D&D 5E Players: Why Do You Want to Roll a d20?

[Oofta]

@FrogReaver , Iserith blocked me because I had the audacity to actually quote the entire two paragraphs he refers to in the DMG and explain why I disagreed with his interpretation. That and trying to get a simple response to a simple question is like trying to grapple smoke sometimes.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I will acknowledge some pros of the straight up "skill check" approach:

You think the DM should be a neutral arbiter of the game. Skill checks create an illusion that the DM is just implementing the rules, and not making judgment calls. (To make this real and not an illusion, there would also need to be an agreed upon deterministic method for determining DCs.)

You believe that you should always have a 1/20 chance of accomplishing anything.

Some people have expressed that finding creative/novel ways of overcoming challenges feels like "player skill" instead of "character skill". I disagree, but if you're in that camp then giving a fixed DC no matter how the challenge is handled would make sense.

You just don't trust your DM to be a good arbiter, and/or you don't trust your players to not harass the DM until they get their way.

EDIT: Oh, and one more: if you're simply used to playing this way, it's something new you don't have to learn. I guess that's only a pro if you don't want to have to learn new things, though.

 

[Guest 6801328]

@FrogReaver , Iserith blocked me because I had the audacity to actually quote the entire two paragraphs he refers to in the DMG and explain why I disagreed with his interpretation. That and trying to get a simple response to a simple question is like trying to grapple smoke sometimes.

I'm sufficiently familiar with Iserith's forum presence to doubt that this is really the reason.

 

[iserith]

Another advantage to specifying an approach is that if you don't, the some DMs may assume it for you.

If the player says, "Can I make a Perception check to see if there's anyone on the other side of the door?" then many DMs feel that they're within their rights to inform the player that their ear is stuck to the door and the mimic is making a surprise attack against them.

I don't run games that way because I feel that "gotchas" like that are cheap; I'd clarify the approach by staight-forwardly asking if they are listening with their ear to the door. But some DMs don't like to do so as they see it as potentially tipping their hand, and I can understand that viewpoint. As a result I prefer to be fairly specific in my approach if I think there's any room for doubt or miscommunication.

A very, very common way of playing in my experience. I liken it to a conversation in which one or more of the participants is just not holding up his or her end of it and forcing someone else to do all the talking. After all the game is a conversation between multiple participants. Players can often fall short on their end and the DM sees it as their responsibility to fill in the void, leading them to assume and establish for the player what the character is doing. Not only is this not the DM's role, but it can frequently lead to objections from the player along the lines of "My character wouldn't have done that." Well, okay, how about you say what your character does do then and we won't have this problem? (Though, to be fair the DM's partly to blame here, too.)

 

[Guest 6801328]

Oh, and regarding skill checks for knowledge/memory, given that there's no real consequence to failing to remember something (in the sense that your don't make your situation worse by not remembering) I am fine with the DM just making the call:

"I quickly think about all the magical locks I studied in wizard school to see if I'm familiar with this one."
"Sorry, no."

Works for me. It doesn't really add anything to my game to let me roll a die to overrule what the DM thinks is appropriate. (And if I thought otherwise, I wouldn't be playing with that DM.)

I'd also be ok with the DM making a secret roll and on a failure giving me wrong information that will cause problems.

 

[FrogReaver]

I will acknowledge some pros of the straight up "skill check" approach:

You think the DM should be a neutral arbiter of the game. Skill checks create an illusion that the DM is just implementing the rules, and not making judgment calls. (To make this real and not an illusion, there would also need to be an agreed upon deterministic method for determining DCs.)

You believe that you should always have a 1/20 chance of accomplishing anything.

Some people have expressed that finding creative/novel ways of overcoming challenges feels like "player skill" instead of "character skill". I disagree, but if you're in that camp then giving a fixed DC no matter how the challenge is handled would make sense.

You just don't trust your DM to be a good arbiter, and/or you don't trust your players to not harass the DM until they get their way.

EDIT: Oh, and one more: if you're simply used to playing this way, it's something new you don't have to learn. I guess that's only a pro if you don't want to have to learn new things, though.

It's weird though. I like iserith's approach, just not for everything. For me it detracts when talking about lore skills and even insight skills. It's also his insistence on more specificity than needs to be required.

I try to push the orc prone with my strength and skill. That goal and approach is probably too vague for @iserith

Sounds to me like id need to describe the particular martial maneuver I am doing. Or maybe the vagueness issue only applies to lore or mental skills.

 

[FrogReaver]

Oh, and regarding skill checks for knowledge/memory, given that there's no real consequence to failing to remember something (in the sense that your don't make your situation worse by not remembering) I am fine with the DM just making the call:

"I quickly think about all the magical locks I studied in wizard school to see if I'm familiar with this one."
"Sorry, no."

Works for me. It doesn't really add anything to my game to let me roll a dice to overrule the DM.

I'd also be ok with the DM making a secret roll and on a failure giving me wrong information that will cause problems.

For me that's quite a strawman. I don't care if the DM rules success, failure or roll. That same paradigm can be accomplished without listing an explicit goal and approach.

DM do I know anything about magical locks? vs
"I quickly think about all the magical locks I studied in wizard school to see if I'm familiar with this one."

In either case the DM can say "sorry, no."

 

[FrogReaver]

Another advantage to specifying an approach is that if you don't, the some DMs may assume it for you.

If the player says, "Can I make a Perception check to see if there's anyone on the other side of the door?" then many DMs feel that they're within their rights to inform the player that their ear is stuck to the door and the mimic is making a surprise attack against them.

I don't run games that way because I feel that "gotchas" like that are cheap; I'd clarify the approach by staight-forwardly asking if they are listening with their ear to the door. But some DMs don't like to do so as they see it as potentially tipping their hand, and I can understand that viewpoint. As a result I prefer to be fairly specific in my approach if I think there's any room for doubt or miscommunication.

Sure but when it comes to lore recollection there's really not a gotya type moment.

So what if my approach is emember my life experiences and try to recall anything about trolls from those. I've been told that's to vague an approach... but is that actually a vague approach at all? It seems pretty clear and straightforward to me.

 

[iserith]

It's weird though. I like iserith's approach, just not for everything. For me it detracts when talking about lore skills and even insight skills. It's also his insistence on more specificity than needs to be required.

I try to push the orc prone with my strength and skill. That goal and approach is probably too vague for @iserith

Sounds to me like id need to describe the particular martial maneuver I am doing. Or maybe the vagueness issue only applies to lore or mental skills.

Vagueness can be with anything. You left off a key detail from the orc example, which again reinforces why I'm hesitant to use examples in enworld discussions - bad actors in the exchange will change or ignore parts of it to try to "win" the argument, even though that's expressly against community standards.

In my example, there were 8 orcs and it wasn't clear to which orc the player was referring, therefore failing to be specific enough to adjudicate. Do you honestly think that if there was just ONE orc that I'd be pedantic enough to require more than the approach to the goal you gave above? That is highly uncharitable.

I'm going to have to block you now. Not because you partly disagree with me, but because I perceive you've demonstrated bad faith in the discussion and that's my standard for doing blocking. I think that's a shame as I thought we might have been getting somewhere. Good luck, I wish you all the best.

 

[Guest 6801328]

For me that's quite a strawman. I don't care if the DM rules success, failure or roll. That same paradigm can be accomplished without listing an explicit goal and approach.

DM do I know anything about magical locks? vs
"I quickly think about all the magical locks I studied in wizard school to see if I'm familiar with this one."

In either case the DM can say "sorry, no."

How do you know in advance which things the DM will determine will have a consequence and require a roll, versus which ones he/she will grant auto-success/failure on?

Given the choice between these two approaches:
"Player always states goal and approach; DM resolves"
and
"Player states goal and approach when he/she believes that doing so may have an impact on resolution, and otherwise uses a shorthand when he/she doesn't think it will matter....etc."

I'll choose the former.