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

iserith · Nov 13, 2022

CreamCloud0 said:
But for situations where there are thing the characters can’t observe? When characters don’t have complete awareness of all the external factors, so the players don’t act on information their characters couldn’t have.

Reusing my guard example from the initial post, you try to bluff the guard that “you’re just travellers” you roll a 3 on deception, you see you have a 3, but then the guard says with a smile “welcome, come on in, you must be tired after such a long journey on the roads”, doesn’t that make you immediately suspicious knowing you rolled a 3? suspicious in a way you wouldn’t be if you didn’t know the results of your roll, and no matter how much you might try to ignore that information as you describe your actions it’s still going to be there in your mind influencing your thought process whether you want it to or not.

Which is a situation created by the DM that now puts the player in position of engaging in the "metagaming" that some posters say they don't like. Have the guard do something else instead:

iserith said:
As for situations where the roll itself gives something away to the player, this is an opportunity for the DM to use what the rules call "progress combined with a setback" when narrating the result of the adventurer's action. They succeed in some sense, but not totally. To build on your example, the guard at the gates leans in close and says, "No humble traveler I've ever seen has a sword that nice - for 50 gp, I'll look the other way." Progress. Setback. "What do you do?"

Charlaquin · Nov 13, 2022

Xamnam said:
I will say, I run every roll like that as a contested one, even on something as innocuous as a bartering a minor discount. That way, even if you roll poorly, they might have done worse. Or, you may roll well, but they might have rolled better. That helps to mirror the unknowability of the situation in a satisfying way for me.

I like to use static DCs for this personally, but contests are a great way to make the knowledge of your own result a less reliable indicator of whether or not you succeeded, if that’s something you consider a positive.

Thomas Shey · Nov 13, 2022

Bill Zebub said:
I suspect, for those who are bothered by it, it's because we are judging not the narrative itself, but rather the player's motivation for choosing that narrative. And every time this debate comes up, that seems to be where it leads: some players/DMs judging other players for the reasons they choose actions, not necessarily for the actions themselves.

To be fair, it also can be from people who expect a more naturalistic playstyle and are bothered by contrivance in general. I wouldn't be surprised if there's considerable mapping to people who are, as an example, also hostile to metacurrancy.

Bill Zebub said:
And something else to consider: if the players don't share anti-metagaming beliefs, they are still going to metagame, just more subtly. So when a reason comes up to split the party, they are going to think ahead and realize the DM won't allow them to make certain decisions if a problem arises, so they are just going to try to refuse to split up, even if that's what the narrative calls for. Have you really achieved anything?

There are people in the hobby who think the best way to deal with playstyle preferences they dislike is to punish them until they go away--one way or another.

Bill Zebub said:
If you can bring yourself to not care about the motivations of other players, and only focus on the action at the table (and your own motivations), then there's no distinction between action declarations that originate with roleplaying and those that originate with metagaming. You can play your own character however you want, roleplaying in the way you think is best, and be completely unaffected by how other people choose to play theirs. Both play styles can peacefully coexist.

Well, to be honest, that depends on how blatant the metagaming is. If people are super-open about it, it can be a problem for someone who is excessively bothered about it because they stop seeing the behavior of the other characters the same. Yes, its all in their head, but people don't have an unlimited amount of firewalling in things. And that's coming from someone who mostly stopped caring about metagame many years ago.

Thomas Shey · Nov 13, 2022

Bill Zebub said:
No I think you are misreading/misinterpreting this. There is a big difference between "you are lying because if you genuinely tried it you would of course love it" and "I hear that you think you've tried it, but the way you describe it convinces me that you don't really understand what I'm saying. And that makes sense to me because I used to be exactly in your position."

You are ascribing way more arrogance/condescension than I think is warranted. They may still be mistaken, of course, but that's different from being arrogant/condescending.

On the other hand, this can become the "You should try this fish" problem. People have been trying to get me to eat fish my whole life. There's usually some "but this fish is different!" in it. I even made the attempt a few times, and found it just as unpleasant. At a certain point, you begin to think other people don't understand your issue, and it gets annoying to get someone trying to get you to do it for the four-hundredth time. That's probably not a reason to get soggy about it unless they're demanding, but scar tissue is scar tissue.

Vaalingrade · Nov 13, 2022

I honestly don't get the desire to utterly eliminate all metagaming.

It's still just a game and the efforts to eliminate or shame it don't seem worth it.

Thomas Shey · Nov 13, 2022

hawkeyefan said:
The way I look at this is kind of like an adaptation or a translation. Taking something in one medium and putting it into another, or taking something in one language to another.

If I hear “It’ll be a DC 15 and it will take you 10 minutes” that’s what I hear as a player. What my character is experiencing is something a bit different. He may turn to his companions and say “It’s a bit complex, but I’m pretty confident I can do it. It’s gonna take me a few minutes though.”

For me, the numbers convey the character’s situation to me as a player. I now feel more informed as a player to make decisions, much as the character would be informed by actually being in that situation.

I mean, the arguments against providing numbers mostly amount to “the GM can just describe things better”… but of the goal is to paint an accurate picture for the players, then it’s hard to say that “DC 15” does a worse job than “kind of difficult”.

Yeah, my view on it is the whole point of mechanics is to be able to communicate things through the two-level separation of GM to player and player to character in a way that's consistent and coherent. I know some people are of the opinion that they can do a fine job of that without referring to game mechanics (ignoring here for the moment the second problem of people that think things should be far muddier to people who deal with parallel situations as a matter of course), but I find that generally overoptimistic.

Thomas Shey · Nov 13, 2022

overgeeked said:
That's not the wildly better take you seem to think it is.

I can't speak for everyone, but I would absolutely say someone accusing me of lying is making a much more negative statement than someone saying I'm mistaken. Life is full of opportunities to be mistaken, even about things we think we understand well.

Thomas Shey · Nov 13, 2022

Lakesidefantasy said:
I've been experimenting with calling for stealth checks when the possibility of detection occurs, as opposed to when hiding or sneaking is initially declared.

This I feel preserves the tension of stealth (if only for a moment) but still allowes the Player to roll the dice.

That's typically how I've done it in various games (where stealth was not a flat target number for the perceiver) for a number of years now. Of course stealth and perception get tangled up in how probability of resolution methods work, and how people feel about those results and whether it represents what's going on properly and/or is worth doing from a tactical standpoint.

hawkeyefan · Nov 13, 2022

CreamCloud0 said:
But for situations where there are things the characters can’t observe? When characters don’t have complete awareness of all the external factors, so the players don’t act on information their characters couldn’t have.

Reusing my guard example from the initial post, you try to bluff the guard that “you’re just travellers” you roll a 3 on deception, you see you have a 3, but then the guard says with a smile “welcome, come on in, you must be tired after such a long journey on the roads”, doesn’t that make you immediately suspicious knowing you rolled a 3? suspicious in a way you wouldn’t be if you didn’t know the results of your roll, and no matter how much you might try to ignore that information as you describe your actions it’s still going to be there in your mind influencing your thought process whether you want it to or not.

No, I don’t think it’d make me more suspicious. It’d make me the proper amount of suspicious.

Like, whatever I said to the guard was said poorly or otherwise did a poor job of convincing him… that’s what the 3 indicates. So if I put my foot in my mouth trying to convince someone I’m something I’m not, and then their reaction is to invite me in… yeah, I’d be suspicious.

You can avoid this (if you don’t want it)by declaring the 3 a success. Then the player knows the guard inviting them in is genuine.

This seems to me like the “solution” actually creating the problem.

hawkeyefan · Nov 13, 2022

Charlaquin said:
It makes perfect sense to me that the character would be equally suspicious. Presuming the 3 means an unconvincing deception, why wouldn’t the character realize they’ve made an unconvincing deception? Maybe their voice cracked when they were speaking, or they stammered or hesitated. There are many narratives that make it plausible for the character to be aware that they’ve done poorly, and it makes a better experience for the player if they know they’ve done poorly. So why choose a narrative that makes it implausible for the character to know they’ve done poorly?

Han knows he rolled a 3.

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

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