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

[Scott Christian]

This gives rise to the question: to what extent can a player augment their Climb Walls check (however that is handled in a given system - in 5e it is most likely STR (Athletics) ) via a Perception, Survival, Slippery-Walls-wise or similar check?

Some systems make this very straightforward (eg Burning Wheel; HeroQuest revised; 4e D&D, provided the context is a skill challenge). Some have no provision for it at all (eg AD&D). Some have a half-baked approach (eg Rolemaster; 4e D&D outside a skill challenge context).

I'm not sure what the canonical 5e D&D approach is to this.

5e leaves it to the DM. You can use a wisdom climbing roll for example, if you wanted to combine the visual with the dexterity.

 

[Lanefan]

Let's add some further detail to our example now, just to give ourselves some narrative handles. A character is in the outer keep of an enemy fortress and needs to climb the wall to escape, and just for giggles lets say this character isn't one with a high Athletics modifier, so they go looking for options. They find some sticky pitch in a barrel and give the wall a close examination to find the best place to climb (Perception or Investigation or whatever, with a good success). How do we adjudicate this?

I'd probably give a bonus to the check roll (or if 5e, give advantage).

There'd still be a roll - there's no way of knowing whether the pitch idea will work or not, for example - but it'd be easier to make.

For my part, I probably wouldn't even ask for an Athletics test, they'd just climb the wall. My contention is that many people probably would, and more importantly that it wouldn't occur to them not to ask for the check. The notion I'm driving at here is the idea that playing the mechanics and systems can be a problem when it gets substituted for playing the fictional position, on both sides of the screen.

For me, giving a bonus to the roll reflects the fictional positioning just fine - the PC has taken actions that will potentially make the climb easier, but nothing is cast in stone. So, a bonus it is.

 

[Fenris-77]

I see. He might then be using "DM decides" in a different sense than I expected. I am thinking of DM deciding when and how to apply game mechanics, narrating game world and results, all those many things DM decides. Who does the giant hurl a rock at? DM decides. Is a wall climb- able? DM has or will decide. What happens as a result... etc.

Typically "DM decides" is at the heart of successful D&D. The designers allude to that in the opening pages of the PHB. It's not the only way to RPG of course! I believe it is still the normal way to D&D.

Think of it as DM decides beforehand. Im really talking about scripted bits the DM plans out in prep. The DM has expectation X for situation Y because that's how he wrote it. That expectation pushes back (or can push back) against honest framing and fictional positioning in the moment because the DM has an agenda about what 'should' happen.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Think of it as DN decides beforehand. Im really talking about scripted bits the DM plans out in prep. The DM has expectation X for situation Y because that's how he wrote it. That expectation pushes back (or can push back) against honest framing and fictional positioning in the moment because the DM has an agenda about what 'should' happen.

Yeah - I encountered this as a DM while running Van Richten's Tower in Curse of Strahd.

Spoiler: CoS VRT spolier

I was wedded to the idea that the clay golems had to be the ones to operate the clunky lift to the top floor and it made for some... clunky adjudication on my part. The published adventures tend to lock us into a way of thinking that is contrary to one of our objectives as DM: keeping the action moving / not letting things stall too long.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah - I encountered this as a DM while running Van Richten's Tower in Curse of Strahd.

Spoiler: CoS VRT spolier

I was wedded to the idea that the clay golems had to be the ones to operate the clunky lift to the top floor and it made for some... clunky adjudication on my part. The published adventures tend to lock us into a way of thinking that is contrary to one of our objectives as DM: keeping the action moving / not letting things stall too long.

Published adventures can be bad for this. Now, I say bad, but really that sort of thing is at least to some extent what people expect out of published adventures, by which I mean that it's on rails at least to some extent. That's not a really bad thing, but I'd agree that published adventures can inculcate some suboptimal habits in a less-than-reflective (or inexperienced) DM.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Published adventures can be bad for this. Now, I say bad, but really that sort of thing is at least to some extent what people expect out of published adventures, by which I mean that it's on rails at least to some extent. That's not a really bad thing, but I'd agree that published adventures can inculcate some suboptimal habits in a less-than-reflective (or inexperienced) DM.

Hey, wait a second! Who you calling "less-than-reflective"?

Lazy, I'll accept. But less-than-reflective? Well.... ok, fine. Upon further... reflection, I'll have to say that is occasionally true. Hopefully less and less through this new year of gaming! (especially if I can regularly implement some of the neat things people have suggested in this thread)

 

[clearstream]

Think of it as DM decides beforehand. Im really talking about scripted bits the DM plans out in prep. The DM has expectation X for situation Y because that's how he wrote it. That expectation pushes back (or can push back) against honest framing and fictional positioning in the moment because the DM has an agenda about what 'should' happen.

I see that more as DM plans, than DM decides. As those words are used in the PHB, e.g. in the introduction.

 

[Fenris-77]

I see that more as DM plans, than DM decides. As those words are used in the PHB, e.g. in the introduction.

But it does impact what you are describing as DM decides. When you've already halfway decided what's going to happen it can't help but effect the play of the game. Anyway...

 

[Fenris-77]

Hey, wait a second! Who you calling "less-than-reflective"?

Lazy, I'll accept. But less-than-reflective? Well.... ok, fine. Upon further... reflection, I'll have to say that is occasionally true. Hopefully less and less through this new year of gaming! (especially if I can regularly implement some of the neat things people have suggested in this thread)

It wasn't a dig at anyone. Not everyone enjoys this hobby in a way that makes reflection on practice and post-mortem dissection of play useful or wanted, and I wouldn't expect them to. Personally, I do like this hobby enough to really dig into what I'm doing, how I'm doing it with a specific eye to improving.

 

[prabe]

I see that more as DM plans, than DM decides. As those words are used in the PHB, e.g. in the introduction.

I do not see how you can have a concrete plan for what will happen later if you haven't already decided what will happen now.