D&D has all the money in the entire hobby, basically, and they still make terrible design decisions like this.
Rolling a nat 20 and getting a crit is the jackpot of d&d mechanics. Don’t design a system where sometimes you hit the jackpot but don’t win anything. That’s an objectively bad choice to make.
I 90% agree. I think most of the opposition to this comes from people exhausted with habitual boundary-pushers who think that a nat 20 means they can get away with defying the laws of reality.
Like, no, a nat20 persuasion does not convince the merchant to give you half his stock and all the money in the register… He would go broke and he’s got a family to support, along with his own survival that your nat20 does not also convince him to stop caring about.
But at the end of the day, a lot of GMs who are sick of that need to be sent the dictionary page for the word “no.” The occasional use of it really does improve the quality of the game, and I’m sure plenty of players will appreciate not letting aforementioned boundry pushers continue to waste time on impossible pursuits that do nothing to move the game forward.
I’ve seen this easily solved by assuming the 20 succeedes but the DM decides how exactly.
“Okay. The dragon loves you know. They realize you have their old lover’s eyes. You remember this too. Old tales in your family that you thought were a joke. You are apparently related. And they do love you now.”
If you can’t trust your players to act like adults and show some basic maturity. That’s a different issue.
This is also a great way to handle it; malicious compliance/monkey paw. Makes for some humorous moments.
And yeah, if a player is constantly having to be told no, a talk may need to be had, and if it can’t be resolved, they probably need to go. It’s also a reason why Session 0’s are so important; talking out what’s expected of the campaign both on the part of the players and what the GM has in mind.
“No” needs to be said before the roll, IMO. Then If the player insists on doing something impossible anyway, just role-play the failure. With that said, actions that are in a narrow sense impossible can still have positive outcomes and if there’s the potential for that then I’d say roll for it. The proverbial dragon seduction attempt can still possibly flatter a dragon with a big ego enough to benefit the PC even if it doesn’t get the PC laid.
D&D is that way, though. Every time you see a natural 20 for anything that isn’t an attack does not automatically succeed unless people are using homegrown, which they often are.
My point is that setting up the expectation of a moment of triumph and then diluting it with exceptions is going to create moments of disappointment at the table.
If a nat 20 is going to be a big win it should always be a big win. That’s so intuitively true that most people just play that way despite the rules.
Well DnD consistently doesn’t have criticals outside of attack rolls and death saves.
Like the person you replied to asked, what would you even expect to happen on an ability crit? If the DM only lets you roll on things that would be possible for you, then you would succeed on a 20 anyway. If the DM lets you roll on impossible things, then you have a 5% of doing the impossible. Neither option is good.
I absolutely let a 20 or 1 have extra effect whenever it makes sense and feels right. But having it be a core rule would be a PITA.
Not to mention that it would make skill checks even more driven by randomness, which is already a problem.
what would you even expect to happen on an ability crit?
Extra information, owed a favour, make a friend, get a small reward, get a clue to a larger reward, impress someone important, uncover a secret, get forewarning of a danger, hinder a rival, gain advantage on something, opponent is exhausted/confused/embarrassed and must pass a saving throw to act…
Skill check crits would be just like combat crits except there’s way more scope for fictional as well as mechanical benefits.
That’s still not clear what you mean, all of those things are typically the results of a success. Do you mean nat 20 should always succeed? Do you mean nat 20 should always be a success with extra benefits? Do you mean nat 20 should always give you a side benefit even if it fails? You need to be more clear.
I don’t mean that it’s ultra rare, just that it serves the same function as a jackpot - it’s the best possible outcome, the thing you’re always hoping will happen when you scratch the ticket, press the button or roll the dice.
It’s your chance to have that YOU WIN BIG moment. Setting up that mechanic and then creating situations where it doesn’t apply is intentionally designing disappointment.
No, a d100 serves the same function as a jackpot. Once again, a 1 in 20 chance is… Real easy to achieve. And if you’re having the whole situation set up around a natural 20 being a jackpot then I really hope you’re treating a natural 1 with the same rules. Otherwise it’s just an extremely biased argument.
Having the nat 20 not be an instant free gimme isn’t bad game design. It’s balanced because as much as you all want to argue otherwise, a natural 20 is NOT rare. Especially with how often you can get advantage. If it’s not rare then it CANT be a jackpot because you’d be giving jackpots to everyone
Edit: This sounds kinda bitchy in tone but isn’t meant to be. Sorry
I disagree that 1% chance is a jackpot but 5% isn’t. I’m using jackpot as an analogy for the emotional impact of a rarer, higher tier win mechanic - I don’t think specifying a number is useful here. That feeling can happen with a range of different rarities.
I’m not following your point about nat 1s, free gimmes or supply and demand.
I think we’re using very different ideas of game design. Are you using good design in the sense of like “tactically balanced”? I think of good game design as setting up and meeting player expectations for fun while minimizing frustration.
The game sets up rolling 20 and critting as a win big moment. To occasionally then deny players that fails to meet expectations and creates disappointment. That’s why I think it’s bad design. And why most people don’t play it as written.
Edit: Again, re reading this, it seems to have a way bitchier tone than I intended… I swear I’m just saying this in a confused fashion for the most part
I’m using jackpot as an analogy for the emotional impact of a rarer, higher tier win mechanic
But it’s not.
That’s the thing that I’m not following with your point. Like a Natural 20 is not a rare occurrence in the game so I don’t understand treating it like a jackpot. It’d be like treating something that happens several times a day as a really rare thing. And if they’re not that rare then I don’t understand the instant jump of going “Well then it must be a critical success because it’s a rare-but-not-really thing”. It’s just the highest number on the die that can pop up but it’s only one more than 19. It is 1 in 20. Those are pretty good odds when you’re rolling a die repeatedly.
The game sets up rolling 20 and critting as a win big moment.
In Combat and death saves. At no point in the DM guide that I recall does it say anything about a Natural 20 applying to any skill check, saving bonus or anything other than an attack roll and saving throw. I’m not aware of anything in the PHB or DM Guide (at least in 5e) that states anything else about a Natural 20 having any effect at all save for specific spells or subclasses that usually mess with the critical hit range for attacks.
To occasionally then deny players that fails to meet expectations and creates disappointment.
But it’s not occasional! And that’s where all of this argument instantly falls apart for me. It’s a 1 in 20 chance for a number that just says “I win”. To me as a DM it removes a significant amount of the challenge from my players if they can just roll the number that does it for them or if they’re stacking advantage and everything else. The stacking advantage and using chronomancy to force a success or diviniation or whatever at least is written in the rules and is balanced by having you use actions, spell slots or whatever else to do the thing. But simply rolling a natural 20 requires zero effort. You just roll the thing and you have a decently high chance of rolling the thing. The only way you can limit that as a DM and try to balance it then is just by limiting skill checks entirely.
I think we’re using very different ideas of game design. Are you using good design in the sense of like “tactically balanced”? I think of good game design as setting up and meeting player expectations for fun while minimizing frustration.
So is Elden Ring badly designed? That game does not meet player expectations for fun (typically) and certainly doesn’t minimize frustration for literally anyone and I say this as someone at New Game+6. For me good design is providing a challenge for players and allowing them to overcome it themselves with the tools they have available not simply rolling the number that wins everything. If someone with a 6 Charisma can roll a 20 and be able to convince whomever of whatever they wish despite the fact that they have negative modifiers then it’s not providing a challenge for them, it’s just gambling. Certain people should never be able to make certain successes. Flat out. It makes no sense for me to say that someone can do something just because they rolled a number that pops up like 5 times every session I run.
I also outright refuse the argument of “Well then why are you rolling a check a player cannot succeed” because that impedes character choice far more than if I were to allow them to do a stupid thing. Moreover, the rolls can be determined to tell the level of failure in doing something. Like if you’re trying to intimidate a king into giving you his throne and everything else on it, a natural 1 means that he takes it seriously and you’re going to be imprisoned or at least have a very strong talking to. A natural 20 means that he takes it as good natured ribbing and gives you extra favors or trusts you more or whatever because of course that was never going to work but your character got to do the thing he wanted to do, did really well and actually blundered into something else that can still help.
A natural 20 should be treated as a high roll that demonstrates that the character did something as amazingly as they are capable but only as amazingly as they are capable.
To occasionally then deny players that fails to meet expectations and creates disappointment.
Again, it’s not in the book. It’s not written anywhere. It’s a made up personal rule that some people believe is real but it isn’t. If I were to give in to every false expectation that a player had we’d never be able to get a campaign done. It’s not on the DM to bow to the fact they can’t read the rules. The only way you get that expectation is by either never reading the rules or not understanding it. If the clarification isn’t good enough then… that sucks but you’re not playing the game by the rules. And if you’re not playing the game by the rules then you (not you specifically, I mean the figurative player) don’t really have a right to be disappointed by people who do play by the actual rules as written. At that point its on you.
Elden ring absolutely does meet player expectations - challenge is the expectation of the souls-like genre.
6 Charisma can roll a 20 and be able to convince whomever of whatever
Certain people should never be able to make certain successes
only as amazingly as they are capable
I don’t disagree with any of this but I’m not talking about how the win should look in the fiction.
It’s just that when you roll a crit but don’t get a crit, most players will get extra disappointed. That’s a fact of the human experience that no rules text will ever change.
Good design accounts for the reality of how people actually use a thing.
FWIW, inconsistency is one of the things I hate the most about the game design in Elden Ring. It does not properly communicate the actual impact of stat upgrades at different levels (e.g. 39-40 vigor is a significantly higher jump than 40-41 vigor) and enemies will have resistances or weaknesses to different damage types that often feel arbitrary/poorly communicated (e.g. the Magma Wyrm, a creature that breathes fire, is more resistant to fire than the Fire Giant; Borealis, an icy dragon that breathes ice, is nearly as resistant to fire as the Fire Giant; Hero of Zamor, an icy man that shoots ice, is weak to fire).
Elden Ring’s design is essentially a form of trial and error that often punishes you for choosing poorly, relying instead on metagame knowledge (patterns from previous Souls games, online discourse) to patch up its shortcomings. Fun as all hell when you know what to do, but its systems are incredibly arcane for newcomers.
Good design accounts for the reality how people actually use a thing.
Disagree. People misuse stuff constantly.
I’m also falling back on my point that if someone is upset that their natural 20 doesn’t mean that they get an auto success on a skill then that’s more of a skill issue on them for just not reading the rules. TTRPGs are not simple nor are they going to hold your hand and give you everything you want. Just because a player expects something doesn’t mean they should get it nor that their expectation is based in reality. It’s a false understanding of the rules. The design is good. The players reading comprehension isn’t.
If some DMs want to lean into that, by all means, but the game isn’t badly designed just because some people make a false assumption that isn’t backed up anywhere.
Woah wait now. Sure people misuse things but designing with that in mind always produces a better thing than ignoring reality. A gun with a safety is a objectively a better design than a gun with no safety, even if the both have a manual that says not to play with the trigger and keep away from kids.
on them for just not reading the rules
The game trains you to expect a dopamine reward when you roll a 20. A game that consistently meets the expectations it creates would be a better game.
If you make like five skill checks per game, yes it is rare and it’s way more fun to treat it like a crit success. It’s not a job, it’s a weekend activity that is supposed to bring joy.
Cool but that’s not what was said. The dude above said the game was designed in such a way that they’re jackpots. They are not. Just because you don’t have skill checks in your game often doesn’t mean the entire game is designed a certain way.
I’m not speaking to how the designers intended, but at the end of the day if a 20 is a crit success on skill checks it is a jackpot mechanic. You could go months without getting one in game and when it happens it’s absolutely like hitting the jackpot
but at the end of the day if a 20 is a crit success on skill checks it is a jackpot mechanic
But it isn’t a crit success on skill checks. That’s what I’m losing my mind over lmao y’all are making it up! IT’S LITERALLY WHAT THE MEME IS ABOUT!
That’s not written in DnD. Or at least 5e which appears to be what the posted meme is alluding to. The only places in the DMs Guide or PHB where a Natural 20 is mentioned is only a critical hit in combat or a critical success in a death save. No where else save for the random odd specific ability that requires you to spend something in exchange.
D&D has all the money in the entire hobby, basically, and they still make terrible design decisions like this.
Rolling a nat 20 and getting a crit is the jackpot of d&d mechanics. Don’t design a system where sometimes you hit the jackpot but don’t win anything. That’s an objectively bad choice to make.
I 90% agree. I think most of the opposition to this comes from people exhausted with habitual boundary-pushers who think that a nat 20 means they can get away with defying the laws of reality.
Like, no, a nat20 persuasion does not convince the merchant to give you half his stock and all the money in the register… He would go broke and he’s got a family to support, along with his own survival that your nat20 does not also convince him to stop caring about.
But at the end of the day, a lot of GMs who are sick of that need to be sent the dictionary page for the word “no.” The occasional use of it really does improve the quality of the game, and I’m sure plenty of players will appreciate not letting aforementioned boundry pushers continue to waste time on impossible pursuits that do nothing to move the game forward.
I’ve seen this easily solved by assuming the 20 succeedes but the DM decides how exactly.
“Okay. The dragon loves you know. They realize you have their old lover’s eyes. You remember this too. Old tales in your family that you thought were a joke. You are apparently related. And they do love you now.”
If you can’t trust your players to act like adults and show some basic maturity. That’s a different issue.
This is also a great way to handle it; malicious compliance/monkey paw. Makes for some humorous moments.
And yeah, if a player is constantly having to be told no, a talk may need to be had, and if it can’t be resolved, they probably need to go. It’s also a reason why Session 0’s are so important; talking out what’s expected of the campaign both on the part of the players and what the GM has in mind.
Having that 1 player being stalked by a horny dragon for the rest of the game, just in case.
“No” needs to be said before the roll, IMO. Then If the player insists on doing something impossible anyway, just role-play the failure. With that said, actions that are in a narrow sense impossible can still have positive outcomes and if there’s the potential for that then I’d say roll for it. The proverbial dragon seduction attempt can still possibly flatter a dragon with a big ego enough to benefit the PC even if it doesn’t get the PC laid.
D&D is that way, though. Every time you see a natural 20 for anything that isn’t an attack does not automatically succeed unless people are using homegrown, which they often are.
You need to qualify this statement with what you believe should happen on a nat 20.
Consistency.
My point is that setting up the expectation of a moment of triumph and then diluting it with exceptions is going to create moments of disappointment at the table.
If a nat 20 is going to be a big win it should always be a big win. That’s so intuitively true that most people just play that way despite the rules.
Well DnD consistently doesn’t have criticals outside of attack rolls and death saves.
Like the person you replied to asked, what would you even expect to happen on an ability crit? If the DM only lets you roll on things that would be possible for you, then you would succeed on a 20 anyway. If the DM lets you roll on impossible things, then you have a 5% of doing the impossible. Neither option is good.
I absolutely let a 20 or 1 have extra effect whenever it makes sense and feels right. But having it be a core rule would be a PITA.
Not to mention that it would make skill checks even more driven by randomness, which is already a problem.
Extra information, owed a favour, make a friend, get a small reward, get a clue to a larger reward, impress someone important, uncover a secret, get forewarning of a danger, hinder a rival, gain advantage on something, opponent is exhausted/confused/embarrassed and must pass a saving throw to act…
Skill check crits would be just like combat crits except there’s way more scope for fictional as well as mechanical benefits.
That’s still not clear what you mean, all of those things are typically the results of a success. Do you mean nat 20 should always succeed? Do you mean nat 20 should always be a success with extra benefits? Do you mean nat 20 should always give you a side benefit even if it fails? You need to be more clear.
A jackpot is not 5% odds or a 1 in 20 chance.
A natural 20 is not as rare as y’all wanna make it out to be.
I don’t mean that it’s ultra rare, just that it serves the same function as a jackpot - it’s the best possible outcome, the thing you’re always hoping will happen when you scratch the ticket, press the button or roll the dice.
It’s your chance to have that YOU WIN BIG moment. Setting up that mechanic and then creating situations where it doesn’t apply is intentionally designing disappointment.
No, a d100 serves the same function as a jackpot. Once again, a 1 in 20 chance is… Real easy to achieve. And if you’re having the whole situation set up around a natural 20 being a jackpot then I really hope you’re treating a natural 1 with the same rules. Otherwise it’s just an extremely biased argument.
Having the nat 20 not be an instant free gimme isn’t bad game design. It’s balanced because as much as you all want to argue otherwise, a natural 20 is NOT rare. Especially with how often you can get advantage. If it’s not rare then it CANT be a jackpot because you’d be giving jackpots to everyone
Edit: This sounds kinda bitchy in tone but isn’t meant to be. Sorry
I disagree that 1% chance is a jackpot but 5% isn’t. I’m using jackpot as an analogy for the emotional impact of a rarer, higher tier win mechanic - I don’t think specifying a number is useful here. That feeling can happen with a range of different rarities.
I’m not following your point about nat 1s, free gimmes or supply and demand.
I think we’re using very different ideas of game design. Are you using good design in the sense of like “tactically balanced”? I think of good game design as setting up and meeting player expectations for fun while minimizing frustration.
The game sets up rolling 20 and critting as a win big moment. To occasionally then deny players that fails to meet expectations and creates disappointment. That’s why I think it’s bad design. And why most people don’t play it as written.
Edit: Again, re reading this, it seems to have a way bitchier tone than I intended… I swear I’m just saying this in a confused fashion for the most part
But it’s not.
That’s the thing that I’m not following with your point. Like a Natural 20 is not a rare occurrence in the game so I don’t understand treating it like a jackpot. It’d be like treating something that happens several times a day as a really rare thing. And if they’re not that rare then I don’t understand the instant jump of going “Well then it must be a critical success because it’s a rare-but-not-really thing”. It’s just the highest number on the die that can pop up but it’s only one more than 19. It is 1 in 20. Those are pretty good odds when you’re rolling a die repeatedly.
In Combat and death saves. At no point in the DM guide that I recall does it say anything about a Natural 20 applying to any skill check, saving bonus or anything other than an attack roll and saving throw. I’m not aware of anything in the PHB or DM Guide (at least in 5e) that states anything else about a Natural 20 having any effect at all save for specific spells or subclasses that usually mess with the critical hit range for attacks.
But it’s not occasional! And that’s where all of this argument instantly falls apart for me. It’s a 1 in 20 chance for a number that just says “I win”. To me as a DM it removes a significant amount of the challenge from my players if they can just roll the number that does it for them or if they’re stacking advantage and everything else. The stacking advantage and using chronomancy to force a success or diviniation or whatever at least is written in the rules and is balanced by having you use actions, spell slots or whatever else to do the thing. But simply rolling a natural 20 requires zero effort. You just roll the thing and you have a decently high chance of rolling the thing. The only way you can limit that as a DM and try to balance it then is just by limiting skill checks entirely.
So is Elden Ring badly designed? That game does not meet player expectations for fun (typically) and certainly doesn’t minimize frustration for literally anyone and I say this as someone at New Game+6. For me good design is providing a challenge for players and allowing them to overcome it themselves with the tools they have available not simply rolling the number that wins everything. If someone with a 6 Charisma can roll a 20 and be able to convince whomever of whatever they wish despite the fact that they have negative modifiers then it’s not providing a challenge for them, it’s just gambling. Certain people should never be able to make certain successes. Flat out. It makes no sense for me to say that someone can do something just because they rolled a number that pops up like 5 times every session I run.
I also outright refuse the argument of “Well then why are you rolling a check a player cannot succeed” because that impedes character choice far more than if I were to allow them to do a stupid thing. Moreover, the rolls can be determined to tell the level of failure in doing something. Like if you’re trying to intimidate a king into giving you his throne and everything else on it, a natural 1 means that he takes it seriously and you’re going to be imprisoned or at least have a very strong talking to. A natural 20 means that he takes it as good natured ribbing and gives you extra favors or trusts you more or whatever because of course that was never going to work but your character got to do the thing he wanted to do, did really well and actually blundered into something else that can still help.
A natural 20 should be treated as a high roll that demonstrates that the character did something as amazingly as they are capable but only as amazingly as they are capable.
Again, it’s not in the book. It’s not written anywhere. It’s a made up personal rule that some people believe is real but it isn’t. If I were to give in to every false expectation that a player had we’d never be able to get a campaign done. It’s not on the DM to bow to the fact they can’t read the rules. The only way you get that expectation is by either never reading the rules or not understanding it. If the clarification isn’t good enough then… that sucks but you’re not playing the game by the rules. And if you’re not playing the game by the rules then you (not you specifically, I mean the figurative player) don’t really have a right to be disappointed by people who do play by the actual rules as written. At that point its on you.
Elden ring absolutely does meet player expectations - challenge is the expectation of the souls-like genre.
I don’t disagree with any of this but I’m not talking about how the win should look in the fiction.
It’s just that when you roll a crit but don’t get a crit, most players will get extra disappointed. That’s a fact of the human experience that no rules text will ever change.
Good design accounts for the reality of how people actually use a thing.
FWIW, inconsistency is one of the things I hate the most about the game design in Elden Ring. It does not properly communicate the actual impact of stat upgrades at different levels (e.g. 39-40 vigor is a significantly higher jump than 40-41 vigor) and enemies will have resistances or weaknesses to different damage types that often feel arbitrary/poorly communicated (e.g. the Magma Wyrm, a creature that breathes fire, is more resistant to fire than the Fire Giant; Borealis, an icy dragon that breathes ice, is nearly as resistant to fire as the Fire Giant; Hero of Zamor, an icy man that shoots ice, is weak to fire).
Elden Ring’s design is essentially a form of trial and error that often punishes you for choosing poorly, relying instead on metagame knowledge (patterns from previous Souls games, online discourse) to patch up its shortcomings. Fun as all hell when you know what to do, but its systems are incredibly arcane for newcomers.
Disagree. People misuse stuff constantly.
I’m also falling back on my point that if someone is upset that their natural 20 doesn’t mean that they get an auto success on a skill then that’s more of a skill issue on them for just not reading the rules. TTRPGs are not simple nor are they going to hold your hand and give you everything you want. Just because a player expects something doesn’t mean they should get it nor that their expectation is based in reality. It’s a false understanding of the rules. The design is good. The players reading comprehension isn’t.
If some DMs want to lean into that, by all means, but the game isn’t badly designed just because some people make a false assumption that isn’t backed up anywhere.
Woah wait now. Sure people misuse things but designing with that in mind always produces a better thing than ignoring reality. A gun with a safety is a objectively a better design than a gun with no safety, even if the both have a manual that says not to play with the trigger and keep away from kids.
The game trains you to expect a dopamine reward when you roll a 20. A game that consistently meets the expectations it creates would be a better game.
If you make like five skill checks per game, yes it is rare and it’s way more fun to treat it like a crit success. It’s not a job, it’s a weekend activity that is supposed to bring joy.
Cool but that’s not what was said. The dude above said the game was designed in such a way that they’re jackpots. They are not. Just because you don’t have skill checks in your game often doesn’t mean the entire game is designed a certain way.
I’m not speaking to how the designers intended, but at the end of the day if a 20 is a crit success on skill checks it is a jackpot mechanic. You could go months without getting one in game and when it happens it’s absolutely like hitting the jackpot
But it isn’t a crit success on skill checks. That’s what I’m losing my mind over lmao y’all are making it up! IT’S LITERALLY WHAT THE MEME IS ABOUT!
That’s not written in DnD. Or at least 5e which appears to be what the posted meme is alluding to. The only places in the DMs Guide or PHB where a Natural 20 is mentioned is only a critical hit in combat or a critical success in a death save. No where else save for the random odd specific ability that requires you to spend something in exchange.
I think we’re talking past each other here-- everyone is saying it SHOULD be a rule and everyone they know does it anyway so it’s “part of DND”.
It’s like stacking +4 cards in uno. Might not be in the rules, but everyone knows to do it.