As GMs, how do the rest of you deal with failed tries on skill tests?

As an example, recently my group was stuck inside a prison, outside the scope of my notes (they decided to keep playing into the sketchy realms of what I had planned, and then went a direction I had not planned yet). While there, they were attempting to escape by various methods. I wasn't sure if they would make it out, so I didn't break their concealed tools or short out the doors when they failed their tests. However, this led to the situation where they would attempt to try the test again immedietly. I didn't want to provide a (literal) get out of jail free card, but neither did I want to break the knives of those who managed to smuggle them in, or short out all the power in their cell, leaving them bored.

Really, it was my first time GMing, so I have some thinking on my feet skills to learn. I should have maybe broken the knife, caused the locks to jam, and need further skill tests, shorted the power for D10 minutes or so, things like that. But overall the players said it was fun and were excited about coming back. Some had played in other camaigns before, so I take that as a good sign.

What do you all do?

I usually rule that they may try as many times as they want to. Each attempt takes as much time as I as GM see fit, picking the lock on a prison door takes a lot longer than picking the lock on an apartment door.

For every try after the first one I give the character another -10 on the test, when they fail by 3 or more degrees the tool breaks, if they use their hands instead of tools they hurt themselves.

Similar to Storhamsters way....different rulesets have different ideas. I threw everything overboard and decide for myself.

- Each Task has a duration which may or may not be paused. This may conflict with the circumstances (Reroll: Story-dependent)

For example lockpicking a cell door. You may say it takes 10 minutes to try, but the guard is passing the cell every 5 minutes. The task may not be paused in your opinion, so you roll for the guard to detect the tampering.

Searching for information in a library may take 10 Days, but it is pauseable. If your players need to do something important after 5 days, the character may pick up the task later, no research ist lost. If the library closes for remodeling after 11 days the character may not reroll.

- Failing the Task may have lasting negative effects (Reroll: Maybe)

Again the example for the cell door. The lock may be sophisticated detects foolish tampering, sending an alarm if the task fails by a given margin. Or the lock is mechanical and your players have mechanical tools. Failure may result in broken tools. If the lock is designed to act that way ("security lock" instead of "normal lock") you could also tell your player beforehand that is all or nothing.

Failing to find something in a library does not mean that the information isn´t there. It just means the character was mislead or misinterpreted facts. So he can reroll.

- Will rerolling have derailing effects ? (Reroll: Usually No, or better have the GM make the roll)

Your character has aquired the thunder hammer of ferrus manus, with lots of hexagrammatic wards, inbuilt mini-reactor, the ability to shoot thunder from his buttocks, plus air conditioning. He fails to identify it and thinks it is an "ordinary" thunder hammer. But the player realizes his roll was crap and wants to roll again....and again....and again. On which premise ? The character doesn´t know a bit about the hammer from memory, so rerolling should be forbidden.

Making false documents....same here....the character already tried his best to make it look as funky as possible. Why would he go through the pain of doing it again if the result was already very good? (Even if the result was bad, but the player does not need to know this. Pre-Checking against 5 year old children is allowed).

Storhamster said:

This is is exactly what I do. It's how other things in the rules work (the craft rules for example). I'd also allow extra degrees of success to reduce the time.

I’ve recently changed the way I approach the whole idea of test and resolution, in essence a failed test doesn't necessarily mean a players fails an action, merely what was being attempted doesn’t occur how the player wants it to happen.

In the case of the players in the prison cell, is opening the door important? If it is let them make a roll, if they pass, fantastic if they don’t they can still unlock the door but something happens to complicate things. If its an electric lock maybe they get a shock, or maybe the pneumatics lock when the doors half open and they have to force the rest of it open, maybe they make enough noise to alert the prisoner in the next cell, the prisoner who really wants to get out as well, the prisoner who tells them he knows a way out.

I'm a dice minimalist preferring only to call for rolls when the outcome of failure would be felt right away. If a player is rolling in my game it's assumed that failure would have an immediate impact on the story, following their attempt. If the player would have time to retry, I instead give them a bonus and assume they are taking their time. In most cases if a player is rushed into action they will only get one attempt to get something right, disarming a bomb or hot wiring a hover car to get away from pursuers. In cases where they aren't rushed into action and retries are possible, I'd prefer just to let them automatically succeed or give them a bonus and get on with the show.

For example, if a player wants to pick a lock and has 5 minutes to do so, I could give them one roll per minute or I could just tell them that the extra time gives them a +20 and if they fail even with such a good bonus, describe to them the negative outcome following 5 minutes careful work that still ends in failure.

Another example is repairing something. Instead of having them roll ahead of time and telling them how well they did, I let them describe to me their actions, roleplay through any disturbances, and at the end of their work I have them roll giving them bonuses for clever description or the time put into the job. Then I let them fire the gun or pilot the craft before I fully disclose how well their repair job went.

Success or failure is rarely black and white in my games. I'm all for entertaining shades of gray.