Chaosmancer
Legend
But yeah, in my games there's not going to be a neon sign. Then again doors that get used all the time aren't going to be trapped either because that would just be dumb IMHO. Obviously using passive values does mean that there will be times when someone's passive is so high they detect every trap in which case I'll just narrate it.
To add to this, let us say there is a massive bloodstain in front of a trapped door. A door that is still trapped.
That means no one has gotten through this door, because it is still trapped and the person who tried is dead.
So then, why would there be a bloodstain in front of the next trapped door in that dungeon? No one got through the first, the only indication you had was the previous adventurers failure, no hints from the trap itself, so how would you narrate the next door that was trapped in the same dungeon?
Side Side tangent: I really want to have a big dungeon with traps and stuff clearly cleared by adventurers, holes in the walls next to next to doors for stone shape, ect. Then they come to a completely clean passage. The subsequent "oh craps" should be very entertaining.
A bit of a tangent - but what do you mean by I, the GM, would not have allowed that roll by a player to fail?
Around 400 posts ago there was a highly sarcastic example of "rolling overceding player decisions" where a player did everything to a door handle possible, including wiping it down, to try and detect a poison on the door handle. Failed the roll, and things went from there.
A better phrasing might have been, I wouldn't have let the players actions fail. OR I wouldn't have called for a roll. Or any number of things.
But, after defending myself so many times against something I never disagreed with because people think I disagreed with it, I'm getting sloppier in my responses. Mostly cause I'm getting tired of defending myself against something I never once said.
No, all skill checks need to be rolled because rolling a d20 and adding an ability modifier (and potentially a proficiency bonus) and trying to beat a target number is the definition of a skill check. If you’re not rolling, then a skill check is not what you’re doing.
If we want to get pedantic, a Rogue with Reliable Talent still rolls the die, they just change the result to (10 + Ability + Prof) If the die comes up less than 10.
Okay, first I'm really curious why every time after the first that you quote me, it shows up as you quoting [MENTION=6801845]Oofta[/MENTION]. It doesn't matter, but it is starting to get weird.
But, on to pedantry.
That's the point.
In the strictest since, a roll is being made, but the result is changing so that it doesn't matter what is rolled. So, if we decide not to roll the dice because the result is a known factor... is that an ability check?
What if you want to flag down the waitress? It could be seen as a DC 5 charisma check. But, considering how minor in importance that moment is, and the high likelihood of success, we choose not to roll the dice. There is little to no uncertainty and no stakes. But does that mean there is not an ability check that could be rolled?
So, if the Rogue's Reliable Talent is an ability check, which is must be since that ability only works on an ability check, even if we do not roll the dice... then why must flagging down the waitress not be an ability check? Why is there a division between these two events, where they are both situations where no roll is made for speed of play, even though a roll could or should be made "technically:"
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
I believe it was you who had an issue with the fact that sometimes I call for rolls when, given the amount of time players have and the lack of threat, the end result of the roll is not going to change the goal. Eventually, the players were going to get through the vault door. They had over a week until the next major threat that could possibly interrupt them from doing so, and it was only the work of hours to break through it, and the monsters in this area are automatons and are stuck in loops, not reacting to sounds.
So, some people on this thread would have said that I should not call for the roll. There was no significant consequence for failure, the only thing being the inconsequential loss of time. And yet, I did it, and I did it because I knew that it made sense and that my player would enjoy succeeding on the roll. And that failure on the roll, indicating he could not break down the door quickly, would have been important to them, even if it changed nothing narrative.
That idea seemed to bother people, and so a line of discussion spun off from it.
”Obviously I wouldn’t put mustard on my hot dog, but if for some buzzard reason we decided to put mustard on them anyway, I would put Dijon on mine.”
Who cares what kind of mustard we would use “if” we put mustard on our fries, if we all agree we don’t want to do that?!
You kinda did, though. Again, you claim you wouldn’t call for a roll in that situation, but you are advocating hard for the proper way to narrate the failure “if someone did, for some reason.” If a roll shouldn’t be called for, than all ways to narrate the failure are improper, because it is not proper for the action to fail in the first place.
I did.
And the point in that post I made was never about how to handle that roll, it was about how to narrate failure on a die roll. That is something that happens. A highly skilled character can fail trying something that statistically and mathematically they were unlikely to fail.
And so, I responded that instead of just going with "You fail. Take Damage" I would want to cushion it in the narrative. There was a reason they failed in the story. It was because of the dice, but the dice only told us they failed. They don't tell us why. So, if I am confronted by failure, I don't just brush it off, I give them the reason in the narrative.
Players fail rolls. It happens in the game. Whether that particular roll should have been called for has nothing to do with the fact that as a DM I have to consider how I would narrate a failure, even one that on the surface seemed so unlikely that we didn't think it was going to happen.
Not exactly. My problem was with the way of narrating the failure you claimed was better. It wasn’t better, it was flawed for exactly the same reasons that the ruling in the example was flawed - namely, that arriving at it would still have required calling for a roll in a situation where the outcome was not uncertain. It was no better a call, it was just a more flowery way of making the same bad call.
Exactly. You have no problem with what I said, you have no disagreement with me. Your entire disagreement is that I didn't condemn an absurd premise hard enough.
Fine.
[MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION], in your sarcastic example of a DM calling for a die roll to disarm a poisoned handle, even after the player declared they were wiping the handle with a thick cloth and were wearing gloves so that no poison could possibly contact their skin, you were completely wrong in all ways and there was nothing redeemable about that. No roll should ever be called upon in that situation, no matter the circumstances, and nothing else could ever be said about that example or any permutation of that example because your failure in calling for that roll was so extreme it eclipses everything else.
Further more, my use of that example to bring up an entirely different point was wrong in all ways. I should have never have done so, and will endeavor to punish myself appropriately for such a disgrace, since my point fell under the assumption of the roll that must have never been and that is a shameful scar upon my DMing from here on out.
Now, [MENTION=6779196]Charlaquin[/MENTION], if I have properly responded to the roll that never should have been made, can we just drop this already?
This is because your point of conflict is "is this NPC lying to me." That's, frankly, utterly boring to me.
If I present a lying NPC, figuring out the NPC is lying will not resolve whatever the actual issue is. It will just lead to a new point of contention. Why did the NPC lie? What do we do know that we know the NPC lied?
To go back to the shopkeep example you proposed, determining that the shopkeep lied would never be a check in my game. I'd never need to prevaricate to preserve uncertainty so that my plot continues. Instead, discovering the lie is just one more means to advance the plot and do something different. You'd need evidence, and could then brace the shopkeep with it to expose the lie and get the truth (which leads to more adventure), or maybe you engage in discussion, discover something about the shopkeep, like that he loves his little girls, and use that to get him to confess to the lie. Or, maybe, you do not, and have to come at the problem a completely different way. To me, discovering a lie is just like opening a door -- something you have to do to move the game along. As such, if it's uncertain, there will be a consequence to failure that will change how the fiction sits -- the status quo will not hold. On the other hand, a success is a success -- the character reaps the reward and I don't try to diminish the success. Why would I? The character just took a risk I'd hammer home on a failure, so a success deserves nothing less than actual success at the intended goal. Or, for complex goals, a solid step forward.
Okay, I find myself somewhat confused here Ovinomancer.
Why do you think finding out if the shopkeeper lied or not is the end of the conflict?
As I understand things (and I abandoned the shopkeep lying discussion a while ago) it was a discussion a single moment. IF they are lying then that puts forth on set of events. If not, the players are going in a different direction.
It is a single obstacle... why does it have to be interesting? The event of a goblin scout noticing the party is not, in and of itself, interesting. It is a relatively boring thing. The interest comes in the reactions after that. So why is it that we must investigate the shopkeep and turn his love for his daughter against him for him to tell us he lied.... if we don't know he lied.
If we suspect he lied, then went back to get the truth, I see it. But, why do we suspect he lied? Are you just going to tell your players that the shopkeep is lying to them about what is going on? If we don't come out and say it, and or you strongly hint through clues and roadsigns that are impossible to miss, then why would the players investigate him for leverage to get the truth. They have the "truth" and don't suspect anything else.
This is where the roll comes in. Can they tell if he is lying? If they can, then they can work to get the truth, if they can't they will assume he is not lying and that changes the nature of their investigation until they get the truth.