How to get better at describing actions, not rolls

[iserith]

When GMing I want my players to engage the fiction of the game in their action declarations. I don't mind if they also connect this to mechanics, although ultimately that is a matter of adjudication by the referee.

I don't mind it per se as long as the goal and approach is stated since I'm not obligated to to accept the offer to use the mechanics. But in D&D 5e, it's just not smart play in my opinion to ask to make an ability check.

One thing I've noticed in playing a lot of D&D 5e with pickup groups is that whereas I never ask to make an ability check, sometimes - perhaps even oftentimes - my fellow players do ask to make ability checks. As a result, my characters are almost always more successful in achieving their goals by a margin of 50% or more. I'm not asking for a chance to fail. I'm putting forward my best approach to a goal and a lot of the time the DM will say I simply succeed.

The 4e DMG talks about it this way (p 74):

Some version of this approach, I think, is what is informing the assumption in the 4e rules that when the crunch is on in a skill challenge, checks will be made.

Yes, different games handle things differently. This thread was sparked by a discussion in the D&D 5e forum about D&D 5e. I don't know why the OP decided to quarantine it over in this forum.

 

[Psikerlord#]

A thread in the d&D 5E forum got a little derailed into a "GM describing what players do" discussion.

One poster described my problem exactly.




So, how can we educate ourselves and our fellow players to describe intentions and actions instead of asking to make rolls?

"I raise my sword and roar at the orc, trying to get him to run away."

vs

"I roll to intimidate the orc."

Obligatory AngryGM link: 5 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenaged Skill System

Ask the player to describe what they do/how do they do it.

Then you decide whether they need to roll at all, and if so, what modifiers apply, and which skill applies, if any.

Also, using a system that relies more on ability checks, as opposed to skill checks, tends to mitigate this issue, because players less likely to say "I make a charisma check to intimidate him", even though it's not a far cry from "I use my intimidate skill to intimidate him".

But best advice - keep saying to players: How do you do that?

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

This thread was sparked by a discussion in the D&D 5e forum about D&D 5e. I don't know why the OP decided to quarantine it over in this forum.

Because I have exactly the same problem in Star Wars EotE.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Some great points here, thanks everyone.

I don't think I really described what my issue was, so here is a specific example from a couple of weeks ago.

Me: "There is a pile of dead bodies at the end of the field."
Player: "Can I roll Medicine?"
Me: "Why?"
Player: "I want to know how they died."

What I need is advice on how to stop the middle two sentences.

What I want is something like:

Me: "There is a pile of dead bodies at the end of the field."
Player: "<Character> goes over and has a look at them. How did they die?"

What would be even better is something like:

Me: "There is a pile of dead bodies at the end of the field."
Player: "<Character> goes over and has a look at them. He doesn't get touch them, though, in case they are contagious, he just looks from a couple of feet away. How did they die?"

Which avoids situations where I assume the character touches the bodies while examining them, while the player is assuming they are not touching the bodies (which leads to grief when I say something like, "They are covered in poison, it makes your fingers tingle, roll a poison save." and the player says, "but I didn't touch them!").

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

What I need is advice on how to stop the middle two sentences.

Chat with your players before next session. Tell them you want them to not ask you for rolls, just describe what their character does. Give them the same example you just used, emphasizing you want the part where they are saying what actions their character is taking to gain information, not what game trait the player thinks is relevant.

And perhaps establish that while you are trying out this new method you'd like to use, that the answer to any "Can I roll [blank]?" questions will be "No." rather than "Why?" I don't think that will end up being necessary, though, since it wasn't for my group - I just talked to them about how I wanted them to present their in-game actions, not out-of-game questions, and they have all adapted with minimal difficulty.

 

[Imaculata]

What I need is advice on how to stop the middle two sentences.

What I did, was tell them occasionally that a roll wasn't necessary. Once my players got used to the idea that not every action required a roll, they started focusing more on describing the approach, instead of assuming a skill check.

That said, they still occasionally slip into this habit of asking to use a skill. So I simply ask "how" they want to do something. When your players realize that the approach makes a huge difference, they will feel more encouraged to start with the description of the action.

 

[iserith]

Some great points here, thanks everyone.

I don't think I really described what my issue was, so here is a specific example from a couple of weeks ago.

Me: "There is a pile of dead bodies at the end of the field."
Player: "Can I roll Medicine?"
Me: "Why?"
Player: "I want to know how they died."

What I need is advice on how to stop the middle two sentences.

What I want is something like:

Me: "There is a pile of dead bodies at the end of the field."
Player: "<Character> goes over and has a look at them. How did they die?"

What would be even better is something like:

Me: "There is a pile of dead bodies at the end of the field."
Player: "<Character> goes over and has a look at them. He doesn't get touch them, though, in case they are contagious, he just looks from a couple of feet away. How did they die?"

Which avoids situations where I assume the character touches the bodies while examining them, while the player is assuming they are not touching the bodies (which leads to grief when I say something like, "They are covered in poison, it makes your fingers tingle, roll a poison save." and the player says, "but I didn't touch them!").

If your players are of the mindset that they want to succeed more than fail, appealing to that is another way to curb this behavior. Players that can clearly state their goal and approach are more often than not in my experience going to simply succeed. Whereas if they ask for a roll and the DM allows them to do so, they are more likely to fail as compared with simply stating goal and approach.

I have seen this in my own experience with other groups. I never, ever ask to make a check. Other players, of course, do. They fail way more often than I do. My character looks like a capable adventurer and they look like chumps. So, again, if your players prefer succeeding more than failing, they shouldn't want to make ability checks. They should just want to succeed automatically. And that requires stating a goal and approach that removes uncertainty in the eyes of the DM.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

If your players are of the mindset that they want to succeed more than fail, appealing to that is another way to curb this behavior. Players that can clearly state their goal and approach are more often than not in my experience going to simply succeed. Whereas if they ask for a roll and the DM allows them to do so, they are more likely to fail as compared with simply stating goal and approach.

I have seen this in my own experience with other groups. I never, ever ask to make a check. Other players, of course, do. They fail way more often than I do. My character looks like a capable adventurer and they look like chumps. So, again, if your players prefer succeeding more than failing, they shouldn't want to make ability checks. They should just want to succeed automatically. And that requires stating a goal and approach that removes uncertainty in the eyes of the DM.

So what do you do when you have a player who inevitably describes what he does as the most difficult way to achieve his goals?

Not on purpose, too. I seriously have a player (actually, I have had a few like this over the years) who, when asked "how" he does a thing, will always come back with something that wouldn't work. I wish I could think of a real example at the moment, but I can tell you, the DC will nearly always go UP for the task after the guy opens his mouth. All the other players facepalm or start to argue with the guy.

It's pretty funny, but for the purpose of this discussion... problematic.

Sent from my LG-D852 using EN World mobile app

 

[iserith]

So what do you do when you have a player who inevitably describes what he does as the most difficult way to achieve his goals?

I would first examine whether I have been clear in my description of the situation. Perhaps the player is under a misapprehension because my description is lacking or confusing. If I'm certain the player has the same understanding as I do about the situation, then he or she has to live with the choice. I will explain why the task is an automatic failure or comes with an ability check and a higher DC. If the player cares about achieving success more often, he or she is likely to amend his or her action declarations accordingly in the future.

Players don't always make the best choices even when fully informed, but I think a safe assumption is that they aren't actively trying to fail since the game they are playing doesn't reward doing that (by default, anyway).

All the other players facepalm or start to argue with the guy.

That would be the wrong approach at my table. We strive to employ "Yes, and..." at our table to avoid such situations. So this player may make a "bad" suggestion in good faith, but the other players would be obliged to accept that and add to it to make it better rather than try to argue him or her out of it.

 

[redrick]

If you are playing a system like 5e, you can tell players upfront that you will reward inspiration in each session the first time a player succeeds at describing an action, with the intent and approach, without referencing the actual skill or mechanical feature. This doesn't have to be that hard — I think it's just a retraining of habits for certain kinds of gamers.

I had players who used to roll for things before telling me why they were rolling. I simply told them that any check they rolled before it was called didn't count, with the exception of attacks rolls in combat. In other words, until the player has satisfied the DM's need for clear statement of action and intent, they don't get to roll.

This is certainly a lot easier when the DM is doing a good job at keeping the players aware of the world their characters live in. A good map can help sometimes, and hinder other times. (I hate it when players start talking about squares, but I also hate it when we spend every character's turn re-clarifying which side of the room everybody is on.) Making sure to describe the things happening around the characters in narrative terms instead of mechanical terms also helps.

As for the DM describing PC actions. This is something I probably do more than I should. My wife, who does not play D&D, sat in on a few sessions I ran, and I remember her calling me out on it. ("You shouldn't tell them what their characters are doing.") After reading iserith's admonitions against this type of behavior in another thread, I've been trying to pay attention to it in my game. My intention is generally to help connect the actions described by the players to the detailed world that I have in my head. It's a little like Guitar Hero, where you play a greatly simplified version of a song on a few buttons, and the game helps make you feel like you are Tony Iommi shredding a solo. I can definitely see, though, how my attempts to bridge the player descriptions and the fiction could be hindering my players' need to more actively engage directly with the fiction themselves.

For now, the result is I'm asking more leading questions, giving the player a couple of options when their initial description is too vague. The nice thing about offering options to players is that they will usually refuse both options and think up something for themselves. Usually this will be something stupid, because that's how we do, but sometimes it can surprise you.