[RPG Theory] Open Forum: Resolution Transparency

[stevekenson]

I’m woolgathering before leaving for the airport to pick up a friend who’s visiting us from out of town for a few days, and I’d like to pose a general question for readers of my blog:

What degree of “transparency” of action resolution do you prefer in an RPG? That is, how apparent should it be whether or not a character’s action has succeeded or failed, and why?

In a typical RPG, the players roll dice for their characters’ actions out in the open, and the results are fairly apparent: the players know the character’s relevant abilities and the result of the dice. The only real X-factors are the difficulty or modifier set by the GM. In some systems, even these are known (or the GM may choose to share them). The GM rolls dice for the actions of non-player characters, typically behind a screen or the like, so the players don’t know the results of either the rolls or necessarily the abilities/traits of the NPCs, although some players can and will figure them out from the available evidence. The GM has a fair amount of leeway to “fudge” results while remaining within the realm of credulous possibility.

If this is the mid-point, then the extremes would be:

1) Where all resolution must be out in the open and transparent; the GM makes rolls the same as any other player, open to player scrutiny and the only unknowns are the actual traits of the NPCs, and perhaps even they must be known (depending on how the resolution system works). Even if they’re not, players will pick up on them quickly. Or...

2) Where all resolution is hidden from the players and handled by the GM (much as some “secret” rolls are in mid-range games). All the players know are their characters’ traits; the outcomes of the dice are like a black box, and the GM has even more leeway to “fudge” results. The players are more heavily reliant on the Gamemaster’s interpretations of what “actually” happened.

What level of transparency do you prefer in your RPG experience, and why?

Comments

[blktalon.livejournal.com]

i like knowing to a degree because it give me a chance to look for other options that might yield a better outcome.

[fatespawn.livejournal.com]

For me it depends a lot on the game. Games that I feel are more story-driven (Mage, for me) benefit from more secret rolls to keep things feeling both more unknown and more realistic. In more combat-oriented games (not to be stereotypical, but for me this is usually D&D) I like more rolls out in the open specifically so that ST's can't fudge the results. In tactics-oriented games like that the thrill and tension comes from knowing that even if the ST wants you to win through, if you mess up only lucky dice can help you.

In general though, I prefer secret rolls. I've been doing a lot of gaming over Skype these days and to simplify things I just have copies of all the character sheets and roll pretty much everything. And generally the degree to which I let a player know how well they did is dependent on how many dots they have. A master hacker might screw up now and then, but they'll at least know it. Not only will an amateur not be as good at things, but they also won't have as good a sense as to how well things are working out.

The aspect of secret rolls that I have the hardest time with is false-positives, especially with things like suspecting people of lying. Generally, if you suspect someone then the ST rolls Sense Motive or whatever. If the NPC is lying and you beat them then you learn about it. If they're lying and you fail then you're not sure. If they're telling the truth and you succeed then you're sure about it. But most systems don't have a good way for people to see something that isn't there, when in reality that happens all the time. It's a conundrum.

[codrus.livejournal.com]

The old Digest Group Traveller rules had something that might help with your false positive case. Some tasks were marked as "uncertain". Here's the rules as written (except I simplified the table):

Uncertain Task: If the result of a task attempt is largely "opinion" or, because of the nature of the task, if immediate feedback on how successful the task has been is not possible, then declare the task to be uncertain. With an uncertain task, those associated with the task have some idea of how successful the task attempt was, but they are not certain.

When a player is attempting an uncertain task, both the player and the referee roll for the task attempt. The referee's roll is hidden from the player, and serves to modify the result of the player's roll.

If both rolls failed: No Truth
If one roll succeeded: Some truth
If both rolls succeed: Total Truth

No Truth: The player is totally misled as to the success of the task attempt. Completely erroneous information is given.

Some Truth: The player is given some idea of the success of the task attempt. Some valid information is given. Notice that it is possible for the character to fail at the task attempt and still get some helpful information -- although he can not know for sure this is the case.

Total Truth: The player is not misled in any way as to the success of the task attempt. Totally valid information is given. Notice the player may still not believe all of the information he is given, even though it is the complete truth.

Conceptually, that's very handy for interpersonal skills.

[bruceb.livejournal.com]

That's pretty darned elegant. I'm going to add that to my repertoire. Thanks!

[codrus.livejournal.com]

Something I noticed when I was running and playtesting a lot of GURPS books was that most GURPS gamemasters don't actually run it as written. They say "roll Acrobatics and tell me how much you make it by", not "roll against Acrobatics-3". There's a strong desire on the part of the gamemaster to have opportunities to fudge the results.

For games with a DC system, I'd say about half the rolls I asked for as a GM had an explictly known DC. For my next campaign, whatever it is, I'm planning on being far more up front on rolls.

As a player, knowing the DC matters for two reasons:
1. I may want to choose a different action if the odds suck.
2. The system may offer me a mechanism to improve my die rolls (e.g. SOTC fate points).

Both of these are important for me to assess my odds of 'winning' the roll, but I think the second one practically demands knowing at least the DC to avoid failure. Especially if failure in a situation has a known bad result. That is, I'm willing to spend however many fate points necessary to avoid falling into the deep chasm.


When I wrote up a mini-review of Esoterrorists, I really didn't like the game's suggestion that players should never be told the DC they are shooting for. It sparked a large discussion on the transparency issue.

http://codrus.livejournal.com/237177.html

[mancerbear.livejournal.com]

As a GM, I prefer the midrange for resolution. To put it frankly, I can't be bothered making the rolls for everything myself, and I think it's nice that the players make the rolls for their characters.

There's a lot to be said that the players should make all the rolls for their characters; skill checks, attack checks, defense checks, and damage rolls. The NPCs on the other hand, sould have static numbers, or difficulties that the players need to beat. If there's a situation where the NPC needs to make a roll in this case, then the average dice roll should be added (so in M&M all NPCs just take 10 on everything) This, I feel, gives the players ultimate control with their characters, allowing them to feel that they are having a direct effect on their world, and they are active within it, as opposed to letting things happen to them passively.

This is a mindset I got from Marvel SAGA (remember that littel gem?), and believe that it really was the best way to run a game. I can get close to that in M&M, using a few of the optional rules in MaMa. The one thing I really miss is the Fate Deck. That was a great mechanic.

Okay, I guess that was a longer answer than you were looking for :)

[saxon-pagan.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm mostly "midpoint"; players rolling for their characters, me rolling behind the screen for the NPCs. The two common exceptions:

1) When a player shouldn't know whether his PC succeeded or not. In this situation I roll behind the screen and announce the outcome, which may or may not be true (i.e., "The dwarf seems to be telling the truth.").

2) If a roll (NPC attack, poisoning, massive radiation, whatever) could potentially kill a PC, I throw the dice where everybody can see. This adds some dramatic tension to the game - for me as much as anyone else - and ensures that nobody can accuse me of killing off their characters.

[ophanim.livejournal.com]

For me, I think transparency is ultimately a question of play style, and play style seems determined by system, GM, player base, and even by a particular campaign within a system. For example, it's possible in Dungeons & Dragons (RIP Gary Gygax) to regulate transparency differently depending on the theme of a campaign (THOG SMASH versus The Delicate Art of Poisoning Your Friends). In Dungeons & Dragons, a GM can insist that all rolls be done in the open, selectively, or exclusively secretly and not lose coherence to the rules of the setting. With a skilled GM and consenting players, the degree of transparency can even change dynamically.

I do not think such flexibility is exclusive to any particular game system. With a little extension, it seems that generalized impositions of varying degrees of transparency are dependent on how integral secrecy is to every possible game within a setting. If I were to create an RPG entitled Live Nude Baby-Eating Shenanigans on National TV(tm), in which the PCs' goal is exclusively to hog ratings and top each others' exploits, I might conceive that total transparency is desirable, even integral to every possible game in the setting.

More realistically, I expect that individual tastes and styles will always win out, regardless of what a setting dictates.

[michael-b-lee.livejournal.com]

I tend to hit the middle ground, keeping some rolls secret in the interests of drama while making others visible.

Lately I've been seriously tempted to run a game where I make all the rolls, just to see how the heightened tension affects the game play. I'm willing to bet that most players would be much more cautious if they could never be absolutely certain about their chances or degree of success. This even extends to combat, where the players aren't 100% certain how badly injured they are.

The downside to this is that most players feel cheated when you take the dice out of their hands. Despite the fact that they still get to make all the crucial decisions, they nevertheless feel like they are no longer in control of their characters.

[nellisir.livejournal.com]

I tend towards more transparency, though there are times for secret rolls. Frankly, I've just experienced too many DMs being obscure ("no, you can't tell if your fireball had any effect") to want it written into the rules.

[nvdaydreamer.livejournal.com]

I have seen an AD&D campaign where the DM handled everything, including the character sheets. Players had only their memories and their notes, and maybe an older benchmark character sheet to refer to. And it went amazingly well. I was in awe of that GM for the longest time. And when I tried to do it ... it was too much for me personally to deal with, even with systems far less complex than AD&D.

Plus, rolling dice is fun for everyone. There's a kinesthetic sense of involvement if you're handling dice. So I'm definitely in the middle ground as far as that goes (tho' I also like the "everything is player-driven" SAGA system take previously mentioned).

As far as the players knowing what they're dicing for ... I have to say I prefer more secrecy. Does this make me bad? I like the sense of drama when the player throws the dice, gets a result that usually indicates success ... and then when the NPC laughs and counter-strikes, seemingly unaffected. Now the player knows this foe is going to be a significant challenge, something that may not have been apparent on just the description.

(If they want to try to get a sense of what they're up against, well, that's another action and a fine use for that Body Language or Diagnosis skill.)

And all of that requires a substantial amount of trust. My players know I'm not out to kill off the party, so they're willing to let me keep those little secrets. Trust in GMs has been going out of style for years now.

[oliof.livejournal.com]

At the moment, I like the fully-in-the-open way of handling things. This is because I play in two groups online (one via skype, one via play-by-post). Both endeavors lack certain venues of communication that are available when playing at a table, so this open-forwardness helps driving the game along.

Since the game system used (The Shadow of Yesterday) follows the 'negotiate possible outcomes/roll/narrate according to negotation' model, I didn't need to tweak any of the rules. In fact, the system is proven to work on a table as well, but I'll happily adopt to other philosophies as a player. As a GM, it helps me keep a clear vision of the goings-on of the game in my head when I need to communicate them to the players

[oliof.livejournal.com]

I should add that dice rolling is in the players' hands at all times in my games when it comes to their characters' actions.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I tend to minimal concealment, though not quite zero concealment. I have players make their own dice rolls, and I tell them what the modifiers are, at least as a total. I even do this for perception rolls; if the roll is a failure, I expect the player to act as if their character were unaware that anything was going on, and even that they might have reason to be alert—and you know what, they do. In fact, they call each other on failures to separate player knowledge from character knowledge.

Similarly, I make most dice rolls openly, and announce the results. I don't fudge dice rolls; I've never found it necessary. I hear all sorts of people worrying about having a character die through bad dice luck without a good dramatic point—but, you know, in over a decade of running games at least a couple of times a month, I've only had two PCs die. And both of those were sufficiently dramatic deaths to justify themselves, even though they came about by chance.

When I take a player aside for a private discussion, it's to make a dramatic point, and, often, to make the other players nervous. I don't usually do it. I've run entire campaigns where the PCs were not all on stage together until the final episode, and others where some of them were actively hostile to each other—but I mostly have everything take place out in the open, and count on the players to firewall.

Everyone to their own methods. Those are mine.

[randallk.livejournal.com]

Normally, I make all my rolls in secret as a GM, and I let the players make all rolls for their characters. However, I don't tell the players what their target numbers are. No matter how well or how poorly they roll, there is still doubt regarding the outcome.

I changed this for my current game. I'm running the Savage Tide campaign from Dungeon magazine, using the D&D 3.5 rules pretty much as written. I started out using a GM screen, but found it got in my way too much. So I got rid of it, and have since made all my rolls out in the open. It's been fun, mostly. The players have taken away my favorite d20 more than once because I tend to roll too many 20's on it (two PCs have died from massive critical hits). There is definitely some tension as the players watch me roll, but it feels more like a mechanical tension rather than plot/story tension. I'm pretty sure I'll go back to rolling in secret for my next campaign.

One of my players also likes to GM, and when doing so refuses to ever roll the dice in the open. He says he likes the game to be more "heroic" and "dramatic". He has also admitted that he won't kill PCs. Ever. What this tells me is that whatever he rolls on his dice means pretty much nothing. He'll roll, then decide what HE thinks is most "heroic" or "dramatic", and go with that result. I really don't like this approach, and I'm not looking forward to playing in his games.