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Pex
2020-10-03, 03:44 PM
Another old school DMing technique - the DM rolling for the player.

The purpose of it is to avoid metagaming. PC searches for traps. The DM rolls for it so that when he says the PC doesn't find any traps the player doesn't know if it's because there really isn't a trap or there is a trap but the character missed it because of a low roll. A DM would roll a PC's saving throw behind the screen because the PC/Player doesn't know someone or something happened to cause the saving throw to be made. Another reason for this is to stop chain rolling. A player rolls low on investigating something, a knowledge check, or insight so another player rolls. The DM rolls instead so that an answer of nothing or don't know doesn't tell a player anything about the die roll.

This was way popular in my 2E days. I hated it but accepted it because that's how I thought it was supposed to be done for immersion. I did it myself as DM and stopped when a player finally objected. I needed someone else to agree with me it was bad. The player should always roll his own fate. Now in 5E Passive score use is fine. The bad guys can roll stealth against the PCs' Passive Perception. That I find fair. However, player should always roll their own skill use and saving throw. The DM is correct to enforce no chain rolling if it's a bother, but he should trust the players when they roll low for searching for traps they'll open the door/chest or walk down the hallway when they missed the trap. DMs just have to accept it the player knows he had to make a saving throw even if the PC doesn't know the source.

Khedrac
2020-10-03, 03:52 PM
I go for a much simpler solution: at the start of each session I get each player to roll 3 or 5 rolls, and I note down key skills and saves (so for D&D 3.5 I note down spot, listen, sense motive and their will save).
Then, as the play proceeds I just use the rolls in order if they are needed, if a player runs out I ask them to roll another set.

OldTrees1
2020-10-03, 04:20 PM
Recently I ran a session where the party was travelling overland through a meticulous web of illusions. The party was going to cover a lot of ground and I had no way of knowing how long their journey would be.

Party of 6 x Roughly 8 illusions per mile x N miles (ended up being 3 days of travel by horse) = Way too many checks. Okay, what about passive? Well the DCs are rather high and staggered (meticulous web). Using the passives would reduce it to just the specialized 2.5 character but their passives are below the highest DC. Oh, and what if I only use 1 check per PC per set of illusions?

I had the players do the rolls for the first hour. After that the challenge became overcoming the scenario rather than doing the checks, so I took over the rolls so the players could focus on how to overcome this obstacle with their ingenuity and resources. This also removed the distraction of "A 16 noticed 4 illusions here but a 22 back there noticed 6" and let the party focus on "How do we get to our destination when the land itself is enchanted".

I think it is one of those tools that can be quite useful but some (not all) players don't like it. Don't use it if a player objects, but if the players are fine with it, use it when it is the right tool for the job.

J-H
2020-10-03, 04:32 PM
I don't use passive Perception very often. They're adventurers in a dungeon, they're actively alert unless occupied with something like eating or memorizing spells. I use an Excel sheet with pre-rolled D20 values, 1 column per character, with the character names and modifiers noted at the top. I can usually glance at whichever line I'm on and go "Ok, anybody with a 12 or lower definitely didn't make the DC, what's the modifier on the higher rolls?"

Players appreciated it.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-10-03, 04:50 PM
I don't use passive Perception very often. They're adventurers in a dungeon, they're actively alert unless occupied with something like eating or memorizing spells. I use an Excel sheet with pre-rolled D20 values, 1 column per character, with the character names and modifiers noted at the top. I can usually glance at whichever line I'm on and go "Ok, anybody with a 12 or lower definitely didn't make the DC, what's the modifier on the higher rolls?"

Players appreciated it.

Passive doesn't mean that the characters are passive, just that the player doesn't roll. In the case of perception, it reflects the baseline that you see unless you're actively distracted.

Mastikator
2020-10-03, 06:13 PM
I go for a much simpler solution: at the start of each session I get each player to roll 3 or 5 rolls, and I note down key skills and saves (so for D&D 3.5 I note down spot, listen, sense motive and their will save).
Then, as the play proceeds I just use the rolls in order if they are needed, if a player runs out I ask them to roll another set.

I'm stealing this technique.

Elysiume
2020-10-03, 07:05 PM
As a player, I don't really see the point in pre-rolling some rolls for the DM to use for secret rolls. If you're doing a small set, it doesn't entirely remove the metagame aspect: if I roll 15, 18, 14, 19 as my set, I know I did pretty well until they ask me for more rolls. I still get to feel like they're "my" rolls, but I don't care about that all that much. If you're doing a big set — dozens or more — I don't understand how that's much different from them rolling on the spot. If I give my DM a list of a hundred actual rolls that they go through at their own pace, I wouldn't consider that meaningfully different from them just getting a fresh random roll. If I didn't trust my DM to do hidden checks fairly, I wouldn't be playing with them in the first place. Giving them a list of "my" rolls for them to run through gives me an illusion of control, but I wouldn't bother if I had the choice.

Composer99
2020-10-03, 08:07 PM
I'd rather the PCs either roll themselves or use passives/take 10, myself.

I mean, most of the time the thing isn't trapped, whatever it is, so it's not a big deal if they flub the roll

Pex
2020-10-03, 09:42 PM
I go for a much simpler solution: at the start of each session I get each player to roll 3 or 5 rolls, and I note down key skills and saves (so for D&D 3.5 I note down spot, listen, sense motive and their will save).
Then, as the play proceeds I just use the rolls in order if they are needed, if a player runs out I ask them to roll another set.

I've played with this before. Not a fan. The player physically rolls the dice, but it's still a secret result. The DM saying you fail the save at game play still feels like a lack of control despite having physically rolled a 2 an hour ago before the game session started. I want to roll the die at the moment it happens. This also won't work in 5E specifically because various class abilities can affect skill checks and saving throws such as Portent and Bardic Inspiration.

Satinavian
2020-10-04, 03:03 AM
The technique itself is fine and fullfills its purpose.

But imho it is rarely worth it and i don't really see it used. It is just too much extra hassle for the DM just to prevent a possible bit of extra metagaming.




And then many games have rule elements that make it impossible anyway. Things like rerolls or metacurrencies to influence outcomes do exist. Or abilities that actuivate on good or bad rolls. None of that works well when the GM rolls.

Pleh
2020-10-04, 05:02 AM
I don't think I would ever take away roll from my players.

Rolling their own dice they bought with their own money is a rather integral part of the experience for my group.

For specific cases where I want to avoid metagaming, I find the most success by dealing with the metagame in my DM prep. I'm treating the question as generally referring specifically to perception skills, but it should apply to most knowledge (thus meta knowledge) skills.


Can the party even afford to fail the check? Always make sure the game doesn't hinge on the success or failure of a skill check. At least know what happens in either outcome and make sure even the Failure State leads the players forward (if less optimally) so players aren't sticking around at a "locked door" rolling repeatedly to appease the RNG gods.

I am considering a skill check. What DC should it be?

Now compare this to my players' modifiers/passives. Does it fall off the spectrum, where none of the players can reach, or where no one can actually fail? If yes, either skip rolling entirely or reconsider what I am even bothering to include in my game or at least how it is presented.

Is the success of the check limited to the Specialized Perception Characters (SPC)? Do I want to hand this to the SPCs as a freebie, or will they still have to roll for it? If only the SPCs have a chance to find and they still have to roll, am I spending too much time prepping content the players are statistically unlikely to discover? I try to make sure this content has high value, but is not necessary for moving forward (high importance, low urgency). It shouldn't matter if they miss it, but they should feel proud of their characters for finding something especially useful to their party for their exceptional and timely perception. A hidden treasure chest inside an elaborate trap room (where the player goal is moving through the room to the dungeon beyond) is exactly this kind of content.

If the skill check is low enough for Non SPCs to reasonably make the check, will the SPCs still even need to roll, or are their Passives high enough? Does the party only need one person to Notice X, or do they gain more reward for the number of party members who make the check (such as in a monster ambush where players attempt to avoid surprise)? If only one PC needs to Notice X, will they be free to simply point it out to their party members?

Wheb prepping, I find a common DM impulse to gamify everything that *could* be described with a skill check as a check, both/either because we want to honor the rules, and/or because it isn't much of a game if everything hidden is trivial or impossible to find.

But I feel I run better games when I let this half baked flow chart help me verify that the skill check in question makes sense to run as an actual check.

When it turns out I shouldn't be making this content into a check, but want to preserve the game of rolling dice for the players, that's when I can start exploring how to change my plot to *make it* into a logical skill check. How can I make my trivial content nontrivial to find? How can I make the impossible content actually accessible? Is the entire idea just rubbish and should I move on or replace it with a better idea?

Quertus
2020-10-04, 06:33 AM
Such a deceptively big topic. Yet y'all have already covered most of the sub-topics. Kudos!

So, yes, there are times when there are just too may rolls. For example, I have written software to, for example, handle rolling mass hit locations for Battletech mechs with 40+ Machine Guns, or 10+ SRM launchers. I think one had the option to also roll "to hit" / number of missiles rolls, too. Or to handle masses of attacks from undead / summoned minions. Or even to handle initiative (for systems where it isn't a fun minigame, like it is in 2e D&D).

Metagaming? Honestly, that's arguably worse when the GM is just making the rolls - why is the GM rolling dice? OTOH, if an effect is supposed to be subtle (and, no, "make a reflex save vs death from the giant boulder rolling over you" is not something subtle that you have to worry about the player metagaming) and the players cannot roleplay not knowing about it, it's time to realize that the players and the adventure don't match, and pitch one of them.

Having a bunch of pre-rolled dice is... meh. As others have already covered.

Perhaps I should add, the GM choosing unilaterally to use a particular technique is the same hubris as the GM choosing to role for the players, or the GM choosing to Railroad their story. Have an honest, open conversation with the players about the various tools available for the job, and the problems that you would like to solve via those tools, and crowdsource to see what the players have to say about this.

Actually, don't. I'm going to roll your Wisdom checks for each of you to see which of you will enact which tactics at your tables, and Charisma checks for each of you to see how well it will go over. :smallwink:

King of Nowhere
2020-10-04, 08:52 AM
I go for a much simpler solution: at the start of each session I get each player to roll 3 or 5 rolls, and I note down key skills and saves (so for D&D 3.5 I note down spot, listen, sense motive and their will save).
Then, as the play proceeds I just use the rolls in order if they are needed, if a player runs out I ask them to roll another set.

as a player, i've done something similar occasionally. when i go scouting, i preroll some spot checks and tell the dm those are for the next times i will need them. so in case i miss i won't know i'm missing something.
then again, with a maxxed out spot check, i rarely failed anyway

PhoenixPhyre
2020-10-04, 01:53 PM
I don't think I would ever take away roll from my players.

Rolling their own dice they bought with their own money is a rather integral part of the experience for my group.

For specific cases where I want to avoid metagaming, I find the most success by dealing with the metagame in my DM prep. I'm treating the question as generally referring specifically to perception skills, but it should apply to most knowledge (thus meta knowledge) skills.



Wheb prepping, I find a common DM impulse to gamify everything that *could* be described with a skill check as a check, both/either because we want to honor the rules, and/or because it isn't much of a game if everything hidden is trivial or impossible to find.

But I feel I run better games when I let this half baked flow chart help me verify that the skill check in question makes sense to run as an actual check.

When it turns out I shouldn't be making this content into a check, but want to preserve the game of rolling dice for the players, that's when I can start exploring how to change my plot to *make it* into a logical skill check. How can I make my trivial content nontrivial to find? How can I make the impossible content actually accessible? Is the entire idea just rubbish and should I move on or replace it with a better idea?

I like this thought process immensely. I've done similar things and it's always worked well.

Duff
2020-10-04, 07:25 PM
Another way to reduce metagaming is to roll when the result becomes apparent, not when it's triggered.
For example:
The party turns a corner and finds a 60' long corridor...

GM "How do you want to deal with this?"
The party describe how they deal with it - Send the rogue right to the end first checking for traps while being as sneaky as possible. The others will wait at the end, ready to rush in if the rogue is attacked.

"GM - "Roll stealth and detect traps"
Rogue - "16 on stealth, 8 to find traps"
GM - "As you get to the end of the corridor you start to feel woozy. You suspect gas may have been flowing into the corridor for a minute or 2. Make a fortitude save"

MrStabby
2020-10-04, 08:01 PM
Another way to reduce metagaming is to roll when the result becomes apparent, not when it's triggered.
For example:
The party turns a corner and finds a 60' long corridor...

GM "How do you want to deal with this?"
The party describe how they deal with it - Send the rogue right to the end first checking for traps while being as sneaky as possible. The others will wait at the end, ready to rush in if the rogue is attacked.

"GM - "Roll stealth and detect traps"
Rogue - "16 on stealth, 8 to find traps"
GM - "As you get to the end of the corridor you start to feel woozy. You suspect gas may have been flowing into the corridor for a minute or 2. Make a fortitude save"

I use this one quite a bit. You say you are being stealthy, you roll when you meet someone to determine if they are prepared. You craft a potion - roll the alchemy check when you drink it...



Generally I have resigned myself to not being a perfect DM. I have limited attention, limited prep time and all this is a budget I have to spend at the table. It is easier for me to just get players to roll and to describe whatis happening than to manage it all myself. I would rather spend my attention thinking about the impact of their actions and how to convey it in the adventure than handle some of this.

I think it is part of a wider problem though; there are a lot of things to metagame this way. If I have an enemy in 5th edition deal 14 points of psychic damage players will sart thinking it is an illusion - because I declared is psychic. Now i it is described as fire damage and they see me roll 14 but they are resistant to fire damage... then they are able to make some additional inferences from how you played the game mechanics. I tend to just suck it up. Its fine.

Its usually easier and better to let the players do stuff. Not perfect for giving out the right amount of information, but good enough. I also subscribe to the belief that winning is not valuable without the risk of losing. Survival is meaningless without the prospect of death. Open rolling from everyone is a signal that you won't fudge any die roll; it adds to the tension.

Indeed a bit of metagaming can be fun. If players think there is something they don't know, then it can be an OK way to raise the tension, if used sparingly.

Luccan
2020-10-04, 08:14 PM
I think it's very rarely going to ruin anything if the PC knows they need to roll. Moreover, I'm fairly certain there are scenarios in 5e where they have to know in order to properly make use of their abilities.

That said, I have heard that for PbP DM rolling is generally faster. Of course, you can do this in such a way that rolls are made public, so players can provide the input they need to on their rolls. Additionally, this is done for the sake of expediency, whereas DMs rolling for PCs at the table seems to largely be about hiding the results from players or not trusting them to report honestly. Though it's possible it would speed the game up a little for DMs to roll all the dice at the table, I'm willing to bet the same would be true if PCs rolled all the dice and doubtful as many DMs would agree to that as they would to DM-rolling. Or at the very least that the crossover would have notable decline.

Quertus
2020-10-04, 08:29 PM
I think it's very rarely going to ruin anything if the PC knows they need to roll. Moreover, I'm fairly certain there are scenarios in 5e where they have to know in order to properly make use of their abilities.

That said, I have heard that for PbP DM rolling is generally faster. Of course, you can do this in such a way that rolls are made public, so players can provide the input they need to on their rolls. Additionally, this is done for the sake of expediency, whereas DMs rolling for PCs at the table seems to largely be about hiding the results from players or not trusting them to report honestly. Though it's possible it would speed the game up a little for DMs to roll all the dice at the table, I'm willing to bet the same would be true if PCs rolled all the dice and doubtful as many DMs would agree to that as they would to DM-rolling. Or at the very least that the crossover would have notable decline.

Lol. I've done the "the players make all rolls" thing. I've handed people the stats of monsters (or artillery, or...), and just let the players roll against themselves. Made the game a lot faster than waiting for 1 GM to roll the dice for *all* the monsters (or artillery, or...). It works great.

MoiMagnus
2020-10-05, 03:01 AM
Another way to reduce metagaming is to roll when the result becomes apparent, not when it's triggered.

This tip can be applied to a lot of unrelated situations.

Did you take the appropriate tools for the job? Roll to know if your character though about taking those before going adventuring.
[If you start using this method frequently, you might need to create a new skill for that.]

Democratus
2020-10-05, 10:26 AM
When playing online (Roll20, for example) you can get the best of both worlds.

Set up a macro for skill checks where the player rolls, but the roll is sent to the GM only (even the player doesn't see the result).

That way the player is rolling the dice and the GM is telling them what the result is without metagame interference.

Note: I've also done this in real-life games with a dice tower the players can drop dice in - but the tray for the tower is behind my GM screen. :smallcool:

Jason
2020-10-05, 11:14 AM
Use the passive perception rules, unless the players get suspicious and ask to actively search for traps/secret doors. If you players have spent the resources on getting a high enough passive perception score to spot all of your traps and secret doors then they should benefit from it.

If it's a case of spotting illusions then yes, the DM should make the rolls for them so that they don't know what was being rolled for or if they succeeded. You could do the "give me a bunch of rolls before play" method, but I prefer occasionally rolling dice for no real reason just to keep the players on their toes anyway, so I usually roll those myself.

Pex
2020-10-05, 12:31 PM
When playing online (Roll20, for example) you can get the best of both worlds.

Set up a macro for skill checks where the player rolls, but the roll is sent to the GM only (even the player doesn't see the result).

That way the player is rolling the dice and the GM is telling them what the result is without metagame interference.

Note: I've also done this in real-life games with a dice tower the players can drop dice in - but the tray for the tower is behind my GM screen. :smallcool:

It's not about only who rolls the physical die. It's about the player knowing his own roll. I want to know I rolled a Natural 2 for whatever it is I need to roll. In the specific case of searching for traps let me play it out I don't think there's a trap whether one is really there or not.

RedMage125
2020-10-05, 12:54 PM
I used to let them make all their own rolls. Then I experienced a player rolled really low for a Search for Traps roll, and everyone behaved like it was still trapped, instead of behaving like the search proved there were no traps (it WAS trapped, but that's neither here nor there).

From then on, and I make this clear to my players before beginning of my games, I make that roll for players, asking for their modifier, and just tell them "it is trapped" or "you find no traps". I will make a roll behind the screen, whether there is a trap or not.

On that note, I do something similar for Sense Motive/Insight. I will only use Passive Insight if the NPC rolls REALLY poorly for Bluff/Deception, or, for story purposes, is a very bad liar. Other than that, players have to ASK to make an Insight/Sense Motive check. But here's the fun part: I will roll a Bluff/Deception check behind the screen whenever a player asks for such, even if the NPC isn't lying. And my house rule is this: Any character who BELIEVES that what they are saying is true gets a +30 circumstance bonus to said Bluff check. So they ask for Insight, I roll Deception, and my usual response is "you trust him implicitly", or something. The best part is, there was an Adventure Path I was running once, and at high levels, there was this NPC that was helping the players to serve her own agenda. She appeared to be an elven sorceress, but was actually an evil, vampiric silver dragon. Players were very high level, and somethign she said made one player suspicious and he made a Sense Motive check, with a result in the 40s or 50s...really high roll. Said NPC had a REALLY high Bluff modifier, and just barely beat the player (by like 4 points). Given my usual responses on Bluff/SenseMotive checks in the past when said NPC was telling the truth, my players suspected nothing and were thus genuinely surprised when this NPC betrayed them. Worked great.

Darth Credence
2020-10-05, 02:02 PM
Use the passive perception rules, unless the players get suspicious and ask to actively search for traps/secret doors. If you players have spent the resources on getting a high enough passive perception score to spot all of your traps and secret doors then they should benefit from it.

If it's a case of spotting illusions then yes, the DM should make the rolls for them so that they don't know what was being rolled for or if they succeeded. You could do the "give me a bunch of rolls before play" method, but I prefer occasionally rolling dice for no real reason just to keep the players on their toes anyway, so I usually roll those myself.
I pretty much constantly roll dice. Giving descriptions, drop some dice in the tower. Listening to player plans, drop some dice in the tower. Get a slice of pizza, drop some dice in the tower. They will never be able to figure out if me dropping dice in the tower has meaning.

gijoemike
2020-10-05, 02:18 PM
The GM Should NEVER roll for the players. There are feats, powers, spells in various systems that allow for manipulation of rolls after the result. Most commonly is the choice to reroll before the result is revealed. If a perception/spot roll is called for and a 2 gets rolled the player has the power to use a ability at that point. perhaps a +5 once a day power or a reroll accept the second result.

Secondly, If the player rolls a 14 and fails a skill check for the ninth time it indicates to the player that the GM sets DC quite high and that to keep up they need to max out rolls they wish to be good at which means fewer skills per PC. Open rolls show the power levels and expectations of all players in the game and ensure they are on the same page.

What about spells that specifically call for the GM to roll, e.g. Augury and Divination? There are fewer powers that affect those rolls but they still exist. Therefore the player gets to make the call for up or down. They need to have a base line otherwise it is blind coin flips. The ebb and flow of luck should lean in the heroes favor. Its one of the things that make them a BDH.

I had a GM for a very short time that would do all search/spot/perception/sense motive/attack rolls/climb/jump/bluff rolls for the PC. It got real old fast. Players want the dice to clatter on the table and see results, good or bad.

Democratus
2020-10-05, 04:11 PM
The GM Should NEVER roll for the players. There are feats, powers, spells in various systems that allow for manipulation of rolls after the result. Most commonly is the choice to reroll before the result is revealed. If a perception/spot roll is called for and a 2 gets rolled the player has the power to use a ability at that point. perhaps a +5 once a day power or a reroll accept the second result.

This isn't a D&D 5e sub-forum. So much of that only applies to that particular edition of that particular game.

In OSR games, DM rolls for the characters aren't unusual at all. Many of the original DMs did a great deal of this, and the players still managed to have enough fun that it launched an entire industry. :smallsmile:

Duff
2020-10-05, 04:43 PM
It's not about only who rolls the physical die. It's about the player knowing his own roll. I want to know I rolled a Natural 2 for whatever it is I need to roll. In the specific case of searching for traps let me play it out I don't think there's a trap whether one is really there or not.

You get to play out not having not found a trap every time the GM doesn't say you found a trap

Pelle
2020-10-06, 02:30 AM
In OSR games, DM rolls for the characters aren't unusual at all. Many of the original DMs did a great deal of this, and the players still managed to have enough fun that it launched an entire industry. :smallsmile:

I prefer the OSR approach of just ditching perception skills altogether, and just giving the players information and clues directly, and let it be up to their skill to determine what they do with it and if they act upon it. For a 5e type game, I find it ok to use a hybrid approach of letting the perception type character skills determine how good clues the players get.

In games like Call of Cthulhu, however, it can be fun that the players roll and can fail to percieve something. The fact that the players do get the metegame information that something bad is up, and their characters don't know it, adds to the suspense and can improve the game.

Democratus
2020-10-06, 08:12 AM
In games like Call of Cthulhu, however, it can be fun that the players roll and can fail to percieve something. The fact that the players do get the metegame information that something bad is up, and their characters don't know it, adds to the suspense and can improve the game.

Absolutely. The style of the game being run has a huge impact on the metagame.

Cthulhu is particularly interesting in that it purposefully leverages dual role of player of the player: participant (running a character) and audience (being outside the story for the sake of suspense and irony).

It also helps that your ultimate horrible fate (death or insanity) is a buy-in from the moment you roll up a character. :smallbiggrin:

Xervous
2020-10-06, 08:21 AM
On roll20 I have macros for secret whole party perception rolls. The intent is not to conceal the result of the roll so much as to conceal the event itself. I use calls for perception checks as a way of grabbing or directing attention, often when players get to durdling in a dungeon and the pace needs to be picked back up. If, pass or fail, something is happening RIGHT NOW that roll is in the open. Otherwise no need to disrupt flow for a non event.

Jason
2020-10-06, 10:16 AM
The Angry GM did a piece on the Insight skill in D&D and had quite a bit to say on the virtues of the Passive Perception mechanic. I think it's worth a read: theangrygm.com/insight-into-insight
The article on social interaction that spawned this article is a good one too.

Democratus
2020-10-06, 10:32 AM
I like a lot of the advice on Angry GM.

In particular, his articles on using 4th edition monsters to create inventive 5th edition foes is fantastic.

Looking forward to reading the article you linked. Thanks!

Quertus
2020-10-06, 01:37 PM
The Angry GM did a piece on the Insight skill in D&D and had quite a bit to sayn on the virtues of the Passive Perception mechanic. I think it's worth a read: theangrygm.com/insight-into-insight
The article on social interaction that spawned this article is a good one too.

Wow.

You know, usually, I look at the things Angry writes, and conclude two things: Angry is the absolute *best* at asking the right questions, and *horrible* at answering them. He has amazing, unparalleled insight into the questions to ask… and then always gives the wrong answer.

For once, reading through one of his articles, I am left perplexed, because my passive perception didn't flag anything as wrong. I may need to read more carefully, but there was nothing in his analysis that I strongly disagree with.

More on topic, I think that utilizing passive perception can be fine… but it doesn't model reality, or all of the stories that I want to tell. But I agree with Angry that it solves a lot of other problems, and that those are problems that ought to be solved.

Darth Credence
2020-10-06, 01:41 PM
Never heard of, let alone read, anything by the Angry GM before. After reading that, I will do my best to forget I have now heard of him. That was nothing more than an example of covering up an inability to write coherently with "shocking" language and insult comedy. Why anyone would attempt to wade through that mess is beyond me.

Jason
2020-10-06, 01:56 PM
More on topic, I think that utilizing passive perception can be fine… but it doesn't model reality, or all of the stories that I want to tell. But I agree with Angry that it solves a lot of other problems, and that those are problems that ought to be solved.
How does it not model reality?

He's not saying "don't let your players ever make active Perception checks if they suspect something is present". He's saying "give them the clues they notice through passive perception and then let them decide where to look or what to do next."

Edit:

Never heard of, let alone read, anything by the Angry GM before. After reading that, I will do my best to forget I have now heard of him. That was nothing more than an example of covering up an inability to write coherently with "shocking" language and insult comedy. Why anyone would attempt to wade through that mess is beyond me.
Because behind the shtick is usually some very good advice. This is one of his "angrier" pieces. In fact he's taking a break right now because people said he was laying it on a little too thick in this specific article. I find the shtick a little off-putting too.

False God
2020-10-06, 02:25 PM
I think as long as there is trust between the DM and players, this is a fine approach. I also find it works better for more narrative play, and helps eliminate "rolling for everything" approaches in favor of "rolling when necessary", which makes the rolls themselves more valuable and success, failure or "other" more meaningful. It is also an effective play method in simpler systems (I'd argue 5E is even too complex).

Personally, I am still of the 4E mindset that aggressors should roll attacks, and defenders should have static defenses. "Random defense" for saves makes no sense to me in a system with fixed armor class that represents a combination of reflexes, physical and supernatural defenses.

Alternatively, I quite enjoy opposed rolls in dice-pool-based systems far more than rolled attacks vs. static defenses. But I find that pool-systems result in much more reasonable levels of success and failure, while a single d20 with modifiers and a simple pass/fail system often trends towards extremes.

And I find Angry's articles insufferable.

Quertus
2020-10-06, 02:40 PM
Never heard of, let alone read, anything by the Angry GM before. After reading that, I will do my best to forget I have now heard of him. That was nothing more than an example of covering up an inability to write coherently with "shocking" language and insult comedy. Why anyone would attempt to wade through that mess is beyond me.

I'll not deny that his writing style is… not for everyone. But his *content* is good. No, not just good - I have never met his equal at *asking* questions, at understanding how to break down RPGs. And I've rarely meet anyone as bad as Angry at answering those same questions. So, win some, lose some.


How does it not model reality?

He's not saying "don't let your players ever make active Perception checks if they suspect something is present". He's saying "give them the clues they notice through passive perception and then let them decide where to look or what to do next."

Happily (despite reading comprehension not being my strong suit), I got what he was saying. And I still don't disagree with it, per se (although, now that I've read it, I do disagree with a few things from the spawning article).

No, my issue is that "passive perception" does not model (my experiences with) passive perception in this world.

Were I to attempt to model reality into 3e, "passive perception" would be a die roll; active perception would be "take 20". Maybe.

That is, if you have 5 equally hidden things *that no-one is looking for*, hidden well enough that, say, in a class of 20-30, it would be really odd for anyone to spot more than one, they are not all going to spot *the same one*.

That probably didn't make enough sense. Let me try again.

We're I too misspell 5 works were autocorrect to fail me 5 times, and everyone noticed the same misspelling / error, that pretty solidly indicates that it has the lowest DC. However, IME, there have been *many* casual observations where the single thing noticed, or the set of things noticed, did not match up with the "lowest DC gets spotted" theory of casual perception. And it's much more telling for those who only spot a single thing, because presumably they might be using active perception after that.

Or, at least, that's my take on it.

But, if you ignore that, then, yeah, Angry's advice is uncharacteristically spot-on!

Jason
2020-10-06, 02:50 PM
Were I to attempt to model reality into 3e, "passive perception" would be a die roll; active perception would be "take 20". Maybe.

That is, if you have 5 equally hidden things *that no-one is looking for*, hidden well enough that, say, in a class of 20-30, it would be really odd for anyone to spot more than one, they are not all going to spot *the same one*.

That probably didn't make enough sense. Let me try again.

We're I too misspell 5 works were autocorrect to fail me 5 times, and everyone noticed the same misspelling / error, that pretty solidly indicates that it has the lowest DC. However, IME, there have been *many* casual observations where the single thing noticed, or the set of things noticed, did not match up with the "lowest DC gets spotted" theory of casual perception. And it's much more telling for those who only spot a single thing, because presumably they might be using active perception after that.

Or, at least, that's my take on it.
Hmm. I'm not sure I understand you. Are you saying that in a room with 5 hidden objects, someone who has a high passive perception check shouldn't spot all of the hidden objects, despite having a passive perception score high enough to beat the DC of all 5 hidden objects in the room?

Democratus
2020-10-06, 03:14 PM
Hmm. I'm not sure I understand you. Are you saying that in a room with 5 hidden objects, someone who has a high passive perception check shouldn't spot all of the hidden objects, despite having a passive perception score high enough to beat the DC of all 5 hidden objects in the room?

Seems a better approach is to give them clues that there are multiple hidden objects in the room. Then let them investigate further to get to all of them.

It's more engaging than "score high enough...all things found" and allows the party to interact with the environment. A win-win.

Quertus
2020-10-06, 04:26 PM
Hmm. I'm not sure I understand you. Are you saying that in a room with 5 hidden objects, someone who has a high passive perception check shouldn't spot all of the hidden objects, despite having a passive perception score high enough to beat the DC of all 5 hidden objects in the room?

Something like that, yes.

Have your "passive" skills never had you miss really obvious typos / stains / jokes / whatever? It just feels really odd, the kids (and adults!) who will go to work/school and not notice obvious things, like that their clothes are inside out, or the obvious mistakes in their work, that it makes it difficult to believe in passive perception as "taking a 10".

It also doesn't model those rare times when particularly skilled people lose out on happening to notice something (when none of them were actively looking).

Surely you've seen things that at least *looked like* what I'm describing.

Now, one might well say that I'm wrong, and explain those outcomes via different underlying mechanics. OK, but would we model those mechanics in such an RPG?

Still, as I said, if, unlike me, you are happy with passive skills (passive skill checks? Passive skill use? Whatever), then Angry's article is spot-on. I happen to like to play "stories" where, in 3e parlance, the less skilled characters can *sometimes* win… until the more skilled character just becomes *that good*. That transition itself is important, IMO.


Seems a better approach is to give them clues that there are multiple hidden objects in the room. Then let them investigate further to get to all of them.

It's more engaging than "score high enough...all things found" and allows the party to interact with the environment. A win-win.

Given that I was taking simulation… unless you hear voices giving you clues as to how many things to look for… :smalleek:

Jason
2020-10-06, 05:25 PM
Have your "passive" skills never had you miss really obvious typos / stains / jokes / whatever? It just feels really odd, the kids (and adults!) who will go to work/school and not notice obvious things, like that their clothes are inside out, or the obvious mistakes in their work, that it makes it difficult to believe in passive perception as "taking a 10".

It also doesn't model those rare times when particularly skilled people lose out on happening to notice something (when none of them were actively looking).

Surely you've seen things that at least *looked like* what I'm describing.

Okay, I, think I got it now. You're basically saying "I find it more realistic to always have a chance of doing really badly on a spot check and miss something that should have been obvious." And yeah, that happens in real life sometimes.

My first thought is "okay, that's reasonably realistic, but is this sort of thing something that should be modelled in a heroic fantasy game?" I'm not sure I want to have to one day tell a player "I'm sorry you died in the obvious DC5 pit trap the goblins set, but you rolled a nat 1 on your Spot check."

My second thought is "this sort of thing can probably still be modelled using Angry's approach." The approach is to give clues for passive checks and then let the players draw conclusions as to what the clues mean. If they draw the wrong conclusion then they will have sometimes missed the obvious, and the players will have no one to blame but themselves.

Plus there is still room for whiffing or rolling really well on follow-up search checks once you have the initial "passive" clues.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-10-06, 08:09 PM
Okay, I, think I got it now. You're basically saying "I find it more realistic to always have a chance of doing really badly on a spot check and miss something that should have been obvious." And yeah, that happens in real life sometimes.

My first thought is "okay, that's reasonably realistic, but is this sort of thing something that should be modelled in a heroic fantasy game?" I'm not sure I want to have to one day tell a player "I'm sorry you died in the obvious DC5 pit trap the goblins set, but you rolled a nat 1 on your Spot check."

My second thought is "this sort of thing can probably still be modelled using Angry's approach." The approach is to give clues for passive checks and then let the players draw conclusions as to what the clues mean. If they draw the wrong conclusion then they will have sometimes missed the obvious, and the players will have no one to blame but themselves.

Plus there is still room for whiffing or rolling really well on follow-up search checks once you have the initial "passive" clues.

In 5e (specifically), a high passive Perception (PP) doesn't give you everything all by itself.

Instead, PP > DC means that you notice that something is out of place or unusual. So someone with high PP will have a lot of mental "that's odd" pings and get a lot of "hints" from the DM. But won't necessarily know all the significance of those pings/hints.

Significance is modeled by an Intelligence (Investigation) check (for generic cases). This can be passive as well if it fits the normal criteria for passivity.

So with a trap, the flow goes like
* PP < DC, no active check => trap triggers, you missed it entirely.
* PP > DC or active Wisdom (Perception) > DC => you notice something (e.g. "One of the flagstones has a slightly larger gap between it and the others than the rest.")

If you noticed something, you can investigate further or trust in your passive Intelligence (Investigation). If that beats the DC or you investigate in the right area (which usually provides automatic success), you may learn that the flagstone is slightly higher and seems to give very slightly under your weight and discover the concealed slots in the wall for blades to come out. It's a blade trap!"

Generally, high PP means a higher floor for not missing hints. But it doesn't give the whole game away, unless the "traps" (speaking generically) weren't really important to begin with. Things that are trivial to deal with as soon as they're noticed are pretty pointless IMO unless there are circumstances that mean that the party can't take time or attention to focus or where it's a one-and-done (no re-attempts, one failure = bad things) check.

The only case where high PP is enough alone to give a large advantage is with hidden creatures (ie ambushes), where having PP > min(Dexterity (Stealth)) is enough to prevent being surprised. But each individual has to make that check individually--the perceptive cleric can't help the bumbling wizard.

IMO, DMs should err on the side of giving the party more information than less information, but designing scenarios where even perfect information isn't enough to resolve the situation (because then there's no agency, the "right answer" is pre-determined).

Quertus
2020-10-07, 01:18 AM
The whole "hints" thing is where I start actively disagreeing with Angry. Somewhat.

So, I can accept passive perception in a game. But, much like I need *many* GMs to actually properly run a character¹, so too would "passive perception" make the experience feel incomplete.

But just hints? I can get where Angry is coming from on this one - I honestly 100% can, as I've both seen it and done it - but, at the same time, it's a disastrous strategy when one or more of "the GM doesn't have the skills to pull it off", "the players have insufficient ranks in 'Knowledge: GM' to have a clue what's going on", "the players and GM are operating at (vastly) different levels of skill in the subject matter".

Now, some of that can be remedied somewhat by *training* the players, by making all such comments initially… not "TPK-inducing", and explaining when they fail how those hints work.

Where you run into real problems is when the logic of the hints is lost on the player(s) - or, worse, the (il)logic of the hints has no connection to anything but the GM's insanity-indicted misunderstandings of how the real world operates.

Possibly worse worse, when the GM just whole cloth makes up fantasy physics that obviously inherently have no connection to how the real world operates, then operates solely on these hints ("you feel a tingle", "you taste purple", "their aura is mauve", etc).

IME, most GMs trying to describe the real world fail as badly as those who expect "your fingernails begin to vibrate" to work as a warning that you have been poisoned by a supernatural toxin. IME, most GMs who rely exclusively on hints need to be hit with a (verbal) clue-by-four repeatedly until they operate at a different level of abstraction in communicating what the PCs know, because their "hints" are so disconnected from reality as to be actively detrimental.

Or, as a shopkeep once asked, "what do you know about a customer when they ask, 'how much does this cost?'?"? (I was the only one at the table to answer correctly)

I disagree that you have to play as yourself. I think you can explicitly tell a player with sufficient knowledge skills, "the giant animated fire appears to a fire elemental; if it is, you know that such creatures live on the elemental plane of fire, and cannot be harmed by fire".

I think that that's better than, "you hear a crackle from the glowing red monster as it approaches you" in many ways.

¹ to run them under "a GM who does conversation well", and "a GM who does traps well", and "a GM who does feels well", and "a GM who does '5d chess' well", and… only much finer granularity than that.

Pleh
2020-10-07, 05:42 AM
Okay, I, think I got it now. You're basically saying "I find it more realistic to always have a chance of doing really badly on a spot check and miss something that should have been obvious." And yeah, that happens in real life sometimes.

My first thought is "okay, that's reasonably realistic, but is this sort of thing something that should be modelled in a heroic fantasy game?" I'm not sure I want to have to one day tell a player "I'm sorry you died in the obvious DC5 pit trap the goblins set, but you rolled a nat 1 on your Spot check."

My second thought is "this sort of thing can probably still be modelled using Angry's approach." The approach is to give clues for passive checks and then let the players draw conclusions as to what the clues mean. If they draw the wrong conclusion then they will have sometimes missed the obvious, and the players will have no one to blame but themselves.

Plus there is still room for whiffing or rolling really well on follow-up search checks once you have the initial "passive" clues.


The whole "hints" thing is where I start actively disagreeing with Angry. Somewhat.

So, I can accept passive perception in a game. But, much like I need *many* GMs to actually properly run a character¹, so too would "passive perception" make the experience feel incomplete.

But just hints? I can get where Angry is coming from on this one - I honestly 100% can, as I've both seen it and done it - but, at the same time, it's a disastrous strategy when one or more of "the GM doesn't have the skills to pull it off", "the players have insufficient ranks in 'Knowledge: GM' to have a clue what's going on", "the players and GM are operating at (vastly) different levels of skill in the subject matter".

Now, some of that can be remedied somewhat by *training* the players, by making all such comments initially… not "TPK-inducing", and explaining when they fail how those hints work.

Where you run into real problems is when the logic of the hints is lost on the player(s) - or, worse, the (il)logic of the hints has no connection to anything but the GM's insanity-indicted misunderstandings of how the real world operates.

Possibly worse worse, when the GM just whole cloth makes up fantasy physics that obviously inherently have no connection to how the real world operates, then operates solely on these hints ("you feel a tingle", "you taste purple", "their aura is mauve", etc).

IME, most GMs trying to describe the real world fail as badly as those who expect "your fingernails begin to vibrate" to work as a warning that you have been poisoned by a supernatural toxin. IME, most GMs who rely exclusively on hints need to be hit with a (verbal) clue-by-four repeatedly until they operate at a different level of abstraction in communicating what the PCs know, because their "hints" are so disconnected from reality as to be actively detrimental.

Or, as a shopkeep once asked, "what do you know about a customer when they ask, 'how much does this cost?'?"? (I was the only one at the table to answer correctly)

I disagree that you have to play as yourself. I think you can explicitly tell a player with sufficient knowledge skills, "the giant animated fire appears to a fire elemental; if it is, you know that such creatures live on the elemental plane of fire, and cannot be harmed by fire".

I think that that's better than, "you hear a crackle from the glowing red monster as it approaches you" in many ways.

¹ to run them under "a GM who does conversation well", and "a GM who does traps well", and "a GM who does feels well", and "a GM who does '5d chess' well", and… only much finer granularity than that.

I agree with Jason here when questioning how much realism is good or worthwhile to pursue. It goes along with what Angry was saying about how realism is actually terrible game design.

In fantasy games, we want the calculated imbalance of versimilitude, not actually balanced simulationism of realism.

I think I mildly disagree with Angry about Passive scores being equivalent to Taking 10. Mechanically, the structure is similar, but I think it's worth noting the Taking 10 rules implied it was a one and done Action that you took. Part of the genius of Passive scores is it expands Taking 10 into a more or less continuous state (again, limited by when you are not distracted or threatened, which preoccupies your senses).

Quertus, sure people aren't always good at giving or taking hints, but I would argue that's not a problem with playing this way.

"You could train your players." Well, yes, but actually no. Players are training themselves all the time. Everything we do, we learn more about that activity. Players will fail to take hints and GMs will fail to give them and by and large, that's just an effect of choosing to play a game with people. Bad pitches will be thrown and bad swings will miss even good pitches.

It seems to me like you are insisting the game be played at a certain skill level to be fun, but that's not true. The learning curve is only a problem when participants get stuck and stop making forward progress, developing cognitive defenses for their counter productive gaming habits.

A good GM knows how to read their players' proficiency and use their hints to teach the game as they go, gradually increasing complexity as the players get familiar with making investigative questions.

A good player can "lead" a rookie GM by demomstrating good investigation and prompting them with creative questions.

Jason
2020-10-07, 07:59 AM
So, I can accept passive perception in a game. But, much like I need *many* GMs to actually properly run a character¹, so too would "passive perception" make the experience feel incomplete. Are you talking about all the hats you as a GM have to wear to run a game, or actually running with multiple GMs?


Where you run into real problems is when the logic of the hints is lost on the player(s) - or, worse, the (il)logic of the hints has no connection to anything but the GM's insanity-indicted misunderstandings of how the real world operates.
I would call that "bad GM skills". The GM is the source of all of the players' perceptions of the world through the descriptions he or she creates. If he or she can't describe it in a way that makes sense to the players then either learn to do that or it's time to pick a new GM. If all of the players are constantly baffled by "hints" like "vibrating fingernails" or "tasting purple" then the problem isn't on their side of the table.


I disagree that you have to play as yourself. I think you can explicitly tell a player with sufficient knowledge skills, "the giant animated fire appears to a fire elemental; if it is, you know that such creatures live on the elemental plane of fire, and cannot be harmed by fire". I don't think anyone said "you are playing as yourself." In fact, in this article Angry mentioned recognizing deadly nightshade instantly as a passive use of knowledge skills. So he might very well tell someone with the appropriate knowledge "that looks like a fire elemental. You know those are made of fire, and so won't be hurt by it."

There's another article where Angry points out that it's ridiculous to have long time players playing new characters pretend that they don't know what prevents a troll from regenerating until they make a die roll. If all the players already know that you need silver to fight lycanthrops then just let that be common adventurer knowledge, rather than letting a die roll dictate how they act.

gijoemike
2020-10-07, 11:44 AM
This isn't a D&D 5e sub-forum. So much of that only applies to that particular edition of that particular game.

In OSR games, DM rolls for the characters aren't unusual at all. Many of the original DMs did a great deal of this, and the players still managed to have enough fun that it launched an entire industry. :smallsmile:

I was referring to the reroll line of feats in 3.X & pathfinder, spycraft 1&2, powers/spells in D20 Modern, Destiny powers in 4th ed, and as you have pointed out the reroll powers in 5th, remember you can force rerolls in hackmaster but that is after the result of the roll in most cases (mostly used to avoid crits). In more recent eds of call of cathulu dice rerolls are part of the game when hunting for successes. Whitewolf <Storytelling> has several powers and cases were rerolls on failures can happen. An additional note, the action dice in Spycraft would allow for adding an exploding die to any d20 roll and the pointman could add his dice to your roll. So all d20 player rolls had to be made in the open.

So, that is a selection of games both d20 and not over the last 20 years. Stating that so much only applies to that particular edition of that particular game is completely not understanding the point.

Democratus
2020-10-08, 07:49 AM
So, that is a selection of games both d20 and not over the last 20 years. Stating that so much only applies to that particular edition of that particular game is completely not understanding the point.

Indeed. And in each case, the mechanic and situation for rerolling applies to that specific edition of that specific game.

As was my point, games with re-rolls are a small subset of all Roleplaying Games.

Even in games with re-rolls after the fact, it's not necessary for the player to see the roll. I've played every game with reroll mechanics you mentioned below (plus others like Periphery, Ragnarok, Nephilim...) and never had issues with hidden rolls.

Xervous
2020-10-08, 08:06 AM
Indeed. And in each case, the mechanic and situation for rerolling applies to that specific edition of that specific game.

As was my point, games with re-rolls are a small subset of all Roleplaying Games.

Even in games with re-rolls after the fact, it's not necessary for the player to see the roll. I've played every game with reroll mechanics you mentioned below (plus others like Periphery, Ragnarok, Nephilim...) and never had issues with hidden rolls.

All rerolls my players have chosen to take were either heat of the moment do or die, or really important flavor scenes they wanted to drive home to align with their character concept. If I was to be rolling life or death behind the scenes and only narrating noteworthy results it wouldn’t appear much different from rocks falling. The other category is exclusively player opted actions.

D+1
2020-10-08, 10:50 AM
Another old school DMing technique - the DM rolling for the player.:smallsmile: Old school is not having to roll any dice in the first place because verbal interaction between the player and DM probably resolved everything needing to be resolved.


The purpose of it is to avoid metagaming. PC searches for traps. The DM rolls for it so that when he says the PC doesn't find any traps the player doesn't know if it's because there really isn't a trap or there is a trap but the character missed it because of a low roll.This, for example, would instead be something like: ALL the PC's search for traps (because looking for traps is something all characters can do and doesn't REQUIRE a thief character to be a party member to normally deal with traps). They explain what kind of traps they are looking for and where they are looking. The kind of trap that is actually present is in this case unusual; it doesn't fit their description of what they're looking for and the DM responds that no trap is found. A Thief player is still suspicious or wants to be thorough. The thief player gets to ROLL their characters chance to detect traps (which especially at lower levels is generally quite poor). This does not replace all other efforts to find traps, it is in addition to it. Players are still expected to verbally describe their searching process especially at lower levels because the description from even modestly experienced players is going to be more successful than the die roll. If the description succeeds no die roll or thief character is even needed. If the roll were successful then obviously the trap is found and there would be no reason for the roll to have been made by the DM or kept secret. If the description failed AND the roll failed then there is still no reason the roll would need to be made by the DM or done secretly because there is no way for the PLAYER to know if there really ISN'T a trap, or if there IS a trap and the players efforts to find it simply all came up short.

At higher levels, traps as a major element of gameplay has mostly been left behind. The process is technically still the same but the skill of thieves to find traps just by die roll has advanced to the point where IF there is a thief in the party it is far more expedient to simply have them roll. Even if there is no thief in the party, the players simply recite a now well-known litany of what their characters need to look for in order to locate and deal with traps. Rolling the dice is mostly just alleviating them of that chore of recitation.

THAT is the old school way. :smile:

Pleh
2020-10-08, 05:05 PM
And I find Angry's articles insufferable.

Actually, on a side note, I just found a trick that helps make his shtick a lot more fun to read (for me at least).

I started imagining it being read aloud by Gordon Ramsey.

OldTrees1
2020-10-08, 06:22 PM
Actually, on a side note, I just found a trick that helps make his shtick a lot more fun to read (for me at least).

I started imagining it being read aloud by Gordon Ramsey.

Interesting, but not a guaranteed technique. Gordon Ramsey is unbearable for me.

Jay R
2020-10-08, 07:32 PM
Part of the problem is rooted in the 3.0 (and later) decision to make all rolls be good on the high end. This gives the player meta-information which the PC shouldn't know.

When I needed to make perception rolls to notice something in AD&D, I had them roll a d20, and if they rolled under their INT (sometimes modified by circumstances), they succeeded.

So in one case, I had somebody roll, he rolled a 4, and I said, "You see a force of archers on the hill." In this case, it is not obvious to the player whether he made his perception roll and saw what was there, or failed his saving throw and believed the illusion.

One player didn't like the idea of rolling and not knowing if he should be hoping for high or low, and asked me to roll any die when that was the situation. No problem. I'm happy to do that for the player who wants it, and to leave the roll ambiguous for others who want to make their own roll.

Duff
2020-10-08, 08:28 PM
Actually, on a side note, I just found a trick that helps make his shtick a lot more fun to read (for me at least).

I started imagining it being read aloud by Gordon Ramsey.


Oh that's hilarious!!

Democratus
2020-10-09, 06:54 AM
All rerolls my players have chosen to take were either heat of the moment do or die, or really important flavor scenes they wanted to drive home to align with their character concept. If I was to be rolling life or death behind the scenes and only narrating noteworthy results it wouldn’t appear much different from rocks falling. The other category is exclusively player opted actions.

All results are noteworthy in a life or death situation. So that means narrating every blow-by-blow. Very engaging even if the random number generator is behind the screen.

Nightcanon
2020-10-16, 11:28 AM
I'd rather have my DM roll for me (including making old-school Gygaxian 'keep' em on their toes' nonsense rolls for atmosphere) than have him working through a list of pre-generated rolls. There's a reason why clinical trials don't operate on the basis that you know the allocation for the next few patients, based on the order that you enroll them.
'Gee thanks, Dave, glad to know that my natural 20 enabled me to detect the elusive scent of snow berries from the field 600 yards away, but my 2 resulted in me not spotting the family of drop bears I just ride beneath...'

farothel
2020-10-16, 03:29 PM
In our group the GM never rolls for the players, even if some rolls should be secret. Of course, we roleplayed almost 20 years together now, rotating the GM position so each of us has been a player and a GM and we're quite used to each other.
As to chain rolling things like knowledge checks, when we spot something, all players who have the appropriate knowledge skill and see the thing roll at the same time and all get info depending on their roll.

Tanarii
2020-10-17, 12:04 AM
The Angry GM did a piece on the Insight skill in D&D and had quite a bit to say on the virtues of the Passive Perception mechanic. I think it's worth a read: theangrygm.com/insight-into-insight
The article on social interaction that spawned this article is a good one too.

Yeah, he got what passive checks are for all wrong. He's making the classic mistake that someone who has merely skimmed the rules instead of reading them makes. He assumes the "passive" in passive scores applies to the character being passive.

Quertus
2020-10-17, 07:13 AM
Now, some of that can be remedied somewhat by *training* the players, by making all such comments initially… not "TPK-inducing", and explaining when they fail how those hints work.


Quertus, sure people aren't always good at giving or taking hints, but I would argue that's not a problem with playing this way.

"You could train your players." Well, yes, but actually no. Players are training themselves all the time. Everything we do, we learn more about that activity. Players will fail to take hints and GMs will fail to give them and by and large, that's just an effect of choosing to play a game with people. Bad pitches will be thrown and bad swings will miss even good pitches.

GM: "You watch as the ogre flips the lever, and the princess begins slowly descending into the vat of boiling oil. 50' of uneven floor stand between you and this scene."

Player: "I rush over and attack the ogre, hoping to push it back from the lever."

GM: "Rocks fall, everyone dies."

(later)

GM, to fellow GM: "They made their passive 'Find Traps' roll, and I told them that the floor was uneven, but they charged in and died anyway. Stupid players."

Pleh
2020-10-17, 07:20 AM
GM: "You watch as the ogre flips the lever, and the princess begins slowly descending into the vat of boiling oil. 50' of uneven floor stand between you and this scene."

Player: "I rush over and attack the ogre, hoping to push it back from the lever."

GM: "Rocks fall, everyone dies."

(later)

GM, to fellow GM: "They made their passive 'Find Traps' roll, and I told them that the floor was uneven, but they charged in and died anyway. Stupid players."

Feels like a strawman to argue against disingenuous DMing, which I would hope was rather clearly not my point.

Pex
2020-10-17, 09:19 AM
Part of the problem is rooted in the 3.0 (and later) decision to make all rolls be good on the high end. This gives the player meta-information which the PC shouldn't know.

When I needed to make perception rolls to notice something in AD&D, I had them roll a d20, and if they rolled under their INT (sometimes modified by circumstances), they succeeded.

So in one case, I had somebody roll, he rolled a 4, and I said, "You see a force of archers on the hill." In this case, it is not obvious to the player whether he made his perception roll and saw what was there, or failed his saving throw and believed the illusion.

One player didn't like the idea of rolling and not knowing if he should be hoping for high or low, and asked me to roll any die when that was the situation. No problem. I'm happy to do that for the player who wants it, and to leave the roll ambiguous for others who want to make their own roll.

That's the point. This was done even before 3E as you yourself just said you did. Why? To avoid metagaming. You didn't want the player to know if what he saw was real or illusion just because of a number on a die. This is game edition agnostic.

In my usual rhetoric I won't say DMs who do this are inherently tyrannical :smallyuk:. Only as much as a DM is one independent of this, doing this is a one way to be one by faking rolls and dictate what they want to happen that hurts the player. But anyway, accepting the DM is Honest True trying to enforce a more realistic atmosphere for fun I still prefer the player rolls his own fate at the moment it happens. Having to teach players as necessary not to chain roll or refuse to roleplay the result is a price I'm willing to pay.

Quertus
2020-10-17, 09:31 AM
Feels like a strawman to argue against disingenuous DMing, which I would hope was rather clearly not my point.

Regardless, the example spells out my point, to which you were responding. Since I didn't communicate my point about hinting by hinting, I figured I'd spell it out. It's not "Disingenuous GMing", it's GMs generally being quite clueless about what they have or have not communicated, and "hinting" simply greatly exacerbating this problem.

Oh, and my example is actually better GMing than I have had the misfortune of playing through. Repeatedly. Under many terrible GMs.

Communication is hard.

So, yeah, I'm advocating against "bad hints", and for "gently training the party" (as not as anti-GM as "learning to actually communicate" that I would normally be espousing) from experience.

Until the (GM and the) party have boosted their skills to the level where communication actually happens when "hints" are given, the GM should
mak[e] all such comments initially… not "TPK-inducing", and explaining when they fail how those hints work.

To say that again (hopefully more clearly, and with more context this time), the GM should make their initial foray into "hinting" be simultaneously low-impact, and, whenever the "hints" are not followed up by the players "demomstrating good investigation and prompting them with creative questions" as you put it, the GM should, after the fact, explain what the hint was supposed to communicate. (Massive hitting of the GM with (verbal) clue-by-fours when X does not logically lead to Y optional mandatory).

This low-impact training process should continue until the players and the GM are satisfied that communication actually happens with this "hinting" tech.

This is greatly preferable to "They made their passive 'Find Traps' roll, and I told them that the floor was uneven, but they charged in and died anyway. Stupid players."

Tanarii
2020-10-17, 10:57 AM
It's not "Disingenuous GMing", it's GMs generally being quite clueless about what they have or have not communicated, and "hinting" simply greatly exacerbating this problem.

Rule number one of "hinting" is to use a hammer. Especially with guys.

The hammer doesn't have to be direct information. It just has to be big, obvious, and about to hit between the eyes at high speed.

Jason
2020-10-17, 03:09 PM
Yeah, he got what passive checks are for all wrong. He's making the classic mistake that someone who has merely skimmed the rules instead of reading them makes. He assumes the "passive" in passive scores applies to the character being passive.


Passive Perception. When you hide, there's a chance someone will notice you even if they aren't searching. To determine whether such a creature notices you, the DM compares your Dexterity (Stealth) check with that creature's passive Wisdom (Perception) score, which equals 10 + the creature's Wisdom modifier, as well as any other bonuses or penalties. If the creature has advantage, add 5. For disadvantage, subtract 5.
"Even if they aren't searching" sounds pretty passive to me.

Mastikator
2020-10-17, 04:22 PM
Part of the problem is rooted in the 3.0 (and later) decision to make all rolls be good on the high end. This gives the player meta-information which the PC shouldn't know.

When I needed to make perception rolls to notice something in AD&D, I had them roll a d20, and if they rolled under their INT (sometimes modified by circumstances), they succeeded.

So in one case, I had somebody roll, he rolled a 4, and I said, "You see a force of archers on the hill." In this case, it is not obvious to the player whether he made his perception roll and saw what was there, or failed his saving throw and believed the illusion.

One player didn't like the idea of rolling and not knowing if he should be hoping for high or low, and asked me to roll any die when that was the situation. No problem. I'm happy to do that for the player who wants it, and to leave the roll ambiguous for others who want to make their own roll.

I think it comes down to PC skill/knowledge and player skill/knowledge. A lot of players see their PC as an extension of themselves and are not comfortable with the idea that they know stuff that their PCs don't, or vice versa. The bridge to the promised land of roleplaying someone unlike you looks scary and to most players inconceivable.

Tanarii
2020-10-17, 04:42 PM
"Even if they aren't searching" sounds pretty passive to me.
Yes, that's where most people get the mistake from. Passive perception (specifically) has two special rules clauses outside of the general passive rules, that only apply to it. 1) Your character doesn't have to be actively searching for a creature attempting to hide from it (per your quote), but 2) they still have to be actively paying attention for danger and not doing something else (per the adventuring chapter on noticing threats).

But the general rule for passive checks is they're for when your character does a task repeatedly (e.g. searches for traps or threats as they travel, trying to get a 'read' on a bunch of different characters in a crowd) or it's secret information that you don't want to give away meta info that a check occurred (e.g. searching for a hidden thing you didn't just see disappear, trying to determine if a creature is losing when you don't know). Both uses are for things the character is doing.

The word 'passive' in a passive check just means the player is passive and doesn't roll a die.

Jason
2020-10-17, 05:25 PM
Yes, that's where most people get the mistake from. Passive perception (specifically) has two special rules clauses outside of the general passive rules, that only apply to it. 1) Your character doesn't have to be actively searching for a creature attempting to hide from it (per your quote), but 2) they still have to be actively paying attention for danger and not doing something else (per the adventuring chapter on noticing threats).

But the general rule for passive checks is they're for when your character does a task repeatedly (e.g. searches for traps or threats as they travel, trying to get a 'read' on a bunch of different characters in a crowd) or it's secret information that you don't want to give away meta info that a check occurred (e.g. searching for a hidden thing you didn't just see disappear, trying to determine if a creature is losing when you don't know). Both uses are for things the character is doing.

The word 'passive' in a passive check just means the player is passive and doesn't roll a die.

I don't see anything in your posts that conflicts with the Angry GM's take on the issue, or mine.

Pleh
2020-10-17, 06:39 PM
Communication is hard.

I disagree slightly. Getting to know another person well enough to read their subtext is hard. Before we understand a person well enough to accurately interpret their quirks, mannerisms, and other subtextual behavior, these clues actually confuse a message rather than clarifying it as they are meant to do.

Apart from understanding the other person, the act of communication itself is only as complex as the grammatical rules involved in the language being used.


So, yeah, I'm advocating against "bad hints", and for "gently training the party" (as not as anti-GM as "learning to actually communicate" that I would normally be espousing) from experience.

Until the (GM and the) party have boosted their skills to the level where communication actually happens when "hints" are given, the GM should make all such comments initially… not "TPK-inducing", and explaining when they fail how those hints work.

I mean, alright. GMs shouldn't GM until they can communicate the world to their players well enough for players to make an informed decision and that's a learning process on both ends.

I wasn't meaning to argue, "Bad hints can teach players the game," as much as, "GMs with communication issues won't know a bad hint from a good one until they actually try running a session and seeing the results."

Fair enough that some GMs don't learn even by making mistakes. That's just when players have to confront the GM and give constructive feedback. If the GM brushes it off, they can leave the game or play a bad game (which is usually the best time to look for a new group).

And I agree that a good way to "learn the other players" to make communication run smoother is to run your first few "hints" with low stakes so the players get familiar with the GM's subtext clues without losing their characters as a cost of the learning curve.

I feel like you're advocating people make sure to use training wheels to avoid scraping their knee. I guess I would say that depends on the kid. Some will be traumatized if they fall and might get a sour impression of what riding a bike is like, thinking all bikes without training wheels are bad bike design. Other kids are going to rebel against the patronizing protections and insist on wearing every scrape and bruise with pride as they learn to master riding a bike without training wheels.

The real danger in this game we play is when we have both of these types of players at the same table and they start trying to force everyone to play the game THEIR way, rather than working out a way that everyone at the table can have their own fun.

LordCdrMilitant
2020-10-18, 12:10 PM
I just, you know, let them roll.

I think basically any roll that a player character might be required to make is activated by the player.
Passive Perception is how you oppose both traps and ambushes, and doesn't require a roll. Testing to guess is a person is lying or if they want to move carefully and check for traps requires the player to take the initiative and say that they're going to. Otherwise, they can either use their own intuition for lie detecting or the traps are opposed by passive perception.

Quertus
2020-10-21, 09:40 AM
I think it comes down to PC skill/knowledge and player skill/knowledge. A lot of players see their PC as an extension of themselves and are not comfortable with the idea that they know stuff that their PCs don't, or vice versa. The bridge to the promised land of roleplaying someone unlike you looks scary and to most players inconceivable.

Knowledge cannot help but taint perception; it's just human psychology, and has nothing to do with "extension of the self".

Still, if you game almost exclusively with those who cannot differentiate between their character and themselves, and with no people who understand human psychology well enough to comprehend the detrimental effects of OOC information on role-playing, then you have my sympathies


I disagree slightly. Getting to know another person well enough to read their subtext is hard. Before we understand a person well enough to accurately interpret their quirks, mannerisms, and other subtextual behavior, these clues actually confuse a message rather than clarifying it as they are meant to do.

Apart from understanding the other person, the act of communication itself is only as complex as the grammatical rules involved in the language being used.

Do I really need to reference examples of people falling to communicate what they thought that they communicated? I think "gazebo" is simply the most well known, but there should be plenty of examples that this shouldn't be some unknown, foreign concept.


I mean, alright. GMs shouldn't GM until they can communicate the world to their players well enough for players to make an informed decision and that's a learning process on both ends.

That would be nice. But no. "GMs should recognize that they may not have the skills to successfully communicated / may need to build their skills to the point where they actually communicate" is closer to my point.


I wasn't meaning to argue, "Bad hints can teach players the game," as much as, "GMs with communication issues won't know a bad hint from a good one until they actually try running a session and seeing the results."

Agreed, with the addendum that the GM should a) not assume that they are communicating, b) should be actively (and passively) looking for communication problems; c) should behave in a way consistent with improving their communication skills.


And I agree that a good way to "learn the other players" to make communication run smoother is to run your first few "hints" with low stakes so the players get familiar with the GM's subtext clues without losing their characters as a cost of the learning curve.

Cool, we agree on my main point.



I feel like you're advocating people make sure to use training wheels to avoid scraping their knee. I guess I would say that depends on the kid. Some will be traumatized if they fall and might get a sour impression of what riding a bike is like, thinking all bikes without training wheels are bad bike design. Other kids are going to rebel against the patronizing protections and insist on wearing every scrape and bruise with pride as they learn to master riding a bike without training wheels.

The real danger in this game we play is when we have both of these types of players at the same table and they start trying to force everyone to play the game THEIR way, rather than working out a way that everyone at the table can have their own fun.

… or do we?

Are you really suggesting that some players actively *want* the GM to TPK the party when they don't notice the "hint" that the floor is "uneven"? That those players would chafe at the restrictions of having such "training wheels" as "anything vital to the game or capable of causing a TPK is communicated directly rather than being hinted at, at least until such time as the group agrees that grotto communication has been successfully 'trained' / achieved"?

Mastikator
2020-10-21, 09:47 AM
Knowledge cannot help but taint perception; it's just human psychology, and has nothing to do with "extension of the self".


I prefer to think of knowledge as enhancing perception. But whatever, potato tomato

OldTrees1
2020-10-21, 11:08 AM
I prefer to think of knowledge as enhancing perception. But whatever, potato tomato

I think it depends on context.

For example in one case I could show the players a scene about what a horror BBEG is doing to raise suspense. The players being more informed than their characters can enhance the experience.

In another example I could restrict the player's senses to those of the character during a mystery to allow the player to play along with solving the mystery.

"Right tool for the right job" and all of that. Which usually means having the players roll all the dice. But occasionally the DM rolls when it would enhance the player experience to have the DM roll.

Pleh
2020-10-22, 05:52 PM
Are you really suggesting that some players actively *want* the GM to TPK the party when they don't notice the "hint" that the floor is "uneven"? That those players would chafe at the restrictions of having such "training wheels" as "anything vital to the game or capable of causing a TPK is communicated directly rather than being hinted at, at least until such time as the group agrees that grotto communication has been successfully 'trained' / achieved"?

Training wheels are kind of not "vital" by their definition.

A bike lacking "vital" wheels would probably not have any wheels at all, which makes me suspect we are talking about very different things.

Wouldn't be the first time we've had a misunderstanding.