What is "railroading" to you (as a player)?

[Micah Sweet]

I was just trying to answer whether Take 10 or 20 exists in 5E at at all, to be clear, but yes, it doesn't model retrying until your best result/Take 20 specifically. I wish that was in there! I'm glad at least average result/Take 10 is present though, I use it a lot, and I'm annoyed that text got removed from the '24 book.

Fortunately, we can add whatever rules we want to our games!

 

[Bill Zebub]

Fortunately, we can add whatever rules we want to our games!

One of my bladesmithing mentors used to say, after making a mistake, "Good thing it's made out of metal!" (Meaning that steel (unlike, say, wood) can often be deformed into whatever shape you want.

Kind of like RPGs.

 

[CreamCloud0]

It does have Take 10, in a way.

Passive Checks, P.175 (2014):

ah, that's probably why i thought it was in 5e but it's not the specific implementation i was thinking of, what i thought it was:

take 10: lets you skip rolling a single try skill check to take a fixed middle result, you can't do amazing but you can't blow it either.

take 20: lets you achieve your best possible results given enough time to test and experiment on a repeatable check.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is why I prefer rules like Shadowdark, where it is assumed that you will eventually succeed if there's no time constraint (or other complication).

Oddly enough, even the Hero System does this, though not quite in that flat a way; most tasks get a bonus for taking more time, and as long as you increase your chance, you can keep trying. The bonuses don't rack up linearly with time, so if you're not very capable or the lock is really hard it could take a bloodly long time (trying again and again across days), but sooner or later you'd almost certainly get the thing.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I should have worded that as "clearly this door is an impassable false door", because our point is that it's not like the player abandons all interest in seeing what's through the door. If I fail at Pick Lock, I know that the PC couldn't do it under those specific circumstances. Maybe with a bit of luck or whatever in-game condition the check abstracts, they could have. There's still something I want to address, so I ask the fighter to bust down the door or get out my stone to mud wand or whatever. I don't necessarily abandon it.

Now apply the same logic to Sense Motive. To treat social/knowledge skills differently, to assume by definition now the character is compelled to give up, is the folly we're invoking.

Well, at least as far as single approach/skill use, it could well be that the lockpicker after he's tried goes, essentially "This is a stupid complex lock. I might be able to get it over time but I'd be here for hours and we don't have that. Kick the thing down." You could get the social equivelent of that. But I think that works better if there's some transparency to the difficulty, at least after the fact, and sometimes with some things that doesn't seem appropriate.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If my GM wanted to make all my skills rolls so I don't know if how close I was to success or failure, I could get behind that. It would be fun to try out.

It makes more sense with some skills than others. I tend to find it follows better with perception-type skills than most others.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Totally agree. But, to me, that's another indication that the instinct to have somebody roll whenever they "attempt" something in which they have expertise is a bad model.

Well, honestly, with trivial and regular skills without intense time pressure, its bound to be.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Well, at least as far as single approach/skill use, it could well be that the lockpicker after he's tried goes, essentially "This is a stupid complex lock. I might be able to get it over time but I'd be here for hours and we don't have that. Kick the thing down." You could get the social equivelent of that. But I think that works better if there's some transparency to the difficulty, at least after the fact, and sometimes with some things that doesn't seem appropriate.

The only problem I have with that is that it means, essentially, that what is supposed to be a skill roll is actually determining how complex a lock is. As GM, I think that's my job, and I will occasionally break my rule that a skilled thief can eventually pick any lock to just say, "This one is hard. You can try, but it's going to be hard, and each attempt takes a long time so I'll be rolling for random events/wandering monsters."

 

[GrimCo]

That's still not the same as, "I'm supposed to be an expert lock-picker, and there's no time pressure, so I'm just going to hang out here trying until I get it."

5e goes with presumption that under those circumstances no roll would be necessary, you roll when result is uncertain or when failing check carries consequences (and you cant try again if you fail). You either auto succeed or auto fail. If DC is 30, you have +8, even with roll of 20, you fail. If DC was say 25, you auto succeed. Taking 20 was just that, you take your time and try and fail many times until you eventually get it right ( like you would if you rolled d20 again and again until you rolled 20).

 

[Maxperson]

Or you discuss what you think should happen with the rest of the table and come to a conclusion, with the GM having the final say if needed. That's how we do it.

That's reasonable. I was pushing back against the idea that if it isn't explicitly excluded, it's allowed. That's nonsensical, since 99.99999%(more actually) of everything that's possible isn't explicitly excluded from an RPG. The core rules could be larger than an Encyclopedia Britannica set and would still not include 99.999% of everything.

If it's not explicitly allowed, it's not allowed unless the DM, or table and DM, or just table, depending on your style of play, chooses to allow it.