D&D 5E Players Self-Assigning Rolls

[Wiseblood]

DM describes a scene, players say what they want to do and how they want to do it, and DM determines success or failure or if a roll is needed because something interesting can happen because of the roll. As much as I reiterate this flow, I still get experienced players who throw down some dice without being asked and announce "Survival 24 for doing blah blah" or whatever. Did I miss something between AD&D (which I played as a kid) and 5E (my return to D&D two years ago) that made this alright?

The Run a Game Blog has a nice piece on this:
www.runagame.net/2017/10/players-self-assigning-rolls.html

I guess I'm looking for ways that other DMs deal with situations where players roll the dice for skills without being asked to do so. What say you?

I ignore the roll. If I want a roll I ask for it. The self assigned rolls are an imposition. High rolls on an auto success they believe they deserve more. Or they believe you are using unfairly high DCs. Low rolls on an auto success they think there is more and they want to make more checks because of metagaming.

 

[Severite]

I do or don’t expect the player to know, depending on the circumstance.

Most of the time, they tell me what they want to do, including what they want to use to do it. Ie, “I want to use Arcana to inspect the circle to determine what sort of enchantment it has.” Is a common thing at my table. Bc Arcana is nearly always Int, and I allow such examination and manipulation of magical devices with Arcana, I just say “go ahead”, and they roll and give me a number, and I describe the result.

Other times, a player will roll when it isn’t necessary, or roll something that doesn’t apply, often for reasons they can’t have known yet, and I will simply try to use that d20 result anyway, if I can. Ie, the player tries to use Athletics to throw a grappling hook, and I tell them to instead add their ranged attack mod to that d20 result.

Still other times (much less often), I wave off appeals to roll d20’s and explain that we’re moving into cinematic territory for a moment, and that unless I say otherwise there will be just description and role play in this scene, not dice rolling.

I apply these methods and others according to what feels right for the situation. IMO, consistency is usually a good thing, but strict adherence to it can cause problems, just like ignoring it can.

It sounds like for the most part, we have very similar methods, other than my adherence to a process that works for me in particular, given my particular table's needs, which includes me as DM.

For clarity, I do listen and am pretty open to suggestions for my players about what skills they are trying to use, and suggestions on what modifiers, it is, after all, a collaborative game, I just also have a process, that works for me, and my table, and have not really been told why another process might be better for my ability to adjudicate a game that is enjoyable by everyone at our table, nor, why my way of doing so is specifically harmful.

 

[5ekyu]

Very well. I presume yp u are actually interested in moving forward with a real discussion, in that case, for the third time, what is your purpose in posting this? You state I am grossly misaligning your intent, fair enough. But instead of saying, for a third time, "ah, governor, you be Iying bout me, you do!", without explaining what you did mean, how about instead actually do what I asked, and tell me what you actually meant, as clearly, that is what I believe what you typed means. The very fact you keep going on about my authortye, leads me to believe that my original understanding of your post was accurate. If you are hung up on a supposed disagreement on where the line between DM's responsibilitiesand player responsibilities separate as a whole, I believe that should be in a new thread. If you wish to discuss players pre rolling, and my adjudication of it, that's fine, as indeed, the more viewpoints I have, the better my process is, and the better game my players and I, can have.

Ok well to be very clear then what i really mean to say was...

Int dex or wisdom.. Yes likely i will be using one and my descrption will either make it obvious or we have a history that means we can shorthand that.

After all, we are not playing in a game where which attribute makes sense for a given approach to a task is some great mystery that only the GM knows, right?

 

[Severite]

Ok well to be cery clear then what i really mean to say was...

Int dex or wisdom.. Yes likely i will be using one and my descrption will either make it obvious or we have a history that means we can shorthand that.
After all, we are not playing in a game where which attribute makes sense for a given approach to a task is some great mystery that only the GM knows, right?

Indeed! And your purpose in stating such? The addition to the conversation was what? You state that I somehow misunderstood your meaning, as, that response is CLEAR (at least to me), that you disagree with the way that I adjudicate players self assigning rolIs, and the reason you do so is because you can guess what roll I will be assigning, while ignoring the entirety of what else I have posted, to another poster, who, I believe, asked me a legitimate question.

I am 95% sure you are simply trolling, here, but in the interest of believing the best of people, I have responded twice to posts directed at me, that mostly ignore what I have actually typed. I feel the fool, as I have NOW posted not once, not twice, but now a third time, after typing that I would not do so if you refused to actually engage in the conversation. I assure you, if you reply as such again, so will I acknowledge that you got me good, and simply block you to prevent future instances. Either explain your intent, ignore this post, or be blocked. I don't care which.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It sounds like for the most part, we have very similar methods, other than my adherence to a process that works for me in particular, given my particular table's needs, which includes me as DM.

For clarity, I do listen and am pretty open to suggestions for my players about what skills they are trying to use, and suggestions on what modifiers, it is, after all, a collaborative game, I just also have a process, that works for me, and my table, and have not really been told why another process might be better for my ability to adjudicate a game that is enjoyable by everyone at our table, nor, why my way of doing so is specifically harmful.

Hey man, don’t confuse me with another poster. I don’t *think* I’ve implied that your procedural approach is harmful. I do think that it can detract from the game to have a DM that insists on things running their way *if there is player resistance to that methodology*, but that’s it.

You answered my original question very succinctly, and I think we’ve have a fairly interesting discussion from that point.

For me, I just don’t see any benefit (at my own table) to me insisting on that “conversation” laid out in the phb, or doing things like ignoring rolls even if they are right about what I would have asked for, etc. It helps you keep on track, and that is really important. That’s reason enough for me.

 

[5ekyu]

Indeed! And your purpose in stating such? The addition to the conversation was what? You state that I somehow misunderstood your meaning, as, that response is CLEAR (at least to me), that you disagree with the way that I adjudicate players self assigning rolIs, and the reason you do so is because you can guess what roll I will be assigning, while ignoring the entirety of what else I have posted, to another poster, who, I believe, asked me a legitimate question.

I am 95% sure you are simply trolling, here, but in the interest of believing the best of people, I have responded twice to posts directed at me, that mostly ignore what I have actually typed. I feel the fool, as I have NOW posted not once, not twice, but now a third time, after typing that I would not do so if you refused to actually engage in the conversation. I assure you, if you reply as such again, so will I acknowledge that you got me good, and simply block you to prevent future instances. Either explain your intent, ignore this post, or be blocked. I don't care which.

So, see here is the thing... to reach your conclusion you seem to want to hold that not only i ignored your other points about table rules, GM authority or respect etc and such in my response but then treat that ignoring of those as a challenge to them?

Do you not see a case where ignoring something in fact is just ignoring something in intent and not actually in fact challenging it?

i did not address those other issues because i did not want to. there are various reasons but frankly, i did not see that aspect of the pieces you threw together as being anything that was worth a further delve into.

The reason i chose to deal with the question about the attribute which was used is based off what we have seen numerous times in this thread: proponents of the GM ONLY CALLS ROLLS sides frequently tossing in the "doubt" over what ability score is used (or even sometimes what proficiency applies but you referenced ability scores so i stuck with that.)

To me that is a rather nonsensical case which does not apply to games where the players and the GMs have a common reference history. (We most all admit I THINK there are exceptions made for new players who do not yet know their way around the table.)

I referenced this a number of times before that since players (in the standard game approach) are responsible for choosing their stats or assigning their stats and making all sorts of choices that affect their character's numbers, then they have needed to know and understand and be on the same page as the Gm since day zero about what INT is used for vs what DEX is used for and so on and how the types of actions/tasks/descriptions would apply to that as well.

So, there is not some "unknowable" aspect to the "choice of ability used for the task as i described it" that should be driving the "do players call for checks or does the Gm do so" part of this discussion.

Or put another way, if your player does not know for your game and playing his character in it whether or not he described a DEX based action/approach or an INT based action/approach, the core problem you have that needs dealing with is much larger than the issue of who calls the roll.


Since none of that had anything to do with your authority or your table rules or your question about respecting your table I did not comment on those.

When you later went on about the disrespect to the entitlement you seem to feel you deserve with post like "So you would refuse the table rules to intentionally derail the dm, who has put a lot of effort into bringing you a game that, presumably, you are enjoying, as, we apparently have history, and have been playing together for a while?" it made me even happier that i chose (correctly) to not open that can of worms with you in particular.

or put simply, i chose intentionally not to dive into your bits and pieces about your authority and your respect and what is owed to you for all your hard work in later posts because i saw those as more trap than opportunity, more noise than signal, far less likely to yield productive discussion of differences than to enable venting emotional launches of indignation...

The resulting insistence or imagining that my not engaging in that arena was in fact (taken by you) as an attack on them tells me i made the right call after all.

It feels like even more so now that you were "spoiling for a slight" to your respect owed as Gm or however you choose to characterize it and even when one was not presented, it was imagined.

So, all in all, even though it did not work out as intended, i stand by my call that it was better to not choose to engage you on your "respect" or tables rules minefield.

Now, please, BLOCK ME.

Pretty please?

With a cherry red beholder on top?

 

[Maxperson]

Absolutely you are right, different tables, different people different choices.

but what i have seen in games where this kind of thing was being done is... it is done unevenly in most cases.

IE in combat, the player skill at hitting with an axe is not tested... the character's is. So player's are taught that spending their chargen points into combat gets benefits they cannot PLAYER SKILL while some other out of combat options are things they can test against PLAYER SKILL and so you tend to get more and more similar type builds - focusing the points on the stuff where CHARACTER SKILL is the test and relying on PLAYER SKILL for the others.

Combat may be the biggest test of player skill. Knowing which creatures to attack first, and with which abilities the character will use can be the difference between an easy win and a TPK. Player skill in combat is huge.

 

[Severite]

Hey man, don’t confuse me with another poster. I don’t *think* I’ve implied that your procedural approach is harmful. I do think that it can detract from the game to have a DM that insists on things running their way *if there is player resistance to that methodology*, but that’s it.

You answered my original question very succinctly, and I think we’ve have a fairly interesting discussion from that point.

For me, I just don’t see any benefit (at my own table) to me insisting on that “conversation” laid out in the phb, or doing things like ignoring rolls even if they are right about what I would have asked for, etc. It helps you keep on track, and that is really important. That’s reason enough for me.

Ah, no sir, I was not confusing you with another poster, but I did think you were disagreeing with my method, and was interested in teasing out your thoughts on a possible better way, or at least highlighting a potential mishap that I may not have noticed. So far our interactions have been positive, at least to my mind. Discussion, after all, is why I am on a message board.

Edit: Thank you for your response

 

[5ekyu]

Combat may be the biggest test of player skill. Knowing which creatures to attack first, and with which abilities the character will use can be the difference between an easy win and a TPK. Player skill in combat is huge.

No argument, just as the choices of TRY THE DOOR or SKIP THE DOOR or USE DIPLOMACY or FIGHT or RUN all play their party.

The key is in these cases just like you describe, these are all DAD choices - the player choosing the trip, when, where etc... not the PLAYER skill being the determining element for the success failure of the individual steps.

i mean, really can you not see "player chooses which foe to attack first" as "DAD chooses to go to grandmas house now" and "character hits or misses with axe" as more "MOM driving skill vs bad turn"?

As always though, as an aside, its also good when PLAYERS also invoke that other element of character (other than player choice and build) which is the "person" by making decisions they would not normally AS A PLAYER see as wise but that their character would do anyway. (i am looking back at my own thief-acrobat "pole vault the enemy front line" move from decades ago when i say that. that led to a flurry of ouch-ouch-damn-ouch-crap-ouch-ouch-ouch noises before she could barely jump for her life.)

 

[DragonKnight88]

For what it’s worth, I apologize if any of my posts have contributed to your hesitation. What ever your preferred methods of playing and DMing, more power to you! I enjoy debating about preferred methods, but I’ll never be one to say someone’s preferred way of playing is wrong. What matters is that you and your group have a good time together.

It’s all good, I am always up for healthy discussion. Our main goal for our group is to always have fun. Sometimes we change or mix the rules up to fit the situation. The main thing we strive for is respect at the table. So o try to maintain that thought process with everything including forums. It’s usually hard due to the inability to determine sarcasm, tone and other statements in a written environment.