D&D 5E What happens when you fail?

[Maxperson]

This is a persuasive interpretation, but I'm not sure why that the second bit is buried in the DMG. Trying to divine what the designers were thinking from the layout of those books is a path that leads to madness, though...

The second bit is not a rule, which is why it's in the DMG. The first bit is a rule, because it's in the PHB which contains the rules to play the game. The DM is encouraged to only call for a roll when there's a meaningful consequence for failure(and I personally follow that guidance), but it's not a hard rule to do so.

 

[prabe]

But in my example of Chuck the butcher, who despite his name is not the murderer and has nothing to hide, if the DM does not call for an insight check the players know Chuckie is innocent, right?

Or he's guilty but has some feature that makes it impossible to tell that's the case. That's arguably crappy design, but it's rules-legal DMing, innit?

 

[Maxperson]

So if you follow that strictly, why do the players not automatically know if someone is telling the truth? I'm not going to get into how they indicate they want an insight check - asking "Insight check?" or "Can I tell if they're lying or hiding something?" is the same thing to me. There are other examples of course, but this is a simple and common one.

I study his face for clues that he is deceiving me. Or more simply, I study his body language and see what I can pick up.

But in my example of Chuck the butcher, who despite his name is not the murderer and has nothing to hide, if the DM does not call for an insight check the players know Chuckie is innocent, right?

Why would they? The PC doesn't know if Chucky was telling the truth or if he has a higher deception opposed roll. Nor does the PC know if a roll happened or not. The DM should not be telling the player that Chucky is telling the truth. The DM should tell the player that his PC picks up nothing that indicates that Chucky is lying.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

So if you follow that strictly, why do the players not automatically know if someone is telling the truth? I'm not going to get into how they indicate they want an insight check - asking "Insight check?" or "Can I tell if they're lying or hiding something?" is the same thing to me. There are other examples of course, but this is a simple and common one.

The players are free to think anything they like. They don't "automatically" know anything, however - that is why it is good practice for them to test their assumptions in the game world via their PCs. Once they do so, and depending on their approach to doing so, the DM might just give them the information they are seeking, granting them auto-success. Or, the DM might determine that there is no possibility of them knowing: auto-fail. Or, the DM might determine that there is uncertainty in whether they know or not and that there is a meaningful consequence for failure - now the DM calls for a roll, ideally letting them know the difficulty and what might be at stake.

But in my example of Chuck the butcher, who despite his name is not the murderer and has nothing to hide, if the DM does not call for an insight check the players know Chuckie is innocent, right?

If the DM chooses to grant auto-success and tell them that Chuckie is innocent, sure. Otherwise, no roll might simply indicate that their approach to discovering the truth has no chance of success: "Chuckie is really hard to read. What would you like to do next?"

 

[Swarmkeeper]

The DM should tell the player that his PC picks up nothing that indicates that Chucky is lying.

This is a good way to handle it.

 

[Baron Opal II]

A question for 5e DMs out there (and, I suppose, players of 5e DMs). When a PC fails at something, what happens in your game?

Typical parameters for failure are important to define at the start of play. Most of the time a failure is often a partial success at levels 5+, unless modifiers to the roll cause the result to be negative.

Actual play examples:

A thief can pick a standard lock in 10 minutes at worst. At best, they can pick it in a round. If the roll is failed it is opened in a minute, sometimes 10 minutes, depending on the degree of failure. Breaking picks usually only happens on negative rolls, 5- for low level thieves.

I rank knowledge and trade skills at four ranks; apprentice, fellowcraft, master, grand master. The minimum competence level is defined for those rankings. If a roll is called for it is for something at the edge of competency or typical exposure. Example; a cleric and a magician have fellowcraft rank in Magical Lore. The party comes across an extra-planar creature. The cleric fails. They are able to determine that they are looking at an extra-planar creature, not an explicit foe of the church, pretty sure on a list of "dangerous entities" at the temple. The magician succeeds. They know that it is an extra-planar creature, it is called a "slaad", they are from the Ylem Sea, they are dangerous due to power and unpredictability, but they don't know any particular vulnerabilities as it is one of the rare entities in the prime material.

So, either of them can determine if something is extra-planar and if it is an entity that is consider sapient, sentient, or reflexive. Success leads to priest's knowledge of the entity in their dogma, a magician's knowledge of origin, and either's knowledge of vulnerability.

 

[cbwjm]

Rogue failed by 5 or more, and I said "one of your lockpicks breaks off in the lock, jamming it and preventing further lockpicking attempts."

They had to find another way to open the door, and they went down from 10 lockpicks (house rule that thieves' tools have 10 lockpicks) to 9 lockpicks. In this case, it was also relevant because they were trying to "leave no trace."

I like this house rule, I feel like that should be the case for many of the kits, like a herbalism kit might be able to hold 10 herbs and it takes 5 to craft a healing potion, so you can get 2 potions out of one before needing to refill it. The kit itself costs 5gp, I reckon that's the empty version, but it comes with things that help you make the potions.

 

[Oofta]

Or he's guilty but has some feature that makes it impossible to tell that's the case. That's arguably crappy design, but it's rules-legal DMing, innit?

There's nothing I know of that can make someone 100% deceptive. Even Glibness, an 8th level spell, only gives you a minimum 15 on charisma based checks and prevents magical detection of lies. DM can always do what they want, but assuming the DM isn't house ruling that the culprit can get away with any and all lies I know of nothing.

So yes ... if your DM is a ass it might not be possible to get a read on someone. Assuming the DM is not an ass it's an issue. If the PCs can't get an insight check, they know the person they're talking to is telling the truth. It's even better than Zone of Truth because that could be foiled by the aforementioned Glibness spell.

 

[Oofta]

I study his face for clues that he is deceiving me. Or more simply, I study his body language and see what I can pick up.

Why would they? The PC doesn't know if Chucky was telling the truth or if he has a higher deception opposed roll. Nor does the PC know if a roll happened or not. The DM should not be telling the player that Chucky is telling the truth. The DM should tell the player that his PC picks up nothing that indicates that Chucky is lying.

So if you indicate that you want an insight check and the DM doesn't ask for a roll, you what. Play dumb? If this happened in a game I would know, guaranteed, that the NPC was telling the truth. It's metagaming but at a certain point it's incredibly difficult to separate the two.

What could it possibly hurt to have the player roll an insight check even if the DM knows it will fail to reveal anything?

 

[Oofta]

The players are free to think anything they like. They don't "automatically" know anything, however - that is why it is good practice for them to test their assumptions in the game world via their PCs. Once they do so, and depending on their approach to doing so, the DM might just give them the information they are seeking, granting them auto-success. Or, the DM might determine that there is no possibility of them knowing: auto-fail. Or, the DM might determine that there is uncertainty in whether they know or not and that there is a meaningful consequence for failure - now the DM calls for a roll, ideally letting them know the difficulty and what might be at stake.


If the DM chooses to grant auto-success and tell them that Chuckie is innocent, sure. Otherwise, no roll might simply indicate that their approach to discovering the truth has no chance of success: "Chuckie is really hard to read. What would you like to do next?"

Same answer. You may be able to separate metagame knowledge from PC knowledge, most people cannot and likely would not.

What does it hurt to ask for a roll?