[UA] Dicey Incompetence

[Emily Dresner-Thornber]

> Too many times I have been in a game where the GM (and
> sadly I've been guilty of this in periods of mental
> constipation) makes the player roll for a skill for no
> reason at all.

And how many CoC characters have you had die because of this
exact same thing?  "You run from the screaming cultists.  Roll
your, uh, research skill.  You fail?  You die."

This isn't a fault of the game.  There is nothing essentially
wrong with the percentile mechanic.  This is an issue with
dice-happy GMs.

The trick to running a game using a d100 system is to "pick your
spots."  Otherwise, you have the problem where players keep
drowning in two feet of water.  Skill checks should be used in
extreme situations.  Only when it is not something that can be
"commonly done by normal people every day" should a check
necessary.

So, for your example, you'd never have to roll to see that the
floor is missing, but you might need some kind of dex check if
you were running head-long down the hallway while firing a .22.

If you tried to bash in a door and fail your check, you fail.  

So on and so on and so on.  It's hard, but you have to pry
yourself away from the dice.  Otherwise, you'll spend alot of
time rolling to pick up a can of coke and failing.  We had a GM
who ran games exactly like this, and the characters spent most of
their time just being incompetent.

... but if you can't teach your GM to not be a ninny, remember to
always beef up any "notice"-like skills.  At least, that way, you
can foil his plots. :)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emily K. Dresner-Thornber -- http://www.nodonut.com/zenith
Cute and Fuzzy Freelance Writer


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