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

[iserith]

Okay I want to detect if the npc is lying by smelling his breath, looking for dust on his coat, checking the color of his pants looking for changes in speech, looking for changes in eye movements, looking for perspiration, looking at his hair style, drawing on all my background experiences with liars (I’ll list them one at a time just to be sure), oh and take not of his shoe hand and nose size and his breathing and his height and whether he has dry skin or bloodshot eyes and his eye color and the exact alignment of the sun moon and stars ....

I think I could go on all night. You want 2 hours of this?

So what you're saying is that you CAN come up with an approach to trying to detect a lie, one that might even make sense in context, and perhaps even win you automatic success without an ability check and any corresponding meaningful consequence for failure.

The rules work! I rest my case.

 

[FrogReaver]

So what you're saying is that you CAN come up with an approach to trying to detect a lie, one that might even make sense in context, and perhaps even win you automatic success without an ability check and any corresponding meaningful consequence for failure.

The rules work! I rest my case.

The point is that it’s the same dang approach every single time. Why go into a two hour spill on some random approach trying to cover any possible assortment of possible lying indicators.

 

[iserith]

The point is that it’s the same dang approach every single time

Same goal, different approaches. There are often many ways to accomplish a task.

Some approaches may make achieving the goal impossible - automatic failure, no roll. Some may make it trivially easy - automatic success, no roll. Some might cause it to have an uncertain outcome and, if there's a meaningful consequence for failure, we're rolling for it.

 

[FrogReaver]

Same goal, different approaches. There are often many ways to accomplish a task.

Some approaches may make achieving the goal impossible - automatic failure, no roll. Some may make it trivially easy - automatic success, no roll. Some might cause it to have an uncertain outcome and, if there's a meaningful consequence for failure, we're rolling for it.

If your goina be pedantic about the approach then expect pedantic stated approaches.

I could go on for 2 hours mentioning every single detail that might help me catch someone lying. Is that what you want?

 

[iserith]

If your goina be pedantic about the approach then expect pedantic stated approaches.

I could go on for 2 hours mentioning every single detail that might help me catch someone lying. Is that what you want?

Pedantry is an excessive concern with minor details, right? It's not a minor detail to tell the DM how you want to do something. If the DM doesn't have that information, he or she has to assume what your character is doing or establish that for you. That is not the DM's role in this game. That is the player's role. I do have a concern that each participant in the game do their part, but I don't think that's excessive. Really, it's just a normal expectation in my view when playing games with people. Each person has their role to play for everything to go to plan.

Further, if you look upthread, you will see my preference in this regard: "Reasonably succinct descriptions from players and DM..." Please feel free to check it out if you haven't already.

We good?

 

[Maxperson]

Surprising no one, I disagree with this.

Your effectiveness as a DM depends SO much on the players. If you are playing with players whose play styles are a mismatch, your effectiveness will be greatly reduced, for example. And the reverse is very much true as well.

So, no, your effectiveness as a DM or a player, ESPECIALLY as a player, will depend a lot on the DM. Mismatching play styles, interpretations, personalities, and a variety of other factors will impact your effectiveness in a host of different ways.

No it doesn't. My effectiveness as a DM is unchanged by good players, bad players or indifferent players. If the game grinds to a halt or gets clunky due to things bad players do, that's a reflection their effectiveness as players, not mine as DM. The game was presented as effectively as I could make it and they screwed it up. Similarly, if I'm a bad DM and great players are making the game more fun and enjoyable, that is not a reflection on my skill and effectiveness, which remains unchanged. It's a reflection on their great effectiveness.

 

[Hussar]

/snip
. It is sometimes difficult to juggle some of the hugely complex set pieces I present regularly, but that's mostly because I drink.
/snip

Heh, ok, that made me laugh.

So what you're saying is that you CAN come up with an approach to trying to detect a lie, one that might even make sense in context, and perhaps even win you automatic success without an ability check and any corresponding meaningful consequence for failure.

The rules work! I rest my case.

And, bingo, as soon as we talk specifics, we're right back into Magic Word territory. I'm not allowed to simply leverage a skill, but, rather, I need to come up with some sort of justification to you, the DM in order to actually use the skills on my character sheet. The game certainly doesn't require my justification and, for at least @FrogReaver (and myself) I certainly don't need a justification. The only requirement to justify my use of a skill is you.

 

[Maxperson]

So, how can my paladin determine that Protection from Good/Evil is the way to hedge out Intellect Devourers.

Since you've determined that he doesn't know, and it wouldn't be an issue if anyone else in the party knew, I'm going to assume nobody does. In that case, go ask someone. Other people do know. Go up to a sage or a library and do research. Look for ways to get rid of intellect devourers. It's pretty easy.

 

[FrogReaver]

Pedantry is an excessive concern with minor details, right? It's not a minor detail to tell the DM how you want to do something. If the DM doesn't have that information, he or she has to assume what your character is doing or establish that for you. That is not the DM's role in this game. That is the player's role. I do have a concern that each participant in the game do their part, but I don't think that's excessive. Really, it's just a normal expectation in my view when playing games with people. Each person has their role to play for everything to go to plan.

Further, if you look upthread, you will see my preference in this regard: "Reasonably succinct descriptions from players and DM..." Please feel free to check it out if you haven't already.

We good?

2 hours is reasonably succuient description in this case. There is literally an infinite number of clues that could give away a lie. I need to name most of them to ensure I don’t miss anything.

 

[iserith]

And, bingo, as soon as we talk specifics, we're right back into Magic Word territory. I'm not allowed to simply leverage a skill, but, rather, I need to come up with some sort of justification to you, the DM in order to actually use the skills on my character sheet. The game certainly doesn't require my justification and, for at least @FrogReaver (and myself) I certainly don't need a justification. The only requirement to justify my use of a skill is you.

First of all, check out my new forum title.

Second, "I use Insight..." doesn't tell me what your character is doing, even if I know what your goal is. Without that, I don't know if an ability check is needed. See my post to Frogreaver on this matter.

If you really want to "actually use the skills on [your] character sheet," all you have to do is come up with an an approach to the goal that is likely to have an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure. That doesn't sound like very smart play to me as I've laid out in the very first post in this thread, but that's in your control.