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

[Charlaquin]

Maybe this is semantics but "gave a description" could be considered as "filled a criterion", which may, in this case, have been an addional hurdle.

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.

(Though still not sure about that last bit).

So, I think this comes down to different conceptions of what a check is. For a lot of DMs, checks are like a means of interface between the players and the fictional world. To do things, you have to make checks, which tell you if you did them successfully, and sometimes to what degree of success. This is not how I conceptualize or use checks in my games. My games take a fiction-first approach, wherein (to paraphrase Apocalypse World), to do something, you have to say you do it, and if you say you do something, you do it. Then, I as DM follow the internal logic of the fiction to determine the results. If it’s uncertain what those results would be, a check is used to resolve that uncertainty. “Automatic success” is the default state of affairs - if you say you do it, you do it. Checks are only called for when what you say you do involves a degree of risk, and it’s not clear from following the fiction alone whether or not you will suffer the possible negative effects. It therefore doesn’t really make sense in this model to talk about criteria for making checks, because checks are dangerous things to be avoided if possible. They represent a possibility that you might actually fail to do what you said you do, and suffer some consequence as a result. It’s not that you have to describe your action well enough to earn a check, it’s that if you take a risky action, you might have to make a check.

 

[Oofta]

One other thought on this. I've absolutely had players describe actions and then, when I ask for a roll because I decided the outcome was uncertain before their description, they'll try to get success for free with something like a "Are you sure it doesn't just work?"

Thing is, I'm not unbiased. I can absolutely be persuaded by a cool description. As much as I try not to be I'm probably biased to favor my wife's action declarations. I think pretty much everybody has biases and consciously or not view different people's arguments as more or less convincing. Especially when attempting something I have no clue about, I can't a truly judge how well something would work and I'm not unbiased. Hence we use dice and character skills.

But just as important to me, the player is not the PC. I'll go back to my locksmith example. Joe the Lockmith-in-real-life can give exacting details on how to pick a lock. Following their description, it should absolutely work. But if Joe is playing Cordin the Cleric with an 8 dexterity with no training in lockpicking the character should be practically guaranteed to fail. If Cordin tries to disable a trap, another skill the PC has no skill in, I think Cordin should probably fail even if he can describe how McGyver disabled a trap just like this.

Putting player skill above PC skill is as old as the game. It's neither a right nor wrong way to play.

 

[Charlaquin]

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

Again, though, it is aligned with the way you have been characterizing my approach, which is the thing I object to.

 

[Oofta]

Again, though, it is aligned with the way you have been characterizing my approach, which is the thing I object to.

I've explained myself. At this point you can accept it or not.

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

Nice! Yeah, that still isn’t something I would be likely to run in my games, but it’s at least far more playable as a scenario. And as I said, I would probably telegraph that there’s something noteworthy about the handle, to encourage the players to consciously interact with the handle in some way.

 

[Lanefan]

“I walk across the room” is a complete action declaration, communicating both goal (get across the room) and approach (walk there).

Yes, and this is where reasonable specificity comes into play. A DM could, theoretically, ask that the player be specific about how quickly they walk or how high they lift their feet, but that would not be a reasonable degree of specificity to expect. Asking the player to be specific about the route that they take when walking across the room is a bit more of a gray area - I wouldn’t ask for that level of specificity personally, but in a game like @Lanefan’s where stepping on a specific part of the floor might trigger a trap and stepping just to the left of that spot wouldn’t, I don’t think it would be an unreasonable degree of specificity to expect.

Nah - that's where dice come in: while walking across the room do you randomly happen to go around the plinth to the left (no trap) or right (oops)?

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

As I said, I would certainly allow players to establish such an action as standard operating procedure if they so desired. I just think that in my games that would be an inefficient strategy. I make use of telegraphing so that players don’t have to blindly guess when to look for traps or play in full-on bomb squad mode treating every door as a potential trap. Generally, if you’re paying attention to my description of the environment, you’ll be able to make good predictions about when such tactics are necessary, without having to rely on SOPs. But I wouldn’t tell a player “no, you can’t establish that as SOP, you have to describe it in full every single time.”

 

[Lanefan]

Talk about clarity needing being asked for: When I posted what you quoted, I was under the impression that the OP was asking if it was possible (in our games) to ever break anything, not whether or not we sometimes allow people to break something without rolling.

Of course we do. Why wouldn't we?

I think what the OP actually wanted out of this discussion, which appears to be, "Under what circumstances do you allow a player to break an object? When do you ask for a roll? At what point do you declare it impossible?"

So my answer would be:
Small, unimportant (or weak) objects break on player declaration.
Bigger objects (in particular during combat) require rolls.
Even bigger objects (say, siege weapons or castle gates) require multiple checks (usually damage dealt, like they're a monster).

I was just about to hit "like" for this post, but then I saw...

If destroying it isn't part of the story, then it's impossible.

...this.

What difference does it make whether destroying something in the setting is "part of the story" or not?

Reading this literally, if smashing a vase is somehow relevant to the story then it's automatically broken on declaration, but if smashing the same vase isn't relevant to the story then breaking it is impossible no matter what the characters do.

If this isn't what you meant, please clarify.

 

[Lanefan]

Certain approaches are sometimes better at achieving certain goals. That's true of more than just how to conduct RPGs. Using a hammer is better than a screwdriver when driving in a nail.

But not for driving in screws, and I suspect some here are getting the impression from others that they are expected to use a hammer for everything from driving in nails to removing screws to washing the laundry.

 

[Oofta]

But not for driving in screws, and I suspect some here are getting the impression from others that they are expected to use a hammer for everything from driving in nails to removing screws to washing the laundry.

Just depends on what you're doing and your preference. I could have put together the gate for my wife's garden with screws or nails but decided for what I was trying to accomplish that a peg and dowel method was preferable.