I want my actions to matter

[Maxperson]

You put out a Game Hook that the players did not bite on so you moved the hook into the back ground. Now to you, this is "normal game play". You give the players a Game Hook, they decide if they want to take it or not, and you say "yes, players" to whatever they decide. And this works out fine in your game.

I do not say "yes, players" to whatever they decide. If you have read the last several posts of mine and this is your conclusion, you are reading to respond, not reading to understand. You need to understand what people are saying BEFORE you respond.

But from my view point: you are changing the game to fit the players whims. If they don't like something or don't want something to happen.....you are right there to say "yes, players whatever you want". And, to you, you are not altering anything....as, to you, the only game reality is what the player wish.

Again, completely false. See above.

I'm not that sort of DM. If the characters say, rob a mob bank.....they will get bounty hunters sent after them. The players might say "oh we don't like the mob revenge bounty hunter plot" all day long. But I'm not going to alter the game reality to make it whatever the players want. In my game, most things happen weather the players like or want those things to happen.

See above. I directly told you that the world reacts to them in those kinds of ways. I just don't railroad them like you do.

If they rob a bank, bounty hunters, the law and/or assassins will be brought into play as appropriate.

Again, my words.

Then if they are wrong about what I said, don't use your words. Your words were flat out wrong and you applied them to my words. My words meant something and they certainly weren't your words.

 

[Maxperson]

* - note that I do NOT subscribe to the 5e idea of having DCs only be divisible by five - nowhere near granular enough. In 1e, climbing is done by roll-under d%; the players know their base chance but here I'd be applying a penalty due to the drizzle making the wall slick, and while they'd be told there's a penalty they wouldn't get any details other than "minor penalty", "big penalty", or whatever description best suits the situation as perceived by the PC(s).

5e doesn't do that. The book shows multiples of 5 to show where categories begin, but you can have a DC 13 or 21.

 

[Maxperson]

So what is wrong with this? What exactly does a player want when they do something like this?

Assuming your not already playing Innkeepers and Guests RPG or such. So say your playing 5E D&D with a tabixi barbarian, half elf arcane archer, halfling warlock and human death cleric that have gone on five adventures so far. Then the players just randomly 'buy an inn'. So sure the DM sits back for a whole hour while the players do all sorts of stuff for their inn. And then after the whole hour the DM gets back to the "game" with a "ok, a message...". And this makes the players unhappy? were the players planning on just playing The Inn Game from now on? So like what...oh no dirty dishes...um...the barbarian will use their rage ability to wash the dishes? The warlock will light the candles in the common room at night? And so on? But the players don't want to switch games to Motel Six The RPG?

So first, buying the inn IS the game. You can't get back to the game after buying it and planning it out. Second, most of the time when I see PCs do something like this, they also hire someone to run the inn. It becomes an investment/base of operations for them.

I will never just give players a dump of information while they just sit there. This is too Buddy DM. The DM tells the players "oh...remember only silver or magic can hurt a werewolf". The players all smile and say "thanks buddy DM". Then the DM says "some werewolves come out of the woods to attack!". And then players have their characters ready their silver and magic weapons.

They won't get that info from me unless there's an in-character reason for it or they have a knowledge skill that could give the info. As for magic weapons, I mean they're almost always going to be using the magic weapons anyway. It's not like they'll be using their normal longsword instead of the +1 longsword.

 

[Maxperson]

yes, you have a good idea going in, you know the cliff face, you know what paths people generally take, you know the official difficulty of the various sections and what specific problems you will face

Under ideal circumstances, yes. Now let's imagine a plane crashing into a valley in the middle of a mountain range. One of the survivors is an experienced climber, but knows nothing of these particular mountains. He is going to be able to assess cliffs he encounters better than Joe the plumber who also survived the crash.

 

[Maxperson]

So I say this as The Hardcore Railroad Tycoon Baron of the 'Net........not only is this not a "solution" to anything, but it's a very bad idea.

You use "your words" fairly often and they usually don't match up to how we use those same words. What exactly does Railroading mean to you? Because I can't tell what you mean by it.

 

[Maxperson]

They seems like a lot of tables aiming to prove you personally have some degree of proficiency in climbing. The level 3 fighter you reference is incapable of that proficiency because the skill does not exist in 5e.

The skill does exist. It is just bundled into jumping, swimming, etc. An expert climber in 5e is also an expert jumper and swimmer.

 

[tetrasodium]

The skill does exist. It is just bundled into jumping, swimming, etc. An expert climber in 5e is also an expert jumper and swimmer.

Having the skills overly condensed for simplicity and the needs of a very small 2-3 Player group comes at a cost. This is one of them. With a larger 4-5+ player group 18 generalist catchall skills does not create"experts" when each PC has a minimum of 4 skills at level one. Had wotc provided an alternative suited to larger groups things might be different, but they did not.

 

[Maxperson]

Having the skills overly condensed for simplicity and the needs of a very small 2-3 Player group comes at a cost. This is one of them. With a larger 4-5+ player group 18 generalist catchall skills does not create"experts" when each PC has a minimum of 4 skills at level one

You can personally view it that way if you like, but equally valid is the idea that you are just an expert at everything physical, which is what I think is RAI. I person can in fact be an expert at multiple things, so there's no good reason to think that athletics can't produce someone who is an expert at all things physical.

Now, personally I think that expertise would be required to make a PC an expert in a skill, but even so that would still mean that someone with expertise in athletics is an expert climber, swimmer and jumper.

 

[mamba]

Under ideal circumstances, yes. Now let's imagine a plane crashing into a valley in the middle of a mountain range. One of the survivors is an experienced climber, but knows nothing of these particular mountains. He is going to be able to assess cliffs he encounters better than Joe the plumber who also survived the crash.

oh, sure, but I was talking about climbers planning a climb the way they usually do. Once you are essentially stranded in the wildernis, all bets are off. The climber would still be better, but would he nail it or miss some things.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Having the skills overly condensed for simplicity and the needs of a very small 2-3 Player group comes at a cost. This is one of them. With a larger 4-5+ player group 18 generalist catchall skills does not create"experts" when each PC has a minimum of 4 skills at level one. Had wotc provided an alternative suited to larger groups things might be different, but they did not.

Or if they had just made a skill system independent of how many PCs there happen to be. Why is that even a consideration?