D&D 5E Players Self-Assigning Rolls

[Severite]

So, I disagree that consistency (or much of anything) is its own reward, so that’s part of it. I also don’t think most tables use variable abilities for skills.

Their post said: I can figure out what I need to roll, so I can ignore your table rules.

I disagree, as their post in no way explained how they would bring an adequate answer for the other reasons that I do it this way, at my table, for my players.
That said, consistency is a sliding scale. I believe in it, as it maintains fairness. Some people play the opposite end, and change their house rules and how they adjudicate their rules from turn to turn. Most people likely fall in the middle somewhere, and that is more than fine, as it is their table. I can say, as a player, the less consistent the DM, the less happy I am. Being told that identify is the only way to determine what a magic item does. That is fine, then having me roll an arcana check while using identify? Ok, this is how it works in his game, cool. Then the next player down the way just uses an arcana check to identify items, without the spell, like I tried to do? Not ok, and rather unfair, as I have now used a level up to go back and get that first level spell, that essentially gave me no added utility. That is rather unfair, and an example of harmful lack of consistency. While I am in no way claiming that your assumed method is an example of harmful inconsistency, indeed, if you usually expect a player to know exactly what skill and modifier will be used, it is quite consistent. So I am not quite sure what aspect you are actually disagreeing with.

 

[5ekyu]

Their post said: I can figure out what I need to roll, so I can ignore your table rules.

No, it did not. it simply factually did not.

 

[JonnyP71]

That whole post points towards a very very different style of game to the one I promote when I DM.

IE in combat, the player skill at hitting with an axe is not tested... the character's is.

This is only true if combat boils down to simplistic I swing, you swing, rinse repeat. In recent sessions we've had a BBEG killed by a falling boat, PCs hurling torches covered in Green Slime at a horde of Zombies, a PC sipping a potion of Diminution to slip though a tiny hole unnoticed to put a poison tablet in a water supply....

So player's are taught that spending their chargen points into combat gets benefits they cannot PLAYER SKILL while some other out of combat options are things they can test against PLAYER SKILL and so you tend to get more and more similar type builds - focusing the points on the stuff where CHARACTER SKILL is the test and relying on PLAYER SKILL for the others.

Contrast to games where it is CHARACTER SKILL that is more consistent test being made where you get folks who are taught to spend at whatever aptitudes they want their character to be good at, regardless of their own abilities.

The characters in my games are not, and never will be 'builds'. Stats are always rolled (never bought), and my players are not encouraged in any way to think what skill they might have in a few levels time - it's the here and now that matters.

Thankfully they also have a very 'free' approach to who attempts what, and tend towards a 'most fun' approach rather than a 'most likely to succeed'. Hence why the party's Ranger (with -2 performance) got them chased out of town in yesterday's game when he insulted a local Bard with his poor rendition of a traditional song. The party's Warlock could have tried with a +4 modifier - but doing so would not have fitted the personality that the player portrays, whereas the Ranger's flaw is 'I have a habit of making social faux pas by speaking and acting without thinking'.

There would be leeway available if a player lacked confidence or certain skills, but in a RP heavy game, players do tend towards personalities they are more comfortable in adopting.

 

[Severite]

in yeasr past i would have said something about you literally needing to look up the word literally, but since they have now changed it to also mean "figuratively" that option is gone.

So now, i literally try not to use the word "literally" since it has two contradictory meanings and instead have to rely on less satisfying replacements, like IN FACT.

IN FACT, i said not one word about your house rules or bypassing them.
IN FACT i addressed the issue of the questioning of what ability is used, not your longer (somewhat "cartmanesque" IMO) riff about RESPECTING YOUR AUTHORITYE!

EDIT
As an unsolicited piece of advice, if you want folks to not talk about ABC (ability assignment to task) in response to a post you see as about DEF (RESPECT MY AUTHORITYE!) do not bring up ABC in your post about DEF. it just raises the possibility that someone will choose to comment on the former and not the latter.

Except, I stand by my use of the word literally, in the use I gave it, just as I did not say you literally said that I was somehow sighting my players, I said you inferred it. If that is not what you meant, and your tone has come across text in a manner yp u did not mean, I will ask you to clarify your meaning.

 

[5ekyu]

That whole post points towards a very very different style of game to the one I promote when I DM.



This is only true if combat boils down to simplistic I swing, you swing, rinse repeat. In recent sessions we've had a BBEG killed by a falling boat, PCs hurling torches covered in Green Slime at a horde of Zombies, a PC sipping a potion of Diminution to slip though a tiny hole unnoticed to put a poison tablet in a water supply....



The characters in my games are not, and never will be 'builds'. Stats are always rolled (never bought), and my players are not encouraged in any way to think what skill they might have in a few levels time - it's the here and now that matters.

Thankfully they also have a very 'free' approach to who attempts what, and tend towards a 'most fun' approach rather than a 'most likely to succeed'. Hence why the party's Ranger (with -2 performance) got them chased out of town in yesterday's game when he insulted a local Bard with his poor rendition of a traditional song. The party's Warlock could have tried with a +4 modifier - but doing doing so would not have fitted the personality that the player portrays, whereas the Ranger's flaw is 'I have a habit of making social faux pas by speaking and acting without thinking'.

There would be leeway available if a player lacked confidence or certain skills, but in a RP heavy game, players do tend towards personalities they are more comfortable in adopting.

i am sorry that my discussion, perhaps inartful, of the mechanical issues and balance concerns i have seen crop up over the years somehow lead you to see this as a rollplay vs roleplay riff opportunity. it was not my intent.

In my last session an entire combat against two recurring bounty hunters that had been stalking a PC was resolved with a hand wave due to the PCs having setup a sure win situation based on the PLAYER CHOICES combined with the CHARACTER CAPABILITIES. (i did give them the option of fighting it out, in case they wanted to round out the session with a slugfest. they declined cuz they were more interested in the "what and why" than the thumping time in that case.)

In a recent session, one of my players balked at and refused a plan (suggested OOC as advice) that was a very good plan (if not the best, actually) because it meant "his character" would take damage they did not have to and "no way Danni is going to even consider that option over not take damage options."

See, we both have big "fun sticks".

So this just is not about who's fun stick is bigger than their mechanics stick or which group makes choices for fun when they want to or not. I assume both do, most do, if not maybe *all* do.

really, its not.

But, i also do very strongly suggest in my games that players spend some time or effort (or ask me to do it for them or assist if they prefer) to make sure their vision of what the character's strengths are matches with their chosen mechanics. that way, both they and i can have the same expectations of what will be likely outcomes when key moments arise.

And, it may come as a shock but the options are not "the character is a build - yes or no" like some binary choice.

In my games the "character" is the union and (most critically at many key times) the intersection of the "build" (IE the actual game stats as they are now), the background, the players vision for what that person is/was, the current encounter/situation and the PLAYER'S CHOICES.

And whether in combat or out of combat that remains true... for my games... because i have in my world TESTS for the CHARACTERS (all the parts above) and not TESTS FOR THE PLAYERS.

ASIDE

I guess my final straw for falling out of favor with TESTS FOR THE PLAYERS style was when i lost a character due to failing amandatory life or death riddle that had to do with some Saturday morning TV show and nothing to do with actual in-game references. i think it was blah blah "the barbarian's oath" and it related to THUNDARR the BARBARIAN TV show which was not something i ever watched and which was not part of the game but was something the GM or his brother was a fan of. (They later said they put that one in because they expected their brother to be playing but when he backed out they left it in...oh well)

But for sure the years of "door protocol 7" and "say you look up or else" dungeon play GMs also were more straws on the back.

 

[5ekyu]

Except, I stand by my use of the word literally, in the use I gave it, just as I did not say you literally said that I was somehow sighting my players, I said you inferred it. If that is not what you meant, and your tone has come across text in a manner yp u did not mean, I will ask you to clarify your meaning.

Yes, you seem to have used "literally" by its now approved counter-definition...

just as you now use "inferred" as if it means "implied".

A reader "infers" and a writer might "imply".

I get that you "inferred" that somehow i was challenging your table AUTHORITYE or some such but i was not in fact and did not either state it in fact or imply it as far as i can tell.

There was a reason i did not mention your table rules at all, not once, in what i wrote in my response, or dropping dice or any of that other stuff..

For some, that could have been a clue.

But since you apparently still do not understand, i was talking about the part in your post about the questions of what ability was in use.


ASIDE
I think it is funny that we are having this discussion in a thread where part of the dialog has been about PLAYER clarity in statements vs assumption CHARACTER capability. between "literally" vs "in fact" and "infer" vs "imply" we see here how the specific exchange between two educated and experienced folks can often go awry on the notion of a single word or phrase or connotation... and unfortunately here we do not each have an external go-between (character) with known skills and attributes and "expectations of competence" that can serve as a buffer between the import of each turn of phrase or misperception or miscommunication and the outcome. You were so certain about what you read into my post you stated it as "their post said" and only later got into "infers"... which some could see relevant to the subject of player=to-Gm dialog as well.

 

[Severite]

No, it did not. it simply factually did not.

I say again, it "factually", literally, it is an example of why you should or could ignore my table rules does. If that is not your intent, then I ask you to clarify your meaning, from that first reply. If you are uninterested in doing so, you are welcome to not respond or otherwise respond with "that's not what I said", with no qualifying statements, and I will refrain from responding. I am happy either way, as I am happy with simply sharing thoughts, and seeing other ways to play the game.

 

[5ekyu]

I say again, it "factually", literally, it is an example of why you should or could ignore my table rules does. If that is not your intent, then I ask you to clarify your meaning, from that first reply. If you are uninterested in doing so, you are welcome to not respond or otherwise respond with "that's not what I said", with no qualifying statements, and I will refrain from responding. I am happy either way, as I am happy with simply sharing thoughts, and seeing other ways to play the game.

Hilarious!

i know of no way to express more clearly than i have already that i did not state in that post any sort of challenge to your AUTHORITYE or your table rules.

there is nothing more i can do about you imagining that it was there, literally, factually or imaginatively all you want.

not a thing i can do about that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That said, consistency is a sliding scale. I believe in it, as it maintains fairness. Some people play the opposite end, and change their house rules and how they adjudicate their rules from turn to turn. Most people likely fall in the middle somewhere, and that is more than fine, as it is their table. I can say, as a player, the less consistent the DM, the less happy I am. Being told that identify is the only way to determine what a magic item does. That is fine, then having me roll an arcana check while using identify? Ok, this is how it works in his game, cool. Then the next player down the way just uses an arcana check to identify items, without the spell, like I tried to do? Not ok, and rather unfair, as I have now used a level up to go back and get that first level spell, that essentially gave me no added utility. That is rather unfair, and an example of harmful lack of consistency. While I am in no way claiming that your assumed method is an example of harmful inconsistency, indeed, if you usually expect a player to know exactly what skill and modifier will be used, it is quite consistent. So I am not quite sure what aspect you are actually disagreeing with.

I do or don’t expect the player to know, depending on the circumstance.

Most of the time, they tell me what they want to do, including what they want to use to do it. Ie, “I want to use Arcana to inspect the circle to determine what sort of enchantment it has.” Is a common thing at my table. Bc Arcana is nearly always Int, and I allow such examination and manipulation of magical devices with Arcana, I just say “go ahead”, and they roll and give me a number, and I describe the result.

Other times, a player will roll when it isn’t necessary, or roll something that doesn’t apply, often for reasons they can’t have known yet, and I will simply try to use that d20 result anyway, if I can. Ie, the player tries to use Athletics to throw a grappling hook, and I tell them to instead add their ranged attack mod to that d20 result.

Still other times (much less often), I wave off appeals to roll d20’s and explain that we’re moving into cinematic territory for a moment, and that unless I say otherwise there will be just description and role play in this scene, not dice rolling.

I apply these methods and others according to what feels right for the situation. IMO, consistency is usually a good thing, but strict adherence to it can cause problems, just like ignoring it can.

 

[Severite]

Hilarious!

i know of no way to express more clearly than i have already that i did not state in that post any sort of challenge to your AUTHORITYE or your table rules.

there is nothing more i can do about you imagining that it was there, literally, factually or imaginatively all you want.

not a thing i can do about that.

Int dex or wisdom.. Yes likely i will be using one and my descrption will either make it obvious or we have a history that means we can shorthand that.

After all, we are not playing in a game where which attribute makes sense for a given approach to a task is some great mystery that only the GM knows, right?

Sent from my VS995 using EN World mobile app

Very well. I presume yp u are actually interested in moving forward with a real discussion, in that case, for the third time, what is your purpose in posting this? You state I am grossly misaligning your intent, fair enough. But instead of saying, for a third time, "ah, governor, you be Iying bout me, you do!", without explaining what you did mean, how about instead actually do what I asked, and tell me what you actually meant, as clearly, that is what I believe what you typed means. The very fact you keep going on about my authortye, leads me to believe that my original understanding of your post was accurate. If you are hung up on a supposed disagreement on where the line between DM's responsibilitiesand player responsibilities separate as a whole, I believe that should be in a new thread. If you wish to discuss players pre rolling, and my adjudication of it, that's fine, as indeed, the more viewpoints I have, the better my process is, and the better game my players and I, can have.