D&D 5E "People complain, but don't actually read the DMG!" Which sections specifically?

[Charlaquin]

Question for those who've DMed a lot of 5e:

How often do you find Advantage and Disadvantage cancelling out?

I ask because when I read the RAW, it seems like all the mutual cancellations would wipe out most occurrences either way. But I have little enough 5e experience to know for sure how that plays out in practice, so I'm curious to hear how it tends to work for more experienced DMs.

In my experience, pretty often because when players have disadvantage on a roll, they’ll spend Inspiration to cancel it out.

 

[overgeeked]

Question for those who've DMed a lot of 5e:

How often do you find Advantage and Disadvantage cancelling out?

Fairly often. All positive modifiers have been replaced by advantage. All negative modifiers have been replaced by disadvantage. So any “some from column A and some from column B” situations you’ll have one cancelling out the other.

I ask because when I read the RAW, it seems like all the mutual cancellations would wipe out most occurrences either way. But I have little enough 5e experience to know for sure how that plays out in practice, so I'm curious to hear how it tends to work for more experienced DMs.

Players are pretty quick to stack things in their favor by negating or circumventing whatever is giving them disadvantage.

 

[iserith]

Question for those who've DMed a lot of 5e:

How often do you find Advantage and Disadvantage cancelling out?

I ask because when I read the RAW, it seems like all the mutual cancellations would wipe out most occurrences either way. But I have little enough 5e experience to know for sure how that plays out in practice, so I'm curious to hear how it tends to work for more experienced DMs.

A fair amount in my experience, at least enough where we refer to this as an "Even Steven" roll. As in, "I have disadvantage to attack that guy right now, but I'll spend my Inspiration to make it an Even Steven roll."

 

[Charlaquin]

Really? Please point me to the rules in the DMG that this duplicates.

Player describes what they want to do (gain advantage) and how, DM determines if success and failure are possible and what the consequences of failure are, then calls for an ability check to determine if it succeeds or fails? That’s just the basic pattern of play. The rules for it are kinda distributed in various places throughout the PHB and DMG, but DMG 236-240 are probably some of the most directly relevant.

 

[Malmuria]

Player describes what they want to do (gain advantage) and how, DM determines if success and failure are possible and what the consequences of failure are, then calls for an ability check to determine if it succeeds or fails? That’s just the basic pattern of play. The rules for it are kinda distributed in various places throughout the PHB and DMG, but DMG 236-240 are probably some of the most directly relevant.

Here's the original article: Replace Flanking with Cinematic Advantage

Typically the results of failure are that you just can't do the thing you want to do. What slyflourish is outlining here is a game procedure, in particular while playing theater of the mind. He suggests offering environmental elements on index cards and actively negotiating with players as to how interacting with them would produce advantage and making clear the stakes of failure (which would likely be more than simply "you don't get to do the thing"). Then he offers 20 examples of what this might look like. Crucially, he explains what this adds to your game if you are dm. We can compare with dmg p. 239 on advantage and disadvantage, which offers advice like

Consider granting advantage when:
• Circumstances not related to a creature's inherent capabilities provide it with an edge.
• Some aspect of the environment contributes to the character's chance of success.
• A player shows exceptional creativity or cunning in attempting or describing a task.

This is a suggestion, not a procedure. Further, it's vague: what's an example of "some aspect of the environment" or "exceptional" creativity or "circumstances"? It's nothing particularly profound, but I do find slyflourish writing to be more clear and more useful.

Other examples would be the rules for tool proficiencies and downtime activities in Xanathar's. The writing there is more clear and the procedures and examples more detailed than what's found in the dmg. The dmg just strikes me as a poorly written and organized book, even when compared to other 5e books, but especially when compared to dm advice from third party products or other games.

 

[Parmandur]

This is a suggestion, not a procedure.

Yes, exactly. That's hiw 5E works.

 

[Charlaquin]

Here's the original article: Replace Flanking with Cinematic Advantage

Ok, so the article says pretty much the same thing Dungeon Craft does in his video on it; in fact the bullet point procedure in the video seems to have been taken directly from the article. Let me go through these points one by one.

• While describing the situation, the DM describes interesting features in the area.

This is just part of the basic play procedure as laid out in the How to Play section of the PHB, page 6 I believe. The DM should already be doing this all the time.

• The player describes how they want to use a feature to get a cinematic advantage.

Again, this is already part of the basic procedure of play, it’s just that in this case the specific thing the player wants to do is gain advantage on their next attack roll. But fundamentally, this is just the player’s part of the play loop, describing what they want to do and how.

• The DM determines what attribute and skill (or skills) might be used to accomplish the feat and how difficult it is on a scale of DC 10 to 20. Tell the player what the DC is and what penalty they face if they fail so they can make an informed choice.

And this, again, is just how the normal action resolution procedure should go. Slyflourish is assuming a possibility of success and failure and a consequence for failure all exist, but I don’t think that’s an unreasonable assumption to make in this context. What I will give Slyflourish credit for here though is codifying telling the player the DC and the consequence they’ll face on a failure. As far as I know, the 5e rules don’t explicitly instruct the DM to do this, but I do think it’s best practice.

• The player rolls the check as part of their move or action. On a success, they get advantage on their next attack. On a failure something bad happens depending on what they tried, often falling prone.

So, here we find the only part of this “new rule” that isn’t just restating the basic procedure of play. Specifically, allowing the player to take an improvised action as part of an attack (or the movement leading up to the attack) if the goal of the action is to gain advantage on the attack roll. And don’t get me wrong, I think that’s a good rule. I just don’t think it’s all that novel. Allowing certain tasks to be undertaken without using up your action in combat is a very common ruling. And I think this is a reasonable place to apply it.

Typically the results of failure are that you just can't do the thing you want to do.

I disagree. Generally an action needs a meaningful consequence for failure to be resolved with an ability check.

What slyflourish is outlining here is a game procedure, in particular while playing theater of the mind. He suggests offering environmental elements on index cards and actively negotiating with players as to how interacting with them would produce advantage and making clear the stakes of failure (which would likely be more than simply "you don't get to do the thing"). Then he offers 20 examples of what this might look like.

The index card thing seems like extra fiddly bits and bobs to distract from the action in the fiction, not to mention slowing down combat, and in my experience such things just lead to the players thinking of those index cards as buttons they can push to make something happen, instead of engaging organically with the fiction. I suppose, for some players this might be useful to break them out of only thinking about the options on their character sheet, but to me it seems unhelpful.

Crucially, he explains what this adds to your game if you are dm. We can compare with dmg p. 239 on advantage and disadvantage, which offers advice like
This is a suggestion, not a procedure. Further, it's vague: what's an example of "some aspect of the environment" or "exceptional" creativity or "circumstances"? It's nothing particularly profound, but I do find slyflourish writing to be more clear and more useful.

It’s meant to be up to the DM’s discretion what examples of such things might look like. Now, granted, the DMG is probably more vague than it should be in a lot of these cases, and I agree that Slyflourish makes a good case for what this adds to the game. My point was just that what he’s advocating for is already part of the game, apart from the advice to let players improvise an action to gain advantage on an attack as part of the attack, and to use index cards to represent features of the environment (the latter of which I don’t even think is necessary for this “rule”).

Other examples would be the rules for tool proficiencies and downtime activities in Xanathar's. The writing there is more clear and the procedures and examples more detailed than what's found in the dmg.

I’m not a fan of the rules for these things in Xanathar’s. Tool proficiencies were already useful for adding proficiency bonus to ability check where they’re relevant, just like skills, and the DM could always grant advantage for tool proficiency at their discretion if they wanted that. The rules don’t really add anything there. Downtime they just straight-up made into uptime, which is fine I guess, but not what I want out of downtime rules.

The dmg just strikes me as a poorly written and organized book, even when compared to other 5e books, but especially when compared to dm advice from third party products or other games.

It’s definitely a poorly written and organized book, I agree with you there.

 

[overgeeked]

Player describes what they want to do (gain advantage)

Advantage is a game mechanic, not something the character does.

and how

The player declares what they want their character to do in the fiction. If the DM decides what the character does gets the player advantage, then they do. You start with the fiction, not the mechanics. This is reinforced by the play loop.

DM determines if success and failure are possible and what the consequences of failure are

Yep.

then calls for an ability check to determine if it succeeds or fails?

Nope. Automatic success and failure are always options. The mechanics only come into it when the DM cannot decide based on the fiction what the outcome should be.

That’s just the basic pattern of play.

Not really. The play loop is this:

1. The DM describes the environment.
2. The players describe what they want their characters to do.
3. The DM narrates the results of the characters’ actions.

All the mechanical stuff you describe doesn’t enter into it unless the DM cannot decide on their own what should happen, i.e. decide the outcome of 2 which will lead to 3.

The rules for it are kinda distributed in various places throughout the PHB and DMG, but DMG 236-240 are probably some of the most directly relevant.

Cinematic Advantage expands on 2-3 bullet points in the Advantage and Disadvantage section of the DMG. Explaining some hows and whys of using it for…wait for it…cinematic effect. Considering most people don’t even read the DMG having something like this called out is great. Considering the DMG doesn’t actually offer any advice on how to handle it, only vague if/then statements in a bullet list, having this called out specifically is great.

 

[Malmuria]

Ok, so the article says pretty much the same thing Dungeon Craft does in his video on it; in fact the bullet point procedure in the video seems to have been taken directly from the article. Let me go through these points one by one.

This is just part of the basic play procedure as laid out in the How to Play section of the PHB, page 6 I believe. The DM should already be doing this all the time.

Again, this is already part of the basic procedure of play, it’s just that in this case the specific thing the player wants to do is gain advantage on their next attack roll. But fundamentally, this is just the player’s part of the play loop, describing what they want to do and how.

And this, again, is just how the normal action resolution procedure should go. Slyflourish is assuming a possibility of success and failure and a consequence for failure all exist, but I don’t think that’s an unreasonable assumption to make in this context. What I will give Slyflourish credit for here though is codifying telling the player the DC and the consequence they’ll face on a failure. As far as I know, the 5e rules don’t explicitly instruct the DM to do this, but I do think it’s best practice.

So, here we find the only part of this “new rule” that isn’t just restating the basic procedure of play. Specifically, allowing the player to take an improvised action as part of an attack (or the movement leading up to the attack) if the goal of the action is to gain advantage on the attack roll. And don’t get me wrong, I think that’s a good rule. I just don’t think it’s all that novel. Allowing certain tasks to be undertaken without using up your action in combat is a very common ruling. And I think this is a reasonable place to apply it.

I disagree. Generally an action needs a meaningful consequence for failure to be resolved with an ability check.

The index card thing seems like extra fiddly bits and bobs to distract from the action in the fiction, not to mention slowing down combat, and in my experience such things just lead to the players thinking of those index cards as buttons they can push to make something happen, instead of engaging organically with the fiction. I suppose, for some players this might be useful to break them out of only thinking about the options on their character sheet, but to me it seems unhelpful.

It’s meant to be up to the DM’s discretion what examples of such things might look like. Now, granted, the DMG is probably more vague than it should be in a lot of these cases, and I agree that Slyflourish makes a good case for what this adds to the game. My point was just that what he’s advocating for is already part of the game, apart from the advice to let players improvise an action to gain advantage on an attack as part of the attack, and to use index cards to represent features of the environment (the latter of which I don’t even think is necessary for this “rule”).

I’m not a fan of the rules for these things in Xanathar’s. Tool proficiencies were already useful for adding proficiency bonus to ability check where they’re relevant, just like skills, and the DM could always grant advantage for tool proficiency at their discretion if they wanted that. The rules don’t really add anything there. Downtime they just straight-up made into uptime, which is fine I guess, but not what I want out of downtime rules.

It’s definitely a poorly written and organized book, I agree with you there.

I agree it's nothing profound. In fact, the similarity to what's in the dmg is what makes it a useful comparison. The writing is clear because it takes the basic idea of advantage and shows how a dm can leverage it to create interesting choices for players. What that means is someone can read the dmg and not really "get" how to incorporate the advice into their game because of the way it's written.

Granted, bloggers have the advantage of being able to be opinionated. They can take a style or approach and explore the best way to play in that style. Whereas they probably want to make the dmg more neutral in tone, leading to blasé text (p. 236, The Roll of the Dice: 'some dms like to call for a lot of checks, some dm's hardly call for any, and some take a middle path.' Thanks for the wisdom, dmg).

 

[Charlaquin]

Advantage is a game mechanic, not something the character does.

Yes, obviously, but advantage is also an English word. What the player is trying to do in this case is take advantage of the environment to make their attack more effective. Advantage happens to also be the name of the game mechanic D&D 5e happens to use to express such an.. advantage.

The player declares what they want their character to do in the fiction. If the DM decides what the character does gets the player advantage, then they do. You start with the fiction, not the mechanics. This is reinforced by the play loop.

Of course.

Nope. Automatic success and failure are always options. The mechanics only come into it when the DM cannot decide based on the fiction what the outcome should be.

Yes, I know, I was brushing over it because it wasn’t relevant to my argument. A DM using this “cinematic advantage” rule, such as it is, could also rule that the action automatically succeeds or fails to give the character an advantage on their attack.

Not really. The play loop is this:

1. The DM describes the environment.
2. The players describe what they want their characters to do.
3. The DM narrates the results of the characters’ actions.

All the mechanical stuff you describe doesn’t enter into it unless the DM cannot decide on their own what should happen, i.e. decide the outcome of 2 which will lead to 3.

Yes, obviously.

Cinematic Advantage expands on 2-3 bullet points in the Advantage and Disadvantage section of the DMG. Explaining some hows and whys of using it for…wait for it…cinematic effect. Considering most people don’t even read the DMG having something like this called out is great. Considering the DMG doesn’t actually offer any advice on how to handle it, only vague if/then statements in a bullet list, having this called out specifically is great.

That’s exactly my point. It’s not some new rule that replaces flanking. It’s advice - quite good advice, in my opinion - for how to award advantage for creative (“cinematic”) interaction with the environment, via the basic pattern of play. I don’t disagree with any of it (except maybe the part about using index cards), I just think it’s silly to call it a new rule, when it’s really just a different presentation of the existing rules.