D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[hawkeyefan]

Bad things that has nothing to do with the lack of skill is a bit weird. Like the extremely unskilled cook somehow getting struck by lightning every time they burn the sauce.

I have no idea what this has to do with anything.

How many times must it be stated that drawing attention is not a problem for most of us? It is conjuring the cook that is the problem. How do we know that the failure conjures the cook? Because it say in the example that we know there would be no cook on success.

The original example was… as has been pointed out many times… flawed. The consequence should follow logically from what’s been established. A kitchen implies a cook. The failed roll means the cook has been alerted to the lock picking. A successful roll means the cook’s not alerted.

This doesn't make sense? We are not talking about dependencies between fictional characters at all? If you talk about why the probability of there being someone around to hear the lock picking being independent of the outcome of the lockpicking attempt the answer is that there are no obvious causal in-fiction mechanism that could connect these and hence the mind expect these to not be correlated. If the mind register that they indeed do correlate, it will start searching for causality mechanisms, like common cause for both events. Stopping the mind from doing so is called "suspension of disbelief" and is something we want to keep to a minimum in the kind of games many here like to play.

So here’s the thing… a causal relationship absolutely can be established. See immediately above.

You could also choose to narrate an unrelated consequence. But why would any GM do that?

Except maybe in an online discussion to try and portray the method as flawed.

Ok, I think I now might have gitten sufficient understanding to have a shot at introducing a less inflammatory terminology. Instead of GM-driven or GM-centric play, I think GM-provided play covers this concept you seem to describe much better, while being much less prone for inflammatory interpretation. I think no trad GM will feel insulted by it being insinuated that they provide the toys the players play with. They will however be insulted by it being insinuated that they for instance take a driving position on how the players play with these toys or that somehow the play revolve around them personally rather than the player's interaction with the toys they have provided.

But it’s more than that. I don’t see how people can push against the idea of the player’s roll being connected to the outcome for hundreds of pages and then try to claim that play is player driven.

Respectfully, there have been maybe a dozen comments clarifying that the issue is not the cook's presence in the kitchen in the abstract but the cook specifically being there on a failed roll but not a successful one. If the cook is always present, fine. If the cook is in the next room and comes because of the failed check, fine.

Always present where? In the kitchen specifically? Or just in the house? Couldn’t the cook’s location depend on different factors? Is a GM really not able to decide that a failed lock pick brings the cook to the kitchen?

Again… a GM could choose to narrate things that don’t make sense. But why would they do so? Why would a GM instead not try to come up with sensible events?

But if the cook comes to check things out on a failure and does not exist on a success, not fine.

Why wouldn’t they exist? They’re just not in the scene as established on a success.

Then why does one lose hit points through discrete effects? And why do those effects cause differing amounts of damage/hit point loss, much of which is distinguished from each other via types of damage?

Gameplay?

 

[Faolyn]

I stated my view: that D&D surprise rules, from AD&D and from 5e, involve retrofitting a fictional explanation of a situation whose narration is prompted purely mechanically (ie by the outcome of dice rolls).

Yeah, but you keep going back to what other people say, regardless of topic.

 

[Faolyn]

You can put the cook there on success or failure, but the example specifically did not.

So what? It's an example. Not the only possibility. Ignore it and move on.

 

[pemerton]

It is conjuring the cook that is the problem. How do we know that the failure conjures the cook? Because it say in the example that we know there would be no cook on success.

a lockpick roll shouldn't spawn a cook in the kitchen

There's no insistence that these things can't be connected...people have repeatedly stated they are ok with it when the noise alerts an already existing cook. Casting the complaint like that makes it seem ridiculous but doesn't engage with the actual concern...which is the cook's existence.

Respectfully, there have been maybe a dozen comments clarifying that the issue is not the cook's presence in the kitchen in the abstract but the cook specifically being there on a failed roll but not a successful one. If the cook is always present, fine. If the cook is in the next room and comes because of the failed check, fine.

But if the cook comes to check things out on a failure and does not exist on a success, not fine.

@thefutilist and I and @hawkeyefan all discussed this upthread.

A cook is implicit in a kitchen, in the same way that soldiers are implicit in a barracks (unless it's expressly called out as abandoned), gardeners are implicit in a hedge maze (unless it's expressly called out as overgrown and tangled), farriers are implicit in a typical village, etc.

The GM choosing to make the cook salient by narrating them as startled by the intruder, but otherwise ignoring the cook just as they ignore 99% of all the other people who are implicit but never described, is not spawning the cook or conjuring them into existence.

Ask the guy who messed up his history roll and was eaten by a lion.

Bad things that has nothing to do with the lack of skill is a bit weird. Like the extremely unskilled cook somehow getting struck by lightning every time they burn the sauce.

My solution to these problems is, as a player, to play with GMs who know how to narrate coherent fiction and, as a GM, to narrate coherent fiction.

 

[AlViking]

But a burglary check clearly does involve other people - all the people who are in, or might be in, the place being burgled.

As I posted upthread, if your RPG system can't distinguish between a skilled burglar and a skilled locksmith, that's a limitation of your system. But it doesn't generalise to all RPGing.

The problem is that there is no "burglary" action in D&D. There's sleight of hand to pick the lock, stealth to avoid notice, perception to notice others.

It's not a limitation it's a different approach.

 

[pemerton]

The burglar would look around the area to make sure he wasn't being watched before starting to pick the lock. That's the sort of competence that would be appropriate to look at there. Not whether or not you successfully picked a lock.

<snip>

Stopping to play it cool is NOT a part of the check unless you add it in or play a system that includes it. The check is to pick the lock.

My understanding of the situation, as described, was that the check was to pick the lock so as to successfully gain ingress. If you want to break that down into every separate thing - first a Perception check to see no one is about, then a check to insert the lockpicks into the lock, then another Perception check to confirm that no one is coming, then a check to jiggle the picks in the lock, then another Perception check to confirm that it's still the case that no one's coming, etc - well that's your prerogative.

RPGing that uses "fail forward" resolution tends not to adopt that sort of approach to resolving checks, though.

This also speaks to the classic D&D pick pocket rules:

That's not clear at all. How I see it is that the thief gets more skilled with his sleight of hand to pick pockets as he gains levels, and the targets get wiser about guarding their belongings and/or more perceptive as THEY gain levels.

All the stuff about judgment and holding back isn't in there. That's your addition to it.

Edit: The 1e rules spell it out.

"Picking pockets (or folds of a garment or a girdle) also includes such activities as pilfering and filching small items. It is done by light touch and sleight of hand."

None of your additions are involved there.

If you adjudicate a pick pockets attempt in the way you advocate - for instance, require a separate roll to approach unnoticed, and another roll to determine whether the intended target is looking at their pocket or not, and another roll for each distracting or reassuring touch of the arm or pat of the shoulder etc - well obviously that's your prerogative. But to me it's obvious that that is not how the rule was written to be adjudicated.

The ability of the thief to approach innocuously, to reassuringly pat the arm as they lift the purse, to not make the attempt while the target has their eyes directly on their pocket, etc, is built into the skill.

 

[FrogReaver]

The problem is that there is no "burglary" action in D&D. There's sleight of hand to pick the lock, stealth to avoid notice, perception to notice others.

It's not a limitation it's a different approach.

I think the question, what if the game you were playing did have a burglary skill. Would there be issues around that skill?

 

[AlViking]

So what? It's an example. Not the only possibility. Ignore it and move on.

Then what are other, better options for a D&D game? I found this one because people were only providing examples from other games which use different assumptions and approaches.

 

[pemerton]

Ummm. You don’t roll to determine surprise in 5e at all. Like I’m not going to make fun of you for not knowing this. Some earlier versions of d&d had the surprise roll from my understanding.

Huh?

DnD Beyond doesn't agree with this: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/basic-rules-2014/combat#Surprise

The DM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other. Otherwise, the DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter.​

The "Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding" are rolls. If successful (ie they beat the passive Wisdom (Perception) scores of the being(s) on the other side) then the hiding beings are unnoticed. And those who don't notice them are surprised. So that is a roll that is made to determine surprise.

 

[pemerton]

I didn't realize I was making a burglary check. Who's moving the goalposts now?

Well of course if you assume that the check is to be framed in terms that don't suit "fail forward" resolution, then "fail forward" won't work. Who's surprised by that?