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

[FrogReaver]

Yeah, back to punching smoke as someone called it.

Let me stare something straight up, if a player in one of my games never called for a "skill check" and always stated his character's efforts by goal and approach, waiting for me to tell him when to and what to roll - that would be OK. I am sure if his "reflections on which relatives stories" for every "do I know" after 30 sessions might get a bit tedious.

But if he was just a stickler for it and kept his pace up that would be fine.

Our problem would be if he came to the table with the expectations that he should be succeeding more often because of the difference in how he described actions and the other guys who just said more skill checks things.

My issue is not with how one describes the actions - not with goal and approach - but with coming at adjudicating GNA with the pre-conception that's its gonna be more successful because of it.

Most of my issue with GNA here is the associated "adjudication baggage" that keeps getting paired with it.

Yep, I like the general concept of goal and approach. I even like the rewarding of auto success or auto failure for particularaly good or bad approaches. All that seems good and fair.

Where I depart is the idea that some approaches and goals are too vague. That some gameplay elements work better using methods other than strict goal and approach. That for some elements you may just want to roll dice to establish the outcome because the minute details of the approach and their effect on the outcome may vary a lot from one person to another.

There's plenty of examples of where the goal and approach framework can break down. But it's also a very good framework in the cases it works.

For example: you are falling. "I try to turn my body so that I am rolling with I hit the ground". To me that is a goal and approach. In this case the goal is implicit because I understand that a person rolling when they hit the ground is a method of lessening the impact of a fall. Perhaps the DM doesn't understand that. In which case he may ask what's your goal. Likely because it's so obvious to me I won't have a clue how to answer him and I would feel like i'm being a jerk by simply saying to lessen the impact of the fall.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yeah, this is one reason among many I don’t handle lore recollection the way that’s been under discussion here. Frankly, I’m not sure anyone handles lore recollection the way that’s been under discussion here. We’ve tortured these examples and conflated different people’s responses to them so much at this point, they probably more closely resemble Jeff Goldblum in The Fly than they do anyone’s D&D game.

So how do you handle them? Is it even in the goal and approach framework?

 

[FrogReaver]

It's amazing I repeatedly get called a bad actor and debating in bad faith...

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yep, I like the general concept of goal and approach. I even like the rewarding of auto success or auto failure for particularaly good or bad approaches. All that seems good and fair.

Where I depart is the idea that some approaches and goals are too vague. That some gameplay elements work better using methods other than strict goal and approach. That for some elements you may just want to roll dice to establish the outcome because the minute details of the approach and their effect on the outcome may vary a lot from one person to another.

There's plenty of examples of where the goal and approach framework can break down. But it's also a very good framework in the cases it works.

For example: you are falling. "I try to turn my body so that I am rolling with I hit the ground". To me that is a goal and approach. In this case the goal is implicit because I understand that a person rolling when they hit the ground is a method of lessening the impact of a fall. Perhaps the DM doesn't understand that. In which case he may ask what's your goal. Likely because it's so obvious to me I won't have a clue how to answer him and I would feel like i'm being a jerk by simply saying to lessen the impact of the fall.

Goal: And I take no damage.
Me, as DM: that's sounds really hard. Gimmie a DC 25 Dex check to time it right. If you fail, you faceplant and will take double normal falling damage.

Goal: to try to reduce the damage I take.
DM: Sounds tough, but doable. Gimmie a DC 15 Dex check to time it right. If you fail, you'll land badly and be incapacitated a round.

Goal: to roll up on my feet. I know it's gonna hurt, but I want to see if I come up standing.
DM: cool. DC 10 Dex check. If you fail, you're not only be prone, but you'll land badly and be incapacitated for a round.

Goal very much matters. If you're shooting for the moon, big stakes call for big risks. If you're trying something more reasonable, less severe risks are warranted. I need to know what you're going for, and I'm just not going to guess when you could tell me.

 

[FrogReaver]

Goal: And I take no damage.
Me, as DM: that's sounds really hard. Gimmie a DC 25 Dex check to time it right. If you fail, you faceplant and will take double normal falling damage.

Goal: to try to reduce the damage I take.
DM: Sounds tough, but doable. Gimmie a DC 15 Dex check to time it right. If you fail, you'll land badly and be incapacitated a round.

Goal: to roll up on my feet. I know it's gonna hurt, but I want to see if I come up standing.
DM: cool. DC 10 Dex check. If you fail, you're not only be prone, but you'll land badly and be incapacitated for a round.

Goal very much matters. If you're shooting for the moon, big stakes call for big risks. If you're trying something more reasonable, less severe risks are warranted. I need to know what you're going for, and I'm just not going to guess when you could tell me.

Sure. If you ask me it in that manner then I'll go, to reduce damage as that was my intent all along. If you just came back and said, what's your goal. I'm going to sit there and quietly think about how much of an idiot you are for not knowing that maneuvering your body just right so that you are rolling as you hit the ground in a falling situation can lessen the impact. I'll stare at you very confused in that time as well...

 

[Maxperson]

To me, I look to the bounded accuracy of 5e. How many monsters have an AC over 20 for example? Not very many. Most of them are pretty legendary encounters. So, I apply that to the skill system as well. Any DC of 20 or higher is something of legend - this is something that even a highly trained expert will fail most of the time, so, it's pretty darn hard and it's something you'll likely only see a couple of times in a given adventure. Over 20? Couple of times in a campaign. The vast majority of checks, in my view, are between DC 5 and 15.

Only the DM side is intended to be bounded to that degree. The player side goes higher. I remember during the playtest seeing somewhere that the playerside wasn't intended to be bounded at all. They reduced the numbers, but didn't restrict players like they did the DM.

So, to answer the original question of the thread, "Why do you want to roll a d20?" Well, I know that if I roll, barring unforseen complications, I'm going to succeed about twice as often as I fail and I can spend character resources to improve those odds even more. So, why shouldn't I roll? I'm losing out on those character resources if I don't roll and rolling will get me what I want most of the time.

Why shouldn't you roll? Because succeeding on 2/3 of rolls is lower than succeeding on 2/3 of rolls WHEN you roll + some auto successes when you don't. Asking to roll is gimping yourself.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, I know you’re not fond of us folks who use the “middle path” quoting the books to explain our reasons for things, but... the rules do define DC 5 as “very easy”, DC 10 as “easy,” DC 15 as “hard”, and DC 20 as “very hard.” Personally, I almost never call for “very easy” checks because it’s pretty rare that a task that could be reasonably defined as “very easy” meets my standards for requiring a check at all. Most of my DCs fall in the 10-15 range as well, though I wouldn’t call DC 20 “legendary” in difficulty.

Actually 15 is moderate, 20 is hard, and 25 is very hard.

 

[Maxperson]

So I literally could have filled in the calling on "the lore his grandfather taught him" with anything?

No. It has to actually be part of your character somehow. At least for me. @iserith is much more forgiving with metagaming than I am. For me, you have to have established it as part of your background, gameplay, skills, or something. You can't just invent anything you feel like in my game.

 

[FrogReaver]

No. It has to actually be part of your character somehow. At least for me. @iserith is much more forgiving with metagaming than I am. For me, you have to have established it as part of your background, gameplay, skills, or something. You can't just invent anything you feel like in my game.

So, by talking to adventurers from my hometown. Seems generic and plausible enough right?

 

[Maxperson]

I tend to stick to a DC of 10, 15, or 20 for almost all actions that aren't contests. A 5 or a 25 is an outlier for me. The designers of the game have basically said as much in previous notes and it makes sense to me.

Same. If I get down to 5, I might as well just say yes. Unless there's something about the PC, such as a penalty to the check, disadvantage or something else circumstantial that would put an easy check in doubt, the player is not going to have to roll.