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

[Thomas Shey]

How the group views it is everything I guess. I think for most groups, however they decide, must work. And that is a good thing.

Though I'd suggest there's a wide range of potential things described by "work" there.

 

[Thomas Shey]

When i play in person, i usually roll at my seat behind a DM screen, unless i happen to be standing near the players table, which happens alot as i have a tendency to walk around as i DM, and roll wherever i am when the need arise.

One of the things that's come up several times is that there can be practicalities of the physical layout that trump any desires for or against concealment.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Depends on the roll. I roll pretty much everything public except for things like stealth checks where alone the fact that I'm rolling for them would give the players information their characters shouldn't have.

Another big one is the roll that determines how long a creature that was knocked unconscious will stay unconscious. You don't want to show your players the result of that roll.

 

[MoFoCThat]

Because:

1. It is a significant gesture of trustworthiness to do so.
2. Open rolling removes DM temptation to interfere.
3. It encourages DMs to level with their players if something goes wrong, rather than trying to cover it up.
4. I find that it leads to better outcomes, and encourages players to take risks, because they will feel their decisions are truly informed.

1. That implies that rolling openly is the only way to gain trust and that other ways do not work as well.
2. That implies that DMs will interfere only to the players' detriment, not their benefit.
3. For everything, even minor rolls? Is the DM screen the Soviet Wall, where no communication can happen between one side and the other? Explaining the roll and doing the roll are two very different actions.
4. How are they not informed? The DM doesn't roll for funsies. If the DM does not explain actions and consequences, there is a bigger issue than the DM screen...

No. But trust must be earned. Earning trust is hard if you refuse to allow people to see what you are doing even when you could. I don't believe DMs are automatically entitled to perfect and total carte blanche just because they've elected to sit behind the DM screen.

Would a teacher allow students to look at the answer key during an exam? Should students just be able to see everything for the cause of transparency for all? I have never implied that DMs are above all, but DMs are not equal to the players. Just like students should not feel that they are equals to their teachers. There is DM knowledge that is not needed for the players to know as well.

Wait, are you saying you play tic-tac-toe where you have no idea where your opponent has moved? Yeah, I would definitely have a problem with a tic-tac-toe player who said, "I'm allowed to see your moves, but you aren't allowed to see mine."

I don't want someone who has to explain every move made in real time while I am playing. You have missed the very point of my analogy. Someone who announces every move made after it was made is annoying. There is no difference between 'I played my red piece on the leftmost side to block you so now you cannot put your black piece in the spot I have taken from you to prevent a Tic-tac-toe' and 'You are attacked by a Goblin with the AC of blah, DC of blahblah, and a speed of narf. I will now roll a die in front of everyone to see if your future roll that has not been done yet will overcome the goblin's attack upon you.' A DM who does that is coddling their players, handholding them through each adventure. If the Monster Manual is required reading material for players, why is it only suggested for DM use? OH WAIT, IT'S NOT. Rolling for attack behind a screen does not mean the players are unaware of an attack occurring and cannot steel themselves against the results, good or bad.

It is our world. Both the DM's and the players'. We build and change it together. Just because the DM does more of that does not mean that it's exclusively theirs. Maybe in your playstyle, the players are there just to be witnesses to the grand worldbuilding and storytelling the DM provides, but I prefer significantly more player participation, regardless of which side of the screen I'm sitting on.
We, collectively, are there to create the story when I play or run. We create it through the act of play itself, pushing things to the testing point, where protagonism occurs. Each of the PCs is one of the protagonists, and their group is in some sense the collective protagonist as well. Unlike prewritten media, the players actually have the ability to push that narrative forward the way they wish to, rather than simply witnessing the work someone else has done (written, sung, directed, whatever).

This was one of the weaker parts when I wrote it, but for the sake of argument:
Do video games not make my point valid? In World of Warcraft, the players do not determine the story, the developers do. The developers lay down the story beats, the items, the enemies. The players may choose what order and how they interact with it, but the story will be played out no matter how long it takes. In The Witcher, it doesn't matter if the characters do every single side quest they can find, they will always come back to hit the main story beats. Do gamers not feel that they are part of the Alliance, the Horde? Do they not feel like they are the Witcher, the protagonist of their adventures? Do they not hold the fates of other NPCs in their hands? Who dies, Who lives, Who tells their story? Every single inch of the map can be explored in any order the players wish, but the story is still there, still waiting. Will your playthrough of Dragon Age be the exact same as mine, no, but the story will be similar. Do gamers not feel the same endorphins RPG players do? For DMing in a sandbox world, how far would you let their leashes go? For a DM curating a high fantasy low magic world, would the DM not chaff under the players' pressure to add high magic items and powers in every town they visit? In every treasure chest they loot? How long can the DM say no to player demands to change the fundamental building blocks of the campaign? What if players want to change the fantasy setting into a post-modern cyberpunk story? And then mid-story, they want to go on an impromptu space adventure? Should the DM cater to all of the players' whims? I have never said that the players' exploration wouldn't affect the story, but to be fair, I never stated that they could either.
I only wrote my initial answer as a hard 'no' because more people voted and wrote with a hard 'yes' than an indifferent answer. And those that said 'yes' was mostly because of fudging dice rolls, whether it was positive or negative. Modern RPGs are not the exacting play-by-play wargaming of yesteryear. They are about the story, the narrative of the campaign. Players should be worried about how their character reacts to the story plot, not the dice rolls of the unseen DM. Again, I say that the DM should not be treated like a fellow player because the DM is everything the players are not. In the campaign, the DM is an unseen force; the bar keep, the castle, the big bad, the quest. The DM fulfills the role to keep the players engaged, they do not need to be Matt Mercer and push the spotlight on themselves. The players should feel the presence of the DM in the adventure without needing to see the dice rolls. Yes, shiny rock thing goes click-clack on table, but the players have no need to see the rolls of the DMs if they are truly invested in the story. If you need to see everybody's dice rolls all the time, go play Dice Throne. I'll be over here enjoying my DM's campaign, killing False Hydras with my party, all in front of the DM screen.

 

[tarod.net]

I now roll out in the open for attack rolls and such (I just use default average damage values).

As you mentioned, some stuff is done behind the screen when it involves stealth and such.

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 opinion and feeling! I do the exact same thing.

 

[KYRON45]

The DM doesn't roll for funsies. If the DM does not explain actions and consequences, there is a bigger issue than the DM screen...

My DM used to roll for funsies all the time. Random rolls....scribble on a sheet of paper...ask players at random what their AC was or how many HP they had left....just random inquires that he would never follow up on. He'd also ask us to roll random dice and never tell us why.

If players want to know 100% of what's going on there is a mechanic for that....it's called DMing.

 

[DragonLancer]

I used to roll behind my screen for decades. It was the idea that it generates suspense in the players and because I'm not fudging the rolls in anyone's favour. However, the last few years I have thrown that idea out of the window because after years of DMing I realised suddenly that seeing that D20 bounce and what it will roll generates far more suspense than not knowing.

 

[Oofta]

I used to roll behind my screen for decades. It was the idea that it generates suspense in the players and because I'm not fudging the rolls in anyone's favour. However, the last few years I have thrown that idea out of the window because after years of DMing I realised suddenly that seeing that D20 bounce and what it will roll generates far more suspense than not knowing.

Am I evil if I enjoy the groans when the player see me rolling a 20? Oh ... wait ... of course I'm evil. I'm the DM!

 

[Reynard]

I used to roll behind my screen for decades. It was the idea that it generates suspense in the players and because I'm not fudging the rolls in anyone's favour. However, the last few years I have thrown that idea out of the window because after years of DMing I realised suddenly that seeing that D20 bounce and what it will roll generates far more suspense than not knowing.

^^^This.

Watching that die teeter on a potential crit is exhilarating.