Ditch the DM Screen and roll openly?
To put it politely, no. Have you seen some of my die rolls? It ain’t pretty.
For one, I’ll never ditch my trusty GM screen for anything. It blocks my notes and some of my random table rolls if nothing else. My GM screen usually has good info on it, but mostly it blocks people from looking at my notes.
Rolling combat numbers in front of my players is not going to ever happen again. To get a little woo-woo for a moment, there’s this theory in quantum physics called the Observer Effect.
Now, Law of Attraction says I get what I’m vibrating at. If my vibration is high enough, I get the die rolls I most desire. However, if I’m worried or afraid, I’m likely going to get the opposite of what I want. Worried about squishing a player character so I need to roll low? Nat 20, for 19 points of damage, which is 17 more than the character had left.
Am I really wanting my big bad boss monster to hit? Had a bad day. Stomach is kinda growling. Oh look, miss after crit fail after miss. The PCs steamroll three encounters in a row. It’s downright depressing.
Trust me when I say you do not want me rolling that kinda stuff in front of the players every time. The players just have to trust that I’m not going to instantly splatastrophize a new player’s character and every monster is not going to hit automatically in Shadowdark.
The answer lies with Dragonbane or many other games I love to run.
One thing I love about Dragonbane RPG, (of many) is that monsters hit automatically. The only rolls monsters typically make are for which action they are performing and damage. It’s up to the players in Dragonbane to make sure they choose how to spend their actions wisely. That way we usually can’t thank or blame the dice for whatever happens.
NPCs, on the other hand, do roll to hit in Dragonbane. They also have the same actions and reactions available to them that a PC would have. If one fails to EVADE, the party could easily surround and pound on them and vice versa. As a GM, I try to put my boss villains and big bads together as monsters. That way I don’t have to worry about constantly rolling Dragons or Demons, depending. Choices count.
The same is true for games such as ICONS, Cypher System, and other games where the GMs never have to roll for NPC actions. It means that the GM has to make careful decisions, but the burden of dice-based consequences are on the players. The nice thing is it saves me prep time as a GM and I get to relax and focus on the NPCs actions.
Examples: If the players want to attack, they have to roll to hit higher that the opponent’s defense. If the opponent attacks, the players must roll to have their character dodge higher than the opponent’s attack value. Ties always go to the player in most games. It’s a “Don’t blame me. Blame your dice,” situation.
Will this argument ever be resolved?
Probably not. We all have different tastes and different styles of running our games. I believe in paying goodwill forward and always letting my dice rest on the median number. If the d20 perpetually sits on the 11, with the 10 showing, then I can’t complain if it constantly rolls high or low based on the biases in the plastic. While I don’t do the water glass test on my dice, I do roll them a few times to get a feel for what’s to come in terms of rolls. It seems to help if I’m running a game where I have to roll frequently.
What works best at my table may not work at yours. No one is right or wrong about this one. Be the Game Master you want to see. Be the player you want to meet. Happy gaming!
Jeff's Game Box 