player DC issues the less ranty version

[Chugger]

I'd like to start over the discussion about player DC's and the associated issues because in the other thread (my fault) I was still feeling my way through this issue but also must have invested some negative energy in it - cuz of some of the responses (also I now realize some people were actually trying to help me and not attacking me - I found the DMG reference to a "use few dice rolls" approach, so my bad, apologies for my over-reaction back there). I'm hoping this version will be more clear, less cluttered, and far more helpful to those open to thinking about this.

I (we) have almost no power to change the (official) rules - that's in someone else's hands. So I don't think this discussion should be testy (which is why I'm restarting it - and again, a lot of the negativity in the old thread was my fault - mostly from me being frustrated over my inability to express subtle things - I'm returning after a very long absence and am quite rusty, but not totally). If some of us want to flare or troll or w/e, I can't stop you, but I can ask (starting very much with me) that we try to understand each other and not get too emotional. I'm not telling you how to run your game. I'm talking about likely consequences from running the game a certain way and asking for discussion for solutions, some of which I'll be advancing (but I hardly know everything - please help if you see or know something cool).

First, I'd like you to see that there is a "price" or consequence when a table or dm allows certain player-rolled DCs, as seems to be common in 5e (certainly is in Adv. L. play). If a player stealths and they know the result (say 3 or 18), the player knows something that their character probably wouldn't and/or shouldn't know - that the orcs see them or not. Same with detect traps or secret doors as a skill (not a spell) - if a player rolls 19 and are told "you don't sense any" - they "know" there is no normal secret door there - but how could the character "know" this? Now is the player supposed to be "honest" and role play, having their character act by what the character knows and not what the player knows? This is a possible solution (we're supposed to do that on a lot of matters anyway). But a smart player can always game a DM here and have the character act properly when it doesn't matter - but come up with some "reason" to mask an improper choice based on meta-information. Okay, that's a problem across DnD anyway. So why make it a worse one? Why not let the DM roll these checks? That would take away the need to role play on a whole family of DCs and let the player, in theory, focus on being better on other things - or at least this is an argument in favor of DM rolling (if you hate this idea it's okay - not saying you're "bad" or have to change).

It gets particularly strained when a character tries to lie to or persuade an NPC and the player knows he/she has rolled a 2 or a 17 on a persuasion or performance check. When the NPC smiles and accepts (or seems to accept) the lie, the player knows (almost certainly) in the case of a 17 the lie was successful and in the case of a 2 the NPC is lying or gaming back. It becomes really hard to roleplay or be "good" with this kind of information - and - it removes the tension element and the surprise element when we later find out the truth (either the NPC had been duped or the NPC was duping back). Exceptions would be an NPC who is mind-reading, so the DC doesn't matter - but this is pretty rare - and exceptions are hard to factor, anyway - of course there are exceptions, but what to make of them? (edit - removing tension, suspense and surprise in this way hurts game enjoyment for me - and I think a lot of us - it makes the player way too "meta" in knowledge - it's like knowing what happens in a book or movie, sort of).

We do have another extreme to consider here (one I'm used to - it was how we played back in the day) - DM making almost all the rolls in secret but possibly not letting "enough" be dice-settled. Clearly having some issues or questions be dice settled is "good" or "works". If a DM is making too many choices he/she can err, especially as the game extends and the DM is getting tired - can get grumpy and be unreasonable (I've seen that) or can get happy and be far too lenient, removing most of the game's challenge (I've seen that). So where is balance?

An outcome the character will know certainly should be character rolled: like climbing a wall. You either fall or you make it up - player clearly should roll. Almost all combat actions should be player rolled, of course - as almost all of us do. Animal handling - the horse either lets you ride it or bucks you off. Lock pick - you either open the lock or you don't. If it's a "resistant" lock I think it's okay for the player/char to find this out by trying to open it (which they will know as they learn it's a DC 20 or higher). It's pretty obvious which DCs the player/char should or can know, and which ones the DM should probably keep secret. This is something we could discuss here: finding the gray zones, the ones that aren't obvious and so on.

I get that DnD is not a reality simulator, and I'm not coming from that angle (have played homebrew campaigns that attempted to be reality simulators ... for me they got bogged down fast and weren't playable or fun). The people who were playing DnD before me in the 1970s knew this, by the way - little to nothing is new under this sun :smallsmile:! The object as I see it is what makes for the best gameplay? I didn't see them before, but there are alternate versions suggested in the DMG - so kudoes to the designers of 5e. They admit that there are versions of the game with much less dice rolling, but they don't discuss what you get and what you give up if you go that way.

Being heavily dice dependent (I was saying being a "dice slave", but I think that was too negative on my part - I'm trying to move away from that here) is an option. A lot of players apparently are fine with this - are fine with knowing things their character wouldn't know - and play anyway - just work past it and done. But it's a teeny shift, really, to start with - say - DM secretly rolls stealth and perc (he/she rolls passive perc already, anyway), trap checks, secret door checks, persuasion checks, performance checks. Just start with those and see what happens - see if the game feels better. It may not. If you're mostly numb to this stuff, fine - do player rolled DCs and more power to you. It's just that what I'm talking about here is not like moving a glacier or even remotely hard. It's just saying that a handful of the DCs go to the DM to be rolled in secret. Someone in the other thread said there was a device that lets the player drop the dice but only the DM can see - that would keep the player involved - an interesting suggestion (thank you!).

The other part of this discussion is making sure DMs and future DMs know that there are tricks and balancing issues regarding this whole "it all comes down to a dice check" thing. First, if a DM bothers to invest a lot of effort in a player quest, say, then certain CPs (critical points) will be fated to go a certain way and not be determined by dice. Like, while the party talks to the Duke, an assassin cloaked in magic darkness zips in surprising them (no DC, it's fated to happen), murders the Duke "dead" (not zero - he's gone - with no DCs, no natural ones, no rolling a 2 here), and escapes out the window with no chance of being caught. Why? Because it's necessary for the story to work (and frankly also because the DM put a lot of work into this quest, and he/she isn't going to let it fizzle or fail due to a dumb dice roll). If - if - DMs "had to" do DCs and obey them, by fiat they "had to", would DMs invest time and hard work in cooking up quests? Nah. It would all be pretty on the fly, made up as we go - because why invest in something that has a strong chance of arbitrarily failing? Notice I said "arbitrarily".

But but but some will argue it's not arbitrary, things can go wrong - yes, DCs should have a chance of destroying our best laid plans and so on because that's real (but DnD is not a reality simulator, remember? and yes some semblance of reality must exist for the game not to suck, but too much become too brutal and also sucks - so again it's a balancing act - it's artistry and not science, this balancing, for the most part, imho). What I'm getting at, among other things, is if - if - you want a clever game that's more than just hack n slash n zap - and if you want players to invest and plot and rise above - then you have to reward them for this (at least sometimes - and part of rewarding them is that they feel their work at least stands a chance, or they won't invest - and yes of course going too far the other way and having it always work is also bad) - so you have to really think hard about letting an arbitrary "2" tear down a mighty and inspired plan the players cooked up - unless they knew it was a gamble and it wasn't really such a good plan. But I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about they work hard, they practice - they successfully spy on the guy they're going to imitate until they got it down tight - but a 2 is rolled. If it is a public or known 2 - known to the players - it closes a lot of doors for the DM. This is mainly what I'm saying. Why as a DM have these doors closed - why be forced to accept this when we don't have to? Let's say what the party was doing was so inspired and amazing, but it involved getting inside the mansion - and they roll a 2 at the door and the butler closes it on them seeing through their ploy. Plan killed right there. Huh? WTH? Why kill it there? Why let that 2 be a vorpal blade hack - a decapitation of the plan? At least you do have an option, even if it was a known roll - the butler could say "I can't let you in based on this letter - come back with some actual proof you're who you say you are" - and the plan could be salvaged. See the difference? This is what I'm trying to communicate. If a DM knows how to do this right - it takes some experience and native skill usually - a very fun and involved and unexpected-stuff-happens - and the party is mega-challenged - they're not just "given" success (they earn it) - and their amazing plan does not go off as initially imagined - but it ultimately works in some way - maybe at a cost - or if they fail they failed because they didn't come up with the follow up on the fly brilliance needed to make the plan actually work - at least they know why it failed and it failed for good reasons ... not some arbitrary DC. Bottom line, if the right DCs are secret, the DM has more options available to expand the challenge and make it great (and suspense is preserved - it should be more exciting for players) - strict DC adherence can be ... like wearing a ball and chain. Too loosey goosey is bad, too - I keep stressing balance and what "works" for the group. Which is subjective, of course.

If I wasn't clear above, I'm not saying there is a choice between "fails due to player-seen DC" or "give clever players everything they want" - am not at all saying that. It may seem that way, but I'm actually trying to go beyond that. I think a clever DM can understand when players have invested heavily in a plan but either it's crap (and they don't see) or it is hinging on a few luck elements - is a ST made - do they persuade the butler - and so on. I'm saying there is a third option between "oh a 19, it works - stupid, I can't imagine why the butler would believe you - but it works - the dice have spoken" and "oh a 2, you fail - your story was really good but the butler noticed your shirt isn't tucked in and got suspicious" - and the middle ground between these two extremes is ... anything giving them a chance ... w/e a good DM can imagine - and could be as simple as (for example) the butler asking for more proof. And see what the heck they do. This way the DM is not just giving it to them, nor is he arbitrarily killing it due to random chance. Success would feel earned here, at least I'd think it would. It's a different approach and might be better for you. Think about it.

In the other thread and in other arguments re DnD over the years, I've run across some very funny player attitudes. Some of us get intensely loyal or "stuck" over certain rule interpretations (perhaps I do, too, in my own way - and I don't see it). I've had people tell me as if they were quoting one of the Laws of Thermodynamics that a certain DC represents the chance of x or y or z happening and how dare I challenge this? Look, sleep spell always works (or doesn't based on specified things) - there is no DC to see if the caster fumbles the material component - which could happen - or w/e. Again the game isn't a reality simulator and the experience - a great fun challenging experience - is what we're striving for. Right? Or am I wrong? Or am I just trying (again) to get some of us to see that strict, unyielding adherence to DCs can come with a steep price, a price that maybe we shouldn't be paying? What if there really is a better way?

[tieren]

I don't think its a problem, if I roll a 2 on a perception check I don't have any trouble roleplaying that I am oblivious.

If it is a well laid plan issue, try using skill challenges instead of a single DC roll, such that the party needs to get a certain number of successes before a certain number of failures. that way players with skill proficiency/expertise have a chance to shine (despite a flubbed roll or two) and players can see the rolls and add to the tension and drama rather than replacing it. Or give them ways to use advanced planning to get advantage on the roll to minimize the effect of a flub.

[Vaz]

I got half way before it seems like the suggestion should be that the DM rolls the dice. That way, the player doesn't know whether their +15 to check roll has passed or failed.

[Aett_Thorn]

There should definitely be a balance of letting the players see the rolls and having them take place behind the screen. Pretty much anything in combat, the players should see, since there is no reason not to. Making an attack you either succeed or fail, but you can see the dice rolls no problem.

When it comes to exploration, trying to persuade/deceive/intimidate someone, or searching for secret doors or traps, then the DM needs to decide how often they want their players to really know the outcomes. If the players do a good job of being able to separate out player knowledge from character knowledge, then it's fine to let them make the rolls and go with it. After all, they still don't know what the DC was. So if they have a +5 to Investigate, and roll a 15, they don't know if the DM has a DC 21 secret door out there.

However, if the players are NOT good at separating out this knowledge, then most of these rolls should be handled behind the screen. The DM asks what your modifier is for whatever you're trying to do, and rolls the dice for you. That way, when he tells you that you don't find any traps, there might not be any traps, or there might be some that you just didn't find. However, the DM should be flavoring the language that he uses a bit here to help balance this out. "You perform a thorough check of the room, and don't notice any traps," might be different from, "You look around and don't notice any traps." Give the players something to go on, even if it's not perfect.

[Gryndle]

I see your point. I personally don't see it as a problem, or definitely not a system problem. I think its just something each table has to work out for themselves.

[kebusmaximus]

I only have a minor point to add: in your paragraph about not destroying the PCs' plans due to one roll, you explained "failing forward" perfectly. It's a game concept heavily featured in some rpgs (Apocalypse World, off the top of my head) where the players move the story forward, with complications, for failing a dice roll. I suggest looking into it and applying it in your own games.

[Fishybugs]

But but but some will argue it's not arbitrary, things can go wrong - yes, DCs should have a chance of destroying our best laid plans and so on because that's real (but DnD is not a reality simulator, remember? and yes some semblance of reality must exist for the game not to suck,

It's not just about adding reality. It's about adding tension and suspense. If you knew everything was going to work because you came up with a cool idea...well, that would ruin the game too. I don't want a game where the best storytellers do well all the time and the more shy players are penalized for it.

[Unoriginal]

If a player stealths and they know the result (say 3 or 18), the player knows something that their character probably wouldn't and/or shouldn't know - that the orcs see them or not

No, they do not, unless the DM tells them the DC (as in, Difficulty Class) in advance. All the player can do is guess.

At best they know that the character did relatively well or no, and a professional would probably be able to analyse their own performance to some degrees.

And in any case the player will learn how well they did when the DM describes the results of their action, so I don't see what's the issue.



Same with detect traps or secret doors as a skill (not a spell) - if a player rolls 19 and are told "you don't sense any" - they "know" there is no normal secret door there - but how could the character "know" this?

"As an expert in door finding, I estimate I've done a good job."



So why make it a worse one? Why not let the DM roll these checks? That would take away the need to role play on a whole family of DCs

I dunno about you, but I play RPG to roleplay.

Also, do you really have to roleplay much about "I didn't find anything suspicious here." ?



and let the player, in theory, focus on being better on other things

What kind of other things?


at least this is an argument in favor of DM rolling

Don't think so, but eh.




It gets particularly strained when a character tries to lie to or persuade an NPC and the player knows he/she has rolled a 2 or a 17 on a persuasion or performance check. When the NPC smiles and accepts (or seems to accept) the lie, the player knows (almost certainly) in the case of a 17 the lie was successful and in the case of a 2 the NPC is lying or gaming back. It becomes really hard to roleplay or be "good" with this kind of information - and - it removes the tension element and the surprise element when we later find out the truth (either the NPC had been duped or the NPC was duping back).

One, how does the player knows what the Difficulty Class of the action was?

Two, even if you succeed in telling a lie or persuading someone of something, it doesn't mean that you've won the whole social encounter.

Three, that kind of interaction tends to be a skill contest/opposing rolls, and the NPCs' rolls are generally hidden, so even in the case the players can estimate how well their character did, they would have no way of knowing how well their opponents did, which maintains the suspense, surprise and tension.




Like, while the party talks to the Duke, an assassin cloaked in magic darkness zips in surprising them (no DC, it's fated to happen), murders the Duke "dead" (not zero - he's gone - with no DCs, no natural ones, no rolling a 2 here), and escapes out the window with no chance of being caught. Why? Because it's necessary for the story to work (and frankly also because the DM put a lot of work into this quest, and he/she isn't going to let it fizzle or fail due to a dumb dice roll).

I'd rather not have any DM declares the equivalent of "you fail because the story wants it that way". Ever.

No, the story doesn't want it that way, the DM knowingly decided to remove the PCs' chances of success.

It can make sense if there is literally nothing the PCs can do. But if there is ANYTHING the PCs can do, the DM has to let them do it.

If a DM's story is so fragile that the PCs being allowed to act like they should ruins it, then it's too fragile a story to be played.

Now, I'm not saying the PCs should be allowed to do something impossible. Of course they shouldn't. But the DM has to have a good reason why it's impossible.

The assassin escaping automatically after killing the duke? Sure, they might escape. And if they're strong they have a lot of chances to do so, and can even make the PCs unable to catch them with justification.

But if the wizard is able cast Hold Person, the archer to hoot the fleeing murderer in the back, the monk to run after them at full speed and catch up to them, or anyone else to do anything, they have to be allowed to. If they aren't, they're just characters in the DM's fanfiction, not RPG characters.



If - if - DMs "had to" do DCs and obey them, by fiat they "had to", would DMs invest time and hard work in cooking up quests?

Yes. A quest should accept the possibility of various outcomes for different actions.

Note that it only concern PCs interacting with the world. The DM is free to do whatever they want to NPCs, places, and anything else in the world, unless the PCs are involved.




It would all be pretty on the fly, made up as we go -

It happens, too, but it's not a necessity or a consequence, it's a choice of playstyle.



because why invest in something that has a strong chance of arbitrarily failing? Notice I said "arbitrarily".

And you're incorrect in your use of the term.

Dice are random, not arbitrary. The only thing arbitrary about dice is if the DM, the arbiter, decides to involves them or not.


But if you want to go like that, I can ask you a question, too: why would the players invest in something that has a strong chance of arbitrarily failing because the DM, the arbiter, decided that they were going to fail no matter what?



What I'm getting at, among other things, is if - if - you want a clever game that's more than just hack n slash n zap - and if you want players to invest and plot and rise above - then you have to reward them for this (at least sometimes - and part of rewarding them is that they feel their work at least stands a chance, or they won't invest - and yes of course going too far the other way and having it always work is also bad)

Why are you arguing that the DM should make them fail without letting rolls get in the way, then?



- so you have to really think hard about letting an arbitrary "2" tear down a mighty and inspired plan the players cooked up - unless they knew it was a gamble and it wasn't really such a good plan.

One, once again, a "2" on the dice is *not* arbitrary, by definition.

Two, yes, if a plan crash down just because of a bad roll, then it wasn't a "mighty and inspired" plan.

A plan that has no chance to fail warrant dice rolls. A good planner will have contingencies for if something goes wrong during one of the many, many ways the plan can fail.



But I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about they work hard, they practice - they successfully spy on the guy they're going to imitate until they got it down tight - but a 2 is rolled.

If they actually did a good job, then they'd either don't have to roll, or get a very low Difficulty Class for the action. Or an advantage (or even a disadvantage for the opponents trying to find out the truth). The 2 is not going to have much consequences, in those conditions.

Or the action is still very difficult and so it become clears they didn't work hard enough, practice enough or spy enough.




If it is a public or known 2 - known to the players - it closes a lot of doors for the DM.

It doesn't. The DM is still in control of the Difficulty Classes, of the NPCs, and of all the circumstances that decides how the dice's results affect the world.


This is mainly what I'm saying. Why as a DM have these doors closed - why be forced to accept this when we don't have to?

No door is closed.



Let's say what the party was doing was so inspired and amazing, but it involved getting inside the mansion - and they roll a 2 at the door and the butler closes it on them seeing through their ploy.

Again, either of two possibilities:

- the DM has decided that despite it being an inspired and amazing plan, but that the PCs didn't take into account a few very difficult step, and so they needed to beat those challenges before the rest of the plan could be enacted without troubles

-It wasn't that "inspired and amazing" and the DM decided that succeeding those steps would be difficult, and so warranted a roll.




Plan killed right there. Huh? WTH? Why kill it there? Why let that 2 be a vorpal blade hack - a decapitation of the plan?

Because apparently that plan was so fragile it could get killed simply by failing one step, and that this step was difficult enough that the PCs risked to fail it and so warranted a roll.



At least you do have an option, even if it was a known roll - the butler could say "I can't let you in based on this letter - come back with some actual proof you're who you say you are" - and the plan could be salvaged.

So you're saying it makes no difference if the roll is public or not.



If a DM knows how to do this right - it takes some experience and native skill usually - a very fun and involved and unexpected-stuff-happens - and the party is mega-challenged - they're not just "given" success (they earn it) - and their amazing plan does not go off as initially imagined - but it ultimately works in some way - maybe at a cost - or if they fail they failed because they didn't come up with the follow up on the fly brilliance needed to make the plan actually work - at least they know why it failed and it failed for good reasons ...

That's a position shared by many, yes.

Failure shouldn't stop the story or break it, it should open different possibilities -at a cost for the PCs or not.



Bottom line, if the right DCs are secret, the DM has more options available to expand the challenge and make it great

You're contradicting yourself. You just said a DM could do that even when the rolls aren't secrets.



(and suspense is preserved - it should be more exciting for players)

Again, the assumption that knowing your roll destroys suspense isn't accurate. Though I admit it can be a factor, you need more than that to kill the suspense.



I'm saying there is a third option between "oh a 19, it works - stupid, I can't imagine why the butler would believe you - but it works - the dice have spoken" and "oh a 2, you fail - your story was really good but the butler noticed your shirt isn't tucked in and got suspicious"


What you're describing has nothing to do with who rolls the dice between the PCs and the DM, you're describing a DM who is inept at determining the difficulty of an action.




... w/e a good DM can imagine - and could be as simple as (for example) the butler asking for more proof. And see what the heck they do. This way the DM is not just giving it to them, nor is he arbitrarily killing it due to random chance. Success would feel earned here, at least I'd think it would. It's a different approach and might be better for you. Think about it.

Again, nothing to do with who roll the dice. Sure, a good DM knows how to make failures entertaining, or at least possibility-opening, rather than limiting. Unless the PCs blew their one shot, but in this case failure is used for drama.




Again the game isn't a reality simulator and the experience - a great fun challenging experience - is what we're striving for. Right? Or am I wrong? Or am I just trying (again) to get some of us to see that strict, unyielding adherence to DCs can come with a steep price, a price that maybe we shouldn't be paying? What if there really is a better way?

You're not wrong that most DnD players are striving for a great fun experience (and often a challenging one), but I disagree that letting the players see what they roll is hindering any of those, and that trying to portray it as a "steep price" is an overreaction.

[smcmike]

I'm gonna be honest: while this wall of text is less ratty, it's still a heck of a wall. I tried to climb it, but I only rolled a two. Still, some thoughts:

It seems like a reasonable goal is to align player and character knowledge as closely as possible. To the extent that rolls give players more information than the character would have, I agree that this is an issue. On the other hand, I don't have much use for added "tension" that is created by denying the player knowledge that the character would have.

Also, it's not hard to imagine a whole variety of social interactions wherein open rolls confuse the situation, rather than providing unwanted clarity. Let's say you are trying to bluff the butler. You roll a 2, though with your bonus it's a 7. The DM rolls behind the screen for something (an insight check, perhaps, but she doesn't tell you). The butler beckons: "Right this way sir."

Here it seems to me that the open roll has enhanced the tension. You and your character both know that your lie was not very convincing. You don't know whether the butler bought it. That's scary!

[Pex]

The character does know things. He's right there. It's not a problem for players to know things. It is not necessary for players to be forever in ignorance of what's going on around them/their characters, paranoid that they missed something. That can be a particular game style, but not an absolute.

PCs are competent individuals. Let them be competent.

[GlenSmash!]

I had some trouble reading that wall of texts too, but I'll try and contribute.

I never roll for my players. They are in charge of what they want to do. They state the approach they are taking and the goal they are trying to accomplish. I tell them if they succeed, or fail, or if they need to make a Check. If a check is called for I set the DC, tell them the DC, and describe what will happen if they succeed or what will happen if they fail. All rolls are made in the open.

Once I started using this method some interesting things happened. The players tried to describe their approaches so well that they can succeed without rolling. This has been a big plus for roleplaying and fun in our game. Also they trust me to be fair since they see their own rolls, know the DCs they're trying to beat, and see my rolls too. It was also sped up play dramatically.

Compared to those improvements I don't see rolling for the players, or even rolling behind a screen as the better approach. Of course YMMV.

[Thrudd]

I agree with rolling lots of things in secret. It helps role play.

I disagree with ignoring the dice (when dice are supposed to be rolled) in order to make or allow something to happen. If the PCs are present for an event, they need to be able to affect the outcome, even if they have only a small chance. If you want the duke to be assassinated, have it happen "off-screen" and let the players learn about it. Don't plan events that need to happen a certain way if the players are involved in any way. They should have a chance to detect the assassin, and a chance to save the Duke if they are fast or do something clever.

[Lysiander]

So, assuming I understand you correctly, your want to address three issues that all tie into each other.

First, Narrative vs. mechanical problem solving. When a boulder blocks the road, you would prefer players to walk around, over or under the boulder rather than through it. "Avoiding" the boulder would be narrative solutions where the players find some way to deal with the obstacle without directly addressing it. Doing so may involve mechanics on their own but those are in assistance to the narrative solution of avoiding the obstacle. Going through the boulder however is usually a purely mechanical solution with little regard for the problem itself. Combat over talking, dice over story.

While this certainly is an issue at some tables, it is not one a system can solve because the very existence of a system entitles the players to make use of it. The mechanics exist to empower the players after all. Their whole point is to govern what they can and can not do. Removing going through the boulder as an option, i.e. removing the mechanical approach is arbitrary and unfair on the GMs part. A good GM should, in my humble opinion, account for the possibility of it. He can "soft" remove the option by making it unattractive in relation to other solutions but runs the risk of "railroading" the players. This can be fun but isn't everyone's cup of tea. Ultimately, it comes down to table culture. For solutions, we have to look elsewhere.

Second, Trust & asymmetric information: Frankly, you seem to lack trust in everyone involved. You don't trust (your) players to not metagame when their stealth check comes out low. You don't trust the GM to convincingly role play through a high or low lie check. You also don't trust the GM to embrace the outcome of a dice roll and incorporate it into the story in a meaningful way. You assume that a dice roll would destroy the tension at the table, rather than be the natural point of tension relief and conclusion. You seek to address this by limiting information to the players and basically keeping them in the dark about how well, or if at all, they succeed. While this certainly maintains tension, it also dis-empowers the players and, in my opinion, is actually more likely to foster distrust. When a player never rolls in social situations, there is a good chance he'll feel that his character doesn't actually have any influence. After all, how is he to know if the problem was solved by the creativity of the player or the result of a roll? Furthermore, secret checks are very likely to heavily favor the outgoing/ creative player over the shy and/or less creative ones. When a player cannot rely on his stats, he has to rely on himself. In this environment, players will eventually gravitate to characters that reflect their own real life attributes and abilities because that is where they can shine.

Every system rewards outgoing and creative players more than it does others to a point. Illusions are a great example of that and older systems were much worse offenders than modern ones. (Compare AD&D illusions to D&D5) In most modern system it seems to be a design goal to close the gap between player types and capabilities. Few are as great an orator as Martin Luther King and fewer still share the diplomatic and political talent of Otto von Bismark. But in RPGs, everyone, can play a character that does have those talents. The mechanics that allow the dice roll to turn an unconvincing player's tale into an act of supreme subterfuge are made for that purpose. Personally, I think this is a good thing because it encourages players to move out of their comfort zone and grow. It fosters roleplaying, even if it sometimes isn't "up to snuff". I'd rather encourage a player to try than judge and punish him for not reaching an arbitrary level of greatness.
[Disclaimer: I'm not saying that's what you do/want, but your train of thought could easily end up on this road.]

Third, handling of mechanics vs. mechanics is where the real core lies and what ties the other two points together. Many of the examples you describe don't actually come down to the dice roll as the issue but when that dice roll is made. Nothing in the rules tells us that a stealth check is made when the player says "I sneak". Mechanics only ever come into play when the narrative cannot or should not decide the outcome. In your example, a player would or could alter his behavior because he rolled a 2. This situation doesn't actually need to arise.

For example, assume a player wants to sneak into a house and listen in on a secret meeting. He decides to wait behind the door until a servant comes out, then tries to slip inside. As long as he waits, no check is needed, the GM just narrates stuff happening. Once the servant comes out and the player attempts to sneak inside, the player rolls his stealth check because now, it is actually an opposed challenge. In this situation, the knowledge gleaned from the number shown by the dice is irrelevant because the result will immediately be narrated by the GM. The tension was maintained by delaying the roll rather than obfuscating its result.

In your example of the liar, the GM could simply roll a contest rather than set a DC. Doing so makes the numbers of the roll irrelevant because the player can only determine a likelihood of success. Whenever I have told a lie, in real life, I could usually tell if I "rolled well" or not. There's always feedback. One could argue that the knowledge of the number rolled can be incorporated in the RP in this way, but it isn't even needed. Instead, the GM can simply narrate the NPC's reaction.

You seem to value tension and a strong narrative and you're willing to be disempowered (as a player) to have that. I can understand that even though personally, I value player empowered highly. But I think you are trying to address a table culture problem with prescriptive rules and that is rarely a good thing. It seems to me that timing, trust and narrative preference play a much bigger role than the (or any) system does.

P.S: If you really want to obfuscate the result of a dice roll from the player, have them roll two dice for every check and never tell them if they have advantage, disadvantage or neither. That way the players get to roll and occasionally get to gauge their success. Most of the time however, the GM will be the only one knowing the real result.

[Sigreid]

Everything you're talking about it player dependent.

1. If your players are willing and able to RP their failed rolls, it's not a problem to let them do it. I actually prefer to let them roll as DM because it removes any question that i'm just telling a story as opposed to us playing a game.

2. The DM doesn't have to tell the players the DC, but frankly the adventurers should have a really good idea how good they are at things.

3. IF the DM is deciding the outcome regardless of rolls or skills, that is fine if that is what the table wants, but to me that is just another way of saying railroading.

4. As a DM I have other ways of addressing than DM fiat. I can adjust the DC if you're playing your con to the NPC's weaknesses. Or give you advantage for a good plan. Or. rarely declare a success with no pretense of a roll if I think it's appropriate. In none of these am I deceiving you about what the situation is.

5. As a DM, if I'm going to have an assassin go after the duke, I have a plan for what happens if he gets caught/stopped. I even have some idea what will happen if the party has no interest in the duke's murder or thinks it's keen to finish the job for the assassin. Again, I don't like to load the party on the railroad and when I get to play I don't like getting on the rail road. That doesn't mean I won't cooperate to an extent, but if I start feeling like I'm just following a script, I don't want to play anymore.

Edit: As a DM, I consider the most successful game to be one where the players blow up my scenario with something I didn't even consider. It's a beautiful thing when a story dies at the hands of player brilliance.

All this is just my opinion and way of handling it.

[Vogonjeltz]

First, I'd like you to see that there is a "price" or consequence when a table or dm allows certain player-rolled DCs, as seems to be common in 5e (certainly is in Adv. L. play). If a player stealths and they know the result (say 3 or 18), the player knows something that their character probably wouldn't and/or shouldn't know - that the orcs see them or not. Same with detect traps or secret doors as a skill (not a spell) - if a player rolls 19 and are told "you don't sense any" - they "know" there is no normal secret door there - but how could the character "know" this? Now is the player supposed to be "honest" and role play, having their character act by what the character knows and not what the player knows? This is a possible solution (we're supposed to do that on a lot of matters anyway). But a smart player can always game a DM here and have the character act properly when it doesn't matter - but come up with some "reason" to mask an improper choice based on meta-information. Okay, that's a problem across DnD anyway. So why make it a worse one? Why not let the DM roll these checks? That would take away the need to role play on a whole family of DCs and let the player, in theory, focus on being better on other things - or at least this is an argument in favor of DM rolling (if you hate this idea it's okay - not saying you're "bad" or have to change).

On this, I'd challenge with the idea that, most people are capable of some kind of self-evaluation.

Let's say you're a teenager who is trying to sneak down the hall to go out for the night without your parents knowing. You are probably pretty sensitive to every creak when you try to get down the stairs, or the sound of someone else's breathing or movement. So you are going to cringe reasonably hard when you hear that step go "CREEEAAK!" and probably recognize that you're not doing the best job in the world of being sneaky.

So, there's something to be said for the idea that a character has some concept of how well they're doing at a task they are deliberately attempting.

Passive checks, those are the ones where players don't roll at all, the DM checks their scores to determine how well they are doing, so we don't even have the problem of players knowing.


It gets particularly strained when a character tries to lie to or persuade an NPC and the player knows he/she has rolled a 2 or a 17 on a persuasion or performance check. When the NPC smiles and accepts (or seems to accept) the lie, the player knows (almost certainly) in the case of a 17 the lie was successful and in the case of a 2 the NPC is lying or gaming back. It becomes really hard to roleplay or be "good" with this kind of information - and - it removes the tension element and the surprise element when we later find out the truth (either the NPC had been duped or the NPC was duping back). Exceptions would be an NPC who is mind-reading, so the DC doesn't matter - but this is pretty rare - and exceptions are hard to factor, anyway - of course there are exceptions, but what to make of them? (edit - removing tension, suspense and surprise in this way hurts game enjoyment for me - and I think a lot of us - it makes the player way too "meta" in knowledge - it's like knowing what happens in a book or movie, sort of).

These are opposed checks, rolling very low has no actual bearing on if the NPC bought the lie or not. It's entirely possible that the NPC performed equally badly on the roll and had worse modifiers, thus accepting the lie. As with the reverse, the PC could have performed well on their check...but the NPC might have performed equally well with better modifiers/roll and thus the lie doesn't pass muster for the NPC.

You can certainly make assumptions, but there's no way to know if those assumptions are wrong. And, if the character wants to know if the NPC bought the lie, they'd be free to make a Wisdom (Insight) check to try and determine that, probably opposed by the NPC's Charisma (Deception)...if the NPC even cares enough to try and pass it off like they believed the lie.

Not seeing a problem here.


If I wasn't clear above, I'm not saying there is a choice between "fails due to player-seen DC" or "give clever players everything they want" - am not at all saying that. It may seem that way, but I'm actually trying to go beyond that. I think a clever DM can understand when players have invested heavily in a plan but either it's crap (and they don't see) or it is hinging on a few luck elements - is a ST made - do they persuade the butler - and so on. I'm saying there is a third option between "oh a 19, it works - stupid, I can't imagine why the butler would believe you - but it works - the dice have spoken" and "oh a 2, you fail - your story was really good but the butler noticed your shirt isn't tucked in and got suspicious" - and the middle ground between these two extremes is ... anything giving them a chance ... w/e a good DM can imagine - and could be as simple as (for example) the butler asking for more proof. And see what the heck they do. This way the DM is not just giving it to them, nor is he arbitrarily killing it due to random chance. Success would feel earned here, at least I'd think it would. It's a different approach and might be better for you. Think about it.

You should examine the Social Interactions passage in the DMG (Pgs 244-246). Also, there's a differentiation between levels of success as well as between how well a player roleplays a lie vs the character actually telling the lie. As you note, a failure by a small margin might lead to failing forward, where the NPC questions the lie for more detail, and the characters must explain any discrepency away.

I as a player might be extremely convincing, but if I roll very badly, then my character simply didn't carry through as well as I did.

Lastly, you as DM get to choose if a roll is even required, per the basic rule for ability checks. If you think the lie was entirely plausible such that there's no reason at all to question it, and thus no chance of failure....don't even have the characters roll. Just move on as if the NPC accepted the lie on its face as true.

[xanderh]

I completely disagree with the OP. I trust my players to behave themselves well, and they trust me to be fair. All PC actions are rolled by them in the open. All NPC actions that affect a PC are rolled in the open by me.
The only things that aren't rolled in the open are d4s when I'm not sure what PC an enemy would attack, and to make my players react to a die being rolled. In the latter case, the roll doesn't actually mean anything, but it's hilarious to see their reactions, especially when they accidentally look over and see a 19 or 20.

This is all because we're friends who trust each other to act in good faith. We used to play with someone we couldn't trust in this way, but we stopped inviting them. Our sessions improved in quality immediately afterwards.

As others have said, this sounds like a table culture problem, and those are easiest to solve by simply talking to your players.

[Beelzebubba]

It gets particularly strained when a character tries to lie to or persuade an NPC and the player knows he/she has rolled a 2 or a 17 on a persuasion or performance check. When the NPC smiles and accepts (or seems to accept) the lie, the player knows (almost certainly) in the case of a 17 the lie was successful and in the case of a 2 the NPC is lying or gaming back. It becomes really hard to roleplay or be "good" with this kind of information - and - it removes the tension element and the surprise element when we later find out the truth (either the NPC had been duped or the NPC was duping back). Exceptions would be an NPC who is mind-reading, so the DC doesn't matter - but this is pretty rare - and exceptions are hard to factor, anyway - of course there are exceptions, but what to make of them? (edit - removing tension, suspense and surprise in this way hurts game enjoyment for me - and I think a lot of us - it makes the player way too "meta" in knowledge - it's like knowing what happens in a book or movie, sort of).

I think this is mitigated a lot by adjusting DCs and circumstances as appropriate to the person they're dealing with.

For instance, a bored guard at the peripheral gate of a medium sized city? Low DCs mostly, since they're probably bored and their job is to be a bit more social than most since they deal with low threats. Probably put up with a lot of dumb RP with a grin, and easy to bribe.

The guard at the gate to the manor where a major diplomatic event is happening? Sky-high DCs. They're the best of the best, trained, suspicious, and will be on their guard for influence magic, and will brook no stupidity and absolutely will not allow anyone through unless they have the proper badge/pass/whatever, so some checks, no matter how they roll, won't work. A high roll might just get them a polite refusal and helpful directions to the place to please get the proper documentation, instead of being immediately sent away and given an escort to the security office if they equivocate.

There is no reason someone should automatically assume their best performance should succeed, they should just know they gave it their best shot. And your design of the NPCs will determine this.

And, if they blew it - they felt awkward when speaking - knowing it, and the suspense of not knowing *why* their bad showing worked can be really insidious if you play it up right. Give a wide, creepy smile, or a 'too nice' treatment. They'll be terrified if you do it right.