I am working on a set of variant rules for getting rid of secret checks without removing the tension they add to a game, and rather than wait until I had them fully developed and tested on my own, I thought I would share them here in progress for feed back as I am working on them, in case this is an area of the game that other folks/tables are finding to be a detriment to their game.
Caveat, I actually love secret checks as a player, but they can get annoying for GMs, and I play with some other players who absolutely hate them, so I started working on how to get rid of them. This thread is not about discussing the merits of secret checks, but trying to think of more fun ways for players to roll their own dice and still keep the suspense that secret checks can add to the game.
Right now I have mostly just thought through recalling knowledge and put a little bit of thought into the search exploration activity.
It is my intention for these ideas to be shared freely and developed further by anyone who wants to spend the time on it. I'd love to hear your thoughts or about how you would use them/modify them.
While the intention is noble, I feel there are a few hurdles and issues with the above:
I think the big gap the above doesn't yet address (at least not when I read the document) is that of checks where the player is trying to deceive a NPC, whether by making a Deception or a Stealth check: with RK and Perception, I think it can be argued that the checks need not be secret if there weren't the prospect of getting false information or not finding something at all, but in the case of Deception or Stealth, all of the tension of those checks comes from not knowing whether or not you succeeded, and seeing the result of your check is usually a dead giveaway. More than the other kinds of secret checks, those are the ones I think the secret trait was really made for, because knowing when you've rolled poorly and acting on it is the kind of metagaming that creates dissonance between narrative and gameplay. With regards to those, I'm curious: what would your player want as an alternative for Deception and Stealth checks in particular? Just for the checks to not be secret?
Thank you for your feed back!
Per recall knowledge: for players who want to opt out of possibly getting false information, I made a skill feat just to remove the false answer, so players that dislike that aspect have an option for it.
The slowing down of play could be an issue, which is why I am leaning towards more direct yes/no questions, or at least plan on testing out both more, but I think the flow of information from GM to players is generally too important to require success to learn anything, and the adjusting DC for difficulty Carrie’s less risk too of leading players to “no results” frustration. Starting with a general topic before rolling and finding out the number of questions should also help direct players. If you said “the topic of creature defenses,” then you pretty much know what questions you can ask, and if you fail and get 2, one true, one false, then you know you aren’t asking about that topic again with this creature, but you can still easily try to recall information about something like the creature’s temperament without hitting. “Sorry, you’ve already asked a question about this creature, so now that’s impossible.” At the same time, I have tried just not having recall knowledge checks be secret, but that just makes critical failure meaningless and leaves recall knowledge as a whole pretty risky, when it really should be one of the most common ways for players to direct the GM towards the specific clues they are looking for.
Per searching: the new remaster rules already encourage you as GM to just give auto success when time doesn’t matter, but with all search times so undefined, players will say “we search the room” and the GM is left having to arbitrarily decide how long, for the players without players getting any real agency in knowing what their choices are for how much time to spend.
I am still thinking through stealth and deception. Generally, I think in combat stealth doesn’t really need secret checks any more than perception does. Out of combat is probably the same, so it really boils down to deception and hiding objects. I’ll post here again when I’ve updated that.
For RK, have you considered killing two birds with one stone? For example, changing the degrees of success so that a critical failure provides nothing, and perhaps locks you out of repeated RK actions outside of combat for a time, whereas the success and crit success work like RAW, would keep RK simple and allow it to no longer be secret, as the GM would no longer have to provide false information.
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As a GM I have no issue with false information and only one out of the 7 or 8 people I play with does. They care much more about getting to roll their own dice and see the results. The player that does hate the false information would happily take a skill feat to remove the issue. He is actually a pretty big fan of the variant rule, as all of my players feel like recall knowledge is too stingy with information and locks you out of getting more information too easily.
But I think your idea could work well for many tables as well.
If the issue is with players not rolling their own dice, do they have a problem with saving throws, then? More than secret checks, saving throws are generally the most common instance of players not rolling for effects they impose, to the point where many casters can end up rolling very few dice at all under certain circumstances.
When a caster casts a spell, the player rolls the damage and they see the degree of success. I have players who tend to memorize some spell attack roll spells and some saving throw targeting spells so they can hero point a spell that is going to be high impact in an important encounter (to increase the player agency with the spell) but I’ve never had a player complain about not getting to roll the dice for their enemies saves.
But my players would lose their tempers quickly if I just started rolling saving throws for their characters without telling them, which is more where secret checks lie in game.
Right, but there's still an inconsistency there, is the thing: you might be rolling damage and seeing the degree of success, but at the end of the day, it's still the enemy rolling for the effect you're applying. By your account, this is fine to your players, but the GM rolling for your check to Lie isn't. While it would certainly make no sense for your own saving throws to be secret, it would not be difficult at all to make players roll for their enemies' saves either, so it's starting to sound to me like a case of working around a very specific mentality rooted in assumptions from past editions, rather than a more straightforward desire to make rolling more generally player-sided or to avoid hiding information.