D&D 5E Do you let PC's just *break* objects?

[greg kaye]

So just ask for clarification. Or better yet, just make it an expectation that action declarations include both a goal and an approach.

As a suggestion, "what works for me..." statements rather than potentially universal recommendations could possibly help keep the peace. Having allies that can agree to differ, as I've repeatedly mentioned, may also help. I'm not telling you how to speak here. I'm just saying what I think might work for me.
There seems to be an incendiary climate, in which I think we're all involved.

 

[Gradine]

Imagine this:

A player looks at an object of indescript material, location, and size.

The player decides they want to break the object. Do you let them do so? And how do you do it? What is the limit? Does it depend on context or as long as the object doesn't say its unbreakable, they can break it?

This falls into the "don't make players roll dice if the outcome is guaranteed". I blame the designers of 3rd edition for this (and so many other things but now's not the time or place...)

Is a thing breakable or is it not? A glass window pane? Gone. A ceramic vase? Pieces.

Some things are less breakable than others, but with the right tools you get the job done. Are you gonna break that wall with a sledgehammer? Yes, absolutely.

I would only consider a roll if time were a factor. In which case I'd probably need a series of checks, round by round, with each blow bringing down the DC as the thing weakens.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So let's review:

You misrepresent our playstyle.
I say that it is wrong to do so.
You claim it's ok because "it's like my opinion man".
And somehow I'm the bad guy here?

We're done here. I'll leave it to those with more patience to respond to you, if they wish.

Mod Note:

Please, everyone: if you’re going to disengage from a discussion- with or without using your ignore list- don’t include parting shots; just disengage.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yep. I apologize. Poor choice of words on my part.

But it is aligned with your characterization of the descriptions as trying to “persuade the DM.” Maybe it was a Freudian slip, but it is still indicative of how you perceive the process as the DM letting you get a free pass if they like the fluff enough. In this approach though, the description is not fluff. It is a fiction-first approach that treats the description as the real action that takes place, and follows the internal logic of the fiction to determine the likely results of that action. It’s not a matter of persuasion, it’s a matter of visualization and prediction; forming a mental image of the fictional environment and imagining how your character moves through it and interacts with it, trying to achieve your goals as you would if it were a real space you were in. How eloquently you describe what your character does within that space is irrelevant, what matters is what you describe them doing, and the logical results of those actions.

 

[Charlaquin]

As a suggestion, "what works for me..." statements rather than potentially universal recommendations could possibly help keep the peace. Having allies that can agree to differ, as I've repeatedly mentioned, may also help. I'm not telling you how to speak here. I'm just saying what I think might work for me.
There seems to be an incendiary climate, in which I think we're all involved.

In my defense, I was under the impression that the person I said that to was trying to avoid unwanted ambiguity in the player’s goals. I do think that asking them to state their goals explicitly every time they declare an action would be a better (read: more fit-to-purpose) way to achieve that goal than to only ask if you think they weren’t clear, since as that poster had literally just said and I was responding to, sometimes the player’s goal is different than the DM assumes. It turned out that the poster in question actually considered that ambiguity a positive, so obviously it would actually be less fit to their purposes (or one might say worse for them.)

 

[greg kaye]

Only getting a check in the first place because they gave a description is just a bit off-putting to me if it's always required or required on a regular basis. I encourage people to give descriptions now and then, I nudge them towards being descriptive. But I only nudge. If they don't feel comfortable with it or look like they're getting frustrated I drop it. I may say something like "Would you like to describe how you look for the trap?"
....

Perhaps "gave a description" could be considered as "filled a criterion", which may, in this immediate case, have been an additional hurdle.

She initially said “something my character who’s trained in perception and investigation would think of that I can’t?” to which I said, “I understand you’re not an expert in trapfinding; neither am I. I just need to know what your character is doing in the world of the game so I can determine if it could succeed, if it could fail, and if there are any potential consequences for failing. Just go with something that seems reasonable to you, and I will do my best to interpret that generously.” She said she gave the door and the seams around it a thorough visual inspection, and I determined that this would have a chance of resulting in her seeing through the seam at the top that there was a lever, which would trigger a bell to ring when the door opened. I called for a check, she passed, and saw the lever. The party then went on to try to disarm this trap by wedging something (I no longer remember what, maybe it was a dagger or something) through the seam to hold the lever in place while they opened the door, which I determined would succeed without need of a roll. From that point on, the player in this exchange has consistently been one of the most creative players at my table when it comes to coming up with novel approaches to actions that often result in her succeeding at things without needing to roll.

I would have thought, if anything, this might have placed an additional hurdle on the player. The character with proficiency in investigation would have investigated and yet the DM still required the player to specify the location. Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems (with a double e) that the DM presented an additional criterion to pass rather than a free one.

But Charlaquin, per your final statement, what "novel approaches to actions... result in her succeeding at things without needing to roll"?

 

[Oofta]

This falls into the "don't make players roll dice if the outcome is guaranteed". I blame the designers of 3rd edition for this (and so many other things but now's not the time or place...)

Is a thing breakable or is it not? A glass window pane? Gone. A ceramic vase? Pieces.

Some things are less breakable than others, but with the right tools you get the job done. Are you gonna break that wall with a sledgehammer? Yes, absolutely.

I would only consider a roll if time were a factor. In which case I'd probably need a series of checks, round by round, with each blow bringing down the DC as the thing weakens.

There are times when it's certain that you can accomplish a task but it's a question of how long. What I don't want to have is a repeated set of rolls, so I just figure out what I think the maximum time will be and have them roll a D20. For example a quick google search tells me that picking a lock can take a few seconds or up to 45 minutes. So if the initial lock picking didn't work, roll again. Get a 20 and it takes a minute or two. After that it's 2 minutes for every number below 20.

 

[Oofta]

But it is aligned with your characterization of the descriptions as trying to “persuade the DM.” Maybe it was a Freudian slip, but it is still indicative of how you perceive the process as the DM letting you get a free pass if they like the fluff enough. In this approach though, the description is not fluff. It is a fiction-first approach that treats the description as the real action that takes place, and follows the internal logic of the fiction to determine the likely results of that action. It’s not a matter of persuasion, it’s a matter of visualization and prediction; forming a mental image of the fictional environment and imagining how your character moves through it and interacts with it, trying to achieve your goals as you would if it were a real space you were in. How eloquently you describe what your character does within that space is irrelevant, what matters is what you describe them doing, and the logical results of those actions.

Or it was just a poor choice of words. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

 

[Lanefan]

I just wouldn’t write a scenario that way. Even presuming I was running a game where it made sense to have this kind of granular interaction in-town, and there was an adventurer-hating bartender trying to poison the PCs, I’d just have him use an ingested poison in the drinks.

A better scenario: the local assassins have a hit order on one of the PCs. They know which pub the PCs tend to frequent when in town, so they replace a waiter with one of their own and the "waiter" applies the poison to the handle while bringing the ale to the table.

That way not only is the poison fresh, it has also only been handled by trained professionals before reaching the target, thus making the scenario much more plausible.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm literally using @Charlaquin's example. The player objected to the suggestion that they describe how their rogue checked for traps and then, when they did describe what they were doing they were given a check. Disarming the trap was automatic because the players came up with a way to disable it.

You, and Charlaquin may not consider describing how to find and disable a trap "convincing" the DM, I do. The player had to convince the DM they were doing an adequate job of searching for the trap. The player initially stated they would search for the trap the way a trained rogue would do. That wasn't adequate so they had to try again. The PCs then convinced the DM that their method of disabling the trap would automatically work and it did with no check.

In the case of finding the trap "doing what a well trained rogue" would work for me and I would grant a check at that point. Disabling the trap? Cool fluff, but you still need to make a roll. It's not that the plan of how the trap is disabled matters, the check is for how well you implement that plan.

Personally, I thought the way @Charlaquin ran this was great.

My only concern was that the same length of process not have to be repeated every time the PCs check a door for traps, which can easily happen a dozen times or more per session in a dungeon crawl; and that after going through the process in detail the first few times it could then be adopted as SOP. From there on, when the Thief's player says "I check the door for traps", all those details can be assumed as included in that simple statement.

It's not a question of persuading the DM in the way you seem to be taking it, it's a question of persuading the DM that at least once you-as-player have put a bit of thought into it yourself - as opposed to leaving it all up to the character's skills and the game rules - even if said thoughts and ideas end up not having much in common with how a thief would actually do any of this as the real-world player isn't a thief.