D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[iserith]

I see .. so now you guys are using the travelling rules for every moment outside of combat rounds.

Do your players frequently choose the mapping or foraging stance when visiting the blacksmith?

No, they tend to stay alert for danger, which is another option they can choose. What town adventure would be complete without pickpockets or back alley knifemen?

 

[Jaeger]

Unbeknownst to an unarmored character and despite the DM's sufficient telegraphing, they touched a chest that has been smeared with a dangerous contact poison. The DM describes the greasy feel of the poison and asks for a Constitution saving throw.

"Wait just a minute!" exclaims the player. "I imagine my character is wearing gloves. They have traveler's clothes on."

Smacks of a whining player trying to claim 'backsies'.

Just pure 'But, but, but,...' logical pleading trying to emotionally blackmail the GM so that they don't do anything bad to their precious PC.

There are no backsies in RPG land for character actions. "I imagine my character is wearing gloves." indeed. How convenient...

There is only one reply:

GM: "No backsies dude! Roll to save sucka'!"

 

[Reynard]

You claim a GM should never dictate a thought or action of a PC because that is the players sole job.

The rules you quote here specifically call out noticing a hidden monster as a use case for passive perception checks.

Using the passive perception allowing a player know there is a hidden monster necessitates that the character they play also noticed the hidden monster.

This is making a character take an action not specifically stated by the player (looking for hidden creatures) as well as thoughts (behind that log is a creature you identify as a goblin) which you and others are arguing a GM should never do.

So how does a GM use passive skills without stealing "player authority"?

Edit: An uncut This typo that seemed rude

What are you talking about?

The player has to say their character is on the lookout for trouble to make a perception check. That's the action. Taken by the character as specified by the player. The passive check is so you don't roll every 10 feet. Most people, of course, make this part of SOP so you don't have to constantly reiterate it, but it's still the player choosing to do the thing.

The mental contortions some of you are going through to "prove" that the GM forces actions on PCs as a matter of course are truly mind boggling.

 

[Alzrius]

1) Rime is a non-core book and we don't have any indication that said book is being used.
2) The player was making the assumption that travelers' clothes have gloves. In the actual books, there's not description at all and DDB apparently has the 3e description that doesn't include gloves.

So... system issue.

Okay, see, this right here? This is an issue of communication which underlines a lot of the same problems described in the OP. When someone says "gloves just straight don't exist in the game (not the game world, but the game)" I find it reasonable to interpret that as them saying that gloves don't exist as an item the PCs can conceivably acquire in any official first-party materials released for the game. Clearly, you meant something different. Who's right and who's wrong there?

Contact poison specifies exposed skin. To declare the poison seeps or does anything else to touch exposed skin while touching it with gloves on specifically at the point of contact is very shaky on rules grounds and the language around it being about upholding the DM's authority and smiting the player for 'making up the gloves to avoid consequence' doesn't help it on the ethical grounds IMO.

Leaving aside the "ethical grounds" issue (which strikes me as being very shaky, in terms of bringing actual ethics into DMing), the underlying issue (as I see it) isn't that contact poison only works when it touches skin; we all acknowledge that. It's that the issue of whether or not the character's skin is exposed apparently exists in a liminal state where there's reasonable assumptions for and against on the part of the player and the DM, respectively, and what to do when there's a conflict.

That said, I think there's also a separate debate to be had regarding the determinative nature of the dice, particularly where a particular aspect of the narrative sequence has no specified mechanical impact. It's not unreasonable, to my mind, to say that the roll in question operates in a manner that specifies the consequences of the scenario, with the specifics being made up after the fact to flesh out what the roll represents. In that regard, gloves should have a mechanical interface with that roll, ideally in the rules but given that's not the case, via house rules, preferably decided upon and agreed to by everyone ahead of time.

 

[Lanefan]

First, there's no real reason to believe the player will keep doing this.

Well, yes there is, if for no other reason than in the metagame it's the player's job - as the player of a game with rules - to seek out advantages within those rules.

That assumes the player is acting in bad faith,

No. The player could very well be acting in good faith and simply taking advantage of a rules loophole that neither the designers nor the DM recognized and closed in time.

That the loophole simply shouldn't be there is another issue; and though were I the DM I'd find a way to close it then and there, I'd not chastise the player for trying to exploit it. I might even thank the player for finding the hole in the rules.

Further, the DM could just say "No" since there are no gloves on the character sheet, nor in the rules for traveler's clothes - the player is simply mistaken, and part of the DM's role is mediating between the rules and the players.

Yes, this is what I'd do, but it's only step one. Step two would be to go through the equipment list with an eye to expanding it considerably, and step three would be to have the players go through, load out their characters and note down what they're carrying.

it's still better to just say "No" than to step outside of the DM's role and take control of the character.

Agreed.

 

[iserith]

Well, yes there is, if for no other reason than in the metagame it's the player's job - as the player of a game with rules - to seek out advantages within those rules.

I don't know if I'd characterize that as "the player's job," but I would expect players to seek out advantages with rules that are clear, not seek out advantages due to omissions or loopholes. I would consider the latter to be bad faith play. The best way to deal with omissions or loopholes would be to address it with the DM prior to putting it forward in play, so as to hash that out before it may become an issue. In the case of this situation, it could be that the player is acting in bad faith, but it could also be that they were just wrongly assuming something to be true when it is not. I generally believe people are trustworthy by and large, even when given incentives to not be. My game also doesn't turn on how this one contact poison trap works out so I can side with the player here.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Okay, see, this right here? This is an issue of communication which underlines a lot of the same problems described in the OP. When someone says "gloves just straight don't exist in the game (not the game world, but the game)" I find it reasonable to interpret that as them saying that gloves don't exist as an item the PCs can conceivably acquire in any official first-party materials released for the game. Clearly, you meant something different. Who's right and who's wrong there?

Is it reasonable to assume every players has encyclopedic knowledge of all non-core first party rules though?

And even then, it's not really germaine to the issue that traveler's clothes in 5e. doesn't say what it includes and the player made a reasonable assumption.

Leaving aside the "ethical grounds" issue (which strikes me as being very shaky, in terms of bringing actual ethics into DMing), the underlying issue (as I see it) isn't that contact poison only works when it touches skin; we all acknowledge that. It's that the issue of whether or not the character's skin is exposed apparently exists in a liminal state where there's reasonable assumptions for and against on the part of the player and the DM, respectively, and what to do when there's a conflict.

That said, I think there's also a separate debate to be had regarding the determinative nature of the dice, particularly where a particular aspect of the narrative sequence has no specified mechanical impact. It's not unreasonable, to my mind, to say that the roll in question operates in a manner that specifies the consequences of the scenario, with the specifics being made up after the fact to flesh out what the roll represents. In that regard, gloves should have a mechanical interface with that roll, ideally in the rules but given that's not the case, via house rules, preferably decided upon and agreed to by everyone ahead of time.

The contact poison works and requires a save upon making contact. It's kind of jank to say then that the save is to see if it made contact.

 

[Celebrim]

The contact poison works and requires a save upon making contact. It's kind of jank to say then that the save is to see if it made contact.

Maybe, but it's a pretty traditional approach to narrating saving throws versus poison, with justification going all the way back to Gygax.

 

[Lanefan]

My 1E AD&D PH does not list gloves or gauntlets either in the equipment lists.

Further downthread from the post you quoted, I noted the same thing.

As you noted EVERY edition of D&D pretty much has the SAME equipment list. I would not be surprised to find that NEVER has a PH equipment list included gloves or gauntlets as a separate thing to buy.

Yes, it seems that same error has perpetuated through all editons, though there's 3rd-party equipment books (the 3e Ultimate Equipment Guide being perhaps the king of them all) that cover this, never mind it's fairly easy for a DM to come up with an expanded list as a homebrew.

Strangely, I've never heard of anyone ever before taking that to mean that they just don't exist as a thing in D&D at all, or haven't been invented yet in the game setting.

Specific to gloves, neither have I; but I have heard it said about mirrors, telescopes/spyglasses, compasses/lodestones, and other things that would exist in the setting but because they weren't on the equipment lists were assumed not to.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not sure that's fully necessary because if one takes the rules as a whole and follows them logically, one arrives at this conclusion. I think a lot of people don't reach this conclusion because they played this way in other games or learned from people who played those games. For example, in D&D 3e, you could do things like Feint or Demoralize with skill checks. So that just ends up getting smuggled into future editions of the game by folks who assume an NPC can can "use ability checks" on PC. A statement along the lines of "This game stands alone. Previous editions of the game are separate games and their rules and approaches do not apply here..." might be good though.

If as you say, other editions played this issue differently, then it is in fact necessary to be clear that 5e has a different point of view. Especially if 5e as written was intended to bring back fans of previous editions.