D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[Paul Farquhar]

It might still set a precedent though, which could have significant effect going forward.

30 minutes later, the party enters a chamber filled with a diseased miasma and the DM tells them to make saves.
Player: I always wear a mask. You know, for safety.

Or you could be making a fuss over nothing. Strawman is made of straw.

 

[Reynard]

Or you could be making a fuss over nothing. Strawman is made of straw.

I guess I should have used the little winky emoji. Calm down.

 

[Celebrim]

So what, EXACTLY do YOU think the poison does?

Because it's clear that it matters to you, as you're unwilling to consider it to be instant death, and want to change your answer if it is.

I don't think it matters what the poison does. A fair adjudication of the situation wouldn't involve the GM metagaming over what he wanted the outcome to be. Yes, the temptation is going to be to go lighter on the player if the poison could be lethal, but that sort of pathway leads to complete negation of player agency.

The problem with focusing on what the poison does is that it's part of the whole red herring side discussion of whether lethal traps and contact poisons are good dungeon designs. It's not really an attempt to engage the subject matter, but an attempt to change the focus of the conversation and win sympathy for the hypothetical player by attempting to paint the hypothetical GM as a bad GM. It's a rhetorical gambit to derail the conversation.

I've already fully conceded that I'd never get in this situation because I don't use contact poison and don't find this a particularly interesting trap, in most cases I would assume gloves because no one would be adventuring in travelling clothes alone and unarmored in my games, and I would have already established the table rule "If it isn't on your character sheet, you don't have it" for a lot of good and valid reasons, and further that I would have already established processes of play that would encourage using concrete and communicative interactions with the fiction as propositions, such that almost certainly anyone who had in mind the possibility of a contact poison would not offer up some sort of unconcerned proposition and anyone who had in mind the possibility of a contact poison but was uncertain about whether their hands were bare would have first asked questions to establish the shared fiction such as, "I am wearing travelling clothes, what sort of gloves do those come with?".

But all of that has nothing to do with the main questions being raised here, which are things like whether "If it isn't on your character sheet, you don't have it" is a fair standard, or whether the GM is a referee of a game or a mere validator of the player's fantasies.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

whether the GM is a referee of a game or a mere validator of the player's fantasies.

I mean, I don't really think anyone who presents this little false dichotomy is engaging with the problem on a good faith basis lol.

I don't think it matters what the poison does.

It obviously does. Even your attempt to argue how it's trying to "derail" things only proves that it does.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If you want to inform yourself on this matter, you're welcome to just open the books. It's not even much reading to be done at all. Based on some of the things you are saying, I highly recommend it. There's some good stuff in these sections that are often overlooked.


The rules on ability checks requires there to be an uncertain outcome or else there is no check. The rules also state that the player determines how their characters think, act, and talk (the definition of roleplaying). Since the player is the one who determines this, whatever they determine as their response to the attempt at Intimidation is the outcome, thus it is not uncertain. No uncertainty, no roll. DM describes the attempt, the player describes the response, if any.


Oh, so you did read it? Great. Perhaps you can understand that listing every single thing a DM or player can't do isn't very practical. But the rules can and do describe what each role is and it very clearly defines that the player is the one who describe what the character does, determining what the character thinks, says, and how they act.

Lots of DMs describe what the characters do, and lots of players are happy to let them. That is, until the DM describes something the player doesn't agree with, and now we have a problem. A problem that can be avoided totally by each person performing their own role to the best of their own ability.

I do think that they could have stood to include the line, "PCs are immune to social skills" if that was their intent.

 

[Celebrim]

I mean, I don't really think anyone who presents this little false dichotomy is engaging with the problem on a good faith basis lol.

Fine, how would you state what is actually at stake?

For the record, my dichotomy isn't remotely false. It has to do with what the dominate aesthetics of play at the table are - for example Challenge vs. Fantasy can frequently be in tension because failure interferes with Fantasy but is required for satisfying Challenge.

It obviously does. Even your attempt to argue how it's trying to "derail" things only proves that it does.

And yet, I don't think it matters what the poison does. If the poison is a lethal trap like say Oil of Black Lotus, then very likely the party is high enough level to have the resources to survive what Oil of Black Lotus does. But if not, then it still doesn't matter. If what is at stake is the life of the player character, death no save if they don't have gloves on, it really doesn't matter. We can ask later why the GM has put himself in this situation by having a boring but lethal trap, and maybe the GM has good reasons and maybe he doesn't, but fundamentally the resolution method here if it isn't going to be based on metagamey considerations like, "What do I want to have happen?", isn't going to care what the poison does. And if it is based on considerations like, "What do I want to have happen?", then you have to accept the consequences of that.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

For the record, my dichotomy isn't remotely false. It has to do with what the dominate aesthetics of play at the table are - for example Challenge vs. Fantasy can frequently be in tension because failure interferes with Fantasy but is required for satisfying Challenge.

Do you know what a false dichotomy is? It seems not from what you're saying. A false dichotomy is when you present two (usually extreme) viewpoints as the only possible options when in fact there are any number of other positions. Why one earth would it have to be one those two ridiculous-seeming positions lol?

I don't think this is an either/or situation at all. I think it's matter of being judicious about what makes the game, not of seeking some extremist "aesthetic" for the sake of aestheticism.

If what is at stake is the life of the player

I do hope not lol!

And yet, I don't think it matters what the poison does.

It's not really arguable at this point, you already said it's a derail if you make it instant death, so by your own words it does. I mean, you can try and achieve a quantum superposition where you both believe it matters and don't believe it matters, but if so that just means there's no point discussing it with you lol.

I do think that they could have stood to include the line, "PCs are immune to social skills" if that was their intent.

It would certainly be helpful to have this clarity. I mean, I think it's fair to say it's a near-universal tradition that PCs are immune to social skills in D&D (outside of stuff like class abilities/Feats which might involve a social skill check and have crude mechanical effects like Frighten)

 

[Mort]

Lets turn it round. If the poison isn't instant death (or does enough poison damage to kill the character outright anyway) there really is no point in disputing it. The character takes a bit of poison damage, has a short rest and recovers. The DM's ruling doesn't matter, it has no significant effect.

If there is no significant effect, then sure the discussion is purely academic (like that has stopped board discussions before!)

But just because it's NOT instant death doesn't mean no effect. Lets say it's "merely" the poisoned condition. If the party martial gets poisoned and then there's a fight before they can rest - that could make a pretty big difference to potential outcomes.

But while IRL, it likely matters - for purpose of discussion it shouldn't - it's a theoretical. The question is, IMO, how do we harmoniously reconcile two different views of the fiction?

As I said in an earlier post, my personal take is to be generous with the player unless it's CLEAR bad faith (such as a player repeatedly pulling a "well actually..." every time there are negative consequences).

 

[JiffyPopTart]

As I said before, the GM narrates the things under the control (all of reality, minus the PCs).

DM: The merchant finishes his offer.
Player: That's sus. Is he lying?
DM: roll Insight.
Player: :: clatter::
DM: He is definitely lying. His twitchy left eye is his tell.

And "Your character hears/smells/senses something" isn't describing an action the PC is taking, it is describing the result of an action the player chose their character to take.

Passive Perception use is, by definition, not an action taken by the player.

 

[Celebrim]

Do you know what a false dichotomy is?

Indeed I do.

A false dichotomy is when you present two (usually extreme) viewpoints as the only possible options when in fact there are any number of other positions. Why one earth would it have to be one those two ridiculous-seeming positions?

"GM is a referee of a game" is not remotely a ridiculous position or even a ridiculous seeming position. It's a pretty natural viewpoint about the role of the GM in a role-playing game.

I don't think this is an either/or situation at all. I think it's matter of being judicious about what makes the game...

Acting as an impartial referee is very often exactly what is judicious about what makes a game. Not rendering the game a sort of illusionism where you are faking challenge to a group of players who want to feel like they "won" but where you are actually using padded gloves and holding back the punches any time they are meaningful is a consideration many tables are going to have. And that's not even getting into why "If it isn't on your character sheet you don't have it" is a judicious practice generally in any game where gear is going to be important to the resolution and not actually a "gotcha" but in fact a standard that helps ensure players don't screw themselves over and are sharing the load of making the game work.

It's not really arguable at this point, you already said it's a derail if you make it instant death, so by your own words it does.

Good grief. What a strange sentence. First of all, I didn't say "it's a derail if you make it instant death". I said that attempting to make the conversation about whether the poison was instant death was an attempt to derail the conversation by shifting the discussion to whether or not lethal contact poisons were good GMing, but that's very much not the same thing. And I have thoroughly explained that that is not at all because I think it matters to the resolution of the described scene, so at this point your deliberate misconstruing my point feels really deliberate.