I roll in the open. I think it’s up to the DM to make 5e dangerous. Since 5e is easier to learn or teach newbies are drawn towards it. I still enjoy playing 1AD&D at conventions and 3.5 once every two or three months.
More Danger = braver characters and more excited players. My players consistently reminisce over the most dangerous situations they got themselves into. 10 months into the campaign, and those tense moments were it all came down to one die roll in the open are epic.
I've been playing OSR since thats all there was. THANK YOU for bringing up one of the main elements missing today. OD&D had NO training wells, safety vests or water wings. If your character died, they died. NONE of the early DM's I played with fudged die rolls to tell a story, because it was a GAME, not a STORY.
I grew up with ad&d second edition. Rule 1: this is a game, we are all here to have fun. Fudging dm rolls wasn’t common, but it defiantly happened. I also should point out that virtually everything was homebrew. The original D&D definitely encouraged min/maxing and power gaming. But if you are using a balanced modules then no fudging is totally fair. If it’s homebrew, of course the DM is going to screw up sometimes in expectations or balance, after all he doesn’t have play testers. Overall, I think yours is a bad take.
As a forever DM going back to D&D first edition back in 1977 or so, I discovered that as a GM/DM it is better to let my players roll all the rolls that I would make. When something goes wrong they know it was me pushing a narrative with a false dice roll. They also know that combat is going to be deadly as the dice cast is the result they get. Another great aspect is it keeps them engaged in the game as they are the ones rolling when with other GM/DMs they would be sitting on their hands waiting for their turn. I call the monster attack rolls player defense rolls. Same math and rules, just a different perspective with the name to create engagement. I also love the fact that it removes me being seen as an adversary and allows me to be the referee and story teller. The dice and their hand that cast them are the bad guy. I’ll never do it any other way once I discovered how powerful this way of playing is.
Agree so much with all of this. Unfortunately I DMed for years using narrative style plots, which were fun sometimes but lacked that spicy danger. Sandbox is the way!
This is why the sandbox open world hexcrawl playstyle is king. No story is dependent upon any PCs in the game. Any one character can die, the player makes a new character and the play just continues. With ultimate player agency comes ultimate player danger. ROLL ON! 🎲🎲🎲
Great video! I think if a game is up-front about the lethality and stakes it uses, the players can be more accepting of those fail-states. I will say, when I run D&D I probably fudge one roll every-other-session. I do so for D&D simply because the d20 is such a swingy die that it can create a feeling of lack of control by the players...so I very rarely NUDGE things in the right direction to keep the narrative going. As far as stakes, I'm with you 100%. If there's nothing on the line, nothing that's being fought for, then really it's just a miniature combat simulator. Both the players and their foes should have something they're fighting for!
Absolutely agree! I switched to rolling in the open and I don't plan on going back. I'm a big fan of appropriately designing encounters to challenge the party. Not all encounters should be deadly, but they should be well designed with the party's capabilities in mind, especially boss fights. No saving them dues ex machina either.
Yeah, you'll hear advice elsewhere encouraging fudging, I think they're more about narrative, in which case as long as it's sort of understood that that's the goal then maybe it's OK? But I remember when I experimented with that that it felt like a waste of time and took the thrill out of the random number generation. Doesn't mean less of a reliance on dice is a bad thing, but if the dice are used they're sort of in the place of the GM's decisionmaking. Everybody gets to have a bit of fun discovering what will happen
In a sandbox, the players can, to a considerable degree, choose the difficulty they want. If they really want to raid kobolds and goblins until they can cast Raise Dead, so be it. If they want to take a chance and see if they can get a heap of treasure and XP, they should be able to do that too.
Yeah I think that’s an advantage of sandbox play. Selection from different options which can have different risk profiles. Of course once dice get tossed anything could happen, however unlikely!
I remember for a 5E duet (my first game run since taking a hiatus in 2005) I used a Sword Spider (CR12) against two players at level 3. They wiped the walls with the sword spider, who should have killed a party of much higher level. Realizing how broken the "challenge rating" system is in 5E sent me to look for another game to run a campaign, and I found the OSR was actually a thing thanks to youtube. I realize that this is a make-believe game where the rules shouldn't matter, but if your published system purports to be balanced and events like the above occur, I consider that an intrinsic flaw in the game system.
Ilike the 5e death save mechanic. That cushion means i can go hard with the monsters and not hold back. If a PC goes down to zero i roll their saves behind the screen and keep the result secret. When the players dont know how many death saves are left or if ive rolled a nat 1 it makes them scramble High stakes abound!!
How do you handle rolling trap detection? (Or any other situation where the player shouldn't know if they failed a roll or if there is nothing for them to begin with. Like listen at doors)
Yeah, I mean you can roll those behind the screen if you wish. I'd just be honest about that with them "These checks I'll make behind the screen so you don't know". For listening/searching checks, I don't really care if they roll the die and see the result. As specified in the OSE (B/X) rules they are allowed only one check anyways. For traps, you could always roll a few dice in the open and only have one be the "true" die (use different colored dice to differentiate). That way you know the outcome but they may not. You also don't have to specifically say your checking for trap triggers. I just say "Don't mind me" as I proceed to roll a handful of dice and watch them sweat for a second.
The best take I've heard is to not use them. Or, have them obvious. The way traps are usually used, and why they're hated, is because traps just happen; - If they detect it, they just roll to disable it. - If they don't, they take damage. There's no player agency and decision-making involved at that moment. And the solution is just cookie cutter. Make them too weak, it becomes an annoyance. Make them too strong, (which traps are supposed to be), and they become cripplingly unfair. Making them obvious turns them more into an environmental hazard. Then it becomes about how they can bypass it. It turns it more into a puzzle that they get creative about it, or brute force if they want to. This also makes it so it's not a roll that solves the problem for them.
For me high stakes are really interesting, I prefer to go with personal stakes. Thus despite being very much on the narrative end of the hobby, and rejecting the hollow OSR style of play, I can completely agree that fudging dice ruins the experience. The uncertainty is for me not a game feature, but a drama feature.
In 5e you pretty much have to target a downed character or go way over the recommended CR or use disintegration before someone will die. Basically, you have to do something that will give the players justification in calling you a "Bad DM". That's by design 100%. 5e is a narrative RPG masquerading as a strategy or hybrid RPG. Pretending the stakes are high is not the same as actual high stakes. This is also why WoTC prefers long form "epic campaigns". Are you really going to do all that prep and just let them die? Of course you're not.
The only thing I would say is I like the choice between "safe but low dmg attacks" vs "risky but high dmg" vs "useful spell if it lands" I feel like that with rolling dice in front of people is good. Also imo a good way to make "story but death matter" have the characters be prepared to research or pay a great cost to be revived. Ex: guy dies and now needs to kill X amount of bad guys or entities or they repo his soul
I think the reason people fudge dice rolls is to avoid anti-climactic character deaths....Zjurg the barbarian slayed the dragon, only to slip on a rock and hit his head carrying the treasure back to town...lol or during moments where combat between minions starts becoming a slog and the table just goes around rolling for hits and crits with zero role play and imagination going on besides how to attack..like really? Killed by a simple skeleton? Right in front of my bag of holding? Lol But no, personally I am highly against plot armor, however I am not a fan of anti climactic moments before the intensity starts building up or after it's already toned down. I think this is when imaginative pacing is key.
@@ShizaruBloodrayne yep, that's plot armor. Essentially doing that, you make everything but the big fights irrelevant to game play. It's a common player interest. It is the same thing as fudging rolls. As a dm, why would I take time to prepare sessions that are guaranteed successes. It is a complete waste of time as a dm and makes character actions irrelevant. No thanks.
Yeah, that’s certainly a reason why they fudge rolls, but I still think it’s a disservice. I personally refrain from calling for dice rolls for trivial things, so that reduces the chance Zjurg slips and dies on a random rock. But if there is risk in their actions then it calls for dice rolls. E.g. Zjurg decides to scale down a cliff to speed up travel home by a day vs. going around. Remember Isildur killed Sauron and claimed the One Ring for himself. Only to be ambushed by orcs later and killed. Sometimes character death isn’t pretty, but it happens.
Yes! If you've decided the outcome, why roll? If you find yourself fudging rolls, the system you're running doesn't fit the game you want to play. And it's not like the person spending the most money and time isn't in higher demand than the other people at the table
There is nothing wrong with fudging your rolls, you just have to do it correctly. However, it is a lot of fun to roll out in the open and watch their butts pucker with each roll.
4:11 roll save versus death to avoid being stepped on by Godzilla 😎. Oh you're good, roseating versus breath weapon to avoid being hit by Godzilla's breast weapon 😀😄...
Normally I don't fudge dice rolls, but, and there's always a but... sometimes, you have people at your table who need a boost now and then.
I roll in the open.
I think it’s up to the DM to make 5e dangerous. Since 5e is easier to learn or teach newbies are drawn towards it.
I still enjoy playing 1AD&D at conventions and 3.5 once every two or three months.
More Danger = braver characters and more excited players.
My players consistently reminisce over the most dangerous situations they got themselves into.
10 months into the campaign, and those tense moments were it all came down to one die roll in the open are epic.
I've been playing OSR since thats all there was. THANK YOU for bringing up one of the main elements missing today. OD&D had NO training wells, safety vests or water wings. If your character died, they died. NONE of the early DM's I played with fudged die rolls to tell a story, because it was a GAME, not a STORY.
I grew up with ad&d second edition. Rule 1: this is a game, we are all here to have fun. Fudging dm rolls wasn’t common, but it defiantly happened.
I also should point out that virtually everything was homebrew. The original D&D definitely encouraged min/maxing and power gaming. But if you are using a balanced modules then no fudging is totally fair. If it’s homebrew, of course the DM is going to screw up sometimes in expectations or balance, after all he doesn’t have play testers.
Overall, I think yours is a bad take.
Good takes with thoughtful ideas.
As a forever DM going back to D&D first edition back in 1977 or so, I discovered that as a GM/DM it is better to let my players roll all the rolls that I would make. When something goes wrong they know it was me pushing a narrative with a false dice roll. They also know that combat is going to be deadly as the dice cast is the result they get. Another great aspect is it keeps them engaged in the game as they are the ones rolling when with other GM/DMs they would be sitting on their hands waiting for their turn. I call the monster attack rolls player defense rolls. Same math and rules, just a different perspective with the name to create engagement.
I also love the fact that it removes me being seen as an adversary and allows me to be the referee and story teller. The dice and their hand that cast them are the bad guy. I’ll never do it any other way once I discovered how powerful this way of playing is.
Agree so much with all of this. Unfortunately I DMed for years using narrative style plots, which were fun sometimes but lacked that spicy danger. Sandbox is the way!
Thanks!
This is why the sandbox open world hexcrawl playstyle is king. No story is dependent upon any PCs in the game. Any one character can die, the player makes a new character and the play just continues. With ultimate player agency comes ultimate player danger. ROLL ON! 🎲🎲🎲
Well said, thanks for watching!
Thank you and you are very welcome.
Great video! I think if a game is up-front about the lethality and stakes it uses, the players can be more accepting of those fail-states.
I will say, when I run D&D I probably fudge one roll every-other-session. I do so for D&D simply because the d20 is such a swingy die that it can create a feeling of lack of control by the players...so I very rarely NUDGE things in the right direction to keep the narrative going.
As far as stakes, I'm with you 100%. If there's nothing on the line, nothing that's being fought for, then really it's just a miniature combat simulator. Both the players and their foes should have something they're fighting for!
Absolutely agree! I switched to rolling in the open and I don't plan on going back.
I'm a big fan of appropriately designing encounters to challenge the party. Not all encounters should be deadly, but they should be well designed with the party's capabilities in mind, especially boss fights. No saving them dues ex machina either.
All dice in the open, yeees!!
Couldn't agree more.
Yeah, you'll hear advice elsewhere encouraging fudging, I think they're more about narrative, in which case as long as it's sort of understood that that's the goal then maybe it's OK? But I remember when I experimented with that that it felt like a waste of time and took the thrill out of the random number generation. Doesn't mean less of a reliance on dice is a bad thing, but if the dice are used they're sort of in the place of the GM's decisionmaking. Everybody gets to have a bit of fun discovering what will happen
Agreed!
In a sandbox, the players can, to a considerable degree, choose the difficulty they want. If they really want to raid kobolds and goblins until they can cast Raise Dead, so be it. If they want to take a chance and see if they can get a heap of treasure and XP, they should be able to do that too.
they can be risk-averse, but putting that as 'choosing difficulty' is misleading
Yeah I think that’s an advantage of sandbox play. Selection from different options which can have different risk profiles. Of course once dice get tossed anything could happen, however unlikely!
Awesome video.
Thanks!
I remember for a 5E duet (my first game run since taking a hiatus in 2005) I used a Sword Spider (CR12) against two players at level 3. They wiped the walls with the sword spider, who should have killed a party of much higher level. Realizing how broken the "challenge rating" system is in 5E sent me to look for another game to run a campaign, and I found the OSR was actually a thing thanks to youtube.
I realize that this is a make-believe game where the rules shouldn't matter, but if your published system purports to be balanced and events like the above occur, I consider that an intrinsic flaw in the game system.
Yeah, it is frustrating that most of their advice amounts to "you figure it out".
1:59 exactly. but still stay off my lawn 😀.
Ilike the 5e death save mechanic.
That cushion means i can go hard with the monsters and not hold back.
If a PC goes down to zero i roll their saves behind the screen and keep the result secret.
When the players dont know how many death saves are left or if ive rolled a nat 1 it makes them scramble
High stakes abound!!
Terrific video.
Thank you!
he keeps getting closer to the camera... next video i wanna see nosehairs
Soon I'll be in the room with you!
@@Earthmote AAAAAAHHHH!!
🤣🤣🤣
How do you handle rolling trap detection? (Or any other situation where the player shouldn't know if they failed a roll or if there is nothing for them to begin with. Like listen at doors)
Use their passive score or roll for them and don't say what you are doing.
Yeah, I mean you can roll those behind the screen if you wish. I'd just be honest about that with them "These checks I'll make behind the screen so you don't know".
For listening/searching checks, I don't really care if they roll the die and see the result. As specified in the OSE (B/X) rules they are allowed only one check anyways.
For traps, you could always roll a few dice in the open and only have one be the "true" die (use different colored dice to differentiate). That way you know the outcome but they may not. You also don't have to specifically say your checking for trap triggers. I just say "Don't mind me" as I proceed to roll a handful of dice and watch them sweat for a second.
The best take I've heard is to not use them. Or, have them obvious. The way traps are usually used, and why they're hated, is because traps just happen;
- If they detect it, they just roll to disable it.
- If they don't, they take damage.
There's no player agency and decision-making involved at that moment. And the solution is just cookie cutter. Make them too weak, it becomes an annoyance. Make them too strong, (which traps are supposed to be), and they become cripplingly unfair.
Making them obvious turns them more into an environmental hazard. Then it becomes about how they can bypass it. It turns it more into a puzzle that they get creative about it, or brute force if they want to. This also makes it so it's not a roll that solves the problem for them.
For me high stakes are really interesting, I prefer to go with personal stakes. Thus despite being very much on the narrative end of the hobby, and rejecting the hollow OSR style of play, I can completely agree that fudging dice ruins the experience. The uncertainty is for me not a game feature, but a drama feature.
Agreed, thanks for watching!
In 5e you pretty much have to target a downed character or go way over the recommended CR or use disintegration before someone will die. Basically, you have to do something that will give the players justification in calling you a "Bad DM". That's by design 100%. 5e is a narrative RPG masquerading as a strategy or hybrid RPG. Pretending the stakes are high is not the same as actual high stakes. This is also why WoTC prefers long form "epic campaigns". Are you really going to do all that prep and just let them die? Of course you're not.
The only thing I would say is I like the choice between "safe but low dmg attacks" vs "risky but high dmg" vs "useful spell if it lands"
I feel like that with rolling dice in front of people is good.
Also imo a good way to make "story but death matter" have the characters be prepared to research or pay a great cost to be revived.
Ex: guy dies and now needs to kill X amount of bad guys or entities or they repo his soul
I think the reason people fudge dice rolls is to avoid anti-climactic character deaths....Zjurg the barbarian slayed the dragon, only to slip on a rock and hit his head carrying the treasure back to town...lol or during moments where combat between minions starts becoming a slog and the table just goes around rolling for hits and crits with zero role play and imagination going on besides how to attack..like really? Killed by a simple skeleton? Right in front of my bag of holding? Lol
But no, personally I am highly against plot armor, however I am not a fan of anti climactic moments before the intensity starts building up or after it's already toned down. I think this is when imaginative pacing is key.
Lol, that is the same as plot armor.
@@archersfriend5900 maybe half plot armor. Saving deaths for only epic dramatic moments instead of just any reason.
@@ShizaruBloodrayne in other words the world is fake
@@ShizaruBloodrayne yep, that's plot armor. Essentially doing that, you make everything but the big fights irrelevant to game play. It's a common player interest. It is the same thing as fudging rolls. As a dm, why would I take time to prepare sessions that are guaranteed successes. It is a complete waste of time as a dm and makes character actions irrelevant. No thanks.
Yeah, that’s certainly a reason why they fudge rolls, but I still think it’s a disservice. I personally refrain from calling for dice rolls for trivial things, so that reduces the chance Zjurg slips and dies on a random rock. But if there is risk in their actions then it calls for dice rolls. E.g. Zjurg decides to scale down a cliff to speed up travel home by a day vs. going around.
Remember Isildur killed Sauron and claimed the One Ring for himself. Only to be ambushed by orcs later and killed. Sometimes character death isn’t pretty, but it happens.
Yes! If you've decided the outcome, why roll? If you find yourself fudging rolls, the system you're running doesn't fit the game you want to play.
And it's not like the person spending the most money and time isn't in higher demand than the other people at the table
Well said
There is nothing wrong with fudging your rolls, you just have to do it correctly. However, it is a lot of fun to roll out in the open and watch their butts pucker with each roll.
5:50 That's exactly the crippling fear I've had trying to develop my world.
I'm trying to reel it back, but it's been difficult.
4:11 roll save versus death to avoid being stepped on by Godzilla 😎. Oh you're good, roseating versus breath weapon to avoid being hit by Godzilla's breast weapon 😀😄...