D&D 5E Was I in the wrong?

[Yardiff]

Anyone that thinks the items were not in plain view. Why was such details not provided to the player who was engaging in the scene?

After reviewing the OP's the only reason YOU have that the ranger was able to see the guantlets and ring was that he was in the same room as the blacksmith. That in and of itself doesnt mean the ranger could see the stuff.

 

[Yardiff]

I'm not sure if bag is the right word. But similar to that. Yes.

That was what I got from it as well, but Ilbranteloth's rope bundle could as easily fit what was posted.

So we all make assumptions based on our experiences.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

It seems to me that the ranger was present when the armour was "bundled up" - having been revived following the sword episode prior to the bundling taking place.

The ranger was also present and conscious during some of the fight, during which he might have seen the gauntlets and ring also.

The two party members still standing (Barbarian and Monk) rejoice. Then they remember that their friends are dying and proceed to help them up.
The ranger and the sorcerer both rush to check on the children (that had been kidnapped by the ghost) but sadly realize that they had taken far too long and they were already dead. Meanwhile, the barbarian and the monk check the loot.

Once again, the barbarian and the monk are the only ones standing (the sorcerer and ranger were weakened from the previous battle). They destroy the ghost and wake their friends up once again. The sorcerer realizes (rolled high on arcana) that the sword likely has a curse that binds the ghost to it, causing it to attack anyone that holds it. Meanwhile, the barbarian decides and tells me that he's bundling the whole armor set up with rope and will take care of it later since everyone was focused on how to deal with the sword (I make sure to remind him that the gauntlets and the ring are included with the bundle).

That sounds like they weren't to me. Kind of like "Meanwhile back at the ranch."

To the extent that the player of the ranger did not pay full attention to the gauntlets and ring description - which is not at all clear from what the GM says - it seems to me that it could easily be because the player was focused on other elements of the fiction that the GM had introduced, such as the children and the sword. In the OP the GM presents the players' focus on the sword as if it was some sort of failing on their part, whereas in the fuller post we learn that the reason for the attention to the sword was in part due to the fact that it had an associated NPC (the "ghost guardian") and that interacting with it led to a further relatively serious combat.

As I said, the GM clearly identifies the ranger as being present and conscious (having just been "woken up" ie revived from unconsciousness) when the barbarian bundles the armour and gauntlets/ring together. The GM has already stated that the gauntlets and ring have runes indicating (as per the convention in his game) that they might be magical. This is the same cue that the NPC purchaser later relies upon.

I made sure to note that the gauntlets were made to look like part of the full set though the iconography seemed different. I also mentioned that the ring was placed on the gauntlet in such a way, that it was stuck there (think Sauron's armor with the ring).

This, to me, sounds like it would take a close examination to recognize they are not part of the set. The ranger did not examine them in this fashion.

It seems to me that the only reason the GM doesn't mention to the player of the ranger, at the time the bundling takes place, that the stuff the barbarian is bundling includes an enruned gauntlet and ring is because the GM is assuming that the player of the ranger is already aware of this from the prior description. (Eg there is no indication that the player of the ranger had been made to leave the room while the barbarian and monk players were playing out their initial inspection of the armour etc after the defeat of the "big boss").

It is not clear whether or not the GM mentioned the runes on the ring and gauntlet to the players while that fight was being resolved. I get the sense that it wasn't, but I also get the sense that this is not because the PCs couldn't see it, but rather because the GM was sticking to a relatively established D&D practice of not describing "the loot" until the players have their PCs check it out after the fight is resolved.

Again, I don't see any mention of runes on the gauntlets. Just that they were "made to look like part of the full set though the iconagraphy seemed different." I don't think he described it during the combat, and if they look as similar to the set as it sounds to me, it would not be noticeable in combat.

He does state:

My approach to magical items in my campaign is: They are rare and can be identified as magical items by magical runes or an aura about them but to get a feel of its powers you need to either learn through using them or use an identification spell.

but his description of the armor and gauntlets does not support this statement.

Finally, there remains the unanswered question: how was the NPC able to notice the magic ring while the ranger wasn't? You state that, to the ranger, the gauntlets and the ring aren't visible. Why not? Upthread, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] and other posters have conjectured about "the angle of the bag" or the presence of a barrier on a counter/table. You talk about the possible need for a Sleight of Hand check on the part of the NPC. But this is all conjecture - none of it is indicated by the GM.

To me it seems fairly clear that the GM was taking for granted that the ranger was aware of the ring, but because the player of the ranger expressed no concern about it being sold, and because the other players didn't intervene to say to the player of the ranger "Hey, don't sell the ring and gauntlets too!", the ranger was deemed to willingly be selling them also. That is to say, I don't think the GM is making any sort of subtle adjudication of the fiction. I think the GM is making an adjudication of the player's action declaration, and is deeming the phrase the whole armour set to mean something that the player does not intend that it mean. It's not about the fiction, it's about the metagame and the standards around action declaration. As far as the fiction is concerned, it produces a very bizarre result: not that the ranger was absent-minded at all, but rather that the ranger chose to sell something he knew he didn't want to sell!

At the blacksmith (a half-orc they already know from before) he presents the bundled up armor. The blacksmith studies it, making note that the armor is very damaged (from the battles) and it would lower the price. At the mention of the price being lowered, the ranger asks if he can make a int check to learn how much such an armor would go for, he rolls well. The half-orc notices the magical ring and immediately asks "Are you looking to sell the whole thing?" to which the ranger immediately says yes.

The armorsmith checked it over and when he noticed the ring he casually asked if the whole thing was for sale, making sure not to mention the ring (he didn't even know the gauntlets were magical).

Nothing here indicates he unbundles it, and my description of how one might bundle a suit of armor using rope is very plausible to me as to why the gauntlets, or at least the ring, is not readily visible. He notices the ring, not the gauntlets.

That's why the analogy, upthread, of an action declaration to climb a tree being interpreted as a declaration to climb a fiery tree is apt.

Another similar example would be if the GM had mentioned a pit; player goes on and the player has lost track of the precise relationship between his/her PC and the pit; the player then declares, for some reason somewhat unrelated to the pit "I step to the left" and the GM says "OK, you fall down the pit." In the fiction that makes no sense - the PC would see the pit and know not to step into it - but the player is being held to a standard of precision in action resolution that is not based on any view of the fiction, but is more like a D&D variant of touch-move chess.

The ranger returns to the rest of the party that was waiting by the temple. He gives them the news about finally having money and they ask him about the gauntlets and ring. He seems confused, not realizing a ring was involved in the equation (he either wasn't listening or had forgotten about it).

When the ranger calmed her down he explained that the ring had not been for sale (at this point, the ranger still didn't seem to know/remember the gauntlets were magical either...)

I disagree. By my reading of the posts, the ranger did not know about the gauntlets or ring. It also appears that the player didn't know either. A player/character that doesn't know of something important won't be on the lookout for it. With an entire suit of armor bundled up with rope, it won't necessarily be obvious either. My suggestion that the DM made a mistake by not requiring a skill check of some sort was more for the ranger to detect the attempt at deception rather than noticing the ring itself.

Jumping into a burning tree is something that is in-your-face and cannot be missed. A ring, on the finger of one gauntlet in a bundle of pieces of armor might be entirely missed. In an early thread about hiding (specifically about the halfling ability to repeatedly hide behind an ally), I had originally said that it was absurd that a halfling could repeatedly disappear. Once Mike Mearles suggested that after a couple of attempts, the Hide attempts would probably be with disadvantage, or the Perception checks with advantage, I got it.

There's a possibility that the smith might be able to pull one over on the players. That possibility should have been determined by a die roll, possibly in secret, and possibly against a passive Perception. But it should have been made, and the possibility of this happening (since there have been many explanations as to how it could have happened) is reasonable.

Should there have been more description? Well, I don't really know. Short of a video or audio of the game, we really can't ever know exactly what was said. Ask any police officer who deals with witness accounts. But I don't really care, we can still have a meaningful discussion about whether the scenario is reasonable, and how best to adjudicate such a scenario if you decide that it's reasonable for your campaign.

On the matter of "interesting game-play" - as I said upthread, unless the campaign was on the verge of coming to an end but for this event, that is moot. Interesting game play was going to happen anyway, and I don't see how it becomes more interesting because the players have lost their loot and now have a new NPC enemy.

Well, every event that happens may or may not be interesting. I don't see how the "verge of coming to an end" has anything to do with it. If your trips to sell loot is simply fluff to make it seem like you're doing more than asking the DM "how much do I get for it?" without the possibility of other things happening, then they are always very uninteresting.

I don't think the answer as to whether this is right or wrong has anything to do with whether it makes it interesting or not. It was just a response to other posts saying that nothing interesting could come from it.

On the matter of deception: I've got no objection to NPCs deceiving the PCs. That's not what's at stake here, though - what's at stake here is a metagame matter, of how the GM handled a player's action declaration.

On the precise wording, "touch-move" style: it's not my favourite approach to D&D. It is prone - as here - to produce arguments over what is meant by a phrase like "I sell the armour set". If, as here, that phrase is intended by the player to have a different meaning from how the GM takes it, there are questions around whose interpretation prevails - and they cannot be resolved by friendly conversation, because the whole point of the "precision wording" approach is that the players don't get to have a friendly conversation with the GM about their wording because they are bound by their precise wording even if the result is unfriendly to them!

I think that those sorts of arguments are especially likely to result if this style of action declaration is enforced haphazardly or ad hoc depending on the mood of the GM. For instance, if the player of the ranger is paying little attention to the details of the barbarian's action declaration about bundling because that player assumes it will all be sorted out later, and that the action declaration on bundling is simply a standard move designed to ensure that, in the fiction, the PCs aren't deemed to have left the items behind, then the player of the ranger may not make a big deal of later inspecting the bundle and separating out the different components, because it is assumed that - in the fiction - the PCs are quite capable of doing this, and so don't need to actually establish it via action declaration (much as they may deal with their eating and drinking in the city simply by knocking of gold pieces, but not actually having to declare that they chew and swallow).

I think that when the precision style produces events which make little or no sense in the fiction - as here, either (i) that the ranger can't see what the NPC purchaser can see, despite there being no reason established in the fiction as to why that is so (eg no ring of X-ray vision, no Sleight of Hands check, no description of funny table/counter designs, no description by the player of his PC wandering the shop, etc), or (ii) that the ranger could see the ring and gauntlets but sold them anyway - then it is even more prone to produce arguments. And for good reason - the players can legitimately say "That makes no sense". (Again, I contrast the case where the player sells a job lot, having forgotten what's in it - that does make sense in the fiction, because neither PC nor NPC can see what's in there in any detail, and the PC has just been forgetful as the player has.)

So, while I have responded to the posts about whether or not it's reasonable to consider a set of armor to include the gauntlets (I think it is, and that's also how they are described in the rules), that's not why I think the DM was fine here. My opinion is based on the chain of events, which happened to the characters, not just the players:

1. The ranger never examined the armor himself.

2. The barbarian never indicated that he was separating the gauntlets from the rest of the armor, nor did he or the monk tell the ranger to check them out at the magic shop. More importantly, the ranger went to the magic shop both before and after the smith. When he went after, he asked to have each individual item checked, but did not ask about the gauntlets then either. Obviously he had no idea that they had a pair of potentially magical gauntlets, or a ring. Nobody else caught it or questioned it either.

3. It's clear that the DM allows his players to listen in on events that doesn't involve their characters directly (like the description of the gauntlets and ring), and also allows his players to chime in when their characters are not there (when they reminded him they didn't have money and should go to the smith first). The failure is not the ranger alone. It's the whole table who had multiple opportunities to mention that they were intending to keep the gauntlets.

Because the player was not paying enough attention to know about the gauntlets, combined with the in-game sequence of events, I think it's extremely reasonable to consider that the character (ranger) just did not know about the gauntlets, and therefore was not paying attention when the smith was examining them. You seem to think that it's wrong that the ring could be partially or wholly concealed while bundled up, and others have said that the smith would have "laid the pieces out on the counter." But the assumption that the smith did something that wasn't described in detail is the same as the assumption that the ranger would not have done something he didn't want to. The game is based around the DM and the players describing the action.

Is it possible that the DM didn't describe the scene well enough? Sure. But he also described the gauntlets in detail at least twice, and had a conversation answering questions one of those times. The fact that the player with the ranger didn't seem to have any idea that the gauntlets were potentially magical is a bigger failure on his part by not paying attention.

In your example with the pit, if I describe the pit in detail to the table twice, and you don't pay attention to it and you still walk into it, should I stop you? Why? At what point should the player take responsibility and say, "Hey, I wasn't paying attention. My bad."?

So I'm back to the only mistake I see that would have made it more fair would be to tie the examination and the question about whether he's selling all of it to one or more die rolls. The purpose of interaction type skill checks is specifically to determine whether the character picks up on little social cues and such. To a group that apparently has difficulty paying attention, the subtle clue may not have been enough. And I don't mean that it wasn't enough to give it away. It just wasn't enough to make them question what they were doing. Which is why a skill check would have been a better choice. I don't know how often he gives subtle clues, and how often they pick up on them.

Is it an absolute "fail" because he didn't? No, it was a long time before skill checks were used at all for these types of encounters, and a great many people still don't use them. But in this case I think they should have been used, and that the DM can learn from this to use them in similar situations. Plus he mentions that he didn't think of providing a skill check, which is a miss on his part, but an honest one.

Was the GM in the wrong? I think that the GM mishandled the situation, by imposing a standard for action declaration that does not seem to have been the table norm, by not running other parts of the game in accordance with that standard (eg sometimes treating the PCs as a gestalt, as by not describing the gauntlets and ring a second time when the barbarian bundled them up in front of the ranger; but sometimes treating the PCs as individuals, as when the ranger is deemed to be selling the gauntlets and ring even though other players believe that "the armour set" excludes those particular items), and by imposing that standard in a way that undermines the coherence of the fiction, when other parts of the game seem to prioritise fiction over metagame (eg the barbarian's "bundling up" seems most likely to have been declared because there is a table norm that loot isn't taken unless, in fiction, a "move" is made that explains how it has been taken).

Whether or not that is wrong, I think it's fairly poor GMing. And, in this case, fairly clearly motivated by a degree of vindictiveness or at least irritation. For reasons that are unclear to me, the GM seems upset because at least some of the players paid more attention to the children and the haunted sword than they did to the gauntlets and ring. Why that should be regarded as bad play, I don't know.

Again, it doesn't say he bundled them up in front of the ranger. And it also says he reminded the barbarian of the gauntlets when he bundled them up:

Meanwhile, the barbarian decides and tells me that he's bundling the whole armor set up with rope and will take care of it later since everyone was focused on how to deal with the sword (I make sure to remind him that the gauntlets and the ring are included with the bundle).

Saying that he bundles the armor up with rope is fairly specific, rather than a "table norm" which would probably be more general like "I take the armor." None of my reasoning is metagame. It's based on the actions of the characters, although the actions of the players themselves, and what they remember (and don't) supports that position as well.

I also don't think he imposed any new standard. It's quite possible that the PCs had never run into a situation where they failed to keep track of something. So it may be that the "rule" wasn't clear. Without knowing how they generally keep track of stuff, that's hard to tell.

If it was me, as soon as they asked about the gauntlets, I would have asked, "did anybody tell the ranger to investigate them?" "Did anybody separate them from the bundle with the rest of the suit of armor?"

The concept of what constitutes a set may have been been different among them, but that's where the rules, which specify that chain mail and plate armor include gauntlets, along with the fact that you can't buy them separately comes into play. They might not like that they didn't know that, but it's right there.

Also I think it's pretty clear that he was not motivated to be vindictive:

Now, I had no intention of punishing anyone. I did not wish to punish the player on his phone, even if it did annoy me greatly, nor did I want to punish the rest of the party. I, however, feel like the players should be in-charge of what they own and what they are doing and it is not the DM's job to hold their hand. I have a hard enough time making up settings and keeping everything in check, I do not want to handle the player's equipment and so on. I generally trust them to keep track of what they have and we haven't had an issue with it yet.

Could I have warned him about the gauntlets and ring? Yes, but I didn't because again...it is their job to keep track of things. The ranger chose to go alone and sell the gear, he had not properly kept track of things. I felt that I should not have warned him. I also made sure to keep the blacksmith seem very interested in the armor but not as much with the weapon. Should I have told him to make rolls? Possibly, I admit that I maybe should have had him do a roll of some sort, but at the time it did not cross my mind.

From what he's written it seems very clear that he thinks they should keep track of their stuff. That's it. He does talk about not liking how they (for the most part one player) is always on their phone. But he says that this isn't a retaliation for that. Also, his standard is also that they keep track of their stuff. As he states, no issues have occurred in the past. But I don't think this is really an issue with them keeping track of their stuff entirely. To me it's more of a player communication issue. The barbarian thought the ranger knew what was going on. He didn't.

It also sounds like they had more than one friendly discussion about it. So I don't think that the DM won't allow them to question him.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Anyone that thinks the items were not in plain view. Why was such details not provided to the player who was engaging in the scene?

Because the items in question were bundled together by rope. The bundle was in plain view. It is never stated anywhere that the bundle is untied. Not by the barbarian, not by the ranger, nor by the smith.

Some items would be concealed at the very least, if not entirely hidden with the bundle. Various pieces of armor could easily have a rope strung through them to keep them together. Others, like gauntlets, can not be easily strung up like that. A logical option would be to stuff them inside the main part of the armor (the breast/chest plates) or the helm. Somebody examining said bundle could be just moving things around a bit to see if everything, or at least most things, are there. At any given point in time half of the bundle is hidden because it's on the other side of the bundle. This would be similar to looking into a sack and looking underneath the things inside. The viewer turns things toward themselves for an optimal view. Which generally means that somebody directly opposite you will have a sub-optimal view, if not the worst possible view.

Since the smith is on the opposite side of the counter from the ranger, it follows that the smith can see what's on the opposite side of the bundle from what the ranger can see. As such, it's entirely logical that if he's looking into the suit of armor, where the gauntlets might logically be stored, that he would "notice the ring" as stated by the DM, and then stop examining the bundle so the ranger won't see the ring.

Again, the ranger had no idea that the gauntlets or the ring even existed, or at least the player didn't. I contend that both didn't. That being the case, I don't expect he was closely watching him examine the armor. I do think that some skill checks would have been appropriate, but I don't think that the ranger seeing the gauntlets would automatically mean that he'd question them being there. Why would he? He had no idea they were different.

Ilbranteloth

 

[FrogReaver]

After reviewing the OP's the only reason YOU have that the ranger was able to see the guantlets and ring was that he was in the same room as the blacksmith. That in and of itself doesnt mean the ranger could see the stuff.

Better than having no reason at all as to why they couldn't see them.

 

[FrogReaver]

Good well thought out plausible scenario. I'd also like to add that the dm doesn't need to tell the player things the of can't see. So if your scenario happened it would make sense that there was no mention of the gauntlets.

So let's examine this a little deeper. In the scene the players only way to not sell the ring and gauntlets would be to both remember they exist and remember they could be magical.

seeing as the dm has control over the entire scene why set up a scene in such manner? why set up a scene that is 100% a player memory challenge and nothing else? Why not give a player that forgot a chance that their character would see the items in question or a chance to remember on his own or a chance to notice something with the blacksmith seems off.

The problem most have with this scene is that it was total success or failure based on a single player memory test. That is what makes it feel like a gotcha. Even more so when you consider the scene could have been described and ran in more player friendly ways.

Because the items in question were bundled together by rope. The bundle was in plain view. It is never stated anywhere that the bundle is untied. Not by the barbarian, not by the ranger, nor by the smith.

Some items would be concealed at the very least, if not entirely hidden with the bundle. Various pieces of armor could easily have a rope strung through them to keep them together. Others, like gauntlets, can not be easily strung up like that. A logical option would be to stuff them inside the main part of the armor (the breast/chest plates) or the helm. Somebody examining said bundle could be just moving things around a bit to see if everything, or at least most things, are there. At any given point in time half of the bundle is hidden because it's on the other side of the bundle. This would be similar to looking into a sack and looking underneath the things inside. The viewer turns things toward themselves for an optimal view. Which generally means that somebody directly opposite you will have a sub-optimal view, if not the worst possible view.

Since the smith is on the opposite side of the counter from the ranger, it follows that the smith can see what's on the opposite side of the bundle from what the ranger can see. As such, it's entirely logical that if he's looking into the suit of armor, where the gauntlets might logically be stored, that he would "notice the ring" as stated by the DM, and then stop examining the bundle so the ranger won't see the ring.

Again, the ranger had no idea that the gauntlets or the ring even existed, or at least the player didn't. I contend that both didn't. That being the case, I don't expect he was closely watching him examine the armor. I do think that some skill checks would have been appropriate, but I don't think that the ranger seeing the gauntlets would automatically mean that he'd question them being there. Why would he? He had no idea they were different.

Ilbranteloth

 

[Maxperson]

Good well thought out plausible scenario. I'd also like to add that the dm doesn't need to tell the player things the of can't see. So if your scenario happened it would make sense that there was no mention of the gauntlets.

According to some here, not telling people of hidden things through obvious clues is gotcha.

 

[FrogReaver]

According to some here, not telling people of hidden things through obvious clues is gotcha.

what people here have said is that if a fanciful explanation is needed for why the player can't see the items then it should have been mentioned in the scene.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

According to some here, not telling people of hidden things through obvious clues is gotcha.

That's a mischaracterization Max.

 

[psychophipps]

So we're still talking about this one? Seems to me that we have a pretty typical rift between "WTH?!?" and "Player should have kept his head on a swivel" with varying levels of "Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda...Didn't" in the mix.
Guys...
1) it's not even our game.
2)the horse in a sickening mass of blood, bone, and gristle.
3) it's painfully obvious the main parties are firmly entrenched.

Do we really need to nuke it from orbit...just to sure?