What does it mean to "Challenge the Character"?

[Guest 6801328]

This, all about this.

The whole goal:method approach is all about the declaration. Whether or not you need to make a roll is based on the declaration. Whether you have advantage/disadvantage on the roll is based on the declaration. It makes the declaration very, very important.

The actual skill of the character only comes up after the declaration, and, even then, only if the declaration triggers a skill roll called for by the DM.

Who judges that declaration? The DM, of course. Which places the DM front and center of all player facing actions. Which means that since the character's abilities don't come up until after that judgment, the character's abilities are less important than the player's ability to make declarations. They have to be.

So, the player uses his Noble background to get past the gate guards. To me, that's not goal:method. That's pretty much purely a character challenge. The player looked at his character sheet which tells him that, as a Noble, he can do this. It's no different than the player casting a spell or making an attack. It's based on the character's abilities, not on the player's abilities.

IOW, there was no "method" being declared here. Any player decisions were made at chargen and not during the challenge.

So, I think this might be a sign of progress, because the "Noble at the gate" story is a great example of goal-and-method. The reasons you say it's not may help us finally get at the disconnect.

First, there is no mechanical ability attached to Noble that allows them to influence guards. The mechanical ability that is attached to that background is totally unrelated. So the player is definitely not invoking an "ability" or "skill" when he/she proposes that course of action. He's describing an approach narratively, not mechanically.

Second, goal-and-method or goal-and-approach does not prevent the DM from factoring in the character sheet when deciding if it's a success, a failure, or whether it needs a dice roll. That seems to be a point of misunderstanding. The exact opposite, in fact. Players *should* choose methods that leverage their character sheet, whether that's because of a specific mechanic they have, or because of something related to their background, race, or class that may be relevant, even if there's no mechanic. Goal-and-approach doesn't require support from the character sheet, but it definitely can benefit from it.

Third, how eloquently (or not) the player describes his interaction with the guard is completely irrelevant.

So the only two things that should really factor into the DM's ruling are:
1) The approach, which is invoking noble status to be allowed through the gate
2) The fact that the character doing this actually is (or is at least related to) nobles, which increases the probability of the approach working.

That still doesn't make it an autosuccess. The DM could factor in any number of things, and maybe still require a persuasion check (guards are suspicious that he's really a noble) or, like I suggested earlier, allow that PC to pass but not his companions, etc. But I think however I ended up ruling this, based on the specifics, I would give this approach a higher probability of success than an approach of "I try to persuade the guards that they should let us pass because we have a wood elf in our party, and wood elves are kind and gentle nature-lovers, so obviously we must be nice guys." The noble play just seems to me like an approach that is more likely to succeed.*

And, yes, that is inserting my judgment and biases as a DM into the game. Guilty as charged.

*Now, if they DID choose the "wood elves are nice guys" approach and rolled really well, that would be an excellent time to use roll-then-narrate, and make up some reason why this guard is especially soft on wood elves. Turns out he has been madly in love with the wood elf bartender at his favorite watering hole. Whatever.

 

[Hussar]

So, I think this might be a sign of progress, because the "Noble at the gate" story is a great example of goal-and-method. The reasons you say it's not may help us finally get at the disconnect.

First, there is no mechanical ability attached to Noble that allows them to influence guards. The mechanical ability that is attached to that background is totally unrelated. So the player is definitely not invoking an "ability" or "skill" when he/she proposes that course of action. He's describing an approach narratively, not mechanically.

Wait. Hold on. Right there? That's a disconnect.

According to the Noble Background (PHB 135)

Feature: Position of Privilege.

... You are welcome in high society and people assume yo uhave the right to be wherever you are... You can secure an audience with a local noble if you need to

Sounds like a mechanic to me. It would be pretty hard to secure an audience if you can't get through the gate after all. So, no, the player doesn't have to state anything like an approach. The fact that he's a noble means that there's no challenge here at all.

But, if goal:approach means that I can just point to my character sheet, then, well, I guess I do goal and approach too.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Wait. Hold on. Right there? That's a disconnect.

According to the Noble Background (PHB 135)



Sounds like a mechanic to me. It would be pretty hard to secure an audience if you can't get through the gate after all. So, no, the player doesn't have to state anything like an approach. The fact that he's a noble means that there's no challenge here at all.

But, if goal:approach means that I can just point to my character sheet, then, well, I guess I do goal and approach too.

Gah. Damn. I should have looked up Noble background. I thought the mechanic only mentioned the reaction of other nobles.

Ok, so let's pretend that...

Oh, nevermind. If you were genuinely interested you would have been able to error correct around that mistake.

 

[Hussar]

Gah. Damn. I should have looked up Noble background. I thought the mechanic only mentioned the reaction of other nobles.

Ok, so let's pretend that...

Oh, nevermind. If you were genuinely interested you would have been able to error correct around that mistake.

Hang on a tick. After taking me to task repeatedly for not following the rules of the game, you don't get to then hand wave things away when you aren't following the rules. You are claiming that this is a perfect example of goal:method. It isn't. It's a perfect example of a pure character challenge that the player doesn't really have a whole lot of input into. In a goal:method approach, the character matters less (not that it doesn't matter, I agree with you on that). Because the APPROACH is obviously important. And it's the player that states approaches.

And, it's not about getting wrapped up in flowery language. If the player picks an approach that the DM feels will work, regardless of how it is phrased, then it works, no check is required. Right? See, this is where we are talking past each other. When I talk about gaming the DM, it's not just using a funny voice and being entertaining. A lot of gaming the DM is knowing what the DM will and won't call checks for. If I know that Bob the DM doesn't really call for persuasion checks (or whatever check) very often so long as I can present my case well enough, then, well, I'm not going to bother investing character resources in persuasion.

For me, it tends to lead to players who expect that approaches will work and expect that challenges will be tailored to the approaches that the players use. When the DM then decides to do something else, and suddenly those ignored stats come into play, the player gets really huffy and arguments around the table start. Now, I'm NOT SAYING this happens in your game. It certainly doesn't happen all the time. But, it does happen. And it's one weak point for goal:approach methods. Groups that play together for a while begin to learn each other's expectations. I mean, heck, I just had a player blow a gasket and leave the group because the DM decided to play to the weaknesses of the group. So, yes, I know that it happens.

Look, I see how you folks are doing it. It's not exactly hard to see. Good grief, the PHB and DMG are pretty clear about it. I get it. Really, honest to goodness I do.

I just don't prefer to play that way. I find that it causes more arguments than it solves, because it places the DM to much in the forefront of the game. I am not interested in that style of game anymore and haven't been for a long time. So, I tend to run the game far closer to a 4e style, since, well, mechanically, the skill (whoops, mistype almost wrote skilly system ) system is pretty much identical to 4e sans the level adjustment. It works perfectly fine run that way since the 4e skill system was pretty loosey goosey as well. However, in 4e, the advice was to let the players drive the system whereas in 5e, it leans more heavily on the DM. Meh, I let it lean on the players just fine.

The weakness of my approach though is that players who figure that they can just come up with different approaches or that the game will be tailored to not highlight deficiencies soon get frustrated. And I can see how if one player comes up with a great idea for getting past the gate guard and then rolls a fail on the check can get frustrating.

Perhaps the conversation would go forward a lot better if folks would point out the weaknesses in their own approaches rather than in others. And I am VERY MUCH including myself in that.

 

[pemerton]

In D&D 5e, players describe what they want to do. They decide what their characters do, how they think, and what they say. That's all they can do.

Does this mean that you don't agree that the player can establish the backstory for Gord the Barbarian that was flagged upthread?

Or - and I'm not trying to impute views to you, just trying to map out some of the relevant space of possibilities - would you see that as a suggestion to the GM which the latter is free to accept or reject?

if we're talking about boundaries, mine are basically the same as @iserith's, although...I'm hazarding a guess, here...I think mine are a little looser.

That's what I'm getting at in the paragraph just above this one.

I welcome players adding to the fiction outside of their character, especially if it's about their background; not sure if iserith does that.

In last night's session some low level characters encountered a partially used necklace of fireballs. One of the players announced he was going OOC and said, "I'm pretty sure I know what this is but I don't think my character would know." I said that's cool, he can have his character know or not know; it's all the same to me. But if he chooses to know, maybe he also knows why. The player said, "Ahhh..." and immediately invented a 'well-known' fairy tale from his homeland.

Another player (first time at my table; he kept saying things like, "I'll use Insight...") wanted to know if he had any friends/associates in the city who might have some particular information. I said, "Describe this friend." He did and...poof!...that friend existed. I added some personality, the player added a name, I added the backstory to the name, and by the end of the session this character was fully integrated (and completely annoying) in the adventure.

But I'm not sure I can give a concrete, specific rule for when it's ok for players to add details to the world outside of their own character. New players just have to listen to what other's do, and participate. If somebody is too hesitant I'll ask for details ("describe the friend") and if somebody goes too far over the boundary I'll work with it but give some feedback, too.

After making my post yesterday and before reading replies, I was thinking about the following:

What happens if a player who suspects a trap (eg they've just had [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]'s description of the room with the broken pit surface, the alcoves and slots and the like) declares, Last week when I was hanging out at the thieve's guild I had a discussion with so-and-so about such-and-such and they were talking about this spear gauntlet trap they once encountered and told me such-and-such thing about it?

I can see several different ways of dealing with this:

(1) It's not a permitted action declaration because it's about matters in the past relative to the GM's most recent bit of narration.

(2) It's permitted as a bit of flavour, similar to the story about Gord the Barbarian's elders, but that's all it is and it has no bearing on the resolution of the current situation.

(3) It's permitted as a genuine action declaration - to be resolved, say, as a test on CHA (for being sociable with the guild members) or INT (because it's really about the lore the player is familiar with) - which, if it is successful, obliges the GM to tell the player something about the current situation.

(4) as (3), but a successful resolution has some indeterminate consequence in the fiction ("The player recalls something useful from the conversation") which then grants advantage on one (at least) subsequent check made to successful disarm/bypass the trap.​

Maybe there are other possibilities too that I'm missing at the moment.

I don't know what the "official" 5e answer is. It's something where I would expect very significant table variation. My own approach would be either (3) or (4) - which one would depend on further issues of how the game is being played, what the role of pre-authored GM notes are, etc. If adjudicating via (4), then a failure would impose a penalty/disadvantage on the subsequent check. If adjudicating via (3) then a failure also needs to give a penalty, but that might have to be more concrete than an abstract mechanical thing and what that might be would depend very much on context.

And to finish with a slightly different matter . . .

What I've been trying to accomplish (and, yes, your caustic dismissiveness has at times led to me reciprocating with the same) is to see if you acknowledge any middle ground between the player using personal persuasiveness to manipulate the DM and purely mechanical rolling of dice with zero creative problem solving on the part of the player.

I could be misunderstanding [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], but I don't see that the concern is with "personal persuasiveness" in the used car salesman sense, but rather with being able to cleverly pitch solutions which will impress the GM.

Example roll-circumventing action declaration which are rather obvious, like using ladders to climb walls or using keys to open locks, clearly don't fall within the scope of Hussar's concern. But I can't imagine those are the examples that "goal and approach" advocates have in mind when they advocate their position, either, as those would be very banal examples of a clever approach obviating the need for a check.

 

[pemerton]

Good post.

I especially like the Blades in the Dark example (which I have also been reading lately). Maybe that mechanic is a kind of litmus test: whether or not you like it perhaps says a lot about where you stand on a number of other playstyle questions.

For the record, I love that mechanic.

But it was meant to be an example that would correspond to someone thinking that the player with the 8 INT PC shouldn't engage in clever play! (ie it was mean to be an anti-vessel example).

For what it's worth, I would haven no problem with the BitD mechanic, although I don't envisage actually playing that game. (I do play Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic, and in that system inventory is a matter of post-hoc checks or resource expenditure, not a matter of in-advance planning. So it's somewhat similar to BitD.)

In 4e D&D I take the same view as you do of the significance of an 8 INT or CHA in the 5e context, although because of my different approach to when to call for checks it perhaps comes into play more often than it would in your 5e game.

But when refereeing Classic Traveller I expect a player whose PC has a low INT to express that in his/her play of the PC.

Which is to say, that I don't think there is a simple dichotomy between PC as separate entity and PC as vessel. I think it's about the details of system. Stats in 4e or 5e mean one thing (they are inputs into the process of adjudication); stats in Traveller mean something else (they are part of a description of who the character is in the fiction). And I would say that AD&D and B/X sit somewhere in between these two ends of the spectrum.

Now, for other games, like say Ten Candles or VtM or OtE - my position on the scale between "entity" and "your play" shifts. Pretty much the more importance we show in chargen on mechanics and specifics for "the entity " the more I want to show that as time (choices) that matter.

Can you elaborate on Over the Edge? I haven't played it but am thinking I might get to run a session or three some time in the next few months. I would expect PC build to generate much stronger expectations about how a player will play his/her PC than would be the case in (say) 4e or (I think) 5e, even though the mechanical footprint is much lighter. An 8 INT on a D&D 4e or 5e character sheet does not carry much information about the personality/nature/propensities of the character - whereas it seems to me that the descriptors on the OtE sheet carry a lot of weight.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Does this mean that you don't agree that the player can establish the backstory for Gord the Barbarian that was flagged upthread?

Or - and I'm not trying to impute views to you, just trying to map out some of the relevant space of possibilities - would you see that as a suggestion/I] to the GM which the latter is free to accept or reject?

That's what I'm getting at in the paragraph just above this one.

After making my post yesterday and before reading replies, I was thinking about the following:

What happens if a player who suspects a trap (eg they've just had [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]'s description of the room with the broken pit surface, the alcoves and slots and the like) declares, Last week when I was hanging out at the thieve's guild I had a discussion with so-and-so about such-and-such and they were talking about this spear gauntlet trap they once encountered and told me such-and-such thing about it?

I can see several different ways of dealing with this:

(1) It's not a permitted action declaration because it's about matters in the past relative to the GM's most recent bit of narration.

(2) It's permitted as a bit of flavour, similar to the story about Gord the Barbarian's elders, but that's all it is and it has no bearing on the resolution of the current situation.

(3) It's permitted as a genuine action declaration - to be resolved, say, as a test on CHA (for being sociable with the guild members) or INT (because it's really about the lore the player is familiar with) - which, if it is successful, obliges the GM to tell the player something about the current situation.

(4) as (3), but a successful resolution has some indeterminate consequence in the fiction ("The player recalls something useful from the conversation") which then grants advantage on one (at least) subsequent check made to successful disarm/bypass the trap.​

Maybe there are other possibilities too that I'm missing at the moment.

I don't know what the "official" 5e answer is. It's something where I would expect very significant table variation. My own approach would be either (3) or (4) - which one would depend on further issues of how the game is being played, what the role of pre-authored GM notes are, etc. If adjudicating via (4), then a failure would impose a penalty/disadvantage on the subsequent check. If adjudicating via (3) then a failure also needs to give a penalty, but that might have to be more concrete than an abstract mechanical thing and what that might be would depend very much on context.

And to finish with a slightly different matter . . .

I could be misunderstanding [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], but I don't see that the concern is with "personal persuasiveness" in the used car salesman sense, but rather with being able to cleverly pitch solutions which will impress the GM.

Example roll-circumventing action declaration which are rather obvious, like using ladders to climb walls or using keys to open locks, clearly don't fall within the scope of Hussar's concern. But I can't imagine those are the examples that "goal and approach" advocates have in mind when they advocate their position, either, as those would be very banal examples of a clever approach obviating the need for a check.

Hmm. In 5e I suppose it would have to depend on what already established fictions are. Assuming it fits that fiction, I'd probably go with a 4; if it doesn't fit, it's a 2. In Blades, 3 would be my choice, possibly leveraging the flashback mechanic depending on significance.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[iserith]

Sounds like a mechanic to me. It would be pretty hard to secure an audience if you can't get through the gate after all. So, no, the player doesn't have to state anything like an approach. The fact that he's a noble means that there's no challenge here at all.

The goal is to get past the guards into the noble's quarter. The approach is to draw upon the character's position of privilege to tell the guards he or she belongs here. I would have the guards ask the noble to see proof of the claim (if they aren't familiar with the PC), since anyone can claim to be noble, which the player may have in the form of a scroll of pedigree (noble starting equipment). If the scroll is produced, then the character is permitted entry (automatic success). If it is not produced, an ability check may follow depending on how the player has the character respond.

The challenge to the player is to get the character past the guards. The difficulty is made very low by applying the background feature and pedigree scroll.

 

[iserith]

Does this mean that you don't agree that the player can establish the backstory for Gord the Barbarian that was flagged upthread?

Or - and I'm not trying to impute views to you, just trying to map out some of the relevant space of possibilities - would you see that as a suggestion to the GM which the latter is free to accept or reject?

What is not clear to me is the action declaration the player is making for the character. The player is free to establish what the character thinks which may include something about the character's backstory. But until I see an action declaration, I have nothing to adjudicate as DM.