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

[jgsugden]

Wow, fast moving thread -- 32 pages in less than six days! I'm just getting caught up with ample doses of skimming, and hope to participate more fully. Thanks to everyone for all the thoughtful responses. I just wanted to address this for now:..

You dropped a grenade and walked away ... and were you surprised to find a crater when you returned?

My take on this entire thread: D&D is a role playing game. Characters play a role in a story. Approximately -8.7% of games are run using the rules as written and intended, so in the end, I don't think anyone can say what is and is not D&D - but I do have this to say on the topic:

D&D is likely a mistake for you if you're not role playing a character. If you're just going from combat to combat without trying to inhabit a personality for your character, you're just playing an overly complex and inefficient strategy game. The ambiguity created to facilitate actual role playing results in a strategy game that ispoorly balanced, needlessly fiddly, and likely less exciting than a Gloohaven, a Descent, or one of the many other strategy/tactics miniatures games designed to be focused down to scenarios rather than a full story.

 

[Maxperson]

The wall is wet. No one said the wall was slippery.

Are you really arguing that in the dark when you touch a wall and find out that it's wet, that you aren't going to at the same time know whether it's slippery or not?

 

[Oofta]

Obviously. We do our best.


I don't know. Why would you go into any detail about the wall? The climb rules seem pretty straightforward. Are you perhaps trying to telegraph something that might be important to climbing said wall?


Your whole post, frankly, appears to be a broad swath of deliberate misinterpretation. Why do you continue to do this? Having a bad day and want to take it out on an internet stranger? Is it for the comedy? I mean, I suppose such exaggeration of how I play could be funny to someone.

So ... because I explain why I don't describe everything in excruciating detail and I'm trying to "take it out on somebody"? I'm merely explaining what I do and why. If I've misinterpreted something I apologize, but I have no clue what you're talking about. We're just discussing how you handle situations where in the DM's mind there's uncertainty of whether an action could be successful, right?

In my games I give descriptions but, just like in the real world, you can't always tell if you can climb the wall until you try to climb it, you can't tell if a door is locked until you try to open the door. I honestly don't see what the issue is or what kind of problem it could cause. If someone says they climb a sheer cliff with no handholds in response to "I climb the wall" I would simply respond "You scan the wall for handholds and find none, you can't climb the wall without magic". At that point they look around for an alternative or remind me that they have slippers of spider climbing.

Sometimes I'll go out of the way with the description, sometimes I won't. It's impossible to describe everything in as much detail in all situations as you could reasonably notice in real life. If someone says "I climb the wall" it's just assumed that they are attempting to climb the wall and if they cannot I will tell them so, if it's uncertain I'll ask for a roll.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Are you really arguing that in the dark when you touch a wall and find out that it's wet, that you aren't going to at the same time know whether it's slippery or not?

No, I'm not arguing that at all. Consider the rest of what I typed.

 

[Hriston]

Round 1: The fighter enters melee with the lich and attacks it. Then the lich attacks the fighter and hits them. The player has to roll a saving throw. I think that, at this point, the player is playing the game although not declaring any action for their PC. Let's suppose the saving throw is a failure.

Round 2: stuff happens; when the fighter's turn comes around, the player of the fighter can't declare any actions because the fighter is paralysed. The fighter's player then has to roll a saving throw. Again, this fails. The player then decides to use the Indomitable ability. Again, I think that this rolling and decision-making is the player playing the game, even though they are not declaring any actions for their and are not roleplaying their PC in any obvious fashion.

The player's roleplaying was the decision to have their fighter enter melee with and attack the lich. The rest of what you've written here is the mechanical resolution of that decision, and yes, I agree that a player is playing the game while they participate in the resolution of their roleplaying decisions. Indomitable is a great example of a mechanic a player can invoke directly without any additional roleplaying.

 

[Maxperson]

No, I'm not arguing that at all. Consider the rest of what I typed.

I'm saying that when you go to that wall and feel it, nothing is being telegraphed. You are directly feeling the slipperiness and KNOW that you could fall if you try to climb it. It's an example of when the environment doesn't telegraph and you have to poke around to discover something. And it's a situation that I've encountered multiple times over the decades of playing.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

So ... because I explain why I don't describe everything in excruciating detail and I'm trying to "take it out on somebody"? I'm merely explaining what I do and why. If I've misinterpreted something I apologize, but I have no clue what you're talking about. We're just discussing how you handle situations where in the DM's mind there's uncertainty of whether an action could be successful, right?

You are adding ridiculous examples to mock what I'm trying to get across. You see that, right? You really have no clue? Forgive me if I find that hard to believe.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I'm saying that when you go to that wall and feel it, nothing is being telegraphed. You are directly feeling the slipperiness and KNOW that you could fall if you try to climb it. It's an example of when the environment doesn't telegraph and you have to poke around to discover something.

Really? Every time the DM describes the environment is an opportunity to telegraph something to the players. We seem to have a disagreement on the definition of telegraphing.

As I said above, telegraphing can be super obvious (e.g. "the wall is wet") or really obscure or something in between.

I'm going to climb out of this example rabbit hole now. If you want to continue talking about how the wet wall telegraphs nothing, feel free.
(see how I used telegraphing to give you the hint that I won't be responding?)

And it's a situation that I've encountered multiple times over the decades of playing.

Not decades of playing 5e, surely.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Some of this thread reminds me of Zeno’s Paradox.

I try to not let too much philosophy get in the way of a good time.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, I don't do post-hoc rationale for failed anything in 5e. The check wouldn't even happen if the wall wasn't slippery to begin with (or involved some other significant hazard).

Climbing success on an ordinary non-slippery stone-and-mortar wall isn't automatic in 5e, I hope.

If it is, I present it as evidence the game has become (too much) easier.

In general, the dice determine outcomes in 5e, they don't generate descriptions.

Yes, the dice generate outcomes; and then someone (the DM, usually) has to generate descriptions to reflect those outcomes.