GM no-roll

[aramis erak]

I think a couple things are different in that core loop in many "GM doesnt roll" games I've experienced:
a) you tend to resolve things at a different scope with a single roll, so the narrative feels like it's moving more places/resolving a higher amount of conflict at once.
b) not all, but many (most?) games where the GM doesnt roll don't have a separate turn-based combat subsystem. That often breaks your flow above pretty significantly. (note that combat in, say, DW often takes just as long as a standard 5e combat - but boy does it feel different to me to actually play)
c) most of the time you're interpreting a result against a static set of outcomes, not comparing vs a generated or chosen DC; and the player usually has a smaller decision set (eg: if a player makes a move in a PBTA - they're adding + stat and you're adjudicating the outcome space).

I think you're missing out on a good chunk of the player facing rulesets...
because those are not true of most of the player-facing rulesets I've used.

• DL5A is VERY traditional, aside from player-facing and card driven. Combat rounds, initiative...
• BTVS (and other Cinematic Unisystem games) is just Unisystem with the would-have-been-GM's-rolls replacing the 1d10 with a flat 6, and damages be flat+margin. lots of combat moves to pick from (6-8 for NPCs, up to 15 for PCs)
• Better Games' games' - use a mix. Combat is still many rounds, but many non-combat obstacles are one roll per scene.
• Talisman Adventures isn't strictly player facing, as the GM rolls damage, but again, it's got combat rounds rather than one roll-resolution of a conflict scene.

Roll to resolve scene, player facing, lack of DCs, is accurate for most of the AWE/PBTA space. The one game I've run in that space is a fringe one, neither player facing nor scene resolution (Sentinel Comics)...

So while a game that has things like "ok make an athletics roll to climb the wall" and a game that has things like "ok yeah roll your Prowl like you said to see if this works out" may sound and roll very similar in the moment, the rest of the game around the latter feels like it's going different places because you never break out of that fairly simple resolution.

Complexity of resolution and player-facing are not actually all that tightly linked. It just looks that way because the most popular player facing game system is used in literally hundreds of games, and several spinoffs with different dice mechanics still use light rules, no GM rolls, and GMs don't do the same things as in trad games.

 

[Clint_L]

Could you see it working well in D&D 5e? Would it make much of a difference?

No, it wouldn't be 5e anymore, it would be a fundamentally different game.

Dread is my favourite TTRPG and nobody rolls any dice, nor does the DM pull blocks (normally; I stretch that rule at times). But it is designed around those mechanics.

To me, your question is basically, "what if D&D was a totally different game? Would you still like it?" And my answer is, "who knows?"

 

[Kromanjon]

No, it wouldn't be 5e anymore, it would be a fundamentally different game.

Dread is my favourite TTRPG and nobody rolls any dice, nor does the DM pull blocks (normally; I stretch that rule at times). But it is designed around those mechanics.

To me, your question is basically, "what if D&D was a totally different game? Would you still like it?" And my answer is, "who knows?"

Yeah, adding it to 5e would be weird but I do think adding it to D&D (in a future edition) could work just fine.

A benefit of only having the players roll is that it opens up the design space for reactions a whole lot more. When facing an attack they might dodge (roll DEX), block (roll STR), blink away with a magic ability (Roll WIS/Magic), distract the attacker with a winning smile (roll CHA). Of course the GM might not allow some forms of reactions depending on the situation, enemy or attack form. A psychic blast might force the players to defend with WIS or INT for example. Writing rules around this might lead to some nifty defensive abilities that just aren't viable in a traditional system.

 

[Ondath]

I think the GM never rolling would only work in systems specifically designed for that (like all the PbtA variants). If the game system normally assumes both sides will roll dice, it's for a good reason, and the GM losing that probabilistic variety will rob the table of interesting moments.

 

[Clint_L]

Yeah, adding it to 5e would be weird but I do think adding it to D&D (in a future edition) could work just fine.

A benefit of only having the players roll is that it opens up the design space for reactions a whole lot more. When facing an attack they might dodge (roll DEX), block (roll STR), blink away with a magic ability (Roll WIS/Magic), distract the attacker with a winning smile (roll CHA). Of course the GM might not allow some forms of reactions depending on the situation, enemy or attack form. A psychic blast might force the players to defend with WIS or INT for example. Writing rules around this might lead to some nifty defensive abilities that just aren't viable in a traditional system.

Note how much "this is not D&D" pushback 4e got, and multiply by 10.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think the GM never rolling would only work in systems specifically designed for that (like all the PbtA variants). If the game system normally assumes both sides will roll dice, it's for a good reason, and the GM losing that probabilistic variety will rob the table of interesting moments.

While I somewhat agree with the second half of this, "with good reason" may be doing some heavy lifting here; in a lot of games its more tradition and habit than anything else. After all, a lot of games have fixed elements at one end or the other anyway, its just a question of parallel design on those (i.e. both PCs and NPCs roll to hit, rather than PCs rolling a hit and defense) which doesn't self-evidently always make any real difference (sometimes it does, such as how metacurrancy is applied, but not every game leans into that at all, let alone strongly).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Kind of a biased selection of answers - four basically mixed/negative, only one positive!

Personally I think it's pretty great in games designed for it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Kind of a biased selection of answers - four basically mixed/negative, only one positive!

Personally I think it's pretty great in games designed for it.

To some extent you're going to get that on a survey with any nuance; how many ways to say "Its just good" are there going to be? An alternate view could be that there's only one that outright says its just generally bad, too.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

To some extent you're going to get that on a survey with any nuance

I don't agree, as someone who builds survey questionnaires as part of their job lol. I think that if you wanted nuance you'd ask about what situations it was value in, not just four variants of "it sucks for someone, right, right?!".

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't agree, as someone who builds survey questionnaires as part of their job lol. I think that if you wanted nuance you'd ask about what situations it was value in, not just four variants of "it sucks for someone, right, right?!".

Well, let's be real; almost every game does suck for someone. You can argue that phrasing, but its not inaccurate. The final one had qualifications but isn't really negative unless saying most games aren't both a floor wax and a desert topping is negative, and I think the counter to that is a much harder sell.