Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
You're moving the pea. The range of possible outcome available to the GM actually includes nominally negating the action on a successful roll. Some GMs on this board directly recommend calling for a check for an impossible task, just to keep DCs hidden, and this isn't flat out refuted by the rules. Similarly, even with principle, actions can be negated because the GM has asked for a roll for a different reason than the player thinks the roll is for. Say a player attempts to negotiate with a Burgomaster, but the detailed approach is, according to the GM's notes, doomed to failure (the Burgomaster absolutely will not respond to this action). The GM may call for a roll to see how badly the Burgomaster reacts -- in this case, the action will absolutely fail, but the result still has some uncertainty, just not what the player expects.
But, let's say we are going to be principled and do not ever negate the player stated goal of an action declaration on a success. The range of 'not negate' is still vast. The Burgomaster might, on a success, indeed be willing to negotiate, but the want some pretty hefty concessions or quests to do so. This might be a 'success', but it's certainly likely not what the player wanted. On the other side, you can have the Burgomaster just roll over on a success, and give away the whole farm, so to speak, on a successful roll. This has it's own problems in that things don't feel earned and just depend on the die rolls.
The truth is that for a game like 5e to work well, the GM has to balance their table, and the rules give a huge space within which to do this, but don't offer any real guidance or constraint on it at all. It's entirely up to the GM (and to an extent the table of players) to do this work.
It's a credit to you that you do this well. I agree with a lot of how you approach play -- I don't think you'd find much to complain about at my 5e table. The oddity is that you're so willing to credit the 5e rules for this when it's clearly you doing it, and doing it well.
Oh, it's very much not. Just look to the stealth rules -- this is just one of many explicit examples of rulings not rules. It was the most honest marketing campaign I'm aware of outside of the movie Crazy People -- Buy Volvos, they're boxy but they're good. So true in the '80's.
Again, why the rush to defend 5e on this point? It's a good game, largely because it is designed this way -- it's whatever a table needs it to be, within the general genre of D&D (which is absolutely a thing). It does combat pretty well, within the D&D genre, at least. It has some useful tools. But it completely lacks a structure in which to use those tools to do social or exploration play.
I mean, look at the numerous threads where how you do social interaction is debated -- some argue it should all be play-acting at the table with the GM as arbiter of outcome, and it's anathema to use mechanics to do this. This is supported by 5e -- there's a path called out in the DMG that is for this exactly. On the other side, there's others that argue that the mechanics are the way to go, otherwise it's just playing the GM and not the characters, so social mechanics are required. This is also a path in the DMG. Then there's a middle ground, which is, wait for it, also supported! Such a vast disparity in how you interact with one of the stated three pillars of the game, all equally supported and not by the rules.
The truth of 5e is that it takes the GM to decide how it works. Don't give this hard earned skill back to 5e by claiming that it's the rules and not you doing it.
