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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Should players be aware of their own high and low rolls?
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<blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 8824214" data-attributes="member: 86653"><p>I couldn't disagree more. It's not possible for the character to know those things so there's no reason for the player to know those things. Unless they're obvious in the fiction. You want to swing across a bottomless pit on a makeshift rope swing, you clearly know what the stakes are. You're prowling around an unknown location, you couldn't possibly know what's lurking there. You can guess it might be guards, sure. But you don't <em>know</em>. There's no certainty. And there shouldn't be any. For me one of the goals is getting the game out from between the player and their character. Not centering the game.</p><p></p><p>So it removes the realism and verisimilitude of uncertainty. That's not a benefit. The characters should be uncertain.</p><p></p><p>I agree with the not calling for too many rolls, and not bothering with low DC rolls, but as the characters cannot possibly know the stakes with certainty, the players shouldn't either to prevent metagaming and so they're roleplaying more authentically.</p><p></p><p>In some cases that's great and I'd agree. You need to be on the same page for a lot of things. If the player didn't hear you say it's a fancy, obviously magical lock or misheard that there's a thousand-foot drop off...then that's worth pausing and making sure everyone knows what's going on before any rolls or consequences are presented. But doing that all the time utterly obliterates all those moments where there's no way the character could know something. It's not worth giving that up.</p><p></p><p>The trouble is the character isn't perfect but you're providing the player with perfect information. The player will inevitable act on that perfect information in game, i.e. metagame. That's bad.</p><p></p><p>That phrase is doing all the lifting. And again, a reasonable degree of accuracy is not perfect knowledge. "The DC is between 10 and 16" is a reasonable degree of accuracy "The DC is 15" is perfect knowledge.</p><p></p><p>Of course. That's why you do the best you can in describing things and everyone gives each other slack and mulligans on things that should be obvious.</p><p></p><p>That's not how it works. The incorrect assessment is the DC not being accurate. The character's attempt is the random roll.</p><p></p><p>Again, no. The character cannot possibly know the result of some of their actions. Finding secret doors, for example. They have no way of knowing if they missed something or if there's nothing there to find. That distinction is obliterated if you do things your way.</p><p></p><p>Not edge cases, standard things in D&D...like sneaking and searching for secret doors.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="overgeeked, post: 8824214, member: 86653"] I couldn't disagree more. It's not possible for the character to know those things so there's no reason for the player to know those things. Unless they're obvious in the fiction. You want to swing across a bottomless pit on a makeshift rope swing, you clearly know what the stakes are. You're prowling around an unknown location, you couldn't possibly know what's lurking there. You can guess it might be guards, sure. But you don't [I]know[/I]. There's no certainty. And there shouldn't be any. For me one of the goals is getting the game out from between the player and their character. Not centering the game. So it removes the realism and verisimilitude of uncertainty. That's not a benefit. The characters should be uncertain. I agree with the not calling for too many rolls, and not bothering with low DC rolls, but as the characters cannot possibly know the stakes with certainty, the players shouldn't either to prevent metagaming and so they're roleplaying more authentically. In some cases that's great and I'd agree. You need to be on the same page for a lot of things. If the player didn't hear you say it's a fancy, obviously magical lock or misheard that there's a thousand-foot drop off...then that's worth pausing and making sure everyone knows what's going on before any rolls or consequences are presented. But doing that all the time utterly obliterates all those moments where there's no way the character could know something. It's not worth giving that up. The trouble is the character isn't perfect but you're providing the player with perfect information. The player will inevitable act on that perfect information in game, i.e. metagame. That's bad. That phrase is doing all the lifting. And again, a reasonable degree of accuracy is not perfect knowledge. "The DC is between 10 and 16" is a reasonable degree of accuracy "The DC is 15" is perfect knowledge. Of course. That's why you do the best you can in describing things and everyone gives each other slack and mulligans on things that should be obvious. That's not how it works. The incorrect assessment is the DC not being accurate. The character's attempt is the random roll. Again, no. The character cannot possibly know the result of some of their actions. Finding secret doors, for example. They have no way of knowing if they missed something or if there's nothing there to find. That distinction is obliterated if you do things your way. Not edge cases, standard things in D&D...like sneaking and searching for secret doors. [/QUOTE]
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Should players be aware of their own high and low rolls?
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