To succeed, all one needs is the Vision to imagine,
the Gumption to try, the Capacity to learn,
and the Determination to persist.
Image by Achim Thiemermann from Pixabay

For the first time since I started it, when I went to draft the penultimate(?) parts of the Economics in RPGs series today, I found myself unsure of how best to structure the post.

While I have total confidence that, given enough time, I would have found a satisfactory sequence to bring out the key points, I was extremely uncertain that I would have enough time to both do so and get the article written in time.

To avoid the problem, I pulled out a standby article concept that’s been sitting around for a while, awaiting just this sort of circumstance.

Lending weight to the decision was that this is not a small article, either; the decision needed to be made early enough that there would be time to write it before the normal publishing deadline.

I think that the decision has been made in sufficiently timely fashion – but waffling on in this introduction is eating into that time, so let’s get on with it!

Modifiers – A Ubiquitous Concept

Almost every RPG incorporates, either officially or unofficially, the concept of skill modifiers into its game mechanics. There are good reasons for this, and I’ll touch on several of these before the end of the article.

Superficially, these are a simple concept, simply applied. “Under the circumstances, you are at +x to succeed” – or maybe it’s “- x”.

But the more you dig into it, the more hidden wrinkles come to light. It’s not nearly as straightforward as it first appears.

Most GM’s cut through this complexity and confusion with chutzpah, gut instinct, and the Gamemaster’s Authority – they declare a bonus (or penalty) that simply “feels right” to them.

This is an approach that is beset with problems. Consistency of decisions is one – and a poor showing in this area can affect a player’s confidence in the GM. Errors of judgment are another; we’re all human and make mistakes, but proceeding on instinct incorporates no safety net against such errors. Perceived bias for or against a character (or worse, for or against a player, or worse still, against the players as a group and in general) is a third.

These are serious issues, ones that demand serious attention before they take root. There are solutions to these problems that can enrich the playing experience for all concerned.

The starting point for any such attention has to be a more detailed examination of the basic concept, so that’s where we’ll begin.

Conceptual Origins: Old-School Combat

I started out as a player, and then a GM, running an AD&D campaign. The fundamental representation of magic weapons and armor in that game system is as a modifier, either to To-Hit or Armor Class, respectively.

It’s a short step from that to adding additional modifiers to represent unusual environmental conditions and other circumstances – underwater combat, or unstable footing, surprise or distraction, to offer a couple of quick examples.

So elementary are these that many of them are incorporated into the official rules of the game. They, in turn, betray the origins of the D&D game system as a Wargame, which are full of such modifiers and complexities.

Once their incorporation into game mechanics is accepted, it’s only a matter of time before the question arises of equivalents in the application of Skills and Proficiencies of a non-combat variety. The representation of characters occupying space in a “simulated reality” makes the existence of Circumstantial Skill Modifiers something of an inevitability.

Even later incarnations of the rules contain these, though sometimes they cloak them in different attire – there’s the Difficulty Level of a check in 3.x, for example. But when you dig into the conceptual framework of the rules, you find they are simply different ways of assessing the same basic questions.

Skill Modifiers, or Difficulty Modifiers, or whatever a given game system calls them, are a ubiquitous concept, fundamental to the representation of characters functioning in a game world or game environment.

How Big An Adjustment? – The Eternal Dilemma

The problems with Skill Modifiers aren’t related to the fundamental concept, which is on a sound footing; they are related to identifying the various factors that should be taken into consideration and quantifying their effects – translating the situation in-game into numbers that the game mechanics can then take into account.

Some GMs avoid the whole question, making the assumption that for every modifier one way not quantified in the rules, there is one in opposition if you look closely enough, and hence anything that is not explicitly Rules-As-Written can be assumed to be already taken into account.

This makes the game simpler, and that can have its own virtues, especially when gaming with younger people and those of less experience. Personally, though, I dislike the approach; it sucks too much flavor out of the in-game situation (instead of projecting the flavor of the moment into the game mechanics), and places too much faith – and too heavy a burden – on the shoulders of the game designers.

It’s a starting point, and suitable when that’s all that participants can cope with, but a broader approach can take such games to an entirely new level of immersion and verisimilitude.

And hence, we arrive at the ‘gut instinct’ approach, and its attendant problems.

Three Types Of Modifiers

Once you start studying the details, you come to realize that “Skill Modifiers” is actually an umbrella term that encompasses three similar but distinct game variables.

For the purposes of this article, I have named these “Inherent, Relative, and Personal”.

One fallacy that some GMs fall prey to is limiting their Skill Modifiers to just one of these three sets of variables, and adopting an approach to the problem that fits that perception.

Expanding our understanding of the subject requires understanding all three.

Inherent Modifiers

“Inherent” Modifiers – sometimes known as “absolute modifiers” – are fixed in value. You can simply read the value off a table. Mostly, these are environmental in nature, and assume that the nature of the skill check and the expertise of the character are irrelevancies.

It’s quite common for these to be the sum total of Skill (and Ability) modifiers that a GM applies, at least when they are in the intermediate stage of experience.

They have the virtue of being fairly simple, and of applying universally to any situation. “-2 to all Dexterity-based skills and checks due to the cold of the environment” is an example. All a GM then has to do is discriminate between the different types of skill check with a simple question – does the “-2” apply to this check?

Adding to the appeal is the fact that such modifiers will generally also apply to combat rolls. That means that they are more likely to be predefined in any reasonably comprehensive game mechanics, putting less pressure on the GM.

Relative Modifiers

The second class of Modifiers relate to the task itself, whatever it might be. For the purposes of this article, I have labeled them “Relative Modifiers”, for reasons that will become obvious, and despite the fact that the third type of Modifier can also make justifiable claim to the title.

There are two subtypes to be considered. In general, they are mutually exclusive, with the alternative sub-type considered to be encompassed by the chosen sub-type.

3.x / D&D

Some game systems – D&D 3.x for example – confuses the whole Skill Modifier subject by applying these Modifiers to the determination of a target (DC), entirely separately to the other types.

Mechanically, any increase to a DC is exactly the same as a negative modifier to the skill being used to attempt the task. The major difference lies in the arithmetical operation to be performed – this edition of D&D tries to avoid subtractions at all costs, preferring to make everything an addition, even if it means applying the variable to the ‘other side’ of the basic equation.

Hero Games

The default approach of Hero Games is not dissimilar, either. They prefer modifiers that apply to an attack roll, for example, and separate modifiers that add to the target number needed for success. Their theory appears to be that this means that the player is doing half the work and the GM, the other half. In practice, the GM has to involve himself on both sides of the question, so it doesn’t actually make things easier. Our games using this game system revolve around the structure, Roll+OCV-11=Combat Value Hit.

This is simply a reformulation of the equations/process defined by the mechanics, but it means that the GM can announce any environmental modifiers that apply, the player can roll his die and perform the calculation and simply inform the GM of what defense he has overcome. The GM need only glance at the character being attacked to determine the outcome – which leaves him or her free to engage in other aspects of the game situation.

It also means that the GM doesn’t need to reveal critical information about the target. From memory, GURPS works in a similar way.

Generalizing the conceptual underpinnings of the question permits it to be rephrased, “How hard is this task?” Answering that question is where the two approaches make themselves apparent.

Version 1: Difficulty For An Average Character Or Reference Standard

One approach is to ask how difficult the task would be for an ‘average character’ to perform, or some predesignated reference standard of ability.

– “How hard is it for a blacksmith to repair this wagon wheel?”

– “How hard would it be for a typical motor mechanic to diagnose the failed water temperature sensor in the car?”

– “How hard would it be for a typical falconer to train a Roc?”

….and so on. That tells you what the DC should be, or what the modifier for attempting this particular task should be. The relative competence of the character making the attempt then defines their chance of success or failure at the task.

Version 2: Difficulty Relative To A Standard Task

The alternative is to define a minimal skill level as ‘competence to achieve a fundamental task X% of the time.” This approach has the advantage of viewing competencies as a general umbrella. “Fishing”, for example, would include the ability to craft a lure, or to repair a net.

Some GMs use a 50% success standard for a minimal skill, others take the approach that a fundamental task should succeed 95% of the time (in other words, on any roll but a natural ‘1’) because this task is fundamental to the skill. Still others pick somewhere in between.

A lot depends, in my opinion, on the basic level of competence that a minimal skill represents. If it’s enough for a character to operate professionally, the higher percentage is appropriate; if it’s barely enough for the character to function as an apprentice, the 50% (or even a 25%) definition might be more appropriate.

Critical to that question is whether or not the rules are being written for PCs, and their assumed levels of competence, or if they are to encompass the entire game-world population. I tend to think the latter, and so define a lower % frequency of success.

Personal Modifiers

Personal Modifiers, the third type of Modifiers, attempt to quantify the question of difficulty for the specific character attempting the task.

This is even more difficult than it sounds, unless a systematic approach is employed, and is full of fuzzy interpretations of vaguely-defined parameters and language.

Quantifying Characteristics Of Characterization

The systematic approach that I recommend is one part metagaming and three parts judgment, breaking the individual down into four components.

A Character’s Forte

The metagame element is this: is the task reflective of whatever is supposed to be the character’s forte? Every major character (which includes PCs, definition) should have their area of expertise in which no-one who does not share that expertise will be superior, even if they have the same (or better) stats and skill levels.

Some game systems define characters in terms of archetypes or character classes (although sometimes racial background and heritage will be more important – no amount of education on the subject can equal the experience of actually being an elf, or a Dwarf, for example).

In terms of character archetypes, no matter how educated a character might be in theology, they should be unable to match a character who actually is a priest or cleric. The educated non-theologian may have equal measure in terms of theory, but will lack the hands-on practical experience of the theologian, and it is entirely likely that the theologian will have access to abstruse texts and resources that no layman can match.

The same skill level, even with the same stats, doesn’t mean the same thing, once these contexts are taken into account.

Games that don’t employ such blatant and broad archetypes permit an even more nuanced approach. One of the PCs in my superhero campaign is a former police detective from Los Angeles; he knows the LA area better than anyone who has simply read books about the place ever can, and no matter how good a non-detective might be at deduction, when it comes to criminal investigation, the character should have a significant edge.

Such game systems routinely utilize character background concepts like this to justify and support the acquisition of skills during character generation, making the character naturally reflective of the concept to some extent, but this extends that synchronization into all the areas that aren’t represented by a specific skill or application of a skill.

Additionally, each character should have one or more areas in which they are psychologically predisposed to succeed; some things just come more naturally to them, and one hour of study may match the learning that takes an ordinary character a week or more.

A Character’s Inadequacies

Equally, most people have areas in which they are inadequate in comprehension. It’s as though they have to work twice as hard just to almost-fail. Sometimes, these can be incredibly nuanced. For example, I took to algebra and differential equations like a duck to water in school, but I struggled to learn my multiplication tables. In fact, to be honest, I never did – instead, I devised short-cuts and workarounds that enabled me to get around my inadequacy.

(An example: 6×7 – I know that 6×6 is 36, so I can simply add 6 to that. I also know that 7×7 is 49, so I can simply take 7 off that. And I know that 5×7 is 35, so I can simply add 7 to that. Experience has taught me that 7×7-7 is faster – for me – because it gets the 10s place right).

(Another example: Add up the digits of a number. If the resulting total is evenly divisible by three, so will be the original number. If there’s a remainder, dividing the original number by three will have the same remainder. This enables me to simplify the division and get to an answer more quickly. EG: 57 → 5+7 = 12; 12 / 3 = 4, no remainder, so 57 is divisible by 3. So I can quickly add three to it, divide the result (60) by three (to get 20) and then take one-third of three back off to get 19. This really pays off with bigger numbers, like 8695442 – the total of the digits is 38, so there will be a remainder of 2 from 8695442 / 3. That lets me simplify the calculation enough to do it in my head – 289480, remainder 2).

(One more: if the last N digits of a number are evenly divisible by 2^N, so will the whole number. So if I need to divide by 4, that’s 2^2, so I only need to test the last 2 digits).

Okay, I have learned some of the times tables through the years, not in a systematic way, but piecemeal. The point is that basic arithmetic presents problems for me that mean it can take me four or five times as long to get an answer. The fact that I know of these properties of numbers, and can use them in this way, arguably gives me a higher arithmetic skill than someone who has successfully memorized their times tables, with a deeper understanding of the underlying concepts – but that skill still leaves me worse off than someone with a better memory for numbers and less understanding, because they have learned the answer by rote.

A Character’s Psychology

That leads into the whole question of a character’s psychology and how that can help or hinder their abilities in a specific sphere or in tackling a specific problem. A character who is good at understanding people could have – should have – an advantage when it comes to analyzing possible criminal motives, for example. They probably still need someone with Detective experience to lay out the parameters and circumstances and gather the evidence that this character then applies.

Lets take the current crop of PCs in the Adventurer’s Club as an example. One is a doctor, and an experienced Medical Examiner – he’s good at gathering and analyzing forensic evidence. Another is an engineer – he’s good at analyzing physical evidence. And the third is a Priest – good at understanding people and finding credible motives for committing a criminal act. The three of them put together make one adequate detective – but it will take them three or more times as long as if they simply present their findings to an actual policeman.

A Character’s Experience & History

Finally, is there anything in the character’s backstory and in-game history that should assist them in performing the task. The mage in my superhero campaign grew up in a Nordic fishing village – he knows how to handle a small boat, how to fish, and so on. Because of the location, it’s cold most of the year, so he didn’t naturally learn to swim; even now, his locomotion through the water is slow, thrashing, and barely adequate.

Even if the character had not bought any skill at Fishing, I would take the background into account when determine the parameters of an attempt to do something similar.

Each of these approaches has its own set of merits, but I don’t consider any one of them to be wholly adequate to the task of assigning an appropriate Skill Modifier.

A Compound Approach

What’s needed is a method that combines all three – environment, task, and aptitudes. Breaking the problem up in this fashion also means that the scale of any errors in those ‘gut instinct’ values shrink in relevance, putting greater distance between the game and those potential pitfalls, and a formalized approach of considering each factor in succession further mitigates against such failures – and also provides an opportunity for error detection and correction.

How much longer does it take to make three informed snap decisions, and integrate them into a single answer, than to make a single uniformed gut-instinct call?

My assessment, from experience, is three-to-five times as long. Let’s translate that according to the time spent arriving at a gut-instinct estimated circumstantial Skill Modifier:

• 1 second → 3-5 seconds.
• 2 seconds → 6-10 second.
• 3 seconds → 9-15 seconds
• 5 seconds → 15-25 seconds
• 10 seconds → 30-50 seconds
• 15 seconds → 45-75 seconds.

These time frames show that if you are used to making quick decisions, all it takes is a moment or two of added reflection to implement a more robust solution to the problem.

Mitigating the potential severity, the decisions to be made are more focused and specific, and hence more easily made. You can normally cover the entire process with a smooth patter mentioning some of the main factors that you are taking into account – and this has the added advantage of telling the players that you are taking these factors into consideration, and not just plucking numbers out of the air.

But for all the added precision, ultimately, the process is still about mentally employing a holistic approach rather than a long, tedious, ultra-precise approach.

The other benefit of outlining what is to be considered a reasonable time-frame for the entire process to take is that the process itself can be tailored to meet the requirement.

What follows is the step-by-step process that I routinely employ. Most of the time, each step is in the 1-3 second time frame, and the totality thus lands somewhere near the 15-second total specified above. In a complex or game-critical situation, I can take a couple of extra seconds on the relevant steps and still remain well within the time-frames given.

1. Standardized Ideal Environment → Inherent Modifier Foundation

I start by assuming that the task will be attempted under ideal conditions, with no time or performance pressures; the character can theoretically take as long as necessary, and may even be able to backtrack if an error takes them down the wrong path. I then abstract that set of hypothetical conditions into a base modifier.

2. Relative Modifiers

Determine how difficult the task would be to accomplish in an ideal environment, taking into account any time or performance pressures. Sometimes I will use approach Version 1, sometimes Version 2, according to which one I consider more appropriate to the actual task and the game mechanics. Abstract the result into a Relative Modifier contribution.

I often find it useful to have a list of “difficulty standards”, which may or may not have fixed modifier ranges allocated to them. For my superhero campaign, for example, the categories are:

• Trivial task
• Routine task
• Easy task
• Moderately Difficult task
• Difficult task
• Very Difficult task
• Extremely Difficult task
• Almost Impossible task
• Absurdly Difficult Task
• Virtually Impossible Task

That system is % based, with skill values ranging from -100 to 150 (a revision is in progress to change that to a range of 0-250). A score of 0 is enough for the character to earn a living using that skill, it’s a minimum ‘professional’ level.

The modifiers that go with the categories are +100, +50, +25, +0, -10, -30, -50, -75, -100, and -120, respectively – so Moderately Difficult tasks use the skill levels as the character has them, anything easier gets a bonus that ranges from substantial to huge, everything more difficult attracts either a small penalty to a significant one to an absolutely huge negative modifier.

You can appreciate the system best by contemplating the resulting chances of success for a character with, say, 30% skill: 100% chance at trivial tasks, 80% for routine tasks, 55% for easy tasks, 30% for moderately difficult tasks, 20% for difficult tasks, 1% (the minimum) for very difficult and harder tasks.

Compare that with the capabilities of a character with 0% skill, or one with 60% skill. I wanted scores in the range from 0-100 to be significant in terms of what scope they gave the characters.

For a d20 / DC -oriented system, I would use DCs of 3, 5, 8, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, and either 70 or 100, respectively.

3. Subtotal

I compound the two variables into a single total, if that’s appropriate; in game mechanics where it’s not, the Relative modifier gets recorded on scrap paper (or mentally, if I feel up to that) and the subtotal is the Inherent Modifier. There are also times where I consider it most appropriate to apply some of the relative modifiers to a DC / target, and some to the chance of achieving that target – but that’s a rather more complicated choice that I only apply because I’m used to employing both alternatives.

4. Adjust Modifier to the Individual

I think about the character and how much more skilled than the reference standard they will be under these conditions and circumstances and adjust the subtotal accordingly.

5. Inherent Environmental Factors

I mentally compare the actual environmental conditions to those that would be considered ideal for accomplishing the task. These conditions include the lack of resets at critical points for some tasks, like carving a model or adding spices to a roast.

There may also be standard modifiers defined by the game system – for being blind, surprised, underwater, or whatever. This step is where I add those in – or, more commonly, an estimate of what they will amount to, overall. One of the most common is applying range modifiers to skills being used at a distance – associating landmarks / signposts to navigational references, for example.

Circumstantial Modifiers also get factored in – performance anxiety, the need to deliver, time pressures, distractions, etc.

Abstract all of those environmental considerations into a modifier describing how much worse the actual environment is than the ‘ideal environment’ assumed in step one.

6. Adjust Environmental Factors for Equipment

Good equipment can help mitigate these environmental difficulties. A lack of essential equipment can make them a lot worse.

Note that this ‘essential’ equipment doesn’t actually need to be essential – it simply has to be ‘essential’ in the character’s mind, because that’s what he has been trained to use.

It can be absolutely reasonable to apply a penalty for lack of essential equipment, a bonus that partially compensates for possessing the real minimum requirements, at the cost of taking three or four times as long to complete the task, and then a further penalty for the resulting time pressure.

But I try not to get that deeply into specifics, most of the time. Instead, this simply generates an adjustment either upward (greater difficulty) or reduces the existing environmental modifier from step five towards zero.

It should also be observed that it’s rare for equipment to actually do part or all of the job for you – that should get factored in separately in a later step – so it’s not likely that equipment adjustment will be enough to turn the negative environmental modifier into a positive.

7. Adjust Environmental Factors for Individuality

People who are used to cold conditions are less affected by cold conditions. The same is true of any other environment. However, acclimatization wears off surprisingly quickly if you aren’t regularly being exposed to it.

Although it’s not completely realistic, I divide such adjustments into two components – one that wears off quickly and one that persists for quite a long time, but will wear off eventually.

It’s also true that those used to a cold environment will find it much harder to cope with a hot environment and vice-versa. There’s a natural sensitivity to the opposite that also needs to be taken into account.

Unlike equipment, a favorable acclimatization can absolutely completely overcome penalties for a non-ideal environment (though it can’t do much more) – and that can permit equipment bonuses to breach the “better than ideal” barrier.

I adjust the environmental modifier from step 6 to take such capacity on the part of the individuals into consideration.

8. Total

Add the resulting environmental modifier to the subtotal determined in step 4, and you’re done – announce the total.

Well, you’re done if you’re seated at the gaming table, performing an ad-hoc adjustment for some task that the player has decided to attempt. I try very hard to anticipate critical skill checks when doing game prep, allowing a still more robust approach.

The Metagame Approach – What chance of success do you want?

That robust approach is far more heavily metagamed, and adds another six steps to the process.

9 Assess The Character’s Chances

The first step is to work out what the character’s chances of success are, given the Circumstantial Modifiers determined. It doesn’t have to be exact, but it should be enough to give you a sense of what their chances of success actually are.

10. Assess The Level Of Challenge

I then compare that result to the degree of challenge that I want the skill check to pose to the characters.

11. Assess The Adequacy

Comparing the two describes the adequacy of the challenge actually being presented to the character. It’s possible that the answer is “close enough”, but it’s far more likely that it is too easy or too hard.

12. Revise The Target Chance

How much harder or easier do the circumstances have to be to turn the first chance into the second? Just roughly, it doesn’t have to be perfect.

13. Document the resulting actual Modifier to be applied.

Taking that correction into account, I document the actual Circumstantial Modifier to be applied to the skill check, and write it down. This is simply a matter of taking the rough correction value from step 12 and adding it to the total from step 8.

14. Revisit Foundation Decisions To Account For The Difference

But that revised difficulty value needs to be justified – the decisions made in steps 1-3 and 5-7 need to be reassessed and the circumstances modified to reach the desired target Difficulty.

Because time is less of a factor when you can do the work in advance like this, there is less time pressure on the GM to make and refine these decisions. Even so, it doesn’t tend to take much more than the same time, again, to perform these additional steps – and that’s a fairly small investment to make.

Modifiers At The Speed Of Plot Part I: Planning For Success

Something ‘proceeding at the speed of plot’ is a favorite expression in these parts. It describes such a multitude of sins, but what it boils down to is subordinating something of inherent importance to the even more important goal of collaborating with the players to tell a coherent, compelling, and exciting story that entertains those participating.

Skill Modifiers, and skill checks in general, are no exceptions to this principle.

It’s at this point that I usually pull out the plot structure pyramid, last shown in Simulated Unreality: Game Physics Tribulations, which also contains links to its earlier appearances.

This is the third time that I’ve presented this particular depiction of the pyramid. The needs of each level overrule the content of the levels below. Making sure that the campaign is fun is a prerequisite for campaign longevity, so it’s absolutely a 2nd-level need – only practicality is a more important goal.

In this context, you should take a moment to plan for the characters succeeding at some task, especially if you’ve stacked the deck against them.

The check of success is either a function of the Official Rules or applicable House Rules, possibly overridden or modified by the simulation of a coherent game reality or of fitting the plot to the genre.

What’s being discussed here is modifying level 5, Plot, to service the needs of the Campaign, level 6.

Critical Successes?

A related issue that also needs to be addressed is, Does your campaign, and its underlying game mechanics structures, permit or anticipate the possibility of critical successes? Some do, some don’t. If they are required, you need to make sure that a critical success at the right time both rewards the successful character and doesn’t derail the adventure’s plot.

There are four ways to reward a critical success – pick one that makes sense, given the context, and the check being made, and that avoids plot destruction.

Option 1: Less Time

It takes the character half as much time as would normally be the case – every decision or step in the process of completing the task fell into place almost automatically. The character was, quite simply, at the top of his game – at least for a while.

Option 2: Quality Of Result

This option doesn’t really apply to some skill checks. It’s at it’ most powerful when the skill check is to craft something or do something creative, but it can also apply to interpersonal skills. It can be applied to research tasks but this tends to have greater long-term impact than is desirable.

Option 3: Penumbra Of Expertise – Putting 2 & 2 Together

This option shines where the previous one doesn’t apply. Research and deduction and other intellectual skills are at the heart of it. There can be application to interpersonal skills, as well, when the subject of such skills ‘just happens to mention’ something useful to the PCs somewhere down the track.

One of my favorite applications of this benefit is connecting seemingly-unrelated pieces of information. A critical piece of information lies in a book, waiting for a PC to make a research roll of some sort – but, on a critical success, they not only find the information they want, they find a hint to a future problem they will face, and notice that the previous person to borrow this book from the library is an NPC that has exhibited a deep interest in their progress through the adventure – because, unknown to the PCs, he is secretly in league with the enemy of the adventure. Noticing that little detail will give the PCs another line of investigation – one that won’t solve the major puzzle for them, but will give them an advantage later on in the adventure (because the villain will be less informed of their capabilities and progress.

A Bigger Picture

Picture a series of standalone adventures whose primary metagame campaign-level purpose is to present characters with a need to make a specific skill check. An ordinary success is dealt with in the ordinary way, but the intended purpose is to give the characters a chance to have a critical success – and their reward for doing so is the discovery of some critical fact deriving from a past adventure, connecting smaller plots and plot threads together into something much larger, leading to a much bigger adventure once the current one is completed, abandoned, or delayed.

Option 4: Distributed Benefits

There have been times when I have distributed the success amongst two or more of the preceding categories – not giving full value in any one of them, but giving something of value in all that apply.

Not all rewards for a critical success need to be earth-shattering; often, a couple of small advantages are sufficient. The resilience of your adventure can only be applied in the context of the circumstances and the specific skill check; determining the correct level and nature of reward for success is best done in advance, especially if it can be potentially adventure-wrecking.

That said, every now and then, let the PCs short-cut an adventure, just as it might happen in real life – assuming that you have a Filler of some sort on standby for the next time you need it.

Modifiers At The Speed Of Plot Part I: Planning For Failure

Just as essential as planning for unexpected success when failure is anticipated is planing for failure when success can be reasonably expected, especially if the consequences can be campaign- or adventure-wrecking.

I know that some GMs advocate letting the chips fall where they may at such times. While I can understand their perspective, this perpetually flirts with campaign train-wrecking in the name of player agency, with only the GM’s wits insulating against disaster.

A better approach, in my opinion, is to prepare for the worst just in case – you only need to make it seem like disaster at the time!

That explicitly does NOT mean that you should hand the players a get-out-of-jail-free card; it may add considerably to the difficulties that have to be overcome before the adventure reaches its climax. Just because there may be an alternative route through the adventure, you don’t have to immediate;y dangle it in front of the players noses.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory can happen to the bad guys, too. Maybe the consequence of the players’ failure is that the villain grows overconfident and overreaches at a critical moment – but, in the meantime, the players get to wallow in the consequences of their failure.

There are four options for dealing with failures, and – still more pointedly – with critical failures. All of them should be accompanied with the enemy against whom the players were acting (directly or indirectly) with some sort of advantage. But it won’t happen in a controlled manner without a little advance planning on your part.

Option 1: Multiple Attempts

The simplest option is to give the characters multiple attempts. Perhaps the book in which they sought answers contains a veiled reference to some other work, where the answer can ultimately be found.

Too often (and I’m as guilty of this as anyone else), GMs make the mistake of telling the players that they can try again. While this prevents the failure from being a show-stopper, it sucks all the pain that should be there out of the failure. Instead, make the search more arduous.

The only time when this might not be the case is when there is, in-game, time-critical pressures known to the players – a time-proven way of heightening tension that can occasionally blow up in the PCs faces.

In such circumstances, I might relent to the point of giving the PC who failed a partial success – insufficient to progress, but enough when married to information gleaned by another PC from another source – if and when the players are clever enough to put two and two together to make four.

A favorite technique for achieving this is to have an NPC make wild, ill-informed speculation that contains a nugget of truth – a nugget that can only be exposed by connecting it with the hint that is the “partial success”.

Option 2: Extra Time or Delayed Cognizance

A twin-barreled alternative is to determine that success is inevitable – eventually – and that it’s the timeliness of the solution that is the real benefit of success.

Extra Time simply means that the answer takes longer than expected to disinter, or the crafting strikes surmountable hurdles that delay the eventual success.

Delayed Cognizance only applies to information-gathering / research rolls. When the player is subsequently presented with a ‘trigger’ of some sort, the answer (or part thereof) will come to them – a flash of inspiration, as it were.

There can be catastrophic consequences of this approach, however, if the character feels that eventual success is inevitable, when they come up with the right answer without the GM providing the intended hints. You can dodge this bullet if you are adroit enough – “Charlie, when Abby makes her half-in-jest speculation, you suddenly realize that she’s closer to being right than you were expecting…” – and proceed to lead the character who failed to the correct answer by coupling what they gleaned from their research with a piece of the idle speculation.

Option 3: Multiple Pathways & Back Doors

Having some alternate route by which the failure can be overcome is often a preferred solution. As noted earlier, you don’t have to make this obvious – creating a sense of frustration over the failure, a sense that shadowy forces are moving unchecked as a result, that time is passing as the sword of Damocles descends above the PC’s heads before the alternative pathway to success or even a back door out of the failure is essential. Again, you want the players to feel the pain of failing a critical roll.

What is a back door? Giving the answer to the question the roll was supposed to solve to an NPC – who will only think to mention it when the PCs happen to say the right thing to the right person. “Funny you should say that, I was reading something about it in the paper just the other day. I think it said…” and follow it with a breadcrumb and a lot of hogwash. The players then have to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Option 4: Outside Assistance

The fourth method converting a failure into a success is by factoring in some form of outside assistance that increases the chance of success.

It’s quite unrealistic, these days, for a breakthrough discovery to be attributable to a single researcher; instead, it’s generally a team, with a handful of assistants. Or an army of assistants.

For this approach to work, you have to convince the player who failed that he feels right on the edge of success, but there’s something that he’s missing, and he knows it. That can be tricky, as it frequently feels manipulative and anticlimactic to simply announce it outright. You need to approach the issue more covertly, more slowly, and more lingeringly so that the player feels the frustration.

The general concept of outside assistance raises a number of associated issues; not all of them will be a part of every such situation, but sooner or later they will manifest.

Confidence Vs Overconfidence

Ultimately, the root cause of failure that can be overcome with outside assistance comes down to mistaking overconfidence for justifiable confidence. The character thought he could succeed, when he didn’t quite have everything he needed. The role of the outside assistance is to provide whatever is lacking.

“Confidence” is a key word to employ in describing the road to potential failure.

There can be occasions when an outside factor intervenes to transform what should have been a success into a failure. “Flying monkeys descend and commence ripping pages out of the book you are trying to study” is probably going too far, but it’s correct in principle.

Teamwork

That shows that the form that the assistance takes can be much more varied than is usually realized. It is also important to recognize outside assistance as a form of teamwork; it’s not like the helper has to have the same skill as the primary character is using to attempt the check.

When anticipating possible failure, however unlikely, it is worth asking how another PC or allied NPC (or even loose-lipped enemy NPC!) can bridge the gap between failure and success – without simply serving up the correct answer on a platter.

The Benefits of Unskilled Assistance

With any number of practical tasks, an unskilled assistant can enable the skilled character to focus on the heart of the problem or task. Simply holding a piece of timber steady while a carpenter measures and marks it, then cuts it to size, doesn’t sound like much, but it can be enough that the carpenter recognizes an error in the design in time to correct it – simply because he has less on his mind.

The larger the project, the more likely it is that one or more unskilled assistants can be beneficial.

But it works with research tasks, too. Consider an unskilled character combing bookshelves looking for books on subject X for the skilled character to search through; perhaps he picks up something that seemed to fit the bill but isn’t actually relevant in the mind of the skilled character. Nevertheless, there has to be a reason by it was categorized where it was found, so – while taking a break from the research – the skilled character finds himself casually flipping through the book – only to discover something crucial within its pages.

There are, of course, limits. I prefer to think of them as diminishing returns. It might take two additional assistants to do twice as much as one, creating a progression: 1, 3, 7, 15, 31, 63, and so on – each offering one incremental gain equal to the contribution of that first assistant (the progression might make more sense if I write it 2-1, 4-1, 8-1, 16-1, 32-1, 64-1, and so on).

The Pitfalls of Skilled Assistance

If unskilled assistance can be useful, surely skilled assistance can be even more so?

The answer to this rhetorical question is yes, obviously – but there are a couple of pitfalls to be wary of if you’re the leader of such a team effort (on top of concerns like security and jealousy that are outside the scope of this article).

Pitfall 1: Too Many Cooks

The assistant can misjudge entirely his own competence and make decisions that he can’t justify. “I was only trying to help” is cold comfort. The larger the team grows, the greater the vulnerability. What’s more, the larger the team, the more time the leader has to spend on administrative tasks, removing his focus on actually solving the problem. The real cap on effective assistants is far smaller than that indicated by diminishing returns.

Pitfall 2: Failures of Assumption

“I thought Dendron was taking care of that”. “I didn’t think it would matter.” “It looked like a shortcut.” these excuses, and many more like them, are all reflective of failures of assumption on the part of the assistants, which are much more likely to occur when the leader can no longer give each assistant a specific task that contributes to the central effort, but must delegate authority.

Basic Errors

One final source of failure deserves special mention – the skill attempt itself can be misdirected, the lead character having made some fundamental error in formulating the plan for tackling the task. When this is the case, it always has to come from the player deciding to make the skill check; the GM cannot foist this justification for failure on s player from the outside.

When this happens, success means that the character recognizes the mistake in time to redirect his efforts to answering the question he should be asking; failure means that the research continues until the character realizes that he’s made some basic mistake in his thinking. When he can formulate, unassisted by the GM, the nature of that failure, he can make another attempt – at the expense of more time.

Sidebar: A Pathway to learning

That brings up an only tangentially-related subject. In a Traveller campaign of which I was once a player, skill use was the only way to improve a character’s expertise. On a success, a character got to roll two additional dice; if they came up Box Cars, the character got +1 to his skill for the next time he used it. But the GM held to the principle that you learn more from failures than from successes – so if you failed, you rolled two dice and if either of them came up a 1, you also got a +1 to your skill thereafter.

The big benefit is that you couldn’t be trying to use a skill simply for the sake of putting it up – there had to be real stakes attached. You had to be trying to do something that would advance the adventure or the campaign, and that made gains in the things that fitted your character’s role within the campaign more fertile ground for further gains.

Success also meant that further progress became slower, because the chance of failure diminished.

As a house rule, it was clever in a number of ways. I’m not suggesting everyone adopt it – I don’t use it in any of my campaigns – but it’s an idea that each GM should evaluate for themselves.

Modifiers – Complexity Disguised As Simplicity

For such a simple and ubiquitous concept, there sure are a lot of nuances to the subject of Skill Modifiers, as shown by the fact that this article is now around 8000 words in length!

Good usage of Skill Modifiers can enhance a campaign in any number of ways, but achieving good usage requires some effort on the part of the GM. The easier part is assessing potential modifiers on the fly in a rational and systematic way. Much harder is dealing with the consequences, which would be present whether or not you employ skill modifiers at all.

If anything, you could say that using the Skill Modifiers assessment process provided affords you a measure of control over the circumstances of those consequences. As tools go, they are a pretty good one – but they are facilitators, not ultimate solutions in and of themselves, and certainly no way to avoid hard work in the development of adventures and campaigns.

Learn to use them wisely, and rewards will follow. But you have to put in the work.