DM dice rolling advice


Advice


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Hey guys, I'm on here to fish for ideas and opinions on something I have been trying lately.

tl;dr: I am rolling a lot of the players rolls behind the scenes as to not give away when a check fails miserably.

Now what i'm doing is I have taken a lot of the players skills and begun rolling their dice or results in secret. Key examples of rolls would be: Fortitude saves, will saves, perception, sense motive, bluff, diplomacy, stealth, and any other checks that could result in misinformation.
The key intent of doing this is to prevent players for meta-gaming dice results, or predicting that the information I have feed them in false. For example, Todd walks into a room and makes a perception check for traps. Todd roll, getting a result of 4, adding his 6 to find a 10. He fails to beat the traps DC of 12 and discovers no traps. Now when Todd makes this roll, he in aware of his poor result, and chose to still be cautious of the room, as well as the other party members. When I as the DM make this roll, i inform Todd he discovers no traps, and he moves though the room without fear. Now alternatively lets say Todd rolls an 18, giving him a result of 22. When i inform Todd the room has no traps, he is confident in his skills, and moves though the room with no fear. When the player is not aware of the degree of success of failure on his roll, i feel he plays and acts more organically.

The result. With this style of play i have had many opportunities to have the players tailed by informants, or stumble into rooms with hidden monsters and the players be none the wiser. I do feel that the games are being played out more organically.
However, these pros have bought out a Con. I have noticed that a LARGE portion of player interaction comes in the form of the DM asking for checks such as perception and stealth. With that interaction removed it results in me as the DM rolling a ton of dice and tacking results(something i have managed very well), and the players left to talk among themselves or wait for something to happen. I have combated this con by actively asking the players what their characters are doing. Sometimes this can spark really active, in character interaction with each other and the world around them. Other times it results in the players responding with an "i don't know, i guess ill head back to the church."

All in all I have to say that i LOVE the organic play resulting in the player being unaware when they fail, but it has caused simple 10 minute conversations, or gathering of information to drag out into long winded uneventful sessions. For example, in the session we JUST finished player, my players began the session knowing that a group of kids had gone missing. They spent their time searching for leads before discovering the kids had run off into the woods. Chasing after the children, they discover they have been taken by kobolds, and must delve into the ruins of an old monistary in order to save them. This is pretty straight forward, and involves about a 10+ hour walk from town, but other than that should not take to long. This session was a short one of only 3.5 hours, but the above is all we managed to get accomplished. I could tell we all left the table feeling a bit upset at the lack of interaction, as i had intended this to be a very combat heavy session, that resulted in literally 0 attack rolls.

tl;dr2: Have i made a mistake in doing rolls this way? Or is something entirely different the cause of my problems?

Thanks for your help!!

Grand Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

This thread is a recent discussion on this topic.

-Skeld


Skeld wrote:

This thread is a recent discussion on this topic.

-Skeld

Thank you for the link, this is sort of in line with what I was after and helps put a bit into perspective and gave me some ideas. However this thread has become a debate as to weather or not DM rolling is fair or wasteful, I'm more looking for ideas on how to fill the void left by the lack of players rolling dice.

If anyone has ideas regarding that please post them here, otherwise direct further comments to the linked thread.


A couple of ideas.

Change the basic mechanic from 1d20 to 2d10. You (the GM) roll 1d10 in secret and the player rolls the other 1d10 openly. You add the two results without telling the player what the total was. This will generate a bell curve so average results will be more common.

Alternatively, if you don't like bell curves, you roll 1d20 and keep it secret and the player rolls 1d20 openly. You toss a coin secretly to determine which result applies.


Boomerang Nebula wrote:


Change the basic mechanic from 1d20 to 2d10. You (the GM) roll 1d10 in secret and the player rolls the other 1d10 openly.

I kind of like this idea. Though I'm not going to do this for my dice rolling purposes(dont want thrm to even know to look for hidden enemys if they didnt notice them) i do like the split rolling mechanic, and will probably use it for something else later.

What I'm after is effective player interaction OTHER tan rolling dice. Key is to get something as satisfying for the players, and to accelerate gameplay.


More general feedback:

I prefer PCs to roll for everything involving their character. In my view you generally know when you performed a task well or poorly. Even something like perception, you know how you have performed, were you looking at your feet? Or distracted by conversation? Or were you alert and actively looking around? And perception is opposed by stealth so even if you did roll well, you can't say for sure that they didn't roll higher.

The advantages to having PCs roll for themselves are:

* natural tension when they roll poorly, or elation when they roll well, which you can add to with suitable descriptions.
* one less task for the GM who is already very busy
* keeps players more involved in the game
* saves time in a large group, for example all PCs can roll perception or knowledge checks etc. simultaneously.
* guaranteed objectivity. The dice fall where they may.


Sindenky wrote:
Boomerang Nebula wrote:


Change the basic mechanic from 1d20 to 2d10. You (the GM) roll 1d10 in secret and the player rolls the other 1d10 openly.

I kind of like this idea. Though I'm not going to do this for my dice rolling purposes(dont want thrm to even know to look for hidden enemys if they didnt notice them) i do like the split rolling mechanic, and will probably use it for something else later.

What I'm after is effective player interaction OTHER tan rolling dice. Key is to get something as satisfying for the players, and to accelerate gameplay.

I can't remember the system, hopefully someone else will chime in, there is a game where the characters get bonuses based on player descriptions. To get a bonus the description must be original. Keeps the players more engaged because they have to keep coming up with new ideas.


I hate rolls (both as GM and as player), so I tend to minimize occasions to roll just by guessing the best result for a story.
Only for the most important parts we are using rolls (like begining of combat when I think the result is not obvious, or boss fights, or situations which can result in a big plot twist or killing player character).

As lazy GM I do not even roll for attacks – player's are and just substract it from their AC (I do not care about criticals of my NPCs and monsters with exeption of bosses).
Similarly I do not roll for saves.
If there is some effect which includes more targets to roll save, then it is up to "attacker" (subject) to roll (for example PC casting create pit will roll and subtract that roll from DC and any target will fall if the result is higher than it's reflex).

There is exception with stealth – I roll for player only once and keep the result till she stops hiding or something notices her.
And also with perception (if it is important to roll) – rolling for everybody rellevant.


One way would be to randomly reverse the rolls. Let the player roll all rolls and have them give you the actual result of the die and their relevant modifier separately. The behind your screen roll another die and if it comes up odd than use the roll the player gave. If it comes up even reverse the roll. So if the player rolls a 18 on a d20 and you roll even than the player actually rolled 2 instead of 18. Then adjust the roll based on the players modifier. This is a lot of extra work for you but it keeps the player involved and they never know if the rolled well or poorly. Let them know in advance you are doing this so they don’t get upset.


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The correct answer is: What do you feel like? What does your players feel like? You should only roll hidden checks if it makes the game more fun. If it's more laborious than it is fun or if it's straight up less fun, you should stop.
(I only read your tl;dr, which gave me nothing specific to this case to go on).


One way to maintain secret rolls, but allow the player to roll, is take a selection of rolls at the start of each session from each player, and then use them as the game needs, save any unused rolls, and keep this up, allows for both sides to be satisfied, just let them know ahead of time, what you're doing etc.


If Todd asks to use Perception to look for traps and you insist on rolling the d20 for him that sounds a little oppressive, but I don't see how it would reduce DM and player interaction. I mean, Todd is asking, and you're rolling and giving him a result. That's interaction, right?

I guess if at other times you're secretly rolling d20 Perception checks for the PCs without the players asking that could reduce interaction, but it seems like you could simply ask a player to roll a d20 without telling him or her what it is for. After they roll low you look thoughtful, say, "Hmm" or "ahh", and nod a little, perhaps while tapping something in your notes with your index finger.

It is my belief that DMs should roll all of their dice out upon the open table for all the world to fear. If you're worried about meta-gaming I'd suggest some humorous chiding rather than taking away people's dice.

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