Skill Checks: Dice as a last resort (DCC Gets it RIGHT!)

[stefan]

This from page 53 of the DCC RPG Beta Document made me want to cheer out loud:
Skill checks are designed for use when a system of abstract rules is necessary to adjudicate a situation. Only make a skill check when practical descriptions by the players will not suffice.

Preach it, Brother Joseph! This is one of the things about 3e, 3.5e, etc., that drives me NUTS; when we play it we are always rolling dice to seach or notice or find or figure out when we should just be talking. When we first started playing D&D, none of us had played a roleplaying game before and so we had to have 'armor class' and 'hit dice' explained to us... but when the DM said, "You enter a room with a chest here, a table there, a chair there and a rug on the floor..." or whatever, we all already knew how to interact with the environment and we didn't need to roll any dice to 'look under the rug' or 'search through the chest.' We just said things like, "I lift up the rug... is there anything underneath?" and the DM told us what happened.
I haven't play tested this, but those 2 sentences (above) made me really happy. THAT is old school!

[reverenddak]

This from page 53 of the DCC RPG Beta Document made me want to cheer out loud:
Skill checks are designed for use when a system of abstract rules is necessary to adjudicate a situation. Only make a skill check when practical descriptions by the players will not suffice.

Preach it, Brother Joseph! This is one of the things about 3e, 3.5e, etc., that drives me NUTS; when we play it we are always rolling dice to seach or notice or find or figure out when we should just be talking. When we first started playing D&D, none of us had played a roleplaying game before and so we had to have 'armor class' and 'hit dice' explained to us... but when the DM said, "You enter a room with a chest here, a table there, a chair there and a rug on the floor..." or whatever, we all already knew how to interact with the environment and we didn't need to roll any dice to 'look under the rug' or 'search through the chest.' We just said things like, "I lift up the rug... is there anything underneath?" and the DM told us what happened.
I haven't play tested this, but those 2 sentences (above) made me really happy. THAT is old school!

Amen! It still should be called Ability Checks because there aren't "skills" as we knew them (no formal rules, or formal lists.)

[Stainless]

Those of us who play with the GUMSHOE system (e.g., Trail of Cthulhu) are a step ahead here....