D&D 5E Modeling Uncertainty

[Guest 6801328]

I'm a little confused. If the player rolls a 23, and I follow your original suggestion and the "special die" comes up a 1 so then I lie to the player, does that also reduce to either 0, 50/50, or 100? Assuming you're going to say it doesn't, how is it different than I secretly determine a DC of 24, they roll 23, and I lie to the player? Either way, the player sees a really good roll, and is given a lie.

The difference is that the player knows the underlying mechanics. If the player gets a really good roll, and sees the DM roll the secret die, he knows exactly what his odds are, which will be something like 75% if a d4 was used. (Well, if he didn't know the original TN then he might be guessing at the exact odds, but he knows it will be 75% or greater.)

Contrast this with the DM attempting to nudge the conclusion toward the correct one without making it obvious. There are no underlying mechanics, so the player has nothing from which to derive predictions.

In my case, the lie is because they misunderstood the situation to begin with, and they were dealing with a master rogue only posing as a guard, and thus the lie is justified. (If there wasn't such a setup, the 23 would have been a runaway success.) In your case, some dice the GM rolled in secret just ripped them off. Is that better? (I would claim, no.)

I think a critical difference between us (and between me and many of the posters in this thread) is that I inherently don't believe a skill roll should determine things that can't be known with certainty. Not just because it's unrealistic but because I think the uncertainty is fun.

So, yes, if you believe that a successful Insight roll should function as a Detect Lie spell, then under my system you should feel ripped off.

In any case, the players always have their own roll to refer to. If it was high or low, they have a pretty good idea of success or failure (but normally not 0 or 100). If their roll in the middle, yeah, it may be more 50/50. But they can accurately gauge their own confidence in their performance! If they roll a 12, they may figure the DC was probably 10-ish, but not feel confident enough to take drastic action on that conclusion. If they roll a 6, even if I tell them the truth they're not going to act on it. Regardless, if they felt the social interaction was insufficiently conclusive, they might look for some other action to either support or refute their conclusion from that social interaction, or look for something besides the social interaction to support or refute their intended plan of action. But that's OK -- the first round of combat didn't resolve it, so you go on to a second.

Referencing the bold part, my question is: what determines what information you give them with a 6? Presumably it was below the secret DC, so does that mean you tell them a lie? When you set the high DC for the master rogue they also got false information, so it's clearly not determined by the absolute value of the roll, nor by the gap between the DC and the roll. So is up to the DM's judgment? If so, that's where I have a problem, because if the player doesn't know the "rules" then they won't be able to judge the probability, and from their point of view it's effectively 50/50.

Now, the secret DC could work if the delta between the roll and the DC determined a probability, and a second secret die were rolled against that probability. But at that point we have a second secret roll anyway, so the secret DC is unnecessary.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Your mechanic is:
Roll to see if you succeed.
If you DO succeed, roll to see if you still fail anyway.

If someone is competent and apt at a skill (ie - a starting character with proficiency and a 16+ stat), then they have a roughly 80% chance to succeed at an easy task. Which in itself is ridiculous, since an easy task is "something joe blow can succeed at half the time" and a proficiency requires ~2000 hours of active training (in the case of tool usage).

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

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.

Under your rules, they then have an 80% of 25% chance to super-duper fail the check and get incorrect information while being told it's correct.

The use of the word "information" is misleading here. We are talking about hunches and guesses. Is the guard lying? Which passage should I take? Do I cut the blue wire or the red wire?

Now, any one of these *might* be known with certainty as a 1 in a 1,000 thing. But let's make it 1 in 20: if you roll a natural 20, you succeed 100%: it turns out the person the guard is claiming to have been in a raw turtle egg eating contest with at the time of the heist is your cousin, and you know for a fact that she is allergic to turtle eggs, so he's lying.

But in general those sorts of things are not known with certainty, they are guessed at, based on clues or intuition or whatever.

And the chance that they super-duper fail gets worse the better they are at doing the task.

Either I explained it poorly or you misread it, but that's the opposite of the case. The bigger the margin with which you beat the DC the lower the chance that your success gets turned into a secret failure.

That said - you're still not going to decide that despite being an expert you won't even consider a basic question for fear of getting it wrong and not knowing, which is what your system simulates.

You're misunderstanding either the rules or the math. I don't know in what way, so I can't clarify.

Um, yeah, it does. You have to come up with plausible false evidence. Which you then give to someone who succeeded on their check.

The "um, yeah, it does" smells suspiciously like snark. If you felt I've been snarky to you and are reciprocating then I apologize; that was not my intent.

In any event, my system does not require plausible false evidence. It's all in the dice. That's its strength. Again, I think you are misunderstanding how it works but I don't know in what way.

 

[Saeviomagy]

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

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.

I create a trap/bomb/rope etc. Will it work the first time I use it?

The use of the word "information" is misleading here. We are talking about hunches and guesses. Is the guard lying? Which passage should I take? Do I cut the blue wire or the red wire?

Now, any one of these *might* be known with certainty as a 1 in a 1,000 thing. But let's make it 1 in 20: if you roll a natural 20, you succeed 100%: it turns out the person the guard is claiming to have been in a raw turtle egg eating contest with at the time of the heist is your cousin, and you know for a fact that she is allergic to turtle eggs, so he's lying.

But in general those sorts of things are not known with certainty, they are guessed at, based on clues or intuition or whatever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizards_Project

Blue wire/red wire is a certainty: the pre-work to arriving at the decision is an investigation of the device, and once you've done it, either you fail at the electrical engineering check (and have to guess OR get it wrong) or you succeed and you know for a fact that it's the red wire. You will still probably have a tense moment when you cut the wire, simply because the stakes are so high.

Similarly: left tunnel right tunnel might be something inscrutible: in which case don't allow a check! Or there might be some reasonable way to work it out (like using a map) at which point a roll might be used. What you shouldn't do here is give someone a roll and then when they succeed change the result to a worse-than-failure.

Either I explained it poorly or you misread it, but that's the opposite of the case. The bigger the margin with which you beat the DC the lower the chance that your success gets turned into a secret failure.

Success chance of 50%(ie 11-20)
25% chance of 1d4(on 11-15)
25% chance of 1d6(on 16-20)

VS

Success chance of 75%(ie 6-20)
25% chance of 1d4 (6-10)
25% chance of 1d6 (11-15)
25% chance of 1d10 (16-20)

I don't even need to run the numbers: the guy with a 75% chance to succeed at the roll has to roll the same secondary dice as the guy with the 50% chance PLUS a further 25% chance that he has to roll a 1d10. He's MORE likely to end up with false information simply because he's MORE likely to succeed at the roll. His skill is reducing the chance that he gets no information, and a portion of that chance is going to getting a completely wrong result.

You're misunderstanding either the rules or the math. I don't know in what way, so I can't clarify.

I'm reading the math you put forward. I think you've not actually worked out the probability of the various situations.

The "um, yeah, it does" smells suspiciously like snark. If you felt I've been snarky to you and are reciprocating then I apologize; that was not my intent.

Sorry, but you seem to be denying a fundamental requirement of your method. Imagine me saying it in a tone of confusion. I am genuinely confused as to how you think that a DM who is giving out a false result for a skill check will not have to think of a plausible false result.

In any event, my system does not require plausible false evidence. It's all in the dice. That's its strength. Again, I think you are misunderstanding how it works but I don't know in what way.

So in the trivial example "is the guard lying?" you have to say no when the answer is yes. Trivial though that is, it's still plausible false information. If the question were more complex, you've got to come up with something to say that is suitably more complex.

 

[Satyrn]

I wanna offer some sort of contribution to this wonderfully civil discussion, but there's nothing particular of note that comes to mind.

I think whatever you wind up doing, @Elfcrusher, will work out well enough for you. And I'd say you might as well implement what you've got, just keep in mind that you always have the option to trash it later on if it becomes a hassle.

And I'm gonna guess that that it will become a hassle for you well before @iserith's concern is realized - that the uncertainty created will actually lead to the players distrusting you, which is a result I think is possible.

But the hassle of rolling that extra die is what would irritate me as a DM. Not the actual rolling, but having to decide each time if this situation calls for it, and what about this one, and the next. It's just another decision I have to make about mechanics, another ball I have to juggle. I say meh to that. But that's me.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I create a trap/bomb/rope etc. Will it work the first time I use it?

Yes. Not at all the kind of situation I'm describing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizards_Project

Cool, so even the 1 in 1,000 sort of lie detecting savant (I haven't read the actual research so I'll take it on face value) only has an 80% chance of success. Totally confirms why this system makes sense.

Blue wire/red wire is a certainty: the pre-work to arriving at the decision is an investigation of the device, and once you've done it, either you fail at the electrical engineering check (and have to guess OR get it wrong) or you succeed and you know for a fact that it's the red wire. You will still probably have a tense moment when you cut the wire, simply because the stakes are so high.

Ok, I wasn't specific enough about the scenario. I was thinking of the movie version, where you've got 7 seconds to decide, and no time to work through the schematic.

Similarly: left tunnel right tunnel might be something inscrutible: in which case don't allow a check! Or there might be some reasonable way to work it out (like using a map) at which point a roll might be used. What you shouldn't do here is give someone a roll and then when they succeed change the result to a worse-than-failure.

As long as everybody understands the rule then a roll that beats the DC is not succeeding. Yet.

Success chance of 50%(ie 11-20)
25% chance of 1d4(on 11-15)
25% chance of 1d6(on 16-20)

VS

Success chance of 75%(ie 6-20)
25% chance of 1d4 (6-10)
25% chance of 1d6 (11-15)
25% chance of 1d10 (16-20)

I don't even need to run the numbers: the guy with a 75% chance to succeed at the roll has to roll the same secondary dice as the guy with the 50% chance PLUS a further 25% chance that he has to roll a 1d10. He's MORE likely to end up with false information simply because he's MORE likely to succeed at the roll. His skill is reducing the chance that he gets no information, and a portion of that chance is going to getting a completely wrong result.

I'm reading the math you put forward. I think you've not actually worked out the probability of the various situations.

Ah, now I see what you are saying. Yes the person who is more likely to succeed is therefore also more likely to be wrong. The easiest way to demonstrate that is by pointing out that the guy with no chance to succeed has no chance to get the wrong answer; at worst he will get no answer.

I referred to this earlier; ideally I would like a failing roll to also have the possibility of becoming a false answer, but I don't see how that's possible if the player is allowed to roll their own dice, which was one of my design goals.

At the same time, while this result is counterintuitive I don't think it really affects gameplay. While those with higher skill are more likely to get an incorrect answer because they succeed more, the proportion of their successes which are false successes will be lower. It's the absence of the "false failures" that makes it look wonky, but it doesn't create an incentive to keep your skill low, or not attempt things. It's sort of analogous (philosophically if not mathematically) to saying that Mitt Romney pays less income tax than his secretary. No, he pays several orders of magnitude more tax; it's his tax rate that's lower.

Sorry, but you seem to be denying a fundamental requirement of your method. Imagine me saying it in a tone of confusion. I am genuinely confused as to how you think that a DM who is giving out a false result for a skill check will not have to think of a plausible false result.

So in the trivial example "is the guard lying?" you have to say no when the answer is yes. Trivial though that is, it's still plausible false information. If the question were more complex, you've got to come up with something to say that is suitably more complex.

OK, here I thought you were saying that the DM would have to provide the information that leads to the incorrect conclusion. I.e., "the guard is visibly sweating." But maybe you're just saying that if the correct answer is 42, the DM is going to have to pick a different, false number to provide.

Can you give me a more complex scenario? The scenarios I'm thinking of have discrete and obvious options: if the answer is "snip the red wire" then the false success is "snip the blue wire". If the answer is "take the left passage" then the false success is "take the right passage". I suppose if there are more wires or passages then the DM will have to pick one, but that shouldn't be too taxing.

Also, let me repeat again that I'm proposing this only for specific scenarios, where the character would be going off of intuition or hunch, not hard knowledge. If the player is rolling History to remember the nickname of a long-dead Archduke then I probably wouldn't invoke this rule, so I wouldn't need an incorrect nickname queued up.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I wanna offer some sort of contribution to this wonderfully civil discussion, but there's nothing particular of note that comes to mind.

I think whatever you wind up doing, @Elfcrusher, will work out well enough for you. And I'd say you might as well implement what you've got, just keep in mind that you always have the option to trash it later on if it becomes a hassle.

And I'm gonna guess that that it will become a hassle for you well before @iserith's concern is realized - that the uncertainty created will actually lead to the players distrusting you, which is a result I think is possible.

But the hassle of rolling that extra die is what would irritate me as a DM. Not the actual rolling, but having to decide each time if this situation calls for it, and what about this one, and the next. It's just another decision I have to make about mechanics, another ball I have to juggle. I say meh to that. But that's me.

All excellent points. In general I'm in favor of less dice complexity, not more.

Honestly it's the computation of which size die to use that to me seems the most onerous.

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.

I don't think it would be hard to decide when to use it, except maybe in some rare edge cases.

 

[Satyrn]

No, it's not hard. I'm just lazy.

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.

This I like.

But I think it could be simplified further:
Not Proficient: d4
Remarkable Athlete (or the like, round up or down) d6
Proficient: d8
Expertise: d12

(Not that Remarkable Athlete is ever likely to apply here)

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

When you do this, in my experience, you'll have the "right" amount of attempts to recall lore instead of everyone at the table hoping to make a roll and get lucky.

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 (which, to me, is better know as "role-playing").

To borrow the example of the party that includes a sagacious librarian (the type of character my wife would play), and say that another party member is a well-meaning alcoholic looking for a big score to set him up for life (the type of character our friend Nick would play). When it comes to the knowledge check, Nick might just decide he feels like rolling to see if he gets lucky, so he says "I think back on the few bits of knowledgeable chatting with the librarian while we camp that aren't completely obscured by alcohol to see if any of them are relevant to X"

 

[machineelf]

Proposal:

When using a skill to determine if a character knows something, but that "knowing" it would realistically mean believing, on a success the DM makes an additional secret roll. If this roll produces a 1, the DM gives the player the wrong answer. The die used starts at d4 and goes up 1 step for each 5 points above the DC that was rolled. If the original roll was a natural 20, the DM rolls 2 dice (of the appropriate type) and only lies if both come up 1.

I don't hate your solution. There might be something there.

But two possible problems. It might add too much extra complexity for a simple knowledge skill roll. Your players also need to know about the rule and how it works for them to get the full meaning and experience of it.

The other (bigger) problem is that you will end up punishing a player for succeeding on a skill roll. You aren't giving them a small chance of success when they fail the roll (and why would you?), so you end up lessening their skill ability by some (considerable) percentage -- about 25% of the time on most "successes," they still fail. That's pretty big.

 

[machineelf]

This is the way I handle skill checks. I'm not claiming it's the best way, but it works for me and my group (this is going to be longish, but hopefully worth it).

The only roll done behind the screen is an insight check. If they succeed, then they are told correct information. If they fail, they are told incorrect information. The answer is never "you don't know," because they already didn't know before the insight roll. Making the roll is tantamount to forming an opinion, either correct or incorrect. So they form an opinion. This seems to work very well, especially when multiple people make insight checks.

Ex:
Char 1: "Do I know if the guard is lying?"
Char 2: "Yeah, do I know too?"
DM makes rolls behind the screen.
DM: (To Char 1) "You believe he is telling the truth." (To Char 2) "You don't trust him, he seems shady to you."

See the beauty of it? They don't know which character rolled well and which didn't. This teaches the group to trust the wiser character among the group (with the higher insight skill).

All other knowledge skill checks I let my players make (because rolling is fun). But there are still certain problems to tackle.

What about history or nature-type checks? Trying to figure out some history of some ruins they encountered, or trying to figure out what they now about a certain monster?

I just let them roll. They will either be given the information or not. It's ok for them to know if they succeeded. (I usually set a DC of 10 for general knowledge of the monster, a DC of 15 for basic traits and strengths of the monster, and set a DC of 20 for weaknesses for the monster.)

That's great, but what about the "pig-pile" problem (I love that name, whoever came up with it) where they all roll individually, greatly increasing their chances of succeeding? This is where I adopt the approach someone mentioned where either one person makes the check, or its a group check and the average of the rolls tells the information. If you just let everyone roll individually, then what's the point? Someone's going to beat the DC in most cases, so it's an effort in futility.

One caveat to this is that there are some non-knowledge skill checks were you want to let people individually try. Like a strength check and trying to break down a door, for example. In this case, I let somebody try. If they fail to break down the door, then it makes sense that with more people trying, then they have a better shot at doing it. So, only someone with a higher strength modifier than the original attemptee can try (or assist, in which case one of the characters gets advantage to the roll.) But if someone with a lower strength score tries by themselves, then I assume they will not be able to break down the door that the previous character with a higher strength score couldn't break down.

Ex.
Char 1 (with 15 strength): "I try to break the door down."
DM: "Ok, roll a strength-athletics check."
Char 1: "Oh, I rolled a 10, with +2 mod, so a 12."
DM: "You give a kick to the door, but it's solid and not going anywhere."
Char 2 (with a 10 strength): "I want to try."
DM: "Ok, you put your shoulder into it, but you're not as strong as Char 1, so you can't get it budged either." (no roll required.)
Char 3 (with 18 strength): "Oh, I'm the strongest of us, let me try. ... I roll a 13 with a +4 mod, so a 17."
DM: "The door is indeed very well built, but you put everything into it, and your whole weight behind it, and you know the door open and nearly off its hinges."

The only other time I let my players re-roll is if they say they forgot that they have a crowbar they want to try (which gives them advantage), or if they come up with another clever way to try to improve upon their initial attempt. There is still a potential problem when your players realize they can try to scale up (let the weakest person try first, then the next strongest, and so on, thus giving them several tries). The only solution I have for this is to just make it clear that they shouldn't do that for the sake of preventing power-gaming, and explain that we want to be role-players, not roll-players. Hopefully if you have a cool group, they will understand. This shouldn't come up often anyway, though.

What about picking locks or disarming traps? I only let people skilled in thieves tools try in the first place. And if more than one person is skilled in thieves tools, then I use the "only one check or a group check" rule.

Finally, perception and investigation checks. The problem here, if you let your players roll instead of rolling behind the screen, is that one will ask if they see anything unusual in the room, or know how the secret door works. They roll low and fail. The other players know they failed, and know there might be something in the room that was missed, so they ask to roll (this subtly leads to a power-gaming mentality even in players who normally aren't).

Here again, my only solution is to go with the rule of a group check if more than one person makes the check.