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

[BookTenTiger]

I find calling for rolls only when there is a chance and consequence for failure helps preserve the tension, because the players know that when a roll is happening, it’s always a big deal. Whereas, if some rolls can’t fail or nothing bad happens if you do fail them, it reduces the tension of all rolls because for any given roll you don’t know if it actually matters or not.

But that’s just me. Different strokes for different folks and all.

As much as I understand your perspective, for me, more rolling is almost always better. I try to get lots of dice rolling at the table!

 

[iserith]

I find calling for rolls only when there is a chance and consequence for failure helps preserve the tension, because the players know that when a roll is happening, it’s always a big deal. Whereas, if some rolls can’t fail or nothing bad happens if you do fail them, it reduces the tension of all rolls because for any given roll you don’t know if it actually matters or not.

But that’s just me. Different strokes for different folks and all.

Agreed. We roll a lot in my games because it's fast-paced and we're dealing with a lot of situations with actual stakes in them, but every roll is consequential so that tension is preserved. When I'm calling for a roll, the player is typically thinking about how to mitigate that d20 swing. Luckily enough for them, I'm one of the (apparently) few DMs that actually uses the Inspiration mechanic.

 

[Charlaquin]

As much as I understand your perspective, for me, more rolling is almost always better. I try to get lots of dice rolling at the table!

Totally fair. To be clear though, I try to get lots of dice rolling at the table too! I just try to insure that those rolls are consequential, because I find they’re even more fun that way. If not calling for rolls when there’s no risk or consequence for failure is resulting in few dice rolls being called for, I take that as a sign I am not creating content with sufficient opportunities for action and challenge.

 

[Charlaquin]

Agreed. We roll a lot in my games because it's fast-paced and we're dealing with a lot of situations with actual stakes in them, but every roll is consequential so that tension is preserved. When I'm calling for a roll, the player is typically thinking about how to mitigate that d20 swing. Luckily enough for them, I'm one of the (apparently) few DMs that actually uses the Inspiration mechanic.

Slight tangent, but I do use Inspiration, and I use your “players claim Inspiration” rule, but I haven’t had as much success as it sounds like you have in getting players to actually make use of it. Mostly, my players seem to forget it exists, and never claim or use it. Maybe it will get used once in a blue moon, especially on death saves, but otherwise it just gets ignored.

 

[Lanefan]

So your sessions are just 'I attack', 'I attack', 'I cast fireball', 'I make an Investigation roll', 'Yay I gained a level' ad infinitum? Sounds empty. No roleplaying at all, just pure mechanics.

Combat can get like that sometimes, sure, because the same things are being done so many times and - in any edition - combat can sometimes drag out.

When it comes to social and exploration pieces, however, I expect a lot more detail.

 

[Maxperson]

These are ways that might indicate which pixel to click on, analogous to the telegraphs I use to indicate the presence of a trap, or whatever. But the implication of the term pixel hunting is that you have to click on exactly the right pixel, analogous to describing exactly the right approach, which is not the case in my games, therefore the analogy doesn’t hold up.


With your coated handle, you mean. You laid out the terms of this example and then demanded I answer. But no, there are infinitely many ways you might find the trap, you just happened to suggest one that would not.

You invented the trapped handle and said that searching the part under the drawer would result in failure to find the trap without a roll. Not me.

 

[iserith]

Hey, I'm so glad someone asked for specific examples. That always works out so well in these discussions.

 

[Charlaquin]

You invented the trapped handle and said that searching the part under the drawer would result in failure to find the trap without a roll. Not me.

No, you invented the trapped handle in this post:

It's the same. If I need the player attempt to push the nob on the drawer, pull the nob, twist the nob, tap the nob in the middle, slide the nob up, slide the nob sideways, slide it down in order to convey to me how he's trying to find the trap, that's pixelbitching. All of those are potential ways to trigger a trap or find a secret compartment. And that just touches on the things you could try.

And then insisted that I tell you how I would adjudicate an attempt to find this trap of yours by running a knife under the drawer in this post:

Let's let @Charlaquin answer the question. If there's a trapped drawer and I describe to you how I slide my knife through the space under the drawer(and that's all I describe to you), and the trap is not there, do I get a roll to find the trap anyway?

The trap not being detectable by sliding a knife under the drawer was part of the terms you set forth, and I answered accordingly. Don’t blame me for the scenario you laid out being asinine.

 

[Charlaquin]

Hey, I'm so glad someone asked for specific examples. That always works out so well in these discussions.

And this isn’t even the specific example I gave of something that would actually happen in my games in response to @Umbran requesting one. That example has gone completely ignored because, shocker, it doesn’t support the narrative that I’m setting up pixel-hunting gotcha traps.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

This feels like a setup to poke holes in any specific example I give, but sure.

Let’s assume a poison needle trap. If I planned to use poison needle traps in a dungeon, I would probably first introduce the concept early on by describing an open, empty chest with a needle jutting out of the lock and a skeleton (the regular, dead kind, not an undead creature) next to it. I would also have some descriptive detail that differentiate chests with needle traps from un-trapped chests. Maybe trapped chests are iron-banded and un-trapped ones or not. Let’s go with that.

I don’t plan out solutions, just challenges, so there are infinitely many approaches players might take that could detect the presence of a needle trap in the lock of an iron-banded chest. Earlier @iserith described their players shining a light through the keyhole and looking inside for anything unusual. That would certainly work in my game as well. Another approach might be to use a tool of some sort to carefully probe for a mechanism inside the lock - that would probably require a Dexterity check, with failure resulting in setting it off. Feel free to suggest an approach you might take, after having seen an iron-banded chest with a sprung needle trap in a dungeon and later coming across another iron-banded chest in the same dungeon, and I’ll let you know how I would adjudicate it.

Poke holes? Needle trap? I see what you did there!