D&D 5E At Your 5E Table, How Is It Agreed upon That the PCs Do Stuff Other than Attack?

[Lanefan]

With respect, characterizations of "continue to argue" and needing to say "accept it or leave" are not descriptions of what I consider a healthy table at which players are "just doing their job".

Continuing to argue once the DM has made a ruling is (usually*) bad form. Accept it or leave are the available options.

* - unless that ruling clearly contradicts without good reason an earlier ruling or precedent set in that campaign; in which case while the player is IMO completely in the right to argue till he's blue in the face he's probably better off leaving anyway, as that's a bad DM.

Players have more than one job - and seeking advantages for themselves is rather below having a handle on keeping the table respectful and pleasant. If the players need to be reminded that they may be asked to leave, they aren't doing that job.

I should point out, I suppose, that I'm assuming play is with friends and thus things can be a bit more cutthroat without hard feelings as people already know each other and thus (to some degree) what to expect. Playing with strangers is a different animal with different expectations, which is why I don't do it except at the very few cons I ever get to.

 

[Cruentus]

It seems like a very passive-aggressive confrontational relationship of player and DM to me. It's one thing to optimize a PC, it's another to try to game the DM and exploit loopholes.

You haven’t had the joy to play with the table I’ve been with for the last 40 years. There was nothing passive aggressive about it. We have a player who makes no bones about his “job” being to find every loophole/advantage/ruling/build/whatever to “win” DnD, and haranguing the DM and being enough of a pest to mostly get his way about things.

Now, that being said, we started in 7th/8th grade way back in the dark ages with B/X into Ad&d, and we didn’t know any better, so the campaigns were “confrontational DM“ types of games. He tried to kill us, and we tried to avoid it. We’ve since wizened up a little bit (or at least some of us have), but that hasn’t stopped that player from continuing to play the same exact way in every single type of game we play. Shrug. Needless to say, I won’t play in games that he is involved in.

I’ve gotten to the point in my GM’ing, where having the discussion, exploring the options available openly at the table, making sure of intent/actions and potential consequences, and working with player creativity are the way I choose to run games now. If we get through a game without rolling dice, then we’re having a great game (combat excepted). We’re also not playing 5e anymore as a result.

 

[Oofta]

You haven’t had the joy to play with the table I’ve been with for the last 40 years. There was nothing passive aggressive about it. We have a player who makes no bones about his “job” being to find every loophole/advantage/ruling/build/whatever to “win” DnD, and haranguing the DM and being enough of a pest to mostly get his way about things.

Now, that being said, we started in 7th/8th grade way back in the dark ages with B/X into Ad&d, and we didn’t know any better, so the campaigns were “confrontational DM“ types of games. He tried to kill us, and we tried to avoid it. We’ve since wizened up a little bit (or at least some of us have), but that hasn’t stopped that player from continuing to play the same exact way in every single type of game we play. Shrug. Needless to say, I won’t play in games that he is involved in.

I’ve gotten to the point in my GM’ing, where having the discussion, exploring the options available openly at the table, making sure of intent/actions and potential consequences, and working with player creativity are the way I choose to run games now. If we get through a game without rolling dice, then we’re having a great game (combat excepted). We’re also not playing 5e anymore as a result.

I just ask people not to do extreme builds like that or take advantage of exploits when I DM. Just like I ask them to be team players. If someone comes up with reasonable but powerful builds its still not an issue. I have infinite dragons.

I've run games for probably hundreds of people over the years.

 

[Umbran]

Continuing to argue once the DM has made a ruling is (usually*) bad form. ...

* - unless that ruling clearly contradicts without good reason an earlier ruling or precedent set in that campaign;

Even then. If you want to argue, you do it after the session of play, not while at the tale.

Accept it or leave are the available options.

The fact that the issue gets to the point of invoking that during play indicates a problem far beyond the individual task resolution call. That problem is what I colloquially phrased as being a "jerk."

 

[Lanefan]

Even then. If you want to argue, you do it after the session of play, not while at the tale.

Disagree. Sort it once and sort it right now, as an argument now is infintely better than a retcon later (or at any time). Edit to add: and sort it while everyone is present and can voice their own opinion(s) rather than during some one-on-one where nobody else gets a say.

The fact that the issue gets to the point of invoking that during play indicates a problem far beyond the individual task resolution call.

Except that "accept it or leave" also applies to the individual task resolution or rulings call, after any legitimate discussion or dispute gets sorted.

 

[Hriston]

Pedantic correction: usually if someone says "I make a Wisdom check" it's because they feel it's obvious from the context what they're trying to do and how they'll do it (or that the method is so abstracted as to make the details irrelevant.)

And yes, the word "obviously" is potentially doing a lot here.

I don’t doubt they feel that way, but “I make a [X] check”, where X can be the name of an ability or a specific skill, is not actually a statement about anything the character’s doing in the fiction. It’s a statement about something the real person at the table is doing. I.e. making a check. So I’m not sure why you’re framing this as a “correction” of anything I said.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I don’t doubt they feel that way, but “I make a [X] check”, where X can be the name of an ability or a specific skill, is not actually a statement about anything the character’s doing in the fiction. It’s a statement about something the real person at the table is doing. I.e. making a check. So I’m not sure why you’re framing this as a “correction” of anything I said.

If I'm making an insight check in the middle of a conversation with an npc, there's really only one thing I could be doing.

If we're trying to cross a rope and the last two pc's made acrobatics checks to try to balance across, I would assume you know what I mean when I say I want to make an acrobatics check as well.

If I'd like to get to the window, and you tell me there's a guard at the door, "I'll make a stealth check" seems pretty clear to me.

"I'd like to cast invisibility" is usually accepted - aside form stating what spell I am casting how will I communicate that?

 

[nevin]

The way I "just don't let them" is pretty simple. I tell them no. No you can't change what you clearly declared. No there are no take-backs to say that you searched for traps before you clearly stated you were picking the lock. But I will also say no to gotcha DMing, so no there is no contact poison on every object that could be touched, no to an investigation check meaning you stuck your head into a sphere of annihilation.

Treating people like reasonable adults and having a chat about expectations is the best way to stop behavior you don't want at the table.

and getting rid of the unreasonable adults . Honestly those are the ones that generate most of these discussions. it's also the hardest if a DM is playing with family and friends sometimes.

 

[iserith]

If I'm making an insight check in the middle of a conversation with an npc, there's really only one thing I could be doing.

You could be doing a number of things by making this request - trying to determine truthfulness, figure out their agenda, discern their ideal, bond, or flaw, trying to predict their next move, and more.

 

[Pedantic]

You could be doing a number of things by making this request - trying to determine truthfulness, figure out their agenda, discern their ideal, bond, or flaw, trying to predict their next move, and more.

This is a direct outcome of not specifying what actions you can take with an Insight check. All of those things could be specified in the skill, and a player could call for any of them. This is design activity being shifted to the DM again, where you have to build a resolution system (admittedly with reference to a generic system in the form of your default skill DCs) in the moment for each action, instead of having a resolution system players are leveraging.