Pre-rolling dice for the game

[Aust Diamondew]

I've cotemplated doing this before but decided against it for many of the prior mentioned reasons.

 

[A'koss]

I do this for EXACTLY the same reason. The moment I roll a die, my players get paranoid, extra curious or nervous and metagaming enues en masse. I HATE that. So, I now make numerous checks for their characters - for secret doors, traps, listen, spot, search, hide and move silently. You name it, if they might not know a thing until I ask them to "roll," then I use a pre-rolled d20 result from a spreadsheet, scratch it off, and keep going. No die rolls, no pause, and I can make multiple checks quickly without ever tipping anyone off.

Yup... I've been giving other DMs this exact same advice for years now. Sometimes I even use the pregenerated numbers in combat with large groups of enemies or the odd Far Realm Freakie who makes like... 30 tentacle attacks per round.

Cheers!

 

[Sammael]

I sometimes pre-roll initiative for NPCs, but that's about it.

 

[shilsen]

Interesting feedback. Yesterday's session involved one fight with 4 PCs and 9 enemies, and the pre-rolling saved me a lot of time in-game.

 

[Ranes]

I've done this many times for secret rolls (spot, listen, move silently, hide etc). I don't know which pre-rolled numbers are going to get used for which checks beforehand. I just reach the point of a secret check and put a line through the next number in the list. Thus my players have no idea I just rolled a spot check or whatever else has been called for. I have to reassure new players that the rolls are being made fairly, that nothing is being done for any kind of anti-player reason. It's just a device to maintain suspense. Players sometimes wind me up about 'rigged' surprise attacks and traps but they've also seen the other side of the coin, when I suddenly inform them that they've spotted, found or heard something that gives them an advantage they weren't expecting. I have their unanimous approval.

I don't use them for combat or any other roll the players would be aware of.

 

[Dragonmarked DM]

I've just recently started having the PC's give me 20 prerolled d20's just for use with secret rolls. I collect the rolls from the PC's and randomly place a 1 next to one of the rolls and then continue from their number 2 thru 20. Thus when a search check or something is needed, I allow the player to roll 1d20 and reference what they roll to the prerolled numbers for the true result, thus they never know the result but yet get to make all the rolls.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

I don't do this for the same reason that Olgar said: dice rolling is fun, and I don't want to sacrifice that in the name of efficiency. There really is something fun about the physical act of rolling the die, and the suspense of waiting to see what comes up when it stops rolling. At least that's how it is for me. And it goes for watching other people roll their dice too. Hm, I think KODT should do a strip about this (if they haven't already).

 

[the Jester]

I did this once in a while in 1e, but rapidly came to the conclusion that much of the fun of dming is rolling all the dice. So I stopped and have never gone back.

But it certainly does save time.

 

[diaglo]

I know a guy who has a sheet of mothing more than d20 rolls so that he doesn't tip off his players when he needs to make a roll secretly (Spot checks, unknown saves, etc.). Otherwise, when it need not be secret, he rolls the dice.

ditto.

i have a set of rolls on a sheet.

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

I make my players roll a list of 20 d20 rolls before the game to use for secret rolls, but never do it as a DM...

I use this as well and it works great. At first the players thought that they'd still know how well they've done (and they do get a clue by knowing generally how well they rolled overall) but give them 20 minutes of game time and they've forgotten the numbers. Plus they don't know how many of those checks I've used for each of them. It gives the players the responsibility for the rolls for their character, doesn't tip them off when something is happening that they don't know about, and prevents even the opportunity for metagaming when they know the rather obtuse Paladin rolled a 1 and has no clue about what's going on but is convinced that the goblins are sneaking up behind them.