Pros and Cons of Hiding DM Rolls?

[Doublebat]

Hey all. I'm in the position of having lost all my real-world players, so I thought I'd give PbP a try. I've been buzzing around the IC and OOC threads trying to educate myself, and I think I want to try my hand at the forums pretty soon!

One thing I've noticed; in some threads, a DM will go by typical D&D methodology and roll everything away from the eyes of the players, just posting the results afterward, while others roll everything out in the open.

So, to DMs with experience in PbP: have you had better experiences with hiding rolls, or showing them to your players? Does it affect the gameplay to an extent that I should worry about it? In fact, players: do you prefer one or the other? Thanks to anybody who offers their opinion, I hope to get started soon.

[ThinkMinty]

It's the kind of thing where you don't want to get caught fudging rolls, especially if they're to one player in particular. Don't use the hidden rolls to save time rolling enemy saves, it can be very annoying when an entire crowd makes a save where each of them would've needed at least a 13 on their d20 to make it.

So, still have them recorded if someone insists, for whatever reason, on seeing the results.

The hidden rolls need to not turn into the DM deciding when dice do or don't "count" for mechanical things.

[PersonMan]

I'd say, pick one and stick with it. Rolling in private / using non-forum die rollers is just more useful (for example, in one game I rolled all the dice in a post, which meant that I would set up a skeleton-post during combat which I filled out once I saw the results of the rolls - using other die rollers means I can avoid this kind of multi-step process) and if you tell players you're doing so in the recruitment thread there's no room to complain, because they signed up for it.

Rolling in threads (rolling in the OOC before posting IC is the better way to do this, in my experience) carries its own benefits, but if you're the forgetful type you'll end up either multi-posting in the OOC to get in all the rolls or rolling offsite anyways.

[Piedmon_Sama]

I believe that DM screens are a great thing, although my group generally doesn't agree with me. I still use it when I DM and enjoy the tension that results, esp. if you can keep a good poker face on everything (and add quickly in your head, something I could maybe stand to work on). Especially if you pick the right time to just roll a d20 and mutter to yourself, then when your players ask what was that give a very flat "nothing."

e: Also I don't fudge rolls so that's not a thing!

[PersonMan]

A DM screen isn't necessary in PbP, though.

[hymer]

I don't fudge rolls so that's not a thing!

Well, how am I to believe that? You hide your rolls, and actively try to deceive in other ways.

[ThinkMinty]

Well, how am I to believe that? You hide your rolls, and actively try to deceive in other ways.

Players get itchy when invisible dice don't behave consistently.

[hymer]

Players get itchy when invisible dice don't behave consistently.

Or worse, when they behave with troubling consistency.

[Darth Ultron]

So, to DMs with experience in PbP: have you had better experiences with hiding rolls, or showing them to your players? Does it affect the gameplay to an extent that I should worry about it?.

It is no different then a table top game if the rolls are hidden or not. It is just different DM styles.

[Fosco the Swift]

Hiding or rolling in the open are both perfectly good methods. Personally, I usually hide my rolls (really intense or important rolls are done in the open for more drama) simply because I love randomly rolling a die, keeping a blank face, and then say "Interesting". Time it right and my players freak out
Hiding Rolls: Pros
By keeping your results consistently hidden, rolls that should be secret (bluff checks, illusion saves, etc) don't stand out. Also you can do the above-mentioned random rolls to keep your players paranoid.
Showing Rolls: Pros
This keeps the group connected, especially during an intense scene. Imagine one of the PC's cast Phantasmal Killer on the BBEG. Nothing can spike your players' interest and adrenaline like slowly and dramatically rolling the BBEG's save in front of them.

[Calen]

I typically roll combat dice in the open and the "RP" dice hidden. (By RP I mean things like insight, perception of the NPC's, the parties passive rolls when those apply and anytime I am making a random decision for the NPC)

[Piedmon_Sama]

Well, how am I to believe that? You hide your rolls, and actively try to deceive in other ways.

My friend, there is a very clear distinction between simply lying and a perfectly acceptable ruse de guerre.

[hymer]

My friend, there is a very clear distinction between simply lying and a perfectly acceptable ruse de guerre.

Whatever floats your boat (and that of your players). Personally, I don't like the distinction between lying and not lying as something very important in the degree of seriousness of a given deceit.

[Piedmon_Sama]

Dungeons & Dragons: It's Extremely ****ing Serious, Your Honor.

[hymer]

Dungeons & Dragons: It's Extremely ****ing Serious, Your Honor.

Hey, you're the one who felt the need to point out that while you like to mislead your players, you don't fudge the dice.

[Templarkommando]

I personally prefer rolling behind a screen. Don't make fudging a regular thing, but develop some criteria where you do to keep it consistent.

I like bringing my party to low HP, but I don't like outright killing characters. It's the difference between helping them feel like they've just overcome a challenge and making them think that this was all just a worthless endeavor. If a character just so happens to get caught by a hard hitter, I will generally fudge in favor of the players at least once. Sometimes twice. I don't recall a single time that I've ever fudged in favor of the bad guys. So, that's the deal that I make with my party. I roll behind the screen in the name of mystery and suspense, and the only case that I will "cheat" with the dice is by cheating in favor of the party. Again, I don't *always* fudge, so it is possible to die, but I try to keep it a little rarer than I imagine death is in a RAW campaign.

[PersonMan]

I feel like a lot of people are missing the 'this is about PbP' part of the post, given all the talk about DM screens, reading dice and saying 'interesting' and similar.

[Grinner]

I feel like a lot of people are missing the 'this is about PbP' part of the post, given all the talk about DM screens, reading dice and saying 'interesting' and similar.

I was so disappointed when I read "PbP".

I came in here specifically to talk about the tactic of periodically rolling hidden dice just to screw with the players. That doesn't work at all in PbP.

[Doublebat]

Well in fairness, that's part of my uncertainty. On the one hand, I've always done real-world rolling behind a screen because A) the book told me to and B) it prevents the players, in my opinion, from knowing too much. If I'm having them fight a big bad, I don't necessarily want them to know that he has, specifically, a +8 with his club and Fort +5, or whatever. That turns the game away from immersion and into a number-crunching battle (not that either is "correct," but I prefer the former).

But with PbP, any player is literally a click away from reading the statline of an ogre. Even if they aren't metagaming that way, the players could make inferences to determine a monster's AC and such, and they'd have a day to do the math instead of a minute of real time. Plus, my players won't know me, so it's even harder to keep their trust, and they'll be more likely to raise an eyebrow at "lucky" rolls.

I'm leaning towards showing all combat-related rolls, as per Calen's post. But if anyone else wants to expound on their preferred method, I'm still interested.

[Kornaki]

I was so disappointed when I read "PbP".

I came in here specifically to talk about the tactic of periodically rolling hidden dice just to screw with the players. That doesn't work at all in PbP.

In the OOC thread, just post "Spot check" and roll a d20 for each character of the party, plus one extra roll. Then make another post that says "Interesting... you see nothing".

[Grinner]

In the OOC thread, just post "Spot check" and roll a d20 for each character of the party, plus one extra roll. Then make another post that says "Interesting... you see nothing".

If they get a good rolls though, anyone looking at it from a metagame perspective will eventually realize you're bluffing, showing your hand, so to speak. Part of the value of the tactic is not only the check being made, but also the uncertainty of the result.

[goto124]

Not necessarily.

Maybe there's really nothing to see!

Do this regularly, whether or not there's something in the room...

*twiddles thumbs*

[Kol Korran]

I will take the opposite view of most posters here- my group have all rolls be open. More than that- they make all of the rolls. Instead of monster's attack, they roll a defense roll. Instead of a monster rolling a save, they do a "spell power roll". It's not that complicated to turn things around. If anyone's interested, I can explain.

This change has improved our game IMMENSELY! Why? Well...
1. It fosters more trust between DM and players. They KNOW no fudging will occur. For players more interesting in challenge, this is a big thing. It lays the responsibility of player's actions more on them.

2. It makes the battle more tactical, and the "feel" of attacks, defenses and such more tangible. Yeah, you can say "The enemy is attacking with great skill and strength", but that may mean different things to different players. But If you tell them "It attacks (insert flavor here), roll defense against a 35 DC attack", it gives them something more concrete, and enables them to understand the battle more. The DCs (For defense, for spell rolls and the like) are only revealed after it is being tested.

It has surprisingly made the battles far more tactical, simply because the players feel and understand the actual difficulties better.

3. An interesting side effect, which is quite important- it introduced more randomness and unexpected changes to the game, which made it more exciting. As a DM, I previously liked to shelter the party, or direct the battle to be more/ less deadly. And though I was sure I wasn't fudging, I guess I have been, because suddenly the game was far more changing, more out of my control, and I LOVED it! It brought some of the best twists into our games!

4. As to social "secret rolls", again, you know the DC afterwards, and the players are expected to play accordingly. They trust me, I trust them...

[Doublebat]

I wasn't aware of the Players Roll All Dice option until I googled it just now. It actually sounds really interesting, especially in that it puts more of the action in the players' hands. One of my constant challenges in past games was keeping people from dozing off until it was their turn again.

How would that be structured in a PbP? I'm assuming it would be something like, "if you get attacked, roll your defense first, then base your post on the result."

[Grinner]

How would that be structured in a PbP? I'm assuming it would be something like, "if you get attacked, roll your defense first, then base your post on the result."

That...actually solves a lot of problems associated with PbP...The DM posts the DC/"Attack Value"/whatever. Then, the players roll and narrate their own posts accordingly. The players are involved, and it saves the DM so many headaches with regard to the timing of actions. Just need a houserule to deal with the initiative problem if present in the system.

Someone might be able a PbP-friendly version of D&D 3.5 even.

Neat.

[GungHo]

I've seen a lot of approaches to this, and ultimately it comes down to people's preference. I realize this is a PbP question, but it applies to the f2f table too.

Some folks will just never trust you and want to see the dice get rolled to make sure "they don't get screwed". They won't understand that sometimes we fudge the dice to keep them from "getting screwed". They also sometimes insist on using their own dice for their own rolls. They also insist on being able to see everyone else roll.

Some folks trust you implicitly and will never question the results and frankly would prefer not to know. They want you to roll all the dice. They don't want to touch anything except their sheets.

And, then there are folks who want to do a hybrid... the DM is completely exposed while the players are hidden, or vice versa.

Personally, I prefer door #2. But, I end up door #1ing in a dice roll program on a projected screen because I play with people who are paranoid. To make up for the "we can save you by fudging" we instead allow for a limited number of mulligans.

[Brion]

I typically roll combat dice in the open and the "RP" dice hidden. (By RP I mean things like insight, perception of the NPC's, the parties passive rolls when those apply and anytime I am making a random decision for the NPC)

I have only DM'd once but this is what I did, and what I intend to do again.

Although if I make a hidden roll for a skill/save/whatever that seems impossible (maybe a perception against a PCs stealth where he rolled very high), I will gladly show the die result.

[mephnick]

I figure that if you're an adult and can't trust another adult not to cheat at a board game, it either says something bad about you or the people you play with.

Either way, perhaps you shouldn't be playing.

[Quertus]

I figure that if you're an adult and can't trust another adult not to cheat at a board game, it either says something bad about you or the people you play with.

Either way, perhaps you shouldn't be playing.

DMs who don't fudge rolls are a rare thing, thought to be extinct by modern scientists until their discovery in the late 20th century. ;)

So, by extension, if most adults in the "authority figure" role in D&D cheat, one can expect that most adults playing D&D cheat. :(

I rules lawyer - not for the party's benefit, but for reality's benefit (whether that is for or against myself / the party). I doubt I've ever fudged a roll (although I have, for expediency, sometimes just said "good enough" to a roll rather than finishing calculating the DC of an unexpected action).

But some people prefer a good story to a more "realistic" one. Some people prefer for their characters to win rather than for them to fail due to bad luck.

I no longer believe that one style is inherently *right* and the others are inherently *wrong*... but if I lose my suspension of disbelief due to obvious fudging / cheating, the game loses its fun for me.

So, if the possibility exists of a player like me in the group, make all your rolls in the open, if you can. Then they'll know, win or lose, it was "realistic".

That said, I make some of my rolls hidden when I DM. Why? Well, if the BBE rolls a natural "1" and still makes the save, I don't want the party to figure out he is simply immune because they saw the dice - I want them to figure that out (or not) on their own! And I don't want them to (consciously or not) metagame about *which* rolls are important, so I have to seemingly randomly hide rolls.

So why don't I just hide all rolls? Because, as mentioned above, sometimes it can be fun / dramatic / etc to watch fate play out in the roll of the die. And it reminds players they can trust me to be "fair" when many of the "fate of the character / NPC / BBE / world" rolls are made out in the open.

[nedz]

Some rolls should be hidden. Basically if the player has to make a decision about their character, then knowing information your character doesn't have makes role playing harder.

E.g. You are trying to decide between to courses of action A and B, say; when you acquire OOC information which implies that A won't work. This puts you in an impossible position.