D&D General Survivor Dungeon Masters -- discussion

[overgeeked]

... Do none of y'all have situations where you need to roll something but don't want the players to know what it is and how you rolled?

No. Because if you roll in the open and the players don't know why, their ears perk up and they get paranoid. That's generally a good thing because it means they're paying closer attention.

 

[overgeeked]

Yikes, I’m not a fan of fake rolls at all, nor hiding the size and number of dice.

Why wouldn’t the players know whether lightning bolt does 6d6 or 12d6 damage? Isn’t that a spell they can learn, in which case shouldn’t they know what dice they need to roll if they cast it?

Because a lot of players find it literally impossible to separate player knowledge from character knowledge. The player knowing the dice thrown will result, inevitably, in the character acting on that information.

 

[Charlaquin]

Because a lot of players find it literally impossible to separate player knowledge from character knowledge.

All players do, because it’s not actually possible. At best you can try and imagine how you might act if you lacked certain knowledge and act that way, but that is still acting on said knowledge, just differently than you would naturally do.

The player knowing the dice thrown will result, inevitably, in the character acting on that information.

No, I understand why a DM might choose to hide that information from the players, what I’m asking is how the players could possibly not know the damage dice for a spell they can potentially learn? Like, I just know that Lightning Bolt does 8d6 damage because it’s a spell I’ve used before. As a player, I’m not going to stop knowing that just because the DM rolls those 8d6 behind their screen.

 

[Malmuria]

I’m not seeing how these two things can both be describing them same style. If the DM is improvising and merely pretending whatever they improvised was part of a plan, how can they also be guiding the players down a (mostly) linear path? Wouldn’t any linearity the path has be illusory at best, since despite the DM’s pretenses otherwise they are in fact improvising it as they go?

Referring to the Colville videos I posted, I think the common thread is that it is the DM's role to create an illusion of depth and player choice whether or not such depth or choice actually exists. So, for example, if you improvise a minor npc in your world, do you feel the need to pretend that was a pre-written part of the campaign world so as to create the illusion of depth (with the players suspending disbelief along the way)? Or, per the example in the latest video, do you have to point to a line in the module to reassure players that the scenario they experienced was not something made up on the spot but rather part of an already existing written scenario? Colville mentions in the video that these things shouldn't matter--and I agree that they shouldn't--but then goes on to just say, but they do, and it's the role of the dm to maintain that illusion of depth.

For me, the DM is another player at the table, but they’re playing an asymmetrical game, and the DM’s role in that game is different than the players’ role(s). It’s important to stress that the DM is a player, because their enjoyment of the game as well as their responsibility for the other players’ enjoyment should be treated as equal to that of the other players. However, it’s equally important to stress that their role as a player is different than the roles of the other players, because they have to approach the game very differently than the other players do.

Yes. But I've found it liberating to play games where as the dm I don't entirely know what's going to happen next. A dnd example was a one shot playing through The Stygian Library, which is a procedurally generated dungeon. So all the room and npc descriptions are included in the text, but as dm I had no idea what the next room would be. Another example is that I am currently running a Blades in the Dark game. The gm still has a specific role, but the mechanics and advice do more to limit that role and provide opportunities for the players to collaborate on creating the world and the story.

... Do none of y'all have situations where you need to roll something but don't want the players to know what it is and how you rolled?

Certainly, for example a reaction roll. But the issue is fudging. From my point of view, if you feel the need to fudge the dice why are you even rolling?

 

[overgeeked]

All players do, because it’s not actually possible. At best you can try and imagine how you might act if you lacked certain knowledge and act that way, but that is still acting on said knowledge, just differently than you would naturally do.

Weird. I’ve been doing exactly that “impossible” thing for almost 40 years. My barbarian loves axes. We encounter a slime. I, the player, know it’s bad to use bladed weapons on a slime. My character doesn’t. So my axe-wielding barbarian hacks away at the slime. Once the character sees that’s bad news, he switches tactics. It’s really that simple.

Your character is not you. Your game mechanics knowledge should not seep into your character’s decisions. It’s not hard to separate. It’s actually trivial to separate them.

Step one, stop thinking D&D is a game you win. Step two, understand that the whole point of the game is to play the role of your character in the world presented by the DM.

No, I understand why a DM might choose to hide that information from the players, what I’m asking is how the players could possibly not know the damage dice for a spell they can potentially learn? Like, I just know that Lightning Bolt does 8d6 damage because it’s a spell I’ve used before. As a player, I’m not going to stop knowing that just because the DM rolls those 8d6 behind their screen.

You know that from years of play. So anyone without those years of play experience likely doesn’t. A player who’s never played a caster wouldn’t know. A player new to the game wouldn’t know. A player who doesn’t memorize the spells wouldn’t know. A player without years of experience wouldn’t know.

You don’t need to stop knowing that info as a player, you shouldn’t use that knowledge as the basis of your character’s decisions. Steps one and two above. Read those bits I quoted from the Moldvay Basic and Mentzer Basic over on the roleplaying thread. Great stuff. Foundational even.

 

[billd91]

Knights of the Dinner Table, a long-running comic series that started in Dragon magazine many (many!) years ago and then developed a life of its own.

Well worth checking out, if you've never seen it.

Shadis Magazine was where it debuted. Dragon picked it up later after Shadis folded. But it had already made the transition to comic books by then too.

 

[Lanefan]

Yikes, I’m not a fan of fake rolls at all, nor hiding the size and number of dice.

Why wouldn’t the players know whether lightning bolt does 6d6 or 12d6 damage? Isn’t that a spell they can learn, in which case shouldn’t they know what dice they need to roll if they cast it?

They know what their PCs can cast, and thus what dice to roll when a PC casts one. They don't know what their opponent can cast, or how many dice are involved. All they know is that a bolt just hit 'em for 32; and as the players knowing whether that 32 came from 6d6 or 12d6 will almost certainly metagame-affect what their PCs do next, it's better that they not know.

 

[billd91]

That’s why I roll in the open. It eliminates any suspicion the players might have that I could be fudging, as well as any temptation I might have to fudge.

I often roll in the open because I don't both to put up a screen - doesn't stop me from choosing not to add a modifier or add on dice that my NPC might be able to use. I'm just sayin'...

 

[Lanefan]

All players do, because it’s not actually possible. At best you can try and imagine how you might act if you lacked certain knowledge and act that way, but that is still acting on said knowledge, just differently than you would naturally do.

No, I understand why a DM might choose to hide that information from the players, what I’m asking is how the players could possibly not know the damage dice for a spell they can potentially learn? Like, I just know that Lightning Bolt does 8d6 damage because it’s a spell I’ve used before. As a player, I’m not going to stop knowing that just because the DM rolls those 8d6 behind their screen.

In my game the damage dice scale by level, thus a 6th-level caster does 6d6, 12th-level does 12d6, etc. If it was always the same roll no matter what level the spell was cast at, I wouldn't be as concerned.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

1. I don’t hide rolls
2. we do not encounter situations where a player knowing the result of the roll causes any sort of dilemma. Every roll has a meaningful consequence for failure which I even tell the player ahead of the roll.
3. If a player chooses to play their character in a way that is suboptimal (e.g. axing a slime), that’s entirely their choice. If they choose the opposite, that’s fine too. We simply have decided not to care about the player-PC knowledge separation and to not to care about metagaming. Players should just be sure to interact with the game world with their PC in the way they want - and also test those assumptions before blindly acting: what the PC thinks they know may not be truth in the game world.