I don’t think I’ve ever needed more information than character level and a vague sense of whether that character/player is more or less effective in combat/social encounters than usual to make them. I definitely don’t need to worry about whether they’ve got expertise in history, that’s something they can bring up when I ask them for a history check

Fuck you, Im dm so I get to pick what does and doesnt crit

D&D today is almost an unrecognizable game from its first incarnation in the 70’s, though. I’m not really seeing the parallels to war games other than the fact that you have the option of using a battle map in combat, which is hardly unique to D&D.

To borrow your analogy, no one drives the Model T today, but cars still have 4 tires and a steering wheel.

We don’t do averages, just addition and subtraction

It’s a game designed around math, combat, and dungeon crawling, not around roleplaying.

The objective isn’t to have fun roleplaying, but to roll the right numbers to maximise damage to the enemy. Any real fun comes from ignoring the rules and homebrewing.

The car might have gotten a few coats of paint over the years and maybe more ergonomic seats, but it’s still the same old chassis and engine underneath.

There are many games built around the concept of getting the players to have fun roleplaying, but DND has never been one of them, and if it ever became one it’d no longer be DND.

I recall a Zee Bashew video that I can’t seem to find that referenced a chart of how willing someone was to help when requested. The idea being the scale isn’t from “I will actively hinder you” to “I will sell my estate to aid you” but rather from less then helpful to more helpful.

For example, if you asked some haggard clerk about a quest the scale might be:

• Critical failure, the clerk directs you to the job board for details on any job.
• Failure, the clerk may point out there specific job on the board and direct you to it.
• Success, the clerk tells you that the person who posted the job is staying somewhere in town.
• Critical success, the clerk may share a rumor they heard in addition to telling you where the poster may be staying.

Regarding a discount from a penny-pinching inn keeper, perhaps it could go:

• Critical failure, payment for the entire stay is required up front. Extending your stay is not permitted.
• Failure, They are not willing to lower their prices
• Success, they will offer a lower price if you bundle extra services like meals, drinks, and baths.
• Critical success, they will offer you the bundle rate without bundling.

Some players don’t ask.

Mutants and Masterminds has (effectively) a +5 if you roll a 20, but no extra penalty for rolling a 1.

For stuff that isn’t story related, and if the group is in the right frame of mind, I’d ham up 1 and 20 on social roles. Nobody is selling their estate, but they might decide they take a shine to the PC or something else that’s fun. Similarly, a nat-1 could get the NPC offended, so they refuse a request grumpily or only help grudgingly.

Otherwise, I think what you’re saying is how I’d play it.

Well DnD consistently doesn’t have criticals outside of attack rolls and death saves.

Like the person you replied to asked, what would you even expect to happen on an ability crit? If the DM only lets you roll on things that would be possible for you, then you would succeed on a 20 anyway. If the DM lets you roll on impossible things, then you have a 5% of doing the impossible. Neither option is good.

I absolutely let a 20 or 1 have extra effect whenever it makes sense and feels right. But having it be a core rule would be a PITA.

Not to mention that it would make skill checks even more driven by randomness, which is already a problem.

what would you even expect to happen on an ability crit?

Extra information, owed a favour, make a friend, get a small reward, get a clue to a larger reward, impress someone important, uncover a secret, get forewarning of a danger, hinder a rival, gain advantage on something, opponent is exhausted/confused/embarrassed and must pass a saving throw to act…

Skill check crits would be just like combat crits except there’s way more scope for fictional as well as mechanical benefits.

Yeah, the people that do rules as written, or follow a book for a campaign to the letter, to hard often end up taking the fun out of it.

My first ever campaign I was an outlander ranger with high survival. We started in a swamp and it was written “pass survival check, if fail, roll to go in a random direction”. I somehow failed 7/8 rolls with +7 (bad luck). We spent the whole session going round in circles and ended up further away from our objective than we started.

I felt awkward/stressed, and the others just felt bored/frustrated.

Chatting with more seasoned players afterwards they were like “yeah, that shouldn’t be how it normally goes, but it’s not your fault, DM should have a fail safe for stuff like that. First rule is ‘is it fun’. Just cause the campaign says ‘do x’ doesn’t necessarily mean you should if it’s not fun for anyone”

Exactly. Why not make them crit? It’s going to be up to the DM anyway to define what a “critical success” means on a skill check. There’s no hard rule like the extra damage that comes with crit successes on attacks. The DM gets to choose what a critical success on a skill check actually produces. The DM can easily just make sure the crit success isn’t game breaking.

Your players are in an audience with the king. The bard tries to be funny and tries to convince the king to give him his crown and hand the kingdom over to him. Actually making the bard the new king would break the game. But maybe a critical fail means the bard gets sent to the dungeon to be tortured for daring to make such a request. A critical success means the king will grant the bard one “wish,” ie, any reasonable single reasonable request that is within the king’s power.

The whole situation is fully in the DM’s power.

Worse! At just level 7, a rogue is likely to have +11 and Advantage to pick a lock, which combined with Reliable Talent means they can’t fail a DC 21, and have a 1/2 chance of beating a DC 26.

So if you want there to be uncertainty and challenge, you have to make the DC more like 25-28. Making it all the more likely that the lock should be impossible to the rest of the party.

If I wanted to formally add ability check crits I would make them add/subtract something from your result. Not automatically pass/fail, because the consequences of that are bonkers.

Not automatically pass/fail, because the consequences of that are bonkers.

Agreed

That’s why I really enjoy the “fail but” or “success except” mechanic were even failing still advances the plot. Maybe you get lost however stumble upon something that can help with the objective.

Yeah, one of the other players in that sesh was a forever GM, he was saying how he will maybe do one big “bad roll, bad consequences”, but then if it happens again something like “you go in the right direction but you twist your ankle in the brush” or “it takes twice as long” or something

FWIW, inconsistency is one of the things I hate the most about the game design in Elden Ring. It does not properly communicate the actual impact of stat upgrades at different levels (e.g. 39-40 vigor is a significantly higher jump than 40-41 vigor) and enemies will have resistances or weaknesses to different damage types that often feel arbitrary/poorly communicated (e.g. the Magma Wyrm, a creature that breathes fire, is more resistant to fire than the Fire Giant; Borealis, an icy dragon that breathes ice, is nearly as resistant to fire as the Fire Giant; Hero of Zamor, an icy man that shoots ice, is weak to fire).

Elden Ring’s design is essentially a form of trial and error that often punishes you for choosing poorly, relying instead on metagame knowledge (patterns from previous Souls games, online discourse) to patch up its shortcomings. Fun as all hell when you know what to do, but its systems are incredibly arcane for newcomers.

That’s still not clear what you mean, all of those things are typically the results of a success. Do you mean nat 20 should always succeed? Do you mean nat 20 should always be a success with extra benefits? Do you mean nat 20 should always give you a side benefit even if it fails? You need to be more clear.

No, you’re misunderstanding, I’m not saying the player, I’m saying the DM. I’m not going to waste everyone’s time at the table checking whether a 20 on the die could possibly succeed given their modifier when I can just ask them to make a roll. It’s way quicker.