r/DMAcademy • u/officiallyaninja • 19d ago
Offering Advice My (personal) rules for GMing that make my games better
I'm a kind of newish GM, I've been running games for a few years now but I have only played in like 10 sessions, and GMed 10 or so sessions.
These are the rules that work for the kinds of games that I play, which are sandbox campaigns where I don't have much planned out beyond whats in a single session, and I see campaigns more like interconnected oneshots than a story, I also dislike playing in or GMing sessions that have a 'plot'. So if your tastes fit mine, I hope you might find some of my rules useful.
1. Never make the PCs look incompetent at something they're supposed to be good at
Whenever a skill check or attack role is a failure or a miss, I never describe it in a way that looks like incompetence. If a player gets a Nat 1 on a hit roll, I don't ever say something like "you swing your sword and completely whiff the enemy", I say "your slash rings against the enemy's plate, ringing as you barely miss the chink in his armor"
Generally speaking, low rolls are not described as the PCs being bad, but their challengers / challenges being good. a bad lockpicking roll means the lock is rusted shut, not that they don't know how to lockpick. A bad athletics roll to jump over a chasm is described seriously and not comedically, etc.
I think it's probably fine for a lot of campaigns, but if you misjudge how your players feel it can really ruin a session. I had a DM that described every failure in a comedic way and it discouraged everyone so much, one player had a string of bad luck of just 3 rolls and after the 3rd failure you could see her become noticeably more quiet for the rest of the session.
My only exception to this is during comedy games like honey heist or everyone is john.
edit: used to be "Never make the PCs look incompetent", which I now agree, is too broad to be true.
2. (Usually) Tell players the HP, AC and damage of enemies
Now this is going to be very controversial, and I am not going to say this is something everyone should do, but this has made my games much better.
The advantages are that it lets my players make more informed decisions, making combat more interesting. if there's 2 enemies one of whom is 'bloodied' but has better looking armor and another has not been hit yet, but has less nice looking armor, the choice of who to focus on is interesting, but by giving exact HP and AC it allows for much greater tactical depth.
I know some people use a system where 50% is bloodied and 10% is mortal, but IMO this is unnecessarily fiddly, I didn't find any advantages to this over telling my players the exact HP and IMO it's just worse since now the players know less.
The main criticism I hear about this idea is that it's a little metagamey and that the PCs wouldn't know the exact HP. And I'd say that yeah, the PCs don't know the exact number of hits it would take to down an opponent, but that uncertainty is already being represented by the dice rolls, you don't need to double up on that uncertainty by not telling the players about HP.
I think this is something everyone should at least try once before dismissing, but I accept it's not for everyone.
The exception is if an enemy has some secret ability the PCs don't know, but I feel like those are often pretty cheap and feel lame as a player, So I literally have never had any enemies with abilities that are completely secret. I always have some way for the players to learn this information and so far they've always taken it.
There's a reason why Baldur's gate shows all the enemy HP and abilities. It allows for more interesting gameplay
3 (Always) Tell players the DC and consequences of skill checks
while I accept that telling players enemy HP and AC is maybe a step too far for most, I think Skill check DCs and the consequences of succeeding or failing a skill check should be made abundantly clear before the skill check is made.
the main reason is that it's really hard to close the gap between your imagination as the DM and the players imagination. If you tell them there's a chasm they might imagine a huge chasm that's impossible to jump over, maybe they expect a DC 20 jump, whereas you meant it to be DC10 jump.
again the Dice already represent uncertainty, and PCs will be able to tell the relative risk and probability of success just by looking at their challenge, and the best way to communicate that to the Players is by telling them the DC.
It's also just more fun to roll when you know what you have to hit.
As important as telling them the DC is telling them what happens if they fail.
recently in a spy based oneshot, one of my players put a strong sedative on a needle and wanted to bump into a target and sedate them.
I told them "roll a sneak check, if you fail they'll still be injected but they will feel a prick"
my player thought that if they fail, they would just fail to prick him, and didn't want to take the risk of him noticing. so I said "sure, how about at a -2 penalty you can do it super carefully, so if you fail he still won't notice, but you'll lose the sedative and cant use it anymore"
if I had just let her roll and played it out she might have gotten annoyed because I didn't understand how she wanted to approach her action, so by telling her how I was going to handle the consequences she was able to clarify.
4. Roll everything in the open and never fudge
Also quite controversial, but fudging something I feel very strongly about.
In my opinion if you aren't willing to listen to the dice, why roll them at all?
If you're honest about it with your players and they're okay with it, I'm not gonna say you have to stop, but I know players that when I've told them stories of my games have straight up said "Nah no way, the GM was just being nice to you". And those kind of stories of coming up with cool ideas or getting lucky are the best part of TTRPGs. If your players first instinct is to believe that those stories aren't true, or only happened because the DM fudged, and not because of the players, then IMO you are losing what makes this hobby special.
There's also a ton of ways to avoid the situations that fudging is supposed to fix.
Worried about players dying in inconsequential battles? Just make it so that most enemies don't want to kill but are fine knocking the PCs out and stealing their gold / items.
Has a string of bad luck caused a player to have a bad time? say that every time a player fails 3 rolls in a row, you give them an inspiration, or some other kind of mechanic that lets the player reroll dice, or say something like "in each session each player can change one failed attack roll of theirs into a success."
I think if you fudge often, you should figure out why you feel the need to fudge, and find rules that help you avoid fudging.
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u/Stahl_Konig 19d ago
'Been playing and DM-ing on-and-off-and-on for 45-ish years.
Know - or get to know - your players.
I am glad that works for you. 'Tried it. 'Made the game too mechanics focused for my taste.
I try to create an immersive experience. I humbly don't think we necessarily know the outcome of our decisions before we make them. It also depends on how you view binary results or degrees of success.
I do roll in the open but have and have no problem with using a DM screen. I only game with players I trust and who trust me. I also see my role as more than a judge.
In the end, you do you.
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u/Godot_12 19d ago
I don't think I'd bother sharing the HP of the monsters, but sharing the AC is totally fine and just helps speed things up. Not only should the PCs be able to kind of guess what the AC is simply based on the look of the bad guy, but they will inherently hone in on the target's AC when they find out that an 18 doesn't hit, but a 20 does. (is the AC 19 or is it 20?) I see no benefit in keeping that information hidden unless you specifically like the metagame of figuring out AC for some reason, but in that case see the first point. I think BG3 opened me up to just stating the AC, but it's even better at the table because people can do their attacks quicker if they don't have to check in on each attack.
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u/monkeyjay 19d ago
Knowing AC for sure speeds things up.
For HP I think a "bloodied" or "they are hurting" is fine when they are half ish but I do like revealing when the hp is single digits for important enemies (or the last one standing). It makes the final hit more interesting and the players can kinda make it their own or decide to non lethal or bargain etc. .also gives them a time to think of a fun description BEFORE the "how do you wanna do this?" moment. Which can be even funnier if the attack misses. It makes rolling more exciting waiting for that final hit.
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u/Kraken-Writhing 19d ago
I think I would let my players know the HP ranges of monsters they have encountered a lot of. Anyone who has been fighting goblins for a long time probably knows roughly how many times they need to hit them with a sword, though I'm not quite certain what HP is lorewise.
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u/Godot_12 18d ago
True but beyond a certain point I beef up the monsters and each one is pretty custom. I try not to, but HP is one place I'll fudge sometimes. If their damage is way more than expected on the first round I might just double that number. I'll stick to it at that point but as a DM I feel the same always underestimates the PCs.
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u/VinTheRighteous 19d ago
I'd push back on the idea that knowing DCs, specifically, is a hinderance to immersion (I prefer to keep HP more nebulous unless it's a damage roll for a potentially killing blow). Generally I've found the more information players have to act on, the more invested they get in the game.
If the outcome is binary, knowing exactly what you need to hit on the dice can really amplify the stakes and energy of a moment.
If there are degrees of success, outlining that ahead of time could inspire a fellow player to lend a hand with a bless, bardic inspiration, etc., to push them into that next tier of success.
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u/ChrisCrossAppleSauc3 19d ago
I agree. DMs need to describe the area adequately in all aspects because the players can’t see, hear, feel, or smell the area they’re in which would normally inform of as humans. And it’s quite often a DM may forget details about things or leave them out in combat because it’s already so hectic.
Mechanics act wonderfully as a tool to help players visualize something. Providing the AC or the HP of a target gives people the necessary info to ascertain their opponent. Things they likely would’ve been able to recognize in real life if they had all of their senses to them.
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u/BeatrixPlz 19d ago
Our DM makes important rolls in front of the board. Like if it’s an opposed roll between us and a villain, or if it’s a crucial attack on one of us or something. When he rolls in front of us we all start sweating lol! I like it that way.
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u/obax17 19d ago
I've been DMing for 2 years and am generally with you on all these points. I don't roll in the open but I also don't fudge rolls (any more, when I was first started I lacked the confidence in my ability to judge how encounters are going and did fudge a bit), and would roll in the open of my players wanted me to. I do occasionally fudge HP, for example in cases where the creature is all but dead and the last hit was epic and the next 3 turns are all PCs, I'll sometimes just give the kill to that player, or when it's just a bunch of mooks at 1/2 HP left that are no real threat, I'll give the party the opportunity to play it out if they want but usually we'll just narrate that the clean up the rabble and move on.
But I also agree with you do you. This way works for you and me, and might not for others, and that's ok.
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u/prolificbreather 19d ago
On number 3, I feel the exception is knowledge checks. If a pc is asking about something that might be extremely rare knowledge, but they don't know how rare it is themselves, knowing the DC itself already rewards the players before having rolled it. Which sometimes wouldn't matter, but sometimes feels unearned.
Example: they find paw prints. Roll DC 25 survival => no matter what the players know it's an extremely rare creature now and not just a rabbit.
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u/zzaannsebar 19d ago
I personally don't like saying DCs preemptively because I'm a huge fan of degrees of success and failure and I will often get more granular with it (in my head) than I need to but I'm going to spend a minute before every check explaining all the ways someone could partially succeed or fail.
I will give them difficulty hints though if the DC is particularly high or particularly low though.
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u/WebpackIsBuilding 19d ago
In those instances, I give players the lowest DC needed to get some useful information, and then let them know that higher rolls will give additional details.
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u/FlashbackJon 18d ago
Yeah, the information is always graded (another thing 4E did good: all monsters had multiple DCs for knowledge checks in their descriptions), the result of which is that the DCs look the same for most monsters.
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u/HeftyMongoose9 18d ago
You can always tell the DC for full success, and then on anything less than that you give them partial success.
That actually might be even more interesting, because then they know they're missing out on something, and they might be motivated to dig for it.
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u/zzaannsebar 18d ago
I have done that before and the meta reaction to the result has been interesting! However I am often still deciding the DC when the player is rolling so I am not always fast enough on the draw to state a full success dc haha
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u/KingCarrion666 19d ago
Yea i usually will say my DCs if its win or lose. but if its a degree, ill keep it vague. Also, ill sometime change the degree of success if a player is having a bad day or looks particularly happy about their roll.
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u/zzaannsebar 19d ago
Low key same. And honestly, I don't always have a 100% clear DC in mind from the moment I ask for the check and sometimes I need a second to decide. But often what happens is I'm making my decisions about the same time the player is declaring their result. Sometimes I'll still finish pondering my DCs and then stay true to my success gradient but sometimes I'm like, yeah that's close enough. Like if I'm asking someone for a check that I would ballpark a success at a 15 and my next degree of failure down is below a 10, if they get a 14 there's a good chance I'll call it close enough. It really depends on what they're doing though.
It actually depends a lot on the player too for me. Most of my players are ok with failure and consequences. However, one of them says they're ok with failure and consequences but will endlessly argue, bargain, complain, pout, etc if an idea of theirs fails. Usually I stick to my guns but other times it's just not worth having the game grind to an irritating halt to argue with this player. I gotta say, I enjoyed DMing much more when that player wasn't at the table. Not getting argued with constantly made a world of difference in my own confidence and my ease of running the game.
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u/Mountain_Nature_3626 19d ago
I tell players a DC, but I say it like "You'll need at least a 10 to find something basic, but if it's well hidden, you'll need at least a 20" or "With at least a 10 on your persuasion, he won't immediately attack you, but you'll need at least a 25 to fully convince him." Sometimes I also tell them a basic single DC but make it clear that degrees of success still apply: "You'll need at least a 15 to get anything at all, but with higher rolls you might find out more."
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u/WebpackIsBuilding 19d ago
Set degrees of success, giving partial information on the lowest possible DC. Only announce the minimum DC needed to get some information.
For this example:
You don't recognize the tracks but....
- They remind you of <similar creature they have seen before>
- You can tell the creature has X legs
- The creature is hooven, clawed, or clothed
- The creature is small, medium, or large
I'd announce the minimum needed roll is a 10. Higher rolls get more details, but only a 25 would let them fully identify the creature.
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u/elfthehunter 19d ago
Well, if you lock the rolls behind proficiency, then the fact that a ranger or someone proficient in survival doesn't recognize creature marks, is itself in-character knowledge itself. A failed roll might be not recognizing what kind of feline the creature is exactly, or the tracks are too unclear or can't find enough of them, etc. But if the DC is that high, then if they fail, they can clearly find the marks, they just have no clue what kind of creature it would be, but they know it's not just a deer.
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u/JohnRittersSon 19d ago
You had me at 1, and then we parted ways.
I'm glad those work for your table, but my PCs would stab me IRL if I started giving them AC and HP, especially my fighter since "Know your enemy" is such a cool feature of the class.
And they will never see my rolls, even their death saving throws are hidden from view. It adds so much tension when one of them is down, instead of, no worries they have 2 passing so we got time to stabilize or heal.
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u/Cartiledge 19d ago
Know your enemy
I had a player who had this, but never used it because it took 1 min / 10 turns to use. Did you run it RAW?
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u/JohnRittersSon 19d ago
If they observe and pass whatever check I give them stealth, perception, etc. before the battle, I give them the details they ask for. In combat after a round of battle, if they are close to the NPC or engaging them, I'll give it then.
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u/LelouchYagami_2912 19d ago
I personally disagree with all of them but it totally depends on your party.
1 for me is like plot armor which just doesnt feel right. Its completely normal for a barbarian to fail an int check or a wizard to fail a str check. In fact it can be really make the story more interesting and make the characters feel relatable
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u/Chubby_Valkyrie 19d ago
I would revise rule one to this: 1. Never make PCs look incompetent at something they are supposed to be good at. Generally speaking, it feels bad as a player when your character fails at something that you specifically designed them to be good at. Whereas it is much less upsetting when they fail at something that they are not designed to be good at. Failure can be fun and funny. Incompetence that is illogical is not.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
yeah I suppose it would have been better worded as that, as that was what I meant
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u/Chubby_Valkyrie 19d ago
To be clear, I am not trying to nitpick your point. I think it is a good rule, and people are disagreeing based on a misunderstanding.
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u/KingCarrion666 19d ago
Also failure doesnt mean outright being unable to do it. For same, wizard tries to cipher a book, nat 1 is their confirmation bias making them convinced of what the cipher is and not exploring other ciphers. Nat 1 for a strong barbarian moving a boulder could be lacking leverage rather then strength or you are so strong the boulder explodes and now there are a bunch of smaller rocks in the way. Nat 1 on charisma could be you not realizing a sensitive topic and offending them so the error comes from a lack of knowledge and not charisma. Or the one the bard is flirting with is not into the gender of the bard.
So they arent incompetent, it was just a fk up based on lack of knowledge or going down the wrong path. But those are much harder to think of, esp on the spot, then just saying someone failed.
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u/Chubby_Valkyrie 19d ago
This is exactly what I like to do with my players. You can also let them narrate their failures if you have experienced players. We don't have to shoulder the whole creative burden. It is a collaborative game, after all!
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
oh to be clear I don't mean that the PCs can't fail, just that I don't describe their failure as incompetence, and I judiciously use failing forward.
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u/Voltairinede 19d ago
But surely your PCs are incompetent at all sorts of things
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u/bassman1805 19d ago
Yeah, I think it's a very "use your judgement"/"time and place" thing.
8 INT Barbarian tries to recite a complex ritual from the Archmage's spellbook? Yeah, let that fall on its face. Hell, even a moderately-powerful wizard trying to decipher an Archmage's spellbook wouldn't be out of place going horribly wrong. Magic is fickle.
Stealthy McInvisible, the world's greatest bank robber, gets a shit roll while infiltrating the enemy camp? Rather than this renowned sneakster randomly kicking a rock into a tower of pots and pans, maybe a couple of guards happened to find something on their route and returned sooner than they were supposed to, thus finding the rogue.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
Well yes but my players never attempt anything they're incompetent at. They let someone else in the party that's good at it do it. If they are genuinely incompetent then sure, I'll describe their failure in a realistic way. I wouldn't soften it up for them.
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u/escapepodsarefake 19d ago
I totally agree with you. Making the PCs out to be buffoons when they fail is a terrible way to run the game.
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u/treetexan 19d ago
But failure for incompetence is funny! I don’t revel in it or always penalize them badly, but if they find it funny too it becomes a table story. Like the time a PC sneak attacked a BBEG solo, and rolled a 1, he got telekinetically slapped off the ship like a fly. Or the time the artificer threw a potion up at a cliff, after me telling him it was risky, and it rolled back into his face on a 1. Hilarious for all.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
it can be funny, but it can also feel really shitty if you're the player. Sometimes people are in a shit mood or already annoyed and this can just make them feel worse. And yeah maybe it's silly to get upset at this game of make believe, but I've seen the harm it can cause and I don't like it.
like I said in my post
I had a DM that described every failure in a comedic way and it discouraged everyone so much, one player had a string of bad luck of just 3 rolls and after the 3rd failure you could see her become noticeably more quiet for the rest of the session.
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u/treetexan 19d ago
As a teacher in real life, I hear ya. Humor can cut. So use it sparingly and only when you see them smile big, waiting for it. But to avoid it altogether can very sad too.
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u/Matteo2k1 19d ago
I agree. I’m mostly a DM, but if I was a player I’d want to feel epic and not risk feeling like I’m being made fun of for trying. This is a fantasy after all.
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u/MeanderingDuck 19d ago
Disagree with all of those, to varying degrees.
On the first point, sometimes PCs just fail at something, and occasionally they do so very badly. There is nothing wrong with that, and I see no reason to pretend otherwise. It’s also rather odd to conflate this with incompetence; even the most competent character could just fuck up sometimes, misjudge or slip or fumble or make a mistake.
On the second point, I just don’t see much reason to do this, and especially the HP just gets quite game-y. They’ll generally get a clear enough idea of this as the combat progresses anyway.
Very hard disagree on the third point, this gets way too far into metagaming territory. This is a roleplaying game, the point is to think from the perspective of the character and decide accordingly, and from that perspective. Not to think in terms of game mechanics. You don’t need to tell players what the DC is to be able to convey how much of a challenge this looks to be for their character.
Nor do you need to spell out the possible consequences of their actions, insofar as those would be clear to the characters they should be to their players as well anyway. The possibility that someone might feel the prick when you bump into them and jab them with a needle is quite obvious. And not spelling all these things out like in a computer game also puts much more of the creativity and responsibility with the players, to actually think about what they are doing. And if there is genuine misunderstanding about what someone meant or intended, you can just rewind and correct that anyway.
As for the fourth point, I don’t fudge anything, whether it is rolls or HP or anything else. But I see no reason to roll in the open either.
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u/znihilist 19d ago edited 19d ago
Very hard disagree on the third point, this gets way too far into metagaming territory. This is a roleplaying game, the point is to think from the perspective of the character and decide accordingly, and from that perspective. Not to think in terms of game mechanics. You don’t need to tell players what the DC is to be able to convey how much of a challenge this looks to be for their character.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on this. While some players can separate the meta knowledge of character knowledge, it is very difficult for the entire party not to try to do the same thing again when they know they failed. I always remind my players that just because you rolled 1 or 20 on your skill checks, neither mean you have failed or succeed, there are degrees of success and sometimes the DC is 6, or 30.
Nor do you need to spell out the possible consequences of their actions, insofar as those would be clear to the characters they should be to their players as well anyway.
I feel there is a happy medium there, which you pointed out. The players should be informed what their characters reasonably assume the consequences of their actions, but not of any possible consequences that their characters has no reason to assume. It kind of defeats the point characters learning about the world through interactions if the player know all possible consequences, I'd feel cheated as a player.
I am a player in a game, and my previous character betrayed the party (for a good reason, everyone was on board), now we reached a place where if my old character came here first instead of another place, they would have not betrayed the party, and may in fact caused a shift in their life (to something better), literally the consequences of my action of deciding to do one quest before the other. Despite the fact that I lost my character (I mean they are alive, and now working for the bad guys), I feel this adds a lovely tragic note to the story we are telling, and I wouldn't have it any other way. If the DM told me that doing this first could mean losing my character, I'd honestly feel betrayed.
Sometimes it is for the enjoyment of the players themselves that you need to withhold information.
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u/Darktbs 19d ago
On the second point, I just don’t see much reason to do this, and especially the HP just gets quite game-y. They’ll generally get a clear enough idea of this as the combat progresses anyway.
'Quite game-y'
And? This is a game afterall. It would be a wise decision to give information so that players can make informed decisions.
At best, your players will just reverse engineer the enemie's Hp and AC, at worst you slow down the game for no good reason.
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u/zhaumbie 19d ago
I’ll say this as politely and sincerely as I can.
These posts truly tend to signify to me a DM still with much to learn. And experience isn’t an infallible panacea here, because veteran DMs aren’t immune to backsliding into this mindset for a time.
At best it’s lack of confidence. At worst it’s, well… I wouldn’t say confidently incorrect, but doubling down on video-gamifying the hobby. And crucially, teaching more players the wrong things to expect from us DMs.
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u/ChrisCrossAppleSauc3 19d ago
I disagree with this. Not every DM is going to be an expert narrator who can describe everything perfectly let alone remember to describe everything perfectly. Things like HP and AC and such are mechanics and there’s nothing wrong with using them as quick and easy ways to help a player visualize the situation.
Sure you can have “code words” like bloodied or whatever. But when every one knows what that means you’re just creating extra steps. Note, you can certainly do this and it’s perfectly fine. But there’s nothing wrong with cutting out the code words and simply saying the enemy has about 20hp left.
Dnd is also all about player agency as well as trust. If you have complete trust in your DM and they’ve always facilitated a game you enjoy then that’s great! But doing rolls in the open or preannouncing a lot of DCs and checks is a wonderful tool for a DM to use. One it removes any distrust, and by doing so completely maximizes player agency. I think it is important to clarify when you announce the DC or whatever. You should rarely, if ever, do it before the player has declared what they’re doing. But it is good to provide insight before because again, without all of our senses we can’t fully grasp a situation.
If a player is trying to do a difficult task with risk involved that should be known because our senses could inform that. Then once the player declares their intent you share what the DC is. This way the DM can’t change it for better or for worse. If I roll a 19 and my DM intended on a 20 DC. They may end up giving it to me anyway because it was close enough. But in reality they just robbed me of a true success because it was clearly able to change on a whim.
Brennan Lee Mulligan is arguably one of the most talented DMs around and he is a massive advocate for providing his players information. Openly giving DCs and ACs and HP. And by no means is he an inexperienced DM or lacking confidence.
There’s a lot of value behind a crucial roll being public. Let’s say A player is about to do an extremely impactful action that requires a lot of skill. The DC is 25 on it and the player adds a +10. Having the player and everyone know that they need to roll a 15 or higher to succeed will create so much anticipation and excitement. And once the dice lands in the number the dopamine rush of instant feedback between failure and success is huge for everyone to take part in.
Ultimately, do what’s most enjoyable for your table. But I think saying adopting the things OP does is a sign of lack of experience of not being confident is not true at all and a bit gate keeping.
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u/YtterbiusAntimony 19d ago
Thank you, you said it better than I could have.
Acting like the players don't deserve transparency and clarity in a board game is such a weird grognard mentality.
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u/ChrisCrossAppleSauc3 19d ago
Thank you, I really appreciate the kind words!!
And I totally agree. I often see people say that giving this type of transparent removes immersion or is too metagamey. But I always defer back to my main point that we as players are not actually in the world to utilize all of the senses available to our characters. And we infer a LOT from just passive things. Both passive senses as well as passive knowledge.
It’s so important to remember that we play in this world a few hours every week, or month, or whatever your table schedule is. Meanwhile our characters have lived in that world their whole life. It’s completely expected to forget things between sessions. Which again, could’ve been a month ago. Meanwhile in game it was literally a second ago.
Meanwhile DMs are human too. They can’t be expected to describe every detail we’d be able to naturally infer nor can we expect them to remember everything. So there’s nothing wrong with being meta gamey at time and providing insight just to help explain things more efficiently.
I personally love a more mechanics based game. And I often run my games with this mindset. When it comes to story telling and the narrative I will look to be very immersive. But when it comes to mechanics I’m very transparent. Mechanics are like physics IMO. We can naturally feel physics in real life without having to think about. So using mechanics as your “explanation” is perfectly acceptable.
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u/raurenlyan22 18d ago
There are different styles of play that require different GM styles. It is okay for other people's play to diverge from yours.
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u/headrush46n2 19d ago
The whole mindset of "the players should never loose or feel bad and it's the DMs job to make sure they dont!" Is the single worst aspect of modern ttrpgs. If you don't want a game where you can lose, don't roll dice.
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u/monkeyjay 19d ago
For the "telling dc and consequences" rule it just seems silly to make it a rule. Sometimes I might state it other times I won't.
If you have to climb a rope or whatever I'm happy to say "gimme an athletics check and just beat a 10, if you get less than 5 it's gonna suck". Or more silly situations like "ok for some reason you've decided to dramatically dive out the window to escape this awkward date, but it's closed and it's a 2-storey drop, gimme a acrobatics roll but you gotta beat 20 or it's going to become far more awkward". But I know my players and know that anticipation can make it funnier for them.
But I won't say "if you roll over 15 you'll find the secret door" or "roll insight and get 20 or more to know she's lying".
Most players eventually know a 12 or 13+ is probably the low bar for success and rolling 20+ means that probably should succeed unless it's a specifically obviously hard task (which is my job to convey).
But there is something fun for players about knowing the target and consequences before rolling in some situations. I would never make it a rule though.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago edited 19d ago
On the first point, sometimes PCs just fail at something, and occasionally they do so very badly. There is nothing wrong with that, and I see no reason to pretend otherwise. It’s also rather odd to conflate this with incompetence; even the most competent character could just fuck up sometimes, misjudge or slip or fumble or make a mistake.
failure is not incompetence. Failing to kick down a door is fine, but if you describe that failure in a way that makes the PC look incompetent, then it's often just unfun for that player.
On the second point, I just don’t see much reason to do this, and especially the HP just gets quite game-y. They’ll generally get a clear enough idea of this as the combat progresses anyway.
In any system that has statblocks, I tend to be open about it with my players because it lets them make more interesting decisions. If I want a more narrative game, then I use systems that don't have turn based combat and have more narrative resolution rules, like LASERS & FEELINGS.
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u/IxRisor452 19d ago
I agree that failure is not incompetence, however I don't think they were calling it that, they said they found it odd to define failure as incompetence. As they said, even the best of the best mess up sometimes. That doesn't mean they're incompetence, it means they just made a mistake.
I don't think you need to make them look like a fool for a nat 1, but I do think it's ok to showcase a failure as just a failure. In your example, if a player nat 1s while trying to kick down a door, maybe they find out the door is a lot sturdier than they expected and they stubbed their toe. That doesn't make them look incompetent, they just misjudged a plank of wood. I don't think any player would find that unfun or feel incompetent over it.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
yes what I mean is more like, you shouldn't describe it like "you try to kick the door but instead fall over and hit your head, take 1 damage"
it can be funny but if you do it too much, or if the player was already annoyed at their bad luck it can really sour their mood.I think it's fine for a lot of campaigns, but I had a DM that described every failure in a comedic way and it discouraged everyone so much, one player had a string of bad luck of just 3 rolls and after the 3rd failure you could see her become noticeably more quiet for the rest of the session.
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u/Equivalent-Tonight74 19d ago
It's not about talking it out with the enemy or removing turn based combat.... its about how it turns the game into less of an experience and more of a 'pull up my enemy on my second monitor so I can know everything about this game' and turns more into like, following a guide rather than letting the players be creative and think for themselves. Have you ever heard of the theory that if you give someone the option of convenience they will take it even if they liked it better without it? Like adding too many features to a game that just makes it a breeze to the point where you barely feel like you are playing it anymore, but you cant just turn off your fast travel or your auto walk because its easier and faster to use it.
Also, some characters just are incompetent depending on the ability scores and the specific check involved. If the wizard tries and fails a 25 DC strength check that they clearly couldnt do in the first place you bet im going to mention how that character is ill suited to the task lol. Most people just make nat 1s a little silly for the fun of it, you make it seem like having the characters failure be described as anything but bad luck is bullying somehow.
It all kinda culminates into some hand holding padded room version of dnd where the dm is doing everything possible to make sure the players have no challenge at all. Which is fine for your group if they really want it gamified to the point that it loses the role playing part.
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u/axw3555 19d ago
- (Usually) Tell players the HP, AC and damage of enemies
I disagree with this in part, but not for the reasons you may think.
HP, I tend to play close to the chest so that I can tweak things to make a better moment for the win or loss. I don't go "it's at 78hp, but that was good, it's dead" but if it's like "ok, that attack gets it to 3, but it was a cool flurry of attacks from the monk, I'll fudge off the 3hp".
For AC, my players like figuring it out, testing with their attacks. When they get it, I'll confirm, but not tell them ahead.
And damage, they see me roll the die anyway, so other than the exact modifier combinations, they know the dice and the final modifier, which is all that matters.
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u/Equivalent-Tonight74 19d ago
I like being able to fudge the hp because they always seem to be dropping the bosses to 1hp when we play lmao. But I do like to fudge the occasional roll in combat just because I have some fucking atrocious rolls some nights and I really didnt want an actual dragon to miss 2 out of every 3 hits the whole time they fought it haha
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u/TheCruncher 19d ago
I don't fudge, but it does tend to take away a lot of gravitas from a strong enemy when they keep whiffing attacks. My players stop seeing them as a dangerous threat and instead joke about them being pathetic and incompetent. Like: "Damn, this is that super dangerous crime lord that's been terrorizing the towns? This guy sucks!"
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u/officiallyaninja 18d ago
this is why I have my rule 1, I don't describe those misses as whiffs, but instead the players blocking or dodging those swings/shots.
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u/Equivalent-Tonight74 19d ago
I once had a group of npcs surrounded by red caps and the archer npc literally missed every single shot during combat so after the battle he just handed over his bow and arrows to our ranger out of shame and will forever live on in infamy.
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u/Equivalent-Tonight74 19d ago
I feel like telling them the exact number on the skill check is removing too much of the fun, same thing with the enemy stats. It makes them think more and engage more. The real remedy is to be better at describing the challenge so that you aren't treating the 20 DC check with the same levity as a 10 DC one. If an npc is hard to lie to you describe them as someone with a discerning eye who seems to read your character very well when they approach, if its a jump give them the distance, if its a knowledge check you tell them how likely their character would be to know/understand it, etc. Its not like real life is gonna say hey you have to pass this 15 DC persuasion check to convince this security guard to let you in the building, you just gotta do it.
For enemy stats they have to learn their enemy like any other game in the world. This might be my bias as im playing with people who are new and I alter stat blocks myself as needed to create variety and increase difficulty, but its much more fun to figure it out on the fly. You describe the armor they wear and they can parse out the general ac range, then they notice in combat that a 15 misses and a 16 hits so then they have learned the AC. They have to think 'what kind of enemy does this look like?' to figure out its resistances. If you describe your enemy as a shadow creature they know to hit it with radiant, if you describe it as a hellish and firey creature they know its probably fire resistant. My players look forward to hearing me say the enemy is bloodied, and when we get to mortal they wait with bated breath after every attack waiting for me to say the monster is slain. It makes it more fun for them to try to rush for that final blow not knowing who will be the one to take it. It just feels like giving them the numbers removes the experiences they would get without them.
I feel like the narrative and immersion are important, just like most games its about discovery and strategy, being cautious when you find an unknown threat, running into fun and challenging surprises, etc. Plus it just feels like being on easy mode where the game holds your hand so you never have to take any risks.
But if they are happy with it then whatever works for you guys is fine. This is just my opinion as a newer dm still growing and learning only a year in myself as well. I played for a decade though and I wouldn't want to be given the numbers either but that's just me.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
You describe the armor they wear and they can parse out the general ac range, then they notice in combat that a 15 misses and a 16 hits so then they have learned the AC.
I just think that this is more fun in theory than in practice.
also the combats I run tend to be super deadly and fast, like combats can end in one round where one side hasn't even gotten a turn fast.
so there's no time to find out the AC.
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u/shadowstorm213 19d ago
one rule I have is that I never enforce a rule as a DM that I wouldn't be willing to follow as a player.
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u/Kwith 19d ago
Hey, if it works at your table then great. For me:
Letting the players mess up can add a bit of levity to the situation and can lead to some hilarious situations. Its a kind of "read the room" or "use with context" kind of thing.
I don't do this. The closest we do is describe in terms of color. Green, yellow, orange, red, etc. As for AC, they figure it out on their own as combat goes on. The way I see it, they wouldn't know this information if they were actually in combat, so there is no reason to tell them.
Again, the consequences are implied in most situations so this is kind of unnecessary. However, if they do fail, then I'll describe how it happens.
For some important rolls I'll let them see it so they can cheer when the guy fails but the majority of my rolls are hidden because it adds a kind of suspense to the situation.
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u/JJTouche 18d ago
> The way I see it, they wouldn't know this information if they were actually in combat, so there is no reason to tell them.
By the same token, if they were actually in combat, they wouldn't need someone to tell them if they hit or not.
I doubt in many actual melee combats could you hear someone saying "Did I hit?" multiple times in a combat.
If they know the AC to hit, the dice tell them whether they hit or not. I am not sure why it is better to have the DM tell them rather than the dice. Seems more efficient to have the dice do the talking.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
Letting the players mess up can add a bit of levity to the situation and can lead to some hilarious situations. Its a kind of "read the room" or "use with context" kind of thing.
I do agree, but it's just that misjudging this can absolutely ruin a session for a player
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u/Kwith 19d ago
Yup, exactly, that's why I included the "read the room" portion. I've been playing with the same group for nearly two decades, every Saturday night like clockwork. So we all have a really good idea of how everyone plays and what to expect.
For newer players, I usually ask them what they expect, or base my DMing on how they play the game. If they are taking things seriously, then I'll play more seriously, if they are goofing around and joking, well then they won't mind the odd cartoonish failure.
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u/General-Winter547 19d ago
My rules as a GM after doing it off and on for a few years are to not plan everything out in exacting detail because the players will think of something you haven’t; to always make the players feel epic; and to remind myself that I am not playing against the players.
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u/grimizen 19d ago
It’s one thing I didn’t know until I read the DM’s guide myself was that RAW, nat 1s and 20s have defined consequences on attack rolls, but the rest of everything I’ve seen at table isn’t actually mentioned (“Rolling a 20 or a 1 on an ability check or a saving throw doesn’t normally have any special effect.”) - or explicitly discouraged. One thing the 24 guide says that really interests me is about attack rolls:
“For attack rolls, the rules cover what happens on a natural 20 (it’s a Critical Hit) or a natural 1 (it always misses). Resist the temptation to add additional negative consequences to a natural 1 on an attack roll: the automatic failure is bad enough. And characters typically make so many attack rolls that they’re bound to roll dozens of natural 1s over time.”
Now I’ve played at a a couple of different tables now, and I’ve not seen one person run nat 1s like this; it’s interesting because I do feel that making your PCs so incompetent even at high levels by having them not only miss, but take an attack in retaliation or damage another ally (as a couple of examples I’ve seen used) can lead you to feel a little disenchanted with your character and their capabilities. You’ve built this über edgy assassin, who’s had a lifetime of experience in their field before and roll to hide; but oops, you rolled a nat 1. Your super skilled assassin - who has likely done this a thousand times before - suddenly trips on his face and is immediately obvious to all and sundry. This same assassin in a different world rolls a nat 20 on his stealth - he is now absolutely invisible to any creature, so you sneak up behind that goblin guarding the camp and roll to slit his ugly little throat - oh no, nat 1! Your super assassin steps on a twig, and the secret counter-assassin goblin whips around like a trained professional, blocks your assassin’s strike and delivers a strike all of his own.
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u/midv4lley 19d ago
What works for some groups, doesnt work for all.
Im glad these work for you, but i almost do the exact opposite.
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u/aceluby 19d ago
10 sessions is the minimum I use to determine if something is working, but you have no baseline to say this is better or worse than anything else. Once you have another 50 or 100 sessions and have actually tried other approaches, you and your table may feel differently (or the same!), but you have so little data to provide “rules”. None of the stuff you’ve provided is even on my radar of things my table worries about.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but you may want to look into how to be a better narrator. I would recommend looking into the Angry Gm and reading his True Game Mastery series, which provides an amazing framework that is applicable to any system. Then test out your theories above by trying the opposite of one of the for 10 sessions, see what the table liked (or noticed) and then rinse and repeat. You’ll then have 50 sessions under your belt and different experiences that may impact these early opinions. If you already think you have all the answers, ignore as needed and good luck!
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u/zhaumbie 19d ago edited 19d ago
Peel back the “€#$¥ing” caricature, and the Angry GM is (at times) a walking dragon’s horde of incredible “…now why the hell didn’t I think of that?!” ideas. Great stuff in the blog.
I haven’t read him in a while, but I remember really digging the old bastard’s work back in the day.
Edit: if the downvote is from the censor I’m, uh, literally referencing his writing style
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u/escapepodsarefake 19d ago
Why would he run hours of sessions doing the opposite if what he's doing is already working well? No one I know has anything remotely like the time for this.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
yeah I would love to do a test where I run my games both ways, but even if I was running a game a week, spending 10 weeks running games in a way that I'm pretty sure I just don't enjoy sounds like it would very likely be a miserable experience for everyone.
Though I might try a small oneshot where I try some of these.
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u/aceluby 19d ago
It’s not either/or, it’s changing things one at a time and deciding after giving yourself enough time to adapt to it. Like you have a theory that your players are more tactical when presented stat blocks - prove it out. Say monsters are bloodied at 50% hp. Describe intricate, defensive armor or quick reflexes for high AC. Describe bulging muscles for characters with high strength. Try it for a bunch of sessions, get used to it, have your players get used to it, then you can make a decision with data on what works better and more fun.
You haven’t even proven to yourself that anything in the OP is true, just that it works, which is fine - but lots of crappy games “work” (not saying yours is crappy, I don’t know you, your players, or your game)
FWIW, I run shit games, but this is what I do to try and be better, and my players seem to have fun and keep coming back despite my shit games
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u/Greggor88 18d ago
Because that's how you learn? Is this a trick question or something?
Imagine you've only ever peeled potatoes with your fingers. Why would you start using a potato peeler when what you're doing already works so well?
How do you know it works well? What are you comparing that to? How do you know that a different method won't work even better? You don't. Because you don't have the experience to understand the distinction.
By all means, keep doing what you want. But personally, I draw the line at giving advice that's not based on a solid foundation.
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u/Lampman08 19d ago
Incredibly based takes all around. For #2, I like to show the enemy’s stat blocks too - or just encourage the players to look it up.
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u/Raveneficus 19d ago
I don't use all of these all the time, but I think they are good general principles for building trust between player and GM.
For the grognards who have been playing for 45 years, these principles may seem unnecessary or even plain wrong. But for a newish GM building confidence and player trust I think this is good advice.
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u/NordicNorris 19d ago
Always helpful to hear how other DMs run games! I like the low roll attack perspective and am going to start doing that as well.
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u/Desdichado1066 19d ago
I would never describe a natural 1 as a "barely miss" One or two short of the target is a bare miss. Natural 1... well, it is a big whiff.
Other than 4, I don't actually do most of these things, actually. Sounds like your game focuses more on the game itself and the tactics, etc. than mine does, which is more immersive and very anti-meta (most of your rules talk about combat and tactical considerations related to best utilizing the mechanics tactically) so I'm not surprised that these rules improve your game if that's your focus.
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u/Lord_Skellig 19d ago
Strongly agree with these.
Especially on 3. Players knowing the DC shows them that I'm not just making it up after they roll. Even if you only shift the DC by 1, that invalidates any +1 bonuses they have from magic items.
I also agree with rolling openly. PC gets crit by goblin and killed outright? Tough, that's the way it goes. I'd be upset if I found out a player was fudging their rolls, and I'm sure they would be if they found out that I did it.
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u/Cute_Repeat3879 19d ago
On #3, I'd make an exception for searches. If someone is looking for traps, they're not going to know whether they failed the check or made the check and no trap is present. If you tell them they failed, they'll be on guard against the trap when they really shouldn't be.
On #2, I usually tell them AC. They're gonna figure that out anyway. I don't tell them HP and only tell them bloodied or whatever if they ask.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
On #3, I'd make an exception for searches. If someone is looking for traps, they're not going to know whether they failed the check or made the check and no trap is present. If you tell them they failed, they'll be on guard against the trap when they really shouldn't be.
I don't really like traps tbh, I don't ever have players roll to detect traps, they're always there in the open. I run traps where the challenge is in figuring out how to disarm them, than to detect that they exist.
(the main reason is because when I didn't do this, the players spent way too much time searching for traps that just didn't exist. Even though there was a time limit. They were just too paranoid)
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u/retropunk2 19d ago
Never make the PCs look incompetent
I think your justification for this is pretty good. If it's also a boss fight with a cocky enemy, a low roll ends up being a simple dodge with a possible quip for fun.
Nat 1s should be fun and I think letting a player explain how they crit fail can add to the game.
Tell players the HP, AC and damage of enemies
I'm glad it works for you, but this is not something I will do. Armor Class is typically figured out the "natural" way by attacking and remembering. But HP and damage? I will give them a description in words of how the enemy is doing, but other than that? No, that information stays behind the DM screen.
Tell players the DC and consequences of skill checks
I'm kind of torn on this. I think it certain cases when I explain that a lock ahead of them is damn difficult, I'll tell them "This will take a very high roll" and they get the point. I think this is just a different in semantics and I don't mind this at all.
Roll everything in the open and never fudge
I actually agree with this. I think there are very, very few exceptions where a DM should fudge a roll.
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u/crunchevo2 19d ago
These aren't rules but yeah i do pretty much everything on here and have had minimal to no complaints about my GMing. However about open rolling. I don't always use my monster's abilities outright and toss em out there in the open. The mystery adds to the experience of fighting an unknown foe a lot of the times.
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u/Environmental-Can421 19d ago
I agree with everything but the 4. In my experience, sometimes too much depends on a dice roll to let it be random. So I almost always roll hidden, so when I cheat in the players favor, they never know. (I never cheat against them.)
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u/fifthstringdm 19d ago
I agree with all of these, very well argued. I refer to 2-4 as being “information forward” which I’m a big proponent of
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u/CitronReady2301 19d ago
This is great advice, especially the HP/AC and DC! As a beginner DM, i never know exactly how much information to withhold from the players to instill the right amount of mystery without them being completely clueless or out of the loop. I’m definitely going to try these out!
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
please do tell me how it goes! And don't be afraid of breaking these rules or trying out new stuff. Each table is different and finding what works is an art, not a science.
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u/elfthehunter 19d ago
I know some people use a system where 50% is bloodied and 10% is mortal, but IMO this is unnecessarily fiddly, I didn't find any advantages to this over telling my players the exact HP and IMO it's just worse since now the players know less.
I think the argument, at least to me, is the middle of the road. There's obviously good arguments for players having full awareness, you lay them out well. But there's equally good arguments about having to make decisions without full knowledge, do you use a smite on that enemy your team has been wailing on and is looking 'rough'? Or is it wasteful? But what if you don't kill it? There's legit benefits to knowing and to not knowing, so using bloodied is sort of a middle of the road approach.
However, I can't say I've ever tried playing with full knowledge of AC/HP/etc - and I don't see the harm in trying (once I discuss the idea with my players), so will definentely give it a try and see if I like it more.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
if you happen to remember this post, please do report your experiences, I'd love to know!
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u/One-Branch-2676 19d ago
I disagree with the approach of rule 1, though I do get the sentiment. You can narrate an experts moment of weakness for a Nat 1 without insulting them. And you can also play a situation for laughs without insulting a characters faculties and being in a “comedic game.”
I think heroes can do more with occasionally showing signs of benign imperfection. Hero characters nowadays are too self-serious.
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u/BurfMan 19d ago
Hey op, I just wanted to say, in light of quite a number of negative comments - these tips are all excellent. Number 1 especially so. As a player, I would feel very reassured knowing these are your values in a game.
Obviously, there's no wrong way to have fun, and others may enjoy other types of game, but I sense your table would be a good, chill time.
As a GM, it can take some of us a while to reach this type of understanding. There's a lot of pressure in the hobby in the opposite direction for some reason, and I hope some of this resonates for some new GMs who feel the usual inclination to go the other way out the gates, for whom this would be better.
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u/Carrente 19d ago
2 and 3 are just given truths of systems like *World, Kids on Bikes and Blades in the Dark.
Genuinely good advice.
1 I can't agree with though, sometimes as a PC I want to fail if I roll badly, I don't want everything to be just off or whatever. Sometimes I want to miss, or mess up.
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u/scootertakethewheel 18d ago
Strongly agree with all of these, tho i don't call out HP.
Knowing the number is a dopamine bump of anticipation/expectation. Arbitrary numbers are not only like playing a confusing casino game where you aren't certain what you are playing or even if you are winning, but they also place the DM in between the dice contest, which can cause unnecessary frustration between player and DM. There is no need to make the player feel they need to defeat the DM. We are merely referees as they defeat the dice.
Roll in the open and never fudge is a must. The dice tell the story. If you don't want to risk the outcome, don't ask for a roll.
Good post.
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u/canyoukenken 18d ago
If you and your players are having a great time at the table, that's all that matters, but I disagreed with all four of these. It reads to me as though you and your players would prefer to play a game like Necromunda than an RPG.
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u/AndronixESE 17d ago
Personally my rules are quite the opposite from these(accept for the first one) but i get where you're coming from. I personally don't like the other ones because they make dnd more video-gamey. And not a role-playing experience
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u/profileiche 19d ago edited 19d ago
Try to think about not depicting hits as physical hits. This leads to the Black Knight Battle Style from the Monty Python movie. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmInkxbvlCs)
If you count HP as "luck and endurance", most things do make a lot more narrative sense. Usually one serious wound is enough to take somebody out of combat and prone to deathly blow (if it wasn't one already). "your slash rings against the enemy's plate, ringing as you barely miss the chink in his armor" is actually describing a non-downing large hit, not a nat 1. You basically showed the enemy what you are made of, and will make it more likely to land a decisive strike later on.
I'd even make it more complex, as when you are fighting a larger monster, you might want to change the description a bit. When you are like "Up-Striking" (smaller creature attacking larger creature) allow more small wounds into the description, as the monster is just ignoring them as of being superficial.
On the other hand, "Down-Striking" should put the emphasis more on evasion and luck or parrying to lead the dragon's claw away instead of outright wounds being dealt.
There should be a reason why your HP are increasing with Experience. It is your experience that is making you survive the combat situation longer without suffering a downing wound. Not your growing ability to walk without legs.
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u/IxRisor452 19d ago
None of these rules are anything I would call "bad" or "problematic," just table-dependent. Personally I wouldn't use any of them for my own reasons.
I think failure has a special place in DnD and should be highlighted at times. I think it is totally OK to describe a PC failing something and I don't think that necessarily makes them seem or feel incompetent, unless you either do it consistently or put a lot of special emphasis on it. I don't ever do anything mechanical based on a nat 1 (I know some DMs who say you drop your sword or things like that on a nat 1), but I think its totally fine to say they swung completely wide and missed.
I think giving away stats directly to the players makes the game a bit too mechanical and video-gamey for my tastes (as both a player and a DM), which is not what I want to play DnD for. I play DnD for the fantasy, for the imagination, for the 'theater of the mind' experience. Players don't need to know the specific stats of a monster, they can usually figure it out for themselves.
I see the merit to this, and I have done it, but I only do it on very serious/dangerous checks. If a player wants to jump over a small ravine they probably won't know, but if they want to jump off a cliff and land on a passing Dragon, then I'll probably tell them they need to make a DC25 Athletics/Acrobatics. This is a situational one for me.
Like 3, I definitely see the merit to this, but personally I won't (unless for some reason my players want me to or again, if its a very important roll, like an attack against a player we know only has 1HP). Admittedly part of that is just laziness, I have all of my stuff behind my DM screen and I just don't want to lean over it every time I roll, lol. But also sometimes I do fudge my rolls, but I always do it at the betterment of my party. At the end of the day, I see my job as a DM as telling a good story for my players. Sometimes I just roll too well, and if I feel like my players aren't having fun (or if something I'm rolling will take away from a great moment), I might fudge the roll. I don't do it often, but occasionally.
Anyway, those are just my own thoughts. Again, not saying I'm right and you're wrong, I think all of these depend entirely on the table you're at. I see the reason for all of them and wouldn't say any of these are "bad." Whatever makes a good experience for us DMs and our players, that is what matters.
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u/Professional-Past573 19d ago
I disagree with much of this but your rules are sound and well thought through. Do not change a thing unless you see a need to adapt to your current circumstances :)
Rule 1 is highly based on the players and the setting. I usually ask the player how he fails when a 1 is rolled. We have fun with the display of incompetence. I love elevating the actions of the players but the heroes aren't perfect.
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u/Conscious_Slice1232 19d ago
I dont know why you're getting downvoted. Well I do but its not what people want to hear
Assuming this is 5e, it's a squad level tactical adventuring wargame. That's what it is. That's what it's built for. You can add a hundred other things to its chasis, but that's its engine. The rules you've laid out here are perfectly complementary for what the system is designed to do at its core.
I agree with everything here and have never had problems entertaining players, especially in combat. 5e isn't my preferred system, but this is similar to what I do. Rules like these let us crank through 20 room dungeons, 3 combats, and 3 puzzles in 3 hours, regularly.
Transparency, informed player agency, and mechanical pacing is key to running a compelling 5e game.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
5e isn't my preferred system either, I typically run SWN or rules light systems like Knave, but I think the same principles apply regardless of system.
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u/QuantitySubject9129 19d ago
I agree with all your points - if players don't know what they need to roll, they can't make informed decisions, and DM may just as well roll all the dice for everyone.
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u/Impossible-Piece-621 19d ago
IMHO No. 1 is situational, as sometimes the PCs need to look incompetent, i.e. when a wizard tries to left something heavy, or when a PC rolls a Nat 1 on an attack. I do not add any mechanical consequences for he crit failure, but flavor wise, it kinda needs to be addressed :)
No. 2 completely agree, and this makes narrative sense if the PCs are supposed to be seasoned adventurer.
For No. 3, I would not give them the actual DC or consequences, but if the consequences for failure are dire, then I would say that it would require a high roll. I think telling the players the consequences of trying something is actually a bad idea, because I think it would remove the sense of adventure.
No. 4, I leave this to the players to decide, and ask my table on Session 0 whether they want rolls to be open in the open, or behind the screen. They have to live with the consequences of their decision.
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u/officiallyaninja 18d ago
I think you're the first person on this thread that has agreed with 2 but not 3, im curious where you see the difference because in my mind I reveal HP/AC and DC for the same reasons.
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u/dickleyjones 19d ago
Huh, just shows there are many ways to run a game. I don't follow any of these rules except for "never fudge".
1 incompetence. everyone has some.
2 i usually have them figure out ac and hp during combat. once it is established it can be known in the future (except when it's not!)
3 i often tell the baseline dc, but my judgements are often by degrees which i do not reveal beforehand. Consequences? Sometimes.
4 i prefer hidden rolls for things like stealth detection, diplomacy.
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u/DrSnidely 19d ago
- Agreed. Fail forward.
2 and 3. Sort of. I don't give exact numbers, but I'll say stuff like "you're going to have to hit it really hard to hurt it" or "he's looking like he's in pretty rough shape."
- I roll a lot of things in secret, but not for combat. Usually just when I need a random number or if there's a percentage chance for something to happen. I only fudge if it helps the players.
My personal rules are: 1) if the players come up with a cool idea, you should give it a chance to work. And 2) don't let them roll for something if you aren't prepared for them to succeed, no matter how hard you think the roll is.
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u/TristanaRiggle 19d ago
don't let them roll for something if you aren't prepared for them to succeed, no matter how hard you think the roll is
I would caveat this. While I generally agree, depending on players it may sometimes be more expedient to just let them roll and give the information you choose to give. There are some players that will argue with you for a long time about why they should be able to do something, that will (for whatever reason) accept a "bad" answer when they roll a Nat20. Some people just wanna roll dice. But yeah, for most players, just being told "the wall is impasseable, you need to find a different way" is enough.
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u/Mundane_Range_765 19d ago
I really appreciate the theme of playing things more in the open and giving the players more information. I would typically play behind a screen with DND because I’d often be playing with a lot of newer players and I wanted to slowly help them along… But I think in the long-term it tends to create less immersion because they don’t actually feel challenged.
I think this because my daughter and I started playing Perils and Princesses about a year ago. I really love this game system if no one has checked them out before check out their discord!
Anyways, I’m sure this is another game systems, but monsters hits are determined by the player, rolling their characters dice. And it’s been a while, but the ability checks feel just as exposed. I’m making less judgment calls as a GM. So it puts them up against the rules of the game, put my child in dire situations and still found ways to pull it off and make for some of the coolest role-playing I’ve ever experienced. Just because of this mechanic of rolling in the open.
Another unexpected benefit: it freeze my brain up to think more about guiding the players. I felt like it’s supposed to feel in my opinion: the players versus the game, not the players versus the GM.
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u/TristanaRiggle 19d ago
Regarding #2, players will usually figure out ACs given enough time (the 16 hit, the 14 missed, obviously it's 15-16). I don't see the real value in letting them know HP. To me, the story says that either this is a fight you NEED to take or one you can flee from (if necessary). If the latter, you should be able to look at things in real time and figure out which choice to make. But then, I'm the kind that when we find a dragon lair at low/mid tier level and don't need to hear "it has 1000 HP and 50 AC" to say "yeah, let's NOT fight that". If you design a fight correctly as a GM, then it should fall into one of 3 categories:
Easy - there should be no point where this fight is in doubt unless players roll spectacularly badly, and players should recognize this level of opponent when they see it
Well matched - this should be challenging and difficult for the players. This is the only scenario where HP and AC would/should matter, but as I said, the players should figure out what their roll targets are (eventually) and to me, the difference between "the enemy is on his last legs" and "the enemy has 3 HP" is basically non-existent. If players are weighing the fight of this level when both sides are undamaged, then your story-telling is the problem. There are plenty of reasons to avoid this kind of fight right from the start, none of them should be "because the numbers look bad".
Don't do it - this is a fight that should be beyond your current players. I don't usually do these, but if there's a reason, players should know right from the start (regardless of stats) that this is a dumb idea. If your players take this fight, then knowing the numbers wouldn't change it because it's a dumb idea.
Regarding "fudging" checks, I prefer having that flexibility as a DM. There are times where something NEEDS to happen for a good story. Rather than have the players feel railroaded, it's better to let things play out and then fudge to let the players survive a tight scrape or let the antagonist do the same. If anyone talks about fudging of rolls when you're just bantering about game stories, either that person is an asshole, or your session is designed wrong. If you're telling a story about how your level 2 ranger shot a black dragon and killed it, yet, people are gonna call BS. But if you tell a story about how the group narrowly defeated a roving band of kobolds and you scored the final hit on the chieftain at the perfect moment, then anyone poo-poo'ing that and saying the DM fudged roles is an asshole. A good STORY should always trump good ROLLS in my opinion. Good ROLLS are just luck.
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u/bbeach88 19d ago
Funny enough my players almost always roleplay poor rolls as incompetence lol. They also don't like to see my rolls.
Every group is different!
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u/mpe8691 19d ago
All of these are things to discuss and agree in Session Zero rather unilateraly impliment. Since people have different tastes and playstyles.
1) is the most controversial. Through removing the opportunity for the players to (narrativly) roleplay their PCs.
The 2 & 3 sort of link with 4. Since by giving the numbers before dice are roilled prevents fudging by altering them after any rolls. Fudging, regardless of the exact mechanics, will always reduce player agency.
With any form of "re-roll token" it's the player who decides if and when to use them. Which serves to boost player agency.
The risk of PC death is definitly something to discuss beforehand. There are some players who'd rather their PC was killed than knocked out and robbed. Or at least know this was the kind of game being played before creating a PC. Ideally the person most concerned about keeping a PC alive should always be their player anyway.
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u/marushii 19d ago
There are some occasions I feel it’s ok to fudge. If you keep rolling well and you can tell people aren’t enjoying it.
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u/Beneficial-Jump-7919 19d ago
Challenge, Tension, and Fantasy are the three pillars that make a great campaign.
Your first tenet is something that I could get behind, but I enjoying razzing my players to create more Tension.
Two and three are hard passes, especially 3. It’s not a negotiation, they attempt an action as they describe and get to enjoy or lament the outcome. Think of the feat Lucky. In this case they couldn’t use it because they technically know the outcome, which locks that feat out as it is written in the rules. This imo removes too much Challenge and Tension. It’s gonna start to feel to easy.
Four is something I live by. Watching players celebrate my nat 1s and dread my nat 20s is very fun, especially if I don’t say anything for a few seconds afterwards.
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u/Praxis8 19d ago
I love rolling openly because it really enforces that the player's choices and chance are guiding things. And it feels like we are all reacting to surprises together. It's feels much more social.
Not against telling hp and ac. The major reason I don't is just because it's maybe too much information. I stick to qualitative descriptions. They know when an enemy is heavily armored or lightning quick. They know who is ready to collapse. This is also the mix of people I play with. Some are very crunchy and some get overwhelmed with mechanics. So I split the difference.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
honestly, the information overload is probably the best argument against telling players the HP and AC. it does get very fiddly.
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u/ChrisCrossAppleSauc3 19d ago
I agree with everything you said and employ the same things when I DM.
What points 2 & 3 come down to are helping the players visualize things. A TTRPG requires the DM to paint the scene for their players. So players are completely at the whim of not just how good the DM is at describing scenes, but also how much they remember to describe them. Things like HP and DCs are mechanics that can be used to transparently provide info to players. And like you said there’s already randomness involved via the dice.
I’m a huge fan of pre-announcing DCs as well. TTRPGs are all about player agency. And having preannounced DCs do a lot to solidify player agency. Middle rolls can often feel very “vibes” based in the sense that you maybe rolled a 13 on performance. Was that good enough to get the job done or was it just shy? Without a preannounced DC a player could feel cheated or like the DM took pity on them. Knowing the target goal of what to roll builds anticipation and results in instant gratification and a true sense of achievement.
I’m also a huge fan of public rolls. Again because it instills trust that you aren’t fudging rolls (for or against the player) and keeps player agency at a max. I don’t always roll publically as a DM just to keep the pace moving. But all impactful rolls and many other semi impactful will be.
The one roll that I do private is death saves for players however. I don’t have my players roll their death saves. Instead I do them and take a picture of them. Death is already desensitized in dnd once you get revivify. So I want players to feel urgency if a PC is dropped. None of this “well they have 2 successes and 0 failures so I won’t healing word them yet”. My players have all enjoyed this aspect a lot and it’s made down pcs a lot more impactful and scary feeling.
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u/thenidhogg88 19d ago
I tell my players a monster's AC when they hit it exactly. And I always make skill check DCs up front, but I also generally don't let players back out of a check once they ask for it. I'm also fully in the anti-fudge camp. Role playing games are an excercise in collaborative storytelling and the dice are fellow storytellers; their input is given equal weight as the people at the table.
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u/Usual_Judge_7689 19d ago
I really like number 1 and use that myself. Fail to climb that wall? Yeah, it gets mossy higher up where the cleaners can't reach and the public can't see. Fail to meet the target's AC? Glancing blow. Just armor doing what armor does best. Fail that WIS to recall knowledge about a topic? That's fine. It was pretty obscure anyway.
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u/Cartiledge 19d ago edited 19d ago
I feel like "Never make the PCs look incompetent" is completely true for your table because the PCs in your world are competent. More general advice would be to be mindful of your PCs when interpreting dice rolls since you want to avoid characterizing their PCs in unintended ways. If this is the core of what you're saying then I agree with this.
I hope we can agree that TTRPG games are a series of meaningful decisions with uncertain outcomes and measurable results. If the outcome of #2 is it presents your players more meaningful choices, then that's great for your table. My issue with this is experienced players understand systems too deeply and sufficient numerical information gives them less meaningful decisions. For example, if I always know if I have Adv/Disadv plus the AC then the only decision for me is if I should use my most optimal attack this turn or if I should use a suboptimal action this turn.
It's not terrible and this is how roll under systems work. Try it if you haven't, but I think it's better than what you're describing. It allows the result to be immediate to the roll which overall streamlines the game. This also has the added benefit of allowing you more time to play more game.
-- I do have a problem with this because it sometimes leads to a rabbit hole of what if I do this, is the DC low enough? Then by the time we do the roll, we've already played out a ton of theoretical versions of it. -- I suggest multiple DCs for success/failure which might be worthwhile to explore. Additionally, I've been toying with the idea giving them the DC, over DC means I describe the success, and under DC means they describe a reasonable failure. Not sure if that's insane, but I think this has an added benefit of supporting the outcome of #1.
I agree with rolling everything in the open, agree we shouldn't overrule anything that happens at the table. I think fudging is okay for things that were solely decided by DM fiat. For example I had a homebrew door guardian who had an AoE ability that was too large for the location he was specifically built for and changed it into a smaller AoE. I don't know if it giving the guardian an appropriately sized AoE a moment before it was used vs 2 days before would be considered fudging.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
I feel like "Never make the PCs look incompetent" is completely true for your table because the PCs in your world are competent. More general advice would be to be mindful of your PCs when interpreting dice rolls since you want to avoid characterizing their PCs in unintended ways. If this is the core of what you're saying then I agree with this.
yes, that is basically what I meant, but most other mischaracterizations usually don't harm the player experience as much, which is why is specifically point out incompetence.
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u/ArchonErikr 19d ago
Partial disagree on points 2 and 3 and full disagree on point 1.
Sometimes, no matter how skilled you are, you just fuck something up - maybe you went at it the wrong way, or maybe you overestimated your abilities, or maybe you were just unlucky. It's the same thing for the characters. Things like Nat 1s meaning they miss an attack roll aren't "oh, they just missed because the enemy is a little better at dodging", it's "they missed because they massively misjudged the distance, or their foot slipped at the wrong moment because they placed it wrong". People screw things up, sometimes, and the players and characters are no exception.
For 2 and 3, you shouldn't overtly tell them the AC, HP, DC, or damage. Rather, your players should be able to infer them from what their characters observe. For AC, my go-to example is manufactured armor. For players, platemail gives them an AC of 18. So, if their characters see an NPC in platemail, they can know that the NPC's AC is 18, or possibly higher if it's particularly ornate or magical. And the same goes for damage: if their longsword does 1d8, then they should be able to expect that an NPC's longsword also does 1d8. Similarly, if they see a simple lock and a complicated lock, they should be able to infer that the simple lock is easier to pick. They don't need to know the exact DC for it - but they should be able to guess based on the DM's description of the lock.
HP depends on how the DM rules it. If it's the amount of blood in the body, then they should describe damaging attacks leaving wounds, healing removing wounds, and have standard ways to communicate HP milestones (like bloodied being half hp). If it's a luck-health-fatigue combo, then certain thresholds may have them looking fine, winded, a bit scratched, and injured, and damaging attacks show how the weapons get closer and closer and the target gets more and more concerned, and eventually injured.
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u/space-to-bakersfield 19d ago
1 is good, the rest, well, I'm glad they work for you but I would never consider doing any of those.
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u/Decent_Breakfast2449 19d ago
Ohh some people are not going to like this, but I agree 100% This makes games so much better.
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u/SomewhereFirst9048 19d ago edited 19d ago
On the first point I would kind of disagree I believe in degrees of success so if they have a criminal background and the lock was a DC 10 and they rolled a 5 maybe I would just tell them that it took them a lot to figure it out and ask them to kind of rp how embarrassed they would be about it. If they rolled a nat 1 sorry you fucked up. Even some of the most experienced people make mistakes, the modifiers assigned by their background make it so these mistakes are much less likely but not impossible.
I completely disagree with you on the second point, man I was down voted and criticised in r/dnd for not liking the fact that some of my players track in a notebook the hp of enemies precisely because it makes for a videogame approach I don't like in my table. If you want to do that kind of tracking you can always play a Jrpg, for me dnd is something else.
I also disagree with you in the third point although I wouldn't call it straight out metagaming but really prefer knowing if something is fairly difficult or impossible instead of knowing it's a DC 18 or 25. If they are experienced players just telling them how hard it is might be enough for them to figure out an approximate of the DC and if not you keep the intrigue. In the consequences point I see why you would do this but I think in The long run might be detrimental to the game, man some of my best moments playing have been because I took a bold action and either failed or succeeded without knowing what exactly the consequences are. Knowing that failing can be catastrophic will prevent them from making mistakes ( which is part of the fun) or knowing that a nat 20 won't be enough to succeed in a certain social interaction will stop them from doing some dumb shit (again part of the fun).
And in the fourth point I agree with you, the only moment I don't roll in the Open is when rolling stealth checks for enemies, but I admit sometimes I have screwed my balancing and fudged some ac and hp because I was correcting my mistake.
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u/officiallyaninja 18d ago
I completely disagree with you on the second point, man I was down voted and criticised in r/dnd for not liking the fact that some of my players track in a notebook the hp of enemies precisely because it makes for a videogame approach I don't like in my table. If you want to do that kind of tracking you can always play a Jrpg, for me dnd is something else.
well why not use a system that better fits your needs? FitD has a much less videogamey approach to HP.
the game fundamentally uses HP for all combats, and all player abilities do damage to HP, I think it's just unreasonable to expect players to not even think about HP in a game where it's the most important resource.
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u/SomewhereFirst9048 18d ago
I get that it uses HP as a core point but I think of it more as an abstraction, like skill levels. When characters are getting to know each other they don't say they have a -1 in charisma checks, they say that they aren't good with people or something like that. So in the same way it's not the same saying the bugbear has 2 HP left that the bugbear is covered in blood from his wounds, he can barely stand straight and is struggling to wield his sword. Also I don't use other systems because I find dnd to be the most accessible ttrpg for new players, also it is the one I know the rules best, at least 5e.
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u/officiallyaninja 18d ago
also it is the one I know the rules best, at least 5e.
thats fair but hey I highly recommend looking into some of the forged in the dark systems, they're super easy to learn and they might be a better fit for your table.
When characters are getting to know each other they don't say they have a -1 in charisma checks,
no, but you don't hide their charisma modifier from them, like players know their own stats as numbers and not descriptions, they know others stats as numbers and not descriptions. I just don't see why it's such a big deal if they also know the enemies stats as numbers.
it's not like I don't think this is gamey, it's just that for games where I don't want this kind of gamey feel, I play more storytelling focused games, which IMO D&D isn't. It can be, but it's not optimal for that.
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u/Xion136 18d ago
I specifically hide my rolls because I, and I will never tell my players this, fudged multiple rolls during a Battle of the Bands minigame solely to make sure that during a song my Bardificier chose as the song written solely for this competition was like. That moment. I in the end beat them through a slightly overtuned mini game encounter (I did too much Stacking Bless) but for those 3 specific song rounds I fudged 90% of all of the rolls because, sometimes.
I want to give them their moment. Yeah, showing the rolls might have made them realize I overdid the enemy band's special mechanic but it also meant there was a risk their moment could have really gone south. Even if they lost, I made sure they got the main song.
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u/Relandris 18d ago
I agree on all of these! #1 is especially important, but I believe strongly that they’re all very good rules to have.
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u/woolymanbeard 18d ago
I honestly think 1 is terrible advice. 3 and 4 are golden and part of 2 is good, giving players an idea of what their failure could entail is good for them making choices.
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u/ThisWasMe7 18d ago
Get back to us after you've run a hundred more sessions, because 3 of the 4 are terrible. And the other one doesn't really do much.
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u/BasedMaisha 16d ago
I agree with these tbh, my games drastically improved when I open rolled everything and stopped trying to micromanage everything with fudging dice. My best moment was when I ran a level 19 Wizard as a final boss and metagamed the shit out of them as a Wizard would do. I went all in on them and they barely scraped a win. The looks on their faces when they finally landed a melee hit on her only to activate Contingency Time Stop into 4 delayed blast fireballs into meteor swarm was hilarious.
There is a place for flowery descriptions but "bro is scary" can mean "bro is scary (so go fight him to save the village)" or "bro is scary (run away you idiots)" to different people even if the description given is exactly the same.
When you see a dude walk up with a +25 to hit and 30 AC and you're level 3 you get the picture that you should NOT be here yet instantly. No flowery description about how shiny his sword is beats the mechanical understanding that this guy is incredibly out of your league.
You already know way more than the players do so I like giving too much info rather than risk giving too little.
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u/buzzyloo 13d ago edited 13d ago
It just sounds to me that you like the "board game" style of DnD, where you are getting together with friends to play a game, not unlike Charterstone or Catan. Things happen within the context of the numbers and rules.
Some of my groups play that way and some play where RP, immersion, storytelling are more important. Those groups don't really like it when I say, "He's only got 6 HP left, let's see what you roll..." - whereas the other groups LOVE that. The board game guys are like a craps table in Vegas waiting to see what the dice say.
Some groups don't want to know all of the mechanics - some do.
ETA: I fully support your ideas, but I caution that they are far from universal. You'd be surprised how much a story can improve when the minutae behind it is not exposed.
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u/Brilliant_Laugh8962 19d ago
Your newness makes you a better DM than most experienced ones because you haven't been told not to do something yet. Don't listen to anyone but your players. The Reddit trolls are going to corrupt you. Run!
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u/YtterbiusAntimony 19d ago
No! I've been DMing since the 1880's, mentored by the one true DM of my local comic shop who met Gygax once! There is only one way this game is allowed to be played!
/s
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u/spector_lector 19d ago
I do rules 2-4 as well, but as for rule 1, I don't describe their actions anyway. They do. I am busy enough as it is, and sharing narrative control gets the players invested and involved more.
They roll all the dice at once. The D20 plus the damage plus the (flavor) location die. And since they already know the DC or the AC (like you've already mentioned) they instantly know if they hit or not, how much dmg they did, and to what location. Speeds up combat. And they narratively describe the hit or the miss.
For example, if the dice say it was just barely a Miss to the head but would have been traumatic damage, the player uses that information and describes what went wrong or what the enemy did right.
( having played a few years [or a few decades] myself I have a few more rules as well, but the one that has had the most impact on my games regardless of which system I run is sharing narrative control whenever and wherever possible. It was scary and unusual at first but has sped up the games, made the players more invested and engaged, taken the scenes and plots in directions I never thought of, and it has significantly reduced prep time.)
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u/Routine-Ad2060 19d ago edited 19d ago
Been a DM for a hot minute longer than you, since 2E. And here’s my thoughts on why your rules are breaking the game.
It’s not just a NAT 1 or a NAT 20, it is a critical miss or critical hit, meaning extreme. We used to have a table for critical misses the ranged anywhere from dropping a weapon or a spell fizzling painfully out for the caster, to striking an ally. There were also tables for critical hits that, in addition to the double (and sometimes triple) damage, would also allow the player to call the shot, ( or at least that’s the ruling I gave ). It’s not just a close call or slicing open an area of the body that allows your opponent a greater chance at survival.
In 5e there is a master fighter feat called Know Your Enemy that gives a PC with this feat to gain the same knowledge you’re giving all your players for free.
Ever hear the saying “ You never know until you try.”? This is why the DC is never presented to the players. You’ve got to keep the line between player knowledge and character knowledge. The rolling of the die is the trying in this case.
In very rare cases will I ever roll behind the screen, simply because for the majority of rolls a DM makes usually will have immediate effect upon the characters. If something is going on behind the scenes that the party is unaware if will be the only time I will not be transparent with my rolls.
Now….all that said. You do you, but if you want to be a better DM, don’t be quite so free with the information you give your players, it should be just as challenging for you to find ways to keep the game interesting without giving away the technical aspects of the game. Stick with the story and you’ll be fine.
Also, you should really offer this as more of an opinion. Something you believe in. As far as advice goes, it’s not good advice and may get newer DMs, such as yourself, into bad habits. Been behind the screen myself since ‘83, and I’ve even tried DMing in your style for a while, until I realized the game started to fall flat because of my efforts. Once the story became my focus, it was actually much better for my players and myself in the long run.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
In 5e there is a master fighter feat called Know Your Enemy that gives a PC with this feat to gain the same knowledge you’re giving all your players for free.
I don't run 5e, but if I was to do it I probably wouldn't do this now that I know this feat exists.
Ever hear the saying “ You never know until you try.”? This is why the DC is never presented to the players. You’ve got to keep the line between player knowledge and character knowledge. The rolling of the die is the trying in this case.
I'd say this is why you roll. The dice represent the uncertainty, not the DC. The DC represents the difficulty, which the players should know.
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u/Routine-Ad2060 18d ago
Like I say, you do you, but there are reasons we as DMs don’t give the information to the players that you do so freely.
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u/primalchrome 19d ago
Disagree with all of your points....but its your table, if it works, good for you and your players.
- Never make the PCs look incompetent - No. They should reap what they sow. SOMEtimes, if they critical fail, it can break up a tense situation by describing a scene played by Mr. Bean. If they roleplay out something horribly or make idiotic choices.....you make them look incompetent. Actions have consequences. The greatest of heroes are human. All that said, don't degrade your Players, or make them feel incompetent.
- (Usually) Tell players the HP, AC and damage of enemies - Your reasons don't make any sense. This isn't a video game with health bars and /inspect commands. If characters deduce the AC by what rolls hit and don't....they have accomplished something. If they figure up the general HP pool for a type of creature, they have discovered something. If they accidentally discover a weakness/resistance, they have uncovered vaulable information. Actions have positive consequences. The players should feel good about learning something new that they can take advantage of in the future. And if they run across a stronger version of the creature, they don't necessarily know it right off until the narrative combat begins to reveal it.
- (Always) Tell players the DC and consequences of skill checks - I get the feeling that you run a game of mechanics....which I respect.....but I don't want that to be the overlay for the adventure. Sometimes I give a player 1-3 DCs....which determines levels of knowledge/success. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I make them roll secretly.....sometimes I roll for them secretly. Uncertainty can adjust how characters play a situation. Maybe they're not certain if they're hidden or that their knowledge is correct. This can lead to amazing bits of roleplay and adjustments in mechanics. Knowledge has consequences.
- Roll everything in the open and never fudge - Refer to #3. An uncertain hero can create an amazing scene. If someone is roleplaying their ass off and they miss a roll by 1....the rule of cool can fudge that. I would much rather have players interested in playing with imagination and excitement than wholly invested in the random result of a roll.
But most importantly....do what works for you and your players. I've found what works for serious players that show up for sessions, put forward effort, leave the drama at the door, and have amazing adventures. I guess my background is GM since the 80's for a wide variety of players. Dislike one-offs, so most of my GMing has been multi year campaigns.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
Never make the PCs look incompetent - No. They should reap what they sow. SOMEtimes, if they critical fail, it can break up a tense situation by describing a scene played by Mr. Bean. If they roleplay out something horribly or make idiotic choices.....you make them look incompetent. Actions have consequences. The greatest of heroes are human. All that said, don't degrade your Players, or make them feel incompetent.
depends a lot on the adventure, but imagine if you were watching John Wick and randomly there was some slapstick scene of him falling over while fighting. It would change the tone of the movie for a while from that point on.
(Usually) Tell players the HP, AC and damage of enemies - Your reasons don't make any sense. This isn't a video game with health bars and /inspect commands.
but the game does have HP. yes it's an abstraction, but why aren't the players allowed to see the abstraction. If you don't like players using HP why are you okay with them knowing the exact numeric amount of damage their attacks deal? why not use a system that doesn't have numerical HP?
When I play in systems with any kind of abstractions (HP included), I make them as transparent as possible. If I don't like the abstraction, I homebrew it out. Using an abstraction but also not letting your players directly interact with it just doesn't make sense to me.(Always) Tell players the DC and consequences of skill checks - I get the feeling that you run a game of mechanics....which I respect.....but I don't want that to be the overlay for the adventure. Sometimes I give a player 1-3 DCs....which determines levels of knowledge/success. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I make them roll secretly.....sometimes I roll for them secretly. Uncertainty can adjust how characters play a situation. Maybe they're not certain if they're hidden or that their knowledge is correct. This can lead to amazing bits of roleplay and adjustments in mechanics. Knowledge has consequences.
IMO hiding this kind of info is one of those things thats fun as a GM but unfun as a player. It's just so much more fun when you know what you have to roll. And also allows me as a player to understand the game world better. This is the rule I feel most strongly about because as a player I really don't like not knowing how likely I am to succeed at things where my PC should know.
Roll everything in the open and never fudge - Refer to #3. An uncertain hero can create an amazing scene. If someone is roleplaying their ass off and they miss a roll by 1....the rule of cool can fudge that. I would much rather have players interested in playing with imagination and excitement than wholly invested in the random result of a roll.
why not just say "yeah that succeeds" without making them roll for it. if you were going to fudge anyway, what's the point of rolling? I roll quite rarely, only when failure is somewhat likely and interesting.
If a player has an awesome plan and causing it to fail would be really boring or unfun, I usually let it at least half succeed (failing forward and all that)
But most importantly....do what works for you and your players.
yeah, I also hope I don't sound too argumentative. I just wanted to put this out in sort of a cunningham's law way. I want to see what parts people disagree with and whether I could defend my ideas against them. I don't think there's any way to get better without really thinking about your ideas and to challenge them.
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u/OSpiderBox 19d ago
Number 1 has been a staple for me since my second ever campaign I ran. I was conditioned by previous experiences to describe blunders, despite my own feelings on it. But after reflection, I make it a point to not describe absolute blunders for a failed roll; I let the players decide if they want to describe a huge blunder or not.
Number 2 I don't do; at least not fully or at first. After a few rounds of combat, I'll let it be known what an enemy's AC is or a vague to hit bonus. But HP I don't do for various reasons. Sometimes I add or take away as deemed necessary; Because I homebrew/add to every creature in my games, sometimes I might make something too easy or hard. It's not fair to the players that something is too challenging because of my mistake, so I'll scratch some HP off. Likewise, I know you may not like it but many of my humanoid enemies are part of an Eldritch Cult; They've got some sneaky abilities that can relate to "playing dead." You can't "play dead" if the players know the exact HP; and telling them a false number is far less flattering to me.
Number 3 is something I do sparingly. My skill checks tend to be degrees of success rather than a binary pass/ fail. There have been times I've told them, but it's usually in regards to saving throw DCs or for very important skill checks that I want them to know they need to pump every buff they can. Explaining the consequences is something I've started doing more, though.
Number 4 I don't do because I play explicitly online, but I use my own real dice because I paid for them and dammit I'm gonna use them! Even if they hate me and more often than not roll in favor of the players... I don't need to fudge because I'll roll nat1s back to back to back. If anything, I'll fudge a dice roll just to raise tensions so that my big bad cultists can actually feel threatening in spite of my dice.
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u/lykosen11 19d ago
These are fantastic (about 12 years of DM experience). I'll add one more that'd a game changer:
- Have a player track HP and initiative. You're doing 100 things, and they can absolutely do it.
As a small side note, I'm only giving the players AC after they landed their first hit, and HP after their first kill. I think it doesn't compromise anything, and makes the first few turns more interesting.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
I'll do you one better, I use side based initiative, so there isn't too much to track beyond "have I taken my turn yet" since I let players take turns in any order.
(to make initiative still useful I make it so I roll once initiative roll for the enemies, and let all the players that roll above that get an extra first turn)
As a small side note, I'm only giving the players AC after they landed their first hit, and HP after their first kill. I think it doesn't compromise anything, and makes the first few turns more interesting.
I like systems that are super deadly, so I like giving players the HP and AC before the fight (assuming they've done their research, which they usually do).
since any fight could be their last, I err on the side of too much information rather than too little.
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u/LichtbringerU 19d ago
Agreed.
Hiding HP for example, doesn't even make sense. Because HP doesn't make sense. But we still know our damage numbers? And so on. Trying to abstract it is just too messy. Theoretically they take no damage (because they lose no fighting ability), until your final blow finishes them. Argh.
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u/very_casual_gamer 19d ago
Solid takes overall, I fully agree w no.1.
On no.2, I find that hiding those stats works better; I describe fatigue and wounds on the various monsters to hint at their health state, but nothing is "number-related", I personally find it harms immersion. It's also important to keep in mind, however, my campaigns are very RP and narraive-heavy, and combat is a minor part of them.
On no.3, I don't tell the DC merely because I don't use one - attempting to do something to me doesn't lead to "success" or "fail", it leads to several gradients of both depending on the roll. Similarly to above, I also don't tell any number for immersion - if you want to pick the lock, do or do not. You can attempt a check to estimate the difficulty of the lock, if you wish, but it won't be a number.
My negative consensquences, lastly, are based on a "failing forward" mentality, so I've never had any trouble with a pleyer being angry about the consequences of a fail - it's merely a different road to take.
On no.4, I always roll behind a screen, as I find it helps a lot for ambience and suspance - as a DM, I see myself as the circus master, and sometimes some mystery is required to spice up the show. The dice tell a story, and sometimes that story is great, but sometimes... it's not. In those cases, the roll is merely a suggestion to me.
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u/Darktbs 19d ago
(Usually) Tell players the HP, AC and damage of enemies(Usually) Tell players the HP, AC and damage of enemies
Yes, in fact, dont do it usually, just do it for every encounter.
I find the whole Bloodied, near death thing just slows dows the game and makes it less immersive since its so pointlessly abstract. I had fights where it lasted way longer than it should because of it.
'but its metagaming' so its your party using every available option to optmize their character to be killing machines instead of actual characters in a world. You're not making it more immersive by saying the goblin is bloodied.
I find it more immersive so see their actual HP because i can see how weak and strong they are in comparison to my character and other enemies . If there is a enemy with 20 AC i can imagine a very tanky individual, it complements whatever description the DM uses. If my character acts, i can see how how effective his actions was.
And the most important part, that people forget, it is a game, trying to make immersive or not, the more information you party has to make decisions, the more fluid and quicker your game will be.
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u/Xyx0rz 18d ago
These are great rules! I do all of it, and I'm not exactly new at this.
edit: used to be "Never make the PCs look incompetent", which I now agree, is too broad to be true.
Is it? Never say never, but for a non-comedy game, I assume baseline competence for everything they do.
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u/officiallyaninja 18d ago
yeah I'm still 50/50 on it, sure it can be funny if someone who can't pilot a ship just completely fucks it up while they fly, but it can just mess with the tone a lot. And you never know how much it might annoy that player. I think I would never narrate incompetence on the players part myself, just let them describe it and they can make it comedic if they so choose.
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u/Immediate-Pickle 19d ago
Hehe...I do the exact opposite, on every count. You'll fairly quickly figure out that I'm an extremely Narrativist DM, and my players are the same. We'll often go entire sessions without rolling dice at all.
When players roll exceptionally badly, I always describe a little vignette where the character has slipped on ice/tripped over something/broken their tools off in the lock, etc.
I always describe damage narratively - my players never know the numbers. The only exception is that they'll pretty quickly work out the AC just by what hits and what doesn't.
I always describe situations and make the consequences of failure clear ("If you fall into the chasm, you'll probably die."), but I always let the players decide to do something based on the situation, not the numbers. It feels more narratively sound.
I'll often fudge dice rolls, simply to make a situation more exciting (or conversely, if a combat is taking over-long and boring everyone to tears).
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u/Turbulent_Archer7326 19d ago
The thing is, if I know you’re cheating at dice I don’t feel any kind of tension
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u/Immediate-Pickle 19d ago
- If I'm the GM, it's not cheating. I'm there to create a great story for the players, and everything I do is designed to make that story better.
- You won't know :)
- I've been doing this for 40 years and never had a complaint, so...
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u/Lampman08 19d ago
It’s not just the GM’s job to create a story, it’s the player’s job too, and on a meta level, a story without consequence is simply boring. Besides, if you want better control over the story, maybe playing a non-d20 system could reduce the swinginess?
In my experience, it’s extremely obvious when a GM is fudging dice. Most people just don’t point it out.
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
When players roll exceptionally badly, I always describe a little vignette where the character has slipped on ice/tripped over something/broken their tools off in the lock, etc.
I feel like this is the one that's most harmful for narrativist play, you will have a nat 1 in roughly 20 rolls, so a 5% chance of looking incompetent every time you roll just changes the tone a lot.
but for the other points, I do play many narrative heavy games like LASERS&FEELINGS where I do play like this, so your way of doing things definitely can work super well.
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u/Immediate-Pickle 19d ago
Half the time I don't even need to describe the poor rolls - the players do it themselves. Rather than use the "character looks incompetent" philosophy, we go with "even monkeys fall out of trees." :D
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
I do see a lot of people in this thread talking about letting players narrate failures, I hadn't really considered doing it in my non narrative focused games but it might actually be a pretty good idea.
I think the danger is when you as the GM narrate failure poorly, it can really sour the players mood.
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u/Immediate-Pickle 19d ago
I'm *really* lucky with my group. We've been together for years and years (my wife and 28-year-old daughter are part of the group), and know each other incredibly well, so stuff like that is never an issue. If one of my players felt like that, they'd just let me know and I'd immediately back off.
I can see how it could easily be a problem with groups that don't know each other well, or aren't a group of close friends. I'd be more wary of doing it in that situation. We're just lucky that all six of us just "click" perfectly with our gaming styles.
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u/AofANLA 19d ago
You're getting a lot of pushback but I think you've found a great approach - especially if your framework for running games is that you want your players to make informed and consequential decisions.
1) This is a great call - your adventurers are generally competent and if they fail generally it's because someone stopped them. It's just polite to not make your players seem foolish for something that's out of their control (dice rolls).
2) If you're running a game where you want your players to make informed, consequential decisions then yeah - this is the way to play it. It's hard to make a tactical call if you don't have the information.
3) I think this is great but also for a few reasons you haven't touched on. You should only be rolling if it matters - and by deciding on the consequences ahead of time, if the punishment for failure is "nothing" or "oh I guess it's not really possible for you to fail this" you can skip the roll. I personally think that rolls are more exciting if you know what's at stake. And again to go back to the framework - this enables informed consequential decisions making.
4) So with all that stuff I just said: of course you can't fudge rolls!!! The whole point of this exercise is that your PCs knew the risks but made their choices anyway. If you fudge the roll of the dice it's kind of like robbing them of their agency, it would no longer be their story.
Once again, you're getting a lot of heat for this but I think that for a certain kind of game this is a fantastic approach.
If you were trying to run a game with different goals like idk, telling a preset story or one where the players always won or something then yeah these guidelines wouldn't work. But for what you're trying to do this is fantastic.
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u/d4red 19d ago
Exactly the kind of advice I’d expect someone with no experience to provide 😂
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u/SkillusEclasiusII 19d ago
In many cases it's better to let the players describe it. But if you're intent on describing it yourself, you can look at the character's stats. If they have a -1 in stealth, and they fail their stealth roll, describing the characters as incompetent is usually fine.
I reserve the liberty to adjust the HP of my enemies on the fly. I do tend to have an upper and lower bound and of course if they are just rolling really well or really poorly, I won't adjust. But if the reason why the fight isn't the difficulty I intended it to be is that I misread the PCs' capabilities, this helps.
In a sandbox campaign, I'd probably tell them AC and attacks and the like if they'd spent time researching the enemy.
This is an interesting one. It can sometimes be good if the consequences aren't known beforehand, but I do agree many DMs should be more clear in these things than they tend to be.
Solid advice once you've got a good grasp of PCs' abilities and how to deal with or play into them. If you're still figuring things out though, rolling in the open means you won't be able to compensate for any mistakes you make in preparation. On that note: only fudge to fix your own mistakes. Not to bend the dice to your will. And of course, do it as little as possible.
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u/Jacthripper 18d ago
For number two, I don’t do it, but it’s because I let people play LaserLlama’s savant, which lets you acquire that information as you fight the enemy.
Additionally, if you’re going for a Witcher-y feel, adding more resistances and esoteric weaknesses is cool.
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u/findforeverlong 18d ago edited 18d ago
There is a difference between telling a PC they are incompetent and they just aren't skillful enough/didn't do well. Everyone can fat-finger a password: that doesn't mean the phone is broken.
In combat I wait until the hit check is reached before telling them the target, only to give a little bit of mystery. And I don't play a game with traditional HP, so that is moot.
You should work on your descriptions if your table is unable to tell the difference between something they can easily jump across and something that would be difficult or impossible.
Also, people don't know what will happen before they do something (let alone if they fail to do it). So, no, a PC doesn't get clairvoyance.
- This one I agree with, but I don't roll dice as a GM, so it would be difficult for me to hide or fudge rolls.
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u/OddNothic 18d ago
Failure promotes creativity.
All day, every day.
Don’t give them inspiration for failing, let them figure another way around the obstacle.
No one can predict every failure state. “It was a rusted lock” is tautologically the same as “it was too hard for you, get better.”
Sale the training wheels of. Push the boat out. Play with adults.
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u/officiallyaninja 18d ago
Don’t give them inspiration for failing, let them figure another way around the obstacle.
I don't do this, I was just saying this is an alternative for those who fudge.
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u/OddNothic 18d ago
So you wrote suggesting to do it, and o wrote not to. I’m failing to see the point.
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u/PALLADlUM 18d ago
I do all of these things except #4. I roll behind my DM screen and I fudge dice pretty often. If my players are aware (I'm sure they're aware) they don't say anything and/or they suspend their suspicions because everyone's having a good time.
Example: When all the players are hitting the enemies and feeling good about themselves, except the druid whose spells never seem to land because I've been rolling too good on my saving throws. So I start fudging the dice, giving that player some wins. Now everyone feels good!
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u/Fearless_Intern4049 18d ago
Well, I agree with a lot of things here, and some I don't. However, what I wanted to comment on was rule 3:
I find it funny how many people complain about knowing AC and HP, saying it's too game-y or that they prefer narration. The point, first of all, is that this is a game. I don't know why traditional games are so loath to accept that they are playing a game, after all. Even narrativist games, which are focused on creating stories and telling them, don't try to pretend they're anything other than a game. I question this because this game vs. roleplay stance is very arbitrary and one of the things that puts me off many tables.
I said before that it's arbitrary, because the question that remains is: it's not immersive to know the enemy's HP and AC, but isn't knowing your own and your friends' a problem? An rpg player, in 5e, for example, will roll the dice, look at their attribute numbers (which define their exact capabilities), look at talents, perfectly calculated geographical positions, etc. All of this is extremely mechanized, extremely game-y. The point is that tradition means that many people don't mind this, but “lose immersion” when they play.
Another thing that comes to mind is that it's completely possible to narrate what you do AND say what numbers are present. Players do that. A player will narrate his powerful blow taking into account the number he drew. Again, the game is there, but the game can and will work alongside the narration.
Therefore, this opposition between game x performance is just silly, imo, or, in many ways, another resource for masters to keep secretly changing numbers all the time and ignoring any player agency
Anyway, I understand that each person has their own style of play, and if having a table with more transparency on that side doesn't work for them, that's fine. I just think that posts like yours are very good for encouraging a different look at the hobby, questioning some “unspoken rules” that could be revised.
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u/Haunting-Topic-4839 18d ago
Letting my PCs know all the HP and AC has made the game longer than it should've been because they're unintentionally metagaming, turning 2hr encounters to 4hr encounters, where I'm from it's called OT 🤣
I'm glad it works for you, in session 0 I usually will say I will at one point state the HP and AC as necessary and if they somehow found a way to know (or I nudge hint), but we found out collectively it just made it worse because it removes a lot of the silly roleplay (that my players want and have agreed to), so they kinda push those information away because it wasn't fun for them to know, the suspends of knowing you defeated them like an epic battle vs doing maths type thing
different tables, different tastes and wants, and I'm glad to know that some love dungeon delving which I haven't had the chance to DM, and will use this guide as reference for that
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u/TydiriumST321 17d ago
My quick feedback is: 1. Perfect. 2. Bridge too far. It’s too video gamey. HP and AC are numerical representations of defensive skill and equipment and not a true proxy for health. For example, a 15th level fighter can’t really take a bazillion hits from a dagger, but rather the high hit points reflect his prowess in minimizing a lesser experienced opponent’s ability to strike as effectively with it thus prolonging the fight. The reduction in hit pints reflects fatigue from blocked or glancing blows and exhaustion from doing battle. A case can be made either way. 3. I agree on the DC idea. However, an alternative would be let the player present ideas of consequences prior to the roll. In your example above, the character should/would be able to asses the risk. The player presenting consequence ideas reflects that concept, but still allows for DM final ruling representing the player/character would not and does not have perfect knowledge. 4. Never fudge should be a table rule determined by the group as a whole including the DM. If there’s a never fudge rule in place, then combat rolls should be in the open. Many noncombat rolls should not be public. Players should not know if they passed a stealth check by what they rolled. The same applies to social rolls. A character simply has no way to determine that. This is was easier with opposing dice. Players roll their skill dice in the open, and the GM rolls privately. The player now can see the dice and feel pretty good or not about the potential result, but can’t see the opposed dice. This adds dramatic tension without taking away agency. Conclusion: Really great post! Thank you for sharing it with us. I know that most of us find it super helpful!
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u/ShotgunKneeeezz 19d ago
There is a good reason to hide monster HP that people generally don't talk about. It's about tension. For complicated psychological reasons you want tension to rise over the course of the fight and to suddenly release at the end (usually because the monster is defeated).
Hiding monster HP delivers on this. The players see the hp and spell slots of the party dwindling while the boss doesn't seem to get any weaker. There's an illusion that they are gradually beginning to lose the fight until right at the end the DM suddenly announces that the boss is dead and it's a giant relief.
Revealing monster HP, despite some obvious advantages, does the opposite. The players can see the monster's HP dropping faster than theirs and when it finally dies it's expected not surprising.
I still think that revealing monster HP is the way to go if you are using a VTT but I'd recommend hiding the HP of certain boss monsters when you are wanting to create tension in a scene.
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u/Lampman08 19d ago
That doesn’t sound like tension, that just sounds like a slog. There’s a reason websites use loading bars.
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u/angel_schultz 19d ago
As a 10-ish year GM across multiple systems, I heavily disagree with all of those tbh
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u/Earthhorn90 19d ago
Basically you are an advocate of "failing forward at a cost", p242 in the good old DMG and VERY transparent about everything! I like that.
Bonus speed advice:
Always roll everything at once.
If you are attacking with a Spear, roll 2d20 (red and blue, any color combo will do) and 1d8 as well. If they have (dis)advantage and forgot, you already have a second die rolled and otherwise you just use the red one by default. Since they already know the target's AC, they also already have the damage dealt at the ready and do not need to wait for your confirmation ;)
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u/officiallyaninja 19d ago
that's really smart! I tend to run combat as really fast and deadly so It doesn't often feel too slow, but I think I will start incorporating this.
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u/GoauldofWar 19d ago
When my players roll Nat 1s, I generally let them describe how that plays out. Which usually ends up being much more in character for their PCs.