D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[Lanefan]

I find it strange to be willing to accept all the complexities of combat, or social interaction, being reduced to simple dice rolls,

We have to abstract combat mostly because we can't very well swing swords at each other at the table, never mind what the local law enforcement might have to say about it.

Social interaction is played out at the table, though, and rarely if ever reduced to die rolls.

but then to insist that packing for a trip must be precisely itemized and weighed.

I kinda handwave encumbrance - I'm not fussy about even getting it all that close - but if someone's clearly overloaded for their size/strength I'll have a word; ditto if they're trying to carry too much bulk even if it doesn't weigh all that much.

But itemization? Absolutely. Specifically to avoid all the "But I would have..." arguments from years past, it's a hard-and-fast rule here that if it's not on your character sheet, you don't have it with you. And yes, this occasionally means someone forgets something obvious like rations or a waterskin or ammunition for a bow. Tough.

 

[Celebrim]

Also in the DMG there are only two contact poisons out of the fourteen listed poisons, carrion crawler mucus and oil of taggit. Not a super common thing.

In 40 years of DMing, I don't think I've once used contact poison as a trap. I've had a mutagenic contact poison as an obvious visible hazard, but I feel safe in saying that's a different thing.

But ultimately, I think getting into what is realistic about glove wearing or whether contact poisons are good dungeon design misses the point entirely. Those just happen to be the specifics of this particular case. But the general case is, "After the GM makes a plausible ruling, what standards of evidence are required to overturn it?" Or put it another way, "At what point are you allowed to argue with the GM and it isn't being anti-social and a git?"

 

[aco175]

Nobody has said a new angle on the problem. The PC touching the poison now has it on the gloves and all the party now rolls to see which on he accidently touches and the DM rolls 2d12 to determine when he touched that PC. The DM can add another phantom PC to make up for instances like wiping his glove on something before touching himself or another PC.

Personally I think it is more than needed or what I would track as a DM.

 

[Seramus]

Arguing over whether the gloves are realistic misses the point. The point is the GM already gave a ruling that the gloves weren't on and based on all the information available to that GM that's an entirely plausible ruling.

You saying, "I just assume the player has gloves on" doesn't solve the actual problem here.

Sure. The real discussion is whether or not players can retcon the narrative to gain a mechanical advantage, and whether or not the player doing so in GOOD FAITH changes the answer. I'm avoiding that, and focusing on the smaller side discussion of how not wearing gloves on the regular might be a GAG issue, or generally a little reckless.

 

[Lanefan]

It is absolutely reasonable. I'll repeat for emphasis and clarity...

As I said, this is how the game of D&D is played and always has been. Others may choose to play it differently and I have no problem with that. But MY understanding of how the game works is definitely stated to players at the outset, written down for them to see (whether they actually DO read it or not) and still verbally repeated as often as is necessary. If a player sees inadequate description for gear - they are free to SPECIFY their gear, to have their PC buy something NOT listed or better described by default, and list it in their character sheet. I cannot reasonably ASSUME that anything they come up with on the fly is something I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN, any more than things that I DON'T SAY as DM is something THEY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN.

Even though as a DM I specifically dislike and avoid playing Simon Says and Gotcha! games as a valid approach to D&D, I will only give so much leeway before a ruling must be made. Players must be clear and specific if the ultimate safety of their PC's is truly important to them. That is THEIR responsibility as players to safeguard their characters, not MINE as DM to protect them from their own poor play by being vague, being blind to hints, and not taking advantage of opportunities SPECIFICALLY given in situations like this. As the OP noted, the player wasn't forced into it, goaded into it, tricked into it, etc. If a player wants to NOT be poisoned when opening a chest they need to be clear and specific and NOT just assume the DM is on the same page, same as the DM needs to be clear and specific to attempt to GET the player on the same page. Opening a chest? SAY YOU'RE PUTTING ON GLOVES. Even if you don't have any such thing written down as part of your gear, that'll go further than simply saying for the first time, ever, "Oh! I always assumed my character is always wearing gloves!"

Thing is, @Ruin Explorer has a very good point in saying the equipment list for 5e (and, TBH, for all previous editions as well) is rather lacking. A player could be forgiven for looking at the equipment list, not finding gloves, and taking that to mean gloves just don't exist in the game, or haven't been invented in that setting.

That said, if you've upgraded your game's equipment list to fill in some of those gaps then your players have no excuse.

 

[Voadam]

I've never hated myself that much.

Those times that I went camping I never wore gloves.

No self-hate involved.

Boy Scouts hiking out and camping for a weekend trip in various parts of New England once a month during the school year rain or shine or snow was a big part of my youth for a lot of years.

Some kids did not bring gloves on their first trip. Very few did not on their second.

 

[Celebrim]

Specifically to avoid all the "But I would have..." arguments from years past, it's a hard-and-fast rule here that if it's not on your character sheet, you don't have it with you.

It's not just that. My current group for the first few months had a problem where players would say they yoink'ed items, including magic items and bags of treasure, and then not write them down on their character sheet. And then said greedy player would promptly forget that they had the item and several sessions later someone would say, "Who has the potions we found?", and there would be an argument amongst the players and people would be going, "Which potions?", and "Where did we find them?", and "Can you look through your notes and see what potions we might have found two real life months ago?" and so on and so forth.

And then players would expect me to maintain the character sheets of all six of them for them and keep track of who had what as if I didn't have enough to do behind the screen and could just lift all of their burdens for them and hand hold them through the game while also running it.

Once it became clear that a bag of treasure taken but not written down was lost and kaput, they started actually writing down things and taking notes. And that's just such a freaking godsend, because not only do I not have to remember where an unlabeled potion came from so that I know what it is, it means that I don't have to walk them through the events of the last dozen sessions to bring them up to the present and try to remember what clues they actually found and which ones they understood and all the rest.

They actually now take some minimum effort to play their own characters. It's wonderful.

As I said at one point earlier, it's not the GM here that is insisting that the player keep track of everything on the character sheet or that we have a game where we worry about fiddly stuff. It's the player here that has insisted the bloody traveller's clothes on his character sheet are important to the story and is raising hell about it. If the player is going to insist on that, well they can very well take responsibility for playing their own character and not insist the GM do it for them and then raise temper tantrums like a 5 year old when the GM doesn't hold their hand through everything as if the GM didn't have better things to do than baby sit a supposed adult.

 

[iserith]

Meta-constructs like this, where mundane things can conveniently come into being (without use of magic) just when they happen to be needed, blow up any sense of grounded realism in the game for me.

I mean, that's a big difference in bulk and weight to carry around, between 5 tiny things like pieces of chalk and 5 big bulky things like long poles or coils of rope. They're also carried differently - long poles are not carried in a backpack, for example; and if you've gone through some narrow twisty passages such a pole wouldn't have fit through, suddenly pulling one out of your Gear once you're beyond those passages is a bit much. (but is also the sort of thing a DM and-or other players might not catch)

Broader issue: if you have something right now when you need it that means you've in fact always had it; and having had it on you sooner might have had earlier repercussions e.g. the twisty passages and the long pole, or the bulky coils of rope while trying to swim. (exception: if there's a place since the narrow passages where a long pole could reasonably have been acquired then OK, but still...) Simpler for all if you kit yourself out beforehand and write it all down, then if you've got it you've got it and if you don't, you don't; and you at least vaguely know how much bulk and weight you have to deal with. Schroedinger need not apply.

Not every game needs this level of detail. It's just not the main focus of play.

 

[Lanefan]

The difference between "enforcing consequences" and "violating player agency" strikes me as being largely a semantic distinction, largely because "what happens to the PC" is often the issue in question, but there's quite often an unclear distinction between "the PC's choices" and "the results of their choices." Hence the gloves issue discussed in the OP; the line between what the PCs did (both beforehand and during the event) and what the DM says happens is nebulous, with questions of who defines what aspects of the scenario in question.

If you hold that the DM has the authority of defining those unclear areas when they come up, then there's necessarily going to be times when they violate the player's agency of their character.

I'm all about player agency, but the player's agency over what came before ends once something happens after. Once the consequence is known, it's simply too late for the player to retcon anything that could change that consequence...with the exception being cases where the DM has made a clear and obvious error.

An example, to both show my point and where-how an exception might arise:

Situation: there's a hallway that a PC wants to get to the end of. Halfway along it is a pit trap covered by a permanent illusion of the floor.

Character A "I go to the end of the hall and check the door there"; and falls into the pit. Player protests "But I would have been using my sword to tap the floor in front of me!" DM: "You've never done that before, why would you suddenly start now? Nope." NO retcon.

Character B "I go to the end of the hall and check the door there"; and falls into the pit. Player protests "But I've got this headband that gives me true sight - I'd have seen through that illusion all day long!" DM: "Oops - I forgot about that. Yes, you saw a big hole in the floor halfway along." Valid retcon due to DM error.

With regard to the alignment issue, the player's agency over their character is in defining their moral outlook, i.e. them stating as a declarative "I'm not Chaotic Evil," regardless of how their PC acts. Telling them that they are, because they're acting that way, is violating their agency in that regard.

Disagree. Alignment is largely defined by actions; meaning that while you-as-player can write "Lawful Good" on your character sheet in big neon letters if you want, if your actions tend to generally be chaotic and not-good then an alignment check e.g. via someone casting Know Alignment will reflect that.

EDIT: typos

 

[Voadam]

But the general case is, "After the GM makes a plausible ruling, what standards of evidence are required to overturn it?" Or put it another way, "At what point are you allowed to argue with the GM and it isn't being anti-social and a git?"

Well here the "plausible ruling" was the GM telling the player mid game what specific articles of clothing they were wearing or not and essentially filling in what I would normally consider a player choice detail.

I find it perfectly reasonable for a player to say the DM's assumptions upon which they made the "ruling" in that situation clash with their own.