D&D 5E Are there actions not covered under a skill?

[iserith]

Emphasis mine.
This. This right here. That's the cudgel You are explicitly stating there is a "right way to play" and implicitly stating that playing that way make your game superior.

It's weird you can't see it.

I don't claim my game is superior. I do claim that I understand and follow the rules the game lays out for us, particularly in the area of DM and player roles and adjudication process, and I show where and how. I further claim that doing so does not result in the sorts of issues you say you have with, say, "pixelbitching." That's it. There's nothing more to it than that. Anything else is reading into what I'm saying.

 

[Charlaquin]

This is what I refer to when I say pixelbitching. It isn't fun and doesn't have a positive effect on the game.

I disagree on all counts. First of all I wouldn’t call Iserith’s example (which is straight out of the PHB by the way) pixelbitching because progress is not contingent on the player taking one specific course of action. Second of all I find the play described here significantly more fun than just declaring vague, nebulous actions with no specific details. And third of all, it absolutely adds something to the game, by rewarding players for paying attention to the DM’s description of the environment and picking up on the signals that are seeded into it. It also, for me, helps me form a clearer mental picture of the game world and what’s happening in it that I struggle to form when the DM’s description of the environment is largely set dressing and the actions the characters take are vague and undefined.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's the whole "telegraphing" thing that I just don't get.

It’s a pretty fundamental game design tool. Metroidvanias and Soulslikes provide excellent examples of telegraphing used to good effect. In my opinion it’s pretty much essential to any game where the storytelling is primarily environmental.

But let's say I'm describing someone's living quarters/small apartment. What we would consider a studio apartment would be pretty typical living arrangement for many people in my campaign world.

So if I'm describing it, it's going to have what I would consider standard set dressing. Bed, maybe a dresser, wardrobe along with a small desk and chair. Maybe another couple of pieces of furniture and a small stove. Couple of pictures on the wall, probably a cupboard. Likely even a little storage cubby up high. I probably forget to mention the chamber pot but it's probably in there too.

Why all that? Because it's what I would think would be reasonable for the person living there. I'm describing someone with a fair number of possessions but not fabulously wealthy. It's set dressing that sets the mood.

It's never just going to be a bureau with a single drawer (which, yes, is an exaggeration).

Agreed.

I can't think of any logical reason for any particular piece of furniture or location to stand out short of just putting a big neon sign saying "search here" pointed at the futon.

Learning to telegraph effectively takes practice. It’s also difficult to express what good telegraphing looks like in this format. We tend to focus on specific scenarios, whereas telegraphing often involves clues seeded throughout an adventure, location, or even a whole campaign to communicate telegraphs through context. Maybe the first time the players encounter an object hidden in a futon it has the equivalent of a search here sign, but that’s just to teach the players what to look for. As you go on you can get subtler and less direct with their cues. Going back to the kobold with the gem hidden in a secret compartment in the heel of its boot example, if that’s an independent occurrence it will need a pretty direct telegraph like pointing out that he’s wearing boots when all the other Kobolds have only rope sandals. But if it’s established lore that Kobolds are master cobblers who often build secret compartments into the boots they make, then you don’t have to say a thing. Players familiar with that bit of lore will already be keen to check fallen Kobolds’ boots for secret compartments.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

No, those are just different outcomes. The players aren’t betting anything, they’re not investing anything, they’re not losing anything, they’re just gaining one of two unknown things.

I couldn't disagree more.

Well, first of all, I don’t agree that having too few encounters in an adventuring day doesn’t cause balance issues in non-site-based adventures. And second of all, if you’ve observed that the number of encounters in an adventuring day is an important balance factor for site-based adventures, the existence of guidelines surrounding how many encounters to include in an adventuring day should be an indication that 5e was designed around site-based adventures, no? Of course you can still use it for other things, and it might work well for those things. But it was clearly designed around site-based adventure.

I don't really think it indicates that, no. I think it indicates that site-based/dungeon delving adventure requires more specific balance than other form of play.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

t’s a pretty fundamental game design tool. Metroidvanias and Soulslikes provide excellent examples of telegraphing used to good effect. In my opinion it’s pretty much essential to any game where the storytelling is primarily environmental.

See, that's the disconnect, I think. I don't want to play a game whre the storytelling is primarily environmental, at least not in a paradigm like DnD where combat becomes a whole thing, and I definitely wouldn't want to use 5e where threat in a dungeon delve is based primarily on resource attrition.

I can enjoy a delve in a game where combat is more like many pbta games, where you just make a roll to find out the cost of a fight. But...DnD? Nah. To me, DnD is primarily good at save-the-world stories and other plot and character focused stories.

 

[Charlaquin]

A secret door you're guaranteed to find is not really secret, is it?

Also, I gather that some folks in this thread have never lost their keys. If you are one of those people, let me explain it: You were in the kitchen. You had your keys. You know both of these things to be true. But now you don't have your keys. WTF? How is that possible? You search the kitchen. No keys. You go to the living room. No keys. You go to the bedroom. Nope. You check the damn bathroom even though there's no goddamn reason they would be there. Nada. Frustrated, you go back into the kitchen. There they are. Right next to your wallet. What?

I did find my keys in that example, though. I spent sufficient time searching for them, and succeeded in finding them. Now, currently with quarantine, it doesn’t really matter how much time I spent looking for them, so there’s no point making rolls to find that out. But if I have to be at work in 20 minutes, then it matters how long it takes me to find them, so a roll would be needed to resolve that uncertainty.

So, the idea that there is "no roll necessary" even when a player says "I search the room" or "I search the dresser" or even "I check every drawer" doesn't make sense. Maybe you just don't find it because you failed to see what was right in front of your face.

Sure, maybe I did, but unless finding my keys in a timely fashion actually matters, the reason I didn’t find them right away is immaterial. Heck, whether or not I found them right away is immaterial.

Now, someone is going to say, "That's not fun! Now the PCs can't move forward" or something similar that emphasizes the gameplay aspect of the key. Well, here's the thing: if the PCs can't fail to find the key because it is necessary, there is no minimum level of the much touted "reasonable specificity" because they MUST find it.

Actually, I had been assuming that progress did not depend on finding the key - either it opened something completely optional, or there was an alternative route to whatever non-optional thing it locked off. Because as you point out, gating its discovery behind a successful check would be poor design otherwise.

Otherwise we are back to -- you guessed it -- pixelbitching. Which, if you don't know, is technically defined as The Worst Way To Play D&D Ever.

Now, all of this ignore context, of course. Where are we? What is the party doing? Is it a dungeon? IS it an active residence? Who hid the key? Why? What does it open? Who knows the key is there? Do the PCs know they are looking for a key? Can they at least guess? Context is everything and none of the other arguments happening in this thread can be answered until the context is taken into account.

Agreed. Discussions like this are always woefully lacking in context.

For what it is worth, I think there are two broad categories involving the hidden key: it is a macguffin, or it's not. If it is, the PCs are going to find it, so it isn't really hidden. "Searching" for it is mostly about contextualizing the transition from one adventure stage (looking for the key) to the next (using the key). If it isn't, then it is entirely possible the PCs never find it and that's fine, even if they miss out on whatever treasure, encounter, story and/or "flavor text" it opened.

I agree with you, and this is what I was trying (and apparently failing) to express in all this discussion of keys and sock drawers.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think this is important. Generally speaking, I try and use broad description and then drill down in response to questions.

I’m not a fan of this, as I find “20 questions” play very boring, and it slows the game down.

 

[Fenris-77]

See, that's the disconnect, I think. I don't want to play a game whre the storytelling is primarily environmental, at least not in a paradigm like DnD where combat becomes a whole thing, and I definitely wouldn't want to use 5e where threat in a dungeon delve is based primarily on resource attrition.

I can enjoy a delve in a game where combat is more like many pbta games, where you just make a roll to find out the cost of a fight. But...DnD? Nah. To me, DnD is primarily good at save-the-world stories and other plot and character focused stories.

But that doesn't make it not an essential game design tool, nor not especially important to environmental storytelling. It's fine you don't like those games of course, but that doesn't mean they aren't any good or that they don't require a different set of tools.

I also think it's maybe a little unfair to call resource attrition the primary threat. Even in OSR games where resource attrition is a core feature, with its own mechanics and whatever, it's not the primary threat. It's an additional source of planning and stress that highlight and amplify the actual threats. It's still zombies waiting to eat your face, but you also have to worry about having that happen in the dark. Used right it's a fantastic storytelling tool. It's not for everyone though.

 

[Fenris-77]

I’m not a fan of this, as I find “20 questions” play very boring, and it slows the game down.

I'm more of a three question guy, if I had to put a number on it.

 

[iserith]

I’m not a fan of this, as I find “20 questions” play very boring, and it slows the game down.

Some might say it's as bad as pixelbitching.