D&D 5E Players Self-Assigning Rolls

[Charlaquin]

This was my middle point about doing things when it matters.

When my players say "We go through the left door." if the left door is trapped with dangerous magic that as soon as they touch it it will happen, we can likely assume that what the players did not mean is "We pick the door with the trap in order to get ourselves killed." This is where it's a good time for the DM to "give away" that taking this action without any investigative action may be dangerous.

I agree, and that’s part of why I telegraph my traps and other hidden hazzards. If the west door is dangerous to touch for whatever reason, I’m going to hint at that in my description so the players know ahead of time that there are choices to be made here with potential consequences, to avoid the inevitable dance of “wait. how do you open the door?” “Hmm... you didn’t ask that about the last 12 doors... I use Thaumaturgy...”

 

[JonnyP71]

so when describing a scene, when you know something and want to convay it to the player because there character should notice it, but it isn't sight, sound, or smell how do you?

"This house gives you the creeps" - Instead describe it in terms that are likely to be thought of as creepy, an occasional low moan emanated from within (actually the wind, but the party don't know that), shutters hanging at crooked angles, swaying, occasionally clattering, creaking floorboards, shadows, etc

"You don't like the mirror" - give it something they won't like - a smear of crusted blood, images moving behind their reflection, an inscription cursing the vanity of the living, etc

"You see the woman and something unearthly about her makes you feel attracted to her" - describe her beauty, give her enticing mannerisms, hit that it may be otherworldly, here it is ok to give her some form of mild charm ability.

 

[Lanefan]

That’s fair. Honestly I think the dreaded “gotcha DM” gets a worse rep than he deserves. It’s just another style of play, and as long as everyone knows what they’re getting into, it can be very fun.


Sure! This comes down to a question of priorities, and for me personally, empowering the players to make informed decisions is a higher priority than creating a realistic world. Realistically, weapons and armor should become damaged and eventually break with use of not constantly maintained. Does that mean the game would be improved by including rules for weapon and armor degradation and repair? Maybe. Depends on what you want out of the game. Personally, it’s not what I would want to spend my game time focusing on, even if it would be more realistic. Likewise, it would certainly be more realistic if hidden dangers weren’t always clearly telegraphed, but that added realism would come at the cost of the kind of game experience I want to create. I like my D&D games to have that From Software challenging-but-fair vibe, where you succeed and fail based on your choices, and when you do fail, or fall into a trap or whatever, you can look back and see what cue you missed or what choice you made that lead to it. I find it makes success feel more rewarding and failure seem fair. For me personally, that feeling is much more important than realism.

So to sum up: D&D as sport rather than D&D as war. OK, got it.

Keep in mind, that auto-success is only possible if I’ve already determined that the approach has a reasonable chance of achieving the goal (and a reasonable chance of failure). So we’re talking about something that it is entirely possible could lead the players to find this hidden compartment. If there’s no pressure, they can just keep at it until they find it. Sure, theoretically they might get bored and give up before that happens, but that’s not a very interesting outcome. I would rather assume they are eventually successful, and montage through the process.

Where I'm not willing to make that assumption. Their one roll determines success or failure.

It’s right there in the 3rd (.X) Edition rules. But it’s not in the 5th Edition rules. I prefer 5e style, personally. I always found that very unsatisfying in 3.X; too disconnected from the fiction. How come that natural 1 was my best effort on this DC 15 lock, but on the next one my best effort was a 19?

Even though the DC is the same the actual locks themselves are not, and something about the first one stumped you. (and if they were in fact identical e.g. mass-produced prison cell locks I'd give you a significant bonus were you to try the first one again, and you'd get a new roll as something material - in this case your knowledge of that specific lock - had changed).

How come I opened the last new jar of coffee with my bare hands but for this one - otherwise identical - I need a tool?

What’s actually stopping my character, in-universe, from trying again anyway and why don’t I get to roll a die for that attempt?

Because the assumption is that your initial roll already included that attempt, and any others you may make under that particular set of conditions and circumstances. This is explicitly intended to put a stop to the notion of simply rolling until you succeed*. If you want another roll you have to do something different, or gain a level, or gain in the relevant stat (Dexterity, in this case). Straight from 1e, and IMO still the best.

* - in case it isn't already obvious, while 3e has its good and bad points the one rule it had that made me want to vomit every time I met it is take-20. Take-10 isn't great either, but at least it still allows a chance of failure.

That’s not the kind of cost or consequence I’m talking about. It doesn’t prevent the players from trying again.

That's my point: there shouldn't be a "try again" unless something is materially (and significantly) different from what was in place for the first roll.

In the altar example: the party Rogue tries - and by "tries" this assumes she throws every trick she has at it, possibly taking a few tens of minutes - and fails (as determined by her roll) to find a hidden compartment. What can the party do to give her another shot? Dispel Evil or similar on the altar, if successful, would in my eyes be enough of a change to give her another roll...maybe the evil aura was part of what was concealing the compartment and-or clouding her judgement. A Bard might be able to pull a legend or tale out of his memory that has info on how these evil guys build their altars and where they put the secret bits - boom, another roll (quietly modified by me based on whether the Bard's info is accurate or not).

Oh, and rolls like this are always made by me as DM. Why? Becuase as the character doesn't know if she failed due to her own bad form or because there is in fact nothing there to find, I don't want the player knowing this either.

Lan-"sometimes it's best not to look too closely at where Bards pull their tales from"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

I think you and I are using “gotcha DM” to mean different things. I would just call what you describe here a bad DM. My point was more that, there is a certain style of play where the player’s and the DM mutually agree upon a no-holds-barred, adversarial relationship, where the DM intentionally creates challenges that are technically surmountable but by no means fair. You see this kind of play style reflected in old-fashioned tournament modules like Tomb of Horrors (the original version), and in some of the weird D&D isms that are clearly the product of the arms race between DMs and the increasingly genre-savvy players they were struggling to catch off-guard, like Mimics and other trap monsters. The game has gradually shifted away from that style of play, but it’s still a legitimate way to play if everyone involved wants that kind of experience.

It's a question of D&D as sport vs. D&D as war.

In my game, I'll cheer for your PCs and celebrate their successes...and at the same time run a game world whose main function is to (try to) kill them dead. It's D&D as war. Death potentially waits around every corner for an adventurer, particularly while out field adventuring or dungeon crawling. This is the 'high risk' side, offset by the 'high reward' side of gaining levels and getting stinkin' rich if you survive.

That said, I don't design ToH-like all-trap adventures mostly because they are (to me) boring to run and not much fun to play. But I'll gladly put a monster in your path that's a long way above your pay grade, and see what you do with it.... {hint: 'run away' is always an option, often accompanied by 'scatter' so it only eats one of you}

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

we went around about gut feelings before... remember when I claimed the character (but not the player) may have a sense of the scene, item, or person that the DM needs to describe using real world terms...

"This house gives you the creeps"
"You don't like the mirror"
"You see the woman and something unearthly about her makes you feel attracted to her"

Hmm. You'll probably hear complaints on this from the "a DM isn't allowed to tell a PC what it thinks or feels" crowd.

It's perfectly fine with me, and something I do regularly.

Can we all take a step back here and honestly evaluate how often this kind of thing actually happens?

Every. Flippin'. Door.

They've learned.

And there is one way to "see" if a door is locked - by simply looking for a locking mechanism where a key would go. Absent such, it's not locked and the Rogue can stand down. Course, it might be barred from the other side, or wedged shut against you, or barricaded, or magically sealed...but it's not locked.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

When my players say "We go through the left door." if the left door is trapped with dangerous magic that as soon as they touch it it will happen, we can likely assume that what the players did not mean is "We pick the door with the trap in order to get ourselves killed." This is where it's a good time for the DM to "give away" that taking this action without any investigative action may be dangerous.

Actually the DM should have got them 10'-poling quite a bit sooner, either by way of a much lighter trap or a dangerous-looking door that wasn't or even just some well-placed reminders that any door could be deadly.

I think that is "fair" play. The players are clearly attempting to not 10ft-pole the room, so the DM should be willing to "tip their hand" when it may be a good time for the party to actually put that 10ft pole to use.

If it gets to this point the DM has left it too late, and thus has to in effect give away the existence of a theoretically-hidden trap.

Otherwise you end up with:
DM: The door explodes when you open it. You all take *dice roll* 55 points of fire damage.
Player1-5 at the same time: That's like double my health man!
DM: you shoulda checked the door.
Player1-5 at the same time: we'd encountered no trapped doors, we had no reason to think this one would be any different!
DM: Too bad so sad.

In this particular instance I'd have very little sympathy for those players, based solely on this exchange. They are (one assumes) in a dangerous place (i.e. any adventure) doing dangerous things and they're trying to short-cut instead of simply developing a standard operating procedure that includes reasonable caution.

Of course the trapped door isn't any different from the others...that's what makes it a trap.

Now if this was the mens' room door in the local pub going up for 55 points damage that'd be different!

I mean there are pretty easy ways to be a jerk DM, and this is one of them. If the DM knows that a room, a door, a place, a weapon is dangerous, there should be tells to that end for the players to pick up on. "The door radiates an intense heat when you get close to it." (It's trapped!) "The chest seems strangely clean within this dusty library." (It's a mimic!) "You hear a familiar voice on the other side of the door." (It's your mother!)

There may be tells, there may not; but they're all for naught if the PCs don't bother to look/listen/pay attention.

I mean, look how often this sort of exchange happens:

DM describing the room: "...and in the middle of this dusty library is a chest, made of iron-bound wood and strangely clea..."
PC: "I open the chest!"
DM: > sigh < "Make a saving throw: are you glued to the chest that obviously now isn't a chest? The rest o' ye: roll initiative."

Lanefan

 

[5ekyu]

Can we all take a step back here and honestly evaluate how often this kind of thing actually happens? Cause I don’t know about y’all, but I can’t think of a single time I’ve been asked “is the door locked?” or told “I check to see if the door is locked.” Most of the time, the people I’ve played with just say, “I open the door” or, “we go through the west door” and if it’s locked I tell them so. Honestly, once players at my table get used to the fact that I handle knowledge checks passively and the answer to “can I make a (whatever) check?” is always “tell me what you’re trying to do and how, I’ll let you know if you need to make a check to do that” I don’t really get a lot of questions, except to ask for clarification about my descriptions.

Absolutely, we can all choose to frame this duscussion around cases where, as you describe, the players and gm have a significant enough body of experience together that they have a solid basis for communication along their established guidelines that does not often lead to confusion, rude behavior or frustration.



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[5ekyu]

"This house gives you the creeps" - Instead describe it in terms that are likely to be thought of as creepy, an occasional low moan emanated from within (actually the wind, but the party don't know that), shutters hanging at crooked angles, swaying, occasionally clattering, creaking floorboards, shadows, etc

"You don't like the mirror" - give it something they won't like - a smear of crusted blood, images moving behind their reflection, an inscription cursing the vanity of the living, etc

"You see the woman and something unearthly about her makes you feel attracted to her" - describe her beauty, give her enticing mannerisms, hit that it may be otherworldly, here it is ok to give her some form of mild charm ability.

I will often use memories if senses are off limits. "Hair stands on end like it did that time when..."

If i am in a game of magic and detectable but unsenssble occurs then to me using a call back to some other event as a way to describe the undescribable is a useful tool.

But imo for many things, there will be sensory identifiers if you really look and think it thru.





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[5ekyu]

I agree, and that’s part of why I telegraph my traps and other hidden hazzards. If the west door is dangerous to touch for whatever reason, I’m going to hint at that in my description so the players know ahead of time that there are choices to be made here with potential consequences, to avoid the inevitable dance of “wait. how do you open the door?” “Hmm... you didn’t ask that about the last 12 doors... I use Thaumaturgy...”

I remember days of old when players had thorough two page write ups of door protocols as default standard operating procedures just for "you didnt say.." Gms.

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[5ekyu]

Lanefan

Regarding your general auestion about using the first roll as "best effort" and then allowing retry only when circumstance significantly changed... I have seen those games and they certainly CAN work.

The key is often they stage direct the players away from re-roll per se to changing circumstances. That gets a new level of engagement involved and that can be good.

So, i get what you are saying.

However, to me in my experience, that definition works better in games where the randomizer is much smaller. Where the primary and largest influence is your skill. Often those games use degrees of success directly into their mechanics allowing partial success where other games provide failure in the odds tree.

Example dice pool vs threshold per die... Roll x d6 looking for 5-6 and three successes equal full success.

There are plenty of others.

But for a game where your character stat bonus at heroic levels is likely +7 or less on most rolls and the randomizer is 1-20, almost three times the of your skill influence, i find the results of a one roll best effort definition for that d20 to be very counter intuitive and counter productive.

There is, it seems to me, a serious skew between that definition and that mechanic.

But a lot of that stems from assumptions about setting and flavor.

Also varies with whether failure is used or "succeed but..." as consequences of low roll.

So it will vary.




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