D&D 5E Rolling Without a Chance of Failure (I love it)

[Charlaquin]

I do kinda disagree with this, but IMO checking for traps is a bad example. To me, "I check the door for traps" simply means that they are examining it visually, and then physically in they see nothing, being very careful about the process.

That’s an assumption though. Not an unreasonable one; I think most players would be fine with that being the standard assumption. But I don’t want to have to make assumptions about the character’s actions.

But, I don't think the level of specificity you require is unreasonable. It's just more than I would expect in that specific instance.

I do ask people what their magic, fighting, athletic movements, etc, look like, but it's a general question asked early on and then referenced as the campaigns moves on, so I might ask the rogue how their trapfinder tends to play out, what their SOPs are, early on, and encourage description as the campaign goes on, but I don't need specifics every time.

I’m actually not a huge fan of SOPs. Like, if a player wants to establish one, I won’t tell them they can’t, but I find it very dull gameplay, and is pretty much the opposite of what I’m trying to encourage players to do - pay attention to the environment and make moment-to-moment decisions based on what they observe. SOPs remain standard regardless of the environment (unless they’re packed full of if/then contingencies, which I probably wouldn’t be able to remember), and they require no decisions to be made, past the initial decision of “what’s the SOP?” In fact, a SOP’s entire function is pretty much to remove the need to make decisions based on context.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The impression I get is that there are ways in which our games are pretty similar, but there are also ways in which they’re quite different; most notably I think the focus of the gameplay is probably pretty different. Your games sound more like how I would run 4e. And I think they would be a lot of fun to play in.

Thank you! FWIW, it’s a mutual impression.

 

[Maxperson]

No, it doesn’t. It tells me what you’re trying to accomplish. But the word “check” is too vague for me to be able to visualize the action that’s supposed to be occurring on the fiction. Is your character just looking at the drawer? Sliding a knife along the seam? Jiggling the handle? In what way is your character interacting with the drawer that might allow them to determine the presence or absence of traps?

I don't expect my players to be trap experts. That's what the proficiency is for. The PCs are going to be better at checking for traps than any description a player is going to give. "I check for traps." tells me that the character is going to be doing whatever it is that medieval(or the D&D approximation) trap experts do to find traps.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That’s an assumption though. Not an unreasonable one; I think most players would be fine with that being the standard assumption. But I don’t want to have to make assumptions about the character’s actions.

That’s very fair.

I’m actually not a huge fan of SOPs. Like, if a player wants to establish one, I won’t tell them they can’t, but I find it very dull gameplay, and is pretty much the opposite of what I’m trying to encourage players to do - pay attention to the environment and make moment-to-moment decisions based on what they observe. SOPs remain standard regardless of the environment (unless they’re packed full of if/then contingencies, which I probably wouldn’t be able to remember), and they require no decisions to be made.

For sure. For me, I want to see players thinking about what the other characters see when they’re acting, what stuff like their training looks like, what they do in camp before sleeping, etc, which is why I ask things like “what does your Spellcasting look like? Is there a discernible theme or aesthetic? What’s your fighting style? Do you train while in the field, if so what’s it look like? Paint us a montage.”

But I leave it up to the players how detailed they are in a given session or scene. I like descriptive action declarations but I don’t require them unless I need it to understand what they even want to do.

All that said, I’ll admit I am thinking of taking some notes from your playbook going forward.

 

[Lanefan]

I’m actually not a huge fan of SOPs. Like, if a player wants to establish one, I won’t tell them they can’t, but I find it very dull gameplay, and is pretty much the opposite of what I’m trying to encourage players to do - pay attention to the environment and make moment-to-moment decisions based on what they observe. SOPs remain standard regardless of the environment (unless they’re packed full of if/then contingencies, which I probably wouldn’t be able to remember), and they require no decisions to be made, past the initial decision of “what’s the SOP?” In fact, a SOP’s entire function is pretty much to remove the need to make decisions based on context.

The beauty of SOPs is they avoid the repetition of going through the same possibly-lengthy process at every suspicious-looking door (and in most dungeons they all look suspicious!) while still maintaining a reasonable degree of detail.

Yes there might be frequent situation-based changes, but even then you're likely only highlighting one or two things to change rather than the whole SOP. Examples might be: "This door obviously [via narrated evidence] slides rather than swings, so we can skip anything involving hinges", or "There's slime [as narrated] covering the bottom half of this door so we'll make sure not to touch that part in our checking".

 

[soviet]

So here's another example to consider. The door ahead is occupied by a guard. Is 'I roll Intimidate (or Diplomacy)' sufficient detail?

 

[Mordhau]

So here's another example to consider. The door ahead is occupied by a guard. Is 'I roll Intimidate (or Diplomacy)' sufficient detail?

These kinds of calls are unavoidable and there's no underlying rule. It's about scene framing and levels of abstraction and it's a big part of why we have a GM.

"Can I roll to bribe the guard?" is probably fine. "Can I roll to persuade the king to do X?" is probably not.

It's basically the same kind of distinction the GM makes when he resolves directional decisions at a micro level in a dungeon, but doesn't do the same in the city when the PCs decide they want to go shopping to buy some potions.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That’s an assumption though. Not an unreasonable one; I think most players would be fine with that being the standard assumption. But I don’t want to have to make assumptions about the character’s actions.

And even if your more detailed approach the exact same thing happens. If you agree that they examine the chest for traps by poking it with their knife, then we are at making assumptions about what exact parts of the chest they're touching an how. Like I've been saying for pages, this is simply about granularity, it is a spectrum.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Which is why I keep telling you that what you’re calling “pixelbitching” is not what I’m doing. Because I do not require the player to do any such nonsense as what you’re describing here.

No, it doesn’t. It tells me what you’re trying to accomplish. But the word “check” is too vague for me to be able to visualize the action that’s supposed to be occurring on the fiction. Is your character just looking at the drawer? Sliding a knife along the seam? Jiggling the handle? In what way is your character interacting with the drawer that might allow them to determine the presence or absence of traps?

I don’t demand detail, I demand clarity.

If the actions are not just for flavour and one of these specific things is required in order to detect the trap, it rather pretty damn pixel hunty to me. For example if the trap is at the handle but the player declared that they slide their knife along the seams, what then?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So here's another example to consider. The door ahead is occupied by a guard. Is 'I roll Intimidate (or Diplomacy)' sufficient detail?

No, because at least my players have a far better intuitive understanding of how people work than how made up fantasy traps work.