This is something I’m sharing with my players, so I thought I’d share it here too.
Often there are a lot of stats that might make sense for Defy Danger, so how do you frame what you’re doing appropriately? Well…
+str: Say what you’re trying to push, and what you hope doesn’t break. (feel free to get metaphorical. Your barbarian may be trying to push the merchants around and hoping he doesn’t break the peace)
+dex: Say what you’re racing against, and what you can’t do to win. (either can’t as in incapable or can’t as in unwilling)
+con: Say why you could do this all day, and why you really don’t want to.
+int: Say what fact your plan hinges on, and why you can’t possibly be wrong. (The “possibly” is in massive, massive sarcasm quotes.)
+wis: Say what you’re focusing on, and what you mustn’t ignore.
+cha: Say whose sympathies you’re playing to, and why they should even care.
Also, when you’re rolling to aid someone, say what you’re putting at risk to help them.
I just usually tell the players to tell me what they do, and we get consensus on which stat to roll.
Wynand Louw This is a tool to help build that consensus! Every line contains a necessary condition for rolling that stat and a necessary risk to take. (If you can come up with one but not the other, share with the group and maybe they’ll come up with something neat.)
It’s there to help people get their obvious ideas out there and a tool to help them get creative, AND a tool to give a prompt to help the GM think of something when the dice come up 9 or less and they’re on the spot.
Serious talk though, it’s supposed to be pretty comprehensive, so if you can come up with something obvious that isn’t in it, let me know and I’ll see if I can convince you that it secretly is, or else look at the questions and rewrite them a little.
I agree with the “consensus” remark; the broadness of descriptions seems like a feature rather than a bug to me. Also, it seems like you’re stating the consequences of your failure at the outset rather than leaving that up to the GM. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but is rather contrary to where the default dials are at. Seems like a pretty solid list, those issues aside–but since you asked for challenges…
The other day I stated that my Warforged Barbarian was going to stab a stunned-but-recovering combatant through the shoulder and pin him to a wall, to keep him out of the rest of the fight. GM had me roll Defy Danger +STR to “power through” both my opponent and the solid stone behind him, with the danger being that he would be back in the fight–and immediately come after me for some unavoidable damage.
How does that fit? From your questions, DEX seems most appropriate, but that seems pretty counterintuitive given the context.
You’re trying to push your sword through him (and the wall), and hoping not to break him out of his reverie?
As far as consequences go, the GM can still get creative! It’s just that having that downside there can be a big help when the GM wasn’t expecting to have to.