D&D 5E Players: Why Do You Want to Roll a d20?

[FrogReaver]

Well, I know you’re not fond of us folks who use the “middle path” quoting the books to explain our reasons for things, but... the rules do define DC 5 as “very easy”, DC 10 as “easy,” DC 15 as “hard”, and DC 20 as “very hard.” Personally, I almost never call for “very easy” checks because it’s pretty rare that a task that could be reasonably defined as “very easy” meets my standards for requiring a check at all. Most of my DCs fall in the 10-15 range as well, though I wouldn’t call DC 20 “legendary” in difficulty.

Where is this phrase "middle path" coming from?

 

[FrogReaver]

From my perspective the approach is the thing you are actually doing, not the background details that support it. Attempting to recall something from memory is attempting to recall something from memory. If you bring up something that has already been established about your character's background that was not at the top of my GM brain it could impact the DC, but bringing up some other piece of background info does not change what your character was fundamentally trying to do.

I care about what you are actually doing right here and now. For me a difference in approach would require something like consulting an in world bestiary or an active discussion with your patron or academic in the field. These would obviously take more time than a simple attempt to recall information.

Tell me everything I know about grus is not something I would accept as a goal because that could potentially be a massive info dump that I have no real way to resolve. What is this thing or what is a gru is something that is very doable.

Yep. Where we went off the rails was when some claimed that trying to recall important info about trolls or gru's from memory was to vague to count as an approach.

 

[FrogReaver]

You are missing that calling on the lore his grandfather taught him is not a conscious thing. That's just to inform the DM. Once fails to remember or he never knew(failed roll or outright no), he is done. There is no grandmother lore to call on.

So I literally could have filled in the calling on "the lore his grandfather taught him" with anything?

 

[Charlaquin]

Where is this phrase "middle path" coming from?

The DMG, page 236, under the heading “The Role of Dice.” I’m actually not fond of that name for it, for the same reason I’m not fond of calling combat without visual aid “theater of the mind.” But it does roll off the... err... keyboard... better than “the goal and approach style of action resolution.”

 

[FrogReaver]

Worth noting, the “middle path” style has no restriction around repeated actions. In fact, that’s a big part of the “meaningful consequence for failure” requirement for a roll - if there’s nothing stopping you from trying repeatedly until you succeed, you succeed.

That makes even less sense in a lore recollection scenario.

 

[Oofta]

He’s pretty transparent about not liking to give specific examples because in his experience they are too lacking in context to effectively illustrate his point, and only serve to give people something to pick apart. Can’t say I blame him.


I think for many of us who use the “middle path” style, “tell me what I know about” anything feels wrong, because we generally don’t consider it within the DM’s role to decide what a PC does or doesn’t know. The instinct is either to say “I don’t know, you tell me,” or “what do you want to know about them?”

Which is where a D20 comes into play if there's nothing special in a PCs background. But I don't want to give people special bonuses just because they come up with a good story.

Fundamentally I just disagree. It is the DM's job to decide what PCs know based on their training as reflected by proficiency scores.

At least in my campaign.

 

[Charlaquin]

That makes even less sense in a lore recollection scenario.

Yeah, this is one reason among many I don’t handle lore recollection the way that’s been under discussion here. Frankly, I’m not sure anyone handles lore recollection the way that’s been under discussion here. We’ve tortured these examples and conflated different people’s responses to them so much at this point, they probably more closely resemble Jeff Goldblum in The Fly than they do anyone’s D&D game.

 

[iserith]

I think this is a part of the issue that isn't being discussed actually. How much swing are we talking about? How does your DM determine DC's? For example, I know that @Maxperson (in another thread) said that it was a DC 20 to determine 2 facts about a monster and that it was possible that neither fact would be useful to the player in the context of the situation. That that it had to be, but, that it could be.

I would not do this.

To me, I look to the bounded accuracy of 5e. How many monsters have an AC over 20 for example? Not very many. Most of them are pretty legendary encounters. So, I apply that to the skill system as well. Any DC of 20 or higher is something of legend - this is something that even a highly trained expert will fail most of the time, so, it's pretty darn hard and it's something you'll likely only see a couple of times in a given adventure. Over 20? Couple of times in a campaign. The vast majority of checks, in my view, are between DC 5 and 15.

Which means that now, asking for checks,isn't anywhere near as swingy as it might be supposed. For an unskilled character, an easy check succeeds about 2 out of 3 times. For a skilled character, that becomes a Moderate (15) skill check.

I tend to stick to a DC of 10, 15, or 20 for almost all actions that aren't contests. A 5 or a 25 is an outlier for me. The designers of the game have basically said as much in previous notes and it makes sense to me.

So, to answer the original question of the thread, "Why do you want to roll a d20?" Well, I know that if I roll, barring unforseen complications, I'm going to succeed about twice as often as I fail and I can spend character resources to improve those odds even more. So, why shouldn't I roll? I'm losing out on those character resources if I don't roll and rolling will get me what I want most of the time.

I think in many cases, if possible, those resources are better saved for when you have to make rolls you don't want to make, including attack rolls and saving throws. The more tasks you can perform without an ability check that you might have to spend resources on the better in my view.

 

[Charlaquin]

Fundamentally I just disagree.

This pretty much sums up the thousands of pages of discussion we’ve had on this subject over the years.

 

[iserith]

He’s pretty transparent about not liking to give specific examples because in his experience they are too lacking in context to effectively illustrate his point, and only serve to give people something to pick apart. Can’t say I blame him.

Yep, and there's evidence for it in this very thread, plus countless others. When you expect to have to defend yourself against bad actors, providing examples is not a good idea. Goal posts get shifted, important details get conveniently left off, the trees are focused on while the woods are completely missed. I didn't think I had to worry about that earlier today in discourse with a particular poster who I thought would act in good faith, and sure enough, I was wrong. It's no wonder why I'm very reluctant to present examples, right?