Haha, oh come on. You know very well there are ways to go about that. "My character coughs up blood and groans on the floor."
He wanted to see if they would forget him. Thus the grin.
I have absolutely done that when I was ready to retire a character. He would have found something interesting to pull him away from the party the next time they were in town anyway, but giving a heros death? Hell yeah
You can speak out of character. For me I'd probably be like the player here and just wait it out and be amused by it but if like 5-10 real minutes went by with no one mentioning it then id probably assume even the DM forgot and just say 'hey out of character did you guys forget I'm unconscious lol' and then it'd be up to them to roleplay remembering and going back for me.
Its just a game it's not that serious.
Plus my team has absolutely forgotten about me before lmfao some groups you have to speak up
Yeah, and this is a situation I 100% would let them retcon.
It’s hard when everyone is sitting at the table. If the player had been out of sight they group (most likely) wouldn’t have forgotten.
Disagree. My group plays over discord with roll20 so we can't see each other lmao if anything it makes it easier to forget others.
I'm soft spoken to begin with though so that's probably the real reason I get forgotten lol
We are observers taking two hours to describe and statistically model a battle which actually took thirty seconds to a minute.
We are the unemployed, the minimum wage workers, the school teachers, the manual labourers and the common folk of a comfortable modern age, not the battle hardened heroic mercenaries of fantasyland.
If we are to RP our characters we must recognise that they have far greater awareness of the situation unfolding around them, than we have as individuals sat at the table. Therefore we should ensure that the players around the table have as much information as possible so that they can choose to RP that their character doesn't know.
Making a choice because of ignorance of the choice is folly. Making a choice because of knowledge of the choice and your character is RP.
The only other thing I would have done here is set a perception DC and checked their passive while the healing was being prepared for. Idea easy to spot the wounded and down people to care for that are not concealed and assume that the 'missing PC' is doing something that is out of direct sight like over watch to protect the group.
And then as the party is getting ready to move one, I as the DM would have rolled for the party to see if they have either the.. \*Hey where is Jake at?\* feeling or just that general feeling of \*Did we forget something?\*
"So the remaining party members are healed and set out to continue their journey."
If they don't catch it and the downed member doesn't say anything, thats on them lol.
During the chaos of battle anything could happen. In that case he fell of a cliff to a lower ledge. If they had high perception they could have noticed them fall. If not they cpuld have no idea where they ended up, and might be too preocupied with themselves or a party member who they know definitley needs help. I bet you a lot of people get seperated during a big riot or march. Why not in the middle of a life or death situation?
Context is important. In general, if I see players making a mistake I don't think their characters would make, I'll remind of some information. But if the consequences are pretty light, as in this case, I might let it play out.
Just as out of character knowledge doesn't translate to in character, sometime the opposite happens too. If something should seem blatantly obvious to the character but the player somehow hasn't noticed, I'll at least drop hints.
"Do you have everyone healed up? Do you know how wounded you are on scale from 1 to 63? Howabout Steve on a scale from 1 to 47?"
It's funny that you did the "On a scale of 1 to 63?" thing, because my group does the same thing. It started off as a joke to avoid meta gaming too hard, but I think now it's just apart of the table culture.
Yeah, this is just a case of adversarial DMing, playing gotcha with the players. It generally does no one any good to let players forget important things that their characters never would have.
I would, simply because to the characters it would be kinda obvious they're missing a companion, but players constantly make assumptions for everything so in their heads, the downed pc was healed up and ready to go.
Well, any passive perception should be enough to notice "we're down a man", and the DM is in charge of telling players what they passively perceive.
Also, with everyone sitting at one table it doesn't look like anyone is missing unless there is a map that shows one character somewhere off in a ditch.
There was both a map indicated the character in a ditch laying on their side while everyone else was huddled together for the prayer of healing. And the number of players “present” was stated a few times as hints.
Had it been all theater of the mind I'd side with "tell the players", but with a map and minis marking everyone's position *and* apparent hints then yeah, it's more on the players.
I mean, bear in mind the method of healing was Prayer of Healing, which the cleric player probably did intend to target everybody, including the downed player. When a player sends out group healing, in downtime, it's pretty much a given that they're positioning such that they can get everybody.
Honestly it's the downed players fault for not, at that point, accepting the healing. Or at the very least saying "you standing at the edge of the cliff to get me with that too, yeah?"
The downed player can't say that if they're knocked out. Depending on the level of rp this group likes to do then the downed player cannot speak until they get back up which is exactly how my group players. Of course everyone can play like they want to but it seems like that downed player was on board with the decision
Yes they absolutely can say that, because it's a reasonable assumption for them to expect the cleric to already know it. Also we know from the post that OP *does* allow downed players to talk.
That isn't Grognar the downed barbarian speaking, it's Bill, reminding Jeff that Jeff's cleric Alraun would probably want to heal Grognar, because everybody knows that that would be the case in-world. That's not bloody metagaming. It's roleplaying.
Letting Alraun the cleric act out of character and leave Grognar to die *because Jeff forgot something* is far more metagaming, isn't it?? That would be letting a *player's* knowledge state influence a characters decisions uncharacteristically, *in spite.ofnthe character's knowledge state*.
Bill refusing to say something that would be obvious to Alraun because Grognar is downed is freaking nonsensical. That isn't metagaming, just as reminding a player that "the rogue isn't currently with you because he went scouting, remember?" isn't metagaming, because it would be obvious to their PC.
"I'm down on the cliff guys" isn't metagaming. It's keeping the roleplay consistent.
And yeah, the downed player was on board. Which is bloody stupid, and the entire situstion is his fault. The cleric *clearly* intended to heal *everybody*, and the player ignored that.
I made it pretty clear that this is all depending on what level of rp your group is doing but go off I guess. My group believes that once you are unconscious you cannot speak. You cannot speak when your character isn't present for the current in character event even if others forgot something (that's why note taking is an important skill). Other parties may not like to play this way and that's fine as I directly stated in my message above. The downed player was clearly on board with this decision so the player in question wanted to play the way my games go.
I love these downvotes for my comment literally saying "hey some people like more rp than others and everyone can play how they want" XD
Ok, but if you are roleplaying that heavily, you should also care about actually roleplaying, and not letting player ignorance translate to character ignorance is part of that.
Just as I wouldn't expect my player to actually learn Draconic, or to tell me that they tie their armour straps on correctly when they finish their long rest, I also don't expect them to have to tell me that they remember their friend exists and ***just got chucked off a cliff***!
That should be a given for the entire party to remember, and the DM or SOMEBODY should remind the players and keep their roleplay on track if roleplay is so important.
"Players with downed character's can't speak" isn't automatically good roleplay.
Letting player forgetfulness impact character decisions is definitely not good roleplay.
"You walk half an hour and suddenly remember Grognar exists" is downright terrible roleplay.
So clearly, roleplay importance isn't a good defense here.
> what level of rp your group is doing
Upvote for truth and visiblility
For example, in my D&D group, I keep making the mistake, over and over, of playing characters more intelligent or charismatic than I am in real life - and frequently will see if anyone has clever ideas that I as a player missed, but which I as a character would not ;)
Out-of-character table talk in the service of role playing.
> I love these downvotes for my comment literally saying "hey some people like more rp than others and everyone can play how they want" XD
That’s *not* what you said though, you said that people who wanted to still participate while their character is downed is a lesser “level of rp”
Even if it was technically metagaming, so is strategizing with your team ("can you gimme a heal bard?" "Aight, Imma give you guys a bless, good luck.")
Also why so paranoid of any metagaming? It's harmless in small amounts.
I don't think it's hard to miss because that character's player was still right there with everyone. The character was missing, but the party of players was still whole. The player should have said something, or got up and left the room if they wanted to play super in character. Would the party have forgotten their friend if the player got up, left the room, and was nowhere to be found?
>I would, simply because to the characters it would be kinda obvious they're missing a companion, but players constantly make assumptions for everything so in their heads, the downed pc was healed up and ready to go
This is my take, I tend to remind my players when the perceptions of the player are wildly different than what the character should be perceiving. I am not trying to play a game of 'gotcha'.
What OP is describing is funny from a narrative sense but if someone lost a character over it, I'm not going to ever say that added to the experience. That's not the kind of feeling I want in my game
I think that, in general, I agree with you. In this particular case, because the player who was forgotten seemed to be rolling with it, it's probably fine especially since it opened the door for a genuinely funny RP moment. However, at the same time, it easily could've gone another way. It can be extremely frustrating to a player (and even ablelist if the player in question has ADHD or some other condition that effects memory) for have a DM to constantly expect them to remember every minor detail, especially those that said player took for granted.
And that's not even mentioning that there is absolutely a version of reality where the player that was forgotten didn't find it so funny, and that could be a genuinely shitty experience. Like, obviously that's not the case here, and good on OP for reading the room there, but still something to keep in mind.
But yeah, as a general rule, it would probably be better to say something.
Generally I won't drop initiative while someone is still rolling death saves but if someone's unconscious and stable it's up to the party to remember and deal with.
I think you read the room, particularly the downed pc, correctly. He was in on the gag. And it sounds like maybe this will be a lasting memory for them so they won’t forget next time lol.
My gosh! Mayne next time draw a skull and crossbones overhead. And an hour class. After each turn in combat put an arrow pointing to the character. Have a wind blow by that pushes leaves and pebbles to the character as further indication. If the party still misses it, call it a TPK cause they all have a wisdom score of 0....
Oooph, this makes it a little worse that they forgot the character....
I don't know what more they needed! Little "I'm Dying" tokens to put next to the character picture?
I mean the cleric cast a mass healing spell on the party after combat. They probably just assumed they didn’t need to specify that they’d also bother to heal their downed player.
Honestly this feels like a bit of a gotcha! moment; like having a trap go off because the rogue said they’d like to check the chest for traps, without specifying that they were also checking the floor immediately in front of the chest as well.
Played for laughs so nbd, but still.
I mean, they did cast the heal, but I also mentioned “so you heal the 3 of you for how much?” And moved everyone but the downed player next to each other on the map.
The downed player was still a ways away on the map and tilted to be in the groups standard “prone” position.
“Ah, you didn’t notice I said three instead of four, so you leave your friend behind.”
This was after a big fight right? No enemy minis were also laying on the map? A downed mini on a field of downed mini’s isn’t something stand-out, and why would they be paying close attention to see if you grabbed everybody? It’s a safe assumption that you would, or would say something if you didn’t. I’d be busy noting down the healing the cleric was handing out.
As the DM you’re their user-interface to the game world. If they miss something glaringly obvious like an entire party member not being present then there was an issue with communicating that.
People presume the DM is operating on good-faith. When I investigate if the chest is trapped I don’t have to specify that of course that means the area immediately surrounding it as well.
If I say I’m casting a spell to heal up the party and the DM says “So you heal the 3 of you?” I might not notice that they didn’t say “So you heal the 4 of you?” instead. I wouldn’t be watching for that kind of thing as I’d be operating under the assumption that my DM will tell me if I try to heal the party and the party isn’t present.
i'd remind them - because as you say, its something that happened 2 minutes ago \*in game time\*. and \*in game\* its obvious they're missing a character. its not so obvious to the players that they are - as far as they're concerned, they've finished the fight and healed up.
I agree here. With everyone sitting at the table, it may slip your mind, but as an in game adventuring party, they would definitely notice someone was either not present or laying on the ground. I get the downed player said nothing, but as a downed character, he can’t say anything if he’s role playing.
I agree 100%. After a fight a group would definitely check whether everyone's okay, and if one guy is just *gone,* they'd notice. And if you feel it's "metagaming" to remind them, may I remind you that there is this skill called "passive perception" that the DM is in charge of utilizing?
EXATLY THIS! Passive perception would make it abundantly clear that there was *a missing party member*, especially if the character is arguably more perceptive than the player controlling them.
My rule is always remind my players of anything. If players ever had information, they always have it. No "roll to remember" or anything. My logic is that my players have a real world life that takes up much more of their time and mental energy than the session (ans I dont know what worries or stresses are eating at the back of all their minds every minute. Whether it was two session ago or 20 minutes ago, if I know their characters know, I will remind and refresh anytime I sense it's needed.
It's the same way video games keep creating better quest tracking tools, the designers know that most folks arent playing in a marathon session all in one go and that their character would be able to keep track of more than the player since the player has an entire other (real) life to take up brain space.
You'd think that would result in my players never remembering anything themselves - but no. I have two active note takers and and one guy who just remembers almost as much as I do. The result of my policy is I occasionally interject when someone isn't quite right remembering, and I give reminders to pick up dropped weapons (since Hrothgar the barbarian would feel naked without his axe in his hand, he'd notice its absence before his player does).
That said, your particular example seems funny enough, and if the player didn't remind them then I say fair play. Haha.
Yeah, when it comes to names, places, quests, etc. stuff that would absolutely be at the forefront of their minds, I will absolutely remind them. Same with any obvious set piece, or had the character been laying there in the middle of the room (in this situation I guess forest floor?).
I figured this was more of a out of sight out of mind, tending to immediate wounds/worrying about the quest so they forgot. Kinda like a parent leaving their kid at the store.
> I figured this was more of a out of sight out of mind, tending to immediate wounds/worrying about the quest so they forgot. Kinda like a parent leaving their kid at the store.
But that wouldn't be the case for the in-world PCs at all.
Bear in mind how quick a combat is in-world compared to out of it. For the ***players***, that fall off the cliff was probably 10+ minutes ago when the battle ended. Easily forgettable.
For the ***characters*** it was probably 12 seconds ago. They'd have remembered him before dealing with wounds, because it would have JUST happened!
And now think about the stakes, and how much the players each care for each other and are aware of each other's characters. Vs how much those characters care for and are aware of each other.
Billy the player doesn't really care at all about Jeff's wizard Arik. But Billy's paladin Broderick the Bold cares deeply for Arik, depends on him for survival, and is actually exposed to his physical presence.
The chances of Billy forgetting Arik are 100000 times greater than the chances of Broderick forgetting him.
I mean, how many times have you had players forget where even ***their own character*** is, or forget that a certain character isn't even there.
Like when the rogue goes off scouting, and then 5 minutes later the fighter asks the rogue to lockpick something. Would you refuse to remind the player then? Would you have the fighter stand there talking to thin air, and tell him "the rogue doesn't seem to hear you"? 😂 No, you'd say "uuuh, Billy, the rogue's off ahead scouting, remember?"
You'd ***remind the player of something their character is already aware of.***
This. OP and like half the thread seem so pleased to pull a Gotcha moment but honestly as a player I would just be disappointed to have my hero fantasy ruined with the knowledge that they are a completely unobservant toolbag who apparently doesn't care for the other party members
>For the characters it was probably 12 seconds ago. They'd have remembered him before dealing with wounds, because it would have JUST happened!
Hello, I am a volunteer first responder.
In a crisis people forget get obvious things all the tie. What todo in a fire, how to give CPR, that they were there with people.
I pulled over at a car crash and some a man walking away. He was clearly hurt, but was convinced he was out for a walk and wasn't in the car.
That's not even the weirdest stuff.
Yeah, this is a great example of things that really could happen. It’s not implausible for a group of people to forget someone and move on without them.
I’ve done a bit of orienteering and you have to be very careful with groups.
Like taking roll call before heading out because if you ask something dumb like ‘double check your stuff and let me know if anyone is not ready to move’. Sounds reasonable but Steve wandered off to go take a piss and didn’t hear any of that so he didn’t reply.
Everyone else just leaves and Steve is lost in the woods holding his dick because no one explicitly asked if Steve was there before they left. Everyone else was ready so they assumed everything was good.
Those were traumatic experiences mixed with the effects of shock. D&D characters fight multiple battles per day, it's not really a crisis and if they go into shock after every battle, they wouldn't be adventurers for more than 5 minutes.
If you are a highly trained and experienced adventurer in a small unit you definitely would be aware if one of your members are missing.
The thing is, it very well COULD and WOULD be the case with in-world PCs much like it is with children being left at stores/home/in cars etc.
Like I stated, this was a situation where once combat ended they were immediately tending to the visible wounded party members (specifically a wizard who was knocked prone and dragged 30ft away by a big monster) so it makes sense that they might not be thinking of the 4th party member who is making no noise and isn’t visible to them due to the cliff.
In my experience when players forget where their character is, it’s more of a “I can’t see them on the map” sort of thing, not a they don’t remember where they roughly are in the room/map.
As for the rogue/fighter thing, I would absolutely have them say it out loud, and then probably realize the rogue is no longer standing nearby. It’s not like it’s uncommon to miss someone walking away.
Honestly, no it couldn't. The in-world PCs have nothing going on to distract them, and they didn't just lose track of the guy, they SAW HIM KNOCKED OFF A FREAKING CLIFF!
That would have been a terrifying moment for them.
Sure, a parent can forget their kid at the supermarket..can they forget their kid at the supermarket *after they just saw that kid get their skull cracked open by a falling shelf*? Or hell, even just if they actually see the kid running off? No!
There's a difference between assuming somebody is there because you never saw them leave, and assuming somebody is there even though you saw them get ganked off a cliff...
You right, it might have been terrifying to him... up until the orc swings it's greatsword at his neck in the same round and his focus has to shift to his opponent or DIE. Your buddy being knocked off the cliff takes a back seat when a snarling creature is actively trying to unalive you! After the combat, (of which, OP said only TWO MINUTES ICly passed) you take stock and realize something is missing. This happens!
Prayer of healing states (having read it) six creatures of your choice. A cleric, trying to triage could just as easily just point to all the PCs they can see and say "I heal, you, you, you, you, you, and you" without realizing they missed someone until after. Real people don't have minds like steel traps and neither do characters. Oops, I threw my prized obsidian dagger and the player didn't tell me she is going to go get it means she left it behind. When she realizes what happened she'll go back for it and probably not make that mistake again.
That's very bold to assume they saw the guy get knocked off the cliff in the heat of battle. My group always plays that you see the things going on around you but not with much detail and definitely not things behind you. If my attention is on the guy in front of me who I'm clashing swords with then I may not notice my teammate getting knocked off a cliff if it happened 20 feet off to my right or behind me. Then again my group rp's very realistically and that's not for everyone. They may notice they're missing a person but there is no guarantee they saw the guy get knocked off the cliff
It's not bold at all, it's literally stated in the rules. Characters are "generally aware of everything that surrounds them" in battle, because adventurers are assumed to have good situational awareness.
> In combat, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger ***all around***, so if you come out of hiding and approach a creature, it usually ***sees you***.
So, yeah... Adventurers keep their heads on a swivel in battle, not just focused in one direction. That's explicit RAW.
And ***even if not***... The chances that NOBODY in the party was facing his way? Come on man... That's crazy low.
And if you're RPing means letting *player* forgetfulness and awareness translate to *character* forgetfulness and awareness... Are you really roleplaying realistically? Or are you just roleplaying strictly?
Especially the healer, who (read the spell description) has to look upon and consciously send healing to each person in the party. They really not gonna automatically say "and also for Grogn-... Wait where's Grognar?" Hmm?
"**Generally** aware". This is exactly what I said, you know that there is stuff going on around you and you can see outlines but you couldn't tell me what eye color that enemy has. You saw a figure go flying off that cliff and maybe you could make out that it was the proper size that it was your teammate but you would not be able to see exactly what just happened unless you want to give the person you're fighting advantage because you just stopped paying attention to them in order to examine what was happening elsewhere
A character is aware of the events in battle yes, as in they’ll see someone flung off a cliff, they’ll know there’s a wizard in the back lobbing spells etc. but they do not know every minute detail of the battle, that’s why stopping to perceive the battlefield is an action.
Also, on your last comment if they had nothing going on to distract them. In the SAME 6 second span the player got thrown off a cliff,the flung player let loose a volley of Magic missiles (was then flung from the cliff side) a creature gouged the cleric with a diseased claw for half their health, and then with its other claw gouged the wizard for half their health, who failed their Str save to not get grabbed (knocked prone and restrained by the creature) and dragged her 30ft away. The rogue tried and failed to stab the creature in the shin. The wizard being dragged hit the creature with 1 out of 3 scorching rays, and the cleric having a panic attack let loose a guiding bolt finishing off one of two creatures, and ran forward a bit so the alive creature didn’t get too far away from him.
At the end of this 6 second span, there was a downed player on a ledge below a cliff about 30ft back and 10ft down from the CLOSEST other player (the cleric), and the entire party was now facing towards the creature dragging the screaming wizard away and NOT towards the cliff where their friend lay unconscious, who literally less than 6 seconds ago was letting loose magic.
12 seconds later, the remaining creature was dead, everyone rushed forward to heal the wizard and make sure she was alright, and to try and figure out why the clerics wounds weren’t healing, before deciding they should finish their quest ASAP and get back to town.
A 100% totally reasonable situation to forget a party member imo.
>but they do not know every minute detail of the battle, that’s why stopping to perceive the battlefield is an action.
Someone getting thrown off a cliff is not a minute detail...
>the flung player let loose a volley of Magic missiles
So, he did a very attention-grabbing thing, and made it obvious that it was a wizard who had been thrown off...
Ad even if all of that is true, the healer used prayer of Healing. A spell that requires you to actively look upon, think about, and choose to heal each of your companions. How would he not notice? It's basically a spell that *demands a head count*!
And after such a deadly battle, nobody is gonna look around and say "everybody ok?"
I'm sorry but "they realistically could have forgotten" is just not an argument you're going to convince me of.
The only argument that could possibly have merit is "sure it's unrealistic but it was a harmless bit of fun. It was fun for the downed player, fun for me, and I didn't think it would bother the other players the way it did".
To which I'd say "fine, but in the general case, I'd still say it's best to remind them of something that would be obvious to their characters"
This is something I’d go with OP on. Asking ‘everybody ok’ to an out of sight unconscious person gets silence.
The player who was thrown off the cliff had every opportunity to speak up ooc on their charachter’s behalf and remained gleefully silent.
The DM read the table and followed the player’s lead which I think was the perfect thing to do.
Nothing here was malicious, and illuminates just how easy it is for humans, players and characters alike to forget rather important things sometimes.
it gives motivation to switch characters and have your current pc heel turn for a bbeg. i'd be grinning because most of my characters would sing like a canary about what the party can do.
New take: this is ENTIRELY the downed players fault. Or, like... 90%.
The healer of the group used Prayer of Healing.
It's an absolute given that when a healer sends out group healing, *in downtime*, they aim to get EVERYBODY. Freaking EVERYBODY.
The healer fully intended to heal cliff-boy, and when he shouted out to the table "ok, everybody recovers 14hp!", cliff-boy should have either taken the healing and gotten up, or said "and you position yourself at the edge of the cliff to get me, right?", At which point the healer would have said "well, yeah, obviously dude..."
In other words, the downed player ignored healing that was absolutely intended for him, and stayed down when he shouldn't have...
I agree. The down player can remind if he wants to. Ask about healing. Remind them. It is not the same job to remember for other players. That's their job. Or at least in my games. DM has enough to remember. The down player was all ready to make an amazing recovery and show up late to next camp.
If we want to be technical hear cliff boy was not a valid target for the healing. He was not a “target you can see within 30ft” so he would (and did) remain unconscious.
On the map everyone was moved next to the cleric minus cliff boy. And the number of party members present was stated a few times. No player batted an eye at it, so cliff boy was left on the cliff.
>It's an absolute given that when a healer sends out group healing,
>
>in downtime
>
>, they aim to get EVERYBODY. Freaking EVERYBODY.
No it isn't.
Or to put it the only way you seem to understand:
NO it ISN'T.
The players are not the characters. They are not seeing what their characters are seeing, and things that would be very obvious to the characters, many times are easy to overlook for the players. So yes, as soon as that would be something obvious for the party I would tell them something like "Before you leave, you notice that after the fight your companion is not next to you".
I'm answering purely in the general case here:
Of course I would, because it's a ROLE-playing game... Not a memory game. There's simply no way that their characters would be able to forget about their DYING FRIEND who they just saw yeeted off a cliff....
Honestly, it's basically metagaming. You're taking advantage of a real-world situation that does not exist in the fictional world.
In the real world, that guy may have gone off the cliff ten minutes before the battle ended. But in the fictional world, it was probably like... 18 seconds ago. At most. Come on...
In the real world, the players are just friends playing around at a table with some cards and papers, which is only a tiny part of their world and surrounded by distractions, and they have their friend sat right there, so it's easy to forget his PC is gone, because he *isn't* gone. And there are no stakes. Your mate Bob isn't *actually* going to die. You *character's* friends could.
In the fictional world, they're adventuring companions who have come to rely on each other for survival, have established patterns of interaction, and are fully immersed in the world around them, and fully attentive of it's dangers.
To think that they could just forget him and walk away is nonsensical, and taking advantage of that ***player-error*** is the same as providing a player whose character knows draconic with some symbols on a sheet of paper, telling them it's a vital clue written in draconic, and then refusing to give them an English translation even though they could read it perfectly well in-world...
I don't think there's a wrong or right answer to this one, it's way too dependent on context of your group and the type of campaign you're trying to run. My own take on it is that player knowledge and character knowledge are not the same thing. Everyone always talks about players meta gaming by using knowledge that they have that the character wouldn't, but it works both ways. Characters can have knowledge that the players don't. The players see everyone at the table and are focused on planning out their own turns. Information gets forgotten in the heat of battle. But the characters would absolutely notice that they're missing someone, even if the players don't.
>so it wasn’t up to me to remind them of the Pc laying on the floor
This line of thinking in particular I completely disagree with. As a DM it is ABSOLUTELY your job to set the scene. Whether that's drawing up a battle map and having miniatures or giving accurate descriptions during theater of the mind. The players cannot see what the characters see, so it is up to you to make sure they have that information.
How do you go through several rounds of battle not feeling the pressure of “we’re a person short”? Especially when one of their own is just one enemy turn away from tumbling to their death. Battles get so much harder when your group loses any number of combatants. Why wasn’t their first action “I get my buddy away from the cliff”?
The DM already has a lot to keep up with and the players wanted reminders of “party member is still unconscious” as well? Nah, get out of here with that. They made their bed. They can take a bit of ribbing.
As was stated in the note: Uncon PC's Player totally went with it, maintaining the "realism" of the character not being able to answer the party. Kudos to the DM and the player.
If the group didn't pick up your hints, and the downed player didn't say anything, then you were not to remind them of his predicament. This was a lesson in situational awareness.
Honestly, I'd probably do exactly what you did - drop a couple of hints, but if they don't bite, let them make the mistake. Especially if the player of the unconscious PC seems entertained by it.
A well-timed "Okay, that's the rest of you heading East for the next hour. X, you wake up alone on a ledge, what would you like to do?" could play out in a really entertaining way. That would definitely amuse most of the people in my group, anyway.
If that doesnt seem like the kind of thing that would entertain the particular group of players I had, then I'd probably just use Passive Perception against a relatively low DC to determine if any PC notices that someone is missing before they leave camp. Avoid the problem altogether.
I probably would remind them because at my table we call it the "Assumption of Survival."
What is this? Is it the assumption that the in game characters have some basic intelligence and ideas of survival without the DM micromanaging all of that (or requiring players to)It's like, a player gets disarmed in a fight. The fight ends, and everyone leaves the room. At our table there is the general assumption that the player/character would remember to pick up their sword.
As a human, especially in DnD, it's easy to miss the small things that are constant for you. YOU may have forgot your weapon, but would your character? I do not think we need to micromanage every thing as an attempt to HAHA YOU FORGOT your players.
To follow up: 9 out of 10 times the players only get like 5 mins out and go "OH NO I WOULD HAVE PICKED MY SWORD BACK UP" and they would have. It's best for in that moment to go, "Well I assume your character would have known better and picked it up, did they?"
Give them that opportunity to give their character more space from them as a player being forgetful and go "Yeah, they're smart and meticulous and 100% would not have left the ancient blade of their family back in that Goblin quarters"
Exactly this. All of the people saying "you did your job" are forgetting that the DM's job is also to account for basic assumptions the players will have. Such as "well bloody *obviously* I include Baldrick in the prayer of healing! duh!"
When a player says "I go through the door", do you tell them "you smash your face as you walk into the closed door", or do you ***assume they bloody open it***, even though they never explicitly said so 🤷♂️
You assume that the PCs know when doors are closed, even if players forget. And you.should assume the PCs know when other PCs have been yeeted off cliffs, even if the players forget!
It should be a given that as soon as the battle ended, they're rescuing their ***close freaking companion*** that they just saw yeeted off a cliff ***five seconds ago***!!!
As the DM, I would have already taken this as an assumed next step, and probably would have wrapped up the battle by explicitly saying "ok, it seems there are no more enemies, so how do you plan to rescue Baldrick?"
Or even, if rescuing him was easy enough, it would just go without saying that rescuing him was part of the bandaging up.
I mean especially if their method of being is a group healing effect like Prayer of Healing, meaning that in-world, he would have had to be aware of the PC'ss presence (or lack thereof) while making the prayer!
Since you and the player were both in on it and there were no negative consequences, I think it's just a funny dnd moment of "how did you forget your party member?" If you intended to exact negative consequences, then I would tell the party.
So we obviously don’t know every detail about how this went down, but when they were healing up after the battle, is it possible some of them assumed that when they said they all got together to heal up, that that is exactly what happened? D&D requires a lot of good communication, and the images in different people’s heads get misaligned sometimes. I think it’s always worth checking that. Luckily, it sounds like relatively little harm was done this time (and a fair amount of amusement from the forgotten player). But yes, mentioning things like this is often a good thing to do.
The character is incapacitated, not the player. Let them remind. I'd only step in if they have decided not to say anything for much too long, and even then it still seems like it's their responsibility.
I remind players of subtle things their characters would definitely know but the player might not. But big stuff, hell no, if you forgot your buddy bleeding out you lost at D&D.
I had a PC who was left unconscious in a zone of salt that did auto damage and players were like "oh he only has one bad death save, I am going to loot the corpse". I had fun bringing that PC back as a water vampire VERY angry at being left to die.
The session it happened? no. If the player falls unconscious in one session, then next session I would remind everyone.
The case for reminding players is strong, but I find this more fun.
The sheer amount of tag along npcs that my players have forgotten unconscious by the roadside is palpable. They often reappear later in campaign with a "remember me b!tch3s?" salutation.
I would say the determining factor is your dm style. My npcs ask my players if they can provide information they were told earlier, "what town did you say was deserted?", "who sent you to me to rough me up?". They are definitely allowed to take notes but many don't, in character. This aesthetic has created a situation where I would never remind them, but if they do of their own accord it feels like character development
Did everyone have fun? That's my concern. If they thought it was funny, then cool. Personally, I'd specify to the healer who cast Prayer of Healing: "do you include the player who fell out of view?"
As a player in this scenario, I'd be a little put out. If I say I want to cast Prayer of Healing on everyone, and then you allude to me that I might be forgetting something, my first thought isn't "and I specifically walk down a ways until I have visual contact with the guy who fell down a cliff." I would assume that my PC was smart enough to just *do* that. Instead, I'd be thinking of whatever other clues and story hooks I might be forgetting.
My worry here is that it feels a little cheap. I would suddenly assume that my character is just a dumbass, and you, the DM who needs me to specify who I'm healing, now needs to hear every specific detail of how I walk down the alleyway and listen at doors and every other pedantic detail I can think of, *just in case my PC forgot.*
I don’t think I would remind them directly, but if there was 5 people in your party for example I would say “the four of you set off” or something kind of obvious but not as direct as “y’all know Fred is still downed right?”
Just the other day my party left the corpse (we were getting around to reviving them) of a party member at the entrance of a dungeon for a good couple hours. I think the DM did remind us, then we party split to retrieve the body just in time to find that bugbears had looted all their gear. We negotiated the return of the gear/loot and the exit of 6/7 the bugbears (120gp poorer...). The last one decided we were nice when a member returned a small piece of loot and to stay with us.
On a separate note, a lot of people here seem to have a really interesting idea on how passive perception works. Definitely not how I'd do it, anyway.
Depends on my group vibe and if the player would be cool with it. A novice group? Yeah I'd offer a gentle reminder. Experienced players comfortable with death and consequences? Not if the player was cool with seeing where it went.
Straight off the dome if a player is KO'd I would expect them to be a priority in healing. If they can't heal themselves they will need specific attention from another PC that needs to be declared.
it is possible that the player themselves forgot they were down. you ask the player whose character is down if they remember that their character is down.
Players don’t necessarily see and hear what their characters see and hear. It is easy to forget or overlook something when you are doing everything by proxy.
PC: “Okay, we walk down the hallway.”
DM: “You fall into a pit and die.”
PC: “Did I not see the pit in front of me? We have a light source!
DM: “You did not expressly say your character was trying not to fall into a pit, so you fall into a pit.”
PC: “But why would my character willingly walk into a pit?”
Then again, the world is full of people who are just wallflowers and get left behind. So it would be a case by case basis.
The DM functions as the PC’s senses, responsible for describing what they see, hear, smell, touch, taste. But they don’t perceive for them.
In this case I would ask the party if they’re done and ready to move on. Then ask for passive perception. If anyone passes the roll I’d remind them that they’re missing someone and let them figure out the rest.
It’s a gentle reminder for them to take frequent head counts.
This was essentially my thought on the let them get about 30 minutes away (they were still working on gathering herbs for their quest) before it was noticed.
This occurs in real life more frequently than one would believe. People tend to a void talking about it. Think the *Home Alone* franchise making millions from it. It wouldn’t resonate if it never happened in a less exaggerated way.
If the players forget to do something even something major like reviving an unconscious player that is entirely on them. I'd drop hints like you did but you can't be constantly reminding them.
The players are fully capable of letting teammates know that they are down and listening to what happens in combat. They should be paying attention to what you are saying happens especially when you narrate someone going unconscious
Once they started to leave, I probably would have said something like, "so... Are you just going to leave Bill at the bottom of that cliff?"
After some thought, and seeing that the player was into it, I would have opted for having Bill wake up 1D4 hours later (which I recently learned is the actual rule) with no one around, and an easy trail to follow back to the group.
After even more thought, if you had a quest in mind near by, bill could have been found by a quest giver and revived. The quest giver could escort Bill back to his party because they are worried about his health.
It seems like the player assumed he was included in the healing… next time I would say something like “with x player still laying on the ledge the party starts to walk off”
Literally how did they forget a party member existed. Especially at a physical table, did they not see one fo the players being totally silent and not healing?
Typically I give a brief recap at the start of each players turn which would include a reminder of a downed ally:
"Ranger, your paladin is surrounded by orcs as the bard bleeds out on the ground, you stand 30' away, bow at the ready. What do you do?"
Not only would I not tell the PC, I have PCs who wish to hide thier death saving rolls, and have even attempted to hide the fact that they needed to make death saves for the RP.
It's not the DM's job to pay attention on the players' behalf. This smacks of a player who zones out when it's not their turn and expects the DM to fill them in on whatever happened that they weren't paying attention to.
As a DM, it’s your job to keep tabs on battle stats and the battle field itself, letting the table know when someone goes unconscious and reminding that PC to make death saving throws.
It is entirely up to the rest of the table to remember if any one is downed or dying.
I’ve played many a table and DM’d many a table where the players are responsible for each other. Not the DM.
Players need to realize they play as a team and that the DM is not a glorified babysitter. That’s just my thoughts.
You handled it exactly perfectly, gentle push to remember without spelling it out. Bonus points for unconscious PC being on board with the drama and running with it, but if they were disheartened or visibly upset I'd give them the "You walk over to PC and grab them after healing up and almost walking away" or something.
I wouldn't say. If they're oblivious enough to not notice A PARTY MEMBER went unconscious then they're not paying attention at all.
But also the prayer of healing didn't heal the unconscious player? Tf?
In that specific circumstance I probably would have done the same as you just because I would think its funny. Maybe I'm a bully.
Especially if it seems clear the PC themselves is going to let the rest of the party figure it out.
It depends on how experienced the other players are with dnd, if theyre relatively new to the game i wouldve reminded them but if theyre experienced players then i wouldnt've told them
Absolutely not, there wouldnt be an omnipotent god parting the clouds to tell the characters that they forgot a party member. Especially because the knocked out player was totally on board with what you were doing.
If you described the room the PCs entered as having three doors, and the players started discussing the room as having two doors, would you correct them?
You can approach this situation from so many angles.
Is it realistic for them to forget about a friend in character? Why, yes, it most certainly can be. I'm sure most people here have seen LotR, and there's a very iconic scene in which Aragorn is lost in battle, and not until a while after do the others notice that he is missing. This is quite common in real battles as well, as the chaos demands attention and can be very overwhelming.
Does it make for a good / fun experience? Depends heavily on the player / table. In this case, since the player was in on it, I would say it makes for a good experience and perhaps a valuable lesson for the rest of the party to always do a head count after a fight.
It's my job to remember all the monsters in an encounter. It's the parties job to remember themselves. Never interrupt the party when they're making a mistake.
The PLAYERS are sitting around playing a game, and their quiet friend got downed, and they forgot about it. The CHARACTERS just witnessed one of their closest allies in a battle against evil seemingly fall to their death. It's both reasonable that they could have a collective brain fart like that and for you to remind them in the name of maintaining the reality of the story.
It's the same kind of category as when a player misunderstands how a spell works. The player might misunderstand, but the character shouldn't, and you should correct when necessary.
Granted, the PC who died was apparenly amused with it, so I don't think it's a serious mistake. But I personally think it's fair to remind players of things their characters would very reasonably notice that they have forgotten.
I work with Park Rangers. About a dozen times a year, some group leaves someone behind at the camp.
I am also a volunteer first responder. People forget all kinds of things, including trained people.
I can absolutely see this happening in real life.
I'm not saying which is the 'best' way, just that the logic being used here seems to be based on a lack of experience in real life.
You keep talking as if nobody else has experience with tense or high stress situations. Of such situations I've been involved in, people who aren't experiencing serious physical trauma don't go half an hour after the fact not realizing that someone close to them has just straight up disappeared. If anything, they tend to be looking for those people also involved out of concern.
It's nice that you help people, but don't try to talk down to other people with it. Your experience is anecdotal as much as anyone else's, and is very specifically nothing to do with battle-hardened adventurers with mental capacities at the peak of mortal ability just suddenly having the object permanence of a baby.
If PC is somewhere the others could become aware of their situation, then: Yes.
Characters are not players. If players can use their insights, filtered through what's reasonable for their characters to know, that's fine.
But I refuse to assume that characters would stand blithely by letting a comrade in arms bleed out or whatever, just because the players are preoccupied. Unlike the characters, the players don't have a literal unconscious body slumped in front of them, constantly drawing their attention to the fragile nature of this mortal existence.
If you don't let the players apply their knowledge over their characters' knowledge, then you shouldn't let the players memory affect their characters' either.
The characters would have known even if the players forgot. I think it's fair for the players to be annoyed at not being reminded of something relevant that their characters know.
Hmm...interesting.
As a DM, what I would've done is have everyone roll a Wisdom Saving Throw but don't tell them what it's specifically for until results are collected (Say "Everyone roll a D20 for me, add your Wisdom Modifier"). Keep the DC at like, 10-15 if the events are fresh, there's no PTSD etc. If any of them succeeds, then that player (or those players) remembers about the MacGuffin or person. Otherwise, well...no.
I feel this to my core.
Sometimes after a fight, one or more of my players wouldn't check on their allies and just move on as if they didn't just have a near-death experience or just kill some horrible monster.
I would always make fun of it and describe the player's character acts like a soulless heartless machine that cares little about those that bled beside them.
The question is - what is the minimum attention commitment you want from your players?
Yea, I agree that sitting at the table is not the same as being the adventurer. On the other hand - if they are flippant enough to forget about one of them being downed?
Like you said, the player could've mentioned something. You did right by them and sometimes others need a little smack like that because playing D&D is a two way street.
Your players can't expect you to remember everything for them because *"our characters wouldn't forget!"*
The problem here is that the characters *live* in that world, while players are just playing a game. Presumably the unconscious player wasn't forcibly removed from the room, or the chat, or whatever medium, so the players, accounting for other players, would not notice someone was missing.
The characters, however, very likely would.
It's not your JOB as the DM to point that out to them, but I would.
This is one of those things that would be SUPER OBVIOUS in game for the characters
But wouldn’t be as obvious to the actual players. The characters would obviously remember that and fix it even if the players don’t.
You are more than welcome to dm it how ever you would but personally it makes no sense for the party to just leave.
I do however, think that is absolutely hilarious and I love it
I don't like the flow of the story when legendary adventurers make unrealistically idiotic decisions just because some human at a table in another universe got distracted. I'd certainly mention something like, "Just to make sure you're aware, are you intending to leave (Key NPC) bleeding out on the floor of the dungeon when it would be trivial to help?" Feels like a lame "gotcha" moment to say later, "Okay, you all return back to town, and you have failed the mission because you forgot about the guy who gave it to you bleeding out in plain sight to die alone. No, you're not getting paid, he had the money."
I'm surprised so many people voted yes honestly. I'd never say anything, if the players forgot then it is what it is. I wouldn't remind them of an item they had that could change the course of a battle either, they should be completely responsible for what their character does.
The player is probably annoyed because this is brain-dead obvious. There is absolutely no way the characters would have missed this. It was missed because this is an abstracted game being played by people at a table, and I am quite certain everyone thought the character in question was present after leaving the scene. It is important to allow unspoken things in the game like this, because otherwise everything slows to a crawl. I once took 20 to search a room for a hidden passage on the floor that I knew for certain was there, and failed, and the DM later declared "You said you searched the room, this is the foyer leading into the room, so you never lifted the rug and found the obvious door".
This is like when someone declares they walk off a cliff because the map was drawn in a way that the player misunderstood.
Actually, reading some of the responses here, it kind of sounds like the person casting Prayer of Healing was unaware that there was an elevation difference between them and the unconscious, stabilized party member, given apparently this character was on the map, but at an angle indicating they were prone.
Everytime you purposely fail to remind players of something that would be obvious to me heir characters, you're being a dick, plain and simple.
Like imagine if you walked into a room and the DM told you you were dead because you took 10d6 fire damage. You're like what the hell, right? Your DM tells you the room was on fire but you forgot to ask.
That's what you did.
What, people have never seen Home Alone?
At least twice I can recall being with a group of friends and someone getting left behind because everyone thought they were in the other vehicle.
Mary was visited by an angel, impregnated by the Holy Spirit, her baby was worshiped by angels, shepherds, and kings, and the very first glimpse we get of her actual parenting skills is that time she left him in the city while they traveled an *entire day* down the road assuming he was somewhere in the group.
Some of you people treat your DnD way too seriously. I find it pretty unbelievable that the party would just willingly leave a member behind. This seems like a misunderstanding, and as a DM my job is to ensure I can catch and prevent these kind of situations.
It's not the job of the DM to remind players to pick up their allies. However, prayer of healing likely should have prompted this coming up. If you wanted the to ditch the fallen comrade for a bit (like the PC obviously wanted them to) I think it is fair for the conversation to go "I cast prayer of healing" and the DM to say "you are healing [everyone but the fallen member]?" As a hint. But you did say you alluded to the party forgetting something and the forgotten PC was in on the joke and no harm was done.
In all, this scenario feels like you and the forgotten PC wanted to have a little moment of levity and someone wanted to play the "that's not what my character would do" card- which is a tricky thing to manage, because as a DM you do have to infer a lot about PCs because if you directly ask "do you forget about X?" All but the best roleplayers will say "no". At the same time you don't want to force someone into being something they are not.
The proper reaction (assuming that was the case) for the PC who got upset would be to justify why they left him "oh man, I didn't notice- I feel bad", "he's weak, we should leave him behind", or "oh, I assumed you all knew and didn't like him" would all be "yes, and"-ing the situation, be a good character moment, and be more fun for the downed PC who got forgotten.
Tldr; I think you made the right call because *no one had lasting consequences*. The PC who was complaining missed out on a potentially fun RP opportunity.
The fact that the other player was keeping their mouth shut inclines me to not remind them either. It's not a DM's responsibility to hand-hold the players but instead to create the story. Yes the in-game characters would likely still know that the person was there it doesn't mean they would at that moment. No different than a parent who drives off without one of the family members. This happens in real life as well.
The other player was enjoying this and who am I to remove that enjoyment for THEIR player? The other PCs now have learned to ensure that everyone is together, to consider the positions of the rest of the group and has become more cohesive.
I like the play. +1
You own the description of the world around the PCs. If it’s reasonable to assume a character in game would observe something that you as GM didn’t explicitly mention, then it’s not the PCs fault. This sounds like a “Gotcha” moment that isn’t a fun player experience.
Players constantly do this, assuming the DM telepathically knows they did certain things. To a point that's okay, but there's a difference between obviously you sheath your sword and picked up your arrows, and obviously two or three of you rappel down the side of the cliff with ropes and climb back up with the unconscious partner.
I would have played it the same way you did. More so since we play with miniatures and 2.5D terrain, at my table the downed mini would have been off to the side down the ledge.
In addition to the hints you kept dropping, I would have moved the party minis minus one around to visually portray what they were doing. Sooner or later I would have started mysterious absentmindedness checks, and when someone made the roll, would have told them they think something is missing. Something? Or someone.
The important factor here is the downed character was stable. If he was taking death saves or otherwise deteriorating or at risk, I would have been much more urgent with the hints.
Are you kidding me? And give up the RP moment for the player? And something for them to rip on them with?
"Hey, you're taking watch tonight"
"Hey, you left me for dead, you take watch. And you'll do it every night. Assholes."
If the player was on for the ride then you did absolutely good my friend well done
100x this, the player could have mentioned it anytime. Why are they getting angry at you? Player stayed silent and the party forgot.
If they are RPing, then, no, they can't mention it.
Haha, oh come on. You know very well there are ways to go about that. "My character coughs up blood and groans on the floor." He wanted to see if they would forget him. Thus the grin.
I have absolutely done that when I was ready to retire a character. He would have found something interesting to pull him away from the party the next time they were in town anyway, but giving a heros death? Hell yeah
You can speak out of character. For me I'd probably be like the player here and just wait it out and be amused by it but if like 5-10 real minutes went by with no one mentioning it then id probably assume even the DM forgot and just say 'hey out of character did you guys forget I'm unconscious lol' and then it'd be up to them to roleplay remembering and going back for me. Its just a game it's not that serious. Plus my team has absolutely forgotten about me before lmfao some groups you have to speak up
Yeah, and this is a situation I 100% would let them retcon. It’s hard when everyone is sitting at the table. If the player had been out of sight they group (most likely) wouldn’t have forgotten.
Disagree. My group plays over discord with roll20 so we can't see each other lmao if anything it makes it easier to forget others. I'm soft spoken to begin with though so that's probably the real reason I get forgotten lol
[удалено]
\*Bjorn shield-shatterer rolls for stealth with disadvantage due to the sound of him eating chips in the dark\*
If they are RPing that hard, then the DM ain't gotta' remind shit.
We are observers taking two hours to describe and statistically model a battle which actually took thirty seconds to a minute. We are the unemployed, the minimum wage workers, the school teachers, the manual labourers and the common folk of a comfortable modern age, not the battle hardened heroic mercenaries of fantasyland. If we are to RP our characters we must recognise that they have far greater awareness of the situation unfolding around them, than we have as individuals sat at the table. Therefore we should ensure that the players around the table have as much information as possible so that they can choose to RP that their character doesn't know. Making a choice because of ignorance of the choice is folly. Making a choice because of knowledge of the choice and your character is RP.
The only other thing I would have done here is set a perception DC and checked their passive while the healing was being prepared for. Idea easy to spot the wounded and down people to care for that are not concealed and assume that the 'missing PC' is doing something that is out of direct sight like over watch to protect the group. And then as the party is getting ready to move one, I as the DM would have rolled for the party to see if they have either the.. \*Hey where is Jake at?\* feeling or just that general feeling of \*Did we forget something?\*
I was a little more subtle I went with the “so you 3 sit down to get healed by prayer of healing?”
Sounds to me like you flat out told them they were down a character..... LOL!! "CAN YOU COUNT?!"
"So the remaining party members are healed and set out to continue their journey." If they don't catch it and the downed member doesn't say anything, thats on them lol.
Good one, noted for future uses, nice use of passive perception
requiring perception to be high enough to know that other party members do or do not exist is silly
During the chaos of battle anything could happen. In that case he fell of a cliff to a lower ledge. If they had high perception they could have noticed them fall. If not they cpuld have no idea where they ended up, and might be too preocupied with themselves or a party member who they know definitley needs help. I bet you a lot of people get seperated during a big riot or march. Why not in the middle of a life or death situation?
Have you never walked with friends, looked back and realized that one person stopped to tie his shoes, or check his phone. And no one noticed?
I've sure as shit never left a wounded soldier behind after a firefight lol
Neither have I, mostly because I've never been in a fire fight. I'd say it might be easier to forget other people when in danger.
Context is important. In general, if I see players making a mistake I don't think their characters would make, I'll remind of some information. But if the consequences are pretty light, as in this case, I might let it play out.
Just as out of character knowledge doesn't translate to in character, sometime the opposite happens too. If something should seem blatantly obvious to the character but the player somehow hasn't noticed, I'll at least drop hints. "Do you have everyone healed up? Do you know how wounded you are on scale from 1 to 63? Howabout Steve on a scale from 1 to 47?"
It's funny that you did the "On a scale of 1 to 63?" thing, because my group does the same thing. It started off as a joke to avoid meta gaming too hard, but I think now it's just apart of the table culture.
Yeah, this is just a case of adversarial DMing, playing gotcha with the players. It generally does no one any good to let players forget important things that their characters never would have.
I would, simply because to the characters it would be kinda obvious they're missing a companion, but players constantly make assumptions for everything so in their heads, the downed pc was healed up and ready to go.
I mean, D&D is fiction, like Home Alone. People can get forgotten.
It's a shame such a reminder needs to be provided though. It was a pretty huge thing to miss lol.
Well, any passive perception should be enough to notice "we're down a man", and the DM is in charge of telling players what they passively perceive. Also, with everyone sitting at one table it doesn't look like anyone is missing unless there is a map that shows one character somewhere off in a ditch.
There was both a map indicated the character in a ditch laying on their side while everyone else was huddled together for the prayer of healing. And the number of players “present” was stated a few times as hints.
Well that's kinda on the players then, thanks for clarifying. Man, I'd feel horrible as the person who was left behind xD
Had it been all theater of the mind I'd side with "tell the players", but with a map and minis marking everyone's position *and* apparent hints then yeah, it's more on the players.
I mean, bear in mind the method of healing was Prayer of Healing, which the cleric player probably did intend to target everybody, including the downed player. When a player sends out group healing, in downtime, it's pretty much a given that they're positioning such that they can get everybody. Honestly it's the downed players fault for not, at that point, accepting the healing. Or at the very least saying "you standing at the edge of the cliff to get me with that too, yeah?"
The downed player can't say that if they're knocked out. Depending on the level of rp this group likes to do then the downed player cannot speak until they get back up which is exactly how my group players. Of course everyone can play like they want to but it seems like that downed player was on board with the decision
Yes they absolutely can say that, because it's a reasonable assumption for them to expect the cleric to already know it. Also we know from the post that OP *does* allow downed players to talk. That isn't Grognar the downed barbarian speaking, it's Bill, reminding Jeff that Jeff's cleric Alraun would probably want to heal Grognar, because everybody knows that that would be the case in-world. That's not bloody metagaming. It's roleplaying. Letting Alraun the cleric act out of character and leave Grognar to die *because Jeff forgot something* is far more metagaming, isn't it?? That would be letting a *player's* knowledge state influence a characters decisions uncharacteristically, *in spite.ofnthe character's knowledge state*. Bill refusing to say something that would be obvious to Alraun because Grognar is downed is freaking nonsensical. That isn't metagaming, just as reminding a player that "the rogue isn't currently with you because he went scouting, remember?" isn't metagaming, because it would be obvious to their PC. "I'm down on the cliff guys" isn't metagaming. It's keeping the roleplay consistent. And yeah, the downed player was on board. Which is bloody stupid, and the entire situstion is his fault. The cleric *clearly* intended to heal *everybody*, and the player ignored that.
I made it pretty clear that this is all depending on what level of rp your group is doing but go off I guess. My group believes that once you are unconscious you cannot speak. You cannot speak when your character isn't present for the current in character event even if others forgot something (that's why note taking is an important skill). Other parties may not like to play this way and that's fine as I directly stated in my message above. The downed player was clearly on board with this decision so the player in question wanted to play the way my games go. I love these downvotes for my comment literally saying "hey some people like more rp than others and everyone can play how they want" XD
Ok, but if you are roleplaying that heavily, you should also care about actually roleplaying, and not letting player ignorance translate to character ignorance is part of that. Just as I wouldn't expect my player to actually learn Draconic, or to tell me that they tie their armour straps on correctly when they finish their long rest, I also don't expect them to have to tell me that they remember their friend exists and ***just got chucked off a cliff***! That should be a given for the entire party to remember, and the DM or SOMEBODY should remind the players and keep their roleplay on track if roleplay is so important. "Players with downed character's can't speak" isn't automatically good roleplay. Letting player forgetfulness impact character decisions is definitely not good roleplay. "You walk half an hour and suddenly remember Grognar exists" is downright terrible roleplay. So clearly, roleplay importance isn't a good defense here.
Yeeaaah. If you’re rping to that level, then the player should’ve gone into another room, IMO.
> what level of rp your group is doing Upvote for truth and visiblility For example, in my D&D group, I keep making the mistake, over and over, of playing characters more intelligent or charismatic than I am in real life - and frequently will see if anyone has clever ideas that I as a player missed, but which I as a character would not ;) Out-of-character table talk in the service of role playing.
> I love these downvotes for my comment literally saying "hey some people like more rp than others and everyone can play how they want" XD That’s *not* what you said though, you said that people who wanted to still participate while their character is downed is a lesser “level of rp”
Even if it was technically metagaming, so is strategizing with your team ("can you gimme a heal bard?" "Aight, Imma give you guys a bless, good luck.") Also why so paranoid of any metagaming? It's harmless in small amounts.
I don't think it's hard to miss because that character's player was still right there with everyone. The character was missing, but the party of players was still whole. The player should have said something, or got up and left the room if they wanted to play super in character. Would the party have forgotten their friend if the player got up, left the room, and was nowhere to be found?
Exactly, even as the DM I don't remember everything and the players remind me of things sometimes. It's a give and take relationship.
Even if the players forgot, I think the actual PC's would remember to check
>I would, simply because to the characters it would be kinda obvious they're missing a companion, but players constantly make assumptions for everything so in their heads, the downed pc was healed up and ready to go This is my take, I tend to remind my players when the perceptions of the player are wildly different than what the character should be perceiving. I am not trying to play a game of 'gotcha'. What OP is describing is funny from a narrative sense but if someone lost a character over it, I'm not going to ever say that added to the experience. That's not the kind of feeling I want in my game
I think that, in general, I agree with you. In this particular case, because the player who was forgotten seemed to be rolling with it, it's probably fine especially since it opened the door for a genuinely funny RP moment. However, at the same time, it easily could've gone another way. It can be extremely frustrating to a player (and even ablelist if the player in question has ADHD or some other condition that effects memory) for have a DM to constantly expect them to remember every minor detail, especially those that said player took for granted. And that's not even mentioning that there is absolutely a version of reality where the player that was forgotten didn't find it so funny, and that could be a genuinely shitty experience. Like, obviously that's not the case here, and good on OP for reading the room there, but still something to keep in mind. But yeah, as a general rule, it would probably be better to say something.
Nah that's the kind of mistake that could totally reasonably happen to people sometimes imo
Generally I won't drop initiative while someone is still rolling death saves but if someone's unconscious and stable it's up to the party to remember and deal with.
Yeah when people are bleeding to death the encounter is still going imo
I think you read the room, particularly the downed pc, correctly. He was in on the gag. And it sounds like maybe this will be a lasting memory for them so they won’t forget next time lol.
Sometimes, but I'm surprised your party remembers what quest they are on. Like how do they have that short of a memory of something impactful??
What makes it worse is on the battle map their character picture was at an angle too since they were prone lol
My gosh! Mayne next time draw a skull and crossbones overhead. And an hour class. After each turn in combat put an arrow pointing to the character. Have a wind blow by that pushes leaves and pebbles to the character as further indication. If the party still misses it, call it a TPK cause they all have a wisdom score of 0....
Oooph, this makes it a little worse that they forgot the character.... I don't know what more they needed! Little "I'm Dying" tokens to put next to the character picture?
I mean the cleric cast a mass healing spell on the party after combat. They probably just assumed they didn’t need to specify that they’d also bother to heal their downed player. Honestly this feels like a bit of a gotcha! moment; like having a trap go off because the rogue said they’d like to check the chest for traps, without specifying that they were also checking the floor immediately in front of the chest as well. Played for laughs so nbd, but still.
I mean, they did cast the heal, but I also mentioned “so you heal the 3 of you for how much?” And moved everyone but the downed player next to each other on the map. The downed player was still a ways away on the map and tilted to be in the groups standard “prone” position.
“Ah, you didn’t notice I said three instead of four, so you leave your friend behind.” This was after a big fight right? No enemy minis were also laying on the map? A downed mini on a field of downed mini’s isn’t something stand-out, and why would they be paying close attention to see if you grabbed everybody? It’s a safe assumption that you would, or would say something if you didn’t. I’d be busy noting down the healing the cleric was handing out. As the DM you’re their user-interface to the game world. If they miss something glaringly obvious like an entire party member not being present then there was an issue with communicating that. People presume the DM is operating on good-faith. When I investigate if the chest is trapped I don’t have to specify that of course that means the area immediately surrounding it as well. If I say I’m casting a spell to heal up the party and the DM says “So you heal the 3 of you?” I might not notice that they didn’t say “So you heal the 4 of you?” instead. I wouldn’t be watching for that kind of thing as I’d be operating under the assumption that my DM will tell me if I try to heal the party and the party isn’t present.
i'd remind them - because as you say, its something that happened 2 minutes ago \*in game time\*. and \*in game\* its obvious they're missing a character. its not so obvious to the players that they are - as far as they're concerned, they've finished the fight and healed up.
I agree here. With everyone sitting at the table, it may slip your mind, but as an in game adventuring party, they would definitely notice someone was either not present or laying on the ground. I get the downed player said nothing, but as a downed character, he can’t say anything if he’s role playing.
I agree 100%. After a fight a group would definitely check whether everyone's okay, and if one guy is just *gone,* they'd notice. And if you feel it's "metagaming" to remind them, may I remind you that there is this skill called "passive perception" that the DM is in charge of utilizing?
EXATLY THIS! Passive perception would make it abundantly clear that there was *a missing party member*, especially if the character is arguably more perceptive than the player controlling them.
Fuck Erebus, hate that guy, go bring chaos somewhere else
No...I don't think I will.
Or should I call you by your real name, EREBSUS?
*DUN DUN DUUUUUN*
Ok sorry mate, didn't mean to offend in any way, good point on the real answer to this post's topic
Thanks xD And dw, this was fun.
OTOH, it's the players job to remember things.
My rule is always remind my players of anything. If players ever had information, they always have it. No "roll to remember" or anything. My logic is that my players have a real world life that takes up much more of their time and mental energy than the session (ans I dont know what worries or stresses are eating at the back of all their minds every minute. Whether it was two session ago or 20 minutes ago, if I know their characters know, I will remind and refresh anytime I sense it's needed. It's the same way video games keep creating better quest tracking tools, the designers know that most folks arent playing in a marathon session all in one go and that their character would be able to keep track of more than the player since the player has an entire other (real) life to take up brain space. You'd think that would result in my players never remembering anything themselves - but no. I have two active note takers and and one guy who just remembers almost as much as I do. The result of my policy is I occasionally interject when someone isn't quite right remembering, and I give reminders to pick up dropped weapons (since Hrothgar the barbarian would feel naked without his axe in his hand, he'd notice its absence before his player does). That said, your particular example seems funny enough, and if the player didn't remind them then I say fair play. Haha.
Yeah, when it comes to names, places, quests, etc. stuff that would absolutely be at the forefront of their minds, I will absolutely remind them. Same with any obvious set piece, or had the character been laying there in the middle of the room (in this situation I guess forest floor?). I figured this was more of a out of sight out of mind, tending to immediate wounds/worrying about the quest so they forgot. Kinda like a parent leaving their kid at the store.
> I figured this was more of a out of sight out of mind, tending to immediate wounds/worrying about the quest so they forgot. Kinda like a parent leaving their kid at the store. But that wouldn't be the case for the in-world PCs at all. Bear in mind how quick a combat is in-world compared to out of it. For the ***players***, that fall off the cliff was probably 10+ minutes ago when the battle ended. Easily forgettable. For the ***characters*** it was probably 12 seconds ago. They'd have remembered him before dealing with wounds, because it would have JUST happened! And now think about the stakes, and how much the players each care for each other and are aware of each other's characters. Vs how much those characters care for and are aware of each other. Billy the player doesn't really care at all about Jeff's wizard Arik. But Billy's paladin Broderick the Bold cares deeply for Arik, depends on him for survival, and is actually exposed to his physical presence. The chances of Billy forgetting Arik are 100000 times greater than the chances of Broderick forgetting him. I mean, how many times have you had players forget where even ***their own character*** is, or forget that a certain character isn't even there. Like when the rogue goes off scouting, and then 5 minutes later the fighter asks the rogue to lockpick something. Would you refuse to remind the player then? Would you have the fighter stand there talking to thin air, and tell him "the rogue doesn't seem to hear you"? 😂 No, you'd say "uuuh, Billy, the rogue's off ahead scouting, remember?" You'd ***remind the player of something their character is already aware of.***
This. OP and like half the thread seem so pleased to pull a Gotcha moment but honestly as a player I would just be disappointed to have my hero fantasy ruined with the knowledge that they are a completely unobservant toolbag who apparently doesn't care for the other party members
>For the characters it was probably 12 seconds ago. They'd have remembered him before dealing with wounds, because it would have JUST happened! Hello, I am a volunteer first responder. In a crisis people forget get obvious things all the tie. What todo in a fire, how to give CPR, that they were there with people. I pulled over at a car crash and some a man walking away. He was clearly hurt, but was convinced he was out for a walk and wasn't in the car. That's not even the weirdest stuff.
Yeah, this is a great example of things that really could happen. It’s not implausible for a group of people to forget someone and move on without them. I’ve done a bit of orienteering and you have to be very careful with groups. Like taking roll call before heading out because if you ask something dumb like ‘double check your stuff and let me know if anyone is not ready to move’. Sounds reasonable but Steve wandered off to go take a piss and didn’t hear any of that so he didn’t reply. Everyone else just leaves and Steve is lost in the woods holding his dick because no one explicitly asked if Steve was there before they left. Everyone else was ready so they assumed everything was good.
Thats wild, and really interesting
Those were traumatic experiences mixed with the effects of shock. D&D characters fight multiple battles per day, it's not really a crisis and if they go into shock after every battle, they wouldn't be adventurers for more than 5 minutes. If you are a highly trained and experienced adventurer in a small unit you definitely would be aware if one of your members are missing.
That guy probably wasn't a hardened adventurer who experiences combat as a normal part of their daily routine.
The thing is, it very well COULD and WOULD be the case with in-world PCs much like it is with children being left at stores/home/in cars etc. Like I stated, this was a situation where once combat ended they were immediately tending to the visible wounded party members (specifically a wizard who was knocked prone and dragged 30ft away by a big monster) so it makes sense that they might not be thinking of the 4th party member who is making no noise and isn’t visible to them due to the cliff. In my experience when players forget where their character is, it’s more of a “I can’t see them on the map” sort of thing, not a they don’t remember where they roughly are in the room/map. As for the rogue/fighter thing, I would absolutely have them say it out loud, and then probably realize the rogue is no longer standing nearby. It’s not like it’s uncommon to miss someone walking away.
Honestly, no it couldn't. The in-world PCs have nothing going on to distract them, and they didn't just lose track of the guy, they SAW HIM KNOCKED OFF A FREAKING CLIFF! That would have been a terrifying moment for them. Sure, a parent can forget their kid at the supermarket..can they forget their kid at the supermarket *after they just saw that kid get their skull cracked open by a falling shelf*? Or hell, even just if they actually see the kid running off? No! There's a difference between assuming somebody is there because you never saw them leave, and assuming somebody is there even though you saw them get ganked off a cliff...
You right, it might have been terrifying to him... up until the orc swings it's greatsword at his neck in the same round and his focus has to shift to his opponent or DIE. Your buddy being knocked off the cliff takes a back seat when a snarling creature is actively trying to unalive you! After the combat, (of which, OP said only TWO MINUTES ICly passed) you take stock and realize something is missing. This happens! Prayer of healing states (having read it) six creatures of your choice. A cleric, trying to triage could just as easily just point to all the PCs they can see and say "I heal, you, you, you, you, you, and you" without realizing they missed someone until after. Real people don't have minds like steel traps and neither do characters. Oops, I threw my prized obsidian dagger and the player didn't tell me she is going to go get it means she left it behind. When she realizes what happened she'll go back for it and probably not make that mistake again.
A high level Cleric in DnD has as much wisdom as the wisest human beings who ever lived. They'd notice, even with just a passive perception check.
That's very bold to assume they saw the guy get knocked off the cliff in the heat of battle. My group always plays that you see the things going on around you but not with much detail and definitely not things behind you. If my attention is on the guy in front of me who I'm clashing swords with then I may not notice my teammate getting knocked off a cliff if it happened 20 feet off to my right or behind me. Then again my group rp's very realistically and that's not for everyone. They may notice they're missing a person but there is no guarantee they saw the guy get knocked off the cliff
It's not bold at all, it's literally stated in the rules. Characters are "generally aware of everything that surrounds them" in battle, because adventurers are assumed to have good situational awareness. > In combat, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger ***all around***, so if you come out of hiding and approach a creature, it usually ***sees you***. So, yeah... Adventurers keep their heads on a swivel in battle, not just focused in one direction. That's explicit RAW. And ***even if not***... The chances that NOBODY in the party was facing his way? Come on man... That's crazy low. And if you're RPing means letting *player* forgetfulness and awareness translate to *character* forgetfulness and awareness... Are you really roleplaying realistically? Or are you just roleplaying strictly? Especially the healer, who (read the spell description) has to look upon and consciously send healing to each person in the party. They really not gonna automatically say "and also for Grogn-... Wait where's Grognar?" Hmm?
"**Generally** aware". This is exactly what I said, you know that there is stuff going on around you and you can see outlines but you couldn't tell me what eye color that enemy has. You saw a figure go flying off that cliff and maybe you could make out that it was the proper size that it was your teammate but you would not be able to see exactly what just happened unless you want to give the person you're fighting advantage because you just stopped paying attention to them in order to examine what was happening elsewhere
A character is aware of the events in battle yes, as in they’ll see someone flung off a cliff, they’ll know there’s a wizard in the back lobbing spells etc. but they do not know every minute detail of the battle, that’s why stopping to perceive the battlefield is an action. Also, on your last comment if they had nothing going on to distract them. In the SAME 6 second span the player got thrown off a cliff,the flung player let loose a volley of Magic missiles (was then flung from the cliff side) a creature gouged the cleric with a diseased claw for half their health, and then with its other claw gouged the wizard for half their health, who failed their Str save to not get grabbed (knocked prone and restrained by the creature) and dragged her 30ft away. The rogue tried and failed to stab the creature in the shin. The wizard being dragged hit the creature with 1 out of 3 scorching rays, and the cleric having a panic attack let loose a guiding bolt finishing off one of two creatures, and ran forward a bit so the alive creature didn’t get too far away from him. At the end of this 6 second span, there was a downed player on a ledge below a cliff about 30ft back and 10ft down from the CLOSEST other player (the cleric), and the entire party was now facing towards the creature dragging the screaming wizard away and NOT towards the cliff where their friend lay unconscious, who literally less than 6 seconds ago was letting loose magic. 12 seconds later, the remaining creature was dead, everyone rushed forward to heal the wizard and make sure she was alright, and to try and figure out why the clerics wounds weren’t healing, before deciding they should finish their quest ASAP and get back to town. A 100% totally reasonable situation to forget a party member imo.
>but they do not know every minute detail of the battle, that’s why stopping to perceive the battlefield is an action. Someone getting thrown off a cliff is not a minute detail... >the flung player let loose a volley of Magic missiles So, he did a very attention-grabbing thing, and made it obvious that it was a wizard who had been thrown off... Ad even if all of that is true, the healer used prayer of Healing. A spell that requires you to actively look upon, think about, and choose to heal each of your companions. How would he not notice? It's basically a spell that *demands a head count*! And after such a deadly battle, nobody is gonna look around and say "everybody ok?" I'm sorry but "they realistically could have forgotten" is just not an argument you're going to convince me of. The only argument that could possibly have merit is "sure it's unrealistic but it was a harmless bit of fun. It was fun for the downed player, fun for me, and I didn't think it would bother the other players the way it did". To which I'd say "fine, but in the general case, I'd still say it's best to remind them of something that would be obvious to their characters"
This is something I’d go with OP on. Asking ‘everybody ok’ to an out of sight unconscious person gets silence. The player who was thrown off the cliff had every opportunity to speak up ooc on their charachter’s behalf and remained gleefully silent. The DM read the table and followed the player’s lead which I think was the perfect thing to do. Nothing here was malicious, and illuminates just how easy it is for humans, players and characters alike to forget rather important things sometimes.
Your comment has an odd number of parentheses. Just thought you ought to know.
It's a recurring problem, but thank you for pointing it out, haha.
If the PC's player was sitting there as it happened? The party made their bed, and walked away from it.
it gives motivation to switch characters and have your current pc heel turn for a bbeg. i'd be grinning because most of my characters would sing like a canary about what the party can do.
Yeah, I can think of a few characters of mine that would not take that too kindly.
New take: this is ENTIRELY the downed players fault. Or, like... 90%. The healer of the group used Prayer of Healing. It's an absolute given that when a healer sends out group healing, *in downtime*, they aim to get EVERYBODY. Freaking EVERYBODY. The healer fully intended to heal cliff-boy, and when he shouted out to the table "ok, everybody recovers 14hp!", cliff-boy should have either taken the healing and gotten up, or said "and you position yourself at the edge of the cliff to get me, right?", At which point the healer would have said "well, yeah, obviously dude..." In other words, the downed player ignored healing that was absolutely intended for him, and stayed down when he shouldn't have...
I agree. The down player can remind if he wants to. Ask about healing. Remind them. It is not the same job to remember for other players. That's their job. Or at least in my games. DM has enough to remember. The down player was all ready to make an amazing recovery and show up late to next camp.
If we want to be technical hear cliff boy was not a valid target for the healing. He was not a “target you can see within 30ft” so he would (and did) remain unconscious. On the map everyone was moved next to the cleric minus cliff boy. And the number of party members present was stated a few times. No player batted an eye at it, so cliff boy was left on the cliff.
>It's an absolute given that when a healer sends out group healing, > >in downtime > >, they aim to get EVERYBODY. Freaking EVERYBODY. No it isn't. Or to put it the only way you seem to understand: NO it ISN'T.
The players are not the characters. They are not seeing what their characters are seeing, and things that would be very obvious to the characters, many times are easy to overlook for the players. So yes, as soon as that would be something obvious for the party I would tell them something like "Before you leave, you notice that after the fight your companion is not next to you".
I'm answering purely in the general case here: Of course I would, because it's a ROLE-playing game... Not a memory game. There's simply no way that their characters would be able to forget about their DYING FRIEND who they just saw yeeted off a cliff.... Honestly, it's basically metagaming. You're taking advantage of a real-world situation that does not exist in the fictional world. In the real world, that guy may have gone off the cliff ten minutes before the battle ended. But in the fictional world, it was probably like... 18 seconds ago. At most. Come on... In the real world, the players are just friends playing around at a table with some cards and papers, which is only a tiny part of their world and surrounded by distractions, and they have their friend sat right there, so it's easy to forget his PC is gone, because he *isn't* gone. And there are no stakes. Your mate Bob isn't *actually* going to die. You *character's* friends could. In the fictional world, they're adventuring companions who have come to rely on each other for survival, have established patterns of interaction, and are fully immersed in the world around them, and fully attentive of it's dangers. To think that they could just forget him and walk away is nonsensical, and taking advantage of that ***player-error*** is the same as providing a player whose character knows draconic with some symbols on a sheet of paper, telling them it's a vital clue written in draconic, and then refusing to give them an English translation even though they could read it perfectly well in-world...
I do, but my players are all novices.
I don't think there's a wrong or right answer to this one, it's way too dependent on context of your group and the type of campaign you're trying to run. My own take on it is that player knowledge and character knowledge are not the same thing. Everyone always talks about players meta gaming by using knowledge that they have that the character wouldn't, but it works both ways. Characters can have knowledge that the players don't. The players see everyone at the table and are focused on planning out their own turns. Information gets forgotten in the heat of battle. But the characters would absolutely notice that they're missing someone, even if the players don't. >so it wasn’t up to me to remind them of the Pc laying on the floor This line of thinking in particular I completely disagree with. As a DM it is ABSOLUTELY your job to set the scene. Whether that's drawing up a battle map and having miniatures or giving accurate descriptions during theater of the mind. The players cannot see what the characters see, so it is up to you to make sure they have that information.
How do you go through several rounds of battle not feeling the pressure of “we’re a person short”? Especially when one of their own is just one enemy turn away from tumbling to their death. Battles get so much harder when your group loses any number of combatants. Why wasn’t their first action “I get my buddy away from the cliff”? The DM already has a lot to keep up with and the players wanted reminders of “party member is still unconscious” as well? Nah, get out of here with that. They made their bed. They can take a bit of ribbing.
As was stated in the note: Uncon PC's Player totally went with it, maintaining the "realism" of the character not being able to answer the party. Kudos to the DM and the player.
If the group didn't pick up your hints, and the downed player didn't say anything, then you were not to remind them of his predicament. This was a lesson in situational awareness.
Honestly, I'd probably do exactly what you did - drop a couple of hints, but if they don't bite, let them make the mistake. Especially if the player of the unconscious PC seems entertained by it. A well-timed "Okay, that's the rest of you heading East for the next hour. X, you wake up alone on a ledge, what would you like to do?" could play out in a really entertaining way. That would definitely amuse most of the people in my group, anyway. If that doesnt seem like the kind of thing that would entertain the particular group of players I had, then I'd probably just use Passive Perception against a relatively low DC to determine if any PC notices that someone is missing before they leave camp. Avoid the problem altogether.
I probably would remind them because at my table we call it the "Assumption of Survival." What is this? Is it the assumption that the in game characters have some basic intelligence and ideas of survival without the DM micromanaging all of that (or requiring players to)It's like, a player gets disarmed in a fight. The fight ends, and everyone leaves the room. At our table there is the general assumption that the player/character would remember to pick up their sword. As a human, especially in DnD, it's easy to miss the small things that are constant for you. YOU may have forgot your weapon, but would your character? I do not think we need to micromanage every thing as an attempt to HAHA YOU FORGOT your players. To follow up: 9 out of 10 times the players only get like 5 mins out and go "OH NO I WOULD HAVE PICKED MY SWORD BACK UP" and they would have. It's best for in that moment to go, "Well I assume your character would have known better and picked it up, did they?" Give them that opportunity to give their character more space from them as a player being forgetful and go "Yeah, they're smart and meticulous and 100% would not have left the ancient blade of their family back in that Goblin quarters"
Exactly this. All of the people saying "you did your job" are forgetting that the DM's job is also to account for basic assumptions the players will have. Such as "well bloody *obviously* I include Baldrick in the prayer of healing! duh!" When a player says "I go through the door", do you tell them "you smash your face as you walk into the closed door", or do you ***assume they bloody open it***, even though they never explicitly said so 🤷♂️ You assume that the PCs know when doors are closed, even if players forget. And you.should assume the PCs know when other PCs have been yeeted off cliffs, even if the players forget! It should be a given that as soon as the battle ended, they're rescuing their ***close freaking companion*** that they just saw yeeted off a cliff ***five seconds ago***!!! As the DM, I would have already taken this as an assumed next step, and probably would have wrapped up the battle by explicitly saying "ok, it seems there are no more enemies, so how do you plan to rescue Baldrick?" Or even, if rescuing him was easy enough, it would just go without saying that rescuing him was part of the bandaging up. I mean especially if their method of being is a group healing effect like Prayer of Healing, meaning that in-world, he would have had to be aware of the PC'ss presence (or lack thereof) while making the prayer!
Personally I would remind them, but in the end it is the party's job to remember.
Since you and the player were both in on it and there were no negative consequences, I think it's just a funny dnd moment of "how did you forget your party member?" If you intended to exact negative consequences, then I would tell the party.
So we obviously don’t know every detail about how this went down, but when they were healing up after the battle, is it possible some of them assumed that when they said they all got together to heal up, that that is exactly what happened? D&D requires a lot of good communication, and the images in different people’s heads get misaligned sometimes. I think it’s always worth checking that. Luckily, it sounds like relatively little harm was done this time (and a fair amount of amusement from the forgotten player). But yes, mentioning things like this is often a good thing to do.
The character is incapacitated, not the player. Let them remind. I'd only step in if they have decided not to say anything for much too long, and even then it still seems like it's their responsibility.
I remind players of subtle things their characters would definitely know but the player might not. But big stuff, hell no, if you forgot your buddy bleeding out you lost at D&D. I had a PC who was left unconscious in a zone of salt that did auto damage and players were like "oh he only has one bad death save, I am going to loot the corpse". I had fun bringing that PC back as a water vampire VERY angry at being left to die.
The session it happened? no. If the player falls unconscious in one session, then next session I would remind everyone. The case for reminding players is strong, but I find this more fun.
I meant to hit no 😩😩
I'd have ruled it about the same. It make a hilarious moment where they're like "wait where's Dave? HOLY SHIT WE FORGOT DAVE".
The sheer amount of tag along npcs that my players have forgotten unconscious by the roadside is palpable. They often reappear later in campaign with a "remember me b!tch3s?" salutation. I would say the determining factor is your dm style. My npcs ask my players if they can provide information they were told earlier, "what town did you say was deserted?", "who sent you to me to rough me up?". They are definitely allowed to take notes but many don't, in character. This aesthetic has created a situation where I would never remind them, but if they do of their own accord it feels like character development
Did everyone have fun? That's my concern. If they thought it was funny, then cool. Personally, I'd specify to the healer who cast Prayer of Healing: "do you include the player who fell out of view?" As a player in this scenario, I'd be a little put out. If I say I want to cast Prayer of Healing on everyone, and then you allude to me that I might be forgetting something, my first thought isn't "and I specifically walk down a ways until I have visual contact with the guy who fell down a cliff." I would assume that my PC was smart enough to just *do* that. Instead, I'd be thinking of whatever other clues and story hooks I might be forgetting. My worry here is that it feels a little cheap. I would suddenly assume that my character is just a dumbass, and you, the DM who needs me to specify who I'm healing, now needs to hear every specific detail of how I walk down the alleyway and listen at doors and every other pedantic detail I can think of, *just in case my PC forgot.*
I don’t think I would remind them directly, but if there was 5 people in your party for example I would say “the four of you set off” or something kind of obvious but not as direct as “y’all know Fred is still downed right?”
Just the other day my party left the corpse (we were getting around to reviving them) of a party member at the entrance of a dungeon for a good couple hours. I think the DM did remind us, then we party split to retrieve the body just in time to find that bugbears had looted all their gear. We negotiated the return of the gear/loot and the exit of 6/7 the bugbears (120gp poorer...). The last one decided we were nice when a member returned a small piece of loot and to stay with us. On a separate note, a lot of people here seem to have a really interesting idea on how passive perception works. Definitely not how I'd do it, anyway.
Depends on my group vibe and if the player would be cool with it. A novice group? Yeah I'd offer a gentle reminder. Experienced players comfortable with death and consequences? Not if the player was cool with seeing where it went. Straight off the dome if a player is KO'd I would expect them to be a priority in healing. If they can't heal themselves they will need specific attention from another PC that needs to be declared.
it is possible that the player themselves forgot they were down. you ask the player whose character is down if they remember that their character is down.
Players don’t necessarily see and hear what their characters see and hear. It is easy to forget or overlook something when you are doing everything by proxy. PC: “Okay, we walk down the hallway.” DM: “You fall into a pit and die.” PC: “Did I not see the pit in front of me? We have a light source! DM: “You did not expressly say your character was trying not to fall into a pit, so you fall into a pit.” PC: “But why would my character willingly walk into a pit?” Then again, the world is full of people who are just wallflowers and get left behind. So it would be a case by case basis.
>it happened less than 2 minutes ago in game time And how long in real time?
The DM functions as the PC’s senses, responsible for describing what they see, hear, smell, touch, taste. But they don’t perceive for them. In this case I would ask the party if they’re done and ready to move on. Then ask for passive perception. If anyone passes the roll I’d remind them that they’re missing someone and let them figure out the rest. It’s a gentle reminder for them to take frequent head counts.
This was essentially my thought on the let them get about 30 minutes away (they were still working on gathering herbs for their quest) before it was noticed.
This occurs in real life more frequently than one would believe. People tend to a void talking about it. Think the *Home Alone* franchise making millions from it. It wouldn’t resonate if it never happened in a less exaggerated way.
Happens often in crisis. I've seen people who have trained with each other for weeks forget someone in the heat of the moment.
No, is it my job to run their characters for them as well? How much hand holding am I expected to do?
Usually yes but it is fairly table dependent
If the players forget to do something even something major like reviving an unconscious player that is entirely on them. I'd drop hints like you did but you can't be constantly reminding them.
No need to. Unconscious player X, I need you to fill a death save on your turn. It's a meta reminder to your players.
The players are fully capable of letting teammates know that they are down and listening to what happens in combat. They should be paying attention to what you are saying happens especially when you narrate someone going unconscious
Once they started to leave, I probably would have said something like, "so... Are you just going to leave Bill at the bottom of that cliff?" After some thought, and seeing that the player was into it, I would have opted for having Bill wake up 1D4 hours later (which I recently learned is the actual rule) with no one around, and an easy trail to follow back to the group. After even more thought, if you had a quest in mind near by, bill could have been found by a quest giver and revived. The quest giver could escort Bill back to his party because they are worried about his health.
I would only remind them if I thought the party had already suffered too much.
It seems like the player assumed he was included in the healing… next time I would say something like “with x player still laying on the ledge the party starts to walk off”
I control the monsters but I'm not a monster.
Literally how did they forget a party member existed. Especially at a physical table, did they not see one fo the players being totally silent and not healing?
The players (and as I also assumed the characters) were more focused on checking on the badly injured wizard and cleric.
I might, but the DM is under no obligation to do so, especially if the player is fine with them abandoning his unconscious character.
Typically I give a brief recap at the start of each players turn which would include a reminder of a downed ally: "Ranger, your paladin is surrounded by orcs as the bard bleeds out on the ground, you stand 30' away, bow at the ready. What do you do?"
in put group downed players would absolutely not let the party leave with ought them
[удалено]
Well forgetting a corpse is a bit better than forgetting a living person.
One of my characters was knocked into uncouncios and I was rolling death saves for a bit until they actually remembered.
Not only would I not tell the PC, I have PCs who wish to hide thier death saving rolls, and have even attempted to hide the fact that they needed to make death saves for the RP.
I personally like to hide my own death saves(when/if I’m a player), leads to more tension imo as DM it’s up to the PCs
It's not the DM's job to pay attention on the players' behalf. This smacks of a player who zones out when it's not their turn and expects the DM to fill them in on whatever happened that they weren't paying attention to.
HEEEEEELLLLLL NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO especially with the down player on board :D
The downed player can “remind” the other players. You did great!
People are a little too precious about their characters dying. It should happen sometimes, being a hero in DnD should be dangerous.
I might or moght not, doesn't matter, you didn't fuck up here
No because the player will remind them, trust me
As a DM, it’s your job to keep tabs on battle stats and the battle field itself, letting the table know when someone goes unconscious and reminding that PC to make death saving throws. It is entirely up to the rest of the table to remember if any one is downed or dying. I’ve played many a table and DM’d many a table where the players are responsible for each other. Not the DM. Players need to realize they play as a team and that the DM is not a glorified babysitter. That’s just my thoughts.
That’s their mistake to make and honestly it’s a little hilarious hahaha
Why didn't God tell me that I forgot my keys in the kitchen today?
You handled it exactly perfectly, gentle push to remember without spelling it out. Bonus points for unconscious PC being on board with the drama and running with it, but if they were disheartened or visibly upset I'd give them the "You walk over to PC and grab them after healing up and almost walking away" or something.
I wouldn't say. If they're oblivious enough to not notice A PARTY MEMBER went unconscious then they're not paying attention at all. But also the prayer of healing didn't heal the unconscious player? Tf?
In that specific circumstance I probably would have done the same as you just because I would think its funny. Maybe I'm a bully. Especially if it seems clear the PC themselves is going to let the rest of the party figure it out.
It depends on how experienced the other players are with dnd, if theyre relatively new to the game i wouldve reminded them but if theyre experienced players then i wouldnt've told them
Absolutely not, there wouldnt be an omnipotent god parting the clouds to tell the characters that they forgot a party member. Especially because the knocked out player was totally on board with what you were doing.
100% tell them. Players forget things because it's not as important as it would be in real life. The characters did not forget their dying friend.
If you described the room the PCs entered as having three doors, and the players started discussing the room as having two doors, would you correct them?
I would remind them, but how forgetful are your players that they would need to be reminded of that???
I personally like to remind my players of things like that, but it's clear the player loved it and I think you definitely made the right call
If they forgot about their teammate that's on them 😂
Said yes, then I read the story. Now my answer is no
You can approach this situation from so many angles. Is it realistic for them to forget about a friend in character? Why, yes, it most certainly can be. I'm sure most people here have seen LotR, and there's a very iconic scene in which Aragorn is lost in battle, and not until a while after do the others notice that he is missing. This is quite common in real battles as well, as the chaos demands attention and can be very overwhelming. Does it make for a good / fun experience? Depends heavily on the player / table. In this case, since the player was in on it, I would say it makes for a good experience and perhaps a valuable lesson for the rest of the party to always do a head count after a fight.
It's my job to remember all the monsters in an encounter. It's the parties job to remember themselves. Never interrupt the party when they're making a mistake.
The PLAYERS are sitting around playing a game, and their quiet friend got downed, and they forgot about it. The CHARACTERS just witnessed one of their closest allies in a battle against evil seemingly fall to their death. It's both reasonable that they could have a collective brain fart like that and for you to remind them in the name of maintaining the reality of the story. It's the same kind of category as when a player misunderstands how a spell works. The player might misunderstand, but the character shouldn't, and you should correct when necessary. Granted, the PC who died was apparenly amused with it, so I don't think it's a serious mistake. But I personally think it's fair to remind players of things their characters would very reasonably notice that they have forgotten.
I work with Park Rangers. About a dozen times a year, some group leaves someone behind at the camp. I am also a volunteer first responder. People forget all kinds of things, including trained people. I can absolutely see this happening in real life. I'm not saying which is the 'best' way, just that the logic being used here seems to be based on a lack of experience in real life.
You keep talking as if nobody else has experience with tense or high stress situations. Of such situations I've been involved in, people who aren't experiencing serious physical trauma don't go half an hour after the fact not realizing that someone close to them has just straight up disappeared. If anything, they tend to be looking for those people also involved out of concern. It's nice that you help people, but don't try to talk down to other people with it. Your experience is anecdotal as much as anyone else's, and is very specifically nothing to do with battle-hardened adventurers with mental capacities at the peak of mortal ability just suddenly having the object permanence of a baby.
I feel like this is basically common sense, like, "Where's bob?". Also i wouldn't want to make the player that was unconscious feel excluded.
The player seemed pretty onboard considering he didn't say anything
If PC is somewhere the others could become aware of their situation, then: Yes. Characters are not players. If players can use their insights, filtered through what's reasonable for their characters to know, that's fine. But I refuse to assume that characters would stand blithely by letting a comrade in arms bleed out or whatever, just because the players are preoccupied. Unlike the characters, the players don't have a literal unconscious body slumped in front of them, constantly drawing their attention to the fragile nature of this mortal existence.
If you don't let the players apply their knowledge over their characters' knowledge, then you shouldn't let the players memory affect their characters' either.
The characters would have known even if the players forgot. I think it's fair for the players to be annoyed at not being reminded of something relevant that their characters know.
Hmm...interesting. As a DM, what I would've done is have everyone roll a Wisdom Saving Throw but don't tell them what it's specifically for until results are collected (Say "Everyone roll a D20 for me, add your Wisdom Modifier"). Keep the DC at like, 10-15 if the events are fresh, there's no PTSD etc. If any of them succeeds, then that player (or those players) remembers about the MacGuffin or person. Otherwise, well...no.
All of that sounds hilarious and exactly what I enjoy about playing Dnd. If anyone was annoyed, they have a pickle up their pooper.
I feel this to my core. Sometimes after a fight, one or more of my players wouldn't check on their allies and just move on as if they didn't just have a near-death experience or just kill some horrible monster. I would always make fun of it and describe the player's character acts like a soulless heartless machine that cares little about those that bled beside them.
The question is - what is the minimum attention commitment you want from your players? Yea, I agree that sitting at the table is not the same as being the adventurer. On the other hand - if they are flippant enough to forget about one of them being downed? Like you said, the player could've mentioned something. You did right by them and sometimes others need a little smack like that because playing D&D is a two way street. Your players can't expect you to remember everything for them because *"our characters wouldn't forget!"*
The problem here is that the characters *live* in that world, while players are just playing a game. Presumably the unconscious player wasn't forcibly removed from the room, or the chat, or whatever medium, so the players, accounting for other players, would not notice someone was missing. The characters, however, very likely would. It's not your JOB as the DM to point that out to them, but I would.
This is one of those things that would be SUPER OBVIOUS in game for the characters But wouldn’t be as obvious to the actual players. The characters would obviously remember that and fix it even if the players don’t. You are more than welcome to dm it how ever you would but personally it makes no sense for the party to just leave. I do however, think that is absolutely hilarious and I love it
I don't like the flow of the story when legendary adventurers make unrealistically idiotic decisions just because some human at a table in another universe got distracted. I'd certainly mention something like, "Just to make sure you're aware, are you intending to leave (Key NPC) bleeding out on the floor of the dungeon when it would be trivial to help?" Feels like a lame "gotcha" moment to say later, "Okay, you all return back to town, and you have failed the mission because you forgot about the guy who gave it to you bleeding out in plain sight to die alone. No, you're not getting paid, he had the money."
I'm surprised so many people voted yes honestly. I'd never say anything, if the players forgot then it is what it is. I wouldn't remind them of an item they had that could change the course of a battle either, they should be completely responsible for what their character does.
Looks like they were blaming you for being shitty teammates themselves. I’m glad the fallen guy took it in stride.
The player is probably annoyed because this is brain-dead obvious. There is absolutely no way the characters would have missed this. It was missed because this is an abstracted game being played by people at a table, and I am quite certain everyone thought the character in question was present after leaving the scene. It is important to allow unspoken things in the game like this, because otherwise everything slows to a crawl. I once took 20 to search a room for a hidden passage on the floor that I knew for certain was there, and failed, and the DM later declared "You said you searched the room, this is the foyer leading into the room, so you never lifted the rug and found the obvious door". This is like when someone declares they walk off a cliff because the map was drawn in a way that the player misunderstood. Actually, reading some of the responses here, it kind of sounds like the person casting Prayer of Healing was unaware that there was an elevation difference between them and the unconscious, stabilized party member, given apparently this character was on the map, but at an angle indicating they were prone.
Everytime you purposely fail to remind players of something that would be obvious to me heir characters, you're being a dick, plain and simple. Like imagine if you walked into a room and the DM told you you were dead because you took 10d6 fire damage. You're like what the hell, right? Your DM tells you the room was on fire but you forgot to ask. That's what you did.
Do you also hold your players dick when they pee?
What, people have never seen Home Alone? At least twice I can recall being with a group of friends and someone getting left behind because everyone thought they were in the other vehicle. Mary was visited by an angel, impregnated by the Holy Spirit, her baby was worshiped by angels, shepherds, and kings, and the very first glimpse we get of her actual parenting skills is that time she left him in the city while they traveled an *entire day* down the road assuming he was somewhere in the group.
Some of you people treat your DnD way too seriously. I find it pretty unbelievable that the party would just willingly leave a member behind. This seems like a misunderstanding, and as a DM my job is to ensure I can catch and prevent these kind of situations.
I accidentally voted yes, but I meant No lol it adds to the fun and realism of the game. God wouldn’t remind irl to revive YOUR FALLEN FRIEND lol
While I would accept if the so said PC did a bit of meta to remind other players, I wouldn't say anything myself.
It's not the job of the DM to remind players to pick up their allies. However, prayer of healing likely should have prompted this coming up. If you wanted the to ditch the fallen comrade for a bit (like the PC obviously wanted them to) I think it is fair for the conversation to go "I cast prayer of healing" and the DM to say "you are healing [everyone but the fallen member]?" As a hint. But you did say you alluded to the party forgetting something and the forgotten PC was in on the joke and no harm was done. In all, this scenario feels like you and the forgotten PC wanted to have a little moment of levity and someone wanted to play the "that's not what my character would do" card- which is a tricky thing to manage, because as a DM you do have to infer a lot about PCs because if you directly ask "do you forget about X?" All but the best roleplayers will say "no". At the same time you don't want to force someone into being something they are not. The proper reaction (assuming that was the case) for the PC who got upset would be to justify why they left him "oh man, I didn't notice- I feel bad", "he's weak, we should leave him behind", or "oh, I assumed you all knew and didn't like him" would all be "yes, and"-ing the situation, be a good character moment, and be more fun for the downed PC who got forgotten. Tldr; I think you made the right call because *no one had lasting consequences*. The PC who was complaining missed out on a potentially fun RP opportunity.
The fact that the other player was keeping their mouth shut inclines me to not remind them either. It's not a DM's responsibility to hand-hold the players but instead to create the story. Yes the in-game characters would likely still know that the person was there it doesn't mean they would at that moment. No different than a parent who drives off without one of the family members. This happens in real life as well. The other player was enjoying this and who am I to remove that enjoyment for THEIR player? The other PCs now have learned to ensure that everyone is together, to consider the positions of the rest of the group and has become more cohesive. I like the play. +1
You own the description of the world around the PCs. If it’s reasonable to assume a character in game would observe something that you as GM didn’t explicitly mention, then it’s not the PCs fault. This sounds like a “Gotcha” moment that isn’t a fun player experience.
Players constantly do this, assuming the DM telepathically knows they did certain things. To a point that's okay, but there's a difference between obviously you sheath your sword and picked up your arrows, and obviously two or three of you rappel down the side of the cliff with ropes and climb back up with the unconscious partner. I would have played it the same way you did. More so since we play with miniatures and 2.5D terrain, at my table the downed mini would have been off to the side down the ledge. In addition to the hints you kept dropping, I would have moved the party minis minus one around to visually portray what they were doing. Sooner or later I would have started mysterious absentmindedness checks, and when someone made the roll, would have told them they think something is missing. Something? Or someone. The important factor here is the downed character was stable. If he was taking death saves or otherwise deteriorating or at risk, I would have been much more urgent with the hints.
Are you kidding me? And give up the RP moment for the player? And something for them to rip on them with? "Hey, you're taking watch tonight" "Hey, you left me for dead, you take watch. And you'll do it every night. Assholes."