D&D 5E Consequences of Failure

[Charlaquin]

It's the same with combat. Sometimes a player will say "I attack the orc" and the DM has to clarify which one.

To use GAA terminology, the player just needs to convey their goal and approach in a mutually satisfactory manner.

I agree!

No need for a formal approach or phrase restriction.

No need for it, true, but setting the expectation that actions be phrased that way can have benefits. For example, it saves time by eliminating the need to clarify a player’s meaning. It also removes the possibility of the DM incorrectly assuming a player’s meaning. It makes the game run more smoothly in my experience.

 

[iserith]

Bigger aside - I have to wonder - if the skill list was listed as verbs like the actions are, how much of the fixation over "thou shalt not call skills" would go away?

I mean "cast a spell" simply puts a choice of what to do "in the form of an action statement" (back to Jeopardy) by default.

Skills however list nouns.

So what if Perception was "noticing stuff" and stealth was "hidin'" and Arcana was "thinkin' back on magic stuff" etc etc etc.

No, it's not about that. The rules don't support players asking to make ability checks. So the method being referred to as "goal and approach" doesn't permit players to do that. It's not about what the skill proficiencies are called.

Play in my D&D 4e game, where the rules explicitly say the players often initiate skill checks (and the DM almost always says "Yes"), then you can ask to make skill checks all you want. But not in my D&D 5e game. And anyway, when I'm playing a game where the DM gets to decide if I automatically succeed or fail, I'm going to try to avoid rolling by removing the uncertainty as to the outcome and/or the meaningful consequence for failure if I can. That's the smart play. I'm not going to ask to be subjected to a fickle d20.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Goal (implicit): to roast all those clustered baddies
Approach: "I step forward 15 feet, so I am just in range, and then cast fireball, using a 4th level slot, centered exactly here on the battlemap."
The player's statement certainly has reasonable specificity. How is GaA falling apart here and why is it deemed awkward?

It's not falling apart, GaA is just obviated by the mechanics of spellcasting, which have no uncertainty, and little call for DM judgment in the resolution. You push the button, and the spell executes according to the description. The DM may have to interpret that description, but he doesn't need to judge uncertainty nor even narrate the results, much, beyond how toasted the clustered baddies end up.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

It's not falling apart, GaA is just obviated by the mechanics of spellcasting, which have no uncertainty, and little call for DM judgment in the resolution. You push the button, and the spell executes according to the description. The DM may have to interpret that description, but he doesn't need to judge uncertainty nor even narrate the results, much, beyond how toasted the clustered baddies end up.

GaA obviated? Hardly. Not every approach is going to have uncertainty regarding success or failure. Plenty of actions succeed or fail automatically with GaA - so that makes the DM's job easy in those cases. No roll to see if the action fails - the action just happens. If you said the roll for success/failure was obviated by the mechanics of spellcasting, I'd mostly agree. One exception being spells that require attack rolls.

@Charlaquin says this more eloquently:

Spells are a bit of a different case, as there is almost never uncertainty that the approach (the execution of the particular components of the spell) will achieve the goal (producing the effects of the spell). Generally, it is certain to succeed, unless you are in an antimagic field or something, in which case it is certain to fail. Counterspell can make a spellcasting action’s outcome uncertain, if the spell being cast is a higher level than the counterspell. Once the effect is produced, sometimes the target(s) have a chance to avoid its effects, so they make a saving throw. Sometimes it’s uncertain if a spell will hit its target, so you make a spell attack roll.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you said the roll for success/failure was obviated by the mechanics of spellcasting, I'd mostly agree. One exception being spells that require attack rolls.

Well, I mean, your approach is casting a spell? The goal is? The spell effect? There's still a goal & approach, sure. But, unlike using a check, what's happening is prescribed by the spell description.

The beauty of GaA is that it slots neatly into the Play Loop, and gives the player clear guidance of how to deal with an otherwise very ambiguous system. No, you can't /really/ tell what your character can do based simply on having a 14 in a given stat & proficiency in a given skill, but you can /describe/ what he's trying to accomplish & how.

Spellcasting, you know before you cast the spell what it can & will do.

@Charlaquin says this more eloquently:

I think I'm in agreement with her.

 

[Charlaquin]

It’s really pretty intuitive how these cases work under G&A if you just get into the mindset of actions as things characters do and checks as a mechanical process players perform to determine the outcomes of actions. If the outcome of the action is obvious, you don’t need to perform that process. If the outcome of the action is in doubt, you make a check to settle it impartially.

 

[iserith]

It’s really pretty intuitive how these cases work under G&A if you just get into the mindset of actions as things characters do and checks as a mechanical process players perform to determine the outcomes of actions. If the outcome of the action is obvious, you don’t need to perform that process. If the outcome of the action is in doubt, you make a check to settle it impartially.

Yeah, this really isn't difficult. Say what you want to achieve and how, then wait for the DM to adjudicate. Players don't perform the DM's role. DM doesn't perform the players' role. Easy, makes the game run very smoothly. And it's right there in the rules.

Doesn't mean you have to play that way, but this should not be hard to understand in my view.

 

[Campbell]

I have no skin in the game as far as if the combat and spell systems are compatible with goal and approach as defined in this thread.

I think it is fundamentally different in character to the play processes used outside of combat and spell use where things are resolved solely based on the fiction and what characters are trying to achieve.

 

[iserith]

I have no skin in the game as far as if the combat and spell systems are compatible with goal and approach as defined in this thread.

I think it is fundamentally different in character to the play processes used outside of combat and spell use where things are resolved solely based on the fiction and what characters are trying to achieve.

As far as the rules as concerned, I don't think they are. I think plenty of people play as if they are and perhaps that informs their perception of it. But the play procedure is the same no matter the pillar of the game and it says so in the "How to Play" section. Combat is a little more structured than in exploration or social interaction challenges, but the basic form remains the same: DM says some stuff. Player says a thing. DM says how that thing goes, sometimes calling for a roll to resolve it. Repeat.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I have no skin in the game as far as if the combat and spell systems are compatible with goal and approach as defined in this thread.

The way I see it, that spellcasting doesn't involve the ambiguity/uncertainty that G&A helps with doesn't render it incompatible, just that the formalization of action declaration that G&A provides isn't the godsend for spellcasting or combat or saves that it is for other checks. Because spellcasting & combat are already pretty formalized...
...and saves are just an outlier because they're calling for uncertainty-resolution from the subject of the Goal, rather than the chooser of the Approach.

IMHO, G&A would be a more elegant in application if the whole system were player-rolls-everything. And the system would be more elegant if it were all G&A.