D&D 5E What actions by a PC Don't need to be stated?

[Patrick Johnston]

So last session me and one of my players got into a minor argument a couple of times about what his character was doing.For the purpose of this post we'll call him Morath (his PC's name). I want the your guy's opinion on whether I made the right calls in the specific situations and also on how other DM's handle the idea of what actions by a PC don't need to be stated . Skip to the Bold if you want to just get to the general question and skip the specifics scenarios.

1) Morath rushed through a cloudkill spell to reach the rest of the party on the other side. I had him roll his con save and another player asked if he holding your breath when going through the cloud allowed you to make the save with advantage. Morath says that of course he was holding his breath when he ran through the cloudkill. I inform him that he would have had to state that before running into the cloud and Morath argues that he thought it went without saying that he did so.

On this issue my thinking is that if you want to try for some sort of mechanical advantage, such as getting advantage on a save, you HAVE to tell me your doing something. I'm not going to assume it.
Also I never actually made a call during the session, since I established that he wasn't holding his breath, but I would have ruled that holding your breath does nothing to help. It's more an issue of the PC's having to state they are doing any action they are hoping to grant them a mechanical advantage, whether or not the action actually helps at all.

2)Morath and another PC are sleeping inside of a statue that has stairs leading to the top. The stairs are collapsed partway up and the only way to the top of the statue is by climbing a rope. The next morning the party has left the area, comes back, and finds a wizard at the top of the statue with the rope curled around his feet. When talking about it Morath claims that of course he would have pulled the rope up after him when climbing the tower, he thought it didn't need to be stated that he would do so. I again said that he would have had to of told me he did so the night before when they were making the camp.

On this issue my thinking is that I'm not going to make assumptions about the parties preparations that they don't state. During the previous scenario the other half of the party described how the tied off doors to secure their camp and what watch order they took. Morath and his companion described how they climbed the tower and set up a guardian of faith at the top of the tower. If they didn't also state "we also pull up the rope after us" then the rope is still hanging down.

So my general style of DMing, as you may have guessed by my answers above, is that if you don't tell me about something it didn't happen. I try and be fair about this. If the party makes a plan I will generally ask if that is all they are doing and then repeat the plan back to them, to clear up any misunderstandings. If the party says something like "we make camp for the night" I don't just assume they fall over asleep on the spot, I'll prod them about watch order and any defenses they want to erect.

My question to you playground is what do you think it is reasonable to just assume a PC is doing even if they don't state it? in a dungeon are they closing doors behind them? Are they collecting rope used in exploring? If they sleep in a dungeon is it assumed the door is barricaded? If they sleep in an inn is it assumed the door is locked? Where do you draw the line?

P.S. if curious my answer to the above is no, no, no, and yes.

 

[Iry]

1) It's common sense to hold your breath when running through strange looking clouds. He probably didn't even know he was going to get a mechanical advantage until someone mentioned it, but he would have reasonably been holding his breath either way.

2) I don't understand this one. If the party left the statue (which I assume includes climbing down the rope), and then came back to discover that a wizard was at the top of the statue, then how would Morath pull the rope back to the top of the statue? Unless he used some kind of mage hand effect, which could also be valid for the Wizard.

 

[Patrick Johnston]

1) I would have actually ruled that it presents no mechanical advantage anyways. That being said I like to establish that any action you do that you hope will give a mechanical advantage needs to be stated.

2) They jumped down from the statue. The other half of the party was in a separate room and got ambushed by a Death Slaad and he went to rescue them because him and the other tank were both in the statue..... The arguments aside the party made some questionable decisions that session

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, I'm kind of with you on this one.

A question: how long has "Morath" been playing? I ask because if s/he started in the old-school 0e-1e era when every detail sometimes had to be spelled out there's no excuse; but if s/he started more recently then perhaps some discussion is in order to clear up what your expectations are and that nothing can ever be assumed.

Lanefan

 

[Patrick Johnston]

He is not a 1st edition veteran, but then again neither am I. That being said we have had discussions/arguments about this before (I believe the first time it came up was related to an whether or not he had an Alarm spell but I may be wrong).

P.S. to clarify we have been playing together for years and at one point we got into very large argument that was sparked off because of something related.

 

[outsider]

The last couple of editions have been better about this(passive perception yay!), but the big one for me is:

"I search this specific thing for traps".

Back in the day, DMs would try to gotcha me with "Well, you didn't say you searched X for traps". I developed a routine to fight it. The moment a DM uttered those words to me, I would write down every noun they said in describing a room for the rest of the session. Then I would go through every single one of them saying "I search the X for traps. I search the Y for traps. I search the Z for traps.", usually being about 10-15 times per room, even on stuff I knew wouldn't be trapped. We just killed a kobold? I search the corpse for traps. He's wearing a belt? I search both the belt and the buckle for traps. When I found a trap, I'd drop the bomb on them. "I search the trap for traps, to make sure the trap isn't trapped with another trap that will go off when I disarm the trap". Most of them got the point.

 

[Lanefan]

"I search the trap for traps, to make sure the trap isn't trapped with another trap that will go off when I disarm the trap".

My players are one day going to regret you typing this, and thus giving me ideas... >evil cackle!<

Lanefan

 

[Patrick Johnston]

Like i said I try to be fair about it. For traps and things of that nature if a PC says "I search the room for traps" the room is searched for traps. They don't need to search the statue, the chair, and the wardrobe separately. They would need to check a locked chest, and the door to the next room separately though.

 

[Henry]

1. Rules as written, there is no advantage to holding your breath with Cloudkill. Even in previous editions there is no precedent for this.
2. Pulling up a rope after the fact? As noted, how would he have physically accomplished this, except perhaps by magic?

Either way, the big question boils down to the same issue; unless a player gives preset instructions, a GM should make no assumptions about what a player does not DOES NOT do. If the players give a set of assumptions about regular activity ("GM, this note gives all of our regular nightly precautions when camping for the night, including guard duty order.") then it's fine to assume these actions.

As a regular action, I turn my alarm system on at my house when I leave for work. Except when I don't. I've had times when I was distracted by something, even something inconsequential, and forgot to do something I otherwise would habitually do. It's why militaries have checklists for tasks; it's why most critical jobs at companies have two people assigned to the task, so that an extra person is there checking the work. "Of course I would have done that," is irrelevant because, plausibly, people forget stuff.

I've met plenty of players who are quick to try to retcon things when a hindsight situation is brought up, but are all too happy to stay silent if neglecting to do something works in their favor. ("Oh, the key we found on the guard was a decoy,and using it activates the chest trap? Well, OF COURSE I would have cast Knock instead to open it! I've always been distrustful when I find a key that easily!") You can't run the game off of assuming the PCs will always take the best option available - that leads to a VERY boring game. Even Indiana Jones misjudges the weight of the golden idol occasionally.

 

[Henry]

Like i said I try to be fair about it. For traps and things of that nature if a PC says "I search the room for traps" the room is searched for traps. They don't need to search the statue, the chair, and the wardrobe separately. They would need to check a locked chest, and the door to the next room separately though.

Agreed - there's no need to call out every item, but the PC called they were searching the whole room, so trying a "gotcha" on failing to search an item in the room would be unfair. On the other hand, if there's a trap on the desk, and their roll to find traps was low, them arguing that they didn't specifically say they were searching that desk is them arguing in poor faith, as an example.