D&D General Breaking Out of "Default Actions"

[MarkB]

I feel like folks are getting hung up on the examples. :/

In this case, it was a drow ambush. We were trapped inside a cave by darkness / black tentacles, and the enemy casters were on the far side. The options were "hit low level mooks," "try your luck charging through the black tentacles," or "prevent your buddy from getting strangled to death."

My point is that defaulting to the best case scenario can often be a mistake in strategic thinking.

One issue is that it's hard to quantify the effectiveness of non-standard actions, because they rely upon (a) the player having a sufficient grasp of the imaginary situation to picture the existence of the option, (b) the DM agreeing that such an option is something the character is able to attempt, within the bounds of their available actions, and (c) the DM not deciding that it's going to require the use of a skill or ability with which the character has no aptitude. If the warlock blows his action on dragging his buddy out of those tentacles, and winds up having to make an untrained Athletics check using his dump-stat Strength score, it's probably not going to go well.

 

[NaturalZero]

One issue is that it's hard to quantify the effectiveness of non-standard actions, because they rely upon (a) the player having a sufficient grasp of the imaginary situation to picture the existence of the option, (b) the DM agreeing that such an option is something the character is able to attempt, within the bounds of their available actions, and (c) the DM not deciding that it's going to require the use of a skill or ability with which the character has no aptitude. If the warlock blows his action on dragging his buddy out of those tentacles, and winds up having to make an untrained Athletics check using his dump-stat Strength score, it's probably not going to go well.

Yeah. I'm never going to spend my action trying to drag someone with my Cha character instead of dealing damage and removing threats. The big part of the issue is that i know EXACTLY how the mechanics of my attack works - I roll to attack, deal damage, and move closer to a point where the enemy can't attack. When it comes to dragging someone out of some kind spell effect, the mechanical play of the scenario is less well defined and is potentially completely ineffective. It makes more sense to default to the mechanic that has a guaranteed chance of being useful.

 

[Fenris-77]

The mechanics in D&D are the main culprit here IMO. D&D has pretty great combat mechanics - they're clear, reliable and they do what it says on the tin. Once you step outside that box things can get a little muddled. The rules involved in 'other actions' aren't nearly as well defined and a whole lot rests on the style of the DM for the game and how he tends to adjudicate those actions. Personally, I tend to encourage those other actions by making them punchy and effective and reliable enough that they seem like a reasonable option when set next to whatever combat action the character is good at.

If you don't incentivize those actions to a certain extent the rules of D&D will disincline players form attempting them, either though fuzzy outcomes, or lack of specificity in the rules. If the player can't picture what pulling their comrade out of the tentacles looks like, if they can't gauge their chance of success, or even what resolution mechanics will be in play, then they aren't nearly as likely to make the attempt.

 

[iserith]

I find a lot of these concerns about less defined actions having poor adjudication go away when the player is clear about his or her goal (what the character wants to achieve) and approach (what the character does to achieve it), particularly if the DM is willing to negotiate a bit to get to a fair adjudication or result. It's when the player isn't clear about the goal and approach or the DM just adjudicates in a black box or requires players to commit to an action before the DC or relevant check (if any) is announced that things can get problematic. Transparency on the part of the DM can make a big difference in terms of how comfortable players are in trying these "nonstandard" actions.

 

[MichaelSomething]

You also have to take into account time. Won't combats a lot longer if every turn was required an extra minute to calculate and negotiate non standard maneuvers?? I thought people wanted good pacing and flow??

 

[iserith]

You also have to take into account time. Won't combats a lot longer if every turn was required an extra minute to calculate and negotiate non standard maneuvers?? I thought people wanted good pacing and flow??

My experience suggests that there is no impact on pacing. I give a DC, a check, and what failure looks like (if it's not obvious). My game's still faster than every other game I've played in or observed. The speed or pacing of a game being slowed down comes from other areas, not this.

 

[Sadras]

When you want to have player consider non-standard actions, you have to make them worthwhile. In one adventure, the party was fighting in a torture chamber. I had fully described the room before combat began, and one of the players remembered me mentioning an Iron Maiden. He pushed the torturer into the Iron Maiden, then shut the door. I ruled an amount of damage that was maybe slightly higher than normal. The next player in the initiative went up to the Iron Maiden, opened it and then slammed it shut again. This repeated by each PC, and the torture was quickly slain without spending resources.

Be Quick or Be Dead

 

[JiffyPopTart]

As a player: I will sometimes be the "wizard that steps up and calls out the ogre" as in the article when I find my fellow players are being much too cautious or spending too much time optimizing or planning against an easy encounter just to move things along. If I die doing it...oh well.

As a GM: I try to encourage playrs doing things out-of-the-routine occasionaly in and out of combat by giving generous bonuses or extra rewards when its attempted. I don't want combat to degenerate in to every round being 5 different goofball environment interactions, but if each player does one or two per combat I find it breaks up the monotony of Eldritch blasting, arrow shooting, and attack-move-hiding.

 

[jgsugden]

When I teach the game, I don't teach mechanics until the second session. I tell them a description of the character I built for them in plain English, and then tell them to tell me what they're doing in the story. We add mechanics over a few sessions, and the resulting role players tend to think less in terms of "their action menu" and more in terms of "story elements". It obviously does not work like that all the time, but it does enough of the time to convince me it is the best way to go.

As we play, the best way to encourage this type of thinking is to create the obvious "off the menu" situations and let them trigger those. Setting off an avalanche, burning the rope bridge, etc... are things that are easy to set up vernally for the players to capitalize upon.

 

[Dausuul]

To me, this is where the 'help' action can shine a bit: "I push the bookshelf over onto the enemy" is a nice description for a 'help' action. No roll needed - unless, of course, there's some kind of interesting consequence for failure. But that chance of failure often discourages players from being creative.

See, this also illustrates the problem: The Help action, in most scenarios, is terrible tactics. There are rare cases where it is worthwhile, but mostly you will accomplish far less than if you just swung a sword or cast a spell yourself.

This isn't really a flaw in the game design, per se. The Help action is not situational--it's usable pretty much all the time--so it has to be balanced conservatively to keep it from taking over combat. But there's no sense using unorthodox tactics if all they get you is a measly Help action. The DM has to encourage nonstandard tactics by providing nonstandard (and substantial) rewards.