D&D 5E Modeling Uncertainty

I wrote a wall of text describing a problem I see in many/most RPGs, with an analysis of some of the typical options for addressing it and why they are insufficient, but then decided to skip most of the rationalization and just propose my solution. If y'all find it interesting enough to debate then we can expand on it.

Goal:

Avoid certainty in situations where characters would only have strong hunches, not absolute knowledge, in order to make subsequent decision-making more meaningful. For example, when trying to determine if a prisoner is lying, mechanically represent the fact that even strong indications of honesty/dishonesty might have other explanations. In other words, The player sees the die roll on the table, but the character is still guessing. The goal is to model that.

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.

Variant 1: Just use one type of die for simplicity.
Variant 2: On a natural 20 no secret die is rolled; evidence is found which leads to complete certainty. (E.g., the captive says something that the character knows cannot be true.)

Example:

The player says he wants to climb a tree. The DM tells him to roll Strength(Athletics) and the player succeeds. The DM says, "Ok, you climb the tree."

(Ha, tricked you. That example was to illustrate that this system isn't applicable to the vast majority of skill rolls.)

Example 2:

The player wants to know if he thinks the guard is lying. The DM tells him to roll Wisdom(Insight) and the player gets a natural 20, for a total of 27. The DM looks at the result for a moment, then picks up two dice and rolls them behind the screen. "You think he's telling the truth," he says.

So the player knows he made a great roll, and that whatever the DC was he most likely rocked it. It's gotta be at least a d6 the DM used, if not a d8 or even a d10. At worst there's like a 1/36 chance that he read the situation wrong.

But, still, there's a chance....

More Example questions:

That was still kind of a Wall of Text, huh?

Elfcrusher said:

Example 2:

The player wants to know if he thinks the guard is lying.

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My response to a player here would be something like "Only you can tell me what your character thinks." I can't get behind mechanics to dictate what PCs think, outside of the odd magical compulsion.

Elfcrusher said:

More Example questions:

"Can I tell if the chest is trapped?"​

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iserith said:

"I don't know - can you? What do you actually do to find out?"

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Aye, a simple shift in the structure of play makes all the difference.

Players state their intent (what they want to achieve) then explain how the propose their characters goes about achieving it. DM asks for skill checks in response, their part of the role as arbiters of the game world.

Easy to implement, works like a charm.

Yup, that was one of the responses which I analyzed in depth in my original version. It went something like this:

Instead of asking 'can I tell if he's lying' you say, 'I look for signs that he might be lying.' And the DM says, 'Such as?', and you say, 'Is he sweating? Is he making eye contact? Does he have any tics?'

And that's all fine, if you can pull it off well. But I have some critiques of it:
1) It requires the DM to either have material/answers prepared for every eventuality. AND those answers have to vary each time so that the players don't get used to a pattern. That is, if your goal is mine: to leave the players more informed after a successful role, but still unsure.
2) Maybe you're all much better DMs than I am...a high probability...but I have little faith in my ability to fine-tune my answers such that the probability of players guessing correctly correlates to their character's abilities (and dice rolls, where applicable). Usually I either make it too easy (I give them too much information) or too hard (what I think are good clues are not.)

So what I'm proposing is a mechanical solution to inject the right amount of uncertainty. It's a "roll then narrate" solution rather than a "narrate then roll" approach.

Also, although I wrote it up as the players asking questions rather than stating what they want to do, I could have written it up either way. I don't believe that distinction is relevant to the larger point. But if I'm mistaken I'm eager to understand why.

Elfcrusher said:

And that's all fine, if you can pull it off well. But I have some critiques of it:
1) It requires the DM to either have material/answers prepared for every eventuality.

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Could you go into what you mean here? I'm not seeing how this follows.

Elfcrusher said:

2) Maybe you're all much better DMs than I am...a high probability...but I have little faith in my ability to fine-tune my answers such that the probability of players guessing correctly correlates to their character's abilities (and dice rolls, where applicable). Usually I either make it too easy (I give them too much information) or too hard (what I think are good clues are not.)

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I think it's fine to give a concrete answer. I'm not sure why one would want to have uncertainty. In theory, the players are always working toward removing uncertainty by their actions. If they've taken the "right" steps to remove it, then I give them what they seek. "Right" in this instance means "reasonable, given the situation," but not necessarily just one correct solution.

There's also the issue where the character is more competent at something than the player. If I say "Can my rogue disarm the trap" and you say "I don't know, can he?" then I don't have much response other than, "I don't know either, but I got a 15 on this die roll."

Elfcrusher said:

Instead of asking 'can I tell if he's lying' you say, 'I look for signs that he might be lying.' And the DM says, 'Such as?', and you say, 'Is he sweating? Is he making eye contact? Does he have any tics?'

Click to expand...

Don't know how other folks run it, but in the example you give, it'd run something more like this:

Player - ''Norman want to know if she's lying.''

DM - ''Ok, how you going to achieve this?''

Player - ''Norman carefully watches the cave stoat as she responds to the druid's questions, looking for, 'tells'. Norman's background is pirate and he's had to shake a crew member down in his time. Things like increased breathing, sweating and all that.

DM - ''Great. Make an Investigation Check, using Wisdom bonus.''

So really, the player - not the DM - helps flesh out the scene. The DM then decides how best to arbitrate the result. Likewise, if the DM wants to throw the player a bone, they can nudge them with information, and hope the player goes with it. (''The stoat seems agitated and is avoiding the druid's gaze. She answers slowly, as if carefully choosing her words.'')

As a DM, I set things up - then stand back and let the players chip away. If they need extra info, I'll typically ad lib and supply it in the moment. If a player comes up with something I didn't anticipate, an action or intent I didn't account for, I'll either let them know if its unlikely or impossible (''Um..no, you can't ride a horse. There is no horse. Not in volcano, at this time.'') but ideally, I'll try and support play by either simply calling for a check or laying out a series of checks, being clear to let them know if they'll be at advantage/disadvantage and the relative difficulty, should their player's be able to gauge such a thing. Also known as, ''yes, but...'' style of DMing.

[sblock]If that makes it any clearer? It's been a recent (last few years) development on my part, the result of various teacher training and now old school academic experience. Rather than tell a learner want the answer is, you try you best to elicit a response from them. I basically use that. To be honest, distinguishing (and having the players distinguish) the difference between what they want to achieve (intent) from how they propose to achieve it (character action) has been the real boon.[/sblock]

jaelis said:

There's also the issue where the character is more competent at something than the player. If I say "Can my rogue disarm the trap" and you say "I don't know, can he?" then I don't have much response other than, "I don't know either, but I got a 15 on this die roll."

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Here's where you cite your character's background, profession or ..whatever it is you think gives your character the chance of making something so. For me at least, I'm not looking for a McGuyver Master Plan, just something that helps describe how our rogue might do so.

It can be as vague as, 'He's looking for the dangerous bits and will try to stop them working'' or ''She's searching around the slot in the stone wall, looking for any sign of the mechanism that makes the trap function.''

Intent - Disarm the Trap
Action - Looking for sharp stabby mechanical bits around the slot in the stone wall. She'll use that magnifying glass that was liberated from the bearded nun earlier.

jaelis said:

There's also the issue where the character is more competent at something than the player. If I say "Can my rogue disarm the trap" and you say "I don't know, can he?" then I don't have much response other than, "I don't know either, but I got a 15 on this die roll."

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Several possibilities:
1) In general I'd say that if you succeed at disarming the trap then you know it.
2) That said, I could see using this system and saying, "Ok, as far as you can tell you've disarmed it. What do you do now."
3) Or maybe you're asking, "Am I capable of disarming it?" In which case same answer as #2: on a successful roll you say, "It seems to be something within your skill. What do you do next?"

jaelis said:

There's also the issue where the character is more competent at something than the player. If I say "Can my rogue disarm the trap" and you say "I don't know, can he?" then I don't have much response other than, "I don't know either, but I got a 15 on this die roll."

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The critical part of the player's contribution here is missing, that is, what the character actually does. "Can my rogue disarm the trap?" is not a statement of action and leaves the DM to either assume what the character is doing (which can be troublesome) or to question the player for more specifics. Reasonable specificity is the key here. It would be unreasonable in my view to expect or demand someone who has poor mechanical understanding to cite exactly how the rogue sets about disarming the trap. But we do need to known some details to properly adjudicate as I see it, at least without the DM establishing for the player what the character is doing.