D&D 5E Do you let PC's just *break* objects?

[Charlaquin]

There's a difference: to me the gameplay purpose of traps is to delay and-or weaken the PCs; for which the only interaction required is that they set the damn things off.

That some traps also serve to alert the opposition when set off is a bonus.

Well, yeah, they’re multipurpose, and can certainly also serve as resource taxes. But in my view, if they can’t also be interacted with, they might as well be Bolts From the Gods. A trap that’s impossible to detect may as well just be “you all lose 3d6 HP.”

All I think they should recognize in retrospect is that they weren't cautious enough (or maybe just plain ol' unlucky, it happens). There isn't always a clue, and a well-designed trap wouldn't provide any.

From a Wattsonian perspective, sure, a well-designed trap should be nearly undetectable. From a Doylist perspective though, a trap that can’t be detected is just a screwjob. A well-designed trap should, in my view, test the players’ ability to pick up on and interpret subtle details in the environment and make good decisions about how to navigate and interact with the environment based on those interpretations.

 

[iserith]

But not for driving in screws, and I suspect some here are getting the impression from others that they are expected to use a hammer for everything from driving in nails to removing screws to washing the laundry.

Some tools are great at doing multiple things effectively.

 

[Oofta]

Side question, but I've never quite understood this (bolded) claim and I've seen it from others as well as you.

Adventuring of any kind has to happen somewhere, doesn't it?

Pirate adventuring happens on the bounding main, and sometimes in port. Dungeon-crawling happens (usually) in dungeons or caverns. City-based adventures happen in a city. Travel-based adventures happen on the road. Courtly intrigue usually revolves around a palace, or maybe a few in different capitals. And so forth.

So how can this claim make any sense?

The locations are there, of course, but I don't do dungeon crawls or hex exploration. I rarely use detailed maps for locations and instead do general exploration with ToTM. The action revolves around social encounters and combat, not finding and removing traps. I can't remember the last time I did an old school dungeon crawl, although of course occasionally people are in abandoned buildings which may be underground. The Temple of Elemental Evil is what would consider a location based campaign. Dragon Heist is more event based.

My campaign revolves more around events and interacting with the various power groups I've set up for my campaign. The obstacles you encounter are usually not going to be traps or terrain, it's going to be NPCs and monsters. Do you work with that wererat guild because they make really good spies or do you gather up your silvered weapons and take them out? Investigate the rumors of evil clowns or track down the missing jewels for the rich patron? Those are the kind of decisions the players have to make, not do we go left down the creepy hallway or right?

Or at least that's how I understand it, I could be using the term completely wrong.

 

[greg kaye]

..., I as DM follow the internal logic of the fiction to determine the results. If it’s uncertain what those results would be, a check is used to resolve that uncertainty. “Automatic success” is the default state of affairs - if you say you do it, you do it. Checks are only called for when what you say you do involves a degree of risk, and it’s not clear from following the fiction alone whether or not you will suffer the possible negative effects. It therefore doesn’t really make sense in this model to talk about criteria for making checks, because checks are dangerous things to be avoided if possible. They represent a possibility that you might actually fail to do what you said you do, and suffer some consequence as a result. It’s not that you have to describe your action well enough to earn a check, it’s that if you take a risky action, you might have to make a check.

I've just come back to ponder this.
So would an automatic success here, say, involve a reasonably dexterous character walking across a river floor and a check becoming required for jumping across the stones (and so, perhaps, lessening a potential risk of being attacked by something that might be hidden in the water)?
Cooking with familiar ingredients at home with ample time is an automatic success (never gets burned) while cooking with unfamiliar scraps, in a strange location, and in a rush will need a check?
If the party stops moving, decerning the chanting is an automatic success but if they all continue walking a check is needed?
Is this the kind of thing?

 

[Charlaquin]

I've just come back to ponder this.
So would an automatic success here, say, involve a reasonably dexterous character walking across a river floor and a check becoming required for jumping across the stones (and so, perhaps, lessening a potential risk of being attacked by something that might be hidden in the water)?
Cooking with familiar ingredients at home with ample time is an automatic success (never gets burned) while cooking with unfamiliar scraps, in a strange location, and in a rush will need a check?
If the party stops moving, decerning the chanting is an automatic success but if they all continue walking a check is needed?
Is this the kind of thing?

I’m not sure I follow you on the river example, but yes, you’ve got the right idea.

 

[greg kaye]

I’m not sure I follow you on the river example, but yes, you’ve got the right idea.

Well, that doesn't seem to me to be too controversial.
It quite easily fits the standard rules for ability checks (as are inclusive of skill checks).

 

[Gradine]

Rephrasing is an absolutely essential tool for most deliberate communication styles. A great way to show that you're listening is something along the lines of "What it sounds like you're saying is..."

Of course, if the response is "No, that's not at all what I was saying", it's important to try to rephrase again to make sure you're getting it right.

 

[Charlaquin]

Well, that doesn't seem to me to be too controversial.
It quite easily fits the standard rules for ability checks (as are inclusive of skill checks).
View attachment 288331

Yep! Those rules are where I derived my approach to action resolution from, more or less. Actually to be more specific, I derived it from the version of these rules that was in the D&D Next playtest, which I thought communicated the same ideas with slightly clearer wording, or at least wording that resonated a bit better with me. I’ve refined the approach over time and with some feedback from other sources, but fundamentally it comes back to the way the 5e playtest taught me to run itself, which was a revelation for me at the time. The way it described running the game was vastly different to how I had run or seen D&D run before, and out of desire to engage with the playtest on its own terms, I tried to adjust my style according to what it instructed. And by golly, I had way more fun with the game than I ever had before.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The true purpose of traps is to force one player to play rogue even if and especially when they don't want to.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I was just about to hit "like" for this post, but then I saw...

...this.

What difference does it make whether destroying something in the setting is "part of the story" or not?

Reading this literally, if smashing a vase is somehow relevant to the story then it's automatically broken on declaration, but if smashing the same vase isn't relevant to the story then breaking it is impossible no matter what the characters do.

If this isn't what you meant, please clarify.

No, you misunderstand. Or rather, I wasn't clear: If it's not part of the story, then it's not part of the story. Breaking the moon, for example, would absolutely be a thing, if the story was about breaking the moon. I meant in escalating "size and importance" of the things being broken. If it's big enough (the moon; a god's face; all of reality) then it could STILL be broken - it would just (at that point) BE THE STORY.

Not the other-way around. Not little things being impossible if they're not part of the story. A little thing would already be part of the story, or it wouldn't even be there to break. Does that make more sense?