Make Ability Checks Great Again

Dietmar Rabich: 20-sided dice (icosahedron, D20) (2021)

This is my cheeky title that genuinely serves to help beginner Dungeon Master's address a difficult subject in their games.  Skill checks are an interesting part of any dungeons and Dragons game.  Additionally, they are fundamental to most Tabletop Role Playing Games (TTRPG).  They are how most TTRPG handle the narrative through a dice roll when a Player Character (PC) wants to accomplish something that a commoner or regular person might struggle with.  

I will give the SRD version of the rules later, I promise. But for now, if a character in any game wants to do something that is above a mundane task they roll dice and add modifiers based on whether they accomplish the thing they set out to do.  There are already problems with this definition.  Right?  What is a mundane task? How can we answer that?  Let’s talk about a jar of pickles!

Oh, I know what you are thinking. “Adam, a jar of pickles has nothing to do with dungeons and dragons and most TTRPG games take place in a time with a glass jar and a metal lid don’t exist. Hogwash! Nonsense!.” I disagree.  Sometimes, particularly with a new jar of pickles, the lid is harder to open.  It can be a test of strength! Because that lid is stuck.  A mundane task has become problematic and requires a solution outside of the normal everyday.  Sometimes my kids will hand me the jar of pickles after a struggle with it and with just a hint of extra effort, WHOOSH, you hear that satisfying pop as the air rushes into the jar allowing us to open it and enjoy the sour savory salty goodness inside. You see, I am proficient at opening sealed jars. Other times that jar is stuck.  My general strength is not enough for that jar.  What was a test of strength becomes a test of wisdom, intelligence, a tool proficiency, or dexterity.  Perhaps my kids hands were oily for some reason and thus the lid was and my strength wasn’t the issue, the slippery metal lid was the problem.  I can wipe it off and try again.  Adding deftness to my attempt requires dexterity. But what of the other solutions? If I pull out a rubber gripper or jar opener I am using a tool I am proficient in.  Maybe it takes some work.  Maybe not.  Maybe my experience and wisdom tells me that I have opened jars before by banging the lid on a hard surface to get it to shift.  Maybe we are opening bread and butter pickles instead.  Intelligence states that the sweetness in bread and butter pickles comes from sweetener which can be sticky.  Maybe I run the pickle jar under some warm water.Maybe I have to take all of those efforts to open the jar of pickles.  Maybe not.  Point being eventually I will get the jar open.  Is that a mundane task? The answer is yes and no.  We look at opening a jar of pickles as mundane until it becomes a challenge.  Then when it becomes something more we look at it differently.  What if I were to add a ticking clock. My wife is downstairs waiting to leave with me to go to Target for the 10,000th time this week.  She had asked the kids to make sandwiches for themselves while we were gone as we’re having a lunch date.  As the task of opening the jar of pickles becomes complicated I now have to decide quicker and under pressure to help my kids with this.  I have time to try one thing as my wife calls out after my kids failed their strength checks and I failed mine.  I go for the tried and true rubber gripper.  This is the path of least resistance.  I can get the jar open or not.  What are the consequences if I fail my attempt with the gripper? Disappoint the kids and disappointing myself at the thought of being thwarted by a jar of pickles. .  If I try for too long? Roll initiative to a battle with my wife.  

While that scenario is ridiculous I use it to illustrate the point that sometimes it’s a mundane task.  No rolls needed.  If I wasn’t under any pressure for any reason I’d find a way to open the jar and move on.  I have all the options available and it is a matter of time.  Other times there is an ongoing pressure that stops me from solving the issue at hand and that I would have to roll.

I know a lot of you are solving this problem on your own.  Some of you are stuck on the fact that I can’t open a jar of pickles.  Some of you are repulsed by pickles.  Don’t do that.  It’s an example. 

Oh, alright. The door in front of you locked.  Ranger in the back line here’s something from deeper in the cavern behind (or however has highest Passive Perception, but I’m giving the Ranger Ranger things).  The door in front of you is locked.  The DC is 12.  Deciding not to give the position away fully you all talk the barbarian down from smashing it.  The cleric gives guidance and the Rogue gets one chance to pick the lock of the door for the group to clamber inside.  The GM has set the stakes. The Rogue passes: The group files in to the room and closes the door behind them they hear the marching of footsteps get louder then softer as the threat looks somewhere else. The Rogue fails: The guards catch up and the backline becomes the frontline.  After the fight the time matters less.  So the stress drops and the DC becomes a 5 because the Rogue can just take their time.

A Dungeon Master’s basic job is to explain the situation and decide whether player solutions are reasonable.  The nuance becomes when, then, to call for a roll or not.  And that can be difficult.

Next week Scaling Ability Checks allows success and more success.