll' unless failure has interesting
>narrative consequences.
I think in some ways that you two are agreeing. Rather, the system doesn't tell you when to do a contest, it gives you that authority to determine yourself. If a particular group feels that a particular sort of contest is important, for whatever reason (verisimilitude, drama, whatever), then I say it passes the test for that group, and you should roll. I think that drama and verisimilitude are actually more linked than is often assumed.
Again, the key isn't so much in whether or not to have the contest, to me, but ensuring that we have appropriate stakes for the contest. Ones that everyone is interested in. If, in fact, the group finds not being able to go on an adventure interesting, then I'd think it was a very bad idea for that not to be the stakes. But for most groups, I think that there are other, more interesting stakes available.
Sometimes as narrator I feel like I'm out there on a ledge, trying to figure out what the players will find interesting as stakes. That little risk can actually be fun itself - do they want this risk, or is it too "fiddly" or otherwise not interesting. But I think that as long as they sense that I'm trying that they try to find what happens interesting, too. It's a two-way street.
Mike
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