Rulings vs Rules and the Simplicity of 5e

[Anonymouswizard]

I feel that a big part of this thread is going over my head.

As I've written before:

My PC's can:

Fire arrows

Swing swords

Track

Sneak

Hide

Climb

Swim

Sometimes Convince

Sometimes heal

And one could entertain

And one could shoot bolts of fire out of his fingertips!


The rules allow all of that.

What am I missing?

Build a 20 meter tall sentient steampunk assembler robot? Pretty high on my list of 'does the system let me do this'.

[DanyBallon]

@Pex

As I stated before, varying DC for a same task from a DM to another do not impede your character at all. They just shift the numbers, but your relative competence is still the same. If you build your character to be an expert in a skill and in one game the DCs are higher, then you'll still be better than the other PCs and NPCs. When you are creating your character, what is your main goal, be able to succeed agaist a DC 20 75% of the time, or are you thinking, I want my character to be an expert in this skill? In my opinion, the for,er is metagaming, as the character don't know what a DC 20 is, and if this this your train of thought when creating a character, I understand how you can feel cheated with inconsistensies between to DM, but if instead when building a character, you are thinking the later, as long as in game you succeed more often that others, you've achieved your goal from being better, DCs don't matter in this case.

[KorvinStarmast]

Unsurprising, people care a lot about the questions like (and corresponding answers to) "can I get advantage on my attack", "can I apply Sneak Attack", "do they know I am there" and "can this enemy find me to attack me at all" in D&D. They are some of the most argued points in every edition of D&D I've played to date, which is all of them except oD&D.

It was true then as well, as soon as Greyhawk came out and thieves got the sneak attack and hide in shadows features.

I've been playing with the idea of creating "the X stat."

What do you think of the honor stat in the DMG? We've toyed with adding it to our game.

RAW is not just important on the internet, it is also an important starting point and jumping off point for making houserules. Only a limited subset of houserules will integrate well with the base rules without looking kludgey and only a limited subset of kludgey houserules will actually work out well mathematically.

Thank you for making that point.

In my first two years as a DM ( roughly1978 to 1980), I really wanted more to be spelled out. As I got more used to making "rulings", I came to want less so that it was acceptable to make stuff up, rather than my having to memorize or look up RAW.

Yes. DMing a lot builds your confidence in making rulings. One need not be a rule cripple.* (that term is explained at the end).

It was exhausting having to come up with DCs on the fly

I find this completely at odds with my experience as a DM. It is insanely easy to pick a number and play on. It takes fractions of a second. Look at the probability curve of a 1d20 roll. It's a sloped line. Don't agonize over it. Pick a number and go. You are experienced enough in the game play to not need to agonize over the value being 14, 15, or 16 for a given check.

Yes, I do want things "set in stone" without the need for the DM making up everything.

Then I'd suggest one stop playing a game where rolling a d20 is an inherent mechanic.

One can be playing a game of knight in shinning armor fighting a neighboring country, or is having a campaign set in the gladiatorial pits of a decadent city. Not all D&D campaings are high magic.

Yep.

I disagree that those guidelines are "all you need." They don't close the gap between "Alice wants her rogue to scan the crowd for Bob," and "How hard is it for Alice to spot Bob, who is neither hiding nor trying to be spotted?"

Recommendation: pick a number and play on. Don't agonize over it. The chance for failure is built into the system, as is the chance to succeed. The advice to "only roll dice when the chance of success or failure is interesting" is very good advice.

---------------------

* About the "rules cripple" thing I mentioned above: if one does not or cannot exercise a muscle, it atrophies. (Point of reference: breaking an arm or a leg and having it in a cast means that when the bone is finished knitting, one has to rebuild the atrophied muscle ...)

a. When GPS came out and became more used in the early 1990's, those of us who knew a bit about land navigation became concerned about those raised with GPS as their primary navigational tool. GPS gives you outcome, not process nor understanding about spatial relationships. We used the term "GPS cripple" to describe the lack of the ability to understand/innovate/make intuitive leaps that this induced. A similar problem cropped up in air navigation during that decade.

b. There was a long running debate about whether or not a pilot was a "HUD cripple" in terms of aircraft carrier landing skill. When the HUD (Heads Up Display) was up, the boarding rate was markedly higher among new pilots. But those who became HUD dependent weren't as good at simply flying the approach to the three wire when the HUD was on the fritz. (These days, HUD reliability is impressive, I will note).

From this RL experience, I propose the parallel problem of the rules cripple (it can happen to any of us in any edition of D&D since 1e AD&D): a DM who is so used to a rule telling him/her what to do, who is so book/rule focused, that the habit of innovating and improvising shrivels/atrophies, or never develops.

I will point out that something similar is happening among airline pilots: the term of art is 'children of the magenta line' and what is happening is that Over Reliance on Automation is manifesting itself in two critical problems: reduced hand flying skill, and significantly reduced airmanship/judgment.

What I find most interesting in D&D is that Gygax walked both sides of that line at the same time, in terms of what was for sale from TSR. The AD&D system was built to support the ability to play a standardized / convention style of play (the Schick influence), while at the same time, in the DMG, it spent no small amount of time telling DM's to play in the rules light method that Gygax himself ran, that Dave Arneson ran, that Rob Kuntz ran, etc. (Per commentary by Rob Kuntz over at the odd74 forums).

We, the gaming audience, were always hungry for more content, but once you got that mountain of content, what do you do with it all? The Dragon was full of 'try this' which made amateur play testers of a lot of us. The result tends to become "you take what you like and leave the rest" and you focus as a GM on running a game.
It takes some "learning by doing" to do that.
Nobody can expect to be a good GM without having tried it.
(And at this point, please head to Angry GM's website).

D&D isn't rules light; there is a certain amount of system mastery/understanding required to know the mechanics of the game well enough to improvise. (Analogy: to improvise well on piano, you have to first be really good at playing piano). So you can expect a learning curve as you run games. That's not a bad thing, since your decision making ability grows as you do it more.

Don't let the muscle atrophy.

[Rhedyn]

But you're not performing surgery. You're adventurers doing adventurer things that you're all fairly competent at. You're better at some stuff because of training, experience or stats. You're not some untouchable expert at specific tasks, you are an adventurer with general adventuring skill. That's what the system is designed for.

My stupid barbarian knows some medicine and first aid because that's integral to adventuring. My weak wizard can climb a wall most of the time because he's an adventurer! Sure your rogue is better at it but we're both adventurers! We're both competent at it. People just forget that D&D is about adventurers and get mad when it doesn't model their dumb opinions about what they want D&D to be about.

Surgery is basically the heal skill. In 5e you just can't be good enough in the healing arts to treat basic modern medical problems because that world mean ignorant peasants could do the same thing. Meanwhile magic from 10 levels ago can bring back the dead.

In 5e alchemy or herbalism, I can't make a philosopher stone, find eternal youth, turn lead into gold, or even something as mundane as creating high grade modern ceramic armor, because Joe the mentally challenged can apparently bumble his way to similar results if such things were possible. Meanwhile mages can turn into liches and make themselves younger and poop money while having an at will shield spell on.

[LordVonDerp]

It's immersion breaking. I cannot perform surgery as well as a world renown expert 0.25% of the time.

Being capable does not mean you fail less than a novice. It means you can do things they can't.

Depends on what century you take the surgeon from.

[LordVonDerp]

Really?

I find the opposite.

It's people who have little skill in a job that usually think something is "easy".

Here's the thing you're looking for.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

[mgshamster]

Surgery is basically the heal skill. In 5e you just can't be good enough in the healing arts to treat basic modern medical problems because that world mean ignorant peasants could do the same thing. Meanwhile magic from 10 levels ago can bring back the dead.

In 5e alchemy or herbalism, I can't make a philosopher stone, find eternal youth, turn lead into gold, or even something as mundane as creating high grade modern ceramic armor, because Joe the mentally challenged can apparently bumble his way to similar results if such things were possible. Meanwhile mages can turn into liches and make themselves younger and poop money while having an at will shield spell on.

There is no heal skill. There is a medicine skill, which lets you save a dying companion or diagnose an illness. So it's first aid and medical knowledge.

Surgery is not represented through the skill system. It would be represented as a class features much like magic is. If you wanted to make a surgeon, you'd make a new class around it with features that only the surgeon can do. Similarly, you can't cast a spell with an arcane check, so there's no chance Joe the bumbling idiot would be able to do it unless he had very specific training or some other Feature which granted it.

As for making a philosophers stone - that be using the magic item creation rules in combination with high DCs that Joe the bumbling idiot could never achieve, over a long period of time.

Even high grade modern ceramic armor would require a high DC (lower with some manufacturing equipment) that Joe the bumbling idiot would never be able to achieve. And likely also use the magic item creation rules, similar to how the non-magical mithril armor would be constructed. It's just not something poor Joe can do with a handful of skill checks by happenstance.

[2D8HP]

As I've mentioned a few times, I don't find it a coincidence in all my years playing 3E/Pathfinder I had not met a tyrant DM, but the first time I try 5E there he is. Tyrant DMs get off on the power trip. They don't want players to know things. They don't want PCs to do things not explicitly permitted by the rules. They will take advantage of 5E's vagueness, and I think that's bad for the game.....

....Regardless, even without tyrannical DMing, I still don't want to have relearn the game depending on who is DM that day. As for the earthen wall, yes, I do want set DCs and modifiers....

....If one DM has it at DC 20 while another at DC 15, that is what would bother me. The ability of my character to climb walls is dependent on who is DM, not how I create my character, and I am perfectly willing to accept neither DM is a "tyrant".

Interesting.

A lot of what you described as "5e" problems just sound like they way "D&D has always been", but my experience is actually pretty limited in that I really mostly just have dim memories of the '80's, and a little bit of "table time" (old rules, and 5e) these past couple of years. I'm actually jealous of those who've had more time playing over the years (I'm looking at you KorvinStarmast, and Tanarii)

So Pex... In your experience 3.x's more explicit rules make for better DM's? I'm a surprised by this. I've looked at the rulebook's, but I've never played any of the editions between 1985's Unearthed Arcana and WotC 5e, so I'm curious to learn more.

Build a 20 meter tall sentient steampunk assembler robot? Pretty high on my list of 'does the system let me do this'.

3e's Eberron campaign setting had sentient robots (just because I didn't play it doesn't mean I didn't read it!), and the Castle Falkenstein RPG had giant steam powered robots in Japan.

Maybe combine settings?
(If you do let me know!)

[Snails]

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about regarding skills. Perhaps it's the difference in DM styles or campaign styles but for me, I try not to call for checks unless I absolutely need to. So in the example above, I probably wouldn't call for a check. It's what your character does and in perfect conditions, who needs a check? You only need to call for a check when conditions call for it. Anyone can climb a tree but when you're stress level is up and you're being chased by an umber hulk, yes, you will need to make a check. Everyone should be able to swim, but if the currents start to get strong or you're heavily laden with treasure, then a check can be called for. In most of the social interactions in my game, I let the in-character dialogue with my NPCs go until I hit a point where the conversation may be edging towards the NPC's personality, ideals, bonds, flaws, duty or obligations and I'll call for the social checks. DM fiat allows me to run my game this way. I'd rather not have the rules prescribe to me that I HAVE to run my game a certain way and disrupt the dramatic tension I've set up.

Back to the example above, even if I called for a check, the expert above has a Dex (Acrobatics) of +17 which leaves a 15% chance of failure. I'd probably give Advantage on the check for the perfect conditions. There is still that small slim possibility that he will fail the check. Maybe the last serving of mutton gave him the $#!ts and he's gophering a brick. Maybe, today is the day that Fate called his number. If that day is today, he can always use his capstone Stroke of Luck ;p

What you are hinting at (or perhaps are trying to say and I am not understanding, or not) is that you are running a qualitative skill system on top of the 5e skill system, where you just let the character concept give automatic successes for the more simple cases, until the situation is obviously "dicey" and calls for a roll.

As a player, I would be happy to work within that framework.

I am not asking for more consistent DCs because I feel the need to make tactically optimal choices. Having DCs is a means to a goal, the actual goal being: I can make meaningful decisions in the context of my character concept and understanding of the world, with results that are not jarring and immersion breaking.

Consistent DCs are just one means of getting a grasp of how my character is likely to succeed or fail at tasks in the world.

A qualitative first approach will always have its rough edges, but it is something I can work with. Keep in mind that the implied logic of a qualitative approach suggests that character level does not usually matter. If my PC has a high Dex and Acrobatics, tightrope walking succeeds under good conditions, always, regardless of whether the PC is low or high level -- we only roll when conditions are poor. If my PC has a Sailor background, we never wonder if the prisoners are properly tied up, unless one of them has a gobsmacking escape ability we did not anticipate. If my PC is a mounted Paladin, we do not roll for jumping over fences that are physically plausible in the real world -- we just handwave a success. Look at the PC concept first and jump to Yes when the background implies competence.

[Segev]

Isn't your desire, as a player, to play the game rather than engage in an argument over a few points of DC enough? Whether you like it or not, that's the paradigm of 5E - let the DM decide the DC, and let the player play the game. They put a built-in assumption in the system that a slight disagreement ("It should be DC 10" "I say 15") will not ruin the game. Were they wrong?

In one game I'm in (not a D&D game), the GM calls for checks far, far more often than I think she should, and I do bite my tongue and accept it, though it annoys me. It annoys me because this is a % system, and thus by asking for 3-5 checks for every complex action (roll to see if you use your radio successfully; recipient rolls to see if he uses his successfully; roll to see if you successfully encode a message; roll to see if the recipient successfully decodes it; roll to see if you navigate to the right spot; roll to see if you calculate the right coordinates you're giving over the radio; roll to see if the other guy correctly uses his computer to enter those coordinates in.........), the chances of failure mount rapidly, since any of the rolls failing leads to "hilarious" failure.

So, yes, I do actually do as you advise, to the detriment of my fun, in the name of not frustrating everybody else by arguing. But believe me, I want to argue, because I think I should climb that darned ladder without chance of failure, but the GM thinks I should roll for everything harder than waking up and getting out of bed in the morning, and I fail at the sub-tasks often enough that I feel incompetent as a character.



Now, to the "setting expectations" side of things, if Player Alice thinks her rogue's +6 to climbing should give her a high chance to make it over that stone wall, but DM Betty thinks that that's a Nearly Impossible task, Alice will try and be shocked when she practically auto-fails, and be in a more dire situation than if she hadn't had her character try.

If there are some baseline expectations for how difficult a task is, Alice won't go 5 minutes into a description of her plan, past a couple of successful stealth checks to make it to the wall, only to learn once there that the task is far harder than she expected. At least, she won't discover this based solely on differing expectations between her and the DM. (She might learn the wall is coated in oil, but she didn't see this before. But that's a vastly different situation than the stone wall being exactly what she thought it was, but the difficulty being higher because, hey, the DM thinks stone walls are Nearly Impossible to climb. --no, you don't get to say the DM is being unreasonable, the rules don't actually tell us whether stone walls are Nearly Impossible or not.)

With guidelines in the rules, Alice could know what those guidelines are, and be aware that stone walls are Hard to climb, giving her a good ballpark for her DC and a way to gauge her chances based on her bonus. Without having to pre-outline every step of her approach so the DM can lay out every DC for her in advance. Or retcon back because Alice's rogue would've known she couldn't climb that wall.

[Pex]

@Pex

As I stated before, varying DC for a same task from a DM to another do not impede your character at all. They just shift the numbers, but your relative competence is still the same. If you build your character to be an expert in a skill and in one game the DCs are higher, then you'll still be better than the other PCs and NPCs. When you are creating your character, what is your main goal, be able to succeed agaist a DC 20 75% of the time, or are you thinking, I want my character to be an expert in this skill? In my opinion, the for,er is metagaming, as the character don't know what a DC 20 is, and if this this your train of thought when creating a character, I understand how you can feel cheated with inconsistensies between to DM, but if instead when building a character, you are thinking the later, as long as in game you succeed more often that others, you've achieved your goal from being better, DCs don't matter in this case.

I don't compare my character to NPCs or other PCs. I don't need to be "better" than them. I want consistency. It breaks my immersion if I'm able to climb a wall in one campaign but can't in another given the same relevant build, and enough about not all walls are the same. That's not the point. It is a bother I'm allowed a roll to recognize a troll in one game but denied it in another because the rules say DM do whatever the heck you want we're not bothering.

The game has specifics for class abilities (for the most part). It has specifics for spells (for the most part). It has specifics for monsters. It has specifics for feats. It has specifics for magic items. It should have had specifics for skills.

The parts that don't fit in "for the most part" (Paladins & Great Weapon Style, Summoning spells, etc.) are their own problems that lead to inconsistency, but I would have forgiven 5E of them if they were Honest True due to no game is perfect rather than their on purpose design choice of they're not bothering to finish designing the game and make DMs do the rest of the work.

[Ruslan]

"Average person" also doesn't work because PCs are not average people

This argument is irrelevant. When setting the DC, the DM should not consider the PC at all. He should consider Average Joe only, and pick the
statement that applies best from the list below:

• Average Joe should have no problem whatsoever => DC 0 (or just autosuccess)
• Easy for Average Joe. Unlikely to fail, unless there are detrimental circumstances => DC 5
• About 50/50 chance for Average Joe => DC 10
• Quite difficult for Average Joe, but still has a fighting chance => DC 15
• Average Joe barely has any chance at all => DC 20
• Average Joe has no chance whatsoever; get an expert => DC 25 or higher

and people's perspectives on what is average will also differ. For example, how easy was it to climb a rope in gym class?

How many kids in a gym class of 30 failed to climb that rope? About 10? Well, then Average Joe should have a 1/3 chance to fail. DC 8. There you go.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I don't compare my character to NPCs or other PCs. I don't need to be "better" than them. I want consistency. It breaks my immersion if I'm able to climb a wall in one campaign but can't in another given the same relevant build, and enough about not all walls are the same. That's not the point. It is a bother I'm allowed a roll to recognize a troll in one game but denied it in another because the rules say DM do whatever the heck you want we're not bothering.

The game has specifics for class abilities (for the most part). It has specifics for spells (for the most part). It has specifics for monsters. It has specifics for feats. It has specifics for magic items. It should have had specifics for skills.

The parts that don't fit in "for the most part" (Paladins & Great Weapon Style, Summoning spells, etc.) are their own problems that lead to inconsistency, but I would have forgiven 5E of them if they were Honest True due to no game is perfect rather than their on purpose design choice of they're not bothering to finish designing the game and make DMs do the rest of the work.

Consistency between tables is an illusion at best. Yes, not all stone walls (even within a single campaign) are the same. They vary wildly. That elven-work, magic-crafted stone wall in the Towers of the Four is a very different beast than the rough-work, piled-stone wall that makes up the edge of that farmer's field. They cannot be represented by the same DC, even with any reasonable modifiers. It would take magic (or a rope hanging from the top) to climb one (no handholds, molecular-scale smoothness, inward sloping, etc) while the other wouldn't even (except under super-adverse circumstances) merit a roll.

Spoiler: Zombie rules

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Note that in 5e, climbing is not generally a check at all. You can climb any reasonable surface by spending 2 feet of movement for every foot of progress. What is reasonable?
Depends on the setting, the table, the tone of the game, and the DM. Same with jumping. There's a fixed (based on STR) distance you can jump--anything beyond that is at the DM's discretion if it's even possible,
let alone what the check would be.

I see this with players (and DMs!) who are used to other editions of D&D. They import their old rules in, instead of changing the baseline to the new one. Different editions have different baselines. If you try to play 5e using 3e mentality, it's not going to work.

Also, your character is not the same between tables. Yes, the metagame stuff (numbers) are the same, but what that represents as to the actual capability varies between universes. It varies with the tone of the game. A wuxia game will have much more wall-jumping and acrobatics than a grimdark low-fantasy game. It's inherent in the nature of the thing.

I can understand a desire for consistency within the same situation at the same table (climbing the same wall under the same circumstances should be the same DC), but not between tables or between situations. That's a huge constraint on the DM, on the setting, and on the rules themselves that I don't believe has ever even come close to being satisfied without homogenizing everything. Even in the 3.X era (which I never played, but read the rules), I doubt that many tables actually followed those set DC rules too closely.

Your build improves your ability to do {specific thing}. It does not and cannot guarantee success, nor can it set exact probabilities ahead of time. That's an entirely meta-game thing.

Spoiler: From a DMs perspective

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I'll admit to rarely making up a specific DC for things (except those of spells, traps, or creatures). I know whether it's hard or medium (easy tends to be auto-success). For wild ideas, I know about what the appropriate modifier is and if they roll well (a fuzzy concept) they tend to at least partially succeed and if they roll poorly (also a fuzzy concept) they tend to fail (or receive less success). Some checks really only involve degrees of success--they'll succeed but how much will they get from it? Maybe (rarely) nothing, but usually more or less depending on the roll.

This freedom is vital to me. I play mostly with strong time constraints--1hr per session at most. Any time spent looking things up and calculating modifiers is too much. Game flow is the most important thing, other than making sure people are having fun.

[Pex]

Interesting.

A lot of what you described as "5e" problems just sound like they way "D&D has always been", but my experience is actually pretty limited in that I really mostly just have dim memories of the '80's, and a little bit of "table time" (old rules, and 5e) these past couple of years. I'm actually jealous of those who've had more time playing over the years (I'm looking at you KorvinStarmast, and Tanarii)

Not in 3E/Pathfinder/4E. There are defined DCs for things. 2E too somewhat. Even for things where you don't have proficiency in you would still roll against your ability score but different DMs applied different fiddlies such as whether you have to roll against your (ability score - 2) or something, hence the "somewhat".

So Pex... In your experience 3.x's more explicit rules make for better DM's? I'm a surprised by this. I've looked at the rulebook's, but I've never played any of the editions between 1985's Unearthed Arcana and WotC 5e, so I'm curious to learn more.

By virtue alone of never having met a tyrant DM while playing 3E/Pathfinder I would say yes. I know, it's been said before a bad DM will be one regardless of system. That is true. In 3E/Pathfinder and I'll even say 4E you have to on purpose try to be one because you have to go against specified rules, with one subset exception. The abuse of Rule 0 is apparent. I will say again 5E does not teach people to be bad DMs. It just facilitates them because there are less rules to purposely go against, allowing for the potential new player learning the game becoming one if he lets the power trip go to his head.

Subset exception: Killer DMs. In my view, not all tyrant DMs are Killer DMs but all Killer DMs are tyrant DMs. Killer DMs are those with a high PC death count, enjoy the high PC death count, and bask in the glory of their omnipotent power against "stupid players". A 3E/Pathfinder/4E Killer DM will follow the rules creating his own version of the TO builds you see in other threads for NPCs and monsters and/or present continuous waves of enemies against the PCs, and boy do they love using traps and cursed magic items.

Edit: Spelling

[Snails]

In one game I'm in (not a D&D game), the GM calls for checks far, far more often than I think she should, and I do bite my tongue and accept it, though it annoys me. It annoys me because this is a % system, and thus by asking for 3-5 checks for every complex action (roll to see if you use your radio successfully; recipient rolls to see if he uses his successfully; roll to see if you successfully encode a message; roll to see if the recipient successfully decodes it; roll to see if you navigate to the right spot; roll to see if you calculate the right coordinates you're giving over the radio; roll to see if the other guy correctly uses his computer to enter those coordinates in.........), the chances of failure mount rapidly, since any of the rolls failing leads to "hilarious" failure.

So, yes, I do actually do as you advise, to the detriment of my fun, in the name of not frustrating everybody else by arguing. But believe me, I want to argue, because I think I should climb that darned ladder without chance of failure, but the GM thinks I should roll for everything harder than waking up and getting out of bed in the morning, and I fail at the sub-tasks often enough that I feel incompetent as a character.

This is a classic kind of DM failure from the 1e/2e days. Based on conversations from NetNews back in the 80s, I would bet circa 90% of the DMs punished players for daring to be creative, daring to try anything cool that the DM did not anticipate.

One reason is that D&D culture back then was still carrying significant simulationist pretensions. So anything that was not covered in the rules was an excuse for the DM to imagine 5 different ways to fail, and demand a roll to for each one. The other reason is Sage Advice, to be blunt, explicitly encouraged this attitude.

Most modern RPGs do not apologize for being games that are intended to be fun, rather than simulations. Thus more gamemasters are used to saying yes without picking up the dice, or just figuring out which one roll to call good enough and not worry over the other little chances of failure.

My experience with 3e is it tended to encourage the DMs to learn to say yes, even if they did not make the full trip to lightweight style. That is because the PCs, once they hit middling levels, could do so many useful things with 100% success based on their skills. My personal experience is that the 3e DCs are a trivial effort 99% of the time. The DM just describes the scenario (e.g. the wall is rough, but wet) and we find a DC that everyone agrees is about right without any argument or fuss.

[KorvinStarmast]

Consistency between tables is an illusion at best.

I think that only Adventure League has that as a goal.

I'm actually jealous of those who've had more time playing over the years (I'm looking at you KorvinStarmast, and Tanarii)

I was young and single for OD&D, 1e, Some Basic/Expert, and a bit of 2e. That allowed for investing time and energy into world building and systems mastery. I got married around the time 2e came out. Unlike the previous versions, I did not have time to develop systems mastery, as kids soon followed. Likewise with 3/3.5, not only not enough time for systems master, neither the budget nor the patience to invest in that system. The times I played it were often non satisfying, other than the time I was spending with friends and family doing a fun thing.
Our one on line game was going OK until the DM's dad made him stop running the game. (College grades, and all that).

So Pex... In your experience 3.x's more explicit rules make for better DM's?

I will suggest that a good GM is rules independent. That's my experience. The guy in college who ran a good D&D game also ran a good Runequest game when I met him again a few years later, and he had run an excellent Chivalry and Sorcery game as well our last year at college.

[Snails]

This argument is irrelevant. When setting the DC, the DM should not consider the PC at all. He should consider Average Joe only, and pick the
statement that applies best from the list below:

• Average Joe should have no problem whatsoever => DC 0 (or just autosuccess)
• Easy for Average Joe. Unlikely to fail, unless there are detrimental circumstances => DC 5
• About 50/50 chance for Average Joe => DC 10
• Quite difficult for Average Joe, but still has a fighting chance => DC 15
• Average Joe barely has any chance at all => DC 20
• Average Joe has no chance whatsoever; get an expert => DC 25 or higher

How many kids in a gym class of 30 failed to climb that rope? About 10? Well, then Average Joe should have a 1/3 chance to fail. DC 8. There you go.

That is a very logical seeming approach, the main problem being the results are obviously wrong once we look at anyone other than Average Joe.

We might agree about Average Joe regarding a set of similar tasks of varying difficult. Good. We know how to game with an Average Joe PC. We also happen to know there is are a few actual Expert Bob's in the real world who can do a "Average Joe barely has any chance at all" task with a 99% success rate.

5e appears to be unable to model the level of competence that we see in the real world. The flat math simply disallows it. That is not a auspicious starting place for a system that should model both realistic mundane levels of competence plus fantastic & heroic levels of competence, as well.

The flat math works well enough in the combat system because the classes are rich in combat abilities that useful for mitigating the downsides. Since the skill system is so incomplete, most PCs have few mitigation options and most classes do not provide more at higher levels.

[DeathEatsCurry]

5e appears to be unable to model the level of competence that we see in the real world.

It's almost like a system with a huge amount of inherent variance through d20s made for playing the actions of fantasy heroes and other larger-than-reality figures is unsuited for providing accurate simulation of the Average (anachronistic) Joe's competence in various tasks.

[Tanarii]

Wow, walked away for a weekend and this thread took off.

I have two issues, with one really a subset of the other. Those who have read my postings before know what's coming.

nooooooo....

Actually, while at first I had a lot of issues with your viewpoints, I've got a lot more sympathy for them now than I did back then. The only thing I take some issue with is the way you view and frame the issue. For example:

There are instances of things that were quite possible and appropriate to have official rules of how they work, but the designers decided not to do their job and made the DM do it. Skills are my main beef where this happens.

The designers did their job on skills, given the design goal and paramaters. You just don't like the design goal. That's not the same as them not doing their job.

My other issue, the subset, is that because the DM has to finish designing the game this facilitates the tyrannical DM being one or learning to be one. Not cause it. Not teach it. Facilitate it.

I've never met someone I'd consider a 'tyrannical DM' in 30 years of playing, and I've heard you use the term many times. What do you mean by this? A Railroading plot-stickler DM? (Of course, never having met one may mean I'm one. )

Not at all. How hard is to climb a slippery rope? How hard is it to know what spell a bad guys is casting. How hard is it to know the capabilities of the monster the PC is fighting? What is easy for one DM is hard for another, player character creation irrelevant.

Those are actually some of the best examples, especially the last two. Because many DMs / Players will say 'That's not possible in 5e' and others will say 'sure it is the DM just needs to set a DC'.

I like the underlying resolution method being clearer and having guidelines.

That's a valid personal preference. I enjoyed it at first in 3e. Then I came to prefer the idea that not all 'sheer cliffs' in a world have the same DC in 4e. From both a player and DM perspective, I prefer the 5e way at the moment. That almost certainly WILL change over time and as a new edition comes out. Just as I'm currently prefering 5e TotM play, after ~20 years (out of ~30 of playing D&D) of heavy battle-mat focused play from 2E combat & tactics through the end of 4e.

It was true then as well, as soon as Greyhawk came out and thieves got the sneak attack and hide in shadows features.

I'm totally unsurprised they were important to people in oD&D as well ... since AD&D 1e had some incredibly complex rules for some things. Those complex rules had to come from something other than Gygax's love of actuarial tables.

[2D8HP]

...I don't compare my character to NPCs or other PCs. I don't need to be "better" than them. I want consistency. It breaks my immersion if I'm able to climb a wall in one campaign but can't in another given the same relevant build....,

I don't feel that way, but I can see why you'd want want the difficulty of tasks to be consistent in a game, but my own real life experience shows me that the same tasks can very incredibly in difficulty (maybe my competency just varies unusually hour to hour?).

...I will suggest that a good GM is rules independent. That's my experience. The guy in college who ran a good D&D game also ran a good Runequest game when I met him again a few years later, and he had run an excellent Chivalry and Sorcery game as well our last year at college.

I agree, and... you got to play Chivalry & Sorcery?! (so jealous!).

My first gaming circle had tried and discarded C&S (and Stormbringer) sadly without me, so I sadly never got to experience how bad (or good!) they were.

I did get to play Runequest, and I'm actually pretty fond of it, though I never had quite as much fun as I did with D&D.
If I had to GM a straight and pure RAW game I think I'd rather do Runequest than 1e AD&D (just easier for me).

[Ruslan]

We might agree about Average Joe regarding a set of similar tasks of varying difficult. Good. We know how to game with an Average Joe PC. We also happen to know there is are a few actual Expert Bob's in the real world who can do a "Average Joe barely has any chance at all" task with a 99% success rate.

Yes, expert Bob exists. And he won't be a PC, though. PCs are not (despite what the class feature named Expertise says) experts in their skills. They are first and foremost adventurers, doing adventurer stuff.

The skill system cannot, and is not intended to, model an expert in brain surgery. It models a rugged adventurer (warrior, wizard, whatnot), who happens to be somewhat skilled in the arts of healing. The expert in brain surgery does not go on adventures. He is an NPC.

[Snails]

It's almost like a system with a huge amount of inherent variance through d20s made for playing the actions of fantasy heroes and other larger-than-reality figures is unsuited for providing accurate simulation of the Average (anachronistic) Joe's competence in various tasks.

That could be true, at a theoretical level, that because the system is so expansive in scope it makes compromises that mean it models the mundane a bit less well.

But I would argue it is not really the case here, that 5e as written often flounders for both mundane people and for fantastic people.

3e has shown us that you can map out a bunch of tasks referenced to Average Joe's and Olympic Gold Oliver's, and get sensible enough DCs in the 5 to 25 range, assuming a real world where all but very rare individuals are somewhere in "tier 1" (levels 1-4). As our fantastic 3e PCs reach the double digits, we get nice meaty results like "Hunkrah the Barbarian can do in a blizzard what Olympic Oliver can do on a sunny day". It is very easy to understand, and it meets our expectations of what fantasy heroes can do.

The 5e rules as written fail to model both Oliver and Hunkrah, although they work well enough for Joe, I suppose.

[Snails]

I don't feel that way, but I can see why you'd want want the difficulty of tasks to be consistent in a game, but my own real life experience shows me that the same tasks can very incredibly in difficulty (maybe my competency just varies unusually hour to hour?).

Careful. I think you may be confounding "difficulty" in terms of how much time effort a task ended up taking with DC. They are not quite the same thing, even if they are related.

Say you are a seasoned pro in some field of endeavor. You might have a +10 skill. You might find you get the most lucrative pay by concentrating on tasks at ~DC 25. Since you do not succeed with Take 10, you could easily "fail" on your check day after day. Eventually you will succeed, and you get to bill for your success. A priori, we expect these DCs to give you a mix of results in the 1 day to 12 days range. In hindsight, you would have a concrete reason why it took 9 days to get down to the "real" work for one task and say "dang, this stuff is unpredictable". But the mechanics do not care about those details, and calls the entire set of tasks that took a mix of times the same DC.

Just because Task A took 2 days to complete and Task B took 7 days to complete does not mean they had different DCs.

[DanyBallon]

That could be true, at a theoretical level, that because the system is so expansive in scope it makes compromises that mean it models the mundane a bit less well.

But I would argue it is not really the case here, that 5e as written often flounders for both mundane people and for fantastic people.

3e has shown us that you can map out a bunch of tasks referenced to Average Joe's and Olympic Gold Oliver's, and get sensible enough DCs in the 5 to 25 range, assuming a real world where all but very rare individuals are somewhere in "tier 1" (levels 1-4). As our fantastic 3e PCs reach the double digits, we get nice meaty results like "Hunkrah the Barbarian can do in a blizzard what Olympic Oliver can do on a sunny day". It is very easy to understand, and it meets our expectations of what fantasy heroes can do.

The 5e rules as written fail to model both Oliver and Hunkrah, although they work well enough for Joe, I suppose.

This all depend on your play style, you are looking for a game where Hunkrah becomes a superhero, whil I like my game where Hunkrah is exceptionnal, but within human limits.

To represent this, the DM running both game can set different DCs for the same task, you in one game Hunkrah can easily achieve task that mundane won't be able to do, while in the other game, the DM set the DC higher and now the PC feel more "human"

[Snails]

Yes, expert Bob exists. And he won't be a PC, though. PCs are not (despite what the class feature named Expertise says) experts in their skills. They are first and foremost adventurers, doing adventurer stuff.

The skill system cannot, and is not intended to, model an expert in brain surgery. It models a rugged adventurer (warrior, wizard, whatnot), who happens to be somewhat skilled in the arts of healing. The expert in brain surgery does not go on adventures. He is an NPC.

For brain surgery, I will shrug and accept your argument as good enough.

The idea that PCs are not true experts at approximately anything modeled primarily by the skill system is profound and far reaching.

In essence, that is my main complaint against 5e, and I consider it a significant flaw. Many, many game systems work otherwise.

[Snails]

This all depend on your play style, you are looking for a game where Hunkrah becomes a superhero, whil I like my game where Hunkrah is exceptionnal, but within human limits.

To represent this, the DM running both game can set different DCs for the same task, you in one game Hunkrah can easily achieve task that mundane won't be able to do, while in the other game, the DM set the DC higher and now the PC feel more "human"

That is a fair point.

I would suggest that in a game when your traveling companion can literally bring a man back from the dead, that many PCs will eventually reach superheroic levels of skill in some areas seems like a good default.

[mgshamster]

For brain surgery, I will shrug and accept your argument as good enough.

The idea that PCs are not true experts at approximately anything modeled primarily by the skill system is profound and far reaching.

In essence, that is my main complaint against 5e, and I consider it a significant flaw. Many, many game systems work otherwise.

It's not that profound or far reaching. Being an expert in an area is modeled by Features (primarily Class Features, but may also be Race or Background Features). It's not modeled by the skill system.

[Tanarii]

Careful. I think you may be confounding "difficulty" in terms of how much time effort a task ended up taking with DC. They are not quite the same thing, even if they are related.

Say you are a seasoned pro in some field of endeavor. You might have a +10 skill. You might find you get the most lucrative pay by concentrating on tasks at ~DC 25. Since you do not succeed with Take 10, you could easily "fail" on your check day after day. Eventually you will succeed, and you get to bill for your success. A priori, we expect these DCs to give you a mix of results in the 1 day to 12 days range. In hindsight, you would have a concrete reason why it took 9 days to get down to the "real" work for one task and say "dang, this stuff is unpredictable". But the mechanics do not care about those details, and calls the entire set of tasks that took a mix of times the same DC.

Just because Task A took 2 days to complete and Task B took 7 days to complete does not mean they had different DCs.

You are mixing up "atomic difficulty to complete the task right now the very first time" with "DC necessary to complete the overall task". But that's unsurprising because unlike the 3e system skill checks were born in, D&D 5e ability score checks don't necessarily require setting the DC for 'complete once right now' and checking over and over again. In fact, in some situations (social checks, foraging, not getting lost, etc) the check is explicitly the overall task, not the individual portion of the task. Whereas in other situations there are special rules for doing the task over and over again, either as the same task but different circumstances / location (passive rule in PHB) or the same task until you get it right (automatic success rule in DMG).

Which boils down again to a variable tool kit which allows the DM to choose a resolution rule as needed for the circumstances. With all it's benefits and downsides.

[Rhedyn]

It's not that profound or far reaching. Being an expert in an area is modeled by Features (primarily Class Features, but may also be Race or Background Features). It's not modeled by the skill system.

Or.. Bare with me on this...

Skills could be modeled by the skill system rather than tying such things behind heroic PC classes that npcs are not designed to even be able to take levels in.

This discussion though is the exact problem with the skill system. Every DM and player could extract something different from it.

If you walked into a game where DCs were set relative to those performing them and the barbarian was ripping up trees and knocking down castle walls while your 20 str fighter had trouble flipping a wagon because the barbarian was proficient and you weren't so your 20 athletics check produced different result than his 20 athletics, you may be put out by such an event because it doesn't match your expectations. But it is a valid RAW way to run the skill rules. It's just not how you envision them.

[DanyBallon]

That is a fair point.

I would suggest that in a game when your traveling companion can literally bring a man back from the dead, that many PCs will eventually reach superheroic levels of skill in some areas seems like a good default.

I'd say, it just means that he can use magic. Again is a matter of preference. 5e is vague enough to allow all the style of play.

The guidelines tell you how difficult a task is:
Very easy = DC 5 means that on a d20 roll you'll beat the target more than 75% of the time
Easy = DC 10 means that on a d20 roll you beat the target more than 50% of the time
Medium = DC 15 means that on a d20 roll you beat the target more than 25% of the time
Hard = DC 20 means that on a d20 roll you beat the target 5% of the time.
Very Hard = DC 25 means that unless you have some kind of bonus you won't be able to beat the target
Nearly impossible = DC 30 means that even with incredible bonus you may not be able to beat the target often

Let say we agree that the default setting is a superheroic style of play. A DM can decide that jumping over a 50ft chasm is a medium task. The player immediately have good idea of it's chances of success.
Now if the player bring his character in a more grittier setting and the DM says that to cross the exact same 50ft chasm is now very hard. Again the player immediately know his chances of success.

The rules are clear for everyone. Adding specific DCs for a given task, would only applies to the default setting the devs had in mind. If it happens it's not the same default as you like, then it would be worthless.