[RPG] How to metagaming retries on poor skill checks be prevented

dnd-5emetagamingskills

I'm sure every DM has had this happen: one PC is trying to find something cool on a dead monster's body. The player rolls poorly, and instead of accepting the paltry 2 copper pieces, the PC calls all the party members over to also try looting the corpse. Invariably, a different player rolls well, and everyone walks away satisfied that everything's been taken down to the poor dead monster's last holey sock.

Another example: One PC is trying to find some useful information in a library. There're no guards, no reason anyone would be bothered, and no time restraints to stress about. The player rolls poorly, so all the other PCs try, too.

I'd describe this as well-intentioned metagaming. The players are afraid of losing out on content, this despite multiple sessions of me making it clear that I don't structure my games to penalize gameplay that way.

These are situations that require a roll to determine the degree of success. (At least I think so; perhaps I'm wrong here?) Failure could set back the PCs a cool item or a bit of information that would have helped a little, but these minor failures aren't game-enders or anything. As a DM I can't see a reason to say "No" and disallow the practice, but it feels vaguely like cheating to let the players roll multiple times to get better results.

How do I prevent players ganging up on skill checks after they've seen someone roll poorly?

Best Answer

The best advice I have seen on this issue is from Angry GM’s 5 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenaged Skill System (warning: mild, censored swearing of the $^#% variety). That’s written for D&D 4e, but like you say, this is an issue that has perplexed GMs for ages, across a variety of systems.

His answer, which is his rule #2, is very simple:

Only roll if there is a chance of success, a chance of failure, and a risk or cost to failure

You need all three to have a roll. If you have only one or two of the three, or none of the three, there is no reason to roll at all. If there is no chance of success or no chance of failure, the pointlessness of the roll is self-evident,1 but the third point is key here: if there is no reason not to, PCs should and will keep retrying until they succeed (as much as they can succeed). There is no reason to bother wasting time having them actually do so; just assume they do it and move on. Save game time for something more important.

And “it takes longer” is not a risk or cost to failure unless there is a clear and present time crunch being applied to the PCs. If they are under attack, sure, taking more time to search a corpse is risky and/or costly—they risk losing their hp, and possibly lives, by doing it. Likewise if the room is filling with water, the big bad evil guy is chanting in the corner to finish his summoning of a bigger fish, or whatever. But it has to be clear and known to the PCs to give them a reason to rush.

But if they’re just exploring an apparently-abandoned tomb, at their own leisure, there is absolutely no reason in the world for them to not take their time being thorough. It does not improve the game to constantly ask them if they’re going to be. It really does not improve the game to constantly stop and roll and check results and maybe try again when it doesn’t matter. And it also doesn’t improve the game to arbitrarily limit retries; in addition to being unrealistic (rolls represent one attempt, and the whole point of it being randomized is that not every attempt at something will be your best), it also runs into severe goblin dice problems.

Note, however, that this answer assumes implicitly that this kind of thing is a low-value use of limited play time. A whole lot of the trade-offs involved here are made in order to minimize play time spent on this issue. That only makes sense if we agree that this activity is not a major, important, or interesting part of the game. This answer presumes such a playstyle because that is the style that 5e itself seems to espouse—5e continues a progression that largely started with the acquisition of D&D by Wizards of the Coast that focuses more on the epic narrative, the quest, and the characters, than it does on careful dungeon delving, handling preparation and logistics, or on player skills. But even in 5e, that’s not all playstyles—many people play with different styles with different emphases. Particularly since in older editions of D&D, it was presumed that this sort of thing was a very important, interesting part of the game. Said editions wanted to spend more time on this in part because they also emphasized a fairly heavy use of player skill as opposed to character skill—players had to be thorough, players had to think of places to search, and so on. And many people continue to play newer editions that way. If that’s your playstyle, the choices made in this answer would make no sense, since they are emphasizing different things than you are.

  1. Some will object that choosing not to roll at all gives away information to the players about something’s difficulty. That is, they will argue that not allowing players to roll for something they cannot possibly do tells them explicitly that they cannot do it, when otherwise they could not conclusively know that unless they rolled enough to achieve a natural-20 and still see a failure. Suffice to say that the article acknowledges and addresses this concern—some may not be convinced, but personally I think the discussion on that subject is very well-considered and convinces me, anyway, that this is for the best. The short, short version is that rolling enough to get that natural 20 is a huge waste of time that doesn’t add nearly enough to the game to be worth it.
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