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

[Ovinomancer]

May or may not have a chance of succeeding
May or may not have a chance of failing
May or may not have consequences

And you need all three? First, my pendantry side wants to point out that one and two are the exact same thing. If something has a chance at success, by definition it has a chance of failure.

Well, to be properly pedantic, no, a chance for success does not mean there's a chance for failure, nor vice versa. If the chance for success is 100%, the chance for failure is 0%. So, then, there's a range between no chance for failure (100% success), a chance for success AND a chance for failure, and no chance of success (100% failure). While what you're responding to is a bit wordy and a tad clunky, it's very accurate that the style calls for a chance of success between (but not inclusive) 100% and 0% and a corresponding chance for failure.

Ergo, all three are, indeed, required. [/pedant]

So, let us look to consequences. This gets muddy.

See, the consequence of failing to know something is to not know it. Something might happen because you do not know something, but that is not a direct consequence of the failed roll, the consequence of the failed roll is not having access to the knowledge.

Now, this only applies if the knowledge is useful. Knowing why the Lady's heraldry contains a rose with five petals may or may not be useful, depending on the campaign. But, if it is useful, and a player asks to roll knowledge on that family's history. Well, they may or may not know the story, but the only consequence of failure is not having potentially useful information.

Is that lack of information enough of a consequence for you to call for a roll? Maybe, I can't say. But, is giving them useful information with no roll, just because a failed roll only means they don't know make sense either?

No, that's not a consequence, it's no change. Before I failed, I didn't know and after I failed I also didn't know. No change. No change isn't really a consequence, it's just maintenance.

Consequence means there's actually a cost to failure. Your proposition has no cost for failure, just no gain.

It isn't that I don't use this philosophy from time to time. If a group wants to break down a door, and there is no time limit or major consequence to them breaking down the door, then they will not fail at breaking down the door eventually. The roll does tell me how long it took though, and the players might not know there is no consequence to their roll, so we might roll and a low number just means they struggle through it, but eventually succeed. After all, there is no point in having them keep rolling until they succeed, but that doesn't mean that I need specific consequences in mind for every roll either.

And, this is fine. I have plenty of stuff that is important, though, so I'm not going to spend time on things that don't. If there's no consequence for failure, then it's not important (in my game, natch). I find there's plenty of uncertainty in the game without me needing to make rolls to add more uncertainty.

Or, in another way, a door that only serves as device to increase player uncertainty just will not exist in my game. This is a strong preference I have -- my gaming time is limited and precious and I'd rather not use it in this way.

This also has little to do with goal and approach, except that such a method helps by already moving past anything like this I do accidentally include with a minimum of fuss.

I think I'm curious about your approach as a player. Somehow, there seems to be a problem with how rolls are handled at some of our tables, and people keep insisting that they describe actions so fully that there is no chance of failure.

That somehow, given the scenario, a player can describe their actions in such detail that no roll is needed, because no failure is possible. And not in rare cases, such as wiping a poisoned handle and discovering a poison oil, but that it is more common for them to have scenarios that cannot possibly fail instead of ones that are uncertain.

How?

Detail is a red herring, here. It's the approach that matters, not the details of the approach. How much detail you add to carefully licking the doorknob clean won't result in an autosuccess, ever (unless, maybe, you're immune to poison?). On the other hand, being skilled at poisoner's tools and wiping off the contact poison may very well result in autosuccess. Don't make the mistake that we're looking for a long, detailed explanation for anything done -- that sounds horribly boring.

So my only flaw in my approach is assuming there will be more uncertainty than certainty? That, in a discussion about how to handle skills, I am assuming that the dice will be rolled and a skill used instead of assuming that the approach given to me will be so certain of victory that no roll is needed?

That isn't putting the cart before the horse, that is splitting hairs.

Yes, you are, and no, it's not. The game revolves around actions, not skill checks. Skill checks are used when an action is uncertain and there's a cost of failure. You don't call for a skill check when a player declares their character walks across a room, do you? Is this a case where hairs have been split because there should be a roll?

In other words, I say that a discussion about how to handle skills has placed the cart before the horse because we do not yet know how we handle actions. Skills come after we get a handle on actions.

Yeah, agree to disagree. I've seen a lot of novels get so verbose in trying to describe things that it takes away from the narrative. The fact that the lady was frightened isn't important enough to spend more words on, how people react and the events that unfold are far more important and if you have every emotional reaction take 7-10 words it is likely to get bogged down.

I think there's a bit of an excluded middle here (things can be more verbose than 'You're scared of the dragon' and less verbose than a novel with flowery descriptions, after all). Still, it's a fair point and entirely a preference in play. I find myself using such descriptive shortcuts on occasion, and I'm pretty big about not telling a player what they think. My players know it's descriptive and they're free to have their characters react however they want.

Ugh, I wish I could think of a really good example of this.

It mostly happens when I'm tired, or having an off day, so part of that is on me. And rarely any of the physical skills, those have clear actions behind them that I can picture.

Insight and Investigation stuff? Knowledge checks? It happens when I know the DM is hinting at something, something that should be obvious, but I'm just not seeing it or understanding the significance of it. And I can usually narrow it down to 2 or 3 skills, and I ask if I could roll one of the list to see if I can break past whatever it is I'm not getting.

This is where I'll harp on my hobby horse of not hiding the game. There's always going to be information disparity between the GM and the players in any game where the GM has secret stuff the players are trying to learn (what's in the next room, what the Duke is up to, did this shopkeep steal his own jewels, etc.). This is because the GM already knows the secret and is trying to get the players to learn it in a fun way. Because of this, GMs tend to create mysteries that depend on the players not knowing stuff, and then err on the side of hiding too much information. This is what leads to players spamming knowledge skills or investigation and perception checks to try to convince the GM to give up this hidden information via a high roll. In reality, these checks aren't doing anything in the fiction except convincing the GM to drop the next bit of hidden information. I say, don't do this as a GM. Make your mysteries based not on hiding information from the players, but instead on what will the players do once they learn the information. Then the GM's motivation isn't to hide information because getting it gives away the game, so to speak, but instead get the information to the players clearly so that the game of what they do with it can be played.

If my players are asking for these things (or fishing for them with action declarations), then I take that as me not doing a good job presenting the world to the players. This doesn't mean I don't expect my players to have to do things to learn things, just that such events are clear that they need to do something and with enough detail they can readily form an approach to how they want to do it.

Very few people I play under bother homebrewing monsters to the point that I'd be remiss in making assumptions.

Well, that seems to benefit you.

But there are two things I'm seeing here.

1) How is asking to recall lore not a asking to roll a check? Sure, I, as a DM, have sometimes told people after asking that there is no need to roll, because it makes perfect sense they would know the thing, but it is the same question. I don't imagine most DM's would be much more or less likely to give you the information if you prettied up your question by asking "Does my character know what a Black Pudding is?" versus "Can I roll Arcana to see if my character knows what a Black Pudding is?"

I agree with this analysis (surprise!). I hate the "knowledge" mechanic of D&D. There's no real consequence I could possibly level at this to justify a check under my preferred method (actions cause changes to the fiction on success and failure) outside of telling the player, that knows they just rolled poorly, that they know a wrong thing. Ew.

I'm pretty sure [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] just ignores this problem and uses knowledge checks as kinda freebies that don't have a consequence outside of not confirming your suspicions (or gaining new knowledge). As I've said, I strongly dislike this. So, I avoid it -- poorly. I tend to provide information based on proficiency and backgrounds for free. You see an X, and are proficient in that thing or have experience in an area, well, you know stuff about it -- here's some game stats. Again, I don't use hidden information as the point of an encounter -- my players can know everything about all of the badguys and the encounter will still be fun because I don't care to play gotcha with abilities. In fact, I dislike this as a player, so I avoid it as a GM.

This still leaves the knowledge skills in a weird place. So, I use them in the exploration pillar. You have religion? That's awesome for figuring out a ritual or ceremony detail that can help you do something. A recent example was a sarcophagus with a detailed carving around it in a a language none of the players could read. The Wizard reached for his Comprehend Languages ritual, but the Grave cleric tried to decipher what the carvings might mean based on her experience as a Grave cleric. She rolled poorly on her religion check, and so accidentally triggered a curse that resulted in the occupants of the sarcophagus animating as mummies. On a success, she would have discovered that those in the sarcophagus were sealed in to protect against a cursed axe found in the sacrophagus (a beserker axe). As it was, the party didn't get this information and the dwarven barbarian attuned to it. Later fun was had!

2) Assuming my character can know everything I know about a world and setting is a dangerous thing. I know A LOT more than most of the people who DM for me, and most of the other players. Usually, they don't mind me acting on my knowledge, but it is polite for me to ask them and get their permission. Even if it is only to assure them on some level that their plans weren't too simplistic, it was simply that I, as a player, know far too much about the game and how it works.

This would be a very poor assumption in my games. I freely reskin and repurpose creatures to fit themes, so assuming that you know something would be a poor choice. Of course, I'll probably just tell you anyway, so... eh?

 

[iserith]

Yeah, I have problems catching where things are as well. Takes me a few minutes of scrolling to find my last post and just go from there.

This particular thing was about Insighting written letters, if that jogs your memory.

I'm sorry, it does not. We can leave it there if that's alright. It didn't seem like a major point anyway. Please feel free to dredge it up again if we find the thread.

I'm not going to disagree exactly, but I'm also not their babysitter. Sometimes I don't feel like devoting 2 to 4 minutes slowly walking them through the exercise of coming up with a plan, especially since that invites other players to chime in with what they would do and end up just running those actions for that player.

It's never ideal, but I also don't have this strict line in the sand about "player responsibility" and "GM responsibility" that some of you seem to have, so it doesn't really bother me overly much, beyond wishing for better players.

To me it's kind of like playing Monopoly and a player in that game refusing to roll the dice or pay rent when they land on the property belonging to another player. I'm sorry, but you have to roll the dice and pay rent when the rules say you have to do that. Otherwise, you're effectively refusing to play the game. Sure, I can reach over and roll the dice for you and move your token around the board and sort through your cash and pay rent when you need to. But why are you even here?

Same for describing what you want to do as a player in D&D 5e. If you can't even do that, why are you here?

Ugh, I wish I could think of a really good example of this.

It mostly happens when I'm tired, or having an off day, so part of that is on me. And rarely any of the physical skills, those have clear actions behind them that I can picture.

Insight and Investigation stuff? Knowledge checks? It happens when I know the DM is hinting at something, something that should be obvious, but I'm just not seeing it or understanding the significance of it. And I can usually narrow it down to 2 or 3 skills, and I ask if I could roll one of the list to see if I can break past whatever it is I'm not getting.

Yeah, I dunno, obvious stuff should just be described by the DM in my view. Many DMs hide information like it's critical to the play experience when it frequently just hurts it. The usual shtick is to gate it behind a roll, even if the information is critical to moving the plot forward. Stupid, in my view. Why put the game's forward momentum at stake? (This isn't an endorsement of event-based or plot-based adventures which I find problematic in D&D 5e, mind you.)

Very few people I play under bother homebrewing monsters to the point that I'd be remiss in making assumptions.

That's the DM's problem in my view and why "metagaming" is the DM's fault almost all of the time. If they want not knowing something to be part of the difficulty of the challenge, he or she needs to do that without demanding the player act as if they don't know something they do know.

But there are two things I'm seeing here.

1) How is asking to recall lore not a asking to roll a check? Sure, I, as a DM, have sometimes told people after asking that there is no need to roll, because it makes perfect sense they would know the thing, but it is the same question. I don't imagine most DM's would be much more or less likely to give you the information if you prettied up your question by asking "Does my character know what a Black Pudding is?" versus "Can I roll Arcana to see if my character knows what a Black Pudding is?"

You are talking about a portion of a percentage difference I think, and that isn't enough to raise a fuss over.

An ability check is not a task. It's a mechanic used to resolve the outcome of a task, when the outcome is uncertain and there's a meaningful consequence of failure. "Does my character know what a Black Pudding is?" is not a task either, and likely to get an answer like "I don't know, does he/she?" in my game. Contrast with "I draw upon my experience as a sage to recall what I may know about black puddings, having read about such things in the world's greatest libraries." Now we're getting somewhere. The DM can decide, based on that description, whether the character succeeds automatically, fails automatically, or whether an ability check is called for. An added benefit is that in some cases we learn something interesting about the character's background.

2) Assuming my character can know everything I know about a world and setting is a dangerous thing. I know A LOT more than most of the people who DM for me, and most of the other players. Usually, they don't mind me acting on my knowledge, but it is polite for me to ask them and get their permission. Even if it is only to assure them on some level that their plans weren't too simplistic, it was simply that I, as a player, know far too much about the game and how it works.

It's certainly a good idea to tell a DM that you know a lot of stuff about the campaign, adventure, etc., but I don't think it's a good policy to have players act as if they don't know a thing. The DM can change that easily enough if the difficulty of the challenge will be greatly impacted by a player's knowledge.

 

[iserith]

I'm pretty sure @iserith just ignores this problem and uses knowledge checks as kinda freebies that don't have a consequence outside of not confirming your suspicions (or gaining new knowledge).

The way I handle this is something vaguely like progress with a setback - you get some knowledge, but it's not as good as if you had succeeded. So if you stated you wanted to recall information on a monster's weaknesses and I called for a check that you botched, then I'll give you some information that's interesting, but not exactly what you wanted. In practice, a player is usually trying to get info off the stat block on a success since they are or are about to fight the thing and want to know how to hurt it or avoid its hurts. On a fail, I'll give the player information from the "fluff" text which may be interesting and possibly actionable, but often not as useful, at least not right away.

 

[S'mon]

Barring some kind of inescapable personal hardship or challenge the player has, I think it's okay to expect and ask for players to fulfill their role and responsibility in the game. The DM should absolutely perform his or her role to narrate the result of the adventurers' actions - from the perspective of the environment. But stringing together enough words to describe what the character is doing and hopes to achieve is absolutely the player's role and responsibility. We have a shared goal in this game and each person plays a part. If the players are falling down on the job, they need to do better and rise to the occasion in my view. The only way to get better at something is to actually do it. A DM who performs the players' role for them is in no way helping those players or the game for that matter.

I so very much agree with this. It's the player's job to say what their PC is doing, at least in general terms - and different levels of abstraction are appropriate to different parts of play. Occasionally a player seems to treat it like a video game with the GM as their flesh-server. Not good.

 

[pemerton]

How is asking to recall lore not a asking to roll a check? Sure, I, as a DM, have sometimes told people after asking that there is no need to roll, because it makes perfect sense they would know the thing, but it is the same question.

<snip>

Assuming my character can know everything I know about a world and setting is a dangerous thing. I know A LOT more than most of the people who DM for me, and most of the other players. Usually, they don't mind me acting on my knowledge, but it is polite for me to ask them and get their permission. Even if it is only to assure them on some level that their plans weren't too simplistic, it was simply that I, as a player, know far too much about the game and how it works.

This brings out different approaches to establishing and using the setting background and details.

Generally in my games the setting is rather loosely established at the start of play, and gets filled in by the players and GM as we go along. Often a player doesn't need to make a check to attribute some knowledge to his/her PC: s/he just does it. When a check is required because the stakes are significant, then generally what is at stake is whether the truth is X (which is what the player and PC are hoping) or Y (which is something that tends to dash those hopes).

In my Classic Traveller game I also sometimes use Education checks to help establish framing. An example to show what I mean by this is the following: the PCs were intercepting some coded signals between a surface base and a satellite, and recognised the code as an Imperial Navy one. (I can't now remember how that part of the fiction was established.) Two of the PCs are former Imperial Navy crew members, and so I allowed an EDU roll to see if they knew the code; neither did. This meant that the players had to declare their actions ignorant of what was in the transmissions (although from context they could make some guesses). Had the checks succeeded then I would have had to make up the precise details of the messages (doing my own extrapolation from context) and that would then have been an element in the framing of the situation. Succeeding or failing on the EDU check doesn't make things any easier or harder, but changes the flavour of the ingame situation. I see that as one manifestation of the role of dice rolls in Traveller!

But I wouldn't use this approach in (say) 4e D&D. An attempt to decode a message would be a move in a skill challenge, and so a player-declared action which (if it fails) would produce an adverse development in the fiction.

Given 5e's "big tent" aspirations, I would expect there to be different approaches taken at different tables to how setting and details are established, whether lore checks feed into this or rather take it as input, whether provision of information is part of framing or an affirmative advantage, etc.

 

[5ekyu]

This brings out different approaches to establishing and using the setting background and details.

Generally in my games the setting is rather loosely established at the start of play, and gets filled in by the players and GM as we go along. Often a player doesn't need to make a check to attribute some knowledge to his/her PC: s/he just does it. When a check is required because the stakes are significant, then generally what is at stake is whether the truth is X (which is what the player and PC are hoping) or Y (which is something that tends to dash those hopes).

In my Classic Traveller game I also sometimes use Education checks to help establish framing. An example to show what I mean by this is the following: the PCs were intercepting some coded signals between a surface base and a satellite, and recognised the code as an Imperial Navy one. (I can't now remember how that part of the fiction was established.) Two of the PCs are former Imperial Navy crew members, and so I allowed an EDU roll to see if they knew the code; neither did. This meant that the players had to declare their actions ignorant of what was in the transmissions (although from context they could make some guesses). Had the checks succeeded then I would have had to make up the precise details of the messages (doing my own extrapolation from context) and that would then have been an element in the framing of the situation. Succeeding or failing on the EDU check doesn't make things any easier or harder, but changes the flavour of the ingame situation. I see that as one manifestation of the role of dice rolls in Traveller!

But I wouldn't use this approach in (say) 4e D&D. An attempt to decode a message would be a move in a skill challenge, and so a player-declared action which (if it fails) would produce an adverse development in the fiction.

Given 5e's "big tent" aspirations, I would expect there to be different approaches taken at different tables to how setting and details are established, whether lore checks feed into this or rather take it as input, whether provision of information is part of framing or an affirmative advantage, etc.

Given that old school travellers had a significant investment into rolling up sub sectors or systems on the fly as you entered them, having the check determine the player gets to decide the nature of the coded messages or even really if they matter seems very plausible as far as fitting that game. Many find memories of games ran out of my black books.


"Given 5e's "big tent" aspirations, I would expect there to be different approaches taken at different tables to how setting and details are established, whether lore checks feed into this or rather take it as input, whether provision of information is part of framing or an affirmative advantage, etc."

I sure hope so. By like 30m into last night's session, the PCs had chosen a path that I had not expected but that made sense in it's own way, surprising not only me, that's expected, but them!!! And before that, they had dealt me a frighin' queen of hearts which meant (even though they did not know about that card) it was actually one of the better choices!!!

Great fun as the evening progresses and without me doing a thing they have split their own party up with several days of travel between the groups and one group is "inside the lion's den" - ok - soaking in a hot tub inside the lion's den with VIP treatment - but still.

Queen of friggin' hearts... go figure.

 

[pemerton]

Given that old school travellers had a significant investment into rolling up sub sectors or systems on the fly as you entered them, having the check determine the player gets to decide the nature of the coded messages or even really if they matter seems very plausible as far as fitting that game. Many find memories of games ran out of my black books.

I have a habit of working up my own copies of games whose rules are frustratingly compiled/edited - so with Traveller I worked through my black books over the course of several months and wrote up a version of the game that makes it easier for me to find stuff (eg compiling all the vacc suit rules together; all the rules for dealing with officials on the same page; etc).

Even with its editorial limitations, though, Classic Traveller is still much more coherently put together than AD&D from the same era, and playing it again over the past year-and-a-bit I've been struck by what a "modern" system it is. I would strongly recommend it to anyone who's looking for a good sci-fi system that has a lot of setting-generation infrastructure and wide-ranging action resolution infrastructure to support "no/little myth" RPGing.

 

[pemerton]

Queen of friggin' hearts... go figure.

I think there's an allusion or a mechanic here that I'm not getting . . .

 

[Imaculata]

I’ve started doing that when my players loot the bodies. It’s just always so boring when their fallen foes have nothing on them, or nothing but a handful of copper pieces. So I have some tables of random junk they long find in a downed foe’s pockets.

I've expanded a bit on this for my 3.5 pirate campaign. I make large loot tables for my dungeons, which also include stuff like special keys, which may unlock chests/doors elsewhere in the dungeon. I also include objects in the loot table that may be plothooks of their own.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I have a habit of working up my own copies of games whose rules are frustratingly compiled/edited - so with Traveller I worked through my black books over the course of several months and wrote up a version of the game that makes it easier for me to find stuff (eg compiling all the vacc suit rules together; all the rules for dealing with officials on the same page; etc).

Even with its editorial limitations, though, Classic Traveller is still much more coherently put together than AD&D from the same era, and playing it again over the past year-and-a-bit I've been struck by what a "modern" system it is. I would strongly recommend it to anyone who's looking for a good sci-fi system that has a lot of setting-generation infrastructure and wide-ranging action resolution infrastructure to support "no/little myth" RPGing.

This suddenly has me jonesing to play Traveller again, after 30+ years. Wish I had my original books.