Does your DM hide their rolls?

[weem]

Just curious as to the general rule at your table. Are the DM's rolls out in the open for all to see, or hidden? Have any issues come up? In our game all DM rolls are out in the open, which we all seem to prefer. Personally, I don't like it when the DM fudges a roll in my favor. Feels like I'm cheating ...

I roll everything in front of everyone when I DM.

So does one DM I play with, but another does roll behind the screen (all rolls).

As a player, I prefer them be out in the open. I never worry about being cheated by a DM (I'm fine with having it stuck to me) but, and this goes with what you said, I don't like to think punches are being pulled for me.

As a DM, I like to show my players that their successes and failures were determined by themselves, and the fate of the dice.

It makes winning more rewarding, and losing easier to accept I think (and equally rewarding for me at least, as a player).

 

[UltimaGabe]

I roll out in the open. I used to hige my rolls, so I could fudge them if necessary, but then I'd get angry when I'd throw a really tough encounter at the PCs, and they'd make it through no problem (which would happen often, since I'd fudge so much). Then I played with some DMs who always rolled right in the open, and let the dice fall as they may, and it was so... liberating. Sure, a player would take a critical to the face when they were weak every now and then, but if you don't want bad things to happen sometimes, why play a game with dice?

And, having been on the other end, I can say I very much prefer when the DM rolls out in the open. I had a DM who would fudge every other roll (even when he was a player, which frustrated me to no end), and it really killed the suspense. He would purposely throw powerful enemies at us (a 3.5 Balor when we were level 10? Sure!) and then basically hand the battle to us (in the case of the Balor, he purposely killed off a player, only to bring that player back to life the next round, and then gave that player an automatic one-hit-kill crit on the Balor, and then- what's that? Death throes? Oh, said player somehow shielded everybody). It would have been fine if he would explain certain fudged encounters (like the aforementioned Balor incident) as scripted parts of the story, but he did stuff like this all the time (often on the fly), and he still gave out full XP for them.

As far as DM screens are concerned, I like the idea of them, but in practice, I hate them- it makes it hard to manipulate minis and such without constantly standing up and sitting down, and it puts a wall (literally and figuratively) between the players and the DM, which I don't like. I'd love to have all sorts of charts and maps and whatnot easily within my view, but in my experience, DM screens aren't the way to go.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Roll behind a screen. If you can´t trust your DM, who can you trust. It is his (my) responsibility to set up encounters, set up the enviroment and everything. Before i fudge against my players I send them to places with monsters where their PCs die no matter how lucky they are...

The DM screen just serves as a protection against the DM´s misjudgement and really bad luck.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Roll behind a screen. If you can´t trust your DM, who can you trust. It is his (my) responsibility to set up encounters, set up the enviroment and everything. Before i fudge against my players I send them to places with monsters where their PCs die no matter how lucky they are...

The DM screen just serves as a protection against the DM´s misjudgement and really bad luck.

It's not about the player trusting the DM, it's about the DM trusting himself.

As I mentioned above - I get really tempted to fudge the dice both ways as a DM when I roll secretly. As UltimaGabe said, it's liberating not being able to fudge the dice when you roll out in the open.

Last session I critted a character at 0 hp. If I had done the rolling hidden I would probably have fudged it, but as it was, everybody knew I had actually rolled a 20 and there was nothing for me to do. It was really amusing a bit later when the player was ressurected by a resistance - with the other players lifting the spirit of some refugees with drinking songs at the same time. I couldn't stop laughing, especially as the player sang IRL. That's what playing on Saturdays does to my group.

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[Zinovia]

I used to roll behind my screen, but the last half dozen sessions or so, I've been rolling entirely openly. I agree that it is liberating to just let the dice fall where they may at times. Occasionally it's frustrating if all my monsters keep rolling badly, but hey, sometimes it happens falls out that way. If I happen to kill a character, which hasn't happened occurred yet, it's not hard to get a res.

Two sessions ago, I rolled two natural 20's on the two OA's provoked by the rogue's movement - so even with all his bonuses vs OA, he went down and was near death (close to his negative bloodied value). They were rolled in the clear, so everyone saw the two 20's sitting there, thinking "Oh damn". Had I made those rolls behind the screen, I think I would have been tempted to change one of them to a non-critical, which would have been less interesting.

I was nervous when I first switched, thinking "But what if the fight is too hard?" but I've come to trust my own ability to build appropriate challenges that won't TPK the group. I can still cheat if I really feel it's called for (very rarely), by changing monster hp on the fly, having reinforcements arrive, or having enemies flee the scene.

 

[Herschel]

I still roll behind out of habit. In the 1E/2E days it was a bigger need but I hate TPKs that derail the whole campaign.

 

[Prism]

DM generally rolls in the open but as we all lounge around on sofas the dice are too far away to bother looking at to be honest. However we sometimes have players or in fact the DM playing over the internet so we can't see those rolls at all. Very little if any fudging goes on. We have had too many deaths and memorable TPKs for there to be a kindly DM watching over us. As a player, although I don't aim for it of course, I don't mind the occasional dramatic TPK - kind of thing you talk about for years. Rolling in the open really helps the DM stay true to the end (of the party)

 

[frankthedm]

I usually roll in the open to show the dice are being homicidal. Some days the dice really seem to hate my group and if I don't roll in the open, the players start thinking I'm fudging the dice to kill them.

 

[Nifft]

i ask my dm to hide his rolls
it seems like that screen is for our protection not his

This is true at my table too.

When I want a tense fight, I roll in the open.

Cheers, -- N