If an NPC is telling the truth, what's the Insight DC to know they're telling the truth?

[WaterRabbit]

Meh, needless hair splitting.

This isn't needless hair splitting. You made a statement that isn't correct. If other hadn't I would have. Before any roll is made, a statement of intent or action by the player must precede it -- this isn't narration. Without a such a statement, how do you know what to roll? The narration is the result of the action.

Climbing a wall is a perfect example:

Player: I climb the wall in this manner.
DM: Sets the DC for Athletics check based on the player's statement. The DC could be anywhere from automatically successful (i.e., using a ladder) to impossible (bare-handed while trying to carry everyone else in the party on his back up a wall made of ice).
Player: Rolls if necessary.
DM: Narrates the success or failure of the action.

Now maybe that is what you meant, but then you misunderstood/misrepresented the person you were responding to.

The point they and others were making is that you cannot make a roll much less determine the chance of success unless you have a clear understanding of the player's goal. This interaction loop applies to combat, social, and environmental interactions. The only real difference is that for combat, many of the variables are already predetermined (AC, to hit bonus, damage to be applied, etc.). The other two pillars have many more undefined variables that cannot be set until a clear statement of action is made.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Meh, needless hair splitting. If there's a ladder, there's no check at all. Why would there be? Or, if they stack crates, then again, there's no check. But, again, if the player simply states, "I climb the wall, Athletics 17", I am not going to stop him and ask what he's doing. Needlessly adding all these superfluous elements to the example is just pointless.

Yes, exactly. If they stack up creates there is (or might be) no check at all. I thought you were opposed to the player finding alternate solutions to obstacles?

This entire time we've been talking about doing things like stacking crates to solve problems. That is, coming up with solutions that maybe the DM hadn't considered. Not adding colorful adverbs to the act of climbing, which is how you keep describing it.

I move here, I attack that orc, I use my bonus action to cast Hunters Mark on that target is, to me, no different than, "I climb the wall, Athletics 17". Because, unlike you, I don't ask the players for an attack roll. The players don't have to ask me to cast Hunter's Mark or whether or not they can move to that location.

You're claiming that there isn't any difference, but, that's the primary difference all the way along. In your method, which has been repeated over and over and over again, the player CANNOT CALL FOR A SKILL CHECK. That's been the common refrain all the way along. Yet, in combat, the player calls for every check, tells the DM exactly what's going to happen and doesn't wait for anything. The player doesn't say, "Oh I attack this orc" and the DM replies, "OK, make an attack roll". The player doesn't state "I'm casting Hunter's Mark" and then wait for the DM to call for a bonus action.

First of all, don't extrapolate to combat too far. Although there are some illustrative analogies, that pillar is sufficiently different that I think most of us run it differently.

At the same time, there is still a useful analogy: when playing with beginners it can be exactly like you describe. "I want to stab the orc with my dagger." "Ok, roll the d20...no, the big one. You'll need an 11 or better to hit."

Now, I realize one of the things you value is system mastery, and players who understand the rules well enough that the DM doesn't have to do this. And, again, that's where the two camps differ. I like to emphasize how beginners play, because in some ways that's how I like to see experts play: describe what they want to do, not the rules they want to invoke. YMMV.

Combat is the exact opposite of everything you folks have INSISTED on all the way through this thread. The player calls for checks in combat. The player states actions and doesn't even wait for DM adjudication most of the time. Heck, the player tells the DM to make a saving throw for this or that creature, essentially telling the DM to make checks.

Yeah, I'll agree with this, sorta. Not "exact opposite" but "different". As I said above in this post, and a previous post, the combat pillar is so much different/richer mechanically that it is run differently, even if the underlying philosophy applies.

Also note that those rules passages that iserith keeps quoting...the ones you hate...refer specifically to ability checks, not all d20 rolls. So, yes, attack rolls and saving throws work differently.

So, no, you don't raise an "excellent point". You have just completely contradicted every single post that you folks have made for the last 111 pages of this thread.

Logically false, even ignoring the sweeping hyperbole. I/we tried to use combat as an analogy to help you gain a better understanding of goal-and-approach, and you have taken the imperfection of the analogy as evidence that we are contradicting ourselves.

Sometimes I think you are determined to not understand.

I run skill checks the same way I run combat - the players generally tell me what checks to make and whatnot. For me, it's simply applying the same standard across the game.

Yup, we understand that. You don't seem to understand what we're doing, though. I suppose it doesn't really matter, because you don't seem interested in understanding, but having our approach mocked and ridiculed and mischaracterized leads us to want to make it understood. I apologize if I have in turn mocked your approach, but sometimes it's hard to just take the punches without hitting back.

 

[Guest 6801328]

it's just that I don't want the game to go at a glacial pace while we all discuss how we climb the wall.

Those of us who use goal-and-approach have repeatedly told you that it doesn't slow the game down. Since you don't use goal-and-approach you are just imagining it slowing the game down, but you have no evidence.

Are you accusing us of lying?

 

[5ekyu]

This isn't needless hair splitting. You made a statement that isn't correct. If other hadn't I would have. Before any roll is made, a statement of intent or action by the player must precede it -- this isn't narration. Without a such a statement, how do you know what to roll? The narration is the result of the action.

Climbing a wall is a perfect example:

Player: I climb the wall in this manner.
DM: Sets the DC for Athletics check based on the player's statement. The DC could be anywhere from automatically successful (i.e., using a ladder) to impossible (bare-handed while trying to carry everyone else in the party on his back up a wall made of ice).
Player: Rolls if necessary.
DM: Narrates the success or failure of the action.

Now maybe that is what you meant, but then you misunderstood/misrepresented the person you were responding to.

The point they and others were making is that you cannot make a roll much less determine the chance of success unless you have a clear understanding of the player's goal. This interaction loop applies to combat, social, and environmental interactions. The only real difference is that for combat, many of the variables are already predetermined (AC, to hit bonus, damage to be applied, etc.). The other two pillars have many more undefined variables that cannot be set until a clear statement of action is made.

I admire [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6801845]Oofta[/MENTION] for their persistence in agsin climbing down the morphing shifting rabbit hole offer up, but hey, evetybody's got to have a hobby.

I find the ladder funny and just tha latest swerve retread so I will toss in a line or two which I am sure clearly shows I misunderstand the wonders of the approach.

I (and Hussar I suspect and many others) consider cases in which **as GMs** we provide a wall the PCs might need or want to get over **and** a ladder they can just pick up (or crates they can stack) and use as **not an obstacle** or **not a challenge**. Its the equivalent to "I get out of bed" or "I eat lunch" and so on and so on. They dontvrise near the level of challenge, obstacle or as I tend to specify "challenge that matters."

The only way these have significance worth their "resolution" is if something else makes it a challenge - like bad guys en route do you havevtimevyo stack or are you better off preparing to fight using crates stacked up as cover - not ladder.

In all my years of gaming, I have never once saw there be any, none, not one bit of confusion when a ladder or crates were there as to whether a PC was using them to climb or not. So, the bendy wendy timey riney rabbit hole does not help me there either.

The ladder and crates and wall example is yet another *chosen* example that highlights the point - it's back to the escape room. If the GM is gonna **provide** player-side solutions that dont need the skills of the character involved in a "challenge" or "obstacle" then they devalue those character-side skills and more to the point the player choices made in choosing those skills.

The more the GM does this, the less those choices matter. The more the GM does this, the more they show which choices at chargen matter and which can be "solved" by rabbit holing.

Now, in my experience, the more games are run by GMs who more strongly push this rabbit hole escape room approach to some of the aspects of the gameplay, the worse they have played out and the more it seemed that "playing the GM" by following down the rabbit hole was the best route.

Of course, now queue up the endless redirects to that doesnt happen, we dont put solutions, we are unaffected by influences and are like totally fair man... etc etc etc...

Then look back to the escspe room example and now the ladder and crates... both dialed up to spotlight cases and both examples ehere the GM setup the solutions and obstacles (or did I miss the memo that says some other force mandates all walls have ladders left nearby?)

I love carrots and rabbit stew, but this rabbit hole is just too deep and windy for me to go deeper than that.

Likely just another sign of how much I misunderstand about this glorious thing that is GMing.

 

[5ekyu]

Yes, exactly. If they stack up creates there is (or might be) no check at all. I thought you were opposed to the player finding alternate solutions to obstacles?

This entire time we've been talking about doing things like stacking crates to solve problems. That is, coming up with solutions that maybe the DM hadn't considered. Not adding colorful adverbs to the act of climbing, which is how you keep describing it.



First of all, don't extrapolate to combat too far. Although there are some illustrative analogies, that pillar is sufficiently different that I think most of us run it differently.

At the same time, there is still a useful analogy: when playing with beginners it can be exactly like you describe. "I want to stab the orc with my dagger." "Ok, roll the d20...no, the big one. You'll need an 11 or better to hit."

Now, I realize one of the things you value is system mastery, and players who understand the rules well enough that the DM doesn't have to do this. And, again, that's where the two camps differ. I like to emphasize how beginners play, because in some ways that's how I like to see experts play: describe what they want to do, not the rules they want to invoke. YMMV.



Yeah, I'll agree with this, sorta. Not "exact opposite" but "different". As I said above in this post, and a previous post, the combat pillar is so much different/richer mechanically that it is run differently, even if the underlying philosophy applies.

Also note that those rules passages that iserith keeps quoting...the ones you hate...refer specifically to ability checks, not all d20 rolls. So, yes, attack rolls and saving throws work differently.



Logically false, even ignoring the sweeping hyperbole. I/we tried to use combat as an analogy to help you gain a better understanding of goal-and-approach, and you have taken the imperfection of the analogy as evidence that we are contradicting ourselves.

Sometimes I think you are determined to not understand.



Yup, we understand that. You don't seem to understand what we're doing, though. I suppose it doesn't really matter, because you don't seem interested in understanding, but having our approach mocked and ridiculed and mischaracterized leads us to want to make it understood. I apologize if I have in turn mocked your approach, but sometimes it's hard to just take the punches without hitting back.

Flip Wilson wants his joke back.

 

[Oofta]

Those of us who use goal-and-approach have repeatedly told you that it doesn't slow the game down. Since you don't use goal-and-approach you are just imagining it slowing the game down, but you have no evidence.

Are you accusing us of lying?

I'm saying that in my experience what I do works well and moves the game along quickly for me and my group. That and I just don't see the point of strictly enforcing what you call "goal and approach" style.

There are some podcasts that in my opinion do go at a glacial pace. That's okay, they have fun doing it and I don't have to listen. Your games? I have no clue.

[EDIT] P.S. good job of picking out one line that had nothing to do with the rest of my post just so you could take offense.

 

[5ekyu]

Those of us who use goal-and-approach have repeatedly told you that it doesn't slow the game down. Since you don't use goal-and-approach you are just imagining it slowing the game down, but you have no evidence.

Are you accusing us of lying?

Ummm... unless I am misunderstanding again... you are saying it (rabbit hole goal and blah blah) doesnt slow **your** gameplay down.

Or are you actually speaking for everyone's games?

Examples you seem to use include cases where there is confusion over what being tried, where players and GMs have widely different views on what ability scores even represent, etc.

Our examples are cases where they do share common understanding and these kinds of issues come up so rarely they dont add up to squat time wise compared to the time saved by getting the dice and check done right off the bat, no back and forth waiting for GM to pre-approve the obvious roll that will be coming.

Or are you saying we are lying when we say it would slow down our game play?

For the record, I am perfectly willing to accept that goal and approach likely does speed up your gameplay. But I consider that s comment about the nature of your gameplay before and after, not about the merits of the approach to others.

See, this gets back to the position put forth, the spin, that the alternative we suggest isnt the middle path but is rolling for everything.

You claim right there "Since you don't use goal-and-approach you are just imagining it slowing the game down, but you have no evidence."

That's bull.

There are cases in my game, in hussars, in ooftas in most every GMs game where the circumstances are not clear and where the player doesnt jump to "skill check" because it's not so obvious - and then we do more detailed kinds of what do you do and so on type of gameplay.

Those are great. But we dont need that for every wall climb thats an obstacle/challenge and every door listen and every time a check might be needed. Often enough, in our games not necessarily yours, we and our players are on the same page and so we font need that.

See, we acknowledge generally that we use both. Hussar said ***if there's a ladder thry climb it, it's not a challenge and it's never been unclear that they did it cuz thry said do***(paraphrasing them but those were explicitly stated) yet now you say "Since you don't use goal-and-approach you are just imagining it slowing the game down, but you have no evidence."

Just what- a page removed (actuslly, same page) and already we go from explicit claims the we use goal and approach to claims we dont.

I know that if I stopped every I climb the wall athletics check 17" and insisted on thrm telling me how just because in some cases there may be ladders they forgot to mention, it would slow things down for my games.

That said, there is another common sieve down this rabbit hole usually trotted out when pace of game gets trotted out: telegraphing.

Frequently snuck in with the rabbit hole of goal and approach on time is the "all traps telegraphed" and " info is just given not gated behind (character) skill checks" and other such stuff. Often its put forth and packaged for easy swallowing as "the fun is what they do after, not whether or not they get it" and that kinds of stuff.

I get that, really I do, but I dont agree with it as a strong guiding principle or that it overall results in more fun - far as me and mine go.

Attended a session of HERO supers once where each session started at the briefing outside the mall/lab/other scene of crisis snd within 5 mins real time the heroes were inside the "arena de jour" slugging away with bad guys. When I asked obliquely about it, they said in response "we used to fo morectoleplay, starting you in your secret I'd when the news came out so you had to spend a few mins getting out of the office to get here... but we decided to stop that and just get to the fun stuff"

So, yeah, telegraphing as core design - all traps are telegraphed- yeah - that will really speed up play. But that is separate from goal and rabbit holes. It's also, well, let's say highly subjective as to whether it's fun or more gun orca better game to say all traps in this world will be telegraphed **to the players**."

But hey, all this talk of rabbits and carrots has made me hungry and stews take a while to cook and some things dont gr better by faster, so... off to cook.

 

[iserith]

Logically false, even ignoring the sweeping hyperbole. I/we tried to use combat as an analogy to help you gain a better understanding of goal-and-approach, and you have taken the imperfection of the analogy as evidence that we are contradicting ourselves.

Sometimes I think you are determined to not understand.

Which is why I continually advise against examples or analogies. In a debate of this nature, the people holding the opposing viewpoint are incentivized to pick apart the example for flaws and use them against you instead of using them to understand your position. I wish that wasn't so as examples can be illustrative and helpful; however, that is not the case when engaging with certain posters in particular. This is why adhering to rules is more effective in my view (and perhaps why we see objections to quoting rules).

Yup, we understand that. You don't seem to understand what we're doing, though. I suppose it doesn't really matter, because you don't seem interested in understanding, but having our approach mocked and ridiculed and mischaracterized leads us to want to make it understood. I apologize if I have in turn mocked your approach, but sometimes it's hard to just take the punches without hitting back.

The good thing about not punching back is that the people doing the punching tend not to be viewed in a positive light by people who are reading but not engaging in the debate. If the poster looks bad, then their position is often judged negatively. While a position shouldn't necessarily be judged by the poster presenting it but rather the soundness of their ideas, in a pragmatic sense it is of benefit to let them keep punching (and not return the attack) as it means they end up defeating themselves with their own words and behavior. In short, if your opponent is making a spectacle of themselves, step back and let them keep doing it.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Which is why I continually advise against examples or analogies. In a debate of this nature, the people holding the opposing viewpoint are incentivized to pick apart the example for flaws and use them against you instead of using them to understand your position. I wish that wasn't so as examples can be illustrative and helpful; however, that is not the case when engaging with certain posters in particular.

I know you're right, and yet somehow I always forget, and somehow hope/believe that an example or analogy will be taken in the spirit with which it was intended. And yet it never is. As you say, by certain posters in particular.

Fool me once, shame on them. Fool me twice...or 100 times...shame on me.

The good thing about not punching back is that the people doing the punching tend not to be viewed in a positive light by people who are reading but not engaging in the debate. If the poster looks bad, then their position is often judged negatively. While a position shouldn't necessarily be judged by the poster presenting it but rather the soundness of their ideas, in a pragmatic sense it is of benefit to let them keep punching (and not return the attack) as it means they end up defeating themselves with their own words and behavior. In short, if your opponent is making a spectacle of themselves, step back and let them keep doing it.

Yeah, this too. /sigh

 

[Oofta]

For what it's worth if I was in a game where there is a wall we need to climb and I roll my dice and say "I get a 20 athletics to climb the wall" I would find it annoying if the DM told me I couldn't do that. That as a player I couldn't just take the obvious shortcut.

From the other side of the screen my response could be any number of responses

• The wall is so smooth you can't get a purchase, you don't think you'll be able to climb it.
• You barely get to the top.
• Okay [insert what they see if it's important] what are going to do?
• The wall is so pitted you think anyone could climb it.
• You're ignoring the ladder?
• Are you doing anything to avoid the guard [that the PC was aware of before climbing] at the top?

On the other hand if someone asks "Can I climb the wall?" my response would be to call for an athletics check (or ask for clarification, etc). Either way is fine. I do my best to accommodate my players styles and preferences.

Don't run your game that way? Fine. If someone is so adamant that I had to state action and intent along with some arbitrary limit on my not calling out the appropriate skill check I don't know if I'd stick with that table.