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

[iserith]

I can honestly say you are too confident. I've played in your style before. I've done it. Honest. I've given it a whirl and I'm not interested.

Just as a comparison, in my last session, 3 hours and we ran 4 combats, 5 social interactions and several explorations. Granted the characters are only 3rd level, so that makes combat faster, but, this is also online over voice, which is almost always slower than tabletop. Just for reference, I'm doing the tail end of Chapter 3 (____ Manor) and the first two encounters of Chapter 4 of Dragon Heist (Autumn). Oh, and we leveled up characters in the middle of that.

So, no, you can be as confident as you like. I am equally confident that no, you are not running at our pace.

My last session included 5 combats, 6 separate exploration challenges, and 3 social interactions in 3.5 hours over Roll20 and Discord. The characters are 5th level. It included one PC leveling up mid-session. (The others leveled up at the end of the previous session.)

Asking players to perform their role and responsibility in the game (and the DM doing the same) does not slow the game down by any great degree.

So, here is a list of my issues with your style of play and why I don't do it. Note, this is purely my opinion and is not meant to apply to anyone else but me.
Changing DC's based on player statements results in the players not being able to predict how their skills work. @Ovinomancer's example of the poisoned door is a perfect example of that. The results I get have nothing to do with the skill I use but rather whatever narration I give as a player. Which in turn, results in gaming the DM rather than playing the game.

Skill proficiencies work as expected - as insurance against failure when you fail to achieve outright success. The goal is to remove uncertainty as to the outcome and/or the meaningful consequence of failure. If you can't do that for whatever reason, then your abilities and potentially skill proficiencies come into play.

You're not gaming the DM here. You're paying attention, engaging with the environment, and trying to mitigate risk by avoiding rolling a fickle d20.

It places the DM squarely into the spotlight. Since the DM must judge the quality of the narration (is it plausible or not, is it a good idea or not) and that judgement is based solely on the DM's knowledge, it makes the DM much more visible than I'm comfortable with as a DM. I don't want my players asking me how to do something. I want them to just do it.

We're performing the role of the DM as described by the rules of D&D 5e. I don't know what you mean by players asking the DM how to do something. My players take action. They don't ask for my permission.

Many DM's, myself included, are very poor at judging risk/reward. If the reward is less than the risk then there is no reason to do it. Yet, almost every time, DM's will put risks in place that are greater than the possible reward, making it a suckers bet. Which in turn results in the players simply stopping engaging those systems in favor of systems that they can control - i.e. spells. It's something that always flies straight up my nose.

You don't get better at something by not doing it.

And, with all due deference to @iserith, it runs too slowly for my tastes. It bogs the game down in minutia that I am totally not interested in. I don't care that there's a contact poison on the handle of the door. I want to know what's behind the door. To me, that's the interesting part. So, bypassing the trap as quickly as possible is a win in my books. Resulting in the player saying, "I check the door, X Investigate, do I find anything?".

It's not any slower. Or at least my game's not.

 

[iserith]

The Angry GM is like the ultimate embodiment of that Big Lebowski quote “you’re not wrong, you’re just an .” He’ writes some of the best, most practical GMing advice I have ever read. But he is a real dick about it.

He and I don't get along, haven't for years. But we agree on a number of things. When people who don't like each other agree on something, it's maybe worth paying attention to.

 

[Charlaquin]

He and I don't get along, haven't for years. But we agree on a number of things. When people who don't like each other agree on something, it's maybe worth paying attention to.

I think his attitude (and his politics, which he used to be much more public about on Twitter than he has been lately) turns off a lot of would-be patrons. Like me, for example. I appreciate his advice enough that I would pay for it, but I find him distasteful enough as a person that I don’t want to give him money.

 

[Bawylie]

Just read that Angry DM blog you posted [MENTION=6921763]DM Dave1[/MENTION].

When the player is throwing dice at a problem, the player is telling you that the player has zero interest in engaging your game element and just wants to move on. You can put as much lipstick on the pig that you like, but, at the end of the day, I prefer to listen to my players and move on to the stuff they actually want to do.

If that’s how you feel, and that’s how your players primarily interact with your game, what does that tell you?

 

[Hussar]

My last session included 5 combats, 6 separate exploration challenges, and 3 social interactions in 3.5 hours over Roll20 and Discord. The characters are 5th level. It included one PC leveling up mid-session. (The others leveled up at the end of the previous session.)

Asking players to perform their role and responsibility in the game (and the DM doing the same) does not slow the game down by any great degree.

Excellent. That's great. That has not been my experience.

Skill proficiencies work as expected - as insurance against failure when you fail to achieve outright success. The goal is to remove uncertainty as to the outcome and/or the meaningful consequence of failure. If you can't do that for whatever reason, then your abilities and potentially skill proficiencies come into play.

You're not gaming the DM here. You're paying attention, engaging with the environment, and trying to mitigate risk by avoiding rolling a fickle d20.

That's your goal. Not mine. Removing uncertainty is very much not a goal when we play.

We're performing the role of the DM as described by the rules of D&D 5e. I don't know what you mean by players asking the DM how to do something. My players take action. They don't ask for my permission.

They can't. They can't do anything without your permission because they are not allowed to make skill checks until you ask them for one. So, it is actually impossible for your players to unlock a lock (for example) without first asking you for a skill check. Or describing their actions in such a way that you judge it sufficient to not need a skill check.

For me, they just tell me, "I unlock the lock, 25" and poof, the lock is open, presuming they beat the DC. No further information is needed by me from the players.

You don't get better at something by not doing it.

ROTF. There's an entire industry based on people's inability to calculate odds. It's called gambling. The inability of people to calculate risk/reward is very nearly universal. I've already demonstrated it once here with the "look at the ceiling nets you advantage on stuff on the ceiling but disadvantage everywhere else" example.

It's not any slower. Or at least my game's not.

Fantastic for you. Can you not at least accept that other people do not have your experience? So, again, IME, doing it your way results in a slower game that causes me to completely check out of the game. Maybe in your game I wouldn't. But, if it requires that I must play at your table to achieve this Nirvana of play, then, well, it doesn't help me much does it?

Believe me. I've done it your way. I've played it your way. I don't like it. I don't like it for the four reasons I listed. Your counter ideas don't really answer the problems. Mitigating randomness is NOT MY GOAL. So, stating it as a solution doesn't really help does it? And, frankly, mitigating randomness by gaming the DM is not something I'm interested in.

Because, no matter what you do, you are front and center of your players. You have to be, because the only way to mitigate randomness is to convince you, the DM, that my idea is good enough. I am not interested in that kind of play anymore. Been there, done that, found it not to my taste.

 

[iserith]

"If that bothers you so much you can always block me like Iserith did because I would never agree that his style on this subject is the one true way."

For the record, this poster was blocked for doing exactly what [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] is taking him or her to task for now and stating I was saying things I did not say. I very patiently gave him or her the opportunity to reverse course on that. The poster did not and apparently has not.

 

[Hussar]

If that’s how you feel, and that’s how your players primarily interact with your game, what does that tell you?

That tells me that me and my players have virtually zero interest in this sort of minutia because we find it boring as hell.

Unlocking the door, finding the trap, talking our way past the guard? That's the minor stuff that's in the way of the good stuff. That's the filler that we use to set story beats. It's not the plot, it's not the story.

"Hey, remember that time I unlocked that chest" is a gaming story told by no one ever.

I have to admit, I found the 4e advice of "get to the good stuff" to be pretty much straight up my alley. Futzing about with a bunch of details bores me to tears. I am simply not interested.

Doesn't make me right or you right or anyone right. There is no right or wrong here. I'm not proselytizing here. I don't think my way is better. It's better for me. Sure. But, my personal preference in no way connotes quality.

Hey, I've seen groups that are perfectly happy role playing a birthday party for a couple of hours. They were having a great time. I would rather chew glass than sit at that table, but, hey, fantastic for them. My gaming time is extremely limited. I don't want to do stuff that I don't enjoy. I don't enjoy what you guys and gals are proposing. I find it tedious and boring.

You don't. And that's fantastic. I'm simply providing an alternate viewpoint, not preaching from the mount.

 

[Bawylie]

That tells me that me and my players have virtually zero interest in this sort of minutia because we find it boring as hell.

Unlocking the door, finding the trap, talking our way past the guard? That's the minor stuff that's in the way of the good stuff. That's the filler that we use to set story beats. It's not the plot, it's not the story.

"Hey, remember that time I unlocked that chest" is a gaming story told by no one ever.

I have to admit, I found the 4e advice of "get to the good stuff" to be pretty much straight up my alley. Futzing about with a bunch of details bores me to tears. I am simply not interested.

Doesn't make me right or you right or anyone right. There is no right or wrong here. I'm not proselytizing here. I don't think my way is better. It's better for me. Sure. But, my personal preference in no way connotes quality.

Hey, I've seen groups that are perfectly happy role playing a birthday party for a couple of hours. They were having a great time. I would rather chew glass than sit at that table, but, hey, fantastic for them. My gaming time is extremely limited. I don't want to do stuff that I don't enjoy. I don't enjoy what you guys and gals are proposing. I find it tedious and boring.

You don't. And that's fantastic. I'm simply providing an alternate viewpoint, not preaching from the mount.

What’s the good stuff?

 

[Guest 6801328]

As an aside, in terms of speed, I'll put my group's games up against any other game and approach without hesitation. Some people reported that the two-hour text only sessions I posted a few years back as examples of play had more content than four hours of their in-person sessions. We've even been able to compare our progress on published adventures to actual play podcasts and we outpace them by wide margins for the same play time. I am very focused on the pace of the game and using our time wisely. There is a lot more to achieving that than what's under discussion here, but it is in part due to strongly defined roles (player and DM) and adherence to the "middle path" technique for adjudication (a balance of ruling outright success or failure and calling for ability checks).

I don't doubt that, but I think it also takes a while for players (and DM) to make an adjustment. I know when I introduce your version to players who aren't used to it, it does bog the game down.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Does the DM from time to time take over the character? I suppose. But, to me, that's just bog standard narration. No different than what a DM does in combat when he says something like, "You swing your sword mightly and hack that orc's head off!" Does anyone have an issue with the DM doing that?

I roll with it because it's common, but I can't say I really like it.

One DM I play with lets the player who gets the killing blow narrate it however he/she wants. He doesn't announce that the monster is dead, he just smiles and says, "Describe it." I like it because the player doesn't just narrate the attack, he/she also narrates the result. It's a nice bit of inviting the player into what is traditionally (and staunchly defended by some traditionalists) the sole purview of the DM.

Player says, "I want to do X, I make Y check, Z score". To me, that's more than enough information to narrate an action. It's what we do in combat, and, frankly, I don't really have a problem with it out of combat.

Except combat has rich, complex rules with lots of options. Skill checks are...skill checks. It would be a fair comparison if every class had nothing but normal attacks and there was no such thing as distance or positioning.

You seem to be ok with vanilla skill checks, and that's fine, but I don't find it very interesting to just repeatedly announce, "Can I tell if he's lying?" "Can I spot any traps?" "Can I use Animal Handling?"