Maybe it just stood out to me in your phrasing... but don't you find it weird to actively avoid the resolution mechanic of a game?
Looking at it, "they have the possibility of failure", that makes it sound like by getting a check called for... the player has somehow failed. I'm not trying to say that is how you resolve things, I understand you only call for checks when those three criteria are met, no need to repeat them, but take a step back and think about this in a pure sit down to play any game in the world context.
You are warning players when they are about to use the main resolution mechanic of the game. By that resolution mechanic being called on, you are allowing the possibility of failure to enter the game. It is purely negative. There is no upside.
That's weird right? It is a d20 system, but rolling the dice is the worst outcome for the player, they should be warned, prepared, have the option to back out and find another way. They should not roll dice.
It just never struck me before that was the type of mindset you had. It just never registered, because I've never considered using the primary resolution mechanic of the game to be a bad
I've been spelling my mindset out pretty explicitly. Yes, a check is an undesirable outcome of an action in my games. If dice are getting rolled it's because
is getting real, we're in a situation with a real possibility of failure and meaningful stakes. If possible, you want to avoid having to roll dice by taking precautions ahead of time, and employing approaches that minimize chance of failure. When the dice do need to be rolled, you want to expend resources to mitigate the chance of failure. I wouldn't say it's necessarily the worst outcome, because there is still a chance of success as well, and probably a pretty good one if you are employing tactics that play to your character's strengths and using abilities and resources to help improve your chances. But if there isn't dramatic tension involved, there doesn't need to be a dice roll in my opinion.
Another point of order here. I imagine you're going to see this as me being pedantic again, like how I differentiate between "action" and "check", but like with the difference between an action and a check, this is a fundamental part of my DMing philosophy that you will struggle to understand my DM philosophy if you dismiss out of hand.
Rolling dice is not the primary resolution mechanic of the game, in my view. The primary resolution mechanic is using a human brain to imagine a fictional scenario and determine the likely outcome of the action within that scenario.
If, and
only if the outcome can not be determined by this method alone, then rolling dice is a tool to help make that determination.
That's why a "Athletics check" is not enough information for me to resolve the action. That doesn't give me a clear picture of what is going on, so I cannot properly employ the primary resolution mechanic. I don't know if it is appropriate to call for a check yet or not, because I cannot picture what your character is doing in the physical world and use my brain to determine if what you're doing might work, not work, and/or have consequences.
But in this exact conversation thread, we aren't talking about goal and approach. We are talking about whether or not giving players information on the consequences of their actions leads to better and more dramatic roleplaying. That has nothing to do with how the players approach the problem and all about how much we tell them.
So why does my experience with how the players present their actions to me matter? Do you think that because my players do not always present their actions in goal and approach that I've never had them attempt to solve a dangerous situation? That they have never entered into a dramatic moment where their success or failure could change the course of the game? Do I have direct experience with these sorts of situations or am I simply theorizing what players may find engaging and exciting was your exact question. It has nothing to do with style.
Giving players information on the potential consequences of their actions is kind of a fundamental aspect of the DMing style that I have been referring to as "goal and approach," or occasionally "the middle path." But ok, fine, forget that style for a second. My question is, is your disagreement with the assertion that giving players information about the consequences of their actions leads to better and more dramatic roleplaying based on experience employing this technique (the one where you tell your players the potential consequences of their actions) and finding that it did not lead to better and more dramatic roleplaying than when you don't give said information? Or are you basing it only on your experience running your game not doing that, and this leading to a level of drama in your roleplaying that you are satisfied with?
I must assume you have entirely forgotten the where this chandelier example came from, otherwise you I don't see how this could possibly be a "Gotcha". To remind you of the scenario.
You are standing in on the second floor of a mansion, guards are charging up the stairs and you need to escape. You see a window and a chandelier, across from which is a ledge leading somewhere else, in addition to the stairs leading down. What do you do?
It is possible that by deciding to jump on the chandelier and use it as a means of travel, the player might have to roll a check. It seems likely, chandelier jumping is dangerous stuff. IF they fail this check, then perhaps instead of "you miss" it could be that they land heavily on one side, and with a snap the chandelier breaks from the ceiling and crashes to the ground.
There is no gotcha here, the player can't spend 10 minutes checking the stability of the chandelier. It is a viable option, but a failed check might lead to it breaking, and the player doesn't know it could break. The challenge has nothing to do with the chandelier, excepting that it might be a solution, the challenge is "escape from the guards" and there is no gotcha in allowing the player to make a choice. They could try tumbling past the guards and sliding down the stair's railing. They could jump out the window. They could teleport somewhere. They could scream and throw a table and scare the guards off. But each of those actions might also fail in some way, and if you jump on a chandelier and land wrong, you might break it.
The gotcha to me is in justifying "the character couldn't possibly know the chandelier might break if they fail their check" with "The chandelier looks sturdy enough to support the character's weight, but the beams supporting it have rotted in such a way that is not immediately obvious to the player." You are using your own choice to hide the details the character would need for the player to make an informed decision as an excuse for not giving the player enough details to make an informed decision.
It is my opinion that if a player is being asked to make a decision, they should always be sufficiently informed to not make a bad choice based on lack of information. If the player has to choose between trying to roll past the guards and trying to swing to the other side, they should also know that if they fail to roll past the guards, the guards will catch them, and if they fail to swing to the other side, they will fall. It is in my opinion the DM's responsibility to make sure that information is accessible to the player. If "there's no way the character could know" something that they would need to know to make an informed decision, then the DM has failed in that responsibility. As the person who created the scenario, the DM should set the scenario up in such a way that they character
could know any important details.
Yes, there's no way for the character to know about the rotten beams. So, the DM shouldn't be using rotten beams here. They should be using a chandelier that is obviously not sturdy enough to hold the character's weight for more than a couple seconds.
If you decide to mess with a clearly dangerous magical circle, to attempt to deactivate it in a safe manner, and it fails, how are you not dealing with the consequences of your decisions?
If you were not made aware that a dangerous magical disturbance was a possible outcome of your action, then a dangerous magical disturbance that occurs as a result of your action is not a consequence of your
decision. You did not
decide to accept that risk, you walked into it blindly.
Honestly, if you make the decision to mess with dangerous things, no matter what bad thing happens, is that not a consequence of your decision? Doing more research into the energies of the circle could tell you something, it could not, depends on the exact circumstances, it might just tell you "chaotic magical energies are held in place by this circle". Can you know the results of "chaotic magical energies"? Does not knowing invalidate your decision to try and disperse it?
I would say "chaotic magical energies are held in place by this circle" to be sufficient telegraphing. If the player knows this, and still decides to take an action that has a potential risk of releasing those chaotic magical energies, I consider it common courtesy to give the player an "are you sure?" To remind them, "ok, but if you fail, the chaotic magical energies will be released."
That is an informed decision. If the player
decides to accept that risk and fails, that's on them. Simply saying "I make an Arcana check to disable the circle! Oh no, natural 1..." and being slapped with consequences for that natural 1 isn't an informed decision. The consequences of that natural 1 aren't on the player, they're on the dice, because the player didn't knowingly accept the risk, they blindly guessed that Arcana was the right one of the 18 buttons on their character sheet to push, and the dice landed on the "bad things happen" side.
Sometimes not knowing is equally fun to knowing. Sometimes it is more fun. Sometimes it is less fun.
I disagree, but fun is subjective, so if that's more fun to you, awesome.
Regardless, if you declare an action, your character has taken an action. If there is a negative result from that action, you are dealing with the consequences of that action. Yes, if I say someone is yelling for help, you declare you run to see what is going on, and I tell you you take fire damage from the burning building they just ran into, that is bad DMing. But your decision to try and disable a magic circle humming with energy is not invalidated if when you fail I decide to teleport the entire party to the Far North instead of having it all unleash in a massive fireball like you expected. It is clear that in failing to properly disperse a large amount of magical energy something would happen, but not knowing exactly what doesn't seem like it should ruin your fun. Your character can't see the future after all.
It's clear
to me that in failing to disperse a large amount of magical energy something would happen. I don't want to assume that it is clear to the players. As I said in my earlier post, I don't think it's necessary to tell the players
exactly what will happen. "Failing will release the large amount of magical energy that is being contained in this circle, you still want to go through with it?" is perfectly sufficient. Now I know for certain that the player is aware that this action is potentially dangerous. If they want to try it anyway, that's an informed decision. If they decide to do some more research to try to figure out what might happen, that is an informed decision. But if I don't tell them, "hey, something bad might happen if you fail," I don't know that they're making the decision to try to disrupt the circle with full information. They might think that this action might just succeed, or might just fail, or if we're playing in a game where dice rolls are sometimes called for despite the action not having consequences for failure, then they might think that failing will just lead to nothing happening. I'm not a mind-reader and I don't like to make assumptions, so I'm going to make sure my players are aware of the consequences before I make them commit to the action.
