Forums » RP Discussion » To roll, or not to roll?

This topic is intended to be about the value of dice and systems in general, and their possible applications to free form RP. Specific references are good too, I will frequently use D&D as a baseline for my own experiences. By way of introduction, I have been playing and DMing DND for over 20 years now, tabletop and online, along with dozens of other flavors of games.

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Okay so I usually like to come up with adventures for RPs. I usually have a plan beforehand about how things are going to occur but I wonder if I could use dice in small ways. Just to get an understanding of them. In D&D how often are dice used anyway?

Officially: Whenever something needs to happen that has a degree of uncertainty to it! Combat, using skills, etc. (with proper modifiers if you're skilled/unskilled in something, of course!). This is usually set against a difficulty determined by the DM (a number you need to roll over in order to succeed)

In practice: Whenever the DM asks for it.

Nero is going to have a much more detailed answer than me, but I can say from experience that it depends entirely on the group. Some Game Masters or Dungeon Masters (GM and DM from now on!) are obsessed with the stats and the dice. Others use them only occasionally to make sure things stay fair, and you can play for hours with only a roll or two under those who are more story-focused. In a group that is comfortable, you don't roll for "easy" actions like, say, driving your car like you do every day, unless there's something really bizarre going on that day -- then it determines how fast you are able to adapt to that unexpected situation. If your character is very perceptive or has lightning fast reflexes, you get a bonus on top of the dice, so it means that although there's a chance of failure, it isn't truly random. Your character's competencies (and concepts) matter.

Story focused makes the most sense to me in an age where you can get numbers ground out by simulators like WoW, but people continue to enjoy the experience of being all together in a room and socially grinding out numbers. I hated this, and it drove me away from tabletop and dice entirely for a LONG time.

Two years ago I was invited to join a group with an extremely competent and story-focused GM, and I've loved dice since. They only appear in ways that make the story more fair, and often they make the story go in completely unexpected ways.

There is no concrete answer Mellute, though Earendill is correct. Combat has some pretty specific uses for dice, which happen to be frequent. Non-combat situations can be resolved with dice or arbitrated much like free form RP, and the ratio is determined by the DM and the players.

On that topic! As a fellow DM, how do you handle things when the number of dice gets out of hand? I play 4ed and have a Ranger (multiclassed as Avenger) in my party who gets to reroll due to a class skill, a multiclass skill and an item (not to mention he gets 2 attacks anyway, being a dual-wielding ranger), which often causes him to roll +-15 dice per turn with both attacks and damage rolls calculated into it. It irritates the other players to no end.

When I'm running a game, which has happened more than a few times, when combat happens I expect the players to be on top of their dice. Any system requires learning, which I am always glad to help with, but if someone wants to play a complicated rerolling character like the one you mentioned, I expect them to do it without undue interruption. In a perfect situation, the players will have pre-rolled all their rolls for the round before I get around to their turn. Clearly events require retargeting sometimes, but for the most part each character only has certain capabilities and we can plan ahead for which ones are going to get used.

Pre-rolling lets me go around the table(virtual tables are the same in this case) and just get the final results on attack and damage rolls for each target from each player. Even when this isn't viable, the players can often use color sets of dice to roll multiple results at once, which also makes things go faster. 4th edition makes this easier since damage is generally only rolled once for area attacks.

That sounds a bit too detailed for me. With all those dice rolls how does the story unfold?

If they are allowed to roll their first and second roll at once, doesn't this give them an unfair advantage wherein they can see if the second one is better and choose to take it or not? When I have seen re-rolls allowed, there was always that little gamble that you might just end up doing worse.

Mellute: DND, and many other tabletop games, are often more like two games rolled into one. Story unfolds just as it does in any other RP scenario, with the possible interruption of one dice roll every 20-30 minutes or so. Then, often enough, combat happens. When combat happens, story does not go away, but it takes a back seat. A 1-5 minute combat(IC time) would be very long in most systems, and could easily take 1-5 hours(OOC time) to resolve. Not much story happens inside 5 minutes, no matter where you look, so 5 minutes of story spread over an hour of time is very sparse indeed.

Kim: Dice rolls provide random chance, and rerolls do augment them, but it can usually be decided for pre-rolling. In DND, and most other systems, there is a static target number one must reach on their roll to hit a target. Sometimes it is a mystery, but usually the target number becomes clear very quickly. Once this has happened, the player prerolling will know if he needs to roll a 13 or higher(for example) to succeed, and can decide if he wants to reroll anything 12 or lower based on the flow of combat. Most systems(including DND again) do not permit rerolling a reroll, so that is usually not a problem. Most systems do not have degrees of success. One either hits the target or they do not, then damage happens, so there is no need to wonder if you need to reroll for a better result, and if you missed there isn't a chance of missing worse(most of the time).

Yeah, like Nero said, the combat is as much part of the game as the story. Not all players are storyhungry! Some want to show off their battle skills, others want fat loot. Sometimes you can speed up combat a little by adding a bit of freeform (at least I do). I also tend to give modifiers to rolls for RP quality. If someone really manages to portray their character the way they should and makes an awesome combat scene, I'd hate to see that go to waste by an unlucky roll (and the player might go all: "Why go through all this trouble if I keep missing every time!") so then I either give them a nice modifier, or just let them auto-hit every now and then. Same goes for skill checks outside of combat. Then again, 2 of the 4 party members are RP noobs and I want to encourage them to grow better.
This is part of the reason why DMs are such a deep-rooted part of games like this and you can't, for example, let a computer handle everyting. Sometimes you need someone who can go all "Y'know what? Lets go with that instead. eff the system."

Unless you use a rule like rolling a 1 is a instant failure, with possibly negative repercussions I generally take rolling 20 as a critical succes too, which always succeeds no matter the odds against it.

I do freeform rp, and the only time I normally implement dice is when trying to decide who posts first. In dice-based combat in one of the dreams I frequent, I'm fine with that. It makes fighters easy to classify, and makes keeping a track of character health in that situation easier than say, trying to gauge how injured or not they would be after a certain injury. Whereas in freeform combat, usually me and the other player discuss which character would win, and with that end planned, go from there. But I only do freeform fights with people that I know will take a hit, and not be unrealistic with it.

Hmmm,

Well as for the battle scenes could I possibly write the story afterwards?
Do people roll the dice in the rounds or whatever and then afterwards portray
what happened in story form? If I really wanted to fight someone full out I could
see myself setting up dice guidelines. Then after all the rolling is said and done
the whole scene could then be written out, even with multiple misses.

I am starting to understand.
I do like post order idea woodlands, but usually I have to start the RP.

Hmmm,

I could use it for plot ideas?
Say I had a super villain spy dude. He could either escape the police
officer or get caught on the barbed wire fence. I could talk this over
with the other RPer and set up the dice parameters? I like to keep adding
elements into what I already have.

What generally happens in dice RP I've had so far is that people make a post up until the point where a dice roll would determine the outcome. The part after the outcome is usually added in by the DM when he posts for the target (or the other player, if it's pvp). That or the combat is just considered mechanical and is done without story, after which it continues based on the outcome.
Then again, I'm used to D&D/W40K where battles are quite metagamey so the party always has a strategy for the round and are easily able to make a post by their turn so the story doesn't slow the already slow combat. (that and I generally play it offline, so people can just say what their character does. Usually goes smoother than when they have to type full posts on forums/games/chats)
Your idea sounds viable as well if you really want to get the dicerolling over with so the story can go on.

Mellute, the statement "I can write it all out after" says to me that maybe you are imagining that when combat starts, everyone stops writing and just starts rolling until combat is over.

I think this is actually impossible, because unless you are telling the story after every outcome/roll, you don't have any idea WHAT to roll.


An example of how dice can be used awesomely
Han Solo and Princess Leia are sneaking around on the death star. Suddenly, an alarm goes off. They've been found. They begin running down the hall, but behind them, a door opens, and stormtroopers begin firing at them from the other side.

Han's player decides that the best thing to do will be to shoot the door panel to make it close, cutting off the laser fire for a moment and allowing them to get to the "safety" of the next room.

Let's say that this is a game where to decide things, you roll a 1d20 (One die with 20 sides).

Now, Han is a reasonable shot. Let's say he's so good that he has a bonus of +5 to shooting. That means that even if he rolls a 2 on the die, he gets to add 5 free points to it every time he aims at something. This is Han's skill.

The other thing that we need to know is the difficulty of what he is trying to do. This shot is VERY difficult - he is running the opposite direction, and the target is very small, and he wasn't expecting to have to do this. He has no time to aim at all. So we pick a very high number to represent the difficulty. If you remember that in our simplified game, you always roll a 1d20.

The players agree (or the DM decides) that the target difficulty is 20 -- Han must roll a number above 20 to make this shot correctly. As you can see, if Leia, who has NO bonus to shooting were to try this shot, she'd have a very low chance. She'd have to roll a natural 20, or miss.

But Han, with is bonus of +5, has a better chance. Not a guarantee.

Although this has required a lot of explanation, so far it's actually been very simple and streamlined.

• The character Hans made a decision to do something, and declared his skill in that activity. (This tends to be predetermined, so you just refer to it when the time comes)
• The players or DM determined how difficult it would be
• Han's player makes a roll.

This is actually where it gets awesome for you as a writer and as a player. You get to be surprised what happens, and you get to do improv writing.

If Han rolls anything 15 or above
His +5 allows him to carry the day! He shoots the panel and the door closes.

If Han rolls anything 15 or below
He fails. But how does he fail? Now you get to write this part of the story. Did he just miss the panel? Did he turn to take the shot, but a stormtrooper fired just then and he was forced to duck and run without taking it at all? He's shooting at a control panel next to an open door with people in it -- did he miss and shoot a stormtrooper in the leg instead? (You might let him have shot someone instead of the panel if he very nearly made the roll, but failed.)

If Han rolls a 1
This is usually considered a botch, a massive stroke of bad luck, the worst thing that could happen. You don't normally allow bonuses on a 1. Han does not necessarily get his +5, because his luck was so very very bad.

Write something that makes your characters miserable. Create tragedy. Maybe Han's gun jams and he is defenseless for the rest of the scene. Maybe Han hits the panel, but that's not how doors work, they don't just magically close when you shoot their controls -- the door stays open, and the shrapnel from his shot is ejected back toward them and badly injures Leia. Write his horror as he catches her in his arm and struggles to make it to the next room, now also burdened so the next shot he takes will be even HARDER to make. Tension mounts! Desperation is in the air! I play with people who pray to "botch" their rolls because it creates so much IC drama and action and emotion.

If Han rolls a 20
This is usually considered a major success, where things went better than you expected. Perhaps with the fire of love in his heart, determined to protect the beautiful princess, Han whips around and gets off two shots. He hits the door panel AND, as the door is coming down, he manages to shoot a stormtrooper in the chest. The dying man falls backward into his buddies, topppling them all to the floor and buying Han and Leia a few more precious seconds to get away. They whoop in triumph, their spirits suddenly bolstered. Perhaps there is still hope!

What's the next roll?
Your next roll might involve picking a lock, or trying brute strength to open a door, or seeing if you are fast enough to dive underneath a closing blast door. You can't know until you write the next leg of the story. Even in a fight, you don't just roll frantically, you decide what action your character will take -- how they will throw a punch, what they will aim for, how they recover (or don't) from failures. And story unfolds this way.

Dice can be enormously helpful when two characters come into conflict, or when you are interacting with the environment -- as a human being, you don't always have control over whether a door panel is wired to open or close when it shorts out, or whether the red roses are all sold out when you have been kicked out of the house and need to get back in with your sweetie. Even simple dice systems lets you pick likely difficulty levels for achieving something, whether it be an action on person or environment, then question in a way that makes sense, is fair, takes into account everyone's skills, but isn't perfectly set. It might be skewed in someone's favor, but you never know what weird luck will occur, and then you must explain WHY the underdog won that round. It has to make sense. But weird luck DOES occur, and can result in some very interesting writing to explain the circumstances that conspired to create it.

You end up playing off the world in a similar way that you play off other writers -- you do improv writing based on each outcome and reaction that you receive in response to your character's choices. It doesn't replace playing your character in any way, it just gives you more to play off of and eliminates lengthy "but my character is so much better/faster/stronger" debates.

Kim,

That example was extremely helpful! So even in RPs one person would have to be determining the difficulties and when dice are used. I see where the creativity and the alternate routes and improve would vamp up the Rp. This however creates two more questions!

Can the GM have a character in the RP? Or are they narrator? When is their power an unfair advantage?

When are bonuses determined? Who decides them and how? Do characters role dice before the RP or does it stay with a character into other Rps? Which bonuses are relevant?

This topic is fascinating!

Oh wow, Kim. You basically took what I was trying to say and turned it into Star Wars. I love you.

Thats really up to the players and GM's discretion. I sometimes add my characters into the story if the party can't decide on what to do and you don't want to just deux ex machina them into oblivion. The thing here is that a GM character should be bound by every single rule a normal PC should be bound to. Unless of coruse it serves the story that he isn't! For example, perhaps the character is used to bring in a certain artifact that only he/she can wield. That way the PCs have access to it, but can't use it for other purposes than what the DM had in mind (e.g. finding loopholes to abuse its mechanics). It's important that you have a trustworthy GM here, one that won't abuse his powers just to have the most awesome character in the game so people will think he's awesome. (e.g. the typical godmoder we discussed last saturday)
In D&D the bonusses come from char creation. Depending on the ability scores of your character (Strenght, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligen, Wisdom, Charisma in classical d&d form) you get a certain modifier for rolls that require said ability. There's also a seperate collection of modifier for skills. Things your character might be good at (sneaking, history, bluffing their ass off). And as extra addon you get half your level as a modifier on ALL your rolls (except when stated otherwise by rules) to simulate the fact that levels stand for how much experience your character has at adventuring in general. (you also gain feats with levels, which sometimes give further modifiers, which simulates training a certain skill)
There's also environmental modifiers. If you try to hit someone behind cover for example: -2 to -5 depending on just how good the cover is. If you have the high ground: +2. There's a ton of rules for combat modifiers if you go exactly by the book but in the end the deal is simple: Decide wether a situation would be good or bad for your skill attempt and the degree of that modifier and give it a number (usually DM's choice). That way you can 'wing it' without knowing every single mechanic in the game. Something that is quite beneficial to the pace of a game (especially for DMs or players who find the mechanics too complicated, as is often the case unless you have some experience)

I doubt I could say it better than Kim, nor is there a need to, so I will simply move on to the resultant questions.

A GM can and often does have characters, NPCs(Non-Player Characters). These run the gamut from henchmen to archvillains, taxicab drivers to emperors and doormen to long term party members. I suspect your question is meant to focus on the long term party member NPCs, so I'll do the same. Generally speaking, it is inappropriate and/or unnecessary for the GM to portray the leader of a group of PCs. This should not be confused with portraying their boss, which happens frequently. When I say party leader I am referring to the person who travels with the PCs(player characters), and is the strongest voice in determining their course of action. By contrast a boss would simply give them some orders, or a mission or quest, and not be heard form again until it's done.

The GM portraying the leader would be similar to them telling themselves a story. It's a little bit silly since they already know the middle and end. Almost any other roll works out fine, however. I find the most effective rolls for long term NPCs are support rolls. Things that are absolutely necessary, but do not live in the spotlight. Ship's doctor or engineer for example, or a wilderness guide for a medieval setting, party cleric or diplomatic envoy etc.

There is a meme out there for GMPC(or GMNPC), which specifically refers to an overpowered NPC that the GM is portraying as a PC or party member. This is when their power is an unfair advantage, and should be avoided by any responsible GM.

Most dice rolling happens with a game system to back it up. Many of the bonuses to such rolls are determined by the system. A PC's attributes, skill level and quality equipment usually create a baseline bonus, which is then modified(frequently reduced) by circumstances, such as running while firing a blaster backward without looking. Some systems choose to modify the difficulty(target number), other systems choose to modify the bonus to the roll, the result is the same either way. Systems that do both are generally worth avoiding if you don't like complexity.

Most bonuses (and difficulties) are not determined by random dice rolls. They are cumulative results from adding a variety of modifiers together. One distinct exception to this is the opposed roll. Some systems offer attack rolls and dodge rolls. Whomever rolls highest succeeds(ties generally go to the defender/target). Determining which bonuses are relevant can be collaborative, with the final decision going to the GM if needed.

This varies per system/game. As the others have said, it's almost always during character creation, but how characters are created is different.

In its simplest form, typically a system will present you with a menu of skills, physical traits (Intelligence, dexterity, constitution, etc.), and sometimes extra bonuses. You are given a number of points to spend, and you just go through the menu and "buy" what makes sense for your character. You might get more points to spend if your character is older and has had more time to learn things, or if you have a particularly good education, etc.

This can encourage everyone to create characters with one specialty, and who aren't good at everything, because they have to pick and choose what they spend it on. Which results in an ensemble party, where everyone has to work together to accomplish your missions. Or the GM could give everyone a TON of points to spend to start with, if you were playing a superhero game and everyone was super spectacular.

Sometimes this is very, very complicated, and sometimes it is simple. The more complex systems can be more "fair" because they take into account all kinds of things, but are more frustrating to get started with.

So in a simple system, Han's bonus might just come from a basic skill, "shooting".

But in a complex system, it might be the result of his skill (think of this as something learned through practice) and his dexterity (innate - he was just born good with his hands!) added together. Other systems might let you take on further bonuses. My current favorite lets you also add something called "merits", which are super expensive bonuses with silly titles like "Fightin' Type". This gives you an extra bonus to combat, because your character is a warrior archetype of some kind. (There is a counterpoint, "flaws", which lets you take on terrible things that LOWER your bonuses too. One of my characters has a mental illness, represented by a big flaw that gives her a negative modifier to certain of her rolls. Flaws are usually free, or even reward you with a few more points to spend on nice things elsewhere since you were willing to play a non-perfect character.) I think DND has super specialized skills called "feats" that let you get super powers, if you are willing to spend enough points on them.

I've done both, and the extremely complex character creations feel like a painful hurdle to me, but usually I can ask someone with experience to help. Then I will describe what I have in mind and they help me put the numbers where they add up to the type of character I was thinking of, without me having to squint at reference books and get out a calculator.

Once this is done, it is done, and you don't have to deal with this speed bump again. You just play or write, and refer to your neatly formatted list of bonuses when you use them. If you didn't buy a particular skill, that's okay, you can still roll for it. You just won't get a bonus (like Leia in the previous example) so you have a chance but it's a small one, and will require some conspiring of IC circumstance to make it possible.

You can buy new skills over time, since all players will get more experience points in the course of play, but most GMs will insist that you justify your purchases (if you have been running around in the sewers, you can't just buy "brain surgery", for example. You'd have to explain how you were finding the time to go to university while you were so busy with your party fighting rat kings!)

In free form RP, sometimes this is all in excess. People don't want to agree on a rule system in advance and figure out their bonuses, they just want to jump into writing. You can let a lot of things go by without rolling.

But if a situation comes up where you'd rather be surprised, or you're playing off an environment which is not directly in your character's control, or you are having a disagreement over which one of your characters would best the other, or you think it would be boring to write a fight where the outcome is pre-determined, you can just take a brief OOC moment to adopt these ideas. It only takes a second to say, okay, I'm going to try this using a d20. I propose that a fair bonus is +5, because of his experience in X and his natural proclivity for Y. Do you agree? What do you think the difficulty of this roll is? This can get things back on track really fast, because it demonstrates that you are willing to accept both a positive and negative outcome for your character, and want to find a fair way of deciding it where people's characters matter but everyone has a chance.

Sometimes in free form, if it's not a question of fairness and just a question of you vs. environment or you wanting to be surprised or get a writing challenge, you can just decide your bonus and difficulty on your own, without asking the other person's input. This is only because it only affects you and it isn't a question of fairness, it's one of challenging yourself and spicing things up. It always perks up my ears when I see someone do this, because it tells me that they are really interested in playing their character in new and interesting ways.