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

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is a tangent, but interpreting what's described in OD&D & B/X as the ability to "climb sheer surfaces" as a truly extraordinary/near-superhuman ability, as opposed to the much more limited parameters Gygax laid out in 1E*, is a commonly discussed option in the OSR.

Classically, in pre-3E editions, Thieves famously suck. They have terrible HP, bad attack tables, their skill percentages are poor, and DM advice (like Gary gave in the 1E DMG) and "realistic" interpretations often exacerbate these issues, with multiple skill checks often being called for in a single task (like making someone roll both Find and Remove traps, or multiple Climb Walls checks for a single climb, depending on length), backstab being extremely hard to do and limited to once per fight if you can even manage one.

I think one of the big early OSR blogs, maybe Philotomy's Musings, proposed that one way to make Thieves Not Suck (or at least Suck Less) would be to interpret their abilities as truly preternatural. Anyone can move quietly. If the Thief successfully rolls to Move Silently he is literally silent and unhearable, even by creatures with extraordinary hearing. Anyone can hide behind cover or obstacles. If a Thief succeeds at Hide in Shadows, presuming there is at least low light, she actually vanishes into a shadow. Anyone can climb a wall. A Thief who makes their roll can go up a SHEER wall, even one without handholds detectable by any other character. If you interpret these abilities more generously, and let the Thieves truly be extraordinary within their area of expertise, they can be more worth playing.

(*which example has mostly been followed in later editions)

Yeah, and like I said in another post, when we bought the Greyhawk book at the FLGS we naturally assumed that this is exactly what was intended. It was never a perfect picture either. I am looking over Greyhawk, and there's no real way to interpret 'filtch items and pick pockets' as a very 'magical' ability, though the explanatory text is so thin that it is easy enough to squint (all that is said here is literally the above text.) OTOH open locks includes 'foiling magical enclosures', and thieves do have other clearly magical abilities, albeit limited and only at high levels.

The point is, the logic was simply that our existing PCs could already hide, climb, etc. effectively as 'ordinary folks' (or better perhaps) and thus thieves really HAD to be praeternaturally gifted for the text to even make sense!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Unless I'm badly confused I think you've made your point. But what you're describing with the close examination and the barrel of sticky pitch seems to be exactly the sort of thing that other posters in this thread have flagged as (what I am calling, but I think not misleadingly) automatic success in virtue of the fictional position. So whether or not that is a neglected approach in the wider scope of 5e play - and maybe it's true that in that wider culture it would not occur to most people not to call for the STR (Athletics) check - I don't think it has been neglected in this thread.

And again, just to make my position clear, I prefer to call for the check not because I'm unfamiliar resolution via adjudication of fictional positioning, but because - on the whole - I prefer "say 'yes' or roll the dice" where the trigger for saying "yes" is an absence of narrative stakes rather than an advantageous fictional position.

Right, if nothing is being DECIDED, that is the characters will not fundamentally evolve their narrative relations no matter what the outcome is, then it isn't really important which way it goes. The thief's stealth check matters when he sneaks away from the scene of the crime and leaves his best friend to take the rap. It doesn't matter when it just marks one more successful (or not) day of living off others. We don't come upon the story of this thief on any old ordinary day, we come upon it on the day when it changes who he is.

 

[Lanefan]

But what are these untrained possibilities?

Determined on the fly by the DM as the situation demands. Sometimes zero, often not zero but still a very small number.

Hard numbers for every class for every skill would get unwieldy pretty fast; and - as you touch on below - 3e's skill system was its own type of mess in part because it a) tried to divorce skill from class and b) tried to have a skill for everything rather than just a few key thief-y things.

At least 5e answers that, so it has advanced slightly over 1989's 2e rules, which still leave this unanswered. Of course 3e already got here, though its skill system has other deep issues that 5e did bypass, so I guess if we are being generous we can say that 5e is a slight improvement on 3e in this respect, and that brings it up to the 21st Century at least

 

[Oofta]

Determined on the fly by the DM as the situation demands. Sometimes zero, often not zero but still a very small number.

Hard numbers for every class for every skill would get unwieldy pretty fast; and - as you touch on below - 3e's skill system was its own type of mess in part because it a) tried to divorce skill from class and b) tried to have a skill for everything rather than just a few key thief-y things.

The other problem I had with 3e was that the choices were often artificially defining in at least some cases. It seemed like it gave you hard guidelines on how difficult it was to climb something for example, but all it really did was push the decision back to a lookup table based on the type of wall. Want a wall that's easy to climb? Pick this one. One that's nearly impossible? Pick this other one and add some modifiers. Breaking down a door? Well, what kind of door is it?

That, and don't forget to describe the wall or door correctly because if you do it wrong someone at that table (usually Bob) would point out that the DC should be 5 higher or lower for that specific type of door.

So it seemed like you were making a choice, but really you were flipping through books because you had an idea of how difficult you wanted something to be but had to describe it correctly. I prefer not having to cross reference everything and simply be able to say it looks like a standard cheap door or a well reinforced solid door.

 

[Hriston]

And yet this is the case in ALL classical play! I mean, combat is nothing more or less than an example of the same concept, the GM described some bad guys, but nobody, including the GM, knows if the PCs are tough enough to beat them. We roll dices, we finds out. The fiction changes depending on what those dices say. Story Games can be seen as an ANSWER to that, by saying "well, actually, we don't know what all the fiction is, so lets let the dice decide (or some other mechanism, maybe even player preference)." This is what draws me to this type of play, it is fundamentally more honest with itself. It doesn't pretend that there's either any 'objective' reality to the fictional world, nor even that anyone knows what is in it until the moment it impacts play.

This is a good post and gives me a lot to think about, but I'm wondering what the role of established fiction is in all this. I mean, the DM doesn't usually just describe <generic bad guy(s)>. I guess the assumption is that if the PCs are going into combat with some enemy, then it's just about a match for them, but encounters can vary on either side of that, and especially if there's a threat of TPK, the DM is probably going to want to telegraph to the players just what they might be getting their PCs into. If the DM describes a regular orc guardsman, for example, I think at a certain level (of D&D) a player could just declare, "I kill the orc," and expect that to be adjudicated with a simple "yes".

 

[Hriston]

More like "Not so fast Dave, it's a wall, not a staircase - let's have a DC 15 Strength (Athletivs) check to see if you can get up there."

I wouldn't, as I fully expect and accept that there will be things in the setting that my PC simply wouldn't notice unless either closely looking for them or interacting with them.

So, if on hearing the DM narrate a wall, if I'm thinking of climbing it and I don't look closely first then loose stones or a slippery surface could easily catch me out on the climb when I interact with them the hard way.

Huh?

Their input into the fiction comes via their words - i.e. what they say to each other and to anyone else they meet - and their actions, be those actions tried and failed or tried and succeeded.

The setting is "written" before the actions are declared (i.e. the DM narrates the scene) but the what-happens fiction isn't "written" until after any actions are resolved (i.e. when the DM narrates the outcome). Saying "Dave the Barbarian climbs the wall to see what's at the top" adds to the fiction in that Dave is trying the climb as opposed to doing something else, but the results of that climb (success, failure, faceplant, whatever) aren't added to the fiction until the action has been resolved.

And resolution can be as simple as the DM saying "OK, Dave, you're at the top* and can see a small stone-floored courtyard on the other side, empty other than a few leaves and some dust being stirred by the wind.^"

* - this resolves the climb action with a straight "yes"; it's easy to overlook this as being a mechanical action resolution but it is.
^ - this describes/narrates the scene revealed by Dave's action, thus fulfilling his goal in climbing.

By "direct input into the fiction" I meant the power to author shared fiction through your PC's action declarations with no other requirement than the table's consensus that the declaration is valid. You seem to indicate (in the part of your post I've bolded) that at your table this is true of the PCs' words but not of their actions. What prevents the DM from responding to a player that has given a speech in their character's voice with, "That's what you try to say, but what actually comes out of your mouth is..."

 

[Hriston]

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.

I think the most canonical approach is for the player to declare an action to attempt to change the fictional circumstances of their attempt to climb in some way, hoping the DM will grant advantage on their check. From Advantage and Disadvantage (PHB, p 173):

The DM can also decide that circumstances influence a roll in one direction or the other and grant advantage or impose disadvantage as a result.​

 

[Hriston]

See, this is what confuses me. Let's say it's a cliff. If I've described it as a sheer wall with no handholds I doubt anyone is going to try to climb it. If they say they climb it, I'll just remind them that without magic it cannot be climbed. But maybe I just said "there's a cliff on the left". I didn't describe it any further because I didn't think anyone would want to. Players do all sorts of things I don't expect all the time.

As far as the risk, if you have to climb more than 10 feet, there's a chance of falling. It's built into the game.

Do players always know exactly how risky an activity is going to be before they make an attempt? If someone says "I climb the wall" and as a DM you state "Make an athletics check to see if you make it", what harm does it cause? It's no different than someone saying "I stab the guard" and the DM saying "Give me an attack roll". An attempt to climb or stab was made.

I was responding to a question about how I handle ability checks at my table. I always tell the players the DC and what the results of failure and success will be because I enjoy the tension it puts on the roll. I'm not sure what you're confused about except you seem to think someone has suggested it would cause harm to do things differently than I do.

 

[Oofta]

I was responding to a question about how I handle ability checks at my table. I always tell the players the DC and what the results of failure and success will be because I enjoy the tension it puts on the roll. I'm not sure what you're confused about except you seem to think someone has suggested it would cause harm to do things differently than I do.

Maybe it's just such an alien approach to me? If someone is going to attempt to climb a wall, the possible outcomes should be pretty obvious. They can't get more than a few feet, they will be at some point on the wall and fall which will may result in some damage or they can get to the top. Those are implicit and I don't see the need to state them. Sometimes you can look at that brick wall and know that it's going to be nearly impossible to climb. Other times until you try something you don't know how easy or difficult it will be. Open the door? Is it locked or stuck? You don't know just by looking at it. Locked but you think it will give with a good kick or two? Maybe you can bust it down or maybe it just looks shabby as part of disguising that this is the entrance to the thieves' guild and it's reinforced.

It seems like you think in game terms and I think in terms of using D&D as a crude simulation engine. If I want to add tension it will be "You get to the end of the alley, shouts of the pursuers behind you and realize it's a dead end." Depending on the scenario there could be a door, maybe a fence, piles of old refuse and garbage. Who knows whether the door is locked, stuck, where it leads? Is the fence sturdy or rotten? You may need to spend a few precious seconds investigating.

But I won't immediately tell them all of the options because I want them to tell me what their PC would attempt. I'll answer questions about the alley and what they can see at a glance. If they look like they're stuck I may ask them to give me an intelligence check (probably with a low DC) and if succeed they remember a particularly narrow spot of the alley they could potentially climb by bracing against both sides. Maybe a perception check reveals a grate with a sewer entrance or a boarded over window. Maybe the player decides they just try to bust down the fence and charge straight into it.

But at first? I just want to build a picture for them of being in an alley with pursuers close behind, not remind them they're playing a game. No one true way of course, just what I find works best for me.

 

[Hriston]

I've experienced this a bit, from one player in my group in particular. It's like he's trying to learn what I (as GM) want him what to do or to know.

Within the bounds of politeness and overall flow of the game at the table, I try and put it back onto him. Eg if he's saying he (as his PC) wants to look around to see what's there, I'll ask him what he is looking for.

Yes, I've done this sort of thing. One place where I've found it necessary was when a player declared an attempt to recall some piece of lore and I asked them what they would like the lore to be that their character remembers.