Quote:
Originally Posted by Totally Guy
The following exchange totally killed it for me.
Me: I'm going to try to land the ship
GM: You need to roll at least a 10 to land the ship successfully.
Me: *Roll* Add the modifiers... I only got an 8.
GM: You land the ship successfully but it was a bit rubbish.
Me: ...
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I've seen this one, although to be fair not only in GURPS. It's something that seems to arise in RPGs with a highly defined and detailed skill system - skill rolls that are actually pointless, and/or excessive rolling for minimal results. Heck, I've even done it accidentally myself when GMing - it seems natural at the time to ask for a Perception check ... or two ... or three, and before you know it you wasted several minutes on something that didn't even matter, and didn't provide any bang for the buck.
I like crunchy systems, but I want every piece of crunch to earn its keep by providing more choices, more strategy, more interesting results, or something - not just being there for the sake of completeness. And I like to keep in mind the principle of "What interesting thing happens if this roll fails? Nothing? Then don't roll it."