D&D 5E Consequences of Failure

[Charlaquin]

Where my point is that in order to be able to give that input in a consistent and believable way the player's knowledge should (as far as possible) match that of the character.

Otherwise the input is either filtered through some sort of self-policing or is liable to be incongruent with what the character would do otherwise.

And here’s the rub. As soon as you, the DM, start making decisions about what a character being portrayed by one of your players “would do,” you have overstepped what I believe to be the bounds of your role. Only the player gets to decide what their character “would do.” And there are plenty of reasons a character might do something that the player had them do based on external information. Again, if the players know their characters are in danger of being observed, they might search for the observer or shore up their attempts to hide themselves. All things it would be perfectly reasonable for characters who don’t know they are being observed might do.

I guess we disagree on the definition of 'pertinent'. If I-as-DM fail to tell the player about something relevant that the character would have known or observed, that's on me. But that by no means suggests I should be telling them about things the PCs don't (yet) know.

Put another way: I hold and retain the right to now and then surprise the players and PCs together.

Sure. And I try to limit my narration to what the characters can directly observe. But I’m also not going to get my nickers in a twist about the players realizing that the fact that I called for a Stealth check means there was a chance something might have observed them. Again, I try only to call for checks in response to players’ action declarations, so chances are I’ve telegraphed the presence whatever they might guess the check indicates anyway.

Not hear, smell. But in either case I'd probably do a series of things:

First, I'd roll to see how much noise the dog happens to make; as this is a somewhat random element and informs what comes next. Then, based on that roll I'd give the PCs a Listen (or Hear Noise) roll if the dog was quiet, or skip straight to narration if the dog, say, started barking (i.e. a really high how-much-noise roll).

I'd then narrate from the results of the Listen roll.

That’s cool. You do you. I’ll do me. We won’t do each other. Probably.

That was a good poem.

I was referring to how many Stealth checks to get down the entire hallway - one per door? One overall? Or?

Again, too many variables for me to answer accurately. Could be one. Could be five. Could be zero. It depends on what actions the player takes and what the outcomes of those actions are. The nature of my style of DMing is that it’s highly context-dependent. I suppose if you really want to I could DM this scenario for you play-by-post style and that would indicate one way such a scenario might play out. I would imagine it would play out differently if Oofta played through it, or if Elfcrusher did, or if Bawylie did.

And right here is where I would want to get off the bus. The hallway should be treated exactly the same in the mechanics, regardless of what's actually there, until and unless something happens to change that. So, if it's one check per door it's one check per door, end of story; until and unless either a check result causes the PCs to be noticed (if there's anything to do so) or something else intervenes (e.g. an unexpected guard walks around a corner).

And why is this? Because neither the PCs nor the players know what if any threats lurk behind those doors, and nor should they until and unless a) a threat makes itself obvious (a dog barks; or a door opens) or b) the PCs notice something that indicates a threat might be present (they hear a dog; or see light coming out from under the door).

It sometimes generates a big sigh of relief from the players when they absolutely butcher a sneak check and my response goes something like "Well, fortunately for you you picked a good time to mess that up; as nothing seems to have come of it."

That’s a valid way to run the game. But it’s not the only valid way to run it. I ran it that way for years and struggled the whole time with issues I did not have the language or context to articulate. Then I learned of other approaches, tried them for myself, and found them more to my liking. But if your way works for you, maybe you’re better at it than I was, or maybe you value different things in an RPG than I do. Ultimate it doesn’t really matter why our tastes diverge, what matters is that we each enjoy the game in our own way.

 

[iserith]

Which leaves us in a spot where almost everyone agrees over the majority of the process, which explains to a large extent why we found it necessary to argue over minor issues like whether the check was made in the open or in secret, or whether wait until the critical moment just before failure, or go ahead and get the check out of the way and let it ride.

The bolded bits are DM preference. Nobody's wrong there, except anyone who disagrees with me, obviously.

It also leaves us in a spot where nothing much that is being said would deviate from Gygax's example of play in the 1e AD&D DMG.

I don't recall what that example of play says, but I'll assume you're correct until proven otherwise. On that basis, as I've said before, it's not a new idea. One wonders why it's controversial to some.

 

[Charlaquin]

Good advice. I'm trying to edit my narrative, but I think we're all experiencing issues with the website.

Yeah, I have a couple DMing notes-to-self I keep behind the DM screen that I find help improve my narration and the flow of gameplay a great deal. “Don’t start with ‘you’” is one of them. I think I might start another thread about these sort of best practice reminders, cause I think that’d be a valuable resource but is pretty well beyond the context of this thread.

 

[Harzel]

or it might turn out the pie is an illusion and there is no pie and we must seek or pie in another dungeon

Aaargh! I should have known. The pie is a lie.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Aaargh! I should have known. The pie is a lie.

Doesn’t everybody know that?

Oh, wait, I get it: you were roleplaying a character who did not know.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't recall what that example of play says, but I'll assume you're correct until proven otherwise. On that basis, as I've said before, it's not a new idea. One wonders why it's controversial to some.

I would suggest that most of us started playing when we were fairly young, and our DMs were friends or family members who were around the same age and/or were similarly new to the game. They made mistakes, we had bad experiences, and we associated those experiences with the DMing paradigm instead of the DM.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I would suggest that most of us started playing when we were fairly young, and our DMs were friends or family members who were around the same age and/or were similarly new to the game. They made mistakes, we had bad experiences, and we associated those experiences with the DMing paradigm instead of the DM.

I'll never forget the look on one friend's face (ca. 1981) who showed up late to a session, only to be informed by the rest of us that the party had erupted into pvp and the character he had been playing for months was now dead.

Yeah, we were figuring it out as we went along....

 

[FrogReaver]

Who ever spoke about telegraphs that way?

That’s an annoying question in a 300+ post thread

 

[Maxperson]

Although I'm a fervent convert to the goal-and-approach way, I'll admit that years of ingrained (calcified?) gaming habits sometimes makes it hard to implement in the heat of the moment. I still occasionally revert to my old DMing habits. "Um....gimme a Perception check?" I'm just the disciple, not the master, so I'm starting this discussion more to get advice than to impart wisdom. So for those who want to play this way, let's talk about how to do it, especially how to always incorporate a "meaningful consequence of failure."

For those who don't want to play this way, I'm really going to try to restrain from arguing with you about it in this thread, but derail away! I'm going to do my best to interpret any question as a genuine inquiry.

I'll start with a medium-hard one: stealth. (I do also want to discuss the "Do I know about X?" scenario, too. That's a tougher one.)

One question that might arise is whether failing a stealth check, and thus failing to hide, really counts as a consequence. Isn't that the same outcome as not rolling at all? It might be if you think of it as "failing a die roll" instead of "failing at a task." But if the player attempts something with consequence, and fails, they are worse off than if they hadn't attempted it. E.g., if the player takes a risk by trying to sneak past the dragon, then the failure state is alerting (or moving a step closer to alerting) the dragon. The player could have said, "$%@# the dragon! I'm not going in there!"

So I think a key feature is that the player has to actively / knowingly undertake a task with risk. If the party hears something coming and they say, "Let's all hide!" my instinct would be to say "Ok, let's have stealth checks." But in this case the failure state IS the same as not doing anything.

Maybe take an (approximate) average of "passive Stealth" in the party, and then compare to the monster's passive perception? (Or you could have the monster roll Perception...which raises the whole question of whether the "consequence of failure" principle applies to NPCs.)

Alternatively, does this need to be resolved by comparing die rolls or passives at all? What about simply choosing an outcome based on the story. E.g.:

• The monster comes close enough to give a scare, but sees nothing, however the party gains some clue/information relevant to the adventure.
• Make it clear the monster is ABOUT to discover them because there isn't really anything to hide behind, and give them a chance to think of a plan. E.g. trying to distract/mislead it. That plan might involve risk.

What would YOU do in this case?

I think you're off just a little bit. This, "But if the player attempts something with consequence, and fails, they are worse off than if they hadn't attempted it." isn't necessarily true. Sometimes being where you started is itself a meaningful consequence.

 

[Charlaquin]

That’s an annoying question in a 300+ post thread

Sorry? How about this. Everyone who thinks telegraphs should be overt enough that players never fail to pick up on them, say aye.