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

[AbdulAlhazred]

Okay. So the meaningful consequence is that it takes you too long to climb the cliffs. [You are stymied at the bottom for too long.] The ritual completes and Demogorgon is let into the world. Even the glimpse you get from here of its twin heads jeopardises your sanity. What do you do?


You see Joe Rival already a third of the way up, while you are stymied at the bottom. But what's this? A guide at the foot of the cliffs holds the end of their trailing rope. What do you do?


You come once more to the foot of these same cliffs. All too well do you remember the summoning of Demogorgon (and the devastation that followed), and more recently the satisfaction of hearing the cry of dismay of Joe Rival as he plunged from his dislodged rope. You lay eyes on the familiar north face. Twice, you have failed to scale it. You've never reached the overhang - 100 feet above you - which will surely test you even further. Why didn't I take that trail to the east, you might well ask yourself, those last two crucial occasions?

The first hundred feet are easy. The overhang will be very hard and you will be 100' up. What do you do?

Now, I think this third case nicely illustrates where a game which asks for the PCs to be challenged in some fundamental way comes alive. So, maybe the character has a personality trait "I'm as stubborn as a rock." The player asserts "By gosh my character came here, perhaps foolishly, with the intent of climbing even though he could have taken the path. He's NOT GIVING UP NOW!" OK, so, we've learned something about this character, his stubbornness is so strong that he's going to risk catastrophic personal consequences (serious physical danger surely) in order to achieve some fundamentally dubious activity. This is certainly something we can work with, though it is probably not great material for some games (IE DW probably finds it a bit lacking in fantastical and heroic aspects). 5e could kinda go there, with BIFTs, maybe the player is aiming to earn Inspiration?

 

[Lanefan]

I think here you are saying that no-progress will prevent retries.

That is always my baseline assumption, yes: no retries unless something materially changes either in the fiction or in the PCs' approach.

Either that or time is at issue. Forcing the party to go the long way around can be a meaningful consequence.

But if the can retry freely. If time isn't at issue, it's just colour. If your group are deeply into such details, then that itself can be a meaningful consequence. I sometimes find something like that as a world immersionist: I want those cliffs to feel daunting, the lay of the land to be felt.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Ah, so the answer to the question is that you're just going to arbitrarily create outcomes based on the intent of the climb. That this doesn't engage the cubes at all, and totally ignores any fictional input of capability is interesting.

Assuming here that every one of these cases calls for a check (this seems to be the case), we have to look at the process overall. The initial case is that the GM describes the situation -- here we have the same set of cliffs in each, presumably described the same, or enough so that it makes no difference. The player has declared an action to attempt to climb the cliffs. Here's where you start doing what I assume the 5e* thing is -- you do not determine if the outcome of the declared action is uncertain based on the inputs of your description of the obstacle or the content of the action declaration, but rather from a broader input of the fiction to see if you (as GM) think there's an interesting consequence to failure that stems only from this goal. In other words, the call for a check to resolve climbing the cliff is only dependent on if you can conceive of a consequence to failure that goes only to the goal of the challenge. The inputs of the fiction for how you described the cliff or what the particulars of the action declaration are have no bearing on whether or not you call for a check. The call for a check is only dependent on the goal for which the action moves towards. Okay, that could work. However, it's interesting to note that the decision to call for a check then becomes entirely divorced from the process of resolving that check. Here, the fictional inputs into resolving the check are the fiction you described as the obstacle -- ie, how challenging the cliff may be to climb -- and the details of the action resolution -- was climbing gear used, how fictionally good is the climber at climbing (this is a chicken/egg fiction/mechanics thing)? These are the inputs into determining the DC, if dis/advantage is present, etc. And then the mechanics resolved based on these inputs, not the ones used to determine if a check was relevant. These report back, and then the outcome narration isn't really based on the fictional inputs to this process, but rather subbed back to the ones used for calling the check. You've created an odd little sub-subroutine here, where you call for a check based on X criteria, but resolve the check with Y criteria, and then narrate results based again on X criteria only.

Which is fine, until we get to situations where the PCs don't have a clear understood goal, or the goal interacts with secret fiction the GM knows but the PCs don't. Like the secret door example. Here the PCs are looking for something that they hope will be beneficial to them, but don't know what that something is or what benefit they will reap. They're doing this only because a trope exists of hidden things. How do you determine what the PC goal is here and develop consequences that engage that goal? Vaguely, the goal is to find something that is hopefully beneficial. What consequences are there here? If we assume that the GM has prepared secret fiction that they are referencing, then they can look to see if such secret fiction is subject to this action and what it is, but this isn't determining a consequence from the goal like you've done with the cliff example. We can check this by noting that the answer in the secret fiction doesn't change if we go with the vague goal of finding something, anything beneficial to looking for a Wand of Meteor Swarm -- the result is already in the secret fiction so the actual goal doesn't have any real input, we're just adjudicating the straightforward tasking. We don't create a 'meaningful consequence' based on the intent or goal of the action! Now, we could, but then we do not have an prepared secret fiction -- we're No Myth-ing it -- and so we can formulate consequences based on goals and there can be different consequences for failure between the two (not sure what they would be, but for arguments sake I'm saying we can do difference here). However, now we're left with what happens on a success -- if the goal is the Wand, is it found on a success?

And, all of this wraps into why I absolutely assert that 5e is not a good platform to try no myth story now play. The reasons are clearest in the discussion of the cliffs -- there's no way to actually test goal or intent in 5e, just task. This separation, that the resolution methods do not engage with any fiction of goals but instead only the fiction of GM description and understanding of the fiction and the details of the action declaration mean that we cannot use these to actually test anything other than this task resolution. Calling for a check to resolve a goal works are the call level, but resolution doesn't work because I can only test task resolution -- there's no inputs into 5e resolution methods that address or care about goals. This goes for character beliefs as well -- I can't test a belief that you're an expert cliff climber in 5e because the answer to that is already established with bonuses and the testing is going to be arbitrary based on the GM's decision of DC, which the player does not have input into (outside of suggestion).

Right, and this is why in my own game design there are only 3 allowed modes of play (2 really, combat and challenge are fundamentally the same in a basic sense). If there's nothing at stake it is canonically not a challenge, its an interlude and thus you just 'climb the cliff'. If it IS a challenge, then the 'resolution of intention' is really fundamentally at the entire challenge level, and individual checks can thus incorporate resolution mechanics tied to "how capable am I of overcoming this situation?" I don't run into situations like the meaningless secret door, because the GM will simply narrate an outcome, no mechanics exist here. OTOH if finding the secret door is critical to advancing the Challenge (IE success or failure at least partly hinges on the outcome) then we're all good, the consequence is some sort of failure to attain intent, and the mechanics marks a tally on the fail side of the challenge. The GM is now obliged to frame some new situation, in the case of failure it presumably must be one in which the possibilities of overall success have become more tenuous (or possibly the whole enterprise has failed and we now get to the meaty fictional consequences, though Challenge failure can also have a mechanical aspect to it, as could success).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

in your mind is there never a time when there is nothing at stake AND something can be uncertain? or is it that you have a way OTHER THEN THE ROLL to solve for uncertainty in cases with minor or no stakes?

I have a friend who is a trained magician (not just slide of hand but that's part of it) and he was doing card tricks when me and his older brother were in HS. I have another friend that fancies himself a poker expert (he does win some good money at the casino, but not enough to do much). Me and most of my buddies know how to play poker... those two though only want to play for money...ever.

on more then one occasion as a 'game night' we have tried poker (normally it's board games) but only if those two are not there... because game night to us is things of no consequences so no real stakes. We split some chips up among us, if someone runs out we just redistribute the chips (sometimes we remember to not use all of them) we don't keep track we just play and joke...

I relate the above because sometimes you use skill and luck for things that are uncertain in real life with little to no stakes.

From a (long ago) game We had a player who wanted to try to sneak past a bunch of people... he knew that 2 off duity guards were among them, and so there WAS a chance he would be spotted... there was no NEED to sneak, we could just decide yes/no or we can roll... I wonder though, in your mind if this was 5e how would you handle an uncertain moment with no stakes?

Well, if there are no stakes, then the outcomes are functionally, at least in terms of game's agenda, equivalent. That would be my definition of 'inconsequential'. My personal answer to this is simply free narration. The player narrates what his character does. He's free to explain the outcomes based on his abilities and whatnot. I'd stipulate that players are obliged to stick to 'appropriate fiction' (IE no describing your plate armor-equipped tank of a paladin sneaking around in his armor). Again, I actually coded this into my game's design! 5e can do it, but it is far from clear that this is how the rules are intended to read, assuming there even IS an intent.

IMHO TBH I think 5e is extremely classic here, it expects the GM to call for roles based on the actual physical consequences of hazardous or uncertain moves, and not having any relation to any larger fiction. The 'only interesting failure' rule is then relegated to being merely an admonition not to bother to roll dice when the outcome doesn't change the fiction in any way. The GM is simply EXPECTED to supply danger! That is, putting a locked door in the PC's way and then not defining a consequence for taking an hour to pick the lock is either A) a case where no roll should be asked for, or B) a failure to GM well. Again, in my own game the player would simply describe picking the lock in an amount of time which seems plausible and inconsequential, or else the picking will be a consequential part of a challenge, pure and simple.

I'd note that 4e is more of a 'mixed bag' in that it allows for 'free checks' which work a lot like 5e, and have all the same issues. Obviously when in this mode of play it is on the GM to make things matter.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The meaningful consequence occurs if you succeed: you get to the top and can proceed from there.

Otherwise, what would you do? Grant auto-success on a climb where any shred of realism would say success is far from a sure thing? Or grant auto-failure and deny the PCs/players the possibility of getting to the top?

What unrealistic outcome results from simply granting success? Surely it was within the range of probable outcomes, else the GM would simply rule "you cannot do this" or "are you sure, you are CERTAIN to fall to your death!" or something like that. I don't see the value of dice here. I'd add that it wouldn't actually be unacceptable, in theory, for the GM to say "well, you could theoretically climb this cliff, but you're having a bad day and after a couple hours you give up." I would note however that this last outcome probably triggers some player's "how dare you tell me what my player gives up on." Frankly I'd leave it up to the player if they wanted that outcome, it is certainly within their authority as I read 5e to do so.

 

[Lanefan]

What unrealistic outcome results from simply granting success?

The invalidation of the acknowledged chance of failure.

If done once, no big deal. But if it's the norm that every time there's a chance of failure on something supposedly inconsequential* your character is going to succeed, that beggars belief. (and also leads to metagame concerns where things that should give the PCs pause don't, as the players know success is a given)

* - and no climb of 10 feet or more is ever inconsequential if you count the possible loss of h.p. from falling as a consequential outcome.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The invalidation of the acknowledged chance of failure.

If done once, no big deal. But if it's the norm that every time there's a chance of failure on something supposedly inconsequential* your character is going to succeed, that beggars belief. (and also leads to metagame concerns where things that should give the PCs pause don't, as the players know success is a given)

* - and no climb of 10 feet or more is ever inconsequential if you count the possible loss of h.p. from falling as a consequential outcome.

But again, failure IS possible, it just isn't randomly determined by dice. Since this kind of process is fundamentally being used when the participants agree nothing serious is at stake I don't actually see a problem. It is just a different form of adjudication instead of relying on dice. I think your metagame concerns also seem misplaced to me, as the players have no incentive to, for example, swarm up everything nearby at random (and if that's how they actually want to play, why are we criticizing that?).

 

[Ovinomancer]

I can empathise with that. It's a common concern. The idea isn't to change what's possible, but to ask the question - if there are genuinely no meaningful consequences, what are we rolling for?

As the debate with @Ovinomancer might have emphasised, that cliff is the same cliff in all scenarios. That overhang is dangerous in every case.

What @Ovinomancer's examples cleverly did is overlaid multiple consequences, and then cried "Gotcha!" when I didn't spell out what I thought was happening.

Failing the first roll and being stuck at the bottom meant the ritual completed. Making it would have reached the overhang. The timings a little wonky there: for the sake of brevity I glossed details that would have mattered at my table. No one seemed to pick up on it, but climb in 5e is usually half-speed. If the ritual really did finish in one check, then we must have been working in a timescale above one round. Let's say 1 minute. That's enough to reach the top quickly enough... but it seems rather brief for a ritual that summoned a greater demon!

I was about to like the previous comment, but then you take the immediate opportunity here to, as you did in your response to me, accuse me of bad faith engagement. There was no gotcha question. I responded directly to your prompt -- you asked for the change in proposal from the one I first presented which was aimed to elicit answers to where I had confusion about your claims. The second response which you are characterizing as gotcha questions here were following your response and further statements and were aimed at eliciting the same -- better understanding of your position. You've now made this personal and about my motivations rather than my arguments in three recent posts. Please stop doing this -- address my arguments.

Further, I didn't overlay multiple consequences at all -- I have no idea how you come to this position. I provided three independent goals to see how your claimed approach handled them. One where the situation was dire, one where the situation was uncertain, and one where the only interest was entirely within the PC -- not external pressure but internal pressure. None of these were calculated to be gotchas, none has multiple overlapping consequences (how could they, there's not consequence anywhere in them!). They were aimed at eliciting asking over a wide range to see how your engaged them with your claims. The answers didn't really show your claimed approach, though, because they didn't follow the basic loop of play and you continued to insist even in your last response. That loop is the GM describes the situation or scene, the player declares actions, the GM evaluates and resolves those actions (perhaps calling on mechanic or just deciding what happens) and then the GM narrates the outcomes. The scene described is the cliff -- it's the immediate obstacle. The action is climbing the cliff. The result for case 1 was for something outside this scene -- like decided the outcome of an adventure on a single check on the way to the expected end. The result for case 2 was addition of new fiction not related to the declared goal or the challenge -- still, you were trying to be cool and show some creativity, but it's not helpful to do this when showing adjudication process -- it clouds the result. So, that aside, you reverted to status quo -- no progress -- with no other real consequence other than discovery that the rival was engaged. You actually offered a different path to success here. I'm not sure what the actual meaningful consequence was in this case. And then, in case three, it's just straight up no progress with offer to retry. I don't see the principled approach you're claiming here -- you insisted that something outside the loop must be present to give the loop meaningful consequence, so I provided that curious to see the results. And the results either ignored that (case 3), muddled it (case 2), or turned the scene into the resolution for a major event straight out (case 1).

To offer my approach as a counterweight, I don't really care why a character is doing a given task at the level you asked for. I want to know what the PC is doing for their action and what the intent of that action is only. Climbing a cliff? Need to know the approach -- free climbing is fine -- and need to know the intent -- usually to get to the top, but there might be an added "get to the top without being seen." I need to know this bit not so that I can provide meaningful consequences by attacking a goal, but because I want to make sure that I'm 100% clear on what the player wants to do so I don't step on it. Climbing has lots of available setbacks and consequences that I can leverage that aren't just 'no progress,' and I never need to reach to a larger goal to get to them. Since the PC in the examples just wants to get to the top, I can treat a failure in any number of ways -- I have threatened loss of gear (a slip causes a sword to begin sliding out of a scabbard, you can let it go and regain your position and complete the climb, or try to grab it, but that's going to be another check depending on how you want to try it at the same DC, failure means you lose your hold entirely and follow the sword down, success means you grab the sword before it slips out and continue to climb okay), I've paid off in hp damage (you slip and slide and tumble down about 20 feet before you fetch up against an outcrop and arrest your fall; take (2d10) damage from getting banged around), I've paid off in attacking the immediate intent (you wanted to climb stealthly, but at the top of the climb, a rock pulls free and starts a clatter down the cliff, dislodging some others for a good bit of racket. You hear the guards say "what was that" and steps coming your way. You're hanging at the edge of the cliff, pulling yourself up will be like standing from prone, what do you do?). Lots and lots of ways. All have impact and drive further play.

On the other hand, when dealing with secret info, sometimes results are best left at no progress. There's a secret door in a room and the players search but fail to hit the DC? They don't find anything, move on. I tend to avoid this by having secret doors be foreshadowed or otherwise used in short order, but sometimes you just need to have a regular old secret thing around. And there's no way to reconcile "meaningful consequence" to this. Although, I typically use passive check for this.

Oh, and passive checks! (slaps forhead!) That's the thing I've been trying to remember that absolutely puts paid to the 'meaningful consequence' bit as you've presented it! According to the rules, passive checks are for when the PC is performing an action in one of two ways -- over time, so we average the d20 result for an average result to compare at a moment it's useful, and/or when the GM wishes to know a check result but doesn't, usually for reasons of secrecy, to ask for a roll. Often passive checks are used for keeping an eye out for danger. The PC is actively doing this on a constant basis, but we aren't asking for checks on a continuous basis because that sucks in play. Plus, we may not want to alert the player to a threat if the PC doesn't notice it, so passive checks to keep an eye out are also used this way. If a passive check fails to detect a hidden threat or item or door, nothing happens. The "meaningful consequence" is on a later action, and the result is the same as if you didn't keep an eye out -- you either never notice it or you're surprised if it attacks. Yet, according to the concept of a passive check, we can often have situations where there's an active action taken by the PC that results in no result on a failure. Sometime this does result in a "meaningful consequence" but it also sometimes does not, and this isn't even blinked out despite passive checks being full up ability checks with a slight alteration in resolution but not in intent or effects.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The invalidation of the acknowledged chance of failure.

If done once, no big deal. But if it's the norm that every time there's a chance of failure on something supposedly inconsequential* your character is going to succeed, that beggars belief. (and also leads to metagame concerns where things that should give the PCs pause don't, as the players know success is a given)

* - and no climb of 10 feet or more is ever inconsequential if you count the possible loss of h.p. from falling as a consequential outcome.

Do you require checks for a PC to walk?

 

[Lanefan]

But again, failure IS possible, it just isn't randomly determined by dice.

That's just it: failure isn't possible if the DM never says no.

Therefore, whenever failure is possible out should come the dice.

Since this kind of process is fundamentally being used when the participants agree nothing serious is at stake I don't actually see a problem.

Well of course the players are going to agree nothing's at stake whenever they can as it's in their better interests to do so!

Situation: a burglary job that looks like it requires at least 5 different climbs (outer wall, in and out; house wall, in and out; slippery sloping roof) and a fair degree of stealth.

Hidden situation: the PCs have lucked out in that there's nobody home tonight, meaning that within reason they can get away with being fairly unstealthy.

The 15' outer wall is fairly easy on the outside and dirt simple on the inside; the only hazard is a low spiked fence along the top. The 30' house wall is tricky but manageable. The sloping roof is very hard because rain has made it slick.

The way I see it as a DM, regardless of the ease/difficulty of climb or the hidden fact that there's nobody home each of those five climbs should be rolled for simply due to the fact that a fall is likely going to hurt (i.e. ablate some h.p.) and that losing some hit points now could have consequences later either via use of healing resources or of not being at full pop if something goes wrong. There's also the question of how the PCs will react if someone falls noisily; sure there's nobody home, but the PCs don't know that and until they do (if ever) why not keep the tension high?

As a player, though, I'll happily agree if the DM says the outer wall doesn't need a roll in either direction and the house wall only needs one (to get up, getting down is automatic) because it's in my interests.

It is just a different form of adjudication instead of relying on dice. I think your metagame concerns also seem misplaced to me, as the players have no incentive to, for example, swarm up everything nearby at random (and if that's how they actually want to play, why are we criticizing that?).

If I-as-player know my character can automatically succeed at something I'm going to do it far more often than if I-as-player know success isn't guaranteed (assuming the character has the same degree of knowledge in the fiction).