The DM That Never Rolled

[MarauderX]

oh, i forgot to mention, you need to get all of their skill bonuses in advance. have them on a nice little spreadsheet or whatever and roll like mad whenever and wherever they are. they will get used to it, and if they ask what you are rolling for, tell them that it was for the rogue that wanted to sneak down the hall, or the chances of a random encounter, or whatever. you are making the check, not them, and it creates a lot more tension for when they are being stalked. instead of knowing when they should be seeing something with a natural 20, roll for them for whatever sense they may be using. whatever it is, don't stall behind a DM screen rolling and looking at dice, deciding what to do. i hate that pause as a player, so i don't do it as a DM.

What i do do is keep 5 d20 around and roll them once in a while, whether the players move 5' or 500' down a corridor. if they want to move slower, let them. you already made the die rolls, tell them how far they get before something is different or changes.

 

[jgsugden]

Another option: Roll the dice in advance with a random number program. I have a sheet that lists out a few thousand rolls of a d20. When I need to roll for something, but I don't want the PCs to go into paranoia mode (THE DM ROLLED A D20! EVERYONE GET AGAINST THE WALL!), I just look at the next number on the sheet. Very quick, very easy.

BTW: I keep the upcoming numbers covered so that I have no clue what the result will be.

 

[swrushing]

My DND 3.0 game reached conclusion just last week after three years of play and about 14 levels of characters. It was one of the best games i have run and i think the best they have played.

From day 1, I initiated what i called player active rolling.

When a beast took three claw attacks at one of the players, they rolled d20 three times and added their current AC to each. These were applied to a DC already figured for my monsters (22+the attack bonus) and if they made the "evade check" they were missed. If not, they were hit.

Same thing applied for when the PCs threw spells at my bad guys. They rolled a "spell check" of a d20 plus their spell save DC and I compared it to my bad guy's save bonus+22 DC.

The few rolls i would make were damage for when the PCs were hit and the occasional opposed checks.

i can agree with the original poster... the player's perspective shifted to "its me rolling to evade" and so they took those rolls seriously as something they did, not as some mystery thing the GM did. It kept them as involved when its not their action as when it was. Everyone loved it.

On thing i will note is what i feel part of the reason for its success was. In the normal situation I would be rolling to succeed. Well, i am not "playing" and hitting the characters is not a success for me. So this is a no win situation... if i hit, they lose and if i miss they don't feel they did anything, being the passive element. On the other hand, with them rolling to "evade" they are no longer the passive element. They succeed or they fail. That makes a difference.

Did this mean that sometimes one of them made a critical roll like those pesky saves and so my big bad went down round 1, something many Gms would prevent with a fudged die roll? Sure. Were those scenario killers? nope. When they did happen it was refreshing to the players and my scenarios were typically involved enough that the sudden change in momentum did not ruin it but rather emphasized many things.

Its a practice i recommend and that I will continue when my stargate game starts up.

As for time delays, i found the opposite to be true. While there might be the occasional delay of communication, these were much less noticeable as the times i could tell Bob that he needed to make three rolls and Jim that he needed to make two and have them both resolving simultaneously.

YMMV

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Don't forget to ask yourself - 'How would I like this as a player?'

I know that as a player it wouldn't bother me for very long - I'd just get a different G.M. (And have over that very issue in a Vampire game...)

The Auld Grump

 

[KarinsDad]

Lots of "please miss," or "not another 18 for C's Sake," etc. Which you don't get when rattling plastic behind the screen.

No, but you get this when you roll in the open as DM. There effectively is no difference between the DM rolling combat rolls for NPCs in the open and players rolling combat rolls for NPCs in the open. You still get the groans when the criticals go against the players and the cheers when the super tough villain misses.

 

[wocky]

Call me stupid, but you won't see ME rolling MY dice against my character!! Dice loose their mojo!!

 

[jgsugden]

This does have an added advantage for some unfortunate DMs out there ... it makes cheaters pay for their sins. If you make the player use the same dice at all times, the dice he uses for his attacks will be the same dice used to attack him.

 

[Ace]

In the Buffy RPG the DM (Called a Director ther) never has to roll. It is assumed that the monsters always have a fixed total on all rolls

FREX The players want to hit a monster, they simply roll a d10 (plus mods) against the critters combat skill-- If the monster attacks them they have to beat his fixed attack total with a defense roll

This plays really fast (a massive combat against a dozen vamps took a few minutes) and its works very well in Buffy.

OTOH Buffy is a game where crits are determined by "Drama Points" rather like Action Points from D20 Modern or Action Dice from Spycraft

How well this work in D&D with its emphasis on chance is is unclear to me. I would like to try it myself but my players would not like it in D&D so....

 

[Antoine]

This whole thread scares me :
What is this about anyway ?
Trust, cheating, DMing ?

1. Trust.
If your player don't trust you, they'd better look for another DM, lest you find other players.

2. Cheating.
Some players cheat, DMs never do : they run a game. Then see point 1.

3. DMing.
DMing is any way you feel comfortable as a DM.
If everybody at your table (including yourself) has more fun when players throw the attack rolls against their own characters, it's just fine. As long as it's all about HAVING FUN.
If it turns out to be a CONTROL issue, back to point 2.

DMs don't game against their players. They game for and with them.
Hence, these dice-roll questions should never turn out for reasons like those exposed in the original post (DM-fudging, DM-fiat, guilt, whatever).

 

[Madfox]

"Ok Joe, make a listen check."
"Why?"
"Just make one."
"I rolled a 15."
"Ok great. You hear the whispering wind."
"Uh... Joe draws his sword and wakes everyone."
"Why? Because of the wind?"
"It's an omen or something."
DM: *sighs*

Sometimes it is just the wind

I tend to ask for detailed watch schedules, sketches of campsites or even of empty rooms just to set of the players. They never know when I ask for it, because it matters or because I feel like it.

Joe in the above example would have been clobbered on the head after three times waking up the PCs for nothing

In any event, the downside of rolling in the open is that the players have a tendecy to meta-game. If you roll a 3 and still hit AC 30 you tell a lot. With a screen between the roll and the players, they don't know whether you rolled a 19 or a 3.