I am still of the belief that us as the players should tell you our intentions, roll for it, and you as Dungeon Master make the executive decision about its outcome or relevancy. As an example, say we encounter goblins and we try to talk down a combat, but none of us know Goblin and none of the goblins know Common, so the attempted Persuasion roll the player made is irrelevant and the goblins react as to how the module states they would. If the roll would just not apply, such as trying to use a skill for a purpose it does not apply to, you could just use the skill you find appropriate and then go with the results for that character; if not relevant at all, we just get whatever outcome you had in mind.

As for skill checks and the sort, I think it would work best as a hybrid-passive system. If a character has no real chance of failure, assuming they would roll average plus their modifier and there's room for retries, it can just be hashed out that they succeed. If they character could fail, or there's no retry, the roll should just be accepted for whatever the player rolled. In this I mean something such as the following.

[quote]
The burly 1st level fighter is proficient in Athletics and has a good Strength score of 16, needing to jump across a gap or risk falling into the pond water. The difficulty class is not too terrible, coming in at a 10. It can be assumed that because the fighter isn't being rushed or in combat, he can just jump the gap without rolling, but the player rolls anyway just in case there's more to this than it appears and because they want to jump further than just the gap.

Even if the fighter were to roll a 1, one can assume that he makes the leap because he's not in danger. If he were in combat, he would slip and fall off into the water, his footing lost on the ledge.
[/quote]
That's my opinion at least, as it speeds up the rate of posting and leads to less questions. It's just a matter of trusting [@Hekazu] then to apply bonuses and penalties alike, which I do not think is an issue or question.