Yay possible competence on my part!

[xiphias]

I could reasonably argue that, today, I fixed a furnace and a dishwasher. "Reasonably argue" because the furnace "fix" was trivial, and, indeed, basically routine, and because we still need to see if the dishwasher STAYS fixed. Still, I think it was a pretty good day.

I don't consider myself "handy." I just consider myself "accepting of the possibility of failure." Fixing stuff, when I do it, involves a lot of putting stuff halfway together, then realizing that one of the parts you've got lying around was supposed to go in earlier, and taking it all apart again and putting it back together again, and, on the third iteration, realizing that there was this OTHER part that was designed to come out FIRST that makes the whole "removing that section" much, much easier, and so forth.

I guess, in gaming terms, you'd count it as a situation where a person with a very low skill is allowed to keep rolling the dice over and over, attempt after attempt, and, so long as they don't critically fail and break something badly enough to require a competent person to come in, they can just keep going until it works. That's more or less how I think of it. I can call the professionals in FIRST, and have them do it, or I can try it myself first, and maybe I'll get it working, but if I'm in over my head, I can call them THEN. Honestly, so long as I don't lose pieces or force things into place, I'm not TOO likely to break stuff VERY worse than it would have been had I called them first. KINDA likely, but not VERY likely.

Comments

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

And ideally you improved your skill while doing it!

...no, really, that's how learning works. All the skilled people started off not knowing how to do stuff and had their own chances to mess around with things until they got it right.

[ailbhe]

I want my children to be like that.

[jazzfish]

Sounds like two fixes to me! If the furnace was broken and now isn't, that's fixed.

I'd count it as more like the D&D 3rd Ed "taking 20" option: you take a ridiculously long amount of time to do something, and rather than roll dice, you're considered to have rolled a 20. If your skill isn't high enough you still can't do whatever it is, but if it's at all possible for you to do it, you will.

(Also, in Call of Cthulhu terms, you probably get a skill check and the possibility of increasing your skill by up to ten percent!)

[starrchilde.livejournal.com]

Sometime taking a 20 is the best course to follow. :}