D&D 5E At Your 5E Table, How Is It Agreed upon That the PCs Do Stuff Other than Attack?

[iserith]

Uploads of your sessions will give everyone much better ideas how you run your games.

I struggle to imagine what upside there would be to justify all that effort.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yeah, D&D is a collaborative storytelling game.

That said, the DM is often hiding information from the players, and the players might not yet discover all of the factors in play.

So often enough, it needs to be the DM who makes the judgment call about how plausible a player narrative sounds.

I have found a great deal of value in minimizing the amount of information truly hidden from the players. That is, I'm not saying you should be absolutely and instantly forthright about all possible facts. Just that never, ever telling a lie or ending an investigation with "you find nothing" etc. has been really positive. Because, by avoiding such actions, you cut out a great deal of problematic metagaming. Players no longer need to fight their own distrust. Instead, use those failed rolls as a way to reveal something they wish wasn't true (as DW puts it, "Reveal an unwelcome truth") or bring a problem to a head such that the players now have to do something about it instead of just passively investigating, or other such things that drive action rather than merely terminating stuff with (narratively) unproductive failure.

But normally the DM is "responding" to the player actions. In this sense, it is the players who cause the story to happen, and certainly the players shape whatever happens, and even choose whether a story happens or not, by remaining somewhere or going somewhere else instead.

Players have much power in the D&D storytelling game.

If the DM is playing ball, sure. I find a lot of them aren't willing to do that. The whole "DM empowerment" movement has been rather successful at teaching DMs that giving your players a micrometer is Extremely Bad for any of various reasons (most of which I consider alarmist at absolute best). As a result, having the players drive the narrative is rather out of fashion today. The pendulum will swing back the other way sooner or later...but I fear it will be quite a bit "later" at this point.

 

[Charlaquin]

having the players drive the narrative is rather out of fashion today.

That’s the opposite of my experience.

 

[Ondath]

Jumping very late into this thread, but personally what I want to use is the "PC describes action and intention, DM decides whether a check is needed" approach, and that is what I default to most of the time: Most of the time, players describe what they want to do, and I say "Make an X (Y) check" in response.

That said, I tend to run loooong campaigns and people tend to get an idea of what skill and ability can be used in which situation. So if a player suggests an ability check, I'll usually give it my go-ahead. They might say "So I want to emotionally connect with this guy. Can I do a Charisma (Insight) check?" and I'll say "Sure." and they'll roll based on that. I might have the final purview, but I let players take initiative on how to interpret the rules if it'll make for a faster gameplay.

 

[Necrofumbler]

At my table, player describes action AND/OR intention, and for his entire round. Then DM decides if a (some) check(s) is (are) needed, and what kind of check(s) it is.

- A minimum amount of the player actually needing to roleplay his action and/or intention is assumed to be needed at least most of the time.

- "Pushing Buttons" is very strongly discouraged. Example : "I try to Intimidate the guard!". That is just reciting wored per word an ability/skill/power name right out from the player's character sheet, and I find this extremely flavorless and boring, as it leads to all a-bit-similar similar situations ending up feeling like one single exact same action.

- We use "Angry GM's Murky Mirror": There is no real "In Character (IC) vs Out Of Character (OOC)" special wall artificial separation between a player and his character. The character is more like your Avatar in the game world. Thor might have super duper high level stats and abilities, but still makes dumb decisions all the time. In the same way the argument that "But my charac ytter is a pro, he ikno3ws exactly 3ehhat to do!" is no0o good. If you are panicking or not paying attention, or making dumb moves, then your character is just as frigging confused as you are. Your 20 INT stat for your wizard means something only mechyanically, he is a master to making his spells more precise or tougher to resist, and good at recallling obscure lore when it counts. But as for making "intelligent" decision, it's on the player. Same for the 20 CHA Bard: that affects only mechanical bonuses. But even a +120 on his Diplomacy roll won't save him from outright very badly insulting the well-known-to-be-all-serious-business-and-quite-high-up-on-his-own-ego king right in his face., in front of the entire court, because the player is a zero-social-skills person that can't learn t talk nciel;y even if his life depended on it. Because in that case, the DM doesn't even ask for a roll, he knows such an action is auto-failure. It's easy to "ropleplay" a strong or tough or dextrous character. But iyt's neraar imppossible to roleplay a character that is very intelligent, or vvery wise, or very charismatic. That is why those things afer ONLY the mechanical rolls, NOT the PC's personality. But the way you roleplay, and the consequences, those things are 100% on you the player.

- Pupettering is somewhat discouraged. aka "controlling your PC as if it is a perfectly controlled 3rd person external entity". I reward roleplay, not min-maxing.

- It's a cooperative and collaborative social team-based game. The agency of "players mostly in it for themselves" is always limited by "anybody in the group has veto power on other any players actions if that would ruin the overall fun at the game table". Excuses like "But that's what my PC would do! (about to do a sucky for game table ambiance fun-killing action), because <arbitrary PC background reason XYZ>!" becomes instead a "Nope, it is 100% YOUR own decision as a player to ty to MAKE your PC act like that. You're the one who's being a dick for deciding to ruin everybody else's fun. Instead, try to invent some story telling rationale why your PC, despite "thinking like that", would actually NOT end upp doing such an action. You don't play for your own fun, but for the fun of the entire game table." The "I don't really care if nobody else has fun, as long as me I have fun!" attitude, which I've actually really seen said verbatim a few times, leads to immediate "Please pick up your dice and leave". Any hostile "intra-party conflict" interaction can be interesting rolepaly opportunity, but only if the GROUP AGREES.

- "Problem-Player" problem, are solved by adressing the problem player directly, not by "targeting" his PC with bad events.

- Any player "deciding" what check is to be rolled, or rolling a d20 without even having been asked to roll something by the DM, leads to an automatic failure of the attempted action (or entire turn if no action/intention was stated), without being able to do something else. And out of combat, "player turns" last a lot more than 1 round. I've had my share of "D20 twigglers" that constantly roll their dice, be it from nervousness, or (much morre probabe) hoping to drown my vigilance until "just by pure random happenstance" the 20 they just rolled now coincides with finallly stating the REAL action they wanted to try. You roll. Once. After the DM asks you to.

- Less "game vital" pretty easy actions "that could still miss on a small non-Nat-1 number", often lead to DM just saying "you succeed" anyway (i.e. not asking for a roll at al). Less "game vital" pretty hard actions "That could still succeed on a high non-Nat-20 number, often lead to DM just saying "you fail", no check asked. DM decides what is "vital" or not. Typically, if the situation is not really a stressfull one, then it "ain't vital". This cuts down on tons of needless secondary checks and speeds up the game quite noticeably. Players arguing "but I still should have a small chance to do it!" just means they are ARGUING WITH THE DM. See "problem players" above.

- No "takebacks". A round is a frigging 6 seconds. Your PC is moving around a lot, seeing things from a 1st person perspective, maybe with sweat partially obscuring his vision, not at full breath, pain from lesser gashes, etc. Meanwhile player is very confortably sitting and gettting a bird's eye view of the enntire battlefield, nd before it's your turn you have had MINUTES to think. So, no, it ain't an optimized chess game, but the chaos of battle. When called out bby the DM, you do something NOW, or you end up losing your turn.

- You precedeclare your entire round, THEN your round is resolved. You forgot to declare a part of your round's worth of actions? Too bad, you don't get to do it. This cut down a lot on "analysis paralysis".

- You have no friggging idea what's going on? You don't get a replay recap of the round that just occurred. Follow the damned game! If it wasn't because you think that when it's not your turn you can ignore being interested in what the other players are doing and can just go surfing the web on your cell phone to pass the time because you have ADHD or something, you can ask 1, maybe 2, extremely dead simple quick questions. Anything REQUIRING a check, though, costs at least a Bonus Action to do (for DC 5 and DC 10 checks) or your enntiire Action (for DC 15 or more checks). And no, you can't say "Oh it's going to cost me my action? I try to do this instead them! No rewinds, no takenacks. Stop min-maxing, just roll with it. I don't reward gamer table behaviors I find abhorrent especiallly those that show an utter lack of respect to the other players. Such as not being interested in what they do only in your own PC's actions. And iif you were a bit lost because you DID "mentally drop out of the game" because you went surgimg, too bad, you just lost your entire round. You edron't gget to "ask a question", DM gives you a very quick "general" recap of the current situation (not everything that led up to it), and you'd better start thinking about your NEXT round and learn to follow the game better.

Basically, it's "Git Gud" or be ready to suck big time. Player's actual game table performance has a diirect impact on character's performance. It's not a chess or board game. Your PC represents YOU "if you really were that character thrown into that fantasy world".

Those are more like guidelines, than hard and fast absolute rules. I give lots of leeway.

Typically, a new player either gets on with the program really fast, or drops out all by himself, which is "good riddance!", not only according to me, but according to all my players too.

In any encounter, especially social ones, if the encounter is "for fun and laughs", then I'm extremely forgiving about moost things. But in a "deadly serious life or death or social situation", yeah, what you say is what your character says. Or an "equivalent" in the game world. Deadly serious dramatic encoounter with the no-nonsense king with an inflated ego and a huge army? If Player A says to player B, loud enough for DM to hear, something like "That king is a real dick, should we just kill him?" you can bet there is going to be a big bad reaction from that king. Especially if the staatement comes from a non-new player that should really already know otherwise how we run things. Even if that screws up the entire adventure, too. I don't "railroad."

Similarly if players try to Long Rest all the time after everyy couple fights, I don't "suddenly" use cheap "rest breaking" tricks that just magically happen to occur ONLY when they try to Rest "too often", but magically never happen wqhen they long rest is the exact samme spot "after doing a sufficient number of encounters". I at least roll with it until the adventure is over, then change the resting rules altogether. That'd be just dickhead DM railroading. Nah. Players will naturally try to do "what works best" and rewards thme the most foor the least amount of risks and effort. So if something seems "bad" like not enough encounters pper long rest (because thhat really wreaks huge havoc on casters vs martials relative power balance, as suddenly bthe casteres can jjust opt to go supernova in all fights, never lacking for powerful spells, while fighers get nerfed because they end up getting to use their short rest special powers only once per "effective" long rest, any "player exploit and abuse" is actually on me not fixing it in the first place (and on the core designers, too), and not on the players.

 

[Lanefan]

But the alternative is not no chance. The alternative is nothing happens, because your character has yet to actually do anything, because you haven’t declared any action.

Right, which is why I say this framing is misleading, because that doesn’t accurately reflect gameplay at my table, at all.

No. I’m saying (literally, I said these exact words) barring extenuating circumstances, if you say your character does a thing, they just do it. Only when what you say you do carries a risk of failure and stakes might you have to make a roll.

Ah - there's the difference.

You have it as default that a declared action ucceeds unless something says it maybe or certainly can't, where I tend to take take the position that a declared action will not succeed unless something says it maybe or certainly can.

The end result in play probably looks pretty much the same in both, but the underlying philosophy is completely different.

Indeed, it ought to go without saying, because I’m not saying anything particularly outlandish or revolutionary here. I’m just saying the players describe what they want to do and I determine the results, potentially calling for a die roll to resolve uncertainty, and then describing the results. Just like what the “how to play” rules say.

Even though we run different systems I think we both pretty much do the same, here, in practice.

That’s a very strange assumption to make in my opinion; in a game where the premise is that the players can do anything they can imagine (obviously within the limits of what’s physically possible for their characters to do), I don’t think it’s ever safe to assume that the players couldn’t come up with a way for their characters to go about trying to achieve their goals that would mitigate the risk. Even if I can’t imagine a way, players can often surprise you with their creative ideas.

I know that all too well. I was for these purposes trying to eliminate the risk variable to get at the question you asnwer next:

Anyway, that objection aside, assuming for the sake of argument that the player for some reason can’t come up with an approach that has little or no risk (I mean, adventuring is after all a pretty risky endeavor)? No, the degree of detail with which they describe their action has absolutely no effect on its possible outcomes. I care about what the character is doing, not how the player describes that action.

OK. We've agreement on that score, then.

A player does have to describe the action with enough specificity for me to understand what their character is actually doing, otherwise I can’t determine what the potential outcomes might be, and I think this may be what some people object to. They prefer to leave the fictional action somewhat abstract, roll a die to determine success or failure (and sometimes degree of success), and then retroactively fill in the details of the action in a way that makes sense with the results the die indicated. Whereas I prefer for the action to be specified, so I can use the logic of the fiction as the primary determining factor of success or failure, and only call for a die roll when the outcome is still uncertain.

And for some that requirement for specificity would be interpreted player-side as you-as-DM baiting a trap; and while you might not be a gotcha DM, many are.

Within reason, some (like me) see gotcha as a perfectly valid way to play. I mean, the game world is in fact out to get you, right? But with that comes a quite understandable sense of player-side caution, and a DM asking for specifics is often a fair-sized red flag that there's a gotcha coming if you get it wrong.

 

[Scott Christian]

Sometimes they state the action, sometimes the intention, sometimes both. In all cases, the DM is the arbiter of the skill, ability, or save (and the DC). Sometimes a player asks if they can use this or that prior to stating the action or intention. Sometimes the player asks if a different skill could be used after the DM has stated the skill needed.

And it all works. It is all dependent on player-DM trust.

 

[Lanefan]

I like most of your post (some of it very much indeed!) but there's a couple of points I'd run aground on were I at your table:

- It's a cooperative and collaborative social team-based game. The agency of "players mostly in it for themselves" is always limited by "anybody in the group has veto power on other any players actions if that would ruin the overall fun at the game table". Excuses like "But that's what my PC would do! (about to do a sucky for game table ambiance fun-killing action), because <arbitrary PC background reason XYZ>!" becomes instead a "Nope, it is 100% YOUR own decision as a player to ty to MAKE your PC act like that. You're the one who's being a dick for deciding to ruin everybody else's fun. Instead, try to invent some story telling rationale why your PC, despite "thinking like that", would actually NOT end upp doing such an action. You don't play for your own fun, but for the fun of the entire game table." The "I don't really care if nobody else has fun, as long as me I have fun!" attitude, which I've actually really seen said verbatim a few times, leads to immediate "Please pick up your dice and leave". Any hostile "intra-party conflict" interaction can be interesting rolepaly opportunity, but only if the GROUP AGREES.

Nope. For me, it's anything goes as long as it stays in character. It does take a less-serious approach, though, where one is willing and able to laugh even when one's own character's is getting the short end from others in the party. And you have to be ready willing and able to sometimes give back as good as you get.

The only proviso is that it has to stay in character. In character, Falstaff and Jelessa can scream at each other until they're blue in the face but the moment Joe and Mary start arguing in meta-terms it's shut down hard.

- You precedeclare your entire round, THEN your round is resolved. You forgot to declare a part of your round's worth of actions? Too bad, you don't get to do it. This cut down a lot on "analysis paralysis".

I've tried this in the past but quickly ran aground on the problem of pre-declared actions no longer making sense by the time the action would resolve. A simple example: if your pre-declared action is that you attack the Orc in front of you but that Orc runs away or gets killed before your turn comes up, attacking it no longer makes sense and it's quite reasonable the character should be able to do something else e.g. move to a different foe and attack it instead, or chase the Orc that just ran away.

In any encounter, especially social ones, if the encounter is "for fun and laughs", then I'm extremely forgiving about moost things. But in a "deadly serious life or death or social situation", yeah, what you say is what your character says. Or an "equivalent" in the game world. Deadly serious dramatic encoounter with the no-nonsense king with an inflated ego and a huge army? If Player A says to player B, loud enough for DM to hear, something like "That king is a real dick, should we just kill him?" you can bet there is going to be a big bad reaction from that king. Especially if the staatement comes from a non-new player that should really already know otherwise how we run things. Even if that screws up the entire adventure, too. I don't "railroad."

If I know the two characters share an obscure language I generally assume they'll be using that for such asides, and unless the king or any nearby courtiers also happen to know that language then there's no consequence.

That said, in my game the players would usually pass a note for something like this instead of saying it out loud.

 

[Necrofumbler]

I like most of your post (some of it very much indeed!) but there's a couple of points I'd run aground on were I at your table:

Nope. For me, it's anything goes as long as it stays in character. It does take a less-serious approach, though, where one is willing and able to laugh even when one's own character's is getting the short end from others in the party. And you have to be ready willing and able to sometimes give back as good as you get.

The only proviso is that it has to stay in character. In character, Falstaff and Jelessa can scream at each other until they're blue in the face but the moment Joe and Mary start arguing in meta-terms it's shut down hard.

I've tried this in the past but quickly ran aground on the problem of pre-declared actions no longer making sense by the time the action would resolve. A simple example: if your pre-declared action is that you attack the Orc in front of you but that Orc runs away or gets killed before your turn comes up, attacking it no longer makes sense and it's quite reasonable the character should be able to do something else e.g. move to a different foe and attack it instead, or chase the Orc that just ran away.

If I know the two characters share an obscure language I generally assume they'll be using that for such asides, and unless the king or any nearby courtiers also happen to know that language then there's no consequence.

That said, in my game the players would usually pass a note for something like this instead of saying it out loud.

Agree on most of your ways to handle this stuff. Yes, a humous handling is morec lax and is often the default, with "dramatic serious" encounters not the norm, is best. That creates contrast and prevents everybody ending up taking oneself TOO seriously in the long run.

Yes, the "be willing to have fun and roll even when bad things happen to your PC" is a must. But somer playeers sensibilities arec ata bit fragile so I prefer to make sure the players aggree that they are entering a potential can o worms intra-party conflict, and upp to what li9tthe llimits are, rather than waiting until something blows up to "finally realize" that it wasn't all a-ok. Personal preference here.

"Suddenly player X is super pissed off at player Y and the game table fun is ruined for hours on end if not the entire night, maybe even with potential permanent souring" is a way, way harder to "fix/stop" problem by the DM, aned otoo often it led to one player leaving. That just screws up the table dynamics to much just to satisfy one player's uncontrollable urge to have fun by being a dick or a tourette syndrome star member, whhich he picks up with another player soon afterwards. Better to kill the behavior in the egg, IMHO.

Predeclared actions (round start: everybody declare actions, then resolution in init order), were never a fav of my players. They agreed with the concept but found it way too "confusing". What I did back then was use PLAYER STATED ACTIONS/INTENT i.e. "I attack the orc!" and the orc movesc away? Treansformed into instant pursuit. I also allows a pure WIS check DC 15 to "switch on the fly to another completely different action" (DC 10 or no check needed if it was different but "reasonably similar" like say "oh the orc moved away? Well I'll just bash the goblin instead."


Eventually we dropped that way and the predeclaration is at the beginning of the player's current turn, and by default the resolution always try to match the stated intention. It still forces interesting yttacticall choices liike "Do I make 2 attacks on that orc, making pretty sure I will "down" it this round, albeit risking doing overkill damage, or do I split my attacks, risking downing NO enemy this round?"

I understand thiss makes PCs generally weaker, but I also tennd to use less strong foes, too. I use Milestones XP based on "accomplishing the mission", so the players don't lose out. In facxt many encounters they solve it in non-combat ways.

Also, most enemies are not mindless monsters with zero sense of self-preservation. They don't exist "just to be killed", they have actual goals. And there is a "social tradition" that even (most) evil NPCs tend to respect a lot: Atv any time n a combat, you can surrender by dropping t your knewes, hands ii nthhe air, droppping your weapon. Thus means the victor won, but can't kill such a prisoner. If the prisoner betrays that "pact", though, and tries to rejoin back inti the fray, or escape, or fight back, then he DESERVES death. And tongues talk: PCs can ellect to ignore this "right of surrender", but it will become know that tey are corrupt and foul, and gain noot only a bad reputation with more honorable people (thus most noble NPCs and other NPC good guys, and at some ppoint even ordinary NPCs willl start to shuhn vthem), but bad guys will also stop respecting the PC's "right to surrender".

Most fights vs intelligent creatures end wayyy before "almost all enemies are downed". That pack of 20 wolves? Unless they are totally mad from supreme hunger, as soon as 3 or 4 woolvves are easily dipatched while the party still hasn't got a scratch, morale check, and on a failure most of the beasts just decide to smelle where thiis is inevitably going and decide to flee. The few "more hostile and bloodthirsty and violent" stragglers wisen up the next round.

So we have quite a variety of fights. Fanaticallly drugged cultists will probablly fight to the death. But plain bandits? Oops those PC travelers seem to really know how to fight back, time to ESCAPE! Even if the bandits would ultimately be 100% certain to WIN, they put more value in making sure they survive to fight another day, rather than "Ok only half of us will probablly end up be killed but we will be certains to kill off all the PCs". Each and every bandit 100% values making sure his own life ain't risking a 50% death, WAY before valuing the other bandits, lives, or "killing the PCs". They aren't mere bags o' hit points, fighting the PCs ain't their "goal in life". It's more like gaining easy gold from weakker non-resisting and intimidated targets. No non-ultra-stupid creature has a death wish.


Of course, for raw actual beastly monsters, anything goes, with no repercussions.

We also have the "Parley" thing. This has to be done BEFFORe thhe fiighting stats, and if accepted, typically means the parleying party will not be the one initiating a fight, and try to negotiate some appeasement and settlement, with the understanding that the group accepting the parley ALREADY starts the negotiations having done a favor to the side asking for the parley (thus some kind of payment will always need be involved). BBrrakking the truce of a parley is a SERIOUS offense, tarnishing reputatriion for a long time.

And even if the PCs decide to "leave no witness behind", their group reputation wuld still be tarnished anyway. Because the gods saw it, and they favor falls upon heroes keeopoing their word true, and their divine disfavor falls upon those betraying that thrust. Somehow, somewhen, words get out. A bird saw it. Then a god make that bird go tweet the story to a local druid. Who later went to buy soome booze at a local tavern, and the NPcs there randomlly starrted tallking about the Pcs'" nmoble and heroic deeds", with the druid not failing to dot their I's and cross their T's. And thus, thre part y becomes know and dangerous and unreliabler bloodthirsty mercenaries, instead of as heroes. -1 Reputation with "Party Honor". Which then taints all future social interactions asc a check penalty with NPCs for which honours might be important. Thus also includes the gods plus any encounter in which the PC might use the same Honor Codes to survive a fight they would otherwise really badly lose instead.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That’s the opposite of my experience.

I can only go by what people say. And lots of people today talk about how absolutely essential illusionism, quantum ogres, and "invisible" railroading are for gaming. To the point that I have been point-blank told by at least two different people, on this very forum, that literally all DMs use illusionism, literally all the time, and that it's a profound but unavoidable sadness when the illusion finally breaks and players realize they've been led around by the nose the whole time. (Different phrasing from each person, of course, but that was the gist.)