Should a character suffer and break versimilitude due to a player's forgetfulness?

[wraithstrike]

Ravingdork wrote:

houstonderek wrote:

What, of any of the above, has to do with a hearing disability? What does having a hearing disability have to do with knowing or not knowing your movement rate? Or whether you cast haste? Or you haven't activated your boots of speed?

The only thing I see that you have a point on in this whole thread is the king being in the room thing, and even there, if your group knows about your disability, they should make sure you know what's going on before you act. That's maybe the only one that a "do over" makes any sense with.

Sorry for moving the goal posts around. My initial example really was TERRIBLE.

My group DOES know about my disability, but over the years, they've slowly gotten tired of hearing about it. After I've missed an important detail for the Nth time, the truth of my dilemma doesn't really make much difference. I'm simply "interrupting the flow of the game again." My plight simply falls on deaf ears.

The fact that I always wear my hearing aids, make sure I'm using fresh batteries, sit as close to the GM as possible, etc. means little to them. Even though I'm certain I cut down on the number of times I miss something, it doesn't really matter. It's happened enough already that when it DOES happen it grates on their nerves every single time, and I'm shown less and less leniency for it.

I had a hearing impaired player in my group before. I just had him sit right beside me, and I went out of my way to speak louder. Most people who are hearing impaired can read lips to a certain extent so if they see 3 syllables, but only hear two they should ask the GM to repeat. If they can't read lips then asking for clarification at important junctions should be allowed.

[pyremius]

Looking at the original question, I see three reasons why retconning that particular action should not be allowed:

1. He misjudged the distance - there is nothing to indicate that this particular character, no matter how intelligent, is a master of estimating distances (a Profession: Engineer score of 20+ should be an exception and allow retconning; there are probably a few other such edge cases).

2. The issue is that he did not expend a charge from a limited-use item - it would be perfectly reasonable and appropriate to deliberately not use the boots so as to retain their capabilities in subsequent encounter.

3. The claim is that the high-intelligence character "forgot" to use them - typically, memory is more closely related to Wisdom (and to reiterate a point above, I also know many highly-intelligent people who routinely forget items or actions directly tied to their profession).

3a. Boots of Speed aren't even directly related to the character's primary skillset - any appeal to expertise should fail automatically when said expertise does not in fact exist (this might have come up in a later example in some form). Many posts reference the example of a carpenter forgetting to use the correct end of a hammer, but a more accurate example would be the carpenter forgetting to zip his fly, and pinching himself when bending over to pick up some lumber: he's wearing pants while doing his work, but zipper jeans are not integral to carpentry work (Amish do not use zippers, only buttons).

[ANebulousMistress]

In my games I prefer you tell me before the dice are rolled. Otherwise you have until the end of your action to reconsider. As soon as someone else starts their turn that's it, your "but wait!" falls firmly in the realm of "man, I shoulda..." If I'm feeling nice today then the player's mistake probably won't result in a death but that'll be because I work behind the screen to keep the game cinematic, fun, and moving like that.

Counts for me, too. If I forget a rule while GMing I don't redo a whole scene, I go with it and remember it for next time.

It keeps everything fair and prevents double standards if no one gets do-overs. No one.

[KenderKin]

OK so how do you handle hero points?

Or do you they have a similar effect in "undoing things."

They really mess with a PBP! ;)