Knowing When to Roll Them and When to Show Them

I am a strong believer in rolling in the open. I don’t use a GM screen. I want the players to trust the oracular power of the dice, and to view me as a (reasonably) impartial arbiter.

But lately, I have been hiding a particular type of roll… at least, until it is time to reveal it.

Most ability checks in modern D&D (and similar skill-based systems for action resolution) resolve immediately. If a player rolls to jump over a chasm or pick a lock, success or failure is immediately apparent; if not from the number on the die itself, then certainly from the DM’s ensuing adjudication of that roll.

But for some ability checks – usually checks that are not connected to a discrete physical action – the output is not obvious within the fiction. A typical example is a PC searching a dungeon room for traps. When the DM says “hm, you don’t find anything,” the player interprets the statement differently if it comes on the heels of a high roll versus a low one. For many players, this produces a displeasing incongruity, where the result of the roll itself provides more information than it should.

This can be dealt with in various ways; for example, ensuring that all failed rolls essentially come with consequences beyond “you don’t find anything” or "nothing happens" (PBTA games, for example, incorporate these consequences in their 6-or-less results for players' moves). Old school D&D centers trap detection on careful exploration moreso than rolling dice, and ensures that a negative result is a punishment in itself, because every unproductive action costs the party time and increases the chance of a dangerous encounter or complication.

Modern D&D does not address this issue directly in the rules, and DMs try to fix it through various house rules and adjudication techniques. Some DMs will roll behind the screen on behalf of the player, but this is unsatisfying. Even if the player completely trusts the DM to relay their result accurately, it feels “off” for many players; they want to roll their own dice and control their own fate (even if dice provide only the illusion of control).

Dying to Find Out

So I have tried another solution – let the player roll, but hide the result until it is obvious to the character.

I was inspired by an idea that I saw somewhere online (and regrettably have not been able to find again to cite). The writer was attempting to fix a known issue with modern D&D’s death saving throws in combat situations; players have a good sense of how far from death a fallen character is at any given time, and will withhold healing until they know it's truly necessary. As in the trap-finding example, the dice are providing useful information to the players beyond what the characters would be able to perceive in the moment.

The writer’s solution was to keep the results of the death saving throws hidden from the other players until someone dedicated an action to helping the downed character (or combat ended). In their telling, combat immediately became riskier, and the players felt that characters on death’s door were suitably imperiled.

The same idea can be applied to other rolls of uncertain information. When a player rolls to find a trap, cover the result before anyone sees it (an opaque cup or similar object does the job nicely). Then peek at it, arch your eyebrow, and say, as usual, “hm, you don’t find any traps.” Don’t reveal the result until the players attempt traverse the potentially trapped area, or the situation changes such that the result of the roll is otherwise no longer relevant.

Some players may find this frustrating. I would use this as an invitation to steer them away from resolving challenges through ability checks, and back toward engaging with the fiction. Testing for traps or trying to attack the situation from a whole different angle is more interesting than brute-forcing a situation with ability checks.

Mystery History

This technique can be used for the DM’s rolls too, although it takes a different form. In one of the games I run, the characters came back together after time spent apart, dealing with their own issues and challenges. Each of them had unfinished business from their respective pasts that was liable to crop up at inconvenient times. 

To represent this, I roll a die at the beginning of each session, corresponding to the number of players (the result goes clockwise around the table). I cover the result and leave it in the center of the table, where everyone can see it. When these past complications intrude on the present (either because it simply makes sense based on events in the game, or because a random encounter/event die has triggered it) I reveal the result of the roll and describe how the character’s past is catching up with them.

Of course, this is mechanically no different than if I rolled the die at the time I needed to decide which PC was in the spotlight! Or for that matter, if I had rolled this during session preparation! The whole exercise in this instance is essentially showmanship. But it feels different. The hidden result sitting on the table creates anticipation (or dread) among the players. When it is revealed, it creates a spotlight moment for a particular character (while the others perhaps feel a bit of relief).

As with so many other things in TTRPGs, it pays to ask why we are rolling, and what effect we’re trying to achieve at the table. It simply leads to better games.