D&D 5E (2014) Consequences of Failure

[5ekyu]

One of the telegraphing tramp quotes I was looking for wasn't very hard to find. The implication here obviously being that players don't need to check for traps at every door because I telegraph traps. But if players can miss the telegraphs then there is still a good reason for them to check for traps at every door. So my assumption was that you telegraphed traps in such a way that obviously couldn't be missed. Apparently that's incorrect. Yet, it wasn't made up - or done in an attempt to diminish your position, it was the correct conclusion to draw from the things you had told me thus far about your playstyle.

yeah, maybe not from this thread but i also remember the telegraphing traps thing as part of GA being done because to them the "fun" is in what they do once they find the trap and how putting stuff in they may miss didn't add to the fun so they telegraphed etc etc... all of which flies in the face of a telegraph that may not be obvious enough to be noticed by the players or may be so subtle it doesn't trigger even awareness for the players. (Different from they notice it, see its significance and choose to ignore it.)

Do I smell smoke?

 

[Oofta]

Seems unnecessary to me. I can tell you with complete confidence that few to none of us on the “goal and approach” side of the fence think telegraphs should be unmissable.

I would say it's more of a reflection of style "Ignoring the Dice" as detailed in the "Role of the Dice" section of the DMG. But it's your question.

 

[FrogReaver]

yeah, maybe not from this thread but i also remember the telegraphing traps thing as part of GA being done because to them the "fun" is in what they do once they find the trap and how putting stuff in they may miss didn't add to the fun so they telegraphed etc etc... all of which flies in the face of a telegraph that may not be obvious enough to be noticed by the players or may be so subtle it doesn't trigger even awareness for the players. (Different from they notice it, see its significance and choose to ignore it.)

Do I smell smoke?

Yea, I also recall that being a rather significant part of the conversation in either this thread or that other one. I wonder if those points based on telegraphing still stand after the introduction of subtle telegraphing.

 

[Harzel]

One approach creates an issue where players may have access to knowledge that their character’s might not have access to (commonly called “metagaming”). The other creates an issue where the player is able to retry until they get a natural 20, which must be resolved by a construct that lies outside of the standard framework (a meta-game solution). Two different uses of the combination of the word “game” and the prefix “meta.” Personally, I don’t have an problem with the former type of “metagaming,” and have a big problem with using meta-game constructs to limit a player’s ability to take action. Your mileage may vary, of course; plenty of DMs have the opposite preference.

(I haven't made it through the rest of the thread yet, so apologies if this is redundant with other comments.)

So, just for clarity, I'm assuming that by "The other" you mean the practice of having the player make a Stealth check as soon as they declare their intention to try to hide or to move stealthily. And you somehow think that that can lead to the player "retrying". Also, IIRC it has been asserted (either by you or by someone else arguing along the same lines) that if the player doesn't get to "retry", then the DM must be constraining the PC's actions. Two things:
1) I'm not sure if it was you, but previously we have been treated to a high degree of scorn for bringing into the discussion the assumption that a player might do something that could be viewed as playing in bad faith. A player making declarations to try to game the DM to give them 'retries' seems like pretty bad faith.
2) But more importantly, this would seem to require that either a) the player is calling for checks, or b) somehow the DM has been relieved of the authority to determine how and when to invoke the game mechanics. At my table at least, the players do not call for checks, and, if I have asked for a Stealth check 'in advance', as you might see it, the player can have the PC do anything they want and I will decide when and if another Stealth check is to be made. I suppose that phrasing might sound a little authoritarian, but that process seems to me to be solidly within normal DM purview and not at all remarkable. Is there something about that that is unusual or that you consider undesirable or controversial? If not, then why bring up this nonproblem?

All that said, BTW, even though I am in the habit of calling for Stealth checks 'prospectively', I actually am finding the at-the-moment-it-matters approach appealing. I kind of hope there is additional discussion of how to finesse the metagaming issue that doesn't bother you, because it does bother me, mainly because it would bother me as a player.

 

[Oofta]

Hard to say without digging up that part of the conversation, but at a guess, I would say that’s probably a misreading of something said in answer to a demand for a specific example of play.

Here is generally how the process works. When there is a trap that the PCs might or might not be able to detect, the DM includes a hint about its presence in the narration. Often these are more overt earlier in a dungeon and more subtle further in once certain patterns have been established, but that’s not a hard rule or anything. If the player picks up on the hint, they might decide to do something to follow up on it, in the form of a goal (such as finding the trap) and an approach (such as prodding things with 10 foot polls or whatever.) If the player doesn’t pick up on the hint, it is quite likely that they will fall into the trap.

Next on the nightly news "Are 10 foot poles making a comeback? Tune in at 11!"

 

[5ekyu]

Next on the nightly news "Are 10 foot poles making a comeback? Tune in at 11!"

"But first, "Do you know where your Mage Hand has been while not with you?" our shocking expose is next!"

 

[5ekyu]

(I haven't made it through the rest of the thread yet, so apologies if this is redundant with other comments.)

So, just for clarity, I'm assuming that by "The other" you mean the practice of having the player make a Stealth check as soon as they declare their intention to try to hide or to move stealthily. And you somehow think that that can lead to the player "retrying". Also, IIRC it has been asserted (either by you or by someone else arguing along the same lines) that if the player doesn't get to "retry", then the DM must be constraining the PC's actions. Two things:
1) I'm not sure if it was you, but previously we have been treated to a high degree of scorn for bringing into the discussion the assumption that a player might do something that could be viewed as playing in bad faith. A player making declarations to try to game the DM to give them 'retries' seems like pretty bad faith.
2) But more importantly, this would seem to require that either a) the player is calling for checks, or b) somehow the DM has been relieved of the authority to determine how and when to invoke the game mechanics. At my table at least, the players do not call for checks, and, if I have asked for a Stealth check 'in advance', as you might see it, the player can have the PC do anything they want and I will decide when and if another Stealth check is to be made. I suppose that phrasing might sound a little authoritarian, but that process seems to me to be solidly within normal DM purview and not at all remarkable. Is there something about that that is unusual or that you consider undesirable or controversial? If not, then why bring up this nonproblem?

All that said, BTW, even though I am in the habit of calling for Stealth checks 'prospectively', I actually am finding the at-the-moment-it-matters approach appealing. I kind of hope there is additional discussion of how to finesse the metagaming issue that doesn't bother you, because it does bother me, mainly because it would bother me as a player.

Well, to me, the reason i do not like the wait-until-crisis-point and don't have issues with metagaming are:

1 - Waiting until crisis point to me tends to remove some player interaction. if they roll low "prematurely" and get a narration of things at the scene which make them very uncertain its gonna work, they can pull back and regroup or maybe just change up how they do it. its not plausible to me that they start off noisy and just never notice or that they only got noisy or noticed it when a bad guy was close enough for it to matter. i am fine with narrating a bad roll with reasons its not going well and then let them react and interact with that.

2 - Since i narrate the d20 roll into the scene, its info the character has (expressed without the number of course) and so using it to make choices is not metagaming.

And finally, in my games, house rule, any task that is longer than a few seconds long is resolved by a kind of race to three extended roll system. A failure tends to result in a problem that needs to be addressed or it leads to disadvantage going forward the same way. its mostly a type of some progress with setback.

 

[Guest 6801328]

One of the telegraphing tramp quotes I was looking for wasn't very hard to find. The implication here obviously being that players don't need to check for traps at every door because I telegraph traps. But if players can miss the telegraphs then there is still a good reason for them to check for traps at every door. So my assumption was that you telegraphed traps in such a way that obviously couldn't be missed. Apparently that's incorrect. Yet, it wasn't made up - or done in an attempt to diminish your position, it was the correct conclusion to draw from the things you had told me thus far about your playstyle.

Ah, I see. Yes, I can see how my post might get misconstrued.

But if you know that:
a) Traps are telegraphed.
b) You know that to find a trap you need to notice the telegraph.

Then you also know that it's probably pointness to do random "search for traps" because in the absence of a telegraph:
a) There's probably not a trap, and
b) Without the telegraph the worst fears of certain forum poster's would be realized. I.e. you would have to try every known trap known to RPG players, in the hope of stumbling upon the "magic words."

Not that anybody actually does that, of course. But theoretically it's a great objection. Really it's the spiritual cousin to my "search every 5' square for secret doors and traps", which elicits howls of protest from the same folks who talk about "magic words."

Funny world.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Next on the nightly news "Are 10 foot poles making a comeback? Tune in at 11!"

Unfortunately our reporter succumbed to a fiendishly designed trap, so we won't be airing this segment.

 

[Charlaquin]

One of the telegraphing tramp quotes I was looking for wasn't very hard to find. The implication here obviously being that players don't need to check for traps at every door because I telegraph traps. But if players can miss the telegraphs then there is still a good reason for them to check for traps at every door. So my assumption was that you telegraphed traps in such a way that obviously couldn't be missed. Apparently that's incorrect. Yet, it wasn't made up - or done in an attempt to diminish your position, it was the correct conclusion to draw from the things you had told me thus far about your playstyle.

Ah, I see. So, yes, one of the advantages of telegraphing is that the players have pertinent information, which eliminates the need to “check for traps” in the absence of any indication that there might be a trap. However, picking up on this information does still require paying attention to the DM’s description of the environment, and the application of some critical thinking. Might a player still feel the need to “check for traps” constantly due to fear that they might miss a telegraph? Sure, I guess. That’s not a problem I have experienced. Usually my players only take action to try to detect the presence of traps when they think something in my narration is fishy. Their hunches aren’t always accurate, and they don’t pick up on 100% of my telegraphs. They do pick up on the majority of them and rarely chase false leads, but both do happen from time to time.

yeah, maybe not from this thread but i also remember the telegraphing traps thing as part of GA being done because to them the "fun" is in what they do once they find the trap and how putting stuff in they may miss didn't add to the fun so they telegraphed etc etc... all of which flies in the face of a telegraph that may not be obvious enough to be noticed by the players or may be so subtle it doesn't trigger even awareness for the players. (Different from they notice it, see its significance and choose to ignore it.)

I don’t see anything contradictory there...

Do I smell smoke?

Can we not make this stupid “punching smoke” dogwhistle a thing?