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

[Lanefan]

DM: The door has a padlock on it.
Joe: I take a closer look. Is it trapped?
DM: I am hearing your goal is to find out if it’s trapped, could you be a bit more specific about how you try to find that out?
Joe: I don’t want to touch it or anything, I’m just giving it a thorough visual inspection.
DM: You don’t see anything out of the ordinary for a padlock of this make.
Joe: Ok. I want to try to pick it.
DM: Alright, it’s going to require DC 20 Dexterity check to open, and I’ll add a die to the time pool.
Joe: Hmm… Alright, but I want to spend inspiration to get advantage on the check.
DM: Sounds good. Alice, what are you doing during that time?
[I’d go around the table getting everyone’s action declarations before proceeding to resolution, then…]
DM: Ok, how’d you do on that lock, Joe,
Joe: Only a 17, so I haven’t got it open yet.

I’d then proceed with resolving the other players’ actions, re-establish the scene accounting for what changed as a result of those actions, and ask what the players what they want to do. If Joe wants to keep trying for a half hour, that would be two repetitions of this cycle, but one of the advantages of this method is that he doesn’t have to commit to the full half-hour. After each attempt he can re-assess the situation and decide to keep going or try something else instead. As time advances towards the next complication roll, this may affect the players’ priorities and strategies, just as it would the characters’.

I really like the example other than the bolded line, which is very jarring for two reasons.

First, it tells me odds I shouldn't know. Far, far better would be something like "Early returns are it's going to be tough to open. Carry on?"

Second, it gives a needless peek behind the curtain with the specific reference to adding a die to the time pool. That's DM-side stuff players never ever need to know about.

 

[iserith]

@overgeeked is quite right: some (many? maybe even all?) players, on learning of in-game information their characters don't and can't know (e.g. what happens to one half of a split party), simply can't help themselves from using it.

Some find there is nothing wrong with using it, so it's not a matter of not "helping themselves" from doing so. Some of those same people even use it very well to enhance the game.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Which IMO points directly to the DM having done it wrong. When the party splits the players should also somehow be split, be it by some of them moving to another room or (more commonly) by things being done by note or (if online) whisper. That way, if the missing PCs do happen to turn up just at the right moment it really is coincidence rather than a player-side contrivance.

The benefits to this (if one considers them such) don’t justify it. Nor do they really accomplish all that much.

I’m no less likely as a player to say “My character is going to go check on the other group” after being made to leave the room than I would be if I heard what happened.

I may even be more inclined because I feel like there must have been something worth hiding.

What do you do when a player comes back in from the other room and says he wants to return to the other group?

@overgeeked is quite right: some (many? maybe even all?) players, on learning of in-game information their characters don't and can't know (e.g. what happens to one half of a split party), simply can't help themselves from using it. The only way to stop this is to not let them learn that information in the first place until and unless their PCs could know it as well.

Not only are there other ways to stop it, there are also other ways to deal with it. One of which is to stop worrying about it.

Honestly, all the effort to prevent things could be spent on letting people do things.

Some things are non-negotiable. This is one.

Everyone’s entitled to their opinion of course, but it’s a group activity, and if everyone’s not at the same page, there’s gonna be frustration.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Some find there is nothing wrong with using it, so it's not a matter of not "helping themselves" from doing so. Some of those same people even use it very well to enhance the game.

A common theme in these debates is anti-metagamers believing it’s not just their preference, but that it’s objectively bad/wrong.

 

[Charlaquin]

I really like the example other than the bolded line, which is very jarring for two reasons.

First, it tells me odds I shouldn't know. Far, far better would be something like "Early returns are it's going to be tough to open. Carry on?"

“It’s going to be tough to open” leaves room for the player to have a different understanding of what “tough” means than I do, which nobody benefits from. I want the player skill to be in decision making, not in deciphering my word choice.

Second, it gives a needless peek behind the curtain with the specific reference to adding a die to the time pool. That's DM-side stuff players never ever need to know about.

Well, I could have said “it’ll take around 10 minutes” or “that’s a time-consuming action” or something. Point is, I want the players to understand when an action takes up a full dungeon turn rather than just a few
moments. I also keep the tension pool visible, because that keeps the cost of spending time at the forefront of the players minds and makes the mounting tension palpable.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@Charlaquin, what are tension pool and time pool dice?

 

[Mort]

A common theme in these debates is anti-metagamers believing it’s not just their preference, but that it’s objectively bad/wrong.

Right. But even more than that - (to one side) it's CHEATING. It's akin to stealing the opposing team's playbook or bugging their coach(es).

That's why there is no middle ground.

 

[Thomas Shey]

A common theme in these debates is anti-metagamers believing it’s not just their preference, but that it’s objectively bad/wrong.

I think usually its just an extension of the fact most people think things they have an extremely strong preference for are objectively bad. You just see that one a lot around here because antimetagaming sentiment is a strong thread through parts of (especially the older) D&D community.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't know what else to say other than several of us have already shown how these opportunities are created and how they can be avoided. It seems to me that if I cared about how players make decisions for their characters, I would work to avoid situations where there's an incentive to "metagame."

You guys have claimed that they are created and shown common every day encounter situations and said that they are somehow special, but they aren't. There are very, very few monsters without something that wouldn't be known by everyone.

There's nothing to create or avoid where metagaming is concerned, other than metagaming itself.

As for monsters, I don't change every monster in my games, but I change just enough of them where players know that "metagaming" is a risk and that it's smarter play to take in-game actions to verify their assumptions before acting on them.

I prefer not to engage in an arms race with the players. Better just to get players who won't cheat(talking about my game here).

 

[Bill Zebub]

Right. But even more than that - (to one side) it's CHEATING. It's akin to stealing the opposing team's playbook or bugging their coach(es).

That's why there is no middle ground.

Yeah, probably. Although like I pointed out upthread those same people often say “you can’t ‘win’ D&D”. But if you can’t win how can there be cheating?