D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[Mort]

But the extent of a PC's backstory is of course up to the player, and not you as the DM.

Sure, but:

I expressly state during session 0 that I want no more than a paragraph of backstory. I would hope players follow that (haven't had anyone not).

If someone does hand me a novel, I have every right to simply ignore it. Now the player can certainly use what they wrote to shape the character going forward - no problem with that at all.

 

[iserith]

Sure, but:

I expressly state during session 0 that I want no more than a paragraph of backstory. I would hope players follow that (haven't had anyone not).

If someone does hand me a novel, I have every right to simply ignore it. Now the player can certainly use what they wrote to shape the character going forward - no problem with that at all.

My rule is I don't read anything longer than a tweet when it comes to backstories, if I read it at all. And not one of those twitlongers either.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A retcon revises fiction. The attack hasn't had any effect until damage is rolled or some other effect is applied. Shield stops it before that happens, so the fiction is not revised. "The attack bounces off the shielding effect," not "the sword hits you, then time reverses and now it doesn't." You're free to not like the spell, but let's not call it something it's not.

Except mechanically, that exactly what happens. The fact that the PC has been hit has been established  before the PC has to decide whether or not to cast the shield spell. Saying that it's not a retcon expresses your personal opinion about where the fiction is, nothing more.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure, but:

I expressly state during session 0 that I want no more than a paragraph of backstory. I would hope players follow that (haven't had anyone not).

If someone does hand me a novel, I have every right to simply ignore it. Now the player can certainly use what they wrote to shape the character going forward - no problem with that at all.

That's true. If everyone agrees to brevity in session 0, that's all that needs to be said about it.

 

[iserith]

Except mechanically, that exactly what happens. The fact that the PC has been hit has been established  before the PC has to decide whether or not to cast the shield spell. Saying that it's not a retcon expresses your personal opinion about where the fiction is, nothing more.

Same can be said about your position. Mine just happens to resolve whatever conflict people have with the spell, which makes it a more useful definition in my view.

 

[Vaalingrade]

What is even the point of trying to RP a character with such a scant backstory. To me that kind of shows that the DM has little intention to integrate my character into the story/world.

With those parameters, I'd just write 'amnesia' and then remember everything at the start of the first session.

 

[Pedantic]

Unfortunately, the root issue is not one you can avoid so easily. This is just a subset of the underlying problem which has to do with ambiguous propositions and how to handle them without revealing hidden information through a metagame channel.

The example I previously used years ago that provoked this sort of thread was a section of wall with two paintings. Behind one was a safe with treasure inside and behind the other was a symbol of death. How do you adjudicate this if the player interacts with it by saying, "I search the wall." Does searching the wall automatically imply looking behind the paintings? Does it matter how well they roll? Which painting do they look behind first? Do they automatically look behind both? If you've previously validated "I search the wall" as a valid proposition in order to speed play, how do you go about rejecting that proposition now? And, further, let's suppose you have a character with like a -5 search check that rolls a 1 searches the wall and finds nothing, is it fair to allow the player to move aside the paintings given the player offers that proposition and conversely is it utterly unfair not to do so.

And so forth.

To some degree, can't you apply what is more generally DMing advice about descriptive focus? That is, as a DM you're very likely employing the difference between "you enter a stone room lined with bookshelves" and "you enter a stone room, one wall taken up by a bookshelf filled with tomes in varying states of decay, a few books on the top shelf glittering with embossed gold covers" to guide your players towards the treasure map hidden in a book already.

The painting situation you're providing feels like a moment where asking "how do you want to go about searching the wall?" when previously you've just said "you find nothing suspicious" is going to drive the player's attention. I don't know that there's a problem there, per se, as long as you've established through practice that this kind of descriptive focus isn't intrinsically good or bad (i.e. sometimes those books are cursed and sometimes they are spellbooks), just that the element you're drawing attention to is likely significant and will provoke an interaction of some kind.

It's certainly artificial, but I'm not sure it's notably more artificial than a lot of what happens in DMing normally.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Same can be said about your position. Mine just happens to resolve whatever conflict people have with the spell, which makes it a more useful definition in my view.

Sure, but it does so by making a claim about the fiction that is not universally agreed with and won't work for everyone.

I'm glad it works for you, but honestly that's as far as it goes.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I think he's saying that a character who didn't dodge wouldn't even get a save; and further that a) the assumption is that the character does dodge if it can and b) the DM can flavour in how that dodge looks in the fiction if the player does not.

Seems fine to me.

I know you don't play 5e but the assumption that a PC is dodging in order to even get a save against a fireball is a faulty one.

A restrained character has no chance at, for example, dodging behind a pillar because their speed is 0. Yet, the player is still able to make a Dex saving throw, albeit at disadvantage.

ETA: more to the point, there is no reason to invoke any action upon the PC at all as DM in order to describe the results. The fireball was weaker than normal. Or there was a cool spot in the fireball. Or a pocket of air. Or whatever. There are plenty of fantastical fictional happenstances to come up with when narrating a result that don't require the DM to tell the player what their PC is doing in the scene.

 

[iserith]

What is even the point of trying to RP a character with such a scant backstory. To me that kind of shows that the DM has little intention to integrate my character into the story/world.

I don't. Or rather, I won't unless you're introducing elements of your backstory during play, which I will then build on. Show us who you are, don't leave it on the page. I find the worst roleplayers are actually the ones with the longest backstories. It's counterintuitive, but it seems to be correlated in my experience.