D&D 5E (2014) Consequences of Failure

[Xetheral]

Okay, I've done a bit of organizing thinking on this, and here's the rub: If you're going to use goal and approach as a method, you must present a game that offers handles to the players to propose goals and approaches. In short, yes, it's part and parcel of the method that you must change how you present situations. If you're only going to call for rolls for things that are uncertain and have a risk of failure, then it's incumbent on the DM to present uncertain situations with consequences of failure. This doesn't work if you just have hallways that may or may not be trapped, as what happens is that players are now asked to do repetitive goal and approach declarations and this gets old fast. It's easier handled in an ask-for-roll approach as the entire exercise in the fiction is abstracted and pushed off onto the mechanics to get past this repetitive play and move to the bits with heft.

Goal and approach require that the DM change the presentation of the game. You have to present challenges that prompt the players into action. This is different, as most games just have the DM present the description of the room and have other information gated behind the obligatory skill checks. You either gain the information or you do not, and this affects the actions your take and if the things you did not notice affect you and now call for new checks or if you engage what you have noticed via other checks. Goal and approach, though, doesn't work at all with this presentation -- you must provide a handle on the action for the players. As such, it requires a form of framing more akin to more narrative-style games where you present a dynamic situation with a clear call to action and then say, "what do you do?"

Yes, this method misses some of the things that the ask-for-rolls does -- they are completely different styles of play. What's missed, though, are the things that no longer make sense in terms of goal and approach play. I don't miss that my players ask for rolls, fail, and give me the opportunity to create new fiction to describe their failures because my method does this well, just in a different context. My method creates consequence based on what the players express rather then what I, as DM, think. I find this preferable. I have to do a bit more work on the front end -- I have to provide a clear call to action in my scene framing and this isn't trivial -- but I offload a lot of work on the backend as I'm now just reacting to the players and following their lead through the scene. This is very different from the much more DM mediated experience of asking-for-rolls and using rolls to gate information and provide tension. Both are very valid ways to play. Neither can recreate the experiences of the other. That's actually a big selling point for me -- most of my pain points with D&D came from the heavy DM load and I find goal and approach lightens that considerably and presents play that I enjoy very much. YMMV, and that's part of the coolness of this hobby.

(Bold emphasis added.) I acknowledge that the way in which you implement goal-and-approach requires the playstyle changes you describe, including the bolded part about scene framing. I disagree that goal-and-approach as (obliquely) described in the PHB and DMG requires those playstyle changes.

As evidence, I would point to the fact that 5e contains explicit rules for resolving repeated actions by using passive checks. Ergo, 5e contemplates that repeated checks may be a thing even though it also describes the basics of the goal-and-approach method. That suggests to me that goal-and-approach in its simplest form can't require a framing style like yours that precludes the possibility of repeated checks.

Lies are the traps of social interaction challenges. Telegraphing both gives the player a clue that something is up. Maybe players interact with the trap or the NPC's falsehoods based on those clues or maybe they don't. What they don't do is try to Perception check and Insight check their way to finding stuff that may or may not be there because there's a "gotcha" around every corner if they don't do their SOP. They can trust that the DM isn't going to present the game that way and that paying attention has a payoff.

Telegraphing as a technique, however, is something I would say runs alongside the players describing what they want to do and hope to achieve, since a DM needn't telegraph traps or lies for players to describe things like that. They are very complementary approaches though that together produce what I would say is a more solid, fair game since they basically represent the DM and player performing their respective roles in the conversation of the game to the utmost, that is, the DM describing the environment and the players describing what they want to do which both feed into the DM narrating the results of the adventurers' actions.

And this is why I think the term "goal and approach" needs to be defined solely as what I said it was a few posts up and some other name given to what are a host of techniques that when combined are greater than the sum of their individual parts. If we ever put together a thread on this as discussed earlier, perhaps it will make things a great deal clearer to those who actually seek clarity.

I think we're in agreement. I think telegraphing combined with goal and approach is better than not telegraphing and asking players their goal and approach. But I can't make the claim that goal and approach requires telegraphing, as it's literally just the player being reasonably specific about, well, the approach to a goal.

"There's a 40' hallway to the north" may well be something you'd hear in my game as I describe some part of the dungeon. It's just, in my game, players know that I'm not going to play gotcha, so they won't have to goal-and-approach searching for traps just in case. They can just walk down the hallway (approach) to get to the other side (goal) like the proverbial chicken crossing the road. Or they might 10-foot-pole it in an abundance of caution - who knows? I just know that I'm telegraphing to make it a fair game and that's all. What they do after that is up to them.

As an observation, it seems to me that the framing techniques @Ovinomancer considers to be a necessary part of goal-and-approach may be required specifically when one is trying to emphasize high-stakes, point-of-action action declarations. If I understand correctly, a low-stakes action declaration of walking down a hallway (approach) to get to the other side (goal) is undesirable at @Ovinomancer's table. It makes sense to me that if one want to avoid low-stakes action declarations one has to exclusively frame high-stakes situations. (I just personally don't see low-stakes goal-and-approach action declarations, like character movement, as undesirable, and therefore see no issue with describing a hallway as part of my description of the environment.) @Ovinomancer, if I'm misunderstanding, please let me know.

In any case, goal-and-approach clearly means slightly/somewhat/significantly different things to different people. (I mean, you and @Ovinomancer are disagreeing about whether you agree on what the concept requires. ) Nomenclature will be a bit tricky if you do put together a summary thread.

 

[Charlaquin]

I somewhat disagree. "There's a 40' hallway to the north" as a presentation of the game puts a huge amount of pressure on the player to come up with a goal and approach, whereas a small amount of telegraphing provides the handle to make the technique actually functional and useful. The hallway on it's own, however, is practically begging for the ask-for-checks play to try and dig up more information. I don't think presentation and goal and approach resolution are as severable as you seem to imply. I could be misunderstanding, but I really think a huge part of the confusion in these threads stems from trying to present goal and approach as just a resolution mechanic rather than part of a holistic playstyle that includes the need for the DM to alter presentation to make goal and approach workable.

I don’t think what you’re saying here is necessarily in conflict with what Iserith said. Goal and Approach, per se doesn’t require telegraphing, and I think it would be false to claim that the rules say it does. But, utilizing G&A without utilizing telegraphing is probably going to lead to some... mixed results, if we’re being generous. I think many of the examples and whatabouts that ask “well, how would you G&A folks deal with this” actually demonstrate this fact very effectively. Yeah, if you don’t like to make heavy use of telegraphing, expecting your players to phrase all their actions in a G&A framework would probably not work super well for you. I think this may be where the two sides are talking past each other. We’re each taking our own style of narration as a given. And our respective styles of action resolution just don’t gel well with each other’s styles of narration.

So, to those saying, “G&A can be a useful tool, but it doesn’t work for every situation,” I think you’re right about that. For example, in a situation where you are keeping information that the characters would not have access to hidden from the players, G&A might not work super well. What I think may not be getting communicated as effectively as it could is that those of us who embrace G&A have found that by adjusting the narrative framework of our games to more consistently accommodate G&A, we have found the results to be more to our liking than when we adjusted our action resolution techniques to accommodate the narrative frameworks we had used in previous editions. Your mileage may vary, and if you like the way your game runs just fine, don’t feel obligated to adopt our techniques.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

While I have skipped some pages, I have not seen one valid example of a failed check being a negative consequence in and of itself. In all cases that I've seen, the consequence has been derived from the circumstances surrounding the check.

 

[Lanefan]

I somewhat disagree. "There's a 40' hallway to the north" as a presentation of the game puts a huge amount of pressure on the player to come up with a goal and approach ...

Agreed; that by itself is not enough info. Even if it's just an empty hallway this needs to be told to the players: "Leaving to the north is an empty hallway, no end found as far as your light goes, and no obvious doors or intersections" will do. (or just drawing it on a board or battlemap). It's then up to the players what to do with it - stride boldly down it and see where it goes, or check it carefully for traps, or search it for secret doors, or ignore it and go somewhere else, or whatever.

whereas a small amount of telegraphing provides the handle to make the technique actually functional and useful.

For who, though?

Telegraphing that the 'empty' north hallway is somehow more than it seems (as opposed, say, to two other nigh-identical empty hallways leaving - one east, one west - from the same room) seems to me like a passive way of leading the players/PCs by the nose...which is great for the DM but not much fun for the players if said players enjoy exploration.

The hallway on it's own, however, is practically begging for the ask-for-checks play to try and dig up more information. I don't think presentation and goal and approach resolution are as severable as you seem to imply. I could be misunderstanding, but I really think a huge part of the confusion in these threads stems from trying to present goal and approach as just a resolution mechanic rather than part of a holistic playstyle that includes the need for the DM to alter presentation to make goal and approach workable.

There's two ways for PCs (and players) to learn information: the DM flat-out tells them about things they can see, and they have to dig for things that may or may not be present that they can't see. If there's a chance they could miss something even on searching for it, at some point out come the dice; and if there's no chance they'll miss it (or you-as-DM aren't going to let them miss it) then what's the point of hiding it in the first place?

Telegraphing just serves to make the non-obvious obvious, and where's the mystery in that?

 

[Lanefan]

So, to those saying, “G&A can be a useful tool, but it doesn’t work for every situation,” I think you’re right about that. For example, in a situation where you are keeping information that the characters would not have access to hidden from the players, G&A might not work super well.

I don't see why it wouldn't. The players still state their goal and approach, except that one or both might be based on faulty or incomplete information which could lead to things going wrong.

The same thing can happen if everything is done purely by dice rolls: blow some checks, things go wrong.

 

[5ekyu]

I understand where you're coming from. I had the same opinions myself, and argued somewhat snarkily with @iserith once upon a recent time. There's a kind of shift in perspective necessary, and I know that's not helpful but I can't really seem to find a good way to get it across. I've tried to explain it how I came into it, but that's not worked. Anyway, the thing is, that once you've turned that corner, you'll see that there have been tons of good examples of play in goal and approach -- they just don't look the same as what you're used to.

Take the recent Insight thread. There was a lot of asking how you'd use goal and approach to tell if someone was lying and how it feels like you're looking for specific forms of phrasing to get to the same end. And, yeah, that happened, largely because there was an attempt to engage that example. But the truth is that, largely, telling if the NPC is lying is rarely going to be a big thing in goal and approach. The NPC lying to you is going to be part of the handle that engages the players in the fiction so that they can now use goal and approach to change the fiction. Insight to tell if an NPC is lying is really just not much of a thing outside of a few occasions. Insight to gain, well, insight into what an NPC cares about so you can leverage that to get them to come clean? That's the ticket. So, in that sense, there's just not really a good example because it's going to go pear-shaped immediately due to what actions are declared. But a good example would be saying that this NPC is definitely hiding something and what are you going to do to find out what?

"But the truth is that, largely, telling if the NPC is lying is rarely going to be a big thing in goal and approach. The NPC lying to you is going to be part of the handle that engages the players in the fiction so that they can now use goal and approach to change the fiction. Insight to tell if an NPC is lying is really just not much of a thing outside of a few occasions. Insight to gain, well, insight into what an NPC cares about so you can leverage that to get them to come clean? That's the ticket. "

I think comments and observations like this say a lot about GA as presented here and how much of a change to the expectations of play and design it creates.

I cannot for the life of me remember an rogue I played in in the last well forever - in whatever systrm and playstyle we were playing where it was true that telling if an NPC was lying to you was not a big deal that impacted play.

The recognition of the marriage so ogsnically of GA snd that degree of telegraphing essentials is highly informative.

***

I would ask though, as a user and proponent of GA, in terms of 5e would you say that the notion that GA is "the 5e rules" is supported by their own examples in published official 5e products - as in do you see for instance this kind of telegraphed approaches where most traps are clued to the player instead of setup as checks and DCs or that say social setups where deception may be occurring is setup as auto-telegraphed lying 8nstead of being presented in terms of DC checks etc?

Do the 5e products in your opinion show an expected style of presentation and resolution that leans more towards the necessarilybtrlegraphed presentation or the more character skills vs SC driven ones?

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, there was some great discussion about several of the examples (forgery, stealth, and knowledge checks). The general pattern of not rolling until the success/failure state obtains is going to be a hard one for people used to the old way.

Which is an invented difficulty. There's not a problem when the DM only allows for one roll depending on the type of check made. I may not require a roll for forgery myself depending on the difficulty of the forgery and if you have a document or signature to work from. I won't ask for a roll to pick a lock if there's no time pressure or chance to jam the lock. On the other hand either you know something or you don't.

The one "hole" you find is a complete fabrication.

 

[Oofta]

While I have skipped some pages, I have not seen one valid example of a failed check being a negative consequence in and of itself. In all cases that I've seen, the consequence has been derived from the circumstances surrounding the check.

As it says in the PHB, sometimes a failed check just means you make no progress.

 

[Oofta]

Do the 5e products in your opinion show an expected style of presentation and resolution that leans more towards the necessarilybtrlegraphed presentation or the more character skills vs SC driven ones?

Even the DMG section on traps seems to contradict it. That's why that section is "poorly written".

 

[Oofta]

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.

The only un-controversial thing he stated was that he believes the rules say something I believe they don't. Oh wait. He never said "in my opinion" or "this is the way I interpret the rules". Nope. It's "The rules say". Period. As if only he can interpret the holy text. I disagree with his interpretation because it directly contradicts the other 2/3s of the rules that discuss this. If you look at that sentence as qualifying mundane tasks it's consistent with the rest of the rules.

But even if that were the case, so what? The game states repeatedly says make the game your own. It bends over backwards to say that the rules do not, even should not be followed to the letter.

So let me summarize my view on ability checks and rolling the dice.

• Is it fun? Does it add to the enjoyment of the game?
• Does it add to the story, a feeling of accomplishment or add tension to the game when you want it?

If the answer to those 2 questions is yes, roll them bones.