D&D 5E Consequences of Failure

[FrogReaver]

I just thought of a great way to get players to volunteer more information on their own without me coaxing them.

Player, I investigate the statute.
DM: (Assume the least actionable form of investigation possible). By looking at it from 10 ft away it looks like a statue to you.
Player: I get right up to it and look it over
DM: Give me an investigation check
Player: rolls a 15
DM: you notice that part of the inside mouth doesn't fully touch the outside rim. It looks like this statue is possible made of two different pieces
Player: I stick the end of my javelin in the statue to see if I can pry it apart

Maybe the problem of not good enough player descriptions takes care of itself if you just assume the player does the least amount of work possible when it comes to their actions

 

[Lanefan]

Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. One can imagine telegraphing the presence of a secret door and the players ignoring it to no ill effect. The purpose for telegraphing it in this case is so that the players have a chance to engage with the clue and figure out it's related to a secret door rather than rely on rote procedure.

How often, if ever, do you put in 'false telegraphs' - i.e. things that look like they might be clues but in fact are red herrings or dungeon dressing?

I ask because if this is never done then your telegraphs are, if properly picked up on by the players, going to in effect end up leading them by the nose to the interesting stuff: fine if that's what you want, but I'd rather not lead them around like that and instead have them find - or miss - the interesting stuff on their own.

 

[Charlaquin]

I mean, it's certainly not the same as walking a tightrope to get from one building to another or scurrying from shadow to shadow as quietly as possible to surprise an enemy. But it's something a character is doing - trying to draw upon an experience to recall specific, useful lore. It's just not physical and thus less obvious.

Going back to the original post and out of curiosity, do you think your objection might be rooted in not seeing a meaningful consequence for failure and not so much in the character "doing something?"

I don’t think so. Plenty of actions don’t have meaningful consequences for failure, I just let those actions succeed. The problem for me is that “trying to remember something” doesn’t feel like an action. You either remember something or you don’t. It feels to me like a kludge to make something passive sound like it is active.

Those are reasonable concerns to have in my opinion as to why a player might want to have the character recall lore. "Do I know anything about...?" is often either permission-seeking to take an action or a failure on the part of the DM to provide enough context to act meaningfully. When I play in other people's games, that's usually what is happening. The DM's ability to describe the environment or certain table conventions encourages this result. A frequent complaint of players who play in my games who then go on to play in other people's games is "OMG, the other players are asking so many questions!" It's very noticeable.

Generally speaking, in my games, it's an attempt to verify an assumption the player has. A player might know that flumphs are vulnerable to psychic damage and this thing before them looks like a flumph, but dangit, that wily iserith sometimes changes monsters or maybe this one with the magical beret on is actually immune to psychic damage. Or they're looking at what I've described (telegraphed) and have a theory, but want to firm things up before acting. So in either case an attempt to recall lore or to make a deduction might help them. And usually they just succeed because there is often no meaningful consequence for failure. But sometimes there might be and so they roll.

See, I would want the characters to do something in the world to help them confirm or deny those suspicions, rather than just “wrack their brains.” Instead of thinking back to a time when you studied flumphs to see if you remember them being vulnerable to psychic damage, try doing some psychic damage to it. Or if you can come up with some other experiment, try it out, I’m open to creative solutions. Just do something that isn’t purely in your character’s head. That’s my feeling, anyway.

 

[Charlaquin]

I just thought of a great way to get players to volunteer more information on their own without me coaxing them.

Player, I investigate the statute.
DM: (Assume the least actionable form of investigation possible). By looking at it from 10 ft away it looks like a statue to you.

And of the two of us, for some reason I’m the one who’s had my DMing style directly compared to a teacher giving their students a hard time for saying “can I” instead of “may I.”

 

[iserith]

How often, if ever, do you put in 'false telegraphs' - i.e. things that look like they might be clues but in fact are red herrings or dungeon dressing?

Never. The players are perfectly capable of , if not in some cases prone to, creating and chasing their own red herrings. They don't need my help on that score.

Edit: As for just dungeon dressing, sure.

I ask because if this is never done then your telegraphs are, if properly picked up on by the players, going to in effect end up leading them by the nose to the interesting stuff: fine if that's what you want, but I'd rather not lead them around like that and instead have them find - or miss - the interesting stuff on their own.

It gives them a chance of discovering hidden objects and threats without relying upon rote procedure. It does not lead them by the nose to any particular conclusion. As I stated upthread to you, this is an assertion that I've noticed people who don't telegraph make. People who do telegraph understand that players don't always pick up on the clue, jump to the wrong conclusions about the clue, or recognize it and ignore it in favor of other priorities. But those times when they do run afoul of the hidden trap or creature, or realize they missed an important secret door or object, they can realize that the clue was there all along and so it was fair.

 

[Campbell]

How often, if ever, do you put in 'false telegraphs' - i.e. things that look like they might be clues but in fact are red herrings or dungeon dressing?

I ask because if this is never done then your telegraphs are, if properly picked up on by the players, going to in effect end up leading them by the nose to the interesting stuff: fine if that's what you want, but I'd rather not lead them around like that and instead have them find - or miss - the interesting stuff on their own.

For me the implication here is that there is interesting stuff and not interesting stuff. Why would you design part of the dungeon to be boring on purpose? Why not design it so there are threats and opportunities everywhere with compelling ecosystems so what you do in one place affects what happens elsewhere? I genuinely do not get what the point of spending time on stuff that is meant to frustrate and bore players is.

 

[Oofta]

For me the implication here is that there is interesting stuff and not interesting stuff. Why would you design part of the dungeon to be boring on purpose? Why not design it so there are threats and opportunities everywhere with compelling ecosystems so what you do in one place affects what happens elsewhere? I genuinely do not get what the point of spending time on stuff that is meant to frustrate and bore players is.

Because when taken to the extreme, if feels like spoon-feeding and not rewarding the choices I made during character building?

Not saying you do that (it's a spectrum of options), but at some point if everything of importance is highlighted then I would feel like there was no reason for me to invest in any skill that didn't have direct combat application. If I can't miss the neon sign that says "look at me" I will lose interest in the world. I want the DM to reward PC skill and the choices made in making those PCs as well was rewarding player skill.

But just because you don't telegraph doesn't mean you spend much more time on the not interesting stuff.

 

[Campbell]

Because when taken to the extreme, if feels like spoon-feeding and not rewarding the choices I made during character building?

Not saying you do that (it's a spectrum of options), but at some point if everything of importance is highlighted then I would feel like there was no reason for me to invest in any skill that didn't have direct combat application. If I can't miss the neon sign that says "look at me" I will lose interest in the world. I want the DM to reward PC skill and the choices made in making those PCs as well was rewarding player skill.

But just because you don't telegraph doesn't mean you spend much more time on the not interesting stuff.

I totally get that telegraphing is a technique with trade offs. I do not use it for more exploratory play like when I run B/X or Stars Without Number. I am about to run Pathfinder 2 and will use far less telegraphing because it has exploration rules that cover this sort of thing really well. I agree it is not the best technique for skilled exploration based play. I happen to believe that Fifth Edition is not well geared for dungeon exploration unless you make some hacks to it.

The passage you quoted was about scenario design, not telegraphing. My philosophy about scenario design is that I do not get to decide what is and is not important. I strive to make each element of a scenario as interesting and meaningful as possible and try to not make any assumptions about what the players will or should do. I present the situation and players get to decide how and to what extent they wish to interface with it. Everything should be designed to be interesting. You miss the mark sometimes, but them's is the breaks. It is never my job to decide how things should go.

For me telegraphing is about saying what honesty demands, conveying the fictional world honestly, and making sure players know what is at stake in the situation so they can address it however they want to. It does focus you in on the current situation, but I view that as benefit for what I am trying to get out of it which is a sense of immediacy and tension.

 

[5ekyu]

Those examples are situations where all three of the success condition, the failure condition, and the action(s) required to achieve either are trivial, thus no roll required.

But any uncertain situation where success is significant but failure is trivial (e.g. searching for a secret door), or where success is trivial but failure is significant (e.g. steering a ship such as to miss a reef) requires a roll, I'd say.

That one's on them.

Agreed on both counts.

The section after that covers the broader case and it covers the need for a roll being when there are both chances to succeed and chances to fail.

 

[5ekyu]

For me the implication here is that there is interesting stuff and not interesting stuff. Why would you design part of the dungeon to be boring on purpose? Why not design it so there are threats and opportunities everywhere with compelling ecosystems so what you do in one place affects what happens elsewhere? I genuinely do not get what the point of spending time on stuff that is meant to frustrate and bore players is.

Well, see this is kind of the point.

It has been said in defense of telegraphing at a certain degree that its purpose is in part to get past the finding or not stage and get to the "found it, what now?" stage. its been kinda implied that the Gm wants the gameplay to be focused on what they do with the secret door or trap instead of the other stuff so the telegraph leads them there. this has at times gone along with claims about how "much we got done" and how it sped up play - which honestly to me reads kinda like "we fast forward to the good stuff" in watching a movie but I am certain that is not what it was meant to sound like.

For me, pretty much, whatever the PCs are doing and the players are engaged by i feel i want as Gm to make it entertaining and interesting and my techniques play towards achieving that goal.

As such an intentional choice to always telegraph by design is just not a technique i find beneficial. In order for it to meet what i would consider "consistent with the world being presented" enough to empower the players and their characters to make choices - then it would require me to cut out so much of the possible world that it would seem, well, very staged.