D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[Vaalingrade]

The worthwhile stuff comes out in play where it actually matters. Like always wearing your gloves no matter what because they belonged to your father who was killed by orcs and it's all you have left of him.

When I do a backstory, I'm trying to give you a gift.

I'm giving you plot hooks, motivation, NPCs, carrots and sticks.

It's not going to be a hyperbolic 32 page 'novel' (which isn't even a novella), but it's going to near a page. And it doesn't give me a lot of confidence if all of that is completely not of interest to the DM.

 

[Mort]

No there is a problem before that. If you go back to the OP you will see "Unbeknownst to an unarmored character and despite the DM's sufficient telegraphing, they touched a chest that has been smeared with a dangerous contact poison."

The time to bring up the gloves & check the expected efficacy is before touching the chest that has been given "sufficient telegraphing" not after you've done so & want to use player agency over interpretation as a club against the gm.

Apparently, the PC missed the "sufficient telegraphing," or they would have brought up the fact that their outfit had gloves earlier.

 

[Lanefan]

A retcon revises fiction. The attack hasn't had any effect until damage is rolled or some other effect is applied.

I disagree. There's two steps to the fiction, each represented by a die roll.

Step one: the attack either connects or it doesn't, as represented by the to-hit roll.
Step two: if the attack connects it has some degree of negative effect, as determined (usually) by the damage roll.

The Shield spell is trying to overturn step one after it has already occurred.

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."

If I-as-DM roll high enough to hit your PC and declare something like "The Orc gets you this time." then that declaration not only sets the fictional state to one where your PC has just been hit but - in theory - locks that fictional state into being. All that remains is to determine what effect(s) that hit had on you. The Shield spell (along with some other terribly-designed effects) wants to overturn that declaration I just made and turn something that should be locked in into something else; and that's a retcon all day long.

You're free to not like the spell, but let's not call it something it's not.

I'm calling it what it is - a retcon.

 

[iserith]

When I do a backstory, I'm trying to give you a gift.

I'm giving you plot hooks, motivation, NPCs, carrots and sticks.

It's not going to be a hyperbolic 32 page 'novel' (which isn't even a novella), but it's going to near a page. And it doesn't give me a lot of confidence if all of that is completely not of interest to the DM.

I don't build my campaigns around the characters, particularly as I don't generally run plots or storylines, and I don't expect all the characters to survive in any game where death is on the table.

Rather, the players build characters suitable to the campaign, and the campaign is built around the players' interests (e.g. "Let's do something in Eberron!" or "How about a swamp hexcrawl!").

Once the framework is in place, we can start playing and as we play, they can introduce elements of their backstory when they are inspired to do so, whether it's from their one-pager, their tweet, or off the top of their head. I can then add to the framework with whatever they mentioned, should be something of interest, and it will now be a thing in the game.

There are a lot of DMs who solicit backstories and then build their game around how those things might be connected with whatever overall plot they have in mind. That ain't me. I really dislike running plot-based games, and building storylines based around characters that might die next session or players that might not be available on the night when the Big Reveal was planned for their character (or worse, the player has to drop from the campaign) is fraught with risk that is easily avoided.

 

[Lanefan]

Opportunity attacks literally RAW roll back time to resolve before they are triggered.

How so?

The triggering event begins, the AoO happens in response, the AoO is resolved, then the triggering event continues if it can. Time flows forward all the way.

Mechanically it is much smoother to have the interrupt for a shield spell or parry happen after the hit, declaring stuff between declaring an attack roll and adjudicating a hit is awkward to time right. Particularly when people are used to the DM saying stuff like "the hobgoblin hits AC 17." Also I like the straightforward quick resolution nature of it as a succesful immediate interrupt defense at the table "He parries, that does not hit" rather than first judging whether to spend it in hopes of it being relevant and then spending time on resolving a mechanic that might not matter at all.

Except in the fiction the character has no real way of knowing whether the foe's next attack will hit until after it already has! And by that point, it is (or certainly should be) too late to do anything to prevent that attack from hitting.

 

[Mort]

I disagree. There's two steps to the fiction, each represented by a die roll.

Step one: the attack either connects or it doesn't, as represented by the to-hit roll.
Step two: if the attack connects it has some degree of negative effect, as determined (usually) by the damage roll.

The Shield spell is trying to overturn step one after it has already occurred.

If I-as-DM roll high enough to hit your PC and declare something like "The Orc gets you this time." then that declaration not only sets the fictional state to one where your PC has just been hit but - in theory - locks that fictional state into being. All that remains is to determine what effect(s) that hit had on you. The Shield spell (along with some other terribly-designed effects) wants to overturn that declaration I just made and turn something that should be locked in into something else; and that's a retcon all day long.

I'm calling it what it is - a retcon.

Shield isn't the only thing that can turn a potential hit into a miss in 5e.

As such rather than saying "the orc hits you..." perhaps a better statement would be "the orc will hit unless you can do something about it..." and give the player (or another player who might have an ability) a second to see if there is something they can and wish to do.

That way, you're not backing up and there is no retcon.

 

[iserith]

I disagree. There's two steps to the fiction, each represented by a die roll.

Step one: the attack either connects or it doesn't, as represented by the to-hit roll.
Step two: if the attack connects it has some degree of negative effect, as determined (usually) by the damage roll.

The Shield spell is trying to overturn step one after it has already occurred.

If I-as-DM roll high enough to hit your PC and declare something like "The Orc gets you this time." then that declaration not only sets the fictional state to one where your PC has just been hit but - in theory - locks that fictional state into being. All that remains is to determine what effect(s) that hit had on you. The Shield spell (along with some other terribly-designed effects) wants to overturn that declaration I just made and turn something that should be locked in into something else; and that's a retcon all day long.

I'm calling it what it is - a retcon.

I mean, you would, right? You probably don't like one of the -isms another poster mentioned, so stuff like what hit points represent and whatnot and "realism" are going to stand in the way of settling on a a more abstract interpretation that just works if you let it.

 

[hawkeyefan]

If you avoid everything that has the possibility of generating even a moment of discussion/disagreement at the table, you aren't going to have much left to play the game with.

I said discussions like THIS one.

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.

Actually, I can avoid it just fine. I can craft obstacles that don't rely on details which haven’t been clearly established. Or if I find myself in such a pickle, I can simply let the player say they have the item in question and move on with the game. If my game will fall apart because one instance of contact poison being avoided, I’d say I have bigger issues to worry about.

Why not just draw up and use a decent equipment list and get your players to write their gear out on their sheets? That way you solve not just the contact-poison issue but pretty much any other issue (and IME they're pretty common) where carried/worn/available gear becomes relevant.

I’m not interested in the characters becoming collections of best practices accrued over years of play, slowly progressing down a corridor and tapping everything with a ten foot pole.

If I want my game to be focused on gear and inventory, I’ll come up with something that’s more engaging and that doesn’t become farcical.

 

[iserith]

Shield isn't the only thing that can turn a potential hit into a miss in 5e.

As such rather than saying "the orc hits you..." perhaps a better statement would be "the orc will hit unless you can do something about it..." and give the player (or another player who might have an ability) a second to see if there is something they can and wish to do.

That way, you're not backing up and there is no retcon.

Right, just dummy up and don't establish the fiction until the damage or effect is applied. Easy peasy.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't require a written version.

But I do encourage a short blurb so I, and the rest of the group, can get a sense of the character.

I don't ask for anything written, but the player is more than welcome to roleplay the character introducing itself to the others and, with or without prompting, tell a bit of its backstory in character. This is one reason why I don't like starting campaigns with the PCs already knowing each other: it takes away that opportunity for roleplaying out the characters' first meeting and introductions.