D&D General Should the DM roll in the open?

[Scott Christian]

Well after the second 1 you is dead and I hope the group has revivify. And now other pc helping you means you have tick off the group or they were into the combat to remember you were on death saves.
But are you saying as DM I should set in and aid the fallen PC.?

You are correct. My bad.

As for the DM stepping in, you really shouldn't have to if you did your prep work. I mean, unless you are playing D&D with one player and one DM, another person in the group should step in. If you have a group with no healers, and no one bothered to bring Goodberries, healing potions, etc. Then, you should, as a player, have some expectation that your death might happen. And even then, it's reversable.

My point is, a DM should be able to consistently, and almost without error, create encounters where the entire group isn't wiped out. And half the encounters are unintelligent beasts. They're not there to hit the unconscious cleric so they don't rise and start healing the fighter. So they knock a PC unconscious? After that they might just take off.

Let's do some math: If a group has two encounters per session and the campaign lasts for a year and everyone plays once a week, that is a total of 104 encounters. As DM, if you know your group, you can create these encounters to be fun, rewarding, challenging - and not deadly. And let's be real, creating 100 encounters is not that difficult. You are not spending 20 hours each week. You are spending an hour or two. (Yes, there is a lot of other work to do as well. But we are talking about encounters.) If one or two hours is too much, then perhaps you should let another person DM.

My own experience with numbers: I have played seven different campaigns with the 2014 rules. I have played under four different DMs. Once, just once, did we have a TPK. Once. And even then, it was with a wild beast that just flew off. There was a fight where we surrendered. There were a few fights we ran away. And there was a fight where we had to use wish to bring my character back. (Damn you disintegration!) That's it. Out of 500 fights these four DMs managed to do their job correctly, meaning they prepped for the sessions and didn't just make it up as they went along. (PS - All but one rolls in the open. And the one that doesn't always says, "You have to see this!" while encouraging us to look at his die rolls.

Since those DMs do the work, our sessions are not destroyed by a few bad die rolls. And by fourth level, there are so many options open to PCs that death doesn't actually mean death.

All this brings us back to rolling in the open versus rolling behind a screen. If you are ok with rolling behind a screen as DM, then you should also be ok with letting your players. The same for rolling in the open. The only reason to have just the DM roll behind the screen is because they didn't prep for the session - and therefore they have to obfuscate the results of dice because their on-the-spot impromptus had unintended consequences.

 

[Skyscraper]

If you’re a DM and you don’t roll in the open, you’re bad and you should feel bad.

This is not the point.

I've been playing DnD (and other RPG's) for 45 years. It is only maybe 7 years ago that we started rolling in the open. Why? I assume mostly because rolling behind the screen is what we had learned from the original DnD design dating from the 70's-80's. It had always been done that way. We had pretty much the same thoughts as those that are mentioned in this thread in favor of rolling behind the screen, and against rolling in the open, when we discussed it beforehand, but we went ahead and did it anyway. And we never looked back. (I wonder how many behind-the screen proponents have played as DM and/or players in roll-in-the-open campaigns.)

And with that, came the realization that (1) there is great fun in actually experiencing die rolls at the same time; and (2) our preconceived apprehensions were not supported by the experience of rolling in the open.

There is no right or wrong. I think like there are different types of players described in the DnD core books (instigator, actor, ...), there are different types of people that look for different types of DM-ing. To me rolling behind the screen vs. in the open is mostly moving a dial between DM-empowerment where you let the GM tell you what happens; and random determination where you let the die tell you what happens (first anyway). In both cases the DM ends up narrating, but more emphasis on DM narration in roll behind the screen while in roll in the open the DM is faced with the result at the same time as the players. And neither is 100% one or the other, you're just moving more in one direction with each playstyle.

 

[Thomas Shey]

as well as "the GM thought it was beatable and it was but the dice lined everything up exactly wrong"

Its a third case, but I was primarily talking about when I think the GM should flat out say "I made a mistake here, and I'd like to fix it with all your agreement". Fixing dice vagaries is something I realize some GMs consider their job too, but I'm not one of them.

 

[Jaiken]

I feel less bad when I roll multiple critical hits in a row. The evidence is right there that I’m not a sadistic DM haha

Same here. My players sometimes need to be reminded that my rolls are legit.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There are more options, though, including:

“The GM set up an encounter suitable for the location and it’s up to the players, via their PCs, to decide how they interact with it.”

Sure, but its not usually hard to recognize the difference between "The players are not on there game" and "The GM was apparently not on their game when they set it up"...especially if you're the GM.

Important points for this option:

• the enemies have motivations and goals (which are not necessarily “fight to the death”)
• retreat should always be on the table (regardless of what we all think of the “chase rules” but that’s a different thread) and refer to the point above to determine how invested an enemy is in pursuing

While I agree in principal with the latter half of this, I don't actually think you can entirely ignore how the game mechanics with people who care at all about such things. Basically saying "You can retreat; I won't make you roll" is liable to be in some ways the worst of both worlds; it says "I've made a mistake but rather than just backing up and undoing it, I'm going to make you take in-character humiliation and possibly other losses". That might be the better choice in cases with people who just hate stepping out and just rolling things back, but its hardly an unmixed choice.

Admittedly there's no perfect way to resolve that when it happens but I think some are (generically, with the note the specific beats the general) worse than others.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

The number of demeaning and insulting comments towards those who roll behind a screen, that are present in this thread, are a low point for this community since I've joined.

I hope that things are better in the future because it makes me sad to see this type of discourse over a game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

To make my own position clear, I don't consider people who roll hidden rolls automatically bad people; I don't even think they're automatically doing the wrong thing for their specific group.

I do think taking it as okay as a default is, however, bad practice. I don't feel a need to apologize for that.

 

[Autumnal]

So the real conclusion of this thread is that we should all play more Amber and Lords Of Gossamer And Shadow.

 

[SteveC]

And with that, came the realization that (1) there is great fun in actually experiencing die rolls at the same time; and (2) our preconceived apprehensions were not supported by the experience of rolling in the open.

I think so too. What I think can be problematic is that D&D as written doesn't really have a lot of good tools for what to do when you don't want to roll the dice. A lof of other games do, and I have taken those concepts back into D&D. I think the DM who wants to be able to change die rolls is really starting down a journey for a game where there are more options based around the resolution mechanic.

And I certainly don't think there's anything odd at all about rolling a check behind the screen when the players wouldn't know what's going on or might be given contradictory information based on the die roll.

I've rolled dice out in the open that I've regretted. And I've been comfortable stepping out of game referee mode to say "we're going to resolve this differently." I certainly don't think that steps into "why roll at all?" territory.

But 99%+ of the time, if I roll it, then that's what happens.

 

[Lanefan]

Rolls to raise player anxiety are a thing. It's a point against rolling in the open, too. PC-anxiety is less affected by seeing low numbers come up.


Per Skyscraper's following quote, a goblin leaving without a trace is just a minigame for the GM. It's the same as the GM announcing, "ha! Nothing happens."

Ayup. I can't count the number of times I've had players roll for (the equivalent of) perception, blow it, and have me say "Nope, nothing to see here" or "Nothing happens" or - most commonly - "Carry on". To me this is just fine - there may or may not have been anything to see or otherwise perecive there and for whatever reason you lot didn't catch it.

In short: "Nothing happens" is IMO always a valid DM response if and when from the PCs' perspective indeed nothing happens.