D&D 5E Is this an abuse of the Advantage/Disadvantage system?

[GreyLord]

I'm talking about myself and choices I have made.

We all have had those days when we roll and cannot seem to roll anything over a 3...days where it just goes to heck in a handbasket.

Then, to make it worse, all the things we fight don't seem to be able to miss us, so they are all rolling over 16s constantly.

As the DM, I've started finding really weak excuses to grant advantage to players who are having these types of days.

I find it really helps them get out of the low rolling slumps, and actually seems to improve their day.

If it's really bad, I'll find any reason to give the enemies they face disadvantage.


However, this is not really using the system as described in the book.

Would you categorize this as abusing the system, or trying to make the game more fun to the players?

I think it adds fun for those who might be getting disgruntled with their rolls or luck otherwise, but I also think that those who are sticklers for the rules, might be upset with this.

For example, one player who was not having any problems rolling high (to the point that one might almost suspect they had loaded dice...4 20s in row for example...) complained about being too "nice" to someone who was having that sort of day.

Is that a fair call to the DM (I admit, it probably is)? Or should the DM try to make everyone have a fun experience at the table if it's just a light and fun game anyways?

I personally prefer what I do in the light and fun gaming sessions with utilizing advantage and disadvantage more on how the player is doing via luck rather than hard and fast...but is this a wrong approach for a DM to take?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It's not fun if the DM is granting advantage or disadvantage because they want to bias the result. We're here to play this game, so let the dice fall where the will. There is some amount of adjudication involved on the part of the DM, but as a player I trust the DM to be fair and impartial. If I notice the DM going out of their way to justify giving advantage to PCs and disadvantage to NPCs, then I'm not going to have much fun. It's better to suffer an honest defeat than to claim a victory you didn't earn.

 

[delericho]

Would you categorize this as abusing the system, or trying to make the game more fun to the players?

It's not really an abuse, but it's also likely not too much fun for most of your players. I'm with [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] on this - you should really try to be impartial, and if that means a player has a bad day then that's unfortunate but not disastrous.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I think it is better in the long run to realize that having low rolls, even in strings, serves to enhance the overall enjoyment of the game because it makes those moments that you roll well stand out even more than they do in comparison to when you simply roll "okay."

Thus, I don't advise any kind of "you're having a bad night, here's this bonus" type of ruling. Especially because I've seen such attempts, however genuinely from a place of caring they might have been, result in the person being offered the benny feeling even worse because of it (for example, feeling patronized or coddled).

 

[Byakugan]

I tend to be a bit soft when it comes to killing players. I am pretty good at balancing encounters to where almost everyone gets beat within an inch of their lives. I usually have a full tables so I can only get through a couple encounters in a night usually. So I try to make one of them pretty easy, and a harrowing one.

But I try not to kill the players where they don't have any control over. That might come from years of old school gaming where as a player I detested things like permanent level drains, save or die things, and the permanent scars I got from playing Tomb of Horrors.

For example A while back I surprised my PCs with a Carrion Crawler and I rolled double crits and near max damage on the poor 2nd level PC. It was over 30 damage on a pc with like 14 hitpoints. That is pretty un-fun IMO, so I just turned one hit into a graze and the other knocked him out, giving the other characters a chance to save him. in my experience I feel like getting close to dying lets me keep that feeling that i need to be careful and that my choices/tactics are important.

I often forget to reward PCs with inspiration, so sometimes I figure out an occasional soft pitch to even out my karma

 

[wedgeski]

It might depend on the table (for example, I would consider stricter rules adherence if DM'ing an open table for people I'd never met), but with a group of friends, I feel a strong need to make sure everyone that sits at my table is having a good time. In fact it's my over-riding priority as a DM. Going soft on advantage as the session grinds on might be a way I do that.

Now, I realise that some players get their fun from cold, machine-like moderation where RAW is law. To those people, I offer my sincere apologies. That is not how my table tends to operate.

 

[sim-h]

The trouble is if you give advantage/disadvantage for something once and a similar situation occurs again, your credibility is going to be undermined if you then say 'Nah, it doesn't grant advantage this time'. Eventually, you'll be on close to permanent advantage for the players and disadvantage for enemies!

I've had similar situations - a guy with a +6 to hit rolling a '1' against an AC 8 zombie. Twice. In. A. Row. It can actually add something to the story, when things go that badly wrong! The same half orc barbarian later dealt a critical with 34 points of damage to a zombie with 1 HP left.

I'd advise stick to the rolls - what goes around comes around, and the players will enjoy the whole rolling thing more when the outcome is less reliable.

 

[Mercule]

Since I'd categorize it as improper use of the system, I guess "abuse" fits. Others have touched on why it's a bad idea.

I'll say that, if it's a string of bad luck, it sucks, but part of the game. Don't hack the system to fix it.

If it's an ongoing struggle for everyone, you might re-evaluate the difficulty of the encounters. There's even a possibility that the player has bad dice -- it's rare, but does happen. Or... it could be a truly sub-optimal build; I'm not a build optimizer, but anything with a bell curve is going to have high and low tails.

 

[iserith]

Would you categorize this as abusing the system, or trying to make the game more fun to the players?

It's clear that you're doing this for a good reason, so I wouldn't consider it abuse. But perhaps there are other solutions your entire table might prefer.

Let's start with Inspiration. At my table, players claim Inspiration rather than wait to be awarded Inspiration by the DM. What this means is that if the player plays to the character's established personality trait, ideal, bond, or flaw (see Backgrounds), then they say "I'm claiming Inspiration for X..." where X is the personality trait, ideal, bond, or flaw that was just demonstrated. Players can do this as much as they like with the only restriction being they cannot use the same personality trait, ideal, bond, or flaw to claim Inspiration twice in a row. So for example, if the player demonstrates the character's personality trait during play and claims Inspiration for it, he or she must then play to the character's ideal, bond, or flaw before using the personality trait to claim Inspiration again. Inspiration, of course, allows the players to choose to roll with advantage. So what you end up with here are players roleplaying according to established traits in exchange for being able to roll some dice with advantage. That works for everybody.

Next, consider the Hero Points option in the DMG. In my current game, I tie these to Achievements the players can earn both in character creation and during play at a ratio of one-to-one. Spending a hero point means the player adds 1d6 to any d20 roll, even after the fact. The reason I tie them to Achievements is so players strive to do the things we think play to the spirit of the campaign. I'll give you some examples from a recent adventure in the spoiler block.

[sblock]General Achievements:

Action Hero
You have expended all of your hero points.

Inspiring Hero
You have earned and spent Inspiration more than twice.

Actually Useful Backstory
You used your background feature to achieve a goal.

The Scribe
You took notes for the group.

Scenario-Specific Achievements

First Responder
You saved 12 or more commoners during the caravan escape scene.

Party Animal
You chose to Carouse during your downtime. It's Wildnight, baby!

Protector of House Medani
You prevented Baron Trelib d'Medani from dying in the lightning rail collision and rescued Zalina d'Medani from Dick Barrage's clutches.

Bounty Hunter
All of the escaped prisoners have been captured or killed as a result of your efforts.

Villain's Menace
Dick Barrage has been captured or killed as a result of your efforts.[/sblock]

Finally, it's always a good idea to examine your approach as DM to see if the issue isn't being caused by something you are doing. If you are calling for too many checks, then failure might be coming up an awful lot. (Success, too, because bell curve, but perhaps people are focusing on failure more than success.) So I recommend reading DMG pages 236-237 to identify what approach you follow and see what drawbacks if any there are. I recommend using "The Middle Path" as the approach to adjudication.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Everything in moderation.

Granting Advantage to someone can be so simple if you just expect to do it like once or twice. Most PCs can find themselves in situations on the battlefield that could allow you to plausibly say "Okay, you have advantage on this roll because you're on higher ground" for example... or the PC has a BIFT (Bond, Ideal, Flaw, Trait) that you could plausibly say comes up for a particular roll. If you can do it once or twice in the session just to get the player off the shnide... most often than not the players won't even notice it (especially if you tend to grant advantage and disadvantage liberally anyway.) And if it helps the player to get at least that one positive amongst a sea of negative, then I myself believe it's all good.

The one thing that wouldn't help would be just granting advantage on roll after roll after roll with no plausible justification, just to get that player several hits. Going overboard would certainly grant that player a positive... but it'd be so obvious of a pity gift that that person (plus everyone at the table) would probably not see it as a positive overall.

Do your best to keep the game light and fun if that's what helps make your table go... but don't do it at the expense of everything else.