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

[Ovinomancer]

There are too many potential situations where the number of flips might matter for it to be immaterial. Certainly some of them will be immaterial - just doing a bunch of practice flips when nobody is around (not even worth a roll). But others will be quite material - flipping in front of judges to determine what medal will be rewarded, while someone watches from the sidelines to see if you are competent enough to hire after the competition.

The more actors and obstacles in a scene, the more important it is to know the actual outcome of someone’s action beyond the binary. Additionally, the binary doesn’t allow for non binary results even if they would make perfect sense in the circumstances, such as our strange flipping fellow stating a goal of trying to achieve a silver medal (because the DC is more reasonable) and rolling high enough to earn the gold medal, but not getting anything but silver because that wasn’t his goal.

Fundamentally, though, you're only counting flips to see if they accomplish some goal. I'm skipping the counting, so I don't need to actually determine the count except as, maybe, a point of color. As I said, you're focused on resolution at the task level, I'm not. I don't care how many flips were made, I care if the goal was achieved.

As for silver being a lower goal, I feel we're now making a close study of trees. If silver is also an acceptable, if lesser, result, then getting a gold medal isn't the end goal for this check, it's just another step along the way. You first count flips, then add those to get a medal, then use the medal to...? I'd rather start at the end, here, and figure out what the top level goal is and go there, if we're talking about a single check. Perhaps the medal allows access to somewhere? Then let's make a check to do well enough in the competition to gain access, at which point both the number of flips and the metallurgy of the reward are color -- you either do well enough to get access or you don't.

If access is meant to be a scene level goal, where steps must be taken to arrange the fiction such that the end goal is achievable, then let's discuss scenes and how they can be structured in a goal and approach manner to achieve this. I like modified skill challenge frameworks, where each check alters the fiction either towards the end goal or away. You could build a contest up like this, with varied uses of social skills between rounds to influence judges, discover favorite moves, or dishearten competitors and various physical challenges during the rounds (player directed), perhaps gaining advantage/disadvantage for the between round interactions/preparations. The goal of 'access' can then be achieved if you succeed enough times before you fail too many times, with the DM able to declare the color of the medals as color. I just don't see how the color of the medal matters if it attains the overall goal.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I may be violating etiquette, here, but as it appears Hussar is attempting to discuss my posts with me I feel it's fair and polite to mention that I have Hussar on my ignore list. My hope is to prevent frustration for my lack of reply and to assist others in understanding the one-sided nature of whatever that discussion entails.

 

[Maxperson]

Whereas, to me, this is pretty much exactly what I'm arguing against and have been all the way along. The DM gets to say, "Well, I gave you a chance to succeed, so, if you failed it was your fault" and can absolve himself or herself of any responsibility. The fact that the failure was virtually guaranteed and the set up was completely borked from the outset isn't mentioned.

You do realize that has nothing to do with what I said, right? Neither of those reasons had anything to with chances to succeed.

 

[Seramus]

Fundamentally, though, you're only counting flips to see if they accomplish some goal. I'm skipping the counting, so I don't need to actually determine the count except as, maybe, a point of color. As I said, you're focused on resolution at the task level, I'm not. I don't care how many flips were made, I care if the goal was achieved.

I care about how many flips were made because it informs my description of how the world reacts to this action - maybe because monsters are about to burst into the scene and I want to know how far Mr Flip is, or the previously mentioned guy who is watching from the sides is willing to hire them if Mr Flip can do eight flips, but not if he messes up before four flips (what an amateur!), etc. Or more meta, if I have to talk with Mr Flip because he never even tries to attempt 10 flips anymore because whenever he does he usually gets no flips because this is a binary. He sticks with 6 flips these days.

Basically, sometimes a flip is just a flip - and sometimes it has an impact on several other things in the scene.

As for silver being a lower goal, I feel we're now making a close study of trees. If silver is also an acceptable, if lesser, result, then getting a gold medal isn't the end goal for this check, it's just another step along the way. You first count flips, then add those to get a medal, then use the medal to...?

My focus in this discussion is in the degrees of success vs binary resolution, such as a player stating an achievable goal and then rolling MUCH better than expected and getting nothing for it (if something is possible to get) such as the silver medal / gold medal Mr Flip scenario or the average song / great song Bard scenario.

 

[Bawylie]

I care about how many flips were made because it informs my description of how the world reacts to this action - maybe because monsters are about to burst into the scene and I want to know how far Mr Flip is, or the previously mentioned guy who is watching from the sides is willing to hire them if Mr Flip can do eight flips, but not if he messes up before four flips (what an amateur!), etc. Or more meta, if I have to talk with Mr Flip because he never even tries to attempt 10 flips anymore because whenever he does he usually gets no flips because this is a binary. He sticks with 6 flips these days.

Basically, sometimes a flip is just a flip - and sometimes it has an impact on several other things in the scene.

My focus in this discussion is in the degrees of success vs binary resolution, such as a player stating an achievable goal and then rolling MUCH better than expected and getting nothing for it (if something is possible to get) such as the silver medal / gold medal Mr Flip scenario or the average song / great song Bard scenario.

That’s why it’s important for the DM and Player to agree on the stakes before the roll. There are scenarios where a player might want more than one thing to happen. In that case, I usually ask which of the number of things listed is the priority - the one they really want - and which are lower on the priority list. Once ranked, I set DCs. The highest priority of the player gets the lowest DC, and the higher they roll, the more of their priorities they achieve.

I’ll give an example from one of my games. Player was a bard, in combat with an ogre on the back of a carriage in a chase scenario with other players attempting to escape. Bard wanted to fancy-dance past the ogre, drop down to the horse and sever the hitch, riding away with the unhitched horse and leaving the ogre to drift on the back of the carriage.

I asked my player what one thing he most wanted to happen, and how he planned on making it work. Definitely he wanted to sever the hitch. Next he wanted to be on the horse after the hitch was severed, and last was getting past the ogre. He was going to rely on his natural agility and balance to tumble, vault, and land where he wanted to (that says a Dex check to me).

I asked him to make a Dex (acrobatics) check versus DC 10 to sever the hitch (not at all complicated), 15 to sever the hitch while escaping on the horse (a bit trickier), and 20 to bypass the ogre unscathed. One check - whose outcome determined how many of those priorities he could accomplish. He agreed with my proposal. (He didn’t have to. Sometimes we refine it).

If I remember right, he didn’t hit the 20 but got close. So the ogre took a swipe at the bard as the bard fancy-danced past it (some damage there), but he was able to get onto the horse, cut the hitch and leave the ogre drifting on the now-horseless wagon while the rest of the party escaped on mounts. That ended the chase.

So it doesn’t have to be only binary. The die result matters, but I don’t use the die result to generate outcomes in the fictional scenario - just the mechanical scenario. We discuss outcomes first, set DCs as needed, and then roll on that. Once the mechanic is done, we go back to the narrative and reset into the next bit of play loop.

 

[Seramus]

So it doesn’t have to be only binary. The die result matters, but I don’t use the die result to generate outcomes in the fictional scenario - just the mechanical scenario. We discuss outcomes first, set DCs as needed, and then roll on that. Once the mechanic is done, we go back to the narrative and reset into the next bit of play loop.

Just to be clear, another poster made the claim that they do it only binary, and that any hiccups with an only binary approach is a failure to state appropriate approach/goals.

I personally love non-binary, and consider almost every ability check at my table to be a sliding scale with degrees of failure and success.

 

[Hussar]

You do realize that has nothing to do with what I said, right? Neither of those reasons had anything to with chances to succeed.

You do realize that it has everything to do with the ACTUAL example we're talking about right? Which is the example where it's a DC 25 for double damage on a fail. @Ovinomancer gave his reasons for this DC - to influence players away from stepping on class abilities. A goal that I could totally get behind, even though I seriously do not agree with the method of reaching that goal.

If you don't want your players to do something, talk to them directly. Burying the lead and then putting out rulings like this into the game just leads to frustration. The player doesn't understand why the DC is so high and why anyone would bother attempting something so blatantly bad. The DM is frustrated because the player keeps trying to do stuff, not taking the hint, because the DM doesn't actually come forward and directly talk about the issue to the player.

I'd point out that while I wouldn't mind Ovinomancer being a part of this conversation, the example does shed a lot of light on to why I am so adamantly opposed to this approach. When failure = additional direct consequences to the PC (and not just the result of the failure) then the math gets all wonky. Yes, if you fail a stealth check, you are spotted, but, that's not a direct consequence to your PC. That's simply the result of a failed stealth check. It's the stuff beyond that that I take issue with, where the player is attempting to do something using a skill and the DM sets up the fail conditions that are too punitive for the possible benefit.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

I asked him to make a Dex (acrobatics) check versus DC 10 to sever the hitch (not at all complicated), 15 to sever the hitch while escaping on the horse (a bit trickier), and 20 to bypass the ogre unscathed. One check - whose outcome determined how many of those priorities he could accomplish. He agreed with my proposal. (He didn’t have to. Sometimes we refine it).
/snip

An example of the math done right.

 

[Imaculata]

I don't have to be able, as a person in real life, to describe an action I don't know how to do in real life in an imaginary game where you set the rules out come and I have no feel in the minutia to care about the out come.

...But that is not what I ask of my players. All I ask is an approach to their goal. If they want to disable a trap, I want to know more than just that goal. Where do they stand in relation to the trap? This matters.

Imagine, if you will, a trapped treasure chest that fires a crossbow bolt when opened. I want to know what the player does when disabling the trap. Because if he is standing behind the chest and fails his check, the trap may trigger, but it wouldn't hit him. Additionally, having to be a bit more specific about your action adds tension. Your approach may affect the DC of disabling the trap, or make the outcome of a failed check less severe. I don't want traps to be this abstract videogamey thing. I want the players to imagine the situation, and imagine how their character might act. No player is required to be an expert on traps, and at any time a player is free to ask the DM "What do I know about this sort of trap?".

I want to role, and if you want to add flourish to the effects of how the role effects it (Like Mathew Mercer does) then you can play your way and I can play mine.

For clarity, my style of DM'ing is quite contrary to the way Matt Mercer runs his games. Matt narrates the actions of the players based on the outcome of a roll. I don't presume those actions, I ask my players what they do exactly. This then affects the outcome. The outcome of the dice still matters, but the actions of the players matter more.

That's right, YOU know where it is and how it works, so why can't I just take "a normal search action" to start? Why do I have to pull out of my character and try to guess what it is you want me to do as a player?

I don't want you to do anything as a player. Whether you fail or succeed at disarming the trap is all the same to me. You can take a search action if you like, but I may ask you for more information.

why can't I just role for disarm trap then you, knowing your trap, describe how it is disarmed or triggered?

That would take away all the suspense and make disarming traps boring. I might as well not include them then. When you state an approach to any action in my games, this affects how things play out.

-If you use your thief's tools, the DC may be lower, but if you fail your tools could break or get stuck.
-If you require a second person to provide more light, so you can see the trap, this would lower the DC. But that person may be in the path of the trap if it triggers.
-If the trap can only fire once, then setting it off on purpose may be more simple than trying to disarm it. No roll needed.
-Plus, there's lots of other things that none-rogues are allowed to do to try and disable a trap without needing the skills of a rogue. You don't need to be a rogue to try and take out a trap. Rogues are just better at it.

I have seen this in multiple games. GMs who want what your suggesting then get annoyed that now the players can't except that a trap is sprung, that can move 5ft with out describing a 5 minute spill of how they test that 5ft for traps.... because they can't just role and move on. I have seen a hall with 2 traps devolve into 4 hours of describing every thing we do because one of those trapped nearly killed one of our players on an auto fail because he described how he opened a box wrong.

The point of my style (and that of others) of adjudicating actions, is that we properly foreshadow traps, so that this game of searching every 5ft. is no longer required. And an added benefit, is that we give out more information about what the trap does, and how it operates, so players are better able to choose their actions.

There's cover!?!? lol. I just mean the world is as the GM describes it. If its activated and players don't say they take cover because you never mentioned it but in your mind its there then they are penalized for being players, however if they are given a save based on character skills and on success you describe how they jump behind cover then they don't have to know what the GM knows and its the skill of the character and not the players inability to read your mind that is tested.

I tend to be very detailed in my descriptions, and often illustrate dungeons with maps and/or dungeon tiles. If I believe the players may have forgotten or missed an important detail about the situation, I will point that out to them and allow them to reconsider (such as when they might want to take cover). If my players position themselves out of range of the trap, then they don't need to make saves, because it can't hit them. It's an automatic success for them. This is how you also avoid cases where the players feel screwed over by their DM.

If player fall back because of a bad check... is it because they performed a check and you described the danger? If so, you are already doing some of what I do, just for me check means roll.

You don't need to roll for everything. It speeds up the game a lot if you allow automatic successes and failures based on player actions.

I don't ask a player how they do something, I let them add how and perhaps might add a bonus such as advantage for a good description, but I let the dice roll so that the characters skills are always tied to the check.

Isn't this exactly the same as what I do? You just spent several paragraphs railing against the idea of adjusting the check based on the described actions of the players... and here you say you do the exact same thing? The only difference I see, is that I resolve some situations without a check.

For example, if the players want to sneak past a guard, and the guard is completely drunk and/or unconscious, then that's an automatic success. You don't need to roll for everything.

An automatic success will be due to their characters passive skill level and an automatic failure only happens when a player tries something I will not allow them to achieve.

So you also do automatic successes and failures? Passive skill level or not, that's not all that different from simply declaring a success for something the DM believes cannot fail. I don't see much of a difference here.

I still reward clever player descriptions, but instead of auto fail or success, I only grant advantage or a bonus to the check and/or save if they are cleaver. I do not penalize character skills checks due to bad player description or understanding of the trap that only exists in my head.

So are you saying that if the players decide to blow up a trapped chest with a barrel of gunpowder from a safe distance, they still need to make a check? I'd say that's an automatic success... it probably destroys the chest and everything inside of it, but that trap is gone. Why bother to make a check for that?

However, the difference between your method and mine is that any description is just for an understanding of what they are doing so I can set a DC for a check. A solid plan might effect the DC of the check or of the saves an number of ways... but there will be skill check roll to see if they pull it off most of the time.

Why? Doesn't this drag things on longer than needed? Why can't the players just roll a rock across the pressure plates to set off the trap? Why would they need to make a check for that? It is something any person could do.

 

[Hussar]

Why? Doesn't this drag things on longer than needed? Why can't the players just roll a rock across the pressure plates to set off the trap? Why would they need to make a check for that? It is something any person could do.

If I may, you have to remember that @ClatonCross isn't interested in foreshadowing and signposting every trap. One corridor or another corridor look pretty much identical to each other. So, if you want to roll a rock to test for pressure plates, you would need to do that in every single corridor that you want to check. You would then have to do fifteen other tests in EVERY SINGLE CORRIDOR, because each approach only applies to a subset of possible traps.

Sure, if I tell the players with big neon signs "Hey, there is a TRAP in THIS corridor", then sure, it speeds up play. To me, it makes play very predictable and boring. I don't want to signpost anything. That's up to the players to figure out. So, in my games, if you want to know where traps are, you better start taking prisoners and questioning them. Because I'm certainly never going to signpost the location of a trap.