How much to reveal?

[squeen]

Here's another topic:

How much do you reveal to the players?
Who rolls the dice?
Which game mechanics do players get to see?

Based on my best experiences as a player, I choose not to share much of the game mechanics with the players. They roll up their character stats. They get to know their hit points, but then...that's about it. I think it adds to the sense of immersion---like anything is possible. I know that's how I felt as a player.

Their sword is "magic" (they never know +1, +2, etc). Potion just have a color or smell. Even scrolls of new (non-standard) spells they find...are a bit mysterious until they cast them. Divinatory magic can give you a general sense of what a thing might do. They never know monster/NPC stats.

I do frequently let them roll important attacks and saving throws (I just tell them what number they need) because it keeps them involved in the action and adds tension. They also get to roll initiative.

I'm curious to know y'all thoughts and experiences?

 

[Melan]

Disembodied voice from behind a filing cabinet or BTFO

I am running a mechanically transparent game. Unless something is outside the characters' knowledge (i.e. a thief trailing them without striking), I roll things in the open, no fudging. This includes encounter checks, random events taking place, and the like. Transparency gives the players a general idea of the world around them, and lets them take calculated risks. Of course, there are lots of unknowns, particularly once you move into the fantastic realms where all bets are off.

 

[Beoric]

I’m with Melan, I hide very little. My general rule is, whenever the PC is in a position to evaluate a thing or situation based on in-game experience and in-game observation, the player must be given information to make the evaluation.

Since the player can't heft the sword, and likely has no experience with swordfighting anyway, the player needs to be told that the +2 sword feels like a better sword than the +1 sword.

Since the player can't look at the cliff face, and may not be a climber, the player needs to be told his character's assessment of how challenging the cliff will be to climb.

I also am pretty transparent about telling players the relative power level of NPCs quite early in any encounter (unless the NPC is bluffing). People can generally tell when someone is good at what they do, especially when the observer is trained/experienced in the activity they are observing.

For example, it can take a lot of rolls for a player to figure out the AC of a creature based on which die rolls hit, whereas the character – particularly if you are using a 1 minute round – can tell very quickly if the creature is quick, or if its hide is hard to penetrate. Similarly, the character will know quickly if he is having trouble parrying the creature’s blows, or if it is hitting very hard, and can tell the difference between when x damage results from a solid blow or a glancing blow.

If the evaluation is more complex than merely comparing two things to know which is better, then I often just give numbers. DM descriptions are often misinterpreted, and DM and player may have very different ideas of how the world works. For example, in high school and university I used to play with a group where the DMs were usually couch potatoes and the players were mostly athletic and/or outdoorsy. They had very different ideas of how the world worked. There was at least one occasion where the DM swore that a thing was not physically possible, and the player debunked it be actually doing the thing that was supposedly impossible for the character.

 

[squeen]

Hmm...I can't quite tell if Beoric and I are doing the same thing or not. (Melan and I are definitely are not---but I understand the motivation for his style: skilled players making informed decisions.)

I totally provide an in-game qualitative/relative comparison", i.e. "your sword bounces of its hide", "that climb looks hard", "he looks very agile and tough", "it moves very fast and is hard to hit", "you are nearly ready to train for the next level", "it looks gravely injured"

as oppose to a quantitative: "its AC is -1", "he's a level 10 thief", "it has a -2 dex defensive adjustment", "you earned 1000XP", "it has 1 hp".

But, yes, sometimes I just lay out percentages when I can't communicate it any other way.

Also, I'm generally fine with rolls out in the open. Most players who want an immersive experience won't reverse-engineer the mechanics, but by default I don't do it. Hiding rolls can sometimes help disguise pointless actions (searching for secret doors that aren't there, failing to disarm a trap, protection against normal weapons, etc.).

@Beoric: I chuckled about the DM/player physical dichotomy.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Personally I have no fixed style with regards to these things - sometimes I'll tell the players a DC before they roll, and sometimes I'll hide it. Sometimes I let them know a sword is magical, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I let them see a roll, sometimes I don't.

In my 25+ years experience as a DM, no player has ever complained over consistency or ever felt like they've been getting cheated. My conclusion is that they just don't care very much so long as the game is flowing - stalling is the biggest problem, as anyone who's done a 3-hour encounter can attest. Anything that speeds up play is a benefit.

I'll also make a decision to reveal something based on convenience. If it's easier for me to tell the group that a sword is magical because I don't want them to forget about it and ask again 5 sessions later, then I let them know it's magical. If I want to push through a maze part a lot quicker, I tell the leading player that they need to make three DC15 checks in a row, otherwise they wander for an hour without finding the exit (sidenote - mazes fucking suck... personal opinion). If I'm inclined to take potential blame for killing a character with one roll, I'll let everyone see the roll and know what the outcome needs to be so that fairness is not questioned.

One thing I encourage though is that, as a DM, you try to let the players roll as much as possible. Players love rolling dice, especially during key moments in the game where they become the center of attention and all eyes are on the roll (if such instances come up for me, like rolling a saving throw for an enemy that would determine the fate of the whole encounter, I always make those open rolls). That's really my only hardfast rule, because it absolutely makes the game more fun. The rest is stuff that I (or any experienced DM) can gauge whether one way or the other is better suited for the situation while at the table.

 

[squeen]

Personally I have no fixed style with regards to these things - sometimes I'll tell the players a DC before they roll, and sometimes I'll hide it. Sometimes I let them know a sword is magical, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I let them see a roll, sometimes I don't.

I've also very inconsistent. Glad to see I'm not alone. I think you and I are in total agreement on these points.

Perhaps its these subtlies of execution that are so hard to codify when writing or learning a ruleset. It's something that needs to be experience first-hand.
The oral tradition of DMing.

 

[bryce0lynch]

Tangential, but ...
I try to make the consequences of rolling clear. The platonic example is jumping a chasm. "If you fail you're gonna fall in." I don't like to hide Important Choice stuff, even when not rolling. Someone wrote something about it once that went something like "If you do what he asked then yes, the king WILL pay you what he agreed." or as I like to say "If you stab the guardsman then the others will probably attack." That's not universally true, but it tends to cut down the "what if they have a hidden agenda" arguments that can lead to game indecision.

 

[Beoric]

Hmm...I can't quite tell if Beoric and I are doing the same thing or not. (Melan and I are definitely are not---but I understand the motivation for his style: skilled players making informed decisions.)

To be clear, if math is relevant to the outcome, I generally give numbers. Armor class and difficulty classes would be the most common (so, AC/DC?). And on my VTT I let the players see the monsters' hit point bars, so they can evaluate how damaged it is looking.

 

[squeen]

To be clear, if math is relevant to the outcome, I generally give numbers. Armor class and difficulty classes would be the most common (so, AC/DC?). And on my VTT I let the players see the monsters' hit point bars, so they can evaluate how damaged it is looking.

That did actually help. Thanks

 

[TerribleSorcery]

I do frequently let them roll important attacks and saving throws (I just tell them what number they need) because it keeps them involved in the action and adds tension. They also get to roll initiative.

I'm curious to know y'all thoughts and experiences?

I just did a spit-take. Your players don't even get to make their own attack rolls all the time? Please unpack this for me. I thought I ran a tight-lipped control freak table but I would never contemplate doing this.

 

[Slick]

I just did a spit-take. Your players don't even get to make their own attack rolls all the time? Please unpack this for me. I thought I ran a tight-lipped control freak table but I would never contemplate doing this.

Believe it or not this is how it was done at the very beginning of the hobby. I don't have the books on hand so I can't verify if it explicitly stated to do so in the rules or not but many DMs (including Gary I think?) would roll the dice for every interaction-- players, monsters and all-- and dictate what happened to the players, whose only direct input into the game itself was the verbal descriptions of their actions. It kind of makes sense if you consider that games of OD&D regularly had player counts in the dozens and they didn't want to deal with all the chaos of that many people keeping track of all their shit themselves.

 

[squeen]

I just did a spit-take. Your players don't even get to make their own attack rolls all the time? Please unpack this for me. I thought I ran a tight-lipped control freak table but I would never contemplate doing this.

When I first played during middle-school in the 70's (living about 2 hours south of Lake Geneva) it was with a group that played pretty much "by the book" (Holmes/1e), took turns DMing, used modules, etc. In that arena everything (rolls, stats, etc.) was transparent and the players and their characters were pretty much the focus of the experience.

A year or so later, I was lucky enough to attach myself to a group with a DM who was 4 years my senior. He sat apart from the players, partitioned from sight with file-cabinets full of his own hand-written material (he slept very little). After we rolled up our six attributes, figured out which race and class we could be, and bought our equipment, we never touched the dice again (and couldn't see if and when he rolled them). The only number we ever knew was our hit points. We had the character sheet we originally rolled up, but he maintained the official copy. We never used a module. He had modified and twisted nearly ever rule involving magic items, spells, and monsters. There were gonzo-like elements before gonzo was a term. Mortality threaten careless players at all levels, and was common at the lowest. Every encounter was unique and we never knew what to expect. The worlds/dungeons were so vast and bizarre that we always felt as though we'd just barely scratched the surface although we played for 10 or more hours almost every Saturday night and into the wee hours of Sunday morning for a half-dozen years. His worlds were not ornate, but they lived and breathed on their own and we, the players, were just stumbling through it all.

The first approach was alright, but it felt like a game with rules. The second was transcendent. Our group, and another that played with him in college, felt privileged we had our DM and his alternative take on the hobby. "Regular" D&D paled in comparison. We had no idea how he did what he did. Time and the pressures of adult life scattered us across the country and we eventually stop playing. Only after our DM died a decade later from cancer did I give up hope I/we would ever play again.

When I picked up the mantle of DM some 30-odd years later for my kids, it seemed obvious which one was a lesson-to-be-avoided and which to emulate---even as I seriously doubted I could pull it off, and wondered if it was possible to recapture some of the original magic. Five years of playing later, I am thankful to say I think we did. It's different, but still good.

Now, with the wide net that can be cast in cyberspace, I've come to feel like my experience---although uncommon---was far from singular. Many others around the globe have clearly home-brewed a D&D recipe that 'works' for them and their players in a unique way.

So yeah, my players don't roll much. Just initiative, important combat strikes, and life and death saving throws. Sometimes I think that even that's too much and spoils it for them---makes it game-y. Other times I wonder the opposite---if there's another way. If I could be doing it better.

I'm curious. That's why I posed the titular question of this thread.

 

[The1True]

Dude, you seem to have separated player agency and rolling successfully, so hats off to you and I don't want to harsh your groove, but our group of merry munchkins tried out 4e for exactly two sessions. I remember walking down a hall and the DM rolling a dice and telling me that I'd fallen in a pit. I just about threw myself across the table at him. He said he was supposed to roll saves for us according to the introductory module he was running. And that was that for all of us. He felt dirty doing it and we felt like we no longer had control of our characters' destinies. Obviously you're letting your players roll critical saves, but still... I think for some of us in particular, rolling THE dice is the best part of the game.

 

[squeen]

Sometimes I think we are all playing different games.
Like travel, communication broadens the mind. Thanks.