Skill rolls - just don't fail Options

[Iduno]

Have any other GMs called for skill rolls without caring if the player succeeded or not? I think the time I did it was for a infiltration roll while under the invisibility spell. "They can't see you, so as long as you don't make any noise, you're good to sneak up on them. Roll infiltration, and don't fail." *rolls 4 dice, including 2 1s* "Not like that. The guards hear you and are looking to see what the noise was."

It seems like a way to run incompetence as well. Replace can't default with can't succeed, and the rules are there. You are limited to zero hits, but you can still screw up.

The extra reliance on stats isn't great, but that does benefit cybered characters over magic for once, so...

[Nath]

I always try to care.

My edge case are Infiltration or Perception roll, while as the GM I know there is no one around, just to keep them on their toes. However, I usally look at the roll to either say "there is no one/you probably weren't detected" or "you are sure there is no one/you won't be detected."

When the story calls for the PC to necessarily succeed or fail, I may ask (or sometimes the player may decide) for a roll to decide how I will describe how it happens. Depending on the number (or absence of hits) I will describe an action that is either the result of effort, training and dedication, or an obvious stroke of random, dumb luck - or the help of an insufferable NPC.

I do think this is useful to show the players which skill their team may need in the future: asking for a roll let the players actually see they get through either because of actual luck (because of a good roll) or a story requirement that is thus made obvious to everyone (because they all saw how bad the roll was). The alternative, to not ask for a roll, may lead the players to wrongly assume a skill is not that useful, or that their level is adequate, and as a result they will never invest in it and later lack the ressource to steer the story in the direction they want when as a GM I will be undecided (like, they always get to open highly secured locked doors when they needed to, and suddenly the GM ask for a roll to break into the shop next to our target).