>arguing about rules
Tell me about the last time you wasted a bunch of time just arguing about game rules or how you handle it.
>arguing about rules
>arguing about rules
Tell me about the last time you wasted a bunch of time just arguing about game rules or how you handle it.
Asked why I can't carry more than the scrawny mage in a B/X game. DM took a while to find the table, agreed that it was moronic, broke out AD&D and told me I can carry some extra pounds according to my strength.
>woman DM
>doesn't even understand what metagaming is
IT STINKS
>woman DM
Of all the things to be triggered by
>Of all the things to be triggered by
There was no trigger, he was commenting on the ironic accuracy of a female gm not understanding game concepts, while also pointing out the person who made the comic clearly isn't a gm.
this is cope
this is gaslight
Decent questions, ngl
Literally every session. We've got a wizard in the party who tries to cast spells before pulling up the description and reading what they do, and the DM will put combat to a grinding halt to look up rules because he refuses to make a ruling.
>Fighting a guy in a belltower, and the DM says the guy tries to shove me off
>He pauses, says he doesn't know what to roll (We've been playing this same system for a decade)
>I tell him the answer
>DM ignores me, stops combat to pull up the wiki and searches for the answer
>DM eventually gives up and settles for having the npc do a normal weapon attack
Newbie GM wanted to port a lot of rules from BG3 to tabletop and I warned him about why many of them were a dumb idea because Bg3 are the way they are because:
>It's a videogame without the openess and nuance of a GM
>Larian wanted to add something fun
But most importantly
>Larian did not want to change how the engine works so they did not to change much for Eivinity 3 is just Original Sin 2 action system disguised as 5e rules.
Like the reason jumping is a bonus action is because you cannot go through units in OS2 and Larian loves verticality.
The engine thing is also why you cannot use any bonus action as an action, because that would need to rewrite the code so those resources are interchangable in some situations.
Had to explain this and also made him say movement rules to show he had no idea how they worked and therefore could not predict the consequences of arbitrarily changing the rules.
>The engine thing is also why you cannot use any bonus action as an action, because that would need to rewrite the code so those resources are interchangable in some situations.
Say you don't understand gamedev wgilw trying to sound like an expert
>The engine thing is also why you cannot use any bonus action as an action, because that would need to rewrite the code so those resources are interchangable in some situations.
There are multiple effects that allow you to do this in bg3 though, pseud-kun
>TTRPG
Waaaay back when in 2007, we were having a BBQ on the allotment and we started to discuss Vigour skill and its resolutions (essentially all sort of physical resistances) in the (Polish) Witcher. Since the rules regarding it are written in such a way you need a degree in Polish to decipher what the frick, we spend the entire fricking afternoon and evening arguing over how to solve bunch of glaring issues. We ultimately came to conclusion that the rules are simply borked and we should draft our own solutions, because trying to untangle that mess is impossible. I'm still using the homebrew solution we've devised back then.
>Board games
I've been playing Sleeping Gods this March. It's a horrible game, with extremely messy explanation of rules and even more vague wording of cards and their results, especially when applying penalties. All in all, terrible stuff. But since one of the card had particularly messy wording on penalty to movement, we spend 40 minutes arguing what should be our actual movement range and it created a genuinely unpleasant atmosphere, with everyone progressively more pissed and the rest of the evening being really silent and really bitter. We still didn't figure out how to interpret that card "properly", since there have been three different ways to read it at the table and nobody felt like backing down. I think the reason why we never finished playing this game, despite having only few turns of the final deck left, is how bad it hurt the mood and morale of our group.
Also, keep in mind that in case of TTRPG, we weren't even playing it at the time (it was Friday BBQ, we had games on Wednesdays and Saturdays/Sundays). We were just discussing shit for the sake of discussion and figure out how to properly use and/or abuse Painful Strike unarmed move, and things just went from there. It's pretty much the last time I had an argument about game rules of an RPG
allotment?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening)
Perma-GM here. Doesn't really happen because I am also the rules-lawyer. Most of the time, I am the one arguing against the rules, and offering my players a choice between the rule as written and a better interpretation. By default, when I notice a rule has to be changed, the player(s) get the most favorable ruling on the spot and, if their character was built around the rule, I allow character alterations.
> OP's pic
The guy's first question is reasonable, and my answer would be: "Sure, but if you fail, you misjudge the task enough to give you a penalty on the Athletics check."
Pic semi-related: I love when players do that stuff.
>pic
I think if your target is standing on open ground a good distance away from you it might be pretty hard to get an acute enough angle on the ground to guarantee that the stick would snap. especially on soft or uneven ground, the arrow might just reflect.
what I mean is that you'd probably end up needing to hit your target after all, unless they're standing next to a wall or a piece of cover or they're really close to you.
and obviously storing these things is like storing hazmat. still a pretty fricking useful instakill grenade launcher if it works though
What this picture fails to mention is that this is a 22,500gp single use arrow. I actually made one of these in 3.5. But even as an arcane archer with a once a day homing shot, it was never cost effective to use. It might in some campaigns, but in that one by the time I had that kind of money to throw around, most of the more powerful enemies that I could justify using it on could just planeshift back from the astral plane.
>"Can I make a perception check to see how good of an Athletics check I need?"
>Metagaming
holy frick this is moronic. An Olympic gymnast or even a fricking hobbyist rock climber can still tell with a glance roughly how hard they think something is going to be, we would literally have gone extinct as a species if the only way to know whether a physical task was trivial or absolutely beyond our abilities was to just try it and fricking die if you were wrong. Imagine if monkeys just constantly fell out of trees and broke their legs falling because they couldn't intuitively and exactly determine how far a distance to swing.
This isn't even metagaming by the barest stretch, it's asking to use in-game abilities to make an in-universe judgement from th character's point of view whether or not they're capable of something. It's pretty much the exact opposite of metagaming. Metagaming would be as a player saying "I only have a +1 to athletics and anything the GM is calling for that involved a diceroll I'm unlikely to succeed at since they wouldn't ask for a roll for something DC 5, so I'll just not even bother and try something else" without even attempting it. Which isn't even that bad since having a +1 on your character sheet means the character in-universe likely knows they're not exactly Tarzan and should know better.
You wouldn't need to make a check. You would just know if it was easy or hard based on your skills.
Player: how hard does it look?
GM: what's your modifier?
Player: +5
GM: looks easy/looks like it might take some finesse/looks difficult
I would take your reasoning step further and argue that metagaming is stupid thing to obsess about, since the numbers (based on which metagamer makes judgement) represent something in the game world/story and henceforth it is actually using in-game knowledge (by proxy).
Another typical example of metagaming is "DM wouldn't sent CR10 creature on us, we are just lvl 3", but I think this is genre awareness and that is appropriate and desirable thing to do. You SHOULD play characters that work for the genre you are playing.
I guess only cases where I can see metagaming as bad is when you read DM's notes or when you read the module you are playing. But it's not even metagaming anymore.
You're both missing the point. Whether you agree with the GM or not is irrelevant - if you want your GM to give you more free reign, play with a different one.
The question may be reasonable, but it shouldn't be asked in the first place. The GM said "roll this" and immediately the player's reaction is to try to countermand it.
It's disrespectful and undermines GM authority if it isn't shut down. It will encourage this type of behavior in the future.
GM was perfectly in her rights to say 'no' and move on, yet he continued.
I don't know what kind of insecure despot fears his authority challenged by a player wanting to assess its situation when an event significant enough to warrant a check is called. This is even more true if the game is not D&D and the player has access to some options to edge his bets. Even D&D in space (Star Wars Saga) has that option through Force Points.
The first question is not disrespectful in the least, hence the term "reasonable" and hence the fact I would offer a trade-off. This is not a videogame, the GM is not pre-programmed, and assessing one's situation is one of the most normal thing a PC will ever do.
If the player had told the GM he was rolling for perception, trying to circumvent "her", that *might* be disrespectful. Literally asking for permission is not.
>asks for permission
>told "no"
>keep going at it
What's even the point of asking for permission if you're not taking "no" for an answer.
Read my posts, I only ever defended the first question. We otherwise agree
Missed the point. Asking wasn't the problem, moron.
> The question may be reasonable, but it shouldn't be asked in the first place.
It was, dumbshit.
>does exactly what the comic shows on an anonymous internet forum
Kek
holy shit. are you the guy who made the comic? "no, you're not allowed to perform risk assessment, it didn't occur to your character to perform it" yeah that's why they call it a PLAYER character. amazing all around
Why do you have a character sheet if your stats don't matter?
like the one I'd use to make a perception check? if the DM deigns to allow me the agency to control what my character does
Holy shit. Are you an assmad player the GM told you no, yet you continued to pester him for you little victory?
I was the DM in my little world. I've only played three times. and I don't think this particular issue ever really came up because the DM let people be in charge of what their characters did
>DM let people be in charge of what their characters did
Yes, and the DM also adjudicates how the world reacts to what those characters do, including requiring rolls when failure could have negative consequences.
Your statement is meaningless, and also implies that because the DM didn't give into the player's pestering that the player was no longer in control of their character.
Perhaps it would be helpful if we communicated our perception of what's happening in the comic. To me, it looks as though the DM is making the character either perform an action or not (I hope - the alternative is that the DM is forcing the character to do something regardless of the players efforts to convince the DM that maybe it's something his character wouldn't want to do) without allowing the player the option to have his character do the sort of basic risk assessment anyone about to do something dangerous does, and which is completed in less than a second. What do you think is happening here?
Player wants to do something that requires jumping, DM ask to check athletics to see how the jump goes, player wants to find some kind of extra advantage and starts pestering the DM with a bunch of nonsense instead of just doing the fricking jump
see
That is my take exactly.
You're moronic, wrong and illiterate; the other guy is correct. The DM is demanding a roll for some action the player wants to take (or conceivably must take, like dodging a rockfall or some shit – doesn't matter), and the player is trying to cheese the roll to avoid the possibility of failure instead of just fricking making the roll he got told to make like a normal human being, holy shit.
You've still failed to explain why this is in any way bad. The player may not be clear as to the consequences of his actions because the DM didn't explain enough or the battlemap doesn't convey all the detail. There's nothing wrong with asking a bit of extra detail and it takes like 5 seconds to avoid the PC doing something moronic IC.
This gif aged me by ten years. You're right btw.
You're also right, because you're imagining a scenario where it makes sense to ask for more info. Like, if I want to jump across a small gap, and the GM says "okay roll", then I might be surprised because I didn't think it'd be that kind of gap. When I say "wait, the gap's that big?" the GM can either say "oh yeah, sorry, to clarify, it's still a big gap to jump across" and I can say "oh I choose not to then" OR they can say "nope, it's not that big. But there's something you missed" and then I jump and if I fail the roll a hidden chasm troll yanks my ankle or something.
>"Can I make a perception check to see how good of an Athletics check I need?"
this isn't guaranteed. for example, if you're climbing a stone wall you might me able to tell if it SEEMS hard (no check needed) but you can't necessarily "investigate" if there are any lose stones at a higher altitude.
also the great majority of the time this is just busywork that adds nothing to the game so I rather either tell the player outright what the DC is.
all of this b***hing that the op's picrel IsNt aCtuAlLy metagaming is wrong. youre playing 5e, pathfinder, or whatever that has a mountain of text that clearly explains the limits of everything you can do to if x, then y. trying to game the game by creating non existent rules to subvert these rules is the actual definition of metagaming. play one of those pbta storyshitters instead if you cant figure this out
>trying to game the game by creating non existent rules to subvert these rules is the actual definition of metagaming
Here is the (You)
>trying to game the game
The horror!
it's not metagaming, it's something even worse: angle shooting.
Metagaming at its worst is something like a savvy CoC player pawning off reading The Necronomicon onto another poor schmuck because frick the sanity loss, which isn't even that bad in the scheme of things because somebody's going to end up reading that thing anyway.
contrast this with angle shooting, where one of the most storied cases is in an MtG tournament where one player dropped a Pithing Needle to turn off his opponent's win condition by naming "Borborygmos", after which opponent reanimated the Borborygmos in his deck and used its activated ability to win because "Borborygmos" is technically the name of a shitty old card that was different from his wincon which was "Borborygmos, Enraged" despite the fact that the guy with the needle was obviously trying to use it to turn off the Borborygmos that killed him and not the Borborygmos that wasn't even in opponent's deck.
>haha sorry dude you said "Borborygmos Enraged" but it's actually "Borborygmos, Enraged" xD
I sure hope a judge was called because that is bullshit
there actually wasn't a rule against it in the judge book before this incident, probably because Richard Garfield presumed that the people playing the game would be people playing with their friends, not weaselly fricking c**ts who need an ironclad, legally-binding rule saying "you both need to know and agree which card is being named when someone names a card, homosexual."
I dunno, judges can be moronic sometimes
I remember an mtg tournament. In my turn I declared battle phase, selected attackers and tapped them to attack, dude didn't declared defenders, I asked him do you take the damage? he said "ok", then I threw a bolt like at him reducing his life to 0. Dude then casts a fog like to prevent creature damage, after he already said "ok" to taking the creature damage. The judge just said to me "he was clearly saying ok as to acknowledgeyou're attacking" Despite me asking him clearly "do you take the damage?" and he saying clearly "ok" and doing nothing else for 30 seconds
You misunderstand. The player named "Boborygmos" when he meant to name "Boborygmos, Enraged". "Boborygmos" is a real and legal card to name, so the judge had to uphold it.
There's a worse one where a player asked a judge if he could name a card with no activated abilities. This is legal, even though it would be pointless. Once that player did this and the judge correctly answered yes, his opponent decided not to play a counterspell, thinking the player was misplaying. The player then resolved the pithing needle and named a totally different card that had activated abilities that the opponent had several of in play, and he won the game off of it.
The rules now state that all players are responsible for assisting their opponents as much as possible to clarify actions. That rule is unenforceable (is the judge going to read minds?), so this sort of thing isn't going away.
there's a big difference between "I expect my opponent to do something stupid so i'll let him do it... oh no he didn't do the stupid thing I thought he was doing!" and the Borborygmos thing.
for starters, there was no ambiguity about which card the needle was naming after it resolved.
This details may not matter in casual play, but in tournament play with pro players are crucial, the judge was called and he ruled according to the rules, which were later changed to avoid this situation again.
Sounds like regular MtG player behavior to me. What a cringe game.
Meanwhile.
Counter-cheesing a cheeser is based though
So it's doing a move that actually changes the game rules from then onwards.
this is what happens when you have moronic ruleset to begin with.
If there's deployment it should be forced deployment at least once per turn and so on.
> Muh tactical freedom to not to.
People's face looks like pic related.
That infamous case was actually the reason why the rules were changed to something much more sensible.
Now you can say something like "the big cyclops in your yard" and it works.
>"hmmm, could my character make an estimation of roughly how difficult the task he is a about to atttempt is?"
>"no"
How does determining how hard a jump is help you become any more capable of physically making that jump?
perhaps it can help you decide whether you want to jump or not
If the GM is telling you to do an athletics check, you probably already told them you're jumping
>make a jump check to jump over that hole
>Can I know the distance?
>No
>Do I know if my char is good at jumping?
>No
>Do I know if I could survive the fall?
>No
Nice DMing
He asked to do a check for the action he wanted to perform and immediately asked to do a different action that takes a different roll. You should ask this stuff before the GM tells you what to check.
>Asking to make a perception check to know the DC
Read the comic again bro. He isn't asking the perception to gauge the jump. Even then it isn't a Perception check if he was. It would be Intelligence.
>I want to roll a perception check to see if my attack has a chance to hit
I hope dumbfricks like you never even accidently come near my table. And you literally already know how far your character can jump and how fall damage is done. Read your rulebook, nogames moron.
Never. I use good systems that don't result in such arguments.
What system?
I have not played anything in years, but back when I did memorable rule hangups included targeting hostage taker (using the hostage as 3/4 cover), amount of effort necessary to re-route a river, and feeding Goodberry to Mindflayer.
Some time approaching two years, I'd imagine. It was when I was still sitting at a D&D 5e table, and the DM was trying to welch me out of dealing damage in some way or another. He had it out for me for some reason; despite having +8 to hit at level 1, I still only hit half the time, barring moronic custom enemies like those that auto-dodged the first hit against them every round.
I don't have to worry about arguing about rules now that I write my own games; I know exactly how things work.
>having +8 to hit at level 1
Since skills caps at 20, supposing you roll your stats, you're having a +5 and +2 proficiency from where's the other +1?
I had a +4 base modifier for DEX, +2 for race, and +2 for archery proficiency.
>+2 for race
wait a minute, which race +2 to modificer in 5e?? that's a +4 to a stat
The total was +8 to hit.
4 came from base DEX
2 came from race
2 came from proficiency
Do you get it now, or do I need to repeat myself again?
>2 came from race
Which race gives you +2 modifier?
I'm asking a simple question
Kenku
>inb4 >kenku
holy frick you giga moron lol
that's embarrassing and you don't even know why
That's +2 to Dex Score not to Dex Modifier
> Good combination for several classes.
Yeah like ranger and rogue, fricking idiots kek.
That doesn't change your attack bonus.
Are you mexican
Even if you get +2 for your race the stat still cap at (20)+5 you can never get a +6
There's no race that gives you a +2 to attack at level 1. Is this like a costume thing you guys did?
Best guess, it was race but class, if he was playing a fighter
>Archery You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapon
*it wasn't
>powergamer
You deserved it. DM was right to bully you
Once again, the "pOwErGaMeRz REEEE" homosexuals demonstrate their lack of actual experience in practical play when they just see a high number and cry, while ignoring the fact that half the time it has no meaningful effect.
Keep crying.
If it had no meaningful effect then why are you crying that you missed.
>I don't have to worry about arguing about rules now that I write my own games; I know exactly how things work.
who wants to guess what playing at anon's table is like?
I was the player in 3.5.
I wanted to pick superior unarmed strike or improved natural attack on my monk. GM said rules don't allow monk to pick those feats. Felt weird because there wasn't anywhere in the manuals that said that, felt even weirder when there're example build monks in the PHB2 and other sources with improved natural attack and superior unarmed attack, felt extra weird when the FAQs also say that monks can pick them no problem. It was borthering the absurdity when the GM said "no, my manual says they cant'" but refused to show the page. So basically after countless sources from my part and there from him I decided to just leave it at that and not bother coming back. That was already the strike 3 (and I wasn't even the only player who already had problems with the GM) for mostly rewriting his own session 0 rules without informing us first so lots of "le tricked you" situations happened, but that was by far the most absurd and the longest argument I had with that GM probably because at that moment I was really annoyed after all of that
Every copy of the PHB personalized
>rules don't allow monk to pick those feats
There's literally a clause in Superior Unarmed Strike where Monks treat their unarmed progression as 4 levels higher when they take it.
Stop ruleslawyering
It's not rules lawyering to point out a DM being a moronic power tripper.
I know, and also there're iconics and other premade monks with those feats. It didn't matter he said the rules didnt allow it and it was so explained in his DMG
I don't argue about the rules in TTRPG. I either accept what player wants despite the rules or say that I am the rules.
In case of boardgame I usually quickly google the case.
I really hope he meant +2 from archery style as a fighter, otherwise it makes no sense a +2 to modifier from race in 5e.
>Asking questions about what skills you can use is metagamming
the hell?
No, but deciding to change your action after the GM ask you to roll for what you have to do is.
The comic never implied or said that. If anything the GM is forcing a check on the player from nowhere, or he is asking for more information before wanting to commit.
Stop with the bait. You have been at this for long enough.
The guy in the comic isn't asking moronic stuff like "if I roll endurance can I endure rolling twice"
I interpreted that as her either tuning him out or just the artist seething about something a player did instead of speaking to him.
I interpreted it as the character in the comic saying that thing on account of it being written in a speech bubble coming out of his mouth
>GM is forcing a check on the player from nowhere,
that scene is obviously taken out of context, there most likely was something that prompted the Athletics check, but we can only speculate what exactly it was
Really your just supposed to say what you do and the GM says what you roll. Instead of asking
>Can I roll perception to see how difficult this task is?
You say something like
>I want to take a look around and see how difficult doing this task seems
And if its something you can visually see then perhaps the GM calls for an investigation or perception or whatever check. But you dont ask to make a check, you simply say what you're doing.
Yeah its a little autistic and I would let that slide with people who are new to table top games but for people who have been playing for a bit, yes I expect them to explain how they want to do something instead of just only rolling for it.
I mean I'm a forever GM too. And I'm fine with beginners doing it, or even experienced players who dont say exactly what they but rather give me the gist of it. I simply tell players
>Avoid using the word "roll" in your request or action
I think its perfectly fine if a player who isnt great at rp dialgoue says something like
>I want to try and persuade the king to give us free passage
Or whatever.
Still, asking a roll to know the "difficulty number of a check" (not how hard you character sees the task) or a check to roll "twice" seems a bit far off.
Yeah it is for sure. Rule of thumb, just say what you do, don't speak in game terms until the GM asks for them. Goes for almost any system.
How would your character know anything about a number that doesn't exist in his reality?
"how good of <skill> check I need" is not asking for a number. It can be interpreted as such and inexperienced DM may be inclined to give numerical meta-answer, but the question is legitimate in-character inquiry. That can be legitimately answered with in-character observation without any numbers being mentioned. Ranging from "Should be manageable even if you half-ass the attempt, as long as it's not a complete fluke." to "You need to do your absolutely very best."
Disagree, he's asking for a generic "perception" he's not stating WHAT he wants to see, is it the gap? is it the type of terrain? is it the wind on his favor? is very ambiguos what he's "perceiving"
Perception doesn't need target, it's about noticing anything that's, well, noteworthy. You're thinking of Investigation.
He specifically said "difficulty number of a check". Stop being dishonest.
I'm not seeing it, could you underline the word "number" in the image for me?
That's why the complain is about metagaming, he's not asking "can my character use what he sees to see how hard or easy the jump is for him, maybe with perception to see how big the gap is") what he says is "can I make a perception check to see HOW GOOD OF AN ATHLETICS CHECK I need"
What good is it even having the technical stats if theres no way to circumvent bigger rolls cause of them?
>Can I make a concentration check to see if my jump check gets a bonus?
>Can I make knowledge arcana chance to remember the time the bard sang eye of the tiger and hype myself up for advantage on this jump check?
>Can I cast cure light wounds on myself to basically bathe myself in positive energy and give my jump check a boost as if I just took 5 hour energy?
There are rules that specify what each skill is used for. If you don't like the rules, play a different game.
I believe your advice is well intended but I think you fundamentally misundertand the situation here. People don't want solutions, people want things to get mad, or goad others into getting mad. All mad here, wouldn't be here otherwise.
>why cant I use a healing spell to jump further
Holt shit frick off
What's the point of having different abilities if you can just use butthole logic to make any skill do any task
In my experience there's not nearly as many brown women DMing and playing tabletop games as portrayed in these kind of comics.
>tfw no passive aggressive big breasts curry DM
Why do you guys nickel and dime your players on inane petty bullshit? Are you trying to make the game as miserable as possible?
I don't, because I play with my friends and I'm not That GM and they aren't That Guys.
More like they aren't the rules lawyer type.
Like I said, they aren't That Guys.
>Arrows do 1d6 damage
>Player wants to just grab a handful of arrows to do like 10d6 damage.
I had him take throwing weapon skills and said it does 3d6 damage. I feel like that was being generous.
as we all know the average DM is a longsuffering and highly rules-savvy black woman and she DMs for those insufferable white guys who we all can just barely tolerate.
That is not metagaming. Annoying pedantry or some form of bonus hunting rules lawering maybe but not metagaming
>when another player argues about rules questions about their own shit - explicitly during another player's turn
you are not invited back.
A while back me and a friend played a game of 1v1 Commander just to try out decks, and we got into an argument about whether or not a creature's Power goes down when attacking succesive creatures. I hate to say it but I started it because I was close to winning.
I don't even think this is metagaming. Some players just like to hold things up by asking endless questions about stupid bullshit. There's a guy in my long-running game who always wants to know how deep some random pond is or how many blacksmiths are in town or whatever.
Metagaming is also a time-wasting power trip, admittedly. Drawing out scenes as long as possible by refusing to hand-wave that PCs are sharing basic non-secret information between scenes or insisting everyone pretend like they have no idea what a rust monster or wight does because it's a new campaign.
It is metagaming. It's trying to use mechanics in the game to influence other mechanics, despite them not being prompted by the DM and not being applicable in any way RAW. They're just saying "can I do [anything else I have better odds at] to make [roll I'm bad at better]." There is no other reason to try and provoke other rolls for your own benefit than metagaming. That's not how the game works: the DM dictates when you roll for something because the DM is in charge of the game engine. You, as a PC, aren't responsible for deciding your rolls, you interface with the world and use mechanics themselves only when necessary, such as: when the DM tells you to make a fricking roll. You can haggle for a better chance by positing different applicable rolls like asking if your Survival proficiency applies to reading a map, but you can't ask for extra fricking rolls just to make one you've been told to make, better.
>inb4 it doesn't say that much
It's a fricking scenario that exists, calm down.
Holy shit, a person in this thread who knows what metagaming is!!
No, I play with actual friends so it goes like:
>Oh hey can I use this check instead because of my background in...
>Sure, why not
or
>Hey the rules for doing this say...
>Hmm, I'm not going to use that for this game
>Okay, in that case I'll...
>"Can i have agency?"
>"No."
This. Except it doesn't give agency, just an awareness of how you'll get screwed.
>agency
You have no idea what that word means. Back to plebbit.
>Tell me about the last time you wasted a bunch of time just arguing about game rules or how you handle it.
I never argued. If I didn't know something, I'd ask the players if they knew it by any chance.
If they tried to pull something, I'd ask them the logic, then either approve or disapprove. If they argued, I'd successively increase the malus as time was passing, until finally either skipping their turn or autofailing them.
>ITT: Never-game morons arguing about bait image, because they never played any TTRPG and thus can't answer OP's actual question
Had almost the exact situation occur not a day ago.
Player asked me a ruling on a situation that might come up mid-combat. I gave him my ruling. He immediately tried to negotiate with me to change my ruling.
I said I had made my decision, and he continued to argue and try to find ways around my ruling.
Apparently he took it when I said "if you have a suggestion, I'll listen" to mean "I'll agree with whatever you propose."
the problem here, besides the fake female DM meme
is that you are supposed to call out the DC of any check you request at any point in the game.
if your DM isn't doing that, its because he is cheating and your dice rolls don't matter because your DM has already predetermined what's going to happen.. In fact you aren't even playing a TTRPG - because again, dice rolls are supposed to matter in TTRPGs, that's literally what the 'table top' is there for.
Instead you are just a character in your fake DM's home theater ad-lib session.
So again, just a quick set of rules of how actual TTRPG games are played:
>DCs are determined before the dice are rolled
>the dice are always rolled in the open so everyone can see the result and compare it to DC
>both rules apply to DM and the players
Any exception to the these rules is 'cheating' by default.
If that exception is allowed as standard practice, save yourself some time and stop pretending like the dice matter - just put the 'table' away and have your ad-lib 'game of imagination'. Yeah, its lame, but its 1000x lamer to be doing one thing and pretending you are doing something completely different.
>calling out DC
>so player can metagame it
Not only that, but it's moronic. Oh you want to search for secret doors? THE DC TO FIND THE SECRET DOOR IS 20. THE DC TO FIND THE TRAP IS 25.
Silly take, anon.
its not a 'take' its literally just the basic principle of what a tabletop game is.
Whether that game involves rolling dice, or played with cards, the point is to have verifiable outcomes based on those dice/cards - verifiable to everyone participating in the game.
if the DC isn't called ahead of time, the players cannot determine if their success/failure is based on their dice roll or because the DM decided they should succeed/fail on the spot and changed the DC after the fact.
And like I said, if you are playing a game where the mechanic is 'X is decided by a dice roll' but in practice 'X is decided by GM' - you aren't playing the game. you are just pretending to play it.
so at that point why the hell are you wasting time with the dice to begin with? Just tell your DM "I want to jump across" and he will tell you "You died" or "you made it'. Literally what was happening before with hidden dcs/dice rolls, but without the silly pretense.
Holy fricking shit dude, don't you just trust your GM? My character doesn't see the world in numbers, he knows only if he hits or if he fails. I'm not going to be around in a paranoid fit about if my GM somehow changed the outcome of a roll because any GM can just say "no, you can't do that, the difficulty is impossible" and auto failed me if he wants, he doesn't need to play some weird mind games were I throw the dice in a pointless roll since the outcome is decided.
>don't you just trust your GM?
you would have to be moronic. I mean clinically moronic to 'trust' a DM that makes a rule change whose only purpose is to allow that DM to 'fudge' outcomes of dice rolls.
that matters how exactly?
You seem to think there's a rule that requires DMs to announce DCs, and I'd like to know what system you play because I've never heard of that rule.
its not a system rule, its a basic rule of the hobby, without which none of these games function as actual games.
and I host a pf1 campaign with 3.5 mixed in for some stuff.
>He doesn't know what dm screens are for
sure i do. said it right here
>your fake DM's home theater ad-lib session.
that and to hide and hold up notes/figurines/source books.
dm screens are fine - so long as the dice rolls aren't happening behind them. at least not those dice rolls that players are interacting with. If DM is rolling to determine a character reaction or a random encounter table - those don't need to be in the open
Just because you're paranoid about your DM cheating doesn't mean the rest of the world is. The rule that "you must roll in the open" doesn't exist, is just a fantasy you invented because you keep confusing your preferences with real rules.
anon, I could say the same about your confusion of a dice based table top game with a theater-of-the-mind, collaborative imagination exercise.
There is nothing wrong with either one - when I had to chaperone my five year old and other kids over the holidays, we had a cool session of the later variety. But I didn't pull out a bunch of dice just to pretend that like I would let their dice rolls influence how the game was going to go when I had already decided ahead of time how their imaginary story would end.
That would be silly. And even kids that small will call you out on your bullshit if you try telling them that they need to roll above or below a particular number in a 'game' but you get to decide the number after the fact in your head.
Is not about that, my character doesn't see the world in "numbers" he understand the logic of the action, but he doesn't know what a "15 to hit" means, he just knows is easier or harder. Is the same logic you use for monster hp when you can it's "fine", "hurt", bloodied", "almost dead"
There is just no point in doing that word play - at that point you are already revealing the DC, you are just obfuscating it as a range. Essentially replacing "DC17" with "DC 15 to 20" except there is room for argument if you have used the proper words to describe that difficulty. So why waste that time? It just opens up room for arguing and slowing down the game. (ie. "you said 'pretty hard', dude. A 22 isn't 'pretty' its definitely very hard'
Also regarding your point about granularity -I guess it depends on the system, but taking D20 systems as being the higher end of granularity among the most common games, you will be able to gauge a DC10 vs DC11 vs DC 12 on most tasks. Circumstances that make a 5% difference in success are going to be readily apparent in vast number of cases. For example, in my favorite system 3.x, DC difference of 2 is equivalent to another person helping you with that task - as in very significant.
that's what 'basic' often means, otherwise known as 'presupposed without even needing to be explicitly mentioned'.
Same most books will tell you 'you need to roll an X-sided dice for this... and by the way, here are the rules for rolling dice: 1 - do not touch the dice until they stop rolling, 2 - do not just place the dice on a table in a predetermined position...' The rules don't specify all that because it is all presupposed into the concept of rolling dice. As in, basic rules for rolling dice. And among those basic rules is that no one at the table should have the ability to 'fudge' results of that dice roll. These books are printed for adults. It should not be necessary to write 'do not cheat in a game' there.
>>no one
Speak for yourself, anon - vast majority of people will have at some point of their childhood, been explicitly told 'do not cheat when playing games with other people'
>that's what basic often means, otherwise known as 'presupposed without even needing to be explicitly mentioned'
Except in this case the only person in the thread, and in fact the only person on Planet Earth who uses this "presupposed" rule to my knowledge is you. And I'm not even the anon you've been replying to.
>do not cheat when playing games
is not equivalent to
>always give your PCs a perfect understanding of the cosmic forces of luck and chance before every skill check
If you need to toss out a meta number to effectively describe a challenge, you need to take language classes. If a player specifically asks the GM how difficult a task will be, the GM is supposed to describe the task as clearly as possible to the best of that PC's knowledge. And if the PC's knowledge of the task is unknown, you can call for a knowledge/perception check. Stop acting like a crutch for lazy GMs is an unspoken commandment etched into the collective consciousness of gamers across the world.
> and in fact the only person on Planet Earth who uses this "presupposed" rule to my knowledge is you
guy there are tons of people online who will tell that cheating is not okay in the game - which in this case means DC and rolls are visible.
give your PCs a perfect understanding of the cosmic forces of luck and chance before every skill check
Don't know your system, but as I said above on a d20, a set DC number is not perfect understanding of the cosmos. is routine knowledge,
a DC +1 on a Listen check corresponds to the speaker being 10feet further away. A DC +1 on a jump check means another foot of distance. Most people in real life would be able to pinpoint a DC on that scale - you can tell if the people you are trying to overhear are standing 10 ft away from you or 20ft.
>there are tons of people who tell that cheating is not okay
yeah but they don't equate visible DCs to cheating because that would be wrong
>A set DC number is not perfect understanding of the cosmos, it's routine knowledge
What is the tallest mountain in your country? Give me the exact DC required for you - the human reading this post - to climb it right now. If you have to think about it for more than five seconds then clearly you must concede that it is not routine knowledge, and thus it is unreasonable for a character to be instantly and acutely aware of the hardship of every single task they must face in their lives. Of course if you do respond within five seconds then I'll repeat the question for as many tasks as I can think of since you only need to fail to come up with a number once for my point to be true.
>What is the tallest mountain in your country? Give me the exact DC required for you - the human reading this post - to climb it right now. If you have to think about it for more than five seconds then clearly you must concede that it is not routine knowledge
climbing the tallest mountain isn't a DC check... its a mini-quest. And given that you don't seem to understand how ridiculous your example is, I doubt you also happen to kno that the game system I speak off happens to have rather specific DCs for things like climbing with examples that will allow a PC to determine the DC very precisely in any practical situation in a game
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/climb.htm
>climbing the tallest mountain isn't a DC check, its a mini-quest
Not including any encounters, it is a series of athletics checks with set DCs which you claim are easily determined by a character's intuition. But sure, I'll go for a different example. What would the DC be for you to fix your dishwasher? What would be the CON save DC for you to eat raw chicken and not get salmonella? How about the CHA check to score a date with a girl you know? Can you come up with a precise numerical value for these challenges in the real world, even with your table for reference?
given that the dishwasher is a basic household item, than its 10 to 15 based on what specifically is broke and making the attempt tends to reveal that one
you have a point for diseases and social interactions. These are not readily apparent... that said, what exactly would be the need to hide them from players in a gaming situation?
special cases along with diplomacy
i record it, leave it concealed. it can be revealed if the players want it after it becomes irrelevant.
Seems like it would get tedious. Wouldn't you rather just play with trustworthy friends?
it really isn't. For every note I have to make, there are dozens of rolls that go faster. Plus Rolling a dice against a known DC is just more fun for everyone I mean, imagine playing darts if you are not allowed to look at the board and need to have another guy tell you where it landed... that's how I would feel if I had to play with a DM who doesn't tell me ahead of time.
Trust goes both ways btw.
again, what's the harm in your player knowing that he had a three in four chance of not get salmonella or that he just barely succeeded in convincing the girl
you can keep players pretty keen if in cases such as unknowable DCs if you declare once they commit to the action. For most cases when DCs come up in actual play, it just doesn't matter if players do know the dc
>you can keep players pretty keen if in cases such as unknowable DCs if you declare once they commit to the action
Yeah this is true unless that information would reveal other stuff that I'd rather stay hidden (for example a DC18 for lockpicking a certain door would suggest the room contains something particularly valuable)
I have found myself giving out DCs more and more recently though just because I like the tension it creates.
>what exactly would be the need to hide them from players in a gaming situation?
The point I'm making is that a GM has an omniscient understanding of the game and thus is able to arbitrate difficulty whereas a player should only know as much as their character, who wouldn't have a perfect insight into the odds of success. That's why my group and I conceal DCs in our games by default. If you genuinely suspect your GM of fudging then making him declare DCs is perfectly understandable, I'm just glad my group can all trust each other not to do that shit. All I'm saying its it's not cheating to conceal them by default.
It's not just about fudging, it's about ensuring a shared understanding of the game world.
>I record it
So your presupposition to all of this, where the GM in your scenario is cheating, is because you think he hasn't pre-determined DCs and written them down, and then might not reveal the number after the fact? And you're a PF player? Jesus Christ, what a fricking moron.
Most PF players play APs, where DCs are mentioned in the books themselves. And if not, PF has a slew of pre-determined, set DCs for a variety of mundane tasks, such as breaking down doors.
You're also contradicting yourself because now "in certain cases" you don't announce the DC beforehand.
Way to out yourself, nogames.
>i record it, leave it concealed.
So you're cheating. Players should always know the DCs, otherwise you're cheating.
An autismal elfgamer? On MY traditional games board?! In the Year of Our Lord 2023?!?!
>that's what 'basic' often means
think you need a dictionary bud, because that most certainly is not a common or even uncommon definition of basic
>Speak for yourself, anon - vast majority of people will have at some point of their childhood, been explicitly told 'do not cheat when playing games with other people'
Is it possible in your mind that some DMs may not want to give the DC beforehand not because they plan to cheat, but because the task has a difficulty the player cannot estimate in advance and might not even exist? Like in this post
How do you handle secret doors/hidden traps?
A basic rule of the hobby that no one except you seems to have ever heard of
>trust your GM?
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/xa8tfi/dms_how_often_do_you_fudge_dicerolls/
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/11q4f8n/dms_of_reddit_how_often_do_you_fudge_your_dice/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/t78gwc/fudging_rolls_a_poll/
by these statistics, the chances of your DM not cheating you out of results of your dice rolls are about 1 in 5.
combine these stats with
>a rule change whose only purpose is to allow that DM to 'fudge' outcomes of dice rolls
and its just a reasonably solid assumption that any time DM withholds DC or rolls in secret its because he intends to fake the outcomes at some point.
>reddit
May as well go to a cesspool to ask how clear the water is
no argument here but I don't know better places to find such polls.
I've seen the same on twitter, but that's not much better than reddit.
>How to ensure you become and remain nogames: the post
>if the DC isn't called ahead of time, the DM is arbitrarily deciding success or failure
The fact that you make it binary suggests you're either autistic or moronic.
Stick to playing video games, nogames.
i've seen dozens of polls on twitter and reddit asking if DMs fudge rolls - 90% say yes they do. Every DM on youtube I know of, says they fudge rolls.
>>so player can metagame it
who gives a shit?
the alternative is modern scene of gaming where you have a bunch of adults pretending to roll dice while literally everyone participating in the game and watching the game all know that not a single dice roll actually matters.
As far as I know, most fudging is done to the player's favor.
>90% of DMs fudge rolls based on normalgay websites
Who fricking cares homosexual? I'm not in that 90%. Maybe stop playing 5th Ed, where the DM's job is to ego-stroke your whiny ass and clap like a moronic child's mother every time you manage to string together a coherent sentence.
in the minority of cases where there are good reasons to care about players meta gaming, just have DM write down DC on post-it note and place it face down on the table. reveal it only if an attempt is made.
otherwise just let them know ahead of time for the sake of speed. Especially given that for most actions are simulated, you would reasonably know the difficulty either ahead of time or immediately after the attempt. ie if you try to bust down a door you are going to have a decent feel for how firmly its barred based on whether there is any give at all in response to your kick.
>for the sake of speed
As opposed to just having the GM say "you succeed" or "you fail" when the player tells you the result?
Lolwut, this board has been infested with the most braindead, troglodytic moronation. If this sort of stupidity is what normalgay players believe it's no wonder this hobby has turned to shit.
>if you aren't being given the difficulty classes of rolls so you can metagame it the GM is cheating
Holy moronation fa/tg/uy
This entire thread from OP to here is a Rorschach test of why not to play with some people.
>is that you are supposed to call out the DC of any check you request at any point in the game.
No, no you don't. You can if you want or you could just say it's "easy" (up to ten, usually doesn't even takes a check unless the situation really is dire) medium (from 10 to 15), hard (from 15 to 20) or very hard (25 to 30). The exact number can be anything in between and you have no reason to disclose it unless your players distrust you for whatever reason.
>25 to 30
* meant 20 to 25, and impossible is (25 to 30)
>strong female GM of color
>annoying problematic white male
It's all so tiresome.
This is not metagaming. Metagaming is more like "I use fire on the troll... because I read the rules and know that trolls are weak to fire". Saying "can I roll knowledge to know that trolls are weak to fire?" is not metagaming.
>"can I roll knowledge to know that trolls are weak to fire?" is not metagaming.
that's still metagaming, albeit not as offensive, the question is leading on to a particular answer you want to get, proper form would be
>"can I roll knowledge to know if trolls have any noteworthy weakness?"
which you should be doing for any monster you're encountering for the first time
This whole thread is giving me an anneurism. No wonder the hobby is this fricked.
yeah, i now say HYTNPD&D not because of the ruleset, but because of the expanded player base.
>dm introduces the concept of runes into 5e campaign in the middle of it because lore
>intent is that it's something maybe 50 people in the world actually know about, and maybe 10 of them are considered proficient in
>player a spends time/effort/resources to learn how they work
>imagine if different forms of spellcasting were equivalent to programming languages, in this case runes are assembly
>player b, after hearing this news ooc, gets eyes of the runekeeper and states that because it's a language he can automatically comprehend it just as if not better than player a
>throws a fricking fit because the dm says that's not how it works both raw and rai (for his campaign)
this was a multiple-hour-long argument that spanned multiple session times. the dm stated best-case, player b could understand the 'literal' linguistic meaning of a string of runes, but it wouldn't have any effective use mechanically or otherwise. i can still see where player b was coming from, but i also still feel it's dogshit to utilize one of the vaguest features in the entire fricking game just so you can be better than someone else.
>this was a multiple-hour-long argument that spanned multiple session times
Just goes to show, when someone tries to gaygulate a rule like this, don't bother discussing it with him: just cut his throat and explain to the cops what a gay he was being later.
Or, you know, kick him out of the group.
Been ages since I been on either end of a long argument about rules, as a player I often trust GMs rules verdict, and don't interrupt the flow of games unless it's really bad calling, it has potential of ongoing effect "hey, so that means we're always going to do it like this?" or if a character gets to use an ability for free where another character has to pay (Skill points, feats, etc.) Like a Monk getting to roll on Sense Magic without any subclass features or feats which lets them do so.
When I GM, I try to see if they're Rules-traditionalists or Rules-haggler to use a borrowed term. Traditionalists just want to play by the rules, but with Hagglers I often just cut to the chase and (politely) point out that I get what they're doing, ask what their end goal in this scenario is. Let them know that even if I say yes, it doesn't mean I'm always going to give them that same ruling and if it becomes a ongoing problem (like the game always grinding to a halt because they want special treatment) that I don't want them at my table. So far this seemed to have worked.
How little do you have to trust your GM that you have this adversarial of a relationship with them?
how little do you trust your players that you have to conceal DCs from them?
>how little do you trust your players that you have to conceal DCs from them?
Because players/PCs shouldn't know the exact difficult of all actions? It makes their judgement on whether to do something more keen as risk assessment becomes more about judgement than just looking at a number.
Falls through the moment there's a conflict between what the players expect and what you're giving out.
Just tell them it looks like a difficult or easy action.
Having a fit over not having perfect omniscient knowledge over every action is metagamer behavior
I really thought this was going somewhere when he asked to make a perception check, and I was going to agree that asking to make a specific check instead of describing your action and having the dm as for a check is moronic, but then I finished reading the sentence and it's extremely clear that the author has no idea what metagaming is, and has no experiance gming.
how is this metagaming? metagaming involves abusing the real actual rules, not making up new moronic ones
>Tell me about the last time you wasted a bunch of time just arguing about game rules or how you handle it.
PCs literally don't need to know the rules, if they want to argue about something we can
either talk like adults and get to a common ground or they can be buttholes and get told they're not the fricking GM and we're not playing shit straight from the book.
TTRPGs are rooted in homebrew, if you don't like how I run my games, you're welcome to not play it.
I of course won't treat the PC badly if they are being an butthole, I am first and foremost a neutral GM, but being an butthole = you won't get invited anymore.
10 minute argument with my D&D 5e GM after he said I couldn't long rest to swap spells at the start of the dungeon... because my character already woke up this morning.
The 20 hour wait didn't even do anything because we were "just in time" to fight the villian no matter what.