D&D General Should players be aware of their own high and low rolls?

[Charlaquin]

I also question how much knowing the details really helps. Sure, I know it's a DC X so I have a Y percentage chance of success. Is that better than saying "Given your skill level it should be easy?"

Not necessarily, especially if the DM uses that descriptive language consistently. “Make a hard Dexterity check” could convey very nearly as much information as “make a DC 20 Dexterity check” if the DM consistently uses “hard” to mean DC 20. Slightly less if they use it to mean “a DC greater than 15 and less than 25,” but still enough that players can get a decent sense of their likelihood of success. I find that the main benefit to using exact DCs over descriptive language is that it’s a bit more expedient - the player can simply announce if they pass or fail, instead of announcing their total result and waiting for the DM to say if that’s enough to succeed or not.

Part of the reason I say that is because once in a great while, what the PC perceives is not accurate. Let's say I have a trap. The PC did an investigation check and got a 17. I know that the DC was 20, but I also noted that on a 15 they recognize it is a trap. To them it looks fairly easy. The tricky bit is that as they start to disarm and get a 15, which again is not the difficult DC 20 they needed to because they didn't hit the investigation threshold so they underestimated the difficulty of the trap. They hear an unexpected "click" and because they missed something.

I’m not sure I’m understanding you here. It sounds like you set a DC for the trap itself, and using that same DC both for when the PCs try to find it and for when they try to disarm it? But also missing the DC when trying to find that trap by only a small margin gave them partial information about the trap - they know it’s there but not how to disarm it? Or am I misunderstanding something?

I I had told them that the trap was a DC 15, they now call shenanigans and rightly so because they got a 15. If I left it vague, the difficulty was just a bit more difficult than they expected. Note that in my scenario this is where I'd likely go into a sequence of checks to emulate a tense moment instead of just "boom you're dead" but how to do traps is a different story.

It sounds like we have just entirely different action resolution processes, which may be contributing to my method sounding worse to you than I think you would find it in play. Not to say you wouldn’t still dislike knowing the DC, just that you seem to have a different conception of what a DC even is than I do. In my games, it’s not that the trap has a DC of 15 or whatever that I’m telling to the players. It’s that when they try to search for it, I tell them they need to spend X resource (usually 10 minutes of time) to attempt that and they need to roll at least a 15 to succeed. If they then try to disarm the trap, that’s going to be a different action, potentially with different costs to attempt or consequences for failure, and with a different target number to succeed. DCs don’t exist independently of actions in my games.

Different strokes and all, but I just don't see enough advantage to having numbers appear. Knowing the target numbers for skill challenges and other details always bugged me, I don't think this would be any different.

And maybe it wouldn’t. I’m just saying I used to think that too, until I tried it.

 

[Charlaquin]

It is not possible for me to disagree more. All the things you’ve suggested would immediately break immersion and verisimilitude.

Well, all I can say is that in my experience they don’t. If anything, they foster greater verisimilitude and immersion.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm kind of at the middle ground here. I don't like metagaming nor the game being too gamey, but I don't think knowing your roll and sometimes the DC too necessarily mean that. We must consider what these numbers actually represent. DC is obvious, it is how hard the task is. And in many situations competent people living in the setting and observing it via their own senses instead of just via necessarily abbreviated narration would have pretty decent idea of the difficulty. If the task is such that the PC can reasonably observe and assess it, I don't mind telling the DC. Now some tasks are not like that, often ones related to perceiving and knowing. For such I wouldn't reveal the DC.

And what does the roll+bonus represent? It represents how well the character did, and usually they should have a solid idea of that too. Yes, even if they wouldn't know the DC. You know that you searched thoroughly, you know that you told a good lie, you know you sneaked without making a sound. You still might not necessarily know whether you succeeded, but the quality of your performance helping you to guess whether you did is fine.

But I'm also fine with rolling when nothing massive is at the stake. The roll gauges how well the PC did in the task. If they search traps in area where there are no traps, a bad roll results something like "You don't notice anything..." whereas good one is more like "You're virtually certain that there are no traps." And even if nothing else, it gives us flavour. I try to use degrees of success and failure when possible, and sometimes unexpectedly good or bad rolls in trivial tasks might trigger interesting consequences.

 

[Charlaquin]

For me, the players’ experience should as closely match the characters’ experience as safely as it’s possible to do. I want immersion and verisimilitude. The mechanics are a barrier to that. Whatever mechanics they are, they are best left as in the background as possible. I actively avoid talking in game-speak, using passives when I can, only rolling when I think it’s necessary, only calling for rolls when I have to, all to keep engaged with the fiction as much as possible. In the fiction, in the world, immersed as much as possible. Anything that gets in the way is shoved aside. Play worlds, not rules.

But the game mechanics model parts of the character’s experience that it isn’t possible for the player to share in. That’s why I say it actually fosters greater immersion. I can imagine myself in my character’s shoes to the best of my ability, but ultimately I can’t directly experience what they would be experiencing. The game mechanics help bridge the gap between what the character should know/experience and what the DM is capable of conveying through verbal description and whatever visual aids they may use, to help me better make decisions as the character would.

 

[Oofta]

Not necessarily, especially if the DM uses that descriptive language consistently. “Make a hard Dexterity check” could convey very nearly as much information as “make a DC 20 Dexterity check” if the DM consistently uses “hard” to mean DC 20. Slightly less if they use it to mean “a DC greater than 15 and less than 25,” but still enough that players can get a decent sense of their likelihood of success. I find that the main benefit to using exact DCs over descriptive language is that it’s a bit more expedient - the player can simply announce if they pass or fail, instead of announcing their total result and waiting for the DM to say if that’s enough to succeed or not.

I’m not sure I’m understanding you here. It sounds like you set a DC for the trap itself, and using that same DC both for when the PCs try to find it and for when they try to disarm it? But also missing the DC when trying to find that trap by only a small margin gave them partial information about the trap - they know it’s there but not how to disarm it? Or am I misunderstanding something?

You may have to notice somethings off (perception) and then figure out what (investigate) then disarm (thieves' tools). The perception I noted above may be passive modified by how careful the group is being. I use the investigation result to indicate how accurately they understand the trap if they can even figure out how to disable it or the nature of the trap. You don't disable a trap using investigation according to the rules.

It sounds like we have just entirely different action resolution processes, which may be contributing to my method sounding worse to you than I think you would find it in play. Not to say you wouldn’t still dislike knowing the DC, just that you seem to have a different conception of what a DC even is than I do. In my games, it’s not that the trap has a DC of 15 or whatever that I’m telling to the players. It’s that when they try to search for it, I tell them they need to spend X resource (usually 10 minutes of time) to attempt that and they need to roll at least a 15 to succeed. If they then try to disarm the trap, that’s going to be a different action, potentially with different costs to attempt or consequences for failure, and with a different target number to succeed. DCs don’t exist independently of actions in my games.

Which again, if the PC would not know how long it would take to disable a trap, why should the player? It's like opening a lock - according to my vast knowledge of lockpicking (thanks google) - a lock smith never knows how long it's going to take them to open a decent quality lock. Some things you just don't know until you try is true in real life, I don't know why it should be different in game. I won't tell someone they take a half hour to open the lock, just that it will take an undetermined amount of time since they didn't immediately succeed and do they want to continue as I said above.

And maybe it wouldn’t. I’m just saying I used to think that too, until I tried it.

Right ... and there is no one true way. I would dislike it as a player.

 

[iserith]

Awesome. That is one example of one kind of metagaming.

Now, expand on that and explain to me how all the other kinds of metagaming are the referee’s fault and how to stop the players from being able to metagame.

Oh, I get to do all the work and you get to dismiss it with "Metagaming bad?" What a great deal for me!

Instead, please go ahead and make a list of all instances of "metagaming" that bother you and we can then discuss how the DM sets up these opportunities to happen.

 

[overgeeked]

But the game mechanics model parts of the character’s experience that it isn’t possible for the player to share in. That’s why I say it actually fosters greater immersion. I can imagine myself in my character’s shoes to the best of my ability, but ultimately I can’t directly experience what they would be experiencing. The game mechanics help bridge the gap between what the character should know/experience and what the DM is capable of conveying through verbal description and whatever visual aids they may use, to help me better make decisions as the character would.

What is a specific example? For me, things that are part of the mechanics that cannot be described diegetically, i.e. in the fiction, suggests those mechanics are disassociated.

 

[Charlaquin]

You may have to notice somethings off (perception) and then figure out what (investigate) then disarm (thieves' tools). The perception I noted above may be passive modified by how careful the group is being. I use the investigation result to indicate how accurately they understand the trap if they can even figure out how to disable it or the nature of the trap. You don't disable a trap using investigation according to the rules.

Ok, that’s more or less all true of my game as well (though I simply set the DC at the time the action is made, rather than having a base DC that can be modified depending on the action, but that’s a process distinction I think wouldn’t lead to meaningfully different gameplay outcomes). So I’m not sure what you were trying to express with that example.

Which again, if the PC would not know how long it would take to disable a trap, why should the player? It's like opening a lock - according to my vast knowledge of lockpicking (thanks google) - a lock smith never knows how long it's going to take them to open a decent quality lock. Some things you just don't know until you try is true in real life, I don't know why it should be different in game. I won't tell someone they take a half hour to open the lock, just that it will take an undetermined amount of time since they didn't immediately succeed and do they want to continue as I said above.

Technically it does take an indeterminate amount of time, since we never know for certain if any given attempt will succeed or fail. Could be done in 10 minutes, could be done in 100 if the character attempts and fails 9 times and succeeds on the 10th. Or they might never get it if they try a few times and decide they’ve wasted too much time already. Knowing the cost of each attempt and the likelihood of success is what allows the player to make a reasonable estimate about how long it’s most likely to take, but they can never know for sure. The 10 minute intervals also aren’t meant to be precisely 600 seconds, it’s just the unit I use for measuring time in dungeons and other adventure locations. It’s really more like “about a sixth of the time it takes for a torch to burn out” than 10 literal in-fiction minutes. “That’ll take 10 minutes and a DC 15 Dex check” really just conveys to the player what the character should be able to glean from their assessment of the lock and of their own lock picking skill: how likely they are to be able to get it picked within the time it’s going to take for the other characters to do whatever they’re doing (e.g. searching another part of the room, doing a ritual, keeping watch, etc).

Right ... and there is no one true way. I would dislike it as a player.

Quite possibly. Or you might be surprised. Neither of us know for sure.

 

[Charlaquin]

What is a specific example? For me, things that are part of the mechanics that cannot be described diegetically, i.e. in the fiction, suggests those mechanics are disassociated.

See my reply to Oofta about the lock picking example above.

EDIT: Or, even better, combat. Like, pretty much everything that happens in it. The player can’t know precisely how the character should swing their sword to have the best chance of killing their opponent. They lack both the character’s martial knowledge and their direct experience of the opponent’s position, stance, demeanor, movement, tells, etc. So, we use game mechanics to abstractly represent the things the player isn’t able to directly experience.

 

[overgeeked]

Oh, I get to do all the work and you get to dismiss it with "Metagaming bad?" What a great deal for me!

Yes, you get to back up your claim that all metagaming is the DM's fault. Not interested in doing so? That's funny.

Instead, please go ahead and make a list of all instances of "metagaming" that bother you and we can then discuss how the DM sets up these opportunities to happen.

All metagaming bothers me. Every time a player makes a decision (any decision) based on game mechanics or out of character knowledge, that's metagaming and it bugs me. Let's see, some examples.

The Book Club. Split party. Group 1 on the far side of town suddenly decides to come running to Group 2's location because Group 2 is in some trouble...despite Group 1 having literally no way of knowing that Group 2 is in trouble. One common cheese excuse, "I borrowed this book from [PC in Group 2], I've decided I should return it."

The Walkaway. Group has a prisoner they've decided to torture for information. So the paladin goes for a walk. An oldie but a goodie that is more about old-school D&D than 5E. But I still play old-school D&D, so it's still a problem that pops up.

The Fire Hose. Low-level group encounters a monster for the first time and magically knows its vulnerabilities. Party encounters a troll..."Everyone blast it with fire!" Party encounters an ooze..."No one hit it with slashing weapons!" Easily solved by homebrewing and/or reskinning, but it's still metagaming and gives me more work because the players can't be bothered to roleplay instead of metagame.

The Omniscient Tactician. Typically a wargamer, the player who looks all around the map and makes decisions based on details on the map their PC couldn't know. Enemies behind doors, around corners, etc. Perfect AoE placement into other rooms when their character doesn't know there's even enemies in the other room. Etc.

The Spot Healer. Party healer who doesn't heal until someone goes down because "pop up healing" is more efficient. Also PCs not bothering to do anything about another PC making death saves until they get two fails.

The Wow Raider. The player who comes from video games and thinks D&D is like a WoW raid so they read up on all the monsters, read the module, etc so they can be as efficient as possible. Either never use anything written down by anyone ever or boot them. Infinitely easier to boot them. Also the DM's notes reader. Pure boot them.

The Skill Dogpile. Someone makes a roll and fails so the rest of the group (or anyone proficient with that skill) decide, magically, to saunter over and make the same roll, just in case.

The "Fun" Thief. The rogue finds something without telling the group. If it's a trap, the other PCs get to walk right into it or metagame. If it's treasure, the other players get to pretend they don't know. Either way, this builds resentment at the table. But it's the rogue intentionally being a jerk by centering metagaming. Best solution is to boot them.

The Second Guesser. The player who knows the DM really well so decides to use that knowledge to their advantage. "Tony really digs traps and puzzles and riddles, so I'll go read up on traps and puzzles and riddles."

The Infinite Resters. The group that insists on going nova every fight and taking a long rest after every fight. Easy solution, waves of enemies.

Not an exhaustive list, obviously.

Now, some of those have solutions included, some don't. I'm more interested in you explaining how all of these (and all other instances of metagaming) are the DM's fault and not the players.