D&D 5E Are there actions not covered under a skill?

[Umbran]

I usually would say that I can't help your lack of imagination...

Mod Note:

We are all gamers here. We all have plenty of imagination.

If you haven't gotten through to someone, and you want to continue to try, starting with an insult is probably ineffective, on top of being rude.

And, if your goal wasn't to actually get them to understand your point... then why respond at all?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I can't imagine playing without random encounters. Different strokes I guess. I use random encounters in much the same way as @Charlaquin does. I use to emphasize time as a resource and, additionally, the need to not waste that resource in hostile environments. People have very different approaches to what a random encounter is too. For some DMs it's more of a straight wandering monster check, and for others there's a huge range of what might happen, from strange sounds, to random debris, to monsters. I favor the second approach, it's like the salt and pepper flavor text for a whole location. YMMV.

I use the tables, but I don’t ever roll on them. I have a few players for whom immersion is a pretty tenuous thing, but even when not playing with them, I just don’t like randomizing what is in the world in that particular way.
I do use complications like those you describe, but I generally decide ahead of time the type of challenges and oddities are in an area, and figure them out based on what feels right in the moment.

 

[Charlaquin]

I use the tables, but I don’t ever roll on them. I have a few players for whom immersion is a pretty tenuous thing, but even when not playing with them, I just don’t like randomizing what is in the world in that particular way.
I do use complications like those you describe, but I generally decide ahead of time the type of challenges and oddities are in an area, and figure them out based on what feels right in the moment.

Oh. Yeah, I usually just choose a complication that makes sense. Sometimes I’ll roll for them, but usually the random part is determining when a complication occurs, not which complication occurs.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Mod Note:

We are all gamers here. We all have plenty of imagination.

If you haven't gotten through to someone, and you want to continue to try, starting with an insult is probably ineffective, on top of being rude.

And, if your goal wasn't to actually get them to understand your point... then why respond at all?

You're right, that was a bit aggressive of me. However, to answer your question, because others read the thread as well and perhaps they'll get it.

 

[Fenris-77]

I use the tables, but I don’t ever roll on them. I have a few players for whom immersion is a pretty tenuous thing, but even when not playing with them, I just don’t like randomizing what is in the world in that particular way.
I do use complications like those you describe, but I generally decide ahead of time the type of challenges and oddities are in an area, and figure them out based on what feels right in the moment.

Yeah, sometimes you need to roll with what the group needs and not what you'd prefer. This whole idea has a ton of knobs and dials thankfully, so there's usually an answer for everyone. For example, in a tightly planned or smaller dungeon the actual encounter spaces are close enough together that there often is no need for random encounters, but in a big natural cave system you might have more random encounters than pre-built ones. Whatever works really.

Also, when I say 'random' encounters, I do sometimes 'roll' the dice and just pick the one I like. Forge that narrative...

 

[Umbran]

However, to answer your question, because others read the thread as well and perhaps they'll get it.

Mod Note:

The question was rhetorical. When you see "Mod Note:" we are not looking for discussion in-thread.

What you've now insured that they'll get is, "Ovinomancer is willing to treat people badly to make a point."

Next time, show more respect for folks.

 

[FrozenNorth]

That’s not what I was identifying as the difference between our ways of thinking. “Knowing that intimidation will be a lower DC than persuasion” first of all presupposes the necessity of a check to execute an action, and second of all implies that it is the proficiency employed, rather than the goal and the action taken to try and achieve it, that determines the DC.

I agree with Charlaquin and iserith, and sometimes, a different example can break the logjam.

First encounter in LMoP, goblins have set an ambush for the characters. Barring character action, the goblins attack with surprise if their Dex(Stealth) beats the character’s Wis(Perception). I ran the game with my children.

Oldest Son: “There’s a horse in the middle of the road with arrows sticking out of it? This looks like an ambush.”

Middle Son: “Wait, we were told there were bandits on this trail...”

Based on the foregoing, there was no need to roll to see if the characters were surprised. My players probably weren’t even aware there was a chance they might be surprised.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's presented as the rest of 'the rules' as how to run the game. I mean, I suppose you can just treat everything as a suggestion and continue to run however you want -- this is perfectly fine -- but it seems odd to dismiss the recommendations for play as not worth listening to because you don't think they're rules.
Well, I disagree with this, strongly.

Im not dismissing the DMing advice in the DMG, I’m just correctly noting that it isn’t rules.
Which part do you disagree with? What argument can there be that the world isn’t flavor text?

"Rules" are what people call them when they trying to prove their point.

"Suggestions" are what people call them when they're trying to disprove someone else's point.

Nope.

The alternative would be a challenge, and I don’t think less of flavor text at all. It just doesn’t require dice rolls to resolve.

That First part makes no sense, to me.
The rest, I get but just strongly disagree in terms of creating good gameplay. I think the game loses soemthing extremely good and important when only those things which “challenge” the PCs have any chance of failure, or of meaningful differentiation as to warrant mechanical resolution. The world and people and things in it matters more than how many HP the kobold shaman has. Who the Duke of Vagarsal is as a person is more important than how many of his guards we have to knock out without getting caught in order to find the needed clues as to what he was up to before he disappeared.

The “flavor text” is quite often the most important thing by an immense margin.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Smart play in my view is opening the bureau and rifling through the folded clothes to find the key. There might be no roll here at all - you just succeed because the key is, in fact, hidden beneath a set of folded clothes. Less smart play is doing none of that and just saying "Can I make a Perception check to pace around the room and search the walls and furniture for clues?" The PHB suggests that, in this example, you don't even get a check. You just fail due to a lack of reasonable specificity in engaging with the environment.

Worth pointing out that LMoP seems to be written specifically with this approach in mind.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Do folks generally have things hidden in rooms that the players have ample time to thoroughly search? Cause, like, sure, hypothetically if there was a scenario in my game where there was no time pressure and the players said “we thoroughly search this whole room, taking as much time as we need to make sure we don’t miss anything,” then yeah, they’d find anything hidden in that room without a roll, on account of no consequences for time spent looking in parts of the room where nothing is hidden. But, like, that wouldn’t happen in my games? If I’m setting up a challenge where the players need to find a hidden thing, there’s gonna be time pressure. At least periodic random encounter checks if nothing else.

Let me suggest a 2nd example where the different styles described would yield different results.

Scene: the battle has ended, the heroes having victoriously prevailed over 5 kobolds.

Style 1:

Player 1: I search the bodies. I rolled a 16 Investigation.
DM 1 (improvising): Well, in addition to a short sword, light crossbow and leather armor, one the the kobolds has a secret compartment in its boot. It holds a small agate wirth 20 gp.

Style 2:
Player 2: I search the kobolds’ bodies.
DM2: They each have a short sword, light crossbow and leather armor.

On the plus side, on a high roll, Player 1 could find something that the DM1 improvised. Conversely, on a low roll, Player 1 could miss something that DM2 would have let Player2 find automatically.