D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[Celebrim]

I'd be a stickler about listing exactly what's in that "pack" so as to specifically avoid the Schroedinger's toolbox effect; even more so if some of what's in there is consumable.

I think that would defeat the purpose. The whole point of the pack is to make use of the Schroedinger's toolbox effect to avoid having to list long lists of items and to empower player creativity.

Depending on the groups aesthetics of play this might hinder or aid the fun. I got no problem with that. And different groups worried about balance might put different restrictions on it - total number of pulls from the pack you are allowed, or else percentage chance you have the item you want based on intelligence.

It's not even a particularly original or modern idea, as IIRC, Kender had "pack" as a racial ability.

 

[iserith]

That's basically how it works in Dungeon World:

Adventuring Gear (5 uses, 20 coins, 1 weight)​

Adventuring gear is a collection of useful mundane items such as chalk, poles, spikes, ropes, etc. When you rummage through your adventuring gear for some useful mundane item, you find what you need and mark off a use.​

So I could dig around in there and find some gloves, say, and mark off a use.

However, that wouldn't have helped in this situation - the character already touched the chest. The player would have needed to decide that up front.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

While there are merits to this approach, please recognize this approach as a species of railroading that violates player agency. If you as a DM start deciding what characters would do based on what you think is the right thing to do, then at some point if you do that often enough you are playing the character and not the player.

Also note that it is not a given that touching an object with or without a glove on is the right thing to do. For every contact poison, you'll have another situation where instructions have been subtly hammered in braille into the doorknob explaining how to bypass the trap by turning the doorknob clockwise twice before turning it counterclockwise once. The dimples might be readily apparent if touched with bare hands, but imperceptible if touch with a gloved one. As such, how are you going to assume in the general case what the right precautions an adventure ought to take are? And moreover, if you start assuming in the general case what the adventure did, why are you bothering to roll fortunes or receive propositions from the player, since presumably there almost always exists some procedure that would collect the clue or avoid the trap if properly followed - and it will not be difficult for you as the DM to imagine it given that you have all the knowledge.



There is nothing wrong with just have a "pack" of some standard weight that the PCs have and either assuming any common object of low value might be found in there or else that players have a percentage chance of having the right little thing at the right time. It certainly has its advantages and it's a perfectly valid way to play. But if I was going to provide such a pack, I'd be even more of a stickler about insisting that PC's describe the tool or tools that they are employing beforehand.



Well, yes. My point exactly.

Failing the DC:X check to notice the trap, failing to disable the trap because they didn't know it was there, and asking for a DC:X check to avoid the negative outcome of the trap is how the basic game is written and how I run it.

Whether or not a character has gloves isn't germane to the trap. If they fail to notice the trap ahead of time and interact with the chest setting off the trap, then they suffer the consequence. For all I care the player is welcome to narrate how they were poisoned themselves. I don't even really care that it's a contact poison vs a puff of spores vs a poison spell vs launching an angry brown recluse up a pants leg.

I suppose if the trap description said "Characters wearing gloves are immune to trap damage" then then a free pass happens but I'm not aware of any verbiage in 5e that says this.

Instead the OP seems to be trying to add additional methods of success/failure beyond just a simple pass/fail DC check versus a skill. This extra complexity now means they have to figure out what kind of handwear a character is using and have now opened up the floor for a player to bargain their way out of a failed state.

Arguing about gloves and contact poisons is just a step towards the 30 minute per empty room dungeon crawl playstyle that is the opposite of what I want in a game.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I think that would defeat the purpose. The whole point of the pack is to make use of the Schroedinger's toolbox effect to avoid having to list long lists of items and to empower player creativity.

Depending on the groups aesthetics of play this might hinder or aid the fun. I got no problem with that. And different groups worried about balance might put different restrictions on it - total number of pulls from the pack you are allowed, or else percentage chance you have the item you want based on intelligence.

It's not even a particularly original or modern idea, as IIRC, Kender had "pack" as a racial ability.

They used the glue to make fake facial hair for some bullywugs who wanted beards and goatees

I can't imagine a table where as a GM I heard the plan and responded "Sorry guys, nobody has glue written on their sheet" and then adding 15 minutes of roadblocks to what is essentially just goofing off and having fun.

Also in my game world every adventuring spellcaster know drilling a peephole in a door let's you target all kinds of fun spells at people hiding behind it. It's taught in Adventuring 301.

 

[Maxperson]

This is a case of miscommunication. The player assumed their character’s equipment included gloves and the DM assumed it didn’t, and neither thought that it was an important assumption to explicitly state until the point where it mattered. Neither are unreasonable assumptions to make given the fairly vague description of travelers’ clothes, nor was it unreasonable not to think it needed to be explicitly stated. Personally, I would assume good faith on the part of the player and move forward assuming the character had been wearing gloves. A couple of people have suggested that the contact poison may be transferred to the gloves, creating a risk that they will touch it when removing the gloves (requiring a saving throw to mitigate), and I kinda like that idea.

In 39 years of playing this game, I've not once had someone describe their normal clothing bought out of the book as having gloves. They will either specify that they want gloves for some RP reason, or the armor comes with it. I have several times had players try to make up reasons for why they shouldn't have to make the saving throw. It's a natural reaction to bad stuff happening.

Traveling gear would not come with gloves, so they don't have gloves unless they tell me they have them or they automatically and explicitly come with what they are wearing.

 

[Maxperson]

It's not a style of play or a style of game. It's a mechanism for dealing with game failure when a player violates the social contract and acts dysfunctionally. The player doesn't want to face the consequences of their choices and has resorted to the metagame, implicitly with the threat of throwing a temper tantrum and ruining everyone's fun, and with a lot of GM wheedling possibly even bullying involved.

In such a situation, stopping the game to placate the jerk who has decided to try to 'win' by screwing the whole group over with invented gloves he gave not a thought about before learning the consequences is probably a better solution than letting that one little immature baby continue to derail the game.

But that's not a style of game. That is a concession to try to get the game going again instead of listening to an hour-long emotional rant by one player.

Note, this isn't the same as a legitimate GM mistake. If the character sheet says something like, "Gloves of Dexterity +2 (worn)" and the GM forgot to account for that fact, or if an hour earlier in the session the player had specifically said something like, "I put on my riding gloves and then dramatically bow to the baroness with a flourish of my cape" and nothing has happened to imply the gloves are now off, then the player has a point. The GM forgot part of the fiction (it happens) and should retcon his error.

But if the player says, "I was wearing gloves" off some flimsy pretense and doesn't have any evidence to back up that assertion and in fact has ignored the supposed gloves when grabbing gear or searching for secret doors, then "negotiating" isn't a style of game any more than a contested election is a style of government. We're negotiating here to prevent a rebellion, not because it's part of the agreed upon rules, and what that negotiation will look like - dice for it, partial concession, table vote, etc. - depends on things outside the game and nothing in the rule book.

You use a lot of loaded terminology like "mechanism for dealing with game failure," and "violates the social contract," and "flimsy pretense." You don't get to declare that everyone is doing that.

I can easily envision a game where the DM says to the players, "Hey guys, if you can come up with something reasonable after a fact has happened that would change that fact, go for it. Even if it's making up something on the spot like wearing gloves."

That's a playstyle. It's part of the style of how they are playing the game.

 

[FrogReaver]

In my game the constitution save would be for the contact poison only after it made contact with the skin.

Assuming the player in question was not being a weasel to get out of a bad situation I would grant him the gloves (based on pattern of behavior). However, since it would now be clear to the players the oil was contact poison - information they shouldn't have, I would use a poisoner's kit (int) check to establish what the characters might know about the oil that's now on both the chest and the PC's glove and expect players to play using their character knowledge only for this portion.

 

[Lanefan]

That's basically how it works in Dungeon World:

Adventuring Gear (5 uses, 20 coins, 1 weight)​

Adventuring gear is a collection of useful mundane items such as chalk, poles, spikes, ropes, etc. When you rummage through your adventuring gear for some useful mundane item, you find what you need and mark off a use.​

So I could dig around in there and find some gloves, say, and mark off a use.

Meta-constructs like this, where mundane things can conveniently come into being (without use of magic) just when they happen to be needed, blow up any sense of grounded realism in the game for me.

I mean, that's a big difference in bulk and weight to carry around, between 5 tiny things like pieces of chalk and 5 big bulky things like long poles or coils of rope. They're also carried differently - long poles are not carried in a backpack, for example; and if you've gone through some narrow twisty passages such a pole wouldn't have fit through, suddenly pulling one out of your Gear once you're beyond those passages is a bit much. (but is also the sort of thing a DM and-or other players might not catch)

Broader issue: if you have something right now when you need it that means you've in fact always had it; and having had it on you sooner might have had earlier repercussions e.g. the twisty passages and the long pole, or the bulky coils of rope while trying to swim. (exception: if there's a place since the narrow passages where a long pole could reasonably have been acquired then OK, but still...) Simpler for all if you kit yourself out beforehand and write it all down, then if you've got it you've got it and if you don't, you don't; and you at least vaguely know how much bulk and weight you have to deal with. Schroedinger need not apply.

 

[Lanefan]

I can easily envision a game where the DM says to the players, "Hey guys, if you can come up with something reasonable after a fact has happened that would change that fact, go for it. Even if it's making up something on the spot like wearing gloves."

I can also easily envision such a game, and even more easily envision myself walking away from it while saying a few choice words...

 

[CleverNickName]

In short, how does this get resolved at your table?

"Wearing gloves" and "being protected from toxins" aren't the same thing.

Anyone who's ever had to get HAZWOPER certifications can tell you: when you're handling harmful substances, not just any glove will do. A glove made out of leather, fabric, chainmail, or other porous material isn't going to protect you from chemical contact.

I call for the Constitution save regardless of what the character was wearing. Ordinary clothing does not a HAZMAT suit make.