D&D 5E (2024) How can I do a Charisma-Investigation (or a Strength/Dexterity-Investigation if I can't use Charisma) to find a secret door?

[kermit4karate]

But it is not your character. The player chooses how to play the character, not the DM. That is the basic premise of player agency.

It doesn't have to make sense to you, it has to make sense to them!

Yeah, but the DM is all-powerful, so they can just boop the character away, or boop 'em back. boop! boop! boop!

 

[ECMO3]

Yeah, but the DM is all-powerful, so they can just boop the character away, or boop 'em back. boop! boop! boop!

Yes the DM can completely eliminate player agency in every way and every dimension. This is not typically regarded as a good thing by most gamers, including most DMs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But it is not your character. The player chooses how to play the character, not the DM. That is the basic premise of player agency.

It doesn't have to make sense to you, it has to make sense to them!

I'm running the game, so it has to make sense to me too. Otherwise I can't adjudicate events fairly.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That is because 2024 is the context we are discussing it in. How it happens in 1E or Pathfinder or Shadowdark, may be interesting and may be of value, but this is a 2024 forum and what I was discussing was specifically about a 2024 game.

Also "fade away" was in the 2014 DMG as well, so it is hardly like this is a new concept for 2024.

I notice the examples you're giving now are not for 5e, whereas the ones I was using were.

 

[kermit4karate]

Yes the DM can completely eliminate player agency in every way and every dimension. This is not typically regarded as a good thing by most gamers, including most DMs.

True, but it's always there in the DM's back pocket for those times when debate or disagreement about the rules or a player's actions creates confusion or tension. How's the game being served by codifying rules to remove some of the DM's ultimate authority, when at the end of the day...the DM will still remain the ultimate authority? Isn't that just inviting conflict? It doesn't sound like you're proposing changing Gygaxian Law to dilute the DM's ultimate authority, so what's the goal here?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes the DM can completely eliminate player agency in every way and every dimension. This is not typically regarded as a good thing by most gamers, including most DMs.

And those are all the same thing to you as having a character cease to exist for no reason other than their player is gone?

 

[ECMO3]

And those are all the same thing to you as having a character cease to exist for no reason other than their player is gone?

I was talking specifically about your comment - "Breaks it wide open for me because it makes no sense"

It doesn't have to make sense to you because you are not the player. What makes sense to the player and what the player would choose for his PC to do is what defines player agency.

 

[ECMO3]

True, but it's always there in the DM's back pocket for those times when debate or disagreement about the rules or a player's actions creates confusion or tension.

I don't see how fading away when a player is not there would create confusion or tension.

Repeatedly missing sessions could create tension, but I don't see how the "fade away" choice to resolve the in game mechanics when absences occur could.

It is pretty darn straightforward in my mind, and whether you personally like it or not it is an approved method of dealing with this and was at least at one time in very widespread use in the D&D community.

 

[ECMO3]

Oh as far as the original question, we leveled up last night (Rogue still absent), but my PC now has 2 levels of Fighter, so we are making all the checks no problem.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I was talking specifically about your comment - "Breaks it wide open for me because it makes no sense"

It doesn't have to make sense to you because you are not the player. What makes sense to the player and what the player would choose for his PC to do is what defines player agency.

I just told you, I run the game. It has to make sense to me too.