Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 124 - Philosophy of RPG Dice Rolling

Episode Date: May 8, 2022

We DMs tend to be quick to tell players to grab their dice during our game sessions but should we?  Before having your players make yet another roll this game session, there are some things to ask yourself.  In this episode, Jeremy discusses the times when die rolls don't make sense and takes a moment to praise another content provider:  Ginny Di who produced a similar episode previously.   #DungeonsandDragons #DnD #Pathfinder #RPG Ginny Di's video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgDff35jtHw&t=152s

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. It goes on to say that the dice don't run your game. You do as the DM. Dice are like rules. They're tools to keep the action moving. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 124 of the Taking20 Podcast. This week, all about the philosophy of RPG dice rolling. This week's sponsor, Blackboards.

Blackboards are still used in a lot of schools today. You can chalk that up to good technology. We have a coffee, payo-fi.com slash taking20podcast. If you like the show and want to hear more of it, please consider donating to offset the costs. All right, there's a couple of quick news stories I wanted to cover this week. Sorry for the delay in covering these developments, but because of the interview, I had gotten a few recordings ahead, and this is the first opportunity I've had to address these huge

stories. Hasbro has acquired D&D Beyond, and if you haven't heard, Hasbro, who owns the rights to Dungeons & Dragons, purchased the online campaign and character management service called D&D Beyond for almost $150 million. A lot of people are hoping that this means that buying a hard copy of the book means it will automatically unlock the same content in D&D Beyond. I also hope that's the case, but that wasn't part of the initial announcement. According to the press release, Hasbro said that royalties of the previous D&D Beyond owner Fandom paid to operate D&D Beyond represented, quote, a significant contribution to the revenue it was making from Dungeons & Dragons. Hasbro didn't just pay a ton of money to lose a revenue stream.

So I'd anticipate, at least for the foreseeable future, there won't be automatic unlocking of D&D Beyond content because they want that double revenue stream. I'll be keeping a close eye on the developments of that in the future, though. be automatic unlocking of D&D Beyond content because they want that double revenue stream. I'll be keeping a close eye on the developments of that in the future though. The second announcement was that Paizo was formally partnering with Foundry Tabletop. This has to do with the integration of Paizo's Pathfinder 2e content with Foundry Virtual Tabletop. In the announcement, Paizo stated that they are partnering with Foundry and would begin by releasing three previously published titles as Foundry modules. The Beginner Box, Outlaws of Alkenstar, and the Abomination Vaults. There is the possibility of future content to be released, and in what I think is the biggest

news, when you purchase the Foundry module, you get the PDF of the adventure for free. Plus, they integrated some Syrinscape music and sound effects into the package. It's not full-on Syrinscape integration yet, but I have to admit, as somebody who plays a ton of Pathfinder 2E, I'm pretty excited to see where this goes. Regardless, it seems like Hasbro and Paizo have embraced the digital future of the tabletop, and I am all for anything that gives groups more flexibility. We can't always meet in person, and being able to pull geographically diverse groups together, hopefully, will get more people to the table. Thank you for listening. Now on with the episode. The idea for this episode came to me after completing the Failing Forward episode, number

122, two weeks ago, and you'd think I'd remember, but no, I had to look that shit up. I discussed die rolls, when they're necessary, and more importantly, when they're not. Die rolls weren't the focus of that episode, though, so I wanted to dedicate a little more time to the topic. It is tempting as a DM to ask for rolls all the time. You're walking through the city streets? Make a roll to see if someone tries to mug you. You're eating at a tavern?

Roll to see if you can negotiate the price down. You're getting dressed? Roll to see if you fall down, bust your head open, and lie there bleeding out until the cleaning staff find you a few hours later. After all, this is a roll playing game, right? And dice roll is right there in the name, right? Well, wrong use of the word roll, but you see what I'm getting at. Much of the game is adjudicated by rolling dice, so why shouldn't the DM call for dice rolls all the time? I mean, we have these amazing dice, right? The iconic 20-sided die that we all know and love. The underused and underloved 12-sided

die that's the symbol of barbarians and greataxe wielders everywhere. The 10-sided dice that can be used to roll the numbers 1 through 100, as well as hit points for fighters. The 8 and 6-sided dice that get worn out in most campaigns. Yeah, I'm going to cast a fireball, and I need everybody's d6s if I can. How much damage did that do? A lot. How many d6s you got? I'm going to need more.

Even the little four-sided dice that's shaped like a caltrop and hurts like hell to step on in the dark, especially when it's metal, and left the bottom of the stairs with about six others of its peers. Sharpened points sticking straight up, but it's always at night and dark in the house. Guys, I think my dog may be trying to kill me. One thing to remember though, die rolls serve a specific purpose in the game. It seems like I always start with 5th edition, so for a change, let's look at what the Pathfinder 2nd edition core rulebook has to say about die rolls. Pathfinder is a game where your choices determine the story's direction. Often your choices have no immediate risk or consequences. If you're traveling along a forest path and come across a fork in the road, the GM will ask, which way do you go? You might choose to take the right fork or the left, you could choose to leave the trail or just go back to town.

Once your choice is made, the GM tells you what happens next. Down the line, that choice may impact what you encounter later on in the game. But in many cases, nothing dangerous happens immediately. But sometimes what happens as a result of your choices is less than certain. In those cases, you'll attempt to check. In the 5th edition Dungeon Master's Guide on page 236, dice rolls are discussed in much more detail. It basically states that some DMs rely on dice rolls for everything. Other DMs use dice as rarely as possible. But most DMs use a combination of die rolls and players pay attention to the game to determine what happens next. It goes on to say that the dice don't run your game. You do as the DM. Dice are like rules. They're

tools to keep the action moving. You can decide a player's declared action for the character is automatically successful. You can grant the player advantage on any ability check. By the same token, a bad plan or unfortunate circumstances can transform the easiest of tasks into an impossibility, or at least impose disadvantage. From these passages, my philosophy is that die rolls should be attempted at times when it makes sense and there is an unknown chance for success. You're attacking a creature? Absolutely need a die roll. Searching a ransacked room? Make me a perception or search check. Swimming in rough waters? Chance for failure there. Trying to toss an opponent off a cliff? They're going to fight back.

Absolutely. All of these require a check. But that doesn't mean that die rolls should be the solution of choice every time. Sometimes there's no point in rolling. And that's what I want to discuss on today's episode. Die rolls have a specific purpose in the game and should be used less often than you think. Let's start with the basics. If there is no chance for success, do not allow the players to roll. If the character can't accomplish what they're trying to do, if the

chance of succeeding is zero percent, why give them hope by allowing them to roll? Sometimes players state they want their characters to try something that is physically impossible. They want to lift a building, throw an axe to the moon, break quantum encryption using an abacus, there's no point in making a roll. Remember, in most game systems, a natural 20 is not an automatic success on a skill check, meaning if they roll a 20, they're not going to seduce Aphrodite. That's not the way it works. If it's impossible practically and within the game system, you should simply say your character is unable to do blah blah blah, whatever that happens to be. Practical example. The character falls off a cliff and the player says he wants to slow his character down using the smooth sheer obsidian walls.

Let's say you do the math and the difficulty class or DC of the check is 40. Meaning the character needs that value when adding their skill to the d20 roll. They only have a skill of 8 and you can't roll a 32 on a d20. Or if you figure out how, let me know, because I'm in a high-level campaign and I could use some 32s on d20s. Therefore, since you can't roll that number, it's impossible. But remember, in many game systems, rolling a 20 on a d20, otherwise known as a natural 20,

is an automatic success on saving throws and attack rolls. So interestingly, there's no such thing as an attack roll or saving throw that is impossible. So there will always be a chance that these attack rolls and saving throws could pass, could succeed. So you always need a roll there. There's no point in trying to skip those rolls. But if it's a skill check where a natural 20 isn't an automatic success, and there's no chance for the character to succeed, there's no point in rolling, skip it, let's move on to the game. Similarly, if there's no chance for failure and no degrees of success, don't roll. If their skill ranks are such that even if they roll a natural 1 on a skill check, they still succeed and there's no value that they could roll to result

in a critical success, then forego the roll. For example, suppose the characters are jumping from rooftop to rooftop in Pathfinder 2E and you, the GM, determine that the DC is 15. A PC with a plus 14 on athletics will succeed no matter what because a natural 1 isn't an automatic failure on a skill check. Let's say you, DM, decide that a critical success on jumping rooftop to rooftop and a regular success would be the exact same thing. In that case, there is no point in having the player roll, because all you're doing is slowing the game down.

Success is guaranteed, and there's no degree of success given by rolling a very, very high number. Just say they succeeded and moved on. If the outcome would make no difference in the story, or if the results simply aren't interesting, don't bother with the role. What's an example of an outcome making no difference? Let's say the characters are in the ruins of the great city of Los Angeles, wherever the fuck that is, and let's say they're standing outside of a locked door. No one knows where they are. No monsters are coming by. It's a dead zone. It's completely empty as far as you know of as a DM or GM. The player could try to unlock the door over and over and over and over and over again, or maybe eventually they just kick the door in. The fact that they did it in six seconds or 24 seconds makes no difference in the

greater narrative. Hand wave it and just say they did it. If the player can retry without penalty, don't bother with a roll. They're eventually going to succeed. Move the game along. But what about uninteresting results? Let's use an example from a recent game of mine. The characters were forced to swim 200 feet away from a ship to a coral reef in calm, clear ocean water. The adventure module said it was a DC-10 swim check, and these were level 1 characters. Two of the six had a swim speed and couldn't fail no matter what. Two others had like plus 8 to their swim skills, so they're almost guaranteed a success. And two others would pass the rolls like 75% of the time. But what if they'd failed? That means they get there in 12 rounds instead of 10. That's not interesting at all. Those two rounds don't make a difference for the predators hiding in the coral reefs.

They're waiting for the party to arrive anyway. So I didn't make them roll. There's a phrase I use in situations like this that would be mundane, boring, uninteresting uses of our time. Through the magic of role-playing. That means it happens and we're not worried about the details because they aren't interesting and they don't matter. Through the magic of role playing, they swam out to the coral reef. The hows, the wins, and the whys, and how often they splashed each other like six-year-olds at a pool. I don't care. I guarantee they did. We just bypassed all those details to get to the interesting part of the adventure, combat. Another rule, if there's no consequences to failure, don't bother

with a roll. If the failure just means that the person gets breakfast six seconds later, who gives a crap? That's not real consequence, so no point for a roll. But if you're in the middle of combat and the players are attempting to jump from rooftop to rooftop to chase a bad guy, a failure could have dramatic effects on the game. The bad guy could get away, the player could fall off the route. So don't make the rogue roll a d20, see could get away. The player could fall off the route. So don't make the rogue roll a d20, see if they can pick up their short sword off the table as they head down for breakfast. Hint, they can.

Contrast that with needing to do a cartwheel, pick up the short sword in the heat of battle. Uncertain outcome with dire consequences if they do the cartwheel and show up in front of the bad guy without a sword. Don't make the wizard make an arcana roll to remember the name of a particular spell while discussing magical theory with their friends. It's a third level evocation spell that requires a bit of bat guano and sulfur in order to bring out some dramatic effects on the battlefield. Even if they fail talking to their friends, they can say, oh, it's the bat guano sulfur boomy boomy spell. Same school as lightning bolt and acid arrow and meteor swarm, whatever the heck that is. I can't remember.

But anyway, no consequences of failure there. But if that same wizard is trying to think of the name of an evocation spell, because some nefarious evil wizard is required that type of spell to be cast on the control board to save caged villagers hanging over an acid pit, there are consequences if they can't think of the name of the spell. So yes, have them make a roll. Keeping the other rules in mind though, if the player makes a choice for their character that would mean the character would succeed, no roll is necessary. I don't mean this as a player choosing that the emperor is going to give them whatever they want.

That's not valid because there's a chance for failure. Would be hilarious to watch though. I choose that you're going to give me 10,000 gold in the castle. Really? Because instead I'm going to choose to introduce you to my oubliette. Ugh. Not the way you want your character to go out. By the way, in case you don't know what an oubliette is, it was the worst of the dungeon. Many times at the bottom of it, so the liquid that hit the floor of the dungeon, rain, blood, and worse, would wind up raining down in the oubliette. People were thrown into the small cramped cell, many times with a grated opening high up, and they're left exposed to the elements until they died. No shackles on the wall, no possibility of trial, no possibility of escape, probably no food unless they wanted to keep you alive to suffer longer. Just cold darkness with only the corpses of the previous occupants to keep company. Oubliette, from the

French oubliette, which means to forget. Prisoners that rulers wanted to forget were tossed in there and left to rot. And there's your nightmare of fuel for the day. But enough about prisoner torture derived from French and by extension Latin words. Let's get back to good player choices. If the player's choice shows that they've been interested in the game, they're paying attention to what's going on, and they're having their character do a good and valid solution to the problem, fuck rolling. They just succeeded. They decide they're going to keep the pressure plate from being able to descend

by stacking copper coins around the sensor so it never gets pressed. Well, damn it. That's a great idea. Now the trap is disarmed. Who gives a crap that it was the fighter or the ranger or the druid that came up with it? That's good role-playing and good problem-solving. Trap's done, next encounter. The party's trapped in an office building with an evil AI that's run from a central mainframe, and the scout asks, does the mainframe have a power cord? If so, I pull it out of the wall. Yes, yes, and yes. Simple, clean solution.

Doesn't require the mini-game that you'd planned of trying to outpace the AI in the firewall while using the computer skill. Who cares? Love the solution. It worked. On to the next thing. Somewhere, someone is yelling at me, saying, why would an AI only have a single power cord that keeps it running?

I'll simply counter with, I didn't say the evil AI was intelligent. To me, here's the ultimate measuring stick of whether you should call for a role. Are you prepared to deal with what success and failure would look like? Remember, die rolls automatically equal uncertainty. If success or failure would result in your thinking, oh shit, now what? You might not need a roll. If the characters need to find the dynamite for the story to proceed, you may just want to say that they see dynamite lying on the floor

and not let success of the adventure depend on a random die roll. In summary, it's tempting for newer DMs to call for rolls all the time. After all, the game is mostly about rolling dice and determining outcomes. But I think we need to put a little thought behind how often we ask our players to pull out those d20s. Dice should really only be rolled when there's a chance for success and failure. If a failure adds something meaningful to the game, if the outcome is interesting and meaningful, and you're prepared to deal with the results whether they success or fail, then yes, absolutely call for die rolls. Skipping the meaningless die rolls, though, allow

us to fast forward to the interesting parts of the game, and it reduces the time spent bogged down when the outcome is already known or just doesn't matter for the adventure. In the interest of full disclosure and a peek behind the veil, I generally search for other content providers that have covered similar topics to see if I missed anything important or obvious. As I was finishing up the episode, I found a video by a YouTuber named Jenny D, G-I-N-N-Y-D-I, and I want to give her a ton of credit. She released a great video on the topic called The Key to Better D&D is to Roll Less. I watched it, said a few cuss words because we overlap like 75% of our ideas. So I guess what I'm saying is give her channel a listen if you're looking for

more content. She's a big-time content provider, and besides D&D, she makes music and does a lot of cosplaying. That's not really my jam, but her D&D content I've viewed is fantastic. Jenny's YouTube channel has like 350,000 subscribers. I'd love to get there one day, and you can help by subscribing to this podcast if you haven't already. Please like, rate, and subscribe to help support more content like this. Also, please tune in next week when... you know what? I haven't done a monster series episode in a while, so

I'm going to talk about vampires. Before I go, though, I want to thank this week's sponsor. A rare change of sponsor midway through the episode, though. The last half of the episode is sponsored by Whiteboards. They truly are remarkable. This has been episode 124 of the Philosophy of sponsored by whiteboards. They truly are remarkable. This has been episode 124, The Philosophy of RPG Dice Rolls. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game

is your best game. The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube Media Production. Copyright 2022. References to game system content are copyrighted by their respective publishers.