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

[Swarmkeeper]

Yes, I skipped "previously on".


Yep, this is pretty much where the scenario starts.


And ... this is where I'm curious about details. Because there's a lot of discussion but it's at such high level that it feels like things get misconstrued or lost.

At this moment we have the option of one of the PCs just walking up to the guard to see if they can persuade the guard to let them in. I don't think it's very likely that it would be successful but this is the kind of thing a DM needs to be able to respond to.

Someone mentioned the idea of knock and silence which is cool if the group has them prepared. Good idea, no checks are required just mark off the spell slot(s) used.

Thanks for clarifying.

I'll riff off what @Maxperson said:

Fair enough. We send the wizard around to the back door and have him cast Knock. When the guard runs around back to check it out, the rest of us walk in the now unattended front door. The wizard runs as soon as the guard turns the corner, leading him on a merry chase, casting invisibility to get away if necessary.

We'll assume the guard at the front is the only one outside. That one, in a panic, looks around and, seeing nothing, hops off the barrel and runs to the back to see that wily wizard and... two other guards burst out from the back door as well! Chase rules begin.

We shift the scene back to the front of the warehouse where the rest of the party opens the door walks into the warehouse to find... something new they need to deal with that the DM describes. "What do you do?"

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

From p 35 of the Basic PDF:

Give your character two personality traits. Personality traits are small, simple ways to help you set your character apart from every other character. . . . A useful place to start thinking about personality traits is to look at your highest and lowest ability scores and define one trait related to each. Either one could be positive or negative: you might work hard to overcome a low score, for example, or be cocky about your high score.​

This is the latest in a long line of such remarks in D&D rulebooks. The 2nd ed AD&D PHB suggests building a PC's personality/character out of the ability scores. And the 4e PHB says (pp 16) that "Six abilities provide a quick description of your character’s physical and mental characteristics. Are you muscle-bound and insightful? Brilliant and charming? Nimble and hardy? Your ability scores define these qualities - your strengths as well as your weaknesses." The stats are clearly intended to operate as a constraint on imagination.

If your PC has STR 8 and CON 10, it's not appropriate to imagine them as having the mighty thews and physical prowess of REH's Conan!

I put it more strongly, the ONLY PURPOSE of these sorts of items on the character sheet is to assist in RP. They are there so that the player has a consistent structure to work with. If none of these attributes existed, then it would be hard indeed to form a very definite idea of your character. I mean, you COULD write down a bunch of free form notes, but why not just have an easy mnemonic device, STR, CON, DEX, INT, WIS, CHA to go by? In this light things like alignment and personality traits fall into the same category. Heck, even things like class could be seen in the same light.

Now, one might ask why or how in that view things relate to the mechanics, but IMHO those are ALSO a tool with which we facilitate the building of the overall fictional milieu. So it naturally makes sense, your STR score characterizes your PC in respect to basic raw physical might, and when he bashes something with his fist, by gosh his extraordinary strength produces results in keeping with the rest of the fiction!

What is interesting is that OD&D seems to have seen it the same way. As much as it was described as a 'test of the player and not the character', it also seems like the intent was for the things on your sheet to be SUGGESTIVE and generally explain the character in a succinct and basic way. You're a strong fighter, you wear heavy armor, carry a shield and bash things with a sword. I think the addition of ability modifiers during the evolution into AD&D was just intended to extend that. It wasn't really meant as a set of 'build mechanics' by which players would create optimized characters, or to rigidly define exactly every nuance of the PC either (there are still notes for that if you want).

 

[clearstream]

I put it more strongly, the ONLY PURPOSE of these sorts of items on the character sheet is to assist in RP. They are there so that the player has a consistent structure to work with. If none of these attributes existed, then it would be hard indeed to form a very definite idea of your character. I mean, you COULD write down a bunch of free form notes, but why not just have an easy mnemonic device, STR, CON, DEX, INT, WIS, CHA to go by? In this light things like alignment and personality traits fall into the same category. Heck, even things like class could be seen in the same light.

Now, one might ask why or how in that view things relate to the mechanics, but IMHO those are ALSO a tool with which we facilitate the building of the overall fictional milieu. So it naturally makes sense, your STR score characterizes your PC in respect to basic raw physical might, and when he bashes something with his fist, by gosh his extraordinary strength produces results in keeping with the rest of the fiction!

What is interesting is that OD&D seems to have seen it the same way. As much as it was described as a 'test of the player and not the character', it also seems like the intent was for the things on your sheet to be SUGGESTIVE and generally explain the character in a succinct and basic way. You're a strong fighter, you wear heavy armor, carry a shield and bash things with a sword. I think the addition of ability modifiers during the evolution into AD&D was just intended to extend that. It wasn't really meant as a set of 'build mechanics' by which players would create optimized characters, or to rigidly define exactly every nuance of the PC either (there are still notes for that if you want).

There is still game as game to consider. Mechanisms in which ability modifiers have a function.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

"Not appropriate" is imposing a lot of subjective opinion and personal preference. I'd be ok with "kind of weird" and "difficult to maintain".

I think there's definitely a point about 'flavor' here. Are you a skinny weakling, or a muscle-bound hunk that is living under a curse? Are you stupid, or are their thought leeches messing with your brain? I mean, IMHO, feel free to provide whatever fiction works for everyone, and when I run games I'm certainly not going to thwart that. It could become difficult to maintain that sort of thing though at some point. Certainly one might wonder why the Water of Life did away with all ailments, but your character is still mechanically INT 8? I guess maybe it all came too late for him

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sure, but I do like games that have mechanical degrees of success. Usually involving a dice pool rather than a single die.

My 4e hack has degrees of success. There are actually 3 levels, 'success' is just nominal. If you roll 5+ the DV, then you get 'complete success'. If you paid a power point when you invoked the power, then you get to move your successes up a rank (failure is still failure in this case). Complete Success now becomes 'enhanced success', and you can apply a 'kicker' if you have one (they are pretty common).

4e actually leaned on degrees of success pretty consistently too. It wasn't used with attacks (maybe there is a power somewhere that implements it as a special rule, I don't recall) but rituals for example, OFTEN have it coded into them. Likewise a lot of skill checks have degrees of success. Knowledge, including Monster Knowledge work on a sliding scale. You compare your check result with the monster knowledge check rule, and with the lore entries in the MM and that tells you which facts you know. I'd note that these DCs are also situational and might be different for a different PC, as it is quite possible for some knowledge to be commonly known to Paladins of Atur, but not to the Rogue League.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

One of the issues I have with these conversations is that we can never seem to just discuss specifics. We go from "how does describing how you climb a wall mean automatic success where rolling a dice means possible failure" to <poof> there's a rickety latter that can be climbed that was never mentioned previously. It feels like we either talk past each other or the goalposts keep moving.

So how about this scenario:

The PCs need to get into a warehouse. Their informant has told them that there's a back door but it's barred from the inside at night so it can't be opened from the outside without some sort of magic. If it comes up the DM reminds the players that knock can heard up to 300 feet away. If someone can get inside they can open the back door. You'd rather not kill any guards if it can at all be avoided.

Casing the place, the PCs notice several things

• There's a single guard but they're sitting about 10 feet away from the front door, sitting on a barrel slumped against the wall. You can't tell if they're awake or not.
• The streets at night are deserted, there are crates and barrels along with a wagon on the street. You might be able to sneak into the front door without being noticed, you can't tell.
• The warehouse also has a cupola on the roof for ventilation, you could probably get in that way if you can get up to the roof. There is a drain pipe for the eves on the side of the warehouse out of sight from the guard that might support someone but you're not certain. In any case it could be difficult climb up.

How would you handle this scenario?

TBH? I wouldn't describe the warehouse in that much detail BEFORE the challenge was entered into. The players would participate in a Skill Challenge (this can be straightforwardly adapted to 5e modulo you would pick DCs a bit differently than in 4e). First we define the consequences of failure, as well as possible consequences of tallying individual check failures for 1 and 2 fails. We would then elucidate what the goal is, in order to establish the basic consequences of victory.
Now fiction will begin to happen. The PCs show up at the warehouse (or maybe this part happens earlier/on a different day, etc.) and start casing the joint. Do they find some means of ingress? Checks can be made for that! OK, there's a drain pipe and a cupola, and the one guard on duty at night seems fairly inattentive, and there are often things located near the main entrance which could conceal a PC, but the side door is barred tight!

Going on from there, maybe the side door was the best gambit, and one of the PCs tried to find a way to sneak in and hide so they could unbar it later, but they failed! OK, so we now know that the other options are less good, second choices that we are left with as a consequence of the first failure. Maybe, as that failure was played out, the player foolishly acted in a way that really got the guards suspicious, next night there are 2 alert guards on the front door! OK, so its going to be the drainpipe...

Well, going up the drainpipe works, but the noise makes the guards even more suspicious. They don't spot you, but now they're checking the interior and the PCs have to wait a while until they tire of it. They're still pretty suspicious though, so now the rest of the op is 'lights out' and any noise is going to be a critical issue, we're down to one failure left. Well, eventually the characters succeed, but there was just no way they could get to all of the loot and not be caught, so they end up with a smaller haul, but they did succeed.
Obviously there will be more detail in actual play, but we cannot really HYPOTHESIZE that, it has to be played out. That is part of the nature of a Story Game, the fiction ARISES dynamically out of play, it is not usually all nailed down ahead of time (though I illustrated how the same fiction you described COULD arise).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Obviously there will be more detail in actual play, but we cannot really HYPOTHESIZE that, it has to be played out. That is part of the nature of a Story Game, the fiction ARISES dynamically out of play, it is not usually all nailed down ahead of time (though I illustrated how the same fiction you described COULD arise).

Well, actually, it could play out AT THIS LEVEL OF DETAIL, generally speaking, technically. SCs actually do not force the elucidation of every little bit of what happens. Things CAN simply be described along the lines of "well, you got the guards suspicious with 2 failures, so whatever you did inside, it was successful (IE at least one check was passed) but whatever followed only resulted in getting half the loot." However, that would imply that VERY FEW, probably only one, check happened inside. This would indicate to me a low complexity challenge that was perhaps something like a bit of a side trip or a mere detail in some larger affair that was being played out.

This illustrates what I call 'framing', that is building on the overall context of the greater story in order to construct the 'frame' in which a particular incident (encounter) takes place. This was merely one of 7 tasks required to acquire the means to <fill in the blank here>. Now, if it was actually a whole story arc itself, then there might be MULTIPLE challenges involved, and probably combat encounters too! Context is a big part.

 

[Lanefan]

What does a PC's ability modifier have to do with whether or not the DM grants auto-success in a situation?

Lots!

There's tons of situations where I'd give auto-success to someone demonstably proficient (i.e. has a good modifier on applicable ability/abilities) while making the non-proficient roll for it.

Tahe climbing a fairly easy wall. Easy for the Rogue who's been trained in such things and has a +3 bonus, nowhere near so easy for the Fighter or Wizard who's main means of climbing walls is usually to have someone else haul them up on a rope. The Rogue auto-succeeds. The others need to roll.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Lots!

There's tons of situations where I'd give auto-success to someone demonstably proficient (i.e. has a good modifier on applicable ability/abilities) while making the non-proficient roll for it.

Tahe climbing a fairly easy wall. Easy for the Rogue who's been trained in such things and has a +3 bonus, nowhere near so easy for the Fighter or Wizard who's main means of climbing walls is usually to have someone else haul them up on a rope. The Rogue auto-succeeds. The others need to roll.

So, this is interesting, because in HoML there are 'practices' (IE rituals and similar stuff) you can use, but one of their features is the 'pay for auto-success' button. In other words, by spending a power point the PLAYER can make that determination (and obviously is motivated to do so mostly at the most significant junctures since power points don't grow on trees). You get to be the most awesome climber evar! and the player gets more say.

 

[Lanefan]

I assume the PCs know what they are doing. If trying to get past a guard, they can of course use distractions, spells, whatever they want. Taking off your shoes? Nah. No need to add extraneous fluff.

A PC doffing its shoes in order to be quieter isn't just fluff: if the stealth attempt fails and the PCs end up on the run, that one of them is lacking footwear could have all kinds of ramifications for good and for bad.

There's zero indication of the PC doing anything different, just that the player says something and waits for a response before making a check. It's the difference between "DM may I sneak past the guard" and waiting for permission and stating "I rolled a stealth of X to get past the guard."

The premise is, as I understand it, that the former would be auto success with no roll, the latter would depend on the roll.

If the DM changes their mind about the difficulty of the scenario in that specific situation, they are being a jerk.

Agreed.

That said, I've usually got an idea in mind as the scene begins as to roughly how easy/hard it'll be to do what, as I run through the "what if"s in my head. For example, if the PCs are trying to get into a castle via a guarded drawbridge I'll already kinda know how hard it'll be to sneak past, whether there's any chance of talking and-or bribing a way in, what might happen next if the PCs attack the guards stealthily, or just face-charge them; and so on.

Obviously, actions taken by the PCs can and almost invariably do change these parameters, often several times as the scene unfolds.