D&D 5E Consequences of Failure

[5ekyu]

Exactly - it either happens (in means and ways either expected or unexpected) or it doesn't.

Forcing it to happen via arbitrary decisions made by you-as-DM is in my eyes just another form of railroading: you're not being neutral, nor are you presenting the setting and events therein in a neutral manner. Instead you're tweaking these things in response to what the PCs do, in order to force drama upon them - drama which the PCs might prefer to avoid, mitigate, or pre-shape if they had the ways and means to do so that you have denied them.

Followed by the drama of whatever happens when the enemy force thunders in across the drawbridge...

Cool - though in my view geography in particular is something that absolutely has to be fixed* in place, and properly so.

* - unless one is in a dreamworld or similar where these things are not constant

I ran into this when reading through a published module the other day (forget which one now) where the very pretty maps had obviously been scaled to suit the specific goals of the adventure designer in different parts of the adventure...resulting in two specific locations being x distance apart on one map and y distance apart on another, according to the scales on the maps - where x and y differ by a factor of about 4.

Obviously the adventure designer wanted travel time between these two sites to be short when dealing with local stuff but much longer when dealing with regional travel.

As a trained geographer, I see this as abhorrent!

As an aside, I recall a reference to "speed of plot" from any number of scifi authors especially for TV when questions of how fast the ships move. I recall also the use of one lampooning of this by having one helmsman answer "how far away at top speed?" with "two commercial breaks, sir."

A trope and structure that likely fits some styles fine and others not well at all. Just like say "coincidence is fine to get heroes into trouble, but not out."

 

[Maxperson]

For this post when I use "us" I am talking about the players.

The primary issue with telegraphing in this sort of play are that the referee is deciding for us what demands attention. The other issue is that it can involve deciding what is at stake before the players act. The referee is not supposed to decide what demands our attention or what the consequences will be before the players act. The referee has no way of knowing what is at stake because he or she does not know what our goals are or what we are trying to get out of any given interaction and we would not give an answer if asked.

I disagree entirely that telegraphing is deciding for the players what demands attention. It's no more attention demanding than the wall you described. What telegraphing is, is putting in details that would in fact be there if the creature in question were present.

Let's go with a red dragon lair. When the PCs enter the cave, the DM might describe the cave along with the notation that the PCs smell the distinct presence of brimstone. Now, I as the DM know that the red dragon's breath use is what is giving off that smell. However, the players might not think that, because it might also be a vein of sulfer in the cave, or lava down deeper, or some devils who made their home there, or some other fire creature/reason.

Telegraphing is just part describing the environment. It's not putting in a neon sign that says, -------> BEHOLDER HERE <-------

 

[Krachek]

The Dm with pure objectivity is possible in dungeon crawl sandbox style.
But this is only a small set of where DnD adventurers can go.
Large complex, city, Outland are to big to map completely and decide in advance all trap, encounter, and other feature.
Player ask for information, dm has to decide and/or roll to answer. Thus in a way he interfere in the utopian objectivity.

Dm is part of the game, he is not an automaton that describe a setting.
He sometime create the setting on the fly, because the game ask that.

 

[Charlaquin]

The 5e Basic PDF has an example of play. So does the rulebook for Apocalypse World. I think they illustrate - in broad terms, at least - the relevant contrast.

Spoiler: AW example of play

I assume everyone knows the D&D example. The AW one has a psychic PC going to try to mess with a rival group of gang-members, and accidentaly frying the brains of one of them in the process, which leads to that rival gang turning up at the PC's house, part-forcing open her door and throwing in a grenade. The home invasion ends with the PC frying the brains of some of the attacking NPCs and cutting another down with a chainsaw.

Could you maybe quote the two examples? The 5e PHB has lots of examples of play, none of which I remember off the top of my head, and I can’t identify anything in this summary of the AW example that wouldn’t work fine in D&D, apart from it being a post-apocalyptic rather than fantasy setting.

Another way of looking at it is the names of "moves" - 5e has the WIS (Insight) check; Apocalypse World has read a charged situation.

Hold up. Wisdom (Insight) check is not a “move” in 5e, at least not the way I run it. A Wisdom check is a tool for resolving uncertainty in the outcomes of actions that involve attunement to the world around one’s self, perceptiveness, and intuition. The Insight skill is a modifier you can apply to Wisdom checks (or any checks if the DM is using the Skills With Other Abilities optional rule) that involve gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms to determine the true intentions of a creature. In AW terms, a Wisdom (Insight) check is not the equivalent of read a charged situation, it’s the equivalent of roll +sharp. Moves don’t really have a clear analogue in 5e. I guess they’re kind of like actions, but it’s a bit more nuanced than that. It’s like if the rules described certain specific actions and instructed the DM to call for a check any time a player describes their character performing that action.

Now I'll cheerfully concede that there is a degree of contrivance there - I mean, they're just labels. But in this case the contrivance of the label points to something real underneath. In AW if a situation is not charged then it's not really a focus of play (or, perhaps, one might say that it's the job of the GM and the players, between them, to make situations into charged ones). That's the immediacy - or at least an example of the immediacy - that @Campbell is talking about (assuming I've read his posts right). Which also links to his contrast between (what he calls) telegraphing and the (mere) description of the environment.

So, I haven’t played or run Apocalypse World, though I have read it, and it looks pretty cool. But are you saying that during a typical game of apocalypse world, there are no situations that could not be described as “charged” played out at the table? If so, first of all that sounds like very poor pacing to me. Good narrative pacing has highs and lows of tension. If it’s all high all the time, it would get exhausting quickly. Second of all, I don’t see anything about 5e that would stop someone from framing their scenes that way if that’s what they wanted. I certainly endeavor to keep my games focused on challenging situations for the PCs to overcome. I’m also still not seeing how that is in any way in conflict with describing the environment, and including in that description indications of hidden danger.

 

[Charlaquin]

The Dm with pure objectivity is possible in dungeon crawl sandbox style.

I disagree. This is like claiming that unbiased journalism is possible. It’s just not true, as long as the DM (or the journalist) is a human being and not a computer. And I think proponents of this play style realize it, which is why you see practices such as the DM making checks in secret, players being asked to leave the room during scenes their character is not present for, or the DM being asked to leave while the players plan their next move. The aim is to minimize the potential influence of human bias in the resolution process. Which, if that’s what folks want, more power to them. Personally, I see that as a whole lot of extra work just to remove from a TTRPG its greatest advantage over video games, but to each their own.

 

[Guest 6801328]

This thread has gotten way too theoretical. In a staring-at-one's-navel kind of way.

 

[Krachek]

I disagree. This is like claiming that unbiased journalism is possible. It’s just not true, as long as the DM (or the journalist) is a human being and not a computer. And I think proponents of this play style realize it, which is why you see practices such as the DM making checks in secret, players being asked to leave the room during scenes their character is not present for, or the DM being asked to leave while the players plan their next move. The aim is to minimize the potential influence of human bias in the resolution process. Which, if that’s what folks want, more power to them. Personally, I see that as a whole lot of extra work just to remove from a TTRPG its greatest advantage over video games, but to each their own.

Your damn right. We take as standard a lot of Dm call, choice and decision.
My pure objectivity involve much more than I thought.
I go back to my point, the Dm has to make believe a world that live by its own.
It is never perfect, but if players focus on the right thing the illusion may be satisfying.

 

[Guest 6801328]

...but if players focus on the right thing the illusion may be satisfying.

I focus on killing stuff and taking their $%#&. It's pretty satisfying.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

This thread has gotten way too theoretical. In a staring-at-one's-navel kind of way.

Yeah, let's get back to it:

During wilderness exploration, the party stumbles upon a grove of standing stones with weathered runes upon them, the caretakers having long abandoned the site. No one knows who they were, or what they were doing. But now one of the PCs harkens back to wandering the woods behind the family farm... "I approach one of the standing stones to examine, visually at first, the runes and compare them against what I remember of the stones behind our family farm where the green robed humanoids chanted but always kept their distance when we wandered nearby."

An INT ability check seems appropriate for a DM to call, assuming a meaningful consequence of failure might follow.

Which of the 5 INT skills (or even other skills, if you allow variant Skills with Different Abilities) might you let a player invoke in response to being asked to roll?
What might be a meaningful consequence of failure here?

I have some ideas on both, but wonder what others might say. Assumption here is following a goal-and-approach style.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Yeah, let's get back to it:

During wilderness exploration, the party stumbles upon a grove of standing stones with weathered runes upon them, the caretakers having long abandoned the site. No one knows who they were, or what they were doing. But now one of the PCs harkens back to wandering the woods behind the family farm... "I approach one of the standing stones to examine, visually at first, the runes and compare them against what I remember of the stones behind our family farm where the green robed humanoids chanted but always kept their distance when we wandered nearby."

An INT ability check seems appropriate for a DM to call, assuming a meaningful consequence of failure might follow.

Which of the 5 INT skills (or even other skills, if you allow variant Skills with Different Abilities) might you let a player invoke in response to being asked to roll?
What might be a meaningful consequence of failure here?

I have some ideas on both, but wonder what others might say. Assumptoin here is following a goal-and-approach style.

It depends on the consequence of failure, and how that's communicated.

If it's just to know something about the history of the place, with the "consequence" (here we go...) being lack of progress, that I wouldn't have a roll.

If it's to remember how you can activate the stones (I'm making this up...) with bad results if you activate them wrong, then roll.

But let's weave some more of the theme's threads in here...

What if it the stones might belong to Cult A, or it might be Cult B. And getting it wrong could have consequences later? Like, using the correct greeting would earn their trust, but the incorrect one would make them hostile?

Somehow I'd like to give the player an answer now, but then later, when/if a critical moment comes the player would roll. But the only way I can see doing that is to use quantum dice: at the moment of the roll, the world could change. That is, I tell the player, it's Cult A. Later, they meet the tenders of the stones, and assuming they are from A, use the A greeting. At that moment they roll, and if the roll is failed...nope! They are Cult B! So I have to be willing for the story to branch either way at the moment of the roll.

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying I'd necessarily do this, or that there even needs to be a consequence to trying to remember things about the stones. I just think it's an interesting exercise to explore these pathways.