Recent content by iserith

The task of disarming the trap has not been declared and so there's nothing to adjudicate as to that. The rogue is betting on the metal gauntlet being sufficient protection against the needle and, as it turns out, it is. No roll here.

I find the key to a satisfying ending is thinking about the end before you even begin. In particular, how much real time (hours, sessions, weeks, months, etc.) you need to get through it. Then line that up with reality of the group's schedules and preferences to see if it is feasible. Err on the...

Fully agree, though I would make two points: 1. Travel is effectively exploration. It comes more to the foreground in a hexcrawl, particularly when time matters. There are rules there around speed, forced march, and travel tasks that are all firmly in the exploration pillar. 2. There are...

How I award XP varies by campaign and which aspects of play I wish to incentivize to encourage playing to the theme. Most commonly, players earn XP by slaying monsters or moving monsters' and NPCs' attitudes toward the characters at least one step in a positive direction. Exploration is...

I agree with you ruling. The question in my view is whether the weapon attack is hindered by its interaction with the water where the rules for underwater combat are concerned. It would seem to me that weapon attacks from the shore against an underwater target would be hindered.

The DM deciding is how the game works. I'm not sure what you mean by bookkeeping. Make your case, DM decides, roll if necessary, resolve, move on. Same as everything else.

The DM certainly can, and I have in cases where the monsters have been lying in wait for a while. Compare passive Stealth to passive Perception and determine surprise. In cases like this, the issue is the DM called for the check when it didn't yet matter. Ask for the roll only when there's...

Some traps can be noticed by making deductions based on clues in the environment in addition to or instead of noticing a trap by sight, sound, smell, etc. So instead of passive Perception while the PCs are traveling the dungeon searching for traps along the way, the DM can instead use passive...

As with the rest of the game, a player can only describe what they want their character to do, and the DM always gets to decide if it succeeds or fails or a roll is appropriate. If multiple people want to make the case for why their character may be able to recall something specific, they are...

I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill here, chief.

For me, I ask the player to state specifically what they are trying to recall (the goal) with the understanding this imparts some kind of advantage to them, if they can leverage the information. They must also make the case why they might have been exposed to this information in their past...

Yes, they do. The DM can't plan or prep everything. But the fact a house rule is needed to actually support that should be ample evidence in my view that the OP is correct in their assessment about how D&D is designed.

The OP calls out that D&D is not really set up to be played this way since it's more about "the players uncover realities about the world already set by the DM." I agree, and my comment was in reference to that. There are other games better suited to generating setting content on the fly in my...

Instead of changing the world on the fly or asking the player to pretend not to know the information supplied is false, it might be easier to just have the failed check effectively impart disadvantage to some future roll (ability check, attack roll, saving throw) that the DM can apply when...

Unless it's a contest, pretty much all ability check DCs in my game are 10, 15, or 20. I also don't have much of a clue what the PCs have on their sheets. I don't really pay attention to it. After awhile, I might be able to guess which is the more perceptive character, but honestly I might get...