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

[clearstream]

But it does impact what you are describing as DM decides. When you've already halfway decided what's going to happen it can't help but effect the play of the game. Anyway...

Perhaps look again at the words in the PHB, which I find salient given the OP. DM decides is about narrating the results of player actions, not committing to a fixed narrative beforehand. Players can't roleplay if DM has a planned narrative they won't budge from, and the stochastic mechanics become devoid of value.

 

[clearstream]

I do not see how you can have a concrete plan for what will happen later if you haven't already decided what will happen now.

Indeed, one ought to have no concrete plan. How else may one create space for player roleplay?

 

[prabe]

Indeed, one ought to have no concrete plan. How else may one create space for player roleplay?

I believe there are different takes on "decide" happening. There's "decide" as a situational thing, like deciding autosuccess/failure or a DC; and there's "decide" as ... making certain events or encounters inevitable. I don't think either of us has a problem with the former, and I suspect we both dislike the latter.

 

[clearstream]

I believe there are different takes on "decide" happening. There's "decide" as a situational thing, like deciding autosuccess/failure or a DC; and there's "decide" as ... making certain events or encounters inevitable. I don't think either of us has a problem with the former, and I suspect we both dislike the latter.

Agreed. For the sake of disambiguation with the wording in PHB, I'd suggest something like "DM fixes"or perhaps "establishes". In the PHB, from the outset, "decides" is used to mean the thing we're all okay with.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Agreed. For the sake of disambiguation with the wording in PHB, I'd suggest something like "DM fixes"or perhaps "establishes". In the PHB, from the outset, "decides" is used to mean the thing we're all okay with.

kinda like the definition of “roleplaying”.

[ducks]

 

[clearstream]

kinda like the definition of “roleplaying”.

[ducks]

I agree that it provides a definition

 

[pemerton]

I might not have been clear enough about what I was getting at. I wasn't specifically indexing success without a check, but rather problem solving that escapes the gravity of the basic game mechanics. Let's assume for a moment that there is an obstacle that the characters need to overcome that looks like it might involve climbing (just to keep the example the same). 5E has skill checks and systems that handle wall climbing, specifically the Athletics skill and sliding DCs. I was indexing the nature of 5E play as play that doesn't really step past those mechanics (obviously I'm generalizing here).

The idea that a successful perception check and a close examination of the wall might make it easier to climb isn't something 5E really works toward, by design anyway. Let's add some further detail to our example now, just to give ourselves some narrative handles. A character is in the outer keep of an enemy fortress and needs to climb the wall to escape, and just for giggles lets say this character isn't one with a high Athletics modifier, so they go looking for options. They find some sticky pitch in a barrel and give the wall a close examination to find the best place to climb (Perception or Investigation or whatever, with a good success). How do we adjudicate this?

For my part, I probably wouldn't even ask for an Athletics test, they'd just climb the wall. My contention is that many people probably would, and more importantly that it wouldn't occur to them not to ask for the check. The notion I'm driving at here is the idea that playing the mechanics and systems can be a problem when it gets substituted for playing the fictional position, on both sides of the screen.

I still feel like I'm struggling to make my point.

Unless I'm badly confused I think you've made your point. But what you're describing with the close examination and the barrel of sticky pitch seems to be exactly the sort of thing that other posters in this thread have flagged as (what I am calling, but I think not misleadingly) automatic success in virtue of the fictional position. So whether or not that is a neglected approach in the wider scope of 5e play - and maybe it's true that in that wider culture it would not occur to most people not to call for the STR (Athletics) check - I don't think it has been neglected in this thread.

And again, just to make my position clear, I prefer to call for the check not because I'm unfamiliar resolution via adjudication of fictional positioning, but because - on the whole - I prefer "say 'yes' or roll the dice" where the trigger for saying "yes" is an absence of narrative stakes rather than an advantageous fictional position.

 

[pemerton]

The volume of randomly generated content itself seemed to instill in some of the players, who may have been more familiar with play that more prominently features hidden backstory, enough of a sense of a "living, breathing world" outside of what was described in-game, that the majority of their action declarations seemed to be directed at getting me to reveal secrets that didn't exist, forcing me to make up more stuff, which I found a little frustrating.

I've experienced this a bit, from one player in my group in particular. It's like he's trying to learn what I (as GM) want him what to do or to know.

Within the bounds of politeness and overall flow of the game at the table, I try and put it back onto him. Eg if he's saying he (as his PC) wants to look around to see what's there, I'll ask him what he is looking for.

 

[Lanefan]

Within the bounds of politeness and overall flow of the game at the table, I try and put it back onto him. Eg if he's saying he (as his PC) wants to look around to see what's there, I'll ask him what he is looking for.

Unless the fiction already had me/us looking for something in particular, my answer to this would nearly always be "Nothing in particular, just seeing if there's anything that might be of interest".

And by that what I'm really saying as a player is "On a closer look is there anything noteworthy here that your initial narration didn't hit, or that was forgotten*, or that isn't obvious on a quick glance but becomes so on a longer look?"

* - and yes, forgetting to narrate something important happens to all of us now and then - don't deny it!

 

[clearstream]

And again, just to make my position clear, I prefer to call for the check not because I'm unfamiliar resolution via adjudication of fictional positioning, but because - on the whole - I prefer "say 'yes' or roll the dice" where the trigger for saying "yes" is an absence of narrative stakes rather than an advantageous fictional position.

Speculatively, where an RPG is less tightly focused, "say 'yes' or roll" requires qualification, creating a space where narrative stakes abut advantageous positioning.

In any system genuinely asinine and blind-to-game-world declarations are trivially "say 'no', and don't roll". The line becomes blurrier and broader in systems designed for generic rather than specific narratives. Particularly where the intent is to meld and cross between multiple cultures and societies, and distinct situations.

When the line is blurred, some declarations will be less clearly trivially "no", and even players intending to genuinely participate in the game will still make such declarations: they are not asinine or blind to the fiction. In these cases, a DM can benefit from considering advantageous positioning in deciding to "say 'yes', or roll".

Having by whatever means reached "say 'yes', or roll" a DM can then again consider advantageous positioning in the following ways. Positioning can raise or lower stakes, pointing to "yes". Positioning can be an input to parameterising "roll", pointing to better or worse odds.