For those who say they roll all dice in the open -- are you talking about only in combat? Or do you mean even something like making a Wandering Monster check? If you do that in the open, do you tell the players "I'm making a Wandering Monster check?" If so, do you tell them what the chance of a WM showing up is? If the monster shows up, do you roll openly on the WM table in front of them so they know that the 2 hippogriffs were in fact the thing rolled on the table? Or do you do stuff like that behind the screen?
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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.
At the end of the day most of it is how you feel about it as a DM. If you are still comfortable with fudging your dice roll after being called out by your players then keep doing it (but only under the necessary circumstance, don't just fudge for the fun of it). If being called out for it makes you feel some kind of way then roll in the open.
Personally I try not to fudge because life happens. Some days people are on fire and some days people aren't. I think you get a more "realistic" way of how things can go when you leave it to chance. And hey, if they players destroy the encounter you planned it makes them feel great, but if they got destroyed by 2 level 1 kobalds as level 10 characters well some days that's just how it goes.
One of my favorite things about DnD is that there's not really a right or wrong way to do it. Be comfortable in how you run your games and have fun!!!
I too love my Wyrmwood, as well as my shapeways metal sputnik D20's that I copied off of Matt Mercer after I saw that he uses them lol.
Personally, I'm in the never fudge camp, player or DM. The roll is the roll, period. If not, why roll? When a DM decides that a roll is needed for something, they are saying that act has a chance of failure or success that is acceptable. As a DM you have an infinite amount of ways to correct an encounter going sideways from bad rolls from the players or exceptionally good rolls as the DM or vice versa without having to fudge. The rule of the dice is final, the roll is the roll. Not to mention if you do not use the roll then you may also anger the dice gods and then you may never crit again.
Only time I've fudged dice rolls was when I was DMing a group of beginners through LMoP and I kept rolling 20's (something I am usually terrible at). I quickly learned that a bunch of low level characters fighting Bugbears that crit could cause a lot of headaches; I would treat them as 'hits' rather than crits.
Other than that I try and remain 'true to the dice', I will occasionally slightly lower a skill check DC if the player almost meets it or at least give them a little more information than zip. I quite like the idea of a total roll of say '12' being worth more than a roll of '5' or lower.
As a player I never fudge rolls - hate it. In the last 'in person' D&D session I went to as a player I think I made 1 successful attack all night, kept rolling under 10.
For those who say they roll all dice in the open -- are you talking about only in combat? Or do you mean even something like making a Wandering Monster check? If you do that in the open, do you tell the players "I'm making a Wandering Monster check?" If so, do you tell them what the chance of a WM showing up is? If the monster shows up, do you roll openly on the WM table in front of them so they know that the 2 hippogriffs were in fact the thing rolled on the table? Or do you do stuff like that behind the screen?
I roll everything in the open. I don't tell the players what I'm rolling for, or what the target's are. Mostly because nobody has asked.
For those who say they roll all dice in the open -- are you talking about only in combat? Or do you mean even something like making a Wandering Monster check? If you do that in the open, do you tell the players "I'm making a Wandering Monster check?" If so, do you tell them what the chance of a WM showing up is? If the monster shows up, do you roll openly on the WM table in front of them so they know that the 2 hippogriffs were in fact the thing rolled on the table? Or do you do stuff like that behind the screen?
I roll everything in the open. I don't tell the players what I'm rolling for, or what the target's are. Mostly because nobody has asked.
Do whatever works for you. Just saying, if a player rolls a check that is opposed it's pretty obvious what you'll be rolling next.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
1) I never let players fudge as that's just cheating.
2) as a DM I fudge depending on the party I am currently playing with. One of my groups likes to feel powerful but challenged. So I keep track and push them knock them down but control things so they never really perma die. Other groups, dice roll what they role in public. they like the risk v reward and dont mind death. however
3) There is always a point the the campaigns I alert my players, no pulling punches no anything. The story is one of beat the BBEG or fail but everything is as roles and all actions have consequences. This is usually met with fear and excitment from my players.
Also, the only rolls I do in front of players are for non D-20 rolls. Let's say there are 3 possible targets of my monster, if it makes sense for a random player to attack then I will assign 1-2 3-4 and 5-6 to those three then roll that d6 out in the open for them to see who's getting whacked. I will sometimes roll recharges of breath weapons in the open if they are really freaked out by it. I'll never have attack or saving throws in the open, ever. I don't want my players to know that the 24 to hit means the modifier was +11 since they saw the roll of 13. They will be able to judge the strengths or weakness of what they are going up against based on seeing those rolls and can meta tactics. They will eventually find out anyway, but it will take a bit during the fight and that is part of the fun.
I roll stuff behind a screen when knowing what was rolled would give the players information I don't want them to have.
Then you don't need a die roll.
I don't need a die roll, I can simply declare that the NPC succeeds or fails, but for things like npc stealth out of combat, well, success should mean "the players don't know anything is happening", failure is "By the way, you seem to be being followed".
I roll stuff behind a screen when knowing what was rolled would give the players information I don't want them to have.
Then you don't need a die roll.
That depends entirely on what information you don't want your players to have. A lot of rolls can potentially impart information - if someone is there for the players to notice/fail to spot (similar logic applies to most contests), if a creature has a high or low bonus to a particular save, if an opponent has a high or low attack bonus, if the damage they took from an attack was a lucky/average/unlucky roll - you may prefer your players not to be able to infer from them.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
If the players can guess what bonus a creature has or whatever, so what? It's not a big deal.
Not for you. Others might feel differently. The already mentioned contests against the PCs’ Perception checks feel fairly significant to me, certainly.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
That's a thread from 3 years ago, when, at least according to Wikipedia, this website was still in its beta test. Odds are 90% or more of the current users weren't even members then. Surely you wouldn't expect someone to know that this thread was posted to 3 years ago -- a thread in which the last post was made before this site officially went live.
Additionally, I'd be willing to bet free copies of Tasha's to every member of this site that if the OP had necro'ed that thread, a moderator would have come along and admonished for necroing.
So which is it? Do you want us to keep every single subject to a single thread, even if we have to necro? Or would you rather we start a new thread when the old one about this subject was last posted to years ago? Make up our minds for us, already.
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.
For those who say they roll all dice in the open -- are you talking about only in combat? Or do you mean even something like making a Wandering Monster check? If you do that in the open, do you tell the players "I'm making a Wandering Monster check?" If so, do you tell them what the chance of a WM showing up is? If the monster shows up, do you roll openly on the WM table in front of them so they know that the 2 hippogriffs were in fact the thing rolled on the table? Or do you do stuff like that behind the screen?
I don't share game world development rolls (if there are any) with the players. Wandering monsters, random events, strange occurrences ... if these have a random element, the players in my games would never see it. (In part, this is because the DM can cause these events to happen without making a die roll - the DM is just using a die roll in these cases because they either can't, won't or don't want to make a decision about what world event happens next).
However, die rolls that interact directly with the players are shared in my games. To hit rolls, skill checks, target selection (if random) ... anything that directly affects the players but not related to world events is shared with the players so that they know everything that directly affects them is upfront.
The DM manipulates a lot of the game, they don't need to manipulate the die rolls to get the game play effect that they are looking for. By not manipulating the dice (or at least making sure that the players remain unaware of any such manipulation), the players usually have a greater sense of accomplishment.
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For those who say they roll all dice in the open -- are you talking about only in combat? Or do you mean even something like making a Wandering Monster check? If you do that in the open, do you tell the players "I'm making a Wandering Monster check?" If so, do you tell them what the chance of a WM showing up is? If the monster shows up, do you roll openly on the WM table in front of them so they know that the 2 hippogriffs were in fact the thing rolled on the table? Or do you do stuff like that behind the screen?
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.
At the end of the day most of it is how you feel about it as a DM. If you are still comfortable with fudging your dice roll after being called out by your players then keep doing it (but only under the necessary circumstance, don't just fudge for the fun of it). If being called out for it makes you feel some kind of way then roll in the open.
Personally I try not to fudge because life happens. Some days people are on fire and some days people aren't. I think you get a more "realistic" way of how things can go when you leave it to chance. And hey, if they players destroy the encounter you planned it makes them feel great, but if they got destroyed by 2 level 1 kobalds as level 10 characters well some days that's just how it goes.
One of my favorite things about DnD is that there's not really a right or wrong way to do it. Be comfortable in how you run your games and have fun!!!
I too love my Wyrmwood, as well as my shapeways metal sputnik D20's that I copied off of Matt Mercer after I saw that he uses them lol.
Personally, I'm in the never fudge camp, player or DM. The roll is the roll, period. If not, why roll? When a DM decides that a roll is needed for something, they are saying that act has a chance of failure or success that is acceptable. As a DM you have an infinite amount of ways to correct an encounter going sideways from bad rolls from the players or exceptionally good rolls as the DM or vice versa without having to fudge. The rule of the dice is final, the roll is the roll. Not to mention if you do not use the roll then you may also anger the dice gods and then you may never crit again.
Only time I've fudged dice rolls was when I was DMing a group of beginners through LMoP and I kept rolling 20's (something I am usually terrible at). I quickly learned that a bunch of low level characters fighting Bugbears that crit could cause a lot of headaches; I would treat them as 'hits' rather than crits.
Other than that I try and remain 'true to the dice', I will occasionally slightly lower a skill check DC if the player almost meets it or at least give them a little more information than zip. I quite like the idea of a total roll of say '12' being worth more than a roll of '5' or lower.
As a player I never fudge rolls - hate it. In the last 'in person' D&D session I went to as a player I think I made 1 successful attack all night, kept rolling under 10.
DM - The Call of Strahd (CoS); Feyrealm Campaign, Chapter 0 - Bleak Prospect (BP), Chapter 1 - Destination Unknown (DU)
I roll everything in the open. I don't tell the players what I'm rolling for, or what the target's are. Mostly because nobody has asked.
Do whatever works for you. Just saying, if a player rolls a check that is opposed it's pretty obvious what you'll be rolling next.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
1) I never let players fudge as that's just cheating.
2) as a DM I fudge depending on the party I am currently playing with. One of my groups likes to feel powerful but challenged. So I keep track and push them knock them down but control things so they never really perma die. Other groups, dice roll what they role in public. they like the risk v reward and dont mind death. however
3) There is always a point the the campaigns I alert my players, no pulling punches no anything. The story is one of beat the BBEG or fail but everything is as roles and all actions have consequences. This is usually met with fear and excitment from my players.
Also, the only rolls I do in front of players are for non D-20 rolls. Let's say there are 3 possible targets of my monster, if it makes sense for a random player to attack then I will assign 1-2 3-4 and 5-6 to those three then roll that d6 out in the open for them to see who's getting whacked. I will sometimes roll recharges of breath weapons in the open if they are really freaked out by it. I'll never have attack or saving throws in the open, ever. I don't want my players to know that the 24 to hit means the modifier was +11 since they saw the roll of 13. They will be able to judge the strengths or weakness of what they are going up against based on seeing those rolls and can meta tactics. They will eventually find out anyway, but it will take a bit during the fight and that is part of the fun.
Yes I will often roll for random attack targets in front of players.
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 roll stuff behind a screen when knowing what was rolled would give the players information I don't want them to have.
Yes... My way of saying that is, I don't roll in the open if it causes spoilers.
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.
Then you don't need a die roll.
"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 don't need a die roll, I can simply declare that the NPC succeeds or fails, but for things like npc stealth out of combat, well, success should mean "the players don't know anything is happening", failure is "By the way, you seem to be being followed".
That depends entirely on what information you don't want your players to have. A lot of rolls can potentially impart information - if someone is there for the players to notice/fail to spot (similar logic applies to most contests), if a creature has a high or low bonus to a particular save, if an opponent has a high or low attack bonus, if the damage they took from an attack was a lucky/average/unlucky roll - you may prefer your players not to be able to infer from them.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
If the players can guess what bonus a creature has or whatever, so what? It's not a big deal.
"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
Not for you. Others might feel differently. The already mentioned contests against the PCs’ Perception checks feel fairly significant to me, certainly.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Oh hey, we've done this before:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/dungeon-masters-only/981-dm-fudging-rolls
That's a thread from 3 years ago, when, at least according to Wikipedia, this website was still in its beta test. Odds are 90% or more of the current users weren't even members then. Surely you wouldn't expect someone to know that this thread was posted to 3 years ago -- a thread in which the last post was made before this site officially went live.
Additionally, I'd be willing to bet free copies of Tasha's to every member of this site that if the OP had necro'ed that thread, a moderator would have come along and admonished for necroing.
So which is it? Do you want us to keep every single subject to a single thread, even if we have to necro? Or would you rather we start a new thread when the old one about this subject was last posted to years ago? Make up our minds for us, already.
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 don't share game world development rolls (if there are any) with the players. Wandering monsters, random events, strange occurrences ... if these have a random element, the players in my games would never see it. (In part, this is because the DM can cause these events to happen without making a die roll - the DM is just using a die roll in these cases because they either can't, won't or don't want to make a decision about what world event happens next).
However, die rolls that interact directly with the players are shared in my games. To hit rolls, skill checks, target selection (if random) ... anything that directly affects the players but not related to world events is shared with the players so that they know everything that directly affects them is upfront.
The DM manipulates a lot of the game, they don't need to manipulate the die rolls to get the game play effect that they are looking for. By not manipulating the dice (or at least making sure that the players remain unaware of any such manipulation), the players usually have a greater sense of accomplishment.