D&D General DM's: How transparent are you with game mechanics "in world?"

[Chaosmancer]

I once had a hill giant pull goblins put of a sack to intercept spells.

That's brilliant

 

[Chaosmancer]

True, though a caster can take steps to disguise or hide it - 5e has mechanics for this, I believe, though I forget the names. Failing that, the caster can just step behind a large potted plant...

No explicit mechanics, it is one of the tricky things involving subtle spell.

Potted plant should work in theory

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm curious where the rest of you DM's tend to draw the line between in-game observations and OOC info? For example, I have a player in my group who is laser-focused on combat mechanics, and generally assumes that every die rolled in combat should be unambiguously identified to players along with its associated game mechanic. Here's a fictitious-but-typical exchange from our table:

• Me: "The bandit archer stands up from behind the barrel. He points his finger directly at <PC-1> and mutters something before drawing back his bow and firing."
• Roll 1d20 => 17 "He hits!"
• Roll 1d8+1 (arrow damage + DEX bonus) => 2+1
• Roll 1d6 (Hunter's Mark) => 3
• Me: "<PC-1> takes 6 points of piercing damage."
• Player5: "Wait, how is that 6 points? Why did you roll another die? Is he a rogue? <PC-1> isn't flanked, so there shouldn't be sneak attack damage."
• Me: "Right, <PC-1> isn't flanked. It looked like that shot was extremely well-placed, though. <PC-1> takes 6 points of piercing damage."
• Player5: "It's all piercing damage? So it's not an elemental buff. Is he a Ranger? Oh, <PC-1> was already wounded, is it extra damage from Colossus Slayer? Isn't that a d8? Wait, did you roll a d6 or a d8?"
• Me: "You did notice him doing something right before he fired. Does anyone want to make an Arcana check?"
• Player5: "Why should I have to roll Arcana? Clearly he took more damage. We should know where it came from, we all saw what happened."

You get the idea. Obviously we have different ideas about how transparent the game mechanics are to in-game characters. To him, we're playing a wargame with certain rules and there's a bias towards "perfect information" so players can adapt to the strengths/weaknesses of the pieces in play. To me, there's no reason the characters would automatically have that information. As far as the characters are concerned, that bad guy did something, maybe you recognize what happened, maybe you don't.

We've had OOC discussions about this a couple of times outside of session, and it's not like those have been hugely adversarial . But every time I think I've explained how I want to run the game, it crops up in some very slightly different context. Like, we put the issue of bonus damage dice to rest, but then when an NPC has Haste up and takes an extra action, there's a five-minute holdup at the table ("That's two actions!! He can't take disengage as a bonus action unless he has cunning action or something, so he wouldn't be able to attack.") and we're back to square one.

I know there's no silver bullet that will put this all to rest, but this constant back-and-forth has got me curious about what is the "most common" way of handling this stuff? Just wondering if I'm out on the fringes here, or more near the median. ;-)

WRT the dialog above, my reaction is that I'm going to narrate things in a more detailed way in the first place, from an in-world standpoint. It isn't really important what sort of dice and blah blah blah got used to do what. I'm going to say "the attack was well placed and even though PC-1 managed to avoid taking critical damage by good luck, he was still hit hard by this arrow and takes 6 damage." or something to the same effect (honestly in an ongoing game it will be less verbose).

If someone really WANTS to delve into the mechanical details of that transaction, there's no harm in dissecting it, but I would prefer to do so at another time and keep the story moving.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The other thing that factors in here, in my own system which I mostly run now, the PLAYERS roll all dice! So, yeah, a player might note that a certain defense check was particularly difficult, or that they still took damage even though they rolled pretty high, etc. Again, it would be noted in narrative terms that the opponent's attacks are particularly effective/hard-hitting. Doing things this way really puts the focus on what the character is doing though, so the real next question will be more likely to involve "Hmmm, I better come up with a better defense or this will not end well..."

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

I know there's no silver bullet that will put this all to rest, but this constant back-and-forth has got me curious about what is the "most common" way of handling this stuff? Just wondering if I'm out on the fringes here, or more near the median. ;-)

I tolerated this for some time. Never again. Players like that sap the joy from GMing and ruin the game. You either trust me to GM or you don't. If you don't trust me, leave.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I don’t disagree with anything you are saying here, and this all seems rather fair. I do want to ask a question though.

Based on my reading of the OP and how similar it sounds to other people I know, I wonder if this is a degree of poor social skills and such. I know people who would chatter and think out loud like this, letting their excitement override other concerns. IF otherwise they were a good player, but they had this quirk in their personality, do we treat this by eventually asking them to leave the group?

This gets back to one of my first posts in this thread, where I see a lot of people ascribing motivations to this player that may not be there. So, if this is just a guy who talks before he thinks, is that really unacceptable?

Assuming no ill intent on the player's part here:

If what they are doing is truly disruptive to game play, step one is to have an adult conversation outside the game. It doesn't have to be harsh or inflammatory or anything. Just talk it through, be empathetic, and be sure to explain that multiple interruptions each session is getting in the way of the flow of play. Let them suggest ways we can improve the situation together. People can learn to improve their social skills, after all. The excuse of "poor social skills" is not an excuse to be disruptive, even if it is not intentional.

If it happens again - time for another adult conversation. How can we collectively conduct ourselves differently for a better gaming experience?

If it happens yet again - really, it is time for that player to find another table. There are other people at the table and everyone should be respecting each other's time and commitment.

 

[Maxperson]

I just find this so weird, how emphatic everyone is to defend that there is no possible way a DM could ever cheat. Using loaded dice? Nope, they are the DM, not cheating. Not accurately recording damage information? DMs do what they want, no cheating. Using 1st level slots to cast 4th level spells? DM, can’t possibly be cheating. Automatically critting on every attack? Are they still the DM, then it still isn’t cheating.

Why use a loaded die when I can just declare a number if I want? Fudging is RAW. And nothing else there is an example of anything other than DM power abuse.

Page 235 of the DMG.

"Rolling behind a screen lets you fudge the results if you want to. If two critical hits in a row would kill a character, you could change the second critical hit into a normal hit, or even a miss. Don't distort die rolls too often, though, and don't let on that you're doing it.
Otherwise, your players might think they don't face any real risks-or worse, that you're playing favorites."

Yet, if a player did any of the things I’ve discussed, you and everyone else would likely boot them immediately because you won’t let cheaters at your table. And this dichotomy isn’t healthy I don’t think. These sorts of double standards that insulate the role of DM from that of the other people sitting at the table.

It is absolutely healthy when used properly(ie not DM power abuse). And there are no double standards. At no point is one side cheating and the other side not allowed to. The DM can't cheat and players aren't allowed to cheat. If you want an RPG where the DM is the same as a player, you need to play a different game. In D&D the DM has far more things that he can do and far more power and authority granted to him by the game.

If he had said “In European culture we always give more respect to people who do more work, and since the DM does more work we give them more respect” then I would have responded differently, but his post was “The DM does more work, so they get more respect”. So I judged his statement by his words, not by an assumption about a culture I don’t share.

And now you know it's a cultural thing.

Can you be bad enough at cheating to intend to cheat but be unable to pull it off? Is the intent to cheat therefore enough to have it considered cheating, even if it would be considered “impossible” to actually pull it off?

It's cheating if you break the rule for the purpose of gaining advantage. If you fail to get that advantage, you just suck at cheating.

Again, I have to wonder, why are people so invested in this idea that under no circumstances could a DM ever be capable of cheating in any way shape or form.

Facts matter.

Why does it matter so much that the DM is incapable of cheating?

Truth matters.

Are you scared that if you admit it is possible that homebrewing will suddenly wither and die?

Say what? How the hell did you get from DMs and their inability to cheat, to the possibility that homebrewing will die? It's not possible by the way. People will always homebrew games.

 

[Maxperson]

Saving the characters life. Seems pretty obvious.

That's an advantage for the player, but not the DM. That's even more obvious.

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

I consider fudging to be cheating. Yeah, technically the GM can do whatever, and technically there's the rules blurb endorsing it, but it's so unsavory, so repugnant, so abominable to me that I consider it a system cheat. It's poor form and, in my opinion, a novice GM's tool that should be eschewed hastily.

There are two primary uses of fudging.

1. It's an attempt to circumvent an undesirable rule. If the rule produces undesirable results, change the rule. Don't kick the can down the road by changing the dice results to conform with a more palatable outcome.

2. It's an attempt to negate a GM mistake. If you "have" to fudge a dice roll, you ought not have called for a roll in the first place. Learn from the mistake and move on.

 

[billd91]

I consider fudging to be cheating. Yeah, technically the GM can do whatever, and technically there's the rules blurb endorsing it, but it's so unsavory, so repugnant, so abominable to me that I consider it to be cheating. It's poor form and, in my opinion, a novice GM's tool that should be eschewed hastily. If you "have" to fudge a dice roll, you ought not have called for a roll in the first place.

Screw that badwrongfun BS.