Always roll for spellcasting?

[Aristarkos]

Does a player always have to roll to cast a spell? In situations where there is nothing to lose, no mana cost, plenty of time and no ritual casting which would cost time. Do you just let players succeed automatically on such rolls?

[Tessie]

My ST does when we're not fishing after Exceptionals, and I think he's right in doing that. When there isn't a possibility for dramatic and interesting consequences there's no need to rely on the dice. It eats time and effort compiling a dice pool and rolling it (not much, but still) and nothing is gained by it.

[Moinen]

Does a player always have to roll to cast a spell? In situations where there is nothing to lose, no mana cost, plenty of time and no ritual casting which would cost time. Do you just let players succeed automatically on such rolls?

If there is no stress involved I just hand wave them. Nothing stops the pace like casting a spell where you have account all those factors(it gets easier but at the begining its a chore).
Two mages having a little chitchat while one of them boils the water for a tea with Forces? Succeed. Otherwise this slow and possibly intimate, interesting conversation can change into 3 minutes of checking rules. There's no need for that and even when you are experienced and can do it in 30 sec its still not worth it.
When enacting 'pillow fight' like banquet when a character wants to help himself with getting a promotion I use Down&Dirty Spellcasting meaning you roll Gnosis + Arcana and handwave factors a little. Character plays poker with his boss, his rival and some other colleagues and wishes to undermine his rival by snapping leg of his chair when he brags about what didn't he do and how he is amazing. Gnosis + Matter. Done.

[totalgit]

+1 for down n dirty spell casting. I would always make them roll but they dont have to worry about the details. Cant check atm but do people sitll get -1 dice per failed roll on spellcastings? It might come into play with a low dicepool of say 3 and failing all 3 times....

[Charlaquin]

I use the same guidelines for spellcasting rolls as I do for all other rolls - if there is no chance of success, the action fails. If there is no chance of failure, or failure has no cost or consequence, the action succeeds. If and only if all three things exist do the dice come into play.

[HerbertIsBestBert]

That's precisely what Quick and Dirty spellcasting exists for.
Simple Gnosis + Arcanum rolls for simple effects, with no risk of failure, or significant effect upon the game/plot.

[Mrmdubois]

That's precisely what Quick and Dirty spellcasting exists for.
Simple Gnosis + Arcanum rolls for simple effects, with no risk of failure, or significant effect upon the game/plot.

You can still fail the roll, so no that's not really true.

I also happen to prefer Charlaquin approach.

[Charlaquin]

That's precisely what Quick and Dirty spellcasting exists for.
Simple Gnosis + Arcanum rolls for simple effects, with no risk of failure, or significant effect upon the game/plot.

If there's no risk of failure, why would you roll Gnosis + Arcanum? That's introducing a possibility of failure where one shouldn't exist. And if it doesn't have a significant effect on the game or plot, why waste everyone's time totalling your Gnosis + Arcanum, counting out that many dice, checking for 10s to re-roll, and counting up your total number of successes? That's not a lot of busy work, but it's more than necessary to resolve an action the results of which have no impact on the game, and I'd sooner skip it.

Down and Dirty is good for when there isba chance of failure, and a consequence or cost for failure, but the consequence or cost is fairly minor.

[totalgit]

Rolling dice and failing gives the players a chance to take a beat by converting it to a dramatic failure, so one maybe has to curb when to allow rolls or not. Give too many rolls, have masochistic players and you could be giving out to many beats ;0

[Mrmdubois]

you could be giving out to many beats ;0

No such thing.