I'm curious am I the only one who let the players see my rolls and doesn't use a screen? I do fudge rolls even with open rolls in the favor of the players if things are going to bad. I have every on a couple of occasions fudge in my favor this way without objection of my players.
In person yes always for combat, if it is roleplay or social interactions it depends on my players. Some tables are really good at not meta reacting to the dice roll (npc rolls high deception player sees is and character reacts as if they are lying). So some tables I roll these open handed others I roll behind my screen (I always have a screen anyway that’s where all my secret info is lol). But I also will make random rolls with no meaning through the game :) and that can be funny, rolling a random nat 20 and seeing your table look at each other thinking something is stalking them in the forest, wondering when the attack might happen. It adds a level of tension that almost replicates a party listening to every rustle of leaves, or squirrel stepping on a twig and thinking it might be something bigger.
online play no simply because I don’t like rolling generated dice, I have a big box of my own lol.
But I never fudge dice rolls open handed or not, fudging dice rolls is tantamount to cheating your players out of their hard won victory in my opinion, I also don’t reduce monster hit points mid combat, or nerf abilities.
I also don’t always tell players why I am rolling, and I still roll randomly lol.
Fudging dice rolls does indeed cheat players of their hard earned victories. Of course, one wonders why anyone would do that as a DM. If the players have earned a victory, why do that? I use it to stop tragic failure when the dramatic moment is reached, the plan is in play, and that darned roll to hit misses by one point and fails to kill the Dragon with the Arrow of Dragonslaying they spent the entire adventure trying to get. That would also be the best time to use Inspiration, either the Bard kind, or the DM sort that gives Advantage.
Fudging dice rolls does indeed cheat players of their hard earned victories. Of course, one wonders why anyone would do that as a DM. If the players have earned a victory, why do that? I use it to stop tragic failure when the dramatic moment is reached, the plan is in play, and that darned roll to hit misses by one point and fails to kill the Dragon with the Arrow of Dragonslaying they spent the entire adventure trying to get. That would also be the best time to use Inspiration, either the Bard kind, or the DM sort that gives Advantage.
Sorry but dice rolling is part of the game, and failed dice rolls are also part of that, and there are plenty of ways the players can make sure the character firing that arrow has the best chance of hitting, but also if you are basing your players chance of defeating your bbeg on a single dice roll then you are setting up a bad encounter or if your players are putting all their eggs in that one basket then they have not learnt over the course of a battle. There should be multiple approaches a party could take to beat that dragon, the arrow hitting only being one of them, but they are also ways to use that event to add tension. The arrow maybe isn’t lost, being a magical weapon you can argue that unless it actually pierces a dragon hide to do damage then it remains a powerful item. So describe how the arrow flies off missing the dragon but can be seen for a player to retrieve and try again, or maybe it pierced the hide but not deep enough, it is sticking out a strike with a war hammer might drive it in allowing it to do its magical damage. Maybe it can be retrieved from the flank of the dragon forcing a player to get in close and recover it.
All of those approaches add to the story without needing the dm to cheat the players. Some of my players still talk about that boss they beat despite them passing the wisdom saving throw against that clutch spell, or the encounter they survived by retreating and regrouping to fight another day because the dice rolls where horrific. I have been that player on the other side who found out the DM had fudged a roll so another player made the killing blow, simply because he was worried about her round of combat would result in a TPK, Myself and my fellow players on hearing that soon stopped playing with that dm because all our fun went away. It no longer was out joint game it was his, him to decide if we succeeded based on his decisions.
In the end, the DM is the one who determines what happens in every situation. If the dice are the only determinant, there's no reason for a DM to even be there. The players can sit down, create their characters, and fill in all their entries. At this point they have their scores, proficiency bonus, speed, hit points, saves, skills, initiative modifier, armor class, special defenses, conditions they may be under, their senses, proficiencies and languages, the actions they can do, their equipment, their features and traits, They can now add in their descriptions, and any notes or extra things. All they really need do now is fill out their backstory. This can all be done in the D&D Beyond Character Builder.
Assuming they know the rules as well or better than the DM... I'm probably unique in this, but that's often the case, have access to all the same books, and I do share content in my campaigns, they can do everything for themselves.
There they are, one of them has an idea, they tell everyone else, dice are rolled, and everyone has fun. If something that comes up, they can adjudicate it for themselves, roll the dice and accept what happens. If they don't like it, tough. That's what a DM was for. I am sure they will talk for years about the time when they had a great story going, everyone was enjoying it, the penultimate point was reached... and then someone rolled a natural 1 and their every effort failed after that.
online play no simply because I don’t like rolling generated dice, I have a big box of my own lol.
Yes this!
I sometimes use the VTT to roll in the open for the players -- usually for save-or-suck rolls for NPCs. If they are trying to Hold Person an enemy and they *really* want it to succeed, and they might imagine that I *really* don't because it will one-shot end the battle (honestly, I don't care... if they wanna one-shot win a fight that is up to them), I will roll in the open so they can see if the NPC made it or not.
Bog-standard to-hit and damage, though, eff that, I roll in my Wyrmwood tray with my Skullsplitter dice. I paid a lot for those things.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
In the end, the DM is the one who determines what happens in every situation. If the dice are the only determinant, there's no reason for a DM to even be there. The players can sit down, create their characters, and fill in all their entries. At this point they have their scores, proficiency bonus, speed, hit points, saves, skills, initiative modifier, armor class, special defenses, conditions they may be under, their senses, proficiencies and languages, the actions they can do, their equipment, their features and traits, They can now add in their descriptions, and any notes or extra things. All they really need do now is fill out their backstory. This can all be done in the D&D Beyond Character Builder.
Assuming they know the rules as well or better than the DM... I'm probably unique in this, but that's often the case, have access to all the same books, and I do share content in my campaigns, they can do everything for themselves.
There they are, one of them has an idea, they tell everyone else, dice are rolled, and everyone has fun. If something that comes up, they can adjudicate it for themselves, roll the dice and accept what happens. If they don't like it, tough. That's what a DM was for. I am sure they will talk for years about the time when they had a great story going, everyone was enjoying it, the penultimate point was reached... and then someone rolled a natural 1 and their every effort failed after that.
Oh yes. On topic. Yes. I use a screen.
The way we play with rolling openly in no way diminishes the DM’s involvement in the story - it’s just our view that we let the players fail and succeed on their own dice rolls without feeling the need to have the story dictate the rolls.
We don’t view failure at a critical moment to be a moment of pity for the players, we look at it as a moment for the characters to branch their story off in a new direction that’s not what they planned. The DM reacts and tells the story based on what happens, but doesn’t need to arbiter a dice roll to ensure some kind of heroic act happens the way the players want it to.
Thats our perspective at least - if you and the players are having fun at yours hiding dice rolls, then you’re doing it right for your table.
In the end, the DM is the one who determines what happens in every situation. If the dice are the only determinant, there's no reason for a DM to even be there. The players can sit down, create their characters, and fill in all their entries. At this point they have their scores, proficiency bonus, speed, hit points, saves, skills, initiative modifier, armor class, special defenses, conditions they may be under, their senses, proficiencies and languages, the actions they can do, their equipment, their features and traits, They can now add in their descriptions, and any notes or extra things. All they really need do now is fill out their backstory. This can all be done in the D&D Beyond Character Builder.
Assuming they know the rules as well or better than the DM... I'm probably unique in this, but that's often the case, have access to all the same books, and I do share content in my campaigns, they can do everything for themselves.
There they are, one of them has an idea, they tell everyone else, dice are rolled, and everyone has fun. If something that comes up, they can adjudicate it for themselves, roll the dice and accept what happens. If they don't like it, tough. That's what a DM was for. I am sure they will talk for years about the time when they had a great story going, everyone was enjoying it, the penultimate point was reached... and then someone rolled a natural 1 and their every effort failed after that.
Oh yes. On topic. Yes. I use a screen.
You know what works for your table, as I have said I have seen roleplay groups in many systems collapse because the players got wind the DM was fudging rolls, those moments of “joy” all tainted by the players not knowing, did I really pull off that thing. In fact I have seen players walk away from ttrpg’s for a long period of time because a dm fudged rolls and they felt cheated. I am intrigued have you asked your players opinion?
If your group are collectively telling a story there is more that can be told from failure then success. In fact I have seen tables love that one that then turns the adventure in a direction none of us expected and requires me to sculpt a new direction of the story. Personally I am not a determination for when players succeed and fail, I am instead responsible for making sure the story continues in some form as dictated by the player actions and the dice.
For my previous campaign I ran I rolled open except for a few private rolls which players asked every 10 seconds what those dang rolls are despite me telling them to stop.
For my discord campaign I will run soon, I won't roll in the public chat.
I've switched to private rolls for multiple reasons. I never fudge, but will roll in back. It first of all, prevents metagaming. It stops knowledge of that the enemy is always gonna roll x amount of specific dice plus a specific stat which players can guess in damage. You can guess their modifiers on a saving throw. Stuff like that. Also monsters with weird abilities and having that stuff rolled in the open can sometimes make it feel unfair. Rolling out in the open and having to explain every dang thing also takes up time from the game in my opinion. "Oh yeah I'm rolling for random eye beams, that's why I'm rolling d10s." I don't want to do that stuff I want to just have the dang game played. Even if I roll the d10s in the back, players will ask why it's behind the screen.
AKA it gets annoying due to players metagaming and trying to ask for clarification on things they should not know.
In the future no matter where I am playing as a DM I'm rolling out behind the screen.
I envy DMs who can deal with the stuff from rolling open. Maybe I've just dealt with that stuff and those DMs haven't, but in the future no open rolling for me. I think this is good in the long run for dealing with getting berated with meta focused questions instead of actually playing the game.
Since it's been some time from when i originally posted this I figured I'd share my groups experience with open rolling. The group likes to have fun. And if the dice rolls are ruining the fun then we have on a by roll basis decided together on fudging the roll or not. In fact since the group has started some of the players in my campaign have started to DM. In fact I have now been a player in theirs now instead of me always being the DM. I think we've adopted a mix of open and hidden rolls depending on how certain rolls would possibly spoil the fun or cause a problem because of player knowledge vs character knowledge conflict. In the end it's all about having fun.
As a DM, I may be willing to fudge rolls on occasion (though in practice this almost never happens). As a player, I do not want rolls fudged. I can take it like a big boy if the PC dies or the party loses a fight.
I would NOT have fun with a fudging system like you describe, which seems to be "whenever the group kinda feels like it we override the dice." I would not mind if there were a limited and delineated system... Such as the "bennies" in Savage Worlds. You get (normally) 3 per session and they allow you to re-roll most things (other than a critical failure). So if each player got a "token" (or maybe we used Inspiration like this) and you got 1 re-roll a night, or the party got 5 a night collectively, decided as a group, OK. But just "whenever we kind of want to" would not be good for me and I would not have fun that way.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
All I can say is that over the decades I've been a DM, I've never run a game that my players didn't enjoy. When one of my games ends, I get my arm twisted because as much as I enjoy playing, I'm better as a DM than a player, and they want me to run another game.
For my previous campaign I ran I rolled open except for a few private rolls which players asked every 10 seconds what those dang rolls are despite me telling them to stop.
For my discord campaign I will run soon, I won't roll in the public chat.
I've switched to private rolls for multiple reasons. I never fudge, but will roll in back. It first of all, prevents metagaming. It stops knowledge of that the enemy is always gonna roll x amount of specific dice plus a specific stat which players can guess in damage. You can guess their modifiers on a saving throw. Stuff like that. Also monsters with weird abilities and having that stuff rolled in the open can sometimes make it feel unfair. Rolling out in the open and having to explain every dang thing also takes up time from the game in my opinion. "Oh yeah I'm rolling for random eye beams, that's why I'm rolling d10s." I don't want to do that stuff I want to just have the dang game played. Even if I roll the d10s in the back, players will ask why it's behind the screen.
AKA it gets annoying due to players metagaming and trying to ask for clarification on things they should not know.
In the future no matter where I am playing as a DM I'm rolling out behind the screen.
I envy DMs who can deal with the stuff from rolling open. Maybe I've just dealt with that stuff and those DMs haven't, but in the future no open rolling for me. I think this is good in the long run for dealing with getting berated with meta focused questions instead of actually playing the game.
Always good to set expectations for players not to ask metagaming questions. This comes up at my tables too regardless of dice rolling - I deal with it bluntly: “Don’t metagame for information, ever”
It solved it for me but every dm is different. I’m older so it’s easy for me to wrangle a table.
For my previous campaign I ran I rolled open except for a few private rolls which players asked every 10 seconds what those dang rolls are despite me telling them to stop.
For my discord campaign I will run soon, I won't roll in the public chat.
I've switched to private rolls for multiple reasons. I never fudge, but will roll in back. It first of all, prevents metagaming. It stops knowledge of that the enemy is always gonna roll x amount of specific dice plus a specific stat which players can guess in damage. You can guess their modifiers on a saving throw. Stuff like that. Also monsters with weird abilities and having that stuff rolled in the open can sometimes make it feel unfair. Rolling out in the open and having to explain every dang thing also takes up time from the game in my opinion. "Oh yeah I'm rolling for random eye beams, that's why I'm rolling d10s." I don't want to do that stuff I want to just have the dang game played. Even if I roll the d10s in the back, players will ask why it's behind the screen.
AKA it gets annoying due to players metagaming and trying to ask for clarification on things they should not know.
In the future no matter where I am playing as a DM I'm rolling out behind the screen.
I envy DMs who can deal with the stuff from rolling open. Maybe I've just dealt with that stuff and those DMs haven't, but in the future no open rolling for me. I think this is good in the long run for dealing with getting berated with meta focused questions instead of actually playing the game.
Always good to set expectations for players not to ask metagaming questions. This comes up at my tables too regardless of dice rolling - I deal with it bluntly: “Don’t metagame for information, ever”
It solved it for me but every dm is different. I’m older so it’s easy for me to wrangle a table.
Yeah, I've told them that, but it still occasionally comes up from my player's curiosity. I don't tell them the information but it gets annoying. I hope my second group I run for won't be like this. (it likely won't)
As a DM, I may be willing to fudge rolls on occasion (though in practice this almost never happens). As a player, I do not want rolls fudged. I can take it like a big boy if the PC dies or the party loses a fight.
I would NOT have fun with a fudging system like you describe, which seems to be "whenever the group kinda feels like it we override the dice." I would not mind if there were a limited and delineated system... Such as the "bennies" in Savage Worlds. You get (normally) 3 per session and they allow you to re-roll most things (other than a critical failure). So if each player got a "token" (or maybe we used Inspiration like this) and you got 1 re-roll a night, or the party got 5 a night collectively, decided as a group, OK. But just "whenever we kind of want to" would not be good for me and I would not have fun that way.
Trying to recall I'm pretty sure the only times I've changed dice rolls is if there are a lot of failed rolls. But I'm sure that hardly happens. Probably only once a session. After all changing to many rolls I agree would spoil the fun
But I never fudge dice rolls open handed or not, fudging dice rolls is tantamount to cheating your players out of their hard won victory in my opinion, I also don’t reduce monster hit points mid combat, or nerf abilities.
Fudging dice rolls does indeed cheat players of their hard earned victories. Of course, one wonders why anyone would do that as a DM. If the players have earned a victory, why do that? I use it to stop tragic failure when the dramatic moment is reached, the plan is in play, and that darned roll to hit misses by one point and fails to kill the Dragon with the Arrow of Dragonslaying they spent the entire adventure trying to get. That would also be the best time to use Inspiration, either the Bard kind, or the DM sort that gives Advantage.
Nothing essentially wrong about strict adherence to the dice as rolled, but also nothing actually anathema to the game with fudging either, if done rightly. Here's two thoughtful takes on from some GMs with some significant followings. I like this one moreso, especially for the vignette of the fight with the black paladin, _that_ moment is why I think a lot of folks play the game:
And this guy puts his weight behind deviating from dice mechanics too, surprising to me but I first saw this before I really got an understanding of what his channel was up to:
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Our group has had all rolls out in the open for the 30+ years we've been playing together.
Yes, characters have died when they've been rolling low and the monster has been rolling consistently high. But they all prefer to know that they've earnt their rewards rather than having the DM fudge their way to victory.
I'm going to say that sometimes, to avoid spoilers, I do have something to hide. There are times when it would destroy suspense or immersion to make an open roll, and during those times I roll behind the screen, and when we played on the floor of my old house, I would even roll on the carpet to mask the sound of die rolling (although it led to a lot of cocked dice and the need to do re-rolls of some dice if there were a lot of them to roll).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I love drow, rogues and Chinese weapons. I mean come on, rope darts are awesome.
My current character is a drow shadow monk, with a "unique" honor code (give him some time, he's working through some stuff). He also sucks on the socialization side of interacting with all other living creatures. which is very fun to RP.
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In person yes always for combat, if it is roleplay or social interactions it depends on my players. Some tables are really good at not meta reacting to the dice roll (npc rolls high deception player sees is and character reacts as if they are lying). So some tables I roll these open handed others I roll behind my screen (I always have a screen anyway that’s where all my secret info is lol). But I also will make random rolls with no meaning through the game :) and that can be funny, rolling a random nat 20 and seeing your table look at each other thinking something is stalking them in the forest, wondering when the attack might happen. It adds a level of tension that almost replicates a party listening to every rustle of leaves, or squirrel stepping on a twig and thinking it might be something bigger.
online play no simply because I don’t like rolling generated dice, I have a big box of my own lol.
But I never fudge dice rolls open handed or not, fudging dice rolls is tantamount to cheating your players out of their hard won victory in my opinion, I also don’t reduce monster hit points mid combat, or nerf abilities.
I also don’t always tell players why I am rolling, and I still roll randomly lol.
Fudging dice rolls does indeed cheat players of their hard earned victories. Of course, one wonders why anyone would do that as a DM. If the players have earned a victory, why do that? I use it to stop tragic failure when the dramatic moment is reached, the plan is in play, and that darned roll to hit misses by one point and fails to kill the Dragon with the Arrow of Dragonslaying they spent the entire adventure trying to get. That would also be the best time to use Inspiration, either the Bard kind, or the DM sort that gives Advantage.
<Insert clever signature here>
Sorry but dice rolling is part of the game, and failed dice rolls are also part of that, and there are plenty of ways the players can make sure the character firing that arrow has the best chance of hitting, but also if you are basing your players chance of defeating your bbeg on a single dice roll then you are setting up a bad encounter or if your players are putting all their eggs in that one basket then they have not learnt over the course of a battle. There should be multiple approaches a party could take to beat that dragon, the arrow hitting only being one of them, but they are also ways to use that event to add tension. The arrow maybe isn’t lost, being a magical weapon you can argue that unless it actually pierces a dragon hide to do damage then it remains a powerful item. So describe how the arrow flies off missing the dragon but can be seen for a player to retrieve and try again, or maybe it pierced the hide but not deep enough, it is sticking out a strike with a war hammer might drive it in allowing it to do its magical damage. Maybe it can be retrieved from the flank of the dragon forcing a player to get in close and recover it.
All of those approaches add to the story without needing the dm to cheat the players. Some of my players still talk about that boss they beat despite them passing the wisdom saving throw against that clutch spell, or the encounter they survived by retreating and regrouping to fight another day because the dice rolls where horrific. I have been that player on the other side who found out the DM had fudged a roll so another player made the killing blow, simply because he was worried about her round of combat would result in a TPK, Myself and my fellow players on hearing that soon stopped playing with that dm because all our fun went away. It no longer was out joint game it was his, him to decide if we succeeded based on his decisions.
In the end, the DM is the one who determines what happens in every situation. If the dice are the only determinant, there's no reason for a DM to even be there. The players can sit down, create their characters, and fill in all their entries. At this point they have their scores, proficiency bonus, speed, hit points, saves, skills, initiative modifier, armor class, special defenses, conditions they may be under, their senses, proficiencies and languages, the actions they can do, their equipment, their features and traits, They can now add in their descriptions, and any notes or extra things. All they really need do now is fill out their backstory. This can all be done in the D&D Beyond Character Builder.
Assuming they know the rules as well or better than the DM... I'm probably unique in this, but that's often the case, have access to all the same books, and I do share content in my campaigns, they can do everything for themselves.
There they are, one of them has an idea, they tell everyone else, dice are rolled, and everyone has fun. If something that comes up, they can adjudicate it for themselves, roll the dice and accept what happens. If they don't like it, tough. That's what a DM was for. I am sure they will talk for years about the time when they had a great story going, everyone was enjoying it, the penultimate point was reached... and then someone rolled a natural 1 and their every effort failed after that.
Oh yes. On topic. Yes. I use a screen.
<Insert clever signature here>
Yes this!
I sometimes use the VTT to roll in the open for the players -- usually for save-or-suck rolls for NPCs. If they are trying to Hold Person an enemy and they *really* want it to succeed, and they might imagine that I *really* don't because it will one-shot end the battle (honestly, I don't care... if they wanna one-shot win a fight that is up to them), I will roll in the open so they can see if the NPC made it or not.
Bog-standard to-hit and damage, though, eff that, I roll in my Wyrmwood tray with my Skullsplitter dice. I paid a lot for those things.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The way we play with rolling openly in no way diminishes the DM’s involvement in the story - it’s just our view that we let the players fail and succeed on their own dice rolls without feeling the need to have the story dictate the rolls.
We don’t view failure at a critical moment to be a moment of pity for the players, we look at it as a moment for the characters to branch their story off in a new direction that’s not what they planned. The DM reacts and tells the story based on what happens, but doesn’t need to arbiter a dice roll to ensure some kind of heroic act happens the way the players want it to.
Thats our perspective at least - if you and the players are having fun at yours hiding dice rolls, then you’re doing it right for your table.
You know what works for your table, as I have said I have seen roleplay groups in many systems collapse because the players got wind the DM was fudging rolls, those moments of “joy” all tainted by the players not knowing, did I really pull off that thing. In fact I have seen players walk away from ttrpg’s for a long period of time because a dm fudged rolls and they felt cheated. I am intrigued have you asked your players opinion?
If your group are collectively telling a story there is more that can be told from failure then success. In fact I have seen tables love that one that then turns the adventure in a direction none of us expected and requires me to sculpt a new direction of the story. Personally I am not a determination for when players succeed and fail, I am instead responsible for making sure the story continues in some form as dictated by the player actions and the dice.
For my previous campaign I ran I rolled open except for a few private rolls which players asked every 10 seconds what those dang rolls are despite me telling them to stop.
For my discord campaign I will run soon, I won't roll in the public chat.
I've switched to private rolls for multiple reasons. I never fudge, but will roll in back. It first of all, prevents metagaming. It stops knowledge of that the enemy is always gonna roll x amount of specific dice plus a specific stat which players can guess in damage. You can guess their modifiers on a saving throw. Stuff like that. Also monsters with weird abilities and having that stuff rolled in the open can sometimes make it feel unfair. Rolling out in the open and having to explain every dang thing also takes up time from the game in my opinion. "Oh yeah I'm rolling for random eye beams, that's why I'm rolling d10s." I don't want to do that stuff I want to just have the dang game played. Even if I roll the d10s in the back, players will ask why it's behind the screen.
AKA it gets annoying due to players metagaming and trying to ask for clarification on things they should not know.
In the future no matter where I am playing as a DM I'm rolling out behind the screen.
I envy DMs who can deal with the stuff from rolling open. Maybe I've just dealt with that stuff and those DMs haven't, but in the future no open rolling for me. I think this is good in the long run for dealing with getting berated with meta focused questions instead of actually playing the game.
Since it's been some time from when i originally posted this I figured I'd share my groups experience with open rolling. The group likes to have fun. And if the dice rolls are ruining the fun then we have on a by roll basis decided together on fudging the roll or not. In fact since the group has started some of the players in my campaign have started to DM. In fact I have now been a player in theirs now instead of me always being the DM. I think we've adopted a mix of open and hidden rolls depending on how certain rolls would possibly spoil the fun or cause a problem because of player knowledge vs character knowledge conflict. In the end it's all about having fun.
Yup, and every group has fun a different way.
As a DM, I may be willing to fudge rolls on occasion (though in practice this almost never happens). As a player, I do not want rolls fudged. I can take it like a big boy if the PC dies or the party loses a fight.
I would NOT have fun with a fudging system like you describe, which seems to be "whenever the group kinda feels like it we override the dice." I would not mind if there were a limited and delineated system... Such as the "bennies" in Savage Worlds. You get (normally) 3 per session and they allow you to re-roll most things (other than a critical failure). So if each player got a "token" (or maybe we used Inspiration like this) and you got 1 re-roll a night, or the party got 5 a night collectively, decided as a group, OK. But just "whenever we kind of want to" would not be good for me and I would not have fun that way.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
All I can say is that over the decades I've been a DM, I've never run a game that my players didn't enjoy. When one of my games ends, I get my arm twisted because as much as I enjoy playing, I'm better as a DM than a player, and they want me to run another game.
<Insert clever signature here>
Always good to set expectations for players not to ask metagaming questions. This comes up at my tables too regardless of dice rolling - I deal with it bluntly: “Don’t metagame for information, ever”
It solved it for me but every dm is different. I’m older so it’s easy for me to wrangle a table.
Yeah, I've told them that, but it still occasionally comes up from my player's curiosity. I don't tell them the information but it gets annoying. I hope my second group I run for won't be like this. (it likely won't)
Trying to recall I'm pretty sure the only times I've changed dice rolls is if there are a lot of failed rolls. But I'm sure that hardly happens. Probably only once a session. After all changing to many rolls I agree would spoil the fun
Nothing essentially wrong about strict adherence to the dice as rolled, but also nothing actually anathema to the game with fudging either, if done rightly. Here's two thoughtful takes on from some GMs with some significant followings. I like this one moreso, especially for the vignette of the fight with the black paladin, _that_ moment is why I think a lot of folks play the game:
And this guy puts his weight behind deviating from dice mechanics too, surprising to me but I first saw this before I really got an understanding of what his channel was up to:
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Our group has had all rolls out in the open for the 30+ years we've been playing together.
Yes, characters have died when they've been rolling low and the monster has been rolling consistently high. But they all prefer to know that they've earnt their rewards rather than having the DM fudge their way to victory.
My screen's main use is to hide my notes more than the rolls.
I always roll in the open. I got nothing to hide.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I'm going to say that sometimes, to avoid spoilers, I do have something to hide. There are times when it would destroy suspense or immersion to make an open roll, and during those times I roll behind the screen, and when we played on the floor of my old house, I would even roll on the carpet to mask the sound of die rolling (although it led to a lot of cocked dice and the need to do re-rolls of some dice if there were a lot of them to roll).
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I made mine out of foam board and tape
I love drow, rogues and Chinese weapons. I mean come on, rope darts are awesome.
My current character is a drow shadow monk, with a "unique" honor code (give him some time, he's working through some stuff). He also sucks on the socialization side of interacting with all other living creatures. which is very fun to RP.