if you don’t even roll, then you’re robbing your players from the feeling of a near miss
also taken to its extreme, your players will probably just work out that they aren’t going to die at all and start taking stupid risks that they shouldn’t
and yeah, at that point you can punish them, but you’ve been responsible for them getting to that state in the first place, so you’re essentially punishing them for your own mistakes
This is another thing I fear, that causes me to do probably unnecessary rolls. I want the story/ gameplay to have at least some semblance of believability, so I don’t want everyone risking their life on a curiosity because they know I won’t kill them, but I also don’t want to “punish” players every time they take a step off the walking path.
I’ll admit it right here: sometimes I roll the dice just to give the illusion of risk, when in reality I’m buying time to make up the results of what someone just did.
You can roll some dice but it doesn’t need to be a skill check (or whatever the naming is in your system of choice). When I don’t know what should happen, I may roll a die. If it’s high then it should be something good and if low, maybe it will give me inspiration to think about some new lurking danger. But I may discard the result and go with the gut feeling. Whatever, it was an “oracle roll” as I like to call it. Not tied to anyone’s statistics.
I like to use a deck of cards as well. In Savage Worlds, it is used to determine a random encounter. Clubs indicate an enemy, hearts a friebd, diamonds some good omen and spades obstacles. I like to draw a card so it inspires me on what should happen next (of course as long as it makes sense with the world)
I occasionally roll dice as theatre myself. In my last session, I had a troupe of traveling performers that I rolled for on each act to see if they did well or not, with each roll hidden from the players, and I would then describe the outcome to them. Most of the rolls were real, but some performers I had already decided would fail from the beginning, because they were plants for the enemy faction and had a plan going on in the background that depended on their failure at the act. But of course I still had to roll to not set off any alarms. Going to be fun when my players later piece together “oh, that hypnotist didn’t actually fail, they just used mass suggestion to make everybody believe they did so they don’t come under scrutiny.” If a player catches on - one actually did pretty quick - then great, let them have the victory, but in general it’s one of the ways I like to create expectations so I can subvert them or use them to sneak things by. The enemy faction is very guerilla-oriented, so it fits their MO pretty well.
On a more general scale, when it comes to hidden rolls, if I really need something to succeed, I’ll make the roll not a matter of whether they succeed, but who succeeds. Keeps the story moving if I realize too late that that roll shouldn’t have happened because a failure brings the game to a halt.
if you don’t even roll, then you’re robbing your players from the feeling of a near miss
also taken to its extreme, your players will probably just work out that they aren’t going to die at all and start taking stupid risks that they shouldn’t
and yeah, at that point you can punish them, but you’ve been responsible for them getting to that state in the first place, so you’re essentially punishing them for your own mistakes
This is another thing I fear, that causes me to do probably unnecessary rolls. I want the story/ gameplay to have at least some semblance of believability, so I don’t want everyone risking their life on a curiosity because they know I won’t kill them, but I also don’t want to “punish” players every time they take a step off the walking path.
I’ll admit it right here: sometimes I roll the dice just to give the illusion of risk, when in reality I’m buying time to make up the results of what someone just did.
You can roll some dice but it doesn’t need to be a skill check (or whatever the naming is in your system of choice). When I don’t know what should happen, I may roll a die. If it’s high then it should be something good and if low, maybe it will give me inspiration to think about some new lurking danger. But I may discard the result and go with the gut feeling. Whatever, it was an “oracle roll” as I like to call it. Not tied to anyone’s statistics.
I like to use a deck of cards as well. In Savage Worlds, it is used to determine a random encounter. Clubs indicate an enemy, hearts a friebd, diamonds some good omen and spades obstacles. I like to draw a card so it inspires me on what should happen next (of course as long as it makes sense with the world)
I occasionally roll dice as theatre myself. In my last session, I had a troupe of traveling performers that I rolled for on each act to see if they did well or not, with each roll hidden from the players, and I would then describe the outcome to them. Most of the rolls were real, but some performers I had already decided would fail from the beginning, because they were plants for the enemy faction and had a plan going on in the background that depended on their failure at the act. But of course I still had to roll to not set off any alarms. Going to be fun when my players later piece together “oh, that hypnotist didn’t actually fail, they just used mass suggestion to make everybody believe they did so they don’t come under scrutiny.” If a player catches on - one actually did pretty quick - then great, let them have the victory, but in general it’s one of the ways I like to create expectations so I can subvert them or use them to sneak things by. The enemy faction is very guerilla-oriented, so it fits their MO pretty well.
On a more general scale, when it comes to hidden rolls, if I really need something to succeed, I’ll make the roll not a matter of whether they succeed, but who succeeds. Keeps the story moving if I realize too late that that roll shouldn’t have happened because a failure brings the game to a halt.