D&D 5E Players Self-Assigning Rolls

[5ekyu]

I think I see the error.

In my games, you don't make ability checks without being asked to.

In games in which I have played, where DMs are inclined to say "Yes" when players ask to roll or accept the result of unsolicited rolls, a player who doesn't do that (like me) and simply states goal and approach tend to be more successful. You end up rolling less. In my experience, anyway.

Does that also apply to other types of checks, in your games, like say damage rolls before you know whether or not an attack hit?

here;s what happens in my games...

when players describe their characters actions, they describe what they are trying to do etc, generally, and then usually one of two things happens...

some players who are unsure of what the normal means of resolution is ask me or wait for me to tell them to do abc or what happened.

some players, who are more experienced with how things run and what the mechanics are, often go ahead and announce their check and tell me results. of the roll.

in either case, the results will be the same. The "outcome" does not change based on whether or not you asked me first or rolled ahead.

you don't "con me " into letting a acrobatics check decipher a parchment. You don't "bamboozle" me into letting your medical skill force open a door.

I believe a player can have his character use acrobatics in inopportune times whether i asked for it or not - radical i know.

And whether ot not you roll or asked has no influce in whether or not a 1-20 die succeeds no matter what, a 1-20 fails no matter what or if the success is somewhere in between.

All that would be gained from having a magical spell cast that somehow prevented anyone from ever rolling a dice for ability check before i gave them permission to do so would do in my games is... slow things down.

that is why i dont invest in some magical means of preventing such things from ever happening. No need to deliberately try and slow things down.

 

[Charlaquin]

you are within your rights to ignore any roll - yes.

but, how does "the player rolled ahead" have any effect on the GM deciding whether the task was an auto-success or an auto-fail?

if it was an auto-fail, whatever the roll it fails.

if it was an auto-success, whatever the roll it succeeds.

if it was neither, the roll was made and we dont have the unnecessary delay.

if the roll was inappropriate to the situation, Gm can choose to describe what it did (but likely it was not what was expected) or treat it as a fail.

it seems that if the player has the dice and score there and a reasonable good faith understanding that this game has shown these kinds of checks apply here, that the player rolling as they state the intent/action/approach is just a time saver, not a punishable offense.

I think the time saved by the having already announced the result of the roll when they happen to correctly guess what check the DM wanted is outweighed by the time lost informing the player that they guessed the wrong skill and correcting them on what to roll. Especially if the DM intends to narrate the results of the wrongly made roll, which seems to me like a really silly thing to do.

 

[iserith]

Does that also apply to other types of checks, in your games, like say damage rolls before you know whether or not an attack hit?

At a table, yes. But on Roll20, no, as we have it set to query the AC automatically so it just does everything all at once.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Do you find this makes combat go better?

I'm not talking about combat - I'm referring to skill checks.

 

[5ekyu]

Because there are many different ways to play the game, as I said in an earlier post, I almost always ignore them if they are not relevant, which has saved people when they have rolled poorly, but used the wrong skill, or no roll was necessary at all (to extrapolate on that thought, it has also more rarely left people with a high roll that they did not get to use). But I stay consistent in my approach to the rules. So, yes, if the player rolled, and failed, and I was inclined to take the roll, I would then in that game also very likely go with a rule that 1's are always failures, and by extension a 20 would always be a success.

Though, in my earlier example I would set base DC as 10

thanks for the response.

and yes, absolutely, there are as many ways to p,ay the game as active players squared plus infinity so no argument there.

i also agree its good to see that if the roll made can change your result to the bad it can also change it to the good.

But, the question i still wonder about is "why?"

What do you feel you game gains by letting "he rolled without asking" change your assessment of a task's fail/succeed/depends for a task?

i would be worried for my game that me granting succeed without roll for task x under circumstance y on one day and then leeting it fail in apparently same circumstances later (because a die roll was made and a 3 came up or a 1 or whatever) that it would produce one of two results:
1 - Players think i am lacking in consistency - out of game player GM trust lowered
2 - "Characters wonder "hey, whats up? Something is amiss? We never had that fail before?" and start looking for hex or other type of issue at hand.

one of the advantages of consistency is i don't have to knock my players over the head with 200lb anvil clues... i can have consistent results becoming inconsistent or vice versa as a clue in itself.

"Hey, normally i sense magic and now i cant?"
"hey, normally i can open this lock and now i cant"
"hey, i could never force this boulder and now i can?"
"hey, Joe tried to crank the Renault and it cranked?"

all signs of something wonky happening.

 

[5ekyu]

I'm not talking about combat - I'm referring to skill checks.

gotcha but then let me ask - why does this hold such a place of importance or help your game with skill checks but be not appropriate for combat?

 

[5ekyu]

I think the time saved by the having already announced the result of the roll when they happen to correctly guess what check the DM wanted is outweighed by the time lost informing the player that they guessed the wrong skill and correcting them on what to roll. Especially if the DM intends to narrate the results of the wrongly made roll, which seems to me like a really silly thing to do.

So i guess in your games the players are not very clear or on the same page as what different skills do?

In my game we tend to be on the same page, after everyone gets their feet wet, so to speak. Folks don't mistake arcana and insight, for instance.

if they are unsure, they ask.

 

[Iry]

I actively encourage my players to ask for rolls. It speeds up the game considerably.

But I don't tolerate my players rolling without asking, unless they are just doing a basic attack or cantrip during a combat scene.

 

[5ekyu]

I would honestly rather have this problem than the problem that I currently have with some players: I ask for a check and they fumble with their character sheet for two minutes while they struggle to remember what numbers to add to the check.

Seriously guys, we have been doing this stuff for years now, learn to play the game already.

i get that. i have a mix of players familiar with the systems and those that are not... and when i am lucky, those even new to RPg in general. So, i plan on having to have a number of player's character's numbers known for me... i usually have a quicke reference of some key values i may call for right beside me for each character. So when anybody gets a brian freeze i can usually give them the value.

But therin lies a basic truth... often if they dont know i say "roll then look it up" as a rule of thumb. Simple thing is, if its really a non-slam dunk check anyway, you dont need to look up the result if you rolled a 3 or a 4... or if you rolled an 18 or 19. Sure, for really easy or really hard (relative to baseline skill at the time) those will have to be looked for "its close - lets see" but enough of the time its not worth a look-up stat unless the roll in middle of the road.

Saves a bunch of time for slow look-ups.

 

[Severite]

thanks for the response.

and yes, absolutely, there are as many ways to p,ay the game as active players squared plus infinity so no argument there.

i also agree its good to see that if the roll made can change your result to the bad it can also change it to the good.

But, the question i still wonder about is "why?"

What do you feel you game gains by letting "he rolled without asking" change your assessment of a task's fail/succeed/depends for a task?

i would be worried for my game that me granting succeed without roll for task x under circumstance y on one day and then leeting it fail in apparently same circumstances later (because a die roll was made and a 3 came up or a 1 or whatever) that it would produce one of two results:
1 - Players think i am lacking in consistency - out of game player GM trust lowered
2 - "Characters wonder "hey, whats up? Something is amiss? We never had that fail before?" and start looking for hex or other type of issue at hand.

one of the advantages of consistency is i don't have to knock my players over the head with 200lb anvil clues... i can have consistent results becoming inconsistent or vice versa as a clue in itself.

"Hey, normally i sense magic and now i cant?"
"hey, normally i can open this lock and now i cant"
"hey, i could never force this boulder and now i can?"
"hey, Joe tried to crank the Renault and it cranked?"

all signs of something wonky happening.

Fog myself, it is much less about my authority, and much more about consistency. In most of my games, I implicitly trust the people I game with, as, if I did not, I would not play with them, but that is a general rule, and at times I have played with people I did not, as either a favor or other reasons, and this method allows me to see what is actually rolled, when I need to see it. I personally find it throws my train of thought off when I have to stop and redirect the player, which, at least for my style of gaming, involves pre-planning my responses. Which takes longer than to simply ignore the roll, and continue as if I had not been interrupted with a non sequitur. So, really, the primary reason I do it this way is that at my table, it actually takes less overall time, with the side benefit of being able to validate any given roll, though admittedly it is of limited concern to me these days.

Also, I have no issues with consistency, as I do it the same way, every time, pretty much without fail. If I have not called for a skill check, I ignore whatever you may roll, and continue my description. I also tend to use "flat scaling ", where, once you have achieved proficiency, and a specific bonus, you simply succeed, unless there are other factors affecting the task.