D&D General "I make a perception check."

[GMforPowergamers]

Was the DC to not trigger the yellow mold above 15? If so, the player took a risk and got burned - them's the breaks.

that is my thoughts too

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I read with a bit of frustration and bemusement the exchange where Celebrim gave examples of four garden walls, each with likely different difficulties to climb, but also potential hidden hazards, and @GMforPowergamers seemed to breeze completely past the point of the player owning his character's decision about which wall to try. I

i'm not sure I breezed past it as much as it didn't seem to matter... and at no point did I say I would tell a player what one they could couldnt' should or shouldn't climb... i even said what it would take for me to ask for clairfication...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I have to wonder if the gaming style GMforPowergamers uses works for him in part because the sort of complex encounter areas I'm describing, that are typical of my games just don't occur in his games.

if you mean 4 very different walls for no real reason... yes that would be an odd situation in one of my games... one that most likely would lead to investigation before climbing

I've played at tables with Open World styles which I describe as, "We never move off the stage, the GM just changes the backdrops" were all encounters occur basically on a stage without obstacles or boundaries or important features other than the NPCs.

oh man I have too... and if something isn't keeping it intresting that is the fastest way to make me either fall asleep or just not care.

You can go anywhere you want in these sandboxes because they are just a flat stretch of sand with different NPCs to meet. The game wouldn't play much differently if we were summoning NPCs to meet us on the stage rather than going to them. Space doesn't matter much in such games.

man I would hate that...

wait, you aren't suggesting that is how my open world work? the ones where I make dozens of maps (macro and micro) leave dozens of interesting things (to see to interact with to be plot hooks ext) at every major site in the world and 1 or 2 at the minor ones and still let my PCs make up there own stuff on top of this...
World Building is my favorite part of DMing (to the point where I have asked other DMs to hold building nights at games I play in where we as the PCs can pitch in and help build the world)

If you have that sort of thing going on, and you aren't using things like Flanking or battlemaps or anything but theater of the mind, then you probably rarely run into situations where the fictional positioning ever does matter.

I used to alternate between battle map and theater of the mind (normally with a hand drawn estimate) but the theater of teh mind ones were becuse TOO much was going on (like the fight in the elemental chaos between 3 clock work titans where the PCs were moving through the moving gears and the titans were moving through different elements...and it was 3 dimensional... I don't think I could have battle mapped that

but sine we have gone to roll20 it is more like 95% battle map... and that encounter never would have been made for a r20 game

heavily relying on DM narration for the entire transcript of play. T

omg... this got me laughing so hard. My players are so invested in the worlds I almost never have the most accurate or detailed trascript, and my narration has to be short and to the point cause my players will just steamroll over once they get something in there heads.

If you take away player agency, and you aren't going to call it Railroading, what are you going to call it?

no one is taking player agency

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I would say that even in the abstract from a process or conversation flow point of view, one approach is clearly better at avoiding those pitfalls though for no apparent downside. It may just be that someone doesn't prioritize this aspect very highly.

I still don't see how your way in anyway makes it better. Sorry. I have played in good and bad games in both styles... a good game is good no matter what.

Sometimes what they say isn't sufficient to determine if there's an uncertain outcome or a meaningful consequence of failure, what the DC is for the approach to the goal, or whether the attempt has advantage or disadvantage.

I disagree... and most examples even of "please phrase it right" come with "say this instead of that" but if you KNOW what that is then you can translate it from this...

I agree the DM shouldn't just assume and add whatever they want though.

but YOU assume and add to arguments all the time on the boards... you assume I take agency form my players and dictate there actions even as I tell you those actions didn't matter

 

[Mannahnin]

If the DC WAS 15 or lower, but they got hit with the mold because they "weren't specific enough..." I don't like that. Better for the DM to ask the player to elaborate exactly what they are searching "There are lots of things in the room to search, can you be more specific as to what you are doing?"

Exactly! I gave an example of a simple back and forth dialogue between players and DM at the end of my own quoted post.

I'm talking about how @GMforPowergamers ' refusal to have that dialogue forces the DM to steer his character, with the result that the DM has to decide whether or not GMfP's PC moves into the threatened position.

The 15 on the roll to search may or may not mean the character found whatever they were looking for. Say the DC was 15, and they definitely found it. The roll tells me nothing about whether or not they opened that drawer, unless I know that the sought object happened to be in the drawer with the yellow mold.

If I know that the object is hidden behind one of the books on the bookshelf, then if they mention the bookshelf as among the places they're searching, but don't mention the desk, then hey presto, no mold! But if they just roll a die and refuse to describe the search at all, I have no idea and am left to decide whether or not they opened that drawer. If we have a functional dialogue like I gave an example of in my post, then we can establish whether and who might have opened that drawer, and we forestall any hard feelings or necessity for the DM to decide what the characters do.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Nope, because the NPCs are not the heroes.

ditto on my side... my surprise rules totally favor the PCs (even if they are not always heroic)

 

[Maxperson]

the solution (in my mind) is to just insure that you as teh DM don't add anything... just go with what they said.

THIS is the problem. If someone says, "I investigate" having them do any activity at all is adding to what they said. I literally can't go just with what they said. Investigate what? Investigate where? Investigate how?

 

[Maxperson]

It’s been a pretty active thread so maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall seeing you ask that at any point. Had you done so, I would have answered just as I did Umbran. Both, undoubtedly.

This is probably just semantics, but I view it as only a challenge to the PC, but since the player plays the PC, he's involved as well.

 

[Mannahnin]

I read with a bit of frustration and bemusement the exchange where Celebrim gave examples of four garden walls, each with likely different difficulties to climb, but also potential hidden hazards, and @GMforPowergamers seemed to breeze completely past the point of the player owning his character's decision about which wall to try. I disagree with how Celebrim uses the word Railroading (I subscribe to a purely pejorative definition), but he's completely correct that if I as the DM simply let the player roll athletics and then narrate him climbing over the easiest wall, I've taken control out of the hands of the player, and implicitly communicated that there were no hazards on any of the walls.

i'm not sure I breezed past it as much as it didn't seem to matter... and at no point did I say I would tell a player what one they could couldnt' should or shouldn't climb... i even said what it would take for me to ask for clairfication...

I've explained exactly why it matters at least three or four times (Charlaquin probably more), and Celebrim did in that very post, and you keep ignoring it.

Those four walls could have four (or just one!) complications. The sheer wall might be too sheer and steep and have a too-high DC for the PC to climb it at all (unless he has a grappling hook, say). The ivy-covered wall might have poisonous ivy. The tree with the convenient-looking branch that could be climbed right over the wall might be a carnivorous tree. The fancy wall with all the carved decorations might conceal a trap.

You said that if those four walls were presented to the player, you'd assume (absent contrary instruction from the player) that they'd automatically make a check against whichever one was easiest/had the lowest DC. And if they told you they wanted to climb the sheer/steep/hardest-looking wall, you'd stop them and ask why they were making it harder on themselves.

This is exactly what Celebrim was talking about with you steering them. Taking away their autonomy. Giving them info implicitly. What if one (just one; doesn't have to be all four) of those hazards/problems were present in one of those walls? The player needs to tell you which wall he's climbing over, so you know whether he's going to interact with the hazard. Your described adjudication of the situation takes that choice out of his hands.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It’s been a pretty active thread so maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall seeing you ask that at any point. Had you done so, I would have answered just as I did Umbran. Both, undoubtedly.

I actually had quite a lengthy debate because I said earlier (I don't blame you if you missed it) that in a perfect world it would be 100% character and 0% player skill in my mind.... but that is impossible, so I do everything I can to minimize player skill input and maximize character skill...

like your example of having a trap but not knowing the DC just what action would set it off, I ALWAYS have a DC and only most times have a physical trigger set up. even if you had described perfectly the way to find and/or disarm a trap i would still have you roll... because YOU telling me how great your character is at something is cool (and in no way discouraged) but it is how well the character pulls it off that matters...

I think about it like this... I can tell you how to swing a sword(years of larp renfair and even partial steel sparing), but in the shape i am now (ilness age and injuries) I could not do it... telling is one thing doing is another