Question. I’ve never DM’d obviously, but outside of combat I assumed the success threshold was something the DM made up on the spot based on how hard the task/situation should be and does not explicitly communicate that to the players. Is that what happens?
I would rather know my roll so I can imagine for myself how much of my character’s capability went into the attempt. Failing a check after rolling a 2 vs rolling a 19 affects how I play from then on, similar to how I think it would affect my character psychologically. If you try to climb a wall and fail without knowing the roll, would you try again? I hope that made sense.
Short version: No, not every game has target numbers.
Long version: within the d&d context, DCs set by the DM have only existed for about half of d&d’s history, starting with 3e. Before that, “skill checks” worked in a few different ways including percentile dice compared to level, rolling under the most relevant ability score, or just rolling a d6. Outside the d&d context, my gut says that arbitrary target numbers are less common than fixed ones or ranges. In my experience, they’re faster and simpler, too.
Question. I’ve never DM’d obviously, but outside of combat I assumed the success threshold was something the DM made up on the spot based on how hard the task/situation should be and does not explicitly communicate that to the players. Is that what happens?
I would rather know my roll so I can imagine for myself how much of my character’s capability went into the attempt. Failing a check after rolling a 2 vs rolling a 19 affects how I play from then on, similar to how I think it would affect my character psychologically. If you try to climb a wall and fail without knowing the roll, would you try again? I hope that made sense.
Short version: No, not every game has target numbers.
Long version: within the d&d context, DCs set by the DM have only existed for about half of d&d’s history, starting with 3e. Before that, “skill checks” worked in a few different ways including percentile dice compared to level, rolling under the most relevant ability score, or just rolling a d6. Outside the d&d context, my gut says that arbitrary target numbers are less common than fixed ones or ranges. In my experience, they’re faster and simpler, too.