The Assumption of Compentency

    While playing in the new campaign over Discord, I encountered an issue with the medium. Making dice rolls takes significant time. In order to speed up play which is already slower than at the table, I made the call for the players to simply succeed at some tasks they attempted. In person I would have likely had the players roll to see if they fall when sliding down the rope into the dungeon, or made a roll to see if the dogs fell out of the backpack as they were lowered down. Instead I took a pause and considered if failure was interesting or more importantly fun. Would it be fun to roll and see if the characters fall 50' and die, before ever entering a single room of the dungeon?

I didn't think so, instead I made the call that the characters are able to slide down a rope safely with no roll. I also didn't call for a roll to see if the knot Va'lar tied was good enough to support them. I assumed the character could do it right, that they were competent in the tasks associated with exploring a dungeon. 

    Consider the genre of game you're playing. It's likely a faux medieval fantasy world, with knights in plate armor on horseback. We rarely see downtime depicted for the genre in movies so we don't consider all the work that was needed, like oiling your sword near daily to prevent rust or waxing you armor for similar reason. It can be assumed that all the heroes know how to do this, after all they are the heroes! If horses are common, many people would know how to clean the hooves and would know that their pony needed to be shod monthly. Accepting these things as fact and common knowledge will help quickly make decisions while playing, not needing to wax and wane over what the character does and doesn't know. Also think about the classes your characters are playing. A decent judgement that the Fighting Man knows that his bow string needs to be kept dry or else it won't perform as well provides flavor to playing that class. You may judge that the Ranger knows the sounds of many local birds, and this can be used to explain why they are the only one to recognize when a strange creature is near by. Perhaps the Thief, having a natural situational awareness needed for the trade, notices the commotion in the town square before the rest of the party. Describing a scene differently to each character, giving them a unique feature of the room only they notice, will help make playing that class feel different from the others, outside of mechanical differences. 

    Acknowledging what kinds of things the characters in your game naturally know is a good way to lean into the theme and tone you want the game to have. Letting your players be able to climb trees with no roll needed will allow them to explore the idea of using elevation during combat in the forest. If the Thief is getting chased in town let her know that she can climb the walls and run across the roof tops to be quicker than the maze of alleyways, only at the cost of more people seeing her flee. If she does the game will feel more like an action scene of a movie, if that is what you want your game to be. Not only does this help the game thematically, it also get the players out of the character sheet. Instead of seeing what the game tells them they are good at and only attempting those things your players may feel empowered to try anything. Either 5e skills or OSR roll under resolution, both will change the way players interact with the world because they know the odds. The character with -3 Deception won't try to lie to a guardsman, just as the 6 Strength character won't volunteer to give another character a boost up a ledge in the dungeon. By taking a step away from the sheet, not worrying if it says a character has the skill or not and just saying they can or can't do what they are trying can help make the game go quicker. I could have made Mekkel roll to see if he could scratch an arrow in the cavern during the game with his dagger, instead I just let him do it. Of course the Thief knows how to leave small marks behind him quickly and quietly, that's just how Thieves are in my world.