D&D 5E Player vs DM dice rolls

[iserith]

As an example, the rogue attempted to hide behind a pillar with a roll of a 13 on one round and a 15 on the second round. The NPC the character was hiding from was a umberhulk, which has tremor sense. After the first round the player thought the umberhulk may have a high perception. After the second round, the player came to the conclusion that the umberhulk has tremor sense. Now that the player was aware of this I indicated that additional detail on the hide attempt to conceal from the tremor sense could make the attempt successful. The player suggested there wasn't a way to do this, so we moved on.

The way I would handle a situation like this is to telegraph that the umber hulk has tremorsense when describing the environment. Perhaps how its head snapped left and right to unerringly focus its scintillating compound eyes on anything that traversed the ground or something like that. Attempts to hide from it while remaining on the ground would not result in an ability check - the character simply fails. Asking a player to roll when the only possible outcome is automatic failure is a little misleading in my view because it gives the impression that there's a chance of success. This can result in subsequent, fruitless attempts by the player and additional failure.

 

[Rhenny]

If you play in Fantasy Grounds, you can ask players to make secret rolls using the hidden dice castle. The player rolls and it only is revealed to the DM.

Personally, I have the players roll to hit, saves, checks and damage almost always in the open.

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I have played games were I roll everything for the players, and for some groups that actually works really well. For one, it speeds up the game. Secondly, it makes the player experience much more narrative based. Players tend to think more in terms of what their characters do rather than what dice/scores they need to calculate.

I did this when I ran a portion of a game for my 9th grade English classes. They just told me what they wanted to do and I rolled when I needed to to resolve the actions. Sometimes I'd ask them what their modifiers were if I didn't remember, but often, I could roll and know the result even before applying modifiers.

 

[Imaculata]

As a DM I tend to roll everything out in the open, because my players enjoy laughing at me whenever I roll really terrible for one of my monsters. And that happens A LOT.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

My players don't really laugh at me, but I like to see their "phew, we are lucky" and "oh no, a 20" faces.

 

[Sadras]

Well I usually laugh (at my players) when I roll a 20. Does that count?

 

[guachi]

Many of the kinds of things I might have rolled for the players as a DM when I played 2e 25 years ago have been subsumed by using Passive abilities. I think of it as "the DM rolls the die but the die roll is always 10"

In this week's session, I asked what the players' passive Insight was. You'd think after 8 months I'd know what characters have what skills... It turned out one PC had a 15 Passive Insight and I told him the tale being told to him was a fish story. I mean, it's D&D so even the craziest story might be true. But I figure most of us have a BS detector working at least a little bit all the time, right?

 

[mellored]

My preference is for the players to always roll. Even for AC attacks against them (I turned it into a saving throw).
Mostly because it takes pressure off me as a DM, and then I can focus more on the story and keeping the game running. (Not that I dislike rolling or math).

I'll even ask them to roll for secret stuff, and just not tell them why. Just "roll a d20 for me". No other info until later.

 

[Hriston]

Different tables divide dice rolling duties differently. My preference is for players to make all die rolls made to resolve their characters' attempts to take action or save themselves from danger. I prefer to handle die rolls like this because it satisfies my sense of immersion, which is highly subjective and not a priority for some tables.