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

[Ovinomancer]

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

Oh, no, I think just claiming I'm not right and then trying to ditch the disagreement without showing your work is rather gauche.

The bit you quoted is the last sentence in the first paragraph under the Using Ability Scores heading on page 237. The bit I'm talking about is the first paragraph under the Multiple Ability Checks heading on the same page:

Sometimes a character fails an ability check and wants to try again. In some cases, a character is free to do so with the only real cost being the time it takes. With enough attempts and enough time, a character should eventually succeed at the task. To speed things up, assume that a character spending ten times the normal amount of time needed to complete a task automatically succeeds at that task. However, no amount of repeating the check allows a character to turn an impossible task into a successful one.

This absolutely maps to my example of the perception check that fails with no change in the fiction. You made the claim that this is false, based on the argument that you shouldn't call for an ability check unless there's a meaningful consequence of failure. Yet this section clearly belies this, allowing multiple retries with the only cost being time. This was the only cost to the example of perception checks I gave and was told I was incorrect on. So, yes, it is right.

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.

Your words where that I was wrong and your support was a reference to the DMG. What impression was I supposed to take from this. Further, what impression am I to take from your opening claim that I am still wrong? If there's not a right way, that is?

This is rhetorical chaff.

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

And chaff to cover this claim -- that there's one thing that 5e tells GMs to do. This is the point of contention -- I can show multiple things that 5e tells GMs to do that conflict. The better confliction from the "meaningful consequences" exists in the PHB under the heading of Ability Checks, where it says a failure results in no progress. The exact result I presented in my perception example to which you said was incorrect due to your reference. Which presides, here? This latest argument is that 5e contradicts itself, sure, and doesn't say what you're supposed to do exactly, but that it's telling your to do something specific but can't stop them from doing other things. I mean, aside from the conflicting nature of this argument, the end result is a platitude that was covered way upthread and repeated a few times (the last by @pemerton, I believe). No game can force you to play any particular way, and pointing this out is trivial and banal. We're talking about what the system says, not the fact that it can't force you to follow it.

And we're pretty far afield now, chasing down this new, slow motion gallop (more of a trot?) of various new objections to things that aren't about the initial claim -- that 5e does not produce a leftwards arrow from the resolution of an attack that only inflicts hp damage and doesn't kill the target. So far, this is still standing despite the many arguments you made (and now, recently, tried to abandon for a new example you hoped was clearer, yet here we are).

I don't understand the vigor of your arguments here -- so what if a left arrow doesn't exist? This isn't a bad thing or a negative, it's just a thing. No left arrows is perfectly fine in many cases!

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.

Huh? I'm not defaulting to traditional modes of play, whatever you mean by this, and I don't follow how 5e gains ubiquity here as that seems a non sequitur altogether (what does the ubiquity of 5e have to offer the instant discussion?). You're attempting to dismiss my point about the adventures by claiming that it's isolated and not covered in the core rulebooks, except I've shown how it absolutely exists in the core rulebooks and was using the adventures as more support to this cite from the core! This is like saying someone that shows a proof for a theory and then shows that it successfully predicts various phenomenon that the theory should be discarded because examples are well and good but you should have a proof to be taken seriously. I started there.

 

[Ovinomancer]

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.")

Argumentum ad populum is not validation! And you're 100% incorrect in the second sentence because I actually said that I both prefer and advocate for it as a good way to play. The difference between me and the others that you list are that I don't claim it's ironclad RAW -- it's not, it's just a good approach to play.

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.

Cool. What things are inherently true about 5e that aren't in it's books? A formalist approach would say that 5e only consists of the things it has in it's rulebooks. The non-formalist would claim that there are inherent truths not contained in the words. What are these truths in your non-formalist views?

Formalism, as a concept, is ill-suited to discussion of RPGs.

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

You mean that there's one valid interpretation, held by many, and where I am wrong about 5e? Yes, that aligns with @AbdulAlhazred's statement that 5e is incoherent in it's totality and forces you to choose from conflicting tools to cobble together your own version of the game (a view I hold -- I know, I know, far too formalist of me).

 

[Lanefan]

So, then what would your thought on the impossibility of a canonical description of hit point loss be?

Given as much of the last 15 pages of discussion has gone WAY over my head, I'm not 100% sure what you mean here.

If I interpret the question to mean what I think it means, describing hit point loss is the same as describing anything else that happens in the fiction: you make something up that suits the moment and narrate it. Therefore, there is no inherent impossibility in describing hit point loss.

But if you mean something else, which is quite likely I think, please clarify.

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.

Exactly, meaning you've already answered your own question (above) for me.

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!

Maybe, but a character will usually know if their attack has had any real impact on a flesh-and-blood creature and will usually within the fiction be able to get a vague idea of what that impact represents, and this is what I try to narrate. Thus, if you hit a 12-h.p. Orc for 8 damage the narration will be different (something like "You really wiped the smirk off its face with that one - not sure if it can take another one of those!") than if you hit a 100-h.p. Giant for 8 ("You hit it, sure, maybe even scratched it; but it largely ignores your feeble blows- it'll take a lot more like that to make much impact!"), even if the underlying mechanics are unaffected.

With some creatures - oozes, jellies, shambling mounds, and wafty undead are some - there's often almost no way for an attacker to know in the fiction if any real damage was in fact done; and this is reflected in the narration: "Well, your blow sunk into it nice enough but it's unclear what if any effect it had."

Spell damage can also sometimes be hard to discern, the character there is looking for a reaction from the creature as if it had just felt some pain.

Its weird at best... and certainly doesn't get us to "fiction always matters to the game mechanics" very well.

This doesn't follow. The fiction is what drives the game mechanics; or - in reverse - the game mechanics are often simply abstract ways of representing the fiction. In the fiction my PC hits the Orc with a solid blow, which causes a mechanical change at the table when I-as-DM adjust that Orc's running hit points from 12 down to 4.

 

[clearstream]

Argumentum ad populum is not validation! And you're 100% incorrect in the second sentence because I actually said that I both prefer and advocate for it as a good way to play. The difference between me and the others that you list are that I don't claim it's ironclad RAW -- it's not, it's just a good approach to play.

A DM can choose not to follow an unambiguous instruction in the official guide for DMs, in the section on running the game. We can often find ambiguities and even frank errors in the text. How do we resolve such questions? An effective way is to give texts differing weights. It makes most sense to follow plain statements.

Cool. What things are inherently true about 5e that aren't in it's books? A formalist approach would say that 5e only consists of the things it has in it's rulebooks. The non-formalist would claim that there are inherent truths not contained in the words. What are these truths in your non-formalist views?

They're well recognised in game studies. Bjork and Holopainen called them exogenous rules. Wittgenstein talks about the form of life: giving rise to or scaffolding meaning. Kreider puts it that in addition to the formal rules of a game, there is a socially-determined interpretation of the rules, an ethos.

Don't think of it as truths not contained in the words. Rather think of it as differences in what those words are taken to mean. A formalist would find themselves with no examples of 5e being played.

Formalism, as a concept, is ill-suited to discussion of RPGs.

In countless discussions we find unreconciled differences on how 5e should be played. Non-formalism provides the helpful perspective that when folk sit down to play 5e, they are doing something we can recognise as 5e even if they are grasping and upholding the rules in ways that are different from some other folk.

You mean that there's one valid interpretation, held by many, and where I am wrong about 5e?

No. Your interpretation isn't as well supported as others, and potentially leads to less rich play. It allows you to produce a "nothing changed" outcome, even though an unambiguous rule tells you to avoid that.

Yes, that aligns with @AbdulAlhazred's statement that 5e is incoherent in it's totality and forces you to choose from conflicting tools to cobble together your own version of the game (a view I hold -- I know, I know, far too formalist of me).

My argument is that the 5e RAW tells you to play the game a certain way, without guaranteeing it. Your gripes here to the extent that they are valid, support what I am saying.

 

[clearstream]

This is rhetorical chaff.

You might harbour a notion that if you belittle another's arguments they will recognise your superior intellect and feel forced to abandon their position. Your rhetoric in this direction is not worthy of your insights, which I value nevertheless.

And chaff to cover this claim -- that there's one thing that 5e tells GMs to do. This is the point of contention -- I can show multiple things that 5e tells GMs to do that conflict. The better confliction from the "meaningful consequences" exists in the PHB under the heading of Ability Checks, where it says a failure results in no progress. The exact result I presented in my perception example to which you said was incorrect due to your reference. Which presides, here?

When it comes to how a DM should run the game, which presides are the plain rules in the section "Running the Game" in the core book "Dungeon Masters Guide".

Nothing in the Players Handbook is in conflict. Rather it lacks the detail that is filled in for DM in their guide.

This latest argument is that 5e contradicts itself, sure, and doesn't say what you're supposed to do exactly, but that it's telling your to do something specific but can't stop them from doing other things. I mean, aside from the conflicting nature of this argument, the end result is a platitude that was covered way upthread and repeated a few times (the last by @pemerton, I believe). No game can force you to play any particular way, and pointing this out is trivial and banal. We're talking about what the system says, not the fact that it can't force you to follow it.

I am talking about what the system says. I'm not pointing out that the game doesn't force you to play a certain way. I'm pointing out that the game as written tells you to play a certain way and that common practice is to play it in a traditional way (or I suspect, most often a composite.)

And we're pretty far afield now, chasing down this new, slow motion gallop (more of a trot?) of various new objections to things that aren't about the initial claim -- that 5e does not produce a leftwards arrow from the resolution of an attack that only inflicts hp damage and doesn't kill the target. So far, this is still standing despite the many arguments you made (and now, recently, tried to abandon for a new example you hoped was clearer, yet here we are).

I think the only way to settle your (unhelpfully and irrelevantly insulting) disagreements here would be if we can agree on a definition of fiction, so that you will be able to show that it is unchanged.

I will start. Fiction is a collection of facts held among participants. The nature of those facts is that they are not defined by the game as game, although it is expected that they are informed by it and relate to it in ways that all participants will agree to.

You're attempting to dismiss my point about the adventures by claiming that it's isolated and not covered in the core rulebooks, except I've shown how it absolutely exists in the core rulebooks and was using the adventures as more support to this cite from the core! This is like saying someone that shows a proof for a theory and then shows that it successfully predicts various phenomenon that the theory should be discarded because examples are well and good but you should have a proof to be taken seriously. I started there.

Provide the quotations and I will take a look. The published adventures occasionally do things that contradict the rules. In forum discussion that I have experienced up to this point they have been considered tertiary (by other posters, that view didn't originate with me.) But I like your argument about their forming live examples.

 

[clearstream]

@AbdulAlhazred I've been thinking about some problems and possible benefits of a mode of play that looks similar to 4e. It may be relevant to your interests.

Moves from F to G in many modes might be called "appeal to", like this
DM says F
P says F
DM says F=G so roll
P rolls
DM says >F >G
In a sense, P's fiction appealed to the DM

Moves in the mode I am thinking of might be called "invokes", like this
DM says F
P says F and =G so roll
P rolls
DM says >F >G
So player simply invoked the move

There could be concerns about agreement. We would have trust player, rather than trust DM, but a crucial fact about DM is they have nothing at stake. P might have everything at stake! (If you think about that, it's similar to the Czege Principle.)

There could be a significant worry that players will elide fiction. It seems all too possible players over time will change "P says F=G so roll" to, "P says G so roll". The fiction might start to feel like cut-scenes in video games: fun at first but dispensed of the nth time P just wants to do the G. In other modes, DM is upholder of fiction - appeal to me, without naming your move - so so that we maintain a fiction that we know to contain potential that game alone cannot.

On the benefits side, it provides a route to player-empowerment that could pay off in agreement to constraints on other dimensions. It should appeal strongly to mechanically-minded players. On balance though, I have a not yet worked through theory that "player-invokes" puts fiction in jeopardy.

 

[pemerton]

To say it is optional makes me feel you are describing groups that either haven't read the basic pattern on PHB 6, or choose not to apply it. I am speaking about the game as written.

I am using "optional" in the same sense as Vincent Baker when he says that narration of certain aspects of the fiction, in In A Wicked Age, is "functionally optional".

That is, (1) nothing in the game will stop working if you don't do the narration, and furthermore (2) if you do do the narration then the most striking thing is that it is irrelevant to subsequent resolution. Eg whether the GM narrates the Orc's hp loss as "reeling" or "parrying" or "a slashed forearm", nothing changes in the resolution of subsequent actions or the play of the game. It's no more significant than the flavour text on a magic card.

Contrast that with (say) a result on a Rolemaster crit table, or the depletion of a location's hp in RQ.

I think you are describing hard constraints on the orc's future Fs and Gs. The orc player might not be able to say the orc runs quickly away, because of that leg. Let's look at a canonical example from DW.

GM: Jarl, you’re up to your not-inconsiderable belly in slavering goblins. They have you surrounded, knives bared. What do you do?
Jarl: I’ve had enough of this! I wallop the closest goblin with my hammer.
GM: Okay, then. This is definitely combat, you’re using hack and slash. Roll+Str.
Jarl: I got an 11. It says here that I have a choice. Fear is for the weak, let those goblins come!
GM: You smash your hammer into the nearest goblin and are rewarded by the satisfying sound of the crunching of his bones. That and a knife wound as the goblin counterattacks. He deals 4 damage to you. What do you do?

Only weapons with the forceful or stun tags do more than that. That wasn't in play here so any immediate constraints on future Fs and Gs are left up to players and DM. Maybe goblin cares that it is now close to death and acts on that, maybe not. 5th as written is identical: reduced HP ongoing is enough to have changed the fiction (compare with a miss!)

<snip>

If your goblins never care about being close to death - never flee or plead for their lives - then you've made empty an arrow that 5e mandates.

Why are we comparing DW and 5e D&D here? They are quite different in their procedures of play.

For instance, in DW a player can respond to the GM's narration of the "satisfying sound of the crunching of the bone" by declaring that they want to identify the weak point to focus their attacks on it, triggering Discern Realities to look for a +1 to a subsequent Hack & Slash. Or they can take advantage of the GM narrating crunched bone to escape - the Goblin with the broken bone presumably can't give chase, so it seems no Defy Danger should be needed to flee (perhaps the GM narrates a soft move instead, of the Goblin calling its allies to chase the PCs).

5e D&D combat doesn't resolve in this fashion. However much crunching of bone or slashing of forearm the GM narrates, the Orc's movement rate and action economy are not impeded. The only change in the fiction is that the Orc is "now close[r] to death" - but there is no manifestation of this in its capabilities etc (hence why Gygax suggested that an Orc's hit points, like a PC's, are primarily "luck" points until the last ones are knocked off.

The fact that the GM might decide the Orc or Goblin pleads for its life isn't a sign of non-epiphenomenal leftward arrows. Nor is it a rightward arrow. It's the GM reading the cues - a hit-point tally - and making a decision about the fiction - the Goblin pleads for its life. But that decision was not mandated by any arrow in Baker's sense. The GM can equally decide that the Orc or Goblin is a fanatic; or that from the Orc or Goblin's point of view the hit point loss represents lucky blows by the PC, with the Orc or Goblin expecting their luck to turn any moment.

I mean, this is from p 14 of the In A Wicked Age rulebook - Mekha has won the exchange, but has not scored an absolute victory so it will continue on (a little like reducing an Orc or Goblin's hp, but not to zero):

In your answer, you have to say what happens and what Amek does, that prevents Mekha from carrying out his action, but leaves Amek at the disadvantage.​

This is step 5 in Resolution System #3. It's a leftward arrow that is "functionally optional" because it doesn't generate any rightward arrows. The player of the character who thinks they will lose the conflict in In A Wicked Age can try and negotiate (see the rules on pp 14 to 19, esp p 19). This is a near-perfect analogue of the GM deciding that the Orc or Goblin begs for their life. So I don't understand why you're trying to argue that 5e D&D is any different from In A Wicked Age. Do you really think Vincent Baker has made a mistake in the application of his model to his own game?

There are many cases in 5e that expressly give you the contents of that arrow - menacing Attack is one example - where not express it is up to DM.

I have mentioned those. Repeatedly. I've also noted that they do not require any rightward pointing arrows. It is not a requirement of the play of Menacing Strike, for instance, that the player actually describe their PC doing or saying anything that is menacing. This contrasts with Apocalypse World, where Go Aggro actually requires making a thread; with Dungeon World, where Parley requires the character to actually promise or demonstrate something related to their leverage; or Burning Wheel's prayer and Rapier Wit mechanics.

DM also is the sole judge of when a fictional trigger has been provided (if you aren't getting that from 5e, you need to reread the rules.) If players do the thing, DM is intended to say they do the thing. DW steps in by codifying explicit triggers. It has been robustly shown that this comes down to making it more likely - but not guaranteeing - that play by different groups will be similar. A good pattern is given, but again - it us up to DM to interpret that pattern. Look at Dworkin's concept of right answers.

In 5e D&D there are no "right answers" in Dworkin's sense - there is neither the factual nor the normative foundation to generate right answers as Dworkin says they are generated in law. What is the "fictional trigger" for a STR (Athletics) check to climb a wall, in 5e D&D? No one can say anything beyond repeating the rules text (p 58 of the Basic PDF) that

The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results.​

What is the determinant of something having "a chance of failure"? Is that intended to be extrapolated from the fiction? To what degree of chance? Why is no ability check called for when spells are cast? - Surely the recitation of those complex syllables and the making of those intricate gestures is something that might go wrong! But we all know that casting a spell does not require a check.

This is a long, long way from "if you do it, you do it".

 

[pemerton]

My basic position is that RPG rules are more than usually subject to interpretation so that what game is constituted is always in doubt.

Suppose this is true - why would it matter? What does it matter that you are playing DW and I am playing DW*? What analytical benefit, either in relation to play or in relation to design, is gained by individuating game by reference to rules interpretations?

Also, I don't know how you want us to reconcile your reference to interpretation as a cause of variation with your reliance on Dworkin, who argues that there is always a correct interpretation, given the same pre-interpretive material and the normative goals of the interpretation?

the right answers about what is functionally optional have to be reached locally. As noted this is more Dworkin than Hale.

Dworkin is a universalist, not a particularist!

But anyway, the concept of functional optionality is introduced by Baker, by reference to how it is that the mechanics depend upon the fiction in order to be applied and declarations resolved. This is not local; that's the point of his word functional. He talks about how local practices might mean that something that is functionally optional is nevertheless done. For instance, here:

There are a couple of places in the game where there are supposed to be rightward-pointing arrows, but they're functionally optional. I assert them, but then the game's architecture doesn't make them real. So it takes an act of unrewarded, unrequired discipline to use them. I suspect that the people who have the most fun with the Wicked Age have that discipline as a practice or a habit, having learned it from other games.​

A good system is one that reliably produces agreement to the fiction we sat down for, at a price we're willing to pay.

This is a much, much weaker constraint than the one that Vincent Baker is interested in. In A Wicked Age meets this constraint, but Baker is critical of IAWA for its lack of rightward arrows and hence the fact that it doesn't reliably produce fiction about what is actually happening - only outcomes.

D&D combat meets this constraint - no one is in doubt about who is winning or losing, as they watch the fluctuating hit point tallies - but that didn't stop the simulationist reaction against D&D.

A system in which the GM narrates the fiction and calls for checks when they want some input into their decision-making will satisfy your constraint - it will reliably produce agreement to the fiction that people signed up for - but that doesn't mean it would be a good system.

Compare our difference of views on DW vs 5e under probabilistic versus modal interpretations. I say that if it has to be stated modally, 5e does what DW does. You say that stating it probabilistically, the two are gulfs apart. These views are compatible even though we exhaust ourselves by arguing about them.

I don't understand what point you are making here. My contrast of D&D to DW is not based on predicting or conjecturing distributions of various approaches to play. I'm comparing the processes of play that are described in their respective rules texts.

 

[pemerton]

short-handing to "It lost 9 HP" can communicate enough to a group who have a shared picture of what that implies.

The "shared picture" here is nothing but shared knowledge of the rules about hit point totals and the significance of having these drop to zero! There need not be any shared fiction about what has happened to the Orc or Goblin that lost 9 hp.

 

[clearstream]

I am using "optional" in the same sense as Vincent Baker when he says that narration of certain aspects of the fiction, in In A Wicked Age, is "functionally optional".

Are you taking "narrate" in the basic pattern to mean "say something meaningless"? You earlier argued that saying something meaningless was not narration in an RPG sense.

That is, (1) nothing in the game will stop working if you don't do the narration, and furthermore (2) if you do do the narration then the most striking thing is that it is irrelevant to subsequent resolution. Eg whether the GM narrates the Orc's hp loss as "reeling" or "parrying" or "a slashed forearm", nothing changes in the resolution of subsequent actions or the play of the game. It's no more significant than the flavour text on a magic card.

The test of - not stopping the game working - is far too weak. If it were enough, it would have been impossible for you and other posters to have questioned my running of DW.

In my example of narrating minimal damage, a player felt something - an anxiety about the outcome that motivated a retreat. The results were relevant: something changed in the fiction. What to narrate is down to each DM at the table.

If you refuse to produce meaningful narration, then it cannot be surprising when we find that narration to be "functionally optional".