Burning Questions: What's the Worst Thing a DM Can Do?

Benji said:

I tend to find that describing it differently depending on different passive skills tends to stop information required for educated action hiding behind any kind of role or set of prescriptive instruction set. That way I'm heightening agency. In my mind anyway.

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The rules admonish the DM to present the basic scope of options when describing the environment well before the need for ability checks comes up. So I would argue that if the DM is following that rule, the players will have enough information for "educated action" and sufficient agency to act in the setting. Ability checks, passive or otherwise, may then follow whatever actions the players have their characters take.

Benji said:

Sorry, didn't make myself clear. How would this play out to your mind if the characters are setting watch in a wood at night? what stages do they get perception, passive perception and nothing? Is passive in your game 'I'm now keeping watch' or does that count as a proper-full blooded check if enemies approach? What about to spot the fact that someone slipped poison into their drink at a banquet, when would that check happen? I include these two because I think discussion of perception in a dungeon environment is a bit of a weird bottle environment. I think in a dungeon, the rulings are clearer. It's outside of that environment that I think the discussion of perception in play becomes more fruitful.

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As I mentioned in another similar thread, I don't want to get bogged down in examples because they usually serve to muddle the discussion rather than clarify, but as I feel you're engaging in the discussion in good faith, I'll give these a crack with the understanding you'll give my responses a charitable read knowing we're missing almost all the context that would be present in an actual play session. Let's assume the characters are taking a long rest in the wilderness and one or more PCs are Keeping Watch for hidden dangers (their players said so). Why are they keeping watch? Because at some point before now, I have telegraphed that this wilderness is dangerous and travelers are known to be attacked at night. That's part of me describing the environment so that the players can act with agency and aren't "gotcha'ed" by the DM. So they make a solid decision to Keep Watch.

I roll for a random encounter and a stealthy, hostile monster is indicated. Because we are both (1) dealing with a declared task that is being performed over time (however long the watch is), (2) the monster is trying to be stealthy, and (3) we are shortly going to be in combat, we use passive Perception to resolve whether the characters Keeping Watch are surprised per the rules for hiding and determining surprise, then follow the remaining rules for Combat Step by Step. Those PCs who are not Keeping Watch are surprised automatically without reference to ability checks, passive or otherwise.

Now we have the banquet and someone is trying to poison the PCs' drinks. As with telegraphing the danger of the wilderness, here I would also telegraph the potential danger at the banquet at some point beforehand. An NPC warns the PCs of a dire plot that may be unfolding against them, but has little in the way of details. Or perhaps word on the street is that the duke throwing the banquet was suspects of poisoning his rivals to amass more power. And so on. In the abstract this may sound a little clunky and obvious, but as I say above, in the appropriate context of the play session this information is imparted with subtlety while describing the environment. If the players pick up on that take the appropriate precautions, such as putting their keenest eye or observer of human nature out there to watch for potential poisoners while other PCs set about interacting with the gathered nobles for favor (or whatever their goal is), then they may be able to notice the plot unfolding before it's too late. A passive Perception check or passive Insight check might be used (depending on what the players declare their characters are trying to do) to resolve any uncertainty as to the outcome since these are tasks that are presumably taking place over a span of time and that's appropriate for a passive check. Drinking some antitoxin before Happy Hour is probably a good idea, too, in case all else fails.

iserith said:

I'm not sure I've seen any support for this approach in the D&D 5e rules. When did you first start thinking about it this way out of curiosity?

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I won't speak for [MENTION=6793743]Benji[/MENTION] but I have a similar interpretation and have done it for... no clue how long. So long I can't recall. As DM, I'll provide different information to characters with different skills. A wizard with high Arcana will just notice certain things or may be asked for one of those informational checks you don't like, with a higher value providing more information. Same for a ranger with high Nature. etc. In some circumstances I'll ask which of a selection of skills is being checked (e.g., Arcana, Nature, or Religion), with different information being provided depending on which is chosen. Of course, the player could make some other suggestion if that seems relevant, too (as I've said before).

The 5E rules don't really deal with degrees of success in a meaningful way but IMO this is a major missed opportunity and one of the glaring weaknesses in the skill system's inability to maintain bounded accuracy well. Notice how massive skill bonuses get at medium to high levels for some characters while for others they don't budge at all, leading to really large gaps? That's been a persistent problem since the 3.X days and something they didn't really fix in 5E. Degrees of success and more use of things that are like the 4E skill challenge (without all the hokey setup those often seemed to have) would help allow these numbers to stay smaller.

Jay Verkuilen said:

Given your preferences I can definitely see you not liking saving throws. I agree they kind of messed them up in 5E, in particular the fact that six of them makes it pretty hard to balance them out. Initially only three seemed to really matter, Con, Dex, and Wis. Later on they have slowly added things that affect the other saves, but in general many of them are rather weak sauce.

Also, there are times when I'm pretty sure they would have been better off with a save but decided to make it an opposed roll. For example, avoiding being knocked down by a Push attack. I think if I were doing it all over I'd make Push an attack of some sort with a nominal amount of damage and a Strength save to avoid being moved or proned.

4E style defenses were a pretty good idea, too, or making proficiency being something like Body, Mind, and Spirit, keyed to Str and Con, Dex and Int, and Wis and Cha, respectively. Then give one strong, one medium, and one weak proficiency in Body, Mind, and Spirit.

One bennie of having things that require saves is that they can be used when you're affected by something that imposes disadvantage, such as using a ranged ability in melee, and saves can also be made by characters that are, say, unconscious. But still, I agree, the 5E save system is messy.

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Just to be extra clear, I don't have a preference one way or another per se. If the game is fun enough to play as-is, I play it. But I do play by the way I understand the game to work based on the rules. So when it comes to ability checks, in D&D 5e they follow a task described by the player. They do not precede it. In some other game, they might precede it because that's what the rules say and that's okay by me as long as the game is fun enough to play as-is.

Saving throws in D&D 5e just seem to go against that design so I would say it's inelegant. I can live with it though.

Lanefan said:

Going back to the silly missing-gauntlets example for a moment, maybe there's something that'll play out differently if the gauntlets are noticed missing sooner rather than later. Notice it today and it's relatively easy to track them down and disrupt whatever whoever took them is doing with them. Notice it next week and the trail's colder, harder to follow and the gauntlets may have - pun intended - changed hands a few times. Notice it next month and it's a mystery - when were they taken, why were they taken, who took them, and where are they now?

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Man, again, if you need your players to notice some stuff, just say so. You don't need mechanics to describe the environment. And if you're asking them to roll for some mysterious reason when they walk past the armor for the umpteenth time, you're creating the environment for the sort of "metagaming" you take additional steps to obscure with meaningless rolls. And if you're using passive checks with a group of regular players and characters, you're setting the DC which also means you're effectively choosing whether and which PCs succeed anyway. So why not just skip all this and just describe the gauntlets as missing? There is literally no upside for you in doing this so far as I can tell.

Lanefan said:

Another, perhaps more obvious example. The princess, unhappy with her upcoming forced marriage, takes elaborate steps to hide her departure and make it look like she's still in the palace and elopes a month before her scheduled wedding day.

If she's noticed missing tonight she'll be easy to find, she can't have got far.
If she's noticed missing tomorrow it'll be a bit harder to find her but still not too bad.
If it takes three days before anyone notices she's missing she's got a good head start and tracking her down could be difficult.
If it takes five days before anyone notices she's missing she could have made it to the coast and now be on a ship for anywhere.

How would you handle this, assuming for these purposes you or a player is trying to determine whether - and, randomly, when - her absence is noticed on a day-by-day basis?

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There's just not enough context to say and I think I'm at my limit of discussing examples for this month.

Shasarak said:

I can see how an initial description of an environment could call for a check before a player gets to decide how their character is going to react.

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How? And we're talking about ability checks here, not saving throws to be clear.

hawkeyefan said:

It wasn’t too long before it became very obvious that the DM had designed the entire game around the NPCs. Everything revolved around them...the backstory related to them, the treasure we found was suited to them, and so on. Our PCs were simply along for the ride.

That was an incredibly frustrating game. It didn’t last very long at all.

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So you played the Avatar Trilogy of 2e modules then...

iserith said:

How? And we're talking about ability checks here, not saving throws to be clear.

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Could be anything really, a perception check to notice something, a nature check to recognise something, a dex check to see if you fall over something, an initiative roll to see who gets to go first.

Shasarak said:

Could be anything really, a perception check to notice something, a nature check to recognise something, a dex check to see if you fall over something, an initiative roll to see who gets to go first.

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I disagree. (See every other post I made in this thread for details.)

iserith said:

I disagree. (See every other post I made in this thread for details.)

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I am not here to yum your yuck, I have never seen this particular problem.

iserith said:

Man, again, if you need your players to notice some stuff, just say so. You don't need mechanics to describe the environment.

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Often, no. But sometimes yes, and it's those sometimes I'm trying to discuss here.

You basically say "just tell them" but that's not always the answer. Sometimes the "when" something is learned or noticed becomes important, and that "when" is a random element. Sometimes the specific "what" that gets noticed is important, and whether it gets noticed now, later, or not at all is also a random element.

And if you're asking them to roll for some mysterious reason when they walk past the armor for the umpteenth time, you're creating the environment for the sort of "metagaming" you take additional steps to obscure with meaningless rolls.

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In this particular example I'd probably just have them roll every so often as they move about the castle in general, rather than each time someone walks down the specific hallway, in order to not point attention at that particular hallway.

And if you're using passive checks with a group of regular players and characters, you're setting the DC which also means you're effectively choosing whether and which PCs succeed anyway.

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To a point, perhaps.

So why not just skip all this and just describe the gauntlets as missing? There is literally no upside for you in doing this so far as I can tell.

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I could just arbitrarily decide which PC notices them missing, and when; but having the players roll takes that decision somewhat out of my hands - which in this case I don't mind. It puts the "when" aspect into the realm of sheer luck, which is realistic - the missing gauntlets might be noticed almost immediately or they might not be noticed for ages.

There's just not enough context to say and I think I'm at my limit of discussing examples for this month.

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Without examples, discussion becomes rather pointless.

Lan-"by the way, I've got these spare gauntlets I'm looking to sell..."-efan