D&D General Should players be aware of their own high and low rolls?

[Swarmkeeper]

I believe the 5e rules are not prescriptive when it comes to how a PC must act after the result of an ability check. Two key points in the PHB make this clear to me.

First, from How to Play (PHB p6):
"The DM narrates the results of the adventurers' actions"
This is the DM describing whether or not the PCs' actions succeeded or failed and the resulting change in the fiction - that is the resulting change in the environment and/or change in attitudes or actions of any monsters/NPCs that are present. It's not the DM narrating the adventurers' actions, it is the results of those actions that are being narrated.

Second, from Social Interactions (PHB p185):
"Roleplaying is, literally, the act of playing out a role. In this case, it's you as a player determining how your character thinks, acts, and talks."
Nowhere in this section (or the within the Social Interaction section of the DMG, p244, for that matter) does it talk about the particular way one must have their PC act in the face of a die roll. Nor does it say the DM determines how the PC acts in the face of a die roll. The DM controls the NPCs, the players control their PCs.

Now, that is not to say one cannot have a table rule that allows these very things - a DM describing the thoughts/speech/actions of a PC or the dice prescribing how a player must roleplay their PC. If everyone is on board with that agreement and having fun, go with it. I don't believe that is the 5e design intent, however.

 

[Irlo]

That's what skills are for. What do you know about religions? Let's check the religion skill. What do you know about factions? Let's check history. Monsters? There are skills for that. Same with the rest.

It's not up to the player at all to decide what is or is not common knowledge. It's for the DM to either say yes to, or give a low DC if the common knowledge isn't quite common enough.

Do I know that goblins ride dire wolves as mounts? That dire wolves hunt in packs? Do I know what a dire wolf is? Do I know what a wolf is? Do I know what a dog is?

Do I know that red dragons breathe fire? Do I know the dragons have breath weapons? Do I know what a dragon is?

Do I know that fire and acid suppress a troll's regeneration? Do I know that trolls regenerate? Do I know that trolls eat people? Do I know what a troll is?

I'm a 1st level fighter with a hermit background and no applicable skill proficiencies. Do I know how to build a boat? Do I know how to maneuver a canoe? Do I know what a canoe is?

You don't really want the players to ask about everything that they think might be common knowledge. You're drawing a firm line between points of knowledge and world experience that can be assumed by the player and those that need DM approval, and that line is based on your personal preference and judgment. We all do that. The game doesn't function otherwise. There is no way to record on a character sheet through skills, background, back story, and actual play all the things that a character would know if they lived and breathed in that world.

And that means there is room for good-faith disagreement between DM and player (and among players themselves) about what is considered common knowledge.

 

[Oofta]

And of course with an adversarial DM who is trying to dictate what you are/not allowed to do, it makes total sense to express it this way, even if what the player is really thinking is, "I failed my Deception test."

That's one of the many problems with metagame thought policing: it encourages players to be disingenuous about what they are doing.

There's a massive gap between this hypothetical evil controlling DM [queue evil laugh] that is dictating every action and word of the PC and players using knowledge they could not possibly have. If someone is trying to bluff someone, I typically do an opposed roll. Roll a 3? Maybe I rolled a 1, you have no way of knowing. In the case of Han, it was obvious that he had failed in his deception, what Han did was up to them.

Assume an alternate scenario for a moment. The operator on the other line responds differently. Han still flubs his deception check but the voice on the other end simply responds "Thanks for the update, out." and then orders someone to investigate after the connection is cut off. Luke, another player, is in the room having been captured with no way to inform the rest of the party. Luke knows Han is in trouble but has no way to communicate it. Han takes defensive measures and goes to rescue Luke.

That would be metagaming. Badly failing a deception check, the person on the other end making it obvious you failed and acting on their reaction is not.

 

[Oofta]

When it comes to social skills whether I'm playing a PC or NPC I only roll if the outcome is uncertain. A PC trying to intimidate an NPC? Much of the time it's a possibility but depending on the NPC it may work just the opposite. Trying to intimidate someone working at the local market? It will likely be a possibility and I'll roll. Trying to intimidate a king? With an experienced and competent ruler, it's not going to happen.

There are times when I play a PC that they have certain weaknesses like putting too much trust in authority figures. If an authority figure NPC tries to intimidate my PC, I may be uncertain how they would react and I'll roll for the outcome. But it's up to the player of the PC to decide in my campaign.

 

[Bill Zebub]

There's a massive gap between this hypothetical evil controlling DM [queue evil laugh] that is dictating every action and word of the PC and players using knowledge they could not possibly have. If someone is trying to bluff someone, I typically do an opposed roll. Roll a 3? Maybe I rolled a 1, you have no way of knowing. In the case of Han, it was obvious that he had failed in his deception, what Han did was up to them.

By describing a DM as "adversarial" and "controlling" I wasn't actually saying it was an evil DM; I was really just pointing out (to some posters) that while from their point of view it may seem like players who don't abide by their self-imposed restrictions are disruptive and selfish, for players who think these restrictions are silly, it's the DMs who are power hungry and uptight.

Assume an alternate scenario for a moment. The operator on the other line responds differently. Han still flubs his deception check but the voice on the other end simply responds "Thanks for the update, out." and then orders someone to investigate after the connection is cut off. Luke, another player, is in the room having been captured with no way to inform the rest of the party. Luke knows Han is in trouble but has no way to communicate it. Han takes defensive measures and goes to rescue Luke.

That would be metagaming. Badly failing a deception check, the person on the other end making it obvious you failed and acting on their reaction is not.

Ok, so here's the thing: let's say the DM rolled secretly for the player (which was one of the 'solutions' proposed earlier in the thread) and the DM says, "Thanks for the update, out." Exact same scenario, but now the player doesn't know the die roll. The player might hear that and, totally reasonably, think, "That's not what I would have expected them to say. That's suspicious. I must have failed." and then take actions accordingly. You would, I assume allow that, regardless of whether or not the roll succeeded.

Now let's just add back in that the player sees the 3. We've just established that the player would have, in the absence of addition information, been suspicious of that response. Except now you're saying that if they take the same actions it's because of the 3, and that shouldn't be allowed. And moreover, the player shouldn't have to be told that: they should know they can't take that action, because doing so would be a violation of the player/character knowledge boundary, and good roleplaying dictates they should act like they think they succeeded.

I draw two conclusions:
1) By not taking the defensive action as a result of seeing the three, they are using player knowledge to decide actions. That's the metagaming you say is wrong.
2) Neither the player nor the DM can ever really know what a player would choose in the absence of the information.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The answer here IMO is to go the other direction: let players freely decide how their characters react - no rolling - while you decide how the NPCs react, again without rolling. In short, social mechanics largely go bye-bye in favour of freeform roleplay.

And this is what the rules say, too.

But the DM, who not only has to play all of the roles, and wear all of the hats, and be both fan of and adversary to the PCs, and balance the needs of each of the players against the story itself, may occasionally want help deciding that, and can turn to the dice as a neutral arbiter.

 

[Oofta]

By describing a DM as "adversarial" and "controlling" I wasn't actually saying it was an evil DM; I was really just pointing out (to some posters) that while from their point of view it may seem like players who don't abide by their self-imposed restrictions are disruptive and selfish, for players who think these restrictions are silly, it's the DMs who are power hungry and uptight.




Ok, so here's the thing: let's say the DM rolled secretly for the player (which was one of the 'solutions' proposed earlier in the thread) and the DM says, "Thanks for the update, out." Exact same scenario, but now the player doesn't know the die roll. The player might hear that and, totally reasonably, think, "That's not what I would have expected them to say. That's suspicious. I must have failed." and then take actions accordingly. You would, I assume allow that, regardless of whether or not the roll succeeded.

Now let's just add back in that the player sees the 3. We've just established that the player would have, in the absence of addition information, been suspicious of that response. Except now you're saying that if they take the same actions it's because of the 3, and that shouldn't be allowed. And moreover, the player shouldn't have to be told that: they should know they can't take that action, because doing so would be a violation of the player/character knowledge boundary, and good roleplaying dictates they should act like they think they succeeded.

I draw two conclusions:
1) By not taking the defensive action as a result of seeing the three, they are using player knowledge to decide actions. That's the metagaming you say is wrong.
2) Neither the player nor the DM can ever really know what a player would choose in the absence of the information.

So the DMs are not "evil" they're just "power hungry and uptight" for enforcing the social contract?

You're ignoring part of the scenario I proposed, that Han stages a rescue of Luke even though they had no way of knowing that Luke was captured. I'm not going to tell Han's player that they believed or disbelieved the NPC's response, although depending on the situation I may ask for an insight check. Even then I'm not going to tell them what they think on a failed insight check, if they succeed they simply have better insight into the response of the NPC.

It's when Han's player decides that they're going to stage a rescue attempt that it's metagaming. Whether that's okay or not is up to the group.

 

[Bill Zebub]

If memory serves, as part of your table rules you don't allow PvP in your game - correct? (if I'm wrong, please take this as a hypothetical instead)

So if I-as-player say in-character that I've had enough of Bob's self-righteous Paladin and declare my next action is to stab Pallybob in the eye, you'd probably veto that declaration as violating the table rules.

I don't think @iserith ever responded to this. I was going to leave it to them, because I learned my solution from them. Which is to allow pvp, but the outcome of every adversarial reaction is narrated, without a roll, not by the DM but by the target.

So when you stab Bob in the eye, the DM turns to Bob and says, "What happens?" Bob might say, "The dagger glances off my helmet. I cast command and tell him to grovel." So the DM turns to you and says, "What happens?" And you say, "I know Bob's tricks so the spell doesn't work on me; no saving throw needed."

Etc.

I.e., the "soft veto".

 

[Thomas Shey]

Not in a million years.

Unless the player decided he/she wasn't sure how they want to respond to an NPC attempt to intimidate them, and asked the DM to make a roll. In that case I would consider the result binding just from a social contract standpoint.

This is one of the cases where I'm going to have to take the other side of this (at least to a degree), because I actually believe in social skills/tasks with teeth. But then, I'm perfectly content to have such things generally have mechanical teeth (i.e. Intimidation has a certain mechanical result) and let the player roleplay his character's reaction to suit himself. But I think social skills should exist and be at least somewhat binding whether they're going from PC to NPC or vice versa.

I know this is controversial, particularly in the D&D end of the hobby.

 

[Bill Zebub]

So the DMs are not "evil" they're just "power hungry and uptight" for enforcing the social contract?

Somehow the meaning of my words seems to have gone right past you.

If there is agreement about the rules then everybody should abide by it. Period. And, if so, there's no debate, right?

But there's no default social contract against the kind of play you are describing. (Is it possible you think there is? That all players should just know they can't use player information, without it being clearly explained at the beginning of play?)

And we're debating what happens when those two viewpoints collide. Those on one side have described players who don't agree as "adversarial", "cheaters", etc. And I am describing how, from the perspective of those players (not as objective fact) the opposing DM will seem controlling and uptight.