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Roleplaying in D&D 5E: It’s How You Play the Game
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8487320" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>You may have missed my point.</p><p></p><p>In an approach to adjudication of the sort that you advocate, the player's goal is to describe what their PC does with sufficiently advantageous fictional positioning that <em>the GM does not regard success as uncertain and hence does not call for a check</em>.</p><p></p><p>And - as per your exchange with [USER=84112]@HammerMan[/USER] upthread - the scope of permissible description, by a player, of what their PC does is (at least in many cases) independent of what their ability and skill bonuses are.</p><p></p><p>Hence, it is possible for a character, in play, to be extremely and successfully sneaky and yet have a modest or even non-existent bonus in DEX and DEX(Stealth). </p><p></p><p>This is driven home by [USER=7027074]@Nefermandias[/USER]'s post upthread: "I can run a whole campaign in 5e without asking for ability checks". Particularising that to the case of Stealth, a PC in 5e D&D can successfully stealth their way through a whole campaign - at least if your approach to adjudication is used - by clever action declaration while having a DEX bonus of +0 and no proficiency in Stealth skill.</p><p></p><p>For those D&D players - who are obviously not all of them, but clearly are some of them - who think that what a PC is able to succeed at should correlate in some fashion to what is on their PC sheet, the possibility I've just described is not desirable. Hence they reject your approach to adjudication.</p><p></p><p>Their rejection obviously is not a reason for you to change your approach. But I don't think it's particularly hard to see what their issue is.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Again, I don't think you've fully addressed the point I was making.</p><p></p><p>When I mentioned the player in my 4e game who - drawing on his actual knowledge of military history - used a "tank traps" approach to help defend a homestead against attacks by goblins, including wolf riders, you replied "Awesome. Glad that player is on my team." I inferred from that that you think the action declaration about building tank traps from rope and timber is a good action declaration, that is pertinent to adjudication.</p><p></p><p>I further inferred that you think it is a superior action declaration to, for instance, just saying "I prepare defensive fortifications using rope and timber" without actually saying something about how that is going to be done.</p><p></p><p>Assuming those inferences are correct - to me they seem highly consistent not only with your "Awesome" response but your other posts in this thread, including but not limited to your example of using a ladder to climb a wall.</p><p></p><p>Now suppose the two contrasting action declarations are not <em>I prepare defensive fortifications using rope and timber</em> vs <em>I use rope and timber to build <describes things like tank traps> that will help block the charge because of <explains how tank traps work to block charges></em>. Suppose instead that they are <em>I give a rousing speech to encourage the soldiers to hold the line</em> vs <em>I address the soldiers - <gives rousing speech about how they should hold the line></em>.</p><p></p><p>I take it that you treat these latter two action declarations equivalently. But I think that they stand in exactly the same contrast as the first pair. Only the second of the two declarations in my second pair <em>actually explains how it is that the speech will rouse the soldiers </em>- by actually modelling it - whereas the first simply asserts without explaining that the speech is rousing, just as the first declaration in the first pair simply asserts without explaining that the rope and timber are used to prepare defensive fortifications.</p><p></p><p>To boil it down: if a player's ability to understand how tank traps works gives their PC a benefit to defend a homestead against goblins, why should a player's ability to know how to inspire people not give their PC a benefit to inspire people? Obviously you are drawing a line here, but to me the line seems a little arbitrary. Or maybe that's not quite the right word, because I'm sure you have a reason that is sensible for you as to why you're drawing the line. But that reason isn't accessible to me - so to me the line seems idiosyncratic to you.</p><p></p><p>In my 4e GMing, my BW GMing, my Prince Valiant GMing, in both pairs of action declarations the second one, which actually explains or spells out what the PC is doing to achieve their goal, would be a superior action declaration. But in none of them would it be an "automatic success" because none of those systems uses the criteria you are using to determine whether or not a check is called for.</p><p></p><p></p><p>If the action declaration, in a social context, is an actual social performance, it doesn't get more specific than that! Likewise, if the action declaration is a chess game, actually saying what moves your PC makes.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8487320, member: 42582"] You may have missed my point. In an approach to adjudication of the sort that you advocate, the player's goal is to describe what their PC does with sufficiently advantageous fictional positioning that [I]the GM does not regard success as uncertain and hence does not call for a check[/I]. And - as per your exchange with [USER=84112]@HammerMan[/USER] upthread - the scope of permissible description, by a player, of what their PC does is (at least in many cases) independent of what their ability and skill bonuses are. Hence, it is possible for a character, in play, to be extremely and successfully sneaky and yet have a modest or even non-existent bonus in DEX and DEX(Stealth). This is driven home by [USER=7027074]@Nefermandias[/USER]'s post upthread: "I can run a whole campaign in 5e without asking for ability checks". Particularising that to the case of Stealth, a PC in 5e D&D can successfully stealth their way through a whole campaign - at least if your approach to adjudication is used - by clever action declaration while having a DEX bonus of +0 and no proficiency in Stealth skill. For those D&D players - who are obviously not all of them, but clearly are some of them - who think that what a PC is able to succeed at should correlate in some fashion to what is on their PC sheet, the possibility I've just described is not desirable. Hence they reject your approach to adjudication. Their rejection obviously is not a reason for you to change your approach. But I don't think it's particularly hard to see what their issue is. Again, I don't think you've fully addressed the point I was making. When I mentioned the player in my 4e game who - drawing on his actual knowledge of military history - used a "tank traps" approach to help defend a homestead against attacks by goblins, including wolf riders, you replied "Awesome. Glad that player is on my team." I inferred from that that you think the action declaration about building tank traps from rope and timber is a good action declaration, that is pertinent to adjudication. I further inferred that you think it is a superior action declaration to, for instance, just saying "I prepare defensive fortifications using rope and timber" without actually saying something about how that is going to be done. Assuming those inferences are correct - to me they seem highly consistent not only with your "Awesome" response but your other posts in this thread, including but not limited to your example of using a ladder to climb a wall. Now suppose the two contrasting action declarations are not [i]I prepare defensive fortifications using rope and timber[/i] vs [i]I use rope and timber to build <describes things like tank traps> that will help block the charge because of <explains how tank traps work to block charges>[/i]. Suppose instead that they are [i]I give a rousing speech to encourage the soldiers to hold the line[/i] vs [i]I address the soldiers - <gives rousing speech about how they should hold the line>[/i]. I take it that you treat these latter two action declarations equivalently. But I think that they stand in exactly the same contrast as the first pair. Only the second of the two declarations in my second pair [I]actually explains how it is that the speech will rouse the soldiers [/I]- by actually modelling it - whereas the first simply asserts without explaining that the speech is rousing, just as the first declaration in the first pair simply asserts without explaining that the rope and timber are used to prepare defensive fortifications. To boil it down: if a player's ability to understand how tank traps works gives their PC a benefit to defend a homestead against goblins, why should a player's ability to know how to inspire people not give their PC a benefit to inspire people? Obviously you are drawing a line here, but to me the line seems a little arbitrary. Or maybe that's not quite the right word, because I'm sure you have a reason that is sensible for you as to why you're drawing the line. But that reason isn't accessible to me - so to me the line seems idiosyncratic to you. In my 4e GMing, my BW GMing, my Prince Valiant GMing, in both pairs of action declarations the second one, which actually explains or spells out what the PC is doing to achieve their goal, would be a superior action declaration. But in none of them would it be an "automatic success" because none of those systems uses the criteria you are using to determine whether or not a check is called for. If the action declaration, in a social context, is an actual social performance, it doesn't get more specific than that! Likewise, if the action declaration is a chess game, actually saying what moves your PC makes. [/QUOTE]
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