D&D 5E Table practices for handling skills in 5e?

[Atomoctba]

I miss the days of having rolls like Stealth being rolled behind the DM's screen, I think my players would revolt if I tried to enforce that in this day and age.

Same way I would not play in a table where I do not trust the DM, I never DM for players that not trust me. So, for me, either as player or not, secret rolls are facts of life.

 

[MarkB]

The reason I'd tend against rolling Stealth on an instance-by-instance basis is that, if there's anything more than one or two such instances, the chance of getting an unlucky roll becomes increasingly guaranteed.

It means that, even for stealthy characters who are well suited to sneaking through enemy lines, the experience will almost always be that they fail to get in and out unseen, and pretty soon they won't bother trying.

 

[Charlaquin]

That may be, but in actual play? I NEVER saw anyone using Stealth more like a saving throw in 5e or any other edition. It was always the player declared "I'll try to hide behind the standing stone", and boom the roll was immediate. I get your point, but my counterpoint is regardless of what the rules say or do not say about rolling procedure in regards to skills, switching it up this way with Stealth is a very different way from handling sneaking rolls I've ever seen at the table.

I mean, yeah, most DMs don’t run stealth this way despite the fact that I would argue it is how the book says to do it. Mostly because reading rules isn’t really how people learn games (even when we do in fact read them). That said, I would argue that running stealth this way brings it more in line with how other skills are used, not less.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The thing that still baffles me about the actual use of 5e skills at many tables, not what the rules say to do but what people actually do do with them, is how painfully limited and restrictive they tend to be.

That is, the text itself is pretty neutral or even positive toward the idea that skills should be expansive and flexible, able to achieve a fair amount of stuff all on their own and welcoming creative applications or reinterpretations.

Yet a huge amount of both the actual practice I have personally seen, and the ways people have described using them, hearkens back to the worst ways that 3.X used skills. Every use must be precisely and narrowly pre-defined or it simply doesn't work. Attempting to do something creative or off-label is often viewed with intense skepticism or even outright instant disapproval, for no real reason other than "the book didn't explicitly say you can, therefore you can't" (or, worse, capricious fiat opposition, but I find the former is more common.)

And what gets me the most about this is...I also see a ton of DMs out there complaining that players don't think creatively, that they stick to tried and true methods and "never think beyond the character sheet" etc. Of course they don't! When they've tried, they got slapped down for it! You can only be shut down for creative approaches so many times before you start realizing that there's no point if the answer is essentially always no.

I just do not understand this pattern, at all. It makes no sense. The text doesn't mandate it. The DMs don't seem to like the results of it. The players certainly don't seem to cotton to it. Why on earth do so many 5e DMs hobble the skill rules and then complain about the skill rules being mostly ignored?

 

[the Jester]

I miss the days of having rolls like Stealth being rolled behind the DM's screen, I think my players would revolt if I tried to enforce that in this day and age. But, it would get rid of the "he rolled a 5, can I now try?" (which comes up for Perception moreso than anything else)

I absolutely still do this, although not with Stealth, but with Perception, Investigation, and Insight. Not all the time, but when the pcs are (f'rex) searching for secret doors, traps, or hidden stuff and shouldn't know whether they succeed or fail.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I absolutely still do this, although not with Stealth, but with Perception, Investigation, and Insight. Not all the time, but when the pcs are (f'rex) searching for secret doors, traps, or hidden stuff and shouldn't know whether they succeed or fail.

Whereas I find that gameplay which is predicated on hiding the players' own information from them is generally an ineffective and counterproductive strategy as a GM. It encourages players to distrust the things you tell them (always bad when you are their only source of information) and sets up adversarial behavior from both ends.

Much better, in my experience, to use failed rolls on things like Perception and Insight to either explicitly state ignorance, or to use this as an opportunity to reveal an unwelcome truth or turn the character's own strengths against them. That way, Perception etc. cease to be a thing where if they don't see the roll they have to actively consider whether they are metagaming and to what degree they should do so, and instead keeps them focused on what is going on in the world and what possible consequences they might face for rolling when they don't need to.

 

[Quickleaf]

I thought this graphic might help orient ourselves and have clearer discussion. So far, there's focus on the X-axis (open/strict skill interpretation) and Y-axis (hiding/reveal skill rolls). I'm hoping to share more conversation about the Z-axis (universal/differentiated skill procedures), especially with folks engaging with that Z-axis.

EDIT: I'd posit that 5e as it tends to be played (what the books encourage either tacitly or explicitly) is at (0, 0, -70), or in the center of the X-axis, center of the Y-axis, but pretty far away from the Z-axis' center towards "universal rules for all skills." My position is that this creates a problematic mismatch between how people approach different types of skills/situations & what the rules say/imply.

I'll give examples...

Z-Axis: Each Skill Works Differently

• 5e – Survival to forage has explicit numbers for pounds of food attached to it (DMG 111), whereas using Athletics to jump is listed as an example but it's vague how it interacts with hard-coded "Strength X? here's jump distance calculation", whereas Intimidation has nothing numerical/hard-coded about it.
• 5e – Rolling Stealth more like a saving throw right at the last minute when there's immediate threat of discovery (as opposed to other skills where the roll typically happens very shortly after player declaring "I do such-and-such").
• Gumshoe RPG – Investigative skills as resource to automatically find clue vs. Active skills which get a check.

Z-Axis: Universal Rules for All Skills

• 5e – Charisma-based skills used to elicit a response in a NPC all fall back on the tried-and-true d20/DC system with a shared chart in the DMG comparing NPC's starting attitude to the PCs' "ask" to determine the check DC.
• PbtA/Dungeon World – Roll 2d6+Stat against universal target numbers, with some moves defining what the success and failure mean, for pretty much anything pertaining to "skill checks."

X-Axis: Open Interpretation of Skill Rolls

• 5e – GM using the DMG options about mixing/matching Ability Scores and Skill Proficiencies, and/or generally being flexible about which Skill a player uses when the situation seems flexible.

X-Axis: Strict Interpretation of Skill Rolls

• 5e – GM strictly calling for certain skills (and not others), regulating who can make what check, making sure skills don't overreach beyond whatever the rules say they can do (and when interpretation is necessary remaining conservative), enforcing action economy for skill usage without exception, etc.
• 4e – When a skill challenge instructed the GM to require certain skill checks to overcome an abstracted challenge.
• Palladium – Or any system with % rolls, really leans hard into strict interpretation with binary (pass/fail) outcomes.

Y-Axis: Transparent Skill Rolls and Stakes

• 5e – GM saying "Make a Stealth check DC 16 to avoid being detected by the goblins."
• D&D (any edition) – GM asking "what are you trying to accomplish here?" and saying "That's not really covered by the rules, but how about we try this?"
• Leverage / Cortex Plus – Raising the stakes is a core part of the rules that is player-facing involving opposed rolls/rerolls in an attempt to beat the opposition.
• White Hack – The "auction/bidding system" for non-combat conflict resolution has some touches of players having a say in the stakes of a scene.

Y-Axis: Hiding Certain Skill Rolls from Players

• D&D (any edition, usually AD&D/BD&D) – GM rolling behind the screen for certain PC rolls "the players shouldn't know the result of" such as secret doors checks, Stealth checks, etc.

 

[DEFCON 1]

View attachment 345628

I thought this graphic might help orient ourselves and have clearer discussion. So far, there's focus on the X-axis (open/strict skill interpretation) and Y-axis (hiding/reveal skill rolls). I'm hoping to share more conversation about the Z-axis (universal/differentiated skill procedures), especially with folks engaging with that Z-axis.

I assume you mean with regards to the Z-axis that the actual mechanics for certain skills are different than others? Like in how AD&D a Fighter Bending a Bar would be a different mechanic than a Magic-User checking to see if they were able to add a spell to their spellbook would be a different mechanic than a Rogue checking to see if they could Pick a Pocket? Whereas in today's game any of these things would be handled by the same mechanic of the player rolling a d20, adding an ability modifier, and possible a proficiency bonus if the DM said a skill could apply?

 

[Quickleaf]

I assume you mean with regards to the Z-axis that the actual mechanics for certain skills are different than others? Like in how AD&D a Fighter Bending a Bar would be a different mechanic than a Magic-User checking to see if they were able to add a spell to their spellbook would be a different mechanic than a Rogue checking to see if they could Pick a Pocket? Whereas in today's game any of these things would be handled by the same mechanic of the player rolling a d20, adding an ability modifier, and possible a proficiency bonus if the DM said a skill could apply?

That's not quite what I'm getting at, no.

I am attempting to steer the conversation to, what I consider, a much deeper and subtler question.

I'm more talking about procedures and table practices, like I mention in my first post. I used Stealth as an example. Stealth rolled more like a saving throw right at the last minute when there's immediate threat of discovery (as opposed to other skills where the roll typically happens very shortly after player declaring "I do such-and-such") is a good example of a divergent table practice that is "neither here nor there in the rules."

While I know there's heavy crossover between rules & table practice, in a lot of ways I'm honing in on "what the rules don't say", if that makes sense.

 

[ezo]

I've gotten more into the whole "don't call for the roll until needed".

Consider Stealth. The PC always thinks they are being steathy, don't they? They are doing their best, I assume. When they finally get into range of a creature which might hear, see, or even smell them ( ), then I have the player roll because at that moment is when it is actually important. Prior to that, they should think they are being quiet, unseen, or whatever.

Other skills cause issues as well. Particularly with Perception. They whole "he failed, can I try?" thing. Breaking open a stuck door is also a problem. Now, with many things it is ok, but sometimes it just strains believability especially when you consider the swingyness of the d20.

The raging barbarian rolls Str with advantage, getting just a 1 and 3, failing the DC 15 check to open the door. Then, the sorcerer with 8 Str rolls a lucky 19, beating the DC and opens the door. Yes, this can be comical... the party looks to the barbarian, who shame-faced says, "Um, I weakened it for him..." and people snicker. But in general it doesn't really fly for me.