Presuming of course you can actually succeed. If that lock is just that difficult (to pull a completely random example out of the air) that your bonus will not let you succeed, then Take 20 simply tells the player that, nope, they can't do this.
Again, 5e has largely folded this into the game - DM's are supposed to just let players succeed in cases where there is no real time dependence and no real chance of failure. I just wish it was made a LOT more explicit because I run into a lot of DM's who insist "there must be a chance of failure" and force rolls.
Many DMs find that using a combination of the two approaches works best. By balancing the use of dice against deciding on success, you can encourage your players to strike a balance between relying on their bonuses and abilities and paying attention to the game and immersing themselves in its world. Remember that dice don't run your game-you do. Dice are like rules. They're tools to help keep the action moving. At any time, you can decide that a player's action is automatically successful. You can also grant the player advantage on any ability check, reducing the chance of a bad die roll foiling the character's plans. By the same token, a bad plan or unfortunate circumstances can transform the easiest task into an impossibility, or at least impose disadvantage. |
I am describing the feature working every time there is an attempt to use it, not the player constantly invoking it.What you describe here as the feature “always working” is the player saying their PC knows someone, but the player isn’t “always” saying that.
Yes, that part I get.This very thread!
Ah, you see... I don't think that 99.9% of the people defending the background features mean that they should work 100% of the time. They are arguing that it's not hard to make them work significantly more of the time than those that shut them down because they are "illogical" and "don't make sense". The general thrust of the argument is that they CAN make sense, and don't have to be illogical, if you simply come up with a story that satisfies.One of the positions is an absolute and you've been providing it cover. You keep lamenting that one side of the discussion is responding as if the other is talking about something happening under any and all conditions rather than looking for compromise or something but you have that backwards because it's a discussion where one side is literally saying that the background feature means that it needs to work under any conditions all of the time (or, an absolute as in the real while nonnegative number of 100%) while you keep criticizing posters already talking about something less than 100%.
Yeah, I didn't understand what you were saying then, either. I followed your link and it still didn't make any sense to me. There's two things that I think you're doing that makes this happen: 1) You think that I agree with everything people say if I don't argue with them; 2) You think that I can remember much of what's been said.This was made incredibly clear earlier when there was a literal example of that position posted noted and linked to while I was responding to you earlier .
I didn't mean to throw any shade your way! Again, I'm sorry if it came out that way. I meant it, at worst, as a friendly elbow-to-the-ribs. You tend to champion DM-authority in most of your posts, and you often make it sound like without that championing, the game would degrade into wanton player-driven chaos.Of course people in disagreement with that position of an absolute guarantee aare going to talk about the position people are literally making rather than the less than 100% certainty of success they are saying should be the standard any sane RAW targets because that is the position that is being put forward in contrast. When you started noticing that said absolute might be a position that is less than reasonable and aimed a bit of criticism at it you still covered for it by throwing shade my way.
I'm with you - I think rolling dice is fun, and I don't understand this "fear" around it that is spoken of a lot around here. I think FAILURE is fun - it's especially fun when it's a "fail-forward" type thing, but it can be fun as just failure, here-and-there, in particular when it allows someone else to step up, or new ideas to be introduced to the game.Even if they'd for sure get out of the ravine if they had all day I'd still make someone roll for the party as a guide to how long it took them and-or how many of them got hurt in the process.
Roll a 20, they scamper out within 15 minutes none the worse for wear and can spend the rest of the day doing whatever they like.
Roll a 1, they spend all day at it and finally crawl out long after nightfall, exhausted. Further, each of them now have to roll individually to see how much damage they took from scrapes and falls in the process, with anything over about 14 meaning none but a 1 meaning (in 5e) we might be looking at death saves.
I would say both of those are telling a story together. The only difference is whether you set a potential endgame up first or not.This really depends on whether or not the real goal is to "tell a story together" rather than set PCs loose in an imaginary world and see what story emerges from their actions and reactions. In that scenario, you generally don't want to just succeed.
I would say that's a pretty big difference. I would also say that one is playing with the goal of telling a story together makes a difference too.I would say both of those are telling a story together. The only difference is whether you set a potential endgame up first or not.
Personally I think of multiple endgames. Then the group doesn't take a left turn at Albuquerque and the endgame changes. Sometimes multiple times. By and large though, I'm more focused on setting up interesting opponents, locales, allies and others that could be either friend or foe.I would say both of those are telling a story together. The only difference is whether you set a potential endgame up first or not.
I'm not so sure. There seems to be an awful lot you are willing to shake a finger at while admitting that you don't understand or don't follow thingsYes, that part I get.
Wow... point one percent is enough to cast aside all doubt & give zealous benefit of the doubt? It's kinda noteworthy that you only extend that to only one side of the discussion while calling for the other to work together with players "significantly more". That however is the root of the problem and has literally been covered more than once in the thread because the background feature does not require the player to put any effort into making it work while using a RAW & plain reading that gives the expectation of both guaranteed success as well as the extent of that success. You can't just say "work together" directed to GMs alone while giving a pass to the fact that posters are pinning 100% of the responsibility for finding a way to make them work on the GM when a player says "I use my contact/book passage/position of privilege/etc". In your zeal to push back against hypothetical overbearing GM overstepping you are ignoring the fact that the imagined overstep is simply sometimes it doesn't make sense to have it work and the player needs to roll up their sleeves to do something through actual play.Ah, you see... I don't think that 99.9% of the people defending the background features mean that they should work 100% of the time. They are arguing that it's not hard to make them work significantly more of the time than those that shut them down because they are "illogical" and "don't make sense". The general thrust of the argument is that they CAN make sense, and don't have to be illogical, if you simply come up with a story that satisfies.
Sure, but "a group" involves both sides of the GM screen and you as well as quite a few posters only seem concerned with the GM finding a solution even when it doesn't make sense@Faolyn, for example, has agreed that there are situations in which they wouldn't make sense. So have I. We've just also pointed out that in those situations we don't believe that most players would try to use them. Because the player would be involved in the fiction, and therefore be on board with the idea that trying to use them would be silly.
It's a "problem" that fixes itself. In a group that's working together.
You don't have to agree, but when you call for compromise & collaboration to find a middle ground between sometimes no and always yes but direct those calls exclusively towards one side of the discussion it absolutely provides support for always yes.Yeah, I didn't understand what you were saying then, either. I followed your link and it still didn't make any sense to me. There's two things that I think you're doing that makes this happen: 1) You think that I agree with everything people say if I don't argue with them; 2) You think that I can remember much of what's been said.
As do I. Coincidentally some of those things I object to are unreasonable extremes and the reply would necessarily need to be one discussing that unreasonable extreme.Neither of these are true. In the first instance, I only tend to pop up when there are specific things said that I object to - for example, that allowing people to use their background features in corner cases is allowing for the illogical to happen. I think it's easy enough to come up with good, logical stories to make them work in all cases where anyone would ever try. Do you need to do that? No, but you can. In the second, no, I don't know or remember most of the time what has been said earlier in the thread. I don't even remember what I've said earlier in the thread!
"jealously guard that authority. It's a two-way street"... That street goes both ways as you note. In the case of many background features along with much of this discussion the trouble is that the RAW is written in a way that paves it as a one way street that some posters are defending to maintain it as such. It pretty severely undercuts the ability to actually use that DM-authority when people are quick to say off the cuff benefit of the doubt things like this and direct it at people who are pointing out the two way nature conflict with that one way defense ....I didn't mean to throw any shade your way! Again, I'm sorry if it came out that way. I meant it, at worst, as a friendly elbow-to-the-ribs. You tend to champion DM-authority in most of your posts, and you often make it sound like without that championing, the game would degrade into wanton player-driven chaos.
I am absolutely on your side that a DM should have Authority. But I think in groups that are actually Playing Nice With Others they don't need to jealously guard that authority. It's a two-way-street of respect.