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Guest 6801328
Guest
Problems are subtle, and quick to anger.
If an NPC is telling the truth, what's the Insight DC to know they're telling the truth?
Problems are subtle, and quick to anger.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Be rary of wowsing a rizard’s wath
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
D&D 4e Rules Compendium which as you may recall was the most up-to-date version of the rules in that system: "The Dungeon Master determines if a skill check is appropriate in a given situation and directs a player to make a check if circumstances call for one. A player often initiates a skill check by asking the DM if he or she can make one. Almost always, the DM says yes." (Emphasis is mine.)
By contrast, the D&D 5e rules say nothing like this. There is no expectation laid out that the players will ask for checks or that the DM's response should be "Yes." That straight away creates a difference in the play experience.
The D&D 4e PHB also said: "The DCs assume acting in situations that are far from mundane; the DM should call for checks only in dramatic situations." Later, the more up-to-date D&D 4e Rules Compendium removed this line from the same section ("Difficulty Class"). We can only speculate as to why. Put this together and we have an expectation that players will ask for checks, even in situations that are mundane and undramatic, and the DM almost always says "Yes."
Again contrast with D&D 5e where the DM makes the call as to any check including attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws, and there is no expectation laid out that players will ask for checks or that the DM will assent to the request. As well, the DM will only ask for checks if there's an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure. These seemingly small differences at the fundamental level will produce different experiences at the table. I make no judgment as to one experience being better than the other. I love D&D 4e and D&D 5e is just fine, too. But I will not play my D&D 5e like it's D&D 4e. I'll just play D&D 4e instead.
Chaosmancer
Legend
O
M
G
Ok, you're getting there, just one detail you seem to be missing from this conversation. This has nothing to do with me labeling things as "good" or "bad" the original impetus for this conversation
Mort said:
robus said:
Me said:
So, if you read through those three quotes, you will see that my entire point was that it is unhelpful at best to label approaches as good or bad. In fact, it may lead to accusations that it is possible to "game the DM" if one uses those labels, because it implies the DM is not impartial in their judgements, and can be swayed by a convincing enough argument for "good".
I'd say avoid shorthand, because I see "productive" and "unproductive" as perfectly fine. There is no value judgement in them, just a measure of their effectiveness. That was the only point I was trying to make, yet it took multiple days and multiple responses to get people to this.
I definitely see that as strange. Failure is undesirable, but a check is neutral to me, because there is both the possibility of success and the possibility of failure. There is a small chance of things getting better than they would have with a check in the way I process the events of the game. Because if someone rolls a 25 on a DC 15 check, sometimes they get more than just a success. they might get more benefits.
I see what you mean about the use of the human brain to imagine fictional scenarios, but to me that isn't the primary resolution mechanic because there is nothing to resolve when that happens.
Man, there are times when everything you say just seems designed to give off the wrong impression.
First of all, since I have stated I do not tell my players the consequences, you are likely assuming I have not used that style, but you need me to admit that so you can discredit my entire line of reasoning with a "well. if you haven't tried it my way you can't have an opinion"
But the thing the really gets me is your two standards. Did I do it your way and find it did not lead to "better and more dramatic" roleplaying (all positives there) or have I not done that and found a level of drama (not more drama, just a generic level) that I am "satisfied" with (not that is good, just that I'm willing to settle for that much, just like you settle for a crappy car because that is all you can afford.
So, with the acknoweldgement that I might be reading into this things you did not intend to put forth, this entire paragraph is asking me to admit to doing something you know so you can discredit my objections and show that instead of trying it the "better" way I'm merely settling for the "Adequate" way.
All not addressing my actual point (some people find it more dramatic not to know what happens next) because the logical evidence that there is some truth to my statement is the very existence of spoilers and holding back information.
I have no problem with people giving out the consequences in an academic sense, your game your preferences, but if you make a habit of telling players and then don't tell them for dramatic reasons, you are depriving them and it isn't fun but the DM breaking their own rules. So I do not tell them, because sometimes it is more dramatic and interesting for them not to know.
You are missing an important detail here.
The chandelier only falls on a failed check.
Let us say the chandelier is rock steady and cannot break, and the player fails the check to jump and swing across. What would happen? They would fall. What happens if the chandelier breaks when they try and swing across? They fall.
In choosing to utilize the chandelier, and a check being called for, the players should already realize that falling is a likely result of failure, just as they should realize that trying to rush past the guards will lead to them being grabbed by the guards if they fail.
The chandelier breaking is simply a dramatic detail added to the result the player already expected. It wasn't that they missed and fell, they landed wrong and it broke. But the result of their failure (falling to the ground) is the exact same result.
A "gotcha" is a failure due to information the player doesn't know. If choosing the chandelier always led to it breaking and you falling, then it would be a "gotcha". But the chandelier only breaks if you fail, it is the "how did you fail" not the "why"
I think implicit consequences might be the sticking point here, because I think players generally understand most implicit dangers. For example:
We seem to agree that telling the players the consequences isn't fully necessary, because the possibility is implicit that they may fall
I would argue this is a completely different problem.
What I was getting at is that the players decision is not invalidated if they do not know the exact nature of the consequences.
What you are describing is purposefully committing an act which wipes out the player's former actions and invalidates much if not everything in the game before that point.
That is a secondary point, and one I agree with. It is why I kind of hate the Feywild time shenanigans or memory loss, because those things wipe out sections of the campaign. But, being teleported far away for a few sessions might not cause that level of disruption. It would be a balancing act.
Well, except maybe for this passage on p 61 of the Basic PDF:
When you look around for clues and make deductions based on those clues, you make an Intelligence (Investigation) check.
You there very clearly refers to the player of the PC.
Page 62 also has the following, contrasting, passages:
Perception. Your Wisdom (Perception) check lets you spot, hear, or otherwise detect the presence of something. It measures your general awareness of your surroundings and the keenness of your senses. . . .
Survival. The DM might ask you to make a Wisdom (Survival) check to follow tracks . . .
Survival. The DM might ask you to make a Wisdom (Survival) check to follow tracks . . .
The rule for survivial suggests that the check is made at GM instigation to adjudicate some action. The rule for perception suggests that the perception check is mandated by the rules as a type of model of the infiction process of the PC looking around.
Just as we can only speculate as to why the skill text in the Basic PDF for 5e seems to take 3 different approaches across the 3 entries of Investigation, Perception and Survival.
Whose expectation? The DMG and PHB for 4e came out in 2008 - were expectations changed by a book published two years later?
Did the RC change its text because it was wanting to bring the rules text more closely into line with observed play practices? In which case one could hardly assert its normative force.
Anyway, given the text I've quoted from the 4e DMG and the text you've quoted from the 4e PHB, I hope you can see why I don't see the cleavage in systems being as great as you do in respect of GM and player roles. The key difference I see is that the 4e rules assume that checks will be made at moments of drama, whereas the 5e rules as applied by [MENTION=6779196]Charlaquin[/MENTION] and (I think) you expect players to be angling for no check even at moments of drama. My own framework for making sense of this contrast is between "say 'yes' or roll the dice" (4e) and classic skilled play, which in my view doesn't involve "pixel bitching" as you have described it upthread, but does involve leveraging the fiction to generate desired results by way of free narration (5e "goal and approach" as articulated in this thread).
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
You could still choose to answer the question regardless of whose labels they were.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
Well, yes, the player is the one who makes the ability check, but the DM is the one who decides if an ability check is appropriate and calls for one, based on what the player described as wanting to do. The section on ability checks discusses skill proficiencies that may apply to the ability given certain approaches to the goal. See sections on "How to Play," the beginning of the section on "Ability Checks," plus the DMG on "Using Ability Scores."
Your PDF also appears to be outdated. You can get a new version at the Wizards site.
No speculation is required if you don't ignore all the other rules that apply here that I mention above. Again, I strongly suggest you play the game if you want to engage in debates about it. For the sake of your own credibility if nothing else.
It's irrelevant why the text was changed in my view. The most up-to-date rules for D&D 4e which reflect the refinements since the original release say how to play the game. And that game has players asking for skill checks and the DM saying yes. That is not the case in the D&D 5e rules which creates a different play experience. But it's no wonder, given how this was a practice in D&D 3.Xe and D&D 4e for many people that they carry on with it in D&D 5e.
Well, my point is that this was not my practice in D&D 4e because I followed the rules set out in the 4e PHB and DMG, which identify calling for checks as a GM function, not a player function. Changes in rules text 2 years down the track, in a book that had several retrograde changes to rules text (eg in its description of the role of the GM) which I took to be attempts to reduce the "indie" flavour of the 4e rules, did not change how I played the game.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
I don't know what to tell you, man. The D&D 4e Rules Compendium is the most up-to-date version of the rules, whether you choose to adopt them or not. They tell us how to play the game and that includes players asking to make skill checks and the DM almost always saying yes.
As an aside, they also have actual working rules for skill challenges in there as opposed to the nightmare published in the PHB/DMG (whichever ones they appeared in, can't recall which right now).
This is where I start to have a bit of sympathy for [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s view about the significance of "how to play rules" vs the actual play of the mechanics at the table.
I mean, you seem to be telling me that I played 4e wrong because I played in accordance with the published "how to play" advice which was, in a late release, modified/watered down for no very clear reason.
Suppose that, for whatever reason, WotC changes the "how to play" rules in publisehd versions of 5e. Would that mean that, retrospectively, it turns out you've been playing 5e wrong for all these years?
In my view that would be a silly view to take. And I think it's equally silly for you to tell me that I should recognise this huge contrast between 4e and 5e about player and GM roles when, in fact, I played 4e in accordance with the published rules and thus did not experience any such contrast! (And to be clear, I'm not disputing that there is a difference - I've identified it multiple times in this thread - but it's a difference about the principles according to which a check is called for, not who has the job of calling for checks.)
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