GM no-roll

[CleverNickName]

I also like Dread, but I think calling it an "RPG" is a stretch.
It's Jenga with storytelling.

Agree to disagree; I don't think it's a stretch at all. Dread is a game, in which you play the role of a fictional character. The Jenga tower is the conflict/uncertainty resolution mechanic--but unlike dice, it progressively gets more difficult and will eventually collapse, so it also builds tension. A growing sense of dread, if you will.

 

[TiQuinn]

Agree to disagree; I don't think it's a stretch at all. Dread is a game, in which you play the role of a fictional character. The Jenga tower is the conflict/uncertainty resolution mechanic--but unlike dice, it progressively gets more difficult and will eventually collapse, so it also builds tension.

Yeah, I think Dread is probably the perfect blend of genre RPG with a core mechanic suited to that type of story. The mechanic is such that you will eventually lose unless you complete the story (escape, defeat the monster, solve the mystery, etc) in time. The early moves are easy. The later moves are nail biting. It’s really brilliant.

 

[ninjayeti]

As a GM I have got a lot on my plate - I am more than happy to outsource dice rolling to the players and focus on other stuff. I don't really find dice rolling fun as a GM anyway - when the GM rolls well it kinda sucks for the group as a whole. I rolled two big crits on a PC in the same fight last session and just felt bad about it.

 

[MGibster]

I think it's fine in games designed like that, but I don't see a need to shoehorn it into games that are not. Different games are different for a reason!

Morrus kind of hit my answer in one fell swoop. For a game like D&D, where hits & misses and critical rolls are part of the fun then I very much want to roll the dice. The highs and lows are part of what make the game so fun and I would not enjoy running D&D as much if I weren't rolling any dice. For most games using Gumshoe, the GM doesn't roll dice. I'm perfectly happy not rolling dice because a Gumshoe game provides a different experience than D&D.

 

[Umbran]

I am fine running or playing games without GM rolls.

However, I don't think retrofitting a game like D&D such that the GM doesn't roll is apt to work out well. It probably ought to be part of the initial design.

 

[Umbran]

I generally prefer symmetry between PCs and NPCs/monsters, so players rolling both to hit the monster and rolling to keep from being hit by the monster is an interesting idea, but not for me as a GM.

Well, that's part of what I mean.

If you are retrofitting D&D to be no-GM-roll, that'd be your first stab at it - just like normal D&D, but all the rolls the GM would have made, are instead made by the players. But that's not how most no-GM-roll games are organized.

Specifically, the monsters usually don't get a separate turn in the initiative order. Instead, it is often more like:

The GM says, "The owlbear lunges at you, and will rake you with its claws if you don't do something about it."

The players then give their actions, and roll if called for. Maybe they try to skewer it with a sword, or throw up a shield in defense, or climb a tree, or something else. If their actions suitably interfere with the owlbear's plan they don't take damage. If not, they take some damage.

 

[aramis erak]

I tried to look this up to see if this had been asked but I could not find much, so here I ask =

What do you think of games where the GM never rolls dice?

They're called "Player Facing Systems" in the majority of discussions I've been involved in.

Would you be happy if D&D and Pathfinder and GURPS and RuneQuest switched to GM never roll? (players only rolled to react/deflect/counter to attacks and such)

Since I won't run any of those at present (except maybe RQ 3rd or MGT1, but neither in Glorantha)... it wouldn't matter to me.

If you LIKE GM no roll games, what is a time when it failed you or didn't help roleplay? (if only for a single action or scene, if ever)

You're assuming a false premise: that they should help with roleplay. My experience is that they're no more and no less roleplay-centric than other games of otherwise similar construction. They don't. The players preferences for how to play far more impact than whether or not the GM rolls dice.

Some such systems are =

• Powered by the Apocalypse (et al)
• Cypher system
• Symbaroum
• Forged in the Dark (et al)
• Tales from the Loop

The Unisystem Lite games are also player facing. Those being, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Army of Darkness, and Ghosts of Albion. All are built with an assumed roll of 6 in place of the d10 players roll, and essentially all conflict rolls are thus opposed. I ran a season's worth... it works well, but it was my highest preplay ratio (about 3:2) ever for the per session adventures.

DragonLance: Fifth Age is the one I enjoyed most; it's card driven, not dice, but it's still player facing resolutions. It's so solid and so different from other TSR games... for some, it works. For others, it's too different.

A few (admitedly distanced) AWE/PBTA derived/inspired games do have GM's rolling. The most successful of those is Sentinel Comics. (The starter kit explicitly links the design to PBTA.)

(Edit) There is one that's mostly player facing, but the GM rolls for NPC/Monster damage: Talisman Adventures. Players pick which they attack, their roll determines their hit and their foes's hit (inversely). Extra NPCs the GM gets to pick targets, who then roll solely to resist.

Other thoughts on GM no roll games?

I don't find them as fun to GM, but not to the point of disliking them. I'm not averse to running them. I like my dice. Or my cards. But a good concept and good execution providing other interesting things for the GM to do? Could be worth it. For DL5A, it was.
For Buffy... well... it's not hit the table since. I did play in a campaign, but the GM there was rolling and not reducing the NPC base scores by 6, so I walked. (He also had opinions of schools that were beyond unrealistic. And I was working as a sub in the public schools at the time.)

 

[aramis erak]

I am fine running or playing games without GM rolls.

However, I don't think retrofitting a game like D&D such that the GM doesn't roll is apt to work out well. It probably ought to be part of the initial design.

It was an option in D&D 3.0, in the DMG. Roll your armor class vs a take 10 attack.

 

[Umbran]

It was an option in D&D 3.0, in the DMG. Roll your armor class vs a take 10 attack.

But that's for a simple attack roll. It doesn't generalize to enemy actions broadly.

The point is no-GM-roll (or "player facing", to use that term) games typically don't shift GM rolls to players - they eliminate those rolls entirely. Instead of rolling, the GM basically sets the stakes, and the players choose how to handle them.

In effect, in these games, the GM elements are not random. They are chosen.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But that's for a simple attack roll. It doesn't generalize to enemy actions broadly.

The point is no-GM-roll games typically don't shift GM rolls to players - they eliminate those rolls entirely. Instead of rolling, the GM basically sets the stakes, and the players choose how to handle them.

In effect, in these games, the GM elements are not random. They are chosen.

This last is, by the by, one of the two reasons though I'm not hostile to player-facing game design, I'm not particularly a partisan of it; when dealing with NPC I don't want to "just decide" in at least some PC-relevant (but not PC interactive) cases. And often in those, there's actually no support for how else to handle it. (This is even true of hybrid cases like 13th Age, where I've found myself forced into use of saves when I wanted to do that, because NPCs are written in a way that's fairly schematic).