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Yes, exactly. I never tell my players the DC or what happens if they win or fail. I honestly treat my players like their PCs. I hardly even narrate anything OOC. I'm advocating against hiding rolls, though, because that just causes problems (all which you already stated yourself) and is less...

The reason you're confused is because you expect your players to want to retrace their steps just because they rolled low on survival and saw the result. In reality, this never happens, players will state what their PCs want to do regardless of what their previous roll result. I don't tell them...

(Edit: Duplicate. Forum has a hiccup.)

Usually retracing your steps would not really bring you to your goal. Let's take your scenario of going through a forest and wanting to reach southeast end of it. After a failed roll you could narrate that they travel through the forest. You don't tell them where they are except they reach the...

Hmm, well, if you stopped telling them where on the map they are and just describe the nearby surroundings, then there's some fun challenge to the course correction, even if the players know they are lost.

Hriston Your example honestly just makes me wonder "Where is the fun in that?" You don't let your players roll and the consequence of failure is only one additional sentence from the DM that says they are still in the forest and some time lost. I mean then you could just tell your player to...

I do it when there's an official 5e illustration of the monster / NPC available.

My players only add the spells they've currently prepared to their character sheets. So far, the space limit has not been exceeded by anyone ever.

As someone who only plays WotC adventure paths... 1. I kind of like that all the APs are in the same setting, because it's cool if you travel through a location and one of your players can tell everyone a cool story about what his previous character experienced here. 2. Other than 1, there...

Sure that's another possibility. I mean if I had some material for it or a good idea, I'd probably put the encounter into a nice location. Again, depends strongly on what the players want to accomplish. Like if they really want to go to dungeon X, then I usually wouldn't force them to go...

Yes! It was just one example. Usually the outcome of a failed roll for me depends on what the players communicate to me beforehand (what they want to do, how they do it and what they want to accomplish). The only relevant thing is that the roll has a direct consequence, so you don't run into...

I'll assume here that what the player wants to accomplish is getting across the Old Forest (if I wasn't sure I would always just ask - I'd probably ask them why they said "stay together", I'd ask if they actually walk at some significant distance to each other - for now I assume they don't)...

Since I'm not knowing what kind of player action you are imagining it's hard for me to tell what you mean with "They are lost an don't know about it". If the player states "I follow the tracks", then they only move as long they see tracks. If you make them move without seeing tracks then you are...

That's true, because in the situation where my players are lost but I tell them they are not, I would be lying to them and never lying to my players is one of my DM principles. I don't see the benefit of putting my players in that situation. I can put them in the situation where they don't know...

Oh that reminds me, another thing I "improved" is giving my players also some tasks to reduce my own workload. You might argue that's not improving but just being lazy, but I say a DM that doesn't overwork himself is a better DM.

Yeah, you made me realize that I didn't explain that properly. What I really do is to not roll at all until the result has an immediate consequence. In case of stealth for example, I wouldn't roll the moment the enemy hides. Instead I roll when the only two possible outcomes are: The enemy...

Yeah, I actually agree to that. If it prevents disadvantage it's not by the Help Action rule, but due to DM determining advantage/disadvantage rules, though.

I use passive perception. If their passive perception is lower than the stealth roll of the creature, I won't tell my players that it's there. But I also don't lie to my players and tell them nobody is nearby. I might tell them they don't see anybody, though.

I go by the DM principles of: Never hide rolls and never lie to your players. To quote myself from another thread: The easiest example is actually "I check if the NPC is lying". Now some DMs would now think "The NPC is lying so if the roll fails I tell them he is telling the truth" and then...

Maybe I should add that I have the absolute requirement that none of my players know the adventure path. If I catch someone knowing something he shouldn't know, he's out. And just the rules... I never ran into an exploit problem so far with those. Not any that ruined the fun of someone anyway.