Rules and Conventions

Here's a thread to present the optional rules we are using, to discuss how rules are implemented, and conventions that we adopt for this game. These first posts will document the rules and conventions, and will be updated as necessary if we make any changes/additions.

RULES

CONVENTIONS

Question on Rations. Currently we are on a 20-day caravan. Princess has zero rations on character. Meals caravan supplied or should rations be accounted for on character. Princess does have a flask for water to drink.

Food is absolutely provided with the caravan; the PCs won't need to draw upon their rations while with the caravan.

Here's a question about conventions that I'd like the players to answer.

The Dungeon in a Box adventures - of which Secrets of the Greenwold is the first - are written for replayability. One way they achieve that is with a lot of random tables. You won't see the tables, but I will be rolling to select items randomly at times. Tables will determine things like minor NPCs, interstitial locations, random encounters, etc: things that happen between and sometimes inform the set-piece, anchor encounters/locations. My question is: when the adventure calls for a roll on a table, do you players want to see that I am making such a roll, or not?

I can see that it could be fun either way. Seeing the rolls happen might impart a sense of the unexpected, but not seeing the rolls might help with the sense of a continuous narrative. Which would you prefer?

I'm a fan of GM doing lots behind curtain and I find out later what just hit. Don't need to see the rolls or even know that you did them. Same is for skill rolls needed. Just do them for me and I find out later. I don't even need to see the rolls either. Trust you figured them out right.

Same here. I’m a big fan of DM making whichever and however rolls as possible. I’ve always felt like, PC’s making unsolicited rolls, esp things like Perception, really doesn’t always make a lot of sense.

I'm good either way!

I enjoy both and either. Always fun to just be entertained, and I also like to look behind the curtain when allowed. More grist for my own mill.

Thanks for your responses! Just to be clear, I wasn't talking about PC skill checks (though your preferences there are good to know!) or any other rolls that players would do, but rather the sort of things like random encounter-type rolls.

99.9% of the time -- especially in play-by-post -- my answer will be "whatever is easiest for our GM."

And I mean that.

What ever is easist for the GM. We meet a bear defecating in the woods. Is it part of the plot or random encounter? I'll enjoy the encounter either way.

What does frustrates me is when GM makes a post with a secret message to another player, and that other player replays in an open post. I'm left feeling excluded or feeling that I must have missed something important somewhere.

Secret posts really ought to have a tag to let the recipient know it’s a secret msg.

How about this convention? If it's a message intended for only one player - say, I'm pointing out a mistake that they made and trying to not call the group's attention to it - I'll begin with "This is a private message to you. If you feel the need to reply in detail, use the private tag when you respond."

Trust and meddling. Such a problem. Can you trust a person to react as if they didn't see the info. I'm not a fan of hidden messages. That is my answer.

Since that doesn't apply to what I was talking about, you need not be concerned.

That's an interesting question. There isn't an explicit set of rules for wrestling and choking in official 5e, so we'd have to make something ourselves. I think, for ease of use, I'm leaning toward something like this for humanoids:
- grapple check to grab the neck, if possible
- After the round of the initial grapple, maintain the grapple for a number of rounds equal to the target's CON modifier (minimum 1) to knock the target unconscious.

Now I might apply modifiers to the grapple checks based on size differences, as it will be harder to grab and choke a giant than a pixie. These rules would only apply to creatures with consciousness, a circulatory system, one brain, and anatomy familiar to the wrestling attacker.

What does everyone think? Once we decide on a ruleset we like, I'll document it in the initial post of optional rules.

Seems solid enough to me.

I would look at some class features like the monks stunning strike. The house rule must not be better than class features.

What you are suggesting can put any humanoid down in as little as 2 rounds. That is strong.
I would have you do non-lethal damage instead while you grabbing. Something like 1d10+2*proficiency. That could take a 25hp guard down in 2 to 4 rounds ~ 12 to 30 seconds

I have a question about Inspiration. In the D&D 5e rules, Inspiration can be granted for any of a variety of reasons. But it is expended to grant ADV on a roll. This implicitly means that the player using Inspiration has to declare it before making the initial roll. The intent, as I have always understood it, is for players to use their Inspiration for particularly critical rolls: "I really have to win this race, so I'll spend my Inspiration to get ADV on my CON check," or "Half the party is down and dying, I only have 5 HP, and this spellcaster is going to kill the rest if he maintains his concentration on that spell, so I'll spend my Inspiration in my attempt to hit him and break his concentration."

That's a great goal, but in practice, I've observed that very few players think to use Inspiration in this way. They either spend it as soon as they get it, or they forget to use it at all when the chips are down and tension is high. If anything, I've observed that this dynamic is even more pronounced in play-by-post games, where the slow pace of turns (and the fact that people log in for a few minutes every day or two) seems to diminish the urgency.

So I have been considering an adjustment to how Inspiration is used. Specifically, I'm considering letting people spend Inspiration in the normal way - gaining advantage when spending Inspiration before a roll - but also spend Inspiration like the Lucky trait: if you make a roll and are dissatisfied with the result but the DM hasn't yet described the result, you can spend Inspiration to roll again. You must use the new result, and you can't use more Inspiration to roll a third time.

How does that sound to you? I know it's a change, but I know some tables already use Inspiration this way, I think it isn't a game-breaking change, and I think it might encourage people to use Inspiration more often.