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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 7810616" data-attributes="member: 6779196"><p>YES!!! Hallelujah, a breakthrough! This is very eloquently put, and I think accurately expresses what we’ve been failing to communicate this whole time. THANK you!</p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes, there is often resistance to our DMing style due to people having had negative experiences with DMs employing it poorly. Likewise, there are a lot of us on this side of the fence who have similarly intense negative reactions to the style that is being presented as the alternative here, because of DMs who used it poorly. I think these conversations are more successful if we assume our fellow participants are running their games to the best of their ability.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I disagree that it is analogous to combat. An attack is still an action taken by the character, and a declaration of an attack still communicates (or, ought to communicate, if the player is adequately fulfilling their role,) the intent to kill or incapacitate the target, who or what the target is, and with what tool the attacker is attempting to harm the target.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Ah, now here we are in emphatic agreement, and this is where telegraphing comes into play. I like Iserith’s analogy of a lie as the social interaction equivalent of a trap. If the DM doesn’t give the players any indication that it is there in their description of the environment, the DM is not fulfilling their role adequately, and it is unreasonable for them to expect the players to fulfill their role when they lack the necessary information to do so. It is on DM, under goal and approach, to describe the environment in sufficient detail for the players to be able to declare their action. If the inkeep lies, the DM should describe a cue to indicate it, just as (s)he would describe a cue to indicate the presence of a trap.</p><p></p><p>The usual response to this is: “but then your players will always know when anyone is lying/when there’s a trap, and will never need to make a roll for it. To which I say, lies and traps are not the only social and exploratory hazards and features that I telegraph. Players must pay attention to my description of the environment if they hope to both notice telegraphs and accurately determine what they indicate. As well, even if you think you know what a telegraph indicates, it is smart play to take action to follow up on your suspicions and confirm or deny them with certainty rather than risk having guessed wrong. It has not been my experience that players always see everything coming as a result of my telegraphing.</p><p></p><p>This, by the way, is something I consider one of the major perks of this play style. It pushes me to be a better narrator, and it encourages my players to pay attention to the details of my narration, and to interact with the environment, by way of describing active attempts to investigate further. All of these are behaviors I like to see in play and wish to encourage, so the technique is all upside for me.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I strongly disagree. The rules of D&D 5e, as I read them anyway, define skills as specific applications of abilities, and define ability checks as tools for resolving uncertainty in actions. It is my belief that, if an activity is not an “action,” then it is not appropriate to resolve by way of an Ability (Skill) check.</p><p></p><p>This, by the way, is why I disagree with Iserith on how best to resolve attempts to recall lore. I see them as akin to Insight in the sense of not really being “actions,” and find his attempts to resolve this discrepancy by asking that his players describe attempts to recall lore as an action (such as “I think back to my military training to try and remember how best to kill trolls”) as a poor fit with the way I prefer to run the game.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I don’t think these scenarios are being ignored at all, but I think when those of us who use the technique acknowledge them, and even discuss among ourselves ways we have attempted to address them, those conversations get misinterpreted and/or drowned out by people interrogating the method generally. See, for example, the above point about Iserith’s and my disagreement about lore recollection. I think if there was less hostility towards this technique and more earnest attempts to understand it on its own terms, it would become clear that the very same scenarios you feel it doesn’t work well for are the ones we have the least consensus on how best to handle them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 7810616, member: 6779196"] YES!!! Hallelujah, a breakthrough! This is very eloquently put, and I think accurately expresses what we’ve been failing to communicate this whole time. THANK you! Yes, there is often resistance to our DMing style due to people having had negative experiences with DMs employing it poorly. Likewise, there are a lot of us on this side of the fence who have similarly intense negative reactions to the style that is being presented as the alternative here, because of DMs who used it poorly. I think these conversations are more successful if we assume our fellow participants are running their games to the best of their ability. I disagree that it is analogous to combat. An attack is still an action taken by the character, and a declaration of an attack still communicates (or, ought to communicate, if the player is adequately fulfilling their role,) the intent to kill or incapacitate the target, who or what the target is, and with what tool the attacker is attempting to harm the target. Ah, now here we are in emphatic agreement, and this is where telegraphing comes into play. I like Iserith’s analogy of a lie as the social interaction equivalent of a trap. If the DM doesn’t give the players any indication that it is there in their description of the environment, the DM is not fulfilling their role adequately, and it is unreasonable for them to expect the players to fulfill their role when they lack the necessary information to do so. It is on DM, under goal and approach, to describe the environment in sufficient detail for the players to be able to declare their action. If the inkeep lies, the DM should describe a cue to indicate it, just as (s)he would describe a cue to indicate the presence of a trap. The usual response to this is: “but then your players will always know when anyone is lying/when there’s a trap, and will never need to make a roll for it. To which I say, lies and traps are not the only social and exploratory hazards and features that I telegraph. Players must pay attention to my description of the environment if they hope to both notice telegraphs and accurately determine what they indicate. As well, even if you think you know what a telegraph indicates, it is smart play to take action to follow up on your suspicions and confirm or deny them with certainty rather than risk having guessed wrong. It has not been my experience that players always see everything coming as a result of my telegraphing. This, by the way, is something I consider one of the major perks of this play style. It pushes me to be a better narrator, and it encourages my players to pay attention to the details of my narration, and to interact with the environment, by way of describing active attempts to investigate further. All of these are behaviors I like to see in play and wish to encourage, so the technique is all upside for me. I strongly disagree. The rules of D&D 5e, as I read them anyway, define skills as specific applications of abilities, and define ability checks as tools for resolving uncertainty in actions. It is my belief that, if an activity is not an “action,” then it is not appropriate to resolve by way of an Ability (Skill) check. This, by the way, is why I disagree with Iserith on how best to resolve attempts to recall lore. I see them as akin to Insight in the sense of not really being “actions,” and find his attempts to resolve this discrepancy by asking that his players describe attempts to recall lore as an action (such as “I think back to my military training to try and remember how best to kill trolls”) as a poor fit with the way I prefer to run the game. I don’t think these scenarios are being ignored at all, but I think when those of us who use the technique acknowledge them, and even discuss among ourselves ways we have attempted to address them, those conversations get misinterpreted and/or drowned out by people interrogating the method generally. See, for example, the above point about Iserith’s and my disagreement about lore recollection. I think if there was less hostility towards this technique and more earnest attempts to understand it on its own terms, it would become clear that the very same scenarios you feel it doesn’t work well for are the ones we have the least consensus on how best to handle them. [/QUOTE]
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