D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

[Lanefan]

My first thought in response to this was (1) why is the GM calling out stuff that s/he has already decided won't matter ("dungeon decoration")

Because she's expected to, as part of her job as GM, describe the environment the PCs are in.

Or are you suggesting there should be no such thing as dungeon decoration? No scene elements that are just there only to be scene elements?

There's a rule in stage theatre - I forget the name of it right now - that goes something like if there's a gun on stage sooner or later someone has to use it. This rule does not in any way apply to RPG scene-setting and environment narration!

and (2) the player hasn't specified what s/he is looking for.

Of course she hasn't, and nor should she have to. She's looking to see what's there, if anything, without knowing what she might find. Could find a diamond, could find a crushed person, could find a key, could find a hidden trap door underneath it...or, most likely, could find nothing of relevance.

Like [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] I enjoy "fiction first" play, but I think that is a bit orthogonal to your example - because in Dungeon World a player who declares I search the rubble is closely studying a person or situation, which automatically triggers the Discern Realities move (DW p 68). And the Dungeon World rules say (p 18) that

When a player describes their character doing something that triggers a move, that move happens and its rules apply. If the move requires a roll, its description will tell you what dice to roll and how to read their results. . . . Everyone at the table should listen for when moves apply. If it’s ever unclear if a move has been triggered, everyone should work together to clarify what’s happening. Ask questions of everyone involved until everyone sees the situation the same way and then roll the dice, or don’t, as the situation requires.​

So at least as I read the DW rules, there is no reason why a player who declares I search the rubble shouldn't then pick up his/her 2d6 and roll them. If s/he gets an 11 or 12 (like the 20 in your example) then the GM is obliged to provide a certain sort of information, as specified in the rules (eg What here is not what it appears to be?). The pile of rubble matters (regardless of whether the GM thought it would or wouldn't) because the player has (i) decided to pay attention to it, and (ii) succeeded at a check.

As I said, what strikes me in your example is that the player hasn't indicated what s/he is looking for, and so hasn't given the GM very much context to hang a response on. I find it easier to narrate successes (and failures) when I have some sense of what the player thinks is at stake in the situation.

Stating she's searching for a trap door under the rubble, however, then by your description limits the search results to yes you find one or no you don't (with 'no you don't' possibly adding a consequence); there's no chance of finding anything else that might be there e.g. a diamond or a key.

An open-ended "I check out the rubble to see what might be in there" gets it done far more efficiently; with the GM legitimately allowed to ask for more specifics e.g. by what means are you 'checking it out'?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

There's a rule in stage theatre - I forget the name of it right now - that goes something like if there's a gun on stage sooner or later someone has to use it. This rule does not in any way apply to RPG scene-setting and environment narration!

You're thinking of Chekhov's Gun, which is an extension of the Law of Conservation of Detail. Basically, when you're telling a story, you shouldn't include details that are irrelevant to the story, because they'll distract the audience from what's important.

Which, of course, has nothing at all to do with running an RPG, because RPGs take place in immersive worlds rather than within narrative constructs.

 

[5ekyu]

You're thinking of Chekhov's Gun, which is an extension of the Law of Conservation of Detail. Basically, when you're telling a story, you shouldn't include details that are irrelevant to the story, because they'll distract the audience from what's important.

Which, of course, has nothing at all to do with running an RPG, because RPGs take place in immersive worlds rather than within narrative constructs.

Actually the gun on the mantlepiece can have relevence here in the following aspect...

A GM can establish certain "common elements of a scene" that carry thru without repeating them over and over.

"The keep walls are... The place has broken down a bit and most every room has some collapsed stone and rubble... The place is litter with webs, animal refuse, rats pretty,much scurrying away everywhere... Lit by a dim glowing fungus..."

Then the GM can not exceptions... which also reinforce/remind the players of the norm.

"This room shows no spiders... This room has no collapsed tones... All the rats in here are dead and no rats scurry here..."

That way you can have the rubble in the scene but not,listed in the 2-3 things the GM spotlights in his opening of that room.

 

[Hussar]

Imagine that instead of there being nothing of interest in the rubble it is instead infested with rot grubs or covered with a contact poison. It would be helpful to know as DM whether the character is using a shovel or his or her hands, right?

Why on earth would you assume that the PC is digging with his or her hands?

This is exactly what I'm talking about. You ask, "How are you searching the rubble?" Now I have to specifically state that I'm using a shovel and not my hands or I get attacked by rot grubs? Seriously?

Yeah, no thanks.

 

[iserith]

Why on earth would you assume that the PC is digging with his or her hands?

This is exactly what I'm talking about. You ask, "How are you searching the rubble?" Now I have to specifically state that I'm using a shovel and not my hands or I get attacked by rot grubs? Seriously?

Yeah, no thanks.

I'm not the one assuming anything remember. I'm the one asking players to state a clear goal and approach when describing what they want to do.

 

[5ekyu]

Why on earth would you assume that the PC is digging with his or her hands?

This is exactly what I'm talking about. You ask, "How are you searching the rubble?" Now I have to specifically state that I'm using a shovel and not my hands or I get attacked by rot grubs? Seriously?

Yeah, no thanks.

Actualky what i might do is wait fir your check results.

If you succeed agsinst the DC you notice the grubs, notice the poison etc. before getting hurt. You found the threat. Now how do you want to proceed?

If you fail the check, i invoke the "some progress with setback" result right there in the PHB in the same sentence as makes no progress... And the setback is the grub or poison getting to do the thing on you, whatever they now do.

Then again, i make sure that "what 5e RAW PHB says a failed ability check means" gets covered in my session zero and you have likely seen this kind of thing before - so its no surprise.

 

[Campbell]

Why on earth would you assume that the PC is digging with his or her hands?

This is exactly what I'm talking about. You ask, "How are you searching the rubble?" Now I have to specifically state that I'm using a shovel and not my hands or I get attacked by rot grubs? Seriously?

Yeah, no thanks.

How else as a DM/GM expected to meaningfully adjudicate the consequences of success and failure except through fictional positioning? What you can find with just a close inspection of eyes will differ from sifting through it with your hands which will differ from using a shovel. Making decisions based on your reasoning about the fiction is like the core skill of playing a role playing game. I get that focusing on minute details of searching dungeons can easily lead to Greyhawking. That's why I choose to run in and play in games where that is not a focus of the fiction. Still, the idea that actually having to reason about the fiction is an overwhelming inconvenience seems off to me.

 

[Hussar]

"Any player who complains about that is being a bad player."

I take a slightly different slant and see that player as misunderstanding what the check is for... What success means.

Remember in some gameplay (not so much in DnD) a skill check is an attempt to affect the scene, to determine an outcome. In such a game, success in a search does not mean "you looked thru the safe" but also "and you found a clue".

Compare the skill checks for searching the rubble and hunting/foraging in 5e.

Both cases specific actions are declared, skills rolled vs dc set by gm, but in the search you just get told whats there while in the foraging you get to,not only find stuff but hunt/gather/harvest it... Your forage is not "do i find anything" but "do i find, take down and gather food or water we can use?

If you told a player the foraging DC was 20 due to scarcity and he got a 23 but you told him he did not find anything woryh eating or drinking - would that be a "bad player" too if he said "but i got the 20".

Is it the player's bad if hecl sees over and over foraging be a DC success means get something but reacts when a high search yields nothing or is that a case of bad gm (assign really high dc to see if something is there like with foraging in barren area" or bad "system"?

Is it wrong or bad or not 5e if a gm chooses to treat searching/investigate like survival - foraging and set a dc bssed on what the gm knows of the scene but then allows the *check* to determine the outcome?

Thats why i say the example is not to me saying "bad player" just maybe misunderstanding the table rules.

No, that would be a bad DM call. The DC is 20. He succeeded. He found food. End of story. Why would he not find food after I set the DC and he succeeded? Why are you taking a success away from the player?

 

[Hussar]

I'm not the one assuming anything remember. I'm the one asking players to state a clear goal and approach when describing what they want to do.

Meh, so, if the player states, "I search the rubble to see if there is anything interesting there." you automatically assume that he's taking the most disadvantageous approach (using his bare hands)? I mean, do I seriously need to state, "Ok, I'm using a shovel to search the rubble."? I need to pixel bitch my way through every single action so that I don't miss the DM gotcha moments?

"I search the rubble, I got a 20 (or whatever) on my Investigate check, what do I find?", to me, is a perfectly acceptable thing for a player to do and, in fact, I would get annoyed with a player who didn't do this and waited after every statement for me, as the DM, to poke and prod for more information. I look at "I search the rubble" as a perfectly fine way of playing and I would not then spring the, "AHA GOTCHA! You didn't say that you were using your shovel to search! You just stuck your hand in a pile of rot grubs!"

I simply assume that the PC's are competent and won't do anything blindingly stupid and my players are confident in that and trust that I won't screw them over. "Oh, you didn't say you were buying cold weather gear before heading into the blizzard, I guess you all died of hypothermia." No thanks.

Just to go back a bit about pacing. In my last Primeval Thule session, which was 3 hours, we did the following:

5 combats - exploring an abandoned Atlantean outpost that had been taken over by cyclopses (cyclopsi?).
1 social encounter - interrogating a prisoner to learn information.
2 exploration - exploring the abandoned outpost as well as investigating an entrance to a dungeon that was a 200 foot deep chasm that needed to be climbed down in the dark while avoiding the giant spiders that had strung webs across the chasm.

And that was in less than 3 hours because we actually ended the session early. A bit combat heavy, but, then again, I likes me the hack, so, not too bad. Fun session actually. This was for a 9th level party as well. So, when I talk about higher pacing, I'm not kidding.

 

[Hussar]

How else as a DM/GM expected to meaningfully adjudicate the consequences of success and failure except through fictional positioning? What you can find with just a close inspection of eyes will differ from sifting through it with your hands which will differ from using a shovel. Making decisions based on your reasoning about the fiction is like the core skill of playing a role playing game. I get that focusing on minute details of searching dungeons can easily lead to Greyhawking. That's why I choose to run in and play in games where that is not a focus of the fiction. Still, the idea that actually having to reason about the fiction is an overwhelming inconvenience seems off to me.

But a close examination with your eyes is a Perception, not Investigate check. And either will reveal different information. The player has stated searching and used an Investigate check, which means he's getting hands on with whatever he's checking out.

You search the rubble. ((The DM knows that the DC for finding the Rot Grubs is X)) You got a 20. That's high enough to detect the rot grubs before they notice you. Roll for initiative. Roll too low and the rot grubs are now trying to eat you. Roll for initiative, and they have surprise. How is this a difficult adjudication?