D&D 5E Are players always entitled to see their own rolls?

[Mark CMG]

(. . .) the DM could roll any of that and not let the player know the results!

The player chooses his actions in an RPG and the GM let's the player know the consequences. Sometimes dice are involved in adjudicating those consequences. The thing is, the GM let's the player know the consequences but not always the results of the die rolls. Letting the players transparently see the results is something you (and some others) personally are choosing to do but it is not ingrained in RPGs.

 

[MG.0]

It has always been the purview of the DM to be able to make any roll in secret and as a DM I have always done this to some extent.

There are times when a player not knowing the result of a roll can enhance tension and excitement in a game. Those are precisely the conditions under which it should be done.

As a player, if I found myself in a game where all dice rolls must be visible, the game would feel much more limited.

 

[Sezarious]

That's a fair question since [MENTION=6792106]Sezarious[/MENTION] opened the door to it. I'd like to see what people say.

Oh, look, if my players didn't feel comfortable with the idea I would not push the matter. Most of my DMing style is customisable based on player taste. I know some DM's like to rub their hands together and design their newest means of killing off their players, but that's not my style. (Not that I dislike being a player UNDER a bit of a scary DM, it's fun). I like to make sure I hurt the PC's enough that the players feel it was a tough fight, but that's about as malicious as I get .

 

[Rya.Reisender]

There's one situation I could think of that's kind of problematic: Someone checks for the presence of a trap when there is no trap.

So if I didn't do any hidden rolls, and didn't ask the player to roll and just tell him "You think that there isn't any trap", he would immediately know that there is no trap, because he didn't have to roll. I could ask him to roll anyway, just to give him the illusion that there could potentially be a trap if he rolls low. If he knew that I sometimes do hidden rolls, I could just say "You think that there isn't any trap" and he wouldn't know whether the check was trivial or I did a hidden roll.

 

[iserith]

I think the answer to this is dependent on a much larger issue of group dynamics. To have or not to have hidden rolls is a pretty minor issue. I would never walk away from a group over an issue like that alone.

The bottom line for me (for my playstyle as a DM) is that the DM sets the rules. If the players don't want to play by those rules, it's not that I refuse to play with them, it's that they are declining to play with me.

Oh, look, if my players didn't feel comfortable with the idea I would not push the matter. Most of my DMing style is customisable based on player taste.

It sounds like, with the exception of the Jester, this is a thing people are willing to be flexible on.

 

[iserith]

There's one situation I could think of that's kind of problematic: Someone checks for the presence of a trap when there is no trap.

So if I didn't do any hidden rolls, and didn't ask the player to roll and just tell him "You think that there isn't any trap", he would immediately know that there is no trap, because he didn't have to roll. I could ask him to roll anyway, just to give him the illusion that there could potentially be a trap if he rolls low. If he knew that I sometimes do hidden rolls, I could just say "You think that there isn't any trap" and he wouldn't know whether the check was trivial or I did a hidden roll.

I treat this the same as a secret door which I discussed upthread. Also here.

If a player is asked to roll to find a trap, that is because he or she described the character as searching at least in the general area of the trap and committing time and effort that amounts to making the outcome uncertain. With a successful check, the character finds the trap. If the player fails the check, the character finds the trap but with a cost or complication. Oftentimes, this means the trap is set in motion or the character is otherwise put in some kind of spot.

When the player isn't asked to roll to find a trap and is told that the character finds none, that could mean several things. It could mean there is no trap, there is a trap but not where the character is searching, or that there is a trap but insufficient time and effort were spent on searching. This maintains the uncertainty that some posters desire without secret rolling ability checks for the players to create uncertainty.

 

[Bawylie]

There's one situation I could think of that's kind of problematic: Someone checks for the presence of a trap when there is no trap.

So if I didn't do any hidden rolls, and didn't ask the player to roll and just tell him "You think that there isn't any trap", he would immediately know that there is no trap, because he didn't have to roll. I could ask him to roll anyway, just to give him the illusion that there could potentially be a trap if he rolls low. If he knew that I sometimes do hidden rolls, I could just say "You think that there isn't any trap" and he wouldn't know whether the check was trivial or I did a hidden roll.

You know, that WOULD indeed create some level of tension.

Now, this is probably on me (and I certainly don't hold anyone else to adhere to values and principles I set for myself), but I don't like to use players' ignorance against them. And I try to resolve ambiguous circumstances in their favor as much as is feasible. I have plenty of power as DM already, so I don't want to create a situation wherein the players maybe don't feel they can trust the information their given.

In that circumstance, the hard information (check result) contradicts the soft information of "you don't find any traps." That, to Me, is a situation I wish to avoid. It feels (to me) unfair to The players.

It would be better if they could rely on what I say as hard information they could trust absolutely.

There may be some friction between how I look at this situation and how you look at this situation that stems from first principles versus specific technique of hidden rolls. That's interesting.

 

[the Jester]

Here's another good example of a time when secret rolls are appropriate (IMHO): the pcs see an illusion and one becomes suspicious and attempts to disbelieve/save.

If they fail the save, should they know they failed? Do you automatically give away that it's an illusion, even if they fail? To me, that completely defeats the purpose of illusions.

There is an undercurrent in this thread that seems to boil down to "the DM shouldn't trick the players." But what if an npc tries to trick them? Do you tell them that he's lying even if they fail their Insight checks? Even if they have no reason to be suspicious? Do you just abstain from using npcs who are dishonest or tricky?

If the players aren't tricked, it's damned unlikely that their characters will be.

I guess I come down pretty firmly on "the DM should tell the players what their characters know and perceive, but should not tell them what their characters don't know or perceive" when it comes to dispensing information in-game. To repeat an earlier point, I like mysteries; I like it when the pcs aren't sure what's going on and they have to figure it out themselves. I have run more than one murder mystery style game in the past. I've run lots of games where deceptive npcs were hiding things, sometimes things that stayed hidden for (real-time) years before the pcs finally figured them out.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's an interesting question, because I've played all-out both ways.

For my first 15-odd years as DM, I carefully selected which rolls the players could see. I rolled their checks to find traps and so on for them, I rolled all the monster rolls behind a screen (which seemed almost necessary in 2E/3E, unless you loved TPKs!), etc. etc. Then with 4E I decided to try the opposite, because random TPKs almost never happen in 4E. All rolls were in the open, mine, theirs, nothing hidden.

Both produced very different results. Looking just at player rolls, having some hidden induced more paranoia, and made immersion a fair bit easier, because you didn't know how well you'd done. However, it also lead to a lot of time-wasting with "Okay, I check again but this time..."-type stuff (where possible), sometimes excessive paranoia (i.e. past the point of being fun/funny), and a lot of "But did you include X?!", particularly in 3.XE.

Having them all in the open produced a lot of hilarity i.e. *Rolls 3* "Oh I definitely did a great job there!", and a fair bit of "Well, okay, I guess I also check for X" (though there was a lot of that with hidden rolls too, because paranoia). Immersion was lessened a bit, but overall the game ran faster, and was significantly less paranoid. Players were surprisingly accepting of bad rolls, I found, without excessive metagaming (this really surprised me) - people actually did less "Okay I try again and do this..." than with hidden rolls. There was also some fun and genuinely good RP around the bad rolls, which I hadn't seen coming.

I think both have their ups and downs. Overall I'd say hiding some rolls makes sense for a high-immersion, high-tension games, particularly of a more paranoid "death lurks..." kind, and particularly trap-heavy ones. My experience is that it does slow the game down a bit though.

Whereas for a more fast/fluid game, perhaps a little less immersive, a bit more either focused on either tactics or person-to-person RP (rather than trapfinding or the like), then I'd go with open rolls, esp. if you know you can trust the players not to be dweebs about them (which I can, fortunately).

Regarding entitled to, I think the default RAI position has to be that a player sees all their own rolls (unless I've missed something in 5E, which I may have). Then, if you're wanting to hide some, you make sure to address the expectation of seeing their rolls when the game starts (or they join the group or whatever). I think it's important, too, as a DM to consider what really needs to be hidden, because I've seen DMs who tried to hide virtually everything, and it was bloody tedious, with us basically sitting there waiting for him to do a bunch of rolls - not tense, just tedious, because there were so many.

(As an aside, I don't think there's ever a compelling reason to hide attack rolls - I've tried it but it did nothing but slow the game down - it really doesn't matter if the PCs work out that roll X hits and roll Y misses, and thus the AC or NAD of the enemy, because they still need to roll the same numbers!)

 

[iserith]

Here's another good example of a time when secret rolls are appropriate (IMHO): the pcs see an illusion and one becomes suspicious and attempts to disbelieve/save.

If they fail the save, should they know they failed? Do you automatically give away that it's an illusion, even if they fail? To me, that completely defeats the purpose of illusions.

I don't have time to review every illusion spell to see what the specific rules are, but in general, physical interaction reveals illusions for what they are. That is an example of outright success without an ability check - try to touch it, shoot an arrow through it, toss a rock at it, and you'll know what's up, no roll. The smart play when suspecting an illusion is to do this because it removes the chance for uncertainty. After all, why risk a roll if you can just succeed?

In cases where a character isn't physically interacting with them, uncertainty is generally resolved with Intelligence (Investigation) and I handle this the same way I resolve uncertain attempts to discern truthfulness via Wisdom (Insight) - success on the check means the illusion is revealed for what it is and a failed check means the character fails to discern whether it's an illusion or not. Reason(s) for suspicion and courses of action to investigate must be clearly offered by the player, just as with trying to discern truthfulness, or else the character has no chance of success. (You can't just say, for example, "I attempt to disbelieve." That's insufficient.) A failed check might also be a good opportunity for "progress combined with a setback," e.g. the character discerns the illusory wall but not before the tentacle monster behind it grapples the PC.

There is an undercurrent in this thread that seems to boil down to "the DM shouldn't trick the players." But what if an npc tries to trick them? Do you tell them that he's lying even if they fail their Insight checks?

Sometimes, when using "progress combined with a setback" to narrate the result of the adventurer's action. Generally, a failed check means "you're not able to discern the NPC's truthfulness based on observations of body language and mannerisms." Then it's up to the player to decide based whatever evidence he or she does have to believe the NPC or not.

Even if they have no reason to be suspicious?

In my game, a player must clearly articulate a goal and approach to discerning truthfulness and part of that approach must include why the character is suspicious of the NPC. At that point, I can decide whether the character outright succeeds or fails or the outcome is uncertain (and thus an ability check is required).

Do you just abstain from using npcs who are dishonest or tricky?

Nah, I like shady NPCs.

If the players aren't tricked, it's damned unlikely that their characters will be.

I guess I come down pretty firmly on "the DM should tell the players what their characters know and perceive, but should not tell them what their characters don't know or perceive" when it comes to dispensing information in-game. To repeat an earlier point, I like mysteries; I like it when the pcs aren't sure what's going on and they have to figure it out themselves. I have run more than one murder mystery style game in the past. I've run lots of games where deceptive npcs were hiding things, sometimes things that stayed hidden for (real-time) years before the pcs finally figured them out.

I agree with all of that for the most part.