D&D 5E (2014) Consequences of Failure

[Celebrim]

But, really, the purpose of the thread is something else.

I've mostly dropped out of this thread, but this seems like a good opportunity to ask, "What is the purpose of the thread?"

Another poster in the thread suggested that there was a disconnect in the original post between what you wrote and your actual intended purpose. I don't know how much you agree with that, but it would be nice to get a real clarification.

It seems to me that you have proposed a methodology for play which requires a meaningful consequence for failure before you roll. You've then noted that this methodology has a number of significant challenges and incoherencies, some of which I think deserve more attention. For example, why is it only the consequence of failure that determines if a roll is meaningful? If a roll has a consequence of failure, but no meaningful consequence of success is that also a bad roll? Do these principles apply to the NPCs? Do these principles override the logical consequences of success or failure in the fiction? That is to say, is the principle more important than the fiction itself, such that logically there shouldn't be a meaningful consequence of failure, nonetheless to adhere to the principle we invent a consequence of failure or else don't allow the roll? If we don't allow the roll, does that mean that the PC's automatically succeed in any situation where there is a meaningful consequence of success but not a meaningful consequence of failure, or do they automatically fail in those situations? Most of all, in your original post you seemed to focus on the challenge you were facing in applying this methodology rigorously when it was not supported by the fictional scenarios.

You seem to want applied answers to practical situations that frequently occur in play, but you want those applied answers without giving any clear description of the theoretical basis of your methodology. You addressed other posters that play according to your methodology. It's not clear who those posters are or whether your methodology and your interpretations are unique.

I think everyone in this thread agrees with you that it is far better play if a roll is meaningful. There is disagreement about whether the only rolls that are meaningful are the ones you describe. There is disagreement over whether it matters if some rolls are meaningless. We all agree that too much time spent on meaningless rolls is bad. We seem to disagree over how much ought to be sacrificed in ease of play, fictional positioning, and time trying to avoid those rolls.

So far my answer to you has amounted to, prepare good scenarios and pace your session so that the most focus is on the stuff that has meaningful consequences. Don't let slavish adherence to a principle disrupt the game, nor think you are doing it wrong when you decide to not slavishly adhere to principle and just make an obvious ruling to keep the game flowing. You think you are doing it wrong, but actually you are doing it right.

This hasn't made you happy, as it ought to have done. So if you want a better answer, you're going to have to make it clear what the question is.

 

[Guest 6801328]

#stop the passive agressiveness

Sorry, I'm really not trying to be passive aggressive. I'm just taking this as an "Ok, you believe one fundamental thing, and I believe another." And maybe the thing we don't agree on is the definition of "change in fictional state." Beating each other over the head with it probably isn't going to lead anywhere.

But let's take a look:

I couldn’t respond with my full thoughts at that moment. So here goes - if you try recall more and fail then doing so has already changed the fictional state to you don’t recall. The reason you auto fail the next check is because in such a fictional state it’s highly unlikely you will recall the 2nd attempt. Thus the DM listens to your goal and approach and determines the 2nd attempt is an auto failure due to the fiction leading him to believe the chance of success is so low that it shouldn’t even be rolled, just determined to be a failure.

Just because you sprinkle in references to the state of the fiction doesn't mean anything has changed. An example of a change in fictional state would be, "The NPC realizes you suspect him, and suddenly he won't talk to you anymore." But that's also an actual consequence to a failed roll, and might have implications beyond just not being able to try again (and should have, in my opinion, been put on the table as a consequence before the roll was made.)

Let's say a player makes a "knowledge check" and fails. He wants to try again and the DM says no. He asks why. Can you tell me what the DM says, that is based on the fiction, and isn't a "just because"?

I think it is a fruitful topic because you keep bringing things up about that solution that just aren’t true.

What is apparent is that you want a fair cost associated with skill use and not just a change in fictional state.

Well, I want both. I want a fair cost that is grounded in a change in the fictional state.

 

[Ovinomancer]

#stop the passive agressiveness

I couldn’t respond with my full thoughts at that moment. So here goes - if you try recall more and fail then doing so has already changed the fictional state to you don’t recall. The reason you auto fail the next check is because in such a fictional state it’s highly unlikely you will recall the 2nd attempt. Thus the DM listens to your goal and approach and determines the 2nd attempt is an auto failure due to the fiction leading him to believe the chance of success is so low that it shouldn’t even be rolled, just determined to be a failure

I think it is a fruitful topic because you keep bringing things up about that solution that just aren’t true.

What is apparent is that you want a fair cost associated with skill use and not just a change in fictional state.

Except... isn't this really just discovering exusting fiction, not changing it? We aren't altering tge situation so much as finding out what's what with this kind of check and adjudication. No actual change happens, the players just find out what already was.

 

[iserith]

I see that as a big problem, in that it's giving the players info their characters don't know and then expecting them to play as if they don't know it.

Except I don't have any expectations about players playing "as if they don't know it." Why would I? Nothing in the game suggests that's something I should care about.

Any time they say they're being stealthy, get 'em to roll - if the roll isn't needed right then, either take it under advisement for later if-when it is or tell them that the first bit of sneaking has gone [badly-normal-well] based on the roll.

In general, meaningless rolls are important because they help disguise the rolls that actually matter, and thus prevent (or greatly mitigate) any metagaming.

I don't care about "metagaming." And anyway, when that die is rolled, I'm probably determining surprise in which case initiative is two steps away. Or I'm setting up a scene that's about to play out. There's no delay between the roll and something interesting happening to which the players must now respond and either they're hidden or not hidden at the start of that scene.

Also - and not related specifically to the above quote or to you @iserith - I have to say I really do fail to see a problem with, when someone tries a knowledge check and blows it, simply saying "Nope, nothing" and moving on with the game.

Put another way and applied more generally, a continuation of the status quo is often* a valid outcome. You try to climb a wall and fail - you're still (or back) at the bottom. You try to make friends with the guard and fail - you're still not friends with the guard.

* - sometimes a continuation of the status quo is impossble e.g. trying to jump across a chasm.

I have not argued that not recalling lore isn't a meaningful consequence for failure. In fact there are several posts in this very thread where I say that not recalling lore can be a meaningful consequence for failure. It depends on the context. But not recalling lore is not always a meaningful consequence for failure. The DM has to give some thought to the action in relation to the scene before racing to ask for an ability check. For those times when there is no meaningful consequence for failure, the character either succeeds or fails, no roll.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I've mostly dropped out of this thread, but this seems like a good opportunity to ask, "What is the purpose of the thread?"

Discuss ways that "skill checks" could have consequences, especially in the scenarios where imposing a cost is less obvious. (Note: the goal is not to make ALL goal-and-approach tasks put forward by players result in dice rolling or have negative consequences.)

Another poster in the thread suggested that there was a disconnect in the original post between what you wrote and your actual intended purpose. I don't know how much you agree with that, but it would be nice to get a real clarification.

Yes, it is clear to me that baggage from other threads led to misunderstanding about the goal. But I thought that was cleared up pages ago.

It seems to me that you have proposed a methodology for play which requires a meaningful consequence for failure before you roll.

I don't think I "proposed" that methodology. It's been discussed many times prior to this.

You've then noted that this methodology has a number of significant challenges and incoherencies, some of which I think deserve more attention.

Not exactly. I've noted that it's hard to apply consequences to some kind of actions declared by players, but the default under this methodology is to therefore not have a roll. The fact that I'd like to discuss ways they could have consequences doesn't suggest an incoherency. Rather it suggests that many of us may have an instinct to apply other standards in these situations. E.g., the knowledge check.

For example, why is it only the consequence of failure that determines if a roll is meaningful?

That's not a definition, it's the proposed goal in this thread. Rolls can be meaningful if success leads to a change in game state, even if failure does not. But that's not what I wanted to discuss.

Ok, I can't keep going through this line by line. But the general trend is that you still seem to think I'm saying some things I'm not. I don't understand why this is hard to understand, or why you want to keep arguing with me about it. Others seem to understand the goal of the thread; maybe they can explain it to you better.

 

[iserith]

That's not a definition, it's the proposed goal in this thread. Rolls can be meaningful if success leads to a change in game state, even if failure does not. But that's not what I wanted to discuss.

Also, rolls aren't the thing that is meaningful: actions and their consequences are. A roll is not an action, nor a consequence in terms of what is happening in the game world which is what we're judging and adjudicating to determine if a roll is needed to resolve uncertainty.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Also, rolls aren't the thing that is meaningful: actions and their consequences are. A roll is not an action, nor a consequence in terms of what is happening in the game world which is what we're judging and adjudicating to determine if a roll is needed to resolve uncertainty.

Great point. What I should have said is actions can be meaningful, even if only success, not failure, will change the game state. What I want to explore is ways to take more of those types of actions and think of interesting ways to also have meaningful consequences for failure. Not that all actions must have that, but let's push the envelop and see what we come up with.

Maybe my mistake was to mention dice rolls at all?

I do think a fundamental difference between the various POVs is in how we view the relationship between actions and dice rolls.

 

[iserith]

I do think a fundamental difference between the various POVs is in how we view the relationship between actions and dice rolls.

Yep. Some people think actions and checks are the same thing. They are not. If the said person doesn't know this, they may not understand some of the things under discussion. Certainly previous editions of the games treated actions and checks as the same thing. This is not the case in D&D 5e.

 

[iserith]

On the matter of actions and checks, a helpful distinction in my view is this:

An action may or may not have a check to resolve its outcome, when there's a meaningful consequence for failure. Sometimes the action is a success or a failure without a check.

A check must necessarily have been a result of an action that was attempted and, because there was a check, then the action that was attempted was not trivially easy or impossible and carried with it a meaningful consequence for failure.

This is the framework in which we're operating.

 

[Celebrim]

Also, rolls aren't the thing that is meaningful: actions and their consequences are. A roll is not an action, nor a consequence in terms of what is happening in the game world which is what we're judging and adjudicating to determine if a roll is needed to resolve uncertainty.

Ok, so maybe this goes somewhere.

Is the OP talking about a proposition (action) filter, that is something that limits what propositions are valid by the player. Or is he talking about a resolution methodology, that is, once a proposition is validated, how you determine how the proposition is resolved (checks)?

For example, in my game, the following declarations would fail a proposition filter as being propositions which are focus on mechanics rather than the game universe:

"I try to persuade the Baron to lend us troops." - Fails because there isn't even a hint of what the content of this persuasion would look like.
"I want to make a search check." - Fails because it doesn't specify what the character actually does or what in the fiction the character interacts with.

So for his standard process of play, does "I want to hide." fail as a proposition if hiding doesn't carry a meaningful consequence of failure, or does it get resolved without a check if there isn't a meaningful consequence of failure? And if it does get resolved without a check, then what actually happens? Or maybe I should say, what does he want to happen?

Is this distinct from or very similar to why "I want to hide" would tend to fail my own proposition filter, namely that it doesn't specify where or how the character wants to hide?

On an aside, I disagree that any edition of D&D has ever treated actions and checks as the same thing. I can see how close relationships between attacking and an attack roll easily confuse people into thinking that they are the same thing, but they never have been the same thing nor have they ever been treated as identical except to the extent that prying that connection apart would only create confusion. This is even more true for other sorts of actions. D&D has always had a fortune in the middle process by default, of proposition -> fortune -> resolution.