Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Player's Handbook Is Already Getting Errata

The 2024 Player's Handbook on D&D Beyond contains several updates to the new revised 5th edition ruleset. Early access users of D&D Beyond who have also obtained a physical copy of the 2024 Player's Handbook have noticed several minor differences between the digital and physical copy, assumably due to soon-to-be-released errata. Notably, the following changes have been spotted:

• Giant Insect spell contains a clarification on its HP (the physical edition states that the summoned insect has an HP of 30+10 for each level in the spell slot used to cast the spell; the digital version states 30+10 for every level above 4th level),
• Shields now require the Utilize action to don or doff
• Goliath's Powerful Build now specifies that it grants Advantage on ability checks to end the Grappled Condition instead of saving throws.
• True Polymorph's spell description no longer states that the spell effects end if its target's temporary hit points run out.
• The Telekinetic feat now specifies that it grants an increased range to the use of Mage Hand instead stating that you can cast Mage Hand at a further distance away.

Notably, Wizards of the Coast has not released an official errata document for the Player's Handbook, although they may be holding out until the book's full release on September 17th.

 

[Charlaquin]

I was referring to the bolded. Purple prose only comes into it when the same logic is applied to social checks.

Then you choice of wording, “if the player had just described their action well enough, that the DM would have just given them the success” was maybe not the best way to express your point, as it implies the quality of the description, rather than the specifics of the action described, are the relevant factor in determining success.

Which can be achieved regardless, or hindered regardless. However, for the people who often espouse the idea that asking for a roll is detrimental to your character's success, they are not framing the situation in terms of creating memorable stories. They are framing it in terms of winning and losing. That is why they talk about "success" and not about how just asking to roll the dice robs the player of the chance to tell an interesting story.

I mean, I am one of the people who often espouse the idea that asking for a roll is detrimental to your character’s success, which it absolutely is in the play style under discussion. The reason we talk about it in terms of being detrimental to success rather than being detrimental to the ability to tell a good story is that the former is true and the latter is not, at least not directly. However, the play style we are espousing is designed to enable the emergent generation of story, via the players striving to achieve their characters goals, and the DM presenting obstacles to those goals.

I frequently reference a clip where Brendan Lee Mulligan talks about how Frodo wants the journey to Mordor to be as fast, efficient, and conflict free as possible, but in a D&D game, Frodo’s player would want that journey to be full of twists and conflicts and setbacks, and that he thinks about “railroading” in terms of the DM shaping the path as the players go in order to allow the player to align their goals with the character’s goals from moment to moment, despite having opposite desires for the overarching story. In the play style I advocate for, this same goal of Brendan’s is achieved through gameplay processes rather than through the DM’s hand guiding the narrative.

Out of curiosity, can you speak equally elegantly on the benefits of not requiring players to constantly refer to everything in character without referencing their desire to roll? Because, that is the opposing side to your stated preference, a lack of requirement and freedom to do as they will.

I have thoughts on the matter, but I am curious to hear your side of it, if you have one.

I think there must be a disconnect here, because in the play style I’m advocating for here, players are not required to refer to everything in character. If a declaration of action includes what the player wants to accomplish, what the character does to try to accomplish it, it doesn’t matter if it’s stated in-character or not. In fact, I would argue that it’s actually much easier to phrase such an action declaration in what the 2024 PHB calls “descriptive roleplaying” as opposed to what it calls “active roleplaying”.

Anyway, the matter of allowing out-of-character action declarations aside, I can not speak as eloquently on the benefits of allowing players to simply declare ability checks rather than describing an action in terms of goal and approach and the DM calling for ability checks as necessary. It is not my preferred way of playing, so I don’t have as much experience speaking positively of it. The best I could probably say for it is the inverse of what I described as a drawback of requiring declarations of goal and approach: it doesn’t require the DM to be as thorough in their description of the environment and telegraphing of important information. Although, for me personally that’s a double-edged sword at best. One of the many reasons I prefer goal and approach is that the level of specificity it requires helps me clearly visualize the fiction, which I often struggle to do in games where the DM does allow players to simply ask for checks.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Snip

Very well phrased.

I will add:
Especially for social skills, the descriptive approach is very useful as not every player that plays a character with high charisma and social skill is very eloquent and can convince people in character.
So there stating the goal and method seems appropriate.
In that case a player saying: "I try to intimidate him by doing by flexing my muscles" is totally in line. Close to asking for a check but not quite.
The DM can now ask for a STR(intimidate) check or just grant success or call it a failure.

I sometimes used passive investigation to tell people that their characters have a feeling that something is off, even if the players would have missed it.
In that cases just asking if a character can gather clues by looking around would result in wither a perception or investigarion check (perception to find something, investigation to notice things that hide in plain sight etc).
Not every player is that aware and playing a high int character with investigation should give them an edge in such situations.


I mean, noone asks players to showcase their fencing skills when the desription is just: "I attack with my sword".

So in my books both approaches, descriptive and acting are both needed for a successful game. And implicitely calling for a check is not a dealbreaker.

 

[Charlaquin]

I mean, noone asks players to showcase their fencing skills when the desription is just: "I attack with my sword".

This comes up a lot in these discussions, I think as a way to point out a perceived inconsistency in goal and approach action declarations, because declaring a goal and approach in an investigative or social context can seem like needing to demonstrate one’s real investigative or social skills. But, in my view, that’s a result of D&D being a social game; yes, a certain degree of real social skill is necessary in D&D, just as it is in Secret Hitler or similar games. But, the requirements for an action declaration are indeed consistent across the pillars of play. In combat, you must make clear if you are attacking with intent to kill or simply incapacitate (goal) and your target and weapon or spell used (approach).

 

[Chaosmancer]

Then you choice of wording, “if the player had just described their action well enough, that the DM would have just given them the success” was maybe not the best way to express your point, as it implies the quality of the description, rather than the specifics of the action described, are the relevant factor in determining success.

Shrug cribbing language from how it has been expressed in the past. I figured the sentiment would be well-expressed without needing a thesis level review of my phrasing.

I mean, I am one of the people who often espouse the idea that asking for a roll is detrimental to your character’s success, which it absolutely is in the play style under discussion. The reason we talk about it in terms of being detrimental to success rather than being detrimental to the ability to tell a good story is that the former is true and the latter is not, at least not directly. However, the play style we are espousing is designed to enable the emergent generation of story, via the players striving to achieve their characters goals, and the DM presenting obstacles to those goals.

Your last sentence implies that the opposite technique either doesn't allow the DM to present obstacles (which is rather silly since the entire discussion is hinged around a response to obstacles) or that the player asking to roll instead of describing an action does not allow for emergent generation of story via attempting to achieve a character's goals. I'll review the next paragraph before offering a rebuttal to the second idea.

I frequently reference a clip where Brendan Lee Mulligan talks about how Frodo wants the journey to Mordor to be as fast, efficient, and conflict free as possible, but in a D&D game, Frodo’s player would want that journey to be full of twists and conflicts and setbacks, and that he thinks about “railroading” in terms of the DM shaping the path as the players go in order to allow the player to align their goals with the character’s goals from moment to moment, despite having opposite desires for the overarching story. In the play style I advocate for, this same goal of Brendan’s is achieved through gameplay processes rather than through the DM’s hand guiding the narrative.

Right, this has absolutely nothing at all to do with the specific method of resolution. On a meta-level, the story is equally likely to be twists, conflicts and setbacks if you roll for results. I know this intimately, as my major writing projects over the last few years have been explicitly that exact sort of story telling. In fact, the issue with the rolling method is often a LACK of such things, as the dice decree a success where a challenge was meant.

I also find your implications to again be rather harsh. The player asking to roll is not giving the DM permission to shape the path of the story in general, nor does it prevent them from taking actions that align with their character's goals. You seem to have the complete wrong conception with which to tackle this, because you are looking at this in terms of the agency of the character. But that is not what is going on here.

To fully explain, I need to lay some ground work. Firstly, remember again that the opposing style is a lack of requirement. No one has ever stated in any of these discussions that they would require their players to never state an action and only ask for a roll. Every refutation of your preference I have ever seen across these boards is consistently that they would simply not force the player to rephrase their attempt and force them to come up with an action. This is a key point that leads into the second, which is that the opposing style is one of inconsistency. Sometimes the player will describe their actions as you would, sometimes they ask to simply roll. And that is the key that I think trips you up, because it leads to a question. What is the difference between those times?

We often phrase this as being something that "new players" do. But I've seen experienced players do it as well, and there is a pattern. So, when do we simply hold up the die and ask to roll? There are three major categories in my experience: Lack of Knowledge, Lack of Care, Lack of Confidence.

I'm going to tackle the last one first, because it is the most simple and the only one where I tend to agree with the idea of getting the player to add more specificity to the request. You see this almost exclusively with the persuasion skill. The player knows that they should be able to persuade the NPC to their side, but they lack the confidence to even come up with reasons. There could be many reasons for this, or this could instead be one of the other two categories, but this is the player attempting to reach out. They believe themselves to be a poor speaker or someone with bad ideas, but they KNOW their character is better than them. So, instead of ruining it by saying something stupid, they just lean on the dice. I agree this is a bad reason to do this, but it is one that exists.

The other two are more complicated, and intertwined. On one hand, you have the "lack of knowledge" situation. This is really common with the knowledge skills or the information gathering skills. A player who holds up the die and asks "Can I roll Arcana" after you described a magical ritual isn't asking because they want you to take over their actions, they are asking because they have no idea what to do... but since it is a magical ritual Arcana should tell them something they need to know to do something. You might consider this a failing on the part of the DM, and you might be right, but at the same time... DMs are human. We make mistakes. I might have described the ritual and made it sound really cool and ominious... and left my player sitting there thinking "what the heck do I do with this information? I've got nothing." So they turn to the dice to give them clues. They aren't asking you to let them use Arcana to dismantle the ritual with you describing their actions, but instead are asking for information to guide them in taking the action. Same with to a degree with Insight. They are fishing for information, because they are not sure what to do. But that particular skill also ties into the last category. Lack of Care.

I do not care how you want to describe me insighting someone. I can purple prose it, I'm capable of that, and if I feel like looking for a particular tell, I'll mention it as part of the die roll. But ultimately... it doesn't matter. The same thing happens with lockpicking. I want to use thieves tools to unlock the door. I don't actually care HOW I unlock the door, that isn't the detail that has meaning to me. My action which goes up to Mulligan's point is unlocking the door so that we can reach our goal. During the Star Wars Trash Compactor scene, we are never told anything about HOW R2D2 hacks the mainframe and turns of the Trash Compactor. Did he find a weakness in the firewall and overload the pistons? Did he readjust the clock of the computers and set them for a time of day when those machines don't run? Did he send a maintenaince request? It actually does not matter. What matters is that he hacked it and turned it off, the HOW does not actually matter for that moment. What matters is that he did it, he took the action and saved the team.

And so, this is why I think you've missed the point by referring to Brenden Mulligan's discussion on railroading. Because the only time the player actually gives up control... is when they don't actually care about the details. I want to pick the lock on the door, I don't particularly care if it requires a three-pin wrench, a flex-pin twisted left, or anything else. Because in a move it would just show the character fiddling with the lock and unlocking it, and in a book, they would just say "and he unlocked the door" 95% of the time. Because the detail of how doesn't matter. And the other two times this tends to come up isn't about giving up control, but asking for help. What do I want to do when I roll Arcana on the world-ending ritual? I want to figure out what actions I can take to stop that ritual. How do I do that? By being a character who has specialized knowledge of magic and knows what to do when seeing a world-ending ritual. How do I do that? I have no idea, but my character certainly does if you'd just let me roll the dice.

Now, in that instance I may not have them roll the dice. I might just tell them the information. But both players and DMs are very reluctant to skip the dice rolling when it comes to learning secrets or hidden information.

I think there must be a disconnect here, because in the play style I’m advocating for here, players are not required to refer to everything in character. If a declaration of action includes what the player wants to accomplish, what the character does to try to accomplish it, it doesn’t matter if it’s stated in-character or not. In fact, I would argue that it’s actually much easier to phrase such an action declaration in what the 2024 PHB calls “descriptive roleplaying” as opposed to what it calls “active roleplaying”.

Anyway, the matter of allowing out-of-character action declarations aside, I can not speak as eloquently on the benefits of allowing players to simply declare ability checks rather than describing an action in terms of goal and approach and the DM calling for ability checks as necessary. It is not my preferred way of playing, so I don’t have as much experience speaking positively of it. The best I could probably say for it is the inverse of what I described as a drawback of requiring declarations of goal and approach: it doesn’t require the DM to be as thorough in their description of the environment and telegraphing of important information. Although, for me personally that’s a double-edged sword at best. One of the many reasons I prefer goal and approach is that the level of specificity it requires helps me clearly visualize the fiction, which I often struggle to do in games where the DM does allow players to simply ask for checks.

I think we are in agreement, reading this, on the category of Lack of Knowledge being a source of this occurring sometimes. And you may then disagree with me about the Lack of Care because you may see "Slieght of Hand the door" when finding a locked door plenty for a stated goal. Where I feel like you may slightly be going too far is that you consider this a result of lax DMing. That if the information had been properly conveyed then this wouldn't happen...

And I'm reminded of the idea that, "Well, if I give my presentation correctly, no one will have any questions." We can't communicate ideas clearly between people, not to that level. Again, the "other side" here simply acknowledges that it is fine that players occassionally just hold up a die and ask a skill name. That is, to an extent, just an acknowledgement that sometimes... we didn't give them what they needed to make a more coherent plan. And that can happen, even with the best of intentions and the most well-written and edited DM notes ever, you can still miscommunicate. And that... is fine. It happens.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I do want to add a follow up to my post, with a more succinct idea.

If the point is "I need to know your goal" that is very different to me than "I need to know your specific actions you are taking". I won't deny that I also need to know the goal, but I do not necessarily need to know the actions in specific.

 

[Charlaquin]

Shrug cribbing language from how it has been expressed in the past. I figured the sentiment would be well-expressed without needing a thesis level review of my phrasing.

I take serious objection to framing my preferred style as focused on the quality of description. It is a framing frequently used to attack my style, and it is highly inaccurate. I'm happy to accept that you did not intend it this way, but to me and many folks with a similar style preference, it is a significant and meaningful distinction.

Your last sentence implies that the opposite technique either doesn't allow the DM to present obstacles (which is rather silly since the entire discussion is hinged around a response to obstacles) or that the player asking to roll instead of describing an action does not allow for emergent generation of story via attempting to achieve a character's goals. I'll review the next paragraph before offering a rebuttal to the second idea.

No, not at all. Emergent story generation may be the goal of both techniques, which go about trying to achieve that goal in different ways. I mean, the fact that there can be infinitely many different approaches to the same goal is kind of a key factor in my preferred technique.

Right, this has absolutely nothing at all to do with the specific method of resolution. On a meta-level, the story is equally likely to be twists, conflicts and setbacks if you roll for results. I know this intimately, as my major writing projects over the last few years have been explicitly that exact sort of story telling. In fact, the issue with the rolling method is often a LACK of such things, as the dice decree a success where a challenge was meant.

I also find your implications to again be rather harsh. The player asking to roll is not giving the DM permission to shape the path of the story in general, nor does it prevent them from taking actions that align with their character's goals. You seem to have the complete wrong conception with which to tackle this, because you are looking at this in terms of the agency of the character. But that is not what is going on here.

To fully explain, I need to lay some ground work. Firstly, remember again that the opposing style is a lack of requirement. No one has ever stated in any of these discussions that they would require their players to never state an action and only ask for a roll. Every refutation of your preference I have ever seen across these boards is consistently that they would simply not force the player to rephrase their attempt and force them to come up with an action. This is a key point that leads into the second, which is that the opposing style is one of inconsistency. Sometimes the player will describe their actions as you would, sometimes they ask to simply roll. And that is the key that I think trips you up, because it leads to a question. What is the difference between those times?

We often phrase this as being something that "new players" do. But I've seen experienced players do it as well, and there is a pattern. So, when do we simply hold up the die and ask to roll? There are three major categories in my experience: Lack of Knowledge, Lack of Care, Lack of Confidence.

I'm going to tackle the last one first, because it is the most simple and the only one where I tend to agree with the idea of getting the player to add more specificity to the request. You see this almost exclusively with the persuasion skill. The player knows that they should be able to persuade the NPC to their side, but they lack the confidence to even come up with reasons. There could be many reasons for this, or this could instead be one of the other two categories, but this is the player attempting to reach out. They believe themselves to be a poor speaker or someone with bad ideas, but they KNOW their character is better than them. So, instead of ruining it by saying something stupid, they just lean on the dice. I agree this is a bad reason to do this, but it is one that exists.

I do agree with your proposal that players will often try to lean on the dice in lieu of coming up with a specific argument, but a specific argument is neither required or expected in my preferred technique. Simply telling me what they are trying to persuade the NPC to do (the goal), and how they are doing so (politely? via fast-talk? with threats? veiled or direct?) is sufficient. Once players understand this, this reason for trying to simply ask for a dice roll without an accompanying declaration of goal and approach goes away.

The other two are more complicated, and intertwined. On one hand, you have the "lack of knowledge" situation. This is really common with the knowledge skills or the information gathering skills. A player who holds up the die and asks "Can I roll Arcana" after you described a magical ritual isn't asking because they want you to take over their actions, they are asking because they have no idea what to do... but since it is a magical ritual Arcana should tell them something they need to know to do something. You might consider this a failing on the part of the DM, and you might be right, but at the same time... DMs are human. We make mistakes. I might have described the ritual and made it sound really cool and ominious... and left my player sitting there thinking "what the heck do I do with this information? I've got nothing." So they turn to the dice to give them clues. They aren't asking you to let them use Arcana to dismantle the ritual with you describing their actions, but instead are asking for information to guide them in taking the action. Same with to a degree with Insight. They are fishing for information, because they are not sure what to do. But that particular skill also ties into the last category. Lack of Care.

Indeed, sometimes the DM will be imperfect in communicating the available information, and sometimes even when the available information is clearly communicated the players won't be able to think of anything to do with that information, and in these cases, it is absolutely acceptable to probe the DM for more information. Indeed, I encourage such probing. But doing so by asking to make an Arcana check (or whatever) is not helpful to me, because it doesn't tell me what the player wants to know. I would much prefer they simply ask for more information. "My character is trained in Arcana, would they know anything else about this?" is infinitely preferable to me over "can I make an Arcana check?" Even better would be to phrase the attempt to gain more information actively - e.g. "I try to recall anything I may have read about this when I was studying at Candlekeep" or whatever. Though I understand that kind of active phrasing of questions is often tricky for players who aren't used to the style, so I tend to give players a lot of leeway in these situations, especially if they're new to my table.

I do not care how you want to describe me insighting someone. I can purple prose it, I'm capable of that, and if I feel like looking for a particular tell, I'll mention it as part of the die roll. But ultimately... it doesn't matter.

I agree, and I'll reiterate that it's not the quality of description I care about but the specifics of the player's goal and the character's approach to achieving it. "Insighting someone" doesn't mean anything to me. What are you trying to learn? How?

The same thing happens with lockpicking. I want to use thieves tools to unlock the door. I don't actually care HOW I unlock the door, that isn't the detail that has meaning to me. My action which goes up to Mulligan's point is unlocking the door so that we can reach our goal. During the Star Wars Trash Compactor scene, we are never told anything about HOW R2D2 hacks the mainframe and turns of the Trash Compactor. Did he find a weakness in the firewall and overload the pistons? Did he readjust the clock of the computers and set them for a time of day when those machines don't run? Did he send a maintenaince request? It actually does not matter. What matters is that he hacked it and turned it off, the HOW does not actually matter for that moment. What matters is that he did it, he took the action and saved the team.

And so, this is why I think you've missed the point by referring to Brenden Mulligan's discussion on railroading. Because the only time the player actually gives up control... is when they don't actually care about the details. I want to pick the lock on the door, I don't particularly care if it requires a three-pin wrench, a flex-pin twisted left, or anything else. Because in a move it would just show the character fiddling with the lock and unlocking it, and in a book, they would just say "and he unlocked the door" 95% of the time. Because the detail of how doesn't matter. And the other two times this tends to come up isn't about giving up control, but asking for help. What do I want to do when I roll Arcana on the world-ending ritual? I want to figure out what actions I can take to stop that ritual. How do I do that? By being a character who has specialized knowledge of magic and knows what to do when seeing a world-ending ritual. How do I do that? I have no idea, but my character certainly does if you'd just let me roll the dice.

This is a classic case of confusing goal and approach, and it happens a lot with people who aren't used to the style. Picking a lock isn't a goal, it's an approach to achieving the goal of getting a locked door open. What I will tell players who make this mistake is to think about what they would want to happen if they succeeded on whatever check they're asking to make. That's their goal. What is their character doing in the fiction that they imagine needs a check to be made to do successfully? That's their approach. So, sleight of hand to pick a lock? The goal there is for the thing to be unlocked, and the approach is by picking it. Specific descriptions of how you put the probe in the keyhole and test the tension of the tumblers or whatever are irrelevant, "I try to open the lock by picking it" or "I use my thieves' tools to try to pick the lock" or suchlike is, itself, a complete action declaration including both goal and approach.

Now, in that instance I may not have them roll the dice. I might just tell them the information. But both players and DMs are very reluctant to skip the dice rolling when it comes to learning secrets or hidden information.

Yes, I've noticed this pattern as well. It is, in my opinion, a bad habit, and one that my preferred approach can help break people out of. I prefer players stop thinking about the dice rolling as a necessary step to accomplishing their goals and instead get into the habit of simply telling me what their goals are and how they go about trying to achieve them. I'll worry about when and if dice rolls are necessary, and players are often pleasently surprised that they are necessary much less often than they would have assumed.

I think we are in agreement, reading this, on the category of Lack of Knowledge being a source of this occurring sometimes. And you may then disagree with me about the Lack of Care because you may see "Slieght of Hand the door" when finding a locked door plenty for a stated goal. Where I feel like you may slightly be going too far is that you consider this a result of lax DMing. That if the information had been properly conveyed then this wouldn't happen...

And I'm reminded of the idea that, "Well, if I give my presentation correctly, no one will have any questions." We can't communicate ideas clearly between people, not to that level. Again, the "other side" here simply acknowledges that it is fine that players occassionally just hold up a die and ask a skill name. That is, to an extent, just an acknowledgement that sometimes... we didn't give them what they needed to make a more coherent plan. And that can happen, even with the best of intentions and the most well-written and edited DM notes ever, you can still miscommunicate. And that... is fine. It happens.

Again, I fully expect such miscommunications, and fully encourage players to ask clarifying questions if they need to. Declarations of action with intent to learn whatever information they would be asking for are preferable over questions, but questions are prefereable to trying to invoke the dice without making clear what you want to know.

I do want to add a follow up to my post, with a more succinct idea.

If the point is "I need to know your goal" that is very different to me than "I need to know your specific actions you are taking". I won't deny that I also need to know the goal, but I do not necessarily need to know the actions in specific.

I need to know the goal, and I also need to know how the character is going about trying to accomplish it, as both are relevant factors in determining the outcome (or in determining that a die roll will be needed to determine the outcome impartially). Detailed description is unnecessary, but a general idea of what the character is doing is important, for me. I know plenty of DMs are perfectly comfortable assuming one, the other, or both from the context in which the player asked to make a roll, and I'm happy that works for those DMs and their players. But it doesn't for me.

 

[Chaosmancer]

No, not at all. Emergent story generation may be the goal of both techniques, which go about trying to achieve that goal in different ways. I mean, the fact that there can be infinitely many different approaches to the same goal is kind of a key factor in my preferred technique.

Seems odd to bring it up as a goal then. If every technique has the same goals... then they are all achieving the same things in the end.

I do agree with your proposal that players will often try to lean on the dice in lieu of coming up with a specific argument, but a specific argument is neither required or expected in my preferred technique. Simply telling me what they are trying to persuade the NPC to do (the goal), and how they are doing so (politely? via fast-talk? with threats? veiled or direct?) is sufficient. Once players understand this, this reason for trying to simply ask for a dice roll without an accompanying declaration of goal and approach goes away.

I don't think they need the "how are you doing so" necessarily. Those sort of things are nice, but not really necessary. Some of that should be things you already know from the character, unless this is like session 1. And, no, I have not found that players who understand that they just need to give a goal and approach stop just asking for the die roll. Maybe they stop doing it for persuasion, but they might still just say "Stealth" when faced with a situation. Again, there are multiple reasons for them doing it that way, so you'd have to address all of those reasons for it to stop entirely.

Indeed, sometimes the DM will be imperfect in communicating the available information, and sometimes even when the available information is clearly communicated the players won't be able to think of anything to do with that information, and in these cases, it is absolutely acceptable to probe the DM for more information. Indeed, I encourage such probing. But doing so by asking to make an Arcana check (or whatever) is not helpful to me, because it doesn't tell me what the player wants to know. I would much prefer they simply ask for more information. "My character is trained in Arcana, would they know anything else about this?" is infinitely preferable to me over "can I make an Arcana check?" Even better would be to phrase the attempt to gain more information actively - e.g. "I try to recall anything I may have read about this when I was studying at Candlekeep" or whatever. Though I understand that kind of active phrasing of questions is often tricky for players who aren't used to the style, so I tend to give players a lot of leeway in these situations, especially if they're new to my table.

To me, if the first thing a player asks after I describe a magical ritual is "can I make an Arcana check"... do I need to ask them what they are doing with the check? I would assume they want information on the thing that just happened, because "to stop this" would be something most people would add. Without adding that, it seems obvious they are asking for information. So I find the first two statements... largely identical. They wouldn't change my response. Now, I might, to either question, say "Sure, are focusing on any element in particular?" Depends on the ritual and what elements I have set up.

I also don't see the difference in your "active" statement. All you have done with that statement is make it more "in character" instead of in the meta-layer, but that isn't really worth anything to my mind. Sure, it is again kind of nice, it gives a nicer flow that my writer brain likes more, but it isn't necessary at all. Nor do I think it is particularly "tricky" it is just a matter of how the player likes to play the game.

Going back up to your first hurdle though, where you say "it doesn't tell me what the player wants to know"... well, they don't know what they want to know either. That's why they are asking a broad question. Picture a movie with an accidental time traveler, they don't ask "what happened over the last six months" or "what happened to the city of Detroit" they ask "what happened?" Because they, unconsciously, are avoiding limiting the answer by going for specifics. Maybe Detroit was lost in a fire... but that doesn't tell you about the sentient slugs from the 5th dimension that are taking over the planet. Which you don't even know to ask about.

I agree, and I'll reiterate that it's not the quality of description I care about but the specifics of the player's goal and the character's approach to achieving it. "Insighting someone" doesn't mean anything to me. What are you trying to learn? How?

I'm trying to gain insight into them and their motivations, by looking at them and using my skills of insight. How do I do that? I don't have a single clue. I can make something up about looking for eye dilation or sweat, but largely I don't know how to read people's body language, tone and ect terribly well. I suck at that IRL,so I can't tell you how a person who excels at that would even attempt to do it. And my character likely wouldn't look for just one signifier, they would likely look for all of them, body posture, tone, eye movement, size, dilation, how much they fidget, who they make eye contact with, how long they make eye contact for, and anything else that could offer insight.

And the goal, while not always, is usually fairly obvious. If the NPC is offering the players a deal and they've been negotiating and discussing it... well, they want insight into the deal and the NPC's intentions. If they are discussing the kidnapped princess with the shady vizier, they are looking for clues as to his thoughts about the princess most likely. This is one of the reasons these white room scenarios fall apart. Context is there in everything that happened 15 minutes or more before the player asked for the roll. If I just listened to the players out-of-character discuss their suspicions that the princess was kidnapped by an insider who has intents on the throne, then when one of the players turns to me and says "Insight" I don't really need to ask what they are trying to figure out. They never told me directly, but the context makes their intent rather clear.

This is a classic case of confusing goal and approach, and it happens a lot with people who aren't used to the style. Picking a lock isn't a goal, it's an approach to achieving the goal of getting a locked door open. What I will tell players who make this mistake is to think about what they would want to happen if they succeeded on whatever check they're asking to make. That's their goal. What is their character doing in the fiction that they imagine needs a check to be made to do successfully? That's their approach. So, sleight of hand to pick a lock? The goal there is for the thing to be unlocked, and the approach is by picking it. Specific descriptions of how you put the probe in the keyhole and test the tension of the tumblers or whatever are irrelevant, "I try to open the lock by picking it" or "I use my thieves' tools to try to pick the lock" or suchlike is, itself, a complete action declaration including both goal and approach.

But your goal is obvious then. If I'm standing in front of a locked door and I say "lockpicks" then I'm not planning on using my skillet to cook a fine roast beef. I'm trying to unlock the door with the tools used to unlock doors. I'm not planning on opening the door by shattering it with a hammer either, because my character is a low-strength rogue with lockpicks, not a barbarian making an inside joke,

Sure, maybe a DM might be confused if there are multiple locked things that the players were just discussing, or if it was early in the game and they didn't realize the Paladin was an Urchin with Theive's Tools proficiency, but none of that means the player's behavior needs correcting either.

Yes, I've noticed this pattern as well. It is, in my opinion, a bad habit, and one that my preferred approach can help break people out of. I prefer players stop thinking about the dice rolling as a necessary step to accomplishing their goals and instead get into the habit of simply telling me what their goals are and how they go about trying to achieve them. I'll worry about when and if dice rolls are necessary, and players are often pleasently surprised that they are necessary much less often than they would have assumed.

Sure, but my method does the exact same thing. Because I can follow up an "Arcana?" with a response of, "Sure, but if you have a more specific question I might just tell you. You are a master mage after all." And then, often times, they might give me a more specific question as they roll, and there might be information I tell them even if they roll a 5. Because information I was going to give you for free... unless it is a crit fail I'm probably still going to give it to you for free. The roll is just for the EXTRA stuff. And if there was nothing worth rolling for... I'll tell them that too. "No need to roll, you recognize a Planar Gate when you see one." is a perfectly fine response as well.

Again, I fully expect such miscommunications, and fully encourage players to ask clarifying questions if they need to. Declarations of action with intent to learn whatever information they would be asking for are preferable over questions, but questions are prefereable to trying to invoke the dice without making clear what you want to know.

Right, but again, you can't ask what you don't know to ask about. Sometimes the player in question doesn't know how to articulate a question, or they don't have a specific question and they just want a general "what the heck?" roll.

I need to know the goal, and I also need to know how the character is going about trying to accomplish it, as both are relevant factors in determining the outcome (or in determining that a die roll will be needed to determine the outcome impartially). Detailed description is unnecessary, but a general idea of what the character is doing is important, for me. I know plenty of DMs are perfectly comfortable assuming one, the other, or both from the context in which the player asked to make a roll, and I'm happy that works for those DMs and their players. But it doesn't for me.

I never said it had to work for you.

But the nicest thing you could say about my laxer and more fluid style was "well, I guess the DM can put in less effort and work in their descriptions". Multiple times in this post you stopped to correct me on assumptions about your style, which you are an eager defender of. But I've never attacked your style. I've pointed out why I don't feel I need it, where I feel like you make assumptions that are unfounded about the way I do things, and how you seem to focus on one aspect, while ignoring others.

I also think your framing of "goal and method" is going to end up confusing to people. If I have a barbarian character who is presented with a locked door, and he grins and says "Athletics roll" then... sure he didn't state his goal, but there is a locked door in front of him. The goal is a bit self-explanatory. And the method... well it doesn't actually matter. Whether he shoulder charges it, kicks it, smashes it with his weapon all three will acheive the same result. But if what you need to know for the method is "athletics" then... they already told you. Just like the example at the top of this post told you persuasion, but you wanted to know what TYPE of persuasion, which is a bit irrelevant to my mind. Because all of them should be able to achieve the same goal.

 

[Charlaquin]

Seems odd to bring it up as a goal then. If every technique has the same goals... then they are all achieving the same things in the end.

You were the one who brought up the goal of play, in post 240, when you said, “There is a lot to unpack in those decisions though, including the idea that guessing correctly with limited information should be the goal of play.” I was merely informing you that this is not, in fact, the goal of play in my preferred style. Anyway, different methods having the same goals does not mean those methods are equivalent. You are going about trying to achieve the goal in different ways, which will have different consequences.

I don't think they need the "how are you doing so" necessarily.

I mean, that’s nice for you, but I do need it from them.

Those sort of things are nice, but not really necessary. Some of that should be things you already know from the character, unless this is like session 1. And, no, I have not found that players who understand that they just need to give a goal and approach stop just asking for the die roll. Maybe they stop doing it for persuasion, but they might still just say "Stealth" when faced with a situation. Again, there are multiple reasons for them doing it that way, so you'd have to address all of those reasons for it to stop entirely.

That would be why I said that reason goes away…

To me, if the first thing a player asks after I describe a magical ritual is "can I make an Arcana check"... do I need to ask them what they are doing with the check?

You don’t need to do anything you don’t want to do. I would as them what they are trying to learn with the check they’re asking to make and how.

I would assume they want information on the thing that just happened, because "to stop this" would be something most people would add. Without adding that, it seems obvious they are asking for information. So I find the first two statements... largely identical. They wouldn't change my response. Now, I might, to either question, say "Sure, are focusing on any element in particular?" Depends on the ritual and what elements I have set up.

Again, that’s all very nice for you but those aren’t assumptions I am comfortable making.

I also don't see the difference in your "active" statement. All you have done with that statement is make it more "in character" instead of in the meta-layer, but that isn't really worth anything to my mind. Sure, it is again kind of nice, it gives a nicer flow that my writer brain likes more, but it isn't necessary at all. Nor do I think it is particularly "tricky" it is just a matter of how the player likes to play the game.

Right, which is why I said I prefer, but do not require, that more active phrasing…

Going back up to your first hurdle though, where you say "it doesn't tell me what the player wants to know"... well, they don't know what they want to know either. That's why they are asking a broad question.

Then what they want to know is just more information about the subject, broadly. That’s a perfectly valid thing to ask for, but I do need the player to tell me so, explicitly.

Picture a movie with an accidental time traveler, they don't ask "what happened over the last six months" or "what happened to the city of Detroit" they ask "what happened?" Because they, unconsciously, are avoiding limiting the answer by going for specifics. Maybe Detroit was lost in a fire... but that doesn't tell you about the sentient slugs from the 5th dimension that are taking over the planet. Which you don't even know to ask about.

If they don’t even know to ask about something, it’s probably not relevant to the challenge at hand. Remember, this is in the context of an adventuring scenario, where there are specific goals and challenges at play.

I'm trying to gain insight into them and their motivations,

Their motivations. Ok, see that’s a goal, that’s something you want to know about, which I could not ascertain from “insight him” alone.

by looking at them and using my skills of insight.

Looking at him. See, that’s an approach. So, your action declaration here is that you are watching him for signs of his motivations. The rest is unnecessary details - not unwelcome, but not necessary for my process.

How do I do that? I don't have a single clue.

You do though - you just said it, you’re doing it by looking at him. That’s all I need. You’re getting too bogged down by assuming I’m asking for a whole lot of highly specific detail, but that is an inaccurate assumption.

can make something up about looking for eye dilation or sweat, but largely I don't know how to read people's body language, tone and ect terribly well. I suck at that IRL,so I can't tell you how a person who excels at that would even attempt to do it. And my character likely wouldn't look for just one signifier, they would likely look for all of them, body posture, tone, eye movement, size, dilation, how much they fidget, who they make eye contact with, how long they make eye contact for, and anything else that could offer insight.

Right, which is why that degree of detail is unnecessary.

And the goal, while not always, is usually fairly obvious. If the NPC is offering the players a deal and they've been negotiating and discussing it... well, they want insight into the deal and the NPC's intentions. If they are discussing the kidnapped princess with the shady vizier, they are looking for clues as to his thoughts about the princess most likely. This is one of the reasons these white room scenarios fall apart. Context is there in everything that happened 15 minutes or more before the player asked for the roll. If I just listened to the players out-of-character discuss their suspicions that the princess was kidnapped by an insider who has intents on the throne, then when one of the players turns to me and says "Insight" I don't really need to ask what they are trying to figure out. They never told me directly, but the context makes their intent rather clear.

Perhaps you are comfortable making assumptions like that based on the context alone. I am not.

But your goal is obvious then. If I'm standing in front of a locked door and I say "lockpicks" then I'm not planning on using my skillet to cook a fine roast beef. I'm trying to unlock the door with the tools used to unlock doors. I'm not planning on opening the door by shattering it with a hammer either, because my character is a low-strength rogue with lockpicks, not a barbarian making an inside joke,

Sure, maybe a DM might be confused if there are multiple locked things that the players were just discussing, or if it was early in the game and they didn't realize the Paladin was an Urchin with Theive's Tools proficiency, but none of that means the player's behavior needs correcting either.

I don’t agree that it’s always so obvious. Sometimes it can be, but oftentimes what may seem obvious to one person is not obvious to another. Better, in my view, that we just be explicit about our intentions from the beginning and avoid that confusion. Explicit communication is basically always preferable to relying on inference.

Sure, but my method does the exact same thing. Because I can follow up an "Arcana?" with a response of, "Sure, but if you have a more specific question I might just tell you. You are a master mage after all." And then, often times, they might give me a more specific question as they roll, and there might be information I tell them even if they roll a 5. Because information I was going to give you for free...

Then we’ve just added an unnecessary exchange, potentially hurting the flow and pacing of the game, which could have been avoided by simply being more explicit to begin with.

unless it is a crit fail I'm probably still going to give it to you for free.

Yeah, so this is where the sentiment you initially objected to about “asking for a roll is asking for a chance of failure” comes in. By introducing a die roll, you’ve introduced a 5% possibility of not getting this information the DM would have considered “free” had you asked for the information directly, instead of asking to roll a check to try to get the information on a success.

The roll is just for the EXTRA stuff.

Yeah, I’m not a fan of that. That gets into what I mentioned earlier about hiding the information players need to make good decisions. If there’s extra information to be had, in my view it shouldn’t be gated behind a high roll on a check you had to ask to make. It should either be given freely if it’s necessary information, or revealed as a result of active engagement with the fictional world if it isn’t. Such engagement might or might not have a chance to fail to reveal that information, but that chance of failure shouldn’t be assumed before knowing what said engagement even is.

And if there was nothing worth rolling for... I'll tell them that too. "No need to roll, you recognize a Planar Gate when you see one." is a perfectly fine response as well.

Sure, but then the request for the roll and the response that the roll was unnecessary is superfluous. Either say the character recognizes it as an arcane gate in the first place, or if you forget to do so, let the player ask “do I know what that is?” instead of “can I make an Arcana check?”

Right, but again, you can't ask what you don't know to ask about. Sometimes the player in question doesn't know how to articulate a question, or they don't have a specific question and they just want a general "what the heck?" roll.

“I just want to know more about [whatever]” is a perfectly valid goal.

I never said it had to work for you.

No, I said it doesn’t work for me.0

But the nicest thing you could say about my laxer and more fluid style was "well, I guess the DM can put in less effort and work in their descriptions".

Right, because I don’t particularly like your laxer and more fluid style. For the reasons we’ce been discussing here. If it works for you, fantastic, but I don’t see why I should need to sing the praises of your style when what I’m trying to do is defend my style against people who are calling it childish or mischaracterizing it as being contingent on “describing things well enough.”

Multiple times in this post you stopped to correct me on assumptions about your style, which you are an eager defender of. But I've never attacked your style. I've pointed out why I don't feel I need it, where I feel like you make assumptions that are unfounded about the way I do things, and how you seem to focus on one aspect, while ignoring others.

I think you’ve been having a completely different conversation than I have. Where did I make an unfounded assumption about your style and where did you point that out? What am I ignoring and where have you previously talked about that at all?

I also think your framing of "goal and method" is going to end up confusing to people. If I have a barbarian character who is presented with a locked door, and he grins and says "Athletics roll" then... sure he didn't state his goal, but there is a locked door in front of him. The goal is a bit self-explanatory.

I do not think it’s necessarily self-explanatory. Maybe in some cases it is, but in others it will seem to be, but only due to a miscommunication. I do not like to make such assumptions, and do not think it’s too much to ask that the player just say they want to get the door open so we’re all sure we’re on the same page.

And the method... well it doesn't actually matter. Whether he shoulder charges it, kicks it, smashes it with his weapon all three will acheive the same result. But if what you need to know for the method is "athletics" then... they already told you.

Athletics is not what I need to know for the method, Athletics is the name of a skill that might potentially allow them to add their proficiency bonus to an ability check, if one is necessary, and the method involves that skill. Based on your example descriptions, it sounds like the method you had in mind was breaking the door. Another relevant point would be if the character is trying to break it with their own body, or using some sort of tool.

Just like the example at the top of this post told you persuasion, but you wanted to know what TYPE of persuasion, which is a bit irrelevant to my mind. Because all of them should be able to achieve the same goal.

And here we bring the post full-circle. Because, yeah, different “types of persuasion” as you put it might all be capable of achieving the same goal, but that doesn’t mean they’re all equivalent. They go about trying to achieve the same goal in different ways, some of which might be more or less effective than others in different contexts. The NPC in question might be particularly receptive to politeness, or particularly unreceptive to it. They might be very gullible, or they might be very shrewd. They might be a pushover when threatened, or they may respond negatively to verbal threats but cave quickly to demonstrations of violence. Any of these factors might affect my decision-making about if the action can succeed or fail, how difficult it might be to succeed, and what the consequences for failure might be. They will certainly inform how I would describe the NPC’s response in any case. So despite all having the same goal, the way I resolve such an action can vary significantly depending on the approach.

 

[Charlaquin]

Double-post, apparently

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The other two are more complicated, and intertwined. On one hand, you have the "lack of knowledge" situation. This is really common with the knowledge skills or the information gathering skills. A player who holds up the die and asks "Can I roll Arcana" after you described a magical ritual isn't asking because they want you to take over their actions, they are asking because they have no idea what to do... but since it is a magical ritual Arcana should tell them something they need to know to do something.

As I said above, this is a situation where asking to roll is most appropriate.

But still, I would ask my player to not ask for the roll and instead says: "Can I get more information if I study it a bit and look around?

The DM could then ask for Int (arcana), or maybe Int (investigation) or even Int (religion) because the other things might be more appropriate.

Or they could just ask for an Intelligence check and ask the players if they have a skill that might come in handy.

And last but not least, if the players state they look around, Wisdom (Perception) might help.

Or if the players did not understand a description, maybe just asking the DM to rephrase that might remedy the problem and no check is needed at all.