GMing

does it really matter that much whose hands the dice come from?

But then they will be on the alert, especially if they roll poorly. I suppose that could be fixed with a few red herrings.

It does if the players have no idea what is being rolled in the first place.

But their character shouldn't know why the dice are being rolled and the character would only need to know that for metagaming purposes.

Haha, no I am serious though.
>you arrive at the village
>everyone please make a save for X roll
The purpose isn't just to fuck with your players but also to have a rolled save that you may or may not use later on

It depends. It really does. I'll roll secretly sometimes on their saves to see if it's something they've failed multiple saves on, but I try not to have it lead to anything INSTADEATH and more just a inconvenience.

Then again I don't know if its horrible or not, so I'd like input on this.

I ran a game not too long ago where I rolled the stealth and perception of everyone, because that's the most metagamy skills I can think of (rolling bad perception lets you know that something is there still and changes behaviour, rolling bad stealth means you plan around you NOT being hidden even if in-character that's exactly what you're doing). It worked out well, it wasn't that long but yeah. Not sure it's quite worth it though, the GM has so much to keep track of and metagaming isn't worth the bother it is to prevent it usually.

Back when I first started playing, I made all my players checks for them. At the time it was because we were all new, none of us knew the rules, and we only had one set of dice. But in retrospect it, helped them get into it, get engaged with the world and the setting and their characters, rather than just looking at dice.

I kind of wish I could go back to it actually. I have another group of newbies, and I can see a distinct difference between the way the two groups act in character.

How else are you supposed to do Perception and abnormal status resist effects outside of combat?

Personally, I salt the rolls.
They make their roll, then I add 1d20 to their dice roll and clamp it to 1-20. They get to roll but don't know what the fuck they actually rolled.

>having to surreptitiously ask for their character sheets
>Not asking to see their character sheets at the start of the session and writing down their saves and perception modifier

>ask to see players character sheet to see their saves
Your only mistake is not having a copy of their sheet

red herrings are key

>Roll a constitution save please
>Why?
>Just do it
>rolls
>Ok you passed, move along

Yes. Effects of shit is going to be generally noticeable.

If your players can't roleplay being affected without metagaming, the game is fucked regardless. Don't make that presumption.

I want to ask your opinion Veeky Forums. So one thing i hate more than anything is that moment when your dm and you tell your players to roll perception. They proceed to fail their roll, but irregardless because they know there was something to perceive, they start to freak out and metagame. I absolutely cannot stand that, so in my current game i'm running a little experiment. I explained to my players before we began my grievance, and that to try and avoid this i would not ask for perception rolls, but they were free to ask for them whenever they wished. I have intentionally been trying to drop hints in my dialogue and description that would indicate there is something to perceive, but in many cases they don't seem to catch on. They almost never make perception rolls. It's a bit of a problem because they are missing things i really don't want them to miss. In several instances i have called for perception rolls because i felt they really needed it, and i've tried reminding them several times that they should take initiative and be proactive about this, but it just doesn't seem to be working. Am i at fault here? should i just give in to the inevitable? And is there any way you all can see to fix the problem that would work better than my solution?

Don't make them have to ask just to try to see things right in front of them man, that's pretty shitty. It's different if they say they sneak closer to the display to try and read the ancient tablet because from where they were standing they couldn't perceive it, but don't fucking say they didn't notice the guy angrily striding towards them was armed to the teeth just because they didn't ask to roll perception.

I'm not that much of a dick. If its things that are obvious that they would notice anyway i just tell them. If there is this huge dude running at them with a sword of course they are going to see that. They can't not see that. There is no perception roll in this thing. Perception rolls are for far more subtle things.

>irregardless
I hate you.

>they start to freak out and metagame
get better players.

>i would not ask for perception rolls, but they were free to ask for them whenever they wished.
If your players had problems, it's not going to fix anything. They'd either forget (such as your guys did) or start percepting at /everything/. EVERYTHING.
>"You enter a room, there's a table with a candle on it, a couple chairs and a faded rug on the floor."
>"I roll perception on the table, the candle, the chairs, the rug, the walls, the ceiling, the floor outside the rug and the floor under the rug."
>"I also roll to disbelieve illusion on the table, the candle, the chairs, the rug, the walls, the ceiling, the floor outside the rug and the floor under the rug."

>should i just give in to the inevitable?
Pretty much.

The best you can try is roll hidden checks for whenever there IS something to notice while also letting them open checks whenever they want. Take the best of the two in order to incentive them.

Just ask them to roll a d20

>The best you can try is roll hidden checks for whenever there IS something to notice while also letting them open checks whenever they want. Take the best of the two in order to incentive them.
Alternatively, make it an adventure game.
Drop hints in description for bonus loot stashes. Roll for traps and shit behind the screen.

You have a fair point.

But why on earth would you hate me for the use of that word?

If you're not playing 5E, steal 5E's way of doing things.

If the player wants to make a perception roll, that's their character specifically being on the lookout. Otherwise they just have their passive perception, which is 10+their perception, that anything being done is tested against. So if an enemy is sneaking up on them you don't ask the players for a perception check, you just roll stealth against DC 10+player perception.

>But why on earth would you hate me for the use of that word?
Because ITS WROOOOONG

"regardless" already means "without regarding something".
Adding "ir-" would be making it an opposite, like "responsible" to "irresponsible".
BUT IT DOEESNT! It's still trying to mean "without regarding"!

(Yeah I'm exaggerating my outrage for a giggle. It's still somewhat annoying that this word exists as it does.)

Not him, but I rather dislike that system due to how it allows for a worse result while being actively on the lookout than while passive.

I never have this problem because my players always max perception. It's literally the most used skill in the game.

Alright, i suppose i understand your point. Not my fault the language doesn't make a great deal of sense. What i said is nevertheless proper English.

Not playing dnd actually.

I've had GMs do that to me and hated it, because I knew them, and I could read their stupid grinning faces, and I knew they were lying and bullshitting and fucking me over unfairly.

And I've had GMs do that to me and had no problem with it at all, because I knew them, and I knew they would not cheat or lie to me.

It depends on the relationship that exists between the players and the GM. But generally speaking, if you don't trust a GM enough to be comfortable enough with this, go find a better one. And if your players don't trust you enough to be cool with something like this, either you need better players, or you need to get better at lying.

>What i said is nevertheless proper English.
I ain't arguing that.

I roll secretly to create "surprise!" or "omg!" moments. Like avoiding spoiling the threill of the moment. So I just do it for the sake of my players excitement, not for the sake of the enemies or the written scenario.

Perception rolls are stupid. Just don't use them. Decide for yourself when players notice things and when they don't. Honestly, most of the time when a GM asks me for a perception roll, I just say that I fail. It's an inevitably meta action, and it's almost always more interesting to not notice things, in any case.

>High roll result
You're fairly sure he's lying/telling the truth/intentionally not telling you something

>Low roll result
You've got no read on this guy

>Invisible roll result
You think he's lying but because you cannot see the roll result, this information is more or less useless for you.

Just ask them for a roll every now and again, even if it's just to keep them on their toes. If they ask for what, tell them they don't need to know. That way they still get to make all the rolls, while still preventing metagaming. Just take down their saves and skill bonuses from their sheets.

>"Hmm, well I think he's lying and I'm a pretty good judge of character, I'll trust my (character) instincts on this one."
vs
>"Hmm, I'm an awful judge of character so I've not got a very good read on this guy."

Now, if a character has an activated ability that modifies the result or some equipment you forgot to include in the roll, is it still fair? Would you give them the opportunity to change the outcome based on what they have available to them? Of course, that would give away what the roll is for and defeat the purpose of trying to roll for them.

There's one of my players that I just realized specifically takes one of these every time he makes a character just so he can bitch to me when I forget to factor it in.(or he doesn't believe I factor it in when I do)
I give up.

No, it prevents metagaming.

>does it really matter that much whose hands the dice come from?

Yes because when you do it you've taken away a degree of player agency. You may as well just arbitrarily decide who is afflicted if it's out of player hands. The need to feel like if they fucked up it's their own fault otherwise you're just "the dick railroading DM who doesn't give us any freedom". Not saying you are, but that's what it'll come off as. If my character is going to be affected I want to know that *I* was the one who's at fault for it, even if it's just a bad roll

But rolling low isn't fucking up, it has nothing to do with the player agency. It's just a die roll.

The only way dice - which are random - could represent player agency is if you are cheating, in which case you're out of the game.

Rolling your own dice is being in control of your own character. If someone else is rolling my dice for me then I'm not fully in control of the character. I'm totally fine with fucking up the roll, and I'll roll it in the open, but I've had characters who were hijacked by the DM before and it sucked. I'm sorry but the whole point of me playing the character is me being in control of it. If I'm not then why am I playing?

>If someone else is rolling my dice for me then I'm not fully in control of the character
If playing your character consists mostly of rolling dice then your character is shit

because it does not matter if you or the GM roll the dice
What's important is what leads to the roll
what choices you make, what items you use, who you fight and who you make friends with
as long as you control the actions and decisions of the character it does not matter a bit who rolls those dice
it only becomes railroading if your GM prescribes what you do, who you like, who you fight and what you use

>Ask each player for their modifiers about Perception and stuff
>Make them roll a dice
>Decide before without telling them if the success is getting the biggest or lowest score
This way, if they roll a d20 and get 5, they don't know if that's a successful roll or a bad one.

Good or stupid idea?

We can have a civil discussion user. Rolling the dice is part of the game. Nothing in my post indicated that all I did was roll dice. I simply pointed out that rolling dice for your actions is an aspect of playing the character as per the rules. If you ask me to roll I dice I roll a dice. No questions asked, and if asked in that manner i usually ignore the result and carry on with whatever i was doing. I just have to roll my own dice so I know it's my own action. Because as I said, I was in a game where I was the only player with a coherent backstory and any degree of social ability so the DM would regularly flat out take control of my character and fudging 80% of my rolls to move the plot along. I ended up leaving the game.

>he doesn't set a magic spindown die everytime an important fight happens and reduce it by 1 each turn but never verbally acknowledge it
Really puts the fear of god in them

What I'm getting at is that the roll result is not something you chose. You as a player choose what the character does, but have no control over how well they perform. That's why it doesn't really matter who physically picks up and rolls the dice.

Different user here. Sorry you're scarred by railroading but how are you missing the point that rolling the dice means nothing at all in terms of controlling your character unless you're cheating? Rolling the die related to an action is a completely meta action that is unrelated to your control.

The dice are providing a random number. This random number is required based on your decisions. If the GM isn't forcing your character to do things, Then even if he is rolling everything for the players, it's the same result. Again, unless the GM is cheating.

You can just say "I prefer to roll my own dice. I have more fun that way." That's completely acceptable, no issue there. But because you have no control over how the die lands when you roll it, and neither does the GM, don't claim that the GM rolling for you is somehow taking away control of your character.

>Not going "Hmm, oh well" and "Say did you carry X item" randomly and watch the players get hella suspicious.

You can always substitute the passive, or just not have them roll for perception and only use Investigation when it's necessary to roll to see things.

It's fine.

What I hate is being the GM and having a player just smugly tell me that a monster or NPC needs to make a saving throw without telling me what the fuck spell they're casting. Bitch, this isn't Yu-Gi-Oh and I didn't just activate your trap card. I'm the GM. If you don't tell me what you're doing, it doesn't get done.

In that case why even roll?

>because it does not matter if you or the GM roll the dice
It does.
Logically it doesn't, but emotionally it does. Even if it was just random chance, if the GM rolls, you never get to see the result, and then you get fucked up, most people will see that as the GM fucking them over. If they roll their own dice, at least it was their own decision or action that failed.

>What are modifiers and how do they work?

Yes, and when I run into a DM that does shit like that, I have no qualms with cheating whenever I spot a chance to.

The alternative is to occasionally have players roll when there's nothing actually there. They open a door with no traps? Have them roll a save. Have Natural 1s be mundane accidents: trip over a loose stone (Ref/Dex), sneeze (Fort/Con), remember saying "you too" to that waiter (Will/Wis), the door's a little stuck (Str), etc. If they walk down a hallway, maybe have them roll a Perception check to notice a particularly intricate spiderweb or the sound of a mouse farting.

you're a shit player

Some rulebooks actually tell you to roll for your players when it comes to certain checks to remove the possibility of being meta. It'd be best to have all their passive scores on your dm notes and/or their saving throws.

I wouldn't roll privately on spells too often because most have some way of revealing a spell is being cast on the target. Like with scrying and such.

randomly make them do a perception when there was nothing important to perceive so even if they fail they cannot be sure if there was something or not

Why does EVERY GM who do this conveniently forget about the circumstantial modifiers I have to my saves/skills and the rerolls I also have for them?

I have them listed down on the sheet, damn it!

I like it, because it maintains surprise. I've never had players complain about it.

I don't like this, because my players are retarded and would try to locate the farting mouse. Also, just like when writing a story, useless information being thrown around is usually detrimental to the story.

I've told my players beforehand that I will roll on their behalf for anything that does not have an immediate and obvious result, usually perception and insight checks, but sometimes to save against a spell. I always take a picture of the dice when I do though.

Though sometimes I roll just to fuck with them

What I do is ask my players to make the following decision whenever secret shit OR harmless things that could pass for secret shit come up:
>Do nothing
>OR
>Roll Perception to see if there's something
>If they roll, they always know if there's something or not
>If there really is something, roll result determines what details they know
>If there's nothing, they take a Paranoia point
Accumulating Paranoia points gives minuses to checks and nasty status effects. Too many and the character goes batshit, becoming unable to function properly (and basically K.O. for all intents and purposes). Resting removes Paranoia points.

That way my players need to pay attention to the context of the decision, and decide between potentially ignoring a real threat or getting a Paranoia point when there's nothing there. They can't just roll all the time, and the more Paranoia points pile up, the more intense it gets.

Maybe that's a shit idea but I think it solves the problem pretty well.

I'd say it depends on the situation
If its a spell where the effect isn't obvious like a mind affecting thing, then sure go ahead and secret roll it

If its something like fireball, let them roll it

I'd say the same thing about players needing to roll for a skill that they might not be aware of, like listen in 3.5 (in 5th I think its passive perception when you aren't actively trying to find it)

If its something the player is actively doing, let them roll it.
If its something they aren't aware of, roll it in secret.

Another example with a fortitude save
If a player is at a bar and drinks something that is secretly poisoned, I would roll in secret then tell them later on when its relevant if theres no primary damage.

If they were trying to keep from throwing up due to something like a nauseating stench from undead, then I would let them roll it.

Wouldn't the "you too" thing be more of a failed Charisma roll?

It's not shitty but it's unnecessary. Just ask them to roll their saves, you don't have to tell them the reason.
Rolling perception in secret is sometimes necessary though.

>But then they will be on the alert,
doesn't that make it even better?

open up an conversation with your players before you do it, like have a talk with them before the session. ideally this should be done at the start of your time as a DM as an introduction to how you DM, and just explain why you want this and make sure everyone is cool with it.

you can avoid that by just asking for perception and other rolls when you don't actually need them

Good question. If you won't take any action based upon information you haven't meta-gamed then why even pretend to seperate IC and OOC knowledge?

I always ask for perception, because when they fail they still have the sensation that they're missing something.

Should a player who rolls low on a search, insight, perception, knowledge, or similar check simply have a lack of knowledge (e.g. you don't find anything, you don't know what this creature is, you can't tell if they're truthful or not) or misinformation (e.g. you find dustbunnies, you think this thing is a swamptopus and is weak to [rolls 1d8 quietly] lightning, you feel strongly they're lying [they're not])
If the latter is more interesting, can you have any hope of implementing it without rolling these checks for your players?

Some systems (like PF) let you know if you're affected by a spell without a cue. Even if you make the save, you're aware someone's trying to fuck with you, but it doesn't let you know what it is, how, or where from.

If it's a save vs death or some other thing that has an obvious effect then yeah. But if it's like a save vs slow-acting poison or other such less noticeable effects keep rolls hidden. Same goes for passive/active perception checks.

I keep sheets of pre-rolled numbers behind my screen to consult if I want to roll without players knowing.

>most people will see that as the GM fucking them over.
Not really. It rather depends how how much of an asshole the gm is overall instead of this particular situation.
You are being oversensitive with this matter.

Have good players, or introduce uncertainty by adding another random factor. 2d20 subtract 20 if total >20 is mathematically equivalent to 1d20.

It hurts me too. It hurts me too.

It's a shitty thing to do if the group was not made aware (or agreed) that it will be a thing that will happen. If you're trying to maintain total lockdown on save info, you should keep track of their save mods for your own reference so you don't need to keep track of their sheets.

In certain games you know when you've succeeded a save.

Another alternative is to make their saves into defenses sort of like 4e did, so you're always rolling attacks against static variables.

It's not shitty, but you should get their saves saved for reference so they don't know when your doing this.

>Is this a shitty thing to do?

You should have this information in hand already. I'd want a copy of every character's sheet in my campaign so I can do proper encounter design for example.

Is that "well locked door" a challenge, an impossibility, or a triviality? How much damage can the weapon users deal to a creature with hardness? This will educate my decision about whether to make it wood or iron. Does anyone have a really low Fort save? I may want to reconsider having the lake be poisonous. It also allows for things like having a quest reward be just enough for the party to afford something they want.

That's not mathematically neutral, you're altering the probability curve. You'd be better off rolling d2 and inverting the roll (20s to 1s, 1s to 20s etc.) on a 1.

You're not altering the probability curve a single bit. Lay it out, it works.

> passive perception

Because it should honestly be up to the player to keep track of what bonuses they have to a specific roll.

Oh, you would have made that will save VS fear if you'd remembered that you had a feat/trait for that?

Too bad, if I announce the result of a roll then there's no going back. Chalk it up to your character having a moment of weakness.

>Wait did you say you had diehard?
>Oh...no reason
*Crosses off something.*
>Carry on.

This is how you are SUPPOSED to do it. You never let the players know when they are making a passive check

Some player's might be bitter about it but it's what is supposed to be done, if for no other reason but to stop any amount of player metaing.

In this situation being discussed, it's about the GM reading the sheet and rolling for them.

In that case, it's the GMs responsibility if it's on the sheet to use it.