See, in my experience the goal and approach style leads players to be more willing to try things, because they see that trying things doesn’t always lead to a check. Things that seem likely to work often just do, and when things require a check to do, you get fair warning first. Of course, if you ask for checks for most actions, and you don’t give players a heads up about the risk and potential consequences of failure, then every check having consequences for failure probably would lead to turtling. If you can’t easily predict whether or not an action will require a roll to resolve (or alternatively, if you can reliably predict that most actions will require a roll to resolve), you don’t get fair warning before having to make a check, and checks always make the situation worse on a failure, naturally doing anything will be scary. But that’s not how most of us who use goal and approach do it. You’ve got to evaluate the technique holistically, instead of evaluating wach individual element as if it was brought over to your game on its own.
You know, I'm not going to disagree with you but something jumped out at me. I bolded it... okay, I bolded a lot, but it was all to the same point.
Why are checks bad?
Not trying to get into the philosophy that asking for checks is asking for failure, or saying that you think checks are bad, but look at some of your word choice. Particularly, "don't get fair warning before [a] check"
Why does a player need "fair warning" before a check? Maybe it is personal vernacular, but I tend to hear that phrase in contexts like "Fair warning, Josh has been eating beans all night". It is a warning about something potentially bad... and since when are checks bad? Bad enough we have to warn players "Hey, just so you know, that might require you to roll a check"
I don't want this to come across as an accusation, but it is a strange concept to me and I felt it was worth pointing out.
Is this disagreement based on direct experience, or theory?
Both?
I can tell you it isn't based on peer-reviewed research, but I'm not sure why this is the second time I've been asked about my direct experiences. Have all the times I've talked about my games at my tables and how things have gone for us not demonstrated that I have direct experience as a DM?
See, I wouldn’t tell the players, “the ritual circle will blow up if you fail,” because as you say, it doesn’t really make sense for them to know that. Maybe if one of the PCs is familiar with the ritual, but let’s assume that’s not the case for the sake of argument. I’d tell them that failing to properly disrupt the circle will cause a dangerous magical disturbance. And that might prompt the players to want to prove further before rushing ahead and trying to disrupt the circle.
“What kind of magical disturbance,” on player might ask.
“Hard to say, are you proficient in Arcana?”
“Yes!”
“Ok, you’d be familiar enough with ritual circles to know that the magic involved is extremely volatile. All kinds of strange effects can happen if the magical energy is not diffused properly. Any more than that would require a more thorough examination of the circle.”
“Ok, I study the runes ti see if I can figure out what might happen.”
“That will take 10 minutes and a successful Intelligence check. Your Arcana proficiency would apply.”
“What happens if I fail?”
“Nothing beyond the wasted 10 minutes. Of course, that will bring us closer to the next check for random encounters.”
“Alright, lets do it.”
“Anyone else have anything they would like to do while Alora examines the runes?”
Very much like in the earlier example with the ogre behind the door, I didn’t say “if you fail, an ogre on the other side of the door is going to know your here and prepare to attack you as soon as you opened it.” I said that trying to break the door down would be very loud and would alert any nearby enemies to their presence. Immediate, direct consequences are sufficient to inform the player of what could go wrong, without having to give them details they would have no ability to predict.
I disagree. I feel like whether or not a chandelier is sturdy enough to support the weight of a human(oid) should be pretty obvious at a glance. I also feel like the majority of the time it should be obvious that it can’t. I probably wouldn’t even make that a consequence for failure, I’d make that a cost for the attempt. “The chandelier will definitely fall if you swing from it, but with success on a Hard Dexterity check, you can swing to the other end of the balcony and let go before it snaps.” Or something like that. In any case, “the chandelier might break and fall with you on it” seems very much like “are you sure you want to do the obviously dumb thing?” kind of information to me.
I'd say you are missing the point with both of these, because neither one of your responses hits upon what I was trying to get at.
I'm not taking about a flimsy chandelier, I'm talking about a sturdy one, but maybe the wood has loosened around the nails due to age. The reason why it is going to collapse isn't the point, the point was it wasn't obvious at a glance. If it was obvious, then of course it would be mentioned.
I would also say that "dangerous magical disturbance" is parlance for "magic explosion", maybe even "wild magic going out of control" so you are telling them.
And none of that addresses the point. Some times, it is more fun not to know. Just like you see the "are you sure you want to do the dumb thing" in the chandelier, that's what I'm seeing you say with the magic circle. They are messing with something of power and you raised a flag "warning, this might be dangerous" causing them to slow down and reevaluate. Which is fine, caution play is perfectly fine, but you've also taken the tension out of the moment. After that ten minutes of studying those runes they will know exactly what might happen, and for some players always knowing exactly what could happen would be boring.
That is the point I was trying to make. Sometimes, people want to jump into the unknown and take a risk. Sometimes that is the excitement, and having the DM wave a flag that says "okay, just remember these are the consequences" takes away from that excitement. It is a different style.
You stated: "I think that is almost worse than 'correct' since there is some inherent sarcasm in the idea of a correct approach that highlights what it was Mort was objecting to. Mainly, that describing a set of actions that the DM agrees with means you will not have to risk failure. Which leads to what some people refer to as 'gaming the DM' where they can dump intelligence or charisma stats and still dominate the social and exploration parts of the game, because they know how to describe things to the DMs liking, while players who have those stats and abilities but can't or don't describe things to the DMs liking end up suffering because of it."
I pointed out that this outcome is only if the DM behaves in a manner inconsistent with the standards the DMG sets forth for how the DM acts, in that the DM is not acting as "...an impartial yet involved referee who acts a mediator between the rules and the players. And who, by following the 'middle path' is balancing the use of dice against deciding on success to 'encourage players to strike a balance between relying on their bonuses and abilities and paying attention to the game and immersing themselves in its world.'"
If you agree with that statement, then this addresses your objection and, in the context of the overall discussion, looks like progress of a kind to me as it a recognition that not doing things in the manner the rules expect can lead to undesirable outcomes.
Okay, you just don't get what I was trying to say. That's fine.
[MENTION=762]Mort[/MENTION] had an objection to a style where there was a "correct" approach.
The person they were objecting to responded with a preference for saying there were "good" and "bad" approaches.
My point was that using that language is even worse.
If you insist on telling me that you only call for checks when someone is using a "bad" approach, then I don't care if you are also saying you are "an impartial yet involved referee who acts a mediator between the rules and the players." Because one of those two statements has to be false due to your word choice.
That is because only calling for checks when there is a "bad" approach would mean you are not impartial, there is a preference and you are acting upon it, which means that the language of "good" and "bad" approaches would lead to accusations of gaming the DM, because that is what labeling those approaches with that language would mean.
In using "correct" like Mort did, in the context of their post, there was a clear sarcasm in the word choice, there is no "correct" approach, and even calling an approach "correct" makes little sense in the context of a game with free-form approaches. So it was less objectionable as it helped make the point Mort was attempting to make.
