D&D 5E Character play vs Player play

[Majoru Oakheart]

As I understood the scenario outline from your OP, at this point in time solving the mystery of the guard's suicide doesn't actually drive the adventure forward. It is just tying up a loose plot thread.

That's pretty much it. The players are likely wondering what the answer to the question is. This answers it for them so they can feel complete.

But to me this seems entirely unmotivated. As I understood the setup, the PCs have no connection to any of the NPCs other than as plot devices. The PCs have no connection to the forest or the dragon. The PCs have no way even of knowing about the forest or the dragon until the end of the scenario - again, there is nothing but the tying up of loose plot threads.

Here's the basic summary of the adventure and the motivation behind it. Each of the 5 adventures is an introduction to each of the 5 factions in Adventurer's League. The adventure in question is the intro to the Emerald Enclave. One of their members comes into the inn and tells the PCs that he is a member of the Emerald Enclave and that he has tracked a dangerous magic item to the inn and that someone in the inn has it. He has heard of the PCs and their exploits and has decided to trust them based on their reputation. He doesn't know who has the item in question or even what it looks like but he's been told the item is unnatural and dangerous and needs to be put somewhere safe. He wants the PCs to carefully figure out who has the item for him and make sure no one leaves. He offers them money and the favor of the Emerald Enclave and even membership if that's what they would like.

But, yes, the adventure is to accomplish the goal assigned to you in exchange for money. Which is the motivator of 80% of adventurers in games I play in(the motivator for the other 20% is doing good and helping people, which this adventure also has covered). The other motivator is to see a puzzle solved and see the plot thread resolved.

My reasons for finding the scenario unappealing are expressed, I think, in this quote from Christopher Kubasik:

I'm going to have to disagree that character's need to take "action" to be a character. In fact, literally the first line in wikipedia about characterization is:

"Characterization or characterization is the concept of creating characters for a narrative.[1] It is a literary element and may be employed in dramatic works of art or everyday conversation. Characters may be presented by means of description, through their actions, speech, or thoughts."

Actions are just one part of making a character(or characterization). In order to be a well rounded character we need to see their description, get a glimpse at their thoughts and see how they react in a variety of situations.

If a character needs nothing but actions then most D&D characters would be defined as 90% identical to one another:

"I attack." "I search." "I attack."

In fact, literally, the most important different between one fighter and another fighter is that one likes wine and fine tobacco and another likes riding horses and reading books about cowboys.

Characters without this kind of distinction look almost exactly the same. I know. We run Adventurer's League every Wednesday at our local store and there's at least 5 regulars whose characters could not be differentiated other than their class. They have no personality at all. On the other hand a couple of others at least have a couple interesting quirks that make them something other than a bundle of stats whose actions are entirely "I attack" and "I search".

Without playing this adventure, I would have no idea that the character(played by the player I mentioned in the original post) had any motivation other than killing monsters and searching for treasure. He hit on the female elf ranger with the purple bow during the adventure. Which means he is, at the very least, attracted to woman as well.

I don't see how this scenario links at all to meaningful goals for PCs in a fantasy RPG. The social situation does not contain any elements that put pressure on the PCs' goals or personalities. They have no stakes, that I can see, other than - for basically metagame reasons, of knowing that the GM has plonked them into a mystery scenario - trying to work out what triggers the lighting attacks. They have no character-based reason to care about what is going on.

They care because they are being paid to care and because if they figure it out they can save people's lives. Some of them do it because it will make them more famous. Some do it because they want to prove they are better at solving puzzles than other people. Some do it for the mystery. Some do it because their friends want to do it and they'll go along with their friend's goals.

But, since D&D is a ensemble game, it's very difficult for individual goals to be pursued much during an adventure without splitting the party or forcing the other party members to put their own personal goals on hold to pursue yours. In which case, the game becomes way too much about one player over the others. So, most D&D characters have relatively superficial goals that can be accomplished in the process of doing whatever job they've been hired to do this week.

My two main characters right now have the goals of "I will become the best thief ever" and "I will become famous". Their actual goals are given to them by whatever adventure they are playing at the time.

That may be true of the other adventures in the series also. Which means I probably wouldn't like them either. But at least a dungeon crawl has D&D tropes, which presumably part of what motivates a person to play D&D. Whereas talking to a pseudo-mediaeval food critic about the ingredients of a soup, not so much.

I don't know. They all follow the same basic formula:

NPC comes up to the PC and asks them to do something for them. Sometimes for money, sometimes out of the goodness of their hearts. The PCs agree and accomplish the mission by fighting monsters, solving puzzles, and defeating obstacles. Then they get paid. Sometimes by someone else other than the original employer.

Whether that mission is "Go into that hole and save my family from the goblins who captured them" or "Find the evil magic item in this room".

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Here's the deal. As I said in a previous post, 8 Int is slightly below average. Saying "Sorry, you have 8 Int, you are too stupid to figure this out" is like telling the stupidest person in your D&D group that he can't contribute to the puzzle because the players is too stupid to help, sorry. Given random distribution of intelligence in society, it's likely that one of the players at your table has the equivalent of 8 Int.

I know most people tend to over exaggerate and say "Me Lump. Me have 8 Int. Me cannot understand language or where the bathroom is!"

ok, now what do you do when you have 5 people in your group, and the smartest of them plays the Int 8 barbarian with no know skills at all, and the dumest of them plays a 20 Int wizard with ranks in every Know skill?

I role play my Int 8 characters correctly as those characters who simply aren't as educated or thoughtful as other people. They come up with answers slower, but they still come up with the answers.

inless you are smarter then the person playing the 16 (double your character) Int then you aren't slower inless the DM makes your guys roll...

Sometimes they need hints given to them by other people to solve something that smart people can do immediately. But there are always things that "stupid" people can do even though they are stupid. Sometimes better than the smart people simply because of luck or previous experience. I don't worry too much about what the 8 Int person does. If they get EXTREMELY out of hand, I might say something. I'd much prefer that player to say "Here's the deal, I don't think my character would figure this out, but here's what I think the solution to this puzzle is"

I've even had players tell other players "Hey make an X skill check" then based on getting a 10 or higher saying "I think X may be important" because they have o way to figure it out IN GAME

My goal is to test the players anyways, so I don't have a huge problem with them helping each other out of character in this way.

how could a test of the players ever NOT be metagameing... I mean it is by default out of game and not for the characters... it would be like saying "Ok, now instead of rolling Jump, I am setting up this bar you have to jump over out of game..."


Please in someway address why out of game Cha or Int can be used but not out of game Dex or Str or SPeed.

DM"Well I like to test players... so I have this obstacle course set up in the back yard!"

 

[Piratecat]

ok, now what do you do when you have 5 people in your group, and the smartest of them plays the Int 8 barbarian with no know skills at all, and the dumest of them plays a 20 Int wizard with ranks in every Know skill?

I'd encourage the players to talk it out between themselves, and then have the smarter characters present the problem in-game. I wouldn't worry about it too much, mostly, other than occasionally reminding the brilliant player with the dumb barbarian that he or she should play their int.

Please in someway address why out of game Cha or Int can be used but not out of game Dex or Str or Speed.

A friend ran into this; one of his players was remarkably well-spoken and charismatic, but his PC only had a charisma of 6. He reminded the player to mumble incomprehensibly. Once per game, though, the player was allowed to come out with a brilliant and charming insight -- and then had to go back to mumbling.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

ok, now what do you do when you have 5 people in your group, and the smartest of them plays the Int 8 barbarian with no know skills at all, and the dumest of them plays a 20 Int wizard with ranks in every Know skill?

I try not to rank the intelligence of my friends. I really don't know who is the smartest and who is the dumbest. I assume they are all average so I don't have to look down on anyone or feel inferior to anyone.

Besides, Intelligence, as I've said is a measure of knowledge and ability to learn and remember. I don't like to think of it in terms of "You have an 8 Int, you are incapable of figuring this out." Both characters have an equal chance of figuring things out. One of them just has more knowledge and therefore more information on which to base their decision.

how could a test of the players ever NOT be metagameing... I mean it is by default out of game and not for the characters... it would be like saying "Ok, now instead of rolling Jump, I am setting up this bar you have to jump over out of game..."

Because metagaming is using the knowledge that this is a game in order to make your decision. Your character is following the exact same reasoning that you are. You are both thinking "This is a puzzle and I need to find the answer to it."

As I said above, metagaming is when you say "Our DM likes puzzles with easy answers. He likely put some clues around here for me to look for. I look for clues!" But simply solving a puzzle using your own reasoning power is not metagaming in the slightest.

Please in someway address why out of game Cha or Int can be used but not out of game Dex or Str or SPeed.

Because you aren't using your out of game Cha or Int. You are telling me what your character says and then you are making a roll to determine whether it succeeds if you make a diplomacy check. Your in game Cha matters. Just the strategy you are using comes from the player. If the character wants to see if he knows something or remembers something, you'll make an Int check and I'll tell you what your character knows or remembers. You don't have to remember for your character. You also don't have to memorize the campaign guide or monster manual. A roll will give you that information.

But if we aren't asking players to make decisions anymore then why do we have players? Otherwise, following your logic the rest of the game would go like this:

DM: "Alright, it's your turn in combat. What do you do?"
Player: "Wait...you are making me use my own intelligence to figure out what I do in combat? My character has an 18 Int. He's super smart. He'd know what to do. You tell me what I do in combat. Which spell should I cast in order to be most effective this round? I make a 22 Int check. I know."

DM: "Alright, you defeat the monsters, what do you do?"
Player: "My character knows the smartest thing to do after defeating monsters...what's should I do?"

The players still need to actually play the game and that means making decisions based on the information they have.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Because you aren't using your out of game Cha or Int. You are telling me what your character says and then you are making a roll to determine whether it succeeds if you make a diplomacy check. Your in game Cha matters. Just the strategy you are using comes from the player. If the character wants to see if he knows something or remembers something, you'll make an Int check and I'll tell you what your character knows or remembers. You don't have to remember for your character. You also don't have to memorize the campaign guide or monster manual. A roll will give you that information.

But if we aren't asking players to make decisions anymore then why do we have players? Otherwise, following your logic the rest of the game would go like this:

DM: "Alright, it's your turn in combat. What do you do?"
Player: "Wait...you are making me use my own intelligence to figure out what I do in combat? My character has an 18 Int. He's super smart. He'd know what to do. You tell me what I do in combat. Which spell should I cast in order to be most effective this round? I make a 22 Int check. I know."

DM: "Alright, you defeat the monsters, what do you do?"
Player: "My character knows the smartest thing to do after defeating monsters...what's should I do?"

The players still need to actually play the game and that means making decisions based on the information they have.

yea... strawman at it's worsed... the example at the beginning was the player told the DM "My character can make an Arcana check to try to figure this out" He DID make a choice, and play the game, but he needed help with the puzzle.

NO ONE SUGGESTS THE DM MAKES THE CHOICE, JUST THAT THE DM LET THE PLAYER ROLL A SKILL WHEN IN GAME SKILL CAN HELP...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Given random distribution of intelligence in society, it's likely that one of the players at your table has the equivalent of 8 Int.

I know most people tend to over exaggerate and say "Me Lump. Me have 8 Int. Me cannot understand language or where the bathroom is!"

That bugs me, too, but I never said Int 8 was dumb. I said that I liked to play dumb characters, of the sort who probably couldn't figure out the sorts of difficult puzzles that would baffle a wizard of Int 20.

And the D&D audience skews smart. The average for a D&D player is probably closer to 13 or 14, so it's unlikely that anyone at my table (or in a random sample of five players) would have the equivalent of Int 8.

 

[Sunseeker]

The character/player dichotomy has long been a problem for exactly the reasons presented above. In-game things should be sorted out with in-game skills and abilities, ie: if your wizard is smart he solves the thinky puzzles, not the idiot playing him. It's a great reason to use "secret" information through passing notes, that way when Bob the Wizard figures out the puzzle, even if his player doesn't, you pass him a note explaining what exactly it is he figured out. Just because Bob never graduated high-school should not preclude him from playing a smart character. Likewise Joe the accountant shouldn't be pigeon-holed into the smart role when he would rather play Ug the Barbarian.

There are times when player action is necessary of course, but these things should be kept to a minimum. If you're trying to make what is essentially a skill challenge last an hour or more....it should either be very very complicated and difficult to roll. Simple as that. The challenge should be structured and ordered to basically only let one person go at a time, and it should be skill-limited in order to limit who can do anything at all. Honestly it's going to need to be something really darn tootin special to last upwards of an hour, especially if it is something in game that is taking under a few minutes. To great of a time differential breaks immersion, generates boredom and on the whole is confusing. None of which promote creative thinking or even slightly encourage the players to become involved.

The short short short version: In game puzzles, problems and quandaries should be solved with in-game capabilities. DMs should supply 'secret information' to the players who successfully made their appropriate checks. While it should be on the player to Role as much as Roll, that's a different issue entirely. I address that problem by offering "RP bonuses", a +1 or +2 to any roll in which the player also makes an effort to role play it out.

Because at the end of the day, making players solve the puzzles with player skills is often quite contrary to having players RP their characters.

 

[am181d]

yea... strawman at it's worsed... the example at the beginning was the player told the DM "My character can make an Arcana check to try to figure this out" He DID make a choice, and play the game, but he needed help with the puzzle.

NO ONE SUGGESTS THE DM MAKES THE CHOICE, JUST THAT THE DM LET THE PLAYER ROLL A SKILL WHEN IN GAME SKILL CAN HELP...

You're missing the point.

One extreme is to say "I don't care what skills you have or what your ability scores are. You have to figure out everything on your own." The other is "Every single decision can be determined with a die roll."

I think most/all of us come down somewhere in the middle. Everyone agrees that stats and skills should be a factor. Everyone agrees that player intelligence/craftiness will also be tested. The argument is simply around what the right balance is.

Once you acknowledge that premise, it's really just a matter of play style. I prefer a system where roleplaying gives bonuses or penalties to skill rolls and skill rolls provide information that feeds roleplaying, but I don't complain if another group wants to play board game style with dice rolls for almost everything.

 

[Lanefan]

Sometimes it works out well, where the characters and the players mental stats argely tend to agree. In one group of my current campaign, for example, wisdom has almost universally been the dump stat (except Clerics); and given that neither myself nor the players tend to finish the session anywhere near sober most times, having generally low-wisdom characters just plain fits.

That said, in some games I've played the brains and done a lot of thinking, in others I've played the brawn and thus could leave the thinking to others...which can be a pleasant break.

Lan-"just tell me what to clobber next and then get out of the way"-efan

 

[Sunseeker]

I would like to add, the lightning-based-on-stuff-from-the-forest challenge is very poorly set up.

The first person hit is the "target", the person with the artifact. The subsequent people hit are all carrying objects from the forest, but since there is an order to them being hit, the reason they were hit in that order needs to help illuminate their relation to the forest.

Bow-man should have been second. He cut some wood and carved a bow from the forest. This is almost on par with stealing the magic artifact, but obviously the artifact is the 'plot device'. Flower-girl should have been third. She too harmed the forest and took from it, but picking flowers is a much lower 'crime' to the forest. The last person has the most tangential relationship to the forest, eating something made by an unaffected third party, the soup person is almost a red herring.

There is so little commonality between these people that it's almost ridiculous to expect people to 'solve' the puzzle here.

The information gathering section is equally ridiculous, though I'm only getting a snippet of it in the OP, why are the players going to talk to a guy eating soup? Why are they going to talk to a girl with flowers in her hair? Why does the person with the bow draw their attention? Is it just a matter of 'these people are in the room, go talk to them'? That's the sort of no-direction sandboxy claptrap I hate in a story, where's the hook? Why should I talk to these people? Why do I have reason to believe they know anything at all about the artifact I'm searching for? Because they're in the same inn as me? That's terrible associative reasoning, aka: logical fallacy.

When told that there are people worth talking to in the room, we should be told what catches our eyes about them, or at least required to do a perception check in order to get that information. Lets say that everything from the forest has a purple hue to it, so when we roll our check on things to look for in the room, we say "I look around the room for things that are purple-ish in color." And we are given the man with strangely purple soup, the woman with the faintly purple bow and the girl with the lovely purple flowers and perhaps we throw in some red herrings of people with purple items that are unrelated to the forest, a woman with a beautiful purple broach and a man in rich purple robes.

Now we have a reason to talk to these people and perhaps in talking to them we find out that their object are, or are not made from materials from the forest.

Frankly, as the puzzle is presented at least in the OP, it's terrible. It's a riddle with no hits, a puzzle where all the pieces are square. So it's no wonder that people would want to skip straight to the interesting part because there is absolutely no hook to make people interested in the less than-obvious.