Spectrum Approach to Success and Failure

The core mechanics of DnD are based on a simple success or fail metric. You either made your saving throw or you didn't, you either hit your target's armor class or you missed. But in some cases, particularly ability checks, this all-or-nothing approach is not always enough for me. If it's a DC 12 Acrobatics check to hop over this fence, I'm naturally going to narrate the monk's 22 as being way more impressive than the paladin's 13. The same is likely true for the Barbarian's 11 versus the Cleric's 2.

Now I'm not saying this is some unique breakthrough I've made and that Dungeon Masters around the world should adopt it for their own games. I'm saying it is so intuitive, it just naturally feels like the right way to do things, that most of us are probably already doing this a lot of the time. And recognizing that fact can help us lean into it and get more out of this more nuanced approach to successes and failures.

There is one shining example of this in the official rules: the crit. Roll a natural 20 on an attack roll and you get a critical hit, doubling the damage. Roll a 1 and it's a critical failure, regardless of any modifiers. Now, as written in the Player's Handbook this only applies to combat, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say the majority of tables apply this concept to other rolls as well. And I see a lot of conversations about it online “debating” the value and finer points of this house rule.

So to cut short some arguing and to really open up this conversation, I'm going to point to page 242 of the Dungeon Master's Guide. There's a ton of great stuff in this book, and a lot of it seems to get overlooked. Part of the reason that is, I think, is that they hid the 30 or so pages on actually running the game near the back behind all the world building and magic items. Anyway, tucked away opposite one of my favorite images in there we get half a page on Resolution and Consequences. This is where you'll find permission to treat a nat 20 or 1 as special on a saving throw or ability check. Not that you need permission, as the Dungeon Master you can make all the house rules you like as long as your player's are on board. But it is nice to have something to point to if the conversation comes up.

But there are two other nuggets of wisdom hiding back here that I want to bring more attention to because I believe they can liven up your game: Success at a Cost and Degrees of Failure.

Success at a Cost

The DMG says, rules as written for you RAW purists out there, that when a character fails a roll by only 1 or 2 a Dungeon Master can call it a success but introduce a complication. The monk critically succeeds and flips over the fence with grace and style, landing in the three point superhero pose. The paladin follows and just manages to get herself over, exhibiting a lot less grace in her heavy armor. Now here comes the Barbarian and he fails his acrobatics check by 1. I can say he's stuck on the wrong side, and in a chase or a combat that might be an interesting outcome. But it might be way more interesting if the Barbarian did get over, but in the process his boot got caught and now he's hanging upside down by one leg. That's funny, and now we've got a complication to deal with. (True story, that happened to me the other day, my shoelace got snagged as I hopped my fence and it hurt. I'm not sure how I did it exactly, let's just say I'm not a kid anymore and the next time I walked around to the gate.)

Now you might consider ending up hanging upside down is a more appropriate consequence for the Cleric who rolled a 2 and that's cool, great actually. Part of what makes D&D so interesting is that there are different ways to interpret these rules and every Dungeon Master gets to leave their own stamp on the game. And it is a fine, blurry line between Success at a Cost and Degrees of Failure.

Degrees of Failure (and Success)

The DMG talks about how failing by 5 or more can bring additional consequences, and you will occasionally see this built into a trap or magical effect. Failing by one might get you a success at a cost, failing by three might get you stuck on the wrong side of this fence, but failing by more than five might leave you on the wrong side of the fence and cause you to drop your shield in the process, creating a lot of noise that potentially alerts the guards.

You can see right away how compared to the simpler binary of success or failure, adopting this spectrum of adjudication approach can not only resolve actions but drive further action, creating new situations to address. It is also a great way to keep things moving when the story suggests all the characters should be on this side of the fence and the dice say “not so fast.”

Personally, I probably use this approach to degrees of success more than I apply it to failures. Particularly with ability checks that will give the characters, and therefore the players, information; Think all of the intelligence and wisdom based skills. I will even go so far sometimes as to prepare tiered DCs when I'm building a scenario: On an 14 they get this, on an 17 there's also this, beat a 20 and the big secret thing is revealed as well. You don't have to get that structured with it though, I promise. Don't tell my players but on this sort of thing I might actually leave the exact numbers fuzzy and improvise in the moment at the table, but I still think about the different levels of success.

Having several outcomes in mind is also very useful when you've got that dogpile skill check thing going on. Or when the cleric roll religion, while the bard has history, and the rogue has insight. Whether rolling dice or just calling auto-success based on proficiency or background, which is another thing the DM can do, it's nice to divvy out these nuggets of knowledge rather than just giving it all to the highest roll. And always keep in mind, even if you're running a mystery and prepping for some big reveal or something, you want your players to get the information. They are likely to forget or misinterpret half of it, don't take it personally it's just the nature of the beast, so keep that knowledge coming and spread it around the adventure and the table.

There are a lot of benefits to applying this spectrum approach and I could go on giving examples, you know I love to do that, but I decided to keep this short because I think simply knowing or being reminded that it doesn't have to be yes/no, success/failure, all or nothing, that's the most valuable part of this.

That's actually a lesson we can apply to more than D&D I think. I've got a bookshelf full of books on Eastern Thought and I could make a whole blog on non-duality. Anyway, I'll leave you to contemplate the mutual arising and oneness of all things on your own. When running Dungeons and Dragons remember that failure can come in degrees, success can come with consequences, and outcomes can exist on a spectrum.

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