Roll for Effect or Intent?

[Celebrim]

Roll for Effect for a couple of important reasons:

a) The players may not actually understand whether or not the task they are attempting to accomplish achieves the desired outcome. Fitting task to goal is a major part of skillful play and a major part of many aesthetics of play.
b) Even if you don't resolve as sweeping of goals as you suggest in your examples, rolling to resolve outcome requires a group of players who can and are willing to narrate at length. And frankly, the number of players that are really into narrative and expression as aesthetics of play just isn't nearly as high as the number of players that are in it for challenge and fantasy and so forth. The game play at the table needed to support rolling for outcome is just harder and less interesting for most players than the gameplay supported by rolling for effect.

 

[soviet]

No. You can describe trying to do so, and the DM, determining the approach has no reasonable chance of achieving the goal, will narrate the results of failure without calling for a roll.

Hit points (and equivalent) are in part a measure of mental health and exhaustion. You can take psychic damage from magical mockery. 'I skip a stone across the lake like we used to do when we were kids, to cheer my sister up [and thus heal her a bit]'.

Critical… Role…?

Conflict resolution, the subject of the thread you are posting in.

 

[Hriston]

I don't play other games so I can only couch my contributions to the discussion through the lens of 5e (well, except for Worlds without Number... but adjudication is largely the same as in 5e... or maybe we're playing it wrong... lol)

5E muddies the conversation a bit because the thread has so far cast resolution in terms of rolls, i.e. "Roll for Effect"/"Roll for Intent", whereas in 5E, outside of the combat system, which is a conflict resolution system, the DM is part of the resolution system which, now that I think of it, is firmly task resolution. Here's why: the DM's ability to decide unilaterally that a PC's task fails to achieve its intent without going to mechanical resolution divorces task and intent at the outset. So in the example, the DM decides throwing a stone at a tree cannot distract the guard and so doesn't call for a roll. The stone hits the tree (task succeeds), but the intent is not realized (failure). This ensures a roll is only made when, in the DM's opinion, it is possible (but not certain) for a task to achieve the desired intent. This is not the only way an RPG can resolve action declarations. "Say yes or roll the dice" is another.

So are you saying the goal of distracting the guard is ancillary to the goal of hitting the tree?

No, hitting the tree is not a goal. It's a means to an end (distracting the guard). I'm saying task resolution only resolves whether you hit the tree or not. To take 5E as an example, the DM only calls for a roll if, in their opinion, hitting the tree will distract the guard. Mechanical resolution then tells you whether you hit the tree or not.

Hitting the tree is a success on a good roll, but you have no way of distracting the guard?

Yes, in the example, the GM had decided there was no way hitting the tree would distract the guard. I agree that if the GM was playing by the rules of 5E they would not call for a roll at that point, but I don't think @bloodtide follows that rule (if they play 5E). They can correct me if I'm wrong about that. One reason they might have for calling for a roll is to impose consequences on a failure, which was implied when they said a search party might be sent out if the PC was really unlucky.

Distracting the guard, to me, seems like the real goal/intent of the whole exercise.

There are other things the PC could try:

Player: "My PC uses ventriloquism to cast her voice over yonder to distract the guard"
DM: "Ok, roll for it!"
Player: "High roll! Yes!"
DM: "You successfully cast your voice over yonder! The guard is unfazed."

That... is a most unsatisfying outcome. IMO. I'd be like "wtf"? Is that something you'd honestly tolerate as a player @Hriston? Rolling a success an not achieving your intent?

My preference is for conflict resolution, but I'm alright with 5E run by a principled DM who only calls for rolls when the outcome is uncertain. I could give you examples where I've tolerated rolling well but not (or only partially) achieving my intent. This was, again, in a 5E game where the DCs were mostly hidden and success was left up to the DM to decide.

 

[Charlaquin]

Hit points (and equivalent) are in part a measure of mental health and exhaustion. You can take psychic damage from magical mockery. 'I skip a stone across the lake like we used to do when we were kids, to cheer my sister up [and thus heal her a bit]'.

Sure, if you’ve previously established that “cheering someone up” can restore their hit points. That’s not normally possible in D&D.

Conflict resolution, the subject of the thread you are posting in.

What is “a conflict resolution game”? Isn’t conflict resolution part of every RPG?

 

[soviet]

Sure, if you’ve previously established that “cheering someone up” can restore their hit points. That’s not normally possible in D&D.

What is “a conflict resolution game”? Isn’t conflict resolution part of every RPG?

I'm going to stop engaging with you now.

 

[Hriston]

I hadn’t voted because the options are nonsense. But since you insisted, I voted for “other.” That being both things are required to have a coherent action.

Okay, that makes sense.

 

[Reynard]

Hit points (and equivalent) are in part a measure of mental health and exhaustion. You can take psychic damage from magical mockery. 'I skip a stone across the lake like we used to do when we were kids, to cheer my sister up [and thus heal her a bit]'.

Now you are being disingenuous.

Conflict resolution, the subject of the thread you are posting in.

Weird. The subject seems to be about effect versus intent. You decided to reframe the conversation to favor your preferred jargon.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Games that actually factually have player-determined stakes of rolls, such that they are binding on the participants, also include text about how to negotiate those stakes and how binding they are. I can't find this section in my PHB, can anyone help me out?

Do you actually believe that some folks here are saying that they have "player-determined stakes of rolls" simply because they have players express the desired goal/intent of the declared actions?

Or are you just having a laugh?

 

[Charlaquin]

5E muddies the conversation a bit because the thread has so far cast resolution in terms of rolls, i.e. "Roll for Effect"/"Roll for Intent", whereas in 5E, outside of the combat system, which is a conflict resolution system, the DM is part of the resolution system which, now that I think of it, is firmly task resolution. Here's why: the DM's ability to decide unilaterally that a PC's task fails to achieve its intent without going to mechanical resolution divorces task and intent at the outset. So in the example, the DM decides throwing a stone at a tree cannot distract the guard and so doesn't call for a roll. The stone hits the tree (task succeeds), but the intent is not realized (failure). This ensures a roll is only made when, in the DM's opinion, it is possible (but not certain) for a task to achieve the desired intent. This is not the only way an RPG can resolve action declarations. "Say yes or roll the dice" is another.

No, hitting the tree is not a goal. It's a means to an end (distracting the guard). I'm saying task resolution only resolves whether you hit the tree or not. To take 5E as an example, the DM only calls for a roll if, in their opinion, hitting the tree will distract the guard. Mechanical resolution then tells you whether you hit the tree or not.

See, I would rule that hitting the tree with a thrown rock is trivially easy and doesn’t require a roll. The roll is not to determine if the rock hits the tree, but to determine if the rock hitting the tree successfully distracts the guard. And I would probably rule that on a failure, the guard hears the sound but is more alert to possible intruders rather than distracted.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm going to stop engaging with you now.

Ok. I’m not sure what I said to make you not want to engage, but sorry for whatever it was. Have a good one.