D&D General The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods

[Chaosmancer]

You invited yourself in my game. With a corrupted sheriff, you're either dead, or in jail and soon to be. Tough luck man. Sorry.

So, that's your version of a session zero? Kill a character off before level 1 because you don't like it. Wonder where I could have possibly gotten the idea that you are controlling from?

Hey! I'm a generous man. What can I say.
But being part of the region is usually mandatory. A region can be big. Or small. It would mean discussion with me and the other players. Ho the tyranny of the majority...

Why must I be from the same region as everyone else? That seems like an unnecessary restriction that does nothing except control what character's people are allowed to make.

According to you. But once the vote are cast. You and I have to abide. Why do you constest that I apply the votes and the rules?

Well, when I asked "who decided that" you said "me". That isn't a group vote, that is you declaring that the decision was made by yourself. So, you either lied, or you have no idea what you are talking about.

And I contest the votes, because I don't remember voting for anything. I do remember you telling me that the votes of the group were against me, which is strange since I never voted for anything and never discussed things with these other voters. I have nothing but your word that all the votes are going against my ideas, ideas that you called ludicrious and impossible before you started hiding behind this smoke screen of "votes"

No you discovered that the Sheriff is corrupted. And he surely knows because he beat you. It will be either to a pulp or simply put you in jail and hang you next morning just to make a nice example of you.

And again you add details that I never once stated. I said I was beaten by a corrupt sheriff. Since when did I say that I discovered he was corrupt? Maybe it is common knowledge that he is corrupt. Maybe he did beat me and then stab me, but I survived. You said you'd give someone three 15+ rolls, I use them on the death saves. Oh wait, I bet that its impossible that everyone in the village would know the sheriff is corrupt, because you just decided that the noble in charge of the region woulnd't stand for it. And the sheriff would stab me TWICE to kill me, so I'm dead anyways because clearly my idea is absurd, not that it is, you know, you just forcing it not work no matter what I say.

After all, you had a vote that I never participated in, so you know that I'm always going to be voted wrong.

Nope, you are the one trying to changing the cleric's rules. Not me.

I disagree that picking your own domain is in anyway changing the cleric's rules.

That you accept it or not has no bearing. I read the rules, and see that you are wrong. Wheter you agree or not in my game is of no consequence as everyone in my games sees this the same as I. You are the one with a weird interpretation. Tyranny of the majority again...

Well, I read the rules and see that you are wrong. Whether you agree or not in my game is of no consequence as everyone in my games sees this the same as I. Tyranny of the Majority, right?

Nope, a suggestion is a suggestion. It can be ignored or acted upon. There is the Acolyte background, the text is relative fluff. Even you said that the tables are mere suggestions and that you can ignore them and write your own TIB if you so choose (and if the DM chooses to allow you to do it) Unless you no longer feel that way?

You seem to be confused as to who gets to decide what. You said it was impossible to be a reformed cultist because the option doesn't exist. I demonstrated that it does exist, it is in the text. Therefore, as a player, I get to decide if I want to take the suggestion for my character or not.

You then said that I am required to roll on the suggested tables and forced to take the results of those rolls. However, as a player, I get to decide whether I want to take those suggestions for my character or not.

There is no contradiction in my position here.

Ho no, it is not run only at my table. But I am telling that apply rules. You just do not accept the rule that I use RAW and RAI in favor of your weird reading where a cleric of Vecna could choose nature because "I read it that way" no one can tell me the I am wrong because it is me.

I have been looking for an explanation for why I can't take the nature domain as a cleric of Vecna, to demonstrate a person who is part of a cult of Vecna focused on the secrets of nature. The answers I have gotten are... because you can't. Using a reading of the rules that unnecessarily limits choices in a way that doesn't even make sense within the rules, as we have shown REPEATEDLY that these domains are suggestions, and that they are just the closest people could get in some cases, or otherwise bizarre.

If your entire rebuttal is "because you can't" then if I do, then you have no rebuttal.

If you go to the book store. Do you expect to find a freezer and buy it there? Ho the Devils will go along your plan, make fine prints and exceptions and yaddi yadda. End point? They'll get your soul. Demons? Straight forward ask for it. No bargains, don't want it? Go away. Their philosophy is quite straigth forward and if they can't get your soul through a deal, they'll simply try to get it right here and now.

Who says fiends are like a bookstore? If I go to Wal-Mart I can find books and freezers and shoes and food. I have made plenty of characters who made deals not involving in their souls. There is no reason I cannot, except that you refuse to accept it and are forcing your vision of what is allowed on my concepts.

Honestly, this is getting to the point where I am thinking I must reconsider my policy of trying to meet people halfway and accept their premises, because all it has led to is you making assumptions and trying to enforce a vision of the game that has nothing to do with the rules or the way that it is played at any table I have ever been to.

Wait???? Tables are not suggestion but you can and will ignore them. But a simple suggestion has more bearing than whole tables... You are very consistant in your approach.

As I previously demonstrated, yes, I am consistent in my approach.

Fortunately you did not. As your patron, I'd ask for your soul! (details details... but one can hope doesn't it?)
If you want to talk about the game in general, why do you go with books other than what you are sure that everybody here has?
Why do you bother defending a reading that do hold close scrutiny unless you ignore the whole text?
Why do you ignore that under domain, you have gods listed as having these domains?
Why do you ignore the Appendix B that tells you which gods have which domain(s)?
Your reading only works in your game and only if you ignore zounds of text rules.

I have ignored nothing. I know that you do have access to the materials we have been discussing, as I showed before. So, I find all of this to be groundless

Read again my friend a 4th level with pick locks. This is about what you would need to solo the sheriff and survive if caught.


You are first level.
You bribe with what?
A single explosive runes on the lock and you're dead unless about 4th level. 200 gold is not that much for a sheriff.

So, I want to take a moment and just appreciate how utterly shameless you are.

My original statement: My character was beaten by a corrupt sheriff and escaped his home village.

The Situation that you have created: I discovered that the sheriff was corrupt and to silence me he beat me and threw me in jail. The jail is enchanted against magic, the cells are reinforced to hold pixies, the lock is enchanted with a 3rd level spell to explode if anything other than the appropriate key in placed in it. This trap alone costs 200 gp, which is double the daily running cost of a small castle, and ignores the costs of hiring a 5th level wizard to cast it. The sheriff is rich enough to afford this without any issues. My character must survive the beating, survive the exploding jail cell, and be capable of fighting the sheriff in a solo fight to the death to be allowed to have escaped.


The level 4 requirement is literally only to have the hp to survive a trap I never mentioned and never considered. Because in terms of skill modifers, there is no difference between a level 1 character and a level 4 character.


I can clearly see why this is impossible, I just would argue that I'm not the one who made it so, since I didn't assume a sheriff with the funds and access to magic of a mid-tier noble, and a jail at all, let alone one magically trapped and reinforced to prevent any and all escape. It truly makes me wonder what marvels must be in the jails of a noble, if a small peasant village has hundreds of gold sunk into their jails.

Yep. That I can understand. But as I said in another answer, the death rate ratio in the first three levels is pretty high in my games. Very high if you compare to a lot of tables. Doing such a long back story is a total waste of time and character creation is always with everyone at the table. Once the votes are done with, it takes about 20 minutes to get started on the adventure itself. Not a lot of time to write one.

So character's die too quickly to matter. Might explain why you refuse to let someone actually care about their own character at level 1, and instead enforce all these bizzare rules.

Then again, when village jails have exploding traps and the local sheriff has the political and martial might of a mid-tier noble, it is little wonder that low-level characters die in droves. I'd say you are safer out in the wilderness, but I'm sure you have roving gangs of dragons who attack the 1st level characters for their copper coins.

Unless you want to slow down everyone else. Not really.
If we are in another system. Such as Vampire the Masquerade. The back story will be more than mandatory. Usually a few pages long and one part will be done by you and one part will done by me (more or less, see the following). You would have to take a bit of notes the second part of your background as I would tell you Who is your Sire. Why you think the embraced you. The life you have had with your Sire until your Sire released you. How your Sire presented you to the Prince and the vampire community and a bit about the Masquerade and the town (vampire version) that you are in. There are games that are better suited for full background.

I'm not familiar with Vampire the Masquerade, but I would have to say that if the rules enforce the GM telling the players why they think something, then I have no interest in the game. You have fun writing your book, it is an enjoyable experience, but not when you aren't the author

I also challenge your assertion that there are games more suited to a full background, as in the last seven years I have had great joy in crafting backgrounds for DnD characters, and have found death to be a rarity. Then again, I've already seen why your games seem to be so deadly.

Unfortunately yes. You are trying to make us see a reading of the rule of which you have to ignore everything else in the cleric and domain descriptions. We provided quotes. We've shown you the texts, pointed you everything and yet, you keep saying that your homebrew is RAW but it is not.

I gave you a bit of your own medicine by "graciously" let you into my games. The taste is bitter isn't it? As I do unto you what you do unto us. We pointed you the RAW and RAI but keep on insisting that your homebrew interpretation is the new RAW. Yes, taken out of the context, such a reading could be interpreted that way. But have to ignore everything else in not only the PHB but also in the DMG and all other splat book in which they add a domain. Because in all splat books where there is a new domain they list everygods that might have that domain available for their clerics! So yep, you are trying to force your view on others. But you do not see it that way.

And from now on, I will leave my campaign world at home. I think you've got enough. Can we now discuss the true RAW that gods do not have all domains available to their clerics?

Edit: And check the bolded parts. You are very inconsistent in your answers...

Ah, so you were just wasting everyone's time with theater. Well, I'm sure you had a good laugh, but since you never actually bothered to address my points, then it seems that you wasted your own time as well.

 

[Chaosmancer]

For those of you who have been forced to scroll past these recent massive posts between me and Heldritch, now that he has said it was all theater meant to "give me a bitter taste of my own medicine" I want to apologize. If I had realized sooner he was not discussing things in good faith, I would have ignored him and saved you all the effort and the annoyance.

I will try and do better in the future.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

I can say the sheriff thing was fun to read through, but I was indeed wondering what that had to do with anything.

 

[Faolyn]

Highly unlikely but it would depend a lot. We do not know if the character is stealthy or not. Or has access to picklocks or not. Since this is thread about clerics and worshipers... I doubt that this could be the case.

Is the PC a rogue? Then yes, they're likely stealthy and had lockpicks.

It's the backstory, not an actual adventure.

From a purly logical mechanical point of view, the sheriff must have deputies (guards) but the sheriff, should be the equivalent of a veteran or something more along the CR 2 or 3. Way too much for a single character of level 1 to handle.

Who says that they "must" have deputies or that the sheriff "must" be a veteran at the time the backstory took place?

Mmmm.... This is not what 5ed shows us. In 1ed or 2ed perhaps. But in 5ed where almost all classes have magical abilities (save one monk, fighters, rogues and barbs and even them have a few subclasses with magical abilities). This makes magic very common and even worse, check the history of the Realm. Have you ever checked the amount of high level casters, especially arcane? The amount is staggering. So yep, pretty much common and even a cleric can trap a lock with explosive runes for a few gold. If something other than this key enters in the key hole... BOOM. Dead is the 1st level. And this comes from a players that did this during 1ed to show the DM (It was not me) that magic can do a lot even without high level spells. So all you actually need, is a fifth level caster.

One: Most NPC statblocks don't have a lot of magic.

Two: Even if the NPC statblock has magic, that doesn't mean that the world has a lot of magical items in it, or that there are a lot of NPCs enchanting things all over the place.

Three: Are these high-level Realms casters being employed by various other people to make antimagic or explosive rune jails? How much are they getting paid for this job?

Four: These spells are expensive to cast (in the sense that wizards aren't going to be casting them for free). Are they going to be cast on every cell, or just when it's needed?

Five: Who said that this hypothetical backstory took place in the Realms?

Hollywood tropes are over and done in our area. Small size cells would be a thing with any place where halflings would be present.

In your game, sure. In other people's games?

Don't see it this way. The big difference with fantasy and medieval time is that in D&D women are truly treated equally. Martial or caster, a woman is as dangerous as any males and perceived as such by everyone and every races. A dream come true. I really hate how our world acts with women. Equal work, equal pay is not a simple sentence for me. It is a way of life. But we're not here to discuss the real world are we?

Thus you are presumably playing D&D with a modern viewpoint.

Some of us just go a little further. Not just in terms of equality, but in other things. Like understanding the scientific method, or not burning heretics at the stake, or having literate peasants. Seriously, if you're going to say that it's unrealistic for someone to have escaped from jail as part of their backstory, then it should also be unrealistic for anyone but the wizard, cleric, and probably bard to be able to read. If you let your PCs be literate, then you're also not playing from a medieval mindset. If PCs are throwing around gold coins, they not playing from a medieval mindset. If they're free associating with people of other countries, social classes, or races, they're not playing from a medieval mindset.

I do not use the term man with any negative connotations. I was not aware you were a woman. And truly do not care. Your opinion is as good as mine whatever your sex, orientation or whatever else you consider yourself.

I'm not thinking you were sexist or anything, but there are many reasons why people don't want to play D&D with a realistic medieval mindset. Sexism (and other bigotry) is one of them. There's also that people shouldn't have to be, and don't want to be medieval scholars or anthropologists to play a game.

I wish it were so easy. Remember that a constable's words were more highly valued than the word of a peasant (or free man/woman) and less so than even the lowliest noble. If the constable says he killed the poor sod in self defense, it will be more than enough proof for the lord.

Again, using a medieval mindset. Which D&D doesn't really have, because of the magic, non-humans, and gods who actually show up from time to time, or at least send minions. And because the "medieval period" on a typical D&D world has lasted for many times more than it did here on Earth, which meant that even though the technology hasn't changed (although it should), the mindset will have had time to change.

And I do. So what's your point?

Then a Lawful Good sheriff won't be engaging in brutal methods like torturing and murdering prisoners and removing their tongue so you can't interrogate their corpse. And if they were, then a Lawful Good society wouldn't allow that to continue.

Which means that a PC can expect to not be tortured and then killed before they escape.

Not everyone has the will to do so.

PCs do. It's why they're PCs. If I had a player want to play a reborn or a dhampir, or reskin some other race as undead and gave this as their reason, I'd be cool with it.

But requires the body/head to be relatively intact.

It requires a mouth.

Desecrating a body is generally considered to be a Bad Thing. Bad enough that even if the former living person was weak-willed, the desecration itself might be enough to cause the corpse to rise as undead. Or it might attract attention from other things as well.

Mainly perception/insight/investigation rolls that the characters are not aware of. Especially when the passive score is too low to my taste. So I do a secret active check. I take the first roll, write what it was used for at what time and go on. If it is a success, it is a success. If it is a failure, the characters are not even aware that they failed. At the end of the session, the sheet where the rolls are is given to the players. Sometimes, no rolls were used. Sometimes, a few were. The rolls are not taken arbitrarily as you implied. They are taken in order and this is to avoid the famous a roll? Why? I/We check too! If the roll is a success they will know immediately. A fail and they're none the wiser but the players will not go into "search" mode because a roll was made. And again, they do see everything at the end of the session.

DM: Fighter, give me a <skill> check.

Other PC: Can I roll one as well?

DM: No, just Fighter.

Or even, I just ask them to roll a d20 because I have a copy of their sheet and know what their modifiers are. I've found that players don't like it when other people roll for them.

If your goal is to keep the PCs in the dark for story reasons, that's one thing. But just to keep them from all wanting to roll? Also, I gotta say, if you were my GM and you pulled this on me, it wouldn't matter if you showed me a list at the end of the game. I wouldn't trust you.

 

[Maxperson]

So, that's your version of a session zero? Kill a character off before level 1 because you don't like it. Wonder where I could have possibly gotten the idea that you are controlling from?



Why must I be from the same region as everyone else? That seems like an unnecessary restriction that does nothing except control what character's people are allowed to make.

So I'm going to say that you and @Helldritch are both right and wrong.

First you. Can a PC have been beaten in another village jail by a corrupt sheriff, escaped and fled to somewhere else? Yes, absolute. As a background it is very plausible. There are a variety of ways that you could have been beaten and escaped without being killed or imprisoned for the rest of your life. In that you are correct.

Where you go wrong is that this is Helldritch's game that you are making that backstory in, and he is well within his rights to say during session 0, "You are all from the village that you are starting in," which it sounds like he does. Some DMs like to run campaigns entirely in smaller areas, so a PC from outside doesn't fit. Some like to start in smaller areas and expand outward as the PCs level. Insisting on coming from the outside in those kinds of games is wrong.

Now Helldritch. You are correct in your ability to dictate where the PCs start from and a background that steps outside of that isn't a proper background. The players are presumably aware of where they will be starting and any restrictions about where their PC is from prior to backgrounds being written, so Chasomancer's background is out of line with that.

Where I think you go wrong(and it's still your call as DM), is that you have an overly narrow view of the possibilities of being beaten by a sheriff and escaping. The corrupt sheriff might have someone in the cell beaten and a more powerful prisoner escapes some time later and the PC gets out that way. The PC might have friends that bust sneak in tools through a window and the PC escapes under the cover of darkness. There are lots of ways that it can happen, so it's not nearly an impossible scenario.

I can say that I almost never restrict PCs to coming from a certain area, so with respect to the sheriff(I haven't followed every bit of that background), I would allow the beating and escape. It's plausible, even if unlikely for most people.

 

[Faolyn]

Hey, do any of you have twiiter? If you do, why not go ask the writers/Sage Advice people what they mean when they say the cleric can pick any domain related to their god.

I don't have twitter.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Hey, do any of you have twiiter? If you do, why not go ask the writers/Sage Advice people what they mean when they say the cleric can pick any domain related to their god.

I don't have twitter.

I honestly don't know if my twitter works.

 

[Maxperson]

Hey, do any of you have twiiter? If you do, why not go ask the writers/Sage Advice people what they mean when they say the cleric can pick any domain related to their god.

I don't have twitter.

I've looked at Crawford's twitter feed and it doesn't look like he does Q&A anymore, and neither does the D&D twitter feed. I'm not sure if there is another twitter account for questions or not.

 

[Voadam]

I've never found the Sage Advice type stuff more useful for written rule interpretations than the primary documents themselves.

 

[Helldritch]

Is the PC a rogue? Then yes, they're likely stealthy and had lockpicks.

It's the backstory, not an actual adventure.


Who says that they "must" have deputies or that the sheriff "must" be a veteran at the time the backstory took place?

A backstory must be plausible and doable from the character's perspective. Outlandish achievements will just be met a stern no. Both from me and the other players.

One: Most NPC statblocks don't have a lot of magic.

Two: Even if the NPC statblock has magic, that doesn't mean that the world has a lot of magical items in it, or that there are a lot of NPCs enchanting things all over the place.

Three: Are these high-level Realms casters being employed by various other people to make antimagic or explosive rune jails? How much are they getting paid for this job?

Four: These spells are expensive to cast (in the sense that wizards aren't going to be casting them for free). Are they going to be cast on every cell, or just when it's needed?

Five: Who said that this hypothetical backstory took place in the Realms?


In your game, sure. In other people's games?

1) Priest, Archmage, Wizards, Warpriests and so many others in various other books (all official 5ed) and even in some other books. You know that the spells in the stat block can be changed don't you?
2) Define high level? 5th level? Only an explosive runes is necessary and 200 gold from the treasury of a baron for one cell/prison where you might have suspicion that a person can either lock pick or casts spell is more than enough. Not that much of a deal.
3) And so far, any setting made by WoTC, recent or not pretty much have high magic in them. Be it Greyhawk, The Realms, Spell Jammers, Planescapes (there it is off the roof), Krynn (yep, even there it would be feasible). Especially with the mind set that in 5ed, almost every class can cast spells.

In other words, I do not truly care about homebrew when discussing rules as anything can be changed.

Thus you are presumably playing D&D with a modern viewpoint.

Some of us just go a little further. Not just in terms of equality, but in other things. Like understanding the scientific method, or not burning heretics at the stake, or having literate peasants. Seriously, if you're going to say that it's unrealistic for someone to have escaped from jail as part of their backstory, then it should also be unrealistic for anyone but the wizard, cleric, and probably bard to be able to read. If you let your PCs be literate, then you're also not playing from a medieval mindset. If PCs are throwing around gold coins, they not playing from a medieval mindset. If they're free associating with people of other countries, social classes, or races, they're not playing from a medieval mindset.

No I am not truly using modern mind set. Just logic.
Heck, If I were a sexist macho and saw an angry woman blast a dragon with a mere flick of her fingers, you can bet your shirt that I would treat her with all respect and deference any man or whatever male is due. And with magic, you never know who can really use it. Danger level in fantasy is high and people are usually quite polite unless complete morons. In a world where someone can kill you just for the way you look at him/her, you quickly learn the value of politeness and a bit of etiquette.

This is one of the defining thing in my games. Observers are often surprised at how polite even potential foes are. You simply do not know how powerful the one in front of you is and how this person will react to a slight or perceived sligth.

I'm not thinking you were sexist or anything, but there are many reasons why people don't want to play D&D with a realistic medieval mindset. Sexism (and other bigotry) is one of them. There's also that people shouldn't have to be, and don't want to be medieval scholars or anthropologists to play a game.

See the above for an explanation.

Again, using a medieval mindset. Which D&D doesn't really have, because of the magic, non-humans, and gods who actually show up from time to time, or at least send minions. And because the "medieval period" on a typical D&D world has lasted for many times more than it did here on Earth, which meant that even though the technology hasn't changed (although it should), the mindset will have had time to change.

You know that in medieval times, women were much more respected than in the Renaissance? Yes, the might makes right was still there. But women were much more combative and a knife can be easily hidden. Add magic (arcane or not) and D&D is a lot less sexist than many might think. Many women were expected to fight alonside the men in case of invasion. Especially in Nordic countries. But also in others where women could yield bows and arrows. Renaissance brought some sexists habits and defining roles for women (and add in religion) that put women on the back seat for quite a long time. It is fortunate that these times are over.

But in a high fantasy world, that turn of event probably never happened. Heck, Iggwilv in Greyhawk was one of the most famous women, and she is not a gentle "demoiselle" in distress. Far from that.

Then a Lawful Good sheriff won't be engaging in brutal methods like torturing and murdering prisoners and removing their tongue so you can't interrogate their corpse. And if they were, then a Lawful Good society wouldn't allow that to continue.

Which means that a PC can expect to not be tortured and then killed before they escape.

Were we not talking about a corrupted official? I doubt that a corrupted official is lawful good...

PCs do. It's why they're PCs. If I had a player want to play a reborn or a dhampir, or reskin some other race as undead and gave this as their reason, I'd be cool with it.

Maybe for you they do. For me, not necessarily so.
I do not allow races outside PHB so...

It requires a mouth.

Desecrating a body is generally considered to be a Bad Thing. Bad enough that even if the former living person was weak-willed, the desecration itself might be enough to cause the corpse to rise as undead. Or it might attract attention from other things as well.

Yep, desecrating a body is a bad thing. 100% agreeing with you there. But we were talking about a corrupted evil sheriff...

DM: Fighter, give me a <skill> check.

Other PC: Can I roll one as well?

DM: No, just Fighter.

Or even, I just ask them to roll a d20 because I have a copy of their sheet and know what their modifiers are. I've found that players don't like it when other people roll for them.

If your goal is to keep the PCs in the dark for story reasons, that's one thing. But just to keep them from all wanting to roll? Also, I gotta say, if you were my GM and you pulled this on me, it wouldn't matter if you showed me a list at the end of the game. I wouldn't trust you.

The goal is to keep things rolling.
Here are two examples that happened in the current campaigns (I have two)
Players made an enemy of a powerful mage (read here, higher than they are).
That mage uses Arcane Eye to spy on the players. The passive perception of the best player is too low to notice the Arcane Eye on the spot (darkness, darkvision, so passive perception is at -5). So the players are unaware of the Arcane Eye. As they move, so does the eye.

Now what would happen if I asked a player to roll a perception check (and in these case I would call for the best skill to roll or would use the position of the players).
You will get a: "I wanna check too" but no one is aware. No one. But if you deny a roll, you might get a wave of protest for nothing and thus slow down the game.

Now, using the prerolled result, I get a 19 for the players, add in his skill, remove 5 for darkness and darkvision and guess what? The player noticed the Arcane Eye. He made a deception roll to appear unaware and to warn the other players as to what was happening. His roll succeeded (not that he could know) and he started to feed false information to the wizard spying on them.

A roll was avoided and it led to a great moment where the players knew that the false information would give them an edge against the evil wizard. When the wizard was counterspelled by the party's wizard, I played the surprise because the evil archmage was convinced that the players did not have access to counterspells.

Second example
The scout is in a cavern (again) and there is a hidden goblin. Both passive perceptions are too low to make one notice the other. The player notice that there are two exits to the cave and decide to stealthily move toward one. The scout is unkowingly moving toward the goblin and he rolls low (stealth checks are always made in advance, whether there is something or not). The goblin's passive perception is sufficient to notice the players but the player is still unaware of the goblin. The goblin starts moving toward the other exit to warn the tribe.

Now in a game, if the GM asks the player to roll perception; this will put the player into paranoia mode and thus the party. Not so in my games.

I took the next prerolled result for the goblin it was a 15 and the next one after that for the player. It was 7 or 8, low enough that the goblin stayed unnoticed. It is only when the goblin started to run (thus throwing all caution to wind) that the players knew that a goblin was warning the tribe of their attack. They cursed that damn rule about darkvision and disadvantage on perception and proceeded to retreat...

All other rolls are made in the open. In front of everyone and players have access to the record after the game and know what was used for what. All rolls are used in the sequence they are written. It can be bad or good. But so far, I do not use these very often. The only advantage of doing this is to reduce the roll fest that asking for one roll usually brings at a table. It might not be for everyone, but it works at my table and those of 7 of my players that are DMs too as they too started to use that method. You might be surprised at how fair it is and when used properly and honestly, it reduces a lot of argument for rolls and whatnot.

Strangely, the most recent player never even asked to see the sheet. He knows me enough to know that I would not cheat and he wants to keep everything a surprise. My other players use the sheet as a hint of what might have happened while they were unaware...

At our Friday Night Dungeons, a few people are surprised by the method just as you are. Once they see it in action, all doubts are thrown to wind. Try it. It works quite well.