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Message no. 1
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Damion Milliken)
Subject: Rolling for Characters Behind the GM Screen
Date: Sat Jul 14 13:45:01 2001
Gurth writes:

> You would do well to still let the players roll, or roll for them behind
> your GM screen (first ask "What was your Stealth again?" and then roll a
> couple of dice, else they won't know you're "rolling" for them :) so they
> at least are under the illusion that their skills matter in those cases,
> though.

I sometimes roll the dice for PCs behind my screen for situations like
Stealth or Perception Tests where they'll only know the quality of the
outcome once something _else_ happens. This way I avoid problems like a
player rolling all 2's and 3's for a Stealth Test and saying "well, er, that
sucked, I'm going to go find somewhere else to hide" because they know they
had a crappy roll. However, doing this is a hassle, as I've got to ask what
their stat/skill is and do the rolling and remembering myself. So I hardly
ever do it :-). The only thing I always do it for is Masking penetration
rolls, so that way the players can't go "OK, I rolled three 10's, so
therefore he's either mundane, or an Initiate above Grade 4".

What do others' think about this issue?

--
Damion Milliken University of Wollongong
Unofficial Shadowrun Guru E-mail: dam01@***.edu.au
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Message no. 2
From: shadowrn@*********.com (David Reeve)
Subject: Rolling for Characters Behind the GM Screen
Date: Sat Jul 14 19:10:01 2001
Damian talks:

<I sometimes roll the dice for PCs behind my screen for situations like
<Stealth or Perception Tests where they'll only know the quality of the
<outcome once something _else_ happens. This way I avoid problems like a
<player rolling all 2's and 3's for a Stealth Test and saying "well, <er,
that sucked, I'm going to go find somewhere else to hide" because <they know
they had a crappy roll. However, doing this is a hassle, as <I've got to ask
what their stat/skill is and do the rolling and <remembering myself. So I
hardly
<ever do it :-). The only thing I always do it for is Masking <penetration
<rolls, so that way the players can't go "OK, I rolled three 10's, so
<therefore he's either mundane, or an Initiate above Grade 4".

What do others' think about this issue?

--


I always jot down my players stats on a piece of paper. attributes, skills,
names of contacts, names of spells, things like that. Just notes, so when
I want to do something like that, I dont' have to ask them.
_________________________________________________________________
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Message no. 3
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Bull)
Subject: Rolling for Characters Behind the GM Screen
Date: Sun Jul 15 02:15:02 2001
At 07:16 PM 7/14/01 -0400, you wrote:
>I always jot down my players stats on a piece of paper. attributes,
>skills, names of contacts, names of spells, things like that. Just
>notes, so when I want to do something like that, I dont' have to ask them.

this is handy for stuff that they're not gong to know about. I generally
do Stealth tests like this. I always did most of the Thieves abilities
like this under D&D, especially Detect Traps and Move Silent. Most of the
time, the thief isn't going to know he "failed his detect"... he just
knows he doesn't see anything... Depending on the roll I'd give them some
leeway ("You're not really sure..." was usually a good indication that it
was either real close with nothing there, or they failed it by a bit.) And
it made Critical Failures fun... ("Yep, you KNOW there's a death ray trap
on that chest, and you don't think you can disarm it...")

Bull
Message no. 4
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Chris McKinnon)
Subject: Rolling for Characters Behind the GM Screen
Date: Sun Jul 15 03:30:01 2001
<SNIP>

> I sometimes roll the dice for PCs behind my screen for situations like
> Stealth or Perception Tests where they'll only know the quality of the
> outcome once something _else_ happens. This way I avoid problems like a
> player rolling all 2's and 3's for a Stealth Test and saying
> "well, er, that
> sucked, I'm going to go find somewhere else to hide" because they
> know they
> had a crappy roll. However, doing this is a hassle, as I've got
> to ask what
> their stat/skill is and do the rolling and remembering myself. So I hardly
> ever do it :-). The only thing I always do it for is Masking penetration
> rolls, so that way the players can't go "OK, I rolled three 10's, so
> therefore he's either mundane, or an Initiate above Grade 4".
>
> What do others' think about this issue?
>
> --
> Damion Milliken University of Wollongong
> Unofficial Shadowrun Guru E-mail: dam01@***.edu.au

What I do in my campaign is I have each player roll up 5 sets of perception
rolls and five sets of willpower tests, so I can use them secretly, without
alerting the players that something is up. I just randomly choose which of
the rolls I use for each player, and I can use those rolls all night. It
keeps the flow of the game moving and makes my life much easier.

Kasziel
Message no. 5
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Gurth)
Subject: Rolling for Characters Behind the GM Screen
Date: Sun Jul 15 05:10:07 2001
According to Damion Milliken, on Sat, 14 Jul 2001 the word on the street was...

> I sometimes roll the dice for PCs behind my screen for situations like
> Stealth or Perception Tests where they'll only know the quality of the
> outcome once something _else_ happens.

Same here.

> However, doing this is a hassle, as I've got to ask what their
> stat/skill is and do the rolling and remembering myself. So I hardly
> ever do it :-).

After a few times I usually remember the different characters'
Intelligence ratings without having to ask, so this is not too much of a
hassle. (It helped that at one point, everyone in our group had
Intelligence 6, too :)

I mainly use it for Perception tests, because this is the one area where
seeing the numbers rolled really tells the players too much already in many
cases. Tests like Stealth are usually okay to roll out in the open, IMO,
because even if they roll bad there's not really much that players can do
about it. But if they roll really poorly on a Perception test, and you tell
them nothing is there, they'll keep looking because they know there's
likely something there after all. Let alone if they roll all ones, and you
tell them something like "You think see the silhouette of someone hiding
behind the curtain, holding a gun" you can bet your ass half of them aren't
going to respond to it properly...

It's also a good idea to roll out of sight if you are the kind of GM who
asks for random Perception tests when there's nothing to be seen. Often
someone will roll really high, and it sounds really lame to say "Okay, you
rolled a 25; you see nothing of interest" all the time.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
A bad day fishing is still better than a good day dying.
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

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PS+ PE(-)(+) Y PGP- t@ 5++ X(+) R+++(-)>$ tv+ b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 6
From: shadowrn@*********.com (sven)
Subject: Rolling for Characters Behind the GM Screen
Date: Sun Jul 15 06:05:02 2001
Damion Milliken wrote:
>
> I sometimes roll the dice for PCs behind my screen for
> situations like Stealth or Perception Tests where they'll
> only know the quality of the outcome once something _else_
> happens. This way I avoid problems like a player rolling all
> 2's and 3's for a Stealth Test and saying "well, er, that
> sucked, I'm going to go find somewhere else to hide" because
> they know they had a crappy roll. However, doing this is a
> hassle, as I've got to ask what their stat/skill is and do
> the rolling and remembering myself. So I hardly ever do it
> :-). The only thing I always do it for is Masking penetration
> rolls, so that way the players can't go "OK, I rolled three
> 10's, so therefore he's either mundane, or an Initiate above Grade 4".
>
> What do others' think about this issue?

First of all I do have a copy of the players character behind my screen,
so if I need any stats, I can just look it up.

I rarely maker rolls for the PCs behind my screen, but I do try to
"confuse" my PCs with following tricks:
* I never/rarely give my PCs a target number, so they don't know if the
3's their rolled are successes or not.
* sometimes, for important perception/stealth tests, I have the
characters roll them about 2 or 3 minutes in advance when they're not
yet in the appropriate "scene". Then I note down their successes and
when they do need the roll I just take a look at who was succesful and
not.
* sometimes I explicitly ask the PCs to roll those 6's again, although
they only need 4's

Just some thoughts,

-sven ;)
--
Message no. 7
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Jane van Roekel)
Subject: Rolling for Characters Behind the GM Screen
Date: Sun Jul 15 19:55:01 2001
>From: Damion Milliken <dam01@***.edu.au>

>What do others' think about this issue?

We are all superstitious about dice rolls, so I don't roll for my players,
but sometimes I get them to roll the dice where I can see them and they
can't.

Jane
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Message no. 8
From: shadowrn@*********.com (shadowrn@*********.com)
Subject: Rolling for Characters Behind the GM Screen
Date: Mon Jul 16 00:55:01 2001
<< >From: Damion Milliken <dam01@***.edu.au>

>What do others' think about this issue? >>


i roll for my players at times.. some of them are.. well... how should i
put this
without soundng a little too harsh.. power players... this is definately
due to the
dm they used to play d&d with. I've heard that they never made a character
below
8th level. So needless to say, they've become used to just saying "i pass"
or rolling and changing a few numbers around (upside down a 6 is a nine..
right?)
well, i've got to the point where i like to roll for them on the sneaky
actions (ie..
stealth, perception, etc.. the obvious ones)
so, i think this could be a very good method for us all to use.. well,
unless you
know your party won't do such a thing as mine.. if so, then you're very
lucky!
have fun running everyone.

The Chrome Samurai
Message no. 9
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Gurth)
Subject: Rolling for Characters Behind the GM Screen
Date: Mon Jul 16 04:50:05 2001
According to TheChromeSamurai@***.com, on Mon, 16 Jul 2001 the word on the
street was...

> So needless to say, they've become used to just saying "i pass"
> or rolling and changing a few numbers around (upside down a 6 is a nine..
> right?)

This is fairly easy to get around: insist they roll when you are looking,
and where you can see the dice. If you ask for a test, and the player
announces the roll without you having seen it, just tell them to roll it
again -- regardless of the numbers they rolled. It's a little bit of a
hassle, but if you are consistent in this, they'll quickly get over their
habit of tinkering with the rolls.

Related to this, my group has a rule that any die that falls off the table
(or flies out of the dice rolling tray, if one is used) must be re-rolled.
No picking up a die off the floor and claiming it was a 6, even if it _did_
roll just that :)

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
A bad day fishing is still better than a good day dying.
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+@ UL P L++ E W-(++) N o? K w+(--) O V?
PS+ PE(-)(+) Y PGP- t@ 5++ X(+) R+++(-)>$ tv+ b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 10
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Steve Mancini)
Subject: Rolling for Characters Behind the GM Screen
Date: Mon Jul 16 20:50:01 2001
I actually know in advance some things that I do not want my players
to know about. So I keep a spread sheet of pre-rolls for them. They
get the warm & fuzzy of knowing they rolled the dice, I get to
spring things on them when I want - like stealth detection checks,
or resisting an Influence spell.. I let them use karma if the do
not like the outcome (ie, if they say they would have used karma
to do so) and just use another set of rolls from the check list.

I also find it speeds up the game as they do not downshift into
"AD&D Paranoid Mode" where they check each credstick 60 times for
400 different tracking techniques.

-Steve

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