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

iserith · Oct 3, 2018

Imaculata said:
The problem is that the players start rolling their dice, the moment they want to take an action. They think taking an action == rolling a die. They start rolling for their perception before I have even asked for a roll. I'm trying to teach them that (as you often state) rolling a die is asking for a chance to fail. Sometimes the outcome of an action is not in doubt, and you auto-succeed or auto-fail. That is why I want my players to first state their action and approach, and wait for me to ask them for a roll. Because a roll might not be needed.

What do the actual rules for D&D 3.Xe say about this though? I'd be curious to know.

iserith · Oct 3, 2018

Maxperson said:
I'm not seeing the point in asking to know troll weaknesses when you've given it to them with that description. For that matter, why does a troll have a lit brazier in the first place? If there's one race that won't be using fire, it's trolls.

I didn't say it was the troll's brazier.

As for the description, you only say that because you know trolls have a weakness to fire. Someone else might not. Someone may be able to deduce from the description the troll has some issue with fire (that's the telegraphing at work). But if they can't or they want to confirm their hypothesis, they can try to recall lore or make a deduction.

Apply this same process to basically anything. The DM gives the basic information, that which is sufficient to act. Then the players use their characters' noodles to gain access to additional information which is helpful but not necessary.

5ekyu · Oct 3, 2018

Maxperson said:
I'm not seeing the point in asking to know troll weaknesses when you've given it to them with that description. For that matter, why does a troll have a lit brazier in the first place? If there's one race that won't be using fire, it's trolls.

Huh?

troll keeps brazier between it and the entrance/exit to its "room"?
troll then has to telegraph the weakness it has?

Not sure but that is on the order of an alien race that is burned by seawater like it was acid choosing to move to Los Angeles instead of kansas or Iowa. (Nice movie/series flawed by very bad location choice.)

Now maybe if there once was a brazier but now its broken into heaps in a pile of rubble in the corner. Then you might have a difficulty of perception to see who (if anyone) can on the fly make out that pile of rubble is a former brazier that has been bashed to bits - not just misc rubble.

Wondering if in this world vampires have full length mirrors in their ballrooms so their vampiric nature is automatically exposed, lots of windows and sub rooms to "let the day in" and Flower arrangements supported on ash wood stakes lining the halls under the crucifixes? (Ok not so much the DnD vampires but yeah you get the point.)

Not sure if it ties in or not but this feels to me akin to the point i was making in another post above - do the skills/stats/character-elements get applied in such a way get used and do the scenes described and do the results occur because they "make sense that way" within the setting (perception check ddtermines who sees what, troll eliminates fire source that is inconveniently located before the crisis point hits) or do they get used/apply/setup based on the GM intent and what the Gm wants to use them to do in the meta sense ("they need this info so...auto-give.". "Its faster if i just auto-give instead of character-check?", "i need to telegraph this so..." etc etc etc)?

But i can see it being quicker to mow thru trolls who bring their own lit fires - so it will let you move through more checkpoints more quickly if that is a facet you value.

.

Satyrn · Oct 3, 2018

Maxperson said:
I'm not trying to argue a definition. How about you just explain what you were trying to say? There are some others here who rather than try to explain things, try to alter definitions, so I argue that with them. You aren't one of those.

Thank you for the compliment.

It comes down to essentially this: I might have been better to call it "vital" or "critical" info, the "important info" is the stuff the DM really wants a player to know. And while each DM will have a different idea of what this actually is, my measure is this: If I've ask the players for a check and they all fail, and I find myself thinking "danggit, I really wish they made that check."

Satyrn · Oct 3, 2018

Maxperson said:
I'm not seeing the point in asking to know troll weaknesses when you've given it to them with that description. For that matter, why does a troll have a lit brazier in the first place? If there's one race that won't be using fire, it's trolls.

Low Wisdom.

Satyrn · Oct 3, 2018

Not a double post.

Maxperson said:
I'm not seeing the point in asking to know troll weaknesses when you've given it to them with that description. For that matter, why does a troll have a lit brazier in the first place? If there's one race that won't be using fire, it's trolls.

For a more serious answer: Fire is wildly deadly and destructive, yet we use it extensively and often with great carelessness. Why would trolls be more sensible humans?

iserith · Oct 3, 2018

Satyrn said:
Not a double post.

For a more serious answer: Fire is wildly deadly and destructive, yet we use it extensively and often with great carelessness. Why would trolls be more sensible humans?

Also, relying solely on darkvision comes with a -5 penalty to passive Perception when vision matters to noticing hidden threats. That potentially puts a troll without a lit brazier at a passive Perception of 6. The hags or giants that employ it as a mercenary might insist on some mood lighting so it can be a more effective guard.

Kobold Boots · Oct 3, 2018

Satyrn said:
Low Wisdom.

They like to cook things instead of eating raw things. Perhaps it's taken culinary?

Satyrn · Oct 3, 2018

Yeah, there's an infinite number of reasons.

It might just be cold.

Kobold Boots · Oct 3, 2018

Satyrn said:
Yeah, there's an infinite number of reasons.

It might just be cold.

I've always been one for simple motivations for monsters. One of these days I'm going to let my players play as a small tribe of kobolds and do a reverse dungeon crawl on a small town or city.