Should the GM roll out in the open?

Play on roll20, always roll out in the open now at players request.

>tfw i roll 20s left and right while the group can barely get above a 10.
Sometimes its nice to watch them struggle at the hands of a kobold

I usually run horror-themed games so I prefer to roll in secret. Sometimes I'm making passive perception vs. stealth or bluff vs. sense motive (or whatever the system equivalent is), then I weave it into the dialogue. For example, "The merchant shakes his head. 'Nope, never seen that talisman before'. (roll) You have a feeling he's not telling you the whole truth."

I frequently roll dice meaninglessly, just to keep my players on edge. There's nothing quite like furious rolling and note-taking behind the GM screen to make a player question every decision they're making.

However, I never fudge dice rolls. My players know I'm a fair GM, and the few times someone questions a dice result I'll lift the screen and show it to them. The game only uses one die so I'd have no means of shenanigans on that front.

Nah, rolling in secret is a powerful tool

You can ease off just a bit when things are going poorly. Or ramp it up if it's a little too safe and boring

And nothing worries players more than a random roll out of nowhere that doesn't actually mean anything

Not always. If searching a room doesn't turn anything up, the player doesn't have to know whether it's because there's nothing to find, or because the roll failed.

In decently designed system, when played with good, mature players, there is no need to cover the dice rolls from players for any reason.

Literally what makes it fun.

If you're gonna roll open you may as well show them your NPC sheet. And your notes for the campaign.

In a lot of systems rolling open allows your players to deduce most of their enemies stats and combat abilities after a couple of rounds. I know some DMs show the stats of the enemies, but I find it dumb.

Attack rolls I roll in the open. Saves and non-combat rolls I roll behind the screen.

If players suspect you're fudging, you can always move away what's covering the dices and show them this time. I do this sometimes when the NPC rolls extremely high or extremely low. There's literally no argument against hidden rolls.

When I started GMing I rolled in secret so I could fudge dice in favor of the party, some parts that I didn't want to go through character creation again and since character creation is lengthy to newbies we were invested in the characters.
Lasted probably around 6 months with more often than not weekly games until I and the other GM in the group shifted from secret rolls.

I want to say it was to one reason of the shift was that where as I cheated in favor of the party, I was convinced the other GM cheated in his desire to kill PCs.
Though that is mostly because I can't really remember if it was RollPlay, The Gentleman Gamer or Acquisitions incorporated that convinced me that it is a better habit to make a majority of rolls in the open.
The only dice I hide without a doubt are NPC stealth tests and as we play over Roll20 I hide random table rolls.

Rolling in the open produces more entertaining than "muh story/character/mcGuffin" ever can in my experience.

Fudging a roll and making it obsolete are entirely seperate things. Going up or down by one or two on the result isn't that bad. If anything, it keeps the tension in a fight.

Maybe one side is dominating due to really good rolls, and one of your creatures is just one short of a hit. In that moment, if only for the tension of it, you give it that one needed to hit. Thus, the tides turn just a bit. Not enough to alter the tide of battle, but enough to keep dramatic tension

Other times, monsters might have far higher stats than your party is capable of dealing with, so you decide mid-attack after looking at the result to nerf it down a little, maybe even for the entire combat.

The only time its not okay to fudge rolls is when you are outright lying to favor one side. For example, when you keep saying monsters crit unnaturally often.

I roll in the open because my players are even newer than I am and thy don't know what I'm rolling for anyway.

I fake roll all the time to improve the illusion.

I don't want to start a new thread because I figure it's an all too common thread that'll draw hate but does Veeky Forums have a collected list of resource material or advice for new DMs I'm just working off the Starter Set and it's going well but I'm starting to struggle and now we're leaving the first dungeon I want an RP heavy session in the town with very little action and I'm stressing about how to make that fun and work. Dialogue has been the hardest part for me.

I don't mean to derail the thread but I figure it's such a common question it can be quickly answered.

Well, first thing, think up a set of simple NPC's the party is likely to talk to. A tavern keeper, a blacksmith, a vendor of some sort. Perhaps something else entirely.

Right a couple personality traits down, real simple single word ones, for each character.

Then you react based on how PC's interact with the NPC. Maybe start off the greetings to get them into the flow of it.

Then, react based on the couple traits you wrote down for that character.

If you've got a plot hook in mind, weave it in somehow, but don't force it. The more you try to force something, the more a party will rail against it.

This is also good advice in general, to just have a pool of NPC's with simple personality traits ready for if you need someone to do something, like exposition, a plot hook, or simply to world build a bit.

Roll in secret, they bitch that you're changing rolls because they're retarded. Roll in the open, and they bitch that the roll should've made it, because they're retarded.
Players are retarded no matter what.

If you are unwilling to accept the result of a roll then do not call for a roll in the first place.

This simple principle will make you a better DM.

great. Thanks.

Combat is an event where many rolls are made, regardless of the DM's input on it. Thus, fudging of stats and rolls mid-combat may be needed to bring it in line.

Its called being flexible. The reed that bends, doesn't break.

As an example, i once accidentally used an advanced hit die hyena against the party that they had extremely little chance against. So i nerfed it down to be more appropraite

There are inevitably times when one may need to fudge a roll.

Sometimes, how something feels is more important than what the dice tells you happens. If i call for a roll, and the players fail it, then so be it. But if things are out of line, i will mitigate it behind closed doors so as to keep things fun for both the party and me.

My DM tends to avoid it simply yo make it more difficult for us to estimate the capabilities of enemies. In other words if it rolls a 10 and passes a DC 16 dexterity saving throw we know that it gets at least +6 to dex saving throws.

I love it when people say this.

I never ever roll. Players roll all the dice, their fate are in their own hands. But I don't really play combat-heavy games, and at my table combat is treated like a scene, not a wargame.

When I do have to roll, I flip a coin or draw a card instead. Silently and invisibly.

>All that fancy wood boxes and shit
>penny sleeves on the MtG cards
WHY

Absolutely not. A DM does not relinquish his authority or control to the doubts of the players.

If you roll in the open for a purpose, you can never again roll in secret for that purpose.

If a player insists I roll an attack or damage in the open, I make them roll it. Henceforth, that player rolls to see if they are hit and how hard with their own dice. No other player need be a victim of uncertainty. Try it and see how long it takes for them to beg you to roll for them.

Fudging a roll either changes the result or doesn't change the result. There are no other options. If it doesn't change the result, why do it? If it does change the result, why roll in the first place?

Because not everything is black and white and a good DM should be able to improvise on the spot to keep the party engaged and happy.

I used to do this so that I could fudge rolls, but since my players either have insane luck or are weirdly good at building characters.

Does he have something to hide?

In general, I advocate rolling in the open unless the PCs wouldn't know the result of the roll, in which case only roll in the open if you can trust your players not to metagame.

(Not sure why my post cut off)
Since then I haven't really needed to make things easier for them.

>If it does change the result, why roll in the first place?

Because sometimes it takes unfortunate rolls to realize that you've screwed up.

I think this video explains the dynamic about the DM Screen very well.

youtube.com/watch?v=aO0HMmrZ4xs

We make DMs roll in the open after a number of annoying experiences with DM's having sudden lucky streaks when their pet NPCs start losing fights.

For example, the last guy before we implemented this rule claims he was well-known for making all his combats "dramatic and nailbitingly tense."

This generally resulted in us starting to win every fight because they were actually piss-easy, then suddenly the DM suddenly starts rolling 20s. Like, not even being subtle or mixing results up a bit, he would just start rolling anywhere from 6-10 Nat 20s in a row. We'd get on low health from that because critical hits, then he's suddenly go back to rolling shit, then claiming "See, see, I told you my combats are tense" afterwards.

Then we took that stupid DM screen away one day and suddenly his miracle streaks of 10 Nat 20s in a row mysteriously stopped happening. He eventually ragequit the group because we kept curbstomping his combats because as I said earlier, they were actually piss-easy, and we just tell DMs straight up now we don't allow hidden rolling.

You'd be amazed how many That GMs we've spotted just from that criteria alone.

What are the metal coin things here?

I'm not surprised you get many "That GMs" if your criteria for being one include not letting the players dictate how you run your games.

DM can run the game however he wants.

We've just had too many shit experience with hidden rolls to allow it anymore. Most are ok with it or don't question it, although we've had a number of DM's we've had to ask to leave after we tell them no hidden rolls and they have a literal temper tantrum about it and act like running a game is literally impossible without hiding rolls.

It's not only the DM's decision when yo roll dice.

If combat is something you as a DM simply force your players to do then you need to improve and make sure they have more choices.

No other player but the DM thinks about fusging rolls. This discussion always tacitly assumes that players must accept a rolled result. There is no good reason why this assumption shpild not also apply to the DM. All attempts to rationalize fudging dice are just admissions of one mistake or another on the DM's part, including explicitly your own example.

Again, only roll dice when you are willing to let the result be out pf your hands. This will make you a better DM becausing doing otherwise is just a crutch for messing up in other ways.

sorry for terrible typos

excellent, it is good to love truth and shun error

when a player rolls ten crits in a row that is awesome.

when a tough monster rolls ten crits in a row that is not fun.

i hide my rolls mostly for dramatic effect and rarely actually fudge them. i also run sandbox campaigns and being able to shave a few hp off of a monster every once in a while helps me adjust difficulty on the fly.

don't get my wrong, if my players make bad decisions i have no qualms with them dying. i just think that both wins and losses should be earned

if the monster is doomg "too well" then ask the players to get creative; they can try something that isn't completely up to dice rolling

friends dont let friend fudge

but what will it take to stop screwing up and actually improve

>ask the players to get creative
i generally don't tell my players how to play, i simply reward them for playing well.

it can be frustrating when you feel like there are obvious lateral solutions and the murder hobos just keep spamming attacks. at a certain point you have to keep the game moving or let them die.

Yes.
>but muh session 1 tpk
If you're stupid enough to have tpks happen that easily, then you shouldn't be GMing, let alone rolling in the fudge-zone

The GM should roll however the fuck they want, including not at all.

The players are the ones that need to be accountable.

Assuming you have a trustworthy GM*, no. Just imagine that the party is sneaking through a corridor and the GM rolls a certain check. If he rolls it behind a screen, you have no idea what's going on. If he rolls in the open, it automatically reveals that you've either been spotted or not. Dramatic irony will cause quite different roleplay. In the first scenario you're constantly on edge, in the second scenario the knowledge that you've either failed or passed a check results in a very different reaction. A party that has been heard/seen will retreat before they even know that they've been compromised for example.

Combat (social or physical) is something that's already out in the open on the other hand. In such a scenario the DM should roll openly for attacks, damage, spells, resistance et cetera.

*I believe there's no reason for a DM to cheat considering roleplaying is cooperative storytelling with neither winners nor losers, but some DMs get a powertrip and love to fudge roles so their OC donut steel looks cool or whatever. That said, I understand a GM's frustration when a planned recurring villain is killed almost instantly because he rolled a 1 on his resistance roll against a save-or-die/suck spell, but that's how the cookie crumbles.

I'm not a fan of DMs who lie, though I can tolerate it (still not a fan, but I can accept it) if the plot demands it. Such as with the aforementioned recurring villain surviving because he has a role to play further down the line (or conversely allowing a player to defeat an enemy despite shitty rolls because it's cool). Still I believe this should be kept to a minimum. The rules are second to its ultimate purpose -fun-, but should never be handwaved altogether. They add an element of stability.

I roll attacks in private, but I roll damage in the open. I will never, under any circumstances allow the players to just beat a boss encounter because I can't roll high enough to hit. It's boring as fuck.

The simple idea of rolling in secret means you're a failure at gaming and probably at life.

If you can't trust a DM to lie to your face and not fuck you over then you probably shouldn't be playing with them in the first place.

Honestly, the only time I fudge rolls is to stop the players from having some shitty thing happen to them like having a character they've been playing for a year get triple-critted or whatever.
That shit isn't fun for anyone.

Best way of GMing

If you are unwilling to accept that the DM is going to lie or withhold information from you then you're better just not playing.

Even Gygax said that DMs only roll because they only like the sound the dice make, and RNG won't give a shit about whether or not the players are enjoying your game.

No, it's great because the people who spout this have never run a proper game in their life or are too insecure to trust their DMs not to fuck them over "petty" shit.

So because of one THAT DM, the entire concept is flawed? That's some funky logic you got there.

>*I believe there's no reason for a DM to cheat considering roleplaying is cooperative storytelling with neither winners nor losers, but some DMs get a powertrip and love to fudge roles so their OC donut steel looks cool or whatever. That said, I understand a GM's frustration when a planned recurring villain is killed almost instantly because he rolled a 1 on his resistance roll against a save-or-die/suck spell, but that's how the cookie crumbles.

I understand your POV, but I'm of the opinion that as the GM its my job to make sure that the session is as fun and satisfying possible to the greatest number of participants. If no one is having fun, no one benefits.

Sometimes this means fudging results so that a character doesn't die unfairly. If a player didn't do anything wrong and is just eating bad luck to the face, that's a shitty way for a character to die. I'm fine with character death, but I would much rather it meant something. If the player makes a risky gamble or gets betrayed by a party member, I won't save them. But if this is a mundane encounter against random skeletons and they are in danger of dying, I might fudge the damage so they survive the attack with 2 hp left and give them the chance to recover instead of killing them dead on the spot. The fact that they FEEL like they almost died, and just barely survived, is generally a better outcome than actually dying to nameless mooks.

On the other hand, sometimes this means giving the enemy a leg up in the fight. If someone is playing a halfway optimized wizard, there are fights where I let his build clear the room and there are fights where I make that not work. I have to. Its not fair to the other players to let them never do anything because The wizard hit level 10 and doesn't need them anymore. The Ranger deserves his chance to shine just as much as the caster, and its my job to make sure he gets it from time to time.

>let them die

legitimate outcome of underestimating danger

incomplete information and fudging rolls are different issues, pls focus

hell, legitimate outcome of /facing/ danger

lol so aaangry but so dumb

the issue is not players insecure about bloodthirsty DM

the issue is insecure DM fudging rolls because he doesnt understand rolling

Rolling in the open makes every roll matter.

It removes any sense of doubt about whether or not the DM is changing their rolls.

It creates an atmosphere where everyone is expected to roll in the open, where everyone can see them, and avoid rolling your dice off the table.

The game is meant to be played like this, the GM should not alter their rolls. It takes away part of the fun of roleplaying. The only reason to roll in secret is the presence of metagamers at the table, who will figure out enemy statistics based on your rolls. But this should generally not be a problem in your group.

yeah but players are people. you can kill them off for egregious mistakes but if they don't actually learn from their mistakes/assumptions you have to either be flexible with their play styles or get new players. killing them off repeatedly will just lead to them quitting.

i personally have a very hard time finding people to play with so i usually compromise. :(

Not telling the players the result of the die is the same thing as not telling the players the stats of the thing that they're fighting.
No, it basically does boil down to insecure players feeling as though the DM doesn't have their best interests at heart and require full transparency so they can say "well, at least I know the DM wasn't fucking me out of a character or anything."

Otherwise, why would it be enough of an issue to complain about since you'd already trust the DM to run a good game?

It also creates a situation where the player goes "oh, okay, that enemy has +X to their roll, so unless he rolls Y+ we're not in any danger."
>The game is meant to be played like this
If it was meant to be played like this then why does the DM screen exist at all?

as acknowldged, rolling behind a screen can be useful for incomplete information (e.g., perception checks); that is the exception

the rule is roll in the open because the result stands - the issue here is the DM fudges dice rolls because he did not want the result to be random in the first place

= different issues

sure some players dont trust the DM for whatever reason - that's not a question of whether the DM should fudge dice

the question of fudging is absolutely clear, it is purely a crutch for not thinking hard enough about what you are doing as a DM

>screen why?

it's a QRS

yes if you can have bad players then you can only have bad games

I like rolling out in the open. I feel it adds tension especially for lethal systems, or really any roll that "really matters". The same applies to the baddies (though naturally if I need something to happen I'll set up circumstances that don't call for dice).
I used to roll in secret for searching and noticing shit, but I don't feel it really added much. My group were never really the "I search 15 times until I get a perfect result because I refuse to believe there isn't a secret in here" type, and there are more elegant ways of dealing with that kind of behavior anyway.

Only a minority of players go out of their way to game the system like that. And even if they do, it hardly affects the game at all. So what if they think triad goon 1 has +6 to hit, and thus you need to roll an 11 on your d20 to hit fighter x? They don't know the result of your rolls before you roll it. You could always be more liberal with situational modifiers, too.

DM screen conceals figurines, DM plans, and other information trackers the DM may have.

>as acknowldged, rolling behind a screen can be useful for incomplete information (e.g., perception checks); that is the exception
So why is it okay for that particular instance but it's not okay for the other? You're still using the screen to obfuscate information that you wouldn't want the player to know about and sometimes it really is better to ignore the RNG if the alternative is combat that's either too easy or too hard.

Granted, you shouldn't use it all the time but doing it sparingly isn't that big of a deal so long as the players are adults about it.

good points

players will either calculate stats or not, it just doesn't matter and surely not so much as to indirectly justify fudging dive

>Only a minority of players go out of their way to game the system like that. And even if they do, it hardly affects the game at all.
I disagree, mainly because once the players know how strong an opponent is, anything that they do from that point forward is based on that piece of knowledge.

That and if you have a rules lawyer in the party, the second he has a definitive number is the moment he'll sperg out because you changed some variable to make it slightly different from what's seen in the MM.
>DM screen conceals figurines, DM plans, and other information trackers the DM may have.
So what's the issue with it also working to conceal rolls?

after a few rounds of fighting something, trained murdersplorers should probably have a rough idea of the capabilities of their opponent. Introducing small variances between identical enemies keeps them from getting too comfortable.

still conflating two issues

fudging a roll is separate from whether players know result

the main question here is actually about hiding rolls in order to fudge them

even rolling a dice "just so the players hear it roll" is a separate issue (because the result of that roll never meant anything in-setting to begin with)

>issue with concealing rolls?

no issue except when concealment is yo enable fudging

>rolling in the open
>low level (but not level 1) party
>random wolf
>just keeps critting
>party keep fluffing their rolls
>wolf gets crit after crit after crit
>3 players down
>one instantly killed
>wolf crits again
>"eyes without life... sundered heads... piles of carcasses... these are pleasing words to me"
Why

You're basically trying to claim that two instances of fudging dice are different even though they're the exact same thing. People like you are why I generally don't trust people who claim they don't fudge dice.
As long as the GM isn't doing it out of spite and is only fudging sparingly throughout any given session, what's the issue here?

Rolled 9 (1d20)

I roll for Bus Clapping.

The only thing I roll in the open are basic combat rolls for enemies that the player characters can see.

No piece of information gathered from an enemy's stats should drastically alter the way the players perceive an enemy.

>DM describes an enemy, doing enemy things. This establishes the enemy's relative power level. A meager goblin, a veteran soldier, an unholy monstrosity that can rip men apart. And so on.

If your players are suprised that a goblin only has +3 to attack, then maybe the DM hasn't described the encounter properly. Likewise when they realise that the boss has +12.

Rules lawyers have no right to complain unless the DM actually makes a mistake.
>DM last round the warden only has +4, now it has +5, you are fudging his stats!
>No, he has a morale boost because their chaplain reached the exit and is escaping, as I described last round. The wardens serve the faith without question, and are fueled by their zealotry.
Alternatively
>Oh right, rules lawyer, I miscalculated my attack. I did not mean to do that, and will amend the mistake. Thank you.

If the players can see the DM's dungeon map, they know where to go, and where the secret rooms are. That is not fun or engaging for 99% of players. The same could be said for campaign notes, or whatever else the DM is hiding.

nope I am distinguishing between letting a roll stand in front of a screen and letting it stand behind a screen - this is the issue of incomplete info

refusing to go with whatever result you rolled is the separate issue of fudging

My DM hide his rolls and I'm convinced he cheats, with him there are 2 kind of monsters, those who hit except on 1, those who won't except on 20.
He doesn't even bother asking our AC most of the time and I know he doesn't have it noted somewhere, wich make armor just an encumbrance.
But what bother me the most is that I'm 100% certain me and my mates should have died numerous times and he changed the results so we didn't, from the moment I became convinced he'll change the dice to make sure we won't die the game has lost all it's thrill to me.

The attack rolls and saving throws of monsters should be rolled in the open. Do as you please for anything else.
If things are going wrong and you need to steer the players away from a TPK to keep the game from getting fucked, do it in some other cool way that isn't just fudging dice. The earth shaking spell cast by the wizard causes a stalagmites to fall which kills additional enemies, maybe a couple of the enemies are getting overconfident and spend a couple turns mocking the players instead of attacking, maybe reinforcements arrive. Or just adjust how much HP the enemies all have on the fly, it's not like the players know what their HP value is.

The only thing rolling in secret does is make the player give you a fucking look every time your super cool boss monster succeeds on a saving throw.

Yet by your very own logic, a player getting killed early on because dumb luck through no fault of their own isn't fun or engaging for 99% of the players either. The rest of the party has to deal with being down a man, the unlucky victim has to waste time building a new character, and the DM now has to figure out some way to reintegrate the new character into the campaign in a way that isn't forced or contrived.

RNG doesn't give a fuck if people are having a good time, which is why the DM is there to sway the game in a favorable way if the alternative would create more problems further down the line.
If you don't want to utilize this then all power to you, I'm just saying that there is a time when fudging is ideal to a given situation.

That honestly sounds like a trust issue between the players and the DM more than a negative against the concept of fudging dice.

I roll in the open for things that affect players directly. If I'm doing hidden rolls it's usually behind the scenes work like a random encounter roll or randomly determining an NPC's demeanor.

*shrug* whatever you say man.

>Being down a man
That's what henchmen are for

>waste time building a character
The rulesets I use don't require more than 2-3 minutes to roll a new character

>integrate into campaign
The party hires him the next time they're in town or he joins up for free to adventure, I don't force convoluted stories into my games like most of/tg/ seems apt to do.

I play a game to play the game, I'm a referee not a gm. If somebody wants a self insert heroes journey they can watch anime or play vidya. If I roll the dice, it's because I want a random number.

>That's what henchmen are for
So then the DM has to keep track of henchmen, in addition everyone and everything else that the party interacts with.
>The rulesets I use don't require more than 2-3 minutes to roll a new character
Congrats but that's still 2-3 minutes that someone is spending on character creation rather than on playing the game. Not to mention, if players are able to get back into the fight that quickly then why exactly would they fear dying?
>The party hires him the next time they're in town or he joins up for free to adventure,
Why would the party hire him though? Also, why would this new character stay with the party once the job is finished and they gave him his payment? Not to mention, why would they trust this random dude who shows up saying that he wants to adventure, presumably in a world where illusion magic and shapeshifting monsters are prevalent?

Many systems are not black and white. I always hide rolls, and I often fudge, but I always use the roll as an indicator, I just play it up or down a bit.

In systems where things like degrees of success and such matters, it's also a lot faster to just at a glance decide, rather than to have a whole table tallying theresults and commenting.

Only if you want to die. If I have to, as a GM, put everything in front of you, then you get no mercy. Every chance to kill you, I will take. Every chance to maim you, I will smile. Every rule that gives you no chance, I will use.

Only have a GM roll in front of you, if you don't want him to feel any pity for you.

>If I roll the dice, it's because I want a random number.

But but but muh characters!

GM should do what he likes.