D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

[S'mon]

A character's passive perception is "always on". /QUOTE]

Well we know it's not always on in all senses because as Iserith pointed out, in the travel rules if you are doing something other than looking around, such as mapping or foraging(!) then you don't get a chance to spot hidden enemies.

But certainly the scout at the front of the group gets to use her Passive Per (or Passive Purr for Bright Star of the East the Tabaxi Rogue IMC) to spot stuff generally. Passive is used for actions done repeatedly, such as generally keeping a lookout. And then she can also choose to make an active check by taking an action (I basically agree with Iserith there!), as when in my Saturday game she said "I check the walls and ceiling". If the active check is lower than her Passive Purr, obviously previously visible stuff does not then become invisible to her. So the PP acts as an effective floor.

 

[MNblockhead]

PLAYER: "I may a perception check to find a post responsive to the original question among the only going side debate on passive checks."

DM sets DC to 25.

 

[Maxperson]

PLAYER: "I may a perception check to find a post responsive to the original question among the only going side debate on passive checks."

DM sets DC to 25.

I came into the discussion in the middle I think. What was the original question?

 

[Imaculata]

Then the player can decline to roll and auto-fail which both faster and is less onerous than having the same player say "I check...". The trouble with waiting for positive affirmation before providing contingent information is it teaches players to play whack-a-mole by saying "I check..." at every item in a description because there may be "gotcha" information available if only they had asked.

But that depends entirely on your style of DM'ing. I don't do gotchas.

If there is something important in the room, I will draw their attention to it. No need for a game of whack-a-mole. If the statue is worth investigating, I will give my players a clue that this is the case. Otherwise they can assume it is just another statue.

Agree with all of this, my only niggle is with the term “roll is required”. I’m assuming it’s shorthand for saying some interaction by the PC is necessary to gain the information? Given the chance for misunderstanding on this thread I thought I’d check.

Exactly.

Thing is, gating information behind a direct request requirement is a gotcha. There's really no way around it. The players cannot know which items have more significance until they enquire about everything. Or as often happens, player fatigue sets in and they decide to just blunder around.

Not if the DM hands out clues regarding what objects are important. I don't do gotchas. If the statue is important, I will include a clue in the description of the room that highlights the importance of the statue.

To some apparently to give out "nice to have" but not that important info - leaving the skills which are able to play more critical roles or more vital rolls to the physical ones.

Stealth, athletics, acrobatics - those are the skills you might see used in a make or break situation...

knowledge, arcana, nature - those are just for "nice to know" cases - extra stuff.

Not to my liking tho.

have seen it before tho - ye olde days it was not uncommon for many social encounters to be handles almost exclusively with "what player saays" and rarely with Cha checks (or if they were the cha check might nudge the result but the lions share of the success fail was the player's speechifiying skills.)

Sneak past guard - stealth vs perception - mostly character stuff
talk way past guard - player spins a yarn - mostly player based.

So, where do you put your pointsd - dex or cha?

hah!

In my games charisma-based skills are VERY important. Social encounters are not just based on what a player says. Just because I don't presume actions on the part of my players, does not mean that knowledge skills are useless either. The difference is that I don't feel a need to constantly ask my players to make checks to see things, before they have even stated an approach or action. If there's something or someone I want them to spot in a crowd, I just straight up tell them. If there's a statue I want them to recognize, I straight up tell them about the statue, or provide enough clues to draw their attention to it.

I don't ask them to make a roll unless they have stated an approach, and there are meaningful consequences to failure.

The thing is, any info that is important has already been given out for free. Sure, I can roll an arcana check on the magic globe, but because the DM has already divulged the important information in the room, I know that any answer is just going to be secondary at best.

That is obviously not how that works. In my game you would have already received clues if the magic globe is important, and I wouldn't presume you try to examine it, unless you state that action. If your knowledge of magic items is sufficient, I might just straight up tell you what the magic globe is. For example, if you're playing a wizard and the globe is a palantir, I might just decide that this is knowledge that a wizard would possess (or I may take your passive knowledge arcana into account). No roll needed for you, you already know what it is. Everyone else though, would still need to make a knowledge check, -when they declare an action to examine the globe. If however I am unsure if your wizard recognizes the item, then I wait for you to declare an action to investigate it. No rolls are made until you decide that you want to examine the magic globe.

We can also apply this to the "key in the drawer" example. If I want the players to find the key, I may draw their attention to the drawer by providing a clue. No roll is required to notice this clue. If however the key is entirely optional, I will wait till a player declares that they want to search the desk. If the key is hidden in the drawer, this may require a roll. But if it isn't, then their action results in an instant success. They find the key merely be declaring an action to search the desk.

 

[Hussar]

According to the DM's notes, there's a key hidden beneath a set of folded clothes in the top drawer of a bureau in a chamber the PCs enter. When the PCs entered, the DM described the environment such that there is a bureau in the room, but not what is inside its closed drawers. The key makes it easier to access another part of the adventure location later.

Is that a gotcha? Or is that just laying out the basic scope of options that present themselves and letting the players decide what they want to do?

Should I just, after describing the environment, assume and establish that one of the PCs goes over, opens a drawer, and finds the key? If they don't bother to search the desk and move on to some other chamber, is not finding the key a gotcha?

If you don't think these are gotchas, then please explain why you think providing the basic scope of options when describing the environment and then leaving room for the players to describe what they want to do to discern additional information is.

Ok, now. The player says, "I search the room", what do you do? Ask more questions? "Where do you search? How do you search"? Now we're into Mother May I territory with the player pixel bitching the correct question (I search the desk is good enough? Or do you have to specify further?).

Now, we're an experienced group, that's been playing for a number of years and our characters are, say, about 8th level - not the highest level characters around, but, hardly noobies either. Why not just assume that that's what they do? It's a pretty safe assumption. Sure, you can faff around trying to wait for the right question, or, you can dramatically up the pacing of your game and just presume that these highly experienced adventurers, who've likely searched a hundred rooms before this, is also searching this one as well. So, passive perception it is. Poof. Easy peasy and let's get on with the adventure instead of wanking about trying to read the DM's mind and pick just the right question.

 

[Lanefan]

OK. 350+ posts in to this lot and after reading it all it's time, I think, to make myself unpopular.

Pacing: there is nothing wrong with a slow and detailed pace of play. If a campaign isn't set up to be open-ended in how long it'll last I'm probably not interested unless it's specifically designed to be a one-off; and if it's open-ended then it doesn't or shouldn't matter whether it takes 3 sessions or 19 sessions to get through a particular adventure as long as we're all having fun in the process. (ditto for level advancement - slow this down too) Here (and maybe only here) I agree with how [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] does it, in expecting/demanding a reasonable level of detail from the player in describing not only what her character is trying to do but how she is going about it. But that said...

DM assumptions: the DM has to be able to assume that barring unusual circumstances a PC is always using his or her senses in a manner sensible to the surroundings. This means, for example, a DM can reasonably assume a higher level of alertness from a PC walking down a passage deep in a dangerous dungeon than from one who is walking along a quiet country road toward a well-known village. The DM has to be able to assume the PCs are looking where they're going and paying at least passing attention to sounds, smells, movement, and so on occurring around them.

But the DM cannot assume what the PCs know or don't know or remember about things that might be obscure e.g. an old statue. Here it's not so much the DM who gatekeeps the knowledge but the dice, and somewhat-random determination of these things is perfectly reasonable.

A follow-on example from the statue: quite some time ago the party found a statue in a dungeon, had no idea who or what it was at the time but on getting back to town they made some inquiries and learned that it was a statue of Arevane, an obscure goddess of waters and seas. Now, fifteen adventures and two years later, they've found another statue. There's only two characters left in this party who were around when that first Arevane statue was found; so here I'd give a pre-emptive roll to those two characters* (without saying why or what it was for) to see if they remembered Arevane well enough to determine whether or not this new statue is another one of her. Success (either one): they know for sure it is (or is not) Arevane. Both fail: they've forgotten Arevane for the moment and thus don't have that information to provide.

* - or in a case like this I'll sometimes just use player memory and equate it to character memory: if the player remembers it, the character does.

Meta-telegraphing or cueing what's important: bad bad bad bad bad! When the characters look around an unoccupied room and see, let's say, seven different elements - a desk, a cabinet, some shelves, a chair, papers-pen-ink on the desk, books on the shelves, and a bottle of liquor on the floor by the chair - and one of those elements (let's say one of the books is hollow, hiding a key they need) is particularly important the DM should not emphasize the books any more (or any less) than any other element in the room. Why? 'Cause otherwise you're just leading 'em by the nose.

Same thing with telegraphing potential threats. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes not. Thinking of the pickpocket example, sometimes there might not be an obvious threat to telegraph: "the town seems safe and the people happy as they go about their business" could be a valid part of an environment description of a town that has a thieves' guild who are very careful never to prey on the locals, but visitors like you are fair game...

Pre-emptively calling for rolls: as I said in another thread, nothing at all wrong with this. The example of spotting or not spotting a friend in the street is a very good one - here I'd give a pre-emptive roll but not tell the player why; I'd just say "<player name>, roll me a d20." (player name used instead of character name as we often run two characters, here I'm also hiding which character is being rolled for. If the player just has one character at the moment I'd use the character name)

On success I say: "Kirkos, as you pass through town you unexpectedly happen to see your sister Kirke across the street."
On failure I say: "Ignore me, carry on."

The other pre-emptive roll is for how much you notice. In the armour example with the red eyes, were it me I'd likely have got them to roll (hard to miss, but possible) before describing the hallway to see if they noticed the eyes in the shield were moving. Succeed: I describe it now. Fail: I describe it later if-when someone takes a closer look or when another pre-emptive roll (they'd get at least one more if they just walked past the armour) succeeds. Here the pre-emptive roll is more to determine when something is described, and-or in how much detail.

Saving throws for items and possessions: we do it every time someone fails a save vs. most damaging AoE effects, and if magic fails it might go up with a bang and-or a wild surge. Magic is both high risk high reward and easy come easy go; knowing it'll eventually get broken allows me to give out more, and players IME love finding new toys.

There is nothing wrong with gotchas. If there's a lurker above and you're not specifically looking up, well, that's what the surprise roll is for: you still might notice it anyway as it detaches from the ceiling and drops. (and yes there's going to be a surprise roll mechanic in any system I ever run, RAW be damned) And if avoiding gotchas means slowing down and paying attention and being cautious, then slow down and pay attention and be cautious.

The only trick is to remember gotchas can work both ways - if the PCs take the time to set up a gotcha for an enemy give the enemy the same honest chance to notice/avoid it as if that enemy was a PC, and if the enemy fails to notice it then let the PCs have their win. If a PC Thief wants to cruise the town and lighten a few pockets here and there it should be treated the same as if a local thief is trying to rob the PCs. And so on.

PCs missing vital information due to failed rolls and-or looking in the wrong place: an occasional fact of life the DM just has to deal with. Let 'em miss it, even if your storyline gets detoured or even goes out the window. Sometimes other ways present themselves for that info to reach the PCs, other times - e.g. the PCs fail to find a hidden map in a drawer and thus miss an entire secret level of the dungeon - they don't. So be it. Move on.

The alternative is to somehow lead 'em by the nose back to whatever they missed, which verges into railroading of the highest order.

Lan-"gotcha!"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

Ok, now. The player says, "I search the room", what do you do? Ask more questions? "Where do you search? How do you search"? Now we're into Mother May I territory with the player pixel bitching the correct question (I search the desk is good enough? Or do you have to specify further?).

You call it 'mother may I' but I just call it attention to detail; which needs to be done the same every time in order not to artificially highlight the one time where it makes a difference (this time the desk drawer is trapped, and opening it blows the room sky high).

Now, we're an experienced group, that's been playing for a number of years and our characters are, say, about 8th level - not the highest level characters around, but, hardly noobies either. Why not just assume that that's what they do? It's a pretty safe assumption. Sure, you can faff around trying to wait for the right question, or, you can dramatically up the pacing of your game and just presume that these highly experienced adventurers, who've likely searched a hundred rooms before this, is also searching this one as well. So, passive perception it is. Poof. Easy peasy and let's get on with the adventure instead of wanking about trying to read the DM's mind and pick just the right question.

Here I wouldn't use passive perception at all. A long-established group like this (and like mine) will have SOPs for many common situations, developed by playing through those situations in great detail over the first few adventures and then slowly reducing the level of detail until an SOP emerges. From here I-as-DM can pretty much assume they're using SOP unless a) they tell me otherwise or b) there's mitigating factors (e.g. non-dispellable darkness filling a room they want to search) that make SOP impossible.

Typical SOP situations: making camp (who is in which tent, is there a campfire, etc.); keeping overnight watch; searching a mundane-looking room; checking over a door (search for traps, listen, check if locked, etc.); many things around treasury division, and so on.

 

[5ekyu]

But that depends entirely on your style of DM'ing. I don't do gotchas.

If there is something important in the room, I will draw their attention to it. No need for a game of whack-a-mole. If the statue is worth investigating, I will give my players a clue that this is the case. Otherwise they can assume it is just another statue.



Exactly.




Not if the DM hands out clues regarding what objects are important. I don't do gotchas. If the statue is important, I will include a clue in the description of the room that highlights the importance of the statue.



In my games charisma-based skills are VERY important. Social encounters are not just based on what a player says. Just because I don't presume actions on the part of my players, does not mean that knowledge skills are useless either. The difference is that I don't feel a need to constantly ask my players to make checks to see things, before they have even stated an approach or action. If there's something or someone I want them to spot in a crowd, I just straight up tell them. If there's a statue I want them to recognize, I straight up tell them about the statue, or provide enough clues to draw their attention to it.

I don't ask them to make a roll unless they have stated an approach, and there are meaningful consequences to failure.



That is obviously not how that works. In my game you would have already received clues if the magic globe is important, and I wouldn't presume you try to examine it, unless you state that action. If your knowledge of magic items is sufficient, I might just straight up tell you what the magic globe is. For example, if you're playing a wizard and the globe is a palantir, I might just decide that this is knowledge that a wizard would possess (or I may take your passive knowledge arcana into account). No roll needed for you, you already know what it is. Everyone else though, would still need to make a knowledge check, -when they declare an action to examine the globe. If however I am unsure if your wizard recognizes the item, then I wait for you to declare an action to investigate it. No rolls are made until you decide that you want to examine the magic globe.

We can also apply this to the "key in the drawer" example. If I want the players to find the key, I may draw their attention to the drawer by providing a clue. No roll is required to notice this clue. If however the key is entirely optional, I will wait till a player declares that they want to search the desk. If the key is hidden in the drawer, this may require a roll. But if it isn't, then their action results in an instant success. They find the key merely be declaring an action to search the desk.

". If there's something or someone I want them to spot in a crowd, I just straight up tell them. If there's a statue I want them to recognize, I straight up tell them about the statue, or provide enough clues to draw their attention to it."

Ok so here is my question...

Do the same "if i want it, it just happens..." apply to lock picking attempts, stealthing past guards, jump checks for greater than normal distances, climbing attempts, crossing narrow ledges, telling someone is lying etc?

Do you basically gate all "ability checks behind "only if the gm doesnt want it to happen" just like you do (apparemtly) to,perception?

Now, for knowledge, it seems you may or may not decide to take the character ability into account (passive score) which is pretty much a split - the former being like others are suggesting with auto-success based on the character ability but the former being back to the unspecified gimmie.

So it sounds like you are not in the camp of critical info is just given for perc, inv, know and other such potential "checks" leaving the actual character ability to the "nice to knows" only. Would that be correct to say - that its not true that cases in your game would put critical info behind "only if the player says..." gates without which the characters abilities would not provide a chance (re knowledge or perception) to have a chance?

 

[5ekyu]

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]
"Typical SOP situations: making camp (who is in which tent, is there a campfire, etc.); keeping overnight watch; searching a mundane-looking room; checking over a door (search for traps, listen, check if locked, etc.); many things around treasury division, and so on."

Just a call out to see someone else finally reference the kinds of door procedures etc i have mentioned several times as "ye olde procedures" we used to work up.

I was starting from some responses to thibk maybe some or all viewed them as mythical as unicorns in a bordello.

Its the logical outcome of seeing play thrus etc and either having the assumption of competence or actual written steps.

 

[robus]

Ok, now. The player says, "I search the room", what do you do? Ask more questions? "Where do you search? How do you search"? Now we're into Mother May I territory with the player pixel bitching the correct question (I search the desk is good enough? Or do you have to specify further?).

Now, we're an experienced group, that's been playing for a number of years and our characters are, say, about 8th level - not the highest level characters around, but, hardly noobies either. Why not just assume that that's what they do? It's a pretty safe assumption. Sure, you can faff around trying to wait for the right question, or, you can dramatically up the pacing of your game and just presume that these highly experienced adventurers, who've likely searched a hundred rooms before this, is also searching this one as well. So, passive perception it is. Poof. Easy peasy and let's get on with the adventure instead of wanking about trying to read the DM's mind and pick just the right question.

Surely it depends on the table’s preference? If the players prefer combat and social interaction over exploration, then sure don’t bore them with uninteresting stuff, or wanking about as you so colorfully put it

But I do have to wonder about continuing to play a game of imagination when it’s become boring and routine. In my mind’s eye a room (that’s been sufficiently, and distinctly, illustrated by the DMs description) is a world of exciting possibility. Assuming a room is just a box with a few hidden items, so just give us them already, seems quite dull..?