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

[TheFindus]

Usually in a case like this, the DM rolls.

So what you are saying is that the party can be never sure about traps? Is the trap-finding-skill the only skill in use with which the results are alway uncertain? How about crafting a weapon? Do you roll the dice for the players as well, because, you know, the swords that weaponsmithing PC made can always brake, he can never be sure?
Does a rogue in your game world never actually have a chance of being absolutely sure that there is not a trap where he or she searched? After all, the DM rolling for search traps is stadard operating procedure and whatever the DM says the result is cannot be counted on. To me, that is a really weird concept.

And it does not lead to a better immersion at all. All it leads to is that several members of the group look for traps. Continiously. Because if 2 or 3 people do not find a trap, chances are much higher that there actually is no trap. The game turns into a trap-finding fest.

I'm sorry, but I'm having a hard time taking this seriously. Are you suggesting that there is nothing that makes a rogue a valuable contributor to the party if he doesn't roll a natural 20 while searching for traps? Because I can think of tons of other functions for the rogue. Scouting ahead, sneaking away, trailing a mark, opening locks, skills in general (thanks to Expertise!), etc. In combat, you've got sneak attack.

Seriously, I have rogues in my campaign who have never checked for a trap, yet they seem quite functional and useful.

Fortunately the rogue can do other things but find traps. Sneak attack and scout and maybe know his or her way around a city. But the last time I checked, the class chassis of the rogue securely included finding traps and being able to deal with them. Obviously in your game this is not the case, because the rogue can never be sure that he is actually proficient with this skill. He just never knows. Neither does the player of the rogue.
Do you do the same things for perception as well, finding hidden things and people in general? Because that decreases the amount of stuff the rogue can securely do in the exploration pillar. I do not find this concept to be very convincing. Especially not with the argumant of immersion. I get the feeling the basic skills of my rogue are nerfed in your game. You can play with this setup, of course. But a nerf is a nerf.

Improved immersion. However good your pcs are at playing down what they know vs. what their characters know, it does make a difference, at least for every group I have ever been in. For example, if I play through a module that I've read, even if I consciously avoid acting on that knowledge, then I simply know too much about what is going to happen to enjoy that module as fully as if there were surprises in it.

Comparing the general use of the trap-finding ability to reading an entire module and then having problems not basing decisions on that knowledge is taking the whole question too far. You are comparing apples and bricks.

Absolutely not- if you're the DM. Fudging is a time-honored tradition. Not every DM does it, but almost every DM does it once in a while. And in my experience, it's almost always in a way that favors the pcs. Personally, I really avoid it; I don't think I have fudged since around last Christmas (and this is averaging 2 to 3 sessions per week since 5e launched), and I almost always roll in the open. Nonetheless, I roll things where the pcs shouldn't know the dice result out of sight, including many Perception and Insight checks and some other things.

If a player 'fudges', on the other hand, it's straight up cheating. There's a different standard because they are in a different role.

Oh yes, fudging is indeed a long standing tradition for many DMs. But it is a tradition that causes all kind of problems. And I have yet to experience a DM who does not fudge against the players. And it is always to make the game "more interesting" or "fun". Of course DMs fudge in favor of the PCs. But even that still amounts to taking away agency from the players. I rolled that 1, I have to live with it. That's what rolling the dice is for. What do you tell the players if you fudge against them? "Oh, the monster should not have hit you that hard, but I thought it would be more fun if it did and that's why I turned a 2 into a 14." Oh, you defeated the monster, but I fudged in your favor. Do not feel that you haven't earned that victory. It was just a little fudge....".
To each their own but I do find the game to be much less exciting if there is fudging involved.

It is also funny that you expect the players to trust in the result of you dice rolls for the players if they know you fudge (in their favor or against them). Sorry, but to me, this whole concept stinks.

 

[TheFindus]

There are times when success isn't possible and the character won't know.

If a success is impossible, why roll the dice? Why waste game-time with this?

There are times when success is more difficult and the character doesn't know. There are times when success is easier but the character won't know. There are times when the character will not be aware of what modifiers are at play and times when the character might be aware of some modifiers but not all of them.

Simply apply the modifiers or increase the DC. Or work with passice skills. There are other mechanics and DMing communication techniques that handle this sort of stuff. That does not mean that the player cannot know the result of the die roll. All of this just does not mean that players must not know the result of the roll. Hiding the result of a roll is not a a very convincing principle.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

IMHO, no, players are not "entitled" to roll all the dice for their characters.

Why? The DM's job is to run a fun and exciting game. To do so, the DM is "allowed" to overrule ANYTHING in the game. This includes normally "player allowed" dice rolls. How often and for what reasons he does this...that's what will determine if he has any players left at the end of the week.

We've all played with, or heard about, "control freak" type DM's that simply don't let their precious NPC's, monsters, plots, or what have you get "wrecked" by those pesky players (y'know, those other human being sitting around the table with them). Those are the ones where if the NPC bad guy is running away, and the player rolls his Disadvantaged long-shot...and gets two 20's in a row, then rolls max damage for his critical...and the DM says "Uh...no. You miss him anyway. He's too far and with the wind and everything...". Those DM's just find themselves out of a DM job, really.

Now, if a player gets all huffy when a DM says "What's your characters Perception bonus? I'll roll to see if you find anything...". In my mind, that's the same kind of "control freak" mentality, but in Player form and not DM.

IMHO, if the DM calls for a roll, then there is uncertainty in the outcome. If a DM doesn't want something to happen...he shouldn't allow the roll in the first place. "We search for secret doors", and the DM says "No. No way of finding them; you have no light, the noise from the howling winds, the dust and dirt being blown around in the room, the chilling cold making your fingers numb...sorry". That is perfectly fine. But, if the DM feels like it, she can also just roll a secret d20 behind the screen and say the same thing, regardless of outcome. Personally, if I feel the PC is likely to know that some endevour is doomed to fail, I just tell them. But if there is a chance, and they wouldn't know if they succeeded or failed, I'll roll for them.

Benefits of rolling for a player? It gives the player plausible deniability. The player can try and persuade some guard to do something. If the guard agrees, the player can always change his mind and say "You know what? Forget it. I just don't trust you. Sorry....you're a guard and all that. Forget we even had this conversation". But if the player rolled his dice and got a 5 total, and the guard still agrees to do it...if the player says the same thing? Now it looks like the player is metagaming. Everyone at the table gets that uncomfortable feeling, like they just witnessed what looks like someone "cheating"...and want to speak up, but they have no actual proof; it just looked like cheating. If they speak up, and the person wasn't cheating, the person speaking up looks like a jealous dingleberry trying to stomp somebody down for 'no reason'.

And, as many others have said, if you don't trust the people you are bellying up to the table with...then you should find other people to play with, IMHO. Untrusting people in an RPG group is about as much fun as that guy on your sports teem with serious anger management issues who takes anything that goes against them as a personal affront and then proceeds to scream, threaten, swear/curse a blue streak and then starts blaming other team members for his own failure. Yeah, we all know those guys. Just don't play with them.

Bottom line: Players are NOT entitled to roll every dice roll for their character. Trust the people you are playing with. Don't sweat the small stuff, just play the game and have fun!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Mark CMG]

If a success is impossible, why roll the dice?

Because players, through their characters, have free agency to try anything they can conceive in an RPG even if that action is impossible and the character and the player do not know that it is impossible.

 

[Drudenfusz]

I have to say, I have no issue with metagaming. Iactually think it usually makes the game better, so I prefer to have all rolls in the open. A players who rolls bad, can then play out then the character is probably not focused enough on the task at hand or otherwise distracted or lacks concentartion. Seeing the dice is also great for suspense, just like in a good Movie where the audience might know more than the characters involved, and I trust my players that they use that knowledge to enrich the game, and they usually do, since this cooperative gaming with each other based on that transparancy grows out of that mutual trust. While I think hiding results and such things only creates the idea of the players playing against the GM and thus their metagaming automatically is pushed more in the direction on how they can overcome the GM, instead of how to tell an interesting story with what the dice provide.

 

[Ristamar]

I have to say, I have no issue with metagaming.

I have no problem with metagaming, either, but there are instances when I don't want players to know the result of a roll. Depends on the circumstances.

Regardless, I'm surprised people are even arguing about this. It's a matter of DM and table preference. I believe most of the recent Dungeon Master's Guides have sections that support DM's secretly rolling dice, player's rolling all the dice, and numerous other methods.

 

[Sunseeker]

Because players, through their characters, have free agency to try anything they can conceive in an RPG even if that action is impossible and the character and the player do not know that it is impossible.

So...waste time until they start feeling like the DM set them up for failure or they get bored and go do something else.

Again, why roll the dice? Why not just narrate the results?

DM: You encounter a massive stone door, covered in intricate runs you cannot comprehend.
Bob: I slam my shoulder against the door!
DM: The door does not budge.
Joe: I attempt to read the runes using my Arcana skills.
DM: The runes elude your efforts at being read, you sense that they are magical, but beyond your comprehension. You all get the feeling that this door is currently beyond your skills.

There, a minute or so of good narration and RP and no futile dice rolling until boredom or futility overtake the players.

 

[Mark CMG]

So...waste time until they start feeling like the DM set them up for failure or they get bored and go do something else.

(. . .)

Again, why roll the dice? Why not just narrate the results

There could be any number of reasons in any given circumstance why a GM would not want to discourage a player from pursuing a line of action even if the particular tack currently on the table is impossible. Your description (setting them up for failure) seems to assume an adversarial relationship between players and GM, however, that is not part of my experience unless a player brings that to the table. You make the assumption that if it is not done the way you do it, then the GM must be up to no good and working against the players. That has not been my experience.

 

[Tony Vargas]

To elaborate. On reading the post by Elfcrusher about Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation and insight rolls, between PC's and NPC's, might it be appropriate in a heavily investigative campaign with lots of role play, that the DM might record the above mentioned skill bonuses of each PC and actually role for them?

Sure. 5e offers a neater trick to accomplish basically the same thing, though, in Passive Perception. Passive Perception is just your Perception bonus (Wis + applicable proficiency) plus 10. If the DM wants something to sneak past you, he checks your passive perception and secretly rolls the stealth check. The same could be done with perception or any other skill check you wanted to conceal that involves something the player might not be aware is going on.

 

[Sunseeker]

There could be any number of reasons in any given circumstance why a GM would not want to discourage a player from pursuing a line of action even if the particular tack currently on the table is impossible. Your description (setting them up for failure) seems to assume an adversarial relationship between players and GM, however, that is not part of my experience unless a player brings that to the table. You make the assumption that if it is not done the way you do it, then the GM must be up to no good and working against the players. That has not been my experience.

What I'm asking is: How does letting them try when the outcome is always going to be failure benefit them, the DM or the game?