im getting back into reading and this is just like. the best feeling ive had in so long. god i missed this

Terra Frank’s Lying

Terra Frank is referring to a conversation that Chirstopher Mennell erased because it was off-topic. Here it i before it was erased:

Christopher Mennell Roleplaying Games Aug 14, 12:59 PM  What game sounded awesome when you first heard about it but ended up being a total let down when you finally got a hold of it? 2 plus ones 2 75 comments 75 no shares Shared publicly•View activity Hide 69 comments Rob Monroe's profile photo Rob Monroe 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars was sold to me as a gritty survival horror RPG in space. In play it felt like a bad board game with tacked on and trivial story game elements. 5h S. M. Kelly's profile photo S. M. Kelly D&D 4e ....after having been out of tabletop RPG's for about 20+ years. 5h Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank LotFP. It was all dickmonsters, women being murdered as art direction, and patronizing DM advice telling everyone but the author they are wrong. I do not understand the appeal at all, especially when it’s really just a more restrictive basic D&D with a warped sense of history. This is my opinion, of course. A lot of people seem to really like it. 5h

Christopher Weeks's profile photo Christopher Weeks Nobilis (2e, if it matters). The book, the art, the snippets of fiction -- they painted an image of something really grand. And there were pieces of a game in there, but not a coherent system. Not something that drove, or even facilitated play. Just not enough game. 5h Cris Sidhe (Dra8er)'s profile photo Cris Sidhe (Dra8er) The new Star Trek from Modiphius. 5h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath +Terra Frank It seems like your "opinion" contains a lot of assertions of fact. "Warped sense of history" "All dick monsters" "Women being murdered" these are claims a person can check against a source, not statements of taste. 5h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath +Rob Monroeoh GOD it's terrible. The art is cool but there's just nothing to it. It's like "Flip a coin!" "You win!" 5h Eloy Cintron's profile photo Eloy Cintron +Cris Sidhe Curious to see what you disliked about the Modiphius Star Trek. I'm reading it right now.  Care to elaborate? (Genuinely curious, no agenda here :) ) 5h Christopher Mennell's profile photo Christopher Mennell +Rob Monroe agreed; loved 3:16 when I first heard about it, but the actual product fell short. 5h K Yani's profile photo K Yani Any Conan d20 based RPG I tried -  through cover art and premise it gives impression of fierce warriors and crushing mighty magic, while books start with teaching me how to climb walls, and the magic (if available to players) is usually too meek. Best Conan game I've played run on Risus. 4h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath one of my favorite conan comics has him shoving daggers hilt first into the toes of his boots so he can climb a wall 4h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath

EDIT: Though she seems to have erased it, this was in response to a comment Terra Frank just made tagging me, telling me to stop "antagonizing" her, and telling me she didn't want to talk to me. It's gone now, so I have no idea if this is still relevant. fwiw this is the only exchange I'm aware of ever having with her in my entire life Original comment below: To whom it may concern but I shan't tag Terra Frank directly since she has a disturbingly low bar for "antagonism" and tagging her at all might trigger it  . I asked a question of Terra Frank (or rather, raised a question by pointing out a fact). I didn't make a hostile anything toward Terra Frank. Anyone who doesn't want to talk to me should just block me. Also I recommend everybody block Terra based on this exchange which is weird and scary. 4h Cris Sidhe (Dra8er)'s profile photo Cris Sidhe (Dra8er) +4 +Eloy Cintron​ I purchased the limited Edition Borg Cube. It looks absolutely stunning. I do like parts if it. When I initially read it I liked the vibe it was giving off. But when I actually played it felt like I was playing a resource management board game where each player would add to the pool on their turn, then use it and generate more.

Creativity did not feel like it had any impact on some of the challenges. In the end, I just could not care if the people lived or died.

The "HEAVILY" modified 2d20 just feels to 'clunky' & just to many rules to crunch. I wish it was trimmed up a little. Probably to used to FASA Star Trek. But in the end it just didn't end up being the game I thought it would be or wanted.

4h Arthur Fisher's profile photo Arthur Fisher +2 Trail of Cthulhu I heard really good things and I was hoping to use that for my Thurber campaign stuff, but once we say down at the table I found that I really liked the investigator points and not much else. But really, I feel like I can replace that with "You've got a 70% in Biology? You don't need to roll. You find the thing."

And that was disappointing because I was really excited about it and really wanted it to work for me. 4h Christopher Mennell's profile photo Christopher Mennell +Zak Sabbath okay...I have no idea what happened here, but I think something got a little out of hand because you didn't like what +Terra Frank said about LotFP? I don't see anything wrong with her expressing her opinions about the product...she certainly doesn't have an issue with people who like LotFP, it's just not her personal taste. I don't think you have to recommend she be blocked. 4h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath To whom it may concern : Terra Frank didn't get "called out". I just posted an alternate take because threads are for discussion . Just like I did with Conan and climbing up there. 4h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath I didn't say I didn't like anything +Christopher Mennell  nor did I say there was anything wrong with her opinions. I recommend you talk to your friend off-thread. Also maybe reread what I wrote because you got it completely wrong. It has not been altered since I wrote it. And obviously I recommend she be blocked NOT because of her opinions on games but because she's apparently liable to accuse people of "antagonizing" her for leaving innocuous comments and therefore dangerous to any discussion. 3h K Yani's profile photo K Yani +Christopher Mennell I think I cannot see several posts here. Is it something breaking from my side or something else was done to the thread? 3h Christopher Mennell's profile photo Christopher Mennell +K Yani some comments were deleted 3h Eloy Cintron's profile photo Eloy Cintron +Cris Sidhe Interesting! I'm reading it, and so far looks like a very, very crunchy version of Fate. Haven't played it yet, so can't comment on how it feels at the table. Thanks for the insight! What IS your favorite Trek RPG? FASA? Are there different editions? Which one? 3h Cris Sidhe (Dra8er)'s profile photo Cris Sidhe (Dra8er) +1 +Eloy Cintron​ yes FASA is my favorite. West End Games has a version they published in the mid 80's I was not very fond of.

Yes it does have a FATE feel to it.   3h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath if anybody wants to see the deleted stuff, just ask me in a pm, I screencapped them as soon as I saw how disturbing Terra was acting.+K Yani 3h Matt Horam's profile photo Matt Horam World of Darkness 2h Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank Here is an example of him interacting with me 3 days ago. Every time I post in a thread he is also in, he tags me, antagonizing me. This time, I was supporting a friend who he leveled a misandric attack at. Photo 2h Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank Here is that attack. As a feminist, I believe men deserve to show their emotions without being Shamed for it. This is misandry and toxic masculinity and it's gross Photo 2h Wayne Rossi's profile photo Wayne Rossi Two very recent games.

1: Cthulhu Confidential. The promise was a system designed for one player and one GM. The delivery was a framework for running pre-written adventures (basically built on a decision tree) focused on defined set-piece encounters, with pre-generated advantage and penalty cards.

2: Mutant Crawl Classics. I haven't written a full review because the final book was revised, but it's not very good. It clings too hard to Dungeon Crawl Classics, and the result is neither a good Gamma World type game, nor a good fantasy game. Also it doesn't have most of the charts it should have (there are no tables for making monsters, robots, or artifacts), and the ones it has (recognition table, artifact checks) are clunky and bad. 2h Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank This person has a refined harassment tactic, he repeatedly Antagonizes people and when they finally ask him to stop, he tries to make them sound crazy, an attack rooted in misogony when used against a transgender woman, or any woman. It's gross. 2h Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank +1 I've had dozens of interactions with this person, every time I've been silent because I'm afraid of him. I am a trans girl with no power in this industry even approaching his. I have deleted my posts in other threads he's called me out in because I was too scared. No more. It stops here. I've been through too much as a trans woman to deal with this in silence. I won't be silent anymore 2h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath That isn't an attack. I literally was expressing the sentiment that being that sensitive must make life hard for Rob Donoghue. (And the thread proved it was true). I wasn't saying this was a bad personality characteristic to have. Then Terra said something confusing, so I asked her a question. Which I guess now she is revealing she misinterpreted as somehow "antagonizing". But because Terra freaked out and didn't do what an empathetic person would (ie, engage and make sure her suspicion was sound before assuming guilt without proof), she falsely assumed it was an attack and has now begun to harass me. Again, if she can't be reasoned with, I suggest everyone block her. 2h Kelvin Green's profile photo Kelvin Green +2 Rogue Trader. Twenty-five years of waiting for a bloated and fiddly mess of a game. 2h Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank I am not going to bother tracking down every instance of this boy Antagonizing me, because I've already proven him a liar with this screen shot of him interacting with  me only 3 days before he claimed never to have interacted with me before. With that, I'm done. Unless people want to voice their support to me personally, I don't want to hear anymore. 2h Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank I'm not giving any more of my fear and anxiety to this man. I am not going to be ashamed of myself and delete my posts anymore. I am proud of who I am. I will not be bullied and silenced. 2h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath I said I never had an exchange with her before, an exchange involves A say something B say something that responds to that . Me typing something, you saying something unrelated later down the thread, and then me asking a question and you ignoring it is not an "exchange". - Terra is apparently not empathic enough to be genuinely interested in whether her victim deserves her harassment. . 2h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath Also she doesn't seem to have much of a theory for what the motive for the crimes I've allegedly committed would be. 2h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath Oh and Mouse Guard. Connie wanted to play with mice so bad she even volunteered to GM and then it just sat on the shelf because the rules were so bad. 2h Christopher Mennell's profile photo Christopher Mennell Wait, +Zak Sabbath: was Mouse Guard a game that sounded awesome to you when you first heard about it? 2h Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank Directly addressing someone is an interaction. Period. This boy is caught in a lie he is trying to wiggle out of, a lie rooted in misogony to try to make a woman sound irrational. Gross. This woman is not putting up with misogony and lies. Period. 2h Arthur Fisher's profile photo Arthur Fisher +Zak Sabbath Did y'all ever just do "D&D, but you're mice?" 2h Alex Mayo's profile photo Alex Mayo Aftermath. 2h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath +Christopher Mennell it sounded ok to give to connie and the art (which is from the comic, is good). 2h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath Terra: " Directly addressing someone is an interaction. Period. " True. " This boy is caught in a lie " False. Here's my quote (see above_: " fwiw this is the only exchange I'm aware of ever having with her in my entire life " +Christopher Mennell Please erase the harassing comments in the form of false accuations from Terra in your thread. Harassment has no place in discussion of tabletop games and should not be tolerated 2h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath also, it's spelled "misogyny"  if anyone was confused about what the harasser meant 2h Christopher Mennell's profile photo Christopher Mennell +3 +Zak Sabbath +Terra Frank I don't know what's best for the two of you, other than maybe talking to each other rather than past each other. I respect both of you and I hate to see this kind of argument transpiring.

It's also way off topic of the OP. 2h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath "Talking past" is avoiding points.  I am addressing all of Terra's points. 1 she keeps claiming things are hostile that aren't, and assuming meanings without checking (innocent until proven guilty) 2 she attacks then acts like if I fact check the attack its me harassing her 3 She's quibbling over the definition of "Exchange" vs "interaction"  instead of just admitting she misinterpreted things as hostile. Please +Christopher Mennell do NOT accuse me of "talking past" someone whose every comment I have addressed in full. 2h Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank I can't really talk rationally with someone who has been Antagonizing me for years, using misogony and Ableism as abuse tactics. Last time I spoke up about his abuse, he made blog post about how people who have mental illness should not be taken seriously if they allege abuse. Ableist and gross. Here is the post: Mental Illness In The RPG Community dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com 2h Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank Here is direct evidence of his targeting me with his blog and his Ableism. Note, this is using my dead name and it's extremely painful for me to share. I'm sharing this in spite of that pain. This, again, shows him to be a liar. Why should I have a conversation with someone who has Antagonized me for so long and then lies about it? He can't even own his own actions. Photo 1h Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank All this because I asked to not be antagonized. That's what set this boy off in the first place. 1h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath If anyone can identify any sentence in that post they disagree with or think is untrue, they should say so. In the mean time, if Terra Frank can't talk rationally because she believes I have been "antagonizing" her for years, then she or a friend or ally she trusts to act in her stead in the important issue of harassment should post evidence of the accusation . Not random posts full of facts nobody disagrees with that don't even mention her. . Harassment is serious issue. If I have been "antagonizing" someone for years then someone should take the issue seriously and provide receipts so we can all look at them and I can be punished Because Terra and I never met irl so far as I know so all this alleged "antagonization" must be online somewhere. If not: Terra should stop participating in a harassment campaign, and stop being an abusive harasser with no empathy who dogpiled on a harassment campaign for reasons unknown. 1h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath Oh, Terra (EDIT: I accidentally used her old name here, my bad) is the person who smeared James Raggi. Mystery solved. Here you go. Terra Frank is a longstanding harasser. Block her.

dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com - The (Incredibly Weak) Case Against James Raggi The (Incredibly Weak) Case Against James Raggi The (Incredibly Weak) Case Against James Raggi dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com 32m Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank Zak would rather lie and play the victim than just own up to this. All he had to was not antagonize me, he didn't even need to respond. He could just stop tagging me. Instead, he is throwing a fit and trying to wiggle out of this. 1h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath tl;dr Raggi talked about the movie Kingsmen Terra Frank made an inaccurate analysis of it and spelled misogyny wrong People pointed it out . Later when people were dogpiling on Mark Diaz Truman and OSR gamers in general Terra lied about it, reframing this as attacking her "for being a feminist". You can check the links if you don't believe me. . Obvious logical problem: if Raggi hated feminists, all his work with feminists including Stacy at Contessa doesn't make much sense. . Terra never addressed any of this harassment she inflicted but has now left the name she did it under behind. . Thus my confusion. .

Either way, she is obviously a longtime harasser and she has never apologized to her victim and so it isnt' a good idea to have her in your circles. 1h Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank So, if you want me to address you directly, like I did in the first place, +Zak Sabbath​, once more PLEASE STOP ANTAGONIZING ME. It's really that easy, but since you have a long history of abuse, lying, Ableism, and misogony directed towards me personally, I don't really have much faith in you to take responsibility for your own actions. I will not let your Ableism and misogony and abuse go unchallenged. I will not let you paint me as hysterical. I have offered clear evidence of you lying and being abusive towards me. You can lie and rationalize and try to hand wave it away, and I'm sure many more people will believe you than me because you are a powerful cis  man and I don't have those advantages. That's okay, I've been through this with you before and you haven't changed, you are still pretending to not know who I am as you always have after everytime you've gone out of your way to hurt me. An entire blog post attacking mentally ill people, calling abuse survivors into question, among the many times we have interacted, and you continue to lie. I have called you out and offered proof of your abuse, your Ableism, your misogony, your misandry. Check your privelage. I'll be praying for you to learn how to be a better person. To stop lying. To stop targeting people like me. You need love and prayers young man. I can't show you love as you continue to lie and project and shift blame. I can't show love to a coward. I can, however, pray for you. I'm going to call for others to pray for you now too, because at this point that is probably the only thing that can help you. I'm praying for you Zak. 1h Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath If anyone believes a word of that, contact me to confirm so you don't hang an innocent person out to dry. If you prefer anonymity: ask.fm/TheActualZakSmith 1h Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank None of the links presented show me harassing Raggi in any way. I have never attacked Raggi, even if I disagree with him. I don't have to like his game. And once again, I've asked him directly to stop Antagonizing me and zak has continued to do so. 50m Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank And the links show me in my dead name, but no evidence of me harassing anybody. I'm brave enough to share my dead name and you are using it to harass me now +Zak Sabbath​. That is transphobic, young man. You and I both know there is no evidence of me harassing you or anyone else, but plenty of instances of my dead name and pronouns. You are clearly sharing that as a transphobic attack against me. 46m K Yani's profile photo K Yani Is it possible that there can be agreement that there was a miscommunication about terms/usage of 'exchange' and 'interaction' (which, I think, meant two different things to two different people)?  

Mr. Sabbath is/can be a difficult person to communicate with, but I don't believe he is 'throwing a fit' as far as I understand the 'throwing a fit' meaning. 46m Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank Now that this has turned into transphobia, I have to block him. No amount of standing up for myself is worth that. 45m Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath Is Terra Frank denying that she claimed lied and falsely claimed Raggi and OSR gamers attacked her? I get that she deleted all her attacks, (which s understandable being under an old name) but that doesn't mean that they didn't happen and she's not a harasser any more. 37m Wayne Rossi's profile photo Wayne Rossi +Zak Sabbath  you deadnamed a trans woman, that deserves an apology 39m Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath Here's the smear from Terra Frank that she erased from the Raggi thread " I'm pretty bummed about the push to support someone like Zak, who slammed me with ableist insults when I stated that I was a feminist (FOOTNOTE1), and later called for me to be silenced, quite literally, by saying I should not be allowed to produce material. When I stood up for myself, I started receiving anonymous threats. When I later came out as a rape survivor I had thankfully blocked Zak already, but I was shamed publicly by his publisher Raggi (FOOTOTE 2). I was made to feel very unwanted and unsafe by a portion of the OSR community. I'm slowly bouncing back through therapy, but what I dealt with caused some difficulties with my mental illness. I'm bummed because I want to be able to reach out to people in the storygame and Feminst gamer community but, much like my local community here in Albuquerque, abusers seem to get support. It makes people like me just sit down and shut up. It makes us feel ashamed. And right now, I feel like I can't reach out like I wanted to. Most of the OSR doesn't want me around because of Zak (FOOTNOTE 3), and now I don't know if anyone else would either. This makes me pretty sad, especially after feeling so included at the mini con  " " FOOTNOTE1: Lying FOOTNOTE 2: Lying FOOTNOTE3: Lying 30m Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath +Wayne Rossi (oops, i was wrong, see below) 33m Wayne Rossi's profile photo Wayne Rossi You used her dead name in a comment. 35m Christopher Mennell's profile photo Christopher Mennell This is moving too fast for me to keep up with.

Regarding blocking Zak, by all means, I think it's obvious it isn't healthy for you to engage with him.

Zak is not dead naming you though by sharing links to the past, you shared the link yourself making the connection to your dead name on his blog. I'm sorry you feel he's being transphobic...he isn't.

This is a matter of what one person feels vs. what one person is saying. I don't want you to feel attacked or threatened by Zak, but I can't change the way you feel about something, or the way someone's words make you feel. 35m Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath +2 +Wayne Rossi Oh, you'r right-sorry. It's confusing going back and forth to dig up all this evidence, edited: Terra I'm sorry I left your deadname in that comment, please stop abusing and harassing people and lying about them. 33m Wayne Rossi's profile photo Wayne Rossi Thanks for removing that +Zak Sabbath 31m Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath +Wayne Rossi No problem. 30m Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank He shares me talking about my feelings of fear over the way he has treated me as though it is harassment. Sharing my own fears and feelings are not lies, especially when I'm so vulnerable. This was a transphobic attack, plain and simple. Just because I share my dead name does not mean he has any right to, especially when it is not pointing out anything other than my dead name and pronouns. I'm brave enough to share that in the face of abuse and it's being used to further abuse me. And now he wants people to apologise to him for his transphobia being called out? I'm so happy G+ has stopped showing me the rest of his posts at this point because it is becoming straight up hurtful 28m Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath Feeling bad doesn't justify false accusations against me or James, or attacking people without talking to them to make sure your first impression is accurate. If you're too upset to do that, that's ok, then just do not get online and attack people then Photo 23m Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank +Christopher Mennell​ please don't cisplain transphobia to me. Trans people decide what is transphobic, not cis people. 22m Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath Then the thing for Terra to do is argue with all the trans people who would point out she's lying about me being transphobic rather than harass me in a thread full of cis dudes. 15m Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank He could have copied and pasted the relevant text, instead he shared posts that mention my dead name and pronouns over and over and over. Seeing that was VERY painful for me. It was transphobic and careless. Not considering the damage he did to me with sharing those posts was transphobic. Just because I share my dead name does not mean every cis person I know can too, especially when they know it will hurt me... Just like a black person calling herself the N word doesn't give white people the right to. This has hurt me deeply and now you are telling me I have no right to point that out? 9m Terra Frank's profile photo Terra Frank Not seeing the transphobia in this is cis privelage 10m Evlyn M's profile photo Evlyn M Seriously no one should ever be entitled to suggest to other people to block someone else.

Zak often critic storygamers for not calling out shitty attitudes. Ok so I am calling these suggestions to block people really shitty and unacceptable.

People have enough judgment to decide by themselves if they want to block someone or not.

This behavior is really hurtful.

And asking someone to nuance his or her comment to better understand them and to discuss is one thing. Calling them like they have committed somekind of major offense is a other thing. This don't encourage discussion at all.

Note: I have blocked Zak and he can't answer to this. (Just for the info) 4m Zak Sabbath's profile photo Zak Sabbath Why would you ever NOT suggest people block broken stairs and harassers? . That is how you detox a community. Communities must always recommend steps to protect themselves form abusers. When they stop doing that, they cease to be safe. This isn't a minor thing. Terra has been harassing creators for YEARS. 3m K Yani's profile photo K Yani What was just said about Mr. Sabbath using certain dead name over and over again is not true. He edited his post to correct pronouns and the name as soon as the error of the referencing became obvious, and even initially it was mentioned only once by my count, maybe two times, not what "over and over" usually means. It isn't mentioned now. 3m Christopher Mennell's profile photo Christopher Mennell I am going to erase the comments unrelated to the original post. +Terra Frank, I am sorry if I hurt you with my words. I do feel it's unfair to hold someone accountable to an expectation that isn't spoken beforehand; for example saying Zak could have copy/pasted the text rather than sharing a link directly to it...but maybe I don't understand well enough.

Screenshots below to prove this is accurate, sorry they’re not in order:

Regarding the Gentle Art of the Passive Check

Raise your hand, if your Dungeons & Dragons character is supposed to be a master of ancient magics, or whatever, but can’t ever seem to accomplish any test of intellectual and arcane skill, because you, the player, keep rolling 2′s on your d20?  Go ahead and raise your hand, and really confuse the people around you, in the coffee shop.

Now, raise your hand, if you’ve ever DM’d games of Dungeons & Dragons, where the heroes enter a room with secrets to be discovered, and when you ask the players to make a Perception check, they respond by obsessively searching for the things which they aren’t supposed to know are there.

These are well-known dilemmas for anyone experienced in playing roleplaying games, and Dungeons & Dragons has answers, but is extremely vague about them, because they want to empower DMs to make their own decisions about things that they don’t understand.  Said answers are Passive Checks: when the DM evaluates the result of a character’s effort, without rolling the die, and instead using the equation of 10 + Skill Modifier.

The Player’s Handbook is sparse on the details, and the Dungeon Masters Guide even sparser, but the essence is any of a handful of mechanics:

1) when the DM wants to test the player characters ability to accomplish something, without letting the players know about it, the DM may use a passive check (A.K.A. seeeeecret check).

2) when the narrative situation is such that DM would be asking the player to make many consecutive ability checks, the DM may, instead, use a passive check (A.K.A. make one average check, so you don’t have to make a full-days’ worth of regular checks).

The second mechanic is pretty harmless and makes a lot of sense, but the question of whether checks should be made in secret has a range of fans and detractors, depending on how much the DM trusts (or wants to trust) their players to not meta-game, or how much the DM wants to create a sense of drama in their game.

3) There is, however, a more interesting issue, in a 3rd mechanic, which is *not* in the core rulebooks, but has been described by Jeremy Crawford, lead writer for the Player’s Handbook, as the intended mechanic: that the value for a Passive Check is intended to serve as a minimum value for a regular check, at least for Wisdom (Perception) checks.  The idea is, that there is a baseline level of awareness, which is available to the character when they’re not paying particular attention; it’s the difference between spotting something which you’re looking for, and just happening to notice it.  (take a gander at this podcast episode, for more details about this concept: http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/james-haeck-dd-writing)

This leads us to the fascinating question, of whether it makes sense for a character to have a minimum-possible value for any check, if they have one for a Perception check?  Maybe the wilderness-guide ranger should be able to get a sense of direction or danger intuitively as well as analytically.  Perhaps the worldly bard should be able to sniff out a liar before they even speak, without having to take in their cadence and micro-expressions.  In other words, maybe sometimes you just get a feeling about something.

ALSO, though, this mechanic doesn’t have to assume that the character isn’t paying literal attention; instead of it being “oh, I didn’t realize that I was attempting a feat of Acrobatics,” perhaps it can be “this feat of Acrobatics?  No sweat; I don’t even need to try.”

This is a SUPER-contentious item amongst the dungeon master community, since it boils down to pure philosophy of gaming.  Shouldn’t skilled characters be able to consistently succeed at their skills, even if their player can’t roll to save their imaginary life?  ...but shouldn’t characters also be able to fail catastrophically?  Shouldn’t players be better than meta-gaming, and shouldn’t the DM trust them to be?  As I often do, I believe that the real answer is revealed with MATH!

Looking at the numbers, characters with a +0 to a skill will automatically succeed at a DC 10 check; we’re talking about a character being able to walk through Very Easy and Easy skill checks, and the DM gives it to them automatically, even if they aren’t particularly good at that skill.  ...unless a character has a penalty to that skill, in which case their passive score is probably 9, maybe 8.  Keep in mind, that, we’re talking about Very Easy and Easy checks—mundane tasks; things that anyone could do, and the only questions might be how well they do it, or how long it takes.  It could be something as minute as opening an unlocked door, or something as neutral as chopping firewood, where a skilled person can do it magnificently, but a complete derp can still accomplish it.

(conversely, a check with a DC of 15 almost always requires a character to be proficient in that skill, to pass it with a Passive Check.  The keyword, here, is ‘proficient’ -- a character needs to be actually good at this thing, for the DM to just give it to them, and this is for a check which is considered to be only Moderately Difficult.)

...and that’s the part that I think most people miss, thinking about Passive Checks -- EVERY DM hands out automatic successes for most things that a character does.  DMs don’t require a die roll, for a character to open an unlocked door.  It’s something extremely easy, the DM says “yeah, you can do that,” without going to the d20.  ...and, why would they?  That’s a task that’s well-within that character’s ability to accomplish perfectly-well, nearly every time.  This DM just used a Passive Check, against a task with a really low DC.  The big variable in every DM’s usage is how extreme is the ease of the task which is being attempted.  Of course a DM wouldn’t require a roll for opening an unlocked door, and of course they would require a roll for picking a locked one.  It’s the stuff in the middle that’s the question -- the checks with a DC of 10, 12, 15, which are the question, and Passive Checks simply offer a consistent mechanic answering that question.  Would the scholarly wizard be able to find common information in a book?  Probably.  How about the barbarian?  Maybe not.  On the flippy side, a check which isn’t a gimme is not going to be accomplished passively, except by a character who’s reeeeally good at that thing.  So, is it a given, that the barbarian could make the 5-foot jump over a pit (let’s say it’s Athletics, DC 12)?  Almost certainly.  ...but the wizard?  Not at all.  This is a mechanic that provides quantifiable justification to answer the question of when to grant an automatic success, or when to require a roll -- something that every DM has to think about, throughout every game.

Personally, I prefer a somewhat middle road for Passive Checks.  My guidelines are:

For Passive Check Mechanic #1: Seeeeeecret checks,

Does it make any damn sense for the skill to have a sub-conscious baseline level of that skill?  When making this check, the question is literally whether the character is aware of needing to use this skill, and if they could just happen to notice something, or get a feeling about something.  So, physical skills probably don’t make sense, here, ie., Athletics, Acrobatics.

I use Perception, Insight, Survival, Medicine.  ...Wisdom skills, basically, for that gut-feeling factor.  I can see an occasional use case for Charisma skills, for those situations the character’s vibe is affecting a whole room, and the character hasn’t taken particular notice of every person there.

Is the situation such that a sub-conscious baseline level of that skill would be available to the character?  Sure, a character keeping watch over a quiet campsite could happen to notice a hidden monster, but what about in the heat of battle?  Other roleplaying games (see: Kids on Bikes) have standardized this distinction as a primary mechanic in their system, distinguishing decisions or actions made in calm situations versus stressed situations, and, if you want to allow Passive Scores to ever be used in these situations, D&D can handle this with Advantage and Disadvantage (which modify a Passive Score by +/- 5).

For Passive Check Mechanic #2: Make one check instead of a billion,

Will the character be doing this thing repeatedly for more than 6 seconds? This one is useful for a whole day of library research, or hours spent climbing a mountain, crawling a dungeon with constant searching, or anything that takes a while; more than a minute, even.  Its flaw is that it does assume the law of averages -- that the character will never achieve an extraordinarily good or bad result.  That don’t seem right to me, so I think it makes sense to ask the player for a roll, first, to give them that chance to roll really well, or reeeeeally badly.  Then, if they didn’t roll a 1, the Passive Score can be their result.

For Passive Check Mechanic #3: Passive Score as mimimum-possible-value for an Ability Check,

Is the DC for the check below 10?  It’s in the every-day, low-difficulty tasks, where a character really should be able to perform how we expect them to, since they have the time and room to set up for it.  Probably less so, for the more difficult tasks, although there is an argument for pressure actually sharpening one’s senses, which is totally a thing in real life.  How to measure if a character is a pressure performer?  Imagine me shrugging.  (if it helps, I’m 5′7″, average build, with brown hair and eyes, and a short beard)

Is the situation such that the player would ask to make the same roll over and over again?  You can’t just keep rolling until you get a 20, but if the character has the time and the freedom to keep trying something, they truly should get something more than just that one roll.  Then, the situation falls under the purview of Passive Check Mechanic #2, so just use the Passive Score to back up a single roll.

As contentious an issue as this mechanic is, I believe that it’s really just a sensible way to codify the long-standing common-sense practice of allowing characters to auto-succeed certain tasks, and lets skilled characters be skilled.