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

[Maxperson]

As @pemerton pointed to:

Initiative is called for by the DM, not the player. The player waits for his turn and can then take an action. At no time is he ever invoking initiative. That is done once at the beginning of the fight by the DM.

Choosing a target is just picking who you want to attack. It might or might not happen and is subject to action of "I want to attack the ogre." Once the player states his action in response to the DM describing the environment, the mechanics flow from there. The player doesn't invoke the choose a target rule. He's forced to choose a target in order to complete his declared attack.

These rules read that the player gets a turn and when they do they can invoke an action (say Attack) and with an Attack action they make one melee or ranged attack. They then

They aren't invoking the rule. They are subject to the combat rules that were invoked when the DM called for initiative. They have to declare an action, even if that action is sit there and do nothing. Those actions are rules that the player are subject to, not rules that the player is invoking.

The combat section is written with a high-degree of mechanical agency for players. @AbdulAlhazred over generalizes in reaching their conclusions. And seeing as parts of the text tells players to invoke rules (choose an action in combat) it isn't right to say that they cannot. As @AbdulAlhazred points out, DM is empowered in the text to override, alter or even ignore anything PCs invoke, but I would not put that in terms of valency. It's laid out that the emerging narrative is intended to have a valency to player invocations and actions. Just as how things go is intended to have a valency with the core book text. DM's supported most in following that, but endorsed to do as they like.

They players get choices of mechanics, yes, but they do not invoke any of them. The rules make them choose those mechanics due to the combat invoked by the DM when he invoked the combat rules by instructing the players to roll for initative.

 

[Maxperson]

@Maxperson here someone found that rule/guidance you wanted.

That isn't. Those are about the DM having the full authority, but being able to delegate if he so chooses, which has never been in question. I'm asking for a rule/guidance that explicitly grants the player the ability.

 

[Maxperson]

Except that to all appearances in the players' eyes there IS a mechanic! It's right there on the character sheet where it says "Persuasion".

For that to be true, the player would have to be persuading someone every time he does the following "The player proposes a course of action...a goal and an approach." Except that there are many, many, MANY different goals and approaches the player will attempt, so persuasion is not a mechanic for that. It IS a potential mechanic that could come about because of the goal and approach, though.

If the mechanic's shown there but has no functional purpose for the player, it's a waste of time and space. Get it off the sheet and move it DM-side (or abandon it completely, better yet).

It does have a functional purpose. It's there for the DM to call on if the player's goal and approach are an attempt to persuade someone AND the outcome is uncertain AND there is a meaningful consequence for failure.

 

[Voadam]

You're not?

Hmmm...guess that means I was doing it wrong, then, the night my PC died and I wandered over to the couch for a nap, only to be awoken later by another player telling me my PC had been revived...

For me when my viking was one-shot critted by an arrow through the lungs in a battle and he was making round by round stabilization saves it was narrating snippets of my interactions with the valkyrie taking me to Freyja, then an interaction with the Goddess.

 

[Maxperson]

It comes back to a simple question. At Kim's table, Kim and all of their players have agreed that occasionally an NPC can use persuasion or intimidation to determine a PC's thoughts and actions.

According to the OP, those players are no longer role playing and can no longer be said to be playing the game.

The OP was coming at it from a RAW standpoint, not a One True Way declaration, and in that the OP is right. As written that's the way to play the game. Kim and her players had to agree to change the rules for that to work. That's a perfectly valid way to play the game(assuming they are having fun), but is not what is written.

While I'm not sure I'd want to play at Kim's table, saying that they are no longer playing the game is one true wayism to me.

The OP didn't actually say that, though. The context was from a RAW standpoint.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I think the player is envisioning that their choices at character creation and advancement matter. So they expect if they are proficient and expert with Persuasion that this will matter. They have a high rules knowledge and anticipate that given they skillfully do the things laid out, they will most likely benefit from their proficiency and expertise in the form of more likely succeeding than failing in persuading the King, given it is as to some matter that I have confirmed they might be swayed on. They expect their chances to be better than the chances of the fighter, who has put nothing into abilities and skills that bear on social interaction.

So, I'm wary of saying that I know what other players know/think/expect (especially in a debate about whether it's ok to assume the same thing of their characters!) but personally I feel that if I "invest" in a skill then I do get a meaningful bonus. Am I an "expert"? No. I am proficient.

Now, other people may bring in expectations from other systems/editions. Or they may just have character concepts that don't jibe with what the rules actually say. And, if so, that's probably disappointing. And maybe some would even consider it a flaw with 5e? I don't know, but it sounds pretty subjective.


Anyway, on to the rest of the argument....

Let's clone them so we have B' and F' who are NPCs. Reciprocally then, the player expects B' to be more likely to persuade the party fighter of something, than F'. This is not the case if the rules are simply disregarded. DMs neutrality does considerable work here, as DM decides on rules and resolutions impartially. They have no stake in B' and F'. Player however has a stake in B.

Ok, so let me re-state the argument(s) in bold, but please tell me if I'm making a mistake.

- The player might disregard the narrative, as determined by the DM's dice roll for the NPC
- DMs are neutral, so they can use their power to enforce rules to make sure that narrative is considered in the player's action declarations.

Is that accurate?

The problem I have with that is that it is saying that while we trust DMs with the rules authority with give them, we can't trust players with the roleplaying authority we give them. This seems to be @Lanefan's argument as well (and others I don't recall).

But DMs are humans, too, and might (and do!) adjudicate poorly. They might make decisions based on protecting their plot, or how they think the scene "should" go, or because they are biased toward/against a particular player. Or...whatever.

So I don't understand this argument that in order to protect the sanctity of the narrative, we should trust DMs more than players.

I would much, much, much rather simply trust DMs to adjudicate rules and roleplay their NPCs, and trust players to roleplay their PCs.

If I encounter one or the other underserving of that trust, I stop playing with them.

 

[Maxperson]

you cna (and I have seen both players and DMs) short hand it to "I want to intimidate ______" or "I want to Seduce ________" with 0 details no idea what they will say or do in game to accomplish it, just an action and wanting to use CHa or Cha+skill....

The DM can allow that, sure. Usually I will ask "How?"

 

[Bill Zebub]

Except that to all appearances in the players' eyes there IS a mechanic! It's right there on the character sheet where it says "Persuasion".

As with my response to @clearstream, maybe that's what YOU see (and maybe because you've played other games) but I'm not really going to give any weight to arguments based on claims of what the millions of people playing D&D "think".

If that is what they think...that there is a Persuade action similar to an Attack action...then they haven't actually read the rules very carefully.

 

[clearstream]

Initiative is called for by the DM, not the player. The player waits for his turn and can then take an action. At no time is he ever invoking initiative. That is done once at the beginning of the fight by the DM.

Even during initiative, a Rogue with Rakish Audacity has the option to invoke that mechanic to add their CHA to INI.

Choosing a target is just picking who you want to attack. It might or might not happen and is subject to action of "I want to attack the ogre." Once the player states his action in response to the DM describing the environment, the mechanics flow from there. The player doesn't invoke the choose a target rule. He's forced to choose a target in order to complete his declared attack.

They aren't invoking the rule. They are subject to the combat rules that were invoked when the DM called for initiative. They have to declare an action, even if that action is sit there and do nothing. Those actions are rules that the player are subject to, not rules that the player is invoking.

That is analogous to arguing that they are not invoking any mechanics, once their game session commences. Within combat, players excercise choice: they choose which mechanic to invoke (the combat actions), including the choice not to invoke any mechanic. As the rules are written, players invoke the mechanic directly. They may also have class features they can invoke during combat, such as Panache.

 

[iserith]

Even during initiative, a Rogue with Rakish Audacity has the option to invoke that mechanic to add their CHA to INI.


That is analogous to arguing that they are not invoking any mechanics, once their game session commences. Within combat, players excercise choice: they choose which mechanic to invoke (the combat actions), including the choice not to invoke any mechanic. As the rules are written, players invoke the mechanic directly. They may also have class features they can invoke during combat, such as Panache.

What's the ultimate goal here? To say that because a player chooses the Attack action during combat, they can say they're making ability checks in social interactions?