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<blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 9475573" data-attributes="member: 3285">This actually extends to rolling in general in my experience. Or to put it another way, players like to roll dice and succeed. But there are levels of engagement with success:<ul>
<li data-xf-list-type="ul">Beat a DC (and thus &quot;win&quot; that dice roll). This can be a skill check too, which is interesting to me because then...</li>
<li data-xf-list-type="ul">Beat another PC (and thus roll higher than the other PCs). I never considered this but competitive players want to be the best at things and thus enjoy seeing that they're the most knowledgeable, first on initiative, the smoothest talker, etc. in comparison to other PCs dice rolls (and sometimes humorously, a PC who is bad at a thing does the best at it).</li>
<li data-xf-list-type="ul">Get an amazing roll (a crit). This is the wildcard that makes checks fun, and the whole meme that bards with natural 20s seduce anything that moves. The idea being that a critical roll somehow fundamentally changes the narrative arc of the game in a way that is different from the usual miss/hit/damage. </li>
</ul>These three forms of dice engagement changed my DM style because it was clear that dice rolls beyond combat can be fun if there are clear successes/failures, hidden rolls meant competitive PCs can't tell if they're doing better than their party members, and being creative with crits in unusual situations beyond just extra damage makes players happy.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="talien, post: 9475573, member: 3285"] This actually extends to rolling in general in my experience. Or to put it another way, players like to roll dice and succeed. But there are levels of engagement with success: [LIST] [*]Beat a DC (and thus "win" that dice roll). This can be a skill check too, which is interesting to me because then... [*]Beat another PC (and thus roll higher than the other PCs). I never considered this but competitive players want to be the best at things and thus enjoy seeing that they're the most knowledgeable, first on initiative, the smoothest talker, etc. in comparison to other PCs dice rolls (and sometimes humorously, a PC who is bad at a thing does the best at it). [*]Get an amazing roll (a crit). This is the wildcard that makes checks fun, and the whole meme that bards with natural 20s seduce anything that moves. The idea being that a critical roll somehow fundamentally changes the narrative arc of the game in a way that is different from the usual miss/hit/damage. [/LIST] These three forms of dice engagement changed my DM style because it was clear that dice rolls beyond combat can be fun if there are clear successes/failures, hidden rolls meant competitive PCs can't tell if they're doing better than their party members, and being creative with crits in unusual situations beyond just extra damage makes players happy. [/QUOTE]

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