The other day I was playing a one-off under another DM and he did something that I found a bit off-putting; he would give players various options and then tell us exactly what we needed to succeed, and to what degree it would be effective. To me, this was utterly baffling. What I'm wondering is this: exactly how much of the mechanics do you 'let on' to your PCs? Also, for the players, does this seem like a weird practice and would you want your DM to adopt it?
That's more my style, Lincoln. The skill check to give more info is a good idea, I may use that, if you don't mind.
Depends on whether there were relatively new players there. With Newer players I could see it, since it gives them less to have to take in at the beginning.
Otherwise it seems wrong, to me. Part of it is that roleplaying requires decision making, and telling exactly what will work and what won't doesn't work for me. I do like (and have done in the past) the skill check stuff to give more info, as it basically lets them get information that they would reasonably be able to guess, without actually giving them specifics.
The other day I was playing a one-off under another DM and he did something that I found a bit off-putting; he would give players various options and then tell us exactly what we needed to succeed, and to what degree it would be effective. To me, this was utterly baffling. What I'm wondering is this: exactly how much of the mechanics do you 'let on' to your PCs? Also, for the players, does this seem like a weird practice and would you want your DM to adopt it?
I would be bored if a GM did that.
I might allow for a wisdom or intelligence check, and give hints if they are having problems figuring something out, but I won't lay everything out in front of them.
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I will usually tell the player the DC they're trying to hit after they make the decision to act but before the roll, because I think it builds player trust that I'm not fudging the targets for/against them. It also adds a little drama on tiered targets, when they know if they break X they get a better result.
I will sometimes do exactly what the GM in the OP's story did, especially when I want them to decide what constitutes "easy" or "hard" for their character. Often they'll have a better grasp on what their character perceives as hard or easy given their greater familiarity with the character's abilities.
I'll run tweaked chase rules, where they have the choice of Obstacle A or B. I'll say that charging through the crowed is a bull rush against a X CMD, or you can swing yourself into the roof and avoid the press for an X climb check.
The rush might be 'easy' for a fighter and 'hard' for rogue, and the reverse for the climb (depending on skills). If I simply describe either as easy or hard, I will mislead one of them.
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If it's a check like Climb, the DC's are in the rulebook, so I think it's reasonable to say it's a steep climb and they're looking at a DC 20 climb check.
As a player, I'd preferred the GM did that than tell me "it's an uneven surface with narrow handholds" and make me either
(a) look up the book myself to find out what DC that requires
(b) keep myself ignorant for the sake of verisimilitude
(c) rely on memory of the rules to match up the DC to the description
The last option is the worst, because it also means less experienced players have a disadvantage over more experienced players. The thing to remember is that those numbers are just an abstraction. Even without being told it's a steep climb, I know a DC 20 is a steep climb because it's tough (though being told both is much better - I'm informed, and verisimilitude is kept in play).
Sometimes this doesn't apply and the "ominous mystic rune" example that Imperious gave for Spellcraft is a good example. The rulebook doesn't point this out, so the player can't know.
If it's a check like Climb, the DC's are in the rulebook, so I think it's reasonable to say it's a steep climb and they're looking at a DC 20 climb check.
As a player, I'd preferred the GM did that than tell me "it's an uneven surface with narrow handholds" and make me either
(a) look up the book myself to find out what DC that requires
(b) keep myself ignorant for the sake of verisimilitude
(c) rely on memory of the rules to match up the DC to the descriptionThe last option is the worst, because it also means less experienced players have a disadvantage over more experienced players. The thing to remember is that those numbers are just an abstraction. Even without being told it's a steep climb, I know a DC 20 is a steep climb because it's tough (though being told both is much better - I'm informed, and verisimilitude is kept in play).
Sometimes this doesn't apply and the "ominous mystic rune" example that Imperious gave for Spellcraft is a good example. The rulebook doesn't point this out, so the player can't know.
I think I can get behind this. If all your players know that when you say 'easy' you mean 'DC 10', when you say 'requires a little skill' you mean 'DC 12', when you say "X" you mean "DC Y" that's a reasonable way of increasing immersion.
But when you have a steep hill and players haven't memorized that steep hills are DC 20, or basically any other situation where you could figure the difficulty of the challenge if you were familiar with the rules and how the GM interpreted them, but don't know it as a player, then you should get the DC.
i tell my players what their characters see and experience. If they roll a good check to estimate a situation (a heal check to identify a disease or a knowledge check to identify a monster) i might give them actual mechanical numbers, if it would be reasonable to assume the character has a really good idea of how hard the disease would be to treat or the monster would be to hurt. But normally, i just let them roll, and tell them wether they succeed or not after they give me the result.
I also don't do anything like saying "There are no traps" after the player rolled a perception check. They couldn't possibly know, i will tell them "You don't find any traps" or "There don't seem to be any traps there"
Depends on the group as well as the situation.
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It depends on the roll for me. In the case of climbing for example, I might run the numbers "oh, that's a steep slow (base X) but with good handholds (bonus Y); if you fail this is what happens..." Climbing is a very mundane skill, where you might have a good idea of how hard things are.
When searching for traps, I won't tell them the DC, I'll tell them "based on your roll, there's no/some traps of DC [your roll] and lower".
When rolling a knowledge check, I let the player roll, then say "based on that number, this is what you know..."; I don't say the DC because a) that would telegraph the CR too exactly, b) they'd know if there was more to know that they didn't roll high enough to learn.
When tracking, I'll refer to the rules in the book, and spell out the modifiers I'm applying; that way players know how likely it is that they found everything.
All in all I try to stay close to CRB skill DC guidelines, because I think it encourages people to use skills if they can predict how good they'll be at them.
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As for DCs, it depends. I usually do a quick assessment of the probabilities and report that: "It's a steep hill. Nothing that Alice can't handle, but Bob probably can't make it without help."
That's until they fail a check or two, anyway. Then I will typically shift it into a 'teaching moment': "Look, the DC is 20. Bob needs to roll an 18 or better to do this. What are you doing now?"
Outside of combat I'm pretty straight forward with knowledge checks. I reason it as your character and a certain set of knowledges. When they look at something or encounter a bit of info their mind is going to do the immediate "have I heard of this?" and "what do I know about this?" response. Other skill checks not so much unless someone is trying to use a skill for something that's clearly not right. I will ask them what they're trying to do and direct them to the correct skill for it. Since the skill descriptions are in the CRB and all PCs can take all skills their intended purpose is pretty clear.
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What's good about telling DCs is it's a shorthand way of telling the player something the character would know. "this looks like a really difficult climb, approximately DC 20" The player then is clued into exactly how difficult his character thinks it is. Otherwise the player has to guess based on a description.
We've all had the experience where we as players, or players we GMd, said "well if i knew it looked that difficult I wouldn't have even tried" especially when something would have been obvious to the character and the player should have been warned beforehand. But making it a practice to always let the player know the approximate DC avoids any potential situations like that.
Usually in our group we'll assume the characters take 20 routinely if there is no time crunch (or combat). This also avoids the issue most of the time.
I think it's also a trust issue for me, I see trust as "transparency".
I guess also it's also the age-old issue of, is it the player making the decision, or the character? Making it opaque puts more emphasis on the player being the one to make the decision. Giving them the numbers allows the player to think about what the character knows and would decide. At least that's how I see it.
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I never tell the players specific numbers (other than the amount of damage to mark off their HPs).
I'll try to give them a rough description of how easy/tough something is to do. Sometimes I'll ask what they're skill modifier is, so that I can customize the answers based on how difficult it is for their character. ie Instead of telling them that a climb check is DC 20, I'll say "You have a +12 climb? You can take 10 and make it, but some of the others may have trouble with it."
My big issue is that sometimes they want to roll a knowledge check, and I don't want to give them a hint of what they're facing by telling them which knowledge to roll. For instance, if they can't ID a monster, telling them to roll knowledge (planes) lets them know it's an outsider, if they didn't already know that. I've been trying to figure out the best way to handle that. I've been thinking of just having them roll a single d20 and tell me what knowledges they have trained, rather than taking the time to roll every knowledge skill they have.
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I agree with Berti on most points.
I think the only major exception for me is "adversarial" rolls: I'm not telling you how high to roll on Perception to notice the NPC Rogue.
Other than that I really like transparency; as a player I really hate it when the GM is being vague about basic rules, because I figure as a character I'd have a general idea about what I'm capable of, and if a given task is easy, doable, hard or nearly impossible.
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I prefer situational transparency for a few reasons:
1) Sometimes I change reality. Maybe I didn't think of 'X' but the player has that gleam in his eye, and I just go with it.
2) Sometimes there are factors that the players would have no reasonable method to detect. A higher or lower DC would then tell a savvy player more and opens the door to metagaming.
3) Some situations feel too game-like when you boil it all down to dice and DCs.
Not that game-like is bad, it just isn't my preference. I usually try to blend different styles of play.
On some checks like jumping and climbing, I'll be much more free with the information. On checks like that, the characters should be able to tell a lot easier than their players how difficult it is. I try to make that in character knowledge, like 'you're pretty sure you can make it' or 'you think you'll have a hard time climbing that.' But in general, adventurers should know how far they can jump and if whatever jump is farther than that, so I'll give DC's if I think the player has the wrong idea of how difficult it is.