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I think one of the best tricks to figure out if its an acceptable level of metagaming, is to just, ask? Like in our campaign, we found a note that mentioned Xanathar. Now I as a player know who Xanathar is and I could figure out what the whole note meant. But I wasn't sure if my character would. So I just asked my dm "would I know who xanathar is" and we discussed that before saying yes i would. Like this isn't going to apply to every form of metagaming. But I think a lot of it, even stuff like say a monsters weakness. Can easily be remedied by just asking "would my character know this"

Applying tactics isn't Metagaming though Metagaming is stuff like looking up statblocks (be it before or during combat) to for example see if the enemy has any weaknesses not commonly known, for example Its obviously a spectrum, not an black or white situation.

As a DM who is new to ttrpgs, this was helpful. Thank you

I like to see a critical fail for the player as a critical success for the monster they're fighting. Not necessarily damage, although it could be that, but more like getting swallowed by a large monster or getting pinned to the ground underneath it, or having something valuable stolen from you by a goblin or small humanoid, having your powerful magic sword ripped out of your hand by an orc etc. Instead of just 'something goes wrong with your attack' I like to see it as 'something goes wrong' and use narrative to make it interesting. The other side of this is to make sure that you create some kind of problem the players have to use their creativity to overcome. Damage is kind of boring. Chasing after a goblin who just stole the golden chalice you need to kill the arch priest is fun.

Cool ❤

Critical Fumbles on attack rolls are especially punishing to martial classes who get extra attack. As the are roll attack rolls twice or even thrice as often as the other players, increasing the odds they roll a 1. Then Suddenly you roll a 1 on your first attack, drop your sword and the DM says "oh, you can't attack for the rest of the round." even though you still have your object interaction to pick up said sword. Or your hitting your rogue on accident every few turns or so. This is a reason I don't run critical fumbles, depending on the character it cold completely disable them for the rest of the combat/dungeon/heist.

I don't see a link to the discord on the site or patron. Is it behind a paywall?

I run critical fumbles in my game and I never really thought about it all that deeply, possibly because I just intuitively never went over board with them. I don’t use a roll table to determine what happens after a crit fail instead I just wing it and my players have found it fairly engaging as it’s not just them but also the npc’s and enemies that can crit fail, in combat a crit fail on an ac roll simply ends their turn and gives the person they failed at attacking an opportunity attack while crit fails for other rolls are my discretion and usually just result in the opposite of the intended action occurring.

Hey! Nice video! Completely agree especially with "ask the plaaayers!" :) As for the attack fumbles, I can recommend the idea we came with on our table :) The concept is - when you roll nat 1 attack, as a DM I am asking if the player want to risk. If no - okay, just miss. If yes - I am basically flipping the coin, asking the player to guess. And ask to roll damage. If the guess is incorrect, then it's either hit of an ally, or hitting yourself. If the guess is correct, then the half damage is going for monster. The wording behind is something like "Your hand slipped and your arrow is flying directly in the face of your paladin friend. But in the last moment he is turning his helmet a bit and your arrow with the clang sound is ricocheting into the goblin's eye" Sometimes people just have a really bad day and this prevents additional frustration and anger. Some days some of my players are risking EVERY fail, sometimes "naah, don't feel like it". Maybe it is not that balanced, but it keeps fumbling funny

Passive skill checks are a godsend. Reduces unnecessary rolls, but leaves you with enough of a window where active participation is necessary and rewarded

So rogue’s expertise and reliable talent is useless?

You know what flavor of sacrilege it is, and if you roll well, you can determine what it is for too! Lol

Geez, took me like 20 seconds to figure out if you're talking about Dead by daylight, real life or dnd

AHA! Taking 10 and Taking 20 from 3e and 3.5 are your friends here! Taking 10: When not in a stressful situation, you can simply choose to calculate your check as if you had rolled 10. Taking 20: Also when not under stress, you could spend a couple minutes to take 20. This isn't just "you treat the roll as if you got 20," though, it assumes that you try a bunch of stuff until you get it as right as you can get it. For perception, investigation, knowledge checks, etc. it's just staring at stuff real close, pushing and pulling stuff in different ways, pulling out reference books, and stuff like that, but, for example, you will set off the trap you're trying to disable, or slip off the wall you were climbing and need to give it another shot... you weren't climbing across over a spike pit, right? They're very handy rules to help make skills valuable, but also allow progression (at a price) without the right skills and still let rolling the check be a worthwhile option! For 5e especially, rolling would let you use advantage if it's available, which actually makes the balance of options even better than in the past! ^v^

I use the check as a means to give them more information then what is intended to be told. Ex. [Player: I got a 7. Me: <It's a summoning circle that looks of Infernal Enchantments.> It looks like its made for only a one way, here.] (Player: I got a 19. Me: <same thing>. Looks like it summoned a Doppelganger.

While I was DMing myself I did more or less the same. If e.g. a Person had in his/her background, that they are a blscksmith and want to do a simple sword I wouldnt let them roll as long as tjey have sufficient time. They probably did it a thousand times before. Why, under normal circumstances, should there be a Chance to total failure. Sure, if they want to create a masterpiece for their King they need to roll. Maybe even more often. But even then I made it more like a "ritual" aka "get X successes in total. Each day you may roll once and cannot do other stuff that day". (System was in the World of darkness, so no D20s before anybody asks why)

Same

I think that the d20 system is fine because it outlines perfectly things that happen in real life. Someone dumb as a rock who usually isn't good at puzzles accidentally gets a really hard puzzle right. An expert might just not get what is happening like in coding. No one is able to solve something everytime even if their an expert. And I get from a dnd perspective like failing a needed skill check can suck just dont make the needed skill check something solely needed to progress the narrative.

That's not a flaw, it's a feature. That's the point.

Or only let proficient characters make the roll in certain circumstances. Or let someone proficient automatically succeed in certain circumstances. DM decides when you roll and what ability it uses.

Why not use in addition to standard roll rules, non proficiency rolls a d12.

I'd use shatter and block the door way with rubble

My solution (not perfect) is if the dc is less than 10 + their modifier i dont even bother making them role

Arcane lock been real quiet since this came out

Alright heres a question for you. Lets say i have a BIG log that needs moved off the road, its huge. So its a DC20 to lift and roll this thing off the road. Would you let the wizard with a -1 STR modifier roll, and what would you do if they rolled a 20?

It is called luck. Sometimes people get lucky and have that scrap of information you need regardless of their lack of acedemic inclination. Or, they have an adrenaline burst that allows them to do things they otherwise couldn't. Sometimes, no matter your education level, you just dont know a certain subject, or you slip up in the middle of a heavy lift. I entirely disagree that this is an issue.

Bro repeated himself so much couldn’t even get a thought through

been doing this for years after getting frustrated by everything taking too long and momentum and vibes dying with a failed roll. got really into the free to download ttrpg Mausritter when it goes even further to remove the "roll to hit" and instead only rolling for damage which i find to beway more enjoyable as well as it also goes towards not wasting a players time as they sit on their hands waiting for it to be their turn again (tho obviously to work in a system like 5e it would require extensive hacking). i balance it off usually through item degradation which is something I've taken from Mausritter and now use on ebery system including 5e due to how well the item and inventory system there works. you use a lockpick? roll a d6 4-6 a usage pip is marked on the item, on three pips it is no longer usable. the lock gets picked either way but it's resources. also you only roll once a "scene" is over, so when applying that rule to weapons you only roll at the end of a fight, not after each attack, might sound irritating but suddenly the players have reason to pick up the goblin's swords

This is a interesting theory, however i think for most games you shouldn't have it be a "No" but more of a "No, Except..." Example, a untrained eye in arcana can still look at arcane runes and get bare minimum information, or maybe different interpretations of the wards. Or maybe even flat out wrong information.

Personally, I do a form of this. I both use the extra + to the roll, but I also lower the number they have to hit, because, say, an expert in something very well might completely space a beginner concept every once in a while.

Passive checks should always pass if the threshold is hit. Whether the character is proficient or just has high stats. You can also consider giving a bonus based on class or at least give them a clue if they do not pass. Basically, if the class fits they automatically make a good guess, which can then be confirmed with the check.

No hate, but I completely disagree. First of all, I want to roll. I want chances to fail. This might just be personal experience but I feel like too often we are sitting around just deciding what's going to happen based on what we assume would happen rather than letting the dice fall where they may. It's a game of chance and I want to play it. I don't want to talk about playing it. People defend this by bringing up the value of role playing but that's something else entirely. Assuming that someone is going to pass their checks doesn't really affect your ability to role play. And the other big reason is that I feel that people confuse "proficiency" for mastery. It's not an on and off switch. It's your level of proficiency. I'm a little bit more proficient than the average person. Arcane is always used as the example and I think that's to lean more heavily into proficiency as an on and off switch. Because intuitively you would assume somebody either knows something or they doesn't. But that's not how knowledge works. To me, if you're proficient in Arcane knowledge it means you've read more Arcane books than the average person. That doesn't mean you know everything. Also, someone else who is un profichent could have still read a book or two or heard something from a passing sage. This is why I still want to roll. If I fail the check then I just haven't read the book containing those Arcane markings. And if my barbarian friend passes the check then he's come across it before. I never understand the argument of role-playing versus mechanics because to me the mechanics are a critical point of the role playing. People say ALL the time that "failure creates better stories than success".. sure.. but I'm never allowed to fail!! I spent 80 bucks on these dice, please just let me roll them!

I love this method. I always did a sliding scale of "you definitely know this, you know something about this, or you might wanna roll to see if you can piece together your knowledge to infer something about it"

Tips on handling skill checks Number 1: dont

I make the skill be a specific expertise. For example, when you select an Arcana proficiency, tell me which school of magic specifically ( for example, Necromancy) and then you have expertise in this specific schools checks, and for every else you have no prof at all. But if you have expertise in that skill (for example, Arcana again) then you you have expertise in all checks about any school of magic. This makes it more individualistic and personalised. Thoughts?

The issue is that they're often not properly outlined. Pathfinder 2e cites specific effects for the crit success/failure for just about any action you can take so theres never any ambiguity. And in the less important checks it swotches back to a binary.

checks are so i don't have to remember every players entire character, if they mention it to me, they pass, otherwise i take it as if the character forgot they know a thing

Does that render expertese useless?

Bananaaa :D sorry for that. I agree with you. In my round it's not like a movie, whrer the minions are nameless cannonfodder. I think you made a short about bandits once, about their backgrounds and how they might flee and stuff. Ah damn. I just wanted to write banana x) but i agree anyway :)

I agree they should autosuccess in that case, but I still would make them roll. On a high enogh roll I might improv some lore on the spot)

Before COVID I learned lock picking to contest a DM who claimed picking a lock was an hours long activity. The Lockpicking Lawyer had like 10k subs at the time.

My TH-cam shorts is 50% dnd and 50% lock picking videos and I really thought I was about to have the crossover episode of the century 😭

I understand why you did this but there is always going to be a situation or just something you might not have seen before

Thank-you for continuing to make these short form vids!

….through what? What!?

In swear I've watched this same video like 5 times now wtf is going on

I was doing a game and I had a Tiefling Druid and the party needed to get information out of the Gnoll. The Gnoll spoke Gnoll but noone in the party spoke Gnoll. I ruled that since Gnoll Fangs learn Abyssal as a second language and since Gnolls worship an Abyssal god, my tiefling can roll to understand the Gnoll because in my campaign, tieflings know Abyssal and Infernal.

You don't need any strategies for this it's a Master Lock. Just hit it with another Master Lock and it will pop open.

Passive skill checks are awesome.

If you're able to place a lock on it, then that's a physical barrier, and, that always leaves destructive entry possible