Taking dice away from the players

[Wightbred]

Roleplayed a bunch of campaigns without dice some years ago to try and get more descriptive instead of "I hit for 10 points" out of my players. I found it worked great for games with simple rules where the players could control their own powers like Unknown Armies, but less well for D&D where I had to do everything.

Haven't done this for a while as I've found there are a bunch of games which include player dice rolling in a way that I can encourage description and all have other features I like. Apocalypse World mentioned above is one, but I also like Dogs in the Vineyard, Mouse Guard, the latest WHFRP and 3:16 for this.

Overall I prefer the control players feel from having their own dice, so I'd only go back to rolling all the dice if we played Unknown Armies again - as I'm sure my players would demand it.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

I have taken the dice from my players on many occasions.

Usually to throw back at them for some stupid idea, joke, or observation about me.

Occasionally to swap for one of my dice (because their die is a loser die, and if they can't make a save after 6 successive rolls, something has to be done).

Never to force them to roleplay.

(My table is precisely 0% method actors, and 100% casual gamers. I take the dice away, they have no reason to play...).

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[Wolf1066]

My current crop all seem to be method actors - as I am myself - so we can dispense with dice for a lot of interactions. I keep mental track of what die bonuses the PCs have and factor them into the NPCs reaction to the role play if they are relevant - if the PC's an attractive man and the NPC's drawn to that, I'm more inclined to have the NPC react favourably etc.

Some things just cannot be avoided - subtle clues that the PC may actually miss are rolled for, combat is always rolled for. Really seriously knotty negotiations with someone antipathic to the party would require a roll, even if the player was acting well.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I wouldn't be bothered if the DM rolled initiative, but I would want to roll everything else myself.

As a DM there are some players I want to do the rolling for, because they are so incredibly slow.

 

[karlindel]

I have run games in which I took care of the mechanics, including dice rolling, and the players just roleplayed. I have had good experiences with them so far, and would be happy to run another one.

One was an anime inspired campaign, in which the players started off as normal high school students and learned that they were part of a cycle of power in which they would have to defeat a great evil. During the campaign, they learned how to use their powers (i.e. what triggered them and what effects they had). Everyone had a great time, and the lack of stats in front of them lead them to try things they might not have considered if they felt limited by their character stats. It required a lot of on-the-fly calls and improvisation on my part, but that was part of the fun.

The other was a Halloween game set in the Warhammer universe. Halfway through, the players had made it to the temple housing the relic they wanted to retrieve, three of the five were injured, one of them to the point of not being combat capable. The temple had a pair of orcs guarding it, and the party was debating whether to fight, or sneak in through the sewers with their open wounds. One of the players looked up and asked me "Wait a minute, are seriously considering fighting a pair of tough looking monsters versus sneaking in? Do you have us playing in Warhammer?!?". I laughed out loud, as did several other players. The party managed to make it out with only two deaths, with most of the rest badly injured.

 

[danzig138]

I've tried it. The players hated it. If I was going to try it again, it would have to be with a group of people new to gaming I think.

 

[joela]

I prefer a mixture; the players roll the combat dice, but out of combat skill and other kinds of checks are rolled by the DM. The line of division comes down to player uncertainty. The player knows immediately if he missed in combat or not; but it's not always immediately evident if a skill failure or success is through luck (high or low roll) or skill.

It also gets rid of the "I rolled a high number, tell me what I win" mentality I sometimes see with skill checks.

I like this.

 

[Wolf1066]

I like this.

Likewise. There are just some things that a person (the character) cannot possibly know (such as "there can't possibly be any traps because I had critical success on my roll" or worse "there can't possibly be any traps because (s)he had critical success on his/her roll") and some things that would be quite obvious (your opponent ducked out of the way as you swung).

While my party is good at not "metagaming" in the sense of "I can't possibly know if I/(s)he succeeded or not so I'm going to proceed as if I don't know", it rather kills the immersion when you know the information, breaks the suspense.

If the rolls for certain things (that they can't possibly know) are made opaque the players know precisely as much as the characters know - "I didn't see any traps, but that doesn't mean it's safe. Oh crap, oh crap, I hope I didn't miss anything."

Far more suspense, far more realistic immersion, less like a puppet master sending the character forward knowing full well it's safe or that the character did so badly on its check that it would have missed a neon sign saying TRAP and an animated neon arrow.

That's the way I prefer to play and that's the way I like to run my games. We're there for fun and, for me, it's way more fun if I don't know things that my character wouldn't know. I have no difficulty pretending that I don't know something in the interests of playing the character properly, but it is a lot more fun if I really don't know it.

Fortunately for me, my players all love acting and immersing in their characters, too. So they enjoy not knowing as well.