D&D 5E Players Self-Assigning Rolls

[Lanefan]

Wait, a bear set the trap?!? We're all doomed.

We grow our bears smart in these parts, bucko. Roll for initiative!

 

[Ovinomancer]

We grow our bears smart in these parts, bucko. Roll for initiative!

Sure, but these smart bears are setting bear traps? Something doesn't add up.

 

[jasper]

Wait, a bear set the bear trap?!? We're all doomed.

yes Smokey got tired of your smoking and not stripping your filters. And Yogi was tired of you boo boo with the picnic baskets. You have gone a bridge to fur!

 

[Ovinomancer]

Again this seems to me to be a potential drawback to the "goal" approach for some. The fact of a stated goal *can* be useful for helping to clear up an ambiguous description of a task but when it is used in this way, as a block if you will, it becomes more obstacle than aid.

Everyone may know the character cannot make it to the moon, but how far the player gets can be a very critical factor.

Add me to the list of people interested in what case this works in where I wouldn't also judge that there's uncertainty and call for a roll. If it's important how high you get, then it's important. The goal then is to get high, not jump to the moon.

Take a less outlandish case, jumping across a misding span of bridge. While the GM could see no chance of success at the stated goal is possible and thus forbid a roll and head into some auto fail description, others would simply resolve the effort ( separate from goal) and use how far the character got to determine a number of different resolutions such as catching onto supports way below, falling into the river or onto rocky shore etc.

Sounds like a place where I'd call for a roll.

Just because I might say to a player that boldly announced they're jumping to the moon that their attempt, while valiant, fails doesn't mean that when that same player wants to jump across a broken bridge I'm also going to say that they fail. Different circumstances call for different adjudications. This is a point that you seem to continually misconstrue -- you take a stated adjudication from one case and then assume that it also applies to another case. That's wholly incorrect.

Finally, maybe in your games, your players choose to define goals you deem impossible so often that rolls for them would eat up so much time that it could be as much of a problem to make you see it as so important a problem.

Well, no, because I have reasonable players and I'm not trying to be a dick. If your argument hinges on the assumption that my players engage in poor goal setting and that I then enforce a zero-tolerance policy on resolution, you're barking up not only the wrong tree, but doing it maliciously. Why would you assume that my players and I are on such different pages and that our only resolution of such an expectation mismatch is for me to screw over their outlandish demands in game?

In my games, maybe because my players and i being on the same page as far as character capabilities and mechanics, its rare that we get into such cases of players describing impossible goals with their action or describing impossible actions (as i rarely need to ask for goal per se.)

See, you give yourself the obvious out from your proposed problem, but can't be bothered to assume others aren't as capable of basic human interaction as yourself and your players?

When it does happen, rolls are not time consuming, esp since they often occur along with the description, not following a "wait for GM permission to roll" delay.

It's not time consuming in my games, either, because we don't have rolls without being asked that then need to be discussed. Player declares action, DM adjudicates and calls for dice, if needed, DM narrates outcome. Simple loop, doesn't take much time at all.

Of course, thats a different animal than more general narrative thru scenes like say searching thru an abandoned graveyard where there arent any "hidden" or "trapped" or "time sensitive" elements. Those where we would narrative thru it and let the mechanics influence (possibly with roll, possibly with passives) which characters found which stuff or how much of it (or maybe even what was found.)

So, you assign autosuccess and autofailure where it's narratively appropriate to do so? Huh, why would you think I don't do that also?

As happened Tuesday night when they searched three ghost ships full of dead bodies.

Sounds like you had a fun game. I'm happy for you.

 

[Charlaquin]

The only time this will be critical for a player is if your gaming room happens to have a particularly low ceiling.

But for a character...
...well, if the character is jumping from a space station the question of how close they get to the moon might become extremely relevant.

And that’s a situation where the outcome is uncertain, so a dice roll is appropriate.

Of course there should be a roll made, or more than one. There's two levels of uncertainty from the player side, which is probably why they're searching at all:

1. Is there anything here to find?
2. If yes to question 1, do we succeed in finding it?

And here's where the DM should be doing the rolling, hidden, as a failure could be due to either of these uncertainties and the characters (and thus players) are very unlikely to know which one.

That answer isn’t to the question I asked. It’s also not the reason 5ekyu gave for why rolls were being made.

 

[5ekyu]

This is a gross misrepresentation of the sides here, and it's getting harder to make the charitable assumption that you are simply misunderstanding the former position, rather than actively trying to make it look bad.

I am sorry but i was quite careful in my points there...

The bit about gatekeeper - see the search example with the drawer and the key or many others - where whether or not the description by the player includes looking in the furniture vs on the furniture determines whether or not there is an auto-fail or auto-success. See the other post which emphasizes specifically that a difference is that the one side is seeing it from the perspective of description of action vs setting to see if a roll is needed as opposed to seeing it starting with what shill is needed and then judging for an auto-s/f chance. It seems definitely that some are using the description as the "cut" that may eliminate the mechanics stage. They seem quite sure of that.

The bit about the apparent imbalance between the auto-success and auto-fail, see numerous examples of where it is extolled as a good strategy to let the auto-s/f and work for the auto-s/f with your descriptions because it will improve your success rates over relying on mechanics. That seems to not be an issue in doubt. If the auto-fail was as frequent as the auto-succeed "by the same token" it would not be the case that its a better strategy to work for the auto-s/f instead of relying on the mechanics and the skills your character is good at.

For the third (the example of the mechanics side) I don't see where that is an inaccurate statement - they do not describe holding either piece back from the determination waiting for a tag in from the other.

Do i need to pull multiple quotes from numerous posts to add as a cross-reference for these?

Obviously when discussing side(s) one does not mean everyone on every post is saying the point the exact same way... if so none of our posts about "the difference in sides" would be worth a dang thing.

 

[5ekyu]

You will note that in the post you quoted, I said "potential" drawbacks.

of course and it is good to see you clarify that you meant what you said when you said "I think I pointed out way in the beginning of this discussion that these are all distinctions already pointed out by the DMG (pages 236-237). There are three main methods. Two of them have potential drawbacks. I advocate for the one that doesn't."

I stand by what i say that it is a certain level of perspective that sees any RPg character -v-task player-n-GM resoultion system as being so bulletproof it has *no* potential drawbacks.

As a rule, when debating various games or systems (on either the full game or part of game level) etc i often ask first of others or even describe first in others the flaws in a system or RPG. i find it works well to do so... avoids a lot of nonproductive blah blah.

I myself have never ran a system with no potential drawbacks. In fact, knowledge, recognition and admission of the drawbacks and keeping them in mind i feel helps me Gm games or systems or sub-systems better.

But thats me... "Hello. My name is 5ekyu and i am a Gm that runs a system which has drawbacks..."

 

[5ekyu]

You do realize that your example just backed up what we are saying, right? You gave an example of where the outcome was in doubt. Does he land in the water or on land? That's doubt. Now take away the water and there is no doubt. He falls onto rocks and takes his lumps without a roll. Rolling when there is no point is a waste of time and energy, and disrupts the game.

Do you realize that post was in direct response to a claim which said there would be no roll because the goal of the jump to the moon was not in doubt?

In my post while the goal of jumping to the other side of the bridge span was not in doubt, i could still use a skill check to determine relevant aspects about the scenario and the effort.

Right?

Again as i have said likely more times than i can count (and which that exchange highlights) the goal might have a place to the action if it clarifies some aspects of the effort but the goal *should* not IMo be a form of gatekeeper for whether or not a roll is made.

That was the point.

 

[iserith]

The bit about the apparent imbalance between the auto-success and auto-fail, see numerous examples of where it is extolled as a good strategy to let the auto-s/f and work for the auto-s/f with your descriptions because it will improve your success rates over relying on mechanics. That seems to not be an issue in doubt. If the auto-fail was as frequent as the auto-succeed "by the same token" it would not be the case that its a better strategy to work for the auto-s/f instead of relying on the mechanics and the skills your character is good at.

Are you suggesting the DM is balancing out granting automatic success against establishing automatic failure?

 

[5ekyu]

Specific response to someone pointing out that 5e does not have a check or roll that determines how far you jump... i use this obscure tome called the PHB which says under athletics in the section on examples of when a gm might call for check " jump an unusually long distance"

General response to questions about how a "jump to the moon" could have a roll or check make a difference (critical difference).... characters in some sort of cover where the character that does "jump an unusually long distance" might exceed the cover height.

All goes back to the difference between goal and task and that while it is an arguable case that no roll would be needed if the task was impossible whether or not the goal was responsible is a whole different issue.