GMing: What If We Say "Yes" To Everything?

[Reynard]

That still renders the GM role mostly meaningless.

And still provides no ability to get it back on track when players go off the reservation.

Well, if the players go off the rails and stay off the rails, that's the game they want to play. I would just roll with it.

 

[clearstream]

D&D (and most other non-"storygame" aka "Traditional" RPGs) don't even go that far.
Most of the "No" in D&D GMing isn't even "off the reservation" play. It's narrating past the attempt, then failing the roll. I strongly encourage players to stop just before the point where an effect is expected, then go to the roll. And, from there, on a success, they or I can narrate the reasonable action.

Long ago (40 years or so), I realized that it was better to tell players to "Tell me what your character is attempting to do" instead of "Tell me what your character does." Less player dissatisfaction, because expectations are better managed.

There's an interesting reflection on that in the Burning Wheel Codex, that I recently had my attention drawn to

When adjudicating the result of a failed test, we find it’s a useful exercise to look at the intent and task separately. You wanted to assassinate the duchess quietly in a crowded room and implicate your enemy? A daring plan. The intent is to lay the blame of the duchess’s murder upon your enemy’s shoulders. The task is her secret murder by stiletto. The obvious failure result is that you do not murder your target and are caught. However, that’s a bit of a roadblock and it leads to rather trite situations that lack nuance—fighting your way out or pleading innocence. A less obvious option has you succeed in the assassination, but you are caught. It’s certainly much harder to plead innocence when the blood is running down your knife hand. In this circumstance, the action is reframed: The duchess is dead and everyone knows you’re guilty. A still less obvious and more devious turn has you succeed, but your dear friend is wrongly blamed for the act and carted off to the gallows. Your actions have dragged an innocent soul down. What will you do?​

​

Which direction to choose? Each is serviceable. The key is in the character’s [motivating] Beliefs (or to a lesser extent, an Instinct). Which option presents an interesting and difficult choice for the player based on his Beliefs? If the player has a Belief about never fighting in the open, then the first option is quite valid. If the player has a Belief about maintaining his pristine reputation, then the second option is a strong challenge to that Belief. If the player has a Belief about using the duchess’s murder as pretext to propel his friend to power, then a twist like the third suggestionisn’t an option—it’s a necessity.​

One area for doubt is how far out to bound intent? In the duchess example, the intent was not solely to murder the duches, but to do so without being noticed. But if it's just intent, could the player have gone even further, e.g. they also intended to propel their friend to power... so why not that? It seems too far, but it's hard to articulate the rule or principle that says precisely why.

In D&D-ish play styles, it might be enought to encourage players to describe the desired effects of their action along with their approach. Focus on an action's effects should work to constrain any 'distance to intent' issues that might otherwise arise. In the duchess example, player would say that they want the effects of their action to be that the duchess is murdered and no one notices it was them.

I can think of two ways to manage that mechanically.

A) Combat is not occurring because the duchess has no meaningful defence, so GM does not call for initiative. It's certainly consequential, so they call for Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) DC 25 (it requires a subtle yet lethal stab) with disadvantage (the room is crowded). That seems at least very hard to me. A tier-2 rogue could have an odds-on chance of pulling this off.​

​

B) Initiate combat just between duchess and character, giving the latter advantage on initiative and calling for an attack roll and damage as usual. An assassin (sub-class) would have a fair chance of murdering a defenceless duchess, but bad rolls for initiative, the attack, or the damage, could all send their plan awry. GM also calls for a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check for this to go unnoticed. A caution here is that the cumulative probability may be awkward to assess at the table and might give the assassin unintentionally terrible odds, although my guess is that any tier-2 or higher character attempting this will have a fair chance of pulling it off.​

Both approaches contain the possibilities illustrated above. Following B) the character could very well murder the duchess (wins initiative, hits, damage is sufficient) but fail to do so without being noticed (flubs the Sleight of Hand). Following A) GM can narrate that same outcome.

 

[aramis erak]

Well, if the players go off the rails and stay off the rails, that's the game they want to play. I would just roll with it.

A lot of the time, when my players do it, it's time to switch to something else, because if the GM is disinterested in where they're going, it leads right to GM burnout, or worse.

I've scrapped several campaigns because myself and a player or two were not comfortable with where the others were dragging it.

 

[Reynard]

A lot of the time, when my players do it, it's time to switch to something else, because if the GM is disinterested in where they're going, it leads right to GM burnout, or worse.

I've scrapped several campaigns because myself and a player or two were not comfortable with where the others were dragging it.

That happens, too, but since we were talking about "Say Yes" I think drift is inevitable and desirable. But yeah, it is totally possible for someone to take it too far or be top self indulgent. To be fair, that can easily happen in a "regular" game, both mechanically (the minmaxitaur) or roleplaying wise ("It'S what My cHAraCtER WouLd DO!").

 

[aramis erak]

There's an interesting reflection on that in the Burning Wheel Codex, that I recently had my attention drawn to

[snip]

One area for doubt is how far out to bound intent?

That's a session zero discussion item in BW. And, as the difficulty is set after setting the initial method and intent, if the GM feels it too far down the road, the difficulty goes up.
Remember also, Luke has clarified on the BBS that method/intent vs failure_effect/difficulty is a negotiation, not a declare_M_&_I→declare_diff→roll freight train.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I'd like to understand though, who decides that? If it's DM, then isn't DM going to say "no" to some contributions unless players self-regulate in accord with what DM thinks belongs in the milieu?

That's fair, though there has been some agreement on the milieu (by whom or how is unclear), based on @Reynard's post 209. But what you're getting at is kind of why I'm skeptical this would lead to any great changes in how things play out, except being more agreeable. I might be making too many assumptions, but the division of authority that's been proposed, at least as I'm understanding it, seems like it's basically the same division of authority that D&D as written assumes.

This prompts me to ask the same question - what sort of action declarations trigger a skill check?

Because if drawing out giant rats with cheese doesn't, and if (as per one of @Reynard's posts upthread) persuading someone to do something doesn't, what non-combat action declaration does?

I'm not terrifically familiar with the current edition of D&D (one campaign, nearly a decade ago, ended in a TPK, same group as the 4e games that ended in TPKs that I've mentioned before — come to think of it, there's a pattern here), so I looked at the SRD, which says that the GM calls for an ability check or a skill check when a character attempts an action that has a chance of failure. It does seem like the cheese-and-rat gambit has some chance of failure (maybe it's a clever rat? maybe it's not hungry? maybe the rat doesn't like gruyere? do giant rats like cheese preferentially or do they like to eat people?*), so there should be a roll here. Which is a long way of saying that I think, as framed, the GM decides. How the GM decides is unclear to me, hence my sense that this is business as usual.

* My understanding is that neither rats nor mice particularly like cheese anyhow, but perhaps this has been agreed upon previously somehow.

 

[pemerton]

Which is a long way of saying that I think, as framed, the GM decides. How the GM decides is unclear to me, hence my sense that this is business as usual.

If we "say 'yes'" rather than ever calling for non-combat ability/skill checks, that is probably a bit of a change to the way the game works. As you posted (or at least hinted at) not far upthread, it seems likely to accelerate the movement of the action towards stuff that does require rolls/checks, namely, combat.

I'm not sure that this would make D&D play better. It's not like it generally has an insufficiency of combat.

 

[Reynard]

That's fair, though there has been some agreement on the milieu (by whom or how is unclear), based on @Reynard's post 209. But what you're getting at is kind of why I'm skeptical this would lead to any great changes in how things play out, except being more agreeable. I might be making too many assumptions, but the division of authority that's been proposed, at least as I'm understanding it, seems like it's basically the same division of authority that D&D as written assumes.


I'm not terrifically familiar with the current edition of D&D (one campaign, nearly a decade ago, ended in a TPK, same group as the 4e games that ended in TPKs that I've mentioned before — come to think of it, there's a pattern here), so I looked at the SRD, which says that the GM calls for an ability check or a skill check when a character attempts an action that has a chance of failure. It does seem like the cheese-and-rat gambit has some chance of failure (maybe it's a clever rat? maybe it's not hungry? maybe the rat doesn't like gruyere? do giant rats like cheese preferentially or do they like to eat people?*), so there should be a roll here. Which is a long way of saying that I think, as framed, the GM decides. How the GM decides is unclear to me, hence my sense that this is business as usual.

* My understanding is that neither rats nor mice particularly like cheese anyhow, but perhaps this has been agreed upon previously somehow.

To be clear, what I am saying is that if the game gives the GM authority to decide whether a roll is necessary, then the GM should not require a roll and declare the action successful (say "yes"). This is the rats and cheese example. But if the game doesn't and has hard coded rules for determining success, those rules should be followed. This is the roll to hit.

In 5E, there aren't a lot of non-combat rules that don't default to the GM giving permission. The effects of spells probably qualify, though, being hard coded mini-rules.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

If we "say 'yes'" rather than ever calling for non-combat ability/skill checks, that is probably a bit of a change to the way the game works. As you posted (or at least hinted at) not far upthread, it seems likely to accelerate the movement of the action towards stuff that does require rolls/checks, namely, combat.

I'm not sure that this would make D&D play better. It's not like it generally has an insufficiency of combat.

I agree on both counts. But I do suspect that the elimination of non-combat ability/skill checks is not intended, even though the examples suggest there'd at least be less of them. I feel like it'd be hard to implement this sort of plan without some sort of guiding principles, and there's something implicit in the examples that suggests a position on this, even if it's not fully formed.

 

[Reynard]

If we "say 'yes'" rather than ever calling for non-combat ability/skill checks, that is probably a bit of a change to the way the game works. As you posted (or at least hinted at) not far upthread, it seems likely to accelerate the movement of the action towards stuff that does require rolls/checks, namely, combat.

I'm not sure that this would make D&D play better. It's not like it generally has an insufficiency of combat.

I don't think that it necessarily pushes the game toward combat. It just eliminates the skill check gate to whatever the next step is. And if the GM is always saying yes, what that is depends a lot more on the players. So if the players want something besides combat, they need to do things that lead there.