Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
If an NPC is telling the truth, what's the Insight DC to know they're telling the truth?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 7594634" data-attributes="member: 6801228"><p>Yeah, I agree that the term "punish" is poor wording for how I look at it as well. </p><p></p><p>I'd point out the original statement did also say they should be rewarded for having high stats as well, which is why I think they meant it more in lines with not giving people outs to avoid having to care about their weak points.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>1) I really hate this type of "By all means" because going back through hundreds of posts is an absolute pain and on a normal day I'd have no time for it. Luckily, Good Friday means I can go back and reread hundreds of posts to see how things shook out weeks ago. </p><p></p><p>2) Here is what I've determined. </p><p></p><p>Seems I was slightly mistaken in one respect, which was that I thought you and myself had discussed before Elfcrusher's poisoned doorhandle post. But it seems your first response to me was on April 6th, in regards to that exact post (#483 on my counter)</p><p></p><p>Before that I was mostly talking with Iserith and Elfcrusher. However, it also seems that you agreed with iserith more than once, which might be how I confused things, since you seemed to hold similiar beliefs I may have grouped discussions with them as discussions with you. I only went back another 250 posts after that event though, so I could have missed something. I did not a lot of XP given to iserith for their responses to me though, indicating a level of agreement with their stances. </p><p></p><p>However, there are some posts that might show why we grew increasingly more defensive with each other. Spoilering it so everyone else can ignore it. </p><p></p><p>[sblock]</p><p></p><p>Calling ease of play poor strategy, and saying that this is somehow against the making of clever plans or calculated risks. This is a jab at the playstyle, instead of being highly specific in what the player was asking, they were general. You did mention it was fine if I liked it that way, but there does seem to be a value judgement there. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This one from the same post (#502 from my count and on April 6th again) started a long discussion about why you thought I was putting the cart before the horse. IT seemed to come down to you didn't like a general action being declared, and then the narrative filled in from the dice roll. You prefer the narrative to be settled, then the dice to give an answer... though in the end the results are the same, just the details are not. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This particular one, now that we've discussed it to death, seems to have arisen from you misunderstanding me. I was putting forth the idea that in this discussion on resolution the only flaw you seemed to find in my approach was the assumption that there is uncertainty in the outcome. You might remember bits of the conversation that followed about the existence of DCs and the fact that the checks are certainly possible but some things might bypass their need. </p><p></p><p>So, still, the only flaw you had was that I was assuming a check would get called for. While you wanted to insist that my flaw was a desire to call for checks despite whatever the players may have planned, and in fact you seem to not want to look past the players declarations and stop the discussion there. Oh, and the various times you called that backfilling me "overstepping my bounds as a DM" </p><p></p><p></p><p>Also, interestingly, I found yet another place where I asked you how you as a player would describe a set of actions to resolve an obstacle, a thread you never responded to. But, that point might be further in this post. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I might be a little nit-picky with this one, but you are the one who decided it would be a good idea for me to go back over hundreds of posts (likely thinking I'd never bother to do it and just accuse you with no basis). However, you definitely view my approach as not the "goal and approach style" so when I was confused why players would choose not to use resources like guidance or work together with the Help action [which on a side not my players do constantly, to the point where I need to find logical times they can't help each other just to tone down the constant advantage] you posted this response. </p><p></p><p>In general, there are assumptions that my players don't use their resources properly, don't work together, and don't have enough information to make a decision on using those resources. All because I am not, as you understand it, using the goal and approach style. </p><p></p><p>By this point, we'd obviously irritated each other, and things started getting a little less civil.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This one particularly irritated me, since you seemed to assume my response to your "strange hill to die on" comment meant I didn't understand a very commonly used turn of phrase. I know you don't know anything about me, and it may not be as common outside of the US, but that sort of assumption of ignorance irritates me on a personal level. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>But, to be fair about all this, perhaps I've been a little defensive. The debating with other posters could have stained my view of your responses, taking some of your assumptions of superiority more to heart than I should have. I'm also not going beyond post #790 on my end (April 13th) since it gets even more heated on both our sides, and frankly, being rude to each other isn't what I want. </p><p>[/sblock]</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>My style isn't very strict, I don't have a standardized way of handling things. </p><p></p><p>Player declares what they want to do. Sometimes that is a goal and approach, sometimes it is asking for a roll with an implicit set of actions that will lead to an implicit goal. I either call for a roll or I don't. Certain actions regularly get rolls called, like breaking down doors, and depending on the circumstances I either have them succeed but struggle with it for an amount of time, or they smash through. Sometimes players ask things I didn't consider, like looting a room I didn't expect them to loot, and a high roll will add something that I hadn't placed there before (like a magic bottle based off the Alchemical Jug, except it contains different vintages of rare wines). Soemtimes I ask for clarification, sometimes I double check what they want to achieve. I pretty much never tell them the DC or consequences, but I will sometimes give them an idea of the difficulty, or summarize what they are attempting to do if it is a really bad idea (So, you want to open yourself to all the energy created by this magic fusion generator and try and absorb all of its power at once? Are you sure?) </p><p></p><p>There is a process of me thinking about the action and the scene, and sometimes weighing information the players don't know (they once got a very powerful item for selling something they didn't realize was an artifact to a hag) , but I don't standardize it as much as I just run it through a movie projector and play out some likely scenes. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>We have been talking a lot about how the players present their actions. But, you've been approaching the discussion from how the DM judges those actions. And, I'm sorry, but if you are tying to be funny with your first sentence I don't get it. I never asked you to adjudicate your own actions, I wanted what your response would be as a player. </p><p></p><p>The point of the exercise (or at least an attempted point) was to try and understand the difference in player approach. You seem to have a very specific set of things in mind when a player declares a goal and approach. So, getting an example of you responding to a scenario is useful in seeing what you mean. </p><p></p><p>I'm sure we could start giving context to this cell, but most cells would be fairly bare of things which could be used to escape them. You might have a chamber pot and a pile of rags to sleep on, but beyond that there would be little around unless there was something special about the cells. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I tend to break into paragraphs because walls of text make me go cross-eyed. Not always because the to ideas do not flow from one another. </p><p></p><p>And I apologize, I'm obviously getting too frustrated with this conversation and our lack of progress in understanding what the other means. I'm trying to rein that frustration back. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>"Good" and "Bad" are equally problematic in reference to what [MENTION=762]Mort[/MENTION] was saying. </p><p></p><p>In that context a "good" approach avoids rolling and gives the player a pass on doing what they want to do. A "bad" approach then means that a roll is necessary. </p><p></p><p>I think that is almost worse than "correct" since there is some inherent sarcasm in the idea of a correct approach that highlights what it was Mort was objecting to. Mainly, that describing a set of actions that the DM agrees with means you will not have to risk failure. Which leads to what some people refer to as "gaming the DM" where they can dump intelligence or charisma stats and still dominate the social and exploration parts of the game, because they know how to describe things to the DMs liking, while players who have those stats and abilities but can't or don't describe things to the DMs liking end up suffering because of it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Chaosmancer, post: 7594634, member: 6801228"] Yeah, I agree that the term "punish" is poor wording for how I look at it as well. I'd point out the original statement did also say they should be rewarded for having high stats as well, which is why I think they meant it more in lines with not giving people outs to avoid having to care about their weak points. 1) I really hate this type of "By all means" because going back through hundreds of posts is an absolute pain and on a normal day I'd have no time for it. Luckily, Good Friday means I can go back and reread hundreds of posts to see how things shook out weeks ago. 2) Here is what I've determined. Seems I was slightly mistaken in one respect, which was that I thought you and myself had discussed before Elfcrusher's poisoned doorhandle post. But it seems your first response to me was on April 6th, in regards to that exact post (#483 on my counter) Before that I was mostly talking with Iserith and Elfcrusher. However, it also seems that you agreed with iserith more than once, which might be how I confused things, since you seemed to hold similiar beliefs I may have grouped discussions with them as discussions with you. I only went back another 250 posts after that event though, so I could have missed something. I did not a lot of XP given to iserith for their responses to me though, indicating a level of agreement with their stances. However, there are some posts that might show why we grew increasingly more defensive with each other. Spoilering it so everyone else can ignore it. [sblock] Calling ease of play poor strategy, and saying that this is somehow against the making of clever plans or calculated risks. This is a jab at the playstyle, instead of being highly specific in what the player was asking, they were general. You did mention it was fine if I liked it that way, but there does seem to be a value judgement there. This one from the same post (#502 from my count and on April 6th again) started a long discussion about why you thought I was putting the cart before the horse. IT seemed to come down to you didn't like a general action being declared, and then the narrative filled in from the dice roll. You prefer the narrative to be settled, then the dice to give an answer... though in the end the results are the same, just the details are not. This particular one, now that we've discussed it to death, seems to have arisen from you misunderstanding me. I was putting forth the idea that in this discussion on resolution the only flaw you seemed to find in my approach was the assumption that there is uncertainty in the outcome. You might remember bits of the conversation that followed about the existence of DCs and the fact that the checks are certainly possible but some things might bypass their need. So, still, the only flaw you had was that I was assuming a check would get called for. While you wanted to insist that my flaw was a desire to call for checks despite whatever the players may have planned, and in fact you seem to not want to look past the players declarations and stop the discussion there. Oh, and the various times you called that backfilling me "overstepping my bounds as a DM" Also, interestingly, I found yet another place where I asked you how you as a player would describe a set of actions to resolve an obstacle, a thread you never responded to. But, that point might be further in this post. I might be a little nit-picky with this one, but you are the one who decided it would be a good idea for me to go back over hundreds of posts (likely thinking I'd never bother to do it and just accuse you with no basis). However, you definitely view my approach as not the "goal and approach style" so when I was confused why players would choose not to use resources like guidance or work together with the Help action [which on a side not my players do constantly, to the point where I need to find logical times they can't help each other just to tone down the constant advantage] you posted this response. In general, there are assumptions that my players don't use their resources properly, don't work together, and don't have enough information to make a decision on using those resources. All because I am not, as you understand it, using the goal and approach style. By this point, we'd obviously irritated each other, and things started getting a little less civil. This one particularly irritated me, since you seemed to assume my response to your "strange hill to die on" comment meant I didn't understand a very commonly used turn of phrase. I know you don't know anything about me, and it may not be as common outside of the US, but that sort of assumption of ignorance irritates me on a personal level. But, to be fair about all this, perhaps I've been a little defensive. The debating with other posters could have stained my view of your responses, taking some of your assumptions of superiority more to heart than I should have. I'm also not going beyond post #790 on my end (April 13th) since it gets even more heated on both our sides, and frankly, being rude to each other isn't what I want. [/sblock] My style isn't very strict, I don't have a standardized way of handling things. Player declares what they want to do. Sometimes that is a goal and approach, sometimes it is asking for a roll with an implicit set of actions that will lead to an implicit goal. I either call for a roll or I don't. Certain actions regularly get rolls called, like breaking down doors, and depending on the circumstances I either have them succeed but struggle with it for an amount of time, or they smash through. Sometimes players ask things I didn't consider, like looting a room I didn't expect them to loot, and a high roll will add something that I hadn't placed there before (like a magic bottle based off the Alchemical Jug, except it contains different vintages of rare wines). Soemtimes I ask for clarification, sometimes I double check what they want to achieve. I pretty much never tell them the DC or consequences, but I will sometimes give them an idea of the difficulty, or summarize what they are attempting to do if it is a really bad idea (So, you want to open yourself to all the energy created by this magic fusion generator and try and absorb all of its power at once? Are you sure?) There is a process of me thinking about the action and the scene, and sometimes weighing information the players don't know (they once got a very powerful item for selling something they didn't realize was an artifact to a hag) , but I don't standardize it as much as I just run it through a movie projector and play out some likely scenes. We have been talking a lot about how the players present their actions. But, you've been approaching the discussion from how the DM judges those actions. And, I'm sorry, but if you are tying to be funny with your first sentence I don't get it. I never asked you to adjudicate your own actions, I wanted what your response would be as a player. The point of the exercise (or at least an attempted point) was to try and understand the difference in player approach. You seem to have a very specific set of things in mind when a player declares a goal and approach. So, getting an example of you responding to a scenario is useful in seeing what you mean. I'm sure we could start giving context to this cell, but most cells would be fairly bare of things which could be used to escape them. You might have a chamber pot and a pile of rags to sleep on, but beyond that there would be little around unless there was something special about the cells. I tend to break into paragraphs because walls of text make me go cross-eyed. Not always because the to ideas do not flow from one another. And I apologize, I'm obviously getting too frustrated with this conversation and our lack of progress in understanding what the other means. I'm trying to rein that frustration back. "Good" and "Bad" are equally problematic in reference to what [MENTION=762]Mort[/MENTION] was saying. In that context a "good" approach avoids rolling and gives the player a pass on doing what they want to do. A "bad" approach then means that a roll is necessary. I think that is almost worse than "correct" since there is some inherent sarcasm in the idea of a correct approach that highlights what it was Mort was objecting to. Mainly, that describing a set of actions that the DM agrees with means you will not have to risk failure. Which leads to what some people refer to as "gaming the DM" where they can dump intelligence or charisma stats and still dominate the social and exploration parts of the game, because they know how to describe things to the DMs liking, while players who have those stats and abilities but can't or don't describe things to the DMs liking end up suffering because of it. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
If an NPC is telling the truth, what's the Insight DC to know they're telling the truth?
Top