There’s an inherent problem with knowledge-based checks in roleplaying games. Survival checks, history, arcana, religion, social awareness… there’s something that just doesn’t work in rolling a dice and getting a result.
The problem is player awareness of how successful this roll was. Players know whether their roll was successful or not, giving them an awareness that their knowledge is either reliable or faulty. A low roll should give information that the character believes to be true, even if it’s not. With the best of intentions, most players won’t fully commit to acting on knowledge that they know to be inaccurate.
In this post, I consider the merits of taking the dice from the players at such a juncture. Yes, having the GM roll for the player does take away some player agency, but there’s a lot of potential for interesting developments if you take away the player’s awareness of their character’s ignorance.
There are definitely valid arguments on both sides.
You can read my thoughts on the use of faulty knowledge by clicking the link below:
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