Goodman Games

It's a matter of style guys, not of objective qualities that the game gets or not if you do in a way instead of the other.

What's your DM style?
That's the question.

Do you prefer to control the game by your creativity or to treat chaos (a.k.a."dice") like an oracle for you to interpret?

I confess I'm equally attracted by both!

There is this Youtube post in which Frank Mentzer DMs OD&D without any screen and it makes me think exactly what Skyscraper means with "no barrier", but when he rolls he anyway hides the dice with the hand, fascinating:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APPxO-SJVK8

So the point to me is that the game is influenced in a way by conscious creativity, in the other by interpretation of the unexpected and impro.
In the first case the DM is in the position of being a safety net in case; in the latter he's not, and to me this fact favors the first approach.

As a player I wouldn't like a game in which nobody ever dies, neither one in which chaos always frustrates the group with "critical endings".
So, as a player, I expect to feel a certain mood and, let me say, it has nothing to do with the DM's approach to dice rather than what he ultimately says and decides.

Let's call them the vertical (dice hidden) and horizontal (dice open) approaches.

The great masters of the game never stopped to roll conceived (I talked days ago with Ernie Gygax and confirmed it about his dad), and without being taken as a silly emulous, I think this means something.
Something strictly related to a certain "spirit of the game".


Probably I will keep roll conceived (funnel excluded).
Even if chaos charms me so much.
This doesn't mean I will save each and every ass in trouble all the time.
This means I will rule the rules and rule the dice.
To me the Judge/DM is above all, even the dice.
And I want my players still feel the magic of the unknown I still want to perceive every time I sit on the other side of the table.
I still trust in the conscious direction of the DM and the mystery of his deeds which I disregard as a player.

Different approaches...

Erm, where has anyone stated differently? I thought everyone was just sharing how they did things and why? I don't think anyone here has come out as saying that doing it any other way is somehow objectively wrong, unless I missed something?

Colin

Yeah, agreed!
Isn't it amazing that such a subjective thing impacts on how the game goes and how everyone at the table experience it?

...I explain further...

I just tried to split between what is objective and what is not in this topic.
And I do it in order to blend each one point of view with the pure technique of the facts and find the direction I was searching for with my very first question: "Anybody daring to swear he doesn't roll concealed?"...ironic for "Anybody to help me find my way?".

So Colin, don't mind, it's my way of reasoning that brings me to make the point at a certain stage of a discussion.
I didn't mean to point the finger to anyone.

Treat me like Sheldon Cooper: sometimes I need to be ignored and laughed at! ;D

Bazinga!

Hey, that's my script not yours!

Rolling out front and in view isn't hard or even that big a deal.

You are not crafting a story(even if you end up with some good ones) but instead playing a game.Don't get caught up in the story telling aspect of the game. It's still just a game. If the dice roll this way then great! If they roll that way then well,darn!

Just like in Monopoly,Shoots and Ladders,and Risk the act of rolling the dice can make or break the game for you. For some reason sometimes people lose sight of the fact that RPG's are still a game and doesn't need carefully crafted dice rolls to work out right. In fact just like those other games Carefully crafted dice rolls might work out for one person but suck for everyone else and eventually ruin the fun.

In fact I will go so far as to say Random dice rolls in front of the group add a whole new level of play to the game that is missing otherwise.

The Good guys don't always win,the bad guys don't always kick ass and even the lowliest minion can have his day in the sun!

I once had a Dragon get taken out rather fast after he used his breath weapon to scare the party but his lowly minion defeated the entire party. To this day people talk about Goby'Khan the now King of All Goblins.


I also had a HUGE major bad guy(think Vecna) get two rounded and killed like a two dollar sparring partner for Tyson.


Thems the breaks!

This was a great post!

I recently came back to RPGs after almost 20 years. As a teen I used to say to my friends "the problem is we love the idea of RPGs, more than actually playing them". A few years ago I found out about the OSR movement. After reading a bunch of the blogs, more out of curiousity than expecting to gain a new found love of RPG gaming, I realized what the problem was. We were treating the games like they should play out this grand epic fantasy novel or movie. Of course it always fell flat, it just can't compare to a good book or movie. Now that we are treating RPGs like they are a game, letting stories unfold during play and not taking them too seriously, they are suddenly fun again. In fact I would argue they also tell better stories now, even though we aren't talking in-character to NPC's as often, developing long back stories and all that other nonsense.

We also roll all combat in the open (checks and such I will hide from them), that way the player's know it's entirely fair and everything feels earned and legitimate.

I always roll open with everything except where it makes sense to roll concealed - ie. Spot for trap, disguise, etc.

Why give up the randomness - it's the best part of a story.

Moreover, I would say that a problem with that approach to RPGs (as an interactive storytelling medium) is that each participant formulates the expected narrative in their own minds before the game plays out. Many times, I've found everyone from the DM to the player sits down after character creation with a pre-conceived notion of either their character arc or how the overall campaign will unfold. The difficulty, I've found, is that these individual pre-judgments rarely mesh.

How is the DM going to run an epic, heroic campaign with a player who envisions his Thief as a vengeful kleptomaniac on the highway to hell?

The biggest difference (or shift, really) for what I experienced then as opposed to now is that THEN we sat down wondering where the game would take us. NOW, I encounter much more frequently players and DMs who sit down and view the adventure as a milestone in some greater "story" that already exists in their head.

The latter is doomed to disappoint merely because of the randomness of the game.

If a group really wants to play in an epic campaign, then (IME) they need to ditch the pre-conceptions and embrace collaboration, engagement and discovery at the game table. It's one of the reasons I find backstories so suspect and prefer players reveal those as flashbacks during a campaign (as opposed to a 500 word essay prior to rolling any dice). And it's also why I find tools like Mythic so powerful.

To a degree, my role as a DM is to extract the story that the player is playing and somehow tie each player's expected narrative together as a cohesive whole. I literally could not do that if I came to the table with an immutable campaign arc. As DM, I often feel like my role is the facilitator for an intricate brain-storming exercise as opposed to the "director" or "author" of a story -- like some RPGs have suggested.

I have to figure out how these players want to be challenged. What themes they want this character to explore. And then be a real bastard about it. All while having this other stuff go on around the party, which forms the framework of events that the players will later recall as a "campaign".

Sorry for the tangent. But it's something I've put a lot of thought into for the better part of the last decade or more.

I always roll in the open.

I am actually thinking of having PCs roll Active Defense against the monster "Attack DC".
So maybe they can burn Luck on Defense rolls.

Hmm, fascinating. Please share a write up on this when you test it. I'm very interested. First thought though: do players get bored with always knowing what an attack DC of a particularly monster type is?

I roll in the open. I want them to feel the abject terror of the rolling die. It's just not the same if you're hiding it, no matter what Mentzer et al say.

Plus, DCC has a built in mechanic to help them get out of situations that are bad/hopeless: Luck.

I did this in a 3e game a while back. It does a good job of keeping the players involved when it's not their turn. I also had players roll the damage they took. So as DM, I rolled practically nothing.

Caveats...

* Remember that the Attack "DC" should be 11 + the attack bonus. Not 10 + attack bonus. That extra 5% is important. I started out using 10+. It was way too easy -- believe it or not.

* My players had a difficult time translating a "1" on their "defense roll" into a monster crit and a "20" into a monster fumble. Ultimately, this is what led to the approach being abandoned for a return to the more traditional mechanic. But if your group can handle that mental shift, it should be a-ok.

I like to roll in the open. My only issue is that table space is relatively limited -- I have a screen up in order to keep my maps secret, so if I roll in the open I have to stand up and toss the dice in the middle of the table on the other side of the screen. This leads to the problem of gradually losing my dice in the heat of combat where a lot of die rolls are occurring, or stopping combat in order to precariously lean over the screen to gather errant dice. Any solutions out there? Am I just hopelessly lazy and/or untalented at keeping track of dice? It's so much easier to just roll them on the convenient table space right in front of me (which happens to be behind the screen).

I roll in the open, only those sitting right next to me see what I'm actually rolling, but they're good at not revealing anything. If they see me roll a 14 and I say, "Does an 18 hit?", it's obvious to those next to me that a +4 is involved. But they never really know what it is. I don't use a screen, havent' since AD&D. My references are a highly bookmarked reference book in front of me. I do keep my notes, etc, covered, but don't really try too hard to be secret about much. It's in the player's best interest to have things unknown. I roll a handful of d6s for most checks. Usually 3, 2 are black, one is green. Sometimes I roll 4 or 5. But typically those 3d6. Sometimes I only need a single 1d6 result, I'll read the Green One, sometimes I need only a 2d6, I read the Black Ones. Sometimes I need all three. But the players usually have NO CLUE what I'm doing when I roll them, though they try to read me and my expressions. I'm constantly rolling them, it keeps them on edge. They're used to me rooting for the good guys, and by the good guys, I'm talking about the monsters.

I've rolled in the open for the past 7 or 8 years at least. Got into the habit with Shadowrun actually. Since almost everything in that game is an opposed test it really ramps up the tension when you and a player are standing up, staring each other down from across the table shaking a fistfull of D6's in your hand. Even in D&D and its variants including DCC it grabs everyone's attention when you're rolling to hit against the fighter who's down to 8 hitpoints and a natural 20 comes up. I'll roll behind a stack of books or something if it is a roll that I really don't want the players to see me make like a find traps roll but those are the exception, not the rule.

Does anybody run into the problem of players using the open attack rolls against them to figure out the attack bonuses of the things they're fighting?

I say 'problem', because in my experience, it breaks tension and reduces the situation to a 'game' instead of an adventure story. Maybe it's not a 'problem' for anybody else...

I don't find it a problem. The players will gauge the abilities of the enemy, which would also occur in an adventure story.

Yeah, I don't find a problem with it either. It IS a game after all. The hardest part is getting the players in the habit of separating the mechanics from the narrative. Intent (the declared action) and the actual effect (the result of the roll) are two different things. Players knowing the AC is not a big deal, it only becomes a problem when Luck comes into play the first time around. Once they know the "magic number", everyone knowing is fine. It's like knowing where the kink in the armor is. They still have to roll to hit. Though now they know exactly how much Luck to burn if the "need" to hit. I see nothing wrong with that.

I've discovered that letting them know the AC upfront makes them more likely to use Luck as it is intended. "Sorry, you missed by 2" might make the halfling lucky charm come into action, for instance. Likewise, if an important save is missed (with obvious results), I will often tell the players how much they missed it by.

This is certainly different from how I handled these things in previous RPGs, but I think my GMing is the better for it (using the DCC ruleset, anyway!).

Yeah, I just kinda hate when the excitement level goes down because somebody says, "Oh, they have a 17 AC, and only a +2 to hit us". When I'm playing, 99% of the time, I don't even think about that stuff. And when I GM, I don't like micro-managing what people can and can't say at the table at all, but that always seems to kill the buzz.

I keep those numbers secret at first, for sure, for those reasons. But after a couple rounds, they'll deduce those numbers anyway. Plus by then, it's actually pretty logical for the characters to "figure out" what they need to do to take the enemy out. Whether they actually do it, it's up to Luck and the dice.

In a game where there is a 10% chance of a "game changer" (1 or 20) with each attack roll, I'm not too worried about the excitement going down.

In my games, when the players realize that there is a good chance that they can take the foe, their satisfaction is of a different sort, but it is still satisfaction. And, of course, they don't know what is around the corner. Run a few encounters where X seems easy until Y enters the picture, and you'll soon find that they are not so complacent.

SPOILER FOR DOOM OF THE SAVAGE KINGS: In this module, for example, the tomb ghouls seemed easy enough when first encountered by a large party, but the serpents within them were a nasty shock to the PCs (and their players)!

Even when the players "know" that they are facing "easy" opponents, the nature of the game (monsters don't follow the rules) means that the players cannot be sure that they know what they "know". Let them face a monster whose abilities change over the course of a combat once in a while, and they will never feel quite so certain that the monster who has a 15 AC this round will still have a 15 AC next round.

(Actually, that's a nasty idea I think I'll use -- a horde of creatures starting off at AC 10, 2 hp on round one, but gaining +1 to AC and +2 to hp each round until they reach AC 20 and 22 hp after 10 rounds...unless the PCs finish them off first. The players might well think it is a "throw away" encounter at first, only to learn that it gets harder and harder as the fight goes on..... )


RC

This would still have happened if he rolled behind a screen so I'm not sure what the point here is. Not trying to put you down or anything, but I don't think rolling in the open is the reason the dice came up the way they did. Now, if you're saying that he might have adjusted those rolls had he been rolling behind a screen then I see your point. However, if it was all really cool, fun stuff then why would he do that?

My philosophy has always been to have a DM screen. First, it's nostalgic and cool, especially the original AD&D screen, which I love to use when running my 1st edition stuff. The cool pictures the players get to look at and the player charts are just, well, cool! Second, I like to paperclip my map to the inside of the screen so that it's easy to see. Third, the quick reference charts always make play run smoothly. Fourth, I want to keep my players alive as much as possible and one dumb roll of the die could spell their doom when it shouldn't. That critical hit, which would kill them, can easily be adjusted to a normal hit and just seriously wound them instead. On the other hand, I rarely, if ever, adjust the dice in favor of the monsters, but if the entire adventure is just a big cake-walk and they are not being challenged then I might do a little dice fixing to at least make it interesting. Now, I couldn't do any of these things without a screen and concealed dice rolls. So, I will always use a screen and conceal my rolls unless I am caught without one for some reason.

I think the point is that, when one sees the roll, one can trust that what the dice say really is going to happen, for weal or woe, and that the judge is not simply going to fudge to make things occur in the way he deems best. With so many recent games openly advocating such fudging, it is a refreshing change.

Now, I use a GM Screen, too. I have all sorts of notes, maps, and scratch paper with contents I do not want easily seen. Plus, I have charts on the inside of the screen, and cool artwork on the outside. I love using a screen. But I stand up a lot more when I am running games now, and I roll in front of the screen.