Augury

[jjordan]

Four options:
-Weal
-Woe
-Both
-Neither

Player asks what will happen if they use a magic item to scry on their god.

As it happens the player is getting communication from two competing deities. Player hasn't figured this out yet. Player explicitly gave me permission to play around with this aspect of their backstory. They are getting a both answer and I ask them to roll a wisdom check to see if they notice anything about the omen they are getting. They get a natural 20 which puts them into a 25 and I tell them the omen is indicating extremes, that they interpret this as meaning they could get very good or very bad results from this action.

Player goes ballistic because "or" is not an acceptable answer according to the RAW.

They think I've arbitrarily changed the rules. I think I've interpreted the rules and applied them in context.

Your thoughts?

[JonBeowulf]

The player is technically correct: both is an and not an or.

The extremes you mentioned could be quite a hook: If he spies on his deity, he will learn something very useful/good/secret/whatever, but oooooh buddy... it comes with a cost/curse/bad thing.

[Ettina]

Augury tells you the results of a planned course of action. The results are frequently uncertain, with several possibilities equally likely. If the planned course of action could be good or bad, "weal and woe" seems like the obvious most appropriate answer.

Your PC should be glad you let them roll for clarification - that's the part of your story that isn't RAW, not using "weal and woe" for something that could turn out very good or very bad.

[DeadMech]

So if I understand the player character unknowingly has two gods. If they state "I want to scry on my god" and expend the appropriate spell it will probably end up randomly targeting one or the other. Or perhaps not so randomly it targets the last one that was actively interfering with them or something. If they scry on one of them the result will be bad for the character. If it's the other the result will be helpful.

Just flip a coin when they cast augury and ask what the result will be. Presumably that's what you would have done if they cast the scrying spell, right? If the augury predicts it will target the helpful target say weal and woe if it predicts it will target the god that scrying on will produce a unhelpful result.

[LudicSavant]

Four options:
-Weal
-Woe
-Both
-Neither

Player asks what will happen if they use a magic item to scry on their god.

As it happens the player is getting communication from two competing deities. Player hasn't figured this out yet. Player explicitly gave me permission to play around with this aspect of their backstory. They are getting a both answer and I ask them to roll a wisdom check to see if they notice anything about the omen they are getting. They get a natural 20 which puts them into a 25 and I tell them the omen is indicating extremes, that they interpret this as meaning they could get very good or very bad results from this action.

Player goes ballistic because "or" is not an acceptable answer according to the RAW.

They think I've arbitrarily changed the rules. I think I've interpreted the rules and applied them in context.

Your thoughts?


The player is technically correct: both is an and not an or.

The extremes you mentioned could be quite a hook: If he spies on his deity, he will learn something very useful/good/secret/whatever, but oooooh buddy... it comes with a cost/curse/bad thing.

My question is, why not report the results as "and"? If the reason is that they're getting conflicting results from two competing deities, they are getting both inputs (A and B) instead of (A or B).

I think the reason "A or B" is a frustrating answer for the player is because it basically suggests on their end that the spell didn't work at all (even if that's not how you're actually playing it). It can come off like "well maybe it's weal, maybe it's woe, who knows?" and the player would think "That's what I cast Augury to answer!" In which case, the player might feel like they wasted their spell and character building choices because the DM changed the rules on them suddenly.

I wonder if you would have gotten the same reaction if your wisdom check said something more like "You are hearing both weal and woe, but you feel like you are hearing a dispute -- one voice insisting on weal, and another woe. But that makes no sense -- your god only has one voice." Or something of that nature. Something that makes them feel that they at least got some sort of information out of their spell instead of it feeling like "the DM houseruled Divinations to provide no information" (even if that's not necessarily what you were actually doing).

[Contrast]

Player goes ballistic because "or" is not an acceptable answer according to the RAW.

They think I've arbitrarily changed the rules. I think I've interpreted the rules and applied them in context.

Your thoughts?

I assume if they scry on one of their gods something good will happen and the other something bad will happen? Personally I'd have probably said neither or bad because gods do the scrying, not the getting scried on and typically don't welcome nosey mortals but your setting, your rules :smalltongue:

I can see why this would be frustrating for the player - the spell is basically useless if 'good or bad' is an option. That said, you've obviously got something very specific in mind here. I would have probably give a bit more context to explain that something unusual was happening with this spell.

'As you cast the spell you feel it fighting you. The magic can't seem to settle in the usual patterns until you force the magic through...and you throw the bones. Both land standing upright. An impossible result - good or bad.'

As it stands I'd let the player know that yes, the result they got doesn't accord with how their character understands the spell to work and that does seem unusual to them.

[Frogreaver]

the question I have is: why don’t you know which god is going to be scried upon? That seems out of the players control entirely.

[Unoriginal]

Four options:
-Weal
-Woe
-Both
-Neither

Player asks what will happen if they use a magic item to scry on their god.

As it happens the player is getting communication from two competing deities. Player hasn't figured this out yet. Player explicitly gave me permission to play around with this aspect of their backstory. They are getting a both answer and I ask them to roll a wisdom check to see if they notice anything about the omen they are getting. They get a natural 20 which puts them into a 25 and I tell them the omen is indicating extremes, that they interpret this as meaning they could get very good or very bad results from this action.

Player goes ballistic because "or" is not an acceptable answer according to the RAW.

They think I've arbitrarily changed the rules. I think I've interpreted the rules and applied them in context.

Your thoughts?

You could say "yeah, it's weird, isn't it? From what you've heard, this shouldn't happen with that spell. Something fishy is going on..." and then let the PCs do research or consult with a sage to figure out that this mean the Augury was influenced by two separate entities with conflicting powers.


I assume if they scry on one of their gods something good will happen and the other something bad will happen? Personally I'd have probably said neither or bad because gods do the scrying, not the getting scried on and typically don't welcome nosey mortals but your setting, your rules :smalltongue:

I can see why this would be frustrating for the player - the spell is basically useless if 'good or bad' is an option. That said, you've obviously got something very specific in mind here. I would have probably give a bit more context to explain that something unusual was happening with this spell.

'As you cast the spell you feel it fighting you. The magic can't seem to settle in the usual patterns until you force the magic through...and you throw the bones. Both land standing upright. An impossible result - good or bad.'

As it stands I'd let the player know that yes, the result they got doesn't accord with how their character understands the spell to work and that does seem unusual to them.

This is good as well.

Personally, though, I would say that scrying on a god doesn't work. Assuming they're actual, proper deities and not demigods or the like.

[Thunderous Mojo]

I think the reason "A or B" is a frustrating answer for the player is because it basically suggests on their end that the spell didn't work at all (even if that's not how you're actually playing it). It can come off like "well maybe it's weal, maybe it's woe, who knows?" and the player would think "That's what I cast Augury to answer!" In which case, the player might feel like they wasted their spell and character building choices because the DM changed the rules on them suddenly.


The results of the Augury spell follows the formulations of the catuṣkoṭi logical argumentation system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetralemma

The result of Both, (in the context of the Augury spell), means both Weal and Woe, together..

A player that thinks a response of Both, (via an Augury spell), is a response indicating "well maybe it's weal, maybe it's woe, who knows?" is, alas, making a logical blunder.

The player, in this case is misreading the Augury.

I do agree with your DM-ing advice. A result of a 25 total Wisdom ability check in the context of the original post, should have resulted in the group's attention being riveted to the piece of information being delivered.

As others have mentioned, ideally this might have spurred the PCs to investigate further, instead of questioning the legitimacy of the ruling. My personal DM choice is I chose to describe, spells like Augury in florid detail.

This way the group focuses on the description, and less on the rules. Let's face it, most of the time, a DM is reacting to divination style spells like Augury, or Contact Other Plane....adding some flavor, makes the DMs ad hoc ruling easier to swallow. 🃏

[LudicSavant]

The results of the Augury spell follows the formulations of the catuṣkoṭi logical argumentation system.

The result of Both, (in the context of the Augury spell), means both Weal and Woe, together.. Yes.


A player that thinks a response of Both, (via an Augury spell), is a response indicating "well maybe it's weal, maybe it's woe, who knows?" is, alas, making a logical blunder.

Huh?

The player didn't think the response of "both" indicated that. They thought the DM's additional comments did (which presented it as an "or" instead of an "and").

[ff7hero]

Did you ask your player what response they think would be appropriate for an action with fairly equal chance of woe and weal? I can see where they're coming from, even if it feels a little rules lawyery even for me, but I feel like you offered them more information than the "neither" which I feel like would have been more appropriate given their opinion and the mechanics of the spell.

[Devils_Advocate]

They think I've arbitrarily changed the rules. I think I've interpreted the rules and applied them in context.

Your thoughts?
Well, it depends. If the character attempts to use the pertinent item in the describecd way, will there be both good results and bad results? If so, you gave the correct response, but the player seemingly misinterpreted what you said to mean that the results will be only good or only bad.

On the other hand, if that is what you meant, then you should have given a response of either "Weal" or "Woe".


Augury tells you the results of a planned course of action. The results are frequently uncertain, with several possibilities equally likely.
Yeah, and eliminating some of that uncertainty is what the spell is for.

Deciding what happens as a result of some described course of action is the DM's job. The players describe what their characters do, and the DM describes the consequences. An occasional "I hadn't planned for this, give me a minute" is acceptable, as is "I don't see how you would even try to do that" but "There are lots of possibilities here and I don't know which one happens" is straight up not a valid response.

The issue here, I take it, is that the DM can ask how player characters deal with things as they come up, but it doesn't make sense to ask how they intend to deal with stuff that they aren't even aware of yet, and whether the results of some course of action are good or bad may depend on decisions the PCs have yet to make. Which, okay, that's fair.

In that case, give a response of "Woe".

See, if the PCs do something and the result is other than what the spell said, then you screwed up. But if you tell them that what they're thinking about doing will lead to bad results, they presumably won't do it. The potential results of augury don't really allow for branching timelines, so there is no "What would have happened", only what will happen and what won't happen. So, working within that paradigm, your job is to do your best to give a response that is self-fulfilling and to avoid any response that is self-defeating. And a statement of the form "If X, then Y" is of course true provided that X is false, so there you go. In this case, you can respond that if the character uses the magic item to scry on the god, the results will be bad. So long as the character doesn't go ahead and do it anyway, that's correct.

[PattThe]

A lot of problems in the meta don't have to get involved if you only describe information in-character. The spell uses a focus, so bring the attention down to that. My playgroup's Firbolg Druid cast Augury with some bone dice they bought specifically for casting the spell at the start of a dungeon. I described the two six sided dice as three sided dice by having it light up with a pattern of two Giant runes and a blank side. They could roll blank on both sides, which stands for the neutral response however the player character interprets it in scene. If they roll Weal and a blank or Woe and a blank, it's just Weal or it's just Woe. Weal and Woe is obviously one and the other rolled, and the same result twice is the same as one and a blank.
Bonus points, I used Mal and Maug.

[Ettina]

Yeah, and eliminating some of that uncertainty is what the spell is for.

Deciding what happens as a result of some described course of action is the DM's job. The players describe what their characters do, and the DM describes the consequences. An occasional "I hadn't planned for this, give me a minute" is acceptable, as is "I don't see how you would even try to do that" but "There are lots of possibilities here and I don't know which one happens" is straight up not a valid response.

If the PC is asking "if I go down this tunnel, what will happen?", how much uncertainty should the DM eliminate?

Should the DM pre-roll the random encounter to decide whether the friendly or unfriendly NPC happens to be walking there?

Should the DM pre-roll the group Stealth check vs the enemy's passive Perception to decide if they'll successfully sneak past him?

Should the DM pre-run the combat encounter with the enemy to determine whether the encounter is going to end with a PC death and fleeing the scene vs minimal damage and the PCs looting the cool magic item from him?

I don't see any practical way to never end up saying "There are lots of possibilities here and I don't know which one happens", unless you're willing to seriously break the randomness of the game, violate player agency and pause the game for half-an-hour just to resolve the outcome of a single spell.

[TaiLiu]

Your thoughts?
I do agree that "weal or woe" is outside of the spell's capabilities to represent. But I disagree that it's a useless result, because it eliminates the "neither" option as a possibility—it must go very well or very poorly. Depending on whether "or" is used inclusively or exclusively, it might also exclude the "weal and woe" option. As a player, I'd ask about that, just to see if I could eliminate the third option or not.

The results of the Augury spell follows the formulations of the catuṣkoṭi logical argumentation system.
I'm not sure that's true! "Weal and woe" are not equivalent to "p and not-p." The rules of classical logic still seem to work here.

I don't see any practical way to never end up saying "There are lots of possibilities here and I don't know which one happens", unless you're willing to seriously break the randomness of the game, violate player agency and pause the game for half-an-hour just to resolve the outcome of a single spell.
I don't think the problem is as bad as your example argues, but I do agree that spells like augury need to be worked out between the players and the DM beforehand, to make sure problems like this don't come up.

[Tanarii]

They are getting a both answer and I ask them to roll a wisdom check to see if they notice anything about the omen they are getting. They get a natural 20 which puts them into a 25 and I tell them the omen is indicating extremes, that they interpret this as meaning they could get very good or very bad results from this action.
So you told them extremely both, and they chose to interpret it as extremely one or extremely the other?

Correct their misinterpretation.

[Frogreaver]

IMO. The Augury spell specifies the player gets an omen for a specific course of action. In this situation, the fact that the player didn't specify which of the 2 beings he would be scrying on makes for a non-specific course of action. There would be a few options at this point:

1. Tell the player he feels the spell needs a more concrete depiction of his god possibly based on some specific action his God has taken or words his God has said. Once you have that you know specifically which being he is asking about scrying on. Then you can resolve the spell an intended.
2. The spell doesn't work, you keep the slot. Provide as much or as little explanation on why as you deem fitting.
3. The spell doesn't work, you lose the slot. Provide as much or as little explanation on why as you deem fitting.
*Note augury can be cast as a ritual

[JackPhoenix]

Neither or woe. Scry requires the target to be on the same plane of existence. Unless the character gets to the god's domain before casting, he's just wasting a slot. And even if they are on the same plane, why should a god be vulnerable to being spied upon by mortals?

[Devils_Advocate]

If the PC is asking "if I go down this tunnel, what will happen?", how much uncertainty should the DM eliminate?
The uncertainty about whether what will happen will be good, bad, both, or neither. Because that's what the spell does / is for.


Should the DM pre-roll the random encounter to decide whether the friendly or unfriendly NPC happens to be walking there?
Um... The latest appropriate time to decide what's happening in an area is when what happens to the PCs depends on that information. That could be when the PCs enter the area, when a familiar scouts ahead, when one of the PCs listens at a door, or when one of the PCs casts a divination spell. Regardless, it's not "pre-rolling" to leave that determination until the very moment that something impacts the PCs, whether via augury or otherwise.


Should the DM pre-roll the group Stealth check vs the enemy's passive Perception to decide if they'll successfully sneak past him?

Should the DM pre-run the combat encounter with the enemy to determine whether the encounter is going to end with a PC death and fleeing the scene vs minimal damage and the PCs looting the cool magic item from him?
No, I think that at that point there's enough detail to give an outcome. "Woe" for results ranging from inconvenience to death. Yeah, maybe there's potential to obtain sweet loot, but (1) as I discussed, not if the party stays away due to a "Woe" result; (2) of the four options, "Woe" is the one that best covers "definitely some Woe and maybe also Weal" anyway, and (3) if they do go ahead anyway and wind up getting something cool, the players probably won't complain very hard about things going better than indicated.


I don't see any practical way to never end up saying "There are lots of possibilities here and I don't know which one happens", unless you're willing to seriously break the randomness of the game, violate player agency and pause the game for half-an-hour just to resolve the outcome of a single spell.
The relevant clause is "The spell doesn't take into account any possible circumstances that might change the outcome". Which is... really vague. Anything that happens could be considered a "circumstance", and obviously whatever happens has to come about somehow, almost certainly involving actions beyond those explicitly stated in the spellcaster's query. So what does the spell describe? The most likely outcome? That seems like the only answer that makes any particular sort of sense, so let's go with that, I guess. Reasonable?


chose to interpret
Is that a thing that you do?


And even if they are on the same plane, why should a god be vulnerable to being spied upon by mortals?
For the same reasons that a kitten is "vulnerable to" being spied on by mortals: Because the mortals have sense organs, planning capabilities, magic spells, etc.

I feel like you probably have some sort of objection that you failed to directly communicate.

[ad_hoc]

I think the mistake here is to call for the ability checks.

They should only be called for when the result really matters. It should be dramatic.

This is an aspect of 5e that is done very well as it lets the DM decide in every case if there should be a roll.

If you decide to call for one in this situation you should be prepared to give them good story changing information if they succeed.

Otherwise just don't call for the check.

[JackPhoenix]

For the same reasons that a kitten is "vulnerable to" being spied on by mortals: Because the mortals have sense organs, planning capabilities, magic spells, etc.

I feel like you probably have some sort of objection that you failed to directly communicate.

Gods, unlike kittens, have decent saves, perhaps with magic resistance, legendary resistances to just say "no" to an attempt to scry on them, or outright immunity to divination magic they don't approve off. Note that Tiamat (the one god we've got statted out) is immune to all spells of level 6 or less unless she wants to be affected and advantage on saves against all other magical effects, has +17 Wis save and Legendary Resistance usable 5/day. Good luck scrying on that.

She's also one of the weakest gods.

[Tanarii]

Is that a thing that you do?
The OP stated that the player chose to interpret their statement of Both as an Or statement.

That mistaken interpretation just needs to be cleared up.

[Devils_Advocate]

Gods, unlike kittens, have decent saves, perhaps with magic resistance, legendary resistances to just say "no" to an attempt to scry on them, or outright immunity to divination magic they don't approve off. Note that Tiamat (the one god we've got statted out) is immune to all spells of level 6 or less unless she wants to be affected and advantage on saves against all other magical effects, has +17 Wis save and Legendary Resistance usable 5/day. Good luck scrying on that.

She's also one of the weakest gods.
So you're making assumptions about what gods' stats are like based on a sample size of one, and less-than-subtly implying that a DM who doesn't run deities in accordance with your preconceptions, or at least the established implementation, is Doing It Wrong.

But let's grant that it's quite easy for a god to prevent most forms of scrying. I don't dispute that that's very likely to be the case. If deities are so very far above mortals that mortals can only interact with them in ways that they permit, why would a god be worried about mortals spying on him? It's not like I'm concerned about the spiders in my apartment gathering intel on me. So, riddle me that, why don't you?


The OP stated that the player chose to interpret their statement of Both as an Or statement.
Presumably you're referring to this:


They get a natural 20 which puts them into a 25 and I tell them the omen is indicating extremes, that they interpret this as meaning they could get very good or very bad results from this action.
... which may not be 100% grammatically correct but seems closer to a statement that jjordan told the player that they (technically, their character) interpret the omen as described, than to how you seem to have taken it.

But that's not even what I was asking about. I was asking about your use of "chose to interpret" instead of "interpreted", implying that the act of interpretation is intentional rather than automatic. Because I can't think of a case where that's been the case for me. Even when I recognize that a phrase has multiple possible interpretations (noun), that recognition itself is part of how I interpret (verb) the phrase. So... did you deliberately construct interpretations of my and jjordan's posts, for example? Do you ever interpret deliberately? By "interpret" do you mean selecting from multiple interpretations, and if so, is that applicable when one is only aware of one interpetation? Are you possibly using the word "chose" in a way that I'm not familiar with?

Basically, your particular choice of phrase seems very odd, leading me go "Woah, what the heck is up with that?", and so I am asking you: Woah, what the heck is up with that?

[Tanarii]

Presumably you're referring to this:


... which may not be 100% grammatically correct but seems closer to a statement that jjordan told the player that they (technically, their character) interpret the omen as described, than to how you seem to have taken it.Oh wow. Thats a very good point!


But that's not even what I was asking about. I was asking about your use of "chose to interpret" instead of "interpreted", implying that the act of interpretation is intentional rather than automatic. Because I can't think of a case where that's been the case for me. Even when I recognize that a phrase has multiple possible interpretations (noun), that recognition itself is part of how I interpret (verb) the phrase. So... did you deliberately construct interpretations of my and jjordan's posts, for example? Do you ever interpret deliberately? By "interpret" do you mean selecting from multiple interpretations, and if so, is that applicable when one is only aware of one interpetation? Are you possibly using the word "chose" in a way that I'm not familiar with?

Basically, your particular choice of phrase seems very odd, leading me go "Woah, what the heck is up with that?", and so I am asking you: Woah, what the heck is up with that?
Woah, what the heck is up with that? :smallbiggrin:
But uh ... no, yes, sometimes and yes, and apparently yes.

But yeah, looks like I may have chosen to interpret the OP incorrectly. :smallamused:

[jjordan]

Thank you all for the replies and discussion.

I messed up by saying "or". I backtracked and said "and". I learned that dropping clues by making minor alterations to mechanics is not an approach I should use with this player.

Player attempted the action. I had the deities compete, because they are in competition, to see which one the player ended up connecting with.