D&D 5E What actions by a PC Don't need to be stated?

[Lanefan]

Gaming the DM is the only way to play otherwise your character is just going to get trolled by DMs who claim that you did not say you were attacking the Orc with your sword.

The assumption - without which the game becomes pointless - is that the DM is also playing in good faith.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Hiya!



This is definitely a NS train of thought. A DM, imo, can virtually never "kill a PC by accident". The only time this could be an accident is if the DM rolls 1d8+2, gets an 8, and says "you take 28 points of damage" because he's distracted, tired or just had a major brain-fart (I know I've done stuff like that). That is an "accident". But, as an impartial adjudicator of the campaign world, I just roll the dice and describe results; if a PC has 2 hp left and just took a critical for 24...well, sucks to be that PC. Time for the player to roll up a new one. That PC's death isn't an "accident"...it was deliberate, as far as the monster is concerned.

I realize that in the OS there is no such thing as accidental PC death, but that was not the point. Death saves don't decrease the lethality of an OS game by much, if at all. Monsters will more than likely coup de grace downed players, and that will be that.

It simply gives more control to those that want it (such as NS DM's). While I'm usually a "let the dice fall where they may" DM, if I down a PC whose player has been having a really bad string of luck, I'm liable to show a bit of mercy, and have the monster leave him to bleed out and go after another PC rather than finishing him off. Whereas prior to 4e, that might not have been possible (since the blow that felled him might also have taken him past -9). That is what I'm referring to with accidental death.

Again (imho), very much a NS thought process. A trap dungeon, by definition really, IS trying to toss in as many "gotchas!" as it can. The Tomb of Horrors is a meat grinder and has most players who know about it break out into a cold sweat when they hear about it. I'd say you are describing a more...."tricks n' traps" type of adventure. One where the designer is trying to test the skill/capability of the party...not necessarily kill them, test them. Some may die, but the clever, bold and lucky ones will survive. Tomb of Horrors is definitely a TRAP dungeon.

It's funny you should say that, because ToH was exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote that. The dungeon has no sentience or malevolence in and of itself. The lich who built the dungeon is not in a mindful state during most of the adventure, and therefore cannot be said to possess any true malevolence for most of the adventure either. There is nothing about ToH that would cause me to assume that the PCs leave their brains at the door, and that they perform like some very poorly scripted AI unless the player is very specific in saying otherwise.

Besides, if that's the case, then why even make it sporting? You could easily make it so that only teleportation will allow the players to reach the lich, but leave no clues that might direct them, making it effectively impossible. It would require only a minimal amount of creativity to design a nearly unavoidable and completely inescapable death trap. That seems to me like it would be the ultimate 'gotcha' (the only way to win is not to play). I mean, that seems quite realistic for what a powerful and intelligent lich might do. Why take any risks at all?

I can completely see why you would think that. But I live in a small'ish city in Canada. Locking my door is one of those "try and remember, but if I don't, oh well" things. When I leave the apartment (ground floor), I never lock my door unless I'm going to be gone overnight...and that's only really because I've had two or three drunk folk mistake my apartment for the one above me. But "locking my door" isn't very high on my list of things to remember (even when I go to sleep at night).

So...I think a PC's "common sense" things to do would depend on where/how the character grew up. Growing up as a noble, I'd guess the character probably wouldn't lock the door as a default. The PC would likely have never really need to do that; that's what the guards and servants are for...and the outer compound wall. However, a PC with a street-urchin background would probably always lock the door...or place a chair up against it if there wasn't a lock. Such a PC would be intimately aware of all the bad people out there because they had to live with them.

That said...an adventurer would probably, after some time, be one of those types who rents a room, locks the door, puts a chair up against it and uses dimension door to jump into the next room to sleep in there. Adventurers get pretty paranoid...

I'm glad you live in such a safe neighborhood, but I would caution you. I lived in a very safe rural neighborhood myself growing up, and rarely bothered to lock my car doors. Which was fine until it wasn't. One night when I was 18, maybe 19, someone broke into my car and cleaned out all the change (thankfully, my gaming books on my back seat were untouched, as those were worth a few hundred).

That said, characters living in a pseudo medieval setting are likely not from a quiet town in modern Canada. All but the most naive would know that thieves and brigands are out there. Personally, I would expect nobility to be the most familiar with locks (after all, they're the ones most likely to be able to afford them), and to be the most paranoid that someone will steal from them.

This falls into the old newbie DM mistake: "You see a hallway, 70' long with doors every 10 feet on both sides. All the doors are dark wood with bands of rusty metal. One door, the fourth up on the right, is made with newer wood and is lighter in colour with slightly less-rust on the metal bands". This is also fairly common in NS style adventures/play where the intent is to get the PC's to the "next encounter", as someone said above somewhere.

Thats why I, as DM, try and give "equal amounts" of description, so...: "You see a hallway,
70' long with doors every 10' on both sides. They are mostly dark wood, some a bit lighter, some a bit darker, all with varying bands of rusty metal".

With that description, it's up to the players to decide if the hallway is just a hallway, and if the doors are just doors. This is when the players ask questions...Do any doors stand out?, or Does each door have the same number of metal bands?, or Do any of the doors look like they are newer? Maybe like they replaced ones that had been broken down before?. That's a more OS style of play.

That is not at all what I said. What you are talking about is dropping the players clues about what is most important. What I am talking about is about skipping an area where there is nothing of interest.

Rather than describing the empty hallway with nothing in it and spending 10 minutes having the players examine it for this, that, and the other thing, I'd simply mention it in passing and move on. Then again, I'm not a fan of placing traps or secret doors in empty featureless hallways because it forces players to spend 10 minutes examining every empty featureless hallway they come across. That's neither fun for me nor them. If it's fun for you, great, more power to you.

In a hallway with doors, my description would be quite similar to your own.

This is most definitely a "play style" thing. One mans "boring" is another mans "engaging". I guess this would be the "different strokes for different folks".

Of course. As I've been saying all along, while I strongly dislike it, I'm not saying it's badwrongfun. Just not something I enjoy. It's only bad when a DM attempts to shove this playstyle down the throats of his players whether they want it or not (which, unfortunately, has been my experience with it). Hence why I think it's important to discuss it with your players beforehand.

We (me and my group) have attempted to play through four Adventure Paths (3.x and PF)...never managed to complete one. They get, to us, ridiculously predictable. Like 'hollywood-blockbuster-movie' predictable. So much so that the DM had to outright cheat/insta-change/completely-rewrite things during the game session. When the players start to prepare, two 'modules' in advance, for something that they aren't expected to know/suspect...well, that's a problem.

When it's easy to figure out "Ok, about to have a major encounter..." or "Oh, right, this is where we get background info for no particular reason right now...but next module it will be needed...got it...", well, the adventure becomes "..wasting time on boring things" for us. We/my players like to piece things together themselves, from all that "boring stuff", so that when they do come to a big encounter and are prepared for it...they know it's because they figured something out; not because they killed that one bad guy at the end of the last module and he had a piece of paper that had the 'big encounter bad guys' name on it.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

We don't use APs, so I can't really comment on this, beyond that we find most adventure modules to be a little too 'generic fantasy' for our tastes. That's not a criticism btw, simply personal taste; the offbeat fantasy that we enjoy probably wouldn't market to an audience as broad.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The assumption - without which the game becomes pointless - is that the DM is also playing in good faith.

That's straying into prisoners' dilemma territory. Everyone's better off if no one games the DM, abuses the rules, or abuses their DMing perks - but any one of them's better off if they, alone, do so...

Yes this is all minutae and can probably be ignored most of the time, but sometimes it comes up relevant.

Because if you don't ask when it doesn't matter, the very fact of your asking this time as opposed to all the other times puts up a big red metagame flag that something here does matter (or soon will matter), which is bad. This is where establishing some SOPs (where possible) comes in handy - it avoids the "I assumed this! "We assumed that!" arguments on the occasions when something happens.

And were SOPs aren't possible or practical, you kinda have to ask every time.

You just described a major issue with the game back in the day. How do you deal with 'player knowledge' vs 'character knowledge?' How do you fairly determine whether something bad happens as a result of a decisions the character made that should seem trivial, at the time, but is later critical?

One way is to drown your game in minutia, so that, when turning the doorknob to the left instead of the right doesn't trigger the trap, you didn't telegraph that there was a trap by asking which way you turned the doorknob - /because you've been asking that about every doorknob for year after grueling, stultifying year/.

The other way is to bring the character into it. When characters were 6 numbers, a race, a class, and a list of spells and gear, that didn't help much. When they became complex race+template+classes+PrCs with pages of skills, feats, 'special' abilities, spells, cheap utility magic items, and bushels of mundane gear stuffed into handy haversacks, it was a lot more helpful - but not a lot less stultifying to keep track of!

 

[Fanaelialae]

Before my time, but roll-under-your-stat checks were familiar enough in '80, too. Interesting if that's where they came from.

I suppose it may have been a spiritual predecessor, but it was actually kind of weird. You rolled percentiles and added your ability score to determine a die type using a table from the article. You then rolled this die and multiplied it by your ability score to derive a percent chance for success. There were also optional modifiers, such as adding your level.

However, it does show rather conclusively that even in the infancy of the game there were people who were adding dice-based resolution mechanics.

Heck, you can look even earlier to the introduction of the Thief class as the very earliest skill resolution mechanics (as far as I know). The Thief was not one of the original classes.

 

[Shasarak]

The assumption - without which the game becomes pointless - is that the DM is also playing in good faith.

If you are going to play the DM then it really does not matter if he plays in good faith or not. I assume that Patrick Johnston thinks he is playing in good faith and if I was playing in that campaign I would have a mental note to be extra meticulous in my descriptions of what my character was doing. If I was in iseriths campaign I would make sure to bring along extra waffle irons and to specify which sized waffle iron I was attacking with.

 

[iserith]

If you are going to play the DM then it really does not matter if he plays in good faith or not. I assume that Patrick Johnston thinks he is playing in good faith and if I was playing in that campaign I would have a mental note to be extra meticulous in my descriptions of what my character was doing. If I was in iseriths campaign I would make sure to bring along extra waffle irons and to specify which sized waffle iron I was attacking with.

The Belgian waffle iron is the correct choice. Watch someone accuse me of claiming One True Waffle.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I suppose it may have been a spiritual predecessor, but it was actually kind of weird. You rolled percentiles and added your ability score to determine a die type using a table from the article. You then rolled this die and multiplied it by your ability score to derive a percent chance for success. There were also optional modifiers, such as adding your level.

Wow. Baroque. Not surprised it didn't catch on.

Heck, you can look even earlier to the introduction of the Thief class as the very earliest skill resolution mechanics (as far as I know). The Thief was not one of the original classes.

Introduced in Greyhawk, yeah, that story I know. Thing about the Thief's skills is they were a 'special' ability, the class's raison d'etre, and closed off options for everyone else via that niche protection, and...

...well, whole 'nuther rant...

 

[Fanaelialae]

A half-competent assassin isn't going to be stopped by a basic lock on an inn-room door.

Sure, but I'm always hoping they'll be incompetent assassins.

It might at first seem nonsensical, but dig in a bit:

- do the rooms in this inn have locks on the doors at all? (locked doors are a modern thing)
- are the party standing watch (some paraniod parties do this, believe me!) and thus do they want the doors unlocked for ease of access to the hall and thus to their other rooms?
- if there are locks, who else has keys?

Yes this is all minutae and can probably be ignored most of the time, but sometimes it comes up relevant.

Sure, any of that could be true depending on the setting. However, it doesn't change the fact that if there is a lock and the PC is familiar with their use then it's nonsensical to assume that the PC isn't locking the door. And if there were any doubt in my mind as to what they might do, I'd simply ask.

It comes down to using player choices, rather than technicalities (regarding whatever they've left unsaid).

Because if you don't ask when it doesn't matter, the very fact of your asking this time as opposed to all the other times puts up a big red metagame flag that something here does matter (or soon will matter), which is bad. This is where establishing some SOPs (where possible) comes in handy - it avoids the "I assumed this! "We assumed that!" arguments on the occasions when something happens.

And were SOPs aren't possible or practical, you kinda have to ask every time.

It really isn't. The PCs don't know why I'm asking. All it does is make their ears perk up. But they don't know whether there is a hidden passage, secret treasure, an ambush from the rear, a frontal assault, a trap, or simply a bit of exposition that takes the form of an ornate mosaic.

You can even throw in the occasional red herring if it deeply concerns you. Ask before it becomes relevant. There's no reason you have to ask for their marching order in the hallway with the trap. Ask a ways back, and after that it's perfectly reasonable to assume that unless circumstances change or they say otherwise the order remains the same.

It's about changing the definition of fun.

Lanefan

If that works for your table, great. To me it's akin to doing my taxes. I am not prepared to set aside a 6 to 8 hour block of my time every week for something akin to filling out tax forms. For that kind of an investment, I expect a real return on fun. Otherwise, my time could be better spent lounging on my couch with a good book.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

("Stuff")

Fair enough on all points. Glad we disagree on a few things and it didn't degenerate into "Na-uh! Is not!", "Is too!", "Is not!", "Is too!", "Is NOT!", "IS TOO!"...

As someone once said..."Game on!".

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Harzel]

That's straying into prisoners' dilemma territory. Everyone's better off if no one games the DM, abuses the rules, or abuses their DMing perks - but any one of them's better off if they, alone, do so...

Either I am missing what you are saying, or that presumes greatly on one's definition of "better off".