D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[Scott Christian]

What I would do is, if the player said "I want to find a ship to sail on and use my background to help me do so," I'd say something like, "how are you doing this?" Then one of the following may occur:

One: The player may then say they're going up to the captain or first mate and trying to use their nautical knowledge to sound impressive. That's a Persuasion check. (Someone who does not have the sailor background or at least proficiency in sea vessels would have a higher DC and/or obviously wouldn't be able to use their proficiency bonus, or may have to roll Deception vs. Insight with a bonus for the captain).

Two: The player may tell me that their cousin Two-Eyed Bob the Sailor once manned a ship that docked in this port often. There would the above-mentioned Persuasion rolls, but with an added wrinkle of me getting to decide how the ship's crew felt about Two-Eyed Bob (colored by whatever they've previously said about this cousin--and if this is a brand-new cousin they just invented, then I get to decide[1]). I might roll a die and decide whether they liked him based on the result (like, the higher the number, the more they liked him). In which case, there's a chance of backfire. I would allow this for non-sailors as well, but probably with penalties to the roll.

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[1] This also depends on how out-of-character Two-Eyed Bob is. If the PC had said they come from a line of sailors and pirates, then OK. Two-Eyed Bob is plausible. If they had said they had run away from the farm their family had been working for generations to become a sailor, I'd say, "yeah, no, that's totally contradictory to everything else you've said. However, I can't imagine any of my players actually trying to pull this. Everyone at my table is a reasonable person.
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Three: The player may tell me that they worked on a particular ship that docked here. In which case, we have a conversation about the ship and why they left it. This may involve them inventing some details (probably in the form of noodle incidents) that had previously never come up.

If they had previously established that they only sailed on the Inner Sea and they were currently on the coast of the South Sea, then we'd have to have some discussion about how that boat got from the Inner Sea and the South Sea. It's entirely possible that we'd then establish a new fact about the world (a connecting river, a canal, something else). It's also possible that the player would realize there was no way the ship could have moved seas (see above re: reasonable players).

IME, these sorts of conversations take maybe 5 minutes or so, 10 max, which is not an unreasonable amount of time and is certainly far less time than we had to pause the game yesterday when it was interrupted by Toddler Surprise Attack (did you know that if you put your hands over your ears, it works just like daddy's headphones and you can hear what all the other players are saying?)

Four: If I felt like it, I could just have the ship they used to work on, right there in dock. How did it get there? Good question! Want to get on and find out?

I think all these are plausible, especially for an experienced DM. I don't think anyone that is saying no is advocating for something different. They are advocating for when circumstances dictate that the background feature will not work.

I know everyone likes to throw the big-bad DM argument around, but in my experience, they say yes on a 10-1 ratio of saying no. When they say no, I assume they know something I, as a player, do not. Those "no moments" are warranted under certain circumstances. For some DMs, it might be because the players are on a different plane of existence. For others, it might be because they already have the port detailed and the player request doesn't match. For others, it might be because they took other consideration into play, such as pirates or a blockade. And for others, it might be because the PCs already used this contact three times, and the DM had a plot point, where the PC finds them dead because they were "found to be shipping messages."

But in most D&D ports like Neverwinter, Baldur's Gate, Luskan, Waterdeep, etc... I don't think any DM would care. And I don't think the people arguing against this would care either. People care when there are exceptions.

 

[Hussar]

Because they're fun. Because they involve opportunities for roleplaying and interaction. Because they provide color to the game. Because they connect the players to the world. Because they can provide motivation or plot hooks.

No. They aren't fun. They're pointless, forgettable and frustrating. We've already got motivation and plot hooks - that's why we're getting on a boat. That's why we're sending a message. That's why we're looking for a place to rest for the night. If we actually were looking for motivation or plot hooks, we wouldn't be doing any of the things that character benefits allow us to do.

 

[Hussar]

I was talking to Oofta at that point.

Ahh. Not seeing his posts, so, I was confused.

You could always make something up. Or if you feel like it, do research.


I said imagine, not know. I can imagine something like this:

PC: "Hey DM, I go find someone who looks like they're in a position of authority to ask them about booking passage on the ship."

DM: "Yeah, you see someone who looks like he's likely a captain."

PC: "Great. I go up to them, introduce myself, and ask him about passage, and tell him about all the ships I've been on. I'll be an asset on the ship, and my companions can help fight off pirates and sea monsters."

DM: "Roll Persuasion."

This doesn't seem particularly difficult to me either. To me, this seems like a perfectly normal exchange in a game, so I don't know why you think the DM would be injecting any difficulty in this scene.

Why am I rolling anything? I have this background. There's no roll. I just get the passage. What's the stakes here? Is he not going to let me book passage for some reason? Why on earth should I bother making a roll? There's zero chance of failure and no consequences. I want passage, I get passage. Done.

Again, it's the DM throwing up roadblocks for zero reason. Oh we have to have a challenge here. No thanks. Throwing in superfluous skill checks for zero reason.

 

[Hussar]

Because with a good DM/Other Players dynamic, it can become not a waste of time. You might like that character and pull them into the story, for example.

A lot of DMs want to encourage this sort of organic emergent shared storytelling, but have no support or improv basics to make that happen, or the social savvy to see when the players aren't buying in/earn they buy in.

Sadly, eventually a bunch of them get broken of this by pushback and social pressure and turn their backs on emergent collaborative plot and eventually player agency writ large.

There is no emergent shared storytelling here. For there to be shared storytelling, the player needs to have any level of authority in order to be able to share in story telling. But, there's no shared authority. Just the player endlessly being required to jump through arbitrary hoops until the DM is satisfied.

According to the game, I have the authority, as a player, with this background, to declare that X is true in the game. Whatever that X is, doesn't really matter. Maybe it's a safe place to stay for the night, or sending a message, or booking passage on a ship. That's my authority for taking this background. Now, that authority has just been rejected by the DM who has decided, solely based on whatever he or she feels is "appropriate" and in return, I now have to jump through whatever totally arbitrary hoops that DM has decided to plonk down.

Again, there is zero emergent story telling going on here. It's 100% artificial. I MUST now negotiate with the captain (why the captain? Because the DM says so. I have zero input into who I talk to to book passage on the ship) and I MUST succeed on a persuasion check to use the ability that I'm supposed to automatically succeed with.

No, there's nothing "emergent" here. This is the DM roadblocking for his or her own benefit and has absolutely zero to do with me.

 

[Hussar]

When they say no, I assume they know something I, as a player, do not.

In my experience, when they say "no" it's because they feel like there should be some sort of nebulous concept of "challenge" here and feel that if we're not rolling a check for some reason, we're getting things for free.

 

[Lanefan]

No. Because I don't have anything on my character sheet that would remove the requirement for other social interactions. I have a very limited ribbon ability that lets me book passage on ships. That's it. It doesn't apply anywhere else. Or, I have a limited ribbon ability that lets me send messages. Or I have a limited ribbon ability that lets me get a safe place to sleep for the night.

FFS, let the players have their minor ribbon abilities. Like I said earlier, this thread is exactly why those abilities are going away. Just like things like alignment, all it does is cause problems and arguments at the table. So, make it go away, turn things into minor feats and all the arguments stop. Better yet, turn them all into once per day spells and then it's really no problem. After all, magic solves everything.

I'd rather make it go away and have it be roleplayed out each time.

 

[Lanefan]

So, wake me up when we get back to stuff we're actually here to do.

We're here to roleplay, aren't we? In which case, we're doing what we're here to do whether it's talking to a ship captain, talking to a king, or talking to each other.

Because faffing about for an hour to book passage on a ship that is completely superfluous to the campaign (could be any ship, any NPC's, doesn't matter since the point of booking the passage is GOING SOMEWHERE). Because faffing about for an hour trying to send a message when I could simply cast a spell and 15 seconds later get back to the game is just so much fun.

No thanks. I'll stick to not screwing over my players thanks. If they want to role play out sending a message or booking a passage? Great. I can do that. Otherwise, I'm not going to waste the table's time on incredibly tedious, boring, and utterly pointless stuff just so I can pretend that it's "plausible". My ego's nowhere near that important to me.

Even as a player, I wouldn't want the outcome of that find-a-ship action to be guaranteed; unrelated to whether it's roleplayed out or not. Roleplaying it out just gives a more interesting means of resolution than just rolling some dice, which - while fast - is kinda boring.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Note, I've never called you a rules lawyer. I have no idea why you are accusing me of doing so. I don't believe we have directly interacted in ages, @Faolyn. But, I certainly never accused anyone of being a rules lawyer.

How is generally a DM's tool for trying to inject "difficulty" into the scene. I have no idea how to climb a wall. Yet, the DM will inevitably ask me "How do you climb that wall". I dunno. I haven't the foggiest. Nor do I care. Note, I'm also pretty sure that the DM doesn't know either, and is only asking in order to block the action.

How do I get passage on a ship? I honestly don't know. I've never booked passage on a sailing ship in a medieval setting. Is there a travel agent? Expedia website? Let me ask you then. Who should you talk to when booking passage on a ship? The captain? The quartermaster? The owner of the ship, since that's very likely not the captain? Can I just talk to any sailor? I don't know. And netiehr do you.

But, because I don't know, then my character can't do it, according to you. Despite the fact that it says that I CAN do it right there on my character sheet. It doesn't say, "talk to your DM so that your DM may place fifteen hoops for you to jump through in order to book passage". It says, "You can book passage". Done. The point of the exercise is that the passage is booked. I've booked the passage, let's go. We know that you want us on that ship. We want on that ship. Why be coy and pretend like it's not going to happen? I have a thing in my character background that says I get to skip this. Since I took this background and you okayed it, then presumably we're all good with skipping this.

Does that mean I get to skip every single social interaction? Nope. Just this one. I don't care about making this scene more colorful. I just want to get on with the adventure. If I have to "get into a conversation" every time I want to use this ability on my character sheet, well, why is it there? What's the point of it? Anyone can have this conversation. Doesn't have to be me. Let Dave over there "make the scene more colorful". I'll be having a nap until we actually get to the interesting bits where the DM isn't arbitrarily screwing me over just to make things "more colorful".

You are correct: no one knows how to do things in a fantasy setting.
You are incorrect: not every DM asks you to screw you over. Most just want you to add a bit of flavour to the scene.

This is why we (my group at least) play a roleplaying game. To cooperatively tell a story.
If all one has to do is chaining abilities, I would not call it roleplaying game.

On top of that. Nothing you say has to do with background abilites. If a sailor can say: I book a passage, so could anyone else. Only difference: anyone else has to pay a few coins. Or should all other characters always need to play it out, and being a sailor is the only way to circumvent what you call "DM screwing you over"?

 

[Hussar]

I'd rather make it go away and have it be roleplayed out each time.

We're here to roleplay, aren't we? In which case, we're doing what we're here to do whether it's talking to a ship captain, talking to a king, or talking to each other.

Even as a player, I wouldn't want the outcome of that find-a-ship action to be guaranteed; unrelated to whether it's roleplayed out or not. Roleplaying it out just gives a more interesting means of resolution than just rolling some dice, which - while fast - is kinda boring.

Yup, we're here to role play. Does that mean I have to play out, in real time, in first person, every single interaction with every single person we meet? Bugger that. Talking to random NPC who DOES NOT MATTER is pointless. The only reason I "have" to talk to the ship's captain is because the DM is forcing it. I don't want to. The ship's captain is utterly irrelevant to what we are doing. After we arrive at Point B, he will never be seen again.

I have an ability on my character sheet that I chose. I CHOSE this ability and background. I made it perfectly clear by chosing this that I have zero interest in playing this out in detail. If I wanted to play it out in detail and then rely on some randomly chosen DC skill check to ... well... I'm not even sure what the check is supposed to represent... then I would have taken a different background that doesn't have this ability.

Now, if I, the player, CHOOSE to make your ship's captain important, and start talking to him, that's a different story. The player is showing interest? Fantastic. Great. Let's get right to it. I'll move heaven and earth to make that NPC interesting for your character. But, the player shows zero interest and invokes his or her character background ribbon and then I decide, oh, that's not quite good enough. You have to "role play" this interaction to earn that benefit? Yeah, not interested. Go make some other player dance for your enjoyment. I'll be over here on my phone waiting quietly until the game gets back to doing whatever it is we came here to do.

And next time? I will avoid at all costs ANY interaction with NPC's. Because I know that the DM is only doing it to satisfy their own personal preferences. So, I'll rely on spells and concrete mechanics as much as I can. Need to travel? I will search out the first Teleport Circle and then walk. Anything to avoid being forced to run the "Make Me Happy" DM gauntlet of pointlessness.

Again, it's all about pacing. You have no problems wasting my time because you figure that the campaign is going to go for years. Me? Six to 12 months. 50 sessions for a 1-15 level campaign is about right. So, I'm not about to waste everyone's time on some random NPC in a pointless, foregone interaction.

DM: You are in Baldur's Gate and you need to get to Waterdeep in order to do X.
Player: Ok, I book passage on a ship using my Sailor Background.
DM: Ok, two weeks pass, you are now in Waterdeep. Let's get on with the adventure. Was there anything you wanted to do in those two weeks aboard ship?
Players: No, not really.
DM: Ok, sure. You're in Waterdeep....

THAT'S the pacing I'm looking for.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

No. Because I don't have anything on my character sheet that would remove the requirement for other social interactions. I have a very limited ribbon ability that lets me book passage on ships. That's it. It doesn't apply anywhere else. Or, I have a limited ribbon ability that lets me send messages. Or I have a limited ribbon ability that lets me get a safe place to sleep for the night.

FFS, let the players have their minor ribbon abilities. Like I said earlier, this thread is exactly why those abilities are going away.

So at least this whole thread has a useful purpose...

Just like things like alignment, all it does is cause problems and arguments at the table. So, make it go away, turn things into minor feats and all the arguments stop. Better yet, turn them all into once per day spells and then it's really everything.

Turning everything into a spell is not nice either. Ribbon abilities are not bad at all.

It is just the way some abilites(and spells) are supposed to work: 100% all the time.

Spells like tiny hut are annoying, because they make resting 100% safe.

Making it 90 safe? Ok. No problem. But more than that and parties can rest wherever they want without any risk. Which trivializes some things.

Some people will say: but this is exactly what they should do: allow everyone to rest without thinking about boring things like deciding who takes which watch and so on. And without the DM being able to screw you over by attacking you when you want to sleep...

I think the false assumption in all you write is that DMs and Players are adversaries. They are not. They should tell a story together. And abilities that take away DM agency completely are as bad as abilities that take away player agency completely. Because they diminish the possibilities to play the game together.

So instead of adding abilities to screw over each other it will be better to write a good DM's Guide to actually teach DM's to not screw over players constantly. Teach them to play nice. Don't start an arm's race.*

*once DM's start being unfair, players search for unfair abilites themselves. Then the DM starts to look for openings, targeting specific weaknesses. Which seems even more unfair to the players, who now try to close those weaknesses. And then the rules lawyering starts.