D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[Reynard]

For me it would depend on the setup. If the adventure says, "The chest is covered in contact poison. Anyone trying to open it must make a Con save..." then gloves aren't the issue.

More important to me would be the process of how we got here. Were there rolls to notice the poison that failed? Was the player careful or hasty?

One of the problem with using traps like this is it put the onus on the GM to convey the important information. Which invariably slows the game down. As soon as you say, "HOW are you opening the chest?" everything grinds to a halt. There are better ways to adjust the risk/reward ratio.

 

[Reynard]

Roll middling, they notice the poison but the character doesn't think to take the gloves off.

The problem with this is you are deciding what the PC is doing, which is IMO out of bounds for the GM.

Commandment One: Thou shalt not violate Player Agency.

 

[Celebrim]

Whether a PC has gloves is normally something I leave up to a player. If I was thinking it through, I would ideally ask first if the player is wearing gloves.

This only works if you are always scrupulous about it. If you remember to ask if they are wearing gloves whenever they propose to touch something, then chances are by the time that we get to the point where there is contact poison on the door knob you don't even need to prompt the player - they'll tell you about the gloves or whether they take them off when they do it.

But if you only bring it up when there is contact poison on the door, then of course they are wearing gloves and you need not bother to ask.

If they said but I am wearing gloves, and it had not been established before hand I think I would generally go with giving them the benefit of that doubt.

That entirely depends on whether they have proven that they are the sort of player that deserves the benefit of the doubt. If they haven't conclusively done so, then the standard Gygax rule applies - never give the player an inch. If you do, you are only asking for headaches with disinterested players that don't engage with the fiction but instead see the way to win as wheedle and bully you, because that will be exactly what you taught them works.

 

[Vaalingrade]

How about: "Spend an Inspiration and you remembered to put on your gloves"?

 

[BookTenTiger]

I think it's interesting that everyone's interpretations show a lot of different play styles.

There's the player skill play style, in which the player is responsible for saying if they're wearing gloves or not.

There's the play style in which the Saving Throw decides if the gloves were worn.

There's the narrative style in which the player decides.

Overall, I think this situation is a good opportunity to talk with the players and figure out what style of game you want to play!

It reminds me of a campaign I was a player in. At the end of one session, a cleric had positioned themselves in front of a huge group of demonic centaurs who were in the process of trampling whatever was before them. The next session the DM told us she would allow the cleric to move out of the way, since she didn't want to punish the player for a dumb decision made while he was tired.

However, as players, we felt a little cheated! If the DM had asked us, we would have communicated that we like clear consequences even for dumb decisions. Even the player of the cleric would have preferred to get trampled to death.

 

[Celebrim]

I think it's interesting that everyone's interpretations show a lot of different play styles.

There's the player skill play style, in which the player is responsible for saying if they're wearing gloves or not.

There's the play style in which the Saving Throw decides if the gloves were worn.

There's the narrative style in which the player decides.

No. There is no style in which "the player decides" after the fortune test to retcon the fiction.

In the Narrative style one of two things happen. Either we set stakes and roll the fortune at the beginning and if the player wins the fortune, then they can narrate how they bypassed the contact poison however they think is appropriate to their character - including inventing hitherto unmentioned gloves. Or else set stakes and the player can spend some sort of narrative currency to gain control of the scene, which could include inventing hitherto unmentioned gloves. Or maybe both, in that narrative currency influences the fortune at the beginning. In fact, the narrative style probably invents the contact poison trap on the fly as the means of explaining why the door isn't opened despite the players intent to do so. But by the time we are establishing the fiction, we already know whether or not the player is going to win or lose, we are just playing out the results of the fortune.

But it's not Narrative style to play procedurally with fortune at the end and then introduce player narrative control of the fiction after the fortune is tested. If we are playing in the procedural style, then it's up to the player to clearly communicate what the player is doing to the GM so that the fortune can be determined by the established fiction. The player either was or was not wearing gloves. They don't get to decide that after they learn the consequences.

Either style is fine, but the player can't decide what style we are playing in moment to moment to fulfil a Fantasy aesthetic because then why are we even bothering to roll the dice?

 

[Umbran]

Rubber has been in use for thousands of years. It comes from trees.

In Mesoamercia and South and Southeast Asia, sure.

But plants that produce sufficient natural latex don't generally propagate in areas that have below-freezing winters. So, natural rubber gloves should be a rarity in pseudo-European climes. If your game world is more tropical, natural rubber might be used.

So, again, Europeans historically turned to oils, fats, and waxes, which can all serve the purpose. Or, for game purposes, the local alchemist probably has a great recipe he can use... for a price.

But, to be honest, when most of us think of "rubber" we are thinking about synthetic stuff, as world demand for such materials grew beyond natural supplies over a century ago.

 

[BookTenTiger]

No. There is no style in which "the player decides" after the fortune test to retcon the fiction.

In the Narrative style one of two things happen. Either we set stakes and roll the fortune at the beginning and if the player wins the fortune, then they can narrate how they bypassed the contact poison however they think is appropriate to their character - including inventing hitherto unmentioned gloves. Or else set stakes and the player can spend some sort of narrative currency to gain control of the scene, which could include inventing hitherto unmentioned gloves. Or maybe both, in that narrative currency influences the fortune at the beginning. In fact, the narrative style probably invents the contact poison trap on the fly as the means of explaining why the door isn't opened despite the players intent to do so. But by the time we are establishing the fiction, we already know whether or not the player is going to win or lose, we are just playing out the results of the fortune.

But it's not Narrative style to play procedurally with fortune at the end and then introduce player narrative control of the fiction after the fortune is tested. If we are playing in the procedural style, then it's up to the player to clearly communicate what the player is doing to the GM so that the fortune can be determined by the established fiction. The player either was or was not wearing gloves. They don't get to decide that after they learn the consequences.

Either style is fine, but the player can't decide what style we are playing in moment to moment to fulfil a Fantasy aesthetic because then why are we even bothering to roll the dice?

I mean, you can say there isn't a style, but multiple people in this thread say that's how they play it. So based purely on anecdotal evidence (and my own game), I'd say that it is a style.

 

[Umbran]

Overall, I think this situation is a good opportunity to talk with the players and figure out what style of game you want to play!

Working out what style you want to play once play has begun is sub-optimal. But, if that wasn't worked out previously, then this would be a good time to go over it, yes.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Working out what style you want to play once play has begun is sub-optimal. But, if that wasn't worked out previously, then this would be a good time to go over it, yes.

I find that no matter how much you discuss game styles, there will be miscommunications and misinterpretations once gameplay starts. Usually it's because you can't plan out everything! This gloves situation is a great example.

I think there are different ways to react to that situation. You can go with DM Authority, you can go with Player Preference... But either way I think it's a good opportunity to continue to calibrate campaign expectations.

If I were in this scenario, I might say something like:

"Okay, let's just go with the gloves for now. But later let's figure out how deadly we want traps and other encounters to be. Do we want a campaign in which you might get randomly poisoned by touching a treasure chest? Or do you want to chance to say, or example, that you were wearing gloves?"