D&D 5E Consequences of Failure

[Charlaquin]

If all you need is one hand free in order to cast in 5e then my point about spellcasting being easier now than in 0e-1e gains another bit of evidence.

In 1e by RAW the caster had to be completely unfettered and able to freely move without obstacle or interruption. You couldn't cast if your feet were tied, or your fingers bound, etc.; or from any position except standing upright.

Spellcasting is objectively much easier in 5e than it has been in any other edition, save maybe 4e. Why would you need to gather evidence for that? No one disputes that fact.

 

[Charlaquin]

I decided against replying to Ovinomancer because I didn't want to get baited into a flame war. However this post goes a long way towards resolving at least some of the issues. It is the first truly clear communication (ironically) of the intended meaning of the term by those supporting it.

In particular, based on how I've seen it used, "goal and approach" is not a GM resolution methodology (despite what people conflate it with). Rather, it is, as you describe, a communication methodology. The GM resolution methodology is separate from, but dependent on (which is not the same as "determined by"), the communication methodology.

Goal and approach, as it appears to be defined by you, removes ambiguity on the input side of the GM resolution method. The GM uses the input to determine what resolution method to employ (eg: whether to roll dice, and if so, which skills to employ, etc), and from thence, the output.

The GM prefers the input to be as clear and unambiguous as possible, because that both makes his choices easier, and reduces the likelihood that the finalized resolution contradicts what the player was intending to do. This helps the game run more smoothly, and everyone is happier.

There are a variety of ways to make the input clear and unambiguous. Aside from explicit descriptions, use of the predefined structures of the game mechanics is a way of handling it (eg: the Fireball spell). Having the player indicate that she is casting the Fireball spell is using implicit, but unambiguous information. So my understanding that you were insisting on explicit information only is not true, at least for the version you present here.

YES!!! Hallelujah, a breakthrough! This is very eloquently put, and I think accurately expresses what we’ve been failing to communicate this whole time. THANK you!

However you still require explicit presentation where such requirements are problematic, such as Insight or knowledge checks.

Side Note: I will note that this is a particular sore point for me because of how certain GMs have dealt with Insight-type interactions involving characters whose entire shtick was built around social skills. So there is a fair bit of anger towards GMs that would dismiss certain player approaches as "not good enough", particularly when it seems like cover for the GM not doing his job at all.

Yes, there is often resistance to our DMing style due to people having had negative experiences with DMs employing it poorly. Likewise, there are a lot of us on this side of the fence who have similarly intense negative reactions to the style that is being presented as the alternative here, because of DMs who used it poorly. I think these conversations are more successful if we assume our fellow participants are running their games to the best of their ability.

In any case, a primary issue in this particular skill is that Insight is internal. It is a gut reaction; it is feelings; it is experience. It is not, "I hearken back to my days as a student and remember how the upperclassmen behaved." That's as nonsensical as requiring the fighter to recount his days studying under the fencing master Benetti before every swing he takes.

Rather, it is the ongoing analysis of everything you notice about a person. Eye contact. He's fiddling with his ring. The distance she's maintaining (too close? too far?). Subtle tones of vote. The limp that occasionally vanishes. A thousand and one details that the player will never know, and thus be unable to make use of. This actually compares remarkably well to combat, as any of these sorts of details could be relevant to a fighter attacking and defending in a fight. However the fighter doesn't need to justify the approach made with every single swing; he just says, "I attack." However the social character is apparently not allowed to say, "I use Insight."

I disagree that it is analogous to combat. An attack is still an action taken by the character, and a declaration of an attack still communicates (or, ought to communicate, if the player is adequately fulfilling their role,) the intent to kill or incapacitate the target, who or what the target is, and with what tool the attacker is attempting to harm the target.

It is relatively rare that there is a realistic "in the fiction" narrative that can supplant the simple request to invoke one's skill using the roll, mostly because GMs fail to provide the ongoing passive information that a character's Insight should be providing. Thus, in order to actually make use of a skill that her character is supposed to have, she must constantly pester the GM for Insight checks.

I usually shouldn't need to ask for an Insight check; if I do (aside from a specific thing I'm puzzling over), it feels equivalent to saying that the GM isn't doing his job. If I need to not only ask for permission to roll, but also come up with some convoluted gibberish to justify it, that feels like an unpleasant play experience.

This rolls back to the issue of "goal and approach". It requires that the communications be unambiguous, which is usually expected to be presented as explicit narrative, but may reference unambiguous mechanical elements. The problem is that this cannot work with respect to elements of play for which the player herself does not have the information necessary to make an unambiguous statement (or a mechanic that allows everyone to agree not to ask hard questions, such as combat or spellcasting), or for situations wherein the GM's resolution is necessary before any such narrative communication could be created in the first place.

Ah, now here we are in emphatic agreement, and this is where telegraphing comes into play. I like Iserith’s analogy of a lie as the social interaction equivalent of a trap. If the DM doesn’t give the players any indication that it is there in their description of the environment, the DM is not fulfilling their role adequately, and it is unreasonable for them to expect the players to fulfill their role when they lack the necessary information to do so. It is on DM, under goal and approach, to describe the environment in sufficient detail for the players to be able to declare their action. If the inkeep lies, the DM should describe a cue to indicate it, just as (s)he would describe a cue to indicate the presence of a trap.

The usual response to this is: “but then your players will always know when anyone is lying/when there’s a trap, and will never need to make a roll for it. To which I say, lies and traps are not the only social and exploratory hazards and features that I telegraph. Players must pay attention to my description of the environment if they hope to both notice telegraphs and accurately determine what they indicate. As well, even if you think you know what a telegraph indicates, it is smart play to take action to follow up on your suspicions and confirm or deny them with certainty rather than risk having guessed wrong. It has not been my experience that players always see everything coming as a result of my telegraphing.

This, by the way, is something I consider one of the major perks of this play style. It pushes me to be a better narrator, and it encourages my players to pay attention to the details of my narration, and to interact with the environment, by way of describing active attempts to investigate further. All of these are behaviors I like to see in play and wish to encourage, so the technique is all upside for me.

In general, it would seem that goal and approach would work well for resolving actions, because actions are a thing that is done, and thus can be described as doing a thing. Certain activities and skills, however, are not "actions", and thus goal and approach is not suitable for interacting with them.

I strongly disagree. The rules of D&D 5e, as I read them anyway, define skills as specific applications of abilities, and define ability checks as tools for resolving uncertainty in actions. It is my belief that, if an activity is not an “action,” then it is not appropriate to resolve by way of an Ability (Skill) check.

This, by the way, is why I disagree with Iserith on how best to resolve attempts to recall lore. I see them as akin to Insight in the sense of not really being “actions,” and find his attempts to resolve this discrepancy by asking that his players describe attempts to recall lore as an action (such as “I think back to my military training to try and remember how best to kill trolls”) as a poor fit with the way I prefer to run the game.

The problem that I continue to see in the discussions surrounding this is the refusal to admit to scenarios where goal and approach is either not appropriate, or the problems that it would normally introduce are ignored. This may also be related to the assumption that "goal and approach" is a resolution method in and of itself, and thus considering it a fault of the player when the system does not work out as such.

I don’t think these scenarios are being ignored at all, but I think when those of us who use the technique acknowledge them, and even discuss among ourselves ways we have attempted to address them, those conversations get misinterpreted and/or drowned out by people interrogating the method generally. See, for example, the above point about Iserith’s and my disagreement about lore recollection. I think if there was less hostility towards this technique and more earnest attempts to understand it on its own terms, it would become clear that the very same scenarios you feel it doesn’t work well for are the ones we have the least consensus on how best to handle them.

 

[pemerton]

When those of us on my side of this debate read “the player describes what they want to do,” our interpretation is that this need be a description of the character’s activity in the fiction. “I cast fireball” is a description of the character’s activity in the fiction; the fireball spell exists in the world of the fiction, and casting it is understood to be an activity that involves particular magic words, gestures, and uses of particular materials to produce a particular result. “I make an Insight check” is not a description of the character’s activity in the fiction.

It seems to me that I make an Extra Attack and I use Action Surge (just to pick the most obvious two examples) are not descriptions of the character's activity in the fiction. These have meaning only in the context of gameplay - they are metagame abilities that play with the mechanical framework around action economy.

I think a player saying: I want to determine if the NPC is lying would satisfy the above rules.

<snip>

I try to read the NPC to determine if he's trustworthy is a description of the character's activity.

I agree with this as far as my own (non-5e) play is concerned.

You act like I'm crazy for expecting that style when fully followed to have you asking the player how their character performs their spell components. Why wouldn't you need to know how they are casting fireball. Why is ambiguously playing with bat guano and ambiguously waving your warms around and ambiguously saying a few words not enough ambiguity to have the player specify how they are casting the spell?

That's not specific though. The player has only conveyed that he attempts to play with some bat guano, makes some gestures and says some words to try and make a fireball appear. Now the rules are clear that if he does all those things then the fireball appears. However, the DM determines what happens in the fiction. So if it's raining and the bat guano might slip out of his hand (wet poo is inherently slippery...) then the result of his actions may not be an auto success. Possibly it's a dex check to hold onto the poo.

I feel that this touches on the point that @Campbell and I were making upthread.

In principle I think you're correct. For similar reasons, a DEX check could be required to maintain one's grip on a longsword while fighting in the rain. But in practice the mechanical system for resolving combat, or spell-casting - assuming it is reasonably well balanced in terms of action economy, mechanically-defined outcomes, etc - creates fairly strong incentives not to introduce too much of this sort of thing.

Whereas I think worrying about how you hold your lockpicks in the rain - and perhaps explaining how you set up some cover to stop the rain falling on you, your picks and the lock - is much closer to fair game.

 

[Oofta]

I had a longer response, but when it comes down to insight (or other knowledge type checks) I think it boils down to one simple thing. Some things don't benefit from extra details, extra details can actually obstruct what I think of as good play.

If I'm trying to get a read on an individual, it's completely an internal process. There is no "action" on the PC's part. There is never a meaningful change to the approach, there is no significant variation on the goal. Ever. Therefore requiring extra detail is as pointless as asking how you swing your longsword when you attack an orc.

If someone gets an insight check, they get a read on the individual based on the resulting number and the scenario. For a history check I don't want somebody asking if they remember the exact years King Alfonso ruled, I want them to ask me what they remember about King Alfonso because they don't know that the important piece of information that will help them further their goals is that his sister later became known as Bloody Mary when she took over his throne after his untimely death.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I had a longer response, but when it comes down to insight (or other knowledge type checks) I think it boils down to one simple thing. Some things don't benefit from extra details, extra details can actually obstruct what I think of as good play.

If I'm trying to get a read on an individual, it's completely an internal process. There is no "action" on the PC's part. There is never a meaningful change to the approach, there is no significant variation on the goal. Ever. Therefore requiring extra detail is as pointless as asking how you swing your longsword when you attack an orc.

If someone gets an insight check, they get a read on the individual based on the resulting number and the scenario. For a history check I don't want somebody asking if they remember the exact years King Alfonso ruled, I want them to ask me what they remember about King Alfonso because they don't know that the important piece of information that will help them further their goals is that his sister later became known as Bloody Mary when she took over his throne after his untimely death.

Well, yes. If you, as DM, present an NPC where a large part of the challenge of the scene is determining that this NPC is lying, and you wish to gate that knowledge behind a check because you enjoy the play, then you'll find very little use for goal and approach because it actively fights against your goals of play. We've been telling you this for ages, now, across multiple threads. You set up play in ways that don't work with goal and approach. Cool.

That's not a fault of goal and approach, though.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Well, yes. If you, as DM, present an NPC where a large part of the challenge of the scene is determining that this NPC is lying, and you wish to gate that knowledge behind a check because you enjoy the play, then you'll find very little use for goal and approach because it actively fights against your goals of play. We've been telling you this for ages, now, across multiple threads. You set up play in ways that don't work with goal and approach. Cool.

That's not a fault of goal and approach, though.

It really is as simple as this. But I'm guessing it won't put this line of argument to rest.

 

[Oofta]

Well, yes. If you, as DM, present an NPC where a large part of the challenge of the scene is determining that this NPC is lying, and you wish to gate that knowledge behind a check because you enjoy the play, then you'll find very little use for goal and approach because it actively fights against your goals of play. We've been telling you this for ages, now, across multiple threads. You set up play in ways that don't work with goal and approach. Cool.

That's not a fault of goal and approach, though.

Then that has nothing to do with the approach and everything to do with the role of the dice.

I like emphasizing all decisions a player makes including character build. But that has nothing to do with how people express what their character does.

But when I push back on this, state that there is never a reason to invest in skills like insight, I'm told that's not true. But then I'm told GAA means never having to ask for an insight check.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Then that has nothing to do with the approach and everything to do with the role of the dice.

I like emphasizing all decisions a player makes including character build. But that has nothing to do with how people express what their character does.

But when I push back on this, state that there is never a reason to invest in skills like insight, I'm told that's not true. But then I'm told GAA means never having to ask for an insight check.

No, Oofta. It means that the particular, narrow, singular way you describe using Insight is not compatible with GAA. I'm going to avoid the trap of giving you specific examples, but if you cannot think of ways that Insight would apply to task resolution other than "Can I tell if he's lying?" then GAA is probably not for you.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Then that has nothing to do with the approach and everything to do with the role of the dice.

I like emphasizing all decisions a player makes including character build. But that has nothing to do with how people express what their character does.

But when I push back on this, state that there is never a reason to invest in skills like insight, I'm told that's not true. But then I'm told GAA means never having to ask for an insight check.

I love emphasizing all of the decisions a player makes including character build. Comes up all the time in my games. What's your point?

And Insight is super useful in my games. Comes up all the time. Used, usually, at least once per session, often more. And you're 100% right -- none of my players ever ask to make an insight check. It's weird how we've told you all of this before, over and over, and yet, here I am, telling you again.

Insight is not a button you press to detect lies in my game. It's a tool I use, as DM, to resolve uncertainty in many social interactions where a PC has declared an action to try to elicit information from an NPC. Which happens all the time for a number of reasons. Why this continues to elude your understanding, I cannot say.

 

[Oofta]

No, Oofta. It means that the particular, narrow, singular way you describe using Insight is not compatible with GAA. I'm going to avoid the trap of giving you specific examples, but if you cannot think of ways that Insight would apply to task resolution other than "Can I tell if he's lying?" then GAA is probably not for you.

Yes, it's a "trap" to actually give a real world example. Because I've never done that if I thought someone didn't understand. Oh wait, I have. Repeatedly.

But WTF? I just stated insight is a lot more than "can I tell if they're lying." That was my whole point.

Then you wonder why people compare having this conversation with nailing jello to the wall.