Roll for Effect or Intent?

[Swarmkeeper]

I don't think the GM should call for a roll. Just describe what happens when the PC throws a rock. Otherwise, you are confusing the play loop (especially in 5E and similar systems, where resources might be expended to improve the roll). Also, asking for unnecessary rolls just bogs down the game.

Some GMs just can't help themselves (Mercer does this on CR too often). They call for a roll as a knee-jerk reaction to the player trying anything. Rolls should be consequential.

Oh, very much agree that rolls need to have meaningful consequences on failure. In the given scenario, perhaps you are right. No roll required since hitting the tree apparently can't succeed in distracting the guard (according to the example being used by @Hriston anyway). However, with a different mindset, maybe it could succeed if the two intents were not conflated (hitting the tree and distracting the guard).

How I might run it:

Player: "My PC would like to try to distract the guard by throwing a rock at yonder tree."
DM: "Ok, roll a Strength or Dexterity check. Feel free to add Deception proficiency if you have it. The DC is 15. If you succeed, the guard will be distracted for a moment. If you fail, the guard may notice you."
Player: [rolls 12] "Dangit!"
DM: "The rock strikes the tree with a satisfying clunk. Nice shot but the guard seems unfazed and does not look in the direction of the noise. What do you do next?"

ETA: clarifying that it wasn't @Hriston's example, but one carried forward into the discussion

 

[soviet]

Why would the player fail to achieve their intent on a successful roll? That seems contrary to the spirit of the rules (at least for 5e) and would frustrate players to no end. In other words, the roll is not to see if the task alone succeeds, it's to see if the task achieves the intent.

I haven't read 5.24, but what you describe above is not reflected in the game text of any edition of D&D I'm familiar with, including 5.01. The player says what their character does and the DM decides what the outcome is. If the DM wants to take into account what the player was going for, great. But if the DM wants to say no, that's not realistic, or no, that NPC wouldn't do that, that's their prerogative.

 

[Reynard]

I haven't read 5.24, but what you describe above is not reflected in the game text of any edition of D&D I'm familiar with, including 5.01. The player says what their character does and the DM decides what the outcome is. If the DM wants to take into account what the player was going for, great. But if the DM wants to say no, that's not realistic, or no, that NPC wouldn't do that, that's their prerogative.

That is NOT the 5E play loop. The 5E play loop is that the GM describes the scene, the players ask questions, the GM responds, and this continues until there is a point of uncertainty, at which time the GM decides how to resolve that uncertainty (usually calling for an ability check of some kind). The entire point is resolving the uncertainty. If a task cannot succeed or fail, there is no uncertainty and a roll is not called for.

If the GM calls for a roll in the situation, that means, by definition, that the roll must resolve some uncertainty either way. If the roll is a success -- based on the DC the GM set -- then the uncertainty should be resolved positively.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I haven't read 5.24, but what you describe above is not reflected in the game text of any edition of D&D I'm familiar with, including 5.01. The player says what their character does and the DM decides what the outcome is. If the DM wants to take into account what the player was going for, great. But if the DM wants to say no, that's not realistic, or no, that NPC wouldn't do that, that's their prerogative.

Not to get too pedantic but... the player describes what their character wants to do. 5e2014 PHB p6

Ok, so player wants their character to distract the guard. How does the DM resolve that? They can't without actually taking control of the character which, to me, is a most unsatisfying play experience. After all, roleplaying one's character is "a player determining how [their] character thinks, acts, and talks".

So, we've established what the character wants to do (the goal/intent). We need to know how (the approach/task) so that the DM has something to adjudicate. At that point, the DM can decide the outcome, sometimes with dice.

Or flip it around. We know the player wants their character to throw a rock at the tree (approach/task). Great. Why? What are we trying to accomplish here? As DM, it's not my job to take control of the minds of the PCs and decide for them what they are hoping to accomplish (goal/intent) with their actions - they need to tall me so, again, I have something to adjudicate. Sure, sometimes it is super obvious but I'd rather the players engage with the game instead of me making assumptions about what their characters are thinking.

TL;DR: Goal and approach are implicit to the 5e rules. Yes, it is shortfall that the rules don't explicitly spell this out, but here we are.

 

[Hriston]

The question is badly phrased and the descriptions in the OP are biased to make it sound like magical funtime storytime roleplaying.

Agreed 100%. I addressed this up-thread.

If a player saus "I want to throw and rock to distract the guard" they are NOT asking to hit the tree. They are asking to distract the guard. The GM in that case should say, "You toss a rock but the guard does not turn. Perhaps they are well trained, ort something else is going on, but you doin't think that is going to work to sneak by."

Under task resolution they are asking to throw a rock. Whether the guard is distracted is left up to the GM, but I think this raises some issues that are somewhat separate from task vs. conflict resolution. The first is whether it's acceptable for the GM to unilaterally decide a player's otherwise permissible action declaration (i.e. the PC has a rock and is in a wooded area, and guards in the fiction are people who are distractible) just doesn't work. The second is whether it's acceptable for the GM to tell a player what their character thinks.

Asking for a roll, havcing the player succeed on the check, then fail on the action muddles the basic play process. On top of that, in some games, players might use resources to increase the chances of success of the roll, not realizing that there is NO chance of success, despite the GM asking for a roll.

This sounds like a mismatch in expectations. Let's imagine the table is on board with task resolution. Does that mean the players will never try to distract guards by throwing rocks? That might be one of the results.

It is flat out bad GMing by any measure.

That's a preference. Clearly, there's at least one other poster in this thread who disagrees.

 

[soviet]

That is NOT the 5E play loop. The 5E play loop is that the GM describes the scene, the players ask questions, the GM responds, and this continues until there is a point of uncertainty, at which time the GM decides how to resolve that uncertainty (usually calling for an ability check of some kind). The entire point is resolving the uncertainty. If a task cannot succeed or fail, there is no uncertainty and a roll is not called for.

If the GM calls for a roll in the situation, that means, by definition, that the roll must resolve some uncertainty either way. If the roll is a success -- based on the DC the GM set -- then the uncertainty should be resolved positively.

The task is throwing a rock at a tree. The uncertainty is whether the PC will hit the tree. That's what the dice roll resolved.

 

[Reynard]

The task is throwing a rock at a tree. The uncertainty is whether the PC will hit the tree. That's what the dice roll resolved.

That is the GM not listening to the player, as well as doing that thing bad GMs do which is decide that whatever they think must be the whole truth of the thing.

 

[soviet]

That is the GM not listening to the player, as well as doing that thing bad GMs do which is decide that whatever they think must be the whole truth of the thing.

Your position is that D&D is conflict resolution, and anyone trying to play it under a task resolution lens is doing it wrong?

 

[Swarmkeeper]

That is NOT the 5E play loop. The 5E play loop is that the GM describes the scene, the players ask questions, the GM responds, and this continues until there is a point of uncertainty, at which time the GM decides how to resolve that uncertainty (usually calling for an ability check of some kind). The entire point is resolving the uncertainty. If a task cannot succeed or fail, there is no uncertainty and a roll is not called for.

If the GM calls for a roll in the situation, that means, by definition, that the roll must resolve some uncertainty either way. If the roll is a success -- based on the DC the GM set -- then the uncertainty should be resolved positively.

If the players ask a bunch of questions, I haven't done a great job at describing the scene as DM. Sure, communication being imperfect there might be a question or two but I've presumably given them enough information that they can decide how to proceed. I'm not hiding stuff from the players that should otherwise be obvious to the characters.


The play loop as described on page 6 of the 5e2104 PHB:

1. The DM describes the environment
2. The players describe what they want to do
3. The DM narrates the results of the adventurer's actions

I don't think @soviet had it wrong. They were describing steps two and three.

 

[Hriston]

Why would the player fail to achieve their intent on a successful roll? That seems contrary to the spirit of the rules (at least for 5e) and would frustrate players to no end. In other words, the roll is not to see if the task alone succeeds, it's to see if the task achieves the intent. In trying to make your point, I think you've unintentionally conflated two intents/goals here: hit the tree, distract the guard. I think that's the point @Reynard is making.

So, really, the outcome you've just described in the given scenario is the player failing the roll for their PC to distract the guard (intent or goal) by throwing the rock at a tree (task or approach). Task and intent are both integral parts of the action declaration of the player as @Charlaquin succinctly describes above.

On a failed roll, the GM could then describe the outcome any way they want. Maybe the rock missed the tree entirely. Or, as the case may be as you described, sure the rock hit the tree but it didn't automatically distract the guard b/c... reasons. The GM can come up with anything that makes sense in the fiction based on the results of the dice. Now the players have a new set of circumstances to deal with: "rock hits tree, guard may or may not have noticed but is acting unfazed, what do you do next?"

This thread is in the general forum and is not about your specific preference for adjudication only. To answer your question, though, it's because task resolution only cares about resolving the task.