D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[Vaalingrade]

I don't know about "encyclopedic knowledge," but when you say that they're not in "the game," that term seems to encompass the entirety of the official first-party materials, and given that it's stated as a declarative, then it seems to suggest that the speaker is asserting that they do, in fact, possess such knowledge. Hence why it's usually better to say "as far as I know," or "insofar as I'm aware," etc.

That's the whole point. The player assumed it was part of the traveler's set when in fact they had no access to it at all and actually no way of knowing that because the clothing options in the book don't say one way or the other. System issue.

I was under the impression that traveler's clothes in 5e does say what they include ("boots, a wool skirt or breeches, a sturdy belt, a shirt (perhaps with a vest or jacket), and an ample cloak with a hood"), it's just that they don't include gloves.

That's apparently copy pasta from 3e in DDB.

Leaving aside that I don't know what "jank" means, I'd say that's an entirely reasonable interpretation (from what I'll call a "grounded perspective," since introducing the term "realistic" tends to send things spiraling off on a tangent about how it's foolish to expect anything to function as per the real world in a game world with fantastic aspects), insofar that most people can't simply shrug off poison, and so the saving throw represents either making contact and necessarily taking damage from it (on a failed save) or avoiding making skin contact with it (on a successful save).

This is a lot of gymnastics to get the poison to go off, IMO.

The contact poison says you make a save when you make contact, not to see if you made contact.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But understand, that's the GM putting on the hat "small group human resources manager" and it has nothing to do with properly refereeing the game.

With respect, I think this is a profound misunderstanding of the role of the DM. Those two hats are the same hat. You cannot be a proper nor successful referee of any kind without being a "small group human resources manager".

What's interesting to me, I've seen DMs attempt, crudely, to act as neutral referees, but who lacked the basic tact, empathy, decency and so on to act as a "small group human resources manager" (because they were ill-mannered teenage boys lol - I was suave and empathic by teenage boy standards lol), and it always, without fail, created 10x as many problems, debates, and complaints as not trying to be "True Neutral" would have been lol. Especially 90% of "neutral" DMs are biased towards regarding their first instinct as "right" and hard to budge even if the rules clearly say they're wrong.

If this is a tournament, the GM is not only right, if the protest continues you call over the game runner and then probably player either concedes or is removed from the game.

The mistake here is to treat D&D as a game suitable for "tournaments".

It is not.

D&D is essentially a creative game, with flexible rules, a ton of unwritten ideas (most coming from the DM), and trying to play it like it was a computer game might be fun at times, but it's not the "gold standard", nor should general advice to DMs ever be based on "tournament" approaches. That's a truly early 1980s idea.

So in my view that literally couldn't be less relevant.

But I also believe that in practice the most likely situation is that the GM is going to compromise with the unskillful and possibly even antisocial player just to keep everyone happy and the game going forward. That compromise is likely to be advantage on the saving throw or some other small bonus on the throw to placate the player and prevent a temper tantrum from ruining everyone else's fun.

I think the attitude here quite problematic, because it indicates an extremely severe bias for a man who has been claiming to be a "neutral referee".

You are assuming a large number of seriously negative characteristics for the player, who in reality, is quite likely innocent of all of them. My experience is that DMs are absolutely 100% as likely as the player to be guilty of being "unskillful" or particularly "antisocial", so applying those traits only to the player rather than asserting the issue could be with either is obviously unreasonable.

And "prevent a temper tantrum"? Most of the worst temper tantrums I've seen actually at-table have been from DMs. I guess partly because when I'm DMing I'm extremely good at keeping people calm, but still. I think the DM having a temper tantrum over his poison not working is absolutely as likely to be an issue. I've seen a DM get mad because his trap got foiled before. I feel like if you've observed other DMs, you're bound to have too (but if you're a forever DM, maybe not lol).

The trouble is, I think, that you're assuming the DM is you, and the player is some awful person you're meeting for the first and last time at a tournament. Not the DM is someone else, not that the player is someone you know.

Another issue here, is neurodivergence, anxiety, and so on. A lot of D&D players and DMs have issues in this regard. So I think it's particularly bad to start assigning them negative characteristics in the way you're doing. It's much more likely the guy blurting out that he's wearing gloves is being genuine but has issues than that he is some sort of "cunning rapscallion". You again cannot be a good DM without factoring this in to some degree.

Further, there's the longer-term impact to look at. Your actions impact the game going forwards. If you say:

1) "Okay, you're wearing gloves, in future let's specify that beforehand, okay!"

Then you're creating a situation which is relatively low-stress, and establishes a precedent of being clear about this stuff. That's good for everyone, and it shows the DM is cooperative, but not a pushover.

If instead you say:

2) "Nope, doesn't say gloves on your character sheet!"

Then you're creating a high-stress, high-maintenance situation that doesn't work well with 5E's fundamentally lackadaisical approach to gear. Your game will slow down in future because people will need to carefully examine their gear regularly, and carefully choose every word they say - which again is extremely challenging for a lot of neurodiverse people (again, a large fraction of D&D players). The stress from having to get it exactly right, rather than having a cooperative DM who checks that they've on the same page about actions before assessing what happens.

You can run a game the latter way. A lot of people used to - it's not popular anymore because honestly it's a lot less fun for most people that way (hence the death of the equipment-obsessed game in general). I don't think it's remotely a good idea, nor really "good DMing", though, if I'm honest.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I dont think so. The character didnt know there was poison at all on the chest. Why would they be careful? Maybe they hit the wrist, or touched their face, or maybe the gloves dont really protect and it seeped through? After that, they are walking around with gloves coated in contact poison they dont know about. Eventually, someone is going to come into contact with it. Might as well resolve it in the here an now.

If they spotted it before interacting, totally different discussion.

They didn't have time to be careful in the presented scenario.

It's: Touch, description of what they feel followed by request for a roll, objection.

They didn't have time to vigorously rub the mysterious grease all over their body

 

[Lanefan]

No one is ignoring this, they're saying that's a system problem.

Agreed.

It's entirely reasonable for someone playing the game to assume gloves exist when it turns out they don't.

Agreed again.

So what's to be done to fix it such that the fiction lines up better for all involved? Obviously we can't change what's in the published rules, as we are not WotC. So, all we can do is houserule, and there's a number of options but all of them involve (a fairly small amount of) work for the DM and-or the players:

--- detail what component parts comprise each clothing kit (though in fairness this could get hairy as the kits would probably differ by species, culture, and climate/season)
--- expand the equipment lists to include more detail, not just for clothing but for various other things
--- insist the players write down not just what their characters are carrying into the field but what they are leaving in town
--- institute a hard and fast no-exceptions rule that if something's not written on your field-possessions list you don't have it with you*
--- or, if the players threaten to mutiny over the extra work, go to some sort of Schroedinger's Backpack model

* - it'll almost certainly take a few somewhat-ludicrous situations in play to get the point across about the write-it-down piece, as in: "Yes, not writing 'bow' on your sheet means you didn't bring one with you, even though you've carefully noted your two quivers each with 20 arrows." Short-term pain for long-term gain, says I.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't really recall any edition of D&D saying that they are standalone games and that previous editions' rules do not apply. So at least they are keeping with tradition (assuming my recollection is correct).

I ran into the same problem myself when converting from D&D 3.5e to D&D 4e - my games were just not working as well as I would have liked. I realized at some point it was because I was dragging assumptions from the previous game into the new game and, once I learned to stop doing that, everything was smooth sailing going forward. When D&D 5e came out, I knew what I had to do and that was to read the rules first including the DMG and have a think on what my game should look like given these new rules.

That's all well and good unless you liked those assumptions (and by and large I do).

 

[Lanefan]

Yes, the player is factually incorrect here and has failed to record gloves on their character sheet. The DM is well within their role of mediating between the rules and the players to tell them so and press on with the saving throw. But in terms of table harmony in the moment, is it worth doing that?

Yes, because in this case a little table disharmony now can prevent much more of it later.

 

[payn]

They didn't have time to be careful in the presented scenario.

It's: Touch, description of what they feel followed by request for a roll, objection.

They didn't have time to vigorously rub the mysterious grease all over their body

...despite the DM's sufficient telegraphing, they touched a chest that has been smeared with a dangerous contact poison.

Thats interacting to me. I know im a total jerk. Im totally ok with it too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I would expect that a typical DM isn't going to have the memory of a goldfish and can determine for themselves if the player is honestly mistaken or is trying to take advantage of them, and act accordingly.

Sure, but that doesn't change the reason the GM caved to the player in the first place in this proposed scenario. There's still that desire to maintain peace.

 

[Alzrius]

That's the whole point. The player assumed it was part of the traveler's set when in fact they had no access to it at all and actually no way of knowing that because the clothing options in the book don't say one way or the other. System issue.

Or it's an issue of the player assuming something instead of thinking to bring it up. While I personally think that more expansive and detailed lists are a better thing, I don't think the player is without blame here, even if the mistake was both innocent and understandable. I've had players who were very forthright in determining what their character had/looked like (sometimes to the point of commissioning custom minis or drawing their own pictures of them), so there's room for saying this is more than just a "system issue" (which would seem to indict a lot of rules-light games).

That's apparently copy pasta from 3e in DDB.

Huh, that's a point in 3E's favor, then.

This is a lot of gymnastics to get the poison to go off, IMO.

The contact poison says you make a save when you make contact, not to see if you made contact.

I disagree. Leaving aside your paraphrasing (which doesn't seem entirely accurate), the idea of using the dice as a determinative is that the roll tells you what happened, and whatever description you come up with interprets that from an in-game standpoint. Given that the dice have already been rolled, trying to intercept the description doesn't change the mechanics, and so doesn't alter the course of events.

 

[iserith]

That's all well and good unless you liked those assumptions (and by and large I do).

Of course, nobody's stopping you from rolling Intimidate and telling your players how they should act or whatever. Except perhaps your players. Plus, those games where you could do that within the rules still exist.