gambler1650
Explorer
Ok, so a quick mention about Old School, die rolls, and my style of DMing this.
I don't mind if you make die rolls for your characters based on what you think you can do, and at times I may use it.. However, Old School is not about die rolling. It's about describing what you do, and the DM judging the result. Sure, there will be dice rolled, especially in combat, or dangerous situations (maintaining balance, etc).
However, as an example (not to pick on Fred, he's just the only one to have 'rolled dice' to try to do things):
Fred recently used dice in two situations that I basically 'ignored the roll' on and made a judgement:
1. When he entered the Half and Human, he rolled dice to see if he noticed the two clerics. He put it in his description of WHY he didn't see them that he was fairly distractable and sometimes unobservant as a character. If you decide to roll dice to see if your character does or doesn't do something in a relatively low key event like that, and use it as a RP hook of sorts, that's fine. However, I didn't feel the need to have everyone roll dice to see if they see each other, because the assumption was y'all were meeting there, and so eventually would notice each other, and made the judgement that the clerics would have noticed Antares.. it didn't seem to get picked up on, so Antares seeing them worked also (but I would have reiterated that the Clerics had seen him if it went on much longer).
2. The most recent event, where Fred rolled a D20 under wisdom to see if Antares noticed Bosco's sticky fingers in the store. There was no way that I would have judged that would succeed even with a '1', because Fred had not suggested that he was also keeping an eye on the interior of the store or Bosco. This is even without Fred having suggested that Antares wasn't the most observant guy in the world.
Basically, if you want your character to do something, you have to describe it. So, one of the classic examples is "I search for traps." In D&D 3.0, Pathfinder, and so on, I'd probably just roll a die against your Search skill. Here, I'd say. "Ok. So where are you searching, how are you doing it, etc?" And if you go into every room saying "Ok, I'm searching the floor, the ceiling, the walls, running my hands along the cracks, etc..." (basically doing a thorough search of every room you enter), you'll have to realize that that kind of thing takes time (just try 'searching for traps' in your bathroom for instance, see how long it likely would take), and could lead to discovery by whoever's room you're searching, or just having a lot of time run away during the day.
So the rules of thumb here are:
1. If you don't describe what you're doing, I'll assume you aren't doing it and no die roll will help you,
2. If you do describe what you're doing, and it likely is in opposition to something someone else is doing (for example, hide vs someone actively searching), or there are varying degrees of success/failure possible, then I'll likely ask for a Die Roll and use that to judge the result,
3. If you do describe what you're doing, and it doesn't qualify for the conditions in 2, then I'll simply make a judgement based on what I know of the situation, any NPCs, and your characters,
4. If you try to over describe or say that you're looking at everything, be prepared for that to take a lot of time along with whatever consequences might come from that.
It doesn't HURT to include a Die Roll whenever you think it might be needed, but be aware that I will decide to use, or not use, the die roll based on the above guidelines. And even if you don't include a die roll when I decide one is needed, I may just roll it myself to decide the result if it's something the result of shouldn't be immediately obvious to the player.
I don't mind if you make die rolls for your characters based on what you think you can do, and at times I may use it.. However, Old School is not about die rolling. It's about describing what you do, and the DM judging the result. Sure, there will be dice rolled, especially in combat, or dangerous situations (maintaining balance, etc).
However, as an example (not to pick on Fred, he's just the only one to have 'rolled dice' to try to do things):
Fred recently used dice in two situations that I basically 'ignored the roll' on and made a judgement:
1. When he entered the Half and Human, he rolled dice to see if he noticed the two clerics. He put it in his description of WHY he didn't see them that he was fairly distractable and sometimes unobservant as a character. If you decide to roll dice to see if your character does or doesn't do something in a relatively low key event like that, and use it as a RP hook of sorts, that's fine. However, I didn't feel the need to have everyone roll dice to see if they see each other, because the assumption was y'all were meeting there, and so eventually would notice each other, and made the judgement that the clerics would have noticed Antares.. it didn't seem to get picked up on, so Antares seeing them worked also (but I would have reiterated that the Clerics had seen him if it went on much longer).
2. The most recent event, where Fred rolled a D20 under wisdom to see if Antares noticed Bosco's sticky fingers in the store. There was no way that I would have judged that would succeed even with a '1', because Fred had not suggested that he was also keeping an eye on the interior of the store or Bosco. This is even without Fred having suggested that Antares wasn't the most observant guy in the world.
Basically, if you want your character to do something, you have to describe it. So, one of the classic examples is "I search for traps." In D&D 3.0, Pathfinder, and so on, I'd probably just roll a die against your Search skill. Here, I'd say. "Ok. So where are you searching, how are you doing it, etc?" And if you go into every room saying "Ok, I'm searching the floor, the ceiling, the walls, running my hands along the cracks, etc..." (basically doing a thorough search of every room you enter), you'll have to realize that that kind of thing takes time (just try 'searching for traps' in your bathroom for instance, see how long it likely would take), and could lead to discovery by whoever's room you're searching, or just having a lot of time run away during the day.
So the rules of thumb here are:
1. If you don't describe what you're doing, I'll assume you aren't doing it and no die roll will help you,
2. If you do describe what you're doing, and it likely is in opposition to something someone else is doing (for example, hide vs someone actively searching), or there are varying degrees of success/failure possible, then I'll likely ask for a Die Roll and use that to judge the result,
3. If you do describe what you're doing, and it doesn't qualify for the conditions in 2, then I'll simply make a judgement based on what I know of the situation, any NPCs, and your characters,
4. If you try to over describe or say that you're looking at everything, be prepared for that to take a lot of time along with whatever consequences might come from that.
It doesn't HURT to include a Die Roll whenever you think it might be needed, but be aware that I will decide to use, or not use, the die roll based on the above guidelines. And even if you don't include a die roll when I decide one is needed, I may just roll it myself to decide the result if it's something the result of shouldn't be immediately obvious to the player.
