D&D General Should players be aware of their own high and low rolls?

[iserith]

So you, as DM, are keeping track of backstory, background, race, class, in world experiences, etc for each PC in your game to make sure the players are playing their characters correctly plus describing the environment, creating coherent story hooks, running monsters and NPCs, adjudicating actions, etc. That’s… a lot to put on one’s DM plate.

Must be why nobody uses Inspiration to incentivize portraying characters to established characteristics.

 

[Charlaquin]

And either way my response is the same:


Think of it this way:

The Player is an actor in a play. While backstage, they see the Bad Guy murder someone. Later on, while ON STAGE, the Player sees the Bad Guy come on stage as well and yells out, "You, Villain, are a Bad Guy and a murderer! Constable, arrest them!"

Sort of ruins the atmosphere and such for the other actors, the director, and anyone who happens to be in the audience, don't ya think???

Now, as the "Director", I--the DM--yell, "Stop, stop, stop! What are you doing, Player? Your character in the play doesn't know they are the Bad Guy! Sigh... Ok, everyone, ignore that outburst and back to positions..."

So, if the Player continues to disrupt the play by doing such things, as the Director I will tell them they are fired and look for another Player for the play.

D&D is not a play, and the absolute last thing I want in a D&D game it is for the DM to behave like the players are actors in a play they’re directing.

 

[Lanefan]

So if the PCs have split into two groups to explore different hallways in a dungeon of some sort… you simply won’t allow members of one group to return to the other? Like, once they split, that’s it?

How is that not meta?

How do you allow for characters having a hunch? Like a gut feeling something’s wrong and they want to go check on the other group. This kind of thing happens in the real world all the time… how can it happen in your game world?

Let's take a very common situation: two scouts go off to do their thing while the other four non-sneaky types wait behind. Nobody has scrying capabilities.

If they set a rough time limit between them before the scouts left e.g. "If we're not back in an hour, come bail us out" then after punting the scouts' players into another room I'd ask the rest "Do you wait the full hour?" If I get back "Yes" then they've just committed to staying put and waiting that long. If no, or if no time was pre-set, I'll ask "How long are you giving the scouts before you get concerned?" and get them to commit to a time period. No take-backs - if you commit to staying put, that's what you're gonna do unless something happens at your end (e.g. a wandering monster or other headache) to change this.

And if you don't commit to staying put for any time then I need to know what you intend to do next, and where you're going.

Then, I go to the scouts' players, usually safe in the knowledge of how much in-game time they and I have to work with before I have to worry about what the rest are doing, and DM their scouting trip. If the scouts don't make it back in the pre-agreed time, or if something happens before then that the rest might notice, I'll go back to the waiting group, narrate anything that needs narrating, and ask what they do next and for how long. If the waiting group decide to get on the move then - unless the scouts are now immobile - I have to worry about who is where when, meaning I probably have to bounce back and forth much more often until they either meet up or learn of each other's fates.

Where this can get really hairy is when the party are - intentionally or otherwise - split into multiple groups or individuals, more so if they're all potentially on the move.

Edit - typos

 

[Lanefan]

D&D is not a play, and the absolute last thing I want in a D&D game it is for the DM to behave like the players are actors in a play they’re directing.

DM direction aside, though, the players are portraying characters and thus in theory are using only the knowledge those characters have in order to determine what they do next, and why, and how.

 

[Charlaquin]

Let's take a very common situation: two scouts go off to do their thing while the other four non-sneaky types wait behind. Nobody has scrying capabilities.

It’s very telling about your play style that this is “a very common situation” to you. Just to be clear, that’s by no means a criticism or a judgment. I just think it’s interesting to note how different the game can look from group to group.

 

[Charlaquin]

DM direction aside, though, the players are portraying characters and thus in theory are using only the knowledge those characters have in order to determine what they do next, and why, and how.

I disagree. The players are roleplaying characters, and a key distinction between roleplaying and portraying is that roleplaying involves making decisions for the character, whereas portraying a character is simply acting as the script says the character does - the decisions they make have already been made, and recorded in the script. And human brains are incapable of ignoring information when making decisions. If you know something relevant to the decision, it will affect your decision-making.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I personally find you shouldn't say "no you can't" but you can totally (as a PC or DM) bring up the social contract... we often the first time do so with a "Come on man really, you don't know" and then after a time or two have a discussion before or after session.

As for the troll thing I think that is a campaign and style thing... so if the table agrees to 'lets RP not knowing, we want to be newbies' you keep to that, if on the other hand you don't that's cool too...

 

[Lanefan]

It’s very telling about your play style that this is “a very common situation” to you.

If it's what the characters would do, it's what gets done.

Just to be clear, that’s by no means a criticism or a judgment. I just think it’s interesting to note how different the game can look from group to group.

Regardless of group, if I'm playing the sneaky scouty type and the clunkies insist on following me every time I try to scout ahead for them, there's gonna be some in-character yelling once stealth is no longer required.

 

[Lanefan]

I disagree. The players are roleplaying characters, and a key distinction between roleplaying and portraying is that roleplaying involves making decisions for the character, whereas portraying a character is simply acting as the script says the character does - the decisions they make have already been made, and recorded in the script.

OK, fair point. Improv acting is a better analogy, but that doesn't have a script (usually).

And human brains are incapable of ignoring information when making decisions. If you know something relevant to the decision, it will affect your decision-making.

Exactly! Which is why I keep harping on not giving players knowledge their characters don't have.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Regardless of group, if I'm playing the sneaky scouty type and the clunkies insist on following me every time I try to scout ahead for them, there's gonna be some in-character yelling once stealth is no longer required.

My counter point would be "if you want to go scouting can the rest of us at least watch, since you are doing it, instead of pausing our group activity for you to have a private 1 on 1 activity with the DM?"