Pre-Rolling Certain Opposed Checks

[5ekyu]

For the people suggesting there is no reason to hide rolls, how do you deal with things like searching for traps? The player thinks there is a trap, and rolls to search for it. Don't they learn some meta knowledge if they see the result of the roll? If they roll high and the DM says they don't see anything, they will trust that info far more than if they hear the same thing after rolling a 2.

Player searches for traps tolls a 3. Net like say 10 or 8.

"You did not find any, but, with the lighting and the decrepit state of the floor and all that dirt, it's by no means certain. Those might be trip wires on the corner behind that sction or just heavy webs or heavy webs hiding trip wires. Heck, might not even be a trap, these floors are pretty unstable. Could break thru.

Player searches rolls a 15 for maybe a 20 to 23.

"Thorough look, good conditions, you see no traps. If there are any, they are likely expertly designed/placed by someone highly trained or cloaked by magic."

Now, in each of those cases, the players do not know the whole answer cuz they font get the opposing DC but they can make reasoned guesses based on circumstances. Are they breaking into a treasure vault of a wizard or a backroom at an inn? That should certainly lead to different conclusions at the higher end choice.

Also, keep in mind by RAW PHB basic definition any single failed ability check can be resolved as "some progress with setback" which means that low roll might be providing you with accurate info but not complete info and/or a problem. So, maybe you did spot the wire dart trap but missed the pressure plate by the spot where you would cut the wire to defuse it that sets off the alarm downstairs.

 

[Satyrn]

My main concern would be, since the rolls are known ahead of time, behavior might be altered to line up certain checks with certain rolls, in order to get a more desirable result, however unintentional.

Counter example: what if a player made a bunch of rolls ahead of time, recorded them, and just had them on a sheet in front of them. They know their mission is to sneak into guarded area by a market, and convince a noble inside that they're in danger. They see their next rolls on the list are 3, 17, and 18. Given this information, they might be tempted to choose to attempt to fast-talk a merchant on the way out of a piece of fruit, knowing they'll fail and it'll be of little consequence, in order to know they'll have good rolls for their next Stealth and Persuasion checks. A good player would never intentionally do this, but the tempting option is still there, as is the possibility of feeling like they might be accused of doing so if they get particularly lucky.

A way to get around this might be to put the paper in an envelope, and slowly slide it out to reveal the next line as needed. Someone who is really good at memorizing strings of numbers might still be in danger of remembering the pattern, even if you start with the first 1d8 or so ignored to have a random starting point.

One alternative, if you want the ability for players to roll and randomly determine events, but not have enough information to know whether that passed or failed, a modification of #2 might work. Determine a random order of the numbers 1-20, then make a 1-20 table for them on an index card, then consult that when the player rolls. If you're worried about them learning that a 13 on the die is usually a failure and a 5 is usually a success, make multiple cards, flip to the next when used, and periodically shuffle. Actions are still declared and committed to before a check is made, the results are still determined randomly by the player on a fair die roll, but they can't presume how successful it was just on the number before you have a chance to narrate the outcome.

Also, there's a chance somebody hits a hot streak and rolls a set of results that are all above 10. How will this affect the way the session plays out? What if it was a cold streak instead?

I have only questions, not answers.

 

[Gwarok]

I've done something similar in my campaign, but it was a pretty specific incident. Basically, if you know that simply rolling the checks will alert them to something going on, and should it succeed it is imperative they not know something is up, then I'll have them make some rolls. In the case I'm thinking of, they PC had an ally who was really a bad guy. Bad guys was a bard that would charm/dominate/suggest/detect thoughts on his targets to get them to do stuff or cough up intel, then use "Modify Memory" to make them forget the incident. Obviously, that is not going to work with PC's, and so I had mine roll the saves a week before the session to be played.

 

[LordEntrails]

But that's me and my group. Likely not gonna be everyone's cup of grog.

What? Who doesn't like grog? They must not have tried MY grog!

 

[Li Shenron]

Lately, I've been toying with the idea of having my players roll a D20 several times before the session, recording each of these rolls and handing them over to be beforehand. The idea is that I'd use those results as their D20 rolls when they make certain opposed checks where knowing the result beforehand might potentially alter how they behave (particularly checks like Stealth, Insight, and rolls to detect or disarm traps).

I have a couple ideas for how to execute this plan:


1) Rolling for self, in-order.

Under this method, each player would make a certain number of rolls, I'm thinking 10 or 20 of them. I would then use them in order, crossing them off as I go.


2) Rolling for self, random.

This method would be the same as the first, except that I would number the rolls on the page and have the player roll a die (d10 or d20, depending on the number of rolls before the session) to randomly choose the predetermined roll. I wouldn't cross off results under this method. This method has the benefit of mostly removing a player's ability to recall what the predetermined rolls were during play.

3) Swapped Rolls, in-order.

This is the same as method #1, but I swap the players' rolls so that Player A uses Player B's rolls, and vice-versa. I only have 2 players right now.

4) Swapped Rolls, random.

This is the same as method #2, but I swap the players' rolls so that Player A uses Player B's rolls, and vice-versa.


As a player, how would you feel about this practice? What would be your concerns if it were implemented at your table?

As a DM, what do you think of the idea?

I think it is overly complicated, and it sounds like a player that makes 10 rolls and sees the result can even start metagaming e.g. "I rolled poorly most of my pre-rolls today, I'll let another PC try stuff and I will stay aside". It's also a bit boring having to make a lot of rolls and record results. I wouldn't like it neither as a player nor as a DM.

The PHB suggests using passive checks when you don't want the players to see their results. While I do not like using passive checks VS static DCs, they are much better VS opposed checks, because you automatically beat/fail a certain static DC, while there is still randomess in opposed checks as long as one of the two is rolled. It's not perfect, because it still means that PCs with the highest passive score cannot fail unless all PCs fail, and those with the lowest cannot succeed unless all PCs succeed.

So this doesn't work well with traps with static DCs. In that case, I prefer to just roll secretly in place of the player unless failure automatically means to suffer the consequences (such in the typical case in an ambush for example), in which case it's ok to just roll normally because it's too late to avoid the consequence of a failure.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Ok, #2: you are prerolling 20 rolls and then use a d20 to randomly chose one of them...

that is as complicated as a d20 roll.
If you don´t want a player to know how good their roll is, just assign numbers from 1 to 20 in a random order and then if the player rolls, you take a random one... but then you can just roll as the DM