D&D 5E (2014) Consequences of Failure

[FrogReaver]

So I guess my advice to @Elfcrusher to enhance his goal and approach system for scenarios it doesn’t traditionally work well for would be to provide sufficient detail such that the player has details to interact with.

So when a player asks if he knows/recalls something (or tries to do so) then you have the level of world details needed to reach that conclusion.

If someone wants to wedgie random guy in the bar. It’s actually not a random guy. The player has to pick someone that’s in the bar and you have to preknow who all is in the bar.

It’s a lot more work but that’s how goal and approach can handle most tricky situations.

I guess the biggest difference to that and the traditional approach is that the traditional approach uses dice to establish certainty from uncertainty about past situations or even uncerstainity about the current situation (and not just uncertainty about whether the player is successful). As such no need for failure consequences when using checks to establish fiction about those types of uncertainty.

 

[Charlaquin]

No. Ability checks come into play only after the players have described what they want to do. So when the DM has described the environment, the players do stuff. The narration of the results of their actions may then be informed by ability checks and skill proficiencies if their actions have uncertain outcomes and meaningful consequences for failure. The results of those actions may then open up additional options in the environment and the loop starts all over again.

I realize that a lot of DMs keep track of what characters have which proficiencies so they can change their description of the environment accordingly. I don't see why that is necessary or even beneficial. It gets worked out when the players do stuff.

For me, the benefit is that it removes the need for players to phrase lore recollection in the form of an action. Personally I find the “I think back to [background detail] to see if I remember [lore]” doesn’t feel meaningfully different than “can I make a [skill] check to see if I know anything about [lore]?” except in the sense that it reveals a bit of the character’s background, and I’m not a fan of either. But, yeah, if you like that style of lore recall (and I can see why you would), then there would be no benefit that I can think of to keeping track of player Proficiencies and/or passives and including additional descriptive detail or not based on those values.

 

[5ekyu]

That’s basically what I figured.

Your Game looks the same as My Game in terms of the fictional narrative but engages the actual game system at slightly different points and leans on slightly different applications.

For me, telegraphs are extremely important all on their own, irrespective of G&A. Every video game in recent memory has them. But it boils down to (again speaking for me) setting up the scenario such that players can make intelligent decisions about how to handle the scenario versus blindly guessing what they should do.

Dragon inhales deeply - you guess firebreath is coming and may ignore that or take reasonable precautions.

Dungeon hall is suspiciously clean and free of dust and debris - something comes through here that fills the whole area.

Wall with fresh masonry - that’s the sort of thing you want to look into.

Essentially, I want to give consistent signals so the players learn. In my game, mimics breathe, so the cleric (trained in medicine) often checks objects for signs of breathing. He’s learned what the telegraph means and can capitalize on that when adventuring. I think it’s neat to include.

See, not getting into mimics, the things you describe there are just scenes to me, not telegraphing. Teasing the dragons breath is now recharged - yep. I treat the recharge as indicating its available next turn so folks might see it or not depends on character and scene. The state of the cleanliness of the area and what it might mean, again, likely some reference to passive scores or an outright investigation.

If the walls "fresh masonry" is obvious its obvious.

I mean you seem to have switched from inobvioys vs hidden to obvious but "what does it mean?"

When a secret door is put in my setup and not telegraphed, that's not a call out to random checks everywhere. It's a call out to say there being a thing that might come out from negotiation or that comes out when an NPC about to die shouts a plea to spare it. Or maybe its gonna come out because of certain divinations snd other abilities the PCs might use. Its got a place in the fiction and framing but one that includes "not being telegraphed".

To me, once one accepts that you should telegraph by default or in all cases, a lot of options are lost.

The glowing blue aura for video games for interactive stuff is not a technique I find good to metaphorically adopt across the board.

But thsts me.

 

[Bawylie]

See, not getting into mimics, the things you describe there are just scenes to me, not telegraphing. Teasing the dragons breath is now recharged - yep. I treat the recharge as indicating its available next turn so folks might see it or not depends on character and scene. The state of the cleanliness of the area and what it might mean, again, likely some reference to passive scores or an outright investigation.

If the walls "fresh masonry" is obvious its obvious.

I mean you seem to have switched from inobvioys vs hidden to obvious but "what does it mean?"

When a secret door is put in my setup and not telegraphed, that's not a call out to random checks everywhere. It's a call out to say there being a thing that might come out from negotiation or that comes out when an NPC about to die shouts a plea to spare it. Or maybe its gonna come out because of certain divinations snd other abilities the PCs might use. Its got a place in the fiction and framing but one that includes "not being telegraphed".

To me, once one accepts that you should telegraph by default or in all cases, a lot of options are lost.

The glowing blue aura for video games for interactive stuff is not a technique I find good to metaphorically adopt across the board.

But thsts me.

It doesn’t have to be a blue aura. Or as obvious as one.

But, it does seem to me that the people who make video games go out of their way to include telegraphs, of varied levels of obviousness. They do it, I presume, because it puts control over the outcomes of scenarios in the hands of players.

I write games as a hobby (actually wait, I’m a professional at this, now! Lol) not a career. Those who are doing it as a career are doing telegraphs. Even if I don’t understand why, I need to go and find out, right? Is there a demand for telegraphs? Do they enhance the gameplay? How? How much?

It’s an old tradition. Even Tetris tells you what piece you get next. Even Pac-Man ghosts flicker when they go from edible to hostile. I mean, even traffic lights go yellow before red. There’s something to the idea of telegraphs, even if we might disagree on specific uses, that is simply not ignorable.

 

[Oofta]

It doesn’t have to be a blue aura. Or as obvious as one.

But, it does seem to me that the people who make video games go out of their way to include telegraphs, of varied levels of obviousness. They do it, I presume, because it puts control over the outcomes of scenarios in the hands of players.

I write games as a hobby (actually wait, I’m a professional at this, now! Lol) not a career. Those who are doing it as a career are doing telegraphs. Even if I don’t understand why, I need to go and find out, right? Is there a demand for telegraphs? Do they enhance the gameplay? How? How much?

It’s an old tradition. Even Tetris tells you what piece you get next. Even Pac-Man ghosts flicker when they go from edible to hostile. I mean, even traffic lights go yellow before red. There’s something to the idea of telegraphs, even if we might disagree on specific uses, that is simply not ignorable.

I always assumed telegraphs in video games were because of limits of the genre. Both fidelity and distinguishing between "real" and "background" objects. The visual fidelity of games still doesn't match the real world, a lot of what you see in video games can't be interacted with.

That and it's sheer amount of information that is thrown at a player. In a D&D game you may have a handful of hidden door, in a video you can have several objects that may be important per minute.

 

[Bawylie]

I always assumed telegraphs in video games were because of limits of the genre. Both fidelity and distinguishing between "real" and "background" objects. The visual fidelity of games still doesn't match the real world, a lot of what you see in video games can't be interacted with.

That and it's sheer amount of information that is thrown at a player. In a D&D game you may have a handful of hidden door, in a video you can have several objects that may be important per minute.

Some of that is definitely true wrt the limits of the medium.

But some of it is inherent in the gameplay experience. You can’t win at PunchOut without reading telegraphed attacks.

But let’s go further. What’s the distinction between a telegraph and a rumor of a dungeon with a treasure and a lethal guardian overheard at the local tavern?

How about the NPC in Legend of Zelda who warns you “Dodongo hates smoke”? Or the villagers in Ravenloft who fear “the devil”? That’s all telegraphs too. Some of them are immediate, some of them are more remote - all of them inform the players of something coming.

 

[Charlaquin]

I always assumed telegraphs in video games were because of limits of the genre. Both fidelity and distinguishing between "real" and "background" objects. The visual fidelity of games still doesn't match the real world, a lot of what you see in video games can't be interacted with.

That and it's sheer amount of information that is thrown at a player. In a D&D game you may have a handful of hidden door, in a video you can have several objects that may be important per minute.

So, you could say that telegraphs in video games are used, at least in part, to communicate to the player what is or isn’t important to pay attention to, right? I would argue that this is also a valuable function in D&D. There are a ton of environmental features that get described in a session of D&D, many of which are mostly window dressing. I’m sure we’ve all had that time the players latched on to some odd little detail, convinced themselves it was important, and spent an inordinate amount of time trying to interact with something we really just tossed in there for flavor. Telegraphing helps avoid that.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Second, if it's not clear I agree that making or allowing people to make multiple rolls doesn't make sense.

I wasn't asking if you agree that it's a problem.

I was only asking if you agree/acknowledge/understand (take your pick)...

1. That there are implications for rolling dice in the absence of negative consequences for failure.
2. That the consequence of "only one person gets to roll, once" is different from in-game, fictional consequences.
3. That, while you may not care about any of those implications or feel they adversely affect your game, they exist, and they may conflict with valid stylist preferences held by others.

In other words, that I'm not just making $%@# up in order to be a jerk.

If you're still not clear on why that's true, and you believe it may be true, I'm happy to try to spell it out again.

 

[iserith]

For me, the benefit is that it removes the need for players to phrase lore recollection in the form of an action. Personally I find the “I think back to [background detail] to see if I remember [lore]” doesn’t feel meaningfully different than “can I make a [skill] check to see if I know anything about [lore]?” except in the sense that it reveals a bit of the character’s background, and I’m not a fan of either. But, yeah, if you like that style of lore recall (and I can see why you would), then there would be no benefit that I can think of to keeping track of player Proficiencies and/or passives and including additional descriptive detail or not based on those values.

To me, the difference in those two statements is that one is stating an approach to a goal and the other is asking to make an ability check to achieve a result. That's not a meaningful difference to some, but it wouldn't be appropriate at my table. After all, an ability check is not an action. Plus the method I recommend has some additional benefits as previously noted.

I've been considering giving recalling lore a hard look for my next campaign, but only because it will not actually have much lore to recall since I'll just be making it up as we go (as opposed to my previous Planescape and current Eberron campaign which has canon). In the case of the next campaign, at best it might be used to recall lore about monsters and such. Which is useful enough in some situations.

 

[Bawylie]

To me, the difference in those two statements is that one is stating an approach to a goal and the other is asking to make an ability check to achieve a result. That's not a meaningful difference to some, but it wouldn't be appropriate at my table. After all, an ability check is not an action. Plus the method I recommend has some additional benefits as previously noted.

I've been considering giving recalling lore a hard look for my next campaign, but only because it will not actually have much lore to recall since I'll just be making it up as we go (as opposed to my previous Planescape and current Eberron campaign which has canon). In the case of the next campaign, at best it might be used to recall lore about monsters and such. Which is useful enough in some situations.

Might turn that sort of thing into recon/research/ investigation. You don’t recall any lore - you have to go find something out.