D&D 5E Consequences of Failure

[Oofta]

Umm....wasn't that exactly what you (and others) were asking us to do? "Go ahead, see if you can make THIS work with Goal and Approach! Mwuhahahahahahaha."

Yes: foolish me for engaging in that game.

I for one tried to be helpful. Gave my reasoning of how a failed check could have a negative consequence. That's what this whole thread started with, didn't it? But you rejected it because it didn't meet your guidelines.

You can come up with just about any scenario that comes up in a game (even the "wedgie" scenario) and I can tell you how I'd resolve it. Sometimes dice would be involved, sometimes they wouldn't. I can tell you how failing a check could mean you don't make progress towards a goal and what that could cost.

But you can't do the same because they're "trap" options. If there are so many trap options, perhaps it's a flaw in assuming one rigid approach should be shoe-horned into all aspects of the game.

P.S. I don't play a "board game". I run a game that has earned an embarrassing amount of praise from a several people over the years. In part because I use a variety of techniques and have flexibility to cater to my player's style and preferences.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yup. It won't work for people who want to play a board game. But that wasn't "coming around", I knew that all along.

You are the one who acknowledged it. Or at least I thought you did.

The trap I've fallen into in this thread (and others) is to take the offered scenarios...which occur in ask-for-rolls games...and then try, at the last second, to "convert" them to goal-and-approach.

That sounds to me like agreement that goal and approach doesn't work for the scenarios we provided. It's entirely possible I misunderstood you, but that's what this seems to imply to me.

 

[Guest 6801328]

P.S. I don't play a "board game". I run a game that has earned an embarrassing amount of praise from a several people over the years. In part because I use a variety of techniques and have flexibility to cater to my player's style and preferences.

Yeah, I foolishly allowed petty insults and digs and snark to get under my skin and I hit back, but I'll retract that. Sorry. I do find certain purely mechanical resolutions to be vaguely boardgame-like...at least compared to resolutions that involve real problem-solving...but that doesn't mean that the larger game in which they occur is a board game.

Anyway, going forward I want to continue to discuss interesting/tricky scenarios, but I'm going to try once again (37th time's the charm?) to refrain from arguing playstyles.

 

[FrogReaver]

Do ya'll realize that I've gotten us to talk about wedgies for 100's of posts. Is that something to be proud of or ashamed by?

 

[Oofta]

Do ya'll realize that I've gotten us to talk about wedgies for 100's of posts. Is that something to be proud of or ashamed by?

Do you really need an answer to that?

 

[iserith]

GAAAAHHHHHH

I got sucked in again.

Enjoy your game, FrogReaver.

There is nothing to get sucked into.

If a given game has situations that allow for a player to have a goal for the character and to state an approach that has some influence on whether or not the character achieves the goal, then this method of play works. Because that is all it is - a player describing what he or she wants to achieve and how with reasonable specificity. Nothing more.

If someone wants to assert that the rules say an ability check can be called for without there being an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure, they'd be wrong. It's plainly written that way in the rules and has been quoted repeatedly. You can safely disregard assertions to the contrary, just like you can ignore assertions that the earth is flat. In any case, this is a separate matter from players stating what they want to achieve and how (though what they say may influence whether there is an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure, obviously).

 

[Oofta]

Lordy lord. So "if you disagree with me, you're doing it wrong. Just ignore any opinion that does not match mine."

Then you wonder why I say that some people give the impression of one-true-way-ism.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yeah, I foolishly allowed petty insults and digs and snark to get under my skin and I hit back, but I'll retract that. Sorry. I do find certain purely mechanical resolutions to be vaguely boardgame-like...at least compared to resolutions that involve real problem-solving...but that doesn't mean that the larger game in which they occur is a board game.

Anyway, going forward I want to continue to discuss interesting/tricky scenarios, but I'm going to try once again (37th time's the charm?) to refrain from arguing playstyles.

Maybe I should phrase this more open ended. How does your version of goal and approach handle approaches that are reasonably specific but don't give enough detail to determine auto success or failure through the fiction but also won't have a meaningful consequence of failure?

That's the general wording for the situation we've spent all this pages discussion. So how would you handle such a situation? Is such a situation even possible under your playstyle?

The followup question for the thread would be, is there a better way to handle a situation that meets those criteria under the goal and approach method?

 

[Ovinomancer]

So, recent goading aside, have you gained some of what you sought, @Elfcrusher?

 

[Charlaquin]

Lordy lord. So "if you disagree with me, you're doing it wrong. Just ignore any opinion that does not match mine."

Then you wonder why I say that some people give the impression of one-true-way-ism.

What Iserith said amounts to “the rules say what they say they do, and arguing that they don’t say that is like arguing that the earth is flat.” And I don’t think that’s a particularly controversial statement, I’ve seen you say plenty of times that the rules aren’t a holy text meant to be adhered to dogmatically. And that’s a perfectly valid opinion, which is not at all in conflict with the assertion that the rules say what they say. There are plenty of people who prefer to play not 100% by the RAW, myself included. In fact, I suspect that the significant majority of DMs have at least some house rules. Again, Iserith is not saying those DMs are wrong or that their preferences are invalid. He’s just saying it’s silly to argue that the rules say something other than what they say.