D&D 5E Consequences of Failure

[Scott Christian]

After reading, I am confused. You mean to tell me that some of you have played in campaigns where someone doesn't do something without an intended goal, such as, "I walk up and slap my arm on the table. I say, 'Let's arm wrestle!'" Or you never had a rogue just steal stuff to steal stuff, or a bard just start singing to sing, or a barbarian that punches something just to punch something, or a dwarf that drinks something (even though they don't know what it is) just to drink it?

 

[Maxperson]

After reading, I am confused. You mean to tell me that some of you have played in campaigns where someone doesn't do something without an intended goal, such as, "I walk up and slap my arm on the table. I say, 'Let's arm wrestle!'" Or you never had a rogue just steal stuff to steal stuff, or a bard just start singing to sing, or a barbarian that punches something just to punch something, or a dwarf that drinks something (even though they don't know what it is) just to drink it?

There are goals(unstated) to all of those things.

 

[5ekyu]

After reading, I am confused. You mean to tell me that some of you have played in campaigns where someone doesn't do something without an intended goal, such as, "I walk up and slap my arm on the table. I say, 'Let's arm wrestle!'" Or you never had a rogue just steal stuff to steal stuff, or a bard just start singing to sing, or a barbarian that punches something just to punch something, or a dwarf that drinks something (even though they don't know what it is) just to drink it?

I would phrase it differently, in the vast majority of cases, the goal is obvious by context within the scene and doesnt need to be stated explicitly.

In the few cases where it's not obvious and is needed for resolution, as GM, I ask for more info.

Net result - s'all good.

If a rogue player in a scene where we just described bunches of folks in crowded bar says "time to go shopping" which is his "term of art" for pickpocketing, honestly, I dont ask "why" or check, even approach, after finding out what others are doing, when we resolve his, it's more just a check and resolve - like "working his profession".

Now, if he has a specific goal - like removing a certain pouch from a certain mark or placing a tracer on said mark, then we get into specifics.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Well, disabling a trap is a goal.

I feel that the goal is probably "get past the trap." Your approach to this could be "disable the trap" but it could also be "go around the trap" or "set off the trap."

For example, if faced with a tripwire, the PCs could carefully step over it or they could cut it or they could pull it. Cutting it would disarm the trap if it was a pull trigger but set it off if it was a tension trigger.

How do the players know which approach is best? From the scene as well as the consequences of the past actions of the characters. For example, if they are in a lair of dumb goblins and the last three tripwires have been tension triggers then this tripwaire is probably a tension trigger. If the lair is of cunning kobolds then perhaps the three tension triggers are there to fake them out and this trap is a pull trigger. Or is it a double-bluff? Or a triple…

 

[Charlaquin]

I feel that the goal is probably "get past the trap." Your approach to this could be "disable the trap" but it could also be "go around the trap" or "set off the trap."

For example, if faced with a tripwire, the PCs could carefully step over it or they could cut it or they could pull it. Cutting it would disarm the trap if it was a pull trigger but set it off if it was a tension trigger.

How do the players know which approach is best? From the scene as well as the consequences of the past actions of the characters. For example, if they are in a lair of dumb goblins and the last three tripwires have been tension triggers then this tripwaire is probably a tension trigger. If the lair is of cunning kobolds then perhaps the three tension triggers are there to fake them out and this trap is a pull trigger. Or is it a double-bluff? Or a triple…

Good point

 

[Lanefan]

Been away from this party for a few days, so some catching up here...

@Hussar - there's always failure on a contested check, just like there's always success: the winner succeeds, and the loser fails.

The “meaningful consequences” part is probably the most controversial part of the process, I think in part because there is no consensus on what constitutes meaningful consequence. What Oofta might consider an action without meaningful consequence for failure and still resolve with a check, Elfcrusher might agree has no meaningful consequence and decide to resolve narratively, and I might say does indeed have a meaningful consequence, though it might be a consequence I deem too artificial and would likewise resolve narratively.

Am I missing something? What happened to the idea the the meaningful consequence is success, and that the roll is (mostly) to determine whether that success occurred or not?

Sure, sometime failure has a meaningful consequence too - maybe even more so than success - but I always thought the idea of most of these rolls was to determine the subsequent presence or absence of the success condition, watever it may be.

Ultimately, I think the point of the meaningful consequence line is to avoid situations like I experienced in a recent game I was playing in: We were looking for a door with a particular symbol on it in a dark alley. DM asked for Perception checks, which we all failed. There was an awkward silence as the DM realized he had maneuvered himself into a corner. One of the other players jokingly said, “Can I try looking harder?” and the DM said, “I guess after enough time you would eventually find it anyway.” If he had thought about what the consequences of failing that Perception check would have been before he had asked for it, he might have just had us find the door we were looking for without a check. Or, he might have prepared an encounter with some street thugs who would come down the alley and harass us if we didn’t find the door quickly enough. Either way, we would have avoided that situation where everyone can clearly see the artifice of the check.

IMO your DM blew the call here.

On all of you failing your perception checkes his next words should have consisted of "OK - still no sign of the symbol - now what do you do?"

I prefer “character building decisions” and “moment to moment decisions” over “character skill” and “player skill”, respectively.

"Character building decisions" implies something that was done at roll-up, long before the current moment of play.

I'd rather talk about "character playing decisions" - i.e. what, given current situation and knowledge - does the character do now. If that's what you mean by "moment to moment decisions" then OK, those come first. Random comes second; it's a dice-based game and luck must have its say.

Player skill/knowledge also ran.

 

[FrogReaver]

Wait...that caused what problem? Was there a problem in the scene I narrated?

This isn't directed just at you but, it seems people are saying stuff and then 1 post later forgetting what they said. That behavior isn't good for discussion.

I submit to the jury that this player probably doesn't want to be in a game with a goal-and-approach DM.

Sounds like you talking about a player problem to me.

 

[FrogReaver]

I feel that the goal is probably "get past the trap." Your approach to this could be "disable the trap" but it could also be "go around the trap" or "set off the trap."

For example, if faced with a tripwire, the PCs could carefully step over it or they could cut it or they could pull it. Cutting it would disarm the trap if it was a pull trigger but set it off if it was a tension trigger.

How do the players know which approach is best? From the scene as well as the consequences of the past actions of the characters. For example, if they are in a lair of dumb goblins and the last three tripwires have been tension triggers then this tripwaire is probably a tension trigger. If the lair is of cunning kobolds then perhaps the three tension triggers are there to fake them out and this trap is a pull trigger. Or is it a double-bluff? Or a triple…

Sounds like more of the goal being defined after the fact in a way to make it sound like it fits into the playstyle. If a player says they want to disable a trap, their goal is to disable the trap. If they simply wanted to bypass the trap, they would have said, I carefully step over the trip wire, or carefully step around the pressure plate.

 

[Lanefan]

More thoughts (while staining a fence this morning)...

There is a difference between rolling dice to determine whether a skill was used successfully, and rolling dice to determine if the use of the skill accomplished a goal.

Arm wrestling example: if the goal is to impress the locals, you might succeed in that just by lasting longer against the local champion than anybody else ever has, even though you still lose the actual match. ("And the crowd goes wild! 'Never seen nobody last that long 'gainst Junior,' says the barkeep.")

In this case I'd split it into two discrete rolls - one to see if you won or lost the arm-wrestle and another to see if your efforts impressed the crowd - because here you're in effect trying to achieve two quite different goals at once.

 

[Lanefan]

After reading, I am confused. You mean to tell me that some of you have played in campaigns where someone doesn't do something without an intended goal, such as, "I walk up and slap my arm on the table. I say, 'Let's arm wrestle!'" Or you never had a rogue just steal stuff to steal stuff, or a bard just start singing to sing, or a barbarian that punches something just to punch something, or a dwarf that drinks something (even though they don't know what it is) just to drink it?

Yeah, that player would be me most of the time: do something just for the merry hell of it, and see what happens next.

Often when I do this my unspoken (and rather metagame, I'm sorry) goal is to get things focused back on the game because I'm bored with hearing other players discuss food recipes or politics or hockey or whatever.