Rebalance between the 3 pillars

[Khrysaes]

So, I have been analyzing aspects of D&D recently, and came to the rather obvious conclusion: D&D is not balanced.

It seems, without having done full qualitative analyses that:
Combat options > social options > exploration options.

Most subclasses and feats that improve combat aspects are often seen as better, while exploration choices are seen as nearly useless or situational, like Ranger's Natural Explorer.

And to me this is sad.

For example, Actor or Keen mind are oft seen as useless feats in liu of the most powerful options such as elven accuracy, sharpshooter, polearm master, Great weapon master, etc.

So while I have been analyzing aspects such as spells, feats and whatnot, I have come to difficulty with comparing social or exploration aspects with combat aspects.

Anything that has a numerical aspect is quite easy to compare and balance, and while some social options have numerical aspects, such as an Assassin's level 9 disguise, or can be compared to a spell analog with a numerical aspect, such as minor illusion being able to emulate noises > voices being noises > actor being able to mimic voices.

What I am asking I guess is where people rate various social or exploration options. If you wish to reply, I guess rate them in comparison to a level 4 ASI as that is universal between classes.

[stoutstien]

So, I have been analyzing aspects of D&D recently, and came to the rather obvious conclusion: D&D is not balanced.

It seems, without having done full qualitative analyses that:
Combat options > social options > exploration options.

Most subclasses and feats that improve combat aspects are often seen as better, while exploration choices are seen as nearly useless or situational, like Ranger's Natural Explorer.

And to me this is sad.

For example, Actor or Keen mind are oft seen as useless feats in liu of the most powerful options such as elven accuracy, sharpshooter, polearm master, Great weapon master, etc.

So while I have been analyzing aspects such as spells, feats and whatnot, I have come to difficulty with comparing social or exploration aspects with combat aspects.

Anything that has a numerical aspect is quite easy to compare and balance, and while some social options have numerical aspects, such as an Assassin's level 9 disguise, or can be compared to a spell analog with a numerical aspect, such as minor illusion being able to emulate noises > voices being noises > actor being able to mimic voices.

What I am asking I guess is where people rate various social or exploration options. If you wish to reply, I guess rate them in comparison to a level 4 ASI as that is universal between classes.

for some groups the issue falls on the fact the game lacks adequate tools for DMs need to utilize the two none combat pillars. then you have the hyper focus on combat on online discussions because they are easy to compare and visualize which leads to an inflated value compared to real table time.

rangers are a special case because they interact with the game by bypassing it which is both unfun and not rewarding.

the real problem is there is little agreement on what "good" social and exploration content should look like and function.

[JonBeowulf]

Keen Mind is good when you have an odd INT score and the team needs a guide. Always knowing which way is north, always knowing how long before the sun rises/sets, always remembering everything you've seen/heard in the last month... they all have their place.

I've found it very useful on a couple characters I've played -- including a monk who's wandering around Chult right now -- and the group is glad we have those abilities. Now, if my character focus is killing things or keeping things stuck to me, then yeah, Keen Mind's value plummets.

It's really based on what you want. The true value of something is determined by the one who wants it. You can have the nicest hammer in the world, but it has 0 value when what you need is a nice pair of scissors.

[MrStabby]

I don't think what you describe is quite the pillars being more important - or not entirely. I think there are four features that generate this perception.

1) DMs tend to be less brutal in the social/exploration pillars. A failure here is less likely to result in character death than a combat encounter. If you run a dungeon delving type campaign where traps are telegraphed through lore and clues but will outright kill one or more PCs then this can change. I would also add that even when a failure in the social or exploration pillar does kill the relationship between the failure and the death is often less clear and furthermore, when a failure of a social or exploration challenge kills, it often also does so through a failed combat encounter.

2) Combat takes a long time. A 30 second fight can take an hour. In terms of table time, combat can take up a lot. People want to be good at the things they actually spend time doing.

3) There are less rules needed for exploration/social. It is more fluid and less well defined. This means that when spending a feat for a social skill you don't actually know what difference it will make. There is also a bit of a perception that a DM will let what they want to happen, happen - irrespective of roles/abilities. No "well you failed to find the Lost Temple of Night, I guess you go back to base camp and do and adventure/dungeon you are less interested in instead". It also provides a common basis from which to discus it, so this element gets reported more often.

4) It isn't about importance, but about marginal impact of an investment. Even if all pillars of the game are equal, the impact feats can have might not be. Sharpshooter will help to solve most combat encounters in a way that keen might won't help to solve most exploration challenges. The impact on their respecive pillars is smaller.

[Cheesegear]

Most subclasses and feats that improve combat aspects are often seen as better, while exploration choices are seen as nearly useless or situational, like Ranger's Natural Explorer.

By who? Why?


What I am asking I guess is where people rate various social or exploration options.

A social or exploratory ability's potential is directly proportional to the amount that the DM utilises that mechanic.

If the DM doesn't use that mechanic, then that ability is worthless. If the DM runs an ***load of survival mechanics complete with travel times (e.g; Rime of the Frostmaiden), then your ability to find food and well...Survive without being ambushed relatively constantly in difficult environments that want to kill you, then the Ranger is really good.

The main problem with social and exploration encounters and challenges, is that there are many, many, many people who play this game who lack real-world intelligence and/or charisma (and empathy) themselves. That means that the roleplaying aspects and exploratory aspects of a game (e.g; You can do anything you want, what do you want to do?) a lot of people simply get...Stuck. Because they can't understand or contribute to roleplaying and 'doing anything you want', they don't like it, which means that DM's stop doing it.

Combat...Is maths and numbers. It's the easiest - and therefore most boring (for an experienced DM, at least) - part of the game. Unless the DM cheats. Which the DM is forced to do because of the arms race...Which means that power-gaming is ultimately pointless for a DM that homebrews their adventures session by session... If you can't 'win' at D&D, why power-game? But that's for a different thread.

Determine a combat challenge:
Estimate a hostile's damage over three rounds vs. a party's or player's hit points.
Estimate the players' damage over three rounds vs. a hostile's hit points.

You've already determined the winner in at least 50% of encounters. A power-gamer will make those numbers as high as possible, whilst mitigating the numbers coming back at him. Easy. But it doesn't matter. Because it's the DM that determines the challenge - and the DM can make that hostile hit like a truck whenever they want - especially when using a DM screen. The DM can make the combat last ten rounds with three phases if they want. DMs have to cheat and change mechanics (e.g; terrain) because the players force them to. Not because they should.

That being said, most players who play D&D, have a passive knowledge of basic arithmetic, and the basic axiom of 'More Higher = More Better'. Numbers, are generally pretty easy. Because people understand numbers, people would prefer numbers to social or exploration, because there are known quantities combined with a passing knowledge of statistics. Players like combat. DMs insert more combat. Being good at combat is more better than not being good at combat because the DM keeps putting it in because that's what the DM knows we want.

A power-gamer can't know the passphrase or handsign to the local underworld unless they do work. Nothing is given, nothing is known. You have to earn it, through...Figuring stuff out. Figuring stuff out, is hard. Can't I just use +11 in Persuasion to win? ...No. That's not how that works.
There's no power-gaming guide for this. The internet doesn't know what's in my DM's head. So even if I level up I still don't know the passphrase or handsign.

...**** it. Just start combat. We'll break the door and get in that way.

Roleplaying and exploration is dumb, because it's hard. Combat is not hard. Therefore, combat is a better solution to almost every problem. Which is why it's 'seen as' better and/or more important.

[MoiMagnus]

It seems, without having done full qualitative analyses that:
Combat options > social options > exploration options.

I'd note that it's not always the case. The "Diplomancer" is a noteworthy exception, which happens when the GM is too (?) lenient about what can be done with a successful Deception check or with the Suggestion spell.

I've seen more than once peoples complain about Charisma being OP and Suggestion being an "immediate win" button when it lands. (I mean, if as written in the suggestion spell itself, you can successfully suggest to a knight to give their warhorse, which is one of their most valuable belongings, to the first beggar them meet, then there is a LOT of things you can do with this spell assuming a lenient GM)

And I think this problem reveal the core issue here: social options are frequently "all or nothing". A combat option will either help decreasing enemy HP, or make the enemy loses some of its actions. "Social encounters" are rarely a succession of 20 different skill checks all resulting in minor advances and minor set backs. They're often "either you get what you want in one or two checks, or you don't". And that's quite difficult for GMs to handle, and it's not a surprise that most of them will rather make social underpowered rather than enabling Diplomancers that would get everything done in one clever idea and one check.

Similarly, stuff like Keen Mind are rendered useless by the fact that divination spells ruins a lot of mystery plots, making GMs stray away from scenarios where Keen Mind would be relevant.

[Man_Over_Game]

the real problem is there is little agreement on what "good" social and exploration content should look like and function.

It also really depends on what players want. Balancing them as equals doesn't solve any problems if they aren't equals to the players. Why bother adding 30% more text to the books for exploration if nobody wants to play DnD that way?

It's why I think each of the classes should be equals in all pillars, regardless of the rules for those pillars. That way, if your party wants 60% combat, 30% social, and 10% exploration, nobody suffers and nobody compromises.

[stoutstien]

It also really depends on what players want. Balancing them as equals doesn't solve any problems if they aren't equals to the players. Why bother adding 30% more text to the books for exploration if nobody wants to play DnD that way?

It's why I think each of the classes should be equals in all pillars, regardless of the rules for those pillars. That way, if your party wants 60% combat, 30% social, and 10% exploration, nobody suffers and nobody compromises.

It's a hard line to maintain without falling into the sameyness that 4e became.

Personally I maintain the view that all three pillars should be active simultaneously at any given time or encounter. Works well with content that is designed in blocks or mini groups that have some logical flow. Instead of on off settings they act like fluctuating intensity settings

[Sorinth]

So, I have been analyzing aspects of D&D recently, and came to the rather obvious conclusion: D&D is not balanced.

It seems, without having done full qualitative analyses that:
Combat options > social options > exploration options.

Most subclasses and feats that improve combat aspects are often seen as better, while exploration choices are seen as nearly useless or situational, like Ranger's Natural Explorer.

And to me this is sad.

For example, Actor or Keen mind are oft seen as useless feats in liu of the most powerful options such as elven accuracy, sharpshooter, polearm master, Great weapon master, etc.

So while I have been analyzing aspects such as spells, feats and whatnot, I have come to difficulty with comparing social or exploration aspects with combat aspects.

Anything that has a numerical aspect is quite easy to compare and balance, and while some social options have numerical aspects, such as an Assassin's level 9 disguise, or can be compared to a spell analog with a numerical aspect, such as minor illusion being able to emulate noises > voices being noises > actor being able to mimic voices.

What I am asking I guess is where people rate various social or exploration options. If you wish to reply, I guess rate them in comparison to a level 4 ASI as that is universal between classes.

The thing to keep in mind is that it's impossible to balance across pillars because each game is going to rely/use the pillars to different degrees. And that's intentional and a good thing, if I was making an adventure where you are going to explore a lost ruin I can focus on the Exploration pillar and have finding the ruin be a big part of the adventure and how well you did in that pillar impact your success at looting the ruin, or I can simply start the game with the party arriving at the site of the ruins and simply describe how it was an arduous month long journey to reach. I can also vary how much the social pillar matters by having a base camp with numerous NPCs maybe some other adventuring groups, some hostile natives that are trying to stop the "desecration" of their holy site, etc... Just like I can vary how much combat matters, is it a dungeon filled with monsters, or is it a series of traps/puzzles and no combat.


The other thing is it's hard to evaluate the results of what success/failure means for the social/exploration pillars of the game since it's unknown information. Whereas with combat you have much better idea of the impact each die roll has. That's a big reason the discussion on forums like these are combat focused, you can establish a frame of reference and actually compare things. With social/exploration stuff, it's all just anecdotal examples that won't be applicable to another table are mostly meaningless because every table's game is going to be different.

[loki_ragnarock]

like Ranger's Natural Explorer.
... not the best example.

Most people don't object to it because they are combat focused. They object to it because it removes part of the game.

If I'm interested in the exploration pillar - as a DM - and someone rolls in with a ranger, then that's been obviated in the natural terrain. They just succeed. They aren't better, they just don't interact with it at all.

It's why one of the things that I liked in Tasha's was subbing it out for variant movement; it gives the character the capacity to explore in ways they couldn't have otherwise. Wanna see what's on the ridge? Climb speed. Wanna see what's in that lake? Swim speed. It enables the character to explore a presented environment rather than letting them bypass it.

To make the comparison; imagine a rogue had a power that read "I find the treasure and head to the next room." There's no searching the environment there. There's no bypassing traps or picking locks. No looking for clues or solving puzzles or interrogating ghosts or puzzling over maps or anything at all that's interesting. They just "find the treasure and head to the next room." That's board game mechanics. It's not compelling role-playing.
That's pretty much the ranger's Natural Explorer.

But I get what the OP is saying. I think the disconnect there is that there are extensive rules for combat. There aren't extensive rules for social interactions or exploration. There aren't many rules for exploration that aren't adventure specific. To an extent, that's as it should be; keeping it fluid means it'll fit in whatever vessel you put it in.

[MaxWilson]

rangers are a special case because they interact with the game by bypassing it which is both unfun and not rewarding.

I've thought about this common contention that the Ranger's problem lies in bypassing a challenge, and I don't think that's related to the Ranger's real problem, which is more related to a lack of game structure in the areas the Ranger wants to interact with.

As evidence, I'll cite two examples, one of bypassing a challenge in a way that is apparently not seen as unfun, and one of something unfun and Ranger-like which mitigates but does not bypass a potential challenge but still gets no traction with players because WotC's published game structures don't tie into that challenge.

1.) Sorlocks can in theory bypass the resource limitation metagame by accumulating nigh-unlimited spell slots over multiple short rests. Yet to the extent they generate complaints (mostly theoretical complaints AFAICT--I've yet to see or hear of an actual in-play sorlock with more than 24 hours' worth of slots at a time, and I've never seen one actually USE more than 8 hours' worth) it isn't about bypassing resource attrition challenges in a way that makes sorlocks boring--rather the opposite, it's people afraid that sorlocks will steal spotlight from everyone else and be the only ones having fun at the table during combat.

2.) Elk Barbarians get a 6th level "exploration" ability to double their party's "travel pace", and Wolf Totem gets a strictly-worse ability (can track at fast travel pace, or move stealthily at normal travel pace--but an Elk's Slow pace, doubled, is faster than a Wolf's normal pace). This gives the party an advantage without bypassing the challenge, right? And yet nobody cares or talks about Elk Totem, because 5E (out-of-the-box vanilla) is double-plus-ungood at teaching DMs and players to make travel pace matter. Unlike Basic D&D, turns generally don't mean anything outside of combat.

Consider a parallel universe where 5E exists as written but there's also a short blurb in the PHB on wandering monsters, that says something like this:

"Most monsters have desires beyond constantly hunting for food, so they'll often spend some time in a lair or comfortable location, when they are" offscreen" to and unseen by the players. But they also don't just sit there in their lairs doing nothing until the PCs arrive! As a simple compromise between inactivity and activity, a DM may choose to move one monster or group of monsters, such as a patrol of hobgoblins, a distance up to their travel pace toward the PCs every time the players move their own travel pace or do something taking equivalent time (such as casting a ritual spell). This can result in monsters aggregating into much larger and deadlier groups, given enough time, and can even result in the PCs getting ambushed in the middle of an activity such as resting or giving Inspiring Leader speeches. Never assume that time doesn't matter!"

In that alternate universe, I predict that Elk Totem would generate more buzz than it does in this universe that lacks a WotC-advocated, speed-sensitive wandering monster game structure.

Rangers likewise suffer from a lack of relevant games structures.

[stoutstien]

I've thought about this common contention that the Ranger's problem lies in bypassing a challenge, and I don't think that's related to the Ranger's real problem, which is more related to a lack of game structure in the areas the Ranger wants to interact with.

As evidence, I'll cite two examples, one of bypassing a challenge in a way that is apparently not seen as unfun, and one of something unfun and Ranger-like which mitigates but does not bypass a potential challenge but still gets no traction with players because WotC's published game structures don't tie into that challenge.

1.) Sorlocks can in theory bypass the resource limitation metagame by accumulating nigh-unlimited spell slots over multiple short rests. Yet to the extent they generate complaints (mostly theoretical complaints AFAICT--I've yet to see or hear of an actual in-play sorlock with more than 24 hours' worth of slots at a time, and I've never seen one actually USE more than 8 hours' worth) it isn't about bypassing resource attrition challenges in a way that makes sorlocks boring--rather the opposite, it's people afraid that sorlocks will steal spotlight from everyone else and be the only ones having fun at the table during combat.

2.) Elk Barbarians get a 6th level "exploration" ability to double their party's "travel pace", and Wolf Totem gets a strictly-worse ability (can track at fast travel pace, or move stealthily at normal travel pace--but an Elk's Slow pace, doubled, is faster than a Wolf's normal pace). This gives the party an advantage without bypassing the challenge, right? And yet nobody cares or talks about Elk Totem, because 5E (out-of-the-box vanilla) is double-plus-ungood at teaching DMs and players to make travel pace matter. Unlike Basic D&D, turns generally don't mean anything outside of combat.

Consider a parallel universe where 5E exists as written but there's also a short blurb in the PHB on wandering monsters, that says something like this:

"Most monsters have desires beyond constantly hunting for food, so they'll often spend some time in a lair or comfortable location, when they are" offscreen" to and unseen by the players. But they also don't just sit there in their lairs doing nothing until the PCs arrive! As a simple compromise between inactivity and activity, a DM may choose to move one monster or group of monsters, such as a patrol of hobgoblins, a distance up to their travel pace toward the PCs every time the players move their own travel pace or do something taking equivalent time (such as casting a ritual spell). This can result in monsters aggregating into much larger and deadlier groups, given enough time, and can even result in the PCs getting ambushed in the middle of an activity such as resting or giving Inspiring Leader speeches. Never assume that time doesn't matter!"

In that alternate universe, I predict that Elk Totem would generate more buzz than it does in this universe that lacks a WotC-advocated, speed-sensitive wandering monster game structure.

Rangers likewise suffer from a lack of relevant games structures.

I get where you are coming from and I agree that rangers aren't alone in the area of good features with bad mechanics.

I was more speaking on how the ranger specifically interacts with structured campaigns such as the published ones that have a high emphasis on exploring the unknown with limited time/resources. Rangers in ToA Spring to mind. So even when they do take the time to focus on exploration it leaves players unsatisfied.

[Sorinth]

I've thought about this common contention that the Ranger's problem lies in bypassing a challenge, and I don't think that's related to the Ranger's real problem, which is more related to a lack of game structure in the areas the Ranger wants to interact with.

Agreed, the Ranger doesn't really bypass any problems because there weren't real problems to begin with. The Ranger doesn't bypass the need to forage for food or water, because getting food and water is trivial to begin with. Plenty of spells do it better, and carrying capacities make it largely irrelevant to begin with. On top of the fact that it's often just ignored because it adds little to no value to the fun of the game.

Similarly the speed bonuses while travelling aren't bypassing anything because travelling slow isn't an actual problem. For better or worse most adventures don't care whether you arrive at the dungeon 2 days early or not. So whether you got lost and spent an extra day getting back on track has no bearing on adventure.


I think the problem isn't so much there is no game structure/mechanics behind the exploration pillar, it's that they are all irrelevant. It's just skill checks for the sake of rolling dice. A big part of that is that there's no resource attrition, so it doesn't matter if you stumble into more/worse random encounters, or whether a natural hazard has caused a PC to become diseased/poisoned because they'll just take a LR and be back at 100% and rendering everything that happened previously moot.

[MrStabby]

Agreed, the Ranger doesn't really bypass any problems because there weren't real problems to begin with. The Ranger doesn't bypass the need to forage for food or water, because getting food and water is trivial to begin with. Plenty of spells do it better, and carrying capacities make it largely irrelevant to begin with. On top of the fact that it's often just ignored because it adds little to no value to the fun of the game.

Similarly the speed bonuses while travelling aren't bypassing anything because travelling slow isn't an actual problem. For better or worse most adventures don't care whether you arrive at the dungeon 2 days early or not. So whether you got lost and spent an extra day getting back on track has no bearing on adventure.


I think the problem isn't so much there is no game structure/mechanics behind the exploration pillar, it's that they are all irrelevant. It's just skill checks for the sake of rolling dice. A big part of that is that there's no resource attrition, so it doesn't matter if you stumble into more/worse random encounters, or whether a natural hazard has caused a PC to become diseased/poisoned because they'll just take a LR and be back at 100% and rendering everything that happened previously moot.

I wonder if you could get round this by not having zero levels of exhaustion as "normal". You have a "fully rested" condition from when you have had a good nights sleep in a bed, in a proper shelter.

Wilderness travels can result in you getting tired and becoming "off peak". There is therefore an incentive to get to destinations in a quick and efficient manner and encounters that delay you become more than trivial thongs to shrug off but a real change to your condition.

Maybe combine it with slightly less generous rules on resource recovery whilst in the wild (possibly counterbalanced by deeper starting resource pools) to make being lost in the wilderness a real high-stakes hazard.

[Sorinth]

I wonder if you could get round this by not having zero levels of exhaustion as "normal". You have a "fully rested" condition from when you have had a good nights sleep in a bed, in a proper shelter.

Wilderness travels can result in you getting tired and becoming "off peak". There is therefore an incentive to get to destinations in a quick and efficient manner and encounters that delay you become more than trivial thongs to shrug off but a real change to your condition.

Maybe combine it with slightly less generous rules on resource recovery whilst in the wild (possibly counterbalanced by deeper starting resource pools) to make being lost in the wilderness a real high-stakes hazard.

I'm definitely in favour of some sort of Quality of Rest mechanic. The difficulty in finding the right balance when magic is involved. For example, just preventing regaining HP creates a level of attrition but the end result is probably having the cleric being "forced" into that dedicate healer role where they spend most of their spells on healing people every night and so they don't get to feel cool in combat. And that's something I'd want to avoid.

I do like your idea of becoming tired since that does sound like it will give the right incentive. I'll have to think about it some more.


Also love the typo "thongs to shrug off" :)

[Abracadangit]

I agree with a lot of things being said here.

Khrysaes: Yep, the game has very concrete, very exacting mechanics for combat, so that much of the rest of the game (and classes/abilities, by extension) feels like it's meant to plug into combat mode. Every class has a role defined in combat by default (cleric = support, rogue = single-target burst damage, etc) and for everything else, there's the skills on the character sheet. Yes, there's some exploration mechanics for traveling and navigating and whatnot, but they're not rooted to a framing device or larger system, so they all feel kind of... hand-wavey? Social interactions are even worse - there's four ability checks (Deception/Intimidation/Persuasion, sometimes Performance) and that NPC mood thermometer in the DMG, and that's about it. So combat abilities always FEEL more useful, because you can almost guarantee that healing or an AoE spin attack or whatever is going to be useful at some point. But everything that ISN'T a combat ability ends up feeling like a ribbon, because who knows if this campaign will ever even call for a Religion check, and Intimidation seems to sour every NPC interaction instead of having any tangible effect, and so on. When combat takes up so much of the space, everything else feels circumstantial and kind of tacked on.

MoiMagnus: Yes, this has been the case for so many social interactions I've seen in games. It's like, the scene where the party has to convince the Council of Elders boils down to a Persuasion check. One. They roll a 9, and it's not high enough, and that's that. "Guess you're gonna have to figure out another way, hur hur." And I know people are gonna chime in with "Well that's not the way that encounter SHOULD be run," and I completely agree with you, but it doesn't change the fact that this is the way so many social interactions are run because no one knows how to do it better. And then the players learn to kind of fear/hate social interaction, and then when they make their own campaigns, they do the same thing. I think there's room for modification/development of the social system (especially in a way that gets all classes/characters involved), but I know that's a controversial opinion.

Man_Over_Game: 100%. Get every class in on every pillar. If a pillar of the game can't get everyone involved in some capacity, then it doesn't really sound like a pillar.

Sorinth: Yeah, the ranger abilities feel silly because nothing has a cost or a consequence, in the exploration dimension. Druids can cast Goodberry and Tiny Hut can make a shelter, so it's like who cares about all that survival stuff. I will say that I think some of these things can be systematized (this feels like our back-and-forth from the other thread, ha ha) without sacrificing creativity or the ability to tailor specific experiences. Here's an idea - why not take the mechanics for wilderness travel & downtime in the PHB and combine them, so long rests count like mini-downtimes? Maybe everyone gets one beat per long rest to do something like work on a crafting project, do something class-specific (like fighters get weapon drills, wizards study lore, etc) to get a small one-time bonus for the following day. Anything to make exploration feel more real.

MrStabby: These are good ideas! I seriously think the game needs to "Oregon Trail" up exploration a little, make the wilds feel scarier.

[Sorinth]

@MrStabby

What would you think about this as a tired mechanic (The wording will still need a lot of work).


You can go a number of days without sleeping in a proper bed equal to twice your constitution modifier after which you gain the Tired condition. The tired conditions ends when you sleep in a proper bed.

While tired you do not recover exhaustion levels from taking a long rest. Furthermore if your exhaustion level is less then 3 you must make a Constitution saving throw with a DC equal to the number of days without sleeping in a proper bed. On failure you gain 1 level of Exhaustion.
- This gives most characters 4-6 days of wilderness travel before they need to worry at all but realistically can push on several more days since the DC is low but slowly increasing.
- The punishment will top out at level 3 exhaustion so it's not a total death spiral unless there are environmental hazards imposing exhaustion such as being stuck out in a blizzard.
- It makes finding that cottage in the woods that might be a Hag's hut appealing to enter since sleeping there would actually make a difference and potentially be worth the danger.

I would also be tempted to play around a bit with the Exhaustion levels. Maybe reduce the number of spell slots being recovered somewhere (Possibly level 4) so that it doesn't come into play too much as I don't want to make things too punishing.

It also opens up some design space around those con saves. Maybe Ranger gets an ability that if they spend an 1hr building up the shelter prior to the LR everyone gets advantage on the Con save, or giving having Barbarian be able to go 3 times Con mode to represent extra hardiness.

[MaxWilson]

I would also be tempted to play around a bit with the Exhaustion levels. I'd be tempted to add Concentration checks made to maintain a spell be at disadvantage at level 3 exhaustion.

They already are - - at level 3 you have disadvantage on attacks and saving throws, including concentration saves.

[Sorinth]

They already are - - at level 3 you have disadvantage on attacks and saving throws, including concentration saves.

Right completely forgot that when writing it.

[Segev]

It's not (just) that the Ranger, goodberry, create food and water, etc. obviate the survival aspect of D&D, it's that the survival aspect of D&D has no hooks to make it interesting. You have enough food, or you don't. You roll some foraging rolls and get what you need, or you starve. It's all stick and tedium, no carrot. Nothing interesting that players can do to make it work for them.

In a sense, the exploration pillar, in particular, needs a little bit of a "Harvest Moon" / acquisition game structure to it. Exploring needs some game-able aspects that you can make gameplay-move choices with, and take risk/reward chances that actually have rewards associated with the choices made.

[Abracadangit]

It's not (just) that the Ranger, goodberry, create food and water, etc. obviate the survival aspect of D&D, it's that the survival aspect of D&D has no hooks to make it interesting. You have enough food, or you don't. You roll some foraging rolls and get what you need, or you starve. It's all stick and tedium, no carrot. Nothing interesting that players can do to make it work for them.

In a sense, the exploration pillar, in particular, needs a little bit of a "Harvest Moon" / acquisition game structure to it. Exploring needs some game-able aspects that you can make gameplay-move choices with, and take risk/reward chances that actually have rewards associated with the choices made.

Yep. Especially your point about game-able aspects, with gameplay-move choices.

In my games, I try to run exploration parts like a mashup of Oregon Trail and FF Crystal Chronicles - the wild areas are like big grids where each square the party moves forces a die roll, which can trigger a random mini-combat, a meeting with an NPC from a list, a discovery like an abandoned waystone, etc, etc, and then there are lots of blank squares where the party gets to make a decision with what they do with their time. Different square types have different rules - like staying on the path keeps combats low but also reduces the chance of finding a random treasure stash. Then every 8 square moves it's nighttime, and they either rest (with downtime activities and the consumption of a meal) or decide to keep pushing forward, which comes with its own dangers.

It's weird how combat is hypermechanized and standardized - but whenever you try to say "Why don't we add some concreteness to exploration or social encounters," people say you're depriving players of agency and/or creativity. But then they go on to say that exploration and social are kind of hand-wavey and like this weird soup and why don't classes have abilities that tie into them, and so on. It's like - at some point, we're gonna have to gamify exploration/social at least a teensy bit, or else we're stuck with the soup. That's just the way it is.

[sayaijin]

I think one aspect to keep in mind is the Hollywood factor - what scenes do movies / TV shows / books gloss over? In the LotR movies, we see them briefly traversing the mountains in Fellowship and briefly running through open plains in Two Towers. In RotK, there's some exploration with the cave of the dead, but only in short scenes.

All that to say, most players don't want to play Oregon Trail in their D&D sessions. Now maybe if it was more fun they would be interested, but at my table I feel like we spend about as much time on exploration as they do in the LotR trilogy - fast travel unless there's an obstacle / random encounter.

[verbatim]

I think one big factor is the ratio of in game mechanics skewing heavily towards combat.

A book that goes more heavily into the minutiae of when skill checks are a good idea, how to run them, and how to gauge the appropriate DC could do a lot for giving some of the less commonly used ability proficiencies a chance to shine.

[Sorinth]

It's not (just) that the Ranger, goodberry, create food and water, etc. obviate the survival aspect of D&D, it's that the survival aspect of D&D has no hooks to make it interesting. You have enough food, or you don't. You roll some foraging rolls and get what you need, or you starve. It's all stick and tedium, no carrot. Nothing interesting that players can do to make it work for them.

In a sense, the exploration pillar, in particular, needs a little bit of a "Harvest Moon" / acquisition game structure to it. Exploring needs some game-able aspects that you can make gameplay-move choices with, and take risk/reward chances that actually have rewards associated with the choices made.

I agree to an extent, but I don't think the reason for them being uninteresting/tedious is a lack of game-able aspects. There's a reason combat with random encounters is also considered boring/tedious despite all the combat mechanics/rules.

[Elbeyon]

I think one big factor is the ratio of in game mechanics skewing heavily towards combat.

A book that goes more heavily into the minutiae of when skill checks are a good idea, how to run them, and how to gauge the appropriate DC could do a lot for giving some of the less commonly used ability proficiencies a chance to shine.It might be a good idea. I don't think a few d20 skills are strong enough to support two entire systems. There are lots of games around exploring and managing resources. The same for social situations. D&D doesn't really have either. It's more freeform. A more interactive, complex system would have to be optional because it would require a lot of re-working the system. It should be a more well thought out variant rule. And, it would likely need to give players more tools, something like a background that engages with the system. A little exploration mini-class.

[Pex]

No question the game rules emphasize combat more. It wouldn't hurt for more discussion about non-combat stuff, but how far do you go? There are people who would be emphatically incensed if there were hard coded rules on how to handle non-combat stuff, at least more than what the rules currently do. They want the freedom to do whatever they want without some rule giving them permission or denial they must house rule to override. Non-combat stuff is only as important or not important as the DM and players make it in their game. If the rules are to encourage the importance of non-combat stuff, they need more than just lip service. Combat is about game mechanics. Non-combat stuff would need game mechanics too, but that still ticks off the people who don't want that. The alternative is have minimal rules and let the DM do what he wants, but that's ticking off the people who want the crunch as guidance to make the non-combat stuff more important. They don't want to have to make it up. You can't please everyone.

[MrStabby]

@MrStabby

What would you think about this as a tired mechanic (The wording will still need a lot of work).


You can go a number of days without sleeping in a proper bed equal to twice your constitution modifier after which you gain the Tired condition. The tired conditions ends when you sleep in a proper bed.

While tired you do not recover exhaustion levels from taking a long rest. Furthermore if your exhaustion level is less then 3 you must make a Constitution saving throw with a DC equal to the number of days without sleeping in a proper bed. On failure you gain 1 level of Exhaustion.
- This gives most characters 4-6 days of wilderness travel before they need to worry at all but realistically can push on several more days since the DC is low but slowly increasing.
- The punishment will top out at level 3 exhaustion so it's not a total death spiral unless there are environmental hazards imposing exhaustion such as being stuck out in a blizzard.
- It makes finding that cottage in the woods that might be a Hag's hut appealing to enter since sleeping there would actually make a difference and potentially be worth the danger.

I would also be tempted to play around a bit with the Exhaustion levels. Maybe reduce the number of spell slots being recovered somewhere (Possibly level 4) so that it doesn't come into play too much as I don't want to make things too punishing.

It also opens up some design space around those con saves. Maybe Ranger gets an ability that if they spend an 1hr building up the shelter prior to the LR everyone gets advantage on the Con save, or giving having Barbarian be able to go 3 times Con mode to represent extra hardiness.

I was thinking of adding a new "-1" exhastion level of "fresh". After you finish an uninterupted long rest in a secure, comfortable place of shelter you are fresh. When you are fresh you get a +2 bonus to your initiative rolls1, and whenever you expend hit dice to recover hit points you recover the maximum number2. After any long rest you must roll one of your hit dice; if it comes up 1 then you lose the Fresh status. If you would have a heavily interupted nights rest such that you would not recover resources you automatically lose the Fresh status.

1) Yeah small bonuses are a pain, but for a single static bonus per encounter, I think it is tollerable.
2) Also, I would shift the rules such that you no longer recover all HP automatically on a long rest, but rather you still need to expend HD, but when you do so on a long rest you recover max number.

This gives enough of an edge for being Fresh that you would notice it and give stronger survival benefits. That ability to explore and find a good place to rest has enough reward to be worth playing out... hopefully. And that party of orcs on your tail can be a serious hazard even if they cannot simply best you in combat by making the encounters at the far end of your journey that bit harder.

[Segev]

I agree to an extent, but I don't think the reason for them being uninteresting/tedious is a lack of game-able aspects. There's a reason combat with random encounters is also considered boring/tedious despite all the combat mechanics/rules.To try to split the very important hair, here, because I agree with you, but: Game-able aspects are a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the gameplay pillar to be fun and engaging.

You can't really do it without something game-able about it, but just having something game-able about it won't fix it automatically, just like random encounters that serve no purpose other than sparking a single combat tend to be kind-of uninteresting.

In the high seas game I'm in, we actually seek out ship-to-ship fights with pirates because we've figured out that we're a dangerous and competent enough adventuring party that, with our own ship backing us up, we can generally take over pirate vessels and sell them for prize money. These are random encounters...kind-of...but they serve their purpose well because we have a purpose for engaging them.

In old-school dungeon crawling, random encounters WERE a stick mechanic. As oppose to a carrot mechanic. Not just as a point of attrition (though they were), but as a reason to keep moving as efficiently as possible through the dungeon. Random encounters didn't give loot, and gave next to no XP (since XP was generally primarily driven by loot you could haul out of the dungeon with you). So it cost you resources and table time to get in a random encounter, which meant that you wanted to get as much done between random encounters as possible! In that respect, the 'annoying' mechanic was a useful one for creating a desired pressure to encourage a fun gameplay experience overall. (Also meant means of avoiding random encounters were a game-able aspect of the dungeon-crawling experience!)


No question the game rules emphasize combat more. It wouldn't hurt for more discussion about non-combat stuff, but how far do you go? There are people who would be emphatically incensed if there were hard coded rules on how to handle non-combat stuff, at least more than what the rules currently do. They want the freedom to do whatever they want without some rule giving them permission or denial they must house rule to override. Non-combat stuff is only as important or not important as the DM and players make it in their game. If the rules are to encourage the importance of non-combat stuff, they need more than just lip service. Combat is about game mechanics. Non-combat stuff would need game mechanics too, but that still ticks off the people who don't want that. The alternative is have minimal rules and let the DM do what he wants, but that's ticking off the people who want the crunch as guidance to make the non-combat stuff more important. They don't want to have to make it up. You can't please everyone.
I think a good starting point would be to re-codify dungeon delving rules. Put it on a turn-based system, with 10 minute segments (not used the same way, exactly, as old D&D used the term, and we could call it "turns" or "rounds" or whatever we can come up with) during which specific things can be done. Each player gets 1 turn per segment, which generally should have exploration-based activities they're working on for the whole ten minutes.

Movement speed is how far you can move during a 10 minute segment while doing something intense and dangerous, like trying to move quietly while looking for traps or secret doors or the like. Traps are made much easier to find when people stick to that, and only trigger - usually - when creatures try to move faster than that. Yes, 30 feet every 10 minutes is slow as molasses, but you're also thoroughly exploring every square you go through. You can look for traps/secret doors, or you can try to disable a trap, or you can try to pick a lock, or you can listen at a door, or other such things. Conveniently, you can cast 1 ritual (assuming the underlying spell's casting time isn't an hour, in and of itself) in one of these segments. Give some leeway up or down on the 10 minute timer; they needn't be precise so much as they need to encompass one "major action" per segment. A short rest is 6 segments. (Maybe switch that up: a segment is 5-6 minutes, and 2 segments casts a ritual. But I think it more interesting to make a ritual exactly one segment, so the player of the ritualist is spending his turn doing that, rather than spending two turns doing that. One decision, one turn.)

It would need a lot of refinement to get sufficient verisimilitude, but codifying it this way makes dungeon crawling an exercise in players making choices in a controlled way, with definite time tracking and the like, and ties it more firmly in with th erest of the mechanics. You could develop some new class features (as alternate features or as additional ones) to grant new abilities and tools to the various classes that interact with this more codified system, as well. Like, maybe Cunning Action also lets the rogue cover twice as many squares of movement, and still make a stealth check and check for and avoid traps. Useful for scouting ahead and then doubling back.

[LordShade]

It's not (just) that the Ranger, goodberry, create food and water, etc. obviate the survival aspect of D&D, it's that the survival aspect of D&D has no hooks to make it interesting. You have enough food, or you don't. You roll some foraging rolls and get what you need, or you starve. It's all stick and tedium, no carrot. Nothing interesting that players can do to make it work for them.

In a sense, the exploration pillar, in particular, needs a little bit of a "Harvest Moon" / acquisition game structure to it. Exploring needs some game-able aspects that you can make gameplay-move choices with, and take risk/reward chances that actually have rewards associated with the choices made.

Hmm, in the glory days of 2e Dark Sun, the survival aspect was heavily emphasized. Having enough water was an important part of how to approach an adventure, and the critical survival spells were intentionally taken out to support meaningful decision-making in that arena. Oases were interesting locations because you were almost guaranteed to find something there. Hell, the racial table had daily water consumption rates and could be a factor in playing a half-giant or a thri-kreen.

While perhaps tedious in the eyes of some, it added a lot to the feel of the setting, in my view.

[dmhelp]

The reason that the combat pillar will always be the best is because that is what kills you or causes a TPK. The social pillar is just the background story/roleplaying. There is already too much rolling involved. Yeah, you could turn exploration into a minigame…. But do you really want to? It seems better suited to videogames.

Although dark sun removing all food and water spells does sound fun. That is basically removing class exploration pillar benefits to put people on a more level playing field to benefit the story.

In 5e dark sun would you not allow ranger natural explorer? Or would everyone splash 1 ranger?

[Cheesegear]

No question the game rules emphasize combat more. It wouldn't hurt for more discussion about non-combat stuff, but how far do you go?

How far can you go?

What do players get out of combat? What incentivises them to do a combat, even when it's arguably against both the characters' and players' interests?
- XP (character progression)
- Loot (character progression)
- Power Fantasy and/or Achievement (player progression)

What do players get out of a social encounter? What incentivises them to socialise with fictional characters (all of whom are actually the same person), even when it's arguably against both the characters' and players' interests?
- XP? ...Probably not. Most DMs don't work this way.
- Loot? ...I mean, it's not like we can just say 'Give us your magical sword or nothing will happen and we'll just walk away no harm done. Sorry, guv.'
- Escapism?

- I've said many times, in many threads, that in order to actually roleplay, the player needs to have real-world intelligence, charisma, and a not small amount of empathy so that they can pretend to be someone else that they aren't. This is a real skill. Not every player has those qualities. Whilst a player might want to be someone else...They can't. At least, not when they receive pushbacks from the dice and from the DM. This makes them frustrated. This causes them to default to combat because it's simply easier and the rules are codified. The DM has to abide by certain rules. I know what those rules are. I can play against the DM in a combat. But I can't play against the DM in a social encounter because the DM is the one holding all the cards.
- In my, personal experience DMing for a long time, those players who do have real-world intelligence, charisma and empathy...Simply play as themselves. They already have self-esteem and they have no need for escapism. 'My character is me, but also I cast spells.'
- Well, story, I guess. When the players talk to people, they can learn what's happening and pick up adventure hooks and rumours and whatnot. However, because video games ruined D&D, I've lost count of the number of times where my players have asked to 'see or find a job board at a tavern or inn.' Skip the roleplaying. Just tell us the quest you've written, please. You're going to funnel us that way anyway so you may as well just tell us what the adventure you have planned, is. Why the **** do we have to figure it out for ourselves? That being said...What if your players aren't interested in your story, and/or - worse - your story just sucks? What then?

Exploration? ...Same deal. What do the players get out of it? Why should they do it?
- Random Encounters? No thank you. I, the DM, have very little interest in running an encounter or challenge that doesn't progress the story or engage my characters. 'This is here because the dice said it was here, not because it makes sense or adds to the narrative.' Additionally, my sessions are typically short. There's not a lot of time for screwing around.
- Immersion? This is 100% down to the DM's ability to describe the world. Some DMs are bad at it. How do they describe the house? How do they describe the dark alley? How do they describe the waterfall? How do they describe the 10 ft. cave? But again, if a player already prefers combat, they're not getting anything out of how well a DM describes the NPC's dress or how many tiers does the cake have. Exploration has no purpose, unless the DM puts something there...
- Loot. If I go to that rock on the hill, do I get anything? Or shall I just keep walking down the road? This is where Skinner Box theory comes into play. Sometimes, a rock is just a rock. Sometimes, a rock is actually a shrine with offerings the party can take. As long as there's a chance there might be something, the player might walk into the empty alley with nothing. That being said, if you're the kind of DM who introduces somewhere to go to, and then the players go there, and you give them nothing at all? ...First, **** you. Second, you've just wasted valuable real-world session time convincing us to make skill checks and climb that rock face and take 2d6 fall damage for literally no reason. **** you, again!
- XP. Similar to social encounters. Most DMs aren't going to give you XP for just walking around. That's one of the main criticisms of Lord of the Rings. That's why the walking had to be broken up with by - surprise! - combats. You walked, uneventfully, down the road, through the woods, through the rough-hewn valley. The journey took you three days. Gain 100 XP each. Umm...No. This is probably where Milestone XP is probably more useful. However, when you use Milestone XP, you take away one of the driving forces of doing anything for the players - earning XP. So there are pitfalls with that.

Nobody wants to explore. That's why spells that ignore exploration, are so good. They bypass dumb **** the players don't care about. 'How are you ever going to survive three days in the wilderness!?' ...The Cleric has Create Food & Water, and at least one player has the Outlander Background. Thanks for playing. The Bard has Leomund's Tiny Hut. Can we just move this along?

Nobody wants to socialise. That's why Charm spells are so useful. Because they skip dumb socialising that the players can't do, and/or don't want to do. I Charm the target. They're immediately my friend. Not only do I have advantage on the Charisma checks now, but also the target regards me as friendly and will be more willing to do or tell/give me what I want anyway so all the DCs go down on top of my advantage. Baller. Socialising is dumb. Just use spells.

What can you, the DM, offer your players so that they want to explore and socialise?
You don't need to add extra bull**** mechanics that make the game more difficult. Because if the mechanic is pointless and difficult, the players are going to ignore it, or specifically find spells and abilities that let them bypass the dumb ****.

To go back to the OP.


It seems, without having done full qualitative analyses that:
Combat options > social options > exploration options.

Because in the eyes of the majority of the community, combat is the only pillar of the game that's worth anything.
Why is that?
Why don't players want to do the other two pillars? Actor is a ****ing amazing feat and you can't tell me otherwise. But, why would I choose that - again, amazing - Feat, when I can choose something more in line with what I actually want to do - which is combat?

And that's the elephant in the room that nobody addresses:
Why don't your players like socialising and exploration? And what can you, the DM, do to fix that?

[dmhelp]

Why don't your players like socialising and exploration? And what can you, the DM, do to fix that?

The thing is if they like socializing and role-playing you are going to do that with them regardless of if they are proficient in the right skills.

[MoiMagnus]

What do players get out of a social encounter? [...]
- XP? ...Probably not. Most DMs don't work this way.

XP: One of the reasons I love milestone level-up is that IME, DMs more often value non-combat encounters. If a social encounter makes you progress significantly, this will bring you up to the next milestone.

[Cheesegear]

The thing is if they like socializing and role-playing you are going to do that with them regardless of if they are proficient in the right skills.

If anything, if a player wants to socialise and roleplay, the dice and mechanics actually get in the way of it.

Had this one girl make a 3-ish minute speech about everything the town has been through up until this point, and that the town has to rally and prepare for the siege and this is the plan and this is what's going to happen, and here's how we can get through this...

As a Ranger, Charisma was her dump stat, and she definitely was not proficient in Persuasion. After 3-ish minutes of uninterrupted talking (that had the other plays also shutting up for once), do I make her roll a dice? Should I reward her such good roleplaying with a potential failure on the dice roll? Or do ignore that the townsfolk are panicked and scared and just 'Yep, it happens, and by the way here's also Inspiration.'?

Failing at a diplomacy or 'planning' check is so much worse than failing an attack roll. Since diplomacy and exploration usually take a lot more real-world time to puzzle out. So after 5 minutes of hard roleplaying, everything comes down to a dice roll...Roll a '4', with your Persuasion mod of +5...9. You don't even pass a DC 10, GG thanks for playing, the last five minutes was pointless, and now that the dice roll has failed, the challenge target reaches for their weapon. Roll initiative ladies and gents, we're doing a combat and the last five minutes was pointless 'cause the other three players wanted to shank the guy in the first place.
(Also again, see why valuable Charm spells are just better than having a high CHA score or proficiency in talking.)

[ZRN]

If anything, if a player wants to socialise and roleplay, the dice and mechanics actually get in the way of it.

Had this one girl make a 3-ish minute speech about everything the town has been through up until this point, and that the town has to rally and prepare for the siege and this is the plan and this is what's going to happen, and here's how we can get through this...

As a Ranger, Charisma was her dump stat, and she definitely was not proficient in Persuasion. After 3-ish minutes of uninterrupted talking (that had the other plays also shutting up for once), do I make her roll a dice? Should I reward her such good roleplaying with a potential failure on the dice roll? Or do ignore that the townsfolk are panicked and scared and just 'Yep, it happens, and by the way here's also Inspiration.'?

Failing at a diplomacy or 'planning' check is so much worse than failing an attack roll. Since diplomacy and exploration usually take a lot more real-world time to puzzle out. So after 5 minutes of hard roleplaying, everything comes down to a dice roll...Roll a '4', with your Persuasion mod of +5...9. You don't even pass a DC 10, GG thanks for playing, the last five minutes was pointless, and now that the dice roll has failed, the challenge target reaches for their weapon. Roll initiative ladies and gents, we're doing a combat and the last five minutes was pointless 'cause the other three players wanted to shank the guy in the first place.
(Also again, see why valuable Charm spells are just better than having a high CHA score or proficiency in talking.)

You're doing a good job of spelling out scenarios where social/exploration checks don't work because the DM and/or player does a bad job with them. (In the "inspiring speech" example: the DM could simply say everyone is super-inspired and eager for the fight, and then add a persuasion roll to see if they also get some other mechanical benefit. But I'll also point out that if she was doing a great job planning out combat tactics but her ranger died because she had 8 Con, nobody would blame the rules.)

dmhelp actually does a good job pointing out the flipside, too: at tables where social encounters DO work, it's not because the rules are so good; the rules mostly just don't get in the way. D&D isn't necessarily a combat-focused game; it's a game hat works under the assumption that you need very specific rules for combat and magic, but pretty much everything else the DM should be able to adjudicate with some skill checks. That puts a lot of weight on the DM in a social or exploration-heavy campaign, but it doesn't necessarily make D&D bad at those things.

[MrStabby]

If anything, if a player wants to socialise and roleplay, the dice and mechanics actually get in the way of it.

Had this one girl make a 3-ish minute speech about everything the town has been through up until this point, and that the town has to rally and prepare for the siege and this is the plan and this is what's going to happen, and here's how we can get through this...

As a Ranger, Charisma was her dump stat, and she definitely was not proficient in Persuasion. After 3-ish minutes of uninterrupted talking (that had the other plays also shutting up for once), do I make her roll a dice? Should I reward her such good roleplaying with a potential failure on the dice roll? Or do ignore that the townsfolk are panicked and scared and just 'Yep, it happens, and by the way here's also Inspiration.'?

Failing at a diplomacy or 'planning' check is so much worse than failing an attack roll. Since diplomacy and exploration usually take a lot more real-world time to puzzle out. So after 5 minutes of hard roleplaying, everything comes down to a dice roll...Roll a '4', with your Persuasion mod of +5...9. You don't even pass a DC 10, GG thanks for playing, the last five minutes was pointless, and now that the dice roll has failed, the challenge target reaches for their weapon. Roll initiative ladies and gents, we're doing a combat and the last five minutes was pointless 'cause the other three players wanted to shank the guy in the first place.
(Also again, see why valuable Charm spells are just better than having a high CHA score or proficiency in talking.)

So they way I run social rolling is that the DC is deermined by what you say. If she was saying awesome stuff, then the DC is lower. If it was a bit of a stretch then higher DC. So yeah, failure is an option otherwise it sucks to be one of the people who didn't dump Charisma to be better at social interactions.

[Selrahc]

Failing at a diplomacy or 'planning' check is so much worse than failing an attack roll. Since diplomacy and exploration usually take a lot more real-world time to puzzle out. So after 5 minutes of hard roleplaying, everything comes down to a dice roll...Roll a '4', with your Persuasion mod of +5...9. You don't even pass a DC 10, GG thanks for playing, the last five minutes was pointless, and now that the dice roll has failed, the challenge target reaches for their weapon. Roll initiative ladies and gents, we're doing a combat and the last five minutes was pointless 'cause the other three players wanted to shank the guy in the first place.

Fail forward should probably be the standard in this context. A failure means there is some sort of an unexpected cost. The players can take the cost and proceed, or accept the failure.

[Sorinth]

If anything, if a player wants to socialise and roleplay, the dice and mechanics actually get in the way of it.

Had this one girl make a 3-ish minute speech about everything the town has been through up until this point, and that the town has to rally and prepare for the siege and this is the plan and this is what's going to happen, and here's how we can get through this...

As a Ranger, Charisma was her dump stat, and she definitely was not proficient in Persuasion. After 3-ish minutes of uninterrupted talking (that had the other plays also shutting up for once), do I make her roll a dice? Should I reward her such good roleplaying with a potential failure on the dice roll? Or do ignore that the townsfolk are panicked and scared and just 'Yep, it happens, and by the way here's also Inspiration.'?

Failing at a diplomacy or 'planning' check is so much worse than failing an attack roll. Since diplomacy and exploration usually take a lot more real-world time to puzzle out. So after 5 minutes of hard roleplaying, everything comes down to a dice roll...Roll a '4', with your Persuasion mod of +5...9. You don't even pass a DC 10, GG thanks for playing, the last five minutes was pointless, and now that the dice roll has failed, the challenge target reaches for their weapon. Roll initiative ladies and gents, we're doing a combat and the last five minutes was pointless 'cause the other three players wanted to shank the guy in the first place.
(Also again, see why valuable Charm spells are just better than having a high CHA score or proficiency in talking.)

This is covered in the DMG but maybe it could be done better. The DM has to decide what failure represents just like they decide what passing means. The whole meme about the bard seducing every monster they meet comes to mind. In your example, the Persuasion check doesn't have to represent whether the villagers rally to the town defences or not. Maybe failure is that 25% of the villagers flee in the face of danger and success would mean only a couple rich merchants try to flee. Failure makes the coming fight harder but doesn't render the past 5min pointless because maybe if nobody attempted to rally the town then 75% would flee.

A skill check should rarely represent absolute failure vs absolute success.

[Segev]

The reason that the combat pillar will always be the best is because that is what kills you or causes a TPK. The social pillar is just the background story/roleplaying. There is already too much rolling involved. Yeah, you could turn exploration into a minigame…. But do you really want to? It seems better suited to videogames.

Although dark sun removing all food and water spells does sound fun. That is basically removing class exploration pillar benefits to put people on a more level playing field to benefit the story.

In 5e dark sun would you not allow ranger natural explorer? Or would everyone splash 1 ranger?

How much of this is simply bias built on what is, rather than what could or should be?

The longer post right after this one on why people don't want to engage exploration and social pillars has some very good points, but I will even disagree there that loot is not obtainable via socialization. Allies are a form of "loot" in a sense. Convincing foes to surrender is a social angle, as is turning defeated foes to your side.

That people don't use social rules - such as they are - to their fullest is not a fault of the rules. If they're poorly designed, or if they're one-and-done rolls (akin to resolving combat by having you roll a "fighting check" and determining whether the party lives or dies based on that one roll), then yes, they get in the way more than they help facilitate any sort of social play as a "pillar." Those kinds of resolution are more suited to "single moves" in the game, not to entire efforts.

5e actually has surprisingly good social mechanics. Not perfect, but good, especially for a D&D game. The traits (ideals, bonds, flaws) are discoverable and are hooks you can base your RP choices around, and can enable the player to influence how difficult his social rolls are. The rules for adjusting attitudes are similarly good, and attitudes give at least a rough idea of what you can persuade somebody to do.

And while I understand the quandary you feel you have with the impassioned speech by the Ranger with 8 charisma, I have to ask: if the halfling wizard with 8 strength described this beautiful scene where he hefted the 300-lb barbarian's unconscious body over his shoulder and leapt the 15-foot chasm and ran down the mountain just ahead of the charging goblins, dodging and weaving through their rain of hurled javelins, would you feel bad if the Strength (Athletics) roll didn't let him actually make that leap and if his Strength itself doesn't let him carry that barbarian? No, you'd more likely argue that he'd described his character doing something his character can't do. Same with your Ranger: letting the player give this magnificent speech and then saying it's "unfair" that the 8 Charisma and nonproficiency should mean the Ranger has a high probability of failure is actually being unfair to anybody who did put stat points into Charisma and did take Persuasion as a proficiency!

Let the Ranger make the speech, then look to see if it touches on the ideals, bonds, and flaws of the townsfolk. Check their attitude, and maybe let the Ranger roll a couple of times to see if she can raise the attitude. Maybe let her get one level for free if the speech hit them in the ideals or bonds. Then have her roll. Heck, let the result determine how many she persuades, with a low result being "no more than a handful" and a high result being "a plurality or small majority" and a very high result (likely impossible since she can't hit 20 without guidance or the like) get enough that the villagers all join in due to social pressure.

As for what the rewards for such a social encounter are? You get allies to help with the fight (loot)! You get to be the heroic leader (power fantasy)!

For a social encounter with a hostile or otherwise obstructive group that needs to be overcome to get what you want, persuading them to not be a problem is "defeating" the encounter, and SHOULD be worth the same XP as killing them would be.

WHY is an exploration minigame better suited to video games? This is a serious question; what makes you say that?

Dark Sun removing the spells that trivialize resource management isn't making exploration better because it's removing mechanics. It's making exploration "better" because it's compelling you to engage with the subsystem of resource management. It makes exploration have rewards by making otherwise-unexciting things like discovering an oasis into rewards every bit as good as winning that random encounter. Now, remember how random encounters were disparaged in a later post because they advance nothing? That's a similar problem to Dark Sun's approach. Except Dark Sun made oases have interesting things at them, so compelling players to seek them out also gave motivation to find interesting things.

Exploration pillar, if game-ified better, does need to reward players for engaging with it. Resource management should be a challenge, but it should be one with rewards for doing it as well as penalties for doing it and running out. Part of the trouble is that "conveniently forgetting" to track your food and water is only to the benefit of the players in terms of basic player incentives: it costs mental energy and game time to remember to track your food and water usage, and can involve (in real play) having to stop and ask "wait, how many days has it been since X?" and then making sure you really updated it. The only reward for tracking it accurately, then, is that you actually have less of it and might discover you're out or close to out. Whereas if you forget it or ignore it, you simply don't suffer penalties as you don't "realize" you're out. You've still got it because you aren't tracking it.

It's like spells, except using spells is a BENEFIT, and doesn't happen off-screen very much. Each use is at least slightly memorable, and failure to track as you use it is nearly inexcusable due to the fact that there's a definite point in gameplay at the table where it is used, unlike rations, which happen in variable amounts literally during the DM saying, "And then you finally make it to the dungeon," and you have to track those days of travel, and stopping to record the ration expenditures actually stalls the game - if only for a moment - and breaks the momentum the DM was just setting up with his intro to where you're arriving.

A codified exploration system, with actual turns and choices each turn involving choices as to how to expend resources as you move, with rewards for expending them well or making good choices and better rewards with potential penalties for taking risks... would improve that pillar and give the players more to interact with. It would also let you create mechanics for various classes that interacted with those choices and the mechanics of those moves in order to make the classes more powerful when engaging the system, rather than giving them the equivalent of having Barbarian Rage be, "You automatically win a fight when you rage."

[Cheesegear]

So they way I run social rolling is that the DC is determined by what you say.

This is a perfect example of why players who find roleplaying difficult, keep not doing it.

Some players lack the charisma, intelligence and empathy to know what to say or how to say it - even in a fictional situation. If you're going to punish not-reward them when they talk because they - themselves, not their character - spoke badly and/or incorrectly...They may as well not have spoken at all, and let someone else do the talking...Just like their real life.

That's why I often opt out of making social rolls. If the player, talking, has an extremely good idea and does a decent job of roleplaying...Why introduce dice to ruin it?

On the flip side, if you have one or more player(s) at your table, like I do; It's best just to have them describe the [I]idea of what they want to say...And then have them roll a dice and use their maths modifiers that they understand, which is much easier than going back and forth with a player with [mental illness] trying to struggle through a - entirely fictional - conversation and slowing down the whole game whilst they think real hard about the specific thing to say to get the Guard to give them a passphrase.

[Segev]

This is a perfect example of why players who find roleplaying difficult, keep not doing it.

Some players lack the charisma, intelligence and empathy to know what to say or how to say it - even in a fictional situation. If you're going to punish not-reward them when they talk because they - themselves, not their character - spoke badly and/or incorrectly...They may as well not have spoken at all, and let someone else do the talking...Just like their real life.

That's why I often opt out of making social rolls. If the player, talking, has an extremely good idea and does a decent job of roleplaying...Why introduce dice to ruin it?

On the flip side, if you have one or more player(s) at your table, like I do; It's best just to have them describe the [I]idea of what they want to say...And then have them roll a dice and use their maths modifiers that they understand, which is much easier than going back and forth with a player with [mental illness] trying to struggle through a - entirely fictional - conversation and slowing down the whole game whilst they think real hard about the specific thing to say to get the Guard to give them a passphrase.

The way I prefer to see this handled is that, yes, if you give a good speech, you get credit for it in the same way somebody who describes a good speech - or WHY the speech their PC gives is good - would: a good speech naturally will tend to hit on the right notes, while a player engaging with the rules but unable to confidently give "a good speech" will still be able to competently describe the goal of the speech - to bring up this point, that detail, to emphasize this or that, and to bring it all together and play off of these known sympathies of the audience.

If player 1 gives a speech that tugs at the King's heartstrings by mentioning his lost love, and player 2 explains that his PC gives a speech that subtly references the King's lost love to tie it into this important point, both get the same mechanical bonus for it.

[MaxWilson]

This is a perfect example of why players who find roleplaying difficult, keep not doing it.

That doesn't compute. If you said "this is a perfect example of why players who find roleplaying difficult seek out Expertise", I could see where you're coming from, but where do you get the inference that they just give up and stop trying?

It's not like they give up and stop trying (IME) when it's the other way around: players with only +0 or -2 to Performance or Persuasion still attempt things that require Performance or Persuasion rolls, because the alternative is to do nothing (w/rt Performance or Persuasion) and because having some chance of success is better than having zero chance of success. The randomness of the d20 roll is big enough to ensure that they succeed a fair amount of the time, too.


Some players lack the charisma, intelligence and empathy to know what to say or how to say it - even in a fictional situation. If you're going to punish not-reward them when they talk because they - themselves, not their character - spoke badly and/or incorrectly...They may as well not have spoken at all, and let someone else do the talking...Just like their real life.

But if someone else does the talking, they will say something different (or won't say anything at all). If you're the one who has the idea to ask the recalcitrant king who he's so grumpy and what you can do to help, maybe that means you'll be rolling Persuasion DC 10 to get him to open up, even if hypothetically someone else who took the time to buddy up to them first (share common experiences, etc.) might have a DC of 5 instead. But who cares? Your DC is 10, and that's doable. You're not being "punished", you're being empowered to accomplish your goals with a high chance of success, and if you for some reason feel that the DM is setting DCs too high you can always seek mechanical benefits beforehand like Bardic Inspiration, Enhance Ability, etc.


That's why I often opt out of making social rolls. If the player, talking, has an extremely good idea and does a decent job of roleplaying...Why introduce dice to ruin it?

Sure, that's valid too. There doesn't have to be a roll. Rolling is for when there's some doubt.


On the flip side, if you have one or more player(s) at your table, like I do; It's best just to have them describe the [I]idea of what they want to say...And then have them roll a dice and use their maths modifiers that they understand, which is much easier than going back and forth with a player with [mental illness] trying to struggle through a - entirely fictional - conversation and slowing down the whole game whilst they think real hard about the specific thing to say to get the Guard to give them a passphrase.

"Describing the idea of what they want to say" still relies on player skill. E.g. someone who doesn't understand enough about people to resolve the recalcitrant king's issues first before asking for a favor, and instead just demands that he do XYZ (sponsor their expedition?), will have a worse chance of success than someone who knows something about people.


If player 1 gives a speech that tugs at the King's heartstrings by mentioning his lost love, and player 2 explains that his PC gives a speech that subtly references the King's lost love to tie it into this important point, both get the same mechanical bonus for it.

Yes, this exactly.

[ZRN]

This is a perfect example of why players who find roleplaying difficult, keep not doing it.

Some players lack the charisma, intelligence and empathy to know what to say or how to say it - even in a fictional situation. If you're going to punish not-reward them when they talk because they - themselves, not their character - spoke badly and/or incorrectly...They may as well not have spoken at all, and let someone else do the talking...Just like their real life.


Do you take a similar line on people who suck at combat tactics or rules details? Or do you hand-hold a little bit, help them figure out their modifiers, remind them of abilities that would be useful, etc.?

I feel like the issue is the same: there are some people whose brains just aren't wired for certain types of thinking, and that doesn't mean they're unintelligent or even uncharismatic - but it may mean it's on the DM to help them along a little so that they can have the same fantasy-fulfilling fun everyone else at the table does.

If your player just isn't getting the social cues you're putting out, have them roll a (low-DC) Insight check to say something like, "the villagers look really nervous - you feel like they could really use a pep talk." And, yes, encourage them to describe their character's approach rather than actually give the speech themselves, if that's easier for them, and take into account when judging e.g. the DC that you're evaluating the character's approach, not the player's effectiveness. (This cuts both ways: your drama-nerd players don't get low DCs on everything just because they're actually good at speeches.)

[Reach Weapon]

Some players lack the charisma, intelligence and empathy to know what to say or how to say it - even in a fictional situation. If you're going to punish not-reward them when they talk because they - themselves, not their character - spoke badly and/or incorrectly...They may as well not have spoken at all, and let someone else do the talking...Just like their real life.

I think this gets back to which stats and skills actually impact the game world. It seems to me that the table should be prepared to help when a player is having trouble getting their character to live up to their high INT, WIS or CHA, and accepting when a player's brilliance gets filtered through their character's dump stats into something less beneficial.

[Sorinth]

Do you take a similar line on people who suck at combat tactics or rules details? Or do you hand-hold a little bit, help them figure out their modifiers, remind them of abilities that would be useful, etc.?

I feel like the issue is the same: there are some people whose brains just aren't wired for certain types of thinking, and that doesn't mean they're unintelligent or even uncharismatic - but it may mean it's on the DM to help them along a little so that they can have the same fantasy-fulfilling fun everyone else at the table does.

If your player just isn't getting the social cues you're putting out, have them roll a (low-DC) Insight check to say something like, "the villagers look really nervous - you feel like they could really use a pep talk." And, yes, encourage them to describe their character's approach rather than actually give the speech themselves, if that's easier for them, and take into account when judging e.g. the DC that you're evaluating the character's approach, not the player's effectiveness. (This cuts both ways: your drama-nerd players don't get low DCs on everything just because they're actually good at speeches.)

Just as a note in combat the simple solution for a character who is supposed to be tactical when the player isn't is to allow table talk. If other players at the table can offer suggestions the character will probably end up making better tactical decisions.

[Pex]

A character with 8 CH and not proficient in Persuasion does not mean he can never influence anyone. There doesn't always have to be a roll. If the player figured out the right thing to say to the NPC at the right moment the NPC acts accordingly by DM fiat. There's only supposed to be a roll when there's a chance it doesn't work. Then the player rolls. If he fails, he fails, and it doesn't matter how eloquently the player spoke and the game is not wrong. If the player complains his character didn't convince the NPC, remind the player the next time he wants to play a PC who can influence people with words he should play a character with a higher charisma and/or proficiency in Persuasion.

As for the players who can't speak eloquently, if they're playing an 8 CH not proficient in Persuasion character, they're probably ok not being the face of the party. If they're happy enjoying the game while others do the talking with NPCs because they get joy from the combat, experiencing the story, and hanging out with friends, let them. When they do play the high CH proficient in Persuasion character, then yes they do get to influence NPC behavior. They do have to say something, tell the DM what they're trying to accomplish, and the character is likely to succeed because of the high investment in influence. In either case it's worth a try to encourage the player to speak up more as far as speaking in character makes for a fun playing the game experience, but if the player rather not let him be.

Whether the player who doesn't want to speak in character is welcome to continue playing in your group is beyond the scope of topic.

[Havlock]

This is a perfect example of why players who find roleplaying difficult, keep not doing it.

Cheese is harsh, but so so right.

If you want bad roleplayers to be horible roleplayers, make them tell you what they say in a social encounter while staying in character, and then make them do a persuasion check so you can reinforce how bad they are at social interactions.

Player: My bard walks up to the barmaid and tries to seduce her.
DM: OK, what do you say to her?
Player: If I knew what to say to her I wouldn't be playing D&D.

[MaxWilson]

Cheese is harsh, but so so right.

If you want bad roleplayers to be horible roleplayers, make them tell you what they say in a social encounter while staying in character, and then make them do a persuasion check so you can reinforce how bad they are at social interactions.

Player: My bard walks up to the barmaid and tries to seduce her.
DM: OK, what do you say to her?
Player: If I knew what to say to her I wouldn't be playing D&D.

DM: "Okay then, what do you mean by 'seduce'? What's the idea behind your actions? What thoughts are you trying to plant in her head, and what's your strategy for doing so?"

If you can't tell me anything except "I try to seduce her" you're essentially telling me that you will only succeed with girls who are basically already looking for someone to seduce them. I might call that a 35% chance that she's gettable (in a certain kind of universe modeled on 21st century America), and in that 35% case I'll ask you for a DC 10 Performance or Persuasion check (your choice) to acquire a floozy on a short-term basis. (This could get interesting if the floozy is also someone important in her own right.) As long as you're willing to hit on multiple women per night, you can acquire as many floozies as you want, purely on the strength of your Performance rolls. (Higher DCs for higher status, more in-demand floozies because they're pickier.)

But if you give me a convincing approach grounded in RP, you can potentially build relationships and emotions with girls outside that 35%. You don't even necessarily need to be a good actor, but you do need to roleplay--practice empathy and get into someone else's head.

I'm no more going to let you dice your way to nontrivial victories out of combat than in combat. Sure, you can get the Easy girls, but the Deadly x2 and Deadly x6-equivalent girls take more than the equivalent of "I Rage and Recklessly attack the closest monster twice."

Some girls just can't be seduced with standard techniques.

[sithlordnergal]

So, I think the exploration pillar might be more developed then people realize. There are pretty darn clear cut rules for mapping places out, exploring dungeons, finding hidden areas/traps, rules on vision and how it affects checks, hunting down/tracking creatures, ect. I think the problem is that people are mistaking exploration for travel.
Exploration is hardly ever boring, you're discovering new things and places, trying to make sure you avoid any potential pitfalls, you're usually making checks all the time.

Travel, on the other hand, is boring. Instead of trying to figure out where you are, traveling is when you're trying to get from point A to point B. Consider Tomb of Annihilation and the map of Chult. When you first start out, its completely covered. You don't know where anything is, and its your job to map things out. You pick a direction and you start exploring, or you hunt down rumors and start following them. That is exploration right there. Eventually though, that exploration ends as you figure out where you need to go. You're no longer following rumors or just striking it out into the jungle to figure out where things are. Instead you're trying to get from Port Nyanzaru to Omu, because you know Omu is where the BBEG is and you're on a timer to stop him.

Which brings me to the Ranger. Natural Explorer has a loooot of issues. Its an ability that ranges from completely useless to absolutely game breaking. It doesn't give players an interesting way to interact with the world, it just removes any chance for failure. But I think the worst parts of Natural Explorer that it actually has nothing to do with exploration at all, and it even removes the DM's ability to add in dynamic exploration opportunities.

Think about it, what does Natural Explorer do? Well, it lets the group ignore the effects of difficult terrain while traveling, you can't become lost, you don't make perception checks at disadvantage if you're doing extra activities while traveling, you can stealth and keep moving at a normal pace while traveling if you're alone, it lets you find double the amount of food, and finally it gives you some bonuses to tracking.

Out of those 6 different abilities, 4 of them deal with traveling, and only one of them really pertains directly to exploration. The worst offender is the fact that you can't become lost. When you're exploring, its basically useless. Sure, you can't become lost, but you can't really go directly to a place if you don't know where it is. All it does when you're exploring is let you backtrack perfectly. But as soon as you know the location of where you need/want to go? Well now it removes possible exploration opportunities the DM might throw at you since you can't get lost.

Now don't get me wrong, the DM still has some options. They could put a temple in front of you to explore, or create some sort of interesting section that can't be crossed and forces the group to take a detour. But its not the same as trying to hunt down the location itself, or being lost in a forest and trying to find your way back only to stumble onto something cool.

[Deathtongue]

DM: "Okay then, what do you mean by 'seduce'? What's the idea behind your actions? What thoughts are you trying to plant in her head, and what's your strategy for doing so?"

If you can't tell me anything except "I try to seduce her" you're essentially telling me that you will only succeed with girls who are basically already looking for someone to seduce them. I might call that a 35% chance that she's gettable (in a certain kind of universe modeled on 21st century America), and in that 35% case I'll ask you for a DC 10 Performance or Persuasion check (your choice) to acquire a floozy on a short-term basis. (This could get interesting if the floozy is also someone important in her own right.) As long as you're willing to hit on multiple women per night, you can acquire as many floozies as you want, purely on the strength of your Performance rolls. (Higher DCs for higher status, more in-demand floozies because they're pickier.)

But if you give me a convincing approach grounded in RP, you can potentially build relationships and emotions with girls outside that 35%. You don't even necessarily need to be a good actor, but you do need to roleplay--practice empathy and get into someone else's head.For a game like D&D, this is a prime example of the Magician Superhero Problem (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Help:Glossary_of_Jargon#Magician_Superhero_Problem ). Making people jump through a bunch of roleplaying hoops before you let them take actions on their character sheet that magical characters, assuming that they even need to bother with the rigmarole at all, hurts characters who don't have things like Prestidigitation or Detect Thoughts to remove a few hoops more than it trains amateur roleplayers in their craft.

[Sorinth]

DM: "Okay then, what do you mean by 'seduce'? What's the idea behind your actions? What thoughts are you trying to plant in her head, and what's your strategy for doing so?"

If you can't tell me anything except "I try to seduce her" you're essentially telling me that you will only succeed with girls who are basically already looking for someone to seduce them. I might call that a 35% chance that she's gettable (in a certain kind of universe modeled on 21st century America), and in that 35% case I'll ask you for a DC 10 Performance or Persuasion check (your choice) to acquire a floozy on a short-term basis. (This could get interesting if the floozy is also someone important in her own right.) As long as you're willing to hit on multiple women per night, you can acquire as many floozies as you want, purely on the strength of your Performance rolls. (Higher DCs for higher status, more in-demand floozies because they're pickier.)

But if you give me a convincing approach grounded in RP, you can potentially build relationships and emotions with girls outside that 35%. You don't even necessarily need to be a good actor, but you do need to roleplay--practice empathy and get into someone else's head.

I'm no more going to let you dice your way to nontrivial victories out of combat than in combat. Sure, you can get the Easy girls, but the Deadly x2 and Deadly x6-equivalent girls take more than the equivalent of "I Rage and Recklessly attack the closest monster twice."

Some girls just can't be seduced with standard techniques.

And what happens if in real life I'm terrible at seducing someone and have no idea what women want or what strategy is effective? Your challenging the player not the character and that is problematic.

[MaxWilson]

For a game like D&D, this is a prime example of the Magician Superhero Problem (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Help:Glossary_of_Jargon#Magician_Superhero_Problem ). Making people jump through a bunch of roleplaying hoops before you let them take actions on their character sheet that magical characters, assuming that they even need to bother with the rigmarole at all, hurts characters who don't have things like Prestidigitation or Detect Thoughts to remove a few hoops more than it trains amateur roleplayers in their craft.

That "Magician" sounds like a Schrodinger's Wizard, not an actual 5E wizard.

An actual 5E wizard is going to have the exact same issues as anyone else trying to seduce people. There is no "seduce anyone" spell. (No, Dominate Person clearly doesn't work for this due to duration issues.) If you want to seduce e.g. a non- heating girl who already is engaged to be married, you're going to have to reach beyond "I seduce her" and give me an actual approach that you intend to try.


And what happens if in real life I'm terrible at seducing someone and have no idea what women want or what strategy is effective? Your challenging the player not the character and that is problematic.

What happens if in real life you have no idea what an effective tactical doctrine is or to judge threats?

If you're bad at the game, I'm sorry, but you're going to be worse at the game than someone who is good at the game (at least, those aspects of it). If you ask me, as a DM, to help your character get good at it, I'm going to point you to a teacher who can help you get better, but that will involve either (1) actually teaching the player, or (2) the player ceding some control of the character to the DM or other players in order to make those effective decisions for you. (Do you really want to do that?)

I'd be open to either. If you want me to coach you on combat tactics and run some practice combats with you I'll be happy to do so. If you want me to give hints or even run your PC during combat I'll be much more reluctant but will if you insist.

[Elbeyon]

QuoteA lot of weird energy in this post about women.

It is good practice as a gm to help the players out if they are struggling with some aspect of the game. I think it can be reasonable to ask for more details too. Pointed/leading questions can really help out the player to establish some more info when they are coming up blank.


I'm no more going to let you dice your way to nontrivial victories out of combat than in combat.Have you ever told a player they missed an attack because their rp wasn't good enough? "You described a goblin worthy attack. You need to rp better if you want to hit this dragon. Disregard the 27 attack roll, you fail your attack roll." I'm betting you've never done that.

[MaxWilson]

A lot of weird energy in this post about women.

Please don't go there.


Have you ever told a player they missed an attack because their rp wasn't good enough? "You described a goblin worthy attack. You need to rp better if you want to hit this dragon. Disregard the 27 attack roll, you fail your attack roll." I'm betting you've never done that.

Have I ever killed a PC in combat because their RP wasn't wise enough? What about players who attack when they should be fleeing, or flee when they should be novaing? Yep, I've killed them. You feel bad for them, true, but a game where poor decisions still lead to guaranteed success is not a game I'm willing to run.

[Sorinth]

What happens if in real life you have no idea what an effective tactical doctrine is or to judge threats?

If you're bad at the game, I'm sorry, but you're going to be worse at the game than someone who is good at the game (at least, those aspects of it). If you ask me, as a DM, to help your character get good at it, I'm going to point you to a teacher who can help you get better, but that will involve either (1) actually teaching the player, or (2) the player ceding some control of the character to the DM or other players in order to make those effective decisions for you. (Do you really want to do that?)

Should I have to show off my personal sword swinging skills in order to make an attack roll?

Everybody is entitled to play the game how they want, but I 100% believe it should be as inclusive as possible. If a shy person who can't make small talk wants to play as a smooth talking bard then the game should accommodate them. A gentle push here and there to help them get outside the comfort zone, sure by all means, telling them 'git gud' on the other hand is terrible. And like others said, in the end it's just going to push people to use magic to "cheat".

[Reach Weapon]

As for what the rewards for such a social encounter are? You get allies to help with the fight (loot)! You get to be the heroic leader (power fantasy)!

For a social encounter with a hostile or otherwise obstructive group that needs to be overcome to get what you want, persuading them to not be a problem is "defeating" the encounter, and SHOULD be worth the same XP as killing them would be.

I might suggest that using social skills to get a more powerful ally to resolve the issue is also the party winning and deserving of XP. The party simply can not survive long if they resort to combat to defeat the the Viscount they embarrassed, but they can certainly find a way to get the Duke to make it so they quit getting arrested and slated for execution every time they roll into town.


A codified exploration system, with actual turns and choices each turn involving choices as to how to expend resources as you move, with rewards for expending them well or making good choices and better rewards with potential penalties for taking risks... would improve that pillar and give the players more to interact with. It would also let you create mechanics for various classes that interacted with those choices and the mechanics of those moves in order to make the classes more powerful when engaging the system, rather than giving them the equivalent of having Barbarian Rage be, "You automatically win a fight when you rage."

I don't know that the only way to make exploration meaningful is deep accountancy, although I do tend to rule that characters just don't have improperly tracked resources (I think you forgot it a few camps back) rather than the other way around. I think characters are engaged with this pillar when they're experiencing the world as a dynamic system that will indifferently swallow them or a series of puzzles to be teased apart.

[MaxWilson]

DM: "Okay then, what do you mean by 'seduce'? What's the idea behind your actions? What thoughts are you trying to plant in her head, and what's your strategy for doing so?"

If you can't tell me anything except "I try to seduce her"...


Should I have to show off my personal sword swinging skills in order to make an attack roll?

Everybody is entitled to play the game how they want, but I 100% believe it should be as inclusive as possible. If a shy person who can't make small talk wants to play as a smooth talking bard then the game should accommodate them. A gentle push here and there to help them get outside the comfort zone, sure by all means, telling them 'git gud' on the other hand is terrible. And like others said, in the end it's just going to push people to use magic to "cheat".

"I seduce the barmaid" = "I kill the monster."

Again the question is, "Well sure, but how?" The brute-force approach ("I roll attacks until I can't attack any more") will work in certain Easy cases, but that's a minority of cases. In the case where failure has no real cost and you can just move on to a different target and try again, you'll have a lot of successes even if you're not especially successful the majority of times.

"Making an attack roll [with a particular weapon such as a longbow]" = "executing a particular social strategy [such as attempting to make the target think you're funny]". It works against some targets and is rubbish against others (swords don't work well against birds).

"Git gud" is your wording, not mine. I said, "What's the idea behind your actions? What thoughts are you trying to plant in her head, and what's your strategy for doing so?" This is like asking someone "are you going to kill the monster with a sword or with a bow?"


I might suggest that using social skills to get a more powerful ally to resolve the issue is also the party winning and deserving of XP. The party simply can not survive long if they resort to combat to defeat the the Viscount they embarrassed, but they can certainly find a way to get the Duke to make it so they quit getting arrested and slated for execution every time they roll into town.

IME one of the benefits of introducing Reputation as a separate game structure is that players are more likely to seek these kinds of social solutions (when they feel like it) instead of feeling like reducing the Duke to zero HP is the only way to make him stop. We had a recent thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?632960-Let-s-Talk-Personal-Characteristics/page2) on this topic...

[MrStabby]

This is a perfect example of why players who find roleplaying difficult, keep not doing it.

Some players lack the charisma, intelligence and empathy to know what to say or how to say it - even in a fictional situation. If you're going to punish not-reward them when they talk because they - themselves, not their character - spoke badly and/or incorrectly...They may as well not have spoken at all, and let someone else do the talking...Just like their real life.

That's why I often opt out of making social rolls. If the player, talking, has an extremely good idea and does a decent job of roleplaying...Why introduce dice to ruin it?

On the flip side, if you have one or more player(s) at your table, like I do; It's best just to have them describe the [I]idea of what they want to say...And then have them roll a dice and use their maths modifiers that they understand, which is much easier than going back and forth with a player with [mental illness] trying to struggle through a - entirely fictional - conversation and slowing down the whole game whilst they think real hard about the specific thing to say to get the Guard to give them a passphrase.

Yeah, sure if, to use your example, you have a player at your table that has a mental illness or needs some special accomodations then you can adjust.

I am not requireing people to give a speech and then I grade it. I am talking about things like "I try and persuade the Duke to release the prisoner by pointing out how useful they could be as an ally and appealing to sympathy over his own missing daughter, pointing out that the prisoner also has family missing them"

Part of the aim of this is to give more players a role in the social pillar of the game. If the social pillar is just the domain of high charisma classes you are excluding a lot of people. If you can say "I try to persuade them by citing religious texts of Lathander" or "I watch their reactions to see if my attempts to persuade them are working at all or to see if I can try another approach" then you can work more and different stats and skills into the social pillar. Sure, you might still be making a Cha (persuasion) check but your knowledge and insight has let you make an easier one.

I want players to be involved and the more ways I can give them to use their skills the better. Where skills determine how they can go about getting an advantage in conversation, I think you get a better game.

However, I fully accept this is not going to work equally well at all tables; different tables have different needs.

[Kane0]

Cheese has some damn good posts in this thread I must say.



Roleplaying and exploration is dumb, because it's hard. Combat is not hard. Therefore, combat is a better solution to almost every problem. Which is why it's 'seen as' better and/or more important.

I'm sure there are other games and 3rd party systems that accomplish the same kind of quantitative approach to interaction that D&D does for combat, but right now i'm drawing mental blanks.

[Sorinth]

"I seduce the barmaid" = "I kill the monster."

Again the question is, "Well sure, but how?" The brute-force approach ("I roll attacks until I can't attack any more") will work in certain Easy cases, but that's a minority of cases. In the case where failure has no real cost and you can just move on to a different target and try again, you'll have a lot of successes even if you're not especially successful the majority of times.

"Making an attack roll [with a particular weapon such as a longbow]" = "executing a particular social strategy [such as attempting to make the target think you're funny]". It works against some targets and is rubbish against others (swords don't work well against birds).

"Git gud" is your wording, not mine. I said, "What's the idea behind your actions? What thoughts are you trying to plant in her head, and what's your strategy for doing so?" This is like asking someone "are you going to kill the monster with a sword or with a bow?"

A Fighter is going to brute-force and attack and attack and attack until the monster is dead. So by all means if the fighter needs 3 successful attacks to defeat the monster make the seduction attempt a best of 5, throw in a complication if you want. But what pickup strategy to use is the same ask asking what attack routine you use when fencing. Someone who doesn't know will give a bad answer, and frankly the DM probably has little idea what a good answer is anyways so it's far better to turn to the dice.

[MaxWilson]

A Fighter is going to brute-force and attack and attack and attack until the monster is dead.

Eh? If that's your view of Fighters, I can see how that would color your view of seduction.

In my experience it's significantly more complex than that, if you don't want to wind up dead.


So by all means if the fighter needs 3 successful attacks to defeat the monster make the seduction attempt a best of 5, throw in a complication if you want. But what pickup strategy to use is the same ask asking what attack routine you use when fencing. Someone who doesn't know will give a bad answer, and frankly the DM probably has little idea what a good answer is anyways so it's far better to turn to the dice.

I didn't say "what pickup strategy to use." I agree with you that you can just lump those pickup strategies under a DC 10 Performance check or whatever and call it a day. But unless you objectify barmaids down to a giggling stereotype, which I don't, you can't expect all barmaids to respond favorably to pickup attempts from random strangers. A working woman with a husband and two kids at home has no reason to allow herself to be seduced by a glib pickup line no matter how high your Persuasion bonus is.

[Elbeyon]

Please don't go there.

Have I ever killed a PC in combat because their RP wasn't wise enough? What about players who attack when they should be fleeing, or flee when they should be novaing? Yep, I've killed them. You feel bad for them, true, but a game where poor decisions still lead to guaranteed success is not a game I'm willing to run.I said what I wanted.

How the player describes the attack makes no difference on the outcome of the fight. A boring 'I attack' is just as effective as describing the attack any other way. I do think a person saying "I attack" is boring, but it has no effect on their character's combat effectiveness. The only thing that matters for an attack roll is the dice result. The attack roll is the character making the attack and not the player. If a bland/bad description did happen some pointed questions could add a lot to the game.. "Do you attack its underbelly? Do you stab at the joints?" etc. If a person is really struggling or a high roll happened, some dms make up a description for the player. "You rolled really high on damage. You slice off it's head and send it rolling across the ground."

The situation was a player doesn't know how to flirt with an npc. The dm should help out. Especially, if the character has high charisma and social skills. I am still betting you'd never make an attack miss because someone described their sword swing 'wrong'. "A sword isn't effective against plates. Disregard your roll, you fail the attack. If you said you aimed for the joints, I would have allowed an attack roll." A different dm could have said a sword can't slash through plate armor and offered alternatives, because the roll is what is important. It's dependent on the character's skill. There are lots of ways to do social interactions, but the character's charisma and skill should have some effect. Anyone should be able to play a charming bard. The dm should help out if the player is struggling to play their character.

[MaxWilson]

How the player describes the attack makes no difference on the outcome of the fight. A boring 'I attack' is just as effective as describing the attack any other way.

It's pretty bad at keeping you alive though, compared to "I Disarm the Githyanki Supreme Commander, grab his weapon, kick him in the throat a few times if I've got attacks left after the Disarm to potentially stun him with, ignore his weak opportunity attack, and move 60' away to get out of the Sickening Radiance area."


I do think a person saying "I attack" is boring, but it has no effect on their character's combat effectiveness.

It is to laugh.


The situation was a player doesn't know how to flirt with an npc. The dm should help out. Especially, if the character has high charisma and social skills. I am still betting you'd never make an attack miss because someone described their sword swing 'wrong'. "A sword isn't effective against plates. Disregard your roll, you fail the attack. If you said you aimed for the joints, I would have allowed an attack roll." A different dm could have said a sword can't slash through plate armor and offered alternatives, because the roll is what is important. It's dependent on the character's skill. There are lots of ways to do social interactions, but the character's charisma and skill should have some effect. Anyone should be able to play a charming bard. The dm should help out if the player is struggling to play their character.

No, the situation was the player doesn't know how to seduce barmaids who aren't open to flirtation. If you want to seduce Happily Married Hazel, you might have to go significantly deeper than a few pickup lines. It might involve social engineering, false evidence of a betrayal to make her really mad, a sympathetic ear, and good technique (i.e. high Deception and Persuasion rolls) as you implement your plan, and even then the aftermath is going to be ugly.

[quinron]

For everyone saying that social interaction and exploration are more dependent on the DM's skill than on any kinds of rules or features, I'd argue that 5e is bad (arguably uniquely bad, at least among D&D editiond) at offering easy-to-use advice to DMs on how to run anything other than a combat encounter.

[Sorinth]

Eh? If that's your view of Fighters, I can see how that would color your view of seduction.

In my experience it's significantly more complex than that, if you don't want to wind up dead.



I didn't say "what pickup strategy to use." I agree with you that you can just lump those pickup strategies under a DC 10 Performance check or whatever and call it a day. But unless you objectify barmaids down to a giggling stereotype, which I don't, you can't expect all barmaids to respond favorably to pickup attempts from random strangers. A working woman with a husband and two kids at home has no reason to allow herself to be seduced by a glib pickup line no matter how high your Persuasion bonus is.

By all means have your want the barmaid with her husband and two kids be not seducable(? is that a word), all I'm saying is whether the player RPs the seduction attempt or simply says they try to seduce the barmaid, the end result should be the same, either auto-failure or a DC that doesn't change based on how good RP job the player did.

[Elbeyon]

It's pretty bad at keeping you alive though, compared to "I Disarm the Githyanki Supreme Commander, grab his weapon, kick him in the throat if I've got an attack left to potentially stun him with, and Shadow Step 60' away to get out of the Sickening Radiance area."

It is to laugh.A missed attack roll means that you did not disarm the commander, grab his weapon, and teleport away with it despite you clearly stating your intentions. That quote was mostly just declaring actions. There was very little fluff. What you said is hardly different than saying "I seduce them." How did you disarm the commander? I may never know. Your attack should have auto failed by your own standards.

"I disarm the commander."
"I seduce the person."

[Sorinth]

For everyone saying that social interaction and exploration are more dependent on the DM's skill than on any kinds of rules or features, I'd argue that 5e is bad (arguably uniquely bad, at least among D&D editiond) at offering easy-to-use advice to DMs on how to run anything other than a combat encounter.

I'll be honest I kind of thought the same, then I went back into some of the books and I was like 'Yikes'. There so much stuff in those old editions that are cringeworthy when re-reading.

[MaxWilson]

A missed attack roll means that you did not disarm the commander, grab his weapon, and teleport away with it despite you clearly stating your intentions. That quote was mostly just declaring actions.

That's an example of how "I attack/attack/attack" is less effective and more likely to get you killed than thoughtful play taking advantage of more than one type of action.

So what's your beef then with the DM asking the player to declare some specific actions? I won't repeat my previous responses on this topic. I'll just ask, what's your objection with asking for specific actions in a social context?


How did you disarm the commander?

DMG Disarm. It's an opposed roll: attack roll vs. Athletics.

[Reach Weapon]

Part of the aim of this is to give more players a role in the social pillar of the game. If the social pillar is just the domain of high charisma classes you are excluding a lot of people. If you can say "I try to persuade them by citing religious texts of Lathander" or "I watch their reactions to see if my attempts to persuade them are working at all or to see if I can try another approach" then you can work more and different stats and skills into the social pillar. Sure, you might still be making a Cha (persuasion) check but your knowledge and insight has let you make an easier one.

It's worth emphasizing that it's a group endeavor. I've had plenty of real world experience where massively dump-stat'ed party members laid all the groundwork with INT (and the occasional WIS) checks, and then the high CHA members swept in to make everyone feel better about it.

[Segev]

And what happens if in real life I'm terrible at seducing someone and have no idea what women want or what strategy is effective? Your challenging the player not the character and that is problematic.

Ideally, a well-designed social system will give you knobs and levers to pull. You can investigate to find out what she's in to, or to find a girl in to things that you are good at. You can figure out if she likes expensive gifts or flowery poetry or men who show some vulnerability, and then you can decide what gift (maybe a meal to start with) or what the topic of a poem might be (or just to discuss a local poet) or what emotional feels you want to share. Knowing the options you have is what separates a game from real life, a lot of the time.

[MaxWilson]

Ideally, a well-designed social system will give you knobs and levers to pull. You can investigate to find out what she's in to, or to find a girl in to things that you are good at. You can figure out if she likes expensive gifts or flowery poetry or men who show some vulnerability, and then you can decide what gift (maybe a meal to start with) or what the topic of a poem might be (or just to discuss a local poet) or what emotional feels you want to share. Knowing the options you have is what separates a game from real life, a lot of the time.

Yep. And if you're not sure what options you have, try asking the DM. Answering your questions (which potentially includes telling you what you have to do to find answers) is his job.


Player A: How do I seduce this barmaid? My character sheet says I have Expertise in Persuasion, but I have no clue how to go about applying it in real life.

DM: Well, it depends. If you talk to her you'll find out she's happily married, but you're aware of some ways potentially around that if you're determined to do so anyway--it usually involves deception and using hurtful emotions to break up the marriage at least temporarily. Depending on what you're looking for, magical deceptions such as Alter Self or Modify Memory may get you what you're looking for without needing to break up the marriage first. Can you say more about what you're trying to accomplish?

[Elbeyon]

So what's your beef then with the DM asking the player to declare some specific actions? I won't repeat my previous responses on this topic. I'll just ask, what's your objection with asking for specifics?Nothing at all! I think it's good if the dm asks the player some questions to help them out. If the player is struggling, they should be able to lean a bit more heavily on their character's skills without penalty. The dm could help the player seduce the person. "You rolled really well. This married person can't be seduced, but they are flattered by your words. Pick-up lines won't work, but you can connect over their interest in horses." The character's skill should be relevant. A charming bard does not simply throw out pick-up lines unless those will work. "I roll to seduce" is not always a pick-up line and should prompt some discussion.

[Kane0]

Yep. And if you're not sure what options you have, try asking the DM. Answering your questions (which includes telling you what you have to do to find answers) is his job.

That's just passing the buck, to an extent. The DM might not have those answers, not the same way they can consult the statblock or monster building rules or spell description.

[MaxWilson]

That's just passing the buck, to an extent. The DM might not have those answers, not the same way they can consult the statblock or monster building rules or spell description.

Dunning Kruger applies here--even if the DM really doesn't have those answers, they're somewhat likely to think they have answers, in which case they really do have answers because they own the entire world. NPCs in fantasyland think the way the DM thinks they do.

It's certainly possible that the DM needs some time to think, or even doesn't think the answer to important enough to devote thought to (DMs have a lot on their plate), and it's fair game to say so. That's no different from any other minor detail in the game which a player chooses to drill down on.


Player A: I ask the Duke where he went to school.

DM: It doesn't matter. He tells you, or he doesn't, but it's not important and it won't affect the game. Let's move on.
OR


Player A: What style is the Queen's dress?

DM: I'm not good at describing dresses, and it doesn't matter. Sorry. It won't affect the game. Let's move on.

OR


Player A: How can I seduce this barmaid?

DM: I'm not good at describing seduction or gaslighting techniques, and I don't really want seduction in my game so it doesn't matter. Sorry. It won't affect the game. Let's move on.

[Elbeyon]

Yep. And if you're not sure what options you have, try asking the DM. Answering your questions (which potentially includes telling you what you have to do to find answers) is his job.


Player A: How do I seduce this barmaid? My character sheet says I have Expertise in Persuasion, but I have no clue how to go about applying it in real life.

DM: Well, it depends. If you talk to her you'll find out she's happily married, but you're aware of some ways potentially around that if you're determined to do so anyway--it usually involves deception and using hurtful motions to breaking up the marriage at least temporarily. Depending on what you're looking for, magical deceptions such as Alter Self or Modify Memory may get you what you're looking for without needing to break up the marriage first. Can you say more about what you're trying to accomplish?That's actually good dming from my view. It's not for everyone, but the example player is asking for help with their skills.

[MaxWilson]

That's actually good dming from my view. It's not for everyone, but the example player is asking for help with their skills.

Yeah, in general I find that players are pretty good at declaring actions, but need to be specifically trained to ask the DM questions.

I try to make it a habit to say, "Is there anything you want to do or ask me?" (emphasis added). Over time and with examples given it eventually sinks in.


Nothing at all! I think it's good if the dm asks the player some questions to help them out. If the player is struggling, they should be able to lean a bit more heavily on their character's skills without penalty. The dm could help the player seduce the person. "You rolled really well. This married person can't be seduced, but they are flattered by your words. Pick-up lines won't work, but you can connect over their interest in horses." The character's skill should be relevant. A charming bard does not simply throw out pick-up lines unless those will work. "I roll to seduce" is not always a pick-up line and should prompt some discussion.

Yeah, I agree that even a happily-married woman can still be easily befriended by a charming PC. I would absolutely allow that via a simple action declaration and Persuasion roll, and then I'd say, "You discover you have a common interest in horses and after some time spent bonding over that topic, she smiles and says she'd love for her family to get to meet you some day." Simple as that.

[dmhelp]

So this goes to show that a series of dc 10 performance checks is mostly background story/fluff. A dm may not force you to make a roll when you have a brilliant bit of roleplaying, it is just further story and if you did a great job everyone has a great time which is what the game is about.

Usually a dm isn’t going to kill you for failing a series of dc 10 survival checks. Maybe you eventually get into the planned scenario with a couple levels of exhaustion or an extra random encounter.

Roleplaying is cool. A little bit of Oregon trail is cool. But bringing a 4 hp wagon commander into combat is dead weight. Which unless you are playing a niche comedy character that always needs to be saved in combat and mostly falls unconscious then the combat pillar is what you want. You usually only need one trail leader and talking can be role played.

I’m fine if only certain classes can be the trail leader. You can hire/background story out help. 5e didn’t do that though since every single character can take perception, investigate, and thieves’ tools.

Unless you are doing something tomb of horrors esque the social and explore are just rp fluff determining how many resources remain for when combat might kill you. So either make a strong character with good tactics or make a foil.

Addendum:
And if you only have one trail leader and you end up needing more than one… well that just makes for a more interesting and funny story!

[MoiMagnus]

(2) the player ceding some control of the character to the DM or other players in order to make those effective decisions for you. (Do you really want to do that?)

Isn't that exactly what peoples want when they want to roll for success without suggesting any idea? That the GM comes with an explanation for why it worked (which idea the character had, or a special circumstances that made it possible, etc), while trusting them to not willingly go against whatever characterisation that was established for the PC, and to not go into more details in the explanation than what the player care about.

[As another way to proceed, I've also seen "roll for Intuition to have the GM give you an effective method, then roll for Persuasion to to apply the method"]

While not in the context of social encounters, that's how we deal with scientific experimentation. In our current campaign, we had to deal (on a surprisingly regular basis) with "I roll for arcana/nature/... to study this new substances we just found and see what we can do with it" (usually one check per 6 hours of study), which assume that the GM comes, in case of success, with an investigation method that yield an interesting result (and in case of failure, with an investigation method that didn't work).
[We also had similar checks when the players had an idea of what they wanted to do with the substance, idea that might not have been considered by the GM as a possibility, which is the main advantage of giving good ideas for those scientific experimentations]

[Cheesegear]

Do you take a similar line on people who suck at combat tactics or rules details?

Combat is easy. I never have to tell my players what to do because the objectives are always so simple; Make the other guy(s) fall down before you and/or your friends do. Sometimes, there might be a secondary objective (e.g; Prevent Commoners from being stampeded). But the primary objective is the same - kill or incapacitate the other guy(s) at some stage. Here are a list of Actions we can take, their specific ranges and their specific modifiers to our rolls. Simply by the fact that we've played D&D more than zero times, we have met this hostile before (maybe in this campaign, maybe in another. Doesn't matter. The DM can't really prevent player experience), we know that its AC is roughly [X], and it has [Y] hit points. Knowing what we know about the creature, and knowing what we know about our own characters' abilities...Let's optimise our group tactics.

Roleplaying, is not so easy:

The creature has a starting attitude. Talk to it. What are the rules on talking? ...There aren't any. The DM is making this **** up.
Attempt to change the creature's attitude. Talk to it. How do I know what the creature wants? ...No idea. The DM is making this **** up.
After talking to the creature for a while, the DM may allow an Insight roll. Finally! A dice roll. The DM can't **** with us on this. (Except that they explicitly can*)
The players learn an ideal, bond or character flaw in the creature. Okay. That's concrete* knowledge.
Now what? Uhh...We talk to it some more. What do we say? What are the rules on this? No idea. The DM is making this **** up.
Alright...Now the DM is calling for a Charisma check...Well we failed that, and this has all been a waste of time.

You can't 'game' a roleplaying encounter (yes you can**), because the DM holds most - if not all - of the cards, and in a social encounter that means that the DM always has the advantage. Players don't like this. Players find this hard to navigate.

*An Insight check that fails by 10 or more allows the DM to straight up lie to the player(s). And not even a lie by omission, either. 'You don't find any traps.' doesn't actually mean that there are no traps. But when you say something like 'You get the feeling that the King abuses the Prince.', players will run with that, and the punishment for that kind of failure isn't just 2d6 piercing damage.

**Remember kids, you also can never turn a hostile creature, friendly, without the aid of magic. Always use magic. Roleplaying is dumb. Use magic. Magic is love. Magic is life.

Exploration, similarly, is not so easy; Do whatever you want. It's all fictional.

What do you mean you don't know what you're supposed to do? You're not supposed to do anything!


Or do you hand-hold a little bit, help them figure out their modifiers, remind them of abilities that would be useful, etc.?

Roleplaying and exploration are not the same as combat at all and I reject the comparison. What your character can do - in combat, or during six-second intervals - is very clearly defined on your character sheet. Weapon has [range]. You use [attack modifier] and [deal damage]. As a Bonus Action, you can . It's all very clear what you can do. It might not be clear what certain keywords [I]mean.

'As a Bonus Action I can give myself Advantage on an attack roll.' What's a Bonus Action? What's Advantage? A DM can - and should - tell you those things.
'When is a good idea to use this ability?' A DM is under no obligation to answer that question. But, you can be rest assured that your other players will.

What your character can - realistically - do (explore) or say (roleplay), in general, is not on your character sheet. It's in your head...What's in your players' imagination determines what their characters can say or do. This is where 'You can't teach someone how to roleplay' comes from. You can't teach imagination and creativity. You - the player - have it, or you don't. That's the thread.

Q. How do I convince a player that the Actor Feat is worth taking? How do I convince a player that playing a Changeling is ****ing broken, and that's why I've banned it?
A. Well, it's very clearly worth taking. Just read what it does.

But that's not really the thread, is it?
The thread, really is; How do I convince a player that they want it? ...You can't.

1. You have to either change what you - the DM - put in your campaign (e.g; More social challenges!) to force your players to play certain roles so that you railroad them into doing what you want to do. You have to convince them that roleplaying is worth doing, because you're railroading them into a roleplaying campaign. A great example of doing this pseudo-organically is to have them come up against a hostile that they can't possibly hope to fight and win. Such as in Rime of the Frostmaiden, where a Level 4 party can very easily come across an Ancient White Dragon, or a Frost Giant-and-Mammoth. You read correctly. At Level 4. These encounters are not actually designed to be fought. But a stupid party that doesn't know better can get themselves killed very quickly.
Not just 'If we do this, one or two of us might die, maybe. Do we take that risk?' But more, 'If we do this, it's a guaranteed TPK.'
Rime has a few of these situations and its one of the many reasons I like it so much. Roleplay your way out of this, or you die - no save.

2. You have to convince your players that uuummm akshually, they don't even like combat. Because they don't even like combat, they must like one of the other two pillars, instead.

[Deathtongue]

That "Magician" sounds like a Schrodinger's Wizard, not an actual 5E wizard.

An actual 5E wizard is going to have the exact same issues as anyone else trying to seduce people. There is no "seduce anyone" spell. (No, Dominate Person clearly doesn't work for this due to duration issues.) If you want to seduce e.g. a non- heating girl who already is engaged to be married, you're going to have to reach beyond "I seduce her" and give me an actual approach that you intend to try.There's a reason why that trope is called the Magician Superhero Problem and not the 5E D&D Wizard Problem.

Going back, no, most 5E D&D spellcasters don't get anything on their sheet that will help them directly with the task of 'I seduce the barmaid' roll. An 8 CHA wizard with nothing in their corner like Guidance or Skill Empowerment isn't better off than a Barbarian. However, the scales tip massively in favor of the spellcaster once you say that you're allowing pure roleplaying modifiers to influence the roll. With little risk or even opportunity cost, the 8 CHA wizard has a bunch of options in their favor that the 8 CHA Barbarian will just not have. And we're not even talking about cynical manipulations to the die roll like Guidance or spells that directly cut to the chase like Charm Person. They can Disguise Self themselves to make them look hot. They can use Prestidigitation to give themselves a sexy-smelling perfume. They can use Find Familiar to eavesdrop on their conversation with their friend or read their diary. They can use Detect Thoughts to find their favorite song. The wizard might still fail, but they're still better off than their 8 CHA Barbarian buddy who either don't have these options, have to pay a premium for them, or have to get explicit permission from the DM for their plan to work.

5E D&D Martials are better off than they were in 3E D&D (though not as well as they were in 4E D&D) in combat because the game provides a very viable non-magical path to victory that doesn't require playing Twenty Questions or Mother May I with the DM -- you roll the dice, you kill the monsters, no further questions asked. And the game stacks the deck in such a way that you will usually succeed in this endeavor. This simple system keeps martials relevant at all levels of play, even (especially even) the martials who aren't able to do much in narrative or gameplay beyond move, activate certain class abilities, and Extra Attack / Shove / Grapple / Interact with Object. Martials never have to worry about having to do something outside the defaulting rules like Sundering or Disarming, let along coming up with elaborate Scooby Doo plans, in order to generically succeed at the combat phase.

If 5E D&D, like Exalted 1.0/2.0E did, stacked things in such a way that you had to add some spice to the d20 roll in order to generically succeed then spellcasters would resume tipping the scales in their favor.

[Segev]

Why is it that Disguise Self is assumed to be any better at making you "look hot" than grooming yourself? Why is Prestidigitation giving you a "sexy-smelling perfume" more effective than buying a "sexy-smelling perfume?"

In the "seduce a barmaid" encounter, the only real thing Charm Person does that a Barbarian cannot duplicate is start us off with her considering the wizard "a friendly acquaintance" rather than "a stranger to whom I am indifferent." The Advantage can be obtained by simply having a wingman take the Help action, or by the aforementioned perfume or the like.

Heck, even the "friendly acquaintance" angle can be achieved similarly well by some generous tipping or other show of reason to be interested in the Barbarian in a positive manner.

Sure, the mage has options the barbarian doesn't, but they're not really expanding his capabilities beyond some convenience.


I also strenuously disagree with Cheesegear's lengthy post characterizing running a game where anything but combat is an option as "railroading noncombat" and with how he frames social mechanics as talking until he DM calls for a roll while disparaging the mechanical tools 5e offers. The tools are there. Acting like they are meaningless and it's all pointless talking until the DM permits a roll that renders thealking meaningless is like saying the DM ignores all the choices the players make about positioning and what actions to take and just calls for attack rolls and damage rolls and that nothing else matters in combat.

[MoiMagnus]

Why is it that Disguise Self is assumed to be any better at making you "look hot" than grooming yourself? Why is Prestidigitation giving you a "sexy-smelling perfume" more effective than buying a "sexy-smelling perfume?"

(1) Implied proficiency. Characters are assumed to be good at what is given to them by the rules. A wizard that has learn to cast Fireball is assumed to be competent enough to correctly target with their Fireball and not make some error when evaluating the distance (and casting it too far or too near). Similarly, a wizard that has learn to cast Disguise Self is assumed to be competent enough to change its appearance to something either hot or good looking.
=> The average GM is much more likely to ask for a skill check when the 8 CHA Barbarian want to groom themself and buy perfume, than when the 8 CHA Wizard does the same with a spell. Simply because nothing in the Barbarian class implies that they might be good at it.
[Some GMs might even assume that the spells are "clever enough" to make you look hot just by wanting to be hot, rather than having to describe exactly what you change to your appearance.]

(2) Realism, or at least what your GM think is realistic. A mundane character probably doesn't have access to modern plastic surgery to make them look few decades younger. Depending on your GM, you might be quite limited on the ways you can actually improve your look by mundane means. Magic usually bypass those restrictions.

(3) Cost, both in time and material resource. "Just before entering the building" is not the good time to change your look and starting back your makeup from scratch (assuming you even can buy the necessary resources in this city). It's perfectly the time to use 6s to cast Disguise Self (and with literally no material cost).

[Segev]

It sounds like the argument for wizards being too good is that DMs forget that skills exist and apply, then. Of course the wizard can make himself look however he wants with disguise self, but knowing what is "hot" is a very different thing. Knowing where to place a fireball doesn't mean you also automatically know that it's a bad idea to use it when your party is in the AoE, nor are able to judge well when using it while the party is in the AoE is acceptable as a tactical risk/ploy.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It sounds like the argument for wizards being too good is that DMs forget that skills exist and apply, then. Of course the wizard can make himself look however he wants with disguise self, but knowing what is "hot" is a very different thing. Knowing where to place a fireball doesn't mean you also automatically know that it's a bad idea to use it when your party is in the AoE, nor are able to judge well when using it while the party is in the AoE is acceptable as a tactical risk/ploy.

Exactly. The CHA 8 wizard using disguise self isn't doing any better (by default) than the CHA 8 barbarian with mundane clothes. Actually, the barbarian probably carries himself more naturally.

CHA and looks are not directly related--you can be as hot as a summer day in Arizona and not be able to talk to people and have no presence.

[MaxWilson]

(2) Realism, or at least what your GM think is realistic. A mundane character probably doesn't have access to modern plastic surgery to make them look few decades younger. Depending on your GM, you might be quite limited on the ways you can actually improve your look by mundane means. Magic usually bypass those restrictions.

Counterclaim: realism also implies that the exceptionally-healthy Str 18 Con 16 barbarian probably doesn't need any help from plastic surgery to "look hot." Cha 8 may make him bad at personal hygiene and courtesy, but there's nothing wrong with his body.


It sounds like the argument for wizards being too good is that DMs forget that skills exist and apply, then. Of course the wizard can make himself look however he wants with disguise self, but knowing what is "hot" is a very different thing. Knowing where to place a fireball doesn't mean you also automatically know that it's a bad idea to use it when your party is in the AoE, nor are able to judge well when using it while the party is in the AoE is acceptable as a tactical risk/ploy.

Apropos, I'm often amazed by how many players neglect to use their movement, an ability which literally every PC has, to get out of Fireball Formation, even if they just took a Fireball to the whole party! If you ask them they will say something about not wanting to face big scary monsters alone, but man, even a big scary monster doesn't typically do 100+ damage in a single action the way an AoE does. Dispersing the party is often the best survival tactic.

[quinron]

Counterclaim: realism also implies that the exceptionally-healthy Str 18 Con 16 barbarian probably doesn't need any help from plastic surgery to "look hot." Cha 8 may make him bad at personal hygiene and courtesy, but there's nothing wrong with his body.

Side-counterclaim: none of these abilities has any bearing on whether you know the local beauty standards or their universality. It's entirely possible that the muscular physique implied by Str 18 Con 16 is considered common and unattractive by nobility while being very appealing for laborers; it's also possible that some laborers' tastes align more with the aristocrats' because they have romantic tendencies and those are the body types portrayed in popular stories.

[MaxWilson]

Side-counterclaim: none of these abilities has any bearing on whether you know the local beauty standards or their universality. It's entirely possible that the muscular physique implied by Str 18 Con 16 is considered common and unattractive by nobility while being very appealing for laborers; it's also possible that some laborers' tastes align more with the aristocrats' because they have romantic tendencies and those are the body types portrayed in popular stories.

Counter-counterclaim: biology drives psychology and culture. It's possible to have a fictional society where ill health is considered attractive, but signs of good health as a signal of attractiveness are far more realistic (even among animals!) even though the specific indicators may vary from culture to culture. Maybe one culture prefers sculpted physiques, another prefers glossy hair, another prefers a thick layer of subcutaneous fat over muscle, but they are all signs of good health to one degree or another.

[ZRN]

Roleplaying, is not so easy:

The creature has a starting attitude. Talk to it. What are the rules on talking? ...There aren't any. The DM is making this **** up.
Attempt to change the creature's attitude. Talk to it. How do I know what the creature wants? ...No idea. The DM is making this **** up.
After talking to the creature for a while, the DM may allow an Insight roll. Finally! A dice roll. The DM can't **** with us on this. (Except that they explicitly can*)
The players learn an ideal, bond or character flaw in the creature. Okay. That's concrete* knowledge.
Now what? Uhh...We talk to it some more. What do we say? What are the rules on this? No idea. The DM is making this **** up.
Alright...Now the DM is calling for a Charisma check...Well we failed that, and this has all been a waste of time.


...


Roleplaying and exploration are not the same as combat at all and I reject the comparison. What your character can do - in combat, or during six-second intervals - is very clearly defined on your character sheet. Weapon has [range]. You use [attack modifier] and [deal damage]. As a Bonus Action, you can . It's all very clear what you can do. It might not be clear what certain keywords [I]mean.



These two examples are really interesting to me because it seems like such a clear example of how differently people process things. "Combat is easy - you just have to memorize this long list of discrete rules interactions and apply them in a logical fashion! Social interactions are impossible - you have to have a conversation and try to convince people of stuff, and there aren't even any hard-and-fast rules to memorize!"

If you go talk to the kids who did well in English and Drama class but hated math, I'll bet you'll get a very different evaluation of the relative difficulty of D&D combat and D&D social encounters!


What your character can - realistically - do (explore) or say (roleplay), in general, is not on your character sheet. It's in your head...What's in your players' imagination determines what their characters can say or do. This is where 'You can't teach someone how to roleplay' comes from. You can't teach imagination and creativity. You - the player - have it, or you don't.

Respectfully disagree! Except for extreme cases of people with e.g. autism or learning disabilities, most D&D players are capable of walking through the woods or holding a conversation, and certainly of pretending to do those things. The mechanics are dead simple (skill checks) - you just need a DM you trust who's willing and capable to work with you to make it a fun experience.

[Doug Lampert]

Counter-counterclaim: biology drives psychology and culture. It's possible to have a fictional society where ill health is considered attractive, but signs of good health as a signal of attractiveness are far more realistic (even among animals!) even though the specific indicators may vary from culture to culture. Maybe one culture prefers sculpted physiques, another prefers glossy hair, another prefers a thick layer of subcutaneous fat over muscle, but they are all signs of good health to one degree or another.

Agreed: Beautiful in effectively all cultures is an appearance typical of "Healthy and Rich" in that culture.

If food is scarce, then obesity is attractive. If fattening food is common and cheap, then we get anorexic models and barbie dolls.

If the poor work outdoors, then tans are unattractive. If most people work indoors and getting a good tan takes lots of leisure time, then tanning salons exist because a good tan is beautiful, BUT, note that a "GOOD" tan is an even tan, someone who actually works outdoors will have unsightly tan lines and won't be considered to have a beautiful tan.

But Str 18 and Con 16 will be potentially attractive in effectively all cultures. Those stats clearly hit on healthy, and strength that far off toward one end of the curve isn't from working a job, it's from athletics or something. (Remember that the Olympics was originally amateurs only because they basically wanted to restrict it to gentlemen athletes, but young gentlemen and the idle rich were in fact expected to engage in such athletics in their extensive free time.)

[PhantomSoul]

Agreed: Beautiful in effectively all cultures is an appearance typical of "Healthy and Rich" in that culture.

If food is scarce, then obesity is attractive. If fattening food is common and cheap, then we get anorexic models and barbie dolls.

If the poor work outdoors, then tans are unattractive. If most people work indoors and getting a good tan takes lots of leisure time, then tanning salons exist because a good tan is beautiful, BUT, note that a "GOOD" tan is an even tan, someone who actually works outdoors will have unsightly tan lines and won't be considered to have a beautiful tan.

But Str 18 and Con 16 will be potentially attractive in effectively all cultures. Those stats clearly hit on healthy, and strength that far off toward one end of the curve isn't from working a job, it's from athletics or something. (Remember that the Olympics was originally amateurs only because they basically wanted to restrict it to gentlemen athletes, but young gentlemen and the idle rich were in fact expected to engage in such athletics in their extensive free time.)

Agreed (whereas the absolute top end of strength/constitution may be seen as impressive but not attractive [thinking of peak bodybuilders in competition mode not in non-competition mode])

[sithlordnergal]

It's pretty bad at keeping you alive though, compared to "I Disarm the Githyanki Supreme Commander, grab his weapon, kick him in the throat a few times if I've got attacks left after the Disarm to potentially stun him with, ignore his weak opportunity attack, and move 60' away to get out of the Sickening Radiance area."


So what? You're allowing a Stunning Strike and Disarm for a Fighter rather then following RAW?

Or are you DMing for a Monk with the Disarm variant rule? In which case "I take the Disarm action, attack, and stunning strike if I hit" works perfectly for RAW

[MaxWilson]

So what? You're allowing a Stunning Strike and Disarm for a Fighter rather then following RAW?

That example wasn't about a Fighter. True that there wouldn't be much change if it were (Disarm + move away would still be a good idea), but instead of kicking him in the throat it would probably be shooting him in the face.


Or are you DMing for a Monk with the Disarm variant rule? In which case "I take the Disarm action, attack, and stunning strike if I hit" works perfectly for RAW

Are you aware that you're quoting from a discussion on whether "I attack/attack/attack" is inferior to using more sophisticated tactics? Yes, DMG Disarm (it's a form of attack, not a full action) + stun + move away is legal, which is the whole point. It's legal and also better than attack/attack/attack.

Here's the context:


I'm no more going to let you dice your way to nontrivial victories out of combat than in combat. Sure, you can get the Easy girls, but the Deadly x2 and Deadly x6-equivalent girls take more than the equivalent of "I Rage and Recklessly attack the closest monster twice."


Have you ever told a player they missed an attack because their rp wasn't good enough? "You described a goblin worthy attack. You need to rp better if you want to hit this dragon. Disregard the 27 attack roll, you fail your attack roll." I'm betting you've never done that.


Have I ever killed a PC in combat because their RP wasn't wise enough? What about players who attack when they should be fleeing, or flee when they should be novaing? Yep, I've killed them. You feel bad for them, true, but a game where poor decisions still lead to guaranteed success is not a game I'm willing to run.

Using simplistic tactics in deadly fights can get you killed, and there's no way around that: players who are bad at that part of the game will be less effective than players who are good at that part of the game. That's life.

[Elbeyon]

That example wasn't about a Fighter. True that there wouldn't be much change if it were (Disarm + move away would still be a good idea), but instead of kicking him in the throat it would probably be shooting him in the face.



Are you aware that you're quoting from a discussion on whether "I attack/attack/attack" is inferior to using more sophisticated tactics? Yes, DMG Disarm (it's a form of attack, not a full action) + stun + move away is legal, which is the whole point. It's legal and also better than attack/attack/attack.

Here's the context:

Using simplistic tactics in deadly fights can get you killed, and there's no way around that: players who are bad at that part of the game will be less effective than players who are good at that part of the game. That's life.That's not what the discussion was about. It was about how you would disregard any persuasion check that used the words "I seduce" instead of a more elaborate description of seduction. How the intent itself didn't matter, more so the words.

[MoiMagnus]

Using simplistic tactics in deadly fights can get you killed, and there's no way around that: players who are bad at that part of the game will be less effective than players who are good at that part of the game. That's life.

There is a way around it: scale back the difficulty level. That's literally the solution chosen by most videogames and cooperative boardgames.

Unless you're using deadly as in "what the DMG classifies as deadly" (which ignore so much circumstances that ot barely grade the actual difficulty of an encounter), there is no objective rating for fight, and from a GM point of view, deadly should just mean "relatively difficult compared to the usual playstyle of this team of players".

The world created by the GM and the overhaul difficulty of tasks are arbitrary. The only consistency that might exists is the relative difficulty of one task compared to another.

[Pex]

Agreed (whereas the absolute top end of strength/constitution may be seen as impressive but not attractive [thinking of peak bodybuilders in competition mode not in non-competition mode])

Depends on who is doing the looking. :smallwink::smallyuk:


That's not what the discussion was about. It was about how you would disregard any persuasion check that used the words "I seduce" instead of a more elaborate description of seduction. How the intent itself didn't matter, more so the words.

It's a question of tolerance level of minimal roleplaying experience. For some people "I seduce . . ." is enough. It's using a word that has a distinct definition of intent that's not using a game mechanic term. For other people that's not enough. It's too simple of expression and want more detail. The DM who wants more isn't wrong to encourage and help the player be more expressive, but for whatever reason maybe the player can't or won't, probably because he feels too self-conscious. Then it becomes DM choice whether he's willing to continue to play with such a player. I won't say the DM is wrong if he no longer wants that player in his game, but I wouldn't make that decision. If the DM accepts the player, then the PC is in character Don Juan if he has 18 CH and expertise in Persuasion regardless of player (lack of) skill.

[MaxWilson]

That's not what the discussion was about. It was about how you would disregard any persuasion check that used the words "I seduce" instead of a more elaborate description of seduction. How the intent itself didn't matter, more so the words.

And yet somehow there is no such post of me saying I would disregard that persuasion check. There is one saying that I would drill down seeking more detail on player intentions and strategy--you acknowledged yourself that this is good DMing so I really thought we were done with that argument.


There is a way around it: scale back the difficulty level. That's literally the solution chosen by most videogames and cooperative boardgames.

Unless you're using deadly as in "what the DMG classifies as deadly" (which ignore so much circumstances that ot barely grade the actual difficulty of an encounter), there is no objective rating for fight, and from a GM point of view, deadly should just mean "relatively difficult compared to the usual playstyle of this team of players".

The world created by the GM and the overhaul difficulty of tasks are arbitrary. The only consistency that might exists is the relative difficulty of one task compared to another.

True, you can do that. But I don't enjoy running games where the players are definitely going to win--there's no dramatic tension and I feel like "why are we even rolling dice when the outcome isn't in doubt?" So I prefer to build adventures with fights the players can potentially lose, which means (quelle surprise) that players who are good at tactics are more likely to win.

[PhantomSoul]

Depends on who is doing the looking. :smallwink::smallyuk:



I did say "may" to account for some anticipated variation! :)

[Elbeyon]

And yet somehow there is no such post of me saying I would disregard that persuasion check. There is one saying that I would drill down seeking more detail on player intentions and strategy--you acknowledged yourself that this is good DMing so I really thought we were done with that argument.

True, you can do that. But I don't enjoy running games where the players are definitely going to win--there's no dramatic tension and I feel like "why are we even rolling dice when the outcome isn't in doubt?" So I prefer to build adventures with fights the players can potentially lose, which means (quelle surprise) that players who are good at tactics are more likely to win.

Cheese is harsh, but so so right.

If you want bad roleplayers to be horible roleplayers, make them tell you what they say in a social encounter while staying in character, and then make them do a persuasion check so you can reinforce how bad they are at social interactions.

Player: My bard walks up to the barmaid and tries to seduce her.
DM: OK, what do you say to her?
Player: If I knew what to say to her I wouldn't be playing D&D.

DM: "Okay then, what do you mean by 'seduce'? What's the idea behind your actions? What thoughts are you trying to plant in her head, and what's your strategy for doing so?"

If you can't tell me anything except "I try to seduce her" you're essentially telling me that you will only succeed with girls who are basically already looking for someone to seduce them. I might call that a 35% chance that she's gettable (in a certain kind of universe modeled on 21st century America), and in that 35% case I'll ask you for a DC 10 Performance or Persuasion check (your choice) to acquire a floozy on a short-term basis. (This could get interesting if the floozy is also someone important in her own right.) As long as you're willing to hit on multiple women per night, you can acquire as many floozies as you want, purely on the strength of your Performance rolls. (Higher DCs for higher status, more in-demand floozies because they're pickier.)

But if you give me a convincing approach grounded in RP, you can potentially build relationships and emotions with girls outside that 35%. You don't even necessarily need to be a good actor, but you do need to roleplay--practice empathy and get into someone else's head.

I'm no more going to let you dice your way to nontrivial victories out of combat than in combat. Sure, you can get the Easy girls, but the Deadly x2 and Deadly x6-equivalent girls take more than the equivalent of "I Rage and Recklessly attack the closest monster twice."

Some girls just can't be seduced with standard techniques.Bold. You said you would fail the roll while disregarding the intent and only use the fluff. This is in the context of a player saying they do not know how to seduce a character. A good dm would prompt them for more detail and help them out.

[meandean]

It sounds like the argument for wizards being too good is that DMs forget that skills exist and apply, then... Knowing where to place a fireball doesn't mean you also automatically know that it's a bad idea to use it when your party is in the AoE, nor are able to judge well when using it while the party is in the AoE is acceptable as a tactical risk/ploy.Are you suggesting that should be a skill check??

"I cast fireball."

"Yup, that's the right spell to cast here... roll to see if your character is smart enough to know that."

(I mean, I get the logic by which that makes sense, but that would be a very fundamental and wide-ranging change to how the game works.)

[MaxWilson]

Bold. You said you would fail the roll while disregarding the intent and only use the fluff. This is in the context of a player saying they do not know how to seduce a character. A good dm would prompt them for more detail and help them out.

Did you notice all the bits you didn't bold, about prompting for more detail, and giving a 35% chance of potential success even if they don't provide more detail than "I seduce"?

Surely you don't expect words to be read only one sentence at a time? Context adds meaning.

[Elbeyon]

Did you notice all the bits you didn't bold, about prompting for more detail, and giving a 35% chance of success even if they don't provide more detail?

Surely you don't expect words to be read only one sentence at a time? Context adds meaning.The prompting is good dming, but disregarding intent with a struggling player with the appropriate skills is bad dming. There should never be a 35% chance because if the details are important they should be worked out, and the dm should do that. The dm should get enough info before continuing instead of failing a person struggling to play the character.

[MaxWilson]

The prompting is good dming, but disregarding intent with a struggling player with the appropriate skills is bad dming. There should never be a 35% chance because if the details are important they should be worked out, and the dm should do that. The dm should get enough info before continuing instead of failing a person struggling to play the character.

What does "There should never be a 35% chance because if the details are important they should be worked out, and the dm should do that" mean for a player who doesn't want to give any more details? Are you saying the DM should hard-frame you into a scene where you're suddenly framing the barmaid's husband for adultery, without the player even giving any input? I doubt you really mean that but in any case I don't believe the DM should do that.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The prompting is good dming, but disregarding intent with a struggling player with the appropriate skills is bad dming. There should never be a 35% chance because if the details are important they should be worked out, and the dm should do that. The dm should get enough info before continuing instead of failing a person struggling to play the character.

I'd say yes and no.

Yes, because the DM should always prompt if unsure as to intent and method. No, because the DM shouldn't make meaningful things up for the character if the player refuses to. To me, approach is meaningful. Because I can't set a DC without it. Or even decide exactly what ability score and proficiency (if any) will apply. I don't need much, but "I roll to seduce" doesn't cut it 90% of the time. But "I play up the charm and flirt like a madman" is enough to go on, as is "I try to play on the "nice guy" angle".

[Elbeyon]

What does "There should never be a 35% chance because if the details are important they should be worked out, and the dm should do that" for a player who doesn't want to give any more details? Are you saying the DM should hard-frame you into a scene where you're suddenly framing the barmaid's husband for adultery, without the player even giving any input? I doubt you really mean that but in any case I don't believe the DM should do that.Communication is the key. The example has a few steps missing. If the seduction is more complex, the player should be prompted for more information. No, the dm should not do anything without input. That was the problem originally. The dm assuming the input of the character when player input is needed. Maybe, the character would do such a thing in a seduction attempt. The dm never found out before they failed the player. The dm and player need to work together to figure out what seduce means. Maybe, it is just pick-up lines. Maybe, it is a little mini-plot. The player has declared their intent and is struggling to move forward. It's time for the dm to lay some foundation.

[MaxWilson]

Communication is the key. The example has a few steps missing. If the seduction is more complex, the player should be prompted for more information. No, the dm should not do anything without input.

So what's your beef then?


Player: "My bard walks up to the barmaid and tries to seduce her."

DM: "OK, what do you say to her?"

Player: "If I knew what to say to her I wouldn't be playing D&D."

DM: "Okay then, what do you mean by 'seduce'? What's the idea behind your actions? What thoughts are you trying to plant in her head, and what's your strategy for doing so?"

What's wrong with asking for more information?

[PhantomSoul]

Communication is the key. The example has a few steps missing. If the seduction is more complex, the player should be prompted for more information. No, the dm should not do anything without input. That was the problem originally. The dm assuming the input of the character when player input is needed. Maybe, the character would do such a thing in a seduction attempt. The dm never found out before they failed the player. The dm and player need to work together to figure out what seduce means. Maybe, it is just pick-up lines. Maybe, it is a little mini-plot. The player has declared their intent and is struggling to move forward. It's time for the dm to lay some foundation.

If the player just says, "I dunno, I seduce them" and doesn't want to go further with prompting, then either you auto-pass (seems unlikely and unfitting as a baseline), auto-fail (which would surely be getting complaints too), or you set a DC and just see what happens (for which a DC giving a 35% chance of seems entirely generous).

[Reach Weapon]

Backing up a step or two: What would it mean to have the 3 pillars balanced?

Should the number of encounters in an adventuring week work out roughly evenly between the 3? Would it be better if it was XP awarded, deaths attributed to, character skills based around... ?

Is it just that the other 2 should be less neglected?

[Kane0]

Backing up a step or two: What would it mean to have the 3 pillars balanced?

Should the number of encounters in an adventuring week work out roughly evenly between the 3? Would it be better if it was XP awarded, deaths attributed to, character skills based around... ?

Is it just that the other 2 should be less neglected?

IMO the former would lead to the latter.

Which may mean more rules and mechanics for things that aren't combat. We have some now, but the gaps make it difficult to have an RP encounter that isnt wildly DM-dependant

[Pex]

The exploration pillar could have different meaning or intent depending on the individual. It could mean learning about the world - the cultures, the people. It could mean mapping out dungeons, knowing where important people and places are in a city. It could mean being a survivalist of tracking rations and ammunition and worrying about resources while traveling. It's possible for players to like all of them. It's also possible they may not enjoy one or some, but they still want to explore because they like another meaning of it.

In my opinion it is rather common for players not to like playing survivalist. They have no problem with verisimilitude of saying they stock up on food in town for a journey and get more arrows, but they don't want to bookkeep or be an accountant. They don't want to play "spongeworthy" with their gear. They don't care about encumbrance until it's obvious when it matters. They don't want a lot of realism in their fantasy game. They still want to explore. Their excitement is in discovering new places, new people, new lore. Other people enjoy this very much. The micromanagement is what's fun for them to make the game real and engaging. It's good for the game to provide rules and guidance for both styles, but neither should be regarded as superior play. You are not a better player for preferring one over the other.

[Cheesegear]

Backing up a step or two: What would it mean to have the 3 pillars balanced?

It would mean that a campaign features roughly equal amounts of saying things important to the plot/story, doing things important to the plot/story, and combat.


Would it be better if it was XP awarded, deaths attributed to, character skills based around... ?

Yes.
However, there isn't really a guideline for how much XP to award for roleplaying - that's why it's given out in the form of Inspiration.
There isn't a guideline for how much XP to give for surviving three days in the wilderness. Should the amount of XP go down if the players cheat use magic to survive? (e.g; Create Food and Water, Leomund's Tiny Hunt, etc.)

I also like to use 'remove from play' mechanics. Your character isn't dead. But because of the choices you made and certain things you said, your character can no longer continue the adventure. You're an NPC now, give me your sheet - roll a new character. A good example is if an Evil character does Evil things, and gets arrested. I don't want to run a jailbreak session, and the other players and/or characters have no interest in breaking out an Evil character doing Evil things who was Lawfully arrested. So since we're not doing a jailbreak, your character is 'dead', for all intents and purposes until I bring them back to the story which I'm unlikely to... You chose this.


Is it just that the other 2 should be less neglected?

Yes. But the question is how to make that happen. Roleplaying and exploration is done by the players, not by the DM. The DM only presents the scenario. It's up to the players in how they choose to speak or act during the scenario...And unfortunately (for the DM), players can choose not to speak or act. Even worse, drawing steel is almost always on the table as an option...And, as I've pointed out several times by now, drawing steel is usually a known quantity unless the DM is cheating creating encounters where creatures are worth more than the sum of their CR (e.g; By using terrain or area effects that hamstring the players' ability to deal or mitigate damage).

Have you ever seen what happens when a party is confronted by three closed doors? Compared to 'You walk into a 30 ft. square room, there are six aggressive Goblins, roll Initiative.'

Every roleplaying scenario, is more like the three closed doors, than the six Goblins.

Schrodinger's Doors:
Some parties, all things being equal, will just pick a door. At this point, they're all the same, and the only way that changes is by opening one of them.
Some parties, would prefer not to open a door until they know what's on the other side...The result is that the party simply wont open any doors, and do nothing - paralysed by indecision.

Every NPC, to the players, is Schrodinger's NPC:
In order to determine if the NPC is friendly, indifferent or hostile...I have to talk to them.
But how do I know what to say, if I don't know whether they're friendly, indifferent or hostile?

Some players, have read How to Make Friends and Influence People. Some players, have had successful job interviews and applied for bank loans and rental agreements. Some players have negotiated their way out of a speeding ticket. Some players 'hide themselves' for the first three dates... Nearly everyone at some point, has roleplayed, whether they know it or not. However, not everyone realises that they've been roleplaying their entire lives. Roleplaying, is just lying. Pretending to be not-yourself:

From convincing your teacher that a dog ate your homework, all the way up to professional undercover law enforcement and espionage. Playing D&D falls somewhere in there.

Roleplaying is a real skill. You can't 'neglect' it, because some players just can't do it. That's why a lot of players end up just playing themselves-but-with-magic. That's why some players make self-inserts, rather than characters.

[ff7hero]

Counter-counterclaim: biology drives psychology and culture. It's possible to have a fictional society where ill health is considered attractive, but signs of good health as a signal of attractiveness are far more realistic (even among animals!) even though the specific indicators may vary from culture to culture. Maybe one culture prefers sculpted physiques, another prefers glossy hair, another prefers a thick layer of subcutaneous fat over muscle, but they are all signs of good health to one degree or another.

Counter-counter-counterclaim: modern "beauty" standards for both men and women are pretty unhealthy. A healthy person doesn't have a sculpted physique, at least not to the level you see on bodybuilders or actors (when they're working).

Another one off the top of my head, there were nonfictional societies that found bound feet attractive. I don't imagine anyone thought being barely able to walk was healthy.

[MaxWilson]

Counter-counter-counterclaim: modern "beauty" standards for both men and women are pretty unhealthy. A healthy person doesn't have a sculpted physique, at least not to the level you see on bodybuilders or actors (when they're working).

Another one off the top of my head, there were nonfictional societies that found bound feet attractive. I don't imagine anyone thought being barely able to walk was healthy.

Counter-counter-counter-counterclaim: just because signals can be spoofed (hair products and skin to look like you are more healthy than you really are) doesn't mean that people who actually possess good health won't be perceived as genuinely attractive. Remember that the original tangent here was whether the wizard with Disguise Self really does have a better chance than the (extremely healthy and fit) Barbarian at getting people to think he's "hot". Not that being "hot" is the only way to make friends and influence people, so this tangent doesn't even really matter much... :)

RE: bound feet, I don't claim to understand that one but I'm not claiming that physical health is the only source of attractiveness.

[Reach Weapon]

Compared to 'You walk into a 30 ft. square room, there are six aggressive Goblins, roll Initiative.'

There's a lot of interesting things in your comments, and I'm mulling them over, but I found this baffling enough that I had to ask: How does a whole party walk into a room with six aggressive (or any adjective other than, say, dead, deaf, detained...) goblins, before initiative was rolled?

[Cheesegear]

How does a whole party walk into a room with six aggressive (or any adjective other than, say, dead, deaf, detained...) goblins, before initiative was rolled?

My point is that there's an unopened door. What do you do?

- Does the DM run level-appropriate challenges?
- How many challenges have we already had today and is the DM playing fair?
- How many hit points, ability resources and spell slots does the party have left?
- Is the door trapped and/or locked?
- Can we find out what's on the other side of the door without opening it, and what - if any - resources does that cost us?
- Should we Stealth and/or Perception check?
- Do we Ready Actions whilst the front-guy opens the door?
- ...Do we just knock and announce ourselves? See what happens?
etc.

Compared to 'The door is already open. You look in the room and see six Goblins, they attack. What do you do?'

In the former scenario, the players have a decision to make, where the DM has given them no information. It's up to the players to figure out what to do, based on nothing but their best guesses. The DM, already knowing what's in the next room - because they wrote it - holds all the cards, and the players have nothing. That's why it's Schrodinger's Door. It could be a Fireball trap. It could be a group of low-level Easy-Medium challenge. It could be a single creature Hard challenge. A steamroller could come out of nowhere and kill everyone instantly - that's a real thing, by the way. You wont know until you open the door.

That's essentially how bad role-players see every single NPC - a closed door with unknowns on the inside.

In the latter scenario - combat - the players are given all the information they need:
- Goblins,
- Six of them,
- Hostile-and-attacking.

Now, technically, there are "countably infinite" things a party could do in this scenario. But I'm going to guess that close to 100% of parties will choose to defend themselves and roll Initiative. The DM has given the players enough information that they can confidently act without a very long decision tree. Yes, countably infinite things you can do. But again, most parties when confronted with a combat will typically do one of three things; Talk, Run or Fight:
- Since Roleplaying is hard; Talking is out.
- Running is, well...Lame; Running is out.
- Combat is fun and Goblins are easy. Let's roll these fools!

The objective is also very clear - it's a combat, after all. Make the Goblins drop to 0 before you do. How? It's very clearly written on your character sheet, how.

Again, I'll cite Rime of the Frostmaiden. A Level 4 party cannot fight an Ancient White Dragon. They can Talk, or Run/Hide. Thankfully, if the party is stupid enough to fight, an NPC comes out of nowhere, casts Fog Cloud and says 'No you dumb ****s. Run!' ...At least one party member will die anyway, because it's an Ancient White Dragon, and y'know, gets turns.

[Havlock]

Have you ever seen what happens when a party is confronted by three closed doors?

Thats a great analogy. I'll say, as a player, my goto response in a situation like this is to zone out while the scout type in the party plays the "search and detect traps and listen" mini-game... until I get bored of watching them fail to get any new information whatsoever... which is when I open a random door (preferably using mage hand from a safe distance).

Same thing in a typical social encounter. I watch the Warlock or Paladin or whomever play the "I try to get resources or information from this NPC" mini-game... until I get bore and do anything, no matter how dumb, to move the story ahead.

There's a reason everyone takes turns in combat. The other pillars don't have that structure and they're a lot less condusive to team play. So if we're all sitting around watching one person struggle to move the story forward don't be surprised when we try to find short cuts to get back to the actual game we all came to play.

[MaxWilson]

Again, I'll cite Rime of the Frostmaiden. A Level 4 party cannot fight an Ancient White Dragon. They can Talk, or Run/Hide. Thankfully, if the party is stupid enough to fight, an NPC comes out of nowhere, casts Fog Cloud and says 'No you dumb ****s. Run!' ...At least one party member will die anyway, because it's an Ancient White Dragon, and y'know, gets turns.

But Fog Cloud is useless because Ancient White Dragons have blindsight. That encounter is poorly-written in so many ways. (PCs that can kill a creature made out of iron in mere seconds take hours to melt some ice, really?)


Same thing in a typical social encounter. I watch the Warlock or Paladin or whomever play the "I try to get resources or information from this NPC" mini-game... until I get bore and do anything, no matter how dumb, to move the story ahead.

There's a reason everyone takes turns in combat. The other pillars don't have that structure and they're a lot less condusive to team play. So if we're all sitting around watching one person struggle to move the story forward don't be surprised when we try to find short cuts to get back to the actual game we all came to play.

Players who do this give DMs amazing stories to tell. As a human being running a game I love it. As a human being watching other human beings see imaginary human beings they care about risking horrible deaths, I cringe. :)

"And that is how Bugsplatter accidentally sold his home planet to the neogi..."

P.S. FWIW I also try not to make getting information out of someone a tedious mini-game. DMs are too prone to keep information close to the chest and it isn't necessary, and leads to pacing problems (player boredom). If an NPC has information to give on a topic the PCs want to know, it shouldn't take longer than a real-time minute to get the NPC to start talking about it.

[Segev]

The "get information/search for traps/listen at doors mitigate" shouldn't be pointless the way Have lock seems to disdain it as. It sounds like the DM is failing to give information th the players are despwtely playing the game to get. Either he has lied tohe OOC enough th they do not trust that the fact there is nothing to find is true, or he is not giving them info because he is One True Saying it with insufficient cues as to what the True Way is.

There should never be "three closed doors" that no amount of investigation short of opening one will let you know something of what they are. Blind guessing is no more a real choice than having one closed door.

[MaxWilson]

The "get information/search for traps/listen at doors mitigate" shouldn't be pointless the way Have lock seems to disdain it as. It sounds like the DM is failing to give information th the players are despwtely playing the game to get. Either he has lied tohe OOC enough th they do not trust that the fact there is nothing to find is true, or he is not giving them info because he is One True Saying it with insufficient cues as to what the True Way is.

There should never be "three closed doors" that no amount of investigation short of opening one will let you know something of what they are. Blind guessing is no more a real choice than having one closed door.

I agree, but I also want to point out that I originally thought the "three closed doors" was being given as an example of fun and entertaining play compared to the boring goblins because honestly that's how I've usually seen it play out.

At least with the three closed doors you have a chance to prep caltrops, activate Sacred Weapon or spell buffs, pre-cast long-prep spells like Snare or Magic Circle (or Guards and Wards or Symbol at high levels), ready actions if you want to, create illusions or disguises, summon your familiar on the other side of the door to get info, etc.

Could all this prep be wasted? Sure, yes, but with three doors in a dungeon there's approximately 3x greater chance of the prep being useful as when there's only one door you're looking at. And frankly, having a secure-ish hardpoint, like Magic Circle (with caltrops and partial cover set up), is normally a good idea if the dungeon is at all deadly. It gives you somewhere safe-ish to fall back and regroup if you run into heavy opposition.

P.S. Oh yeah, another good prep is to cast Arcane Lock on one of the doors before you open it. If there's bad monsters in there, you can wait until some of them run out to get you and then close the door so you can defeat the enemy in detail. If there's no bad monsters in there, you can go in there and leave the door open while the party Rogue (or whoever is best at disengaging) opens the other doors, and therefore repeat the tactic 3x for the price of one Arcane Lock.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yes, countably infinite things you can do. But again, most parties when confronted with a combat will typically do one of three things; Talk, Run or Fight:
- Since Roleplaying is hard; Talking is out.
- Running is, well...Lame; Running is out.
- Combat is fun and Goblins are easy. Let's roll these fools!



Personal experience: the only players I've played with who found roleplaying (by which you mean talking[1]) to be hard were grognards[2], so steeped in mechanics that they couldn't think unless they had a button on their character sheet labeled "solve this particular problem". Mainly because those grognards had been led and acculturated by DMs who saw spells (mainly, but mostly spells) as the only way to do anything. Talk your way through things? Not unless you could Charm Person them. Etc. Or those chasing the challenge treadmill, where unless you do the perfect thing, you all fail (only slightly exaggerated)

The new players? Most of them were roleplaying instantly. Some of the best roleplay I ever had was from a group who knew exactly zero mechanics other than "I'll tell you which die to roll, but higher is better". They leaned on backgrounds, they thought like characters, etc. Yes, including kids very much on the autism spectrum. Roleplay is easy, as soon as you dump the whole "I have to do the optimized thing" mentality that takes you out of character. It's one reason I really like playing with new folks--they haven't been taught bad habits and don't think in mechanics and "buttons to push". Instead they generally just...play the character and see where it goes.

[1] there is tons of roleplay in combat. Roleplay is making choices as the character would. Not just talking. /rant
[2] this is not to say that all grognards have issues with less-structured social situations in games. Just that the people who did were also all heavily mechanics steeped, usually from multiple previous editions.

[Havlock]

Sometimes three closed doors in a hallway is just three doors that happen to be closed. I don't disparage the DM for not providing info in that situation, I disparage the player who thinks being paranoid and bogging the game down with pointless checks is a fun way to play. Even better when that Rogue scout is normally RP'd as an easy going couldn't care less about life type.

[Segev]

I agree, but I also want to point out that I originally thought the "three closed doors" was being given as an example of fun and entertaining play compared to the boring goblins because honestly that's how I've usually seen it play out.

At least with the three closed doors you have a chance to prep caltrops, activate Sacred Weapon or spell buffs, pre-cast long-prep spells like Snare or Magic Circle (or Guards and Wards or Symbol at high levels), ready actions if you want to, create illusions or disguises, summon your familiar on the other side of the door to get info, etc.

Could all this prep be wasted? Sure, yes, but with three doors in a dungeon there's approximately 3x greater chance of the prep being useful as when there's only one door you're looking at. And frankly, having a secure-ish hardpoint, like Magic Circle (with caltrops and partial cover set up), is normally a good idea if the dungeon is at all deadly. It gives you somewhere safe-ish to fall back and regroup if you run into heavy opposition.

It was not your expectation I was refuting. It was the one that seemed to suggest that doi anything with the three doors other than randomly opening them was a waste of time because the "minigames" are fruitless and boring.

Likewise, a DM who has players fixated on getting info out of an NPC should either have the mitigate of getting that info be useful - even if it just means the NPC points them at an NPC that can be more useful - or should just tell the players that this innkeeper is just window dressing and doesn't have anything related to whathe players are trying to get out of him.

You can do a lot to improvise an NPC having useful info! That doesn't mess every NPC should, but if Havlock's expressed disdain for the "get info out of the NPC minigame" is indicative, his DMs are not running that minigame in a useful and fun fashion. Thus is a failing of the DM's (assuming it is not Havlock being impatient with other players and disrupting a minigame that was bearing fruit) for not providing useful and proper cues to the players about what their options are, I suspect.


Sometimes three closed doors in a hallway is just three doors that happen to be closed. I don't disparage the DM for not providing info in that situation, I disparage the player who thinks being paranoid and bogging the game down with pointless checks is a fun way to play. Even better when that Rogue scout is normally RP'd as an easy going couldn't care less about life type.

The DM should be able to give the players who spend time and effort investigating those doors enough info to conclude there is nothing special about them. And maybe me idea what is behind them, if it actually matters which they open in what order for any reason at all.

[OldTrees1]

Backing up a step or two: What would it mean to have the 3 pillars balanced?

Should the number of encounters in an adventuring week work out roughly evenly between the 3? Would it be better if it was XP awarded, deaths attributed to, character skills based around... ?

Is it just that the other 2 should be less neglected?

A couple days ago someone made a disparaging post about the rewards these other pillars offer. However there is a relevant aspect of exploration that has rewards in sandbox campaigns. Exploration is rewarded by content and content itself is a mixed bag of answering/asking question, and providing choices for player agency.

How does the exploration pillar work:
You combine movement, logistics, navigation, knowledge, and perception skills/abilities with player perception, knowledge, curiosity, and creativity. (Let's skill the argument about some player skills being involved. That can be tuned to the group and the GM can help use character skills instead/to assist some extent)

Now if the party passes by the base of a waterfall, the party might decide to look inside. This is a rather low level exploration (just have to deal with a sheet of fast moving high volume of water). There might be a cave on the other side of the waterfall.

For this example encounter anyone in the party could do it, but some will have features that make it much easier. Others will not have any features beyond a level 0 commoner.

However what if the party wants to check the top of the waterfall instead? They could navigate around (geography, perception, survival might help) or they could climb the cliff. Or a familiar could fly up.

What if they investigate the waterfall and discover evidence of a floating city? Now the party will figure out if they have the movement features necessary to reach the floating city.

Underground the party might find explore ledges, find secret doors, swim through flooded tunnels (sometimes magma), or fly up natural chimneys to find offshoots.

Now I have been focusing on the contribution movement features contribute to exploration. Knowledge and awareness features (like the familiar) can have a big impact too. It would be neat for an animal lore focused ranger to be aware of the movement patterns of nearby animals and thus be able to detect if the animals are avoiding something.


I think letting the PCs have more levers they can use, and expanding the scope as they level, would help increase the ability for them to engage with these exploration encounters and increases the ceiling on what kind of exploration encounters I can include.

[Havlock]

The DM should be able to give the players who spend time and effort investigating those doors enough info to conclude there is nothing special about them. And maybe me idea what is behind them, if it actually matters which they open in what order for any reason at all.

Thing is, this puts the DM in a tricky spot. They either cut it short and (edit: figuratively speaking I mean, via strong hints, not literally) say "look, there's nothing to see here. Just pick one." Or they let it play out until one of the players move things forward.

If the DM goes with option 1, not only are they limiting player agency, but they're begging for the next door to be meta-gamed.

Whats that you said DM, you said something other than "nothing to see here" ... well ok, time to spell up boys!

[MaxWilson]

It was not your expectation I was refuting. It was the one that seemed to suggest that doi anything with the three doors other than randomly opening them was a waste of time because the "minigames" are fruitless and boring.

Likewise, a DM who has players fixated on getting info out of an NPC should either have the mitigate of getting that info be useful - even if it just means the NPC points them at an NPC that can be more useful - or should just tell the players that this innkeeper is just window dressing and doesn't have anything related to whathe players are trying to get out of him.

...

The DM should be able to give the players who spend time and effort investigating those doors enough info to conclude there is nothing special about them. And maybe me idea what is behind them, if it actually matters which they open in what order for any reason at all.

Yep, I agree. "It is a sin to waste the players' time," and that includes the DM as a player of the game too.


Thing is, this puts the DM in a tricky spot. They either cut it short and say "look, there's nothing to see here. Just pick one." Or they let it play out until one of the players move things forward.

If the DM goes with option 1, not only are they limiting player agency, but they're begging for the next door to be meta-gamed.

Sounds like a pacing problem.

If it's genuinely impossible for some reason (e.g. low level, lack of special abilities) to gain any info without opening the door, the DM should just say, "Despite your best efforts and serious time invested, you gain no further info. Declare any prep actions and then open a door, or don't." Don't spend precious real-world minutes on doing nothing.

Managing the interface between fantasy-world PCs and real-world people is the DM's job, and if people are getting bored he needs to adjust the time ratios between them and skip to the interesting bits. If that means summarizing information, do it.


They either cut it short and (edit: figuratively speaking I mean, via strong hints, not literally) say "look, there's nothing to see here. Just pick one."

No, they should LITERALLY say that, not just hint around the bush. "You discover nothing interesting" / "There's no further info you can gain here". This is a good DMing technique.

It won't prevent players from arguing anyway about which door to pick, but at least the DM can just sit there with an evil smile on his face while they do. :)

[Cheesegear]

The "get information/search for traps/listen at doors mitigate" shouldn't be pointless the way Have lock seems to disdain it as.

That's actually my point:

Sometimes, a door is just a door into an empty room.
Sometimes, it isn't.

Do you do a bunch of pointless checks and meta-gaming, only to discern that yes, the door is a door and waste everyone's time? Or do you just hurry up and do something - like open one - knowing that there might be something on the other side that can harm or even kill you that you don't know about?

There's a reason I keep referring to this as Schrodinger's Door.


There should never be "three closed doors" that no amount of investigation...

You've missed the point.
The point is that you haven't done any investigation yet. More importantly, asking whether doing any investigation at all, is even worth it, knowing that you could find nothing and/or just fail to find something. Or, since you don't know what you're looking for, just bumbling around for no reason making ambiguous dice rolls that the DM hasn't even asked for. 'I roll Perception, I roll Insight, I roll Investigation...' For what? Why? What are you doing!?

Apply that approach to talking to an NPC:
- I don't know what to say,
- I could say the wrong thing, and actually make things worse,
- There's a possibility that the NPC isn't worth talking to,
- Finally, I could just fail the dice roll at the end since I've used CHA as a dump stat, and am proficient in Intimidation, not Deception...Which might be a bad idea...
Better not risk it. Someone else should just do the talking. I don't want to do this.

[Havlock]

Of course the DM can and should keep things moving. And my DMs are usually good about this. My issue is more with the lack of a smooth mechanic to support keeping things moving. Maybe if there was more emphasis (and some randomness) around passive skill checks it would help. In that door example, if the DM had guidance saying make a roll and check this table that’s graded by your players perception skill to see how much info to give... well the exploration pillar could focus on actual player choices and RP. Same thing with socials.. if insight and persuasion were dealt with passively the DM can drive the story without railroading the players. Its not a complete thought I know and there's probably plenty of reasons it wouldn't work, but just a thought.

[Cheesegear]

Exploration is rewarded by content...

No it isn't. See 'A Door is a Door', a wall is a wall, a rock is a rock.

If exploration is rewarded with content, then the DM was always planning for you to find it. If the DM was planning for you to find it, they should have just pointed you there...Generally just by describing something more than not-at-all, alone is more than enough for the players to check it out.


What if they investigate the waterfall and discover evidence of a floating city?

What if they investigate the waterfall and find nothing at all? The DM has wasted everyone's time by describing the waterfall and making the players think that it's important. If there is something behind the waterfall that the DM wants the party to find, that's why they described the waterfall. In order to signpost to the players that 'Hey, this waterfall is important, check it out.'

I've done this before. If you describe a landmark, and the players go to it, and find nothing, they get mad.
Which means that if I describe a landmark, my players know that there's something there.
Which means that the only reason I describe a landmark, is because I'm telling my players where to go if they get stuck. Or at the very least 'I've written a thing about here...' and if the DM's written something, the players know that that's where the (good) content is.

'Exploration' - in the travel sense - is a weird pillar that only really works if the DM is making maps up as they go along. I've rarely done this myself, and I don't know any DMs who do this, either. Maps and landmarks are usually pretty specific.

[OldTrees1]

No it isn't. See 'A Door is a Door', a wall is a wall, a rock is a rock.

If exploration is rewarded with content, then the DM was always planning for you to find it. If the DM was planning for you to find it, they should have just pointed you there...Generally just by describing it alone is more than enough for the players to check it out.


Have you never played a game optional hidden content? Metroidvanias do this a lot. The GM wants you to find it but is planning for if you do or do not find it.

Exploration is the pillar where players explore and might find things they consider worth the exploration. This is generally explicit added content OR emergent content. That content is the reward for the exploration and sometimes finding a secret is more enjoyable than being handed the same content outright.




What if they investigate the waterfall and find nothing at all? The DM has wasted everyone's time by describing the waterfall and making the players think that it's important. If there is something behind the waterfall that the DM wants the party to find, that's why they described the waterfall. In order to signpost to the players that 'Hey, this waterfall is important, check it out.'

I've done this before. If you describe a landmark, and the players go to it, and find nothing, they get mad.
Which means that if I describe a landmark, my players know that there's something there.
Which means that the only reason I describe a landmark, is because I'm telling my players where to go if they get stuck.

'Exploration' - in the travel sense - is a weird pillar that only really works if the DM is making maps up as they go along. I've rarely done this myself, and I don't know any DMs who do this, either. Maps and landmarks are usually pretty specific.

Layer 1:
What if some waterfalls have interesting optional content and others don't? Then the players that want to find that interesting optional content might explore some percentage of waterfalls depends on how curious they are. The same holds for secret rooms in a dungeon. The rogue that wants to find secrets might investigate some percentage of the walls for secret doors.

For a concrete example Dun the Dungeon Tour Guide used their knowledge of dungeons as a filter to reduce the number of walls they felt worth searching. Then they searched all of those walls. What Dun found made it worthwhile for me (the player).


Layer 2:
However you are very concerned about wasted time. So it is probably wise to address that time is not always wasted (that is a bit subjective) and there are GM techniques that can reduce the amount of wasted time. For example Dun the Dungeon Tour Guide was designed to search twice as fast and search reliably. Dun also had an established operating procedure in addition to the filtering mentioned above. The GM was able to condense and quickly resolve most investigations by asking me for 0-2 investigation rolls for an entire area (room, hallway). Yes 0 rolls was an option (usually to signal there was nothing OR Dun automatically found something). For an area with doubt 1 roll was usually enough for Dun to reach a conclusion. Sometimes Dun even dropped it down to 0 rolls by saying they "Take a 1 for a total of X" whenever I felt like a through investigation was not worth the group's time.

Sorry that I am defaulting to Dun so much here, that was my character that was the most interested in this pillar.

Layer 3:
Yes one solution is the GM could only mention things that have content behind them. That is another viable gamestyle. It does mean some of the Exploration Pillar is removed*. However it is good for groups to customize their play experience around what aspects of which pillars they want to engage with. (The deep intrigue aspect of the social pillar is not mandatory for every campaign)

* Specifically the searching aspects (knowledge, awareness, etc) are removed, however the movement and logistics aspects remain. If the mention of a lava tunnel means there is definitely something on the other side, then the party can start to figure out how they will get to the other side. This is similar to puzzles.

[Pex]

No it isn't. See 'A Door is a Door', a wall is a wall, a rock is a rock.

If exploration is rewarded with content, then the DM was always planning for you to find it. If the DM was planning for you to find it, they should have just pointed you there...Generally just by describing something more than not-at-all, alone is more than enough for the players to check it out.



What if they investigate the waterfall and find nothing at all? The DM has wasted everyone's time by describing the waterfall and making the players think that it's important. If there is something behind the waterfall that the DM wants the party to find, that's why they described the waterfall. In order to signpost to the players that 'Hey, this waterfall is important, check it out.'

I've done this before. If you describe a landmark, and the players go to it, and find nothing, they get mad.
Which means that if I describe a landmark, my players know that there's something there.
Which means that the only reason I describe a landmark, is because I'm telling my players where to go if they get stuck. Or at the very least 'I've written a thing about here...' and if the DM's written something, the players know that that's where the (good) content is.

'Exploration' - in the travel sense - is a weird pillar that only really works if the DM is making maps up as they go along. I've rarely done this myself, and I don't know any DMs who do this, either. Maps and landmarks are usually pretty specific.

I was with you until this point. Sometimes a landmark is just a landmark. It's the DM bringing flavor to the world. No adventuring plot happening there isn't a bad thing, though it is prudent on the DM to convey that as quickly as possible if the players do explore it. They go to the waterfall. No cave behind it. No floating city. No nothing; it's just a water fall. A player says he looks around it. The DM doesn't ask for a die roll. He just tells the player outright there's nothing particularly interesting or noticeable other than it's just a waterfall. The players move on, no big deal.

Some players, likely those more into the roleplay, might take the opportunity to have silly fun. If the waterfall isn't too pounding they might stand in it and get a bath. Others might want to swim in the waterhole below it. Depending how silly they may even skinny dip. Someone might ask if the water is fresh and drinkable. That might require a Nature check, or the DM can just tell him. If so the PC takes a drink and/or fills up a canteen. Suddenly this normal waterfall that was just a waterfall that didn't mean anything becomes an encounter for the players to have fun as a means to relieve stress and tension accumulated by the seriousness of the adventure. No combat. No risk. No searching. Just play. This could inspire those who don't roleplay to open up precisely because there's no risk. I wouldn't be surprised if it's this person who is the first to say he goes into the water naked.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I was with you until this point. Sometimes a landmark is just a landmark. It's the DM bringing flavor to the world. No adventuring plot happening there isn't a bad thing, though it is prudent on the DM to convey that as quickly as possible if the players do explore it. They go to the waterfall. No cave behind it. No floating city. No nothing; it's just a water fall. A player says he looks around it. The DM doesn't ask for a die roll. He just tells the player outright there's nothing particularly interesting or noticeable other than it's just a waterfall. The players move on, no big deal.

Some players, likely those more into the roleplay, might take the opportunity to have silly fun. If the waterfall isn't too pounding they might stand in it and get a bath. Others might want to swim in the waterhole below it. Depending how silly they may even skinny dip. Someone might ask if the water is fresh and drinkable. That might require a Nature check, or the DM can just tell him. If so the PC takes a drink and/or fills up a canteen. Suddenly this normal waterfall that was just a waterfall that didn't mean anything becomes an encounter for the players to have fun as a means to relieve stress and tension accumulated by the seriousness of the adventure. No combat. No risk. No searching. Just play. This could inspire those who don't roleplay to open up precisely because there's no risk. I wouldn't be surprised if it's this person who is the first to say he goes into the water naked.

Yeah. The Chekov's Gun approach (everything is functional, everything that gets mentioned is part of the adventure path) leads to very flat worlds and is, in effect, railroading. It enforces linearity and only doing what the DM had planned.

I find it works really well to just sit back and portray characters moving through a real world. Not everything is part of the adventure. Not everything is a challenge to overcome. Some of the best sessions have grown out of random things thrown in for color. Or players deciding that they wanted to do something. Like put on a concert and end it with a re-enactment of King Kong (with the grab the girl and climb the tower, with polymorph helping the paladin play the part of king kong). Or spend a session helping a random goblin[1] tribe gather food, playing with the kids, etc. Or deciding based on some flavor combat vocalizations that they could, instead of fighting, broker peace and gain allies.

[1] setting fact--there is no racial alignment. Goblins, just like everyone, are free to choose.

[Cheesegear]

Have you never played a game optional hidden content? Metroidvanias do this a lot.

Just me? In my house, alone? Playing until past midnight? Sure.


The GM wants you to find it but is planning for if you do or do not find it.

No. The DM is not planning for you to not find it, because otherwise they've wasted their prep time on something that the players wont even see.

Second, in someone else's house, with four, five, six players; I value our time, I value our host's time, and whoever they happen to live with. I'm not wasting our time on content that amounts to nothing. No-one should. Which means that exploration should result in something. What should that something be? ...Well why don't I write this down real quick...Okay fine. Now that I've written it down, we're not going to not do it.


Exploration is the pillar where players explore and might find things they consider worth the exploration.

Again. You use the word 'might', whereas I use the word 'will'. There's no point at all, ever, in not finding something. The trick is convincing my players that they found a thing spontaneously.
(See; Doors being doors, and conversations with NPCs that go nowhere because players don't know what they're doing...Which results in a pointless exercise which results in players doing it less often.)


That content is the reward for the exploration and sometimes finding a secret is more enjoyable than being handed the same content outright.

If the DM does their job right, the players shouldn't know the difference.
...Unless the players have been with the DM a long time and know the DM and know how they run games.

Me: 'Two twin barmaids invite you up to their room...'
Player: '[Cheesegear] actively hates ERP. This is a trap.'


What if some waterfalls have interesting optional content and others don't?

Yes. Classic Skinner Box Theory. When you intermittedly add reward, the mice players smash that investigate button like there's no tomorrow. That's why loot boxes and gambling work the way that they do.

Unfortunately, neither I nor my players have infinite real-world time to investigate content that doesn't matter, nor do they have unlimited in-game resources to allow them to search several square miles of forest for something that might be there that I might not choose to give them for no reason.


For a concrete example Dun the Dungeon Tour Guide used their knowledge of dungeons as a filter to reduce the number of walls they felt worth searching. Then they searched all of those walls. What Dun found made it worthwhile for me (the player).

...And then did you look at the DM's notes to see if the secret door was always there?


For example Dun the Dungeon Tour Guide was designed to search twice as fast and search reliably [...] The GM was able to condense and quickly resolve most investigations by asking me for 0-2 investigation rolls for an entire area (room, hallway).

...That just sounds like two players making an Investigation roll, each. Or better yet, a group Investigation roll. I ask my players to do that all the time. :smallconfused:

What I am interested in is the part where you were able to search twice as fast, and what effect that had on the game.

[meandean]

The DM is not planning for you to not find it, because otherwise they've wasted their prep time on something that the players wont even see.Umm, yeah. That's the job. DMs are expected to, and do, prepare innumerable things that never end up coming into play, be it because of player decisions or other butterfly effects. Is that really not your experience??

[Cheesegear]

Umm, yeah. That's the job. DMs are expected to, and do, prepare innumerable things that never end up coming into play, be it because of player decisions or other butterfly effects. Is that really not your experience??

Nope.
If I want my players to go east, and they head west...The thing I wanted them to see, is now west.
If a player rolls really high on an Investigation roll? ...You know what? You do find a secret door...It leads back to the other corridor you skipped. How convenient.
...You know what? ...It's actually in my interest if the players don't fail this next roll...For some reason, the DC is now lowered. How did that happen!?

As I said, whether you find it because the DM planned it, or because the DM makes it up as they go along...A good DM doesn't really let players know the difference.

It's like a villain monologuing. No-one would do that. But you have to to drop exposition.
It's like dumb mooks leaving messages around. No. Read it. Memorise it. Then burn the orders. But if my players have 'accidentally' been dealing lethal damage to every hostile they've come across? How can I railroad them towards the information that I need them to have, in order to progress the story, without them knowing that I have railroaded them?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Nope.
If I want my players to go east, and they head west...The thing I wanted them to see, is now west.
If a player rolls really high on an Investigation roll? ...You know what? You do find a secret door...It leads back to the other corridor you skipped. How convenient.
...You know what? ...It's actually in my interest if the players don't fail this next roll...For some reason, the DC is now lowered. How did that happen!?

As I said, whether you find it because the DM planned it, or because the DM makes it up as they go along...A good DM doesn't really let players know the difference.

It's like a villain monologuing. No-one would do that. But you have to to drop exposition.
It's like dumb mooks leaving messages around. No. Read it. Memorise it. Then burn the orders. But if my players have 'accidentally' been dealing lethal damage to every hostile they've come across? How can I railroad them towards the information that I need them to have, in order to progress the story, without them knowing that I have railroaded them?

Or...you could just not. Don't make a plot. Don't railroad them. Don't have "information that I need them to have, in order to progress the story". Have a world, one that reacts to them, one with lots of interesting people and things, scattered hither and yon. Know the world cold. Then just play the part. The story, then, is the cumulative history of all the things they decide to do. Or not do. But each and every choice has consequences (ranging from tiny to major).

[OldTrees1]

No. The DM is not planning for you to not find it, because otherwise they've wasted their prep time on something that the players wont even see.

It is wise for a GM that makes optional content to plan for if the players don't see it. That is the consequence of Player Agency.

If a GM makes a secret room, then I suggest the GM plan for the possibility that the Player never find that room.

Is that "wasted prep". Depends on the GM. For me, no. Having optional content the Players might or might not engage with is part of me creating a sandbox experience. I value the fact they could have seen that content, even if they don't end up seeing the content. I limit how much prep I spend on content based on how likely it is that Players will see it, but I don't consider it as wasted prep.

Our GMing styles might differ here, but you don't get to say I don't exist. Yes the GM is planning on if you do OR DO NOT find it.


Second, in someone else's house, with four, five, six players; I value our time, I value our host's time, and whoever they happen to live with. I'm not wasting our time on content that amounts to nothing. No-one should. Which means that exploration should result in something. What should that something be? ...Well why don't I write this down real quick...Okay fine. Now that I've written it down, we're not going to not do it.
Yes you value your time, and their time. Obviously you are wise enough to know I value my time and my group's time. With that baseline, let's continue.

Your gameplay preference is to skip the searching aspect of the exploration pillar. That is a fine preference. You have that preference because you find it a waste of time to spend 1 second searching for something that is not there. I on the other hand like the searching aspect of the exploration pillar. I am willing to spend 1 second searching for something that is not there X times per session, because when something is there our group enjoys it more than if we had skipped the searching step. We liked the discovery of the secret content.




Again. You use the word 'might', whereas I use the word 'will'. There's no point at all, ever, in not finding something.
You should examine your premises. You are projecting your personal preferences as if they are universal preferences.




If the DM does their job right, the players shouldn't know the difference.
Red Flag: That word choice sounds like intentionally deceiving the players about the kind of game they are playing. I will assume that was not the intended reading.



Unfortunately, neither I nor my players have infinite real-world time to investigate content that doesn't matter, nor do they have unlimited in-game resources to allow them to search several square miles of forest for something that might be there that I might not choose to give them for no reason.

I already mentioned that it is wise for groups to customize their play experience based on their preferences. I find it odd that you continue to disparage my play preferences while I continue to respect yours.



...And then did you look at the DM's notes to see if the secret door was always there?

Red Flag 2: Why are you implying I should not trust my DM?

There are times Dun did not find a secret door. There are other times Dun did find a secret door. Clearly that means Dun did not have the "create secret door" power.

Despite your question raising a red flag, I will answer it. We were playing through a module that I really wanted to read. However I wanted a blind playthrough of it as a PC first (because I had always been the GM for that style of dungeon and never the PC). So after the campaign had concluded, I did read through the module. I did not read through my GM's notes although it could have been an interesting experience and we did have a post campaign group discussion where the GM was able to reveal things they couldn't during the campaign (a similar post adventure talk happened recently).



...That just sounds like two players making an Investigation roll, each. Or better yet, a group Investigation roll. I ask my players to do that all the time. :smallconfused:

What I am interested in is the part where you were able to search twice as fast, and what effect that had on the game.

What, did you expect investigating to have to waste hours? I value people's time even if our group enjoys an aspect of exploration that your group prefers to skip.

Being able to search twice as fast (Mage Hand Legerdemain) mostly impacted in game time, which can impact IRL time. It allowed me to investigate for traps without asking the party to slow down. Since Dun's job was to prevent the clients/tourists (the party) from dying to traps, that was a useful feature. So I could frequently state what Dun would be preoccupied with, and the GM could focus on the other PCs. Then we could resolve the searching with a couple rolls around the time Dun completed the search OR found something to tell the rest of the party.


Edit: I read through some of your other replies. Clearly my gameplay preferences for a high agency no illusionism sandbox and your gameplay preferences different significantly. If my description of how my gameplay style works does not match your gameplay experience, then I humbly ask you to recognize the gameplay style differences rather than claim I don't exist. Thank you.

[Cheesegear]

Have a world, one that reacts to them

I do have a world that reacts to them. I'm a human with a functioning brain. Not a robot. I can change my story if I have to. Usually, I don't have to.


one with lots of interesting people and things, scattered hither and yon.

Got that. Whatever I want them to find, it's there. If they look east, it's there. If they look west, it's there.
Anything is scattered wherever I say it is. That's the beauty of being the DM. You control everything. You can actually shift the reality of your world to make sure that [NPC] is in the place that the players do go, and not in the place that they don't go, insofar as no matter where the party goes or what they choose to do under any circumstance, they will always find the NPC that you want them to find...What they do and say with that NPC, is not under your control...But you can, in fact, force the party to find the NPC no matter where they go.

That's why there should always be content wherever you go, and where you don't go, there isn't content.


Know the world cold. Then just play the part.

If you were to play Mass Effect, exactly once, and you weren't allowed to listen to anyone else's experience, ever. You wouldn't know that all your choices lead to the same place with only slight variations in the colour of ball you have at the end. You would think, that the story you played, was your story, and you ended with a blue ball, and that's your ending. But when you were making choices, at the time, you had no way of knowing that your choices didn't really matter - you just could've gotten a green or red ball at the end, instead.

That's the beauty of being a DM. You can give your players three choices...And all three choices lead to the same place. The players aren't going to know.

It's like designing a challenge with multiple solutions. But...Inversely. You're creating a challenge with multiple entrances.


The story, then, is the cumulative history of all the things they decide to do.

...In the adventure and the world and the campaign that I have planned for them...That I can change at whim because I'm a person with a brain. If my players do something in one session that changes things...I have seven days to make changes in the next part of the story. I have seven days to create my world's reactions to what they did last session.

[Reach Weapon]

Have you ever seen what happens when a party is confronted by three closed doors? Compared to 'You walk into a 30 ft. square room, there are six aggressive Goblins, roll Initiative.'

I think my group must just be weird.

In hostile areas, 3 closed doors is some variation of a (playtime quick) routine: quick check for traps against spiking/wedging, disabling the doors, more extensive investigation (generally including checking for traps, listening, signs the door is used, attempts to use fisheye crystal to see under the door or through a keyhole). Attempting to quietly drill a peep hole in a door (or the rare mimic) with a brace and bit from an expanded woodworking kit isn't uncommon at this point. Generally, my group loves doors (closed and otherwise) as it helps protect their flanks and rear, so it's a game benefit, not a flow breaker.

Conversely, just walking into a room and being able to see six aggressive Goblins? In my group, the party is either executing a cunning plan, or scrambling to re-establish their escape route, as we'd expect an unstealthy approach to mean there is at least that many more goblins hidden the room, and again as much coming up the rear.

[Cheesegear]

Your gameplay preference is to skip the searching aspect of the exploration pillar.

No. My preference - as DM - is to remove the uncertainty of the exploration pillar, on my end, as the DM. But not necessarily on yours - the player.
My players absolutely will search for traps and secret doors and weird locations. But I've already decided - as DM - whether those things are there or not there.

Often I'll start scribbling in my notes because my players said a thing. What they don't realise is that the thing I'm writing down, they actually said five minutes ago and now I need to change things. It's not a reaction to the thing they just said. :smallwink:
If a player gives me a good idea, I'll run with it, sure. But hopefully by the time I get around to executing the idea, they will have forgotten the off-hand comment they made as a joke, and now the thing they said is real and I get to pretend I planned it all along. Absolutely I do that.


You have that preference because you find it a waste of time to spend 1 second searching for something that is not there.

Quite the contrary. I find it waste of time to spend 5 minutes to search for something that isn't there. A rock is a rock. Stop investigating it. No...No...No don't cast Detect Magic. No why!? Alright. You just lost a level 1 spell slot for literally nothing. Or maybe...Maybe the rock is magical and you should cast Detect Magic ...No don't spend 30 minutes IRL talking about whether the rock is magical... Damn it. Cast Detect Magic or don't...Just don't spend 30 minutes talking about casting Detect Magic on the rock.


I am willing to spend 1 second searching for something that is not there X times per session...

My point is that you don't find something that isn't there. That doesn't mean that you don't search for it. My point is that your DM will usually have placed it there or not there, before you searched, most of the time, when they designed the dungeon that you're currently, in.


Red Flag: That word choice sounds like intentionally deceiving the players about the kind of game they are playing. I will assume that was not the intended reading.

You could read it that way. You wouldn't necessarily be wrong. Just like running Adventurer's League or a pre-published book.
The content is pre-written. Does that make it bad? No. Does that mean players lack agency? **** no.


What, did you expect investigating to have to waste hours? I value people's time even if our group enjoys an aspect of exploration that your group prefers to skip.

We have now travelled well past my original point.


If my description of how my gameplay style works does not match your gameplay experience...

Ahh...That's where you're wrong. Our gameplay styles match perfectly. Because as I said, whether I'm making it up, or planning it, you a player shouldn't know the difference if I've done my job even halfway correctly. If you want to find secret doors, you probably will. If you want to find something behind a waterfall, you probably will. You will be making Investigation, Survival and Perception rolls all session. And you will find things. I can guarantee it.

Just as if we were playing in Adventurer's League or from a Book; You, the player, shouldn't know what is planned, and what isn't. I, the DM, absolutely do know what is and isn't planned, and if something isn't planned, that I think will enhance your experience, then I'll put it in if I can make it work. But you, still shouldn't know that it wasn't there all along.

[OldTrees1]

Ahh...That's where you're wrong. Our gameplay styles match perfectly. Because as I said, whether I'm making it up, or planning it, you a player shouldn't know the difference if I've done my job even halfway correctly. If you want to find secret doors, you probably will. If you want to find something behind a waterfall, you probably will. You will be making Investigation, Survival and Perception rolls all session. And you will find things. I can guarantee it.

Just as if we were playing in Adventurer's League or from a Book; You shouldn't know what is planned, and what isn't.

Ahh...That is where I am right. Your gameplay style and mine differ dramatically on the GMs side the screen.
If you want your players to go east, and they head west...The thing you wanted them to see, is now west.
If there is something to my player's east, and they head west...The thing to the east, is still east.

I do make content that I plan for if the players do OR DO NOT encounter it. You don't. I have content the PCs could miss and sections where investigation would find nothing. You reroute content and have investigation create content to find.

It is fine that we recognize our groups have different gameplay preferences and thus our gameplay styles are different.

[meandean]

If you were to play Mass Effect, exactly once, and you weren't allowed to listen to anyone else's experience, ever. You wouldn't know that all your choices lead to the same place with only slight variations in the colour of ball you have at the end. You would think, that the story you played, was your story, and you ended with a blue ball, and that's your ending. But when you were making choices, at the time, you had no way of knowing that your choices didn't really matter - you just could've gotten a green or red ball at the end, instead.Yeah, well, if I were writing Mass Effect, my goal would be to have the players' choices matter as much as possible.

Which I have zero doubt the writers would tell you was, in fact, their goal. The thing is that in a videogame, "as much as possible" = "very little", because creating every different story branch costs millions of dollars and months of worktime of a large team. As a DM, on the other hand, you can just make @#$@ up. Easier!

[PhoenixPhyre]

Cheesegear, I think the big difference between us is this.

I don't have things I want them to find. I want them to surprise me, to teach me things about my world that I didn't know, despite having built it over the last 6 years. I want to know "what's over that hill". What's around that waterfall. What happens when the players do something I didn't expect? What's up with that character? Who is he? What will he give up to get what he wants? Does he know what he wants? For me, exploration happens in and throughout everything. Including combat and social stuff.

Inevitable Ogres, to me, are a sign that the world is really just a flat backdrop, a stage setting. Because if you can transplant it seamlessly, it means there isn't any depth to the world. And that, to me, is fatal to my enjoyment. If I wanted a linear story and good button pushing, I'd play a computer game. Because they're way more polished at that, with way better visuals. But what I can't do in a game is surprise myself or the computer. Everything happens exactly as programmed. And once it's over, the world reverts to how it was.

I don't plan much at all. I plan high-level "things going on" and (once they've decided to chase a particular person/situation) "what is that person doing to react to the party." The rest is whatever the ongoing narrative says should go there. I might plan "what kind of enemies are at this location they've said they're heading to next session"; playing online means I actually have to plan battlemaps (ugh). The rest? Totally improv. And frequently, I'm the one most surprised at how it turns out. Yet it's always been better that way than any of the times I've tried to plan in detail. The collective thinking of all of the players creates a better, more "real", more fun world and narrative than I can do alone. Railroading means they (and I) lose out on that.

[Cheesegear]

I don't have things I want them to find. I want them to surprise me, to teach me things about my world that I didn't know,. I want to know "what's over that hill". What's around that waterfall. What happens when the players do something I didn't expect? What's up with that character? Who is he? What will he give up to get what he wants? Does he know what he wants? For me, exploration happens in and throughout everything. Including combat and social stuff.

All of that, I do. My players do dumb **** all the time. I have to be able to react or else I wouldn't be DMing for three groups for five years. They each have different playstyles and they each have different wants - and arguably needs - for how they want to play the game.


Inevitable Ogres, to me, are a sign that the world is really just a flat backdrop, a stage setting.

The whole point, is that if you're a player, you shouldn't know that the Ogres are inevitable. They should just appear as part of the story you're in.


Because if you can transplant it seamlessly, it means there isn't any depth to the world.

Maybe not to you. My world has plenty of depth, and it gets mapped out exactly as my players find it. As my players find things, they deepen the pool. Because of course they're finding things. Because I didn't create a flat world. I created a world that - shock - reacts to my players, and the pixels load in as they find them.
(I don't draw maps for my players...That helps things. My players draw maps for me. :smallwink:)


If I wanted a linear story and good button pushing...

As a player, how would you know if the story was linear?

Back to the topic of the OP:
This is what I mean when during exploration or roleplaying, it's the DM who holds all the cards. The players don't know what's over the next hill. And, whether the DM has planned - or not planned - the Ogres on the other side of the hill. The fact is that it was always the DM's choice to put the Ogres there, whether you searched for them or not. But if you don't search for them, then they're not there. Unless they are there, laying in ambush, waiting for you to not search for them...In which case the DM put them there.

So when it comes to exploration and roleplaying; 'Do and say whatever you want' ...It means, well, that. Do and say whatever you want. Or don't do or say whatever you don't want to do or say. But how does a player know what they want to do or say? Welcome back to uncertainty. Since we're uncertain, we get paralysed because we don't know what the right choice (read; 'least damaging to our character/s), is. Can we please just do a combat?

[Pex]

If it doesn't matter where the ogre is as far as the campaign cares, then the party encounters the ogre whether they go east or west likely doesn't matter.

For other DMs the ogre is in the east for whatever reason, even because the DM felt like it, but the party goes west for whatever reason, even because they felt like it, the party will never encounter the ogre and the DM is perfectly fine with that outcome.

I find neither option to be bad.

However, if the party knows the ogre is to the east so they go west on purpose to avoid it and the party encounters the ogre anyway, that's a problem.

[Havlock]

Its a very interesting contrast of approach going on here.

One is more: DM builds a deep world and decides *where* the various story elements are located. The players freely explore and through their choices, decide *when* those story elements unfold. Sprinkle in some nudging the players in the right direction once in a while and everyone will have fun.

Thats a fairly traditional way of doing it and I'll admit, it's my starting assumption for most campaigns... because, well, thats always how it was done (by us old guys anyway), and thats how published modules since the dawn of time did it. Tough to prep, but fairly simple to run.

But Cheese seems more: the DM decides the story beats and order of events ie: the DM chooses *when* each element unfolds. The players, through their choices, determine *where* those elements are revealed. Sprinkle in some "choices have consequences" once in a while and everyone will have fun.

This approach seems like tighter story telling with a lot less effort spent on world building but if you're not careful it could be easy to fall into the trap of seeming to be railroading the PCs through the story... It's easier to prep, but trickier to run.

Different tables are probably more compatible with one approach over the other, but I think its short sighted to imply one approach is inherently better than the other.

[Kane0]

For me the primary issue with the noncombat pillars boils down to the old gamedesign adage of 'a series of interesting decisions'

If you dont know important details you cant make informed decisions, and for me uninformed decisions are rarely interesting decisions.

If you're just trying everything you can think of that might somehow work, is that an interesting decision? If there is no cost associated other than lost game time is that an interesting decision? If the outcome is the same regardless, was it really much of a decision? And so on.

Combat is fleshed out with all sorts of things that give players information, options and consequences so that they can make informed, interesting decisions even when presented with some potential unknowns. Interaction and exploration are decidedly less fleshed out and notably more mysterious, both of which impact a players ability to make meaningful choices.

[Sigreid]

So this is clearly all my opinion.

The reason we play a table top instead of a computer RPG is so we can take advantage of the imagination and mental abilities that humans have that computers don't. The way I see it there are more rules for directly supporting combat than exploration and social for two main reasons. The first is that if a character dies in combat, you don't want it to be a clear DM judgement that killed the character. You want it to be something more impartial the dice to avoid group shattering hard feelings. The second is that not only is it impossible for a small group to come up with every possible environment, situation and response, but these are the areas set aside for the DM and players to cut loose. Unchained by tight rules to allow the full exploration of their creativity in setting up and resolving situations in the far less "see spot run" situations of confronting a wild and dangerous wilderness or an even more wild and dangerous political opponent.

[Cheesegear]

If it doesn't matter where the ogre is as far as the campaign cares, then the party encounters the ogre whether they go east or west likely doesn't matter.

Correct.
Consider Random Encounters; No matter where you go, you'll find something, always. But random encounters are lame, because they rarely - if ever - have story significance, because the DM has to make it up on the spot.

However, instead of it being a random encounter...It's a fixed encounter, and the players will find it no matter where they go. Like a randomly, fixed encounter, and you can make it have story significance, if you want it to. Again, a golden example is Rime of the Frostmaiden. The reason I love it so much is because it's a pre-published book that encourages the DM to DM exactly how I do. It's like the module was written for me. Chapters 1 and 2 is exactly how I prefer to DM.


However, if the party knows the ogre is to the east so they go west on purpose to avoid it and the party encounters the ogre anyway, that's a problem.

Right. But how do the players know that there aren't two sets of Ogres? :smallwink:
...I'm just kidding. If my players scout it out, and then decide explicitly don't want to fight Ogres for some reason, and go a different way, I'd just whip out my phone real quick, pretend I just got a message, and look up other CR2 creatures for area that would make sense to be there.


Its a very interesting contrast of approach going on here.

I think a great example is the difference between Fallout 3 ('Three') and New Vegas ('NV').

In NV, you can go anywhere you want. However, the map is set out so that you're more or less encouraged to follow the main storyline (there's even a literal railroad you follow for a bit). You can go off the main quest path, but difficulty immediately spikes, and the game kills you if you don't know what you're doing or haven't min-maxed.

In Three, you can go anywhere you want. But difficulty scales the further out from the main hub (i.e; Megaton) you go. So that if you make a beeline to the furthest edges of the map, from the hub, the fact is, by the time you make it to the edge of the map, you'll will have levelled up several times, and done several level-appropriate quests for the radius you're at, in as much as you'll always be against something you can handle. The only reason you die in Three, is if you do something stupid, or are just incredibly unlucky. Which is fair. It's a real shame that the story of Three is so...Garbage. Since the mechanics of the sandbox is exactly fair.
...This is also how Rime works - at least for the first... Half (?).

I don't know how Fallout 4 works. Never played it. I should get around to it one day. Maybe.


This approach seems like tighter story telling with a lot less effort spent on world building but if you're not careful it could be easy to fall into the trap of seeming to be railroading the PCs through the story... It's easier to prep, but trickier to run.

It's not tricky. I've ran three groups for years - and still do - and have never had a problem.
The way I do this is very, very simple and follows one rule; Don't make a map. Drawing a map themselves, is one thing that players are actually encouraged to do, in the rules. Then I take my cues off of whatever my players have drawn.


Different tables are probably more compatible with one approach over the other, but I think its short sighted to imply one approach is inherently better than the other.

I genuinely don't think it matters on the players' side of the table. Where a DM has planned stuff, or made stuff up as they go along, the players shouldn't know the difference.
I'm not saying 'Don't trust your DM.' I am saying that it doesn't matter if you trust your DM or not, because they're going to do what they're going to do regardless.

You should always trust your DM to have content that you're interested in. But, you have no need to know at all, how or why your DM creates that content.

Again, AL and Book-Campaigns exist. They are very clearly railroads. They're not for everyone. But they wouldn't exist in the quantity and quality that they do, if people didn't buy and run them by the busload. Also, a pre-published module can't account for all player actions. It just can't. Even with the 'railroad' of a book-campaign, the DM still has - and needs - freedom to make **** up as they go along. The players shouldn't know what's in the book, and what's made up.

I get the feeling that some people in this thread are challenging me, is because I'm showing how the sausage is made. But I'm fairly confident in myself and my DM style and skills, that if I simply presented those players with the finished sausage, they'd eat it no problem.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If you told me during session 0 that this was going to be linear (which saying "we're playing X module" does, by necessity), that's one thing. I don't mind linear if I know it's coming.

If you tell me that I'll have freedom to choose what to do, and then railroad me and I will figure it out (give your players some credit, no one is as subtle as they think they are, so it's very likely that something will slip), I will lose all trust and likely walk out. Not because it's linear, but because you lied to me at the meta level. And I don't play with DMs I don't trust.

[Cheesegear]

If you tell me that I'll have freedom to choose what to do

You always have the freedom to choose what to do. At no point will I ever say that you don't.


and then railroad me and I will figure it out

Unless you have access to my hard drive, I doubt that. That's kind of my entire point.


give your players some credit, no one is as subtle as they think they are, so it's very likely that something will slip

If at any point, it's been a problem in the last...Any campaign I've run for any of my groups, no-one has said anything. Not once. So you have higher standards than...Literally everyone I play with. Which is possible. But I doubt it. Or, it means I just haven't been caught, because it's not like I show my players anything (I don't have a DM screen, my players can see everything I have and do...Which means I can't really have notes on me at any time. There's nothing for my players to see, because it's all in my head.)


And I don't play with DMs I don't trust.

I've never trusted any DM I've ever played with, and I'd be genuinely surprised if any of my current players trust me:
NPCs lie to you - in character.
Hostiles have False Appearance.
Nystul's Magic Aura means that something isn't what it is.
A botched Insight roll has the DM lie to you - out of character!
Illusion magic exists.
Terrain and environmental effects cause hostiles to be greater than the sum of their CR, giving them significant advantages over the players.
A DM can tailor a hostile's spell list to counter the party.
A DM can tailor an entire encounter or an environment to counter the party.
A DM can create hostiles from scratch tailor-made to do whatever they want.
Traps.

The DM can do whatever they want if they're running homebrew. If you don't trust your DM, and that causes you to walk out of the game...I would probably let you. Because if a requisite of you playing in my game is that you trust me, then we're going to have a bad time...And not just because you feel railroaded at some point. Hostiles that can Shapechange are some of my favourites.

[Segev]

You're missing his point. It isn't deceptive monsters that makes him distrust the DM. It is when the DM alters the world such that the player has only the illusion of choice. The "Quantum Ogre."

[Cheesegear]

It is when the DM alters the world such that the player has only the illusion of choice. The "Quantum Ogre."

And I've said repeatedly at this point, that if the DM does their job right, you aren't going to know. You will never know that the trap is there, unless you look for it.

If you look for Ogres, you will find them, or you wont. It's not going to matter if the DM made up that you find them right there, less than three minutes ago as part of improv for the session, or if the DM planned for you to fight Ogres six days ago immediately after the last session. The end result is that you've got an encounter with Ogres, and both methods arrived at the same result; Ogres are there.

...Unless the DM wrote down that the Ogres were there in the very first session, and then showed the players the campaign notes for some bizarre reason (i.e; They drew a map explicitly saying 'here be Ogres'). Then they're locked in. But even then, not really. Uhh...Six days ago there was a fire that burned down the Ogres' huts. They've relocated. There are no Ogres here, even though four sessions ago I told you there were.

If you can tell the difference between the DM making something up on the spot, and the DM having a pre-planned scenario in their head that they appear to make up on the spot, then the DM isn't doing their job right.

[PhoenixPhyre]

And I've said repeatedly at this point, that if the DM does their job right, you aren't going to know. You will never know that the trap is there, unless you look for it.

If you look for Ogres, you will find them, or you wont. It's not going to matter if the DM made up that you find them right there, less than three minutes ago as part of improv for the session, or if the DM planned for you to fight Ogres six days ago immediately after the last session. The end result is that you've got an encounter with Ogres, and both methods arrived at the same result; Ogres are there.

...Unless the DM wrote down that the Ogres were there in the very first session, and then showed the players the campaign notes for some bizarre reason (i.e; They drew a map explicitly saying 'here be Ogres'). Then they're locked in. But even then, not really. Uhh...Six days ago there was a fire that burned down the Ogres' huts. They've relocated. There are no Ogres here, even though four sessions ago I told you there were.

If you can tell the difference between the DM making something up on the spot, and the DM having a pre-planned scenario in their head that they appear to make up on the spot, then the DM isn't doing their job right.

Nobody's perfect. And to pull off that illusionism, you must be perfect. Even a single crack in the façade, even a single whiff of things not being right is enough.

And let me just say that
* hiding information from the players that the characters would have is a tell that you don't really have agency. In fact, agency without enough information to make a reasoned decision isn't agency.
* not having red herrings, NPCs saying things that are completely unrelated to the task at hand, clues that point off in unrelated directions (because you thought they were clues but they weren't), false leads, dead ends, waterfalls with nothing behind them, etc. is an enormous tell that it's a railroad. If you can only interact with objects with plot relevance, or if every object you interact with just happens to have plot relevance, that's a dead giveaway that you only have the illusion of choice. And that's what you've been pushing here, that every object that's described is a Chekov's Gun, sure to get fired.
* "Convenient coincidences" wear thin real darn fast, and people are pretty good about figuring it out.

Lots of players have been socialized by DMs to accept illusionism as "expected behavior". That doesn't mean they don't notice.

Note: I'd be just as irritated if you said the campaign was going to be character-backstory-driven and then in session 1 we fall through a wormhole to some other world and our backstories never come up. It's false advertising.

[Havlock]

I don't think it would require perfection.. maybe a good poker face but thats about it.

You would still have red herrings. The only difference is that the DM is placing them on purpose instead of the players finding them and flailing around haphazardly.

Yes everything is a Chekov's Gun. But some of the bullets can be blanks.

[NorthernPhoenix]

I think you could gamify the exploration pillar in any number of mechanical ways, from giving every class separate categories of mechanics that are made for "exploration gameplay" to creating using "monster manual" style pages/books for various location archetypes that can be slotted in anywhere to help with the Dm-end description aspect. The only reason not to is whether or not such things would sell.


Changing the social part is far harder, since gamifying it directly frustrates people who are already good at and enjoy it. This creates a immediate conflict within the DnD audience in a way changing "exploration" doesn't. This also gets into one of the core differences with social and other gameplay, which is that unlike a swordfight or climbing a waterfall, you can literally insert your mind and voice into the game world one to one to participate in the social scene.
Making things easier or more attractive to participate in for people who are bad at free form socializing without hurting the experience of people who are good at it is certainly a herculean task.

[Kane0]

I think you could gamify the exploration pillar in any number of mechanical ways, from giving every class separate categories of mechanics that are made for "exploration gameplay" to creating using "monster manual" style pages/books for various location archetypes that can be slotted in anywhere to help with the Dm-end description aspect. The only reason not to is whether or not such things would sell.


Changing the social part is far harder, since gamifying it directly frustrates people who are already good at and enjoy it. This creates a immediate conflict within the DnD audience in a way changing "exploration" doesn't. This also gets into one of the core differences with social and other gameplay, which is that unlike a swordfight or climbing a waterfall, you can literally insert your mind and voice into the game world one to one to participate in the social scene.
Making things easier or more attractive to participate in for people who are bad at free form socializing without hurting the experience of people who are good at it is certainly a herculean task.

Touche.
10char

[MaxWilson]

I don't think it would require perfection.. maybe a good poker face but thats about it.

If the goal is to fool your players on a long-term basis despite accumulating evidence (in the form of absence of evidence of depth, e.g. lack of foreshadowing), you need more than a "good" poker face. You need to have naive players or be a world class liar so good you should be in the movies, or maybe both.

[Asisreo1]

The Ranger's abilities are useless because an alarming number of modern DM's are running exploration the worse way it can be played: inconsequentially.

There is no incentive to explore in so many games that many DMs make. Worse yet, there's no consequences when they do explore.

A particularly lazy DM may decide they are going to have an adventure where the location is a dungeon where the party starts in a city. Perfectly fine. This DM then tells the party that they'll skip narration of the journey. Cool. He then brings you to the dungeon where you go through 5 rooms and fight the boss. Awesome. You then grab the treasure and return to the city. Amazing.

Not.

Where was the actual exploration?! In individual doses, everything the DM did from skipping travel to 5 rooms to "loot and leave" are all valid individually, but when done all together, its obvious that the actual adventure didn't even consider exploration in any sense.

Imagine a combat with a single meatbag enemy, no threat, white room, and no integration to the story. At that point, the combat might as well not have happened. Your fighter will wonder what the point of Extra Attack is if they've never been threatened by combat and the results of combat never matter.

Adding actual effort into exploration makes a Ranger's abilities so much more relevant overall, as well as make the general game more fun for all.

[Cheesegear]

Nobody's perfect. And to pull off that illusionism, you must be perfect. Even a single crack in the façade, even a single whiff of things not being right is enough.

Maybe I am that good? I doubt it. But the only way to prove it would be to have you and I in the same group. All's I can say is that I've never had any complaints about any of the campaigns I've run.

As I said, because I don't use a DM screen, the amount of notes I have with me is...Nearly none. If you can tell the difference between my...
- Argh, I'm making this up as I go along-face, and my
- Argh, I'm trying to remember what I wrote last night-face,
...You would be more discerning than all my current players (All 12-15 of them), or maybe just more vocal.


* hiding information from the players that the characters would have is a tell that you don't really have agency.

We're agreed. I don't have to give information to my players if they don't - y'know - actually have it.


In fact, agency without enough information to make a reasoned decision isn't agency.

Acting without information, is a choice. Of course it's agency.

Three closed doors:
1. You use your agency to open one. No hesitation, no looking back, no regrets. The Barbarian pops Rage and boots in the door. This is a choice.
2a. You use your agency to act in such a way to gain more information to make a more informed decision about which door to open firstly. This is choice.
2b. After you open the first door, you can even choose not to open the second or third.

You always have agency. Unless the DM has your character under mind control, and has taken your sheet away from you. While I do some tricksy things to my players, Enchantment-school spells cast at them never fail to make them mad (Meanwhile, they're Charming people left and right all over the place...)

Finally, here's another choice you can make:
3. **** it. You don't have enough information, and can't get the information reliably and/or safely. Walk away from the doors and disengage from the scenario. This is a choice.


not having red herrings, NPCs saying things that are completely unrelated to the task at hand, clues that point off in unrelated directions (because you thought they were clues but they weren't), false leads, dead ends, waterfalls with nothing behind them, etc. is an enormous tell that it's a railroad.

Right. That's why a campaign should be full of them, and that's how you know you can't trust your DM. That's why social encounters and exploration is hard. Because players often don't have the full scope of information, or they have a false scope of information. This means that they aren't playing with a full deck. This makes them insecure. This makes them stall.

I don't like when my players stall...Unless I want them to.


If you can only interact with objects with plot relevance, or if every object you interact with just happens to have plot relevance, that's a dead giveaway that you only have the illusion of choice. And that's what you've been pushing here, that every object that's described is a Chekov's Gun, sure to get fired...

I never said every object is a Chekov's Gun. I said every encounter and challenge - or absence of challenge or encounter - is an intentional choice on my part.
Maybe I just want to **** with my players? It has no relevance to the plot. It's literally there to grind out their resources and make the next part harder.
Maybe I let the players think it's a Chekov's Gun, so that they mislead themselves? Because I want them to mislead themselves.


"Convenient coincidences"

I guess ultimately I don't know what you mean. Or what you think I mean. I know. It's the internet. I'm not going to write out exact, detailed, intricate thoughts on a D&D forum. I've got **** to do...Like plan my next sesssion(s).

But let's say I give my players three adventure hooks:
- Go to Castle for reasons.
- Go to Forest for reasons.
- Travel three days across the Plains for reasons.

Surely I'm expected to plan what's at the Castle? Surely I'm expect to plan what's in the Forest? Surely I'm expected to create a caravan across the Plains? No?

My players get choice in what they want to do. They have no idea - nor should they - of what will happen during the scenario. But I've already decided what will happen during the scenario barring some extreme player choices. I've also decided that there will be five encounters; Medium, Hard, Medium, Medium, Deadly...And here's what those encounters will be...The players can choose to avoid encounters or Stealth, and here's what happens if that happens.

...But I'm not going to plan for what if the players set the Forest on fire...I'll have to wing that one. :smallwink:
Then again, now that I've thought about the players setting the Forest on fire, I should probably plan for what if that does happen...The party averages as Neutral Evil, after all...:smallsigh:

And I'll probably have to wing what happens if the players just choose to disengage my adventure(s) and go fishing for Plesiosaurs (yes, that's happened once...I laughed out loud for a long time when I saw a near-identical thing to what I'd done for that session, show up in Rime).

A player's backstory features a ****-ton of Demons.
...Am I not expected to plan for the fact that Demons should show up at some point to get their property back? Perhaps at the most inconvenient time possible? ...That sounds like a pre-planned encounter? I shouldn't have that? ...Alright then. I guess that wont happen. Because pre-planning is the same as railroading...Or something.

I'm very confused.


I don't think it would require perfection.. maybe a good poker face but thats about it.

Agree. But not even.
Your 'making stuff up'-face, and your 'remembering stuff'-face should be near identical.

But mostly it just requires you to not blatantly read pre-written notes directly in front of your players where they can see you.
(You can, however, go to the toilet and read your notes on your phone when you get stuck.)


The only difference is that the DM is placing them on purpose instead of the players finding them and flailing around haphazardly.

Correct. There is no difference between:
You come across a lake randomly that I randomly generated in my head just now, and
You come across a lake randomly that I randomly generated in my head whilst thinking about it at work two days ago.

The result is the same, and the players shouldn't know the difference. Because they don't need to know about the nuts and bolts.

'Roll a d100...Or just pick one.' I prefer to pick. Every time. That way I don't surprise myself.


Yes everything is a Chekov's Gun. But some of the bullets can be blanks.

That's the most insightful thing I've read all thread. I couldn't agree more and I will probably even sig this. This is exactly why I don't trust my DMs, and it's exactly what I would never ask my players to trust me. If I mislead my players, I did it on purpose. If I don't mislead my players, I did that on purpose, too.

Unless I didn't do it on purpose and my players have surprised me by doing something I forgot that they could do (e.g; The spell can do what!?)... But why would I let my players know that I'm on the back foot? I'll just use my human brain and the hours and hours and hours and hours of reading the DMG/Xanathar's I have and come up with a response... 'Hooray! I guess you do complete the puzzle! ...Way easier than I expected, but you don't need to know that...

This is exactly why exploration and socialising is hard. Because everything is important unless the DM says it isn't. Hell, how do you know that the DM wont make something important just by virtue of the fact that the players are interested in the thing, and because the players are interested in the thing, the DM can now make scenarios where that thing, which was a red herring before, now isn't?

And also... Blanks can be bullets. I guess. Depending on how your players engage.

[Doug Lampert]

Counter-counter-counterclaim: modern "beauty" standards for both men and women are pretty unhealthy. A healthy person doesn't have a sculpted physique, at least not to the level you see on bodybuilders or actors (when they're working).

Another one off the top of my head, there were nonfictional societies that found bound feet attractive. I don't imagine anyone thought being barely able to walk was healthy.

Barely able to walk is a sign of WEALTH. You have to be rich to give up the labor of your wives and daughters. Rich is also attractive.

[KorvinStarmast]

Note: I'd be just as irritated if you said the campaign was going to be character-backstory-driven and then in session 1 we fall through a wormhole to some other world and our backstories never come up. It's false advertising. Had a DM do that in about 2016. Started with level 1 characters, one encounter, and then off we were sent to a jungle none of us had ever been to or seen. Our connection to the primary game world was exactly zero. (Same think happens in Curse of Strahd, and it's one of my least favorite aspects of that adventure)

It took us a while, but we finally figured out that he was trying to shoehorn The Walking Dead TV show into D&D - that wasn't clear until second level. We discovered that the paladin's cure disease didn't work and that the cleric's turn undead didn't work.

I remember being a bit annoyed that we were dealing with zombies and the Turn Undead wasn't working. I was very blunt in my feedback to the DM: "What game are we playing here?"

Above and beyond that, we had to do exhaustion checks three times per day due to the jungle heat ... roll to fail ... and I pointed that out to the DM as asshattery. When my wood elf monk got to exhaustion level four one day, I just had her climb a tree, and tell the party to go on without her.
I told the DM I'd stay up a tree for a few days until the exhaustion was over. And that's exactly what I did.

Not sure how that campaign would have worked out; it was based on the premise of "the Adventurer's Guild" with my brother, me, and the other DM rotating with the pc's meeting up and departing rom an AG spot somewhere in the world. He exploded that in session 1.

The campaign died for other reasons, but we had to roll up new PCs, utterly, when my brother DM'd. The AG/Shared world premise was summarily dropped thanks to "drop 'em down a worm hole" shenanigans.

@cheesegear

(You can, however, go to the toilet and read your notes on your phone when you get stuck.)
In that case, work it out with a pencil. :smallbiggrin:
which is how constipated mathematicians do it