Player knowledge and hidden rolls

[whswhs]

[QUOTE=Stormcrow;2265348]Precisely. Suppose my party is exploring a dungeon, searching for the Magic Thingy. As we explore Room 32, the GM calls for Perception rolls, and we fail them. But we've now explored the entire dungeon and just can't find the Magic Thingy. "Hey," says one of the players, "Let's go look at Room 32 again."/QUOTE]

When you enter room 1, you ask, "Is the Magic Thingy here?" The GM says, "Roll Per." When you enter room 2, you ask, "Is the Magic Thingy here?" . . .

Or you skipped past some rooms, and then your first step is to look there, right?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I'm mot inclined to worry much about unconscious metagaming. If it's subtle enough so that I don't spot it, and the other players don't protest, then it's not being a problem.

Perfectly legitimate to not care, most of the time I don't care either. However, that has more to do with it not being a problem than with it not happening.

Let's say you're searching a room and the GM gives you a description of what you find. Assuming the exact same description in all three cases, in a certain style of game you should in principle play the same way whether you rolled a three, you rolled an eighteen, or the GM rolled behind his screen, but IME it's hard to actually do so.

In other styles of game, it's considered perfectly acceptable for your actions to differ, and people will cheerfully provide suggestions for unexpected discoveries in the first case, unexpected disasters in the second case.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by kdtipa

Navigation is an interesting example. Most of the time in my campaigns navigation has never been the crucial skill that will affect how the story goes. For me it's usually...

Me (GM): "You're off in the woods among mountains, and the last time you saw a road was a while ago. Make a navigation roll to see if you can get your bearings and get back to a close by road."
Player: "I made my roll by 4."
Me (GM): "Alright... you pick your landmarks and keep your group on a straight path long enough and in a direction you're pretty sure is where you came from, and after four hours of walking, you find yourself on the edge of the road. It being more familiar to you, and knowing how far away the mountains are from town, you think it's another five hours of walking to get to town."

No part of that is really about the journey. I don't need to hide the roll because we're not role-playing the part where they are walking toward the road. But in your example of patrolling a border... I can see why it might be fun to roll the die in secret and not tell the player how successful they are.

I think my recommendation then is to decide case by case.

There is one huge flaw with this example: Task Difficulty modifiers. With those operating the player will not know how well they actually did.

Say the modifier is Very Hard (a -6 or -7) then the player above actually missed their roll. Their character thinks he knows where he is going but in reality he doesn't.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by maximara

There is one huge flaw with this example: Task Difficulty modifiers. With those operating the player will not know how well they actually did.

No, you still know that you did four points better than a basic success. You don't necessarily know whether four points better is good enough, but you know it's better than, say, failing by two.

In general you use either MoS or TDM, not both; if a task has a difficulty and you're using MoS, the GM just compares MoS to the difficulty.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Boge

I would prefer the GM to do rolls for my character that he's not ACTIVELY attempting, mainly perception rolls. When the GM says,"Make a perception roll" and you fail and he says,"You don't see anything", I become inclined to say,"I'm going to stop and look around extra hard!" I know something is there that I missed and it's going to bother me. I'd rather he rolled and then just didn't say anything. Even if there is nothing there and I say I'm going to look for such and such. He should roll for me anyway just to keep me unsure.

For a character with Intuition this would make perfect sense. The Intuition is telling you there is something "off" about the room. You don't see anything off but you have learned to trust your Intuition and therefore start examining the room in ernest.

Task Difficulty also changes this. Perhaps the room has an Easy modifier (+4 or +5 to effective skill) which the player doesn't know about and actually succeeded in their perception roll (unless it was a 17 or 18).

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Anthony

No, you still know that you did four points better than a basic success. You don't necessarily know whether four points better is good enough, but you know it's better than, say, failing by two.

In general you use either MoS or TDM, not both; if a task has a difficulty and you're using MoS, the GM just compares MoS to the difficulty.

You seemed to have missed the whole point of Task Modifies. Your base success really doesn't tell you jack outside of the average situation which if the GM is doing their job correctly should not be "normal" and they should not tell you if that modifier is operating if the player is rolling the dice.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by maximara

You seemed to have missed the whole point of Task Modifies. Your base success really doesn't tell you jack

Sure it does. It tells you that you performed well enough to succeed at a task with a difficulty equal to the amount by which you succeeded. Now, it doesn't tell you if you actually succeeded at the task the GM called for (assuming it was a binary succeed/fail task), but that doesn't mean it gives you zero information.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Sure it does. It tells you that you performed well enough to succeed at a task with a difficulty equal to the amount by which you succeeded. Now, it doesn't tell you if you actually succeeded at the task the GM called for (assuming it was a binary succeed/fail task), but that doesn't mean it gives you zero information.

Again as I have pointed out that the player does not know what the Task Modifier is. In the example all the player knows is they succeed against their "average" skill by 4. It does not mean they actually succeeded (only that the character thinks they succeeded). It wasn't until they reached the road the player actually knew their character had succeeded in the roll.

As an article in Dragon #99 states "Don't let your players have a continuous commune spell." Letting players know upfront what the Task Modifier is effectively ignoring this advice.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by whswhs

When you enter room 1, you ask, "Is the Magic Thingy here?" The GM says, "Roll Per." When you enter room 2, you ask, "Is the Magic Thingy here?" . . .

Or you skipped past some rooms, and then your first step is to look there, right?

These aren't the scenario I presented, the point of which was to illustrate how a group that is not trying to metagame may be encouraged to do so anyway.

You have demonstrated a group where hidden knowledge rolls are essential to prevent abuse.

I, for one, don't even make Perception rolls like this, precisely because such rolls amount to "Does something happen to me based on my stats?" rather than "Can I figure out what I need to do to succeed at what I want?"

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

These aren't the scenario I presented, the point of which was to illustrate how a group that is not trying to metagame may be encouraged to do so anyway.

You have demonstrated a group where hidden knowledge rolls are essential to prevent abuse.

I, for one, don't even make Perception rolls like this, precisely because such rolls amount to "Does something happen to me based on my stats?" rather than "Can I figure out what I need to do to succeed at what I want?"

In my book it boils down to hidden rolls vs hidden Task Modifiers. Each has their place but it is knowing when (and how) to use them that is key.

GM: (rolls dice and refers to notes on PCs): One of you fells something doesn't isn't quite right about this room.

The players know something is up but they don't know what triggered this reaction. Was it somebody's Danger Sense going off? Perhaps Tactics suggests that the room is a perfect place for an ambush. Then everybody start rolling vs skills (with no knowledge of any Task Modifiers...including fi there are any).

In the case of the Magic thingy example perhaps the item has a spell that hides the fact it is magical or several items have "junk" enchantments to throw off would be searchers. If the magical thingy is clerical in nature then you can look with magery based magic until the lower realms freeze over into an Ice Age and not find it because no one in the party belongs to that deity and detect magic doesn't work on clerical items.

Perhaps the item is working according to Clark's Law as with the "Staff of Destruction" in The Familiar of Zero.

Remember, this is GURPS not AD&D1 or 2. ;-)