Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Inconsequenti-AL" data-source="post: 1842900" data-attributes="member: 6584">I'm curious to know how much of the game mechanics DMs let the players know about...Do they know skill check DCs before they decide to use the skill?Do they get to know the save DCs they're rolling against?Do they get to know which spell an NPC threw at them?Do you tell them the AC of a combat target? Or get them to roll and you tell them whether you hit or not? Something else?Do you tell them the total dice rolls or just whether the NPC failed or suceeded at whatever they were trying to do?What do other people do and/or prefer?Currently, I tend to keep a lot of the mechanics to myself. I'll tell the players the AC of something if they've hit it enough to work it out... I'll tell them if they're being targeted with an obvious and common spell. I do roll all the dice out in the open, but just tell the PCs whether they've been affected by it... but not by how much, except in vague terms - e.g. 'The orc easily hits you', 'The mind flayer almost dances away from your fireball', etc. I'm seriously considering moving towards a very 'mechanics in the open' style of GMing. I think it'd be interesting to see how this worked out... would certainly give the players a very concise view of the world around them? On the other hand, would seeing 'under the hood' kill off the mystery of the game? Would it make things too wargamey?Any thoughts?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Inconsequenti-AL, post: 1842900, member: 6584"] I'm curious to know how much of the game mechanics DMs let the players know about... Do they know skill check DCs before they decide to use the skill? Do they get to know the save DCs they're rolling against? Do they get to know which spell an NPC threw at them? Do you tell them the AC of a combat target? Or get them to roll and you tell them whether you hit or not? Something else? Do you tell them the total dice rolls or just whether the NPC failed or suceeded at whatever they were trying to do? What do other people do and/or prefer? Currently, I tend to keep a lot of the mechanics to myself. I'll tell the players the AC of something if they've hit it enough to work it out... I'll tell them if they're being targeted with an obvious and common spell. I do roll all the dice out in the open, but just tell the PCs whether they've been affected by it... but not by how much, except in vague terms - e.g. 'The orc easily hits you', 'The mind flayer almost dances away from your fireball', etc. I'm seriously considering moving towards a very 'mechanics in the open' style of GMing. I think it'd be interesting to see how this worked out... would certainly give the players a very concise view of the world around them? On the other hand, would seeing 'under the hood' kill off the mystery of the game? Would it make things too wargamey? Any thoughts? [/QUOTE]

Verification