My players are listening at every door before they open it, and each character takes a turn until someone gets a good roll. It's repetitive and boring. What's a better way?
Telling them what they hear on the other side of the door and moving the heck on. Why are they making checks at all?
Is it repetitive and boring for them?
"Trying again and again" is what passive checks handle for you.
And checks aren't even rolled unless the outcome is uncertain.
- Ear seekers. They're not in the MM but exist in other FRPGs and were certainly in past editions. Use sparingly.
- Beneath Hill 60 style. The monsters are on the other side of the door listening to the PCs.
- What the! Just as the PCs put their ears to the door, monsters open it and attack. Either side could be surprised.
- The Perception check tells them: they hear no sound but their own breathing; they hear a conversation (or whatever noise is appropriate) but can't make out what is being said; they can hear the conversation and understand what is being said (if it's in a known language). If I went with a roll, I would expect the best character for the job to attempt it and thus only allow one roll (it's not the sort of thing the Help action would help with, either).
But, if these and other things don't make the process more interesting, just do as iserith suggests: tell them what they hear without a roll.
I wouldn't let them roll perception checks unless they can describe what it is they are looking for and how. Based on that information, I would decide if I would allow an active perception check.
I always assume that PCs are looking around...that is what passive perception is. If they want to spend an extra 5 minutes examining a door, they can go ahead and roll active perception checks...but then the sneaky goblins have advantage on stealth since the PCs are distracted by the door. 
Active checks should be very specific IMO.
I had this problem too. I now just narrate what the character hears, no check required.
intently wrote:
Eh, I guess I was following bad design in the adventure, which describes what a character can hear if he passes a DC X perception check.
If it's an old-school adventure, this will be a hang-over from the days when listening at doors was important because if you failed to listen successfully, you would inevitably be surprised by whoever was behind it when you got the door open. It's somewhat obsolescent now, as a player tactic, but it sounds like your players don't know that.
Try telling your players that, provided they travel at a slow pace through the dungeon, you will tell them everything they hear through doors automatically without them needing to roll for it.
This is why I've always wanted perception to be a save, not a skill. It's passive and reactionary, not active; at least in my book.
intently wrote:
Have players pre-roll a bunch of d20s, write them down, and then give the sheet to the DM.
DM, use these numbers (or not) as you wish for any secret checks.
DM, also be sure to have a copy of everybody's skill bonuses to reassure players you are not making stuff up. Although it doesn't really matter since you can totally make stuff up, but don't tell them that.
As the DM, roll their checks behind a screen. The Players shouldn't know "oh, I rolled a 1, I'm gonna listen again", also try putting time pressure on them. If they want to be cautious and they have plenty of time, why wouldn't they have a good listen first? If you want to leave them making their own checks, you could always remond them that they have no good reason to believe they rolled poorly and to keep rolling is meta-gaming.
You could also make some kind of hearing based trap: a suggestion spell or a banshee with life-sense in the room that wails when they get their ear to the door. I wouldn't go this method personally, it makes the situation adversarial. The opposite would be to use illusionsary sounds/visuals of monsters to scare the PCs away from rooms they want/need to visit.
Another solution is just to remove all the doors and just have archways ...
BoldItalic wrote:
Glimjack wrote:
Room full of mimes!
Other ideas
- Soundproof Doors (don't bother rolling, you hear nothing)
- One-way mirror doors (the goblins behind it have seen you anyway and now are hiding behind the furniture)
- Illusionary Doors.(as you bend close to listen, you fall prone because there wasn't really a door there)
- Talking doors ("Ooh! that tickles!"; "What's the password?"; "Atchoo!"; "You won't hear them - they've gone out"; "Have you got any creak oil to spare?"; etc.)
Doors of Worry
The first time anyone attempts to listen at a door, they hear a deep voice saying "ONE".
The next time anyone attempts to listen at a door (the same door, or a different one), they hear a deep voice saying "TWO".
The next time, etc.
More seriously,
Take some time out-of-play to set up a "Standard Search Procedure". This allows the players to get in the stuff that can drag and be duplicative - I listen at the door, I check for traps, I feel if the walls are hot/cold/wet/slimy/dangerous somehow, I follow behind my ally in case he muffs it - and condense it all to a single roll or statement. Let them be complete, because it IS annoying to get slapped by something you should have thought to do but didn't actually do. Find out who has Detect Trap, Thievery, Perception, &c. Desigate one person (probably the highest skill level) to make the roll, and one person to Help. This allows a roll with Advantage, which feels like a better chance of success. It also cuts off all the "me too's".
And track which die is used and its rolls, so the group doesn't end up using the "cursed die" when trying to avoid nuisances. (Save that one for when it counts !)
If your players insist on doing something, and it isn't fun, change things to make it fun. If they're having fun all making listen checks, then there's not really a problem.
This is very near and dear to my heart, I think this is my first post on the forums because of how close this touches home to me and my group.
I DM for a large party of eight players.
I was constantly running into situations like this that would be beyond annoying and destroy the cinematic feel that the game had going.
After a bit of thought I came up with a few rules for the group:
1) You tell me what you are doing or trying to do BEFORE you roll, any roll that you have before i tell you to roll doesnt count. After the roll I tell you what happened, whether you were successful or if something else happened. This allowed the characters to fail and make mistakes which made the game a hell of a lot more cinematic then being perfect at all times.
2) Only one person makes the check for the entire group as far as knowledge, perceptions, etc checks are concerned. Another person (and only 1 other person) can try and aid the check (dc15) if they do aid then it only adds a +2 to the main persons check. The both people have to be trained in the appropriate skill to use it and they need to be in the appropriate location to do them. If the group wants to listen to the door then the guy that is rolling the perception check needs to be physically next to the door.
3) Your character always thinks they suceed. They literally have no reason to think otherwise. Just because you rolled a 1 perception doesnt mean you would decide not to go through that door, it means you didnt hear anything behind it. If this is a problem I will start rolling for you behind the screen and just tell you the outcome, not the number.
Adding these three rules really streamlined processes for the group and got rid of a bit of bloat/time sinks.
Don't let everyone roll? Just one player. And if they want a reroll, they need to spend five minutes listening - which allows the orcs to turn up while you're not watching what's sneaking up on you.
Uriad wrote:
The OP makes a big mistake by allowing the players to keep rolling till they get a good roll. What you should do, is inform your players that they would not know if their character, nor anyone elses character, made a good roll or a bad one. That is meta gaming, and I wouldn't allow it. When you make a listen check through a door, only one person makes that check, and no one knows if he did a good or a bad job. So they don't get to keep rolling till they get an outcome they like.
Further more, why roll listen checks for each door to begin with? These are not difficult conditions to hear something. It's just a player listening at the door, and what ever is audible, is what he hears. If they all want to take turns listening at the same door, inform them that all the scuffling about makes it more likely that anyone on the other side of the door would hear them.
Consider that how some of you are choosing to adjudicate the action of listening at a door is encouraging the very "metagaming" that you then have to warn players not to do. Your methods are not in line with your goals.
There are other ways of adjudicating where you don't have players trying to spam checks and don't encourage "metagaming."
According to the DMs guide, if characters can spend ten times as long performing an action you should consider it an auto success anyway. So even in the case where you adjudicate that it's uncertain whether the PC hears anything and call for a skill check, players should be allowed to listen at a door for 1 minute (10 rounds) to qualify for an auto success ... assuming they are not interrupted, of course.
Option 1:
Roll the Perception rolls yourself behind the screen. Tell the players what they hear, or don't hear.
If they get a 1, they hear something that isn't actually there at all.
(This works for Insight checks as well.)
Option 2:
Give whatever is on the other side of the door a perception check to hear the party (wth a DC one step higher than what the players are rolling against) every time a new person shuffles up to put their ear to the door.
Option 3:
Assume everyone is going to roll, have them all do it at once, take the best roll made - BUT no rerolls after that.
(Point of protocol: Tell the players clearly in advance if you are instituting one of these.)
DemoMonkey wrote:
"I would never advise this, because then you are giving out false information."
Fair enough. I acknowledge that this approach is not to all tastes. It has it's place however; it's my personal preference for example and works quite well in the game I run and play in.
"Try to be descriptive in the translation of their bad roll. Describe the sort of sound they are hearing, and why the information isn't more specific."
I feel that if you are going to use Option 1 at all, then this misses the point. The intent of this style is to not let the players KNOW that their roll was bad (or good, or indifferent). If you aren't willing to do that, this isn't the approach for you in the first place.
Imaculata wrote:
All great ideas, thanks. Based on what I've read, I think I'm going to do two things:
1. Roll perception, insight, stealth, and investigation rolls myself as the DM and keep the number secret.
2. Roll a lot less often.
1. Why?
2. Check out the DMG, page 236-237 for the section on the Role of the Dice.
Iserith and me (and some others) already had a looong discussion about this here: http://community.wizards.com/forum/dungeon-master-help/threads/4206341
In short, there are two completely different approaches to this issue and each DM likes to do it differently. Plus it also depends a lot on your players in the first place.
Approach A:
1. Hide rolls to keep player vs. character knowledge as close together as possible.
2. Expect players to roleplay according to what their characters know.
Approach B:
1. Don't hide rolls.
2. Allow players to do whatever the heck they want to do.
3. Only ask for rolls when determining the result is of any value.
4. Even a failed result should progress the story in some way (i.e. by having a consequence).
Rya.Reisender wrote:
Peoples senses give out false information all the time - anyone who expects a perfect understanding of their environment is someone expecting to play a god rather than a PC.
Uriad wrote:
I think Uriad meant it more like, if a character does a perception check to see if the room is safe to enter and fails the check and the DM tells the player "You don't hear anything", he should play his character so that he doesn't think there's anybody behind and thus be compelled to enter, while on a successful perception check the DM might say "You can hear some voices talking", so the player can decide what he concludes from that and if his character still wants to enter or not.
It is a bit controlling the players. On the other hand, if you have players that don't care about min-maxing and do roleplay their characters "properly" in the first place, you will never come to a situation were you have to force them do anything because they do it by themselves already.
DemoMonkey wrote:
Noon wrote:
This only works if the roll result will always lead to the same result except that a higher roll means a clearer description, though. When there can be completely opposite results, it doesn't work so well.
Ilse wrote:
BadMeeple wrote:
Hey iserith, can you explain what actions you think do "encourage metagaming"?
Rya.Reisender wrote:
You are missing the hidden roll scenario in your examples, though. And you also assume your players do metagame whenever they can.
Player: I listen at the door to see who or what might be on the other side, if anything.
DM: The door at the north end of the hallway or the south end where the stairs are?
Player: The north end.
DM: Okay. *does hidden roll* You think it's all clear.
Player: I tell the others "Hey guys, I think the north is clear, let's go."
The point is that the players have neither the opportunity to be rewarded for metagaming, nor the confilct of player knowledge vs character knowledge in iserith's method.
With the other methods, that opportunity exists whether or not the players take advantage of it.
The exception to this is the hidden roll. Here the DM controls the PC's thoughts: "You think it's all clear." Should it not be up to the player to decide what their character thinks? Perhaps the DM should just provide some information on which the player chooses to think or act.
Personally I have previously used not iserith's method i.e. hidden rolls etc. But I have been swayed by his awesome thread on adjuticating actions and am working on changing my ways.
iserith wrote:
iserith wrote:
I prefer Iserith's method in part because it has the PCs seem like competent people without the players themselves having to act paranoid, the game slowing to a crawl, or exploration being trivialized.
The result of the "hey no metagaming" is that the player has the PC doing something they know is stupid, and further looking at past experiences the PC should know is a bad idea too. If you fail at something 1 in 4 times and the end result is being heavily injured you might try to figure out some way to reduce the chance of that bad outcome. Even the secret rolls hits on these last two.
The other solution I've seen is the party just makes themselves mostly immune to exploration setbacks and failures through abilities and magic. Which kind of defeats the purpose of having exploration in the first place.
Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:
Not a lot to add to this except to say half the answer is table-management - knowing when to call for checks and from whom. The other half is proper adjudication - knowing how to set stakes and faithfully narrate the results.
Last, the dice are determinative but not prescriptive. They can determine what succeeds and what fails, but not HOW those successes and failures manifest in the game world. That's up to you.
xanral wrote:
Rya.Reisender wrote:
iserith wrote:
iserith wrote:
The best way to avoid metagaming is to not give the players information their characters would not have. That's really not a complicated proposition.
In the counter example given above, Iserith's "You failed a perception roll so you get attacked from another direction" seems an odd way to reward the players attempt to be cautious. The "fail forward" method in generalfrequently ignores that in a lot of cases given, just failing - period - is the preferable option, because it gives the players more freedom to decide what to do next.
Every table assigns a different value to "React as your character, not as someone playing a game." Some consider it important enough that there are no other considerations, some consider it an actual hindrance to their game. A little observation on these boards makes it obvious where certain people lie on that spectrum. What is LESS obvious is that none of us have the "right" answer on the subject. We only have the answer that is right for our table and the values it assigns.
So to the OP, who has now received much good, but frequently mutually exclusive advice, I say: what does YOUR table (including you) prefer?
Do that.
Noctaem wrote:
iserith wrote:
"Do you believe that "You don't hear anything" on a failed check is a reward? If so, why?"
It is certainly a reward compared to "You don't hear anything and now a Bugbear is attacking you."
A simple failure allows the players to decide how to proceed, whether it is go through the door or go another way. In short, they can encounter, or avoid encounter. In your "fail forward" example, encounter is now forced. I would argue that gives them considerably LESS agency.
"I consider it important to react as your character, but I believe that's for the players to say as it is they who control how a character thinks, acts, and what he or she says."
I don't disagree with that. Where we differ is I believe in (as often as practical) presenting information in such a way that the physical real world at-the-table interaction does not provide the player with out-of-character information.
Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:
"The situation is changed, but they still may act as they please. Agency is maintained from one situation to another."
Agency is reduced when options are reduced. Your example deprived them of the option of quietly sneaking away when they failed a Perception - NOT a Stealth - check.
Sometimes that's unavoidable. In this case it wasn't.
Your objections, btw, are based on the assumption that "policing" (a very loaded word, but I'll let it slide) metagaming is onerous or difficult. Some of us, as DMs and as players, do not find it to be either; we find it to be rewarding.
For the umpteenth time I'll repeat, neither of us is universally right. Both of us have the absolute best possible approach - for the right group.
DemoMonkey wrote:
Actually, it doesn't go without saying Iserith. I think it needs to be said often and explicitly.
Much like "I love you." , "Jar Jar delenda est", and "Why yes, I WILL have fries with that."
iserith wrote:
DemoMonkey wrote:
I do find it a bit odd that in some of the examples the party cannot hear anything on the other side of the door without putting their ear to it yet the monsters can presumably hear the PC's approach (barring a good stealth check) while not having their ear pressed to the door.
I tend to think about the monsters/NPCs as having their own lives and are not simply waiting as XP for the party to come by. They're not silently waiting 24/7/365 for a band of adventurers to bust into their room. If the PCs camp out in front of a door for a few hours eventually it will open for a critter going to the privy etc. If the dungeon goes on alert due to an alarm being tripped then the denizens will be forming patrols, flipping over tables in rooms for cover or obstructions, and other things that tend to be noisy and not require listening at doors to detect. There are some exceptions to this like golems but generally creatures want to do other things than stay at a constant state of alert.
I don't have an issue with needing to place an ear to the door to understand the exact words a creature is using, but it seems a bit silly for needing to listen at a door to determine if the room is occupied by active individuals.
If the players are spending extra time to listen with multiple rolls, and there is no consequence to being slow about it, then don't bother rolling at all. Just assume they will be successful.
Consider also that the characters can be heard through the same door they're listening through. The monsters they're hearing or not hearing with their perception checks are also passively perceiving their surroundings. Maybe even actively listening at the door waiting for adventurers.
Really the only thing that prevents characters from spending extra time to do something cautiously is some sort of threat driving them to act less cautiously like a time constraint, or something chasing them or the like.
"The player knows their character is fighting a troll and that pushing the troll into a nearby fire is more beneficial than attacking with their weapons."
How do they know that?
If the answer is "Well, they've read the Monster Manual, duh" then how is that any LESS playing in bad faith than reading the adventure (your Example B) would be?
You can't completely stop players meatagaming. You can only reduce it. But much like reducing crime, or war, or "Ghost Rider" sequels, any reduction is better than nothing if it preserves the style of game your group wants to play.
DemoMonkey wrote:
DemoMonkey wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
I'll rephrase Aaron.
"You can't stop players metagaming except by changing or denying the meaning of the word."
That doesn't actually change the behaviour, mind you, but logically you are correct. In much the same way that I could say you agree with me completely, simply by saying there is no such thing as disagreement.
Other than irritating those pesky dictionary writers, I'm not sure how that's really a productive line of discussion though.
DemoMonkey wrote:
DemoMonkey wrote:
iserith wrote:
"Before I came to the conclusion that metagaming isn't a thing until you make it one by trying to avoid it, players at my table constantly talked themselves out of following through on a good idea (and into an idea they knew was bad) because they were uncertain that their character would know what they know.'
That's not the ideal way to handle that.
Player: (Who knows perfectly well how trolls work) Does Gromgax know anything about trolls and fire?
DM: (Based on character background, state of campaign, rarity of monster etc, decide yes/decide no/require roll. Their job, in other words.) Nothing at all.
Player: Well, I'll hit it with my great sword then because that's my go-to attack YAAARRGH!
DM: It yells Yaarrgh right back! Have an inspiration dice and make your attack roll.
or
Player: Does Gromgax know anything about trolls and fire?
DM: Nothing at all.
Player: I try to push it into the fire anyways.
DM: It yells Yaaarrgh at you! Make your check.
As an anecdotal aside, in a campaign I am currently playing in, we encountered a troll in the woods. None of us had ever seen or even heard of such a creature before because it was foreign to our lands, a fact we discerned by the crazy gambit of asking the DM "Have we ever heard of trolls before?"
After we killed it, we chopped off it's head and threw it in a bag to take with us as a trophy. We (players) knew it was a bad idea, and also knew, with equal clarity, that our characters would have no reason to suspect anything.
It was an interesting night in the Jarls mead hall, I'll tell you.
That's a fun story. Which never would have happened if one of the players had decided to not take a trophy and burn the body, which we had never done to any opponent before, "just because".
[quote="Coredump00"]
iserith wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
Player: (Who knows perfectly well how trolls work) Does Gromgax know anything about trolls and fire?
Me: I don't know - you tell me. It's your character. Please stop asking me questions and do something!
DemoMonkey wrote:
The difficulty here is that there are so many different effects linked to metagaming, from the people who actually do a lot of metagaming (and I really don't lilke this extreme), to people who (as Aaron put it) "anti-meta-game" (basically gimping themselves to avoid any thought that they could be metagaming), going through people like myself who try and think about what their characters could know and could not know (and failing half the time because other people around the table will of course have a different opinion).
So, in the end, YGMV, depending on your table companions, the campaign, etc. This is why, in the end, I really (and it's a personal preference shared by people around the table, and they are as varied as the cases above) prefer (as a DM, an as a player) that all opportunities of metagaming are removed , whenever possible.
Some players love rolling their dices, it's not the case for me. I believe in storytelling more than in luck, and I don't care whether my luck (when it comes down to this) is generated by my roll or by the DM's hand. And if the DM chooses a roll for me, I don't care, I trust him to give me a better story anyway. This is why I like hidden rolls...
And it's the same with "known monsters". Honestly, when a DM puts a troll, he sort of expects that the players will use fire or acid, and will not have every time to have their character "play out" how they figure this out. So, again,m to avoid metagaming, if I want a fight in which the players have to figure something out (which is most of the time for me, we are not there to boardgame and roll dices), I will not put a troll. I will either create a new monster completely different with other weaknesses, or, if I use the stats of the troll because I am lacking time, I will call it a llort (or not, actually ), and give a different description, so that at least there is as little metagaming involved...
Imaculata wrote:
iserith wrote:
grendel111111 wrote:
iserith wrote:
The impression that I get when a player asks what his character knows something about a monster is that is occours in several different situation and for a few different reasons.
1) I want to know so I can justify my choices - not wanting to meta game.
2) I want to know as I don't want to just short cut the encouter with player knowledge - I want it to be more of a challange.
But I think the main reason is tht they want to try and recapture the feeling they had when the first encoutered their first D and D monster that they knew nothing about, The panic of all their weapons and attacks doing nothing and the puzzle of trying to overcome a foe that they had to think about and challange their intellect as well as their dice rolling skills.
What they are really saying is they want a challenge that is actually a challenge.
A creature with immunities or weaknesses they need to think about to over come instead of just button mash to get past.
I have found using unusual creatures is the key to engaging these players, You know nothing about this creature is not a shut down for them, it is a challenge that they can rise to.
Trolls are a bad example - I find it hard to believe that anyone is not going to use "burn it with fire" as a strategy when faced with almost any seemingly implacable enemy. Regenerates? Burn it! Has skin as hard as iron? Burn it! Has a body comprised of swirling air? Burn it!!
Which is basically the trap that iron golems are designed to employ.
Incidentally, I'm not a fan of the fail-forward approach when applied to passive skills like listen. However I'm also of the opinion that players shouldn't need to say "I listen". It should be a standard thing that any reasonably cautious character does when in a dungeon.
I prefer to narrate failed rolls as "The character knows they failed" rather than "the character fails". I feel it avoids a lot of the metagaming.
DM: What do you do?
Player: I listen at the door to see who or what might be on the other side, if anything.
DM: Let's see a Wisdom (Perception) check. The DC is 10.
Player: *rolls 8* Botched it.
DM: You can't tell anything. Maybe the door is too thick, maybe the party is making too much noise, maybe you are just having an off day.
Now the players have exactly the same information they had before - ignorance of what is behind the door. Their agency has not been affected.
The solution to completely nullify "metagaming", basically gives players full control over their character, which I don't think is a good thing (not by default anyway). Characters should be played according to their abilities, skills, personality traits, ideals, bonds and flaws and not according to what the player playing them knows.
I mean if you go that way, why even use a ruleset? Why not just do freeplay? Since the player can decide himself what his character knows at any time. And if the only goal is that everyone is having fun doing whatever he wants to do, you can achieve that with freeplay best, couldn't you?
Aren't the rules there for one single purpose: Creating a defined challenge?
If you allow players override rolls results, then why even roll? It nullifies the challenge that the rules are there to create. Should a character with low INT always solve the puzzles because the player playing it is the smartest at the table? Should a character with low WIS always have the right instincts, just because the player playing that character is good at telling what the correct path is by reading the DM or adventure module?
This is unrelated to progressing the story even on failed results. I don't think that's bad, but it's also very situational. More often that not I find myself in a situation were something negative happening on a failed roll just wouldn't make any sense. My group certainly would complain if there was a sudden enemy encounter just because someone failed a perception check. They don't complain if I ask them to play their characters according to what they know, though.
So yeah it depends on the group.
Saeviomagy wrote:
Greenstone.Walker wrote:
grendel111111 wrote:
Saeviomagy wrote:
Rya.Reisender wrote:
iserith wrote:
Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:
I agree with Iserith here. It's more fun to introduce a situation that brings excitement to the story, rather than to say "You hear nothing". But I also slightly agree with Mommy, that the bugbear popping up would have to make sense. If there was already a bugbear in the corridor, and they didn't hear him approach, then I think it's a reasonable outcome. If the DM is simply dropping a monster onto the players because they failed a check, that is kinda silly.
But this is why I prefer to give out partial information, based on how well the players rolled. If they roll slightly underneath the DC, then I'll give them very limited (but still correct) information. If they roll way over the DC, then I'll be very specific in my description.
For example, imagine a few skeleton guards beyond a door, inside a cave by the sea. One player tries to listen at the door, and it's a DC 15 check.
1> DM: As you press your ear against the door, you find it unlocked, and it goes slightly ajar with a piercing creak. What do you do?
8> DM: There is some noise of footsteps beyond the door, but it is mostly drowned out by the sound of lapsing water in the cave.
10> DM: You hear some clattering footsteps on a wooden floor. You can't make out how many individuals you hear walking, or why their footsteps make such an odd noise.
15> DM: You hear the sound of rattling bones, beyond the door. There are no voices, only footsteps, and the clatter of skeletal figures. By the sound of it, it must be a small group.
20> DM: You can clearly make out the sound of about 4 or 5 skeletal figures. You hear no voices, only light clattering footsteps, and the sounds of the metal firearms they are carrying.
iserith wrote:
iserith wrote:
grendel111111 wrote:
grendel111111 wrote:
iserith wrote:
Players have full control over their own characters and can freely establish what they do, think, and say. They don't have control over the result of their actions. That is for the DM to decide.
Couple of thoughts:
1) As others have said, as the DM you first need to answer the following question: What is the point of the roll?
Any time you have the players roll, there is a chance for failure. Is listening at a door something that carries failure? For example, say there are a bunch of rowdy orcs on the other side of the door loudly gambling. Anyone will be able to hear that. But if instead there is a tiger silently pacing back and forth, that will require a check.
2) Do you want players to use roll results as if they are in game knowledge?
In other words, when a player rolls a 1 on a perception check, does the character know that they aren't doing a great job at listening at the door?
If you don't want this, consider rolling yourself behind a screen. Or just talk to the players. That was the route I took. To me, it makes no sense that a group of friends would, upon coming to a door, say, "Ok, you listen first, then me, then Bob, then Diana, etc". Some may like that, but to me it just seems silly. Find a style that works for you and your players.
3) Do you frequently punish them if they fail to notice things? This is the most common cause of hyperactive perception checks. You have a lot of power as the DM over the way players act and interact with the fantasy world.
Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:
Rya.Reisender wrote:
iserith wrote:
iserith wrote:
grendel111111 wrote:
iserith wrote:
Yep, and I totally get what you are saying. I think it's just that Iserith has a slightly different approach to handling bodged checks. I personally lean more towards logical narrative outcomes, based on a sort of graduated DC. It's never really black and white in my sessions. I know the rules state that you either fail, or you succeed at a check. But how succesful or unsuccesful you are, factors into my description to the players. You can barely make a climb check, which means that you almost fall, but make it by the skin of your teeth. Or you can roll a natural 20, at which point I allow the players to describe in what kind of fancy way he climbs that cliff.
When listening in on those loud orcs, there are many possible outcomes that I can think of:
1> DM: You try to listen in on what sounds like a group of loud orcs. Suddenly you hear a growling of a guard dog at the other side of the door. It seems something has caught your scent, and it won't be long before the orcs take notice.
8> DM: You hear loud shouting of orcs, and the sound of ale being passed around. You can't make out what they are saying, or tell if they are angry or cheerful. But there are a bunch of them at least.
15> DM: You hear a group of orcs loudly boasting about their recent victory. Since you speak a bit of Orcish, you gather that they are talking about the miller and his wife who went missing. Apparently these orcs are responsible for raiding their caravan. The orcs talk over each other a lot, and occasionally they get violent with one another. Some have clearly had too much booze.
20> DM: Amidst the loud boasting of a group of orcs, you hear one orc in particular boast about how he killed the miller personally, after raiding their caravan. You count about 6 different voices, and the one who is speaking right now is clearly the leader. Most of the orcs are heavily intoxicated, but you also gather that the miller's wife is still alive, and is being kept in captivity. Apparently she has been serving as entertainment for the sadistic orcs, but at least she is still alive.
^ In the above example, the 1 doesn't immediately result in a gotcha moment. But it does result in a situation that demands immediate action from the players. Creating suspense is better in my opinion, then immediately dropping them into combat. Rolling below the DC (15) simply means that the information I give out is lacking, but still accurate (You know that there are loud orcs). If you roll way over the DC, then I add a bit of extra information (You can accurately guess how many orcs, and you hear more of what they are saying).
I really like the approach you describe and I think I will try and adopt it to some extent. I may just go with a binary result for simplicity's sake (fail = you learn something, but you learn less than on a success).
You may have addressed this up-thread (it's a long thread now) but how to you address the OP's question of multiple rolls, barring the PC rolls a one in the example above?
BadMeeple wrote:
Some strange thinking going on. Some of you seem to conflate the result of the die roll with the result of the in-game action.
Checks define what happens in the game. They do not determine why or how - those things depend on a bunch of other factors, including the GM, in-game circumstances, etc.
So you fail a listen check at a door, hypothetically. But I want you to hear that info bc I think it'll make for a more fun game. So instead of saying, "Nothing happens," (which is basically a sin, IMO), I say "The voices on the other side of the door are very faint, but you close your eyes and listen intently, and over hear a wizard discussing his plan to blah blah blah. Unfortunately you are so focused on your task that you never hear the Bugbear sneaking up behind you!"
But I guess some of you hear "Bugbear as a result of botching a Wisdom check" and have a problem with that.
Thats why I wrote Fail FTW! Because the consequences of failing a check DO NOT automatically mean that the in-game action that spawned the check resulted in failure. It may fail, but it doesn't necessarily. Failing a check ought to come with consequences, those consequences should be within the realm of conceivable eventualities. Bugbear sneaking up on you is within that realm. Your head exploding probably isn't.
bawylie wrote:
There isn't anything they can do about it.
Its failure due to outside circumstances or influence. Sometimes things don't work out and it's nothing you did or didn't do -
Sometimes you throw a good pass and some lucky **** intercepts it. Even if the pass itself is executed perfectly, on target, etc. Dude just gets a hand on it and brings it in.
bawylie wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
All you are going to wind up with is a more elaborate "door routine".
"Ok, we are going to listen at this door. Have we put a wedge under all the other nearby doors to prevent Random Bugbear Syndrome? Have we checked there are no pit traps in front of the door that will unexpectedly drop us into a hole if our ears are not sensitive enough? Have we checked that there are no nearby windows that birds might fly through and cause us to sneeze, alerting all the monsters in the Dungeon to converge on us? Is everybody thinking completely neutral thoughts so so the Powers That Be don't think we want extra challenges and wish us into the cornfield again? Ok! Now get into standard door listening conga formation and..."
"LEEEEROYYYY JENKINS!!!!"
"God damn it Leroy."
DemoMonkey wrote:
Ha! You fool, Bawylie! We weren't playing Hill Chess at all, but (tears up fake board, Mission Impossible style) Secret Carcassone! And now I am King...of the Castle!
On a more serious note, whatever the negative consequence is of the players failure, they will try to mitigate against it the next time they take that action. That's logical both in AND out of character. The more you deliberately try to injecting "interesting" (Iie, worse than nothing) failures into play, the more things they will try to compensate for. Eventually that becomes unwieldy.
Sometimes "Nothing happens at all, what do you try next?" is what the players - and sometimes characters - actually want.
I think that's partially true. In this instance, I imagine that they'd not crowd the door for repetitive perception checks and keep someone on watch - a desireable result.
Axiomatically: What you permit will continue; What you reward will be repeated; What you tax will be eschewed.
If they kept getting bugbears on failed listen checks, I imagine I'd stop seeing listen checks. But that's not the issue I'm addressing and obviously I would be insane to always have bugbears show up on failed listen checks. The issue is the pileup to listen at the door. You want to keep piling up, that's all well and good, but doing so means nobody has your 6. Good luck.
bawylie wrote:
bawylie wrote:
Combat though isn't a punishment. It's fun. And a fair bit more interesting than "nothing happens."
Yes, naturally there will be a link between a low die roll and things not going as expected or hoped for. But there already is, right? This is not new.
As to the outcome of an action, as we've seen here and in other threads, binary success and fail states are fine - but there is plenty of room for degrees of success and failure. Success at a cost, partial success, success with complications, and on and on.
The complaint seems to be "I want my failures to be prescribed, to be only the way I expect them to be." I won't cater to that though. It's boring.
But, not everyone shares my opinion. And come to that, so what? Is universal consensus important? No. I do things the way I do because they seem best to me. Someone else does as seems best to them. Good. Individuals are awesome. Not everyone shares my hair color either.
Ps "Taking a risk" requires a negative consequence. You can't "punish" risk-taking; the taking is literally a weighing of and acceptance of possible negative consequences.
It wouldn't BE a risk if there weren't some negative consequence.
WTF?
bawylie wrote:
why not have fun consequences on bad die rolls? Why must there be a causal relationship? And why double down on the "people like different things" argument?
Also, there was a link between the two, as written up thread. You want to ignore it, ok, but don't pretend it isn't there.
Seems the subtext of 'combat isn't a punishment' is that you can't die to it. As if, if a TPK occured, it wouldn't seem a penalty or punishment. Seriously? Of course what it also includes is that the DM is going to fudge away the boo-boos. Which makes the player rolling dice pointless - the DM could just tell them how they super mega win in a long narration (or a short one). No need to bring in dice rolls you're going to ignore anyway.
If the combat is some kind of duel to unconciousness or first blood or something and not to the death, I'd agree it's not a penalty or punishment.
Noon wrote:
Noon wrote:
bawylie wrote:
grendel111111 wrote:
bawylie wrote:
Macv12 wrote:
It's not a correlation between a roll and the unrelated event that's a problem - that's fine. After all, as others have pointed out, you could just roll a d20 on it's own, and have that decide whether >insert random thing< happens. After all, that makes it random.
The issue is that people who are not perceptive suddenly attract bugbears. Or pit traps. Or sneezes. And there's only going to be a couple of skills that have this weird effect, because for most skills:
a) people bad at them don't attempt them anyway - you won't try to disarm the trap if you have bad trap skills. But it seems silly to not listen somewhere just because you're not good at it.
b) the skill has easy ties between the fail forward and the actual activity attempted - if you fail the roll to disable a trap, disabling the trap but triggering it seems fairly logical.
Basically it makes having a low wisdom and being untrained in perception into an aura of bad luck, which is bizarrely cured by putting your fingers in your ears and wearing a blindfold.
Not only that, but it has a wierd effect on characters who are GOOD at perception. No longer are they "Kim eagleeye" the character with keen senses, they're simply "Kim Doesn'tHaveBadLuck", the person who doesn't have random bad things happen to them when they go to listen at a door.
Similar things happen with knowledge checks under this system. If you've got a low int and no knowledge skills, do your best to avoid thinking! Otherwise you might come up with some knowledge and cause the roof to cave in! And if you're good at knowledge checks, you're no longer someone with encyclopediac knowledge who knows things that others don't - you're simply the only person who ever tries to recall a fact, because you're less afraid that you'll turn into a toad because of it.
Yes, Saeviomagy has a good point there. I would not want to discourage players with a low listen score, from trying to listen, just because one of their other party members is far better at it, and will most definitely not attract a random bugbear. (And I'm repeating the bugbear situation purely as an example) Combat isn't always fun, and it CAN be punishment. If the goal of the players is to remain hidden, and they've been trying very hard to be stealthy, then random combat is punishment. It ruins their attempt at stealth, despite not failing any stealth checks.
I don't want my players to feel like they shouldn't try something, because there might be random bad consequences attached to it. Disarming a trap is a dangerous thing to do. And as such, the expected outcome could be that the trap triggers and you get hurt. Listening at a door on the other hand, is usually not a dangerous activity (although this depends on the description of course). I would not want to discourage my players from trying to listen, or spot, or search, or recall knowledge of lore.
I want them to be able to make an accurate estimate of how dangerous an action is. This is why I directly link any bad outcome to the action that was taken. If they listen at the door, the expected bad outcome is either that you here nothing, or that the people in the room notice that someone is listening in on them. A bugbear coming up behind them is not one of those expected outcomes.
I'll just jump back into this discussion to point out something that is being overlooked before I go back to working on a new scenario:
Part of the point of interesting failure is to encourage players to try things. Because they can be assured that even if they're bad at whatever it is they're trying to do mechanically, even if they fail it's going to lead to something cool. Not always cool for the characters, mind you, but cool for the players. My character listening at the door sure as hell doesn't want to fight a bugbear right now. I, iserith the player, sure as hell do because combat is a blast and this would be a very interesting combat indeed! (Which is not to say the bugbear presented in the example - who is not quantum despite claims to the contrary - necessarily means combat will happen.)
Interesting failure is not a punishment, nor does it deter players from trying things. Only uninteresting or punitive failure does that and that's not what I advocate. I've watched some people play Grand Theft Auto before. When you hijack a car and go speeding around the city smashing into things and shooting civilians, the cops turn up and try to take you out, leading to exciting chases and shootouts. If this was not interesting, then everyone who plays GTA would be the safest, most boring drivers in the world. And yet here I'll watch my nephew rampaging through the city having a blast instead of remembering to use his turn signal and giving right of way to pedestrians. So I'll repeat: Interesting failure is not a punishment, nor does it deter players from trying things. What's fun for the player isn't always what's best or safest for the character.
The obvious (and wrongheaded) rebuttle at this point is that the bugbear turning up isn't interesting. But there's simply no context provided in the example to suggest that the players would not be best pleased at the opportunity to smash a bugbear into a puddle of goo.
Also, Macv12 nails it above. Unfortunately it falls upon deaf ears.
It's an untenable position. They seem to want to say that the only possible consequences of failing a check are causal; that there can be no negative externalities without larger implications.
Failed your Wisdom (Perception) test? It can only mean you didn't hear what was on the other side of the door. Why? Can't be because they were whispering over there - you only said so after the roll, so that's quantum whispering. Can't be the door's too thick to hear through or you'd have auto-failed; must be quantum door thickness. Only result possible is that your hearing cut out because the spaced out jackrabbits that run your brains took their foot off the listen pedal the moment you tried to hear something. You failed to hear.
This is why we can't have nice things. Quantum arguments and adherence to strict causation.
For a game of fantasy and imagination, some folks don't seem to have much tolerance or ability for either. I think I'll have to replace the carrots for their spaced out brain jackrabbits, so they get running on the imagination treadmill again.
All actions involving dice in an RPG are "quantum" by your usage Bawylie, because the reasoning behind the result has to be explained after the result is determined.
That doesn't negate the value of causal links. 'I missed because my foot slipped." - cause led to logical effect - works, even if it is after the fact.
"I missedd because my foot slipped, and therefore a bugbear appears" - cause led to WTF? effect - doesn't for a lot of people.
And as for "For a game of fantasy and imagination, some folks don't seem to have much tolerance or ability for either."
I firmly believe people have plenty of capacity for fantasy and imagination, but not an unlimited amount at any given time. Every table has a "suspension of disbelief" budget that they are able to spend. Depending on the player and DM - and what movies they have seen recently! - it may be higher or lower, but it's always there. When you go over that budget, the table disengages.
Personally I prefer to spend my budget on big things - magic, ability to absorb ungodly amounts of damage, floating balls with eyestalks that shoot lasers, creatures that clearly defy the square/cube law - rather than nickel and dime it away on things that can be left as comfortably mundane, such as the result of listening at a door.
bawylie wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Not only unreasonable, but a massive drain on suspension of disbelief.
Bugbears exist, that's fine. Gambling over there, still good. We all try to listen in at the door, imagination stressed but holding. Bugbear enters our hall.... SNERT! (the sound of suspension of disbelief breaking).
bawylie wrote:
No, I won't lay off the mocking of a stupid argument. And it's not your play style I'm attacking - it's your argument. Because it is dumb.
Now, dumb is a value judgment, and reasonable people can disagree over the value of an idea or argument. As you've constantly pointed out, not everybody agrees with me. And as I rejoinder, seemingly endlessly, universal agreement is not a precondition of having an opinion on the merit of an idea.
So no. I respectfully reserve the right to mock bad arguments.
Edit to add: I don't feel attacked when you disagree (nor when anyone disagrees); you helpfully point out he value of competing ideas. But I haven't once said "OMG you gaiz, Y U hurt muh feelz? Y U no like muh play style?" If you don't like my idea, try to tear it apart. It'll stand or not largely on its own use and value. I don't have to hide behind muh playstyle to espouse an idea or reject another.
iserith wrote:
bawylie wrote:
I don't necessarily disagree with the idea of adding exciting consequences to a failed check. In fact, I'm all for making these sorts of checks "metal", to use Bawylie's expression. For example, if someone fails at disarming a trap, then I'm all in favor of something scary happening that raises the tension. If someone fails his climb, then I'm fine with having that player tumble down the cliff while trying to grab a hold of his companions. But these are all results that are related to the check.
Fail at disarming the trap -> Something bad happens with the trap
Fail a climbing -> Something bad happens regarding your climbing
Fail at listening at a door -> Something bad happens related to listening at the door
This is the sort of logic that my players are used to, and expect from me. If they are listening in on a room full of orcs, and they don't hear that one of them is about to leave the room through the same door as they are listening at, then that's fine. That's not all that different from the bugbear encounter. But it IS related to the door, and the room they are checking out. And there for, I would find that far more acceptible than random bugbear attack.
Further more, to me it is all about coming up with an outcome that immerses the players and demands an action of them. A trap springing and dealing damage, isn't very engaging. The player will just look at how many HP he has left, and shrug it off. But if the trap arms as a result of their bodged check, and might go off if the player makes the wrong movement, then you have tension. Maybe the players need to work together to defuse the situation?
Combat is but one of the possible exciting outcomes, and I don't consider it as a reward. Combat is just that, combat. If the players want combat, it might feel as a reward. But if the players don't want to fight, then it's punishment. It could be either one.
To me the bugbear example feels very much like:
"You fail your survival check, and are attacked by bears." Rather than: "You fail your survival check, and you and your party get lost in the woods".
grendel111111 wrote:
Except it's not a random bugbear attack. In that module, there are bugbears in a room adjoined to the hallway the PCs are in. It is utterly conceivable that a bugbear enters the hall, notices the PCs clustered at the door, and gets the drop on them bc they're too intently focused on the door.
What you're saying is a bridge too far is really like 20 ft.
"Now, for some reason, because there is a die roll in between listening at the northern door and a bugbear leaving the southern door, it suddenly makes no sense and the players would resent you for it? THAT makes no sense and is an untenable position."
Was the bugbear going to appear even if they succeeded at their roll? Yes? Then there is no perceived link between the two actions and the players won't resent it.
No? Then there IS a perceived link, and the players will resent it.
If that example happened even happened even ONCE in a game to me, then every time I was even considering an action I would have to stop and consider not only the logical dangers of failing, but also the potential DM imposed "let's make this interesting" dangers of failing.
"Should we listen at the door?"
"I don't know. Two of us are low on HPs and there are other doors we haven't checked yet. I don't think we can risk a bad roll here."
That will make players MORE timid, not less. It works against your goals.
Imaculata wrote:
bawylie wrote:
DemoMonkey wrote:
grendel111111 wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
DemoMonkey wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
No Grendel. That's your mischaracterization.
The consequence is you dont hear the damn thing as it sneaks up on you. His arrival is as "quantum" as the door's thickness or the ear-jackrabbits.
grendel111111 wrote:
bawylie wrote:
"From a player's perspective, that is irrelevant because it is not their role to interpret the mechanics."
Really? Are you sure you want to go with that one? Have you really thought the implications of opening that particular can of worms up?
iserith wrote:
"No, you do not understand. it is a different door. If you fail the listening test you don't hear him sneak up on you, if you pass the listening test he doesn't even come through the door."
Says you.
As DM, I have at my disposal total control over the environment and NPCs. As player, you agree to this convention.
this means I can employ, or not, the bugbear, and any an all other bugbears, NPCs, allies, enemies, environments, deities, structures, societies, groups, and whatever else at my discretion. As a player, you do not have that discretion.
Consequently, as a player, you would not have any say in whether or when a bugbear came into the hall. It just does. You would not have any veto power over when I chose to employ that bugbear, as adjudication falls squarely into the DM's purview.
if I say it shows up, it does. If I say it shows up after a failed listen check, that's when it shows up. If I say it shows up on a successful listen check, it shows up. If some party members are distracted listening at the door and some are on guard when I say it shows up, then so be it.
but you know, by setting a guard, instead of everyone "me-too-ing" a listen check, the party might still get attacked, but wouldn't be ambushed.
In fact, let's return to the OP dilemma. Player 1 failed to listen so the rest pile on. Now as DM, I don't even need to ask for checks. I can simply say, "While the lot of you crowd the door trying your best to make out the conversation on the other side, you fail to notice a bugbear sneak up on you." No check at all, still legit.
any way you dice it (or not), it's a legit move by the DM.
DemoMonkey wrote:
bawylie wrote:
bawylie wrote:
grendel111111 wrote:
Wow. That's a good post bawylie. It was an epiphany moment for me in understanding your point. You are using checks as general narrative, rather than activity related, decision points.
I still disagree with your point/approach, but I now understand where you are coming from a little better.
bawylie wrote:
DemoMonkey wrote:
DemoMonkey wrote:
iserith wrote:
grendel111111 wrote:
bawylie wrote:
I get what you're saying too Bawylie. You're basically saying that since listening takes time, anything could happen while the players are busy taking turns at the door, and not keeping watch. Given the fact that bugbears are already present, it is entirely feasible that a bugbear might eventually pop up and surprise them. You give them a reason not to waste too much time listening at the door. The players could also have chosen to have the character with the best hearing listen at the door once, while everyone else keeps watch. The others might then have been able to hear the bugbear approach, and hide.
It's probably not an outcome that I would choose as a DM, but thats simply a matter of a different style of running a campaign.
grendel111111 wrote:
bawylie wrote:
DemoMonkey wrote:
grendel111111 wrote:
In my campaign I did have a some what similar situation, where players were trying to look through a door, while in a circular hallway inside a hag-lair. They knew that the hags had Chuul guards, which are these giant lumbering armored lobster-like aberations. While one player tried to look throught the keyhole, another wanted to listen at the same door. I ruled that the door wasn't that big, and so it was either one or the other. They decided to listen. I let only the player that was pressing his ear against the door, make a listen check. He didn't roll very high, so I gave a vague (but accurate) description of what he heard in the adjacent room; dripping of water, a ticking clock, the tapping of feet of some small animal. (The room was empty, except for a pet cat. But the players were not sure given the description, that the room was safe.)
But then a similar complication came up. One of the Chuul guards came up behind them. It was just making its rounds, and they would have run into it eventually. But rather than forcing them right into combat, I ruled that they could clearly hear the Chuul approach through the hallway. They knew they had only seconds before the creature would find them. I informed them that they could blindly barge through the door into the mysterious room, to avoid being seen. Or they could move away from the Chuul (but then they risk running into more Chuuls). I also pointed out that there were statues in alcoves along the hallway. They could hide behind one of the statues, but that would require a stealth-check to avoid being seen, and only one person fits behind each statue. So I was clear about the stakes. They knew that even if they did hide behind the statues, the creature could possibly notice them in passing. Combat was a possibility, but it was entirely dependent on their choice and the dice.
I prefer this sort of outcome, to immediately starting combat.
grendel111111 wrote:
iserith wrote:
grendel111111 wrote:
"You listen at the door, this is what you hear .................. (roll or decide if bugbear turns up) as you are listening..........Make a listening check ( The listen check now deterimines if they are surprised by the bugbear or not.) "
So the preference is to treat the two elements as separate and distinct incidents and resolve them that way, vs tying them together?
Yes I get that.
Returning to our OP, how would you use this situation to apply costs and consequences to "me-too" perception tests?
bawylie wrote:
Right, and I get you'd prefer to resolve these as two incidents instead of wrapping them together. But how does that solve the OPs "me-too" problem?
In essence, your adherence to your preference can't help whereas mine does.
So, leaving aside how we'd normally adjudicate two separate incidents, would you agree that tying the two together shows the players the potential downsides of "me-too" while remaining plausible?
Like if your objective were to get them to not do this anymore, instead of an objective of running it normally, would you agree that tying them together serves that purpose?
bawylie wrote:
bawylie wrote:
They don't know I decided to give out all the information until
A) They've all jumped on the "me-too" listen attempt, and
B) I've set the stakes for the roll.
I'm not telling them anything before they act, I'm adjudicating after. And then again, the roll DOES in a way determine the bugbear's approach. If they succeed, they heard something useful pretty darn quick. If they fail, it takes their time and attention (and the chance of the bugbear arriving approaches 100%). Thus, combined check determines outcome of the players' attempt to acheive a goal.
Result failure meaning only that the info they wanted came with a cost.
bawylie wrote:
Once the "me-too" begins, I simply ask - how many of you are doing this? All of you?
But. One way I've been able to frame away from "me-too" is by saying, "Alright, while Chuck is listening at the door, Taylor, what are You doing? And how about Ruin?" So, socially, I'm setting an expectation that people declare something else, which I can use to prohibit "me-too."
'Sorry chuck you failed to hear anything interesting. No, Taylor, you can't get a roll bc you're busy doing blah blah blah. Speaking of that...'
But that's not the situation posed by the OP, so I stuck to that.
bawylie wrote:
To be clear: I'm not looking to discourage "me-too" checks, but OP is. I already have eliminated this behavior in my groups via social cues, and establishing what other characters do instead of "me-too"ing.
So you're asking me to adjudicate 2 scenarios. I'm assuming the same setup with the hall and whatever.
In the first scenario, one player will eavesdrop (approach) to try to obtain useful Intel (goal). I tell them automatically they can hear the room is occupied by several loud people who are probably gambling. (IIRC that's what they're doing). Is that the info they're looking for? If yes, done - the occupants are distracted, so you can likely get the drop on em. If no, clarify. Player wants some useful gossip? Ok, that'll take time. Roll wisdom, perception. If successful I'll give useful gossip. If failed, I'll give interesting gossip but it'll be on you to make it useful. (If a 1, I might toss in a bugbear).
Second scenario, 3 people want to do a listen check as a group. Same as above, except use group check rules.
The "me-too" problem is that player 1 fails, then player 2 tries and fails, then player 3, and so on until they succeed. If 3 want to try at once, no problem. But when the group just wants to roll until they win, then I've set up a game able situation that needs correcting. They're exploiting an opening and good for them, but it's my job to apply the costs and consequences for doing it. Otherwise, we get infinite rolls, and we don't want that. We want actions to lead to consequences. Not just dice until satisfaction.
bawylie wrote:
Right back at you, buddy!
Seriously - D&D 5e is an old school task resolution system, not a conflict resolution system.
If you want to try and play it like it's conflict resolution, sure.
But it's A: Pretty clearly task resolution to everyone else (that's why they call the conflict resolution 'quantum', because conflict resolution basically pierces the fourth wall) and B: plenty of people WANT to treat it as task resolution. Insisting REALLY HARD that D&D 5e is a conflict resolution system doesn't make it so - ask for agreement and accept a no if they want to stick to task resolution.
For anyone wondering, an example of task vs conflict is that your boat to X is about to leave or has already begun leaving and you've yet to run down the pier.
Task resolution: You might roll to run down the peer and pass - only to find the GM say 'The boat is gone, no matter how well you did". Or maybe you have to roll once to run down the peer and then roll a second time to jump onto the side of the ship and cling on, maybe a third time to then climb up.
Conflict resolution: You do not resolve every task, you resolve the conflict. You roll once to see if you make it down the peer and the roll even covers whether the boat is too far gone or close enough to jump on AND the roll includes if you cling on and climb up! One roll. Maybe quite a few modifiers are added (or maybe few!), but it's all done in one roll.
intently wrote:
Noon wrote:
Noon wrote:
If we're looking for solutions to the issue, then the listen check doesn't need to have anything to do with the bugbear's arrival and/or detection. The bugbear arrives when the DM feels the players have spent too long putzing about, and "everyone sequentially listens a door" counts as putzing about...
But then we're presented with the issue that every door seems to have a timer, and the party feel like fate is artificially rushing them through the dungeon.
And that's the narrative result of fail forward as well. If you're trying to move the action on all the time, then sooner or later it's going to feel forced. You're most likely better off just having the party establish a door procedure, and then only mentioning it again if it becomes important. 'cut to the chase' as it were, not 'have a chase just happen for no reason, because the audience look bored'.
Saeviomagy wrote:
iserith wrote:
Saeviomagy wrote:
Saeviomagy wrote:
Macv12 wrote:
Saeviomagy wrote:
iserith wrote:
BadMeeple wrote:
Macv12 wrote:
Iserith IS an excellent DM. So am I. But we differ in many ways on how things are executed, even if we see eye to eye on the foundational philosophy of the game.
Neither of us care about or police the 4th wall. I can't speak for him, but I believe that's best left to each player to decide for themselves how they want to interact with the game. I don't see it as my job to keep you in character; I see it as my job to evoke emotions in my players that match the fictional circumstances surrounding their characters.
But, really though, every single thing I do is a good idea. ;)
Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:
iserith wrote:
BadMeeple wrote:
Macv12 wrote:
iserith wrote:
grendel111111 wrote:
Macv12 wrote:
Saeviomagy wrote:
iserith wrote:
Saeviomagy wrote:
Looking through my First Edition DMG for something else, I came across the following as it was on the same page.
Dungeon Masters Guide, 1979, Gary Gygax, page 97 wrote: