If an NPC is telling the truth, what's the Insight DC to know they're telling the truth?

[iserith]

Yeah, not going to get bogged down in a RAW discussion based on a single line from the rules which are, in my mind, most certainly not meant to be comprehensive. So, feel free to lump my approach in with house ruling if it makes you feel better.

The standard set forth and the rules for How to Play are certainly longer than a single line. Taken as a whole, it informs us what the game expects which in turn informs my approach.

I wouldn't call what you do house-ruling. It's just an approach I find works better with other games like D&D 3e or D&D 4e. And neither of our approaches for D&D 5e would work well with, say, Dungeon World. Different games demand different approaches in my view.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I've played both ways...let's call them @iserith's way and @Hussar's way...and still do. In fact, I would say I end up at tables who play Hussar's way more often, with people who blurt out "Can I make a (insert skill) check?"

Here's how I see the two approaches contrasting:

Hussar's way has the advantage that it's straightforward and quick. The players don't have to try a bunch of different things. "I check for traps" gets resolved quickly. On the other hand, the 'challenge' for the player (if you can call it that) is simply to remember to invoke items on the character sheet. In the case of traps, the interaction with the fiction is the same every time: "I check for traps." If there's variation, it's solely in the DM's narration: "Yeah, you look up at the ceiling and you see...." (This might be followed by a similar thing for disarming it: you roll Disarm, or whatever, and succeed, and the DM narrates: "Using a 10 foot pole, you snag the trip wire and...) Note that the DM is, in a small way, taking control of the character: "You look up..." "You use a 10 foot pole...".

Iserith's way, on the other hand, can suck down a lot of game time as players try 8 things, instead of invoking 1 skill. This can take even longer when there's no trap. On the other hand, it asks players to engage with the fiction by invoking actions in the game world, not items on a character sheet. In general, I think a sign of a game going well is when the players are doing things that don't require any knowledge of the rules. "I look up at the ceiling" doesn't require knowing anything about the rules. And it doesn't require the DM to take over the character, unless you count "You see a tripwire" as loss of agency. (In which case I don't really want to have debates with you.)

I (perhaps obviously) prefer Iserith's approach, even when I want to shout at my players "THERE'S NO TRAP CAN WE KEEP MOVING!?!?!?!" But I don't think it's intrinsically superior; it's just a gaming style I find more enjoyable.

Also, you can combine the two approaches:
"Characters who search the area will find the trap with a successful DC 14 Intelligence (Investigation) check. Players who look specifically for traps get advantage on the roll. Players who state they study the ceiling find it automatically."

EDIT: I'll add one thing...

Using either approach, I think it's important to minimize making the 'correct' actions/choices be gates to progress. Looking up at the ceiling (or looking for traps) should make it easier to achieve success, but only in a minor way. If there was some foreshadowing/clue that looking at the ceiling is a good idea, the benefit to doing so can be commensurately larger, but failure to do so still shouldn't be show-stopping.

 

[Charlaquin]

What do you want me to say? I don't see a difference between "I make an athletics check 15 to climb the wall" as being significantly different than "I want to get to the top of the wall by climbing it". In both cases the player has made their intended action obvious.

I can only speak for myself here, but in this specific example, I don’t consider it significantly different either. I can tell from context that the player’s goal is to get to the top of the wall and the character’s approach is to climb it. As I said before, the only faux pas here is anticipating an Athletics check when that may not have been called for. Which isn’t a big deal by any means, I would just adjudicate the result and politely add, “next time please just tell me your action and I will tell you if you need to make a check.” That’s why I chose the phrase faux pas - a minor misstep of etiquette.

I just don't see why people care. Either they can climb the wall or they can't. If they can climb the wall but require an athletics check I'll ask for one if they didn't give it to me already. If the wall can't be climbed, it can't be climbed no matter what they roll. If they didn't need to roll an athletics check to climb the wall in the first place then they just wasted a roll and I'll probably let them know there were enough hand-holds that anybody could climb it.

I care because it’s putting the cart before the horse. Instead of telling me what their character does and allowing me to adjudicate the outcome, it’s an announcement of how they think the actuon should be adjudicated that forces me to try to guess what their character might be doing that they want me to adjudicate in that way. It’s a complete reversal of player and DM roles.

I can see that for some DMs knowing the number before they decide the DC could be problematic, it's never been an issue for me. As far as not requiring a roll for things that are auto-succeed or failure I've posted quite a bit on that. Sometimes I don't want the players shouldn't know it was an auto success or failure.

I don’t really like the terms “Auto success” and “auto failure,” personally. It implies that a check is the default method of task resolution, and that under certain conditions the check can be bypassed. Personally, I don’t view task resolution that way. The default means of task resolution in my games is using a human brain to determine the most logical outcome of the action, and checks are a backup for when the outcome cannot be easily determined.

 

[iserith]

I've played both ways...let's call them @iserith's way and @Hussar's way...and still do. In fact, I would say I end up at tables who play Hussar's way more often, with people who blurt out "Can I make a (insert skill) check?"

Here's how I see the two approaches contrasting:

Hussar's way has the advantage that it's straightforward and quick. The players don't have to try a bunch of different things. "I check for traps" gets resolved quickly. On the other hand, the 'challenge' for the player (if you can call it that) is simply to remember to invoke items on the character sheet. In the case of traps, the interaction with the fiction is the same every time: "I check for traps." If there's variation, it's solely in the DM's narration: "Yeah, you look up at the ceiling and you see...." (This might be followed by a similar thing for disarming it: you roll Disarm, or whatever, and succeed, and the DM narrates: "Using a 10 foot pole, you snag the trip wire and...) Note that the DM is, in a small way, taking control of the character: "You look up..." "You use a 10 foot pole...".

Iserith's way, on the other hand, can suck down a lot of game time as players try 8 things, instead of invoking 1 skill. This can take even longer when there's no trap. On the other hand, it asks players to engage with the fiction by invoking actions in the game world, not items on a character sheet. In general, I think a sign of a game going well is when the players are doing things that don't require any knowledge of the rules. "I look up at the ceiling" doesn't require knowing anything about the rules. And it doesn't require the DM to take over the character, unless you count "You see a tripwire" as loss of agency. (In which case I don't really want to have debates with you.)

I (perhaps obviously) prefer Iserith's approach, even when I want to shout at my players "THERE'S NO TRAP CAN WE KEEP MOVING!?!?!?!" But I don't think it's intrinsically superior; it's just a gaming style I find more enjoyable.

As an aside, in terms of speed, I'll put my group's games up against any other game and approach without hesitation. Some people reported that the two-hour text only sessions I posted a few years back as examples of play had more content than four hours of their in-person sessions. We've even been able to compare our progress on published adventures to actual play podcasts and we outpace them by wide margins for the same play time. I am very focused on the pace of the game and using our time wisely. There is a lot more to achieving that than what's under discussion here, but it is in part due to strongly defined roles (player and DM) and adherence to the "middle path" technique for adjudication (a balance of ruling outright success or failure and calling for ability checks).

 

[Charlaquin]

The reason we think this is because we've seen examples of exactly the kind of thing you are talking about in numerous sources - both anecdotally and published adventures. It's not exactly a rare thing IME. Lots of DM's do this. So, when you advocate for a DMing style which, in my experience at least, leads to frustration, wasted time and far too many arguments at the table, you can't really be surprised that you get some push back. It's not that we're being disingenuous or arguing in bad faith, it's that we've seen what sometimes happens when DM's get that fixated on details and minutia, and it ain't pretty.

And this is why some of us get very weary of these arguments. In your mind, I’m a guilty of being gotcha DM until proven innocent. I could also share horror stories about DMs who who give no fictional context and basically force the players to interact solely in terms of mechanics because they don’t have enough information about what’s going on in the game world to act otherwise. Or about DMs who make wild assumptions about your character’s actions and then spring consequences on you for the things they decided you were doing based solely on the type of check you made, and then argue about “you never said you did” or “you never said you didn’t.” But I prefer to give people I’m talking to the benefit of the doubt.

Bad DMs are going to DM badly. Just because you’ve had some bad experiences with DMs requiring overly specific details that they then use as anmo against you doesn’t mean all DMs who prefer a goal and an approach rather than an announcement of what kind of check the player is making are like that. These conversations might be more fruitful if you did t assume the worst in people who have a different approach than you.

 

[Hussar]

I've played both ways...let's call them @iserith's way and @Hussar's way...and still do. In fact, I would say I end up at tables who play Hussar's way more often, with people who blurt out "Can I make a (insert skill) check?"

Here's how I see the two approaches contrasting:

Hussar's way has the advantage that it's straightforward and quick. The players don't have to try a bunch of different things. "I check for traps" gets resolved quickly. On the other hand, the 'challenge' for the player (if you can call it that) is simply to remember to invoke items on the character sheet. In the case of traps, the interaction with the fiction is the same every time: "I check for traps." If there's variation, it's solely in the DM's narration: "Yeah, you look up at the ceiling and you see...." (This might be followed by a similar thing for disarming it: you roll Disarm, or whatever, and succeed, and the DM narrates: "Using a 10 foot pole, you snag the trip wire and...) Note that the DM is, in a small way, taking control of the character: "You look up..." "You use a 10 foot pole...".

Iserith's way, on the other hand, can suck down a lot of game time as players try 8 things, instead of invoking 1 skill. This can take even longer when there's no trap. On the other hand, it asks players to engage with the fiction by invoking actions in the game world, not items on a character sheet. In general, I think a sign of a game going well is when the players are doing things that don't require any knowledge of the rules. "I look up at the ceiling" doesn't require knowing anything about the rules. And it doesn't require the DM to take over the character, unless you count "You see a tripwire" as loss of agency. (In which case I don't really want to have debates with you.)

I (perhaps obviously) prefer Iserith's approach, even when I want to shout at my players "THERE'S NO TRAP CAN WE KEEP MOVING!?!?!?!" But I don't think it's intrinsically superior; it's just a gaming style I find more enjoyable.

Also, you can combine the two approaches:
"Characters who search the area will find the trap with a successful DC 14 Intelligence (Investigation) check. Players who look specifically for traps get advantage on the roll. Players who state they study the ceiling find it automatically."

EDIT: I'll add one thing...

Using either approach, I think it's important to minimize making the 'correct' actions/choices be gates to progress. Looking up at the ceiling (or looking for traps) should make it easier to achieve success, but only in a minor way. If there was some foreshadowing/clue that looking at the ceiling is a good idea, the benefit to doing so can be commensurately larger, but failure to do so still shouldn't be show-stopping.

This, I think, puts it about as well as can be put. There are definitely advantages to either way. And disadvantages too. For myself, obviously I prefer the former approach to the latter, and, I think [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION] nails it, precisely because of pacing issues. Does the DM from time to time take over the character? I suppose. But, to me, that's just bog standard narration. No different than what a DM does in combat when he says something like, "You swing your sword mightly and hack that orc's head off!" Does anyone have an issue with the DM doing that?

Player says, "I want to do X, I make Y check, Z score". To me, that's more than enough information to narrate an action. It's what we do in combat, and, frankly, I don't really have a problem with it out of combat.

Then again, I tend to come from a very gamist background, heavily spiced with years of narrativist games. The whole simulation approach where a goal of play is parity between player declarations and PC actions has never been something I've enjoyed and I tend to avoid games that focus on that. Even going all the way back to our AD&D 1e days, the thief player just said, "I pick locks, 37, do I open it?" Traps were a bit different since the DM had to roll those. But, it would almost always be the player initiating checks (such as they were) and rarely the DM.

 

[Hussar]

And this is why some of us get very weary of these arguments. In your mind, I’m a guilty of being gotcha DM until proven innocent. I could also share horror stories about DMs who who give no fictional context and basically force the players to interact solely in terms of mechanics because they don’t have enough information about what’s going on in the game world to act otherwise. Or about DMs who make wild assumptions about your character’s actions and then spring consequences on you for the things they decided you were doing based solely on the type of check you made, and then argue about “you never said you did” or “you never said you didn’t.” But I prefer to give people I’m talking to the benefit of the doubt.

Bad DMs are going to DM badly. Just because you’ve had some bad experiences with DMs requiring overly specific details that they then use as anmo against you doesn’t mean all DMs who prefer a goal and an approach rather than an announcement of what kind of check the player is making are like that. These conversations might be more fruitful if you did t assume the worst in people who have a different approach than you.

To be honest [MENTION=6779196]Charlaquin[/MENTION], it's a lot less about the "gotcha" element and far more about the "Why am I pissing about describing for the 237th time how I look for traps on a chest" thing. It gets old really, really fast. If you do dungeon crawls, and I do, you're likely to have dozens of rooms/chambers. Each of which is likely going to get searched at some point. Having to repeat myself dozens of times because the DM wants more than "I search the room" just makes me want to blow my brains out.

I've played the way you're talking about. I can see the attraction for a certain kind of player but, I'm very, very much not that kind of player. Very little would cause me to check out of a game faster than this. Not that it's bad or that you're a bad DM or badwrongfun or anything like that. Not at all. But, because it would bore me to tears. I would be a terrible player at this table. I'd be that bad player futzing around on my phone while the rest of the group plays because, fifteen minutes into the session, I'd be completely checked out.

 

[Charlaquin]

To be honest [MENTION=6779196]Charlaquin[/MENTION], it's a lot less about the "gotcha" element and far more about the "Why am I pissing about describing for the 237th time how I look for traps on a chest" thing. It gets old really, really fast. If you do dungeon crawls, and I do, you're likely to have dozens of rooms/chambers. Each of which is likely going to get searched at some point. Having to repeat myself dozens of times because the DM wants more than "I search the room" just makes me want to blow my brains out.

This is one of the advantages of telegraphing. Searching every room, in my experience, is something that players do when they don’t have enough information to reliably discern what is or isn’t worth searching.

I've played the way you're talking about. I can see the attraction for a certain kind of player but, I'm very, very much not that kind of player. Very little would cause me to check out of a game faster than this. Not that it's bad or that you're a bad DM or badwrongfun or anything like that. Not at all. But, because it would bore me to tears. I would be a terrible player at this table. I'd be that bad player futzing around on my phone while the rest of the group plays because, fifteen minutes into the session, I'd be completely checked out.

That’s fine. Nothing wrong with that. I feel similarly about games where every single room it’s “I search the room. 14.” “I search the room. 21.” “I search the room. 9.” room after room after room. I play D&D to make decisions as I imagine my character would do, not have a bunch of exposition read at me based on the results of a random number generator.

 

[S'mon]

If a player has said they're scouting, I definitely give them Passive Perception vs stuff on the ceiling. If they say they're focused on the ceiling specifically then at least Advantage (or +5) to spot stuff on the ceiling, but Disadvantage (or -5) for stuff on walls & floor.

Re the cloakers though, if they are above the archway & drop the moment PCs enter the room, I can see why the WoTC adventure says auto Surprise unless PCs are specifically looking up. There are still ways to negate this, such as Alertness feat (can't be surprised) or Barbarian reflexes (rage & act while Surprised). And 5e Surprise doesn't necessarily give Advantage on its first attack, the cloaker still has to roll Stealth vs PC passive per. So it's not as unfair as it might appear IMO.

I once had a giant snake over a doorway drop on first PC entering - automatic Surprise - poor snake, the PC had Alertness, won Init, and killed the very surprised snake before it could even attack!

 

[Caliburn101]

Why have the player roll if the result isn’t going to affect the outcome? Seems like this would undermine the players’ confidence in the consistency of your world’s responses to their actions.

If there is no roll, then the player knows that there is no chance of deception. That's meta-knowledge avoided by making the roll necessary.

Always remember that no matter how well or badly the player rolls, the NPC could have rolled a 1...