Dice vs Common Sense

[igor140]

Should dice rolls or DM discretion hold precedent in deciding events? I understand that at some point, "whatever the DM says is law"... but I don't like relying on that excuse unless there's no other choice; if the PCs can't rely on the consistency of the rules because of a capricious DM, the entire game breaks down.

We had a bit of a situation tonight. A character was trying to forge papers proving his noble lineage. He rolled a 15, which wasn't terrible... but he also mentioned that he was adopted by "Gregory the Baron and Sarah the Barren". We all laughed and had a good time. Then he mentioned that his house name was Clydesdale, from the patriarch Hunglyka. Again we laughed. I asked him if he was serious, and that was the story he wanted to try to use. My verdict was that the guy inspecting the documents knew they were forgeries because Hunglyka Clydesdale and Sarah the Barren Clydesdale were absolutely never nobles in this land (Thay).

The player was not happy that I didn't even roll an insight for it (I eventually did, which was a 19 anyway). My rationale was that the forgery roll was for the quality of the forgery, not to pass off something as ludicrous as penis jokes. He brought up the point that we often use ridiculous fake names for our characters (mine is Rando Calrissian); I countered that those were not used for background checks. He brought up that because he had copied from a legitimate document, his should appear correct; I countered that if you put "Seymour Buttes from Awesomeville, USA" on a fake ID, it would immediately be spotted. (https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51mgF9%2BuXZL._SX425_.jpg)

Around this time, another player got REALLY upset by all of this (not entirely sure why...) and started yelling about rules and the DMs authority... so we stopped playing and did something else for a while.

So, DMs of the intarwebz, how would you handle this situation? Was I right in rejecting a ludicrous proposition regardless of dice rolls, or was the player right to expect a legitimate competition because he had technically performed an action?

[Temotei]

I'm a 3.5 player, but I'd just give the Insight check a bonus (or advantage in 5e's case probably) and call it a day.

[leogobsin]

The thing I probably would've done (that maybe could've avoided this situation?) would be when you ask if he's serious about the parents names make it explicitly clear "If you use those names, it's going to be easier for people to tell that these papers are fake". Give the player a chance to back out and make sure he knows that there are gonna be consequences if he wants to stick with the goof.

[DataNinja]

On the one hand... yes, you can absolutely go with "you need to research actual nobles in order to get into this place", but that should probably be made clear ahead of time. And if there're only a handful of people, all well known, in said circle they're trying to get into, then it should probably be harder.

On the other hand... something that's silly out of universe shouldn't necessarily be punished unless it's silly in-universe. For instance, "Rando Calrissian" in a world without Star Wars? Shouldn't really be a detriment to a bluff. And, honestly... you don't require a player to lift a heavy rock in order for their barbarian to hoist a boulder. So you shouldn't really penalize the character for making a joke. I'd let them have their fun, especially if the inspector isn't someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of all nobles.

[Unoriginal]

Ability checks don't bend reality. If you do something that has no chance to succeed, you don't succeed.

It's in the rules, and it's absolutely consistant.

You could have given the player a CHA check to see if they could convince the clerc to just check the officiality of the paper without really reading it, but that's about it.

There's a difference between an meta-silly fake name and calling yourself "I. M. Afake"

[Lunali]

I can see two reasonable approaches to a hypothetical situation with a perfect forgery and totally unbelievable information. One would be that the dice roll prevents the player from using that story unless their goal was to make a quality document with obviously false information. The other is that the document is indistinguishable from a real document, but the contents are such that no one will believe it is real.

This case, however, is slightly different as the forgery was merely good and the information unlikely rather than impossible. Unless the inspector knows the names of all the past nobles of Thay he would likely be merely unusually suspicious of the document. Depending on the importance of the documents, this might either cause him to get advantage to detect the forgery or to go check the records to prove it false.

[Unoriginal]

If you gave a bank clerc a perfect forgery of a $100 bill... except you put George Lucas's face on it instead of Benjamin Franklin, what do you think would happen?

At the very least, the clerc would call their superior.

[Eric Diaz]

Ability checks don't bend reality. If you do something that has no chance to succeed, you don't succeed.


Exactly... I'd even say "If you do something that has no chance to succeed, you don't even ROLL".


The thing I probably would've done (that maybe could've avoided this situation?) would be when you ask if he's serious about the parents names make it explicitly clear "If you use those names, it's going to be easier for people to tell that these papers are fake". Give the player a chance to back out and make sure he knows that there are gonna be consequences if he wants to stick with the goof.

Yeah, this is probably the crux of the matter.

[igor140]

Thanks for the input!

I did give him the option to confirm that's what he wanted to use, and he did affirm that he was sticking with it several times. I should have explicitly stated that this would not likely pass the check with those names, but my tone and the incredulity of the other players definitely conveyed that. Also, he was supposed to check with a particular NPC before using the documents, but this character doesn't like that NPC, so he didn't.

I certainly didn't expect him to do all the research into historical family names; I've done that for him. Had he simply said, "I research records of a lesser noble about 30 years ago who had no offspring, and forge that I was adopted," I would have been perfectly ok with that. I get that it was a joke, and I found it funny... but he didn't back down when I challenged if he wanted to commit. The issue was only partially that the names were ridiculous. Had he asked if I could invent nobles with such names, I simply would have said no, and given him some suggestions of actual names.

The more I think about it, the more confident I am in my response. There were no dire consequences; he wasn't arrested or anything, just turned away.

[MaxWilson]

Should dice rolls or DM discretion hold precedent in deciding events? I understand that at some point, "whatever the DM says is law"... but I don't like relying on that excuse unless there's no other choice; if the PCs can't rely on the consistency of the rules because of a capricious DM, the entire game breaks down.

We had a bit of a situation tonight. A character was trying to forge papers proving his noble lineage. He rolled a 15, which wasn't terrible... but he also mentioned that he was adopted by "Gregory the Baron and Sarah the Barren". We all laughed and had a good time. Then he mentioned that his house name was Clydesdale, from the patriarch Hunglyka. Again we laughed. I asked him if he was serious, and that was the story he wanted to try to use. My verdict was that the guy inspecting the documents knew they were forgeries because Hunglyka Clydesdale and Sarah the Barren Clydesdale were absolutely never nobles in this land (Thay).

*snip*

So, DMs of the intarwebz, how would you handle this situation? Was I right in rejecting a ludicrous proposition regardless of dice rolls, or was the player right to expect a legitimate competition because he had technically performed an action?

For whatever it's worth, I don't get the (apparently dirty?) joke, so it's at least technically possible for someone to see nothing out of the ordinary about those names. Honestly it just looks like "some foreign Hungarian whose name reminds me of a horse and his wife."

So, when you're rolling dice, perhaps you're rolling to see if the inspector is as ignorant of dirty jokes as I am.

[BW022]

Igor140,

My advice is to factor everything into the roll, make it transparent to the player, and then if they choose to continue... make the roll result final.

1. Ask the player what they are doing.
2. If they do something stupid, then let them know that such as action isn't likely to be successful.
3. If they continue, apply a penalty to the roll and let them know before they roll.
4. Once they roll, they are then agreeing with your ruling. However, you accept the results.

In your case.
1. He is forging documents.
2. He says he is using a silly name. Ask if he is sure.
3. Ask him to roll with disadvantage.
4. Accept the result.

Most players will immediately backtrack in step 3. Let them. Suddenly, they won't put a silly name on knowing they'll have a penalty on the roll. They'll try coming up with a better plan.

However, if they do... let them roll (with disadvantage) and accept the result. If they roll a 16 and an 18, have the guard too busy with a pair of old ladies that he just glances at his document and waves them through.

I find this approach better simply as players rarely complain about a bad result when its clear they caused it. They knew what was going to happen.

[Honest Tiefling]

Should dice rolls or DM discretion hold precedent in deciding events? I understand that at some point, "whatever the DM says is law"... but I don't like relying on that excuse unless there's no other choice; if the PCs can't rely on the consistency of the rules because of a capricious DM, the entire game breaks down.

Alternatively, the players should absolutely be able to rely on the DM for when the rules get silly to make a judgement call on how to proceed, else the entire game will break down.

If I were you, I'd consider having a chat with the player out of the game to discuss tone. Sometimes miscommunication happens, so they might not have been fully aware that you weren't running a game THAT silly. If you think they'll do it again, it's worth a little bit of a talk, perhaps soothe some ruffled feathers and indicate that yes, you should have been more explicit with the consequences, but it was pretty funny at the time.

[Malifice]

Should dice rolls or DM discretion hold precedent in deciding events? I understand that at some point, "whatever the DM says is law"... but I don't like relying on that excuse unless there's no other choice; if the PCs can't rely on the consistency of the rules because of a capricious DM, the entire game breaks down.

We had a bit of a situation tonight. A character was trying to forge papers proving his noble lineage. He rolled a 15, which wasn't terrible... but he also mentioned that he was adopted by "Gregory the Baron and Sarah the Barren". We all laughed and had a good time. Then he mentioned that his house name was Clydesdale, from the patriarch Hunglyka. Again we laughed. I asked him if he was serious, and that was the story he wanted to try to use. My verdict was that the guy inspecting the documents knew they were forgeries because Hunglyka Clydesdale and Sarah the Barren Clydesdale were absolutely never nobles in this land (Thay).

The player was not happy that I didn't even roll an insight for it (I eventually did, which was a 19 anyway). My rationale was that the forgery roll was for the quality of the forgery, not to pass off something as ludicrous as penis jokes. He brought up the point that we often use ridiculous fake names for our characters (mine is Rando Calrissian); I countered that those were not used for background checks. He brought up that because he had copied from a legitimate document, his should appear correct; I countered that if you put "Seymour Buttes from Awesomeville, USA" on a fake ID, it would immediately be spotted. (https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51mgF9%2BuXZL._SX425_.jpg)

Around this time, another player got REALLY upset by all of this (not entirely sure why...) and started yelling about rules and the DMs authority... so we stopped playing and did something else for a while.

So, DMs of the intarwebz, how would you handle this situation? Was I right in rejecting a ludicrous proposition regardless of dice rolls, or was the player right to expect a legitimate competition because he had technically performed an action?

Your players have a point mate.

You've created a campaign where the reality around those players is that ridiculous names like Seymour Butts and so forth are expected and commonplace. That's part of the accepted reality of the game world.

Your player was just going along with that with his forged document. If no-one bats an eyelid at a party comprising of 'Hugh Garse, Rando Calrissian, Iva Biggun and Sum Ting Wong' then that informs the players that this kind of thing is expected; that the campaign is lighthearted and a little absurdity is the campaign norm.

If you didnt want funny names to be a thing, and wanted to run a less absurd and serious game, that should have been corrected at the start of the game.

In short; you messed up.

[KillingTime]

Your players have a point mate...
... If you didnt want funny names to be a thing, and wanted to run a less absurd and serious game, that should have been corrected at the start of the game.


I agree with this completely.
Consistency is so important if you want to maintain your relationship with your players.
If you think something like joke names are immersion breaking then you should make that clear from session 0.
Otherwise you've just got to shrug it off and let the players have their fun without randomly penalising them.

[Malifice]

I agree with this completely.
Consistency is so important if you want to maintain your relationship with your players.
If you think something like joke names are immersion breaking then you should make that clear from session 0.
Otherwise you've just got to shrug it off and let the players have their fun without randomly penalising them.

The players were expecting a campaign where 'silly names' was the expected norm, and a little bit of absurdity and light hearted shennanigans was accepted (indeed even encouraged). Thats been the implicit expectation and norm in the OPs campaign. The player was just running with that (to the roaring approval of everyone else at the table as he drafted up his fake document from the sounds of the OP). Ive heard a bit about the OPs campaign, and it involves a lot weirder shennanigans than this, and is very absurdist.

Nothing wrong with those kinds of games if that's your cup of tea. I once had a Halfling Rogue called 'Dildo Busdriver'.

Now suddenly the OP is saying that funny names arent acceptable.

The OP messed up in Session 0. If that kind of lighthearted absurdity (everyone has funny names and so forth) was not appropriate for the campaign, it should have been expressed at that time. Instead he ran with it, encouraged it with his own silly names, and then... inexplicably decided that a forged document with a funny name would be instantly identifiable as such due to the presence of the funny name.

It's a massive disconnect for the players. They were just going along with the expectations and norms of the OPs game world, and then they got arbitrarily punished for it.

It would annoy me as well. Its like a sudden shift in the goalposts, and expectations of the game world you're in.

[Anymage]

Unless you established at the outset that you were going to be strict, skill checks will often help bridge the gap between what the player says and what the character does. If everybody at the table was having a good time, there's a lot to be said for either playing the guard into the joke (having him play the straight man who doesn't get why the name is funny), or else pretend that the character said something less obvious instead of something that amused people in a whole other reality.

Because if everybody is enjoying themselves, unless it somehow detracts from the table experience somehow, that sounds like the whole point of getting together to play with some friends.

[Contrast]

Thanks for the input!

I did give him the option to confirm that's what he wanted to use, and he did affirm that he was sticking with it several times. I should have explicitly stated that this would not likely pass the check with those names, but my tone and the incredulity of the other players definitely conveyed that.

...

The more I think about it, the more confident I am in my response. There were no dire consequences; he wasn't arrested or anything, just turned away.

I think the problem was that your player thought he was having fun while you thought he wasn't taking the game seriously. The fact that the character would have known the document wouldn't work clearly didn't convey as well as you think it did given the player was clearly expecting the document to work. This may or may not be your fault - I've seen players be clearly told there was an airlock and proceed to open the airlock on a spacecraft to see whats on the other side. If a player is doing something their character would know is stupid, let them know.

It sounds like you saw this coming and know what you should have done to resolve it before it got that far so I don't think there's much more I can say other than to do that in future :smalltongue: I'd be careful of doubling down on the mentality that you were right to punish a player for misunderstanding the shared worldscape however :smallwink:

[MrStabby]

There is also the in world interpretation. Rando Calrisian is fine as in character it isn't a reference to anything.

Consider the same for Hunglyka Clydesdale. Is there a River Clyde in your setting? Is there a Clydesdale? Is it the name of a type of horse? If the reference to an out of character proper noun wouldn't be there in the game treat it as a name rather than a reference. The guard wouldn't know the thing to which the joke name refers.

More generally not cool to surprise them with coming down hard on jokes, but OK to make such things harder with appropriate communication. Even "are you sure that's the name you want to use" can be enough.

[Vingelot]

I'd let them have their fun, especially if the inspector isn't someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of all nobles.

I like this idea... So the guard checks if the documents are forged, and if they (to his knowledge) aren't believes in them and just says "Oh Lordy McLordLord, what a cool name, sir... I mean m'lord! Have a nice day!", while the the registrar of the peerage records wouldn't even look at them and go "McLordLord, huh? So would those be the Emeraldsville line or the Verdantshire one? But those lines have both died out some 250 years ago... Can't be the line of the Earl of Lordington, either, since those were half-dwarves, obviously. So that would leave the clan of Duke Radovid the Green, but since they all were victims of the Rameyn Curse... of course we wouldn't want to go into detail... let's just say that it would be quite improbable... Ah, but I forgot about the McLordLords of the Viridecent Plains..., but no, that can't be. They traditionally affirm family membership only with a plaque of silver, not with such documents! You, Sir, are an impostor!"

[Citan]

Should dice rolls or DM discretion hold precedent in deciding events? I understand that at some point, "whatever the DM says is law"... but I don't like relying on that excuse unless there's no other choice; if the PCs can't rely on the consistency of the rules because of a capricious DM, the entire game breaks down.

We had a bit of a situation tonight. A character was trying to forge papers proving his noble lineage. He rolled a 15, which wasn't terrible... but he also mentioned that he was adopted by "Gregory the Baron and Sarah the Barren". We all laughed and had a good time. Then he mentioned that his house name was Clydesdale, from the patriarch Hunglyka. Again we laughed. I asked him if he was serious, and that was the story he wanted to try to use. My verdict was that the guy inspecting the documents knew they were forgeries because Hunglyka Clydesdale and Sarah the Barren Clydesdale were absolutely never nobles in this land (Thay).

The player was not happy that I didn't even roll an insight for it (I eventually did, which was a 19 anyway). My rationale was that the forgery roll was for the quality of the forgery, not to pass off something as ludicrous as penis jokes. He brought up the point that we often use ridiculous fake names for our characters (mine is Rando Calrissian); I countered that those were not used for background checks. He brought up that because he had copied from a legitimate document, his should appear correct; I countered that if you put "Seymour Buttes from Awesomeville, USA" on a fake ID, it would immediately be spotted. (https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51mgF9%2BuXZL._SX425_.jpg)

Around this time, another player got REALLY upset by all of this (not entirely sure why...) and started yelling about rules and the DMs authority... so we stopped playing and did something else for a while.

So, DMs of the intarwebz, how would you handle this situation? Was I right in rejecting a ludicrous proposition regardless of dice rolls, or was the player right to expect a legitimate competition because he had technically performed an action?


Thanks for the input!

I did give him the option to confirm that's what he wanted to use, and he did affirm that he was sticking with it several times. I should have explicitly stated that this would not likely pass the check with those names, but my tone and the incredulity of the other players definitely conveyed that. Also, he was supposed to check with a particular NPC before using the documents, but this character doesn't like that NPC, so he didn't.

I certainly didn't expect him to do all the research into historical family names; I've done that for him. Had he simply said, "I research records of a lesser noble about 30 years ago who had no offspring, and forge that I was adopted," I would have been perfectly ok with that. I get that it was a joke, and I found it funny... but he didn't back down when I challenged if he wanted to commit. The issue was only partially that the names were ridiculous. Had he asked if I could invent nobles with such names, I simply would have said no, and given him some suggestions of actual names.

The more I think about it, the more confident I am in my response. There were no dire consequences; he wasn't arrested or anything, just turned away.


Your players have a point mate.

You've created a campaign where the reality around those players is that ridiculous names like Seymour Butts and so forth are expected and commonplace. That's part of the accepted reality of the game world.

Your player was just going along with that with his forged document. If no-one bats an eyelid at a party comprising of 'Hugh Garse, Rando Calrissian, Iva Biggun and Sum Ting Wong' then that informs the players that this kind of thing is expected; that the campaign is lighthearted and a little absurdity is the campaign norm.

If you didnt want funny names to be a thing, and wanted to run a less absurd and serious game, that should have been corrected at the start of the game.

In short; you messed up.
Nop, they don't have at all.
This DM didn't "mess up".
There problably a slight misunderstanding on both parts, that's for sure, since apparently the player seemed to believe that it would work easy.

But the crux of the fail is not that "the names on the document are ridiculous" (on that note, FWIW, I don't see the jokes either).
It was that [the player decided, against DM advice (who even provided a dedicated NPC to help) and in spite of his warnings, to try completely random names on the forged document instead of doing a minimum of background checks in local nobility.

In short, the player chose to fail, then put it on the DM like the problem was what he chose as names. Whereas the problem was how he chose them.


Also, it's not because a few characters have wonky names that everyone in the world is supposed to have wonky names. That's an impressively brainless preconception to be honest.
There are common patterns in names, but they are clustered in small or larger groups depending on region, language, genealogy, integration customs etc.
Otherwise, we would basically all be "Martin Joe" or derivations of that.

But *even* if we considered that preconception to be true... The DM apparently failed to convey it in a clear enough way but indicates at least having tried several times, that such names were bound to fail. In other words, cutting the preconception.

DM could certainly have used better ways to deal with the situation (I like the multi-step example given by someone, with roll at disadvantage penalty). And this is certainly a good lesson on "never consider communication as granted, double check the people really understand what you meant them to". But the responsability of this incident is heavily shared, with heavily being on player side.

[KillingTime]

I'm sorry but that's nonsense.
If the DM had required the players to make history skill checks regardless of the names they chose to ensure they'd done the necessary background research then fair enough.
But in this case it appears that the OP was prejudiced against the players simply for choosing joke names, in a game where joke names had previously been on script. .
There would have been no repurcussion had they chosen bland names, even if there was no associated skill check.
So the DM overrode a valid forgery check because they disliked the players being a bit jokey.
This is not OK. It is exactly the kind of capricious behaviour by DMs that will put players off.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Speaking strictly of the rules (and not addressing the particular situation for a second):

Deciding whether a roll should be made at all (versus auto-failure/auto-success) is a critical part of the system. If the outcome is sufficiently obvious, don't roll the dice. The dice are only to be used when there's a meaningful chance of failure or success.

Now addressing the situation:

Communication is key. Telling the player explicitly the difficulty of an action before it's committed to is important. That is, you need to say something to the effect of "If you do it that way, it will be a _____________ check". In this case, it would be "If you use those name, you will not get to roll because the forgery will be obvious to any competent observer. Do you want to continue?" and then accept negotiations from the player or let them change their proposal.

They can still try, but they've been warned.

[sophontteks]

First, the player is clearly in the wrong. You rolled an insight check vs. his forgery and won the roll. The guard knows the document is a forgery regardless of the names. He has nothing to complain about.

However, he is right that the names have nothing to do with the quality of the forgery. Assuming the guard did not know it was a forgery here's another way you could have done it...

The player should have additionally rolled a knowledge (history) check to see if he knew of any local nobles. Then, the guard would have rolled another knowledge (history) check, with advantage, to see if he could recognize that this is not a noble family. Guards aren't super educated, so its assuming a lot that they know all noble families.

So one check to see if the forgery is good.
Then have the player roll to see if they know any noble names.
Then have the guard roll to see if they can recognize that the name is phoney.

This is more dynamic then a simple opposed roll.

[PhoenixPhyre]

First, the player is clearly in the wrong. You rolled an insight check vs. his forgery and won the roll. The guard knows the document is a forgery regardless of the names. He has nothing to complain about.

However, he is right that the names have nothing to do with the quality of the forgery. Assuming the guard did not know it was a forgery here's another way you could have done it...

The player should have additionally rolled a knowledge (history) check to see if he knew of any local nobles. Then, the guard would have rolled another knowledge (history) check, with advantage, to see if he could recognize that this is not a noble family. Guards aren't super educated, so its assuming a lot that they know all noble families.

So one check to see if the forgery is good.
Then have the player roll to see if they know any noble names.
Then have the guard roll to see if they can recognize that the name is phoney.

This is more dynamic then a simple opposed roll.

Note: There is no such thing as a knowledge (history) check in 5e. There are Intelligence checks (for this purpose) that might include History proficiency. Rolling a series of checks like that is generally considered a bad thing, because it almost guarantees failure (on a "one failure to lose them all" basis).

An alternate method (if there's even a need for a check):

* Player rolls Intelligence (History) to try to recall noble names. If they did research, they auto-pass this one.
** On a success, they get advantage on their Intelligence (forgery kit) check to make the document.
** On a bad failure (fail by 5 or more), they get disadvantage on that check. On a "normal" failure, nothing happens.
* The player rolls Intelligence (forgery kit) vs the guard's Intelligence (Investigation) roll to see if the forgery passes inspection. Note Investigation not Insight--you're putting together clues, not reading people's reactions.

[Unoriginal]

So the DM overrode a valid forgery check because they disliked the players being a bit jokey.

How do you know the check with forger's tool proficiency was valid? It's the DM who decides the DC.



I agree that the DM should have said "it'll be difficult to impossible to succeed using jokey names", however. Trained people usually know a rough estimation of what makes it harder, at minimum.

[MrStabby]

There are options here - I would consider (generally, not focused on this specific case) that an unexpected name might make the guard pull a colleague over as it is a bit suspicious. This "help" gives advantage on their intelligence check to detect the forgery.

[sophontteks]

Note: There is no such thing as a knowledge (history) check in 5e. There are Intelligence checks (for this purpose) that might include History proficiency. Rolling a series of checks like that is generally considered a bad thing, because it almost guarantees failure (on a "one failure to lose them all" basis).

An alternate method (if there's even a need for a check):

* Player rolls Intelligence (History) to try to recall noble names. If they did research, they auto-pass this one.
** On a success, they get advantage on their Intelligence (forgery kit) check to make the document.
** On a bad failure (fail by 5 or more), they get disadvantage on that check. On a "normal" failure, nothing happens.
* The player rolls Intelligence (forgery kit) vs the guard's Intelligence (Investigation) roll to see if the forgery passes inspection. Note Investigation not Insight--you're putting together clues, not reading people's reactions.
Grammer police are out in full force today.

If a forgery requires knowledge of nobles, they need to roll for both. But the enemy is also rolling for both and the second is only relevent if the player failed the knowedge roll, which would be a low DC roll anyway. And hey, it also pushes the player towards using proper names that wouldn't result in an automatic failure.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Grammer police are out in full force today.

It's a bit of a shibboleth--it's a sign of old-edition thinking that leads to bad results in (other) cases.

And me being an arch-pedant. That too.

[KorvinStarmast]

Should dice rolls or DM discretion hold precedent in deciding events? I understand that at some point, "whatever the DM says is law"... but I don't like relying on that excuse unless there's no other choice; if the PCs can't rely on the consistency of the rules because of a capricious DM, the entire game breaks down. The dice are fickle. The 1d20 flat curve makes for swingy results.

[ciarannihill]

Your players have a point mate.

You've created a campaign where the reality around those players is that ridiculous names like Seymour Butts and so forth are expected and commonplace. That's part of the accepted reality of the game world.

Your player was just going along with that with his forged document. If no-one bats an eyelid at a party comprising of 'Hugh Garse, Rando Calrissian, Iva Biggun and Sum Ting Wong' then that informs the players that this kind of thing is expected; that the campaign is lighthearted and a little absurdity is the campaign norm.

If you didnt want funny names to be a thing, and wanted to run a less absurd and serious game, that should have been corrected at the start of the game.

In short; you messed up.

The problem isn't just that the names were absurd, that alone might've been fine. The problem was that they were meant to be the names of nobles that the guard would recognize and he made them up. He didn't research anyone real or consult the NPC who was set up explicitly to be able to test-check the forgery before entry.

The player decided that making a good forgery should be good enough, details be damned -- but details matter. Doesn't matter if in your world art with silly mustaches is the norm, if you paint a famous piece with a DIFFERENT silly mustache because you find it more funny, and try to pass it off for the real one people would still notice regardless of the painting's quality. Had he made up a fake noble's name that was more ordinary he'd run into the same problem -- If he had forged a document saying he was the guard captain, doesn't matter how well he rolled on the forgery, the guard would still know it was false. This is the same principle.

I'm not saying the DM is 100% right, there were steps he could have taken to nip this situation in the bud a bit more, as others have outlined -- and remember we only have his side, I'm reasonably certain if the player in question were to post his impression of the encounter we'd get a different perspective, but based on the information we have I wouldn't say that OP is completely 100% wrong by any means.


tl;dr: Silliness wasn't the issue, presenting fiction as fact was -- OP could have handled it better, but it shouldn't have come to that IMHO.

[KorvinStarmast]

I like this idea... So the guard checks if the documents are forged, and if they (to his knowledge) aren't believes in them and just says "Oh Lordy McLordLord, what a cool name, sir... I mean m'lord! Have a nice day!", while the the registrar of the peerage records wouldn't even look at them and go "McLordLord, huh? So would those be the Emeraldsville line or the Verdantshire one? But those lines have both died out some 250 years ago... Can't be the line of the Earl of Lordington, either, since those were half-dwarves, obviously. So that would leave the clan of Duke Radovid the Green, but since they all were victims of the Rameyn Curse... of course we wouldn't want to go into detail... let's just say that it would be quite improbable... Ah, but I forgot about the McLordLords of the Viridecent Plains..., but no, that can't be. They traditionally affirm family membership only with a plaque of silver, not with such documents! You, Sir, are an impostor!" Great post.

Part of the problem in the OP description is that the player was roll playing "I'll do whatever, now roll the dice and see if I make a score." That all were having fun with the silly names is great. (Previous points about expectations mismatch I'll not repeat here).

1. DM forgot the "are you sure" caveat when a player is doing something ill advised with a character that would probably know better.

2. A forger will often have to learn about the art of forgery beyond the mechanical skills of excellent faking of documents. That becomes some kind of Int check to see if the forger remembers (Int is described as big on memory/remembering) all of what his mentor-forger taught him. Maybe a passive Int check is passed. The DM (I have three DM's who do his, and it's good technique) can do something like this

"As you begin your forgery you remember one of your early lessons from you mentor about plausible fakes needing to link to something real"
The idea is to put on the DM-as-Coach hat. Nudge the player towards doing better prep for the deception. It also nudges the player toward a bit more immersion, and hopefully a bit more role playing for this social challenge which is: pass self off as someone else. There's more to that than a roll of a d20.

[Vingelot]

There are options here - I would consider (generally, not focused on this specific case) that an unexpected name might make the guard pull a colleague over as it is a bit suspicious. This "help" gives advantage on their intelligence check to detect the forgery.

The complication here is that there are materially two checks involved:

The first checks if the document seems to be valid. This is the quality of the forgery, and can be improved with forgery kit, for example. So, if you take a piece of loo paper from the lavatory and write in it "Passport of the Queen of England" with your lipstick, a customs officer would arrest you even if you look very much like the queen.

The next one is about how believable it is. Even with a perfect forgery, some ruses will not be believed. In the above example, even if you had a perfect forgery of a passport for the queen, no one would believe you anyway, because she obviously doesn't use a passport (https://www.royal.uk/passports).

Now of course both influence each other, so I'm not suggesting that two rolls should be made, just one, of the appropriate (i.e. per DM discretion) kind. And in obvious situations it's of course (again, this is DM discretion) possible to auto-fail (or auto-succeed) a check. And this applies to both parts of the ruse as well, i.e. a perfect forgery with a ridiculous name can, without problem, cause the entire check to auto-fail. Therefore, the OP was perfectly within his rights from a rules standpoint.

Now quite another question is the one regarding consistency. On the one hand, the player was forewarned. On the other, other ridiculous names have been used no problem in the campaign. This is, however not a question anyone can answer on the forums. It requires just too much knowledge about the campaign, the table, the tone, exact words used etc. etc. And even if it were possible to give a clear answer, IMHO the more important thing than who was in the right is that the differences be talked about so the adventure can continue without lingering tension.

[mephnick]

Don't listen to the internet when they say "Always say 'yes'". The ability to say "No." is much more important.

Unfortunately the "No." didn't come out fast enough and you're stuck with a comedy game and your tone is completely ruined forever, assuming it's not the tone you want. You either talk to everyone and reset the thing or play it out with Mr. Butts and *insertstupidnameshere*

[Tanarii]

A DM's job is to present the world & situations, and adjudicate/resolve the player's interactions with it. And, per the 5e DMG, the way they are supposed to do the latter is decide if something automatically fails or succeeds, or requires a roll. The if a roll is required, the dice are rolled.

Where the process broke down here was:
"A character was trying to forge papers proving his noble lineage. He rolled a 15, which wasn't terrible... but he also mentioned [...]."

The player should not have rolled if the forgery was going to automatically fail.

Other than that, the OPs instincts were right. If something cannot succeed, no die roll is necessary.


1. DM forgot the "are you sure" caveat when a player is doing something ill advised with a character that would probably know better.The DM clearly did not forget that caveat in the OP:

I asked him if he was serious, and that was the story he wanted to try to use.

[Segev]

I don't know how your tone and stuff came off, but as long as you made it clear, "Player, if you do this, it's likely to fail on the simple basis that you're making up the noble house, and the inspector is unlikely to be fooled into thinking there's a State of "Viagra" in the USA," then it's on him.

Also, there's a clause in the 5e PHB's opening disclaimer that WotC is not responsible for, amongst other things, saying 'yes' when the DM asks, "Are you sure?"

[ciarannihill]

A DM's job is to present the world & situations, and adjudicate/resolve the player's interactions with it. And, per the 5e DMG, the way they are supposed to do the latter is decide if something automatically fails or succeeds, or requires a roll. The if a roll is required, the dice are rolled.

Where the process broke down here was:
"A character was trying to forge papers proving his noble lineage. He rolled a 15, which wasn't terrible... but he also mentioned [...]."

The player should not have rolled if the forgery was going to automatically fail.

Other than that, the OPs instincts were right. If something cannot succeed, no die roll is necessary.

The DM pretty clearly did not forget that caveat in the OP.

Well I think here's the distinction -- say you have a fake Passport made. The forgery roll is about whether or not the passport looks and feels legitimate. It's about the materials, ink, security features, etc being imitated. If you have a perfect passport forged, but you're 20 and it has a birthday in the 1940's it will still be a red flag, even if the forgery is perfect.

The forgery roll was for the skill intensive task of making the papers identical to actual ones -- the information on the papers was a separate component which resulted in an automatic failure due to how incorrect it was -- the guard knew this noble family he claimed he was the scion of wasn't real.

Now I think that the DM should have made more clear that this was a separate component of the check --and that if they researched instead of shooting in the dark for a name they wouldn't have needed a roll to succeed, but that doesn't change the reality that there are both of those components involved and the players actively threw one away because he assumed the other one was sufficient for the task. This assumption was clearly incorrect and it seems like OP tried to imply that without being too obvious about it, but the player didn't understand that intent and moved forward anyway.

Communication could have been clearer (break the fourth wall a bit to make sure your point is clear sometimes), but narratively and mechanically I haven't seen a convincing reason posted why OP was wrong.

[Tanarii]

Well I think here's the distinction -- say you have a fake Passport made. The forgery roll is about whether or not the passport looks and feels legitimate. It's about the materials, ink, security features, etc being imitated. If you have a perfect passport forged, but you're 20 and it has a birthday in the 1940's it will still be a red flag, even if the forgery is perfect.

The forgery roll was for the skill intensive task of making the papers identical to actual ones -- the information on the papers was a separate component which resulted in an automatic failure due to how incorrect it was -- the guard knew this noble family he claimed he was the scion of wasn't real.If you like. I generally have a roll for a question of resolution. In this case, the question of resolution was "does the guard recognize the papers are fake" ... a forgery roll vs insight check. That happens when the papers are checked, not when the papers are made.

[Unoriginal]

Here's what the Xanathar's says about the Forgery kit (knowing it's non-exhaustive):



FORGERY KIT
A forgery kit is designed to duplicate documents and to make it easier to copy a person’s seal or signature.
[...]
Deception: A well-crafted forgery, such as papers proclaiming you to be a noble or a writ that grants you safe passage, can lend credence to a lie.
History: A forgery kit combined with your knowledge of history improves your ability to create fake historical documents or to tell if an old document is authentic.
[...]
Quick Fake: As part of a short rest, you can produce a forged document no more than one page in length. As part of a long rest, you can produce a document that is up to four pages long. Your Intelligence check using a forgery kit determines the DC for someone else’s Intelligence (Investigation) check to spot the fake.

FORGERY KIT Activity
Mimic handwriting DC 15
Duplicate a wax seal DC 20

[Tanarii]

Here's what the Xanathar's says about the Forgery kit (knowing it's non-exhaustive):
Fair enough. Sounds like it is rolled in advance. If the DM doesn't determine it will be an automatic failure, based on information provided about what is being forged.

Although in the OP it sounds like the player in question added an addendum after the fact. They said what they were going to fake (nobles papers), the roll was made, then they added joking specific details, then stuck with them when asked if they were sure.

[ciarannihill]

Here's what the Xanathar's says about the Forgery kit (knowing it's non-exhaustive):

I mean if it were my table I would rule that despite being capable of making a far better forgery, them making intentional mistakes during the process (the willful disregard for including real information) would increase the likelihood of detection.

If the flawed information was as obvious as in this situation I would rule it an auto-success on the part of the guard. If for some reason I didn't want to do that I'd grant them advantage on the Investigation roll without question, I might have made them roll for making the forgery with disadvantage too.

[Segev]

What's the Ability that goes with the Forgery Kit for the roll? And how would using illusory script to make your forgery work?

[Unoriginal]

What's the Ability that goes with the Forgery Kit for the roll?

Intelligence



And how would using illusory script to make your forgery work?

I don't follow, sorry.

[Spyderson]

This is all assuming the guard in question can read. A lot of the poorer classes in my groups games are largely illiterate and would just be impressed by a fancy price of paper. Who other than a noble would have something like that?

[Unoriginal]

This is all assuming the guard in question can read. A lot of the poorer classes in my groups games are largely illiterate and would just be impressed by a fancy price of paper. Who other than a noble would have something like that?

I think the Thayan are smart enough to put someone who can read in charge of checking people's official documents.

[Segev]

IntelligenceThanks!



I don't follow, sorry.

Illusory script allows you to disguise whatever you wrote as something else entirely. The question really is, I suppose, can it be a forgery? Because the difficulty of piercing it is given: it's an Investigation check against your spell DC.

[Tanarii]

Thanks!




Illusory script allows you to disguise whatever you wrote as something else entirely. The question really is, I suppose, can it be a forgery? Because the difficulty of piercing it is given: it's an Investigation check against your spell DC.
Thatd be two check, right? One for the illusion and one the forgery.

Edit: same as using an illusion to do anything that has a chance of failure. Like perfectly replicating something aeen one a month ago. Thatd be a fairly difficult Int check, unless youve got the feat for it.

[JNAProductions]

I think your DM made the right decision... AFTER the joke went through.

Before then, they should've made clear "Funny joke, guys, but you need to pick ACTUAL noble names. Your characters would know of these noble families, and you can attempt a History check to see if you remember more."

Basically, if you do something that silly, no, it won't work. But the DM should tell you "That's too silly and won't work," so you can change it.

[leogobsin]

Illusory script allows you to disguise whatever you wrote as something else entirely. The question really is, I suppose, can it be a forgery? Because the difficulty of piercing it is given: it's an Investigation check against your spell DC.

Actually, Illusory Script doesn't allow for any sort of check to see through it, you need Truesight to read the hidden message if you're not a creature designated when the spell's cast. To use it for forgery, you'd be making use of the alternative: "Alternatively, you can cause the writing to appear to be an entirely different message, written in a different hand and language, though the language must be one you know."

It would probably be reasonable to say that the illusory message kind of translates directly from how you picture it in your head the way any other illusion does. How I would likely run it if a player tried this is say that Illusory Script gives them advantage on the check to create the forgery: it's possible that you could be picturing the document incorrectly to create the illusion, but using a spell able to duplicate any handwriting should logically make forgery a lot easier.

[ciarannihill]

This is all assuming the guard in question can read. A lot of the poorer classes in my groups games are largely illiterate and would just be impressed by a fancy price of paper. Who other than a noble would have something like that?

I mean clearly in the OP's world the guard could read -- and anyone who would be in charge of checking peoples' documentation would be able to, as Unoriginal said.

[Maelynn]

Basically, if you do something that silly, no, it won't work. But the DM should tell you "That's too silly and won't work," so you can change it.

To me, this is what it seems to come down to in this situation. While many players know to expect trouble when the DM asks, "are you sure?", and start doubting their choices, I don't think you can expect everybody to be aware of such consequences.

I think the OP could've perhaps prevented this situation by stating those consequences and why they'd happen. If after an "okay, so this is how it is, you still sure?" the player still wants to carry out his idea, then it's on him.

[igor140]

HAHAHAHAHA!! Wow! This got way out of hand since last night : )

Hello... I'm the original poster.

To clarify a few things, our ACTUAL names are all pretty generic and "normal"; it's just the fake names that we use when going incognito that are so ridiculous. I let that slide because no generic guard is going to do a background check on Gustavo Manifort (the fake name), the random traveler, provided he succeeds his Deception roll. It's the RL equivalent of giving a fake name to a mall cop.

The difference here is that the person inspecting the documents was a professional butler/ retainer whose job it is to make sure that his lord is working with other worthwhile nobles. The specific context is that our characters were trying to pass themselves off as nobles in order to open lines of business with this particular noble (specifically, trying to gain access to a private auction). The retainer is essentially the CEO for the entire estate, and was extremely well-educated and trained for this position from a young age. He took the time to research and cross-reference the [forged] lineage documents with the officially sanctioned ones. All of this was communicated to the player before he committed to his gambit. This is the RL equivalent of giving the name McLovin to the custom's agent in an international airport or a bank manager.

Some one (not sure who) mentioned being familiar with our campaign and it's proclivity towards silliness... I believe that person is mistaken about who our group is, or perhaps I misrepresented it elsewhere. We like to joke around and come up with ridiculous things, but the vast majority of the time, it's ONLY a joke, and we ultimately walk back and have our characters take more logical/ serious courses of action. The one exception to this is the PC in this specific scenario. He plays a low-intelligence barbarian dwarf with an over-inflated sense of both his immortality and his importance in the world. He (and he alone) often does completely absurd things based on little-to-no discernible logic. Very often, the results are very funny, but I have ALWAYS, extremely consistently, for almost a year now, put logical (if fantastical) consequences to his zany decisions.

For example, we did a segment on a Land of the Lost kind of island. This guy REALLY wanted to ride a triceratops... and we all wanted it for him. So I made him roll his Grapple checks, and after failing three, he succeeded. Then, with advantage, he had to roll another Grapple in order to ride it... which he did! It was awesome! He rode the triceratops! ... Until he got thrown off, gored and trampled, and KO'd. It was fun, he said it was worth it, but we had to stop, revive, and nurse him back to health. It ended up being a very logical conclusion, but a significant inconvenience for the entire party. More recently, we were on a ship that caught fire. In order to put the fire out, he chopped holes in the hull; the boat sank and the druid almost drowned saving the 200 passengers by transforming into a whale.

All that to say, historically, we have tolerated this character's ridiculousness in a Don Quixote kind of way; in fact, approximately a hour before this event, we had discussion comparing the two. And, in that Don Quixote way, his actions very often make life harder for the people around him; the consequences of his actions are the very logical conclusions of an illogical choice in an otherwise simple situation. So the campaign itself has actually NOT been silly or frivolous at all (except for the one week that we ate some bad mushrooms and had to rescue the druid from the Pacman Dragon at the top of Bowser's Castle, the interior of which looked like Castle Wolfenstein; but seriously, that was WAY out of the norm); it's only been the actions of this one character.

[Snails]

A DM's job is to present the world & situations, and adjudicate/resolve the player's interactions with it. And, per the 5e DMG, the way they are supposed to do the latter is decide if something automatically fails or succeeds, or requires a roll. The if a roll is required, the dice are rolled.

Where the process broke down here was:
"A character was trying to forge papers proving his noble lineage. He rolled a 15, which wasn't terrible... but he also mentioned [...]."

The player should not have rolled if the forgery was going to automatically fail.

Other than that, the OPs instincts were right. If something cannot succeed, no die roll is necessary.

The DM clearly did not forget that caveat in the OP:

I think this is strong reasoning. There is no argument if at the start of this effort the DM simply puts the dice down and handwaves: "Your document looks pretty enough, but those names will probably fail and your PC knows it."

The players get their joke, but they have prompt feedback that the DM expects something else here.

BTW, I am not convinced that Hunglyka Clydesdale automatically fails because it would not necessary be written that way, and the joke is obvious only if it is then "spoken" (in your head or out loud).

Of the noble house of Clydesdale in county of Nottingham lives the patriarch Biggus. From Marion of Kent, he hath three sons, Luvslyka, Hunglyka, Gus. etc. etc. etc.

Only this stuff would go on for pages and pages.

Furthermore, it is not clear to me that a 15 loses out to a 19. A random guard does not necessary have better than a +0 mod. It is a professional Herald who would have the necessary History and Forgery skill to actual make a proper inspection.

[Ganymede]

Generally speaking, I remind my players that their roleplay, whether ham handed, stuttery, or choppy, gets translated to sound cool in the game world. I'm not going to penalize them because they weren't able to come up with something artful on the spot.

That said, they have to try. If they're taking it in an overly frivolous direction, penalties or even automatic failure might come into play. Filling an "official" document with obvious puns might fall in that realm.

Then again, if it is fun, I might allow it anyways.

[Thrudd]

I find there is often a conflict or logical disconnect between the precise or detailed action the players describe and the abstraction of the rules. If the players are describing what they are doing after the roll has already taken place, you sometimes get silly results like this - since the dice might say they should succeed or have a good chance of success, but the player describes something ridiculous that would not have the result the dice indicate. The order of operations should be switched - ask the player what they are doing, then assign a difficulty or advantage/disadvantage or even decide automatic success or failure, and roll dice only if it is warranted.

Secondarily, many actions do not warrant specific or detailed descriptions from the players. They say what their character is attempting to do, you decide what they should roll if anything needs to be rolled, then you describe what happens based on the roll of the dice, not the player.
So they say- "I want to forge nobility papers to get me into the auction"
you say- "ok, roll Int and add your forgery proficiency"
- "I got a 15!"
-OK, you have a pretty convincing document, only a smart or well-trained person is likely to spot it as a fake.
-"How well-trained are the people we have to show this to?"
-well, make another intelligence check, add proficiency in knowledge:nobility if you have it...(decide a DC)
-"15 again"
-you're pretty sure someone who is an expert in the noble houses will be checking the papers - so they will be extremely knowledgeable about the subject. you're not sure how convincing the forgery will be to someone like that

etc.

You don't need to ask, and probably shouldn't have asked, what exactly is being written on the forged document unless the player actually knows what would be reasonable to put there - you aren't testing the player's knowledge of Thayan Noble houses (that isn't even a real thing they could know), you're testing the characters' ability to do this. That is too much detail for the level of abstraction these rules present. So if they have a good forgery roll, that means that the document looks convincing to anyone who can't pass an insight check high enough - you shouldn't even bother specifying what names are actually on the document - if it's a high forgery roll, it must be a really convincing name.

If you allowed them to make a forgery roll to determine the quality of the document, then you should perform the insight check for anyone examining the document. If they describe doing something silly that you think would never work, then don't even let them roll. Tell them it is silly and will probably not work, or have them make a straight intelligence check to see if they are smart enough to know that this document is too silly - if they aren't, let them roll the forgery but give the insight checks advantage or automatic success. Of course, if other characters in the party are looking at this, they should roll intelligence too, and anyone who is smart enough to know it won't work can say so before they try to pass it off.

[Unoriginal]

HAHAHAHAHA!! Wow! This got way out of hand since last night : )

Hello... I'm the original poster.

To clarify a few things, our ACTUAL names are all pretty generic and "normal"; it's just the fake names that we use when going incognito that are so ridiculous. I let that slide because no generic guard is going to do a background check on Gustavo Manifort (the fake name), the random traveler, provided he succeeds his Deception roll. It's the RL equivalent of giving a fake name to a mall cop.

The difference here is that the person inspecting the documents was a professional butler/ retainer whose job it is to make sure that his lord is working with other worthwhile nobles. The specific context is that our characters were trying to pass themselves off as nobles in order to open lines of business with this particular noble (specifically, trying to gain access to a private auction). The retainer is essentially the CEO for the entire estate, and was extremely well-educated and trained for this position from a young age. He took the time to research and cross-reference the [forged] lineage documents with the officially sanctioned ones. All of this was communicated to the player before he committed to his gambit. This is the RL equivalent of giving the name McLovin to the custom's agent in an international airport or a bank manager.

Some one (not sure who) mentioned being familiar with our campaign and it's proclivity towards silliness... I believe that person is mistaken about who our group is, or perhaps I misrepresented it elsewhere. We like to joke around and come up with ridiculous things, but the vast majority of the time, it's ONLY a joke, and we ultimately walk back and have our characters take more logical/ serious courses of action. The one exception to this is the PC in this specific scenario. He plays a low-intelligence barbarian dwarf with an over-inflated sense of both his immortality and his importance in the world. He (and he alone) often does completely absurd things based on little-to-no discernible logic. Very often, the results are very funny, but I have ALWAYS, extremely consistently, for almost a year now, put logical (if fantastical) consequences to his zany decisions.

For example, we did a segment on a Land of the Lost kind of island. This guy REALLY wanted to ride a triceratops... and we all wanted it for him. So I made him roll his Grapple checks, and after failing three, he succeeded. Then, with advantage, he had to roll another Grapple in order to ride it... which he did! It was awesome! He rode the triceratops! ... Until he got thrown off, gored and trampled, and KO'd. It was fun, he said it was worth it, but we had to stop, revive, and nurse him back to health. It ended up being a very logical conclusion, but a significant inconvenience for the entire party. More recently, we were on a ship that caught fire. In order to put the fire out, he chopped holes in the hull; the boat sank and the druid almost drowned saving the 200 passengers by transforming into a whale.

All that to say, historically, we have tolerated this character's ridiculousness in a Don Quixote kind of way; in fact, approximately a hour before this event, we had discussion comparing the two. And, in that Don Quixote way, his actions very often make life harder for the people around him; the consequences of his actions are the very logical conclusions of an illogical choice in an otherwise simple situation. So the campaign itself has actually NOT been silly or frivolous at all (except for the one week that we ate some bad mushrooms and had to rescue the druid from the Pacman Dragon at the top of Bowser's Castle, the interior of which looked like Castle Wolfenstein; but seriously, that was WAY out of the norm); it's only been the actions of this one character.

So you're saying that the zany character who regularly gets in troubles for doing stupid things did something stupid on purpose and got in troubles... but this time the other people at the table argued against it?

Also, why did the rest of the party let the low-intelligence barbarian forge the documents himself?

[tomandtish]

For whatever it's worth, I don't get the (apparently dirty?) joke, so it's at least technically possible for someone to see nothing out of the ordinary about those names. Honestly it just looks like "some foreign Hungarian whose name reminds me of a horse and his wife."

So, when you're rolling dice, perhaps you're rolling to see if the inspector is as ignorant of dirty jokes as I am.

Since no one responded.....

Hunglyka...

Now say it but put a space between each syllable.

"Hung like a Clysdale". And if you still don't get it, "Hung like a" is a size metaphor for a certain male appendage.


And for the record, there's nothing wrong with saying a character auto-fails if they do something incredibly stupid or impossible. I'd probably tey and make sure they KNEW they were doing something stupid.

OTOH, you could always roll and say that the person was in a hurry and JUST looked at quality. Just because they are supposed to do something more doesn't mean they did.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I'm jumping on the side of "this is not a dice vs DM issue, this is an issue of expectations about the game".

The player expects that you let this sort of sillyness fly. you don't. No attempt was made by you to communicate this, and no attempt was made by the player to ask about it. Find out what kind of campaign you're playing.

[Malifice]

I'm jumping on the side of "this is not a dice vs DM issue, this is an issue of expectations about the game".

The player expects that you let this sort of sillyness fly. you don't. No attempt was made by you to communicate this, and no attempt was made by the player to ask about it. Find out what kind of campaign you're playing.

Bear in mind this is a campaign where absurdist shenanigans are common place.

[Unoriginal]

Bear in mind this is a campaign where absurdist shenanigans are common place.

According to OP, only one player does that kind of shenanigans, and they weren't bothered when it backfired before.

[Willie the Duck]

I think everyone has pretty much laid out the situation pretty well. It sounds like the DM and players were playing under different operational structures (the players apparently thinking that this was an episode of the Monkees, where no one questions the insanity, while the DM was playing Blackadder, where there are only-sane-men in the mix). We who were not there cannot say who is right on what tone was communicated. The fact that the DM asked a bunch of are-you-sures makes it very strange that they would not expect to have failed and laughed it off.


I have just a few things to mention.

The first being that no dice should have been rolled. Done. The end. Final. The dice are there when the outcome is uncertain, and/or the DM cannot rule something impartially. Neither situation describes the scenario. Regardless of player demands, the DM should have said, "there is nothing to roll. The outcome isn't uncertain. The guy checking this knows that's not a real noble. I will not roll because that will give you the false impression that if you'd rolled high enough, this might have worked. A natural 20 with a +17 to your skill would. not. have. worked."



Should dice rolls or DM discretion hold precedent in deciding events? I understand that at some point, "whatever the DM says is law"... but I don't like relying on that excuse unless there's no other choice; if the PCs can't rely on the consistency of the rules because of a capricious DM, the entire game breaks down.

And this is what I mean. The DM is supposed to rule what is even possible. If the chasm or break in the bridge is too far to jump, the DM is supposed to rule that it is too far to jump, and don't bother to pick up the dice. However, if the PCs are looking at a 5 meter gap and thinking "I can totally jump that" because up through then, the game had been Hong Kong wire-fu theater, it is the DM's responsibility to correct that misinterpretation before the PCs commit to jumping. Again, I don't think we know who would be right about how well these expectations were communicated.


Around this time, another player got REALLY upset by all of this (not entirely sure why...) and started yelling about rules and the DMs authority... so we stopped playing and did something else for a while.

This is actually much more disturbing than any of the rest of this. A player went off on you about DM authority, and you don't even know why? I think this is the thing you should be doing an after-action-review style analysis of. Can you ask them what was up (say you know everyone isn't happy about the situation but you're not sure what specifically they were upset about)?



I did give him the option to confirm that's what he wanted to use, and he did affirm that he was sticking with it several times. I should have explicitly stated that this would not likely pass the check with those names, but my tone and the incredulity of the other players definitely conveyed that. Also, he was supposed to check with a particular NPC before using the documents, but this character doesn't like that NPC, so he didn't.

I certainly didn't expect him to do all the research into historical family names; I've done that for him. Had he simply said, "I research records of a lesser noble about 30 years ago who had no offspring, and forge that I was adopted," I would have been perfectly ok with that. I get that it was a joke, and I found it funny... but he didn't back down when I challenged if he wanted to commit. The issue was only partially that the names were ridiculous. Had he asked if I could invent nobles with such names, I simply would have said no, and given him some suggestions of actual names.

The more I think about it, the more confident I am in my response. There were no dire consequences; he wasn't arrested or anything, just turned away.

Yeah, there's a piece that we're missing.

[DrowPiratRobrts]

Grammer police are out in full force today.



*Grammar Police*

Sincerely,

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spelling Sheriff

[MaxWilson]

Since no one responded.....

Hunglyka...

Now say it but put a space between each syllable.

So the joke not just dependent on a certain pronunciation, but also on an Earth idiom.

Yeah, that's no different from Rando Calrissian. Neither one is necessarily going to twig a Thayan inspector's hinky-meter. As Citan says, though, the fact that they are foreign names could plausibly trigger suspicion or at least interest and a closer inspection.

I could imagine calling for a check with disadvantage, but unless there are factors I'm not aware of (is Thay intensely xenophobic and has no peerage with foreign names? or with only a fixed set of noble houses, all of whose names are known?) declaring an auto-fail based on the names chosen seems like an inappropriate call, unduly influenced by the DM's OOC reaction.

[JoeJ]

So the joke not just dependent on a certain pronunciation, but also on an Earth idiom.

Yeah, that's no different from Rando Calrissian. Neither one is necessarily going to twig a Thayan inspector's hinky-meter. As Citan says, though, the fact that they are foreign names could plausibly trigger suspicion or at least interest and a closer inspection.

I could imagine calling for a check with disadvantage, but unless there are factors I'm not aware of (is Thay intensely xenophobic and has no peerage with foreign names? or with only a fixed set of noble houses, all of whose names are known?) declaring an auto-fail based on the names chosen seems like an inappropriate call, unduly influenced by the DM's OOC reaction.

As I understand it, the fatal problem wasn't that the name was a joke, but that it was definitely not the name of any Thayan noble family. In our world, if I claimed to be related to an English noblewoman named Rakina Suwelo any competent herald will call BS. They wouldn't know that the name was made up for my D&D campaign, but they'd know it's not the name of any real English noble.

[GlenSmash!]

As I understand it, the fatal problem wasn't that the name was a joke, but that it was definitely not the name of any Thayan noble family. In our world, if I claimed to be related to an English noblewoman named Rakina Suwelo any competent herald will call BS. They wouldn't know that the name was made up for my D&D campaign, but they'd know it's not the name of any real English noble.

Agreed. The problem doesn't seem to be the joke name, but that the character knew what would a plausible name, but chose not to use one. The DM even asked "are you sure?".

[MaxWilson]

As I understand it, the fatal problem wasn't that the name was a joke, but that it was definitely not the name of any Thayan noble family. In our world, if I claimed to be related to an English noblewoman named Rakina Suwelo any competent herald will call BS. They wouldn't know that the name was made up for my D&D campaign, but they'd know it's not the name of any real English noble.

Yeah, that would be the second potential "factor I'm not aware of": a fixed set of noble houses whose names are all known.

[JoeJ]

Yeah, that would be the second potential "factor I'm not aware of": a fixed set of noble houses whose names are all known.

It would be extremely odd if that weren't the case. Nobles have to be fairly limited in number because if everybody is a noble, then nobody is.

[Willie the Duck]

It would be extremely odd if that weren't the case. Nobles have to be fairly limited in number because if everybody is a noble, then nobody is.

Yes, but it depends on how... I'm going to say 'modern'... you treat your D&D worlds. D&D kinda-sorta looks like the middle ages of Europe, which in reality were (in most places) an amazing patchwork of pocket kingdoms and broad alliances with shifting boundaries and allegiances and somewhere in the greater realms of a 'kingdom' this patch of land has been overthrown or changed hands or the baron there died without an heir but his wife's father will be more than happy to keep sending the king his cut and set up shop there and so on and so forth (and that news might have reached the capital city, but if the events of the game are taking place in not-the-capital-city in some tangential county or the like... Throw in that the first names at least do change every 20-40 years, and that individual books of heraldry (because this seneschal in particular hasn't personally met every noble) may not be up to date, and the situation is at least complex (especially if you include everything above knight as a noble).

If the game is more '18th century, just without gunpowder' and printing press and somewhat better communication and firmer national boundaries, then it gets harder and harder to be Count You'veneverheardofme from You'veprobablyneverheardofit.

[JoeJ]

Yes, but it depends on how... I'm going to say 'modern'... you treat your D&D worlds. D&D kinda-sorta looks like the middle ages of Europe, which in reality were (in most places) an amazing patchwork of pocket kingdoms and broad alliances with shifting boundaries and allegiances and somewhere in the greater realms of a 'kingdom' this patch of land has been overthrown or changed hands or the baron there died without an heir but his wife's father will be more than happy to keep sending the king his cut and set up shop there and so on and so forth (and that news might have reached the capital city, but if the events of the game are taking place in not-the-capital-city in some tangential county or the like... Throw in that the first names at least do change every 20-40 years, and that individual books of heraldry (because this seneschal in particular hasn't personally met every noble) may not be up to date, and the situation is at least complex (especially if you include everything above knight as a noble).

If the game is more '18th century, just without gunpowder' and printing press and somewhat better communication and firmer national boundaries, then it gets harder and harder to be Count You'veneverheardofme from You'veprobablyneverheardofit.

He was claiming to be from a noble house in Thay, to a Thayan expert investigator, though. Going back to my example, a herald wouldn't necessarily know the name of every English noblewoman, but they would definitely know that English noblewoman wouldn't have that name. Anybody who is very familiar with English names would know that Rakina Suwelo isn't one of them.

[GlenSmash!]

He was claiming to be from a noble house in Thay, to a Thayan expert investigator, though. Going back to my example, a herald wouldn't necessarily know the name of every English noblewoman, but they would definitely know that English noblewoman wouldn't have that name. Anybody who is very familiar with English names would know that Rakina Suwelo isn't one of them.

I think it would be much easier to convince someone you were a foreign noble.

Like in the Count of Monte Cristo.

[MaxWilson]

It would be extremely odd if that weren't the case. Nobles have to be fairly limited in number because if everybody is a noble, then nobody is.

Clearly it wasn't the case in mythic Arthurian England, as one example: castles and nobles and hitherto-unknown Black Knights are all over those stories, IIRC.

Maybe Thay is more organized than that though. I don't know much about Thay.

[GlenSmash!]

Clearly it wasn't the case in mythic Arthurian England, as one example: castles and nobles and hitherto-unknown Black Knights are all over those stories, IIRC.

Maybe Thay is more organized than that though. I don't know much about Thay.

Tough to say about a time that was vastly different in history than in legend :smallbiggrin:

Nobility in 5th century Britain would likely have known which families were prominent, but Angles, Saxons, and Juts coming over the sea probably couldn't have cared less. In fact many of them would be carving their own Lordships then and there.

As far as I know all noble houses trace back to a conqueror.

As far as Arthurian legend, I think Knights riding in Tournaments incognito had become quite the romantic idea in the high middle ages. I wonder if that influence the popular myth, but that is pure speculation on my part.

[JoeJ]

Clearly it wasn't the case in mythic Arthurian England, as one example: castles and nobles and hitherto-unknown Black Knights are all over those stories, IIRC.

Maybe Thay is more organized than that though. I don't know much about Thay.

Which real but hitherto-unknown nobles presented themselves in Arthur's court. Are you thinking of knights entering tournaments with their names withheld? If that's what you mean, I don't see how that parallels the OPs situation.

[Willie the Duck]

I think it would be much easier to convince someone you were a foreign noble.

Like in the Count of Monte Cristo.

Or, given the OP's campaign, the Count of Moundsof Crisco. :tongue:

[MaxWilson]

Which real but hitherto-unknown nobles presented themselves in Arthur's court. Are you thinking of knights entering tournaments with their names withheld? If that's what you mean, I don't see how that parallels the OPs situation.

The Green Knight comes to mind. I could be wrong but I don't get the impression that he was a known personality, let alone one of Arthur's subjects, prior to showing up at the court for the head-chopping contest.

In a campaign based on those stories, having hitherto-unknown nobility popping out of the woodwork regularly would not be inappropriate. My impression of early AD&D, based on the stronghold rules, is that this kind of thing was very common at Gygax's table.

[ciarannihill]

The Green Knight comes to mind. I could be wrong but I don't get the impression that he was a known personality, let alone one of Arthur's subjects, prior to showing up at the court for the head-chopping contest.

In a campaign based on those stories, having hitherto-unknown nobility popping out of the woodwork regularly would not be inappropriate. My impression of early AD&D, based on the stronghold rules, is that this kind of thing was very common at Gygax's table.

I mean, but he didn't exactly show up at the gates and present his papers to be let in. Kind of wasn't welcome.

And it's fine if someone doesn't know about a noble, but they aren't going to believe you're a hitherto unknown noble if you're trying to get through a checkpoint based on that, especially if you present yourself as a noble who's existence should be common knowledge...

[Unoriginal]

Which real but hitherto-unknown nobles presented themselves in Arthur's court.


The Green Knight comes to mind. I could be wrong but I don't get the impression that he was a known personality, let alone one of Arthur's subjects, prior to showing up at the court for the head-chopping contest.


I mean, but he didn't exactly show up at the gates and present his papers to be let in. Kind of wasn't welcome.

A better example would be Perceval. He showed up to King Arthur's court one day, presented his lineage... and got turned down by Kay who thought the ignorant kid who showed up with three javelins and claimed to be get the privilege of knighthood was a joke.

And by "turned down" I mean Kay said "sure, get out and tell the first knight you see that King Arthur ordered him to give you his weapons and armor." Perceval got lucky the first knight he met was a villain/enemy of Arthur who could be killed via a javelin in the face, and then he looted the body.


In the case of the Thayans, I'm pretty sure they're mostly a magogracy who keeps track of anyone who has power.

[GlenSmash!]

Or, given the OP's campaign, the Count of Moundsof Crisco. :tongue:

Indeed :smallbiggrin:

[Snails]

In Le Mort D'Arthur, a young knight shows up at Arthur's Court and everyone says "wow, you are pretty". He claims to be Arthur's son by someoneoranother. Arthur says, uh, right on. And that's it, he is welcomed.

[JoeJ]

In Le Mort D'Arthur, a young knight shows up at Arthur's Court and everyone says "wow, you are pretty". He claims to be Arthur's son by someoneoranother. Arthur says, uh, right on. And that's it, he is welcomed.

So what's the connection between claiming to be a king's son by a real woman that the king has actually slept with, and claiming to be a noble by using a made up joke name?