D&D 5E Common sense isn't so common and the need for tolerance

[Tony Vargas]

the frankly bizarre skill DCs that are baked into 5e.

Hey, 5e isn't even half-baked!

...

er, I mean: you're wrong! DCs are set by the DM!

... and sometimes they are just generally a downward weight on how the game plays (5e skills).

What? You declare an action. You don't pick a skill-button and push it. Is that so wrong?

 

[cmad1977]

If you ever trawl through threads where DMs get together to crow about how their PCs do dumb things, then take special note:

A very high number of those stories come down to the DM failing to communicate something to the player, the player declaring their action and the DM interpreting that in a nonsensical fashion, while at the same time declaring that there are no takebacks.

This applies to everything from the legendary "Gazebo" incident to characters in modern games detonating petrol tankers with ordinary gunfire and destroying city blocks, to the frankly bizarre skill DCs that are baked into 5e.

Sometimes these incidents are harmless and funny (ie - The dread gazebo), other times they're excessively punitive (the tanker) and sometimes they are just generally a downward weight on how the game plays (5e skills).

But all of them can be solved with better communication - and communication means not just saying something, but ensuring that it is understood.

Yup. I try to make sure my players are clear on their situation.

Player: ‘ok well... I’m going to leap the pit of razorsharpdeath’
DM: ‘you realize that may be certain death?’
Player:’I know.. but we have to save princess macguffin’
DM: ‘ok... but did you miss the part where there’s a bridge over the pit of razorsharpdeath’
Player: ‘what? Oh..yeah.. Eff that, we’re walking team!’


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[Tony Vargas]

DM: ‘you realize that may be certain death?’

I did not realize that, no.

 

[Saeviomagy]

What? You declare an action. You don't pick a skill-button and push it. Is that so wrong?

The problem arises when the DM thinks "This is an action that should have a chance to fail, and it seems obvious to me that it has consequences for failure. It seems like a fairly straightforward task that an expert wouldn't have a problem with it, so that is an easy DC." and then only says "Ok, roll me a DC 10".

And then, when the character fails, as is quite likely given the numbers involved, suddenly the professional con artist walks into the throne room and fails to successfully convince people that his name is Bob, not Bill. Or some other such relatively trivial-seeming thing.

Most of that can be solved by the DM explaining why something is a DC 10, being flexible with that DC, and explaining what the consequence for failure is. Heck, even before such a thing happens in play, there should be an understanding of how the social skills are going to work when people are going to make an investment in them. If my con-artist is going to have a 20% chance of being uncovered each and every time he lies about even trivial things... then maybe I'll just play another concept instead of being forced into a comedy trope as the worst liar the world has ever seen.

In a lot of other games, that whole conversation is short circuited, because the rulebook does all that communication for you. But in 5e, you really don't have any idea how skills are going to work unless you have that conversation.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The problem arises when the DM thinks "This is an action that should have a chance to fail, and it seems obvious to me that it has consequences for failure. It seems like a fairly straightforward task that an expert wouldn't have a problem with it, so that is an easy DC." and then only says "Ok, roll me a DC 10".

Hmmm... why tell them the DC?
And how is that a problem, that's prettymuch just the resolution system, except for not calling for a specific check...

And then, when the character fails, as is quite likely given the numbers involved, suddenly the professional con artist walks into the throne room and fails

Good CHA and proficient in Deception? Not too likely to fail a DC 10. Certainly not if he's a rogue or bard with Expertise in it. I suppose at first level, but nothing's 'easy' at 1st level...

Most of that can be solved by the DM explaining why something is a DC 10, being flexible with that DC, and explaining what the consequence for failure is. Heck, even before such a thing happens in play, there should be an understanding of how the social skills are going to work when people are going to make an investment in them. If my con-artist is going to have a 20% chance of being uncovered each and every time he lies about even trivial things... then maybe I'll just play another concept instead of being forced into a comedy trope as the worst liar the world has ever seen.

In a lot of other games, that whole conversation is short circuited, because the rulebook does all that communication for you.

Wait, how does a rulebook do communication for you? You mean because it might contain actual, functional rules that cover most situations without reference to the GM, so everyone at the table knows what their characters are actually capable of?

But in 5e, you really don't have any idea how skills are going to work unless you have that conversation.

You also don't really get a hint that you're supposed to have that conversation (and, I'm not convinced you are: the player is supposed to the declare an action, the DM to narrate success/failure or call for a roll - nothing about explaining that decision to the player). 5e, IMHX, plays well 'close to the vest,' take all that behind the DM screen and narrate what happens as a consequence. Heck, making rolls in secret can work better than calling for them anytime there might be a surprise in the consequences of success/failure...

Now there are games - like, what-is-that-indie-game.... Blades in the Dark, Powered by the Apocalypse system, I think - that do walk you through about that kind of conversation. What are you trying to do, how are you trying to do it, what are you putting at stake to get it done, etc... making the players more like authors of the story.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Hmmm... why tell them the DC?
And how is that a problem, that's pretty much just the resolution system, except for not calling for a specific check...

Right... but it's usually pretty easy to work out what skills apply. The only difference this really makes is whether the player talks the DM around to a different skill being used, or whether the DM just randomly made things much harder because he didn't decide on an applicable skill and the skill rules don't actually say to change DCs based on that...

Good CHA and proficient in Deception? Not too likely to fail a DC 10.

20% is plenty if the consequences are bad. The DMG has very little advice about consequences except to say that they might be one reason to call for a check instead of allow automatic success.

Certainly not if he's a rogue or bard with Expertise in it. I suppose at first level, but nothing's 'easy' at 1st level...

A rogue or bard with expertise is still sitting at a 10% failure chance. Which is better, to be sure, but bear in mind we're now talking about only two character classes, in their focussed skills with the best available stats in place, still failing at an 'easy' task.

Also that first level is actually "1-4th level". Our friend the super-specialized, maxxed primary stat rogue or bard won't get to 100% surety until he hits 5th.

Finally - in what bizarro world does a non-scaling difficulty system that says a task is 'easy' not actually mean a task is 'easy'? That's the sort of poor communication I'm talking about.

Wait, how does a rulebook do communication for you? You mean because it might contain actual, functional rules that cover most situations without reference to the GM, so everyone at the table knows what their characters are actually capable of?

That's a possibility. Or it could have 'easy' checks that are actually 'easy' rather than 'the best possible character at this check still fails 10% of the time with no confounding factors'.

You also don't really get a hint that you're supposed to have that conversation (and, I'm not convinced you are: the player is supposed to the declare an action, the DM to narrate success/failure or call for a roll - nothing about explaining that decision to the player).

I'm personally not surprised that the game isn't self-aware enough to realize that it's rules necessitate this.

5e, IMHX, plays well 'close to the vest,' take all that behind the DM screen and narrate what happens as a consequence. Heck, making rolls in secret can work better than calling for them anytime there might be a surprise in the consequences of success/failure...

Right, but that just ends up with characters walking into a room and failing what is described as an easy task because the DM decided a roll was necessary because of 'consequences' and assigned an 'easy-but-actually-fairly-risky-if-you-think-about-it' DC, then rolled against it and failed. You've just hidden the final numbers, not the result.

Now there are games - like, what-is-that-indie-game.... Blades in the Dark, Powered by the Apocalypse system, I think - that do walk you through about that kind of conversation. What are you trying to do, how are you trying to do it, what are you putting at stake to get it done, etc... making the players more like authors of the story.

Right. But even previous editions of D&D did a better job at making DCs conform to expectations, through the devious mechanic of simply making a starting trained character have a high enough modifier to automatically succeed at an easy DC.

 

[Wulffolk]

Common Sense . . . I have found very little that is so common that a determined person can't find a way to argue over it. That is why it is important to find others that share your particular views of "common sense". Mutual trust, respect and empathy go a long ways towards insuring that everybody has fun.

The players that tend to have the biggest problem with this concept are those that consider the game to be a competition that they can "win". Those that do best are those that know that they "win" just by participating in a fun session of collaborative story-telling and role-playing.

 

[Yardiff]

My opinion.
So use point buy, give your character a 17 in cha. Be variant human and take the actor feat. Pick bard or rogue for class. Now you have an 18 cha expertise in deception and get advantage on deception rolls.

Even without actor feat 80% to succeed seems pretty good to me.

 

[Celebrim]

"So, one thing I love about 5e is that goes back to the notion of rulings, not rules."

I don't think that there is much of a difference between the two, so when ever anyone brings this up like there is... I have to exercise tolerance.

The real problem with rulings is that they stop the game even harder than having to look up the answer in the book; because, if anyone actually cares about the answer enough realize there is a question and multiple answers, then they'll stop and work out and maybe discuss all these factors before picking an answer. But the moment that they do, they've created a rule.

It's easy to see why if you think about it. Imagine a hypothetical table with inexperienced players that are just starting to game and have not yet read the rules. All they have is propositions and for each proposition they can see that the DM is applying some process to determine the outcome. They have no real way of knowing whether that process came from a book or was invented on the spur of the moment, and as such every proposition that they make creates the same expectations regardless of whether it was a 'ruling' or a 'rule'. And since both have the same process of play from the perspective of these players, and both engender the same expectations regarding the process of play and the social contract, there isn't much in the way to distinguish a rule from a ruling once the ruling actually becomes a part of play. Any "DM empowerment", if that is what it is, last only until the ruling is made, at which point he's just as bound - or not bound - by it as he is any other rule.

Fundamentally, what you are actually talking about is an attitude - the ability to see that the game is always larger than the rules and never can be and never is actually constrained by them. That attitude has nothing to do with "rulings and not rules". It has to do with realizing that the game actually needs a GM and can't be run by the rules. The rules exist as an aid to play - a very useful aid, especially if they are well thought out rules - but ultimately the GM is always responsible for the resolution part of the propostion-resolution-outcome cycle.

It's good to notice that rulings require a degree of trust, but so do rules. If the rules demand resolutions and outcomes that are clearly nonsense, you can't expect players to just go along with it just because the rules say so. Your players are going to walk away form the table if you enforce unfair poorly thought out rules, regardless of whether someone wrote them down or not. Pointing at a rulebook and saying that the rules demand this is no defense.

PS: Common sense is just things that everyone believes, and which everyone is taught, which the majority of people have never reflected on our questioned.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Right... but it's usually pretty easy to work out what skills apply. The only difference this really makes is whether the player talks the DM around to a different skill being used

The players' place in 5e is to come up with an action, not declare a skill or start a debate...

A rogue or bard with expertise is still sitting at a 10% failure chance.
...
Finally - in what bizarro world does a non-scaling difficulty system that says a task is 'easy' not actually mean a task is 'easy'?... Or it could have 'easy' checks that are actually 'easy' rather than 'the best possible character at this check still fails 10% of the time with no confounding factor

A chance of failure of 10% can only get slightly easier on a d20, if 5 or 10% is too much, it's not really uncertain: just narrate success...

I'm personally not surprised that the game isn't self-aware enough to realize that it's rules necessitate this.

It would be surprising for a TT game to achieve self-awareness.

Right. But even previous editions of D&D did a better job at making DCs conform to expectations, through the devious mechanic of simply making a starting trained character have a high enough modifier to automatically succeed at an easy DC.

What you mean by easy in that context is what 5e handles by the DM narrating success. Rolls are called for when there's a chance of failure.