D&D 5E Forked from the Quasit Thread - Some DMing Advice Learned from my Mistakes.

[GMforPowergamers]

I have a major issue with auto fails...

The example in question is intimidation. So how do I rule who can and can not be intimidated? Can the soldier? Can the guard? Can the little girl who just came out of the wonder woman movie?

The question actually has multi parts... lets break it down. What is intimidation?

in·tim·i·da·tion
/inˌtiməˈdāSH(ə)n/
noun: intimidation; plural noun: intimidations
the action of intimidating someone, or the state of being intimidated.

not much help... what does it mean to be intimidated?

in·tim·i·date
/inˈtiməˌdāt/
verb: intimidate; 3rd person present: intimidates; past tense: intimidated; past participle: intimidated; gerund or present participle: intimidating
frighten or overawe (someone), especially in order to make them do what one wants.
"he tries to intimidate his rivals"

ok, a bit better, to overawe someone especially in order to make them do what one wants...

so how can we decide how well someone does this? I mean unless the target can't be...I suppose emotionless targets can't be...but if someone isn't in some supernatural way immune, how can anyone be certain of what it would take to overawe them?

editMy phone posted too soon)

so the counter example is "What do you tell players that want to shoot the moon with a bow"
my answer is normally "Do you have the range of that bow?"

see the rules set up some things as "can" and others as "can't" (say shooting the moon being out of range)

heck I know in 3.5 there was a prestige class that let you make your range anything you can see...in witch case they could shoot the moon.

 

[iserith]

I have a major issue with auto fails...

The example in question is intimidation. So how do I rule who can and can not be intimidated? Can the soldier? Can the guard? Can the little girl who just came out of the wonder woman movie?

You're the DM - you decide. That's your role in the game as the lead storyteller. Ideally, in my view, you will have framed the scene sufficiently that automatic failure won't be much of a surprise to the players, provided they are paying attention to and immersing themselves in your world.

If you can't decide, then you have the mechanics as a tool to help you resolve the uncertainty so you can narrate the result of the adventurers' actions.

If you decide you can never decide, then that is basically playing in the "playstyle" the DMG calls "Rolling With It" (page 236). That "playstyle" has a potential drawback as noted in that section. If that drawback never comes around, great. If it does, but you're still having fun, also great. If it does, but you're not having fun, then it might be a good time to think about revising the "playstyle."

 

[Blue]

So, here you telegraph to the players very plainly that they cannot enter unless they have business with the CHIEFTAIN. The players state they have no business with the chieftain and insist upon entering, attempting to intimidate the guards. To me, this means the chosen approach to their goal automatically fails - the guards do not let them pass, no roll. I mean, you JUST told them they can't enter unless they have business with the chieftain.

But somehow they manage to intimidate their way past anyway? How did that happen? Are you allowing players to choose to make ability checks? It seems to me if there was an issue with this scene, it started right there.

Because you can still be scared of someone even if you are following orders. And it is possible to be more scared of them then the order-giver. Now, the DC may be very high due to the circumstances, but that's different from "I'm not even going to let you try this approach".

 

[iserith]

Because you can still be scared of someone even if you are following orders. And it is possible to be more scared of them then the order-giver. Now, the DC may be very high due to the circumstances, but that's different from "I'm not even going to let you try this approach".

I'm not advocating preventing players from trying any approach though. Could you tell me how you arrived at that conclusion?

 

[Harzel]

I have a major issue with auto fails...

In all situations, or just in those that seem uncertain to you? You state this without qualification, but what you say below seems to go to (what you see as) the uncertainty of the situation.

The example in question is intimidation. So how do I rule who can and can not be intimidated? Can the soldier? Can the guard? Can the little girl who just came out of the wonder woman movie?

The question actually has multi parts... lets break it down. What is intimidation?

not much help... what does it mean to be intimidated?


ok, a bit better, to overawe someone especially in order to make them do what one wants...

so how can we decide how well someone does this? I mean unless the target can't be...I suppose emotionless targets can't be...but if someone isn't in some supernatural way immune, how can anyone be certain of what it would take to overawe them?

One of the DM's roles is to play NPCs, so it is well within his or her purview to make a judgement about how the NPC reacts. The DM can also decide that he doesn't know enough to say for sure and let the dice decide. Or, provided that a success would not contradict what the players already know, the DM can eschew making a decision and say yes or roll the dice (though as others have noted this is a rather different playstyle).

editMy phone posted too soon)

so the counter example is "What do you tell players that want to shoot the moon with a bow"
my answer is normally "Do you have the range of that bow?"

see the rules set up some things as "can" and others as "can't" (say shooting the moon being out of range)

and leave many, many things up to the judgement of the DM.

 

[Hussar]

I think you need to protect the game world, first (more than incorporating player ideas into your game). I think you did the right thing-some paths are just dead ends and it has nothing to do with being a "fun DM". It's an opportunity for growth as a character, and a reasonable one.

Personally I think game world fidelity should not rank particularly highly at the game table. Flexibility would probably be more important.

Yeah, I'm going to go with Shasarak on this one. (Just this one time, I promise ) If I reach a point where the choice is "let's have a more fun session" or "let's protect the game world", I want to go with fun every time. Game world fidelity just isn't a huge priority for me. Or, maybe a better way to phrase that is, it's less of a priority than making sure we have a more successful session. And, in this specific case, I went with game world fidelity and it bombed badly.

So it sounds like you judged the DC to be, more or less, 20. Seems perfectly reasonable. But given the circumstances (at least so far as I know them), a DC of 25 would also have been plausible. Which sort of brings me back to my question - would you ever set a DC that you knew the PC could not succeed at? If so, would you have them roll anyway?

Well, probably not actually. Presuming reasonable courses of action of course. Let's not get too far into the woods with "I shoot at the moon" examples. But, again, going with the presumption that whatever the player is asking for is reasonably plausible, I generally won't ever jack the DC's into the realm of impossible. Again, I find it far too frustrating as a player when that happens to do it as a DM.

 

[Hussar]

/snip
If you decide you can never decide, then that is basically playing in the "playstyle" the DMG calls "Rolling With It" (page 236). That "playstyle" has a potential drawback as noted in that section. If that drawback never comes around, great. If it does, but you're still having fun, also great. If it does, but you're not having fun, then it might be a good time to think about revising the "playstyle."

Yeah, I tend heavily towards that "Roll With It" end of the spectrum. ((BTW, thanks for pointing out the page, interesting read - I think I read it before, but, just refreshed my memory just now)) Personally, I prefer the consistency of it over the middle path and I don't play D&D if I'm going to "Ignore the Dice". The disadvantage, in my mind, with the Middle Path method is that it can lead to inconsistency.

The player can roll the dice to intimidate this NPC, but, not that NPC and the only difference between them is whatever I decide as the DM. And, as a player, I find this inconsistency extremely frustrating. For me, it makes the DM far too intrusive.

I'd much prefer to let the direct the action, rather than trying to play guessing games with the DM. Is he going to let me roll this time? How about next time? I'm not really eloquent today because work has been beating the crap out of me, guess I won't bother trying any social skills today... that sort of thing.

Yes, I'm exaggerating. I know that. But, I've run into far too many bad, and extremely frustrating, situations if I go down that road. Dice cannot be argued with, for good or bad. Had the PC rolled poorly on the intimidate check, then, well, he fails and they don't get to go in. He rolled well, so, now the dice are dictating that the story says that they gained entry. I prefer the objectivity of the die roll.

 

[iserith]

Yeah, I tend heavily towards that "Roll With It" end of the spectrum. ((BTW, thanks for pointing out the page, interesting read - I think I read it before, but, just refreshed my memory just now)) Personally, I prefer the consistency of it over the middle path and I don't play D&D if I'm going to "Ignore the Dice". The disadvantage, in my mind, with the Middle Path method is that it can lead to inconsistency.

The player can roll the dice to intimidate this NPC, but, not that NPC and the only difference between them is whatever I decide as the DM. And, as a player, I find this inconsistency extremely frustrating. For me, it makes the DM far too intrusive.

I'd much prefer to let the direct the action, rather than trying to play guessing games with the DM. Is he going to let me roll this time? How about next time? I'm not really eloquent today because work has been beating the crap out of me, guess I won't bother trying any social skills today... that sort of thing.

Yes, I'm exaggerating. I know that. But, I've run into far too many bad, and extremely frustrating, situations if I go down that road. Dice cannot be argued with, for good or bad. Had the PC rolled poorly on the intimidate check, then, well, he fails and they don't get to go in. He rolled well, so, now the dice are dictating that the story says that they gained entry. I prefer the objectivity of the die roll.

I think inherent in your view of the "middle path" though is the presupposition that the players get to choose to roll the dice. They don't. A player may only describe what they want to do and then the DM takes it from there. So if you take players choosing to make ability checks off the table, that deals with a large part of your concerns about inconsistency. After two editions of D&D where the player is encouraged to ask to make skill checks, this admittedly takes some training. But it is the way of things according to my reading of the D&D 5e rules. A lot of issues simply go away when changing over to this paradigm.

The remaining part comes down to how the DM describes the environment. In Step 1 of the basic conversation of the game, the DM frames the scene and telegraphs the basic scope of options. As I mentioned in the post you quoted, "you will have framed the scene sufficiently that automatic failure won't be much of a surprise to the players, provided they are paying attention to and immersing themselves in your world." The latter bit is of particular note because it's sort of a self-reinforcing loop. As the DMG points out, the "middle path" encourages the players to strike a balance between relying on their mechanics and paying attention to the DM's world. In my view, a player paying attention to what you stated about the NPC guards and the rest of the surrounding context (and knowing players don't get to decide to roll dice) would likely (1) not try to intimidate them into stepping aside or (2) not be surprised if they tried and auto-failed.*

Your original post and your comment about the dice being something a player cannot argue against, I'm reminded of the game I'm in that I mentioned in an earlier post. In that game, they are pretty much in the "Rolling With It" mode and there's often tension between the DM and players or less than stellar outcomes due to players trying to force die rolls. While all of them do it, there's a player in particular that tries to shoehorn Stealth checks into basically everything because his character is built around that. This frustrates the DM who then ends up going down the same road you did. In part, this is why I don't think the undesirable outcome you describe was all on you. "Playstyle" had much to do with it, the lion's share even, so far as I can tell. (As another aside regarding this game, I never ever ask to make an ability check as a player. I've noticed I'm about 50% more successful than the rest of the players in that game. The d20 is not a player's friend!)

* Here's something else that's neat: At some point, players may start to see ability checks as tantamount to failure. That's what happens in my own games - few are eager to roll the dice since automatic success is more desirable. The DM asking you to roll means you fell short. Therefore, what you'll tend to see is players fishing for Inspiration a lot by playing to personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws. They want to keep this in the holster for those few times they have to roll. The net result is that players are portraying their characters consistent with their established characterization which is a pretty good result in my view!

 

[Hussar]

I see your point. And it's a good one.

For me though, the failure wasn't at the point where they forced their way into the meeting. Since I actually wanted them to get into that meeting, then well, the how of how they got in isn't all that important. They got in and that's what I wanted them to do. Granted, their success makes the next part more difficult since the NPC is now hostile instead of indifferent, but, again, they're succeeding or failing based on their own choices.

No, where I made the mistake, in my view, is that I chose setting fidelity over table fun. Had I backed off a bit on the whole "kick them out" and let them actually talk to the cult leader, then I could have proceeded the story along. They challenge the cult leader, presumably (since it didn't actually happen, I'm guessing here) mentioning the fact that the cult had been slaughtering innocent people along the way, then I could have stepped in with the chieftain and demanded more information about the dangers the cult represent.

In other words, instead of just automatically ruling failure (which is what I did), I could have used their success to guide the game back towards something that would be a lot more fun than, "You get kicked out by the chieftain so now no one will talk to you. You can't warn the townspeople and everyone gets slaughtered as you slink away in the night".

See, I don't really make a huge distinction between skills and combat. I would never rule autofail in combat, and I'm pretty sure no one else would either. "You didn't describe your attack well enough, so, you miss the monster" is something that no one says. So, I don't really make a big distinction here. The notion that a player will simply try to game the system and force skill rolls into every situation just doesn't come up. That's a somewhat separate issue. And, one of the nice things about the 5e system is that skills are often not terribly high, so, autosuccess is off the table in most situations. Unless the player laser beam focuses on a particular skill, to the detriment of everything else, it's very unlikely that you can get your bonus high enough (at least until very high level) that it overrides the die roll.

Like I said, I have no problem whatsoever with a player calling for a skill check. Doesn't bother me in the slightest. If you want to do X, and you tell me, "I try to do X with Y skill, here's my check", it's pretty rare that I would have any issue whatsoever. Then again, as a I said, I try to be more referee than story teller. I WANT the dice to inject story. Where I failed here was ignoring that and over riding the dice in favor of what I felt was plausible in the story.

So, for me, the bottom line here is, don't prioritize setting fidelity over table fun. Just because I don't think this is a good idea doesn't mean that it's not a good idea in the game. Intimidating your way past the guards is a different story than what I had in mind, but, that doesn't make it a bad story. Being rude to the chieftain is a different story than what I had in mind, but, that doesn't automatically make it a bad story. The only bad story, AFAIC, is when a scenario goes pear shaped and no one enjoys it.