D&D 5E Modeling Uncertainty

[Warmaster Horus]

Remember that the DM is the lens through which the players see their environment. Keeping that lens from becoming too transparent or too opaque is a delicate balance. Your job as a DM is to give accurate perceptions (even if they're wrong, there's a reason) to the players so they can make good decisions. Perception, Investigate and Insight skills represent the PC's capabilities in assimilating the vast amount of data that they get in every situation. While some players are capable of placing themselves in a mindspace that allows them to game out a perception situation articulately, many can't and have to depend on their PC's capabilities to see them through.

This thread started on a premise of how to add some uncertainty to open Skill Check rolls, when the players can infer a certainty of success based on an excellent roll. I've had characters with Passive Perceptions over 25 at my table. Yes, it makes it hard to obfuscate details from the party where you were hoping to provide a surprise or conceal a valuable clue. But you need to honor that. The player used resources to make that PC the way they are for a reason and the rules support it. However there are play problems when these resolutions are obvious to the players. I'd rather have players going, "Well, Deadeye is usually right about these things, so if she says the door isn't trapped, I'll open it", rather than, "Well, Deadeye got a 28 Perception roll, so let's open that door."

There have been some good ideas on how to make that happen here, so that's my take away thus far.

 

[Guest 6801328]

What do your players think about the prospect of having increased uncertainty in their games?

It varies.

 

[Satyrn]

Honestly I don't think this issue about declaring rolls vs. describing intent is really relevant to the problem I'm trying to address.

Player: "I'm going to study the guard's face and see if I think he's lying."
DM: "Ok, what exactly are you going to look for?"
Player: "Um, I want to see if he makes eye contact or looks nervous."
DM: "He makes eye contact, but never for long. Make an Insight roll..."

I feel like the second half of that conversation is unnecessary, from my own preference on how to run the game and from what I understand roll-then-narrate means. The DM is putting the onus of knowing how to detect lies onto the player instead of using the character's abilities.

Where the DM is asking how the player thinks a lying person would act, I would ask for a check. Then based on the roll I'd tell the player some degree of "he's nervous and not making eye contact."


. . . And suddenly I want to insert an NPC who always lies, then tell the players right up that he's a damn dirty liar and see what fun ensues.

 

[wedgeski]

The reason I want uncertainty in some situations is that it's what my character would be experiencing, and I feel more immersed if I'm feeling the same thing. Do I know if I climbed the wall successfully? Yes...I'm standing on the top. But do I know for sure whether the guard is lying? No. My character might be very insightful, but he doesn't know with 100% certainty. And if my subsequent decisions depend very much on whether or not he's lying, I want that decision to contain at least some amount of worry. I want the decision to be interesting. If, however you choose to implement it, the result of a skill test is that the DM tells me he's lying, then there's no interesting subsequent decision.

I couldn't be more in agreement with this statement. Uncertainty is part of the fun. I don't know what's behind that door, but I love that the DM does know. I don't know why the princess lied to me, but I love that the DM has obviously set something up behind the scenes. I don't know what's over those mountains, but I love that the DM has drawn a map and is hiding it behind his screen.

With my Insight score, and the modifiers my DM gave me for knowing that the guard owes money to the pit boss, I might be very confident that what the DM tells me of his motives is true. But I will not be *certain*, and losing that edge would detract from the game for me.

This is a terrific discussion that I hope continues.

 

[iserith]

I couldn't be more in agreement with this statement. Uncertainty is part of the fun. I don't know what's behind that door, but I love that the DM does know. I don't know why the princess lied to me, but I love that the DM has obviously set something up behind the scenes. I don't know what's over those mountains, but I love that the DM has drawn a map and is hiding it behind his screen.

I think that's a different sort of uncertainty than the one the basic conversation of the game plus standard mechanical resolution brings to the table.

With my Insight score, and the modifiers my DM gave me for knowing that the guard owes money to the pit boss, I might be very confident that what the DM tells me of his motives is true. But I will not be *certain*, and losing that edge would detract from the game for me.

This is a terrific discussion that I hope continues.

Something to consider: If players really love the uncertainty, why bother to trying to angle for an Insight check at all?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Or at the very least you will turn players that were rolling just to see if they got lucky into players that are providing in-character reason for the lucky roll

Exactly. Of course, with knowledges, those reasons probably don't change a whole lot. The character who rolls to see what he knows about the nature of incanabula because he's a sagacious librarian will still be a sagacious librarian when he rolls to see what he knows about the history of a ruined castle.

Once in a blue moon a PC might have recently come across some source of knowledge and be able to reference /that/. Presumably for a bonus if it's genuinely applicable.

Just the ones that don't make sense.

"Making sense" is a bar that's not always the same height. And it always applies. While I have no issue with your preferred technique, I don't see it as a solution to the piling-on issue with skills. It may reduce the number of players piling on, just as it may reduce the number of skill checks made by players across the board. So, not saying there'd be no impact on the issue, just that it's not an 'upstream solution.'

...

Elfcrusher's general idea though, addresses another player motivation in making or not making a skill check - consequences for failure. Piling-on is most practical when there's no penalty for failure. Group skill checks do make failures meaningful, though only in the mechanical sense of going into determining and overall pass/fail. Elfcrusher's possible mechanics, though, in generating uncertainty about answers might result in a more interesting set of consequences...

First, I believe more routine tasks should be handwaved by the DM with no roll required. Totally with you there.

It's not even 'handwaving' in the case of 5e, 'narrating success' like that is a 100% legit part of the basic resolution mechanic.

Second, I think that despite stating and restating this, the point is still being missed: I am talking exclusively about skill tests in which it's not possible to know an answer with certainty. I am talking about things that involve judgment and intuition, not hard skills. So, no, tool usage would not ever be subject to this system.

Nod. I think it's an important point. If a player declares an action where success/failure will be obvious, there's no need to resort to such a variant. The player will know if his character jumped the chasm or not. He may not know if he disarmed the trap or not, until he takes the action that will trigger it.

Maybe a better version would be to use the die that is closest to the character's total modifier (e.g. stat + proficiency), rounding up. So if you've got a 16 stat and a +2 proficiency, your die is a d6. And then on a crit the die isn't rolled; it's 100% certainty.

'Realistically' (ick), better-trained people perform tasks more consistently. Also, more obscurely, less-knowledgeable people tend to overestimate their understanding of a subject. So if you really have no idea what you're doing, you may well have no idea when you're really screwed up.

So it might make sense to vary the die size inversely with proficiency bonus, maybe:

+0 ... d12
+2 ... d8
+3-4 .. d6
+5-6 .. d4

 

[iserith]

"Making sense" is a bar that's not always the same height. And it always applies.

Every group will differ, but each should have some idea of what of makes sense to them, given the context. It helps if the DM isn't one to demand a One True Solution to a given challenge.

While I have no issue with your preferred technique, I don't see it as a solution to the piling-on issue with skills. It may reduce the number of players piling on, just as it may reduce the number of skill checks made by players across the board. So, not saying there'd be no impact on the issue, just that it's not an 'upstream solution.'

I can only tell you what I see in play and I think there is a correlation between me not having this issue (despite a wide circle of players) and how I handle (or rather the game means for us to handle) these things.

 

[77IM]

I like the original idea quite a bit.

But then I realized that I already solve this problem a different way, just by making the roll a contest and keeping my side of the contest secret. The classic example: if you roll well on Wisdom (Insight), then I'll tell the player, "Either he's telling the truth or he's a really excellent liar." This works naturally well for things like Stealth vs. Perception too, as well as various Charisma checks where you might not know right away whether your influence succeeded. It's a little trickier to rationalize for Knowledge checks, but can still be used. The player knows they rolled well and even if I tell them the opponent's modifier it's pretty rare for the PC to roll so well that they absolutely know they succeeded.

(I did not read the entirety of the thread, so apologize if this approach has already been discussed.)

 

[Tony Vargas]

I can only tell you what I see in play and I think there is a correlation between me not having this issue (despite a wide circle of players) and how I handle (or rather the game means for us to handle) these things.

Nod. Not denying the correlation in your case. I can certainly see how adding requirements to earn a check would cut down on the number of checks requested. I'd be concerned that it'd also discourage players from declaring actions when such would be desirable (from a game-play, not necessarily a 'making sense' perspective - though you might well see those as identical or inextricable, I do not), as well as when it'd be gratuitous.

 

[Satyrn]

Nod. Not denying the correlation in your case. I can certainly see how adding requirements to earn a check would cut down on the number of checks requested.

In before [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] points out that he'd consider having to roll as "losing," that what the player should be aiming for is earning automatic success.