Here’s a piece of bespoke terminology that I often teach my  players: low stakes test.

It’s not at all unusual for a roleplaying game or storytelling game to gives PCs a resource that they can use to improve their action checks. This might be a meta-currency, charges from a magical item, or some kind of exertion mechanic. Some games will even make this a central element of the resolution mechanic. (In GUMSHOE, for example, spending points from your skill pools is the only way that your character’s skill will have an impact on the check. This is less true in the Cypher System, but most checks will still see the PCs spending points through Extra Effort.)

The trick is that, when I’m GMing, sometimes I like to interrogate the system for stuff that would be kind of a rip-off if the players decided to spend limited resources on the check. If it’s a situation where I can clearly describe the stakes of the roll before the roll is made, no problem. (The players can decide for themselves whether it’s worth spending resources on.) But sometimes this would be awkward, inappropriate, or anticlimactic.

For example, the PCs might all be searching a room together and I want to figure out which of them finds the hidden tiara. I could make an arbitrary decision, roll a flat random check, or even elide past the question of who actually finds the tiara, but in this case

If I call for Find Hidden checks, however, one or more of the players might decide this is worth spending Perception Points on, which I know would be silly because they’re guaranteed to find the tiara – the check is just providing focus, a little bit of color, and a potential roleplaying prompt for one of the players (“Look what I found!”).

This is where the low stakes test enters the picture. Instead of saying, “Give me Search checks,” I say, “Give me low stakes Search checks.” This just literally means, “This check isn’t a big deal and I don’t think it’s worth spending points one.”

Players can, of course, still spend points on a low stakes test, but now I’ve done my due diligence and nobody will ripped off when the true stakes of the check are revealed.

It’s a small difference, but I’ve found – once I’ve taught the players what it means – that it greatly streamlines these interactions. (Some of my players probably think this is actually a published term of art in the games we play: It’s not at all unusual for me to include it when I’m explaining the rules of the game.)

MEANWHILE IN MOTHERSHIP…

In Mothership, every failed check causes a PC to suffer one point of Stress. This is a fantastic mechanic which constantly ratchets up the tensions and helps provided perfect pacing for every session, but it also largely removes small, incidental checks from GM’s toolkit.

I know some will cry out that this is, in fact, the point. I get it. But after a dozen or so sessions, I was still feeling handicapped by the loss of these checks.

So, once again, I’ve introduced the concept of a low stakes test, this time indicating to the player that they shouldn’t mark Stress if they fail the check. And, once again, I’ve found it incredibly useful for streamlining these table interactions, even when I’m running an open table and have to frequently introduce new players to the terminology.

This is very much a finesse technique (like the ones I use when collecting initiative), but it’s another example of how small improvements in your GMing can really add up.