Even Sherlock Holmes needs to investigate sometimes

[Quertus]

I read a post once where someone commented that old school players solve problems by looking to each other, while new players look to their character sheets. Old school players use OOC problem solving skills, while the new school of thought is to make a skill check.

Now, I'm all for squeezing every last drop of information I can out of sense motive. I like the idea that, with enough skill and the right questions, I may as well be able to read minds.

But even Sherlock Holmes occasionally had to actually go out and investigate. Sometimes, there just weren't enough clues available on the person hiring him for him to solve the case without leaving his office.

So, how do you get new school players to investigate something beyond making a skill roll? How do you turn, "no, even with <knowledge skill>, you are not sure how X" into the players choosing to investigate X?

Or is this old school line of thinking just considered badwrongfun these days?

[Toilet Cobra]

Or is this old school line of thinking just considered badwrongfun these days?

Looking down on any group of players for perceived inadequacies in their play style is sadwrongthink.

But in answer to your actual question: prompting people to investigate further is often a matter of the DM's language. When telling a player that their skill check has failed to yield information, you can easily imply that there's more going on and the player needs to seek further information using other channels. You can just as easily convey that there is no information to be had and the player is barking up the wrong tree. If the stakes are high enough and you've encouraged more investigation, I don't think most players would simply give up after a failed roll, but if they require prompting you can always hint that the answers lie out there somewhere.

If the player is new enough, they may be under the impression that their only option IS the skill check, and they are not entitled to more answers no matter what they do. This is a simple matter of bad instruction and easily fixed by the DM.

And of course you can always say that at your table there is no Sense Motive skill, and the players have to use their own judgement.

[martixy]

So, I came upon this (http://theangrygm.com/five-simple-rules-for-dating-my-teenaged-skill-system/) thing recently.
Here's the relevant excerpt of an approach I really like:

DM: “… and the guard refuses you entry to the Citadel.”
Player: “Can I roll a Diplomacy check?”
DM: “Sure, knock yourself out.”
Player: “27.”
DM: “Wow, that’s a really good roll. Anyway, that was fun, but what do you want to do about the guard?”
Player: “I meant I wanted to roll that check at the guard.”
DM: “Well, he’s impressed by your roll too, but he didn’t bring is twenty-sided die. Besides, he’s on duty and can’t play dice games with you right now.”

[Tohsaka Rin]

A good DM would have the Guard still refuse entry, but at least give the players some information, perhaps as to why they're not allowed, or what legal channels they can go through to gain entry.

A bad DM snarks at a player for being led to believe the DM isn't jerking them around for not being mind readers.

[noob]

Except that in dnd you do not have the right to ask for something specific with diplomacy it can only and uniquely be used for making friends or bartering.
Basically rolling a diplomacy check is telling "Do you want to drink X with me and then hang around with me?"
You can not roll a diplomacy check to do something with the dnd rules you can only use it to make of someone a friend.
It should be called "ability to make friends" because of so much restrained it is in the rules.

[Crake]

So, I came upon this (http://theangrygm.com/five-simple-rules-for-dating-my-teenaged-skill-system/) thing recently.
Here's the relevant excerpt of an approach I really like:

That's kind of a jerk way to explain it to the player. You should have said something like "While the guard's attitude toward you is friendly/helpful/whatever, he's still a diligent man, and will not shirk his duties as guard of this gate to help you on a personal investigation"

All you need to do is remind people that diplomacy checks don't duplicate charm spells (which explicitly call for an opposed charisma check when trying to convince someone to do something they wouldn't normally do, ala the guard opening the gate), though your response leads me to believe that had they charmed the guard, it still wouldn't have worked :/

As for investigations, I recommend reading this (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule) article, it helps a lot with trying to set up mystery adventures and investigation segments, though the main argument I hear from players is when they have someone with say, 18 intelligence, or 18 wisdom in the party, and that's "my character is way smarter/wiser than I am, he would be able to figure this out in a heartbeat compared to me", which in a sense is correct. Add in the fact that the players have to actually try and solve this all on second hand information (ie, you describing the scene rather than showing it to them, unless you're hardcore enough to actually set up a whole scene for them to investigate, but then that relies a lot on out of character skill that their characters may/may not possess over the players), then it starts to become a bit hectic.

I've only run a single investigation scene in my (admittedly short) career as a DM, but probably the best advice I can give you (which I believe is also stated in that article) is don't have predetermined idea of how the mystery should be solved. Assess your players' choices for investigation based on the idea's merits, and think about what outcomes it may lead to (if any). That way the players will feel like actual investigators, rather than feeling like they're playing "guess what the DM is thinking". Let skill checks play their part though, for example, if their idea is "Search the crime scene for clues" let them roll search checks to find various tidbits of information, then roll appropriate ability checks to determine if they can deduce anything from them.

For example in a murder investigation, the victim may have been taken away from the scene of the crime (which say, happened in the victim's home). The players decide to roll search checks at the victim's home for any clues, and happen to find a blood splatter that the murderer happened to miss when cleaning up the place. One of the players rolls well on his intelligence check, and manages to deduce that the blood splatter happens in such a way that indicates that the murderer is left handed. Bam, the players came up with original ideas, but also managed to take their character's bonuses into account for their rolls, and a compromise is struck while leaving the players feeling elated for heading in the right direction of their own accord.

Edit: It was a little disappointing, because the person I DMed that segment for also ran an investigation scene, but what I didn't realise was that it was part of a module, and literally all the investigating I did was for naught when the plot train came rolling along and my character looked like a complete idiot. Very demotivating, I have to say, don't run it like that.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Diplomacy (Cha)Check

You can change the attitudes of others (nonplayer characters) with a successful Diplomacy check; see the Influencing NPC Attitudes sidebar, below, for basic DCs. In negotiations, participants roll opposed Diplomacy checks, and the winner gains the advantage. Opposed checks also resolve situations when two advocates or diplomats plead opposite cases in a hearing before a third party.

As per the rules, it is not strictly 'make friends; the skill'.

[Peat]

So, I came upon this (http://theangrygm.com/five-simple-rules-for-dating-my-teenaged-skill-system/) thing recently.
Here's the relevant excerpt of an approach I really like:

Each to their own, but I think that's pretty bad GM'ing and would probably walk from such a table soon enough.

I'd rather go with Toilet Cobra's advice.

[martixy]

1. I disagree with the noob.
2. I consider sarcasm a virtue. If you didn't already pick up on that...
The point, for those who didn't bother to read the whole article, and that everyone keeps studiously missing, is encouraging players to think from the point of view of the character, not the mechanical expression of the character's actions.

Feel free to use more sensitive, politically correct language for all them delicate flowers out there.

Just continue to reinforce the idea. Constantly, incessantly and relentlessly. Until it becomes second nature to your players.

[Albions_Angel]

So heres the situation I was in recently (just quit my group for a large number of reasons you can find on the forum both here and in the 5e section).

I am a uni student, 22, and relatively new to D&D when I started playing 3 years ago. I had played a few book campaigns from probably 2e when I was 12, but me and my friends didnt understand what we were doing and there were basically no dice involved.

Well, the group I joined at uni was a uni group. One of 3. The other 2 were all students like myself. Mine had 2 undergrads, a 25 year old post grad, and then 3 people affiliated with the uni between the ages of 40 and 60. Of those 3, 1 optimized everything and wrung every inch of stuff he could out of the source books, but never left his character sheet. One guy practically refused to pick up a dice if he could solve it himself, and one, our unofficial leader, who was a nice middle ground and taught me the game.

With them I learned how to play. There are things I want to change, and when I run again, I will. Because of the nature of the sessions, 8 hours once a week, but only during term time, the campaigns were heavily story driven combat. It was "you need to go here and do this, and to do that you need to kill these things". So social skills were rarely used.

That said, we had the occasional investigation, and several dungeons with interesting traps and solutions, riddles and the such. Our golden rule was that checks would get you so far, but your first thing is to ask a question of the DM, in character. Then the DMNPC gives you whatever information they know and are willing to tell you. A diplomacy, intimidate or bluff check might get you a little more info. Then you, as a player, can remember that info however you want. If you write it down, your PC writes it down. And you can recall that at any point. You only needed to make an intelligence or wisdom check if you forgot and wanted the DM to tell you again. Then you could go back to the party and you could all discuss, and maybe you heard the name of a town but you dont know anything about it, but maybe your party member has knowledge local, or maybe one of them remembers a lord from 3 sessions ago.

Not everything was in character. Our games had a lot of banter and it was very obvious when were were speaking in character and when we were joking around. Occasionally our DM would step in and say "Would your character do that?" or "I didnt think your character was literate, how is he writing this down?" But other than that, it was all fairly easy to distinguish.

That system worked great. When I ran my campaign, I tried to throw in some more RP, and the party enjoyed it but wernt really ready for it, but in that, a couple of times a roll got them far more than all their talking, and other times a roll didnt help at all, while sitting together and puzzling things out did. Sometimes a roll made things worse (when they failed a bluff check on a group of refugees to make them braver, the refugees knew they were lying and believed they would all die. Much fun was had when the refugees panicked later on.) The onus is on the DM to say at the start, with a new group, what they expect. And I will do that when I find a new group.

[Tohsaka Rin]

1. I disagree with the noob.
2. I consider sarcasm a virtue. If you didn't already pick up on that...
The point, for those who didn't bother to read the whole article, and that everyone keeps studiously missing, is encouraging players to think from the point of view of the character, not the mechanical expression of the character's actions.

Feel free to use more sensitive, politically correct language for all them delicate flowers out there.

Just continue to reinforce the idea. Constantly, incessantly and relentlessly. Until it becomes second nature to your players.

Sarcasm is almost never obvious via text, it helps to remember that.

That being said, just because the player asked for a skill roll, doesn't mean he won't follow it up with an in-character dialogue. That's more of a failure on the DM's part for not asking 'what do you say?' Most of the time, I'd reward a good speech with a small circumstance bonus to the check.

Negative reinforcement is for dogs pooping on the carpet, not for players that can't read the DM's mind to know if the guard is a footnote/skill check bump in the road to getting into the citadel or not.

You can hardly blame the player for responding in an OOC-manner, when the DM in your example used narrative to describe the guard's actions/speech, rather than voicing them. Had the DM given the guard a voice, the player would have likely attempted in-character dialogue.

[Arbane]

Or is this old school line of thinking just considered badwrongfun these days?

Playing Twenty Questions with the GM is rarely as much fun for the players as it is for the GM.

As people have said, just because the CHARACTER knows how to investigate, doesn't mean the PLAYERS do. (And vice versa, to be fair.)

[Hecuba]

I read a post once where someone commented that old school players solve problems by looking to each other, while new players look to their character sheets. Old school players use OOC problem solving skills, while the new school of thought is to make a skill check.

Now, I'm all for squeezing every last drop of information I can out of sense motive. I like the idea that, with enough skill and the right questions, I may as well be able to read minds.

But even Sherlock Holmes occasionally had to actually go out and investigate. Sometimes, there just weren't enough clues available on the person hiring him for him to solve the case without leaving his office.

So, how do you get new school players to investigate something beyond making a skill roll? How do you turn, "no, even with <knowledge skill>, you are not sure how X" into the players choosing to investigate X?

Or is this old school line of thinking just considered badwrongfun these days?

It's not "badwrongfun," and I'd discourage any sweeping judgements about "old-school" and "new-school" players.


Moving that aside, however, what you are getting is actually a fairly important and interesting question in designing RPGs: to what extent should puzzles and social interaction be solved by the character, and to what extent should they be solved by the player?

If you go too far in the direction of the player, then the character's mental abilities becomes divorced from the outcomes for the game. This significantly limits your ability to play characters that, for example, are much smarter or slower than you. It also removes any need to invest in related skill points (or analogs for other systems).
If you go too far in the direction of the character, then you can no longer present puzzles and social interactions to the players as sub-games. This more or less abandons a long tradition in RPGs of challenging the problem solving abilities of the players


The best answer is that you have to make it a balancing act. One of the best ways to accomplish that is to, is to respond with a "No, but..." instead of a flat "No."

For the guard referenced by martixy above, one such reply might be: "The guard and you really hit it off. He asks if your party wants to get drinks with him & his mates once his shift is over."
This gives an entreaty for future interaction (should the players choose to take it) - ply him for information at the bar.

For Knowledge checks, a good way to accomplish this is to have the knowledge check reveal known unknowns. Ex: if rolling on Knowledge (nobility & royalty) about a specific royal court, you might get something like "From your prior studies, you recall the general details of how the court is organized: you are relatively certain you can properly identify the ranks of various nobles present. You can also remember the vaguest details of some major intrigue among the Dukes that shook the court some years ago, but you cannot remember the specifics of the politics involved." The players now know there is something to investigate.

[Grod_The_Giant]

It's an old question, and I don't think there's a right answer. If you invest resources into a thing, you should get use out of it, and you shouldn't be limited to characters with the same basic abilities as you. The classic example is the silver-tongued Fighter player verses the socially-awkward Bard player. It would be inappropriate for the Fighter to dominate social scenes, but at the same time it's no fun if the Bard just says "uh, I roll diplomacy to get him to like us" all the time. You want the players to put something into the game beyond basic skill rolls (even using spells and class abilities often takes a little creative thought), because it's more fun that way, but you don't want to frustrate them either.

So...

So, how do you get new school players to investigate something beyond making a skill roll? How do you turn, "no, even with <knowledge skill>, you are not sure how X" into the players choosing to investigate X?
Ask them to tell you what they're doing. They don't have to roleplay a full conversation, but at least get them to describe a general approach. ("I roll gather information" verses "I go door to door and ask if anyone heard something weird last night.") For when the check isn't enough, give them enough of an answer to lead them into the greater investigation. ("A 24 isn't enough to know anything" verses "you've never heard of such a thing, but you remember hearing about a wizard in Waterdeep who was working on something similar.")

And as for "my character is smarter than me," how 'bout this houserule: For every X points of intelligence/wisdom modifier (whichever is better)*, you may ask the GM for one hint per session." In which case you as the GM can remind them of leads they forgot, give them new interpretations of clues they found, point out an unexplored avenue of questioning, and so on. Not telling them what to do, more reminding them what they've done and sort of options they have.


*Modify to taste based on system, if applicable.

[martixy]

Sarcasm is almost never obvious via text, it helps to remember that.

That being said, just because the player asked for a skill roll, doesn't mean he won't follow it up with an in-character dialogue. That's more of a failure on the DM's part for not asking 'what do you say?' Most of the time, I'd reward a good speech with a small circumstance bonus to the check.

Negative reinforcement is for dogs pooping on the carpet, not for players that can't read the DM's mind to know if the guard is a footnote/skill check bump in the road to getting into the citadel or not.

You can hardly blame the player for responding in an OOC-manner, when the DM in your example used narrative to describe the guard's actions/speech, rather than voicing them. Had the DM given the guard a voice, the player would have likely attempted in-character dialogue.

It is, when said text features the word "sarcasm" clearly spelled out. As it does literally a sentence before the quote I quoted.
And again you staunchly refuse to address approach I argue for and continue focusing on the inconsequential part of a fictional exchange that was mostly written for the reader's entertainment.

As Hecuba said, it's ultimately about balance.

I see an ideal situation going something along the lines of:

(previously) DM: “… He's leaning heavily on his pike and his eyes are lazily scanning the crowd. He straightens up as you approach.”
DM: “… and the guard refuses you entry to the Citadel.”
Player: “He looks bored, I engage him in some friendly, light conversation. I want to try and convince him to let us in.”
DM: “Sure, give me a diplomacy check.”
Player: “27.”
DM: “Wow, that’s a really good roll. He doesn't let you in, but explains that the duke's become incredibly paranoid after a recent assassination attempt and it would be his head on the block if he let you in.”
Player: “Oh... well, okay. I offer him to come to the inn we're staying in after his shift is over if he wants to have some fun.”
DM: “He seems immediately on board with the idea and thanks you for stopping by to talk to him.”

I also have a philosophy on characters smarter than the player:
You may not know how smart their are, but you can know the result of their high intelligence.
With higher values it's almost as a licence to metagame. Within reason of course.

For example, the players come upon an area that's unnaturally cold. One of the players with a high intelligence goes completely out of the blue "Crap, this is gonna be bleakborn, isn't it". I start to pull my hair out because of the metagaming bastard ruining the surprise, but since he has very high Kn. Religion and Kn.Arcana scores, decide that ultimately it's a plausible deduction and go with it. "Yes, from the looks of it, this does seem the kind of unnatural cold that would be caused by such a creature." (This actually happened in a game I was part of.)

[ryu]

It is, when said text features the word "sarcasm" clearly spelled out. As it does literally a sentence before the quote I quoted.
And again you staunchly refuse to address approach I argue for and continue focusing on the inconsequential part of a fictional exchange that was mostly written for the reader's entertainment.

As Hecuba said, it's ultimately about balance.

I see an ideal situation going something along the lines of:


I also have a philosophy on characters smarter than the player:
You may not know how smart their are, but you can know the result of their high intelligence.
With higher values it's almost as a licence to metagame. Within reason of course.

For example, the players come upon an area that's unnaturally cold. One of the players with a high intelligence goes completely out of the blue "Crap, this is gonna be bleakborn, isn't it". I start to pull my hair out because of the metagaming bastard ruining the surprise, but since he has very high Kn. Religion and Kn.Arcana scores, decide that ultimately it's a plausible deduction and go with it. "Yes, from the looks of it, this does seem the kind of unnatural cold that would be caused by such a creature." (This actually happened in a game I was part of.)

If the player had relevant knowledge scores high enough to ID the creature he was SUPPOSED to know what it was regardless of whether the player has the experience with the system to spot it himself. Character knowledge is assumed to come from the knowledge skills. You put skills into that just as you put character resources into spellcasting, or weapon use. Well unless you think taking levels in fighter is excuse to pull out a sword at the table and destroy the enemy miniature with it.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I also have a philosophy on characters smarter than the player:
You may not know how smart their are, but you can know the result of their high intelligence.
With higher values it's almost as a licence to metagame. Within reason of course.

For example, the players come upon an area that's unnaturally cold. One of the players with a high intelligence goes completely out of the blue "Crap, this is gonna be bleakborn, isn't it". I start to pull my hair out because of the metagaming bastard ruining the surprise, but since he has very high Kn. Religion and Kn.Arcana scores, decide that ultimately it's a plausible deduction and go with it. "Yes, from the looks of it, this does seem the kind of unnatural cold that would be caused by such a creature." (This actually happened in a game I was part of.)
That's still player knowledge, though. You're using your skills to justify bringing it up in-game, but it's still the player figuring things out out-of-game. "Knowing the result of their high intelligence" is basically the same thing as having high intelligence yourself.

[martixy]

That's still player knowledge, though. You're using your skills to justify bringing it up in-game, but it's still the player figuring things out out-of-game. "Knowing the result of their high intelligence" is basically the same thing as having high intelligence yourself.

I disagree.
I know what the wave function is and what it implies, but I wouldn't be able to derive the Schrödinger equation if you were to ask me to.

Ingame, a high-int character however would be able to.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I disagree.
I know what the wave function is and what it implies, but I wouldn't be able to derive the Schrödinger equation if you were to ask me to.

Ingame, a high-int character however would be able to.
But that intermediate step is essentially meaningless for these purposes. No one's asking for that; it's just flavor text here. The result (and it's application) is what matters. It's also not what your player did. He looked at the evidence and drew conclusions based on what he saw and prior knowledge, which is EXACTLY what a smart character would do. Except it was only possible because of his ranks in Knowledge (Monster Manuel). A different player with the same character might never have read that entry and would never make the same connection.

[martixy]

I seem to be unable to convey the idea clearly enough.

And perhaps that example wasn't the best, but it's the only real world case that I could think of and right now I'm having a hard time coming up with a reasonable hypothetical scenario.

[Coidzor]

1. I disagree with the noob.
2. I consider sarcasm a virtue. If you didn't already pick up on that...
The point, for those who didn't bother to read the whole article, and that everyone keeps studiously missing, is encouraging players to think from the point of view of the character, not the mechanical expression of the character's actions.

Feel free to use more sensitive, politically correct language for all them delicate flowers out there.

Just continue to reinforce the idea. Constantly, incessantly and relentlessly. Until it becomes second nature to your players.

Being a **** just alienates people and disrupts the game more than clear communication would.

Not being a **** is not coddling people.

[Extra Anchovies]

Being a **** just alienates people and disrupts the game more than clear communication would.

Not being a **** is not coddling people.

To add to this, GMing isn't about "training" the players to play how the GM wants them to - it's about running a game that everyone can enjoy despite (or perhaps even because of) differences in play style1. Sure, thinking as a character rather than as a player is important to roleplaying, but a GM should be upfront about their insistence on it (and accepting of the times when their players forget to do so) rather than passive-aggressively telling their players that they're not playing the game properly.

1As common as it is to lump roleplayers into "old-school" and "new-school" (which, based on their portrayals as respectively "doing it right" and "doing it wrong", seems to be most popular among self-professed "old-school" players), no two people play a game the same exact way - they may play similarly, but differences will still exist because no two people are entirely identical.

ETA: Hecuba's suggestion upthread of the Diplomacy check leading to the guard offering to meet for drinks after his shift hits on a rule that I try to apply in games I GM - a successful check should provide something of value. An adventure with a linear story should progress even if the players fail every die roll, but successful skill checks/etc should make things easier for the party. This is most apparent in combat. Losing a fight might mean that the PCs get captured, or their rival steals the macguffin out of their hands, but neither of those end the story; instead, they complicate matters. The PCs have to escape their captors, or they have to follow their enemy's trail and take back what was stolen. In the same way, if you allow the player to roll Diplomacy when interacting with a guard who they need to pass (and who you planned for them to pass without using Diplomacy), a failed check might not get them any progress, and a successful check doesn't need to let them through, but the latter should make it easier to find a path that would work - maybe the guard has one drink too many and lets slip that his replacement's been late one too many times and the next night he'll be leaving at 8 o'clock sharp even if the next guard hasn't shown up yet.

[Alex12]

As far as I'm concerned, there are numbers and words on my sheet that tell me how good my character is at combat- I don't think there's any table that requires players to show IRL combat skills to fight orcs. Similarly, there are numbers and words on my sheet that tell me how good my character is at non-combat things. It's my character sheet that should tell me how to handle problems.
This actually encourages roleplaying- I'll approach investigating a mystery very differently if I'm a Barbarian than if I'm a Wizard, and both of those differently than if I'm an Empiricist Investigator.

This attitude stems in part from the fact that my gaming group contains a guy who IRL has what would probably be about 8 Charisma. He stutters, he doesn't communicate well, he's just all-around not very good at the social stuff. Is he prohibited from playing a traditional party-face bard? I don't think so. I play tabletop games to be someone I'm not for a while, and if that includes being someone who always has the right words, well, that's just fine.

[Quertus]

To add to this, GMing isn't about "training" the players to play how the GM wants them to - it's about running a game that everyone can enjoy despite (or perhaps even because of) differences in play style1. Sure, thinking as a character rather than as a player is important to roleplaying, but a GM should be upfront about their insistence on it (and accepting of the times when their players forget to do so) rather than passive-aggressively telling their players that they're not playing the game properly.

1As common as it is to lump roleplayers into "old-school" and "new-school" (which, based on their portrayals as respectively "doing it right" and "doing it wrong", seems to be most popular among self-professed "old-school" players), no two people play a game the same exact way - they may play similarly, but differences will still exist because no two people are entirely identical.

So, the funny part is, I'm almost always on the side of character skills, not player skills. That is, I consider the silver-tongued player who doesn't tone it down when playing the 0 social skills, 6 chr character to be failing at role-playing, just as I consider the GM who responds to his silver tongue rather than to his character sheet to be failing at role-playing. I think "new school players" are generally "doing it right". Which makes writing this thread... interesting. Almost soul searching.

But, sometimes, you have something that the players obviously want to investigate, but they don't know how. For all my complaints about us old schoolers, we knew how to solve problems.

Let's say that the party comes across a mountain, floating above a mountain. They'll generally ask for a knowledge: arcana check*.

If this wasn't here yesterday, there's no reason anything they read in some dusty tome should tell about this mountain**. So I could tell them that the check doesn't provide any useful information. Then the party doesn't know how to proceed, so they ignore the mountain that they were interested in.

I could give them theory on how this could have happened, but that level of red herrings in my style of game (i prefer to run more sandbox, "there is no plot, everything is a red herring"-style games) with my play groups usually doesn't help. They then either investigate an unrelated theory, and get frustrated (when it doesn't pan out / when I don't change the world to match what they thought it was), or give up on the mountain.

I could introduce an "old school" player to the group, to "show them how it's done". Then they either complain about "favoritism", or about "using OOC knowledge", without seeming to catch on to the idea of... any if the tools that could be useful here: thinking / OOC problem solving, investigating, "playing a game of 20 questions with the DM", etc.

Or, as another example, the party comes across a corpse. "What skill do I roll to know who murdered this guy" is, IMO, not a valid question. Yes, the heal skill will tell you about his injuries. Each of the monster-related knowledge skills will tell you which monsters of that type could have caused such injuries. And a spellcraft check (which everyone ignores, because everyone knows this OOC) will tell you what it would take to polymorph into such creatures. Back to the knowledge skills again to know which monsters could have polymorphed into valid monsters. Handle animal to know what it would take to train and keep such a monster. Some combination of spot / search / sense motive could give you clues about the crime itself. Gather information could let you learn all kinds of things about who the corpse was. But the method used to investigate? There is no one right answer, and choosing which path to take is up to the players, IMO. Yet some players, when there is no "investigate murder" button to push, don't seem to know how to proceed. Similarly, other players will try, by pushing the one button that looks breast to them, then give up when it did not singlehandedly solve their problem. Sometimes even if it obviously got them something useful.

So, how do I work with the mindset of "solve it with a skill roll", when there is no skill for "know something you couldn't possibly know about", when there is no skill for "win the game"? How do I convince players that it is ok to ask questions and use your OOC brain since you have one IC, too? Or how do I modify my play style to accommodate this new-fangled obsession for "no OOC thinking"? Any thoughts on how to teach this old dog some new tricks?

* the fact that I didn't call for a check in the first place should also be something of a hint...
** bardic lore is apparently an exception - apparently, people love to make up cool songs about events, travel back in time, and teach them to bards, so that the bard already knows about it, he just doesn't know what it means until it happens. Or something.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I don't think your problem is really "new school" verses "old school" gaming; it's "how do I get my players to be more creative?" Which is... not an easy question to answer, especially as it depends so much on the personalities in question. One idea might be to speak bluntly: "There's no 'investigate murder' skill, but I'm sure you have some skills you can use to find clues." "The event was too recent for Knowledge checks; try something more related to the here-and-now." Another is the Int/Wis-gives-hints idea that I mentioned upthread-- feed hints to the smart characters to get the party back on track and introduce ideas about investigations work in this system.

Also, for a group like that, it might be better to play a more linear game. If they're not so interested in poking around and asking questions, I feel like a sandbox would be more boring/frustrating than anything else.

[Alex12]

Let's say that the party comes across a mountain, floating above a mountain. They'll generally ask for a knowledge: arcana check*.

If this wasn't here yesterday, there's no reason anything they read in some dusty tome should tell about this mountain**. So I could tell them that the check doesn't provide any useful information. Then the party doesn't know how to proceed, so they ignore the mountain that they were interested in.
See, that's at the point that players need to start refining their questions. Sure, maybe they don't know about that particular floating mountain, but are there any other instances of floating mountains in the records that they might have read about? Or major levitation magics in general? Alternately, "I have knowledges in history, geography, nature, and the planes. Would any of those be useful?" After all, arcana isn't the only way a mountain could float- maybe there's a planar conjunction with the plane of air, maybe there's a major floatstone deposit in the mountain, all sorts of possibilities.


Or, as another example, the party comes across a corpse. "What skill do I roll to know who murdered this guy" is, IMO, not a valid question. Yes, the heal skill will tell you about his injuries. Each of the monster-related knowledge skills will tell you which monsters of that type could have caused such injuries. And a spellcraft check (which everyone ignores, because everyone knows this OOC) will tell you what it would take to polymorph into such creatures. Back to the knowledge skills again to know which monsters could have polymorphed into valid monsters. Handle animal to know what it would take to train and keep such a monster. Some combination of spot / search / sense motive could give you clues about the crime itself. Gather information could let you learn all kinds of things about who the corpse was. But the method used to investigate? There is no one right answer, and choosing which path to take is up to the players, IMO. Yet some players, when there is no "investigate murder" button to push, don't seem to know how to proceed. Similarly, other players will try, by pushing the one button that looks breast to them, then give up when it did not singlehandedly solve their problem. Sometimes even if it obviously got them something useful.
"There's no single skill to figure out who murdered this guy, but why don't you look at your character sheet and see if there's any ways you could try and figure it out?" or "That's too general a question. What specifically do you want to try and find out?"


So, how do I work with the mindset of "solve it with a skill roll", when there is no skill for "know something you couldn't possibly know about", when there is no skill for "win the game"? How do I convince players that it is ok to ask questions and use your OOC brain since you have one IC, too? Or how do I modify my play style to accommodate this new-fangled obsession for "no OOC thinking"? Any thoughts on how to teach this old dog some new tricks?
I'm partial to allowing Wis or Int checks with a low DC to realize (or, for some characters who would have relevant training, like Pathfinder's Inquisitor or Investigator investigating a murder, just straight-up tell them) that a certain approach might be beneficial, because if nothing else, this might spur ideas. This is especially true with characters who are smarter than the players. Also, if a player offers a non-standard-but-plausible use of a skill, I encourage that. If a player wants a specific piece of information, I'll generally tell them what skill they need to roll.

Using the murder investigation earlier, here's a rough rundown of how it might play out at my table.
GM: Looking at the murder scene, you see that the victim is lying there facedown in a pool of blood. A quick glance tells you that there's no immediately obvious indication of the killer.
Player 1: Hm. I roll Perception to see if there's anything that isn't obvious. Actually, I'll take 20 on that, since we're not really in a hurry.
GM: What are you examining, just the room? Or do you want to investigate the body too? You know that properly examining the body would require moving it.
P1: Yeah, I don't want to move the body or anything yet.
GM: As far as you can tell, it's a completely ordinary carpentry workshop. You don't find any notes or footprints or discarded murder weapons or anything like that.
P2: How was he killed? And how long ago? What skill would that be?
GM: That's a Heal check.
P2: Okay. *rolls*
GM: Ooh, good roll. Okay, you can tell based on where his blood is and the coagulation pattern and stuff that he was killed by getting his throat slit by a bladed slashing weapon, most likely a dagger or something similar. Possibly a one-handed weapon, but not a two-handed weapon unless the user was shrunk or something. Player 1, your experience using sneak attack as a rogue tells you that this was definitely precision damage. You can tell that he was killed between 24 and 48 hours ago, but you can't narrow it down further.
More investigation happens
P1: Well, I'm stumped.
P2: Yeah, me too.
GM: Roll... Sense Motive or Intelligence, whichever is higher. *both roll* Okay, P1, you know that carpenters sometimes rip people off and people get angry at them for that, and that sometimes angry people kill other people.
P1: Hm. Okay. How would we find out who was angry at this guy?
GM: Roll Knowledge(local)
P2: I don't have that.
P1: Same. Can I use Craft (carpentry) to figure this out, since he's a carpenter?
GM: Sure! *roll happens* Okay, you both know common locations for carpenters to keep their records and things.
And so on.
"I don't know what to do" gets a check to know a possible avenue, and "I want to do X but don't know how" gets me to tell you the most applicable skill to roll for what you want to do.


* the fact that I didn't call for a check in the first place should also be something of a hint...
Not necessarily. Some DMs don't call for checks, and let the players figure out which checks to make.


** bardic lore is apparently an exception - apparently, people love to make up cool songs about events, travel back in time, and teach them to bards, so that the bard already knows about it, he just doesn't know what it means until it happens. Or something.
For what it's worth, in Pathfinder, Bardic knowledge "only" allows all knowledges to be rolled untrained and grants a bonus equal to bard level.

[Flickerdart]

Knowledge and similar checks are useful not only to give information towards the solution, but to give information guiding characters away from wrong solutions. A stonewalling DM that doesn't tell the players anything is basically requiring them to read his mind.

I see a lot of bad blood about Knowledge checks come up because "old school" DMs can look at this "new" tool and think "oh gods, how can I avoid this in my games." Sure, change is scary, but every new tool is an opportunity to have a better game. Don't let kneejerk judgments ruin these opportunities for you.

D&D is a game of improv, and good improv players always say "yes, and" instead of "no."

[martixy]

There is this fascination with these terms "old school" and "new school" in this thread that I simply do not get.

As far as getting players to be more creative, let me offer a more high-level overview.

This idea of not relying on the mechanical skill checks is not a simple mechanism interaction.

It can draw from any number of areas: problem solving skill, the ability to abstract and the ability to put yourself in a perspective outside your own(this is a concept called theory of mind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind)), creativity, perceptiveness, charisma.
Just like real-life charisma, these are things that different people possess to a different degree.

Finally, there is also the willingness to apply these to the game. Because sometimes you just want to turn your brain off. You see, we as players play certain games to get something out of the whole thing, to feel in a certain way. This is the game's core aesthetic, and D&D covers a lot of these, and sometimes there are mismatched perceptions within the group. (If this sounds familiar, it's because I ripped it off from here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uepAJ-rqJKA). If you haven't seen the entire thing, go do it now, it's entertaining and illuminating.)

Now let's see how it applies to Alex12's hypothetical scenario:

1. A player who doesn't wanna bother. Maybe it's on general principle, maybe he simply hasn't bought into the situation. He know his character has skills that can ultimately be used to solve this. He is already familiar with the skill system, it's a familiar mental construct. He's gonna try the first thing that comes to mind and see if it sticks. He's gonna ask for a skill check or wait for things to resolve themselves one way or another.
2. He buys in through effort of his own. Perhaps the DM is not very descriptive. He is perceptive, creative and enthusiastic enough to realize the DM is not very good at his job, but also knows that the players also write the game. So he's gonna start asking leading questions, trying to fill in the blanks the DM left. Usually that will work, but when it doesn't and given that mind-reading is not a skill you can acquire in real life, what you're left with is D&D's version of pixel hunting (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PixelHunt). You end up with questions about a skill checks again - cuz hey, it's still a valid tool.
3. Not very creative or perceptive player falls back to the only tools he knows are firmly at his disposal.
4. The DM paints a vivid picture. The player starts asking the right question, prompted by the DMs description. Or a combination that and creative leading questions by the players. He applies, logic and reasoning, follows the clues, the murder is solved and everyone is happy.
5. He doesn't want or is unable to solve the mystery and again falls back to the lowest common denominator - asking for a skill check.