D&D 5E Using social skills on other PCs

[Bill Zebub]

yes and my character who is trained or not is what matters, not what I can think of off top of my head,

NO
use game mechanic for a reason.

Ok, then I guess that's just two different playstyles. You're using the traditional Gygaxian approach, which has a long and glorious history, and I'm using a somewhat newer approach.

I would rather use clues, think, and solve puzzles with my own brain. I am less interested in just rolling dice and being told what happens.

And...you're going to hate this part...5e has been written in support of the newer playstyle, and away the older one. That's what @iserith has been trying to explain to you. You can still play 5e the way you used to play it, and for the most part it works just fine. But the books are trying to nudge you away from "I'll roll Investigation".

 

[HammerMan]

Ok, then I guess that's just two different playstyles. You're using the traditional Gygaxian approach, which has a long and glorious history, and I'm using a somewhat newer approach.

I think you have that reversed, Gygax was all about player skill not character.

I would rather use clues, think, and solve puzzles with my own brain. I am less interested in just rolling dice and being told what happens.

I don't mind it in it;s place, but I don't play D&D to test MY skill. I want to test my CHARACTER

And...you're going to hate this part...5e has been written in support of the newer playstyle, and away the older one.

yes, away from Gygax and temple of elemental evil and Tomb of Horrors, away from player skill.

That's what @iserith has been trying to explain to you.

except like you he has it backwards

You can still play 5e the way you used to play it, and for the most part it works just fine. But the books are trying to nudge you away from "I'll roll Investigation".

no, every edition has gotten MORE character skill driven and LESS player skill driven.

 

[Charlaquin]

I am just going to skip all of that... fine, you have a verbal thing that annoys you. got it. You require your players to say things the way you want and have a template for when they start to train them. Okay

I literally just told you it’s not a rule and I don’t tell my players they can’t ask questions, so at this point you can only be saying this to try and insult me. Please don’t do that.

and I am not comfortable with you telling people how to talk... lucky we don't play in the same circles, but we have spun WAY out of RAW here.

Again, I am not telling people how to talk, I’m telling them what information I need in order to properly adjudicate their actions. How they convey that information is up to them.

and 7 out of 10 times you can most likely infer all of that from any sentence, you don't like to Okay got it. BUt don't pretend you are following some rule I am ignoreing.

Leaving 2 times out of 10 where I have to stop the action to ask for clarification and 1 time out of 10 where the player stops me and says “No! I didn’t say I did [whatever]!” and we either have to back up and retcon what happened or figure out how to move forward after a thing has happened that the player didn’t actually want their character to do. With dozens if not hundreds of actions occurring in a single game session, that’s a LOT of interruptions and potential for hard feelings that could easily have been avoided by just setting an expectation that the players clearly state what they want and what their character does to try to get it in the first place.

okay, if a player says "I try the key" and the only key in teh scenero is one that came off the cultest and we are talking about the chest, I don't NEED to hear “I try the key I got off the cultist’s body on the chest,” in fact "Does the key work?" even is enough to understand.

Yes, that is accurate. If there is only one key and one lock in the room, “I try the key” does indeed convey all the information I need to adjudicate the action, and would therefor be a perfectly acceptable action declaration. “Does the key work?” doesn’t actually convey that the character is trying it, so I would have to ask to confirm, “do you try it in the lock?,” which in my experience is all but guaranteed to make players suspicious of a trap, even if there are no other indications of one whatsoever, so I would prefer that he stated as an action to begin with. But again, players are allowed to ask questions, I just prefer statements of action.

Now are there going to be times when the PCs have like 7 keys and we are talking about a locked desk, a chest, and a locked door and they say "Does the key work?" I may need to ask like you would for a clearer statement... but again corner case, not most.

And in those cases, I would prefer the players clearly state what key they’re trying in the first place.

no, because everything you guys want clarity on seems so straight forward to me.

Because you’re more willing to make assumptions about things you think seem straightforward. And that’s fine, play however you and your players like, I don’t really care. You’re the one who seems to be offended that someone somewhere is “telling people how to talk.”

okay but that doesn't support or not support any argument about the RAW. It is your play style and your preference.

Asking questions not being supported by RAW or action declarations requiring goal and approach by RAW is @iserith ‘s bugaboo, not mine. A lot of how I run 5e is derived from my understanding of the RAW, but this one is a play preference I have, which I’ve arrived at over time trying out different ways of running the game, and found this one to have the best results. I lay that preference out in session 0 so my players know what to expect in my game, since I know lots of other DMs run things differently.

yes but within reason. If we all understand what "Does the key work" in the context of the scene, why make them rephrase it?

I wouldn’t. I literally told you it’s not a rule and I don’t tell my players they can’t ask questions. I would ask for confirmation that the character is actually trying the key in the lock, to avoid making an incorrect assumption and ending up in a “but I didn’t say I actually turned the key! I just wanted to know if it would fit!” situation.

 

[Charlaquin]

he literally said "I tell new players to use X phraseing"

She or they if you don’t mind, and I said I recommend that phrasing when in doubt, because sometimes new players to my table who aren’t used to being asked to state a goal and approach have trouble formulating declarations that way. Also because it clearly demonstrates that what I’m asking for is what you’re trying to do and how, not any particular level of descriptive detail.

 

[TwoSix]

why would anyone say they search then say they were not opening the draw to search

They could be visually examining the desk from a distance, looking for anything that could be a problem.

I mean, hiding traps in places that you're expected to search is kind of a classic D&Dism. Think about the sphere of annihilation in the statue mouth in Tomb of Horrors. That's the kind of thing you can ONLY avoid by saying "I examine the statue, but don't get close enough to touch it."

 

[HammerMan]

I literally just told you it’s not a rule and I don’t tell my players they can’t ask questions, so at this point you can only be saying this to try and insult me. Please don’t do that.

Again, I am not telling people how to talk, I’m telling them what information I need in order to properly adjudicate their actions. How they convey that information is up to them.

okay, I will stop. I am not trying to insult (I'm not even good nature joking) I just dislike word games.

Leaving 2 times out of 10 where I have to stop the action to ask for clarification and 1 time out of 10 where the player stops me and says “No! I didn’t say I did [whatever]!”

dude, I have NEVER seen this problem. If it was a 10% chance of it happening I would have seen it MANY times. You are inserting an issue that does not exsist.

and we either have to back up and retcon what happened or figure out how to move forward after a thing has happened that the player didn’t actually want their character to do. With dozens if not hundreds of actions occurring in a single game session, that’s a LOT of interruptions and potential for hard feelings that could easily have been avoided by just setting an expectation that the players clearly state what they want and what their character does to try to get it in the first place.

again, if out of dozens (if not 100s) of actions this should be happening over and over again. In YEARs of running like this it just doesn't happen. I can't imagine someone saying they didn't do something they just said they did...

Yes, that is accurate. If there is only one key and one lock in the room, “I try the key” does indeed convey all the information I need to adjudicate the action, and would therefor be a perfectly acceptable action declaration. “Does the key work?” doesn’t actually convey that the character is trying it, so I would have to ask to confirm, “do you try it in the lock?,” which in my experience is all but guaranteed to make players suspicious of a trap, even if there are no other indications of one whatsoever, so I would prefer that he stated as an action to begin with. But again, players are allowed to ask questions, I just prefer statements of action.

I would just sigh "Yes I try it"

And in those cases, I would prefer the players clearly state what key they’re trying in the first place.

.I don't think that any of what we discussed was NOT clear/

Because you’re more willing to make assumptions about things you think seem straightforward. And that’s fine, play however you and your players like, I don’t really care. You’re the one who seems to be offended that someone somewhere is “telling people how to talk.”

I am more worried when your house rule and own thing is influencing advice you give and how you argue RAW.

Asking questions not being supported by RAW or action declarations requiring goal and approach by RAW is @iserith ‘s bugaboo, not mine. A lot of how I run 5e is derived from my understanding of the RAW, but this one is a play preference I have, which I’ve arrived at over time trying out different ways of running the game, and found this one to have the best results. I lay that preference out in session 0 so my players know what to expect in my game, since I know lots of other DMs run things differently.

I may be mixing you two up

 

[Mordhau]

Ok, then I guess that's just two different playstyles. You're using the traditional Gygaxian approach, which has a long and glorious history, and I'm using a somewhat newer approach.

I would rather use clues, think, and solve puzzles with my own brain. I am less interested in just rolling dice and being told what happens.

And...you're going to hate this part...5e has been written in support of the newer playstyle, and away the older one. That's what @iserith has been trying to explain to you. You can still play 5e the way you used to play it, and for the most part it works just fine. But the books are trying to nudge you away from "I'll roll Investigation".

To a degree it has. But they couldn't really get it through playtesting, so they put skills back in. (To make this approach really work see 13th Age which has no skills only backgrounds, or Shadow of a Demonlord).

This makes it a bit of a roundabout thing. The player wants to use the skill they have expertise in so they make sure their description lets them use that skill.

In a lot of situations, your approach matters a lot more, when you look to how you learnt to do something, rather than what category of action it falls under. The playloop is a lot more seamless.

Like a lot of things in 5e, it includes a whole lot of elements specfically because the 3.X experienced playtested wanted them, so it's inevitable that the by doing so the game basically endorsed playing the game in the same manner people played 3.X.

 

[HammerMan]

They could be visually examining the desk from a distance, looking for anything that could be a problem.

I mean, hiding traps in places that you're expected to search is kind of a classic D&Dism. Think about the sphere of annihilation in the statue mouth in Tomb of Horrors. That's the kind of thing you can ONLY avoid by saying "I examine the statue, but don't get close enough to touch it."

wow the perfect example of how it is an OLD SCHOOL idea

 

[Charlaquin]

and how often has this happened? I can tell you I have seen it a handfull of times in decades of playing, and not once was it "I didn't say I touched the handle when I said I opened the door"

Hasn’t happened in a long time, because there hasn’t been an opportunity for it to happen. I don’t remember exactly how often it happened before, but it was enough that I resolved to change my approach to avoid it coming up.

It just isn't something that comes up enough for me to care.

Great. It did for me. Frankly, once would be enough for me to care.

more like educated guesses.

Yes, but that still leaves the door open for an incorrect guess, which my approach does not.

why would anyone say they search then say they were not opening the draw to search

I don’t know, maybe they just wanted to look at what was laying on top. It doesn’t matter why, it’s something that can and does happen; but not if you ask the player to tell you what their character is doing instead of making an educated guess what they’re doing.

 

[HammerMan]

Hasn’t happened in a long time, because there hasn’t been an opportunity for it to happen. I don’t remember exactly how often it happened before, but it was enough that I resolved to change my approach to avoid it coming up.

Great. It did for me. Frankly, once would be enough for me to care.

Yes, but that still leaves the door open for an incorrect guess, which my approach does not.

I don’t know, maybe they just wanted to look at what was laying on top. It doesn’t matter why, it’s something that can and does happen; but not if you ask the player to tell you what their character is doing instead of making an educated guess what they’re doing.

okay I give up