D&D 5E Players Self-Assigning Rolls

[Charlaquin]

If a player says "Is the door locked" and the DM says "How would you know without trying it?" I think that is putting wording before fun. If the player says "Does my arcana skill help here?" and the DM says "That isn't an action, please rephrase it as such" then yes that is putting wording before fun.

Good for you, but phrasing it as “putting the words before the fun” when other DMs do prefer players to use specific phrasing is dismissive because it implies that their motivation for doing so isn’t fun. You could just as easily call it “putting the form before the message” or “focusing on the phrasing” or something if you need a pithy label for the concept. Or you could just focus on personal taste and say that you find it more fun not to put too much importance on phrasing, instead of treating “fun” as an objective value that phrasing diminishes.

the worst though was about a year ago in one of these threads when someone said they wouldn't allow a player with a speech impediment and social anxiety disorder to play a bard or warlock trained in social skills (or heaven forbid expertise in case of the bard) if they could not role play the stat/skill for a high modifier...

Sounds like those people were jerks, but not directly relevant here.

Another poster even went so far as to say that he allows a young (I think late preteen or early teen) woman with special needs to just say "I use diplomacy" and the best answer was "Why don't you teach her to declare actions it might even help her out of game"

This is starting to sound more like a different issue entirely - more one of people being unwilling to make exceptions to their processss to accomodate for their players’ needs.

So yes it may sound condescending to you, but I don't know how else to explain it. If both the DM and Player know what the player is trying to convay, but the words don't line up exactly I don't see a reason to stop play to police wording...

It’s not hard to find a way to express this concept that doesn’t demean other play styles; I gave a few suggestions earlier in my post.

just like when a funny word shows up on a text or facebook post, and you just know it was an auto correct error. You can laugh and still say "I get what you mean" or you can stop the conversation to say "Retype that the right way or I wont respond."

Yeah, I get what you mean, but I object to presenting it in a way that implies your way of handling it is objectively more fun.

 

[iserith]

yup we have done this dance before...we run very similar games but use different wording

I've seen you talk a lot about your games, even providing "real life examples" like upthread, and I wouldn't say yours and mine are "very similar."

I don't assume or establish what the players in my game are doing, for example, because that's their role not mine. Players don't push to make ability checks because it's my role, not theirs, to decide if one is needed. There seems to be a lot fewer questions since asking a question isn't describing what they want to do, which is the player's role. Those are pretty big differences in my view that contribute directly to the play experience that is produced at the table.

That's not a judgment, by the way, on how you choose to play. You do you. But I think the assertion that our games are "very similar" is unfounded.

 

[5ekyu]

In AD&D, the players were expected to have control of their PC, and that was it. The rules, including combat, were in the domain of the DM. The 2e AD&D PHB contained more of the rules, but I think the real shift started with TSR realized that there are more players than DM's and that if they produced books for players, they'd sell more copies. During the 2e years, especially the earlier releases, the books all had very prominent disclaimers that adoption of any of these rules were up to the DM. You can buy the book, but you can't use it unless your DM says it's OK.

This is a odd note of history and more an aside than anything else but...

While i do not recall the text within the 2e core rulebooks verbatim for their initial release, i do very explicitly clearly remember the add campaign and posters that came out with the 2e first release...

"Real GMs go by the book."

That was full bold mega-print on many of the posters and other promotional materials for their core rule books initial 2e release. I recall it right there at the bookstore when i bought my first 2e books. I also remember thinking they misspelled "buy".

The reason for it was that leading up to that 1e had become so diverse, so scrambled and so riddled through with house rules for most every game that you found it rather difficult to go from one game to another without a tome of house rules to go thru. (Obviously that is slight hyperbole.)

A specific strategic objective for 2e was to reset to a standard that *was* used to bring together the gameplay across the sprectrum.

Now, of course, it was more a marketing and design approach than a truly achievable objective so its less like rule of law than a nod to trying to herd their cats, but it was there, it was very prominent and it was also (in my experience) very welcome by many.

 

[iserith]

If a player says "Is the door locked" and the DM says "How would you know without trying it?" I think that is putting wording before fun. If the player says "Does my arcana skill help here?" and the DM says "That isn't an action, please rephrase it as such" then yes that is putting wording before fun.

I would say it's an attempt (however effective) at getting the player to describe what he or she wants to do, which is his or her role in the game.

So yes it may sound condescending to you, but I don't know how else to explain it. If both the DM and Player know what the player is trying to convay, but the words don't line up exactly I don't see a reason to stop play to police wording...

I don't think anyone is asserting that the words must "line up exactly." But at a minimum, I need to hear a goal and an approach to properly adjudicate the result without making undue and possibly wrongful assumptions about what the character is actually doing and trying to accomplish.

just like auto correct, I get sometimes you run into a moment where you say "What?" because the wording doesn't make sense to you. In that case asking what someone means is fine. However the examples I went back and forth with other posters was:

Is the door locked?
Is that an Arcane symbol?
Do I know about that person?

to witch (in order) I was told you need to take the following actions because you can't not use an action
"I check to see if the door is locked"
"I try to remember if that is something I have seen"
"I try to remember if I have any information about him/her"

even to the point were 'trying to remember' needs to be phrased as an action... I was also told I was a bad DM for answering "Is the door locked" with "The handle wont budge" because I assumed they touched the lock without them declaring an action...

I doubt anyone told you that you were a bad DM, even if they pointed out that you may sometimes be acting outside of the prescribed role of the DM. But in any case, "Is the door locked" is not describing what you want to do, which is the player's role in the game. "I check to see if the door is locked" is better, though it still lacks reasonable specificity as to how in my view. That might well matter if the door is trapped, for example. And to be clear, we're not talking about "using actions" here in any mechanical sense.

then again on a related note I also got told "I took away player agency" with any description other than sight and smell... in the example a warlock who had a pact with a named demon 'got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach' when he saw an artifact ment to slay said demon...I was told by the same posters "You can't tell him what he feels!!!!!"

Yes, that does not seem advisable. I prefer to describe the environment and leave it to the player to describe how his or her character feels about it.

I bring this up because even in this thread when my explained "No you don't think that" because the player with a high arcana rating in character would understand but out of character didn't someone in this very thread corrected me that I CANT as a DM tell them what there character thinks... although It seems to me to be a word game again because rolling a history or arcana (or most Int based skills) is exactly that...

I didn't say you can't do that. I said I don't do it. It is out of bounds for our game. A player making an assumption, perhaps based on metagame thinking, is taking a risk by choice. That's on the player and not for the DM to correct in my view.

edit: just to take this to the extreme to show a point... if everytime Jessy says "Vlarg" she means search, you may need her to explain it at least once, maybe even a few times...but after a couple of weeks you understand she is using the word "Vlarg" to convay the idea of searching. If everytime she says "I vlarg the desk" you stop and say "Vlarg isn't a word, nore is it an action in this game" you are putting wording in front of fun. SHe is convaying meaning to you, you understand the meaning but choose to stop play because you disagree with the wording even though you understand it.

"How do you go about vlarging that desk, Jessy? How thorough is your vlarg? How much time to do you spend vlarging it? Wandering monsters want to know."

 

[5ekyu]

"How do you go about vlarging that desk, Jessy? How thorough is your vlarg? How much time to do you spend vlarging it? Wandering monsters want to know."

[PLAYER] I have no idea how long it takes to search a desk of this type but my character does. How long would my character think it should take?

or alternatively...

[PLAYER] Isn't how long a task takes often a factor of skill and luck as opposed to a default decision made before a task begins?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I've seen you talk a lot about your games, even providing "real life examples" like upthread, and I wouldn't say yours and mine are "very similar."

I don't assume or establish what the players in my game are doing, for example, because that's their role not mine. Players don't push to make ability checks because it's my role, not theirs, to decide if one is needed. There seems to be a lot fewer questions since asking a question isn't describing what they want to do, which is the player's role. Those are pretty big differences in my view that contribute directly to the play experience that is produced at the table.

That's not a judgment, by the way, on how you choose to play. You do you. But I think the assertion that our games are "very similar" is unfounded.

when we compaired out come and desire our games matched like 85%, and we even want the same from our DM/Player roles most times (Me thinking that some feelings are senses other than sight sound and smell is the only big one) we just use words differently... so yes our games (at least by what you have said before) are very similar...just not exact.

 

[iserith]

So this is specifically in response to "Did I miss something between AD&D and 5e?" Although his blog post hits on a few reasons why, mostly it's why not to do it. I don't agree with all of his assessment, and I'll address that subject separately.

What changed? Player enablement.

I know in D&D 4e, players are encouraged to ask if a skill check applies to an action they established and the DM is encouraged to say "Yes." It's right in the rules. So if we were talking about D&D 4e, I would not hold the same position as I do in this thread regarding D&D 5e. In fact, I ran some D&D 4e for a group a few months back - 5e players who never played 4e - and I told them straight up to feel free to ask to make skill checks because that's the expectation of that game, but to also make sure their goal and approach was clear.

Lots of folks, however, bring ways of doing things from one game into another game. I do not. I treat each game as a separate thing.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I would say it's an attempt (however effective) at getting the player to describe what he or she wants to do, which is his or her role in the game.



I don't think anyone is asserting that the words must "line up exactly." But at a minimum, I need to hear a goal and an approach to properly adjudicate the result without making undue and possibly wrongful assumptions about what the character is actually doing and trying to accomplish.



I doubt anyone told you that you were a bad DM, even if they pointed out that you may sometimes be acting outside of the prescribed role of the DM. But in any case, "Is the door locked" is not describing what you want to do, which is the player's role in the game. "I check to see if the door is locked" is better, though it still lacks reasonable specificity as to how in my view. That might well matter if the door is trapped, for example. And to be clear, we're not talking about "using actions" here in any mechanical sense.



Yes, that does not seem advisable. I prefer to describe the environment and leave it to the player to describe how his or her character feels about it.



I didn't say you can't do that. I said I don't do it. It is out of bounds for our game. A player making an assumption, perhaps based on metagame thinking, is taking a risk by choice. That's on the player and not for the DM to correct in my view.



"How do you go about vlarging that desk, Jessy? How thorough is your vlarg? How much time to do you spend vlarging it? Wandering monsters want to know."

"How do you go about vlarging that desk, Jessy? How thorough is your vlarg? How much time to do you spend vlarging it? Wandering monsters want to know."

[PLAYER] I have no idea how long it takes to search a desk of this type but my character does. How long would my character think it should take?

or alternatively...

[PLAYER] Isn't how long a task takes often a factor of skill and luck as opposed to a default decision made before a task begins?

yea, that is my whole thing too. now search is a personal pet peive since my now roommate and I got into this whole thing back in 3.5:

we knew the room had a boat load (literally taken from a boat) of treasure, and we knew it was hidden. I 'searched' the closet with my rogue with a huge modifier...I got like a forty something...he asked how I said "I look for hidden features, and go through pockets and everything my well trained thief could think of... I got nothing. After over an hour out of game of doing this, each person having to describe there search, and it not mattering if they got a 5 or a forty the player of the cleric 'thought' to pull the bar off the closet that the cloths were in...it was lead (so our Detect magic didn't penetrate) but was hollow and had a portable hole rolled up in it...

I literally turned red as I tried to stay calm and say "I searched there first...we wasted half the night on this?" and his answer was "But you never said you checked the bar in the closet"... to this day I think the in the 40's search check should come with something

 

[iserith]

"How do you go about vlarging that desk, Jessy? How thorough is your vlarg? How much time to do you spend vlarging it? Wandering monsters want to know."

[PLAYER] I have no idea how long it takes to search a desk of this type but my character does. How long would my character think it should take?

or alternatively...

[PLAYER] Isn't how long a task takes often a factor of skill and luck as opposed to a default decision made before a task begins?

Reasonable specificity is required by the rules to have a chance at finding a hidden object. The rules also say that if a player chooses to have the character spend 10x the amount of time on a task than usual, the DM can just rule automatic success on the task (if it makes sense).

So a player at my table might say "I take as much time as is needed so nothing is overlooked..." or "We can't afford to attract a wandering monster right now - I make it a cursory search..." The former is automatic success at the cost of the DM making a wandering monster check. The latter may be an ability check, if what the player described has an uncertain outcome.

 

[iserith]

yea, that is my whole thing too. now search is a personal pet peive since my now roommate and I got into this whole thing back in 3.5:

we knew the room had a boat load (literally taken from a boat) of treasure, and we knew it was hidden. I 'searched' the closet with my rogue with a huge modifier...I got like a forty something...he asked how I said "I look for hidden features, and go through pockets and everything my well trained thief could think of... I got nothing. After over an hour out of game of doing this, each person having to describe there search, and it not mattering if they got a 5 or a forty the player of the cleric 'thought' to pull the bar off the closet that the cloths were in...it was lead (so our Detect magic didn't penetrate) but was hollow and had a portable hole rolled up in it...

I literally turned red as I tried to stay calm and say "I searched there first...we wasted half the night on this?" and his answer was "But you never said you checked the bar in the closet"... to this day I think the in the 40's search check should come with something

That's unfortunate, but not reflective of how I do things, for what it's worth. I don't precisely recall the rules for searching in D&D 3.5e or exactly what the expectation was in terms of adjudication by the DM. So it's possible the DM was correct here. It doesn't sound like it though and the play experience doesn't sound very fun, even if he was correct.