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Obviously, this is not a particularly well written question.

However, I'm not sure if it's actually too broad. I'm not overly familiar with Pathfinder, but DnD 4E's Player's Handbook contains a section entitled "The Core Mechanic" (page 11) which explains how dice rolls work in a few paragraphs.

It basically just says you roll a die and compare it to a DC, but with more detail and examples.

Seems like something like that would answer the question fairly well.

Did the user ever come back or respond to their question being put on hold?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ It was an act of self control to not make a comment along the lines of (a) there is such a thing as a stupid question and (b) read the book to me questions are not up to SE standards for questions. \$\endgroup\$ – KorvinStarmast Sep 14 '15 at 22:02
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    \$\begingroup\$ @KorvinStarmast I've never really believed in closing question because they're too easy. The asker clearly thinks it was hard enough to ask. If I think a question is stupid, I just don't answer it. \$\endgroup\$ – DCShannon Sep 14 '15 at 22:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ @DCShannon I think it is not because it's a stupid question per se, but a lazy question. It is not hard to find the rule that you must have done some research yourself before asking the question. Not having read the core books of the tabletop you're playing seems a bit... Well, lazy. \$\endgroup\$ – Joninean Sep 15 '15 at 7:01
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Joninean That's fair to a certain extent. If you haven't read the rulebooks relevant to your question, then you should do so. The fact that they haven't is an assumption on your part, though. I tend to assume that an asker has read the relevant rules but couldn't make sense of them. This could be for any one of a number of reasons, such as being an ELL, not being familiar with technical writing and rulebooks, little to no gaming experience, general poor reading skills, a misread sentence that causes confusion, or whatever. \$\endgroup\$ – DCShannon Sep 15 '15 at 16:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Joninean Asking if they've read the rules would be a reasonable clarification to ask in comments, whether you vote to put the question on hold or not. \$\endgroup\$ – DCShannon Sep 15 '15 at 16:50
  • \$\begingroup\$ @DCShannon Fair enough, and I often see people using that approach (with only so often an actual reply, sadly). However, not everyone shares your view on these things. When a question gets flagged often enough by people thinking it is inappropriate, mods will look at that question, and you would only need one mod that believes lazy/stupid questions should be closed to get the question put on hold. This is not something I agree with, but one reason why a "stupid" question would be put on hold/closed, unreasonable or not. \$\endgroup\$ – Joninean Sep 16 '15 at 10:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ @DCShannon Fair point, and the reason why I ultimately chose not to answer. \$\endgroup\$ – KorvinStarmast Sep 16 '15 at 12:38
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It's closed as unclear, not for being too broad. We could guess about all the ways that they might be confused about the role of dice in the game and answer them all, but even that might not actually solve whatever their problem is. We want them to be more specific to avoid wasting our and their time, so it's closed.

They haven't been back since posting the question anyway. If it's not important enough to them to rewrite it to ask clearly, it's not important enough to answer either, and closing is working as designed when it filters out low-quality drive-by questions. If they come back and clarify it though, it'll likely get reopened; even basic questions, when asked well enough to be understood, are topical.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Ah, you're right, it is closed as unclear. The comment says too broad. It seems fairly clear that they have no idea how the dice work at all, so explaining the basic mechanic seems like the way to go (sort of like KRyan's comment). That being said, I completely agree about not bothering if they haven't come back or responded. Just getting some feedback on the bar for closing. \$\endgroup\$ – DCShannon Sep 14 '15 at 20:32
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    \$\begingroup\$ @DCShannon Yeah, the bar for closing gets easier to clear when the question is incoherent. It's probably answerable at face value (by explaining what the d20 is generally for), but the incoherence might mask a completely different problem, too. \$\endgroup\$ – SevenSidedDie Sep 14 '15 at 20:44

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