D&D General Renamed Thread: "The Illusion of Agency"

[Bill Zebub]

Often, the game mechanics present no meaningful choices, so we use "Uh, make a skill check" as a cheap, easy substitute. It makes players feel they have agency without actually giving them any.

Yes, absolutely, 100%. Bolding for emphasis!

What OP is saying is to remove that option, forcing yourself to construct a scenario with meaningful decisions -- or else accept that no meaningful decision exists, decide the outcome, and skip the illusion of agency.

Wow I could have saved a LOT of typing. You expressed that perfectly.

I'm not a hundred percent sold yet, but it's certainly worth thinking about.

<3

 

[Bill Zebub]

I believe this is how the game advises you to play it already. No changes needed to accomplish this.

Agreed.

I really don't think I'm describing anything different than exactly what it says in the PHB.
But...a lot of people don't seem to believe that. Or don't want to believe it. There seems to be a lot of assumption...based on posts here...that 5e is played the way previous editions were.

I think the other problem is that in official WotC adventures there are examples that contradict the PHB.

I would say that having a list of skills on the character sheet can work against this intended gameplay loop, since that can often feel like a list of buttons to push that let you roll dice and get a result. But would you eliminate the skill list? And what might you replace it with?

Totally agree about the effect of having that list of skills. But, really, I was trying to discuss how to DM this way, not how to change D&D to better support it.

I don't think this scenario is much different than...

Player A: "I intimidate him with an Intimidation check" (rolls, gets a middling result)
DM: "OK, what do you say?"
Player A: "I want to threaten the old man that if he doesn't give us the key, we'll expose his affair with his business partner's daughter."
DM: "Ah, okay. He doesn't seem worried. He says, 'Who is she more likely to trust, her close friend and confidante, or a group of motely adventurers?'"
Player B: "Oh, maybe I should try, I've got a +4 to Intimidate. I crack my whip on the floor and lick my lips..."

...is it?

I do think it's different. The key thing missing is the DM's declaration of the stakes, and the fact that there were no consequence for failure from player A. Player A didn't really have to make any kind of hard decision before declaring (and following through on) that action.

Here's the test: if player B, with +4 Intimidate, also fails, does player C, with a measly +2 Intimidate, also want to try? Then player D?

If so, I think something is not working well. Without meaningful consequences for failure, the only way to prevent the whole party from trying is for the DM to rule that no more attempts can be made, which I think is pretty common practice, and is accepted by players because it is common practice, but doesn't really have any in-story justification. (I personally hate it.)

 

[Minigiant]

The core issue is that Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, their core related skills, and their core related combat statistics are minor and infrequent in use barring a class feature forcing it.

So someone can ignore them and use player skill and character species statistics, to obfuscate PC weakness in exploration delving and social roleplay.

 

[Charlaquin]

Ok, the thread title is more confrontational than I really mean. Please hear me out...

I want to argue that combat is the only part of the game in which the default should be reaching for dice and relying on mechanics. That in ALL other parts of the game we should first try to resolve things through narration/storytelling, and only roll dice as a last resort to resolve real uncertainty. Or, at least, that's how I personally would like to play. I believe that, outside of combat, rolling dice should follow this pattern:

1. The player declares an action
2. If the DM decides the outcome is uncertain, and there is a real cost to failure, the DM may call for a roll
3. The DM tells the player what the roll will be, including DC, and what the cost of failure will be
4. The player then has the option of not taking the action

And, by the way, "you can't try again" is not a cost of failure, at least by my definition. If you try to pick a lock and you fail, the door is still locked; the game state hasn't changed.

So, I basically agree with all of this in principle, but I would argue that combat also works this way. It’s just that almost every action a PC might take in combat does have a built-in uncertainty of outcome and consequence for failure.

Litmus Test: if the DM's only tool for preventing everybody in the party from trying is by declaring (unrealistically) that only one character is allowed to try, then clearly the penalty for failure is insufficient.

This means:

• No passive rolls to spot things
• No rolls to see "if I know something"
• No rolling Insight to detect lies
• For those who want NPCs to "use social skills on PCs" the pattern is perfectly symmetric, which means the DM describes the action, the player decides whether outcome is uncertain, and calls for a roll, setting the DC.

I’m going to push back on these points, even under the principles outlined above. D&D 5e (or at least the 2014 version) specifies that passive checks are used to represent the average results of an action performed repeatedly. They are not actually passive despite their name, they’re just how the system handles an action description like “I use my 10-foot pole to prod the ground in front of us as we walk.” That’s still an action with an uncertain outcome, but since it’s being performed repeatedly over time, 5e says the DM should use a passive check to resolve that uncertainty.

As for rolls to see if you know things, this is a tricky one, but in my interpretation this is still an action declaration, just one that’s usually stated incompletely. “Can I roll to see if I know anything about trolls” tells us the player’s goal (learn something about trolls), but the goal is fairly vague, and it doesn’t tell us the character’s approach. I would encourage the player to be more specific here, for example, “I think back to my uncle Gustav’s tales of his time as a troll hunter to try and remember if he mentioned any specific weaknesses they have.” This both communicates what the player is trying to accomplish and how so the DM can properly adjudicate, and it reveals potentially interesting backstory information about the character to the group.

Insight, in my mind, is like the social version of perception or investigation. In order for the players to make use of it, they need clues in the environment to respond to. A lie is like a social trap - it should have some indication of its existence so that the player can interact with it by declaring specific actions. For example, the DM might describe the NPC stuttering, sweating, or otherwise looking nervous. Or they might describe the NPC sneering, speaking with a haughty tone, or otherwise acting contemptuously towards the PCs. These telegraphs give players something to latch their action descriptions on to, like “I observe his facial expressions carefully to see if there’s a pattern to when he gets nervous.” This probably shouldn’t result in telling if a specific statement is a lie, but it should be able to result in information that can indicate if a character is hiding the truth generally.

Your last point about symmetrical social actions is an interesting one. Personally, I prefer just not to have NPCs use social skills against PCs, and to make social interactions players-always-roll scenarios. But, it’s a neat idea, and generally how I resolve PvP actions; social or otherwise.

And one final thing: I'm in the camp where I don't police, or even worry about, "metagaming" (using the narrow and somewhat inaccurate definition of "not separating player and character knowledge about the game world.")

But doing his is hard. Both because I got used to playing and another way, and just because sometimes it's hard. I'm still practicing DMing this way.

Understandable. It takes some getting used to, and some of the nuances like those discussed above are things you may discover as you practice with this approach.

So to help me practice, here's the challenge: describe a scenario in which you think it would be challenging to follow these principles, and I'll see if I can figure out either how to handle the scenario, or how (and why) I would prefer to set up the scenario differently in the first place. Others are free to respond also. Maybe we'll all learn something.

Example:
"The party is exploring a maze of nearly identical passages, and there is a secret door in one otherwise unremarkable tunnel. How do you determine if the secret door is found without passive rolls or cost of failure?"

My answer:

• First, what purpose does the secret door serve in terms of making the game more fun. Is it just a random short-cut? Does it lead to a treasure room? Does it make the challenges faced by the party objectively easier?
• If it's just a random short-cut or otherwise provides a minor benefit, I might telegraph it's presence when they are near. For example, the party might intermittently notice footprints, and I'll tell them (no roll required!) that the footprints have disappeared. If they search around near where the footprints end, they find the door automatically. (Alternatively, I might eliminate the secret door as pointless.)
• If it's important, such as leading to a treasure room or making the party's objectives significantly easier, I would want to telegraph it from another location and then let them deduce the likely location. Any attempt to actively search for it in the correct location would be successful (but see next comment). The telegraph could be in a journal or map they find, a comment by a prisoner, a symmetric/geometric map in which one part is "missing", etc.
• If they are actively looking for a secret door but are under time pressure, then I might ask for a roll. The cost of failure is using up time. E.g., they are being pursued and want to use the secret door to hide from their pursuers before they are caught.

One helpful thing to keep in mind is that time wasted can be a meaningful cost of failure, if time is in some way under pressure. This doesn’t have to mean ticking clocks like “if you don’t defeat the dragon in time, the princess will be eaten” or whatever, it can just mean time advances towards the next periodic wandering monster check. That’s a big part of why combat actions always have consequences for failure, because in combat time is always under pressure.

Anyway, here’s one for you: in a Ravenloft campaign, a spy working for Strahd wants to steal a personal object belonging to one of the PCs while they are sleeping, so Strahd can use it to more easily scry on the PC in question. How do you determine if the spy gets into and out of the camp without getting caught, without relying on passive Perception?

I'd love to have this thread NOT devolve into a debate about metagaming.

Based on my experience I think it’s more likely to devolve into a debate about whether or not players should be able to declare a skill and roll without describing a specific action. But either way, good luck.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Scenario:
The PCs are locked in hard fought battle in a 15 foot wide hallway with a group of guards in the tunnel system beneath a town. On the ceiling, if anyone bothers to look up, is a retracted portcullis essentially in the middle of said battle. The mechanism to operate the portcullis is in a concealed alcove 5' north of the portcullis on the guards' "side" of the battle. Meanwhile, an unarmed member of the guards faction is heard behind the party - perhaps an advisor to the nefarious ruler of the town who heard the ruckus and came around the corner to see what was up.

Feel free to add specific DM narrated details to the scenario that represent telegraphing...

Questions:
1. how might a character notice the portcullis?
2. how might a character determine how to operate the portcullis?
3. what might a character say to the advisor to help the situation?
4. something else non-combat related that you imagine could happen in the scenario and how it would be resolved.

Ok, here's a great example of my principle of "hard to find, or hard to act on, but not both." I would not require a check to spot the portcullis. I would announce its presence.

BUT....operating it would be a different matter. Maybe it's rusted, maybe it has a lock on it, maybe it just requires a lot of strength. But to use it would require taking attention (and Actions) away from the fight and dedicating them to dropping the portcullis. Maybe, for example, it would take 2 uninterrupted turns for one character to do it, but the guards would attack whoever was trying to do it, and that character would have to make what are essentially Concentration checks to continue...

So now the players have interesting decisions to make. Do they take resources away from the fight and concentrate on the portcullis? Who should do it? Should the others focus resources less on winning the fight and more on protecting that designated character? Etc.

 

[TiQuinn]

I don't want to derail the thread too much, but I think the reason dice work well for combat is because it involves so many rolls, so there's excitement around the ebb and flow, and there are ways for players to react and adjust, and decisions to take along the way to improve their chances.

I think the other part of this is rolling dice is fun for many players when it’s done in the context of combat, particularly damage.

 

[Bill Zebub]

As for rolls to see if you know things, this is a tricky one, but in my interpretation this is still an action declaration, just one that’s usually stated incompletely. “Can I roll to see if I know anything about trolls” tells us the player’s goal (learn something about trolls), but the goal is fairly vague, and it doesn’t tell us the character’s approach. I would encourage the player to be more specific here, for example, “I think back to my uncle Gustav’s tales of his time as a troll hunter to try and remember if he mentioned any specific weaknesses they have.” This both communicates what the player is trying to accomplish and how so the DM can properly adjudicate, and it reveals potentially interesting backstory information about the character to the group.

Insight, in my mind, is like the social version of perception or investigation. In order for the players to make use of it, they need clues in the environment to respond to. A lie is like a social trap - it should have some indication of its existence so that the player can interact with it by declaring specific actions. For example, the DM might describe the NPC stuttering, sweating, or otherwise looking nervous. Or they might describe the NPC sneering, speaking with a haughty tone, or otherwise acting contemptuously towards the PCs. These telegraphs give players something to latch their action descriptions on to, like “I his facial expressions carefully to see if there’s a pattern to when he gets nervous.” This probably shouldn’t result in telling if a specific statement is a lie, but it should be able to result in information that can indicate if a character is hiding the truth generally.

My issue here is the zero cost of failure. If one player doesn't know anything about trolls, aren't they all going to say, "Can I roll?" And while that's not really a problem, the fact that it happens suggests to me that something isn't working well.

In combat, I might give them a choice: "I'll let you roll, and if you fail I'll still give you the information, but you'll miss your turn because you were thinking so hard."

Outside of combat....? I don't know; if they have relevant skills and attributes maybe just give it to them?

Your last point about symmetrical social actions is an interesting one. Personally, I prefer just not to have NPCs use social skills against PCs, and to make social interactions players-always-roll scenarios. But, it’s a neat idea, and generally how I resolve PvP actions; social or otherwise.

Honestly I don't actually play that way. I just let the player decide. But it's my answer to people who think that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Anyway, here’s one for you: in a Ravenloft campaign, a spy working for Strahd wants to steal a personal object belonging to one of the PCs while they are sleeping, so Strahd can use it to more easily scry on the PC in question. How do you determine if the spy gets into and out of the camp without getting caught, without relying on passive Perception?

Oh that's a hard one! How devious! (I should have known I could count on you.)

Umm.....

It seems to me that as long as a critical item (e.g. a magic item) is not the object being stolen, the stakes are not so high that it's unfair to let the thief automatically succeed. So this is not well thought out, but a couple of ideas:

1. Let the players learn from an NPC that Strahd does this (maybe telling a story about it happened to this poor vampire hunter who wandered through). If they catch on and take precautions, they stop the theft. Otherwise the object is gone.
2. Same as above, but with some kind of cost for staying up night.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The core issue is that Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, their core related skills, and their core related combat statistics are minor and infrequent in use barring a class feature forcing it.

So someone can ignore them and use player skill and character species statistics, to obfuscate PC weakness in exploration delving and social roleplay.

Please bear in mind I'm not saying you shouldn't conclude with a dice roll. Just that:

1. A goal and approach should be described
2. There should be consequences for failure

So a character who has invested in persuasion and has high Charisma is still more likely to succeed. And because there are consequences for failure, they are more invested in that roll!

Also, the DM decides whether success (or failure) is automatic, and if not sets the DC. So if there isn't a specific goal and approach, and there are no consequences for failure, the DM can just answer the question. E.g.:

Player A: "Do I know how to stop trolls from regenerating?"
DM (looking at character sheet): "I don't know, do you?"
Player B: "Do I know?"
DM (looking at character sheet): "Actually, you do recall that..."

As @Dausuul said upthread:

Often, the game mechanics present no meaningful choices, so we use "Uh, make a skill check" as a cheap, easy substitute. It makes players feel they have agency without actually giving them any.

And...

What OP is saying is to remove that option, forcing yourself to construct a scenario with meaningful decisions -- or else accept that no meaningful decision exists, decide the outcome, and skip the illusion of agency.

 

[Minigiant]

Please bear in mind I'm not saying you shouldn't conclude with a dice roll. Just that:

1. A goal and approach should be described
2. There should be consequences for failure

And, finally, the DM decides whether success (or failure) is automatic, and if not sets the DC. So if there isn't a specific goal and approach, and there are no consequences for failure, the DM can just answer the question. E.g.:

Player A: "Do I know how to stop trolls from regenerating?"
DM (looking at character sheet): "I don't know, do you?"
Player B: "Do I know?"
DM (looking at character sheet): "Actually, you do recall that..."

As @Dausuul said upthread:



And...

My point is that D&D doesn't use exploration and social rolls, their mechanics and their more associated attributes enough as is.

Reducing it more would disrupt balance too much.

It's like Intelligence before the psychic spells were added.

Intelligence was a dump stat because INT checks and saves came up so infrequently. Every party was 50% drooling moronic powerhouses as players shifted power and went out their way to avoid actively using their low Intelligence by other means.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

I want to argue that combat is the only part of the game in which the default should be reaching for dice and relying on mechanics. That in ALL other parts of the game we should first try to resolve things through narration/storytelling, and only roll dice as a last resort to resolve real uncertainty. Or, at least, that's how I personally would like to play.

It is impossible to prove you wrong that you personally prefer to play without dice rolls outside combat, but I can very easily prove you wrong that I greatly prefer the 5e Rules As Written with skillchecks to determine success outside combat.

I want character builds and characters' abilities actually matter in gameplay, and not have all outcomes determined by the players' skill. This is a personal preference and I understand that others may disagree, but I would get bored very quickly if DnD worked the way you are describing.