D&D 5E Declarations that start combat vs. initiative

[Maxperson]

I'm missing something. These two situations appear very much analagous. The PC declares an action, and there are in-game reasons for it not to happen. In Lyxen's scenario, the PC gets beaten to the punch by a pouncing guy. In Max's, the PC gets beaten to the punch by a wizard. How are these contrasted?

What you are missing is that in his scenario, his in inappropriately playing the PC in order to win initiative. He doesn't get to tell me that my PC is deciding how to throw, or that I paused in mid throw to mind my surroundings. I decide those things for my character. He could say that the fighter is 3 times faster than the fastest human to ever live and somehow can move faster than an arm swing, but that sort of supernatural speed needs to have a discoverable in fiction reason for existing. "I won initiative" doesn't cut it.

You are also missing that in my scenario there IS 1) an in-fiction reason for playing the DM controlling the barbarian, and 2) there is not an in-fiction reason for the barbarian auto winning initiative like there is with the dagger throw.

 

[Maxperson]

And again, the way success is determined has nothing to do with the fact that the player only describes his intentions. For no valid reason - as this has nothing to do with the current discussion - you bring this out of the blue to confuse the issue.

You have an obligation as the DM to narrate exactly what the intention is unless you have a valid in game reason for doing otherwise that DOES NOT PLAY THE PC. Barring something like dominate or other mechanical effect, you have no right as the DM to tell me my PC does anything other than what I intend, or what he thinks, or what he feels.

If you want to tell me that my PC is afraid after missing a save to dragon fear, fine. If you want to tell me that my PC doesn't go into a dark room because you've decided to narrate that he's scared of the dark, that's not fine.

Second, I've given you a very valid fiction reason to do so, I actually have provided a plethora of these.

You didn't. You gave, "Deciding how to throw" which is hogwash. And you played the PC as "pausing his throw to look around at other stuff", which is also hogwash. You don't get to play the PC in any way. You only get to narrate what I decide modified by any in-fiction things.

For example, if I tell you that I am climbing the wall, you don't get to tell me that I am distracted by a bunch of kids crossing the street and don't climb the wall. You can narrate kids crossing the street while I'm heading to the wall and let ME decide if I'm distracted and want to stop. You don't get to stop me for that, though. You can tell me that the wall is greased and impossible to climb as I attempt to climb it, since that is not playing my PC or stopping my action of climbing the wall. It's simply auto failing the attempt due to a valid in-fiction reason, rather than giving me a roll or making it an auto success.

And yet, the system has determined that he is going to act later, despite the declaration of that particular player, because there are other players involved, including the DM, and they ALSO have the right to their own agency. So please don't bring that stupid principle on the table ever again, the player is not the king of his own little bubble, he is playing as part of the group, that group is using a set of rules, and he can go and enjoy his player agency somewhere else if he does not respect that of the other players.

The system made no such determination. You did and you gave bupkis reasons for it. You auto failed his roll inappropriately(playing his PC) and then killed him. That's abuse of authority.

I'm sorry, but I don't accept you labelling certain ways of playing as "valid" or "unvalid". you have neither the right, the authority or the competency to make such calls for anyone playing the game. Some of these ways above might not be what you expect, but if they are used at a table and people enjoy the game, they are way more valid that your claims of "plausibility" of situations.

Were I at your table and you decided to roleplay my PC in order to stop an action that I had declared, I'd get up and walk out of the game. That's abuse of authority plain and simple.

Finally, you can say whatever you want, but once more the players does NOT know everything about the world. Maybe there is a wall of force across the jump and he WILL die if he tries the jump, Grimtooth has given many examples of that. It might not be your preferred way of playing, but you have zero right to declare that invalid.

Um. It's clear that you haven't been paying attention at all to what I have been saying. If there's a wall of force, than that would be, according to EVERYTHING that I've said here, be a valid in fiction reason for failure. That's completely different from you roleplaying my PC.

 

[Maxperson]

On a less slight tangent: And don't get me started on stablizing a dying character as an action. You wouldn't even have time to check the pulse.

Heh. While I agree with you that it's way too short to stabilize a dying PC, it only takes a few seconds to check if there is a pulse.

 

[Irlo]

What you are missing is that in his scenario, his in inappropriately playing the PC in order to win initiative. He doesn't get to tell me that my PC is deciding how to throw, or that I paused in mid throw to mind my surroundings. I decide those things for my character.

Ah. I see that clearly as the DM narrating the in-fiction results of losing initiative, not as playing the character.

That’s not playing the character in order to make them lose initiative, but describing why the PC lost initiative. One could throw that back at the player, I suppose. “So, Bob, you lost initiative. Care to explain how that happened?”

 

[Maxperson]

Ah. I see that clearly as the DM narrating the in-fiction results of losing initiative, not as playing the character.

He roleplayed the PC as pausing to watch other events and trying to figure out how to throw a knife. If a DM did that to me after my declaration of, "I throw the knife at the fighter." I'd walk out of that game.

If there was a wall of force in the way and the knife hit it and fell to the ground. That's fine. If the fighter had some supernatural means to beat my throw and get to me. That's fine. If one of my companions standing next to me grabbed my arm after beating me on initiative. That's fine. Roleplaying my PC in any way without a valid in-fiction reason for it is not fine.

 

[Irlo]

He roleplayed the PC as pausing to watch other events and trying to figure out how to throw a knife. If a DM did that to me after my declaration of, "I throw the knife at the fighter." I'd walk out of that game.

If there was a wall of force in the way and the knife hit it and fell to the ground. That's fine. If the fighter had some supernatural means to beat my throw and get to me. That's fine. If one of my companions standing next to me grabbed my arm after beating me on initiative. That's fine. Roleplaying my PC in any way without a valid in-fiction reason for it is not fine.

I edited my post while you were writing. I’m sure it won’t change your opinion, which is fine. If they had said, “Before you can throw, this other thing happens” without attributing any action or inaction to your PC, would that work for you? If you were allowed to narrate the reasons for losing initiative? All my life I’ve played (on both sides of the screen) with minor DM descriptors of PC actions in the narrative that would not meet your standards, so it’s just a bit surprising to me that anyone would be so vehemently opposed as to walk away from a table.

 

[Lanefan]

What we are discussing has nothing to do with this. What we are discussing is a player saying "I climb a wall", and the system, as implemented by the DM, saying "no, you're not, it's too hard, you slip and fall". It's exactly the same thing here, a player saying "I throw my dagger" and the DM saying "no, you are not quick enough, while you are still trying to decide how to throw and minding the rest of the situation and the surroundings, you have telegraphed your move and that guy over there pounces on you and kills you."

This isn't the exact same thing at all, for several reasons.

Climbing a wall takes time, and others thus have time to stop the climber if they want to. Throwing a dagger is immediate, and the odds of someone being able to stop that action are slim at best.

A wall can be difficult enough to climb that a DM is within her rights to declare it's an auto-fail. Throwing a dagger invokes a different set of rules - to wit, combat - wherein a DM does not have the right to declare an auto-fail without a roll but must instead at the very least allow a roll to hit...quite possibly against a surprised target, if the action was unexpected.

And to the point of the thread: if the throwing of the dagger is the trigger that starts the combat and thus off which everything else is timed, the pouncing killer simply shouldn't be able to cover the distance before the dagger is away.

And this has nothing to do with player agency, it would work exactly the same way reversing the roles with a NPC and a player, the NPC wants to throw his dagger and the PC intervenes - and in that case, the PC will be very very happy.

NPCs get the same break: the PCs would get a surprise roll to determine if they saw the dagger coming (in my game if you're surprised you don't have your active defenses up, which can make a big difference to your AC) but the dagger would still be thrown before anything else could happen.

Just because a player declares that a character is doing something is not a reason for it to happen, instantly or actually ever at all, it's just an intention, the resolution tells what is happening and that is what is described by the DM.

In the case of a player declaring an unexpected and sudden action such as whipping out a dagger and throwing it in an otherwise peaceful situation, I don't see a valid reason to not allow that action to happen and resolve.

 

[Lanefan]

Ah. I see that clearly as the DM narrating the in-fiction results of losing initiative, not as playing the character.

But that's just it - if you're the one initiating proccedings with a sudden move then to reflect that fiction you shouldn't normally be able to lose initiative!

The DM doesn't need to be put in this position of awkwardly having to narrate something completely different to the player's intent if she simply allows the sudden action to happen first, as it should.

 

[Lyxen]

You have an obligation as the DM to narrate exactly what the intention is unless you have a valid in game reason for doing otherwise

Yes, I have, the SYSTEM (the initiative roll) has shown that the PC has lost the initiative. So it is my DUTY as the DM to narrate the consequences of what the player declared, and while it has extremely infrequently happened that my narration did not please a player, that player just told me "actually, I think this is rather what happened...", I went with his narration and everything was fine.

Now, you can either be a good sport and accept that this is the gentlemanly way to deal with this in games that I've run and played with for 42 years and with hundreds of players without any problem, or continue to hijack the thread with the extremely annoying subject of player agency (which, by the way, has very little grounding in the books as published as it's subject to table rules anyway, so this is ANOTHER way of telling other players that they are playing wrong, please stop), in which case my response will be extremely simple:

"So, you don't want me to describe what happens, but the fact is that you lost initiative. So either you let me describe it, or you do the proper description, now and then, without disrupting the game for the other players. But it'd better be conform to what the other players, the system, the dice throws and my DM knowledge of the situation indicate."

I have played "inductive games" like HeroWars/HeroQuest where the roll precedes any description, and basically when attempting a diplomacy check, you don't say anything in character, you roll the dice, and then you roleplay the result of the die. It's great, but it requires really good players, able to roleplay a success or a failure properly, inventing the reason for that. It so happens that not all players are confident with that and that most of them are usually extremely happy to have a nice description of what is happening, not only to them, but to the environment.

Again, I'm absolutely fine with it, but the ways I've seen it derailed is players STILL TRYING TO EXPLAIN WHY THEY SHOULD HAVE SUCCEEDED, which is basically what you are trying to do with your "but I had the dagger already in hand, why did I get jumped by that guy 30 feet away". And that is NOT an acceptable way to play collaboratively, if you attempt that, you will not even have the time to derail the discussion with player agency, you will be shown the door for derailing the game.

Now, if you will please stop being extremely insulting about other players' ways of playing the game than your personal preferences, maybe we could come back to the subject of the thread ?

 

[Maxperson]

In the case of a player declaring an unexpected and sudden action such as whipping out a dagger and throwing it in an otherwise peaceful situation, I don't see a valid reason to not allow that action to happen and resolve.

In my example the PC isn't even whipping out a dagger. I stated very specifically that it was already in hand. All he had to do was throw. There's no way that the fighter is going to beat that, even if he is aware of the danger. He's 30 feet away and at a standstill during the negotiations. Even if he sees the very instant the arm starts to move and begins to react, he's not going to cross 30 feet while pulling out a greatsword and then attack before that dagger is loosed in his direction.

Edit: 5e is a rulings over rules edition that repeatedly tell the DM that the rules serve him, not the other way around. If there's a situation where something utterly absurd would happen if the rules are followed, then it's good DMing to override that. In this example, though, it's not even outside the rules for the DM to state that the thrower automatically wins initiative. It follows RAW exactly.