D&D 5E (2014) DM imposed restrictions to the game (+)

[CreamCloud0]

You fail your wisdom save. You are overcome with lust and cannot do anything but think of ravaging the NPC.

You fail your wisdom save. You are overcome with bloodlust and cannot resist wanting to murder the NPC.

You fail your wisdom save. You are overcome with greed and cannot help but want to steal the item in front of you.

You fail your wisdom save. You are overcome with cowardice and are willing to abandon your longtime friends and companions to save your own skin.

Am I getting the mechanics of the scenario correct and only have to worry about what wiity dialogue I'm adding?

how many REAL examples of checks that ACTUALLY make you do those things do you know of? checks don't work that way.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

how many REAL examples of checks that ACTUALLY make you do those things do you know of? checks don't work that way.

Nor do spiders cause fear checks, but here we are.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That's entertaining, but that's the action/adventure genre (see Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom for example), not horror. Horror comes from the primal experience of telling scary stories around the camp fire. Scaring the audience is the whole point. Lots of people (but not everyone) enjoy being frightened because it gives them an adrenaline buzz.

I gather your position is that action-horror is a mixed genre?

 

[Remathilis]

you can't move closer to the source of your fear and you have disadvantage on all attack rolls and ability checks while it's it your line of sight, and whatever else fearful response you want your character to act out, but you don't get to just DECIDE to not be afraid.

So as long as I don't approach the source and take the appropriate Disadvantage, I can act how I wish, even declaring "no, I'm not afraid. W-W-Why would I be afraid?"

 

[Remathilis]

how many REAL examples of checks that ACTUALLY make you do those things do you know of? checks don't work that way.

Why not? You've already declared it's fine to declare I feel fear, why not take the next step. @EzekielRaiden suggested a roll earlier to see if a Priest of Talos would betray his faith to act in his better nature. How far is that from rolling to see if someone is overcome with angry, greed, or lust?

 

[tetrasodium]

Given I am not planning to do that, no. And no, I also do not announce that I expect that my character cannot be forced by the mechanics to react in certain way aside a few mostly magical exceptions, as that is the RAW, thus the expected baseline.



I fully expect the players to create characters that are believable people with goals, desires, values, fears and beliefs and I expect them to roleplay them honestly and react to the things the GM presents. I just do not believe that if they fail to do so this is an issue that can be fixed by the GM railroading them via the rules to play like the GM wants. Rather it is matter that should be discussed OOC, and ultimately if it cannot be resolved, it is the time to find better players.

What on earth are you talking about? You seem to be (deliberately?) failing to understand the difference between your character being affected by something within the world or being affected by the world itself with your character being forced to take an action. As I said earlier The ways that someone could be directly or indirectly affected by the world or something on it are endless awe alarm shock disgust sorrow rage/anger doubt/certainty respect for deeds/social standing/position organizational backing/etc. the list is absolutely endless. You could pointlessly change the word world to "fictional situation" if it makes you happy though. None of those examples are "forcing" an action. What they are doing however is setting the baseline of some discrete "fictional situation" situation that could be anything from the description of a location/object/creature or a social interaction where any number of endlessly hypothetical ways the world could affect PCs are present.

Having been made aware of that weight being present on a player's PC the expectation is for them to do the work of accepting that their PC is a fictional entity that is part of the world where the "fictional situation" is affecting it & roleplay it accordingly. You and @AlViking have repeatedly stated that the player is exempt from that and it's totally acceptable to simply decide that their PC is able to seize GM power to reshape the world/fictional situation so that their PC is simply not affected in any way. It has even been asserted that a player can do that with no need to justify why they feel it should not affect their PC or have their PC take an action to investigate why something seems amiss in their eyes unless the GM tells them a magical source or there is a save.

Is the quality of your much discussed "mental model" so fragile & lacking that being presented with a "fictional situation" where you are informed your PC is affected in hypothetical ways such as awe alarm shock disgust sorrow rage/anger doubt/certainty respect for deeds/social standing/position organizational backing/etc is something you are incapable of processing unless you personally complete with metaknowledge are also affected with those hypothetical influences as a player -OR- is this really just a roundabout way of cloaking Gary Stu style Main Character Syndrome player attitudes in the trappings of a sturdier shield?

Ok. I failed my fear save. What happens NOW? Explain what happens. Do I get to decide how my character reacts to the fear? Do you roll randomly on a chart? Do you just TELL me what my character does? Please, advise what happens next...

It depends, Not everything in the world that could potentially affect your PC carries with it a mechanical condition like fear & such. As long as we accept your PC exists as part of the game world that is affected by the "fictional situations" the PC takes part in rather than something like an outsider or aberration that can distort the reality of those fictional situations taking place in the game world the answer is very simple. Specifically if the player wants to try their hand at making a case like the drow/spider one in 676 & expect to be held to it for reasons described in 678. -OR- The player could accept that the fictional situation involves their PC being directly or indirectly affected by the world or something on it are endless awe alarm shock disgust sorrow rage/anger doubt/certainty respect for deeds/social standing/position organizational backing/etc & take an action that is colored by that affect they do not feel their PC has an openly justifiable reason to change the affect

 

[Lanefan]

I... Actually think we are arguing for the same thing. You impose a condition, I get to react with my character in a way that is within the boundaries of the condition. What I've been arguing about is when the game forces a specific action or specific thought on me.

If my PC is frightened. I get to take my action within the boundaries of the frightened condition. If my Character is charmed, he still is himself, he just now views the charmer in a different light. I react poorly when the dice (or DM) tells me what my action will be. You WILL run screaming though the dungeon, trigging every trap and alerting every monster, because the dice say you do. You will backstab your best friend because the bard asked you nicely enough. You will give your money to the con man because you believe he is 100% honest. You will punch the ogre because you are so mad you forget you're a 4 ft tall gnome with an 8 strength and you ain't heard no bell yet!

I've never once advocated a character can role play out of a game mechanic. You can't use "I'm brave" to negative a cause fear spell or a dragons aura. You can argue that rather than run away screaming, you cautiously fall back, allow others the time to escape and then look for a way to retreat. The latter preserves the character as brave but faltering, the former makes him a coward who abandoned his friends to save his own skin. I'd like the choice in which one my character is, thank you very much.

Thing is, you come across as a good-faith player.

Your ideas, however, leave things wide open to abuse by bad-faith players, be that abuse intentional or otherwise. The game design has to, to some extent, account for and rein in bad-faith players; hence the sometimes-forced in-character reactions to things like fear checks.

For me, when it comes to fear I always have the failed-save effect built right in to the write-up when-where I can. Examples:

"Save or cower in place for [x-time], defenseless and unable to act"
"Save or flee in mindless panic for [x-time], can easily run off cliffs, into hazards, etc."
"If save failed, any and all subsequent actions and saves are at -2 until-unless you become separated from [the fear source] by a non-transparent solid barrier or at least 50 ft distance".

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What on earth are you talking about? You seem to be (deliberately?) failing to understand the difference between your character being affected by something within the world or being affected by the world itself with your character being forced to take an action. As I said earlier The ways that someone could be directly or indirectly affected by the world or something on it are endless awe alarm shock disgust sorrow rage/anger doubt/certainty respect for deeds/social standing/position organizational backing/etc. the list is absolutely endless. You could pointlessly change the word world to "fictional situation" if it makes you happy though. None of those examples are "forcing" an action. What they are doing however is setting the baseline of some discrete "fictional situation" situation that could be anything from the description of a location/object/creature or a social interaction where any number of endlessly hypothetical ways the world could affect PCs are present.

Yes, the characters can be mentally affected. This happens via the GM describing the situations and the player roleplaying the reaction of the character. What it does not require is any rules, nor does it involve the GM telling how the character should react.

Having been made aware of that weight being present on a player's PC the expectation is for them to do the work of accepting that their PC is a fictional entity that is part of the world where the "fictional situation" is affecting it & roleplay it accordingly. You and @AlViking have repeatedly stated that the player is exempt from that and it's totally acceptable to simply decide that their PC is able to seize GM power to reshape the world/fictional situation so that their PC is simply not affected in any way. It has even been asserted that a player can do that with no need to justify why they feel it should not affect their PC or have their PC take an action to investigate why something seems amiss in their eyes unless the GM tells them a magical source or there is a save.

"world shaping" is just bizarre strawman you have concocted. That is not happening. And yes, the player can decide if and how their character is affected by any given situation. What is expected from them is believable characterisation of a person.

Is the quality of your much discussed "mental model" so fragile & lacking that being presented with a "fictional situation" where you are informed your PC is affected in hypothetical ways such as awe alarm shock disgust sorrow rage/anger doubt/certainty respect for deeds/social standing/position organizational backing/etc is something you are incapable of processing unless you personally complete with metaknowledge are also affected with those hypothetical influences as a player -OR- is this really just a roundabout way of cloaking Gary Stu style Main Character Syndrome player attitudes in the trappings of a sturdier shield?

That is not a fictional situation the GM should present. Things like shock, disgust and anger are subjective feelings, thus they are in the purview of the player. If you want the characters to be shocked, describe something most people might find shocking, so maybe the character are now shocked. But if some PCs nature is such, that they would instead find that "shocking" thing fascinating instead, then that is fine too, as long as it is part of a coherent characterisation.

You created the bizarre complain about the the players controlling the world, yet you seem to constantly want to control the characters as a GM. Stop doing that! Be charge of the world, describe the external situation of the characters to the players, and let them come up with their chracter's internal reaction to that. This distinction should not be this difficult, it is pretty basic assumption in most traddish RPGs, so I don't really get why so many people seem to have such inordinate trouble with it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Your ideas, however, leave things wide open to abuse by bad-faith players

That’s easily avoided. Don’t play with bad-faith players.

 

[Lanefan]

It's no nonsense. Character who never fears anything would probably be a boring character, unless there was something more to it, but it is the player's right to define the mental landscape of their character. And fear is subjective. People find different things scary, The rules do not take into account that nuance, the players can. And if people constantly make boring characters, get better players.

A bone I threw to Cavaliers in my 1e-adjacent game, as trade-off for otherwise somewhat harshly toning them down from their published UA version, is that "fearless" is a baked-in class ability: they're immune to nearly all fear effects right from day one. I've also had magic items that anyone can use that grant 'fearless' while said item is being worn-wielded-used.

I don't think this makes those characters any more boring to play. Cavaliers are unpopular mostly because their best effects come while on a mount and mounts and dungeons really don't mix well. Fearless, though, is a much-sought-after ability.