>(now for sure, yes, sometimes even with quite good skills
>you can fail at fairly simple tasks, that is part of why we roll dice
>instead of just saying "who is better?").
This is hard to explain, but I'll try another way.
The original complaint is that, essentially, a character seems to be able to win in one unlikely situation via magic, but then typically can't do something much more likely because the opposition is human. But you'll note that in the example given that the full range of possibilities can occur in both cases. The character jumping the tree could get complete Victory to Complete Failure. In the jumping contest, the same thing is true.
We all know that the character who has the magic ability has the ability to jump higher. But he usually has a chance to fail anyhow. What do you do when the character fails against the tree? The specifics don't really matter, you just explain why it was in this case that the character failed, right? There was some plausible reason why in this case the unlikely happened, and the character failed, and it's up to the Narrator to decide why and narrate that.
Well, if he fails against the guy who can't jump trees (as he's likely to do), then what do you do? The same thing. You just explain why the "unlikely seeming" thing happened. Yes, in fact the chances of him succeeding or failing do not match the in-game knowledge about their chances. But since the actually unlikely thing can always happen, you're armed to deal with the consequences when the "seemingly unlikely" thing happens. The end result is the same. This doesn't mean that anything in-game has changed (they guy can still potentially jump as high, he just didn't or something), just that you have to describe this failure here and now.
The cognitive problem that people have is that they expect the dice odds to represent the in-game odds. But obviously they don't. So they should stop expecting that (the characters didn't see the dice rolls, so they won't complain). Assuming, that is, that they decide to play with the rule this way. The rule doesn't simulate anything in any way that we're familiar with in-game, it represents the story priorities out of the game.
I'm probably hurting more than helping, but it's an important point.
Mike
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