D&D 5E Do you use the Success w/ Complication Module in the DMG or Fail Forward in the Basic PDF

[tetrasodium]

I agree, it sounds a bit strange. If failure has consequences, than succeeding avoids those consequence and hence it is meaningful. Am I missing something?

" a meaningful consequence" and "a consequence" are very different things. Easier examples thst don't need much context come up when you think about an inexperienced GM running a module too close to as written. If players succeed on something they learn plot moving stuff... if players fall they have no idea wyf is going on & what they are expected to do or worse dont even know the playing field set out for them .

 

[ART!]

I think I didn't actually know this was in the rules!

So, thanks for posting, @Manbearcat !

I've liked this kind of mechanic in other games, although I find it hard to implement as a GM; it requires me to make yet another kind of quick decision/arbitration about drama while I'm running, and I don't need that extra thing to do. I'm sure if I was playing in games that used that rule I would get used to it, and then GMing with that would get easier.

As it is, I can't recall ever playing in a 5E game that used this rule.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I agree, it sounds a bit strange. If failure has consequences, than succeeding avoids those consequence and hence it is meaningful. Am I missing something?

It seems to me that some are conflating one of the conditions of when to call for an ability check in 5e (only when there is a meaningful consequence to failure) with 5e not having a meaningful consequence to success. Kind of a strained interpretation, IMO, just to lay claim that 5e is "wrong". To paraphrase @Charlaquin , of course success gives you a meaningful consequence. It just isn't an explicit pre-requisite in the rules for the DM to call for a roll.

Perhaps it would please folks if the rules explicitly read:

If the stated action has a chance to succeed (with meaningful consequences) and a chance to fail (with meaningful consequences), it is appropriate for an ability check to be called for by the DM.

 

[Weiley31]

Wizzy the Wizard: I pull out my books about Nature, and I want to look through them for information about trolls. Yeah, baby! Natural 20!
Me: Here's their stat block. Remove any one thing from it.

PC: I choose HP.
Actually on a serious note, is there any rules/exceptions towards removing any one thing from the stat block?

Also even though I'm not using the same numbers, I love the idea and may possibly steal it.

 

[Charlaquin]

In the metagame, perhaps. From the character's point of view - and she's the one trying this action - she does the best she can at that time and in that situation; and that's what the one roll is modelling for me.

I understand that that’s the logic behind the “your first try roll represents your best attempt” approach. That’s exactly why I don’t like it though. It desynchronizes the player experience from the character’s experience. It’s what all the anti-4e crowd used to call a “dissociated mechanic”

Again, only in the metagame. Your character can't see your dice.

Yeah, but I can see my dice and it bothers me that what they say isn’t consistent with the fiction.

Which is good. A lot of this whole issue regarding fail-forward etc. seems to revolve around difficulty mitigation and-or removal of obstacles; things which IMO 5e already does more than enough of.

I don’t think that’s true at all. Generally people who use progress with a setback do so to keep the game moving forward, not to mitigate risk.

When you say "DCs aren't out in the wild", I kind of disagree in that any given thing e.g. a lock is going to present the same difficulty whether or not someone is trying to pick it at the time. Put another way, the lock always has a DC to pick.

I figured you’d disagree. But, no, a given task isn’t necessarily always the same difficulty. It depends on your approach. Picking a lock is a poor example here because it’s actually an approach to the goal of opening a locked door - as opposed to, say, breaking it down, which might have a different DC and different consequences for failure. Or using the key, or the knock spell, which might not require a roll at all. Or using the wrong key, or like shouting at it to open or something, which also wouldn’t require a roll at all, though for a different reason. Each task must be evaluated individually to determine if a roll is necessary to resolve it at all, and if so, what the DC and consequences for failure are.

There's no such thing as "no consequence for failure", though,

That’s not true at all. Some failures just lead to the status quo being maintained, especially when there is no time pressure (note that I consider periodic checks for wandering monsters or other random encounters to be a form of time pressure.)

as gaining the knowledge that you can't do something is still a consequence;

Not in my game it isn’t. Again, I detest the “your first try roll represents your best attempt” approach.

as is the fact that either something else now must be tried or the goal of passing the obstacle must be abandoned.

Right, this is another reason I don’t like the “your first try roll represents your best attempt” approach. It means failure often just halts the game’s momentum, rather than contributing anything interesting to the gameplay.

Might I ask why you avoid the bolded bit? I far prefer a sliding-scale type of resolution to straight-up pass-fail, when it's possible.

I find the simplicity of pass/fail rolls* quite elegant. There are times when degrees of success/failure at different thresholds can be useful, but I find them pretty scarce.

*note that pass/fail isn’t necessarily binary, because a failure sometimes means no progress and sometimes means progress with a setback, and always means some kind of cost must be paid or consequence must occur.

I do, in that it seems far more believable than always being able to give your best-ever shot at something.

That’s not a gameplay benefit. I understand that (for you) it’s more believable, I just don’t find that a compelling reason to use the technique when it creates ludinarrative dissonance and often causes failure to bring gameplay to a halt, and does nothing positive for gameplay in exchange.

Also, it's not "your first try represents your best attempt" but rather "your first roll represents your best attempt", in that you're concatenating what might in the fiction be a series of tries or attempts into one roll.

Sure, I can use that phrasing if you prefer.

Odd: we agree on Take-20 but probably come from opposite directions to do so.

Yep. I suspect you’ll find a lot of 3e mechanics we agree we dislike, but come at from opposite directions. This is why I generally think agreeing on problems doesn’t really matter much if you don’t agree on solutions to them.

 

[Charlaquin]

Something has always bothered me about the interpretation that automatic success in 5e isn‘t effectively take 20. If it isn‘t that, are we saying you can succeed at this task even though if I were to assign a fitting difficulty to it that difficulty would be so high that you would still fail on a 20?

The thing is, I wouldn’t assign a difficulty to a task that I would narrate as successful without calling for a roll. There just isn’t a hypothetical DC to compare to.

I understand the objection. Like, what if there’s a lock that’s really really hard to pick or something and a player with a really low bonus to their Dex + Thieves’ Tools proficiency tries to pick it? Could they just succeed without a roll? Probably not. Keep in mind the criteria for success without a roll. The approach either needs to not have a chance of failure (which in my assessment is basically never the case when it comes to trying to pick a lock), or have no meaningful cost for the attempt or consequence for failure.

So, yes, if the amateur locksmith has a master level lock in a safe location, with literally no time constraints, I would allow them to succeed without a roll, even though if they tried to pick that lock in a situation where taking too long might mean a wandering monster comes by, or a dark ritual is completed, or the client runs out of patience, or whatever, the DC for that task might be higher than they could achieve with a natural 20. But this is an extremely hypothetical scenario that would be vanishingly unlikely to ever happen in my game. Perfectly safe environments with literally no pressure just isn’t a luxury that the sort of people D&D games are centered around usually have.

 

[Charlaquin]

Sure. The lock itself hasn't changed (same DC). The surrounding elements and situation have, however (disadvantage and-or some other major penalty on the roll; or an auto-fail).

If you insist on conceptualizing it that way, you could view my approach as giving a +infinity bonus for having infinite time and no risk or pressure at all.

 

[Charlaquin]

" a meaningful consequence" and "a consequence" are very different things. Easier examples thst don't need much context come up when you think about an inexperienced GM running a module too close to as written. If players succeed on something they learn plot moving stuff... if players fall they have no idea wyf is going on & what they are expected to do or worse dont even know the playing field set out for them .

Right, but that’s a lack of meaningful consequence for failure. Can you give an example where failure does have a meaningful consequence but success doesn’t?

 

[iserith]

Progress combined with a setback on a failed check is also good for rolls that a DM might be tempted to take behind the screen because the roll itself gives something away about the situation. Insight, Perception, Stealth and other ability checks are common targets for this, depending on the fictional situation. "I roll those for the player so they can't 'metagame'..." is a common explanation for this.

Rather than make those rolls for the player (or go off some pre-rolled list as I've seen some DMs use), all the DM need do is narrate progress combined with a setback on a failure since the fictional situation changes anyway. A character might search for traps, for example. The player rolls and fails. The DM says the character finds no traps. Because the DM made the player roll, the player might conclude that there must be traps here and makes another attempt at it.

Someone like @Lanefan might then turn around and say "You can't - that was your best attempt unless something changes." Someone like me might narrate the result of the adventurer's action as, "You find the trap alright (progress) - you're standing on the pressure plate that activates it (setback)..." provided this followed according to what the player described the character as doing. Then I'd loop back around to describing the environment: "There's an ominous click and the sound of stone grinding on stone followed by rushing water in the darkness at the end of the corridor. What do you do?" The players now have a new situation with which to contend.

So, no need to make the roll for the player behind a screen or treat an attempt as the best and only attempt given the circumstances. Just narrate failure as progress combined with a setback.

 

[tetrasodium]

Right, but that’s a lack of meaningful consequence for failure. Can you give an example where failure does have a meaningful consequence but success doesn’t?

the vast majority of "I try to pick the lock" either the party moves on, they use a side door elsewhere, or they find a key/break it down. It's more difficult but a ton of pointless checks get called just to call something