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

[GMforPowergamers]

Ok, so in YOUR version of Celebrim's scenario, none of the four walls had any traps or hazards. It was all just colorful description/red herrings.

yeah. what i saw was fluff that basically had 4 different walls with 4 DCs so I would just assume they climb the one with the lowest unless told otherwise.

But do you get my point, finally, about how if any one of those four hazards DID exist, the player's choice about which wall to climb up IS meaningful, and I shouldn't take it away from them?

yes... but again my way wouldn't take it away either.

And if I do, I either remove the danger or force them into it, which is exactly the kind of "gotcha" my adjudication style is designed to prevent?

except the 'gotcha' is do you choose the right wall to climb.

Pretty much. Because I'm not putting words in their mouth/making choices for them. The way you've described your play means you're giving them free info about there not being a hazard, and choosing for them which wall they go up if they just hold up the die and say "Athletics?"

what i am doing is matching the player energy, if they care what wall they climb great... we can do that. if they don't care neither do I.

If I had to ask your players a bunch of questions, it sounds like the only reason would be because your group has practiced a play style where they largely don't have to describe what their characters actually do, and they're used to you filling that in for them with description after they roll.

yes... it would also force some of my players not to play some class/concepts. I know this for 100% sure because back pre covid when we still did cons and store games I saw it happen... when DMs made joe have to describe instead of letting him choose to describe or not he just stopped playing faces... the funny part is I can tell you we wnet months were he would RP it out every time before the roll... and STILL not be willing to do it at a table where the roll wasn't guaranteed to matter.

now I don't know if kurt would feel pushed back into the rogue/trap finder role though... that is an interesting question.

Nothing wrong with cut scenes. I sometimes use them too, in the right game. I trust my players too. But if I tell them that the all the fancy walls they just skipped past had no hazards and were just red herrings, don't you think that will impact their decision making if and when they encounter another similar situation?

maybe a little, but I doubt any noticeable amount.

we do sometimes joke when the DM (normally me) describes something is detail that it is 'oh that is a shiny interactable' but that is mostly joking because they know I am as likely to give details on an ornate suit of armor cause I have a cool visual in my head as I am because it foreshadowed something latter just as likely as if it were magic, BUT there ARE some metagame descriptions.

If any of us put a 'black as night but shinny' or 'almost looks like it is absorbing the light around it' that is almost for sure some variant of our Dark Blade...

Wut. On what basis do you think you can judge "no where near as often as my way"?

on the bassis of if my players sat at your table they would expect to be able to just call skills.

If my players are accustomed to describing what their characters actually do, it would seem less likely that I need to constantly ask them, no?

it depends this thread started cause someone has players that wont 'learn' that

 

[robus]

IF I go into burger king and order a whopper and say nothing else I can't complain "I meant with no onions heavy pickles"

We're still talking at cross purposes. We're saying that going into Burger King and asking for food is not specific enough. Ordering a whopper, on the other hand, is plenty specific enough.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

How is it not uncertain? Sometimes the opposition might think to look under the table (let's say there is a long tablecloth so the PC is not immediately visible) sometimes they might not.

Seems like the perfect opportunity for an opposed roll (PCs stealth vs. opponents Perception or possibly, investigation).

I mean you literally described an example where the PC's stealth shouldn't really matter, it's almost entirely down to NPC decision-making, which is a matter of RP for the DM. Perception isn't the skill really for that - instead D&D maybe needs a "Professionalism" or "Thoroughness" stat for NPCs, which would quantify how seriously they took checking for an intruder (and other boring tasks). Highly professional NPC guards will eventually look under the tablecloth, period. There's no uncertainty except maybe as to how many rounds before they do. Whereas a low professionalism Goblin might just run shrieking past.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm confused by this.

How is it not uncertain? Sometimes the opposition might think to look under the table (let's say there is a long tablecloth so the PC is not immediately visible)

Because I was not making the bolded assumption.

 

[Celebrim]

yes. Very much it helps with immersion. again this style did start as a reaction to bad actors (DM and Players) who no longer game with us... if we didn't find the benefits (more immersion, more variance in characters, more fun descriptions, more player engagement) there would be no reason to continue it.

yes very much. it is most likely the #2 reason I promote this style is to help immersion. It doesn't matter that I know how to talk the baron into it... I am immersed in the character and if the character can.

So this is a very unexpected description of "immersion" because of the several problems I have with you described style of play, the fact that it is un-immersive is my biggest problem with it. Now, I know immersion is often a vague term that means different things to different people, but to me when I talk about immersive play I am meaning the following:

a) The majority of things said at the table end up in the transcript of play. That is the less OOC talk you have and the more IC talk you have the more immersion you have. Something like "I use diplomacy on the guard to persuade him to not report me" is an inherently non-immersive statement because it draws me out of character and is a statement that isn't part of the transcript of play. Someone will have to fill in what happened there with narration in order for there to be a transcript. Think about a CPRG where you can select from a menu, "Use Diplomacy", the creators of the game will still provide some transcript of play to give you an idea what that diplomacy is, either with a quoted statement of what the PC says or with a cut scene showing the scene play out. That creates a transcript and it is immersive in exactly the way "Use Diplomacy" is not because it happens only outside the imagined space. Immersion is about things internal the imagined space. (See my definitions of transcript and narration earlier.)
b) The majority of non-narrative transcripts are in the first person and quite often players are engaging in method acting techniques to immerse themselves in the role.
c) The majority of the players imagination of the scene is occuring in first person perspective as if they were looking through the eyes of the character as opposed to imagining the scene as if they were in the audience watching it or worse not even imagining the scene at all (because there is no need to).

I won't quote it but you go on to describe from here how everyone is having more fun because they don't feel like there is an autofail if they do something wrong, and I feel like you have this binary "either I play my way or else it's antagonistic gotcha gaming". It's not like if you play my way and you talk to the guard that I'm going to ignore the character test or that I'm out to get you or something.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

With your above responses, I can see that -- but I think because your narrative and immersion comes AFTER the roll, it might be a little strange for folks to see it that way.

but its not always after a roll...
just because I am going to call for a check (and I don't mind if the players ask for one) doesn't mean no one is roleplaying... our narratives are as important as anything... we just think we rely on the sheets to help us form teh narrative... I still said what I said, I still DID what I did... just the results are being random generated based on skill...

and again we don't always roll my own personal house rule is no one prof every rolls (unless they want to) they auto succssed on all dc11 or less. this includes saves, attacks, skills... any roll.

Anyway, I appreciate you sticking with the discussion. I feel like I learned something about a style of play I don't think I have ever actually seen at the table.

thank you I hope that we can continue to discuss things like this in the future.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

This is why my group stopped using the optional flanking rule (even though we started with it). Advantage was already easy to get, using Flanking made it near trivial - and we found it too much.

that is why i don't use it... we used to jokely count 1 advantage, 2 advantage... ha ha ha like the count muppet

 

[Mort]

I mean you literally described an example where the PC's stealth shouldn't really matter, it's almost entirely down to NPC decision-making, which is a matter of RP for the DM. Perception isn't the skill really for that - instead D&D maybe needs a "Professionalism" or "Thoroughness" stat for NPCs, which would quantify how seriously they took checking for an intruder (and other boring tasks). Highly professional NPC guards will eventually look under the tablecloth, period. There's no uncertainty except maybe as to how many rounds before they do. Whereas a low professionalism Goblin might just run shrieking past.

Stealth also incorporates ability to hide in 5e, not just to be quit and stealthy.

If the player (who knows nothing about hiding) is playing Rogue Awesomehider (stealth +17) is hiding from foes and says he hides under the table - then in the fiction, the table might well be the best available place to hide.

At the very least, it's not automatic and the opponents have to beat his stealth roll to find him.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I care. Quite a lot. Roleplaying games (to me) are about interacting with a shared imagined space together.

were i agree in theory, in practice before roll20 if everyone described what the team of PCs looked like I bet a sketch artist would not draw the same thing twice. (since we use pics now as tolkens that helps a bit but even still we sometimes imagine slight differences)

heck sometimes I will hear someone tell a story form 10+ years ago and be like "was I there for that game" just to be told I ran it... then realize that my memory of what happened was VERY different.

something as small as finding the hidden brick just can;t make my radar. (if someone forgot my dread lord Nerouny, or my army of tarrasques... or my mindflayer god with divine rank 34 dying right after he said his last words 'i call shenaagins... this was my plan' i might be upset)

We can’t really do that effectively if we are imagining completely different things. I mean of course it’s unavoidable that we will imagine some details a little bit differently, but that’s something to be avoided as much as possible in my opinion, because the further our mental pictures of the fiction deviate from each other, the greater the risk of miscommunication and misunderstanding, and the harder it becomes to create fun, memorable stories together about that shared fiction.

again we agree in principle my line and yours are just football fields aprt on what is or is not important.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Stealth also incorporates ability to hide in 5e, not just to be quit and stealthy.

If the player (who knows nothing about hiding) is playing Rogue Awesomehider (stealth +17) is hiding from foes and says he hides under the table - then in the fiction, the table might well be the best available place to hide.

At the very least, it's not automatic and the opponents have to beat his stealth roll to find him.

I mean, I disagree fundamentally. If someone has +17 stealth and says "I hide in the best location my character can find", and you, the DM, determines that is "under the table", then sure.

If however, I have NPCs who are serious professionals and not a bunch of numpties or lazy (which to fair, most NPCs are - numpties or lazy), and the players says "I want to hide under the table", I'm probably going to say "You've +17 stealth, you're not sure that's a great idea", and they insist anyway, then, no matter how good their stealth, if they insist on not moving from under the table, they WILL be found, it's just a matter of when (sure they won't be detected early like a low-stealth numpty might). If they're willing to move, sure a good stealth rolling could see them vanish out one end of the table just as the guy looks under it, and thus misses them or the like.

There are RPGs where the PCs have more narrative control where a player asserting that hiding under the table was smart might make it so, but D&D, RAW and RAI is definitely not one of them. You're welcome to make it one at your table, and I sympathize but...