D&D 5E Are players always entitled to see their own rolls?

[Celebrim]

No.

In general, player's aren't entitled to see any of their rolls. Player's are allowed to make rolls because it is convenient and speeds play.

In general, the player is not entitled to know whether he failed because nothing was there to find, or whether he failed because his roll was low.

So if you check for traps, the DM does the roll. If you use a Sense Motive to try to detect a lie, the DM does the roll. The DM always does spot and listen and other passive perception checks.

Otherwise, you end up in a situation spoofed by an early 'Order of the Stick' where the PC's know that they failed a spot check and are so being observed, and respond to that fact.

 

[iserith]

But what does any of this have to do with rolling in secret, or in the open?

Because some suggest that the secret rolls and "extra" die rolls are a technique to discourage "metagaming," specifically the kind of "metagaming" that comes from seeing the result on a die and getting a questionable response from the DM, opportunities for which actually arise from the DM's technique in the first place.

 

[iserith]

See, to me the opportunity to metagame is the fact that there was no roll.

The crux of the way I look at it is this: If I, personally, was in a ruined castle in Europe somewhere and I searched around for secret doors on a lark but didn't find any, how sure would I be that there weren't any?

Bawylie's response is good.

 

[lowkey13]

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[lowkey13]

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[redrick]

One option might be to always roll "uncertain outcome" checks as opposed checks, instead of against fixed DCs.

Player: What's my sense on how truthful this guy is being?
DM: Alright, give me an Insight check.

[PLAYER ROLLS A 16+3]
[DM ROLLS AN 18+2]

DM: You don't see any indication that he's being dishonest with you.

With an opposed check, there are no automatic fails or successes. The player could roll a 1, but have a better bonus than the NPC. The player could roll a 20, but have a worse bonus than the NPC. The player feels pretty confident about the outcome of their roll (and therefor their gut), but can't actually know for certain.

This is a little weirder with doors and traps, but you could still convert a DC to a bonus (subtract 10) and make it clear to the players that that's how you handle searching for traps and secret doors.

 

[Bawylie]

But what does any of this have to do with rolling in secret, or in the open?

Once you have the indeterminate choice, and the decision is made to roll a die, what then? We can all reasonably discuss our favorite decision-making heuristics and narrative devices to avoid rolling dice, but sometimes, in D&D, dice are rolled.

Seems like it all goes back to metagaming, as Celebrim outlined. Secret rolls are employed so the players can't metagame. Which appears to me to be an afterthought. "I better hide this roll so they don't get info based off the number rolled." And in my view that's a functional solution to a weird problem. But it only functions in that instance.

Why keep creating instances that one seems to want to avoid? Why not play in a way that those instances don't come up, or in a way that doesn't give advantage or penalty to having the result of the die roll?

 

[iserith]

I often note that when people define things, they find that their answer fit what they have defined.

Of course if you have defined adjudication, meta-gaming, fudging, and so on a specific way, then you have happened upon the optimal way deal with issues. I will point out, again, that RPGs have been played for a while, and allow me to note that I often see people state their method of adjudication is the best way, the proper way, or the way that (as you put it) completely gets rid of metagaming.

And yet, for whatever reason, other people reasonably disagree. At a certain point, it's the person who fails to note that reasonable disagreement that may be wrong.

This is similar to a conversation that I had with someone who didn't understand how bias can occur in reporting, even if there was no intent. Just choosing, for example, what stories to cover, what prominence to give to one story over another, and so on - these are all choices. Your decisions on how to interpret player actions, how loosely or how strictly to construe certain descriptions, and, for that matter, when to employ dice- those are all decisions. Susceptible to bias, error, and fudging. *Which is fine, because this is a game.* What's a little odd is that you don't seem to see this, and also that you keep insisting that your method precludes that bias, while secret rolling is just a "fix" that allows it in?

My methods preclude the kind of "metagaming" that others seem eager to avoid (I personally don't care about it), opportunities for which they create by their approach, that they then have to "fix" with additional methods such as secret rolls and the like. This is clear from their posts.

Of course, if they adore that process, they should keep doing it. I prefer to adjust where the problem originally arises and offer solutions on how people can do that. It's on them to adopt it or not because, as the self-evident thing you keep repeating goes, everyone should play how they like and it's not wrong.

With regard to a previous post, I would like to make sure we're on the same page with regard to when you referred to "telegraphing." Please let me know so that I can explain further or so I know we can put that part of our discussion to rest.

 

[lowkey13]

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[lowkey13]

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