Why we should stop rolling dice.

[KorvinStarmast]

I got fed up with this particular GM (love the guy, he was my best friend in high school, but terrible DM) when their obsession with "consequences for failure" grew to the point that they implemented a lasting injury system for 5e, where you roll on an injury table every time you get downed.

We did that last one for a while in one campaign, and I grew to hate it.

As the only melee-oriented character in the party, I saw which way the wind was blowing from there, and had it confirmed to me when I went down in the first fight afterward (as I did in nearly every single important combat, because shockingly enough, even a Barbarian can't tank everything on his own, and everyone else in the party was too busy jerking off half the time to actually do anything helpful in combat) and started losing fingers.

Tone deaf DM. Sorry to hear that, but so it goes.

... and I'm still playing with that group over 4 years later now, twice a week...but everyone, including myself, still prefers to play other systems (primarily Pathfinder for long campaigns).

So basically, all 5e did was introduce me to a consistent group for playing other games.

A silver lining to the cloud, glad to hear that you all have a game you enjoy together!

[Kurt Kurageous]

Part of the problem are DMs who insist there must always be a chance of failure for everything or else there's no "challenge". Arguments to the contrary are irrelevant to them. Your only choice are keep playing despite it or walk away, but walking away will not change their mind. You'll avoid a bad game, but they'll continue to think you're a munchkin.

Players aren't off the hook either. Some keep asking what to roll after announcing they want to do something. Maybe it's because of these DMs in the past or just their own thinking. 5E to its credit does go over this and tells players/DMs there are times no rolls are needed, but I do think they should have been more explicit and kept the Take 10/Take 20 language. It's not elegant, but some people need that explicit gamespeak to get the point across.

To clarify I'm not blaming 5E. 5E did its job in this case.

Remember AD&D Magic User spell failure percentages?!? They stopped after a certain INT score. Clearly DMs who insist on chances of failure don't know that they have been wrong forever.

I bet every long running DM has had players roll without the DM saying to roll. This is a bad habit that I think comes from versions where a 20 guaranteed success. And that's not true in 5e for everything.

[Cikomyr2]

Part of the problem are DMs who insist there must always be a chance of failure for everything or else there's no "challenge". Arguments to the contrary are irrelevant to them. Your only choice are keep playing despite it or walk away, but walking away will not change their mind. You'll avoid a bad game, but they'll continue to think you're a munchkin.

Players aren't off the hook either. Some keep asking what to roll after announcing they want to do something. Maybe it's because of these DMs in the past or just their own thinking. 5E to its credit does go over this and tells players/DMs there are times no rolls are needed, but I do think they should have been more explicit and kept the Take 10/Take 20 language. It's not elegant, but some people need that explicit gamespeak to get the point across.

To clarify I'm not blaming 5E. 5E did its job in this case.

Disagreed. The problem is that some DM lack the imagination that the failure caused by the roll may have something less related to the roll cause the failure. A good thief who needs to open a lock will open the lock. It's just that he may wake the cat while doing so. Because that's what happen when you roll a 4, Steve.

[Unoriginal]

Disagreed. The problem is that some DM lack the imagination that the failure caused by the roll may have something less related to the roll cause the failure. A good thief who needs to open a lock will open the lock. It's just that he may wake the cat while doing so. Because that's what happen when you roll a 4, Steve.

What if the DC is 10 and the thief has +9 to the check?

[Cikomyr2]

What if the DC is 10 and the thief has +9 to the check?

He catches the cat, alert no one, but while he holds it down the cat claws him for 1d4 damage.


Roll initiative Steve

[Rynjin]

A silver lining to the cloud, glad to hear that you all have a game you enjoy together!

Yeah! And to be clear, I don't actually think 5e is a bad game; it's just "the best game I hate". It's objectively well designed in a lot of ways, but the ways it isn't (and some of the ways it is) just don't appeal to me.

Disagreed. The problem is that some DM lack the imagination that the failure caused by the roll may have something less related to the roll cause the failure. A good thief who needs to open a lock will open the lock. It's just that he may wake the cat while doing so. Because that's what happen when you roll a 4, Steve.

Why do people do this? Why put so much weight on the number of the roll and not the result?

[ad_hoc]

This is already how 5e works.

Ability checks should only be made when there is drama to be had.

The outcome needs to be in doubt AND there needs to be meaningful consequences for failure.

Don't waste time making rolls on things that aren't interesting. Move on and get to the good stuff.

[Cikomyr2]

Why do people do this? Why put so much weight on the number of the roll and not the result?

Because... we roll dice to have fun? It's not a deterministic game? It's okay to have bad results sometimes as long as you are having a good time with friends?

[Kurt Kurageous]

Don't waste time making rolls on things that aren't interesting. Move on and get to the good stuff.

Upvote this!

[Rynjin]

Because... we roll dice to have fun? It's not a deterministic game? It's okay to have bad results sometimes as long as you are having a good time with friends?

What's the point of having skill check bonuses if you're going to CREATE failure where there was none? It makes no sense. Failure can be fun (one of my favorite gaming moments is a TPK), but it needs to make sense in context, not just "hey I know you exceeded the check DC by 7 points but the DIE ROLL was ow, so you suffer". You know being good at things is also fun sometimes too, right?

[Cikomyr2]

What's the point of having skill check bonuses if you're going to CREATE failure where there was none? It makes no sense. Failure can be fun (one of my favorite gaming moments is a TPK), but it needs to make sense in context, not just "hey I know you exceeded the check DC by 7 points but the DIE ROLL was ow, so you suffer". You know being good at things is also fun sometimes too, right?

Because you rolled a nat 1 at the table and everyone probably screamed of horror. It's funnier that way matey. The high skill check is meant to help you achieve really hard DCs, not to guarantee the lack of negative results against routine ones.

[Tanarii]

Because you rolled a nat 1 at the table and everyone probably screamed of horror. It's funnier that way matey. The high skill check is meant to help you achieve really hard DCs, not to guarantee the lack of negative results against routine ones.

That's exactly what it is, without a house rule. There are no critical failures or natural 1s auto fail or the like.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That's exactly what it is, without a house rule. There are no critical failures or natural 1s auto fail or the like.

I agree. Natural 1s only matter for attack rolls and death saves (by default). Anything else is a (horrible, IMO) DM decision. There is discussion of this on DMG 242:

Rolling a 20 or a 1 on an ability check or saving throw doesn't normally have any special effect. However, you can choose to take such an exceptional roll into account when adjudicating the outcome. It's up to you to determine how this manifests in the game. An easy approach is to increase the impact of the success or failure. For example, rolling a 1 on a failed attempt to pick a lock might break the thieves' tools being used...

Note the bolded word. That's the failure gets worse if and only if there was a failure to begin with. A success is a success. A 1 is not a failure, if the total is high enough. A 1 is just the worst possible success you could have managed. The dice represent the random factors in play. In some cases, the random factors are irrelevant. In which case why in the world are you even rolling the dice? There's no chance of failure!
-------

On topic, here's a passage from the absolutely most important chapter of the rules when it comes to DMing (DMG chapter 8, emphasis added):

Many DMs find that using a combination of the two approaches [rolling dice for everything and ignoring the dice whenever possible] works best. By balancing the use of dice against deciding on success, you can encourage your players to strike a balance between relying on their bonuses and abilities and paying attention to the game and immersing themselves in its world.

Remember that dice don't run your game--you do. Dice are like rules. They're tools to help keep the action moving.

...

When a player wants to do something, it's often appropriate to let the attempt succeed without a roll or a reference to the character's ability scores...Only call for a roll if there is a meaningful consequence for failure.

It goes on to mention that there are two threshold questions before you call for a roll:
* Is it so easy as to be unlikely (or implausible for the character) to fail? This is the "a 1 is a success" case.
* Is it so difficult or implausible in the situation as to be impossible? This is the "a 20 is a failure" case.

Only if both are false should you think of calling for a roll.

[Cikomyr2]

That's exactly what it is, without a house rule. There are no critical failures or natural 1s auto fail or the like.

No. That's another ability, it's the Rogue Reliable Talent.

[JNAProductions]

No. That's another ability, it's the Rogue Reliable Talent.

That increases your minimum to 1+Mod to 10+Mod (on the checks it affects), but if you're rocking a +9 to an ability check or save and the DC is only 10, you pass. Unless you're suffering from something like Bane or an ability like Cutting Words, you cannot fail.

[Witty Username]

Not minimum 15, average 15. Minimum would be unplayable, unless that translated into "DM doesn't use ability checks".

I'm an advocate for average 10, with a range of 5-15 being normal. That means the typical check will be 75-25%, with people who are good at something at first level adding 20% to it, and people who are exceptional (high level adventurers) being able to do amazing things that require even higher DCs.

I have been messing with DC 11 for everything, it works pretty well surprisingly. It keeps investment relevant without gating characters out of the attempt.


P.S IMO, Time should always be a factor, whether it is rations or torches, the duration of active spells or the use of random encounters. So rolling instead of taking 10 times longer will always have an upside.

[CountDVB]

I came with an interesting idea.

The following formula: 8 + proficiency bonus + stat modifier + circumstance die.

Now what are circumstance die? It's where you roll a d6 twice, with the first roll representing good luck and the second roll negtive luck. Subtract the result of the bad luck roll from the good luck roll and you take the answer and plug it into the equation.

An example: Let's say you have a profiency bonus of 3 and your stat modifier for this current roll is 3.

So right now the formula is 8 + 3 + 3 + circumstance die or 14 + circumstance result.

Now you roll the d6 twice. Your "good luck" roll is 3 and your "bad luck" roll is 1, so 3 - 1. This means the answer or circumstance result is 2 so it's 14 + 2 = 16 for your result.
Now what if we reversed the results, as in "good luck" of 1 and a "bad luck" of 3 and thus 1 - 3? Well, then the circumstance result is -2. So it becomes 14 - 2 = 12.


Now, what about advantage and disadvantage? Well, if you have advantage, you add 3 to your good luck result and if disadvantage, you add it to your bad luck result.

Let's go back to our original roll. If we rolled with advantage, then our "good luck" roll goes from 3 to 6. So it's now 6 - 1 which is now 5, meaning our above result rolled with advantage is 14 + 5 = 19.
However, if we rolled with disadvantage, then the "bad luck" roll goes from 1 to 4. meaning 3 - 4 and thus -1, so the result rolled with disadvantage, it is thus 14 -1 = 13.

I hope I explained that well. What do ya'll think?

[Pex]

Part of the problem are DMs who insist there must always be a chance of failure for everything or else there's no "challenge". Arguments to the contrary are irrelevant to them.

He catches the cat, alert no one, but while he holds it down the cat claws him for 1d4 damage.


Roll initiative Steve

Because... we roll dice to have fun? It's not a deterministic game? It's okay to have bad results sometimes as long as you are having a good time with friends?

Because you rolled a nat 1 at the table and everyone probably screamed of horror. It's funnier that way matey. The high skill check is meant to help you achieve really hard DCs, not to guarantee the lack of negative results against routine ones.

I rest my case.

[greenstone]

Don't waste time making rolls on things that aren't interesting. Move on and get to the good stuff.

That's a great phrase. I'm grabbing that for my sig.

[KaussH]

Don't waste time making rolls on things that aren't interesting. Move on and get to the good stuff.

The issue with this concept is that we dont all agree with what the " good stuff" is.
Some people feel that we should have no traps, locks, and should magicly show up at the start of dungeons since travel is boring.

Now that said, a lot of times you can storyline results " since you are prof in x, you know why"

But it can also be nice for feel. Take the " rolled a 4" example. Dc 11, charicter has +9. They clearly make it. So you may say " for a moment you think the lock is going to defy you, but all at once the bit of rust flakes off and the lock pops open"
If the roll a 1.... " a bit of oil makes your picks slip. Your going to get it open, but its going to take a long bit. "

If they rolled a 10 " you pop this lock like you have been doing this your whole life."

More atmosphere.

Now keep in mind this is is how i might do it if things are live. Aka someone might care they are breaking in.

If this was an untrapped chest in the pcs room ( or any safe spot) it would be more " are you taking your time? If so no roll needed, your just that good."

And yes, some of us like to roll dice, add numbers, hear the clatter. There are a number of games ( looking at you gumshoe) that have very limited dice rolls and some times it.. looses something.

[Cheesegear]

Part of the problem are DMs who insist there must always be a chance of failure for everything or else there's no "challenge".

I think if there's no chance of failure, then there's no game. However, as per the DMG, not everything needs a roll. Do you really need to roll a DC 5 Athletics check when the Fighter's Athletics was already +5 starting at Level 1, and has only gotten higher, since? No. The Fighter does it. That's why I make a point of asking my players early on to tell me when they can't roll less than 5 on any given Skill. And at Level 8 or 9 I start asking who can't fail a DC 10 in a Skill, etc.
I also use Passive Investigation, and Passive Insight a lot. Just tell me when you're good at a Skill, please. It'll make the game go faster.

I think the bigger issue, is DMs who insist that there must always be consequences for failure. But that's me...I mean, DMs who disproportionately punish players for failure. Most of the...Time...The only consequence for failure should be time. And a lot of the...Time...Especially in published modules, that's not even a consequence.
Unless the players are diplomacy'ing their way out of a combat, in which case they fail, and the combat happens like it was going to, anyway - 'failure' in this case, is that the story progresses how the DM planned it to in the first place.
Dip****s who want 'critical miss tables' need their head checked.

Some keep asking what to roll after announcing they want to do something. Maybe it's because of these DMs in the past or just their own thinking.

I get real angry at dogpiling.
Player A: "Oh, Player B failed? Can I roll?"
Player C: "I'll roll too."
Player D: "If everyone else is rolling, I will too."

No. No. Everyone stop. If I wanted a group check, I would've asked for one. If you all want to roll, then Player B can roll once, with Advantage, as per you Helping.

[Asmotherion]

So your a sneaky rogue and you have a massive bonus to picking locks.
There is a shiny chest in front of you after a big battle and its locked.
The DM says roll to unlock the chest.... and you fail at the roll.

Well now what? Ive been in some campaigns that DMs say you need to figure out another way to get it open.... why?!
If you fail at one thing why not just try again, esp if its not life or death situation.
They should be able to try any number of times unless the picks break or something else changes in the scenario.

That being said, why roll dice? Why not just say you open the chest? Sure if the difficulty of the chest is really high, roll it out but still, given enough time it will open.

This is just one example that has happened a number of times be it a door or chest that it just makes me wonder what the heck are we rolling for when it comes to non-life or death checks that should be able to be repeated.

Thanks i needed to vent.

Well, you probably had crappy DMs.

Most skills can be re-tried. Failing just means you didn't manage to do it in 6 secconds/on the first try. On a natural 1, yeah, the lockpick may have broken inside the keyhole, and needing an other way to oppen. Which is a common house-rule, but not a rule.

Otherwise, this is relevant in situations where time is of the essance, like unlocking a chest in a room full of guards. In other cases, people usually take 10, or take 20 if they have the time (not sure if take 10/20 is still a thing in 5e, but it's generally common enough to implement)

To your question, "why roll dice", is to provide both an interactive factor to the game, instead of playing it like a static card game, and also add an element of unpredictability and suspence via the random factor. It's what makes a diference between a binary option that determines success or failure besed on a static stat, or choosing to simulate the fact that people of all skill levels sometimes fail at the simplest tasks, while other times succed at things that are way above their capabilities.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Because... we roll dice to have fun? It's not a deterministic game? It's okay to have bad results sometimes as long as you are having a good time with friends?

Best to gauge your table rather than assume all rolling is fun. I personally don't want to have to stop and roll for every locked door that we decide to pick it kick open. For lockpick, our Monk has proficiency but not expertise, it makes sense to roll sometimes because we're in a dangerous environment and her bonus isn't completely out of this world. When our fighter pulls out her enchanted battering ram though to kick a door down, that +21 modifier is almost always enough on its own, however it had its own consequences that don't need to be invented on the spot.

We thought differently our first time playing. We wanted random, wet introduced a fumble table for skills and attacks. As if the world wanted to highlight this error, we nearly killed ourselves before eventually TPKing due to inexperience on top of all the "random" self sabotage.

It probably seems a bit like rambling here, so to summarize - inventing or adding failure states because you want an expectation of suspense is generally a bad idea. If you want to do something like that, make it a player choice, like giving a party that struggles with doors an enchanted battering ram that ends up louder than a knock spell but is guaranteed to open most doors. This keeps their agency in play, don't surprise them with failure when they know they've succeeded.

[Onos]

So your a sneaky rogue and you have a massive bonus to picking locks.
There is a shiny chest in front of you after a big battle and its locked.
The DM says roll to unlock the chest.... and you fail at the roll.

Well now what? Ive been in some campaigns that DMs say you need to figure out another way to get it open.... why?!
If you fail at one thing why not just try again, esp if its not life or death situation.
They should be able to try any number of times unless the picks break or something else changes in the scenario.

That being said, why roll dice? Why not just say you open the chest? Sure if the difficulty of the chest is really high, roll it out but still, given enough time it will open.

This is just one example that has happened a number of times be it a door or chest that it just makes me wonder what the heck are we rolling for when it comes to non-life or death checks that should be able to be repeated.

Thanks i needed to vent.

The most basic rule of a tRPG is roughly: if there's both a potential success state and a potential failure state to an action, call for a roll. Otherwise, don't. Sounds like your GM may need to brush up on how to run a good game.

[DwarfFighter]

That being said, why roll dice? Why not just say you open the chest? Sure if the difficulty of the chest is really high, roll it out but still, given enough time it will open.

It is very kind of your GM to allow repeated attempts, but his try-until-you-pass attitude says to me that he just going by procedure. If he knew what he was doing, you wouldn't be rolling to pick the lock for the 15th time!

In this situation I feel there are better options when the initial roll fails, like...

1. The lock is undefeatable. No further tries allowed.
2. The Rogue struggles a bit with the lock, and finally opens it. However, something has gone wrong. Perhaps his lock pick set has been damaged and he cannot use them for picking any more locks (harsh, but lockpicks are replaceable). Or somehow a fragile piece of treasure within is damaged as the Rogue jostles with the lock. Or an alarm is sounded.
3. The lock eventually yields after an embarassing amount of time, giving the other PCs plenty of opportunity to ask "Is it OK?" and "Can you manage?" like every damn time you had to program you parents VCR.

-DF

[Tanarii]

3. The lock eventually yields after an embarassing amount of time, giving the other PCs plenty of opportunity to ask "Is it OK?" and "Can you manage?" like every damn time you had to program you parents VCR.

Ha! That's be a great comedy bit to use against a DM at any table that didn't know and use the ten times as long rule on a regular basis, and wanted rerolls.

(Of course, I wouldn't play at such a table in the first place.)

[EggKookoo]

Don't waste time making rolls on things that aren't interesting. Move on and get to the good stuff.

So, funny thing about this. I agree that rolls should only be called for if there's a chance of interesting failure or success. Rolls come when success or failure A) isn't a given and B) changes the options in front of the players/characters. If the player can reasonably try again, and just keep trying until a success is rolled, what's the point of the rolls? Except perhaps as a tool to determine how long it takes to complete it, which can be useful, but it's not really the same thing.

But... In my previous and current campaigns -- ones I've been DMing -- I find my players actually don't like it when I tell them they can just do a thing. Even more than when I tell them they can't do a thing (which isn't often, because they have some sense of what's feasible in the game). There's a light in their eyes when they are faced with a task, and that light dims ever so slightly when I say "yeah, you can just do that." I mean, not always. If the player feels as though it's something he could reasonably do, I don't get that reaction. But in those cases the player is less saying "I try to do X" and more "I probably can just do X, right?"

At least at my table, the players feel like they earn it more when I have them roll, even for little things. It's an art, to be sure. I pepper in "you can just do that" here and there, but more and more I'm starting to learn toward having them roll for almost everything, even if an argument could be made in the abstract that the task in question is essentially a guaranteed success (I mean, as long as no one at the able is actually making that argument at the time). The players get frustrated when they fail, but when they succeed they feel like that success is theirs, not something given to them by me because I felt like it.

[jjordan]

Tangent - Since we're using lockpicking as the example skill I am amused that people think of fantasy-medieval locks as modern pin and tumbler locks which are picked using rakes and similar devices when they were actually very different and defeated using different tools.

[Unoriginal]

I rest my case.

Have to agree.

I would not keep playing with a DM who think that *being good enough to not fail* should be rewarded by an HP loss and then a fight.

It's a clear sign that DM does not Care about anything but their idea of what must happen at the table.

[Cikomyr2]

Have to agree.

I would not keep playing with a DM who think that *being good enough to not fail* should be rewarded by an HP loss and then a fight.

It's a clear sign that DM does not Care about anything but their idea of what must happen at the table.

a fight against a *cat* is not a fight. It's an encounter. It's about giving you a complication because you rolled a freakkin' 1, without preventing you from achieving your objective. the 1d4 damage is meant to be fun flavor representing the cat resisting your attempt at silencing it, I would not do it on a level 1 rogue with barely 8 hp. But I would do it on a level 5+ rogues who have 20+ hp and can afford to have a claw scratch his face. Then you have the best thief of the thieves' guild with a nasty scar who just *wont* talk about "how he got these scars".

That's how you create character, it's these little story bits thrown in the pot.


A weaker rogue who wouldn't succeed on a roll of a 1 to 4 would probably just make noise and not be fast enough to prevent the cat from making noise, but still unlock the lock. Because there's no way in hell I am preventing a rogue from advancing his story or mission because of a failed roll.