D&D 5E Roleplaying in D&D 5E: It’s How You Play the Game

[pemerton]

@HammerMan

I think by framing your response to @Swarmkeeper in terms of "persuading the GM" you are pushing the conversation in an unhelpful direction. I mean, I can see what you have in mind and presumably so can Swarmkeeper - but it's not realistic to expect anyone to characterise their own game as one in which they, the GM, are persuaded in a non-rational fashion by a silver-tongued player! Even moreso if you push your rhetoric in a direction where you imply the glib player is getting an unfair advantage.

I think it is more productive to focus on what the different approaches are to resolution, and how they relate to other aspects of the game.

Just as one example: it seems to me that in Swarmkeeper's game the gameplay benefits of having skill proficiency, expertise, reliable talent and the like is less than in yours. And the gameplay benefit of having access to spells and equipment that give the players lots of opportunity to shape the fictional circumstances in ways that will permit them to narrate how they achieve their goals without any uncertainty as to their PCs' success is correspondingly greater.

Whether that is a good or a bad thing seems futile to debate. But identifying it as an interesting aspect of 5e D&D play, in respect of which tables might differ, seems worthwhile.

I suggest thinking of it as a different playstyle rather than problematic cheating.

D&D can be roleplayed as being about playing and effectuating the stats on your sheet or it can be about roleplaying as the player chooses independent of the stats on the sheet.

There is at least a third option (or maybe it's a distinctive version of your first option): the player uses the stats on the sheet as a constraint on the portrayal of their PC, and the declaration of action; and the GM factors those stats into deciding what declared actions work and what don't; but dice are rarely used to resolve declared actions.

I think what I've described in the above paragraph was a pretty typical approach to non-combat resolution in 2nd ed AD&D. I wouldn't be surprised if there are at least some 5e tables which approach the game similarly.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Again...

we really don't . I don't want to speak for others, but we are trying to peace togather your style of gaming and this is what we are getting

Wasn't addressed to you but, yeah, when you characterize our playstyle as "magic words" etc, you are mischaracterizing.

and again the issue isn't any of that... its HOW your DM determines uncertainty. You said you don't take into account stat/skill , so you aren't determining IN GAME certainty/uncertainty.

Stat/skill come into play when the dice come out.
Uncertainty is determined by the challenge at hand (my description of the scene - step 1 of the play loop) and the approach described by the players (step 2)

a dex 24 rogue/monk with acrobatics +18 and Stealth +24 is a very diffrent character then a half orc dex 8 paladin with acrobatics -1 and stealth -1 (+disadvantage)

Yes, no doubt. And so the high Dex character with those proficiencies is probably the one stepping up to take on tasks that might require such things. But if both are trying to sneak behind the trees to get past the guard, and a roll is required, the DC is the same because the approach is the same.

so when determining if something is certain for that rogue/monk it should look VERY different then for the Paladin.

Depends on the challenge and the action declaration. They both might auto-succeed. They both might be required to roll an ability check.

I just want to understand at this point... like forget any 1 specific skill or ability, in general do you and your group look at your sheet at all for determining what your characters are capable of?

The players can play their character however they like at our table. The smart play would be to lean into ones strengths on their sheet but it is not some requirement to be enforced. As a DM, I have plenty of work to do and prefer to leave the sheets to the players.

 

[pemerton]

I don't see what player skill has to do with it.

Here are some examples I can think of from my own play plus this thread:

* @Cadence's example of stuffing something into the quiver to reduce the rattling noise. I don't think it would ever occur to me, as a player, to declare something like that as part of my action.

* One of my players who is a bit of a military history buff had his PC build and use "tank trap" style fortifications/outworks to help defend a homestead against a goblin charge. I don't think I would have thought of that either.

* One of the regular members of my group is in customer service, and so used to talking to strangers; another is not. When it comes time for a PC to give a speech, the first is often more fluent than the second. When, in our 4e game, the first was playing a low-CHA dwarf with no social skills and the second was playing a modest-CHA deva with strong social skills I had to decide, as a GM, how to handle the dissonance between how the players came across at the table and what the PC build rules told us the PCs were like. Fortunately 4e made it fairly easy to do this (use the action to frame the check in the skill challenge; give the fluent player a +2 bonus when appropriate to reflect the compelling nature of his speech).

* Once in a sci-fi tournament game our PCs were trapped in a base with no fresh oxygen supply. One of our players was a pretty serious scientist and was able to calculate how much time we had before our oxygen ran out, and so we planned around that. (The GM then ignored the actual "reality" of the situation and stipulated an unrealistically short time to oxygen deprivation. That spoiled the game for us.)

 

[Cadence]

Again, it seems to belie that rules text if a PC can be particularly good at a thing - say, sneaking around - because the player is good at the thing in question and so describes their PC doing it well.

In the sneaking vs. shoeless sneaking with shirt stuffed in quiver, I think one of the differences is that the later characters is paying an extra price - they need to take a bit of time to do those things, and then at the other side they are at least temporarily shoeless and unable to quickly draw an arrow.

It isn't as obvious as two people climbing a wall - one with no tools and one with a rope and grapple - but it felt somewhat similar to me and I was trying to feel around where the edge was.

 

[HammerMan]

So they must be roleplayed with below average coordination or below average social grace, eh?

yeah... that is the ROLE they chose

How do you handle roleplaying very high INT or CHA?

normally with abstractions... "Hey my character is smarter then me and wants to do X but I gotts no clue how he is going to do it" or "I give an inspire speach" or "I intimidate the guard" or "I use fancy words to impress them" (bonus points cause the last one can be either Int or Cha)

I think some of the misunderstanding here comes from what appears to be your need to separate player and character knowledge whereas I have no such need.

yup... that is a BIG part of why we can't agree. I see you playing a ROLE, not playing yourself. See above about chess and combat and just ingeneral things that don't transalte as 'every character you play gets to be good at every thing you are'

A player can use whatever information they like and roleplay their character however they like. Indeed, that's how some of us read the roleplaying rule on page 185.

and again... we read the same words VERY differently

Better check those IRL assumptions in game though before forging ahead. Anyway, that is tangential to this discussion...

I don't get this sentence...

No. Any player can declare a reasonably specific action to take for any given challenge an I will adjudicate accordingly. I don't see what player skill has to do with it. I don't judge action declarations by the "floweriness" of the player's words. A player giving a first person persuasive monologue with name dropping and a player simply stating in third person "my PC drops names of people this guard would know" both would have the same DC at the Charisma ability check to get past the guard, if a check were even required.

but you would rule the certainty on the out of game knowledge?

You said up top
"I think some of the misunderstanding here comes from what appears to be your need to separate player and character knowledge whereas I have no such need."
if a player at your table knew that the king had an affair and had a bastard... but the character had no way of knowing it (say it was info a previous character that died had, or even just from last campaign in same world) can they use that knowledge?

You are off. I just need to know what the PC is doing so I can adjudicate. If the PC has good modifiers and proficiency, they're going to succeed more often than another PC with poor modifiers and no proficiency.

okay so the paliden in plate with disadvantage in stealth and an 8 dex describes a brilliant way to sneak past a guard... a rogue trained expertise in stealth and boots of elven kind and a dex above 20 can't tell you how he is stealthing but just that he wants to... you will auto pass the paliden and make the rogue keep trying to explain... right?

If you have a good approach, you might avoid the die rolls. It has nothing to do with "describing it right".

a good approach is subjective. a real life persuasive person can get you to think anything is a 'good approch' even a bad one. A player that is not persuasive but maybe a bit abrasive might not be able to make any approach sound good...

There are often many ways to solve a challenge. If I, as DM, have predetermined the "right" way, that does a disservice to our game play.

at least we agree there.

Is it clear now? Just tell me what you character is doing. 1st person. 3rd person. I don't care. Make it specific and, for the love, keep it succinct.

nope still not getting how making someone describe HOW (not just what) they are doing something isn't giving more persuasive talkers a major advantage.

This is really a whole new topic. Maybe we'll get to discuss this in another thread.

it's all the same thing... its cha checks by NPCs or PCvsPC, it's how to roleplay, its pretty much most of the game.

 

[pemerton]

In the sneaking vs. shoeless sneaking with shirt stuffed in quiver, I think one of the differences is that the later characters is paying an extra price - they need time to take a bit of time to do those things, and then at the other side they are at least temporarily shoeless and unable to quickly draw an arrow.

Why would it take extra time? I mean, when a rogue with a +15 bonus to Stealth is sneaking around, isn't part of how they are doing it so well that they are talking off their shoes and stuffing things into their quivers?

If not - ie if you envisage a +15 Stealth rogue being able to be stealthy without actually doing any of those things you described that make a person quiet - then the skill system seems to become this weird a-fictional thing.

 

[Mannahnin]

nope still not getting how making someone describe HOW (not just what) they are doing something isn't giving more persuasive talkers a major advantage.

Persuasive talkers, or just players with good ideas? In the example previously given of scaling a wall freehand vs finding a ladder, persuasion doesn't come into it, right? If the player of the armored paladin thinks (in or out of character) "Heck, scaling this sheer wall in armor isn't going to work well. I should check the gardener's shed for a ladder" that's both smart play and IMO good roleplaying.

Of course, in the course of negating the skill check to get over the wall by finding that ladder, they extend the time they spend in the courtyard and possibly being spotted by the length of time it takes to look for that ladder. And they incur the risk of a watchdog or something being in that shed.

 

[HammerMan]

@HammerMan

I think by framing your response to @Swarmkeeper in terms of "persuading the GM" you are pushing the conversation in an unhelpful direction. I mean, I can see what you have in mind and presumably so can Swarmkeeper - but it's not realistic to expect anyone to characterise their own game as one in which they, the GM, are persuaded in a non-rational fashion by a silver-tongued player! Even moreso if you push your rhetoric in a direction where you imply the glib player is getting an unfair advantage.

I think it is more productive to focus on what the different approaches are to resolution, and how they relate to other aspects of the game.

I'm trying... but I can't find a way to even under stand where he is coming from OTHER then it's player skill over character skill.

Just as one example: it seems to me that in Swarmkeeper's game the gameplay benefits of having skill proficiency, expertise, reliable talent and the like is less than in yours.

I would agree with that @Swarmkeeper are we inagreement with this statement?

Whether that is a good or a bad thing seems futile to debate. But identifying it as an interesting aspect of 5e D&D play, in respect of which tables might differ, seems worthwhile.

where I WILL debate good idea bad idea, I can put that aside and just go with... I don't understand why some think they have some play loop that must be used and must be phrases right and the better phrasing equals a better attempt.

There is at least a third option (or maybe it's a distinctive version of your first option): the player uses the stats on the sheet as a constraint on the portrayal of their PC, and the declaration of action; and the GM factors those stats into deciding what declared actions work and what don't; but dice are rarely used to resolve declared actions.

I think what I've described in the above paragraph was a pretty typical approach to non-combat resolution in 2nd ed AD&D. I wouldn't be surprised if there are at least some 5e tables which approach the game similarly.

yeah that was every 2e table I played at... but 2e isn't 5e.

 

[Mannahnin]

Why would it take extra time? I mean, when a rogue with a +15 bonus to Stealth is sneaking around, isn't part of how they are doing it so well that they are talking off their shoes and stuffing things into their quivers?

If not - ie if you envisage a +15 Stealth rogue being able to be stealthy without actually doing any of those things you described that make a person quiet - then the skill system seems to become this weird a-fictional thing.

I think you could adjudicate it either way. Either we assume such things are being done, but that the Rogue is so good that he can automatically slip his boots on even if ambushed and suffer no penalties, or we allow players to add such details to give themselves a bonus on the check, but perhaps at a cost in the fiction- having their boots off could make moving over the gravel outside painful and slow if they have to move there suddenly before they have time to put their boots back on. Having their quiver stuffed with cloth could mean they can't use the arrows until they spend an Action to un-stuff the quiver.

 

[pemerton]

a good approach is subjective

This isn't true.

Using an axe rather than a knife is a better approach to cutting down a tree,

Using subdued flattery rather than caustic mockery is a better approach to persuading someone, over whom you have no particular leverage, to do what you want them to do - at least in a typical human interaction.

@Cadence's ideas about how to make sure you are less noisy when trying to sneak past someone are good approaches.

Etc.

Your overall point doesn't depend on this extra, implausible, claim.