D&D 5E Roleplaying in D&D 5E: It’s How You Play the Game

[clearstream]

I disagree.
We don't have to protect "NPC agency" because that's not real a thing to begin with. Players and DM are not playing on equal footing and the rules should not be the same for both.

From the point of view of world-immersion, notionally there are not PCs and NPCs, but only Cs. So any rule constituting the game-world ideally does not differentiate.

 

[clearstream]

Do what? It's already symmetrical. The DM can decide auto success, fail or uncertainty with NPCs, just like the players can with the PCs. No asymmetry exists.

You may be forgetting DMG 244.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think what's being seen here, as with the other recent thread, is that if a poster thinks about an action as an ability check or an ability check as an action (not true in either case) then they may think the check is actually doing something in the context of the game world (it isn't). This is often why we see certain groups with players who push or ask to make ability checks. That's their "action" and the result does a thing in the world. Push button, get result.

In truth, an ability check is just a mechanic that the DM uses to resolve an action's outcome, when the DM determines the outcome is uncertain and there's a meaningful consequence for failure. You don't "use skills" or "make a skill check" to do a thing. There are no buttons to push as such. You just attempt to do a thing and the ability check resolves the outcome, when the DM decides an ability check is appropriate.

When this is understood to be the case by the group, then what is outlined by the OP in my experience actually starts happening at the table and questions as to whether a PC can be influenced by a "skill check" the "NPC" makes are easily answered (hint: no).

5e lacks any particular vehicle by which a check result can be made binding on a GM, nor any specific 'valence' which can be assigned to it, so there is IN ACTUALITY no such thing in 5e as resolving something by a check! A GM may, at his pleasure, decide to ask a player to make a check, and then he may or may not attach some significance to the outcome. It is literally no more binding than the way some GMs idly roll dice themselves and decide what to narrate based on the results, or things like reaction checks in 1e AD&D where the GM might (or might not) roll some dice and apply some, all, or none, of various modifiers and then narrate something.

The funny part is, once you look at it this way, the OP is kind of wrong, really, the RULES don't actually hold the GM to giving them ANY input into how things play out. Only the convention that D&D is a game, and the presumed desire of players to actually participate in an active way gives them authority (and this is a weighty factor, make no mistake). The thing is, once we get here, where's the remaining 'game' in the OP's apparent hypothesis? The reality is that 'rules' are not even a part of it, at least in this paradigm, its purely a social matter. Now, if you play some other types of games, at least the rules do say "and you, GM can do THIS, but not THAT, and you MUST do this other thing." That more clearly distinguishes "you are playing this game" from "you are making up something but it isn't an instance of Game X." We might look at this as a deliberate feature of 5e, it is really impossible to say if you are or are not playing a game like 5e. This is the sense in which it is a 'big tent' (assuming you can say it is, but lets not go there) nobody is NOT playing it, heck, even if they're playing tiddlywinks!

 

[clearstream]

I think what's being seen here, as with the other recent thread, is that if a poster thinks about an action as an ability check or an ability check as an action (not true in either case) then they may think the check is actually doing something in the context of the game world (it isn't). This is often why we see certain groups with players who push or ask to make ability checks. That's their "action" and the result does a thing in the world. Push button, get result.

In truth, an ability check is just a mechanic that the DM uses to resolve an action's outcome, when the DM determines the outcome is uncertain and there's a meaningful consequence for failure. You don't "use skills" or "make a skill check" to do a thing. There are no buttons to push as such. You just attempt to do a thing and the ability check resolves the outcome, when the DM decides an ability check is appropriate.

When this is understood to be the case by the group, then what is outlined by the OP in my experience actually starts happening at the table and questions as to whether a PC can be influenced by a "skill check" the "NPC" makes are easily answered (hint: no).

What do you think of @pemerton's observation that players can by the book invoke rules?

 

[Maxperson]

You may be forgetting DMG 244.

What about it? Nothing on that page happens to only one side. DM and player can both decide with certainty that their attitudes improve or decline, or they can decide that the outcome is uncertain and leave it to a roll.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Nope. 4e had very specific actions called "skill Powers". Some even had limited uses by short rest.

I don't think you're really arguing a meaningful distinction here. What 4e DOES DICTATE is the 'valence' of these checks, either in terms of just 'rolling a skill check', or in terms of 'using a power'. Actually, technically these are BOTH instances of the 4e play option of "Take an Action". Its not 'pushing a button', it is asserting the player's ability to control the narrative through the PC. One major difference with 5e is that the allowed outcomes are much more specific, giving players a lot more explicit authority.

 

[iserith]

What do you think of @pemerton's observation that players can by the book invoke rules?

I can't see those posts, but I don't need to. They can't. Ultimately it all comes back to the DM permitting it. Some people aren't going to like that, but it is what it is.

 

[clearstream]

What about it? Nothing on that page happens to only one side. DM and player can both decide with certainty that their attitudes improve or decline, or they can decide that the outcome is uncertain and leave it to a roll.

So at your table you maintain symmetry among participants? Essentially disregarding the roles and basic patterns described in the books?

 

[iserith]

5e lacks any particular vehicle by which a check result can be made binding on a GM, nor any specific 'valence' which can be assigned to it, so there is IN ACTUALITY no such thing in 5e as resolving something by a check! A GM may, at his pleasure, decide to ask a player to make a check, and then he may or may not attach some significance to the outcome. It is literally no more binding than the way some GMs idly roll dice themselves and decide what to narrate based on the results, or things like reaction checks in 1e AD&D where the GM might (or might not) roll some dice and apply some, all, or none, of various modifiers and then narrate something.

The funny part is, once you look at it this way, the OP is kind of wrong, really, the RULES don't actually hold the GM to giving them ANY input into how things play out. Only the convention that D&D is a game, and the presumed desire of players to actually participate in an active way gives them authority (and this is a weighty factor, make no mistake). The thing is, once we get here, where's the remaining 'game' in the OP's apparent hypothesis? The reality is that 'rules' are not even a part of it, at least in this paradigm, its purely a social matter. Now, if you play some other types of games, at least the rules do say "and you, GM can do THIS, but not THAT, and you MUST do this other thing." That more clearly distinguishes "you are playing this game" from "you are making up something but it isn't an instance of Game X." We might look at this as a deliberate feature of 5e, it is really impossible to say if you are or are not playing a game like 5e. This is the sense in which it is a 'big tent' (assuming you can say it is, but lets not go there) nobody is NOT playing it, heck, even if they're playing tiddlywinks!

I think if you can make an assertion that by playing tiddlywinks you are also playing D&D 5e, something has gone wrong somewhere in that chain of thinking.

 

[clearstream]

I can't see those posts, but I don't need to. They can't. Ultimately it all comes back to the DM permitting it. Some people aren't going to like that, but it is what it is.

That's a shame. They cited text instructing players to invoke or enact rules.