D&D 5E (2014) Consequences of Failure

[Campbell]

We here means the gaming group.

We use dice because sometimes consensus is boring and because we want real tension at the table. Like sure we can role play and resolve anything at the table through consensus, but sometimes we do not want to decide what happens. We want to find out what happens. This includes the possibility that things might happen that neither you or I would choose, but are still compelling. In a game like Dungeons and Dragons this might include things like character death, lycanthropy, falling down a pit, not convincing the mayor of a village that a rampaging horde of undead are on their way here, and the like.

Going to the dice, particularly if we have defined the consequences and DC before hand, allows us to share a moment of genuine tension at the table. There is magic in this moment where a player has declared what his character is going do and we all find out together how it goes. It gives the story a feral dimension to it where no one person at the table is controlling how it is going to go. For me it is the essence of playing a roleplaying game rather than just roleplaying.

 

[Scott Christian]

Ooh, can I try? So Jerry is at a bar having drinks with the buddies when someone says he wouldn't dare give a random person a wedgie. Jerry, being the fun loving type decides they will.

As a DM I did not see this coming, I have no plans for it, I'm honestly not sure what to do here. So I let D20s decide. Random target? Check. Low number means someone you don't want to wedgie. Stealth check is probably appropriate to get close along with either sleight of hand for a stealth wedgie or athletics for atomic.

Rolls are made: random target 1. Uh Oh. Hope your stealth roll is good. Stealth and athletics? Both poor. Oops. Now comes the reaction - again low is bad (target flies into a rage).

Reaction check is 20. Phew. The target laughs and gets a 20 on an athletics check to get a super atomic nova wedgie on poor Jerry.

Or some variation therein. There are many, many times when I'm improvising along with letting the dice help set the direction, often in a direction I wouldn't have thought of. Besides, if this were all just narrated I see no way any of this could have happened. Jerry's player may even have been upset because I just decided the target would be the wedgie champion of the entire realms. But now? It's a story we'll talk about later when reminiscing.

While this specific scenario has never happened, similar scenarios have. I also have a lot of scenarios where no dice are rolled.

In a long campaign I think all of this works. I've DM'ed the same way before. But, in a story oriented campaign with time constraints, I can see where the dice aren't needed. That's what I meant about my previous comment, that I guess was missing. If you look at DM threads, keeping players focused is a legit concern for many DM's. Time is an issue for many games. Highlighting story and not miscellany that means very little in the grand scheme really helps. Like describing a setting; you must pick and choose what to highlight. The more things that weave in story the better. So narrating a quick scene for 30 seconds about a wedgie, as opposed to a five to ten minute role (and roll) play seems the better option for groups struggling with time and focus.

I guess what I'm trying to say is both seem valuable depending on the group.

 

[Oofta]

Ok, so dice are a kind of scaffold for improvisation. That's valid. Doesn't mean it's better with dice, just that some DMs don't want to have to improvise, which is fine.

But you could have narrated that whole thing without the dice rolling, but with the same outcomes. Since, as we all agree, there is NOTHING at stake, it shouldn't matter.

You completely miss the point. Jerry getting a super atomic nova wedgie with just narration to me would have felt like a DM saying "This is stupid and I'm going to punish you for it." Because dice were involved we can all laugh because of the random luck of it all.

While my style may not work for you, if you honestly can't see the difference then I give up.

 

[Oofta]

In a long campaign I think all of this works. I've DM'ed the same way before. But, in a story oriented campaign with time constraints, I can see where the dice aren't needed. That's what I meant about my previous comment, that I guess was missing. If you look at DM threads, keeping players focused is a legit concern for many DM's. Time is an issue for many games. Highlighting story and not miscellany that means very little in the grand scheme really helps. Like describing a setting; you must pick and choose what to highlight. The more things that weave in story the better. So narrating a quick scene for 30 seconds about a wedgie, as opposed to a five to ten minute role (and roll) play seems the better option for groups struggling with time and focus.

I guess what I'm trying to say is both seem valuable depending on the group.

I get it. In a AL session where you have to complete some goal for example I'm a lot less free form. My home game is more of a sandbox with background narratives that progress with or without PC interference.

So I think it depends on the campaign as well.

 

[5ekyu]

I see the difference. I just don't see why rolling dice necessarily makes it more fun. I mean, I've always...since I started RPGing...played it the way you are talking about. I'm just starting to doubt that giving control to the dice instead of trusting our own creativity has added anything. In fact, I think it's subtracted.

If you are so sure that rolling dice adds something, can you try to put some words around it for me?

EDIT: That sounded snarky. What I mean is, maybe your preference is just what you're used to. The exercise of trying to explain it in concrete terms may be revealing. And it's fine to simply prefer it one way or another; there doesn't need to be a reason why one way is objectively better.

Having run and played in a number of diceless games that had no randomizers used in resolution, I can say they can be great fun. I often recommend GMs who prefer diced resolutions play in or run some one-offs using a couple flavors of diceless. I know for me it made my play and GMing better in dice-involved games.

One of the main things it taught me was that using dice-involved resolution is not the same thing as "that giving control to the dice instead of trusting our own creativity."

 

[5ekyu]

You completely miss the point. Jerry getting a super atomic nova wedgie with just narration to me would have felt like a DM saying "This is stupid and I'm going to punish you for it." Because dice were involved we can all laugh because of the random luck of it all.

While my style may not work for you, if you honestly can't see the difference then I give up.

Also, to me, and from most cases of improv I have seen in other avenues- attributing an off-the-cuff scene played using random elements as "not improvising" seems way afield or normal definitions.

"just that some DMs don't want to have to improvise, which is fine."

 

[Ovinomancer]

You completely miss the point. Jerry getting a super atomic nova wedgie with just narration to me would have felt like a DM saying "This is stupid and I'm going to punish you for it." Because dice were involved we can all laugh because of the random luck of it all.

While my style may not work for you, if you honestly can't see the difference then I give up.

What this says is that something was really at stake. What's interesting is that this doesn't become apparent until the DM is narrating against the PC, either outright or after a roll. It's obvious to you that narrating humiliation without a roll is bad (I agree), but I'm not as clear why sudden humiliation is okay because you rolled dice? Is a bad rol enough justification to enact humiliation is a situation that was no stakes before the roll?

Also, it appears that stakes are being introduced after the die roll rather than as a preface to the roll. The player has no way to tell that the roll may end up with humiliation because the roll acts as a gate for the DM to narrate consequences however the DM wants, with no previous understanding of the stakes involved.

 

[iserith]

Since some have seem to have gotten back on the "such a game would lack for dice rolls" thing, or similar thoughts, I'll refer back to my post upthread:

Even a game wherein player decisions influence whether or not dice are employed to resolve the outcome will not lack for dice rolls. If the players are portraying adventurers boldly confronting deadly perils, some rolls will be unavoidable, particularly attack rolls and saving throws. Some ability checks might be able to be obviated by smart play, but not all, since removing the uncertainty as to the outcome and/or the meaningful consequence for failure (the prerequisites of a check) may not be within the character's control. Plus, there are also cases when a player will choose to take the risk for a dramatic payoff rather than work to remove the risk and a resulting "cool" moment.

So if the argument against employing the rules related to only calling for a check when there's a meaningful consequence for failure is "That means I won't have dice rolls in my game..." or that they will somehow will drastically reduced, that's a bad argument because it's simply not true in any meaningful way. For anyone making that argument: You may want to come up with something else.

See also "The Middle Path" in the DMG, p. 236-237.

In my experience, DMs that lean on the result of the dice to inform their narration as more than Success or Failure (or, alternatively, Progress Combined with Setback) often have players who are not holding up their end of the conversation of the game. The player's description of what he or she wants to do is lacking (often because the player asks for an ability check with little supporting description) and so the DM uses the result of the die, usually with degrees of success, as a tool to pick up the slack the player left. The DM then embellishes on the player's description by saying what the character does rather than just narrating what happened as a result of what the player described. The higher the result, the more elaborate the description of what the character does.

If the player is describing what he or she wants to do and how while being reasonably specific and succinct, this is unnecessary. The DM need only confirm or deny the desired result, perhaps confirming some aspect of it with a setback on a failed check, then loop back to describe the environment again. Frequently in my experience DMs who use the dice as I described above will say that the role of DM is difficult and there's a lot to juggle. Well, yeah, it can be, especially when the DM has taken it upon himself or herself to perform the player's role in addition to the DM's role. I've seen this a lot in various actual play streams, too. It seems to be a very common response to players not adequately describing what they want to do. But if the players are reasonably specific and succinct about what they hope to achieve and what they're doing to achieve it, it makes it possible for the DM to avoid doing this, making it easier for the DM to stick to just his or her role.

 

[Guest 6801328]

What this says is that something was really at stake. What's interesting is that this doesn't become apparent until the DM is narrating against the PC, either outright or after a roll. It's obvious to you that narrating humiliation without a roll is bad (I agree), but I'm not as clear why sudden humiliation is okay because you rolled dice? Is a bad rol enough justification to enact humiliation is a situation that was no stakes before the roll?

Also, it appears that stakes are being introduced after the die roll rather than as a preface to the roll. The player has no way to tell that the roll may end up with humiliation because the roll acts as a gate for the DM to narrate consequences however the DM wants, with no previous understanding of the stakes involved.

A lot of these examples start off ostensibly as "no stakes" but then when details get added they morph into something with stakes, which changes them in a fundamental way.

Also, do people in quasi-medieval fantasy worlds wear underwear?

 

[Maxperson]

Ok, so dice are a kind of scaffold for improvisation. That's valid. Doesn't mean it's better with dice, just that some DMs don't want to have to improvise, which is fine.

But you could have narrated that whole thing without the dice rolling, but with the same outcomes. Since, as we all agree, there is NOTHING at stake, it shouldn't matter.

How I do things like the surprise situation @Oofta described above is...

First I look at whether something should or should not be there and simply make a decision. If I cannot decide or there are multiple likely scenarios, I will roll behind the screen to determine. Then I look at what the PC is trying to accomplish and decide whether it's automatically successful, an automatic failure and if there is a lack of meaningful consequence for failure. If any of those three things is true, I simply narrate the outcome. If the outcome is in doubt and there is a meaningful consequence for failure, we roll away.