The Fearless DM

I see a lot of this:

DM presents a situation..which could be anything.

Players look at how they can use their highest skill to apply it. They roll history at pit traps. They roll arcana against a lock. They roll athletics against a math problem. 

Stop the madness.

Obviously, the solution (as in most solutions) lies with the DM to handle, but here’s an easy way to think of it:

The Talented Amateur Principle

You have PCs and they have skills that (in 4E at least) are actually pretty well distributed. Nobody can be great at everything n 4E. It’s also hard to pump a few skills through the roof.. That’s a good thing.

Now look at the skills on any PC, and especially look at the ones that hover around the +4 mark. +4 is a “talented amateur” rank of skill- it is literally what you get for having an 18 attribute but no training.

Higher than that number, in multiples of 4, are how much better than a talented amateur you are. So a +12 in athletics means someone about 3x as good as a talented amateur. He’s got training and experience. 

Ok, got all that? Now take away the mechanics and say it descriptively.Create a paragraph summary of a characters skills.

Once you’ve done that, the next time you place a character in a situation (let’s say they’ve fallen into a pit, 20’ deep, dug out of craggy stone..remember to be descriptive), and a character says “What, do I just roll athletics?

Pretend for a moment that you don’t even have a skill system, but you do have this paragraph description. The character in the pit is as good as a talented amateur in pit climbing- you could just describe struggling to climb out.. maybe getting torn up a bit in the process and being exhausted by the climb- and maybe he really does have to roll a dice.. And the guy that has 3x the skill of an amateur making it out pretty quickly. And of course engaging the rest of the group to take on the problem (“we throw a rope”, or “Maybe I can use my Tensers floating disc?” or whatever other plan.)

You never have to roll a dice unless it really is a deal where you want to roll a dice. AND this also gives you a clue about where to set the DC.

Now- this also means that once a character has reached 8th-9th level (the pinnacle of the heroic tier, keep in mind) that they are- across the board- pretty much as good as a talented amateur at everything. That’s how they are supposed to be. They should wade through petty pit traps and simple lockpicking and the simplest of magical conundrums..even if they aren’t trained in athletics or thievery or arcana. They should have the ability to figure them out- even if they aren’t the right class. Many “skill checks” should not even require rolls, just a reference of that paragraph. 

You only roll when it matters.