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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 6630051" data-attributes="member: 97077">Let's look at it from another direction that I'm sure plenty of players can appreciate: Has there ever been a time when you've taken an action, made a roll (or maybe not), and then the result was not what you had in mind? Did it prompt you to object by saying, "If I would have known X, I wouldn't have tried to Y?" Or "Can we retcon? My character would have known that Z was at stake..." I know I've seen this exact situation in people's games.Going over the stakes before the roll ensures that the DM and player are on the same page with the goal and approach of the character and the intent of the player. So when Lack-Toes says he's going to swim quickly to Rosemary to defend her, I know that a success on that check means the shark breaks off and that this result is sufficient to fulfill the player's stated goal ("defend Rosemary"), approach ("get to her before the shark can"), and intent ("Rosemary not eaten by shark"). What failure means also becomes easy to establish.I leave any issues of the wall between player and character knowledge to the players to work out for themselves. I'm communicating stakes to the player to better facilitate the playing of the game. If he or she would like to establish that the character has some knowledge of the stakes, that's cool - it's reasonable to assume in many cases that the character has an idea of what the risks are. It's also cool if the player chooses to play the character as oblivious to those things. Either of these approaches might even be worth Inspiration from time to time.It's largely a semantic issue. The outcomes arise from the players' goal and approach. So it's not "railroad-y" insofar as the output is derived from the player's input. Had they not set foot on the particular course, it would still be infinitely possible. But once they've picked an approach and goal, other possibilities are closed off, until the outcome is determined. The opportunity for meaningful choice is thus preserved in all cases: While some choices are eliminated by the stakes we agree to (for example, fighting the yuan-ti if they catch up to you), other choices are made available by the change in situation (e.g. negotiating for your life before the Great Abomination or staging a jail-break or whatever).This is why I recommend DMs and players engage in a <a href="http://community.wizards.com/forum/product-and-general-dd-discussions/threads/4167196" target="_blank">Session Zero</a> prior to play, so that these kinds of conflicts don't happen. In any case, it's not so much a matter of "renegotiation" to constrain the stakes as it is a means by which we make sure to fulfill the desire of the player with regard to goal and approach and, failing that due to a bad roll, the games goes in an interesting direction.Thanks again for the feedback and discussion.</blockquote>

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