D&D General Should players be aware of their own high and low rolls?

[Charlaquin]

So ... I'm just willfully ignorant and can't possibly imagine the greatness of your works. It's great that it works for you. That's great. It wouldn't work for me because I've tried things that are similar and I know how I reacted. Even if I hadn't it's insulting to say that I could not possibly imagine it.

I said no such thing.

P.S. I'm done.

Fair enough.

 

[Charlaquin]

It’s hilarious that you think you couldn’t possibly be mistaken in some way.

What??? No, I asked if Oofta thought they couldn’t possibly be mistaken, in the same specific way that I was mistaken previously.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's one thing to like a style of play. The game is quite flexible that way. But to continuously insist that your preferred style is better, that you can't possibly know what you'll think unless you try it as well gets old.

Not once in this conversation have I claimed, let alone insisted, that my preferred style is better, nor that you couldn’t possibly know if you’ll like it. I have explained why I prefer it, and I have said it’s possible that you might like it if you tried it.

 

[aia_2]

Sorry, i didn't manage to read all the replies of this topic, i focused on the original post only.

This is an in-game situation which i always felt bad being either the DM or the player...

This is one of the reasons (there are actually more that this one) that led me to rethink the way to build an rpg model... i started nearly 20 years ago and now i am very close to a first result!

I really hope to have found a key to minimize metagaming... in the next few weeks i should be able to show you how...

 

[aia_2]

Ps and BTW, the answer is no! Players should not access to overall results of their checks... in the game i wrote i hopefully have found a way to 'cut' the link between the roll of the player and the final result of the check...

 

[Maxperson]

Well, no, the point of a trap is to protect something, usually something valuable.

It protects by killing those who come to take it, not by being easily seen and giving the robbers a chance to disarm it.

A good trap needs to be identifiable and avoidable by the people who made it, so they can access whatever it’s protecting.

This is wrong. They just need to know where it is so that they can avoid it. They don't need to be able to identify it, so there's zero need for it to be visible or telegraphed.

This is enough reason to make telegraphs plausible. The positive gameplay outcomes telegraphs lead to are enough reason to use them.

The traps that should be telegraphed are the ones that are old and have left signs, like the ones in Indiana Jones when he's on the way to get the golden idol.

And not giving any indication of their presence defeats their gameplay purpose.

The gameplay purpose is to sap resources, not to be seen and disarmed.

 

[Maxperson]

But really, the underlying issue is one of your priors is that "metagaming is bad" which comes from older editions of the game up to and including D&D 3e, if memory serves. If you're not willing to consider that it actually doesn't matter at all, then it seems to me it's going to be very difficult for you to see any other point of view.

The same if you're not willing to consider that it matters a lot. That's the thing with metagaming. Whether it matters or not is entirely opinion based, not some sort of objective thing that you can point to and say that it doesn't matter at all because X, Y and Z.

For you it doesn't matter. For @overgeeked and myself it matters a lot. None of us is wrong about that. We just can't try to apply our views to the other side, because that's when it fails.

 

[Maxperson]

I would say the lack of dust on the section of floor is a sufficient telegraph for the illusory floor trap, or would have been, if you had actually mentioned it in your description. If the dust in the rest of the hall was heavy enough that non-trackers could tell at a glance nobody had been there, it should be heavy enough that its absence on a section of the floor should be conspicuous at a glance to non-trackers as well.

Why do you assume that the illusion doesn't contain the illusion of dust?

 

[Charlaquin]

Why do you assume that the illusion doesn't contain the illusion of dust?

I don’t, @Lanefan said it didn’t.

 

[Li Shenron]

This is a concept that keeps resurfacing in my head every now and then, should the players be made aware or not of their own and each other’s dice rolls in certain situations? Are there certain situations that by all logic should remain a mystery to me if I actually succeeded or not but that 19 showing on my D20 all but confirms I’ve got it well in hand, that the dice tells us more about the results than by any rights they should.

TL DR; are there situations where players shouldn’t be made aware of the results of their own dice because even just knowing they rolled high or low reveals information they shouldn’t have and might affect their decision making?

Consider the classic scenario: I’m trying to bluff a guard at the gates, “we’re just a group of humble travelers seeking refuge for the night” you roll your dice and...it’s a 3, but now you know it’s a 3 you know you flubbed, The guard is turning back inside to call someone else probably, crap! Quick get the wizard to cast charm person on them!

But should you really know that the guard wasn’t fooled in that situation, and if you didn’t know you failed why did you cast charm person? How many times would people just stand there and let the results play out?

It’s metagaming, but i think it’s such a minor and commonplace form of it that we often don’t recognise it as such, We’re so accustomed to knowing all our own rolls that the idea of not knowing them seems entirely alien.

Did we fail our investigations in this office or was there just nothing to find? Did you disarm the trap with your thieves tools or is it still active? Did you correctly identify these flowers as either medicinal or poisonous? Did the rogue just succeed their death saving throw or roll a crit 1?

So should there be more situations where players aren’t clued in to their own rolls for more natural reactions? What are your thoughts?

I just go with the traditional way of having players always roll their PC's stuff on the table, and DM rolls behind the screen most of the time (but not necessarily always).

Seeing what you rolled means you get a feeling about your performance, which is quite realistic. But you still normally don't see the DC or the opponent's result.

It happens countless of times to roll low and succeed or roll high and fail, just like IRL you misjudge your performance, get away with a mediocre effort, or fail despite doing your best.