If an NPC is telling the truth, what's the Insight DC to know they're telling the truth?

Chaosmancer said:

Then you are the one confused, because that is what you are telling me my players should be doing.

I said originally that the reason I added the extra flair to my description all those pages ago, was because my players aren't always willing or good at describing what happens. So, I take over that responsibility, and build the narrative.

And my players aren't playing the game because I do that. Despite the fact that I never once said my players do not tell me what they do and I must tell them what their character's are doing in any given moment.

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Are you as DM saying what the characters do? If you are, then I would say you're overstepping your role as DM, according to how that's defined by the game. Whether or not you care is up to you.

Chaosmancer said:

My players do, and asking to roll perception to see an ambush is a task. They are looking for an ambush, perception is the skill for looking and listening for hidden things. Asking to roll investigation for hidden doors is a task. They are searching an area, investigation is the skill for searching. Asking to roll deception to convince the king they don't have the McGuffin is a task. They are lying about something in their possession, and the skill for lying is deception.

You can repeat "Asking for a random result instead of seeing if the DM will just give you what you want is a horrible strategy" for another few hundred pages. That doesn't mean my players are not allowed to do so.

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I don't actually care what you or your players do in your game. I'm only saying what the rules say to do. That does not include players asking to make ability checks and DMs saying what the characters do. Make of that what you will.

Chaosmancer said:

Who says it "completely hinges on ignorance"?

I know the only way to truly kill a Flame skull is to sprinkle the remains with holy water. No matter what character I make, this is a thing I know.

Maybe they wanted this to be a cool moment for the cleric, to have them act as the holy person of the group. But my Barbarian from the Gladiator pits knew the answer before any even thought to ask the question.

I will also guarantee that across about 20 different players I am aware of, I can only think of two besides myself who might know that. And that is because both of them have also been DMs for years.

I have enough advantages as a player, why shouldn't I try and limit myself in terms of knowledge, by asking the DM if they are okay with me knowing certain facts? Why does this seem to flabbergast people so much?

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I'm not saying you can't play dumb only that you don't have to, nor do you have to justify your knowledge by asking to make checks or asking the DM for permission to act on your knowledge.

Chaosmancer said:

And round and round the circle we go.

"Meaningful consequence" meaning that the failure must make the situation worse. If my understanding of this conversation has gotten me anywhere. It cannot mean that failure results in no change. Even if no change is the logical conclusion of failure. If no change would be the consequence of failure, the character either fails or succeeds with no roll.

Players post a guard for night watch in the inn. I will not call a perception check to see if they hear their neighbor being murdered. If they succeed, they will find the dead body. If they fail, the body is discovered in the morning. There is no meaningful consequence for failure, so I decide what I want to happen.

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That's largely correct, though one could quibble on what "worse" means. That's going to vary widely by the context of the situation.

Chaosmancer said:

Also, about legacy thinking. No. It isn't.

Read 3.X, never played it. Only ever played one game of 4e.

I ask for a check, my players ask for checks. People at conventions who have never played DnD before ask for checks. We are not wrong. The game doesn't care if people say "Can I roll perception?"

You care, you'll quote the rulebook at me to try and convince me the game cares, but it doesn't. Gameplay works just fine either way. Nothing breaks.

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You don't have to have played D&D 3e or 4e to play D&D 5e as if you are playing those games. It's common enough to have picked it up from others. My position is that games work better when we play them as the rules tell us to play them, not that games are unplayable if you don't.

Chaosmancer said:

See, trolls are too easy.

I know Bargheists get dragged to Hell if they get too near a big enough fire.

I know Minotaurs, per RAW, are formed via cannabalism.

I know hags, per RAW, give birth via eating babies.

I know Wood Woads, per RAW, are created by a guardian of the forest having their heart ripped out in a ritual.

Not all of these are direct ties into combat actions. Heck, if I'm allowed to know how Hags give birth then a Hag introducing the party to her Daughter could very well lead to horror. But if the DM doesn't know that then my reaction makes no sense, because that isn't the case here. Or maybe that is the reaction they want, but only so they can reverse it on us. IT depends on if they read that specific section of the lore, agreed with it, and remembered it.

This isn't about "do I counter Troll regeneration with fire or pretend I don't know DnD 101" this can be highly specific lore that changes how we approach entire sections of the campaign.

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That just plays into my point: You decide what your character thinks and how he or she acts. But making assumptions can be risky for many reasons, so it's a good idea to take steps in-game to verify those assumptions before acting on them.

iserith said:

Are you as DM saying what the characters do? If you are, then I would say you're overstepping your role as DM, according to how that's defined by the game. Whether or not you care is up to you.



I don't actually care what you or your players do in your game. I'm only saying what the rules say to do. That does not include players asking to make ability checks and DMs saying what the characters do. Make of that what you will.



I'm not saying you can't play dumb only that you don't have to, nor do you have to justify your knowledge by asking to make checks or asking the DM for permission to act on your knowledge.



That's largely correct, though one could quibble on what "worse" means. That's going to vary widely by the context of the situation.



You don't have to have played D&D 3e or 4e to play D&D 5e as if you are playing those games. It's common enough to have picked it up from others. My position is that games work better when we play them as the rules tell us to play them, not that games are unplayable if you don't.



That just plays into my point: You decide what your character thinks and how he or she acts. But making assumptions can be risky for many reasons, so it's a good idea to take steps in-game to verify those assumptions before acting on them.

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Lotta folks confusing “if you do X, you’ll have a good time” with “if you don’t do X, you are a bad dm and your games are wretched.” And that’s not anyone’s position.

I’m not convinced the last 50 or so posts have done much in service of understanding.

Chaosmancer said:

I definetly don't see this as calling anything badwrongfun, but I do want to seek to understand here. Because, what you are saying, kills a lot of skill usage.

Quick and dirty one: Perception.

The team is walking through a dungeon, and they come to a doorway. They want to roll perception to see if there is an ambush waiting for them on the other side, because they've been ambushed a few times in this particular dungeon.

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Why do they want to “roll Perception”? Shouldn’t they want to find out if there’s an ambush waiting on the other side? If that’s what they want, I would think listening at the door or peering through the keyhole would be a more effective approach than “rolled my perception.”

Chaosmancer said:

Now, what happens if they do not roll perception?

They get ambushed.

So... what happens if they do roll perception?

They get ambushed.

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Wh.... what?

Chaosmancer said:

And, to my mind, there is clearly uncertain circumstance if they press their ears to the door to see if they can hear enemies waiting on the other side. This clearly needs a roll.


But the way you are describing this to me, in trying to be cautious and come up with a plan, they are inviting the possibility of worse things happening than just getting ambushed. Failing has to be worse than not trying.

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Ok, let’s break this down. The player’s goal is to find out if there is something on the other side of the door waiting to ambush them. The character’s approach is to press their ear to the door and listen. If there is not anything waiting on the other side, or if whatever is on the other side doesn’t make any sound (maybe it’s an ooze, or there’d a Silence spell active), there is no uncertainty. The characters don’t hear anything, and you tell that to the players. If there is something waiting on the other side, the approach does have a possibility of success (they might hear the monsters on the other side.) If the monsters on the other side are making no attempt to be quiet, then there is no possibility of failure. The character hears them, and you tell the players that. If the monsters on the other side are trying to be quiet, then there is a possibility of failure (the character might hear it, they might not.) In that case, you need to determine what changes as a result of them failing? If nothing changes, then there’s no point in rolling, just let them succeed. If something does change, then we have appropriate dramatic tension to call for a roll to resolve it. So, does anything change as a result of listening at the door and not hearing the monsters on the other side? Yes, actually. If they don’t check, they don’t know if there is anything on the other side or not. But if they try and fail, then they have gained new information - that they did not hear anything. They might proceed under the false impression that there is nothing on the other side. So, roll Dexterity (Stealth) for the monsters or use their passive Dexterity (Stealth) to set the Perception DC and tell your players what’s at stake. “Ok, that will be a DC [whatever] Wisdom check - plus Perception if you’re proficient. If you fail, you won’t hear anything that might be on the other side, which will leave you surprised if you’re attacked. What do you do?” That gives the players the ability to make an informed decision. Do they take the risk? Do they cast Gidance or spend Inspiration to mitigate the risk? Do they decide the risk isn’t worth it and try a different approach? It’s up to them. Now they are succeeding or failing based on their decisions, not based on the whims of a d20 they had no choice but to roll.

Chaosmancer said:

And knowledge skills... yeah, I've heard of the idea of telling the players lies when they roll low. The problem? I let my players roll their own dice. So, they know they rolled low, and they know it is likely what they have learned is a lie. Some players will run with it, but others are going to start trying to figure out how their character can learn what they know is a lie, because it is hard for them to act in a way they know is wrong. Plus, it adds a burden on me to come up with a lie for every failed knowledge roll. Then, I also need to keep those false facts straight.

And, all to make failing worse than it already was?

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So, Knowledge skills are weird. It’s kind of tricky to fit wanting to know more about something into D&D 5e’s framework of the DM describing a scenario, the player’s describing what their characters do, and the DM determining the results of those actions (with the help of a dice roll if necessary), and describing the new scenario. Because knowing about stuff isn’t really an action. You can kind of make it one if you really want to (see Iserith’s preferred, “I think back to my days as an apprentice studying magical glyphs to see if I recall anything relevant about this symbol” style of declaration.) But it’s awkward any way you slice it. There are many different ways that those of us who use the “middle path” method of action resolution handle knowledge checks. My way is pretty nonstandard, so I’m not going to get into it here, to avoid further complicating this conversation. Suffice to say, what you are describing here is not how I handle knowledge checks.

Chaosmancer said:

So, you as well fall into this "Things must become worse because you tried" camp?

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I don’t think that moniker is particularly representative of my camp, but I don’t call for rolls when failure doesn’t have direct consequences, if that’s what you mean.

Chaosmancer said:

And, heck, reasonable approaches abound. "I'm a cleric of the Raven Queen, who is an enemy of Orcus. This ritual is being used by a cult of Orcus, have I ever run across mention of this ritual in old texts about conflicts between my church and Orcus cultists?"

Reasonable, perfectly possible, but knowledge about this ritual might be a key to the mystery that you don't want to just hand away. However, not knowing about the ritual is the only failure of the roll, so you must give away the information by the standards you are setting down.

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If it is information that I would be comfortable giving the players with a successful check, what harm is done by giving it to them without a check? If it is information that I would not be comfortable giving them with a successful check, then why would a check to gain that information be an option?

Chaosmancer said:

Because it mattered to the players, even if it didn't matter to the plot.

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I have never met a player who cares how long something took in in-game time, unless time was a limited resource. Players will gladly have their characters sit around doing nothing for 8 hours to get a few spell slots back if you let them, they don’t really care whether they busted the door down immediately or “eventually.” If the extra time a failure takes them gets them a step closer to a roll for random encounters, then they care. But then the failure had a consequence. Time can absolutely be a consequence, but only if the DM makes it so.

Chaosmancer said:

Why am I bothering to lock a door if when the players tell me how they get through it I just say "Okay, you did it"? And sometimes, it makes sense that doors are locked.

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You just answered your own question. If that bothers you, put some time constraints in your dungeons, boom, suddenly every attempt to pick a lock has a consequence for failure.

Chaosmancer said:

But, just getting a "yes, you succeed" isn't always satisfying as a player. Sometimes you want to roll dice, because it's been all politics and cloaks and daggers and you haven't gotten to kick down a door in five sessions.

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I believe that players wanting to roll dice is a learned behavior from games where dice rolls present an opportunity to succeed rather than a risk of failure. If you’re used to Dexterity checks opening locked doors when you roll high and not changing anything when you roll low, of course you want to roll dice. On the other hand, when picking locks is what opens locked doors and Dexterity checks are used to determine whether or not something bad happens when you attempt to pick the lock, you don’t want to roll dice. You want to pick locks without having to roll dice.

Chaosmancer said:

What other possibilities?

A check is meant to resolve an action, if the actions success in uncertain. If I put a locked door in front of my party, and the barbarian wants to kick it down. That is a check. Rogue wants to pick the lock? Check. Bard wants to canvass the neighborhood for a locksmith to unlock the door? Check. Wizard wants to investigate the grounds for a hidden key? Check.

If they want to attempt these actions, the outcome is uncertain, so there is a check.

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But you see what you’ve done here? By deciding that a check is needed to open the locked door, you’ve decided that any attempt to open it has an uncertain outcome. And that’s just not always the case. Some ways of trying to open a locked door are certain to fail (shouting at it). Some are certain to succeed (casting knock). Some are certain to succeed eventually if nothing stops you before you finish (smashing it down). But since checks are meant to resolve actions with uncertain outcomes and you’ve decided this door requires a check to open, you are forcing uncertainty into approaches that may not be uncertain.

Chaosmancer said:

They have a pet giant who they have punch the door down? No check. It's a giant.

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Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. So you do agree that there are some ways to go about accomplishing a goal that do not involve any uncertainty.

Chaosmancer said:

But just because that possibility exists doesn't mean the other possbilities don't exist. And this discussion is about using checks, so... we are discussing using checks

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Right, but you said when the handle is poisoned and I describe using a cloth to wipe it off, but you called for a check and narrate me just glancing at the handle and not noticing anything when I didn’t roll high enough, despite the fact that I explicitly said I was wiping it with a cloth. That would be like if I said I had my pet giant knock down the door, you asked me to make a check, and since I rolled a 1 you said the giant missed the door and hit the wall instead.

Chaosmancer said:

Okay, but let me call back to the original quote by [MENTION=6779196]Charlaquin[/MENTION]

"This is why vague statements like, “I check for traps” are a poor strategy. Yes, if I just said I check for traps without saying what I’m doing to check for them, we have little choice but to determine what my character was doing that resulted in that failure retroactively. The dice are generating the story - we didn’t really know what my character was doing until we found out whether it worked or not, and then we came up with a narrative explanation for the result. And if you like to play that way, more power to you! I do not like to play that way, because it puts my successes and failures in the hands of chance. I want my successes and failures to be in my hands. I enjoy the game more when I succeed because I thought of a clever plan or fail because I took a calculated risk and it didn’t pay off."

According to this, the player declared an action "check for traps" but that was not specific enough, so when the roll happened we had to fill in story of why the result happened.


The approach and action of "check for traps" is not enough. By accepting that it is enough for a roll to be called for, I am being told I am putting the cart before the horse... because the player needs to declare an action first? An action that has consequences? Like checking for traps?

How much more is neded? How specific an action must the player take? Where am I justified in calling for a check without somehow doing something seen as wrong by some of the posters here?

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It’s very simple. What’s needed is a goal (i.e. “find out if the door is trapped”) and an approach (i.e. by wiping the handle with a cloth). That is all the information needed to be able to assess whether or not the approach could reasonably accomplish the goal, and if there is a cost or consequence for using the approach and failing to achieve the goal. If it has all of those things, ask for a check. Otherwise, a check is not needed, because the result is either obvious or doesn’t matter.

Chaosmancer said:

You are saying that I am calling for checks instead of actions, but a series of actions were called by the player. Why is that not good enough to call for a check in response?

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Because the outcome of the action wasn’t uncertain (the handle was poisoned, so wiping it with a cloth would certainly result in finding residue), but you called for a check anyway. And when the result of the check was incongruous with the fiction (the die said the character failed even though their approach didn’t have a reason chance at failing to achieve the goal), you narrated the character doing something other than what the player said they wanted to do, in order to justify what the dice said happened.

Chaosmancer said:

I agree, but as this discussion has progressed we have this,

"I check the door for traps"

failed roll

"Okay, what happens"

"I don't know"

Player is at fault?

So, I should ask the player to be more specific with their action.

"I look over the entire door, taking a magnifying glass to sections that seem likely to hide traps"

Roll? Outcome is still uncertain, they could miss something

But, can't just have them not find anything, that isn't enough of a consequence to their roll. So...

"As you peer through the magnifying glass, you forget to stand far enough back accidentally press against the door and trigger the blade trap"

Also wrong because now I've told the player what they were doing. Also, the player should have told me how they failed?

Taken as a whole, this conversation has grown very confusing to follow what advice people actually are trying to give.

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I'll try to answer this example.

The primary problem here is that we don't have enough information. This is set up as a traditional "Checking for random traps" kind of trap, which just inherently doesn't work well with goal & approach. Is there any reason the players would suspect a trap here? Why? What clue or signal were they given that this door is dangerous?

So let's just assume that, for whatever reason, they have been led to believe that there's a trap here that can be discovered if they just look really closely. (As an aside, I would hope they got that information in an interesting way, or they had to figure out that the hint applied to this door, otherwise the resolution is just as mechanical & uninteresting as just "rolling for traps" in every 5' square.) If that's the case, and a trained rogue looks really closely, shouldn't he succeed? Why do you still want to roll to see if he succeeds or fails? To me, that's like making somebody roll Athletics for climbing a ladder. (EDIT: Actually, that's like having some interesting roleplaying/puzzle-solving in order to find the secret ladder going up the cliff, and then requiring them to make the same Athletics check to climb the ladder that they would have had to make to just climb the cliff.)

Now let's look at another variant: the heroes have gotten a clue that there's a magical trap here involving writing, and if they [insert some task to accomplish] they can disarm it. They haven't yet accomplished the task, but the rogue is impatient and wants to see if he can disarm it without going through all that trouble. So he says, "I'll examine the door carefully using a magnifying glass, but if I see any writing I'll stop before I read the whole thing." Now, I have no idea if this approach would work "in real life" (for obvious reasons) so this isn't a matter of player expertise trumping character expertise. But as the DM I might think, "Hey, that sounds pretty cool. I'll accept that as a valid, if risky, approach." So I say to the rogue, "Let's roll some dice to see if it works, but if you fail...or maybe if you fail by more than 5...it's going to trigger the trap. As the expert rogue you know that's a risk, so you can back out now if you want."

How about if I offer a real life example, which I used just last night. My players had recently acquired an old house, which they had been led to believe contained some clue that would further their mission. In their inspection of the basement I had included a description of a wine storage room, filled with those diamond-shaped bins that each hold multiple bottles of wine, and also one shelf designed to cradle 10 bottles, slightly angled so the labels would be on display, as if meant to hold the "good stuff".

In going through the piles of ledgers and paperwork and receipts trying to learn who lived here and why it was abandoned, one of the (many) clues they came across was a sort of bar-code like diagram: 10 skinny rectangles in a row, some filled in neatly, some empty. At this point I was actually nervous they would make the connection too soon, but hey that's part of the game.

Ok, meanwhile they had gotten to know some of the neighbors, including a mysterious lady with her household that included a spooky little girl who had a penchant for cryptic prophecy. When they rescued the lady, as part of the thank-you scene the little girl said, "Have you found yet what you're looking for under your house?"

The players go running back to the house, and start searching all kinds of stuff. Not a single die rolled, though. Somebody specifically mentions the chimneys (and in fact specifically the chimney in the kitchen on the first floor, although I wouldn't have required that) so I described how the flue seemed like a strange design. They poked around in it, and I revealed that it looks like the flue joins another flue coming up from below.

They pull out their floorplans for the house, look where the fireplace is in relation to the basement, and realize that if there's a secret room below, it must be on one particular side of the basement, so they go down to carefully search all the walls facing in that direction. Which just happens to include the wall of the wine room that contains the display rack. This time when I describe that shelf, with its 10 spots, one of the players sits up and says, "I get that case of wine we received as a gift and put bottles in the (he looks at his notes) first, third, sixth, and seventh positions."

Click.

The table cheered, big smiles on their faces. Not a single die rolled. No out-of-game expertise needed (although there would have been some required to figure out what 1010011000 is when converted from binary to decimal, which nobody thought to use, despite having that expertise. Which is fine because it was an easter egg, not a necessary part of the plot.)

Now maybe you don't agree, but we thought this was way more fun...and WAY more rewarding/gratifying...than taking turns rolling Perception ("Can I roll, too?") in every 5' square until somebody "succeeded" by randomly getting a high enough number on a d20. I know because I asked them, specifically with this thread on my mind. And I didn't even phrase the question that derisively.

Chaosmancer said:

Who says it "completely hinges on ignorance"?

I know the only way to truly kill a Flame skull is to sprinkle the remains with holy water. No matter what character I make, this is a thing I know.

Maybe they wanted this to be a cool moment for the cleric, to have them act as the holy person of the group. But my Barbarian from the Gladiator pits knew the answer before any even thought to ask the question.

I will also guarantee that across about 20 different players I am aware of, I can only think of two besides myself who might know that. And that is because both of them have also been DMs for years.

I have enough advantages as a player, why shouldn't I try and limit myself in terms of knowledge, by asking the DM if they are okay with me knowing certain facts? Why does this seem to flabbergast people so much?

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I'm totally with @iserith on this one: if you (and the rest of your table) think this kind of thing is important, then why the $#%& do you use pre-existing monsters like Flame Skulls, putting players into the position of having to pretend to be ignorant? Why not just create your own? Or at least tweak the official monsters to have new/different secrets?

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Oops...that got posted in the wrong thread. Weird.

I mean. I’ll admit, when I’m a player at another DM’s table, and I as a player know something about a monster from having read its monster manual entry, I ask it they’re cool with my character knowing it. I just figure, it’s common courtesy not to assume that another DM has the same philosophy as me regarding player knowledge and character knowledge.

Charlaquin said:

I mean. I’ll admit, when I’m a player at another DM’s table, and I as a player know something about a monster from having read its monster manual entry, I ask it they’re cool with my character knowing it. I just figure, it’s common courtesy not to assume that another DM has the same philosophy as me regarding player knowledge and character knowledge.

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Agreed.

AND...if they say, "No, please don't use that information" I smile and say ok but I'm thinking, "Then why didn't you change it?"

Elfcrusher said:

Agreed.

AND...if they say, "No, please don't use that information" I smile and say ok but I'm thinking, "Then why didn't you change it?"

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Same haha