Some game systems have this principle: only roll dice when any outcome the dice might provide will be interesting/fun/dramatic/[whatever principle your game runs on]. Otherwise, just have the [thing which advances your game principle] happen.
if you really want to happen, there's the writing principle of "kill your darlings" and the GMing principle of "let your players tell their story" (which applies unless it's about your story and they're being railroaded through it).
but there's also the principle of keeping the game fun, which applies whether you're GM or player.
Just thinking. Big things and game fun coming down to the result of a single dice is something Magician's blogged about in Goblin Dice. In Fate, the solution would be: compel the character to get suckered in based on their Amnesiac aspect and that's that.
I'm not sure what the solution is without that exactly. Make the fail result more interesting? Never allow a roll / fake it as a success?
Say, amnesiac PC fails the "recognise" roll. Interesting stuff happens. Amnesiac PC makes the roll - he sees through the disguise. From your point of view that's a "plot failure". Fail it forward. "You are now remembering that this man is just posing as your friend, exploiting you. How many more people like that are around you? Roll for recognise for the NPC that's actually helping you"
@doppelgreener That would be the dilemma, yes; general principle and specific practice are apparently colliding and he's seeking a way to resolve the latter without compromising the former.
Well, in Poland there is this opinion that a crayfish can only walk backwards. This is demonstrably untrue and everyone knows that, but proverbially "to walk a crayfish" is an idiom meaning "to walk backwards"
I need an animal that has the same connotation, if possible
