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

[AbdulAlhazred]

Let's move away from combat for awhile. Would you agree that most 5e ability checks follow F-G-F? Per RAW that is.

Well, 5e's issue here is mostly the lack of any knowable relation between action and result in the sense of attaining the character's desired goal. So, yes, I want to climb the wall more easily, so I throw my grappling hook. Game interaction happens with some sort of check, and then what? Some fiction surely arises but does that fiction include actually allowing me to climb the wall (at least with a better chance of success?). Technically the GM could require additional checks before concluding that I've created favorable conditions (I think in this example that would be uncool, but its a fairly toy example, non-combat play often includes much more open-ended types of action).

I mean, in a sense, 4e was a RESPONSE to this problem in 3.x (where it is basically the same issue that 5e has). They created systems which would codify this sort of thing, the system of powers for combat, and the system of skill challenges which basically pull much of the model used in combat out into general resolution.

So, lets imagine the difference in 4e vs 5e here: In 4e a check is part of an SC, and thus resolves something and moves the fiction forward in a definitive way (either for or against the PCs) by an incremental amount. The GM is now constrained to produce fiction which honors that, or else create an incoherent situation. In 5e, something undoubtedly happens, but there isn't much of a constraint on the GM, or guide to say what they need to move on to. The result is the loop is kind of 'soft'. You can also contrast this with DW where moves 'snowball' and thus there is a more definite sense of a direction of play that we're going in.

So, my experience is that games like 5e tend to 'wander around' a lot with PCs picking and poking and testing the environment, but often a change in fiction isn't really associated with any definite direction in play. 4e tends to 'move on' since the SC will eventually, perforce, wind down to a conclusion. DW moves on because that's just what DW does! Obviously you can drift 4e or DW and get something closer to 5e, and you can play 5e in a "everything that happens is consequential and you are always moving from the frying pan into the fire." but it isn't inherent to the game.

 

[clearstream]

No, I don't. Please look at the perception check example I provided in response to you above.

Most - the majority - but you supply a worthwhile example of overlooking how 5e RAW instructs DM to run ability checks.

Take a perception check to try and find something. The fiction here is that your PC doesn't know where the thing is and so declares an action to look for it. The cubes take over, a check is made and failed. The GM is perfectly fine to say "you don't see anything" which is exactly the same fictional state as prior to the check. There's no change to the fiction here. This loop clearly puts paid to the claim that the basic loop requires changes to fictional state for any interaction.

This is a good case to call attention to. As I said up-thread, a possible difference between DW and 5e might be mapped as:

Play F > DM F
DM F > Play F

DW guides a DM to establish fiction out of play [i.e. largely on the fly, responsive to].

The 5e DMG guides a DM to establish a lot of fiction in advance of play. It says something - but not much - about what to do on the fly. That leads many to think your case is valid: that's how they play. Or they are used to playing D&D that way so continue doing so.

But your case isn't valid. No check should have been made without a meaningful consequence for failure. That is right there in RAW. If a DM reached a "nothing changed" result, the check shouldn’t have been called for.

 

[Lanefan]

This has been discussed thoroughly though, in 5e (and all not-4e basically) it is very weak at best. Unless someone went below 1 hit point there's no prescribed fiction at all, rules-wise. Nor do the mechanics offer any real input here, a 'hit' could consist of almost anything, as @Ovinomancer pointed out. Even if you side with @Lanefan and interpret every hit point as 'meat' [...]

Just a minor course correction here: I don't interpret every hit point as (entirely) meat; instead I interpret every hit point as having elements of both meat and luck; mostly so poisoned weapons can work as intended.

Carry on...

 

[Ovinomancer]

Most - the majority - but you supply a worthwhile example of overlooking how 5e RAW instructs DM to run ability checks.


This is a good case to call attention to. As I said up-thread, a possible difference between DW and 5e might be mapped as:

Play F > DM F
DM F > Play F

DW guides a DM to establish fiction out of play [i.e. largely on the fly, responsive to].

The 5e DMG guides a DM to establish a lot of fiction in advance of play. It says something - but not much - about what to do on the fly. That leads many to think your case is valid: that's how they play. Or they are used to playing D&D that way so continue doing so.

But your case isn't valid. No check should have been made without a meaningful consequence for failure. That is right there in RAW. If a DM reached a "nothing changed" result, the check shouldn’t have been called for.

I like this one, because I used to say this before I re-read. The DMG does have this line, but the PHB says, quite clearly, that a failed check means no progress. Further, the very next section in the DMG talks about checks where a failure doesn't cost anything and how to speed things up by just assuming the character takes 10 times as long. That advice, which immediately follows the bit you're referencing here, seems very much incoherent, yes? The reality to 5e is that it makes no such strong claim because it makes multiple conflicting claims on this topic.

I also have the examples in the adventure paths published for 5e, where they abound with perception checks that have no effect on a failure.

 

[clearstream]

The reality to 5e is that it makes no such strong claim because it makes multiple conflicting claims on this topic.

As a non-formalist I have no issue with conflicting claims about game rules. There is always a local right answer. Your local right answer differs from mine. I give weight to all the words. When it comes to DMing, I give extra weight to words in the "Dungeon Masters Guide" which I take to be the official guide to DMing.

I know of many 5e players - some on these forums - who disagree with your interpretation. And I assume you don't deny that these words are in the DMG - "Only call for a roll if there is a meaningful consequence for failure." Right?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Just a minor course correction here: I don't interpret every hit point as (entirely) meat; instead I interpret every hit point as having elements of both meat and luck; mostly so poisoned weapons can work as intended.

Carry on...

So, then what would your thought on the impossibility of a canonical description of hit point loss be? And if you assert there IS such, how do you square it with a situation where the same monster hits a level 10 fighter with 84 hit points, or a first level 1 with 18 hit points and does 12 damage? Now, FICTIONALLY we can handle that and ignore any questions, because the PC knows what he is and his level, so the player/GM can simply describe it as a scratch, or a 'deep wound' or something like that. But if I'm hitting MONSTERS and doing 12 damage, and I get vastly different fiction each time I do that, how do I describe what I am even doing, fictionally? A hit to a high level monster could surely end up narrated in a way that sounds like a clean miss of a low level one! Its weird at best... and certainly doesn't get us to "fiction always matters to the game mechanics" very well.

 

[Ovinomancer]

As a non-formalist I have no issue with conflicting claims about game rules. There is always a local right answer. Your local right answer differs from mine. I give weight to all the words. When it comes to DMing, I give extra weight to words in the "Dungeon Masters Guide" which I take to be the official guide to DMing.

I know of many 5e players - some on these forums - who disagree with your interpretation. And I assume you don't deny that these words are in the DMG - "Only call for a roll if there is a meaningful consequence for failure." Right?

I literally just said they were, and then pointed out other words, in the DMG that directly contradict it that exist on the same page in the DMG.

This is before we get to the point that the idea of "meaningful consequence" is vague and unclear. What counts as a meaningful consequence?

Now, if you ask me what my preference for running 5e is, and where I've found it works best for me, I'll happy advocate for avoiding calling for a roll unless there's a meaningful consequence. However, I'll also happy tell you that this requires a different approach to crafting play from what's presented in the published adventures. And that this approach isn't very compatible with the published adventures as presented. So, yeah, even me thinking this is a good approach (and the one I vastly prefer), I'm 100% aware that it's not mandated and that much of 5e makes it a challenge to run this way. Hell, just using INT checks for recall smash this concept hard, unless you read such an ask for carte blanche to direct how a PC plays on a failure. Otherwise, what possible "meaningful consequence" adheres to a failure?

Nope, 5e is largely incoherent and contradictory here, and bolding words that you prefer from the DMG doesn't make your attempted claim of RAW any more valid.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

As a non-formalist I have no issue with conflicting claims about game rules. There is always a local right answer. Your local right answer differs from mine. I give weight to all the words. When it comes to DMing, I give extra weight to words in the "Dungeon Masters Guide" which I take to be the official guide to DMing.

I know of many 5e players - some on these forums - who disagree with your interpretation. And I assume you don't deny that these words are in the DMG - "Only call for a roll if there is a meaningful consequence for failure." Right?

That's all fine, but your position doesn't allow you to make any assertions stronger than "in my play, this would not be correct, because we discount passages X, Y, and Z, and only hold with this passage...." Perfectly fine, 5e obviously requires that you make SOME sort of determination of that ilk (or else just pick your resolution process of the moment, which I suspect is how many people play).

And this is basically my core issue with 5e, it doesn't commit to anything. It is less game than 'box full of suggested elements of a game'. Even that would be cool, if it advertised itself as such (I'd note that OD&D actually DID advertise itself as such, and it truly is, having at least 2 mutually exclusive combat systems in the core rulebooks for example).

 

[clearstream]

I ... pointed out other words, in the DMG that directly contradict it that exist on the same page in the DMG.

That isn't right, but I doubt that's a worthwhile debate to digress into.

This is before we get to the point that the idea of "meaningful consequence" is vague and unclear. What counts as a meaningful consequence?

Now, if you ask me what my preference for running 5e is, and where I've found it works best for me, I'll happy advocate for avoiding calling for a roll unless there's a meaningful consequence.

I might have unintentionally given you the impression that it is my view that 5e robustly guides a DM how and what to narrate, what meaningful consequences should be, when F should rightly trigger G, etc.

5e largely leaves such things up to each DM. There is guidance throughout the core books, sometimes express, but it is inconsistent and as you point out sometimes seems conflicting.

My claim is that 5e tells DMs to do those things without guaranteeing that they will.

However, I'll also happy tell you that this requires a different approach to crafting play from what's presented in the published adventures. And that this approach isn't very compatible with the published adventures as presented. So, yeah, even me thinking this is a good approach (and the one I vastly prefer), I'm 100% aware that it's not mandated and that much of 5e makes it a challenge to run this way. Hell, just using INT checks for recall smash this concept hard, unless you read such an ask for carte blanche to direct how a PC plays on a failure. Otherwise, what possible "meaningful consequence" adheres to a failure?

Many default to traditional modes of play, but 5e gains in return that those modes work, securing ubiquity.

I agree that it is right to consider all material in reaching right answers, some material has greater weight depending on question. As to questions about the game system, primary weight is on Core, secondary on errata, SA, XGE and TCoE about equally, and tertiary on published adventures.

 

[clearstream]

That's all fine, but your position doesn't allow you to make any assertions stronger than "in my play, this would not be correct, because we discount passages X, Y, and Z, and only hold with this passage...." Perfectly fine, 5e obviously requires that you make SOME sort of determination of that ilk (or else just pick your resolution process of the moment, which I suspect is how many people play).

As you are familiar with these forums I feel sure you are aware that many would agree with my interpretation and hold my interlocutor flatly wrong on the view they propound on ability checks. My interlocutor even says themselves that they don't prefer it ("Now, if you ask me what my preference for running 5e is, and where I've found it works best for me, I'll happy advocate for avoiding calling for a roll unless there's a meaningful consequence.")

Non-formalism is the view I apply to all RPG (not just 5e) due to the impossibility of explaining everything we see from a formalist perspective.

And this is basically my core issue with 5e, it doesn't commit to anything. It is less game than 'box full of suggested elements of a game'. Even that would be cool, if it advertised itself as such (I'd note that OD&D actually DID advertise itself as such, and it truly is, having at least 2 mutually exclusive combat systems in the core rulebooks for example).

That is actually very fair, but it's not a reason to disagree with what I suggest. The converse, if anything!