D&D 5E (2014) Consequences of Failure

[5ekyu]

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.

Yes, sometimes the outcomes and results of an attempt are not known beforehand. Other times they are obvious or implicit.


Start trouble in a bar, might get "thumped" in many sorts ways.

While some folks ascribe to forcing a resolution to be expressed explicitly out of scene meta-stakes agreement barter style, others fo not.

That has little to do with whether or not its randomly resolved.

 

[Guest 6801328]

While some folks ascribe to forcing a resolution to be expressed explicitly out of scene meta-stakes agreement barter style, others fo not.

Could you explain what that means?

 

[5ekyu]

Could you explain what that means?

Taken alone, it means different players in different games have different preferences.

 

[Oofta]

As I mentioned upthread, one of the most colorful, descriptive combats I’ve seen occurred when I required some teenagers to resolve their pvp through narration. They took HP loss and everything.

In PVP maybe. In any case, I can't imagine anyone saying "I'm going to go try to wedgie someone but fail badly and then have them wedgie me!" being a memorable or even possible probable story.

Again, though, that doesn’t mean I think you are wrong for wanting to use the dice. I just don’t see a persuasive argument articulated for why these scenes couldn’t happen without dice.

I sometimes resolve uncertainty with a roll of a dice. I don't have to "justify" to find it more fun than never touching the dice.

Don't agree? don't do it. I'm not asking you to justify your choices, I just don't think I'd have the same sense of tension or luck. I don't see how the scenario I ran through or anything along those lines would ever happen.

Which, again, doesn't mean all my scenarios are driven by die rolls. Many, if not most of my non-combat encounters are not.

 

[Oofta]

But see, this added context has now resulted in giving a goal to the wedgie attempt - originally proposed as an example of a random act with no particular goal. We’ve gone from “I just go out and wedgie a random townsperson to see what happens” (by the way, “see what happens” is also a goal) to “I go try and give a random person a wedgie to prove to my drinking buddies I’ve got the stones for it.” That goal may be unspoken, but it’s very clear.

Depending on how you define it, the chicken had a goal. To get to the other side.

Unless a PC is under some type of confusion spell or dominated their actions are the result of achieving some kind of goal. I don't think anyone has a problem with that.

I'm just more lenient than some on the structure of the phrasing to communicate. That and I use a "middle of the road" approach including die rolls as appropriate as defined in "The Role of Dice".

 

[Charlaquin]

Depending on how you define it, the chicken had a goal. To get to the other side.

Unless a PC is under some type of confusion spell or dominated their actions are the result of achieving some kind of goal. I don't think anyone has a problem with that.

You certainly don’t seem to, but a few others have called the idea that all actions have a goal into question.

I'm just more lenient than some on the structure of the phrasing to communicate. That and I use a "middle of the road" approach including die rolls as appropriate as defined in "The Role of Dice".

Interesting. I think you and I have different interpretations of that segment.

 

[Scott Christian]

The consequences for failure thing, in my opinion, is mostly just a useful heuristic to insure you don’t waste time on pointless rolls. And as I’ve said before, I believe that if you limit players to one single attempt on any check, that the one check is a sufficient consequence to satisfy this heuristic. I just don’t like limiting retries in that way. I hate it when I’m a player and a DM does it, so I don’t do it as a DM.

With ya on the one roll. Constantly applying rolls, especially when one little variable changes, slows the scene down way too much for my taste. A character hiding to get info on a couple of guards eating rolls great (19). Listens for six seconds, hears a sentence, then one guard gets up to get a drink. The DM saying, roll again just seems off. But, I realize this is individual taste.

 

[Scott Christian]

One thing that seems to be missing in this conversation is the planned rolls. The ones DM's write into their adventure. I know for me, I write in all the skill checks that can alter an important scene, plot point or character arc.

For example, characters taking a rowboat to shore in rough seas. A flipped rowboat could mean the paladin has to take off his armor and leave it on the bottom of the sea. That's a serious consequence. So that roll is written in very specifically. The DC varies based off the players' judgement. Characters that grab bails, grab an extra oar, etc. things they may come up with on their own gives them a lower DC. I write that stuff in too.

Point is that many of the circumstances we are discussing, DM's plan for. Hell, I even write DC's for persuasion based on how they approach the NPC needing to be persuaded. Some people like to be sugar-talked others need to be intimidated, and still others need to have an honest forthcoming approach.

 

[Charlaquin]

With ya on the one roll. Constantly applying rolls, especially when one little variable changes, slows the scene down way too much for my taste. A character hiding to get info on a couple of guards eating rolls great (19). Listens for six seconds, hears a sentence, then one guard gets up to get a drink. The DM saying, roll again just seems off. But, I realize this is individual taste.

I think we might be talking about different things here. To illustrate what I mean, consider a rogue in a dungeon attempting to pick a lock. First, let’s assume that there is no time pressure - no wandering monsters that might come upon her while she works, no evil ritual that will be completed at the stroke of midnight, she has all the time she needs to work on picking this lock.

Personally, I would not call for a check in this situation. If the lock is within her ability to pick it, she will eventually do so, and since there is no time pressure, there is nothing stopping her from keeping at it until it works. So I would just narrate success.

Some DMs might rule that there is a risk of causing damage to the lock, and call for a check to resolve that uncertainty. If she succeeds, she gets the lock open with no problem, if she fails, the lock is damaged and can’t be picked. I’d say that’s a pretty reasonable call to make.

Other DMs might rule that the player must make a check, and only gets one shot at the check. If she succeeds, she opens the lock, if she fails, she doesn’t. Typically, the explanation for this is that the one roll represents the character’s best effort - that in the case of a high roll she did take as much time as she needed and got it open as in the first example, and on a low roll it turned out that the lock was beyond her ability to pick.

Personally I find this third option extremely meta and dissatisfying. But, it does provide a consequence for failure. Namely, that you can’t try again.

 

[iserith]

One thing that seems to be missing in this conversation is the planned rolls. The ones DM's write into their adventure. I know for me, I write in all the skill checks that can alter an important scene, plot point or character arc.

I think it's important to note it's not the "skill check that can alter an important scene," but rather actions or tasks that can do that. The ability check just resolves any uncertainty as to the outcome when there's a meaningful consequence for failure. This is an important distinction that some folks do not understand and bears repeating in my view.

In general, I think it's okay for DMs to sketch this out in their prep, that specific tasks which may commonly be declared in the context of the situation are uncertain and carry a meaningful consequence for failure. It's rife with opportunity for that prep to be wasted by virtue of being a contingency the players never actually choose but if it helps the DM, then it's fine as I see it. It's the DM's time to "waste," after all.

However, it's good in my view that, in the doing, to take care not to preordain certain solutions as being the only viable ones. As the DMG says in the context of a broader discussion of the role of the dice (p. 236), "this approach can also slow the game if the DM focuses on one 'correct' action that the characters must describe to overcome an obstacle." The same holds even for tasks the DM predetermines has an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure while putting together his or her game prep.