D&D 5E Intelligence and Wisdom Checks (Skills) as GM Tool for Plot Rationing or Expository Dump

[Quickleaf]

But, it's a cooperative game!

Sure. And part of cooperation is knowing when not to be the star, to pass the ball to a teammate who is great at goal shots, and let them enjoy the glory.

What if the barbarian picks up the gnome and uses him as a battering ram? Shouldn't the gnome be able to use the Help action?

The context here is knowledge/lore checks. That was just my actual play example to answer another poster's question. In an effort not to deviate from the OP's topic, I'd say yes, if it makes sense for a PC to know something about a topic (based on their background & area of specialty) and that PC has a way to meaningfully contribute, then totally they should be able to take the Help action.

 

[Tony Vargas]

...tough room...

In an effort not to deviate from the OP's topic, I'd say yes, if it makes sense for a PC to know something about a topic (based on their background & area of specialty) and that PC has a way to meaningfully contribute, then totally they should be able to take the Help action.

Sure. Like Pippin probably 'used the Help action' when Gandalf finally guessed the password to Moria. You might not know anything, but you just might spark an idea - happens a lot in fiction, really.

 

[tetrasodium]

Sorry for the delay in getting back on this.

I don't want to engage with your example just yet, because I want to push back/clarify on some things here a bit to try to distill where we aren't in agreement.

So here are my thoughts surrounding this decision-point (forget for a moment your thought that this is "boring"...that doesn't tell us much...I'm going to try to do some forensics on this hypothetical moment of play).

1) We're talking about how Knowledge Skills might be used in play.

2) Survival is very specifically called out in both the PHB and DMG to be used for (i) "guiding through a frozen wasteland" and (ii) "Tracking" (whereby you look for environment-driven cues and make a surmise - the Knowledge check - based upon those cues).

Now let us take (1) and (2) for granted and discuss the following play archetype that 5e may try to produce (the others being a heavy GM curated and Force-driven Adventure Path game where the metaplot and the GM drive the action - my guess is this is the most common form of 5e play, another still being a sort of "Poor Man's Dungeon World"...let us stay away from those two for now and focus on the below):

HEXCRAWL SANDBOX

Here we have a game with a high resolution setting map that is scaled and stocked with preconceived obstacles/conflicts/threats, tables or obstacles/conflicts/threats, some form of timeline (both time and space are mapped and tracked), and triggered events.

So all of (a) the Fey Crossing location within a hex in the material world, (b) the trigger for the Crossing, (c) the nature (topography etc)/location (hex) of the Feywild at that Crossing, (d) the nature/location of the Dawnmote, (e) the events going on at this particular moment in time...all of these things would be preconceived in the mapping process.

So if the GM describes the environment:

• An expanse of barren icefield flanked by a frozen forest.
• The frozen forest has some unseen force playing upon it (a windfield above ground level?).

So the player wants to to study the environmental clues (in game terms - deploy Survival as a Knowledge Skill) to make an archetype-coherent surmise (for a survivalist/ranger-type) that helps "solve the puzzle" and propel play forward. Its sort of a combination of Tracking (in the sense that an object/phenomenon interacts with its environment and, in-so-doing, creates clues to its whereabouts) and "Guiding Through a Frozen Wasteland." In this frozen wasteland, would a mote of magical light generate the temperature and pressure differential necessary to manifest a wind-field. If so (in the same way that one might determine the location of a chimney/vent in a dungeon by watching the flickering torchlight), what direction are the trees being pushed (eg if North to South, then we know to head Northward).

Now this would all be preconceived by the GM's notes for this particular Hex and all of the granular information related to this Hex (time and space).

The GM is using Success at a Cost (DMG 242). The player rolls a Survival check and misses the hexcrawl obstacles DC by 2 triggering a Cost/Complication/Hindrance.

Given all of the above:

* Why would the above instance of gamestate inputs meets action declaration output be a problem?

* Why would the gamestate being changed in the way conceived (yes, the Dawnmote would interact with the extreme cold to create such a windfield and now you've winnowed its location to a direction..but your deductive timeframe has triggered an ice-hazard and possibly a denizen encounter, threatening or non-threatening remains to be seen) be a problem)?

We are pretty deep into fate style stuff, you can download the core rules free from evil hat, I used "boring" in the same sense that it gets used in there(just ctrl-f boring in it ) In a nutshell it kinda means that something interesting happens to be a source of dynamic acition/drama either way. Part of why coinflip type decisions like we should go this way are bad for letting players "declare" is because d&d lacks the kind of tools the GM has in a system like to say yes/no but other than simply invalidating the original declaration & removing the illusion of narrative control in the process. d&d is built around the idea that the gm has already decided where the macguffin is, Given your questions, I think you might be massively underestimating just how insanely powerful narrative control in PC hands is & as a result just how irrelevant the GM becomes without the tools needed to push back against it when not used responsibly.

 

[Manbearcat]

@tetrasodium

Hmmm...

I don't understand how you're arriving at your point at all.

I also think you're probably not familiar with my posting history (In the last 15 years, I've probably logged 2500+ hours of GMing the sorts of games that I think you're citing).

In the hypothetical instance of play above, there is nothing resembling the equivalent of "player fiat" that would emerge out of the play of Fate, Cortex+, Strike(!), Blades in the Dark, D&D 4e, Wises in the Burning Wheel family of games or even the "ask questions and use the answers" ethos of Powered By the Apocalypse Games (or the actual player fiat moves in most playbooks in those games).

I'm not sure where you're deriving your position from. Could you maybe distill precisely what you're seeing from the proposed excerpt of a Hexcrawl moment of play where the action declaration by the player resembles the sort of narrative fiat that you would expect to find in the above games?

I mean, I was going to do a "Poor Man's Dungeon World" form of 5e as an example...now that would have crept into that domain...but I'm failing to see how this example does.

 

[Fanaelialae]

WRT interesting but non-important info, sure. Assuming that it's something the characters wouldn't readily know, but might possibly know.

For important info, I generally have it that an Intelligence check might give them the info earlier than "planned" but that there are ways that they can eventually learn the info even if they fail the check (such as books or knowledgeable NPCs). This generally falls under campaign pertinent info without which they won't be able to make informed decisions in the late game.

Of course, there's also info that I won't normally allow any check to succeed on. Things the characters couldn't possibly know. Those pieces must be obtained from outside sources.

 

[Garthanos]

We are pretty deep into fate style stuff

MBC tends to describe things carefully with terminology that is designed to be so definite sometimes it seems to have the opposite effect.

 

[pemerton]

Are any of you using 'Success at a Cost' (DMG 242) and could you see the following action resolution handling occur in your game?

Situation: The PCs pass through a Fey Crossroads into the Feywild and must find their way from their unknown point in an enchanted frozen forest of perpetual night to the Dawnmote (lets say its a Winter Fey guarded oasis in this place that doubles as a means to travel to the Summer Fey's domain).

To your South and West, a stand of trees rise to extraordinary heights before the darkness cuts off what lies atop them. The trees sway rhythmically with unseen wind (or something else). To your North and East, a precarious field of ice stretches out before you in all directions, eerily cracking and groaning. There is no breeze. There is nothing.

Let us say the Survival Proficient Fighter figures that maybe the heat of the Dawnmote is creating a pressure gradient which generates the unseen wind upon the stand of trees.

Wisdom (Survival) check of 18 vs DC 20.

GM (success but an obstacle that changes the nature of the situation): "It almost must be so. In the moments you think on this and get your bearings, the groaning ice fractures, sending cracking tendrils this way and that. Its coming apart beneath your feet...and by torchlight, you can see something...moving...beneath the ice...

What do you do?!

Questions:

a) Would this be a case where (i) the Fighter's action declaration and result was allowed to stipulate the location of the Dawnmote in the setting...or (ii) would this be a case where you would simply say "no" because you or your AP or your hexcrawl has a preordained "Dawnmote" location?

b) Is this an obstacle that you would allow to emerge from the Success With Cost/Complication? What do you feel about the "to be determined thing" beneath the ice? The roll generated that bit of fiction along with the icefield hazard. Yes? Too much? What other complications would you envision being appropriate?

So all of (a) the Fey Crossing location within a hex in the material world, (b) the trigger for the Crossing, (c) the nature (topography etc)/location (hex) of the Feywild at that Crossing, (d) the nature/location of the Dawnmote, (e) the events going on at this particular moment in time...all of these things would be preconceived in the mapping process.

So if the GM describes the environment:

• An expanse of barren icefield flanked by a frozen forest.
• The frozen forest has some unseen force playing upon it (a windfield above ground level?).

So the player wants to to study the environmental clues (in game terms - deploy Survival as a Knowledge Skill) to make an archetype-coherent surmise (for a survivalist/ranger-type) that helps "solve the puzzle" and propel play forward. Its sort of a combination of Tracking (in the sense that an object/phenomenon interacts with its environment and, in-so-doing, creates clues to its whereabouts) and "Guiding Through a Frozen Wasteland." In this frozen wasteland, would a mote of magical light generate the temperature and pressure differential necessary to manifest a wind-field. If so (in the same way that one might determine the location of a chimney/vent in a dungeon by watching the flickering torchlight), what direction are the trees being pushed (eg if North to South, then we know to head Northward).

Now this would all be preconceived by the GM's notes for this particular Hex and all of the granular information related to this Hex (time and space).

In the hypothetical instance of play above, there is nothing resembling the equivalent of "player fiat" that would emerge out of the play of Fate, Cortex+, Strike(!), Blades in the Dark, D&D 4e, Wises in the Burning Wheel family of games or even the "ask questions and use the answers" ethos of Powered By the Apocalypse Games (or the actual player fiat moves in most playbooks in those games).

I'm not sure where you're deriving your position from. Could you maybe distill precisely what you're seeing from the proposed excerpt of a Hexcrawl moment of play where the action declaration by the player resembles the sort of narrative fiat that you would expect to find in the above games?

I mean, I was going to do a "Poor Man's Dungeon World" form of 5e as an example...now that would have crept into that domain...but I'm failing to see how this example does.

Manbearcat, I've highlighted via Bold + Underline what I think are the three passages across three posts that (I believe) are generating the response you're surprised by:

* The player seems to be stipulating that it is the Dawnmote is creating the wind-generating pressure gradient;

* The unseen force being (in fact) a wind generated via such a pressure gradient does not seem to be pre-established in the GM's notes;

* Thus there does seem to be some sort of player fiat occurring.​

If the example is not meant to be understood in this way then I would be focusing on my three points as the target of further explanation and confusion-alleviation!

 

[Manbearcat]

@pemerton

Thanks for aggregating that and the 3rd party clarification.

1) So in the initiating post, I was leaving the actual GMing ethos in the mediation of the action resolution up in the air in order to have (i) (possible player stipulation - basically soliciting input on if there were any GM's out there who would allow "knowledge checks as player stipulation") and (ii) (GM preconception of all things due to Hexcrawl or AP) serve as the filter for conversation about handling Intelligence/Knowledge Skills in 5e. I wasn't sure if anyone out there was using (i) or if everyone was using (ii) due to Hexcrawl procedures or as AP plot rationing.

2) In my last post about it, I took (i) out of the equation (which would have been the "Poor Man's Dungeon World" ethos in mediation) and constrained the conversation by (ii) (GM preconception of all things due to Hexcrawl).

It seems to me that the subsequent conversation skipped the filter of my 1) above, instead assuming (i) (possible player stipulation) and focusing on that without explicitly conveying that was happening.

I guess that is why the later bit became more difficult, because I intentionally constrained things to (ii) (GM preconception of all things due to Hexcrawl) to take player stipulation via Knowledge check off the table to focus solely on the Complication/Cost/Hindrance handling of that hypothetical moment of action resolution.

 

[pemerton]

@Manbearcat, I think I worked out your (1) filter in the course of putting my post above together. But your new post makes it clearer. So rather than saying the Survival-proficient fighter figures can we get greater clarity - in the hexcrawl case - by saying the player of the Survival-proficient fighter conjectures?

The check result then (i) leads the GM to confirm the conjecture by reference to his/her notes, and (ii) leads the GM to impose the consequence of something coming through the ice as the "penalty" for falling short of full success on the die roll (result of 18 vs DC 20).

Have I got that right? If so, that seems fine to me, and consistent with orthodox 4e skill challenge adjudication (and obviously other systems too, but I mention 4e because it's part of the D&D family). But I imagine some, maybe many, D&D-playing posters will balk at the lack of in-fiction causal connection between the fighter wracking his/her brains and the monster breaking through the ice. The passage of time while the fighter ponders - which you pointed to upthread, I think - may not be enough in this respect.

 

[Manbearcat]

@pemerton

100 % on the mark (the whole post).

1) Conjecture is a fair enough exchange for figures, if the former works better to convey the situation.

2) Procedurally, your 2nd paragraph is precisely what I had in mind.

3) I agree that this is exactly akin to micro-situation handling in 4e Skill Challenges (without the macro conflict resolution framework and procedures mechanically cementing success/failure and the attendant narrative fallout of the scene). Its also

4) I also wonder, like you, what people's thresholds are for complications. If my complication (time-driven ice hazard and possible encounter with a denizen) doesn't work...why? And what would be a substitute.