Oh right. You need to save people from themselves. They are too stupid to know what's best for them and you are doing them a great service by forcing onto them what's best for them. Sure.
This is true. Many successful developers see that "players will optimize the fun out of a game." While it is good for developers to give as many freedoms to their players as possible, it is not always good.
Here's a video illustrating the point better than I could ever do:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L8vAGGitr8I echo the interpretation that Larian seems to be designing interesting opportunities to arise from failure to make failing checks as exciting as succeeding on them. As a recovering scum-saver, myself, I hope these opportunities are interesting enough to make up for the intrinsic pain of "losing" a skill check. But I'm skeptical.
