D&D General "I make a perception check."

[GMforPowergamers]

If you watch enough games, you can see this happen with some frequency in a lot of groups. The player doesn't do much to describe what they want to do, ceding that description to the DM. The DM, perhaps after the roll, describes what the character does and the result. The player then objects: "I wouldn't have had my character do that!"

i have been letting PCs call skills and not careing how well or if they describe there actions since before 3.5... but since 4e have been the most consistent. In all that time I have maybe a dozen or so times I can think of had someone tell a player (me or other) what they did, and maybe 2 or 3 times had to replay "I wouldn't have had my character do that!"

so I get that YOU see and have had bad experiences, but not everyone useing a 'I don't care how you tell me' approach has.

now the way MORE likely is for me to ask for clarification I would say 6ish times a year I need to do to vague understandings... and about the same for stupid/insane/suicidal action declarations "I'm sorry you want to pick pocket the god of magic that I just described as naked... what are you... no never mind I don't want to know"

It just happens because whatever the player is imagining in their head but failed to describe is not what the DM imagined and established. Had the player just described what they wanted to do so the DM didn't have to do that in the first place, this issue is avoided.

the solution (in my mind) is to just insure that you as teh DM don't add anything... just go with what they said.

The issue starts with the player, then is exacerbated by the DM who just accepts a vague action declaration.

I think the problem starts with DMs who don't like how others run there games

 

[Celebrim]

I read with a bit of frustration and bemusement the exchange where Celebrim gave examples of four garden walls, each with likely different difficulties to climb, but also potential hidden hazards, and @GMforPowergamers seemed to breeze completely past the point of the player owning his character's decision about which wall to try.

I have to wonder if the gaming style GMforPowergamers uses works for him in part because the sort of complex encounter areas I'm describing, that are typical of my games just don't occur in his games. I've played at tables with Open World styles which I describe as, "We never move off the stage, the GM just changes the backdrops" were all encounters occur basically on a stage without obstacles or boundaries or important features other than the NPCs. You can go anywhere you want in these sandboxes because they are just a flat stretch of sand with different NPCs to meet. The game wouldn't play much differently if we were summoning NPCs to meet us on the stage rather than going to them. Space doesn't matter much in such games.

If you have that sort of thing going on, and you aren't using things like Flanking or battlemaps or anything but theater of the mind, then you probably rarely run into situations where the fictional positioning ever does matter.

I'm imagining a game that is largely Bangs and Scenes, played out almost entirely with Moves and heavily relying on DM narration for the entire transcript of play. The sort of game he describes feels a lot like a multiplayer Lone Wolf choose your own path book. I suspect that there is a lot of soft railroading techniques going on to make sure the party stays on the local rails, but the overall story is open ended.

I disagree with how Celebrim uses the word Railroading (I subscribe to a purely pejorative definition), but he's completely correct that if I as the DM simply let the player roll athletics and then narrate him climbing over the easiest wall, I've taken control out of the hands of the player...

If you take away player agency, and you aren't going to call it Railroading, what are you going to call it?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

And, we come around (or maybe back) to - are we testing the character, or the player?

that is my whole part of this conversation (or atleast trying to be)

 

[Chaosmancer]

i feel like the distinction I said before, tell me what your character wants to do, not what you want to do is a fair request of players. Characters can’t make rolls, but you can after you tell me what your character wants to do in fiction. That said, I’m aware of what that player wants and I’m not gonna argue or be a dick about it Or force the issue. However i do think they should learn to talk in fiction, don’t you? Not the least reason being that your character sheet has ten options and in game fiction has a million.

Sure, but again, the player has told you what the character wants to do. Whether or not they are comfortable talking "in fiction" doesn't matter to me at all. That is an entirely separate issue and I'd approach it in entirely different ways.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Okay, do you use the social interaction rules in the DMG at all? That's basically how they work. I get some inside info on the NPC, then use it to my advantage to get what I want. For example, I made a Wisdom (Insight) check successfully and the DM tells me the NPC's bond - "I will try to live up to the example my ancestors set before me." I then turn around and remind the king that his ancestors were well known for their bravery and that's why he should back whatever plan I'm trying to push. I get advantage on that subsequent Charisma check, if there is one, because I used the king's bond for leverage.

we don't use alignment we don't use bonds flaws or any of that... it is all optional (if YOU want to fill it out for yourself that is cool but at no time will I the DM ask for it or use it) and we make up our own things 'CHaotic goodish' and flaw 'I'm too sexxy for my shirt' are both things that have been written on my character sheet in the last 3 years.

 

[iserith]

so I get that YOU see and have had bad experiences, but not everyone useing a 'I don't care how you tell me' approach has.

I would say that even in the abstract from a process or conversation flow point of view, one approach is clearly better at avoiding those pitfalls though for no apparent downside. It may just be that someone doesn't prioritize this aspect very highly.

the solution (in my mind) is to just insure that you as teh DM don't add anything... just go with what they said.

Sometimes what they say isn't sufficient to determine if there's an uncertain outcome or a meaningful consequence of failure, what the DC is for the approach to the goal, or whether the attempt has advantage or disadvantage.

I agree the DM shouldn't just assume and add whatever they want though.

I think the problem starts with DMs who don't like how others run there games

I don't think it's a problem that some DMs don't like how other DMs run their games. I've been in games where I've decided it's not for me. I'm sure most people have. People like what they like. That's normal.

 

[robus]

do you allow an NPC to do the same? If a MM1 assassin gets into the bed room a PC is in can they just kill them no roll?
(not an argument a real question... I wont even say 1 is right or 1 is wrong, cause I do things for PCs that NPCs don't get all the time myself)

Nope, because the NPCs are not the heroes.

 

[Charlaquin]

Was the DC to not trigger the yellow mold above 15? If so, the player took a risk and got burned - them's the breaks.

If the DC WAS 15 or lower, but they got hit with the mold because they "weren't specific enough..." I don't like that. Better for the DM to ask the player to elaborate exactly what they are searching "There are lots of things in the room to search, can you be more specific as to what you are doing?"

Further, the players should know whether this is a test of "player" skill here. If no level of search skill (be it -1 or +17) will avoid the yellow mold, only the player dictating something that could avoid it (whatever that might be) - the players need to know it's that kind of challenge going in.

For me, traps are not triggered by failing to meet DCs, they are triggered by things that happen in the fiction. Some other actions in the fiction might lead to the character discovering the trap without triggering it, and some of those might require the player to succeed on a check of some sort to do so. Little to none of this is pre-planned; I only know where the trap is, how it’s hidden, and what will trigger it. To adjudicate whether any given attempt to find it succeeds, fails, or requires a roll, and in the lattermost case, what sort of roll is required and against what DC, I need to know what actions are actually being performed in the fiction, to a reasonable degree of specificity.

Is this a challenge for the player as well as the character? Absolutely. All games involve challenging the player, and most roleplaying games also give the player a character with tools they can use to help them overcome those challenges. But of course, since I know not all players expect D&D gameplay to work this way, it’s something I make a point of discussing with new players to my table. What information I need out of an action declaration and how I use that information are gone over in my table rules document.

 

[Charlaquin]

that is my whole part of this conversation (or atleast trying to be)

It’s been a pretty active thread so maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall seeing you ask that at any point. Had you done so, I would have answered just as I did Umbran. Both, undoubtedly.

 

[Charlaquin]

we don't use alignment we don't use bonds flaws or any of that... it is all optional (if YOU want to fill it out for yourself that is cool but at no time will I the DM ask for it or use it) and we make up our own things 'CHaotic goodish' and flaw 'I'm too sexxy for my shirt' are both things that have been written on my character sheet in the last 3 years.

That is a pretty great flaw, NGL.