I roll all dice in the open. I almost always tell the players what I am rolling for and what number will indicate 'success' (with e.g. monster 'to hit' rolls). I even do this for surprises and traps as a general rule - so when the players are going round the dungeon I will, for example, tell them when I am rolling for a random encounter, then the surprise roll if there is an encounter, then the reaction roll, etc.
I never use a DM screen.
I am happy to give the players some narrative control by asking them things like, "Where do you think the orcs you just captured were going?"
I am also happy to ask their advice when making rulings. "What do you guys think would be a fair way of judging if this PC can jump over the chasm?"
I generally let them know I am just a guy behind a curtain pulling rods and levers rather than a wizard. I am willing to be persuaded out of things and retcon when I have clearly made an error of judgment.
I am fine with saying, on occasion, things like, "Sorry that I have to do this to you, but the random wilderness encounter I just rolled up is a real bastard." But I never change the result of a roll or fudge.
I think all of this makes the players more involved and invested in the success of the session and takes a lot of the pressure off DMing. I also think it creates useful narrative distance between events in the game and the players. By making things partially non-immersive through putting the mechanics in the open, the 'feel' is more arch - one is tempted to say Vancian - and there is much less temptation to get carried away with trying to make up a story and start fudging. In this sense it is a bit like postmodern architecture - rather than hide the plumbing, wiring and so on, it's made into a centrepiece.
I have found that the more I do these things, the better and more fun my sessions are.
I'm always struck my the extent of common ground there is between OSR gaming techniques and Forge-ey, Story-gamey gaming techniques. Collaborative narration, director stance, and so on stand in direct opposition to the habits of the hobby against which both the OSR and the Forge were reactions: railroading, illusionism, and so forth.
ReplyDeleteThere is also the way that modern indie games tend to have a tighter focus than most traditional RPGs. Old school D&D has a similar tight focus on exploration of dungeons and hexcrawls.
DeleteI feel that later editions have lost that focus on exploration simply through moving from the fairly abstract combat of OD&D and Basic to longer, more tactical systems.
When I run B/X, the speed of combat allows for the focus of the game to remain on exploring, with players able to cover a much greater area in each session. In more recent editions, so much more time is spent in combat than anything else. That means that not a lot of ground is covered in a session.
I was one step ahead of you: http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2011/09/wherein-i-drink-kool-aid.html
DeleteOk. Not my style, but whatever floats your boat.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree more on rolling in the open: it's by far the best way to raise the stakes. And the dice provide plenty of shorthand narrative when you don't have time to describe things. A roll of maximum damage is a grievous blow, and everyone knows it.
ReplyDeleteI roll for wandering monsters in the open, but I don't tell the players the target number (either 1 or 6 - I'm not consistent between sessions); if they notice the roll, they'll work it out.
I'm generally a bit more conservative on narrative control, though I *really* like seizing on something the players have just invented and have NPCs riff on it: "The Sighing Desert, you say! Did you pass through the Black Oasis?". But I'd keep a firm grip on my orcs' motivations.
As far as exposed mechanic go, one thing I've noticed that my son and his friends absolutely love is randomly rolled treasure. They like that much more than carefully planted treasure, for some reason. It's probably just the excitement of the roll and the fact that it's more transparently a game - which isn't a bad thing, of course: games are fun!
When I run sessions for *my* friends, though, I never randomly generate the treasure (beyond the coins in a bandit's purse or whatever). For some reason, I sense that they'd be a bit suspicious of that - and I like to keep them in the dark as to what's preplanned and what's improvised. If they end a session unable to remember whether the Sighing Desert was their invention or mine, that's all to the good!
I don't make a secret of randomly rolling treasure but I don't let them see the tables. Sometimes surprises are fun.
DeleteI don't make a secret of randomly rolling treasure but I don't let them see the tables. Sometimes surprises are fun.
DeleteWhat about Reaction Rolls? They're the main reason I use a screen at this point.
ReplyDeleteI don't really have a problem rolling in the open but if I want it to be a surprise I'll usually just roll behind my hand or whatever.
DeleteI'm also a proponent of rolling in the open, as well as telling any static modifiers for attack rolls, damage, etc. when I roll for NPCs. Still use a screen to hide my notes, though, and as a quick reference space for any rules or tables I want handy.
ReplyDeleteNarrative control is a trickier point; I don't mind sharing some of that with my players, but players don't always enjoy being taken out of character like that, so I usually err on the side of only doing it for marginal stuff unless I know a player is fine with it.
Yes, narrative control is tricky. As a player, I like narrative control _when it's a regular part of a game_, but I really don't like when an apparently-trad GM suddenly says "so, what _is_ in the chest?" or whatever.
DeleteI really dislike when there is a mechanic for it, like Fate. I prefer to just use it as a way of making the world richer. "Where are the orcs going?" "To the Tomb City of Candelabra!" Suddenly you're adding more depth to the world.
DeleteDitto. I also hold the dice menacingly as I talk, withholding the roll. It feeds back into that narrative and instills it with tension.
ReplyDeleteMy style is very similar, except I don't normally do "Where do you think the orcs you just captured were going?" since I fear that would harm player immersion by pulling them out of actor-stance and into author-stance. I don't find that eg rolling random encounter checks openly harms immersion, it's just a "this area is dangerous!" signal, something the PCs ought to know. If the PCs really didn't know the area was dangerous I'd roll in secret. But generally I find that keeping the mechanics open helps, not harms, player engagement.
ReplyDeleteI'm similar to you in this regard. I have a range of motives for being so, but the biggest is to help the the players know they're not on a railroad, that they have real agency. To be confident of that, they have to see the sausage being made.
ReplyDeleteWRT narrative control, one guideline I've found useful is John Harper's "the line" for Apocalypse World — http://mightyatom.blogspot.com/2010/10/apocalypse-world-crossing-line.html "The line" is between letting players say things the character could already know at the point of the question, and letting players author things that haven't happened yet.
In practice, I don't give out much narrative control in my vaguely-OSR games. Where I do, it tends to be around character backgrounds and contacts e.g. "Would you likely know anyone like that? Around here?" And if it's questionable, or they're asking for a lot, I use the equivalent of Burning Wheel "Circles" roll to see if they _do_ still know that person, and if that person is still a friend.
(cf Burning Wheels' "Enmity Clause" — if you fail your Circles roll, the GM can still give you the contact, it's just that they hate you)
Yes, that's mostly how I use it - the "where are the orcs going" thing is rare.
Delete