A to Z Blogging Challenge: A is for Ability Checks

So I'm coming a bit late to this party, but I've decided to go ahead and throw my hat into the A to Z Blogging Challenge ring.  It's all going to be RPG themed and is starting today with "A" for "Ability Checks".

My one and only issue with OD&D and old-school style play is that once your character's abilities are rolled, your modifiers tallied, and your experience point bonus calculated, the ability scores themselves tend to fade away.  Following the tenets of old-school play, you then go about adventuring via describing your characters actions so that the DM can interpret and adjudicate the results based on... well, largely DM fiat.  If your character has a completely average Dexterity, for instance, and you describe his or her actions well, it's completely up to the DM to determine if you fail or not.  Certainly, there's a level of trust which exists between player and DM that should stop a DM from acting out of spite (or favoritism), but there's nothing mechanically which stops him from doing so.

Take this example, for instance, by the fictitious player of Dorgo, the Fighter, who has a 9 Dexterity: "I push the end of my 10' pole along the dungeon floor ahead of me.  If it gets hung up on a crack I'll stop and pour a wee bit of water into the crack to see if it's a pit trap.  If it is a pit trap, I'll spring the trap by poking the pit's cover hard with the end of my pole.  Then, once it's sprung, I'll sneak around the pit by hugging the wall and inching along the very small ledge of the pit."

That's a great example and I know that as DM I'd be tempted to have Dorgo skate by the pit trap unscathed just based on that description alone.  But, c'mon, the dude's got a 9 Dexterity, and he's going to crawl along a maybe 3" ledge, hugging the wall, without falling in?  I think I have a higher than average Dexterity (not much higher than average, mind you) and I don't know if I could pull that off.

Tossing in an ability check at that point, however, increases the drama and excitement of the scene as everybody holds their breath and watches the d20 roll across the table in the hopes that it's going to roll less than Dorgo's Dexterity so he can pull off inching around the pit trap.  And if - after such a great description - he misses his Dexterity check and falls into the trap, give him a Saving Throw or another Dexterity check to see if he can grab the ledge as he falls and save himself.  Ability checks are not about punishing the character or minimizing descriptive play, they're about supporting descriptive play and adding a touch of mechanical drama and excitement to them.