D&D 5E (2014) Consequences of Failure

[Lanefan]

Not at all. I’m saying that I stopped worrying about whether or not my players were playing beyond their character’s knowledge, and the results were overwhelmingly positive.


Role playing is the act of imagining yourself as another person and/or in another situation, and making decisions as you imagine you or that other person would in that situation.

"... as you imagine you or that other person would... " - seriously? You're not playing yourself in the game (with rare exceptions where a game specifically expects you to play as real-world you), you're playing "that other person". And so, a further clause needs to be added to your definition of role-playing: "...given such knowledge and information as that person would have available."

If those decisions are informed by details that you or that person wouldn’t have access to in that situation, you are still role playing.

Perhaps, but I posit that said role-playing has by that point lost some or all of its integrity.

In fact, doing so may make the role playing experience more interesting. When you decide not to act on information external to the character, you are doing so intentionally, because you think it will lead to a better experience. When you decide to act on information external to the character, you get to come up with an in-fiction justification for why the character made that decision, which may be equally enjoyable.

Most (or nearly all?) of the time, using knowledge of 'extra' information known only to the player but not the PC gives the PC an in-fiction advantage it wouldn't otherwise have. To me this trends toward cheating.

By the same token, it's also very much the case that DMs have to carefully self-police in how they run their NPCs; as the DM always knows tons of stuff the NPC would not.

The “there’s a hidden observer on the rooftop” part is wholly unnecessary.

I agree; in fact that was kind of my point. I was responding to a post suggesting the reason for any check be told to the players before the check was called for, and gave an example of how this would quicky fall apart.

You could just ask for the Stealth check. And yeah, that will indicate that there is an observer somewhere, and since you haven’t included details in your narration about any creatures that might be observing player A’s character, they can easily surmise that the observer is hidden.

Better yet, ask for the stealth check anyway whether there's observers there or not...in this case, as the character is trying to move through a crowd, the check might also inform whether the PC somehow caught the attention of a random passer-by - e.g. the PC is trying her best to be stealthy and some little kid yells out "Hey - why is that person acting so sneaky?!"

There was a time that I would have considered this “giving away the game.” Now the players know they’re being observed even though their characters wouldn’t. And I took it for granted that, that was a bad thing. But I never really interrogated what was so bad about it.

What comes of the players knowing they’re being observed? Well, they might start looking for the hidden observer. They might take action to shore up their attempts at concealing their presence. These are not things that it would be unreasonable for characters hoping to pass unobserved to do, so I don’t see this as breaking character.

It breaks character the moment they do something they wouldn't have done otherwise, or change what they'd already committed to doing.

Example: party says they're going to sneak down a passage past several open doors. Not until the 4th door do you call for a check (you-as-DM already knew the first three held no threat); and in response, before rolling, someone says "We stop here and rearrange our marching order into battle formation".

Now you-as-DM have given yourself a headache. Do you ban them from changing their order based on their prior commitment to sneaking the length of the hall? Do you let the order change happen and thus set a precedent that such metagaming is allowed?

Wouldn't it have been better to call for the stealth check at the first door, even though there was no threat there? The characters (in theory) wouldn't know which doors held threats and which did not, so why not determine their SOP at the first opportunity?

So, now instead of thinking of this kind of thing as “giving away the game,” I think of it as letting the players in on the game. The players can’t interact with the game without knowing there’s something to interact with. So why hide that fact?

They can still interact with the game, only that interaction is going to be based on less-than-perfect knowledge - and this is quite realistic, in that their PCs wouldn't have perfect knowledge either. There's always something to interact with, only sometimes that thing is just a shadow.

This was an issue I had with many of the battlemaps included with 4e modules: very pretty, nice art, and so on; but they always showed rooms and areas the PCs had no way of being able to view yet. Bloody annoying.

 

[Bawylie]

"... as you imagine you or that other person would... " - seriously? You're not playing yourself in the game (with rare exceptions where a game specifically expects you to play as real-world you), you're playing "that other person". And so, a further clause needs to be added to your definition of role-playing: "...given such knowledge and information as that person would have available."

Perhaps, but I posit that said role-playing has by that point lost some or all of its integrity.

Most (or nearly all?) of the time, using knowledge of 'extra' information known only to the player but not the PC gives the PC an in-fiction advantage it wouldn't otherwise have. To me this trends toward cheating.

By the same token, it's also very much the case that DMs have to carefully self-police in how they run their NPCs; as the DM always knows tons of stuff the NPC would not.

I agree; in fact that was kind of my point. I was responding to a post suggesting the reason for any check be told to the players before the check was called for, and gave an example of how this would quicky fall apart.

Better yet, ask for the stealth check anyway whether there's observers there or not...in this case, as the character is trying to move through a crowd, the check might also inform whether the PC somehow caught the attention of a random passer-by - e.g. the PC is trying her best to be stealthy and some little kid yells out "Hey - why is that person acting so sneaky?!"

It breaks character the moment they do something they wouldn't have done otherwise, or change what they'd already committed to doing.

Example: party says they're going to sneak down a passage past several open doors. Not until the 4th door do you call for a check (you-as-DM already knew the first three held no threat); and in response, before rolling, someone says "We stop here and rearrange our marching order into battle formation".

Now you-as-DM have given yourself a headache. Do you ban them from changing their order based on their prior commitment to sneaking the length of the hall? Do you let the order change happen and thus set a precedent that such metagaming is allowed?

Wouldn't it have been better to call for the stealth check at the first door, even though there was no threat there? The characters (in theory) wouldn't know which doors held threats and which did not, so why not determine their SOP at the first opportunity?

They can still interact with the game, only that interaction is going to be based on less-than-perfect knowledge - and this is quite realistic, in that their PCs wouldn't have perfect knowledge either. There's always something to interact with, only sometimes that thing is just a shadow.

This was an issue I had with many of the battlemaps included with 4e modules: very pretty, nice art, and so on; but they always showed rooms and areas the PCs had no way of being able to view yet. Bloody annoying.

Why wouldn’t you ask them to establish or clarify their marching order earlier in the corridor?

I mean, if I’m concerned with who stands where and when, shouldn’t we establish THAT earlier on, rather than asking for superfluous checks?

 

[Lanefan]

Why wouldn’t you ask them to establish or clarify their marching order earlier in the corridor?

Sorry, I was implying that this had already been done; and that they were trying to change it specifically in response to a call for a stealth check (i.e. a change that would otherwise not have been made had there been no call for a check).

 

[Charlaquin]

Really? Dude, I stated it in general form, with a colorful phrase added for emphasis. Apparently, even the presence of color is too much for you? Fine. No specific examples here:

In the approach I am noting, a normal situation of play is the GM saying, "Here is the situation coming at you. What do you want to do about that situation?" The situation is framed so the player knows what is about to happen if they do not change that situation.

The case of no meaningful consequences would be the GM saying, "There is no situation coming at you. What do you want to do about that non-existent situation?" It is nonsensical. One would not bother to ask for the player's response to a non-situation.

Overall, the issue for most of this discussion is that we are talking about actions as the primary element. That comes from D&D's wargame and semi-simulationist past. If you instead focus first on the situations, then you are never concerned about not having a consequence.

This is actually a nice heuristic for improving narration. If instead of simply narrating an environment and making note of the details that are present, you focus on narrating situations, that will insure that players have something to respond to, and those responses have consequences that change the situation. I like to think of it as “make sure when you ask the players ‘what do you do’ you’re asking ‘what do you do about’ something.”

 

[Bawylie]

Sorry, I was implying that this had already been done; and that they were trying to change it specifically in response to a call for a stealth check (i.e. a change that would otherwise not have been made had there been no call for a check).

Then I’d say, “I’m sorry, we established and agreed on marching order earlier on and the opportunity to change it up came sometime before I started determining surprise. It’s too late.”

 

[Guest 6801328]

That’s where most of us would use a different resolution method than goal and approach. For most of us it’s not that we dislike goal and approach, we just dislike the notion that it’s always the best method to use in every situation that comes up.

And I think that's fair. The method you are proposing for this scenario is pretty standard, in my experience (and I assume others?) so it's completely reasonable to fall back on it when a different methodology doesn't seem to fit.

And, yet, I find this sort of thing so much less engaging in practice than I find risk:reward mechanics. So I think it's worth some discussion to dissect this, instead of simply deciding to use the old method in these cases.

For me, I think about this kind of scene, and I wonder, "Wait...was it actually fun...did it add to the game...to have the player make a blind stealth check, while I resolve its meaning behind the screen? Is there an entirely other way to handle this that might be more fun?" Not just a different use of dice to resolve whether the character actually snuck past the observers, but a change to how I actually compose adventures.

 

[Ovinomancer]

That’s where most of us would use a different resolution method than goal and approach. For most of us it’s not that we dislike goal and approach, we just dislike the notion that it’s always the best method to use in every situation that comes up.

And that's a good way to play. However (come one, it's not a surprise), the needs to switch to a different resolution mechanic is directly due to the choice of how you're framing the game. It isn't necessary to switch methods if you present the game in a way that's consistent with a given method. There's no harm in switch, especially if it's in predictable situations, just saying that the need for different methods of resolution is fundamentally due to how the DM present the scenes. Clearly, if you frame a scene such that goal and approach doesn't work well, then goal and approach is likely not the best method to use here.

 

[Guest 6801328]

This I'm personally not willing to do, because it conflicts with other aspects of my DMing style. The immediate results of being observed are going to depend mostly on the type of surveillance the bridge was under, and that in turn depends on the available resources and priorities of the king's spies.

So whether the bridge is under surveillance by agents mixed in the crowd, a guy with a spyglass, rat familiars, scrying, a 6th level Eagle-Totem Barbarian, or nothing at all will depend on my high-level world-building decisions (possibly made in advance, possibly made on the fly if I'm improvising). And I don't emphasize the DM-as-referee style, so I absolutely will take into account what I think will be fun for the players when figuring out the resources and priorities of the king's spies.

But I won't make high-level world building decisions to accommodate the mechanical resolution of a particular check. If I determine that the king's spies are a bunch of Druids, you can bet that a failed stealth check on the part of the PC is likely to lead to a wildshaped mosquito trying to tag along on the PC's clothing (yes, the PC will have an opportunity to notice). As a consequence, I'm definitely going to ask for the PC's stealth check up front, to avoid letting the PC know whether or not they were observed.

I fully recognize that my preference here is a result of my emphasis on the strategic level of gameplay. My games slant heavily towards Combat-as-War, so it is important to me that how and whether the bridge is under surveillance be consistent with my high-level world-building decisions regarding the king's spies' methods and resources. Your suggested approach may work quite well for games that don't share my idiosyncratic style preferences.

One thing that's been going through my head during this thread is that one difference may result from how we view the objective reality/truth of our game world. I followed that link you posted a while ago to that blog on DMing, and the first post I clicked on, about the "Quantum Ogre", tried to persuade me that it's fundamentally wrong to alter the world based on what the players are doing. It's a classic sandboxer's argument. And I completely disagree.

And I'm guessing (maybe you even said this...I can't remember who responded how) that you really didn't like my way of handling knowledge check: that the player's success or failure actually changes the state of the game world. Whereas that kind of appeals to me.

I'm certainly not arguing that either position is write or wrong; it's purely a matter of aesthetic preference. But I'm betting it's at least a partial driver behind some of the opinions in this thread.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Clearly, if you frame a scene such that goal and approach doesn't work well, then goal and approach is likely not the best method to use here.

What?!?!?! That's CRAZY talk!

 

[Ovinomancer]

This I'm personally not willing to do, because it conflicts with other aspects of my DMing style. The immediate results of being observed are going to depend mostly on the type of surveillance the bridge was under, and that in turn depends on the available resources and priorities of the king's spies.

So whether the bridge is under surveillance by agents mixed in the crowd, a guy with a spyglass, rat familiars, scrying, a 6th level Eagle-Totem Barbarian, or nothing at all will depend on my high-level world-building decisions (possibly made in advance, possibly made on the fly if I'm improvising). And I don't emphasize the DM-as-referee style, so I absolutely will take into account what I think will be fun for the players when figuring out the resources and priorities of the king's spies.

But I won't make high-level world building decisions to accommodate the mechanical resolution of a particular check. If I determine that the king's spies are a bunch of Druids, you can bet that a failed stealth check on the part of the PC is likely to lead to a wildshaped mosquito trying to tag along on the PC's clothing (yes, the PC will have an opportunity to notice). As a consequence, I'm definitely going to ask for the PC's stealth check up front, to avoid letting the PC know whether or not they were observed.

I fully recognize that my preference here is a result of my emphasis on the strategic level of gameplay. My games slant heavily towards Combat-as-War, so it is important to me that how and whether the bridge is under surveillance be consistent with my high-level world-building decisions regarding the king's spies' methods and resources. Your suggested approach may work quite well for games that don't share my idiosyncratic style preferences.

See, I would have framed this whole thing differently and never landed in the spot you did. I agree, in the framing you've presented, the solution is to alter how you use the mechanics. This situation, though, is far from a fixed or necessary type of encounter. If you instead frame the bridge as having lookouts, then the challenge is known and the need to roll isn't providing information you'd rather be hidden. It's the choice to hide information that usually causes this conflict and need to use the mechanics in a way to obfuscate or otherwise mitigate the hidden information. Don't get me wrong, this is a perfectly valid way to play, but it's not a necessary way to play.

As a second point, this also works if you're trying to push a planned failure consequence, like the shape-shifted druids now tailing the character. But, this can be done even with more obvious framing. Frame both a guard and a druid watching the bridge and then, on a fail, just describe that the character doesn't see the druid anymore, but the guard isn't following. This means that the player might know they were spotted (they failed), but now is wondering if the druid is going for reinforcements, or maybe is an bird, or something worse. You don't have to explicitly spell out the exact consequence every time, especially if the PC wouldn't be in a position to notice.

There's still plenty of mystery and intrigue available even if you do point-of-conflict resolution with more obvious scenes. The reason is that players only get the information the DM gives them, and if a DM is acting to conceal information, that channel gets distorted in ways that are hard to judge from only one side -- eg, the DM may think they've provided enough information, but the players are just lost. I prefer to keep that channel as wide and open as possible by not constructing situations that require me to hide information and instead let the process of play generate the drama. It's does this very well on it's own.