D&D 5E Players: Why Do You Want to Roll a d20?

[Campbell]

Often different people will see the fiction in a different light. I believe it is the GM's duty to convey the situation as honestly as possible. One technique I have picked up when a player states what their character is doing is to state something like that will be a DC 23 Athletics check and explain the consequences if they could meaningfully know them. This gives them a chance to either reconsider or highlight something about the situation I might have missed.

 

[Hussar]

Honestly, for us, it's simply a time saver. We've gamed together long enough, and every single one of us bar one has spent time behind the DM's screen, that we know the drill. We know when those checks are going to be asked for anyway and we're right 99% of the time. So, why bother doing the hoop jumping of state goal, wait for the DM to ask for a roll that we know is coming, roll, wait for the DM to tell us what happened?

Just state and roll. It works for us because, well, we're not a new group of players who've never gamed before and never gamed together before. I imagine that if I was put into a new group, I'd probably go more the @iserith route, but, for my established group? It would drive me to distraction if I had to ask the players to make rolls every single time I thought they should roll. Just roll the damn dice and I'll let you know if you didn't have to roll.

Again, it's mostly just a result of the familiarity we have with each other.

 

[jayoungr]

I'd never let a PC persuade an NPC to change religions with a single die roll unless that NPC was already practically on the verge of it themselves.

It wasn't a weighty dramatic scene or an important NPC. If you've ever played Hoard of the Dragon Queen, it was the random hung-over cultist who was left behind in the dragon hatchery. The players didn't really want to kill him, since he hadn't harmed them, but they also didn't want to just let him go. So the player of the cleric got the idea of trying to convert him.

As a player, I don't actually have to ask for a roll for that outcome to occur.

No, of course not, and in that specific case I was the DM anyway. But it's an example of why I'm regularly willing to let the dice decide the outcome of my character's actions--because the results can be surprising and fun. I don't go in with the mentality that the most important thing is to succeed at all times. I'm open to the possibility of failing because that can be fun too. Or the flip side is that I'm willing to roll for something crazy that I want to try, just in case it actually works.

 

[Hussar]

I have to admit that my group is a lot closer to @jayoungr . We are far more entertained by randomness than sure things.

 

[Blue]

I recently joined my first PbP game over in dndbeyond’s forums, and this seems to be the general practice over there from what I’m experiencing. So far I haven’t given in, but it’s a little frustrating because I keep getting the feeling that the DM is going to ignore my character’s actions unless I attach a roll. So far, the only roll I’ve been asked for was a Survival check to find some tracks for which I hadn’t even said I was looking.

I can't claim any experience with PbP, but I can see when gaming in a format that has a long response lag trying to be proactive in providing details and rolls as a courtesy to keep things moving. Just like how movies and novels have different strengths.

"With practiced ease I look through the desk, checking the drawers including pulling them out and looking for anything attached underneath. I also keep any eye out for measurements that don't add up that could indicate a secret compartment. If it matters, I'm going top down, starting from the top left, and will skip any locked/stuck drawers, calling over Brandar to take a look at them while I continue.

"If you need a roll, it is [embedded die roller]. For reference, my INT (Investigate) is +5 and my WIS (Perception) is +1."

 

[iserith]

No, of course not, and in that specific case I was the DM anyway. But it's an example of why I'm regularly willing to let the dice decide the outcome of my character's actions--because the results can be surprising and fun. I don't go in with the mentality that the most important thing is to succeed at all times. I'm open to the possibility of failing because that can be fun too. Or the flip side is that I'm willing to roll for something crazy that I want to try, just in case it actually works.

I cover that the original post: "An interesting side effect is that this efficiency also permits me to sometimes be even bolder than usual and take extreme risks when it will have the biggest dramatic impact since I have plenty of resources in reserve to get myself out of trouble. It allows me to do that One Cool Thing in the session that will be memorable."

I'm still not asking to roll though. I'm taking an action that has a lot of uncertainty in it and a meaningful consequence for failure for which I expect to roll, but have some resources to spare to modify the roll and have a greater chance of success.

 

[DEFCON 1]

And sometimes it's fun when the die says something unexpected. I have players who laugh to this day about how the cleric, four years ago, converted a Dragon Cultist to worshiping Bahamut with a mere Persuasion roll of 4, because the target's opposed wisdom roll was a 2. That would never have happened without the dice.

Yep, this is the kind of thing I was thinking of when I said I just improvised stuff and the player offers of ideas and the die rolls helped determine what I improvised.

Running that hatchery dungeon, I'm not a DM who has thought of every permutation of every NPC's personality and what they like/hate/believe etc. etc. I'd never waste my time doing that because who knows if/when any of those ideas I spent going through would ever actually come up? But once the game is playing and what the players did resulted in a situation such as what you mentioned above (with the one lone cultist remaining)... THAT is the point where my reactions as the NPC to what the PCs say/do/offer to me will "create" the NPC in the moment. So at that point... a bit of RP followed by a Religion & Persuasion check to "convert" this cultist, and the cultist rolls poorly on his Insight? Then sure! The guy converts! Why not? Maybe now the party has an NPC ally that can feed them information about the cult going forward. Or maybe they go in an entirely different direction than they might have based upon the NPC's information?

All this is stuff I never would have planned for prior to this hatchery encounter, it all comes out of improvisation based off of dice rolls and skill checks. So for me... anyone and everyone who wants to roll checks with their skills will go a long way in determining what happens and the directions the party ends up going.

Yeah, if another DM has very specific scenarios written out and knows going in what the goals are and the approaches that would work best to achieve them... waiting for the players to offer up their movement in that way probably works for their games more effectively. But I'm not one who has things that figured out. I'm just flying by the seat of my pants, and a Nat 20 goes a long way in pointing me in the direction my improv should go.

 

[jayoungr]

I'm still not asking to roll though. I'm taking an action that has a lot of uncertainty in it and a meaningful consequence for failure for which I expect to roll, but have some resources to spare to modify the roll and have a greater chance of success.

I think this just boils down to the attitude we each have when we roll. What I'm hearing from you is that you feel like you're doing something weighty and maybe a little scary when you roll--something you'd rather not be doing if you can avoid it. While for others on the thread, it's less of a big deal.

 

[iserith]

Yep, this is the kind of thing I was thinking of when I said I just improvised stuff and the player offers of ideas and the die rolls helped determine what I improvised.

Running that hatchery dungeon, I'm not a DM who has thought of every permutation of every NPC's personality and what they like/hate/believe etc. etc. I'd never waste my time doing that because who knows if/when any of those ideas I spent going through would ever actually come up? But once the game is playing and what the players did resulted in a situation such as what you mentioned above (with the one lone cultist remaining)... THAT is the point where my reactions as the NPC to what the PCs say/do/offer to me will "create" the NPC in the moment. So at that point... a bit of RP followed by a Religion & Persuasion check to "convert" this cultist, and the cultist rolls poorly on his Insight? Then sure! The guy converts! Why not? Maybe now the party has an NPC ally that can feed them information about the cult going forward. Or maybe they go in an entirely different direction than they might have based upon the NPC's information?

All this is stuff I never would have planned for prior to this hatchery encounter, it all comes out of improvisation based off of dice rolls and skill checks. So for me... anyone and everyone who wants to roll checks with their skills will go a long way in determining what happens and the directions the party ends up going.

Yeah, if another DM has very specific scenarios written out and knows going in what the goals are and the approaches that would work best to achieve them... waiting for the players to offer up their movement in that way probably works for their games more effectively. But I'm not one who has things that figured out. I'm just flying by the seat of my pants, and a Nat 20 goes a long way in pointing me in the direction my improv should go.

To be clear, my position isn't that you shouldn't roll. It's that, as a player, trying to roll isn't a great strategy for success because it means you're undertaking tasks that have an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure. And when you're out there boldly confronting deadly perils, that can be a recipe for disaster. Some rolls are unavoidable. But I am going to try to avoid them or, failing that, try to mitigate the swing on the die.

I still submit, as I did upthread, that this specific example is perfectly achievable with the player not asking to make a roll. The player describes what he or she wants to do. The DM considers it and asks for a roll, using a contest for some reason to come up with a DC. The player succeeds. The outcome in this case was the same. But from the player's perspective, why would I want to roll in that situation? I'd rather my action just succeed. The meaningful consequence that followed my failure on that roll might not have been good.

As for planned challenges, I think it's good to flesh some challenges out, but doing so for every interaction with a random NPC seems like a waste of prep time. I also don't think it's a good idea as DM to decide ahead of time which goals and approaches work best. The better thing, in my view, is to just come up with a situation and its moving parts, but not any solutions. That's the player's role and I would hope those solutions don't include asking to make checks.

 

[iserith]

I think this just boils down to the attitude we each have when we roll. What I'm hearing from you is that you feel like you're doing something weighty and maybe a little scary when you roll--something you'd rather not be doing if you can avoid it. While for others on the thread, it's less of a big deal.

I mean, the prerequisite for there being a roll at all is that there is a meaningful consequence if you fail. Certainly that is something the character may wish to avoid even if the player might think failure in a specific instance could be fun and contribute to an exciting, memorable story. In general, it seems like a reasonable player behavior to want to succeed more often than fail and that's all this is really about: Asking to roll more dice is asking for a higher chance of meaningful consequences for failure. That does not strike me as a good strategy for long-term success.

If the DM is asking for rolls when there is no meaningful consequence for failure, well, that's not really what we're supposed to be doing according to the rules. And that's fine - people can play how they want. But as my original post lays out, I am taking this position based on a rules-based approach. If there really aren't any meaningful consequences to bear, then it makes sense players are asking to roll. There's hardly any downside.