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

[Ovinomancer]

I engaged them as I understood you to have established everything up to the point of roll. Therefore accepting that a meaningful consequence was in play, and narrating the result.


Yes, it was my assumption. I cannot see how you can possibly interpret my answers as explicating the whole loop!? A helpful query might have been to reiterate your intended question. That would have repaired my assumption.


No, I aimed to show that in narrating result a DM is free to add to fiction, perhaps bringing in elements that follow well from previous play.


That's fair. I misunderstood the question. That is why I felt so vividly (and wrongly, as it turns out) that you were shifting the goalposts, creating gotchas. I assumed you asked one question. You upbraided me on quite another.


Accepted, based on what you have said. But really, how on Earth did you read explication of a full play loop into my answers? Or even an attempt at same?!


Perforce.

The "upbraiding" actually started after you started telling me to reread PHB pg 6 as if it was an answer to the points I was making. It wasn't, and I showed why -- you skipped that loop in your answer. I didn't start there, and I've remained consistent that my overall points about your choices there were that you insisted that "no progress" was not a valid answer unless it provided meaningful consequences on it's own and that you had to have an overall goal to be able to tell if meaningful consequences were present. I gave overall goals. You provided consequences, however, and I reiterate, those consequences were very clearly in the last case no progress with no other consequence. In the second case, it was also no progress, with some added fiction that didn't really land any consequences either. If anything the additional fiction existed to establish an additional problem with the scenario by introduction of a rival, but didn't really introduce any new complications to the failure (unless you're going to assert that the rope, guide, and rival would not be present on a success and only exist due to the failure?). Only the first really engages the goal's fiction with a consequence that isn't no progress.

The later points that the resolutions you provided didn't really follow the basic play loop was after you reasserted it as a clear defense saying that the results were clearly from following the play loop and so didn't need examination.

You're doing an awful lot of blaming me for your assumptions and for the directions of discussion that you introduced and I responded to as if I introduced it. I have been addressing your claims, as you claim them.

 

[clearstream]

The "upbraiding" actually started after you started telling me to reread PHB pg 6 as if it was an answer to the points I was making. It wasn't, and I showed why -- you skipped that loop in your answer. I didn't start there, and I've remained consistent that my overall points about your choices there were that you insisted that "no progress" was not a valid answer unless it provided meaningful consequences on it's own and that you had to have an overall goal to be able to tell if meaningful consequences were present. I gave overall goals. You provided consequences, however, and I reiterate, those consequences were very clearly in the last case no progress with no other consequence. In the second case, it was also no progress, with some added fiction that didn't really land any consequences either. If anything the additional fiction existed to establish an additional problem with the scenario by introduction of a rival, but didn't really introduce any new complications to the failure (unless you're going to assert that the rope, guide, and rival would not be present on a success and only exist due to the failure?). Only the first really engages the goal's fiction with a consequence that isn't no progress.

The later points that the resolutions you provided didn't really follow the basic play loop was after you reasserted it as a clear defense saying that the results were clearly from following the play loop and so didn't need examination.

You're doing an awful lot of blaming me for your assumptions and for the directions of discussion that you introduced and I responded to as if I introduced it. I have been addressing your claims, as you claim them.

Okay. It's on me going forward to ask you more questions, because for sure I don't want to drag either of us through these unproductive briars again!

 

[Ovinomancer]

Okay. It's on me going forward to ask you more questions, because for sure I don't want to drag either of us through these unproductive briars again!

Sigh. You've now ignored the main points that do not rely on your complaints about play loop explication three times now. It would be nice if you addressed how you used no progress as a consequence after stating that no progress alone is not a suitable consequence instead of the endless handwringing about how you're so put upon by my tricky, tricky ways and have to work harder to avoid them.

 

[clearstream]

Sigh. You've now ignored the main points that do not rely on your complaints about play loop explication three times now. It would be nice if you addressed how you used no progress as a consequence after stating that no progress alone is not a suitable consequence instead of the endless handwringing about how you're so put upon by my tricky, tricky ways and have to work harder to avoid them.

So do we want to query just my thinking for narration of results of "roll" that were rightly called, and biased to no progress? Rest of play loop isn't at issue.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So do we want to query just my thinking for narration of results of "roll" that were rightly called, and biased to no progress? Rest of play loop isn't at issue.

Is your new plan to continue with insisting I'm a bad faith interlocutor by questioning everything I say to expose what you imagine are gotchas? And "gotcha" you felt happened to you was because of your assumptions, not my phrasing or intent to lay a trap.

I've been very clear in my presentation of this argument across multiple posts, now. I'm not terribly interested in engaging your new questioning of my good faith by doing so again. Either feel comfortable with what's already here to answer, or don't.

 

[clearstream]

Is your new plan to continue with insisting I'm a bad faith interlocutor by questioning everything I say to expose what you imagine are gotchas? And "gotcha" you felt happened to you was because of your assumptions, not my phrasing or intent to lay a trap.

No. I misunderstood you in an important way previously and that both stymied investigation and stoked ill-will between us. I sincerely do not want to repeat that.

I've been very clear in my presentation of this argument across multiple posts, now. I'm not terribly interested in engaging your new questioning of my good faith by doing so again. Either feel comfortable with what's already here to answer, or don't.

Okay. I will assume that my post #1194 is definitive, and revert to you when I am back from visiting on case 1.

 

[clearstream]

Context. A DM has rightly said "roll" in response to player saying something about what their character does. Rightly means that everything is in place for that to be the right call. I think that includes something from player along the lines of "I scramble desperately to the top of these cliffs before the ritual completes!" and in conversation they have established that climbing straight up is the best or only possible way. We know there is a trail to the east, so ruling that out implies it is too circuitous or goes elsewhere. Here is the potted take of the establishing fiction.

1) The lands are dark, the end is nigh, and the last, desperate hope for existence is to stop the ritual occurring atop the Cliffs of Trenners. I must ascend!

It's threadbare, but that's by definition not at issue. I am now stepping into that DM's shoes to narrate no progress: player failed the roll. I don't know the fiction prior to this point, so I have to go on what's there. (For additional context I take the three cases together to be a scaling of the size of consequences - from existence imperilling to a possible nothing: I understand that as an intended element of the "test" of narration.)

With the same brevity as the establishing fiction, I outline a possible narration under 5e*.

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?

My thinking process was as follows.

• The urgency of "I must ascend!" makes me feel a doom clock is in play; one that players are aware of. I think they are here and urgently want to climb, because of that clock. But, sadly, they failed.
• There are at least two layers of possible consequence here. One is the urgent doom clock at the centre of the fiction, that I take to be the culmination of hours of prior conversation. The other is falling and taking damage, which is a common climb-related consequence in 5e.
• No gear or approach is detailed, so I assume that for whatever reason a free climb straight up made sense to all. I decided the wall was 100' of easy climbing, to a hard overhang for the last dozen feet. Note these keywords equate to 5e DCs.
• Additionally, fails on that first part are no progress, not falls. I hope I have telegraphed that fail on the overhang could mean a fall. (Context note. The way the three cases were laid out, these details were provided later in my post. The cliffs had been specified as the same cliffs and I thought it clear that players would be in possession of those details for all three. I'm assuming the DM whose shoes I'm filling gave them that, but I need to specify this detail for the sake of consequences.)
• I decided we were going to work in roughly one minute increments, so one check gets to the overhang, one gets over it.
• For the sake of brevity, I assume that the easy check is failed and that no progress guarantees that the ritual completes before players can get there.
• As DM, it seems too much to hang the end of existence - and maybe the campaign - on one climb check!

Leaning on my experience with OOTA, I decide that a demon lord summoning is a better consequence, and more than meaningful enough. That's such a big deal that I don't feel motivated to consider falling damage - the character's stymied on the easy stretch. I know it's possible to run an engaging campaign with Demogorgon live in it (if you run roughshod over the book as written, as I did.)

Note that I chose not to rule out retries. Player is free to try again to climb up... but, Demogorgon. I hint that doing so would be sanity threatening (that's taken directly from OOTA) and hope they get the hint that living to fight another day might be the better course. If they did try to climb then I'd run that straight.

I have no idea what classes or levels are involved. Easy is 10, hard is 20. If time pressure were not a factor I wouldn't feel a roll necessary for the first stretch. It would take two or three minutes to scramble up it using the multiple attempts rules. 20 will usually be hard enough to require a check, given the long fall.

What do I dislike about this narration? Being forced to picture the same cliffs for three very different situations made this difficult. Seeing as a roll was rightly called in all three, consequences were rightly in play in every case. The added puzzle as I saw it was to avoid any narration invalidating the others: I can't recall ever doing that in real play.

@Ovinomancer for vis.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Context. A DM has rightly said "roll" in response to player saying something about what their character does. Rightly means that everything is in place for that to be the right call. I think that includes something from player along the lines of "I scramble desperately to the top of these cliffs before the ritual completes!" and in conversation they have established that climbing straight up is the best or only possible way. We know there is a trail to the east, so ruling that out implies it is too circuitous or goes elsewhere. Here is the potted take of the establishing fiction.


It's threadbare, but that's by definition not at issue. I am now stepping into that DM's shoes to narrate no progress: player failed the roll. I don't know the fiction prior to this point, so I have to go on what's there. (For additional context I take the three cases together to be a scaling of the size of consequences - from existence imperilling to a possible nothing: I understand that as an intended element of the "test" of narration.)

With the same brevity as the establishing fiction, I outline a possible narration under 5e*.


My thinking process was as follows.

• The urgency of "I must ascend!" makes me feel a doom clock is in play; one that players are aware of. I think they are here and urgently want to climb, because of that clock. But, sadly, they failed.
• There are at least two layers of possible consequence here. One is the urgent doom clock at the centre of the fiction, that I take to be the culmination of hours of prior conversation. The other is falling and taking damage, which is a common climb-related consequence in 5e.
• No gear or approach is detailed, so I assume that for whatever reason a free climb straight up made sense to all. I decided the wall was 100' of easy climbing, to a hard overhang for the last dozen feet. Note these keywords equate to 5e DCs.
• Additionally, fails on that first part are no progress, not falls. I hope I have telegraphed that fail on the overhang could mean a fall. (Context note. The way the three cases were laid out, these details were provided later in my post. The cliffs had been specified as the same cliffs and I thought it clear that players would be in possession of those details for all three. I'm assuming the DM whose shoes I'm filling gave them that, but I need to specify this detail for the sake of consequences.)
• I decided we were going to work in roughly one minute increments, so one check gets to the overhang, one gets over it.
• For the sake of brevity, I assume that the easy check is failed and that no progress guarantees that the ritual completes before players can get there.
• As DM, it seems too much to hang the end of existence - and maybe the campaign - on one climb check!

Leaning on my experience with OOTA, I decide that a demon lord summoning is a better consequence, and more than meaningful enough. That's such a big deal that I don't feel motivated to consider falling damage - the character's stymied on the easy stretch. I know it's possible to run an engaging campaign with Demogorgon live in it (if you run roughshod over the book as written, as I did.)

Note that I chose not to rule out retries. Player is free to try again to climb up... but, Demogorgon. I hint that doing so would be sanity threatening (that's taken directly from OOTA) and hope they get the hint that living to fight another day might be the better course. If they did try to climb then I'd run that straight.

I have no idea what classes or levels are involved. Easy is 10, hard is 20. If time pressure were not a factor I wouldn't feel a roll necessary for the first stretch. It would take two or three minutes to scramble up it using the multiple attempts rules. 20 will usually be hard enough to require a check, given the long fall.

What do I dislike about this narration? Being forced to picture the same cliffs for three very different situations made this difficult. Seeing as a roll was rightly called in all three, consequences were rightly in play in every case. The added puzzle as I saw it was to avoid any narration invalidating the others: I can't recall ever doing that in real play.

@Ovinomancer for vis.

This doesn't address the question asked. Which was clearly stated multiple times. Since it appears necessary to state it again because you've just spent a whole post answering the one example I didn't ask after (but had differing criticism for) I will restate it:

In case 3, the only consequence you presented is no progress. This appears to be totally against your claims. I would like it explained.

In case 2, the only consequence you presented is no progress. You also added some additional narration and some fiction, but it's entirely unclear if this has anything to do with the failure. By that, I mean I am not assuming that the insertion of the rival was dependent on failing and that the rival would not be inserted on a success. My guess is that, to you, the rival is present period and that you're introduction of the rival in the answer was your assumption of another layer of goal here (beat my rival to the maybe treasure) and not really part of the consequence. The addition of the suddenly noticed rope and guide is something I cannot make heads or tails of -- is this something not noticed prior and only noticed because of the failure? I dunno, it's extremely confusing.

If you would like my answers to the prompts -- either the ones prior with the DCs and check bonuses or the latter ones with the longer term goals, I'd be happy to explain how I would adjudicate the both in 5e, and how I would adjudicate the latter in DW (as the former has no counterpart in DW).

 

[clearstream]

Context. A DM has rightly said "roll" in response to player saying something about what their character does. Rightly means that everything is in place for that to be the right call. I think that includes something from player along the lines of "I will now scale these very cliffs - yes, this daunting north face before me - in order to surprise dear old Ma." And in conversation they have established that climbing straight up is the best or only possible way to surprise her. (Not my example.)

3) I haven't seen my mother for some time, and she lives in a small hut atop the Cliffs of Trenners. I could take the trail that winds around to the east, but I want to surprise her by arriving from an unexpected direction, so I must ascend the cliffs.

It's threadbare, but that's by definition not at issue. I am now stepping into that DM's shoes to narrate no progress: player failed the roll. I don't know the fiction prior to this point, so I have to go on what's there. (For additional context I take the three cases together to be a scaling of the size of consequences - from existence imperilling to a possible nothing: I understand that as an intended element of the "test" of narration.)

With the same brevity as the establishing fiction, I outline a possible narration under 5e*.

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?

My thinking process was as follows.

• Foremost I was weary of being tested by this point and stepped outside - adopting a metagame voice intentionally skeptical of the process.
• In line with that, the character "remembers" the other cases. They ask themselves about that path to the east (introduced by the case provider only now, in the third example...). I felt that was enough to signify my skepticism. (In hindsight, it was not.)
• Still, there is perforce a meaningful consequence, that justified rolling. Here the layered consequences are reduced to one: falling and risking death.
• I saw no reason to spell things out further or even to give the real narration, because...
• A consequence of falling and death speaks for itself: this case is trivial... given that the roll was rightly called under 5e*.
• I will spell it out here in case it seems otherwise. As noted in my response to 1, the first part doesn't need a roll if there is no time pressure: we go straight to the overhang.
• We're assuming all failed rolls. I (or rather, DM whose shoes I am filling) have telegraphed the lethality of a fail on the overhang. No progress here is not a nothingburger, it is (probably) death. 10d6 bludgeoning.

Again, I disliked that the character has chosen an insanely dangerous task just to surprise their Ma, but by the terms of the test I can't question that. I can only assume that it matters to them that they do it. As DM, I am not here to tell players what they think, do or say. Again, avoiding conflicts across all three narrations made the process feel artificial.. maybe that drove my antipathy toward this case.

I did feel that there might be something worthwhile in contrasting different types and sizes of consequences. I snuck in a challenge to such assumptions. For the character, was death (3) a less meaningful consequence than Demogorgon (1)?

@Ovinomancer for vis. This one is spicy so will await response.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Context. A DM has rightly said "roll" in response to player saying something about what their character does. Rightly means that everything is in place for that to be the right call. I think that includes something from player along the lines of "I will now scale these very cliffs - yes, this daunting north face before me - in order to surprise dear old Ma." And in conversation they have established that climbing straight up is the best or only possible way to surprise her. (Not my example.)


It's threadbare, but that's by definition not at issue. I am now stepping into that DM's shoes to narrate no progress: player failed the roll. I don't know the fiction prior to this point, so I have to go on what's there. (For additional context I take the three cases together to be a scaling of the size of consequences - from existence imperilling to a possible nothing: I understand that as an intended element of the "test" of narration.)

With the same brevity as the establishing fiction, I outline a possible narration under 5e*.

The form letter opening and closing is rather passive aggressive levels of snark, yes? What value do you think this adds?

My thinking process was as follows.

• Foremost I was weary of being tested by this point and stepped outside - adopting a metagame voice intentionally skeptical of the process.

So the response was snarky? But then you go on to defend it? I'm confused, was your response 100% or not?

• In line with that, the character "remembers" the other cases. They ask themselves about that path to the east (introduced by the case provider only now, in the third example...). I felt that was enough to signify my skepticism. (In hindsight, it was not.)
• Still, there is perforce a meaningful consequence, that justified rolling. Here the layered consequences are reduced to one: falling and risking death.
• I saw no reason to spell things out further or even to give the real narration, because...
• A consequence of falling and death speaks for itself: this case is trivial... given that the roll was rightly called under 5e*.
• I will spell it out here in case it seems otherwise. As noted in my response to 1, the first part doesn't need a roll if there is no time pressure: we go straight to the overhang.
• We're assuming all failed rolls. I (or rather, DM whose shoes I am filling) have telegraphed the lethality of a fail on the overhang. No progress here is not a nothingburger, it is (probably) death. 10d6 bludgeoning.

Let's break this down -- what was the result of the failed STR check to climb the cliff? Well, it can't be telegraphing a fall as you say, because that had to already be part of the initial framing (assuming here that there's elided steps where this is presented, of course). You can't introduce a new 100'+ fall because of the failure, the chance and therefore foreshadowing of such a fall being possible has to be present in the initial framing! So, in effect, the chance of a 100' fall isn't new or because of the failure -- it cannot be unless you're suddenly increasing the height of the cliff to make it so! This doesn't track. So, the actual outcome of the failure is -- no change in the fiction.

The end result of the failed check, called for (according to your previous post and this one) at the point where there's an overhang at sufficient height to cause a 100' or more fall is that the character doesn't fall, the initial framing of the obstacle is presented again without change, and the character is offered the chance to try again. The summation of this is "no progress." Nothing in the above changes this, unless we're assuming that this is a different overhang, suddenly introduced?

At a larger scale, though, I'm confused why you've chosen different adjudication between case 1 and case 3. In both cases, the action declaration is climbing the cliff. In both cases, the fictional positioning with regard to the cliff is identical. Yet you chose to challenge the larger PC goal in case 1, but only stick with the fictional outputs of an attempt to climb a cliff in case 3. I do not understand why you make this choice in which consequence schema to apply. This is, of course, taking for arguments sake that your presentation in case 3 doesn't have any issues (ie, it's entirely separate from my criticism above).

Again, I disliked that the character has chosen an insanely dangerous task just to surprise their Ma, but by the terms of the test I can't question that. I can only assume that it matters to them that they do it. As DM, I am not here to tell players what they think, do or say. Again, avoiding conflicts across all three narrations made the process feel artificial.. maybe that drove my antipathy toward this case.

I can trivially provide narrations for all three while avoiding "no progress" results. I don't ask these kinds of questions I'm not prepared to answer myself. I provided this answer above -- climbing a cliff alone provides plenty of challenge, and I can choose from a suite of possible consequences that only deal with climbing a cliff. I, at no point, need to look to a larger goal to challenge for these in 5e. If it takes longer than is available to climb the cliff in case 1, causing the ritual to complete, well that's going to just come out in the wash in dealing with any actions to climb the cliff. I don't need to consider that goal as an control on what consequences I can provide. I did not understand why you needed higher level goals to adjudicate the climb, which is why I started my questions at the resolution of the direct fictional inputs into the climb mechanics for 5e. The one that you said you had to have larger scope goals to even tell if a consequence is available. I followed along there because I thought that you had some idea as to how it worked that escaped me -- it was certainly a different argument than is made by others that argue the rules as you have. I was genuinely curious. I gave the three examples I did because they hit at different kinds of motivations, which I though might illumination your approach more fully. It doesn't appear to be the case.

So, my answer to how to narrate each is that there's nothing there that requires different narrations for each -- they can all be adjudicated the same way and work out just fine.

I did feel that there might be something worthwhile in contrasting different types and sizes of consequences. I snuck in a challenge to such assumptions. For the character, was death (3) a less meaningful consequence than Demogorgon (1)?

@Ovinomancer for vis. This one is spicy so will await response.

I don't see how death was on the table for 3 and not for 1, if all the cliffs and action declarations were the same?! Was falling to their death never a possibility for 1?