We played yesterday and two players wanted to do different thing at the same time. Player1 wanted to talk to a pirate and Player2 wanted to immediately excecute the pirate. I ended up to make a d20 roll. Results 1-10 let the action of Player1 happen and results 11-20 let the action of Player2 happen. What would you do as DM in this situation?
Both would happen, the two actions aren't mutually exclusive. Player 1 starts talking P2 draws their weapon and advances towards the pirate. Roll Initiative to see what happens next.
Yep. Initiative is a good place to begin. If the talker gets the early advantage, they have a chance to warn the pirate to try to keep talking. If the executioner gets the drop... well, maybe they have a cleric that can speak with the dead. Either way, they need to talk to each other about what they want to do in the future. You can't force that... but they should want to talk about it in game.
But in terms of the bigger picture, why is player 2 trying to kill the NPC that player 1 wants to talk to? Are they not cooperating together? If not, why not?
You want a party who (mostly) cooperates. If this becomes a regular thing your players are going to wind up frustrating each other, and I have seen this kind of thing bring game groups to a sad end. You might want to nip this in the bud before it's too late.
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The alternative to just flipping a coin is to let them roll against eachother, in the same way that if they wanted to arm wrestle they could contest on strength athletics. If at an impasse have them do the same with persuasion.
The alternative to just flipping a coin is to let them roll against eachother, in the same way that if they wanted to arm wrestle they could contest on strength athletics. If at an impasse have them do the same with persuasion.
Why would you do that? Just because the players want to do different things doesn't mean that the characters are prevented from doing those things at the same time.
My hope would be that the players could sort it out themselves via role play, pretty simple scenario that two people could work out together just by talking to each other the same way humans interact all the time lol.
Or I guess I would just let things happen as they occur.
My hope would be that the players could sort it out themselves via role play, pretty simple scenario that two people could work out together just by talking to each other the same way humans interact all the time lol.
And while the PC are arguing, the prisoner sneaks away. :D
The alternative to just flipping a coin is to let them roll against eachother, in the same way that if they wanted to arm wrestle they could contest on strength athletics. If at an impasse have them do the same with persuasion.
Why would you do that? Just because the players want to do different things doesn't mean that the characters are prevented from doing those things at the same time.
Because the OP said they rolled a dice with a 50-50 chance, which suggested the players couldn’t agree. I am saying that that way is at least within the mechanics of the game than just odds or evens
The alternative to just flipping a coin is to let them roll against eachother, in the same way that if they wanted to arm wrestle they could contest on strength athletics. If at an impasse have them do the same with persuasion.
Why would you do that? Just because the players want to do different things doesn't mean that the characters are prevented from doing those things at the same time.
Because the OP said they rolled a dice with a 50-50 chance, which suggested the players couldn’t agree. I am saying that that way is at least within the mechanics of the game than just odds or evens
And that is completely unnecessary since the game already have rules for such situations. OP also asked what other people would do. Again, just because the players don't agree doesn't mean one of the PCs is somehow magically prevented from doing what their player wants them to do. Player 1 starts talking and all of the sudden Player 2 draws their weapon. Time to roll initiative to see who gets to act first.
There are exceptions and individual circumstances may warrant a different approach, but as a general rule you shouldn’t let one player kill an NPC another wants to talk to. Your job as DM isn’t just to mediate rules, you’re also there to make sure everyone is having a good time. If one player wants to talk and another wants to kill, in one case the player has to wait a bit, and in the other, the player has entire game taken away from them by another player. These two outcomes are not symmetrical.
Your job is to keep this conflict in-character, and that means absolutely do not call for initiative or rolle a die or flip a coin or anything without having an out-of-character conversation about how you’re going to have the characters resolve the conflict and making sure the players are both on board. And if the players aren’t happy with anything, it’s a good time to call the game for the evening and come back next week.
Because not everything has to be combat and not everything has to be confrontational. It’s good to have alternatives, there are a number of times when players have been debating something and not able to decide I have made someone roll a persuasion check and chimed in with “you know you aren’t convincing them” or “while you don’t agree they make a very compelling argument” which to SagaTympanas point keeps it in character rather than pulling people back into a game. It facilitates an outcome rather than force one of my decision.
also
1) your solution is not balanced, if the killer wins initiative they get what they want, if the negotiator wins they get six seconds to ask a question before the killer gets what they want
2) it solves only this exact situation, not the concept of having 2 players fundamentally disagree on an action and wanting a better solution than a coin flip. Tell me how rolling combat initiative solves
a) the party is escorting a noble home and come to a fork in the road, one wishes to go left the other right, neither will back down but you can only take the noble down one path
b) you have only 50gp which is how much it takes to bribe a prison guard to let you break in and free a captured rebel player a wants to bribe the guard at the front gate, player b wants to bribe the guard at the back gate
c) the PC’s can’t agree whose turn it is to make breakfast
d) they are arguing over shotgun in the cart
yes combat initiative is a quick “solution” however it is imperfect and means every situation that can’t be resolved becomes a combat encounter. There are 18 skills and 4 abilities beyond initiative and attack rolls that can be used for more than just saving rolls. The player characters options and effectiveness should not be limited by a players traits. You can have a shy player with 20 charisma character and the ability to role to be convincing is a blessing for them, especially in RP situations with other players.
As you pointed out the OP asked “how would you handle two players not agreeing” so I answered. You don’t like my solution? Fine, but it is how I would handle it and the OP is free to listen or ignore that.
There are exceptions and individual circumstances may warrant a different approach, but as a general rule you shouldn’t let one player kill an NPC another wants to talk to. Your job as DM isn’t just to mediate rules, you’re also there to make sure everyone is having a good time. If one player wants to talk and another wants to kill, in one case the player has to wait a bit, and in the other, the player has entire game taken away from them by another player. These two outcomes are not symmetrical.
Your job is to keep this conflict in-character, and that means absolutely do not call for initiative or rolle a die or flip a coin or anything without having an out-of-character conversation about how you’re going to have the characters resolve the conflict and making sure the players are both on board. And if the players aren’t happy with anything, it’s a good time to call the game for the evening and come back next week.
The OOC talk should have been done at session zero. Also, I'm assuming OP wasn't actively DM-ing when they wrote the post, didn't know what to do and immediately ran to the internet for help. If the characters starts arguing (and since it's an IC issue it should be solved IC) about what to do they shouldn't magically be stripped of all agency just because the DM rolled a 10 or below.
Because not everything has to be combat and not everything has to be confrontational. It’s good to have alternatives, there are a number of times when players have been debating something and not able to decide I have made someone roll a persuasion check and chimed in with “you know you aren’t convincing them” or “while you don’t agree they make a very compelling argument” which to SagaTympanas point keeps it in character rather than pulling people back into a game. It facilitates an outcome rather than force one of my decision.
also
1) your solution is not balanced, if the killer wins initiative they get what they want, if the negotiator wins they get six seconds to ask a question before the killer gets what they want
2) it solves only this exact situation, not the concept of having 2 players fundamentally disagree on an action and wanting a better solution than a coin flip. Tell me how rolling combat initiative solves
a) the party is escorting a noble home and come to a fork in the road, one wishes to go left the other right, neither will back down but you can only take the noble down one path
b) you have only 50gp which is how much it takes to bribe a prison guard to let you break in and free a captured rebel player a wants to bribe the guard at the front gate, player b wants to bribe the guard at the back gate
c) the PC’s can’t agree whose turn it is to make breakfast
d) they are arguing over shotgun in the cart
yes combat initiative is a quick “solution” however it is imperfect and means every situation that can’t be resolved becomes a combat encounter. There are 18 skills and 4 abilities beyond initiative and attack rolls that can be used for more than just saving rolls. The player characters options and effectiveness should not be limited by a players traits. You can have a shy player with 20 charisma character and the ability to role to be convincing is a blessing for them, especially in RP situations with other players.
As you pointed out the OP asked “how would you handle two players not agreeing” so I answered. You don’t like my solution? Fine, but it is how I would handle it and the OP is free to listen or ignore that.
That's a lot of fallacies in one post. Let's start from the top. Rolling persuasion checks takes away player agency. This if anything breaks immersion and gamiefies the situation. "Yeah, I've held these principles that prisoners shouldn't be killed for as long as I can remember but you rolled a 23 on your persuasion roll so sure, I'm just going to go against the creed I live and die by and let you murder this helpless person." Also, in the scenario there is already a confrontation going on and rolling for initiative doesn't have to lead to combat. It just tells the players who can act first. "After a bit of arguing you see Bubba raise his sword towards the prisoner. What do you do? "I grab him by the shoulder and say, damnit Bubba! If you harm this prisoner I will make sure the whole world knows about the time you got stupid drunk and shat yourself in front of the Duchess. Now sit your ass down while we interrogate the prisoner!"
As for your points, you are factually wrong: 1) Not sure why you bring balance into this. It's what the rules tells us to do. You are also factually wrong. It does not mean that killer "wins" if they roller higher initiative, it means that they have six seconds to abuse the prisoner before the other people in the room get a chance to stop them. If the negotiator roll high it means that they have a round to stop the killer, help the prisoner or do something else that they feel appropriate.
2) Yes, it solves this exact situation, which is what OP asked about. What you're doing now is just moving the goalposts. Like I mentioned earlier, if the players fundamentally disagree on these kinds of things, this is something they should have dealt with at session zero.
Your examples are irrelevant and pointless. None of them are confrontations where the characters actually take any immediate action. If the characters want to take different paths, you let them split up. If they want to bribe a guard then the character who actually has the gold is obviously the one that has the last say, unless the other members of the group try to stop them. The only one of your examples that is even remotely relevant is arguing about the seating in the cart. Two or more players want to sit in the front, one of them will be quicker jumping up into the front seat. So how do you decide which character is quickest? You roll initiative! See, it works! ;)
Again, just because you roll initiative doesn't mean it has to end in a fight to the death, you are wrong to think that is the only way. It's just a way to decide who acts first. Nothing at all prevents you from using those skills and abilities just because you have used the appropriate game mechanics to figure out who gets to act first (and last time I checked there were six abilities ;) ).
Funny by the way that you say that players shouldn't be limited by their traits but at the same time you want to limit players by their characters traits.
- Player1 wanted talk to the pirate because he believed that the pirate may have some important information.
- Player2 was totally outrageous because she learned that the pirate was responsible of many deaths, even family members.
- Player2 was attending to the game as one-shot character and all other players were okay with that. Player1 has played all sessions of the campaign, 11 sessions so far.
- Player1 and Player2 had good conversation about to their motives.
- My solution was a bit like a choice in Walking dead video game series. You have to choose one of the options. I understand it is against some rules and guidelines of the game.
- I decided to use the d20 roll to solve the situation as neutral way as possible. I told players about the situation before the roll. My goal was to help the players to decide one solution over another. I understand it was also a bit like threat "If you don't decide, the dice will decide for you."
- All players were happy after the game so at least my decision did not cause any big problem.
- All players have been happy about the campaign. This was just a small thing in bigger picture. However it was interesting to talk about this in detail.
If rolling a check takes away player agency than boy have I got something to tell you about the rest of the rules in D&D. You are comparing apples to oranges, is rolling a persuasion check perfect? No. Is it better than the DM rolling a D20 and telling people what happens? Yes. That was the situation I was offering an alternative to. I hadn’t even read your post before you started making this thread into you vs everyone else’s opinion. You talk about moving goalposts however you moved them in your first reply as you made my alternative to a coin flip become an alternative to your combat.
initiative literally leads to combat in this situation as p2 is going to swing at the pirate, you know the one they have managed to subdue and capture, probably in a fight, probably low on hit points, tied up. The one p1 has six seconds to question and p2 gets to roll an attack with advantage against. That not a combat encounter you just created will last one round ends one way. In that situation going to encounter mode doesn’t open up the options for both players, it gives p2 permission to act.
fine you don’t like that I called your solution combat focussed, let’s call it confrontation focussed. Much like almost every one of your posts in this thread. I choose to DM differently using the Rules and mechanics in the game, I just don’t believe that 100% of situations need to be solved with 0.1% of those rules and mechanics.
you say you want to give your players agency and think initiative does that, I think when you use a mechanic used for combat 99.9% of the time it will result in combat. I think you are funnelling them towards confrontation rather than facilitating negotiation with that methodology, I think DM’s need to think outside the box.
i didn’t make this your methodology vs mine, that was you. I know because I rolled a 19 on my +7 persuasion check.
If rolling a check takes away player agency than boy have I got something to tell you about the rest of the rules in D&D. You are comparing apples to oranges, is rolling a persuasion check perfect? No. Is it better than the DM rolling a D20 and telling people what happens? Yes. That was the situation I was offering an alternative to. I hadn’t even read your post before you started making this thread into you vs everyone else’s opinion. You talk about moving goalposts however you moved them in your first reply as you made my alternative to a coin flip become an alternative to your combat.
initiative literally leads to combat in this situation as p2 is going to swing at the pirate, you know the one they have managed to subdue and capture, probably in a fight, probably low on hit points, tied up. The one p1 has six seconds to question and p2 gets to roll an attack with advantage against. That not a combat encounter you just created will last one round ends one way. In that situation going to encounter mode doesn’t open up the options for both players, it gives p2 permission to act.
fine you don’t like that I called your solution combat focussed, let’s call it confrontation focussed. Much like almost every one of your posts in this thread. I choose to DM differently using the Rules and mechanics in the game, I just don’t believe that 100% of situations need to be solved with 0.1% of those rules and mechanics.
you say you want to give your players agency and think initiative does that, I think when you use a mechanic used for combat 99.9% of the time it will result in combat. I think you are funnelling them towards confrontation rather than facilitating negotiation with that methodology, I think DM’s need to think outside the box.
i didn’t make this your methodology vs mine, that was you. I know because I rolled a 19 on my +7 persuasion check.
Again with the fallacies. I never said anything about "the DM rolling a D20 and telling people what happens". Also I suggest actually reading people's posts if you're going to reply to them. You replied to my comment saying it was a complaining about my suggestion to use the rules that are already available.
And no, me responding to you is not moving the goalposts. You suggesting that my solution to this particular problem must apply to every single situation where two players disagree however, is.
Again, initiative doesn't have to lead to combat, that's just an assumption you made. I gave you one example where it doesn't there are literally countless others. That is simply youtrying to force your interpretation on the situation without anything to back it up. Please don't do that, it's intellectually dishonest.
Your solution is also confrontational, you just solved the confrontation in a different way. You do realize that not every confrontation has to end in a murder-hobo fight to the death, do you? And that D&D as a game is pretty much run on confrontations? But like I said, not all confrontations have to be about fighting.
Again, you are making false assumptions. Just because your game might only (or 99.9% of the time) use initiative for combat, that doesn't mean neither that it has to (DMG use it for chases, for example) or that simply the act of rolling initiative must automatically lead to combat. That is just something that you claim.
And yes, allowing both players to act is preserving both of the players' agency. Saying that one of the players are somehowe magically prevented from doing anything at just because the DM roll 10 or below however, is not.
As a side note. If you get this upset by someone disagreeing with you over something you said on the internet, may I suggest just stepping away and letting the matter be? There's really no need for you to get your temper up over this.
You really don’t see yourself as the aggressor here huh?
you replied to me remember. I didn’t even know you existed and you replied to my reply to the OP. I never said at any point that YOU said the DM should roll a D20 but THAT IS LITERALLY WHAT THE OP DESCRIBED DOING.
as for fallacies you might want to look up one called “no true Scotsman” and another called “straw manning” before you throw shade at any one.
but you are right about one thing, the person losing their cool and being aggressive to a stranger on the internet while throwing around fallacies and demanding there is only one way to play should turn off the internet for a while and walk away.
personally the issue in the OP is not the problem but a symptom. Why are the players not willing to play cooperatively? Thats the real issue here. From the limited information we have it sounds like the murder hobo is a toxic player so the party could "fire" their character due to this kind of behavior. Why would people work with someone who doesn't want to work together with the party? If this is a one time thing then the party should have a long chat about this and set clear expectations. If it continues then the group should discuss it with the party.
I don't think this is a case of murder-hobo-ism, based on the OP's follow-up. Everyone had fun and the 2 players even talked about their motives. The murderous player had reasons to kill (finding out "you killed my family" is a good reason).
That sounds to me like the session was successful. All the OP wanted to know was, is there a better way than "Player 1 wins on a 1-10, player 2 on 11-20)"?
And the honest answer is... no. There isn't a better way. There are ways that may align more or less with RAW, but it really depends on the table and how you want to handle it.
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We played yesterday and two players wanted to do different thing at the same time. Player1 wanted to talk to a pirate and Player2 wanted to immediately excecute the pirate. I ended up to make a d20 roll. Results 1-10 let the action of Player1 happen and results 11-20 let the action of Player2 happen. What would you do as DM in this situation?
Both would happen, the two actions aren't mutually exclusive. Player 1 starts talking P2 draws their weapon and advances towards the pirate. Roll Initiative to see what happens next.
Yep. Initiative is a good place to begin. If the talker gets the early advantage, they have a chance to warn the pirate to try to keep talking. If the executioner gets the drop... well, maybe they have a cleric that can speak with the dead. Either way, they need to talk to each other about what they want to do in the future. You can't force that... but they should want to talk about it in game.
I would have them roll initiative.
But in terms of the bigger picture, why is player 2 trying to kill the NPC that player 1 wants to talk to? Are they not cooperating together? If not, why not?
You want a party who (mostly) cooperates. If this becomes a regular thing your players are going to wind up frustrating each other, and I have seen this kind of thing bring game groups to a sad end. You might want to nip this in the bud before it's too late.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The alternative to just flipping a coin is to let them roll against eachother, in the same way that if they wanted to arm wrestle they could contest on strength athletics. If at an impasse have them do the same with persuasion.
Why would you do that? Just because the players want to do different things doesn't mean that the characters are prevented from doing those things at the same time.
My hope would be that the players could sort it out themselves via role play, pretty simple scenario that two people could work out together just by talking to each other the same way humans interact all the time lol.
Or I guess I would just let things happen as they occur.
And while the PC are arguing, the prisoner sneaks away. :D
Because the OP said they rolled a dice with a 50-50 chance, which suggested the players couldn’t agree. I am saying that that way is at least within the mechanics of the game than just odds or evens
And that is completely unnecessary since the game already have rules for such situations. OP also asked what other people would do. Again, just because the players don't agree doesn't mean one of the PCs is somehow magically prevented from doing what their player wants them to do. Player 1 starts talking and all of the sudden Player 2 draws their weapon. Time to roll initiative to see who gets to act first.
There are exceptions and individual circumstances may warrant a different approach, but as a general rule you shouldn’t let one player kill an NPC another wants to talk to. Your job as DM isn’t just to mediate rules, you’re also there to make sure everyone is having a good time. If one player wants to talk and another wants to kill, in one case the player has to wait a bit, and in the other, the player has entire game taken away from them by another player. These two outcomes are not symmetrical.
Your job is to keep this conflict in-character, and that means absolutely do not call for initiative or rolle a die or flip a coin or anything without having an out-of-character conversation about how you’re going to have the characters resolve the conflict and making sure the players are both on board. And if the players aren’t happy with anything, it’s a good time to call the game for the evening and come back next week.
Because not everything has to be combat and not everything has to be confrontational. It’s good to have alternatives, there are a number of times when players have been debating something and not able to decide I have made someone roll a persuasion check and chimed in with “you know you aren’t convincing them” or “while you don’t agree they make a very compelling argument” which to SagaTympanas point keeps it in character rather than pulling people back into a game. It facilitates an outcome rather than force one of my decision.
also
1) your solution is not balanced, if the killer wins initiative they get what they want, if the negotiator wins they get six seconds to ask a question before the killer gets what they want
2) it solves only this exact situation, not the concept of having 2 players fundamentally disagree on an action and wanting a better solution than a coin flip. Tell me how rolling combat initiative solves
a) the party is escorting a noble home and come to a fork in the road, one wishes to go left the other right, neither will back down but you can only take the noble down one path
b) you have only 50gp which is how much it takes to bribe a prison guard to let you break in and free a captured rebel player a wants to bribe the guard at the front gate, player b wants to bribe the guard at the back gate
c) the PC’s can’t agree whose turn it is to make breakfast
d) they are arguing over shotgun in the cart
yes combat initiative is a quick “solution” however it is imperfect and means every situation that can’t be resolved becomes a combat encounter. There are 18 skills and 4 abilities beyond initiative and attack rolls that can be used for more than just saving rolls. The player characters options and effectiveness should not be limited by a players traits. You can have a shy player with 20 charisma character and the ability to role to be convincing is a blessing for them, especially in RP situations with other players.
As you pointed out the OP asked “how would you handle two players not agreeing” so I answered. You don’t like my solution? Fine, but it is how I would handle it and the OP is free to listen or ignore that.
The OOC talk should have been done at session zero. Also, I'm assuming OP wasn't actively DM-ing when they wrote the post, didn't know what to do and immediately ran to the internet for help. If the characters starts arguing (and since it's an IC issue it should be solved IC) about what to do they shouldn't magically be stripped of all agency just because the DM rolled a 10 or below.
That's a lot of fallacies in one post. Let's start from the top. Rolling persuasion checks takes away player agency. This if anything breaks immersion and gamiefies the situation. "Yeah, I've held these principles that prisoners shouldn't be killed for as long as I can remember but you rolled a 23 on your persuasion roll so sure, I'm just going to go against the creed I live and die by and let you murder this helpless person."
Also, in the scenario there is already a confrontation going on and rolling for initiative doesn't have to lead to combat. It just tells the players who can act first. "After a bit of arguing you see Bubba raise his sword towards the prisoner. What do you do? "I grab him by the shoulder and say, damnit Bubba! If you harm this prisoner I will make sure the whole world knows about the time you got stupid drunk and shat yourself in front of the Duchess. Now sit your ass down while we interrogate the prisoner!"
As for your points, you are factually wrong:
1) Not sure why you bring balance into this. It's what the rules tells us to do. You are also factually wrong. It does not mean that killer "wins" if they roller higher initiative, it means that they have six seconds to abuse the prisoner before the other people in the room get a chance to stop them. If the negotiator roll high it means that they have a round to stop the killer, help the prisoner or do something else that they feel appropriate.
2) Yes, it solves this exact situation, which is what OP asked about. What you're doing now is just moving the goalposts. Like I mentioned earlier, if the players fundamentally disagree on these kinds of things, this is something they should have dealt with at session zero.
Your examples are irrelevant and pointless. None of them are confrontations where the characters actually take any immediate action. If the characters want to take different paths, you let them split up. If they want to bribe a guard then the character who actually has the gold is obviously the one that has the last say, unless the other members of the group try to stop them. The only one of your examples that is even remotely relevant is arguing about the seating in the cart. Two or more players want to sit in the front, one of them will be quicker jumping up into the front seat. So how do you decide which character is quickest? You roll initiative! See, it works! ;)
Again, just because you roll initiative doesn't mean it has to end in a fight to the death, you are wrong to think that is the only way. It's just a way to decide who acts first. Nothing at all prevents you from using those skills and abilities just because you have used the appropriate game mechanics to figure out who gets to act first (and last time I checked there were six abilities ;) ).
Funny by the way that you say that players shouldn't be limited by their traits but at the same time you want to limit players by their characters traits.
Lot of good conversation in this post, thanks.
A bit more info about the situation:
- Player1 wanted talk to the pirate because he believed that the pirate may have some important information.
- Player2 was totally outrageous because she learned that the pirate was responsible of many deaths, even family members.
- Player2 was attending to the game as one-shot character and all other players were okay with that. Player1 has played all sessions of the campaign, 11 sessions so far.
- Player1 and Player2 had good conversation about to their motives.
- My solution was a bit like a choice in Walking dead video game series. You have to choose one of the options. I understand it is against some rules and guidelines of the game.
- I decided to use the d20 roll to solve the situation as neutral way as possible. I told players about the situation before the roll. My goal was to help the players to decide one solution over another. I understand it was also a bit like threat "If you don't decide, the dice will decide for you."
- All players were happy after the game so at least my decision did not cause any big problem.
- All players have been happy about the campaign. This was just a small thing in bigger picture. However it was interesting to talk about this in detail.
If rolling a check takes away player agency than boy have I got something to tell you about the rest of the rules in D&D. You are comparing apples to oranges, is rolling a persuasion check perfect? No. Is it better than the DM rolling a D20 and telling people what happens? Yes. That was the situation I was offering an alternative to. I hadn’t even read your post before you started making this thread into you vs everyone else’s opinion. You talk about moving goalposts however you moved them in your first reply as you made my alternative to a coin flip become an alternative to your combat.
initiative literally leads to combat in this situation as p2 is going to swing at the pirate, you know the one they have managed to subdue and capture, probably in a fight, probably low on hit points, tied up. The one p1 has six seconds to question and p2 gets to roll an attack with advantage against. That not a combat encounter you just created will last one round ends one way. In that situation going to encounter mode doesn’t open up the options for both players, it gives p2 permission to act.
fine you don’t like that I called your solution combat focussed, let’s call it confrontation focussed. Much like almost every one of your posts in this thread. I choose to DM differently using the Rules and mechanics in the game, I just don’t believe that 100% of situations need to be solved with 0.1% of those rules and mechanics.
you say you want to give your players agency and think initiative does that, I think when you use a mechanic used for combat 99.9% of the time it will result in combat. I think you are funnelling them towards confrontation rather than facilitating negotiation with that methodology, I think DM’s need to think outside the box.
i didn’t make this your methodology vs mine, that was you. I know because I rolled a 19 on my +7 persuasion check.
Again with the fallacies. I never said anything about "the DM rolling a D20 and telling people what happens". Also I suggest actually reading people's posts if you're going to reply to them. You replied to my comment saying it was a complaining about my suggestion to use the rules that are already available.
And no, me responding to you is not moving the goalposts. You suggesting that my solution to this particular problem must apply to every single situation where two players disagree however, is.
Again, initiative doesn't have to lead to combat, that's just an assumption you made. I gave you one example where it doesn't there are literally countless others. That is simply youtrying to force your interpretation on the situation without anything to back it up. Please don't do that, it's intellectually dishonest.
Your solution is also confrontational, you just solved the confrontation in a different way. You do realize that not every confrontation has to end in a murder-hobo fight to the death, do you? And that D&D as a game is pretty much run on confrontations? But like I said, not all confrontations have to be about fighting.
Again, you are making false assumptions. Just because your game might only (or 99.9% of the time) use initiative for combat, that doesn't mean neither that it has to (DMG use it for chases, for example) or that simply the act of rolling initiative must automatically lead to combat. That is just something that you claim.
And yes, allowing both players to act is preserving both of the players' agency. Saying that one of the players are somehowe magically prevented from doing anything at just because the DM roll 10 or below however, is not.
As a side note. If you get this upset by someone disagreeing with you over something you said on the internet, may I suggest just stepping away and letting the matter be? There's really no need for you to get your temper up over this.
Take care, cheers!
You really don’t see yourself as the aggressor here huh?
you replied to me remember. I didn’t even know you existed and you replied to my reply to the OP. I never said at any point that YOU said the DM should roll a D20 but THAT IS LITERALLY WHAT THE OP DESCRIBED DOING.
as for fallacies you might want to look up one called “no true Scotsman” and another called “straw manning” before you throw shade at any one.
but you are right about one thing, the person losing their cool and being aggressive to a stranger on the internet while throwing around fallacies and demanding there is only one way to play should turn off the internet for a while and walk away.
enjoy your screen free time
I think a couple of you need to take this to PMs, since we are getting off-topic for the thread and it is turning into a personal argument.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
personally the issue in the OP is not the problem but a symptom. Why are the players not willing to play cooperatively? Thats the real issue here. From the limited information we have it sounds like the murder hobo is a toxic player so the party could "fire" their character due to this kind of behavior. Why would people work with someone who doesn't want to work together with the party? If this is a one time thing then the party should have a long chat about this and set clear expectations. If it continues then the group should discuss it with the party.
I don't think this is a case of murder-hobo-ism, based on the OP's follow-up. Everyone had fun and the 2 players even talked about their motives. The murderous player had reasons to kill (finding out "you killed my family" is a good reason).
That sounds to me like the session was successful. All the OP wanted to know was, is there a better way than "Player 1 wins on a 1-10, player 2 on 11-20)"?
And the honest answer is... no. There isn't a better way. There are ways that may align more or less with RAW, but it really depends on the table and how you want to handle it.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.