Quote from: Soylent Green;737628Yes I do. I think it enhances player engagement. More to the point it's part of the discipline that ensures that I have decided the target number before I ask for any dice roll. Don't laugh, this does happens.

I don't tell target number for the exact opposite reason. I'll be determining in my head the difficulty while the player is rolling because, more often than not, the player's roll will either be so bad it would fail anyway or so good it would succeed despite any modifier. I only have to determine the exact target number or modifier in the few cases where it would actually make a difference between success and failure.

When it is a pass/fail roll like an attack vs AC, I generally don't spend the breath unless they ask but have no problem telling if they do.

Many skill rolls, however, are less of a pass/fail and more along the lines of rolling to see how well the PC did.  In such cases, I don't set a TN; I just interpret the roll.

It's a difficult question for me to answer...sometimes yes, sometimes no?  I mean, there's times when I don't want the players to know right out of the box what the AC of a given monster is, just out of a sense of suspense and surprise.

Then there's other times when it's like...They're orcs in leather armor with shield.  AC7.  Go get 'em.

...

Of course for things like locating secret doors and traps and disarming said traps, I always roll behind the screen.

If its something they are aware of. Yes. Otherwise. No.

IE:
Dexterity check grabbing a rope as they fall overboard on a ship = Yes. Tell them.
Wisdom check detecting a lie when they werent expecting to be lied to = No. Dont tell them even why they are rolling.
Successfully leaping onto the back of a Pinetto = Yes. Tell them.
They just walked into a rad zone = No. Dont tell them the rad level they are rolling against and possibly not even tell them what they are checking. Theyd see the glow at night.

I don't like how D&D difficulty classes work...I have no idea what DC 30 means in terms of scale, especially in a system where DC is potentially limitless. I prefer games that use natural language to describe target numbers like FATE, so that I can describe a roll as being good, difficult, challenging, etc. That way they can be aware of the roll, without reciting numbers back and forth across the table.

That said, I like players to have some clue how hard that external challenges, like climbing a wall, sneaking across a courtyard, or arm wrestling a bear is going to be. For internal challenges, like bluff, lore and perception rolls I prefer that players have no clue, because requiring an exceptionally high perception check on a well travelled road on a sunny day is pretty much they same as telling them: "Psst! Here's where you get ambushed!"

The DC difficulty ranges is pretty much a WotC D&D thing. And yes, I agree. Since it is essentially open ended, scale is hard to instantly assess. It is very campaign style dependent. One of the many reasons I avoid WotC D&D and its derivatives.

You'll hear about people here enjoying "bounded accuracy" for often this reason.

Quote from: Ravenswing;737837I agree ... but how often isn't that the case, beyond an ignorant or overconfident player?

Beyond that, we still do -- usually -- know what the system basic roll is.  You know that your Climbing skill is 13, or that your DX is 14 (or, alternately, that you have no Climbing skill and an average DX, so any default roll your system allows would suck), so you can readily piece together that your roll to climb a two-story brick wall with a knotted rope is good, and surely can figure out that your roll to climb Whispering Death Crag barehanded in the rain comes with hefty minuses.

For someone with no actual climbing skill, it might make sense not to give them specific modifiers.

But for someone who's a trained, experienced climber, I bet they *could* figure out what their odds of climbing the Whispering Death Crag would be -- not that the actual character would be aware of the exact percentages or the game mechanics... but they would have an "expert" opinion which translates (to the person playing them) as an accurate assessment of the negative modifier.

Hidden modifiers wouldn't be exposed, obviously -- but an expert would be able to gauge known-unknowns, and would only be surprised by something really unusual.

Roleplaying has 2 inherent difficulties

1) The players always have far less information than the characters would
2) The characters are often experts in things the players are not

Because of these, I think it's best to err on the side of giving the players more mechanical information since it's likely that their characters would have a better sense of their own limits than the players do.

Cheers,
-E.

I never (well, ALMOST never) tell the PCs the difficulty; certainly not with armor classes.

Quote from: -E.;738217For someone with no actual climbing skill, it might make sense not to give them specific modifiers.

But for someone who's a trained, experienced climber, I bet they *could* figure out what their odds of climbing the Whispering Death Crag would be -- not that the actual character would be aware of the exact percentages or the game mechanics... but they would have an "expert" opinion which translates (to the person playing them) as an accurate assessment of the negative modifier.

Hidden modifiers wouldn't be exposed, obviously -- but an expert would be able to gauge known-unknowns, and would only be surprised by something really unusual.

Roleplaying has 2 inherent difficulties

1) The players always have far less information than the characters would
2) The characters are often experts in things the players are not

Because of these, I think it's best to err on the side of giving the players more mechanical information since it's likely that their characters would have a better sense of their own limits than the players do.

Cheers,
-E.

One of the main failings of all games is the player world interface. This is the GM. The GM often fails to give the players enough information to make a decision. In your example. An expert climber can look at a path up a rockface and very accurately work out if that is climbable or not. We just say ... it looks quite slippery

the same is even more true to social situations. Its where I get frustrated with the old school Roleplay every roleplay thing out in character no social skills. Becauss the GM will then proceed to give no or inaccurate social queues as to the task.
A guy who has 99% in bribery is a guy who can look at a bloke across a room and work out what he earns a month (from his shoes, the state of his hands, any jewellery), what he spends his money on (expensive cigars, good liquor), etc etc   All of that stuff is rolled intot eh DC 30 bit. Now I can toally see a straight roll doesn't really lead to roleplaying however when people expect roleplay but don't give any of those professional expert queues then its their own fault.

When I was running OD&D, I would always tell the players the armor class because

a) I was using one-minute combat rounds and figured their characters would discern how difficult landing a blow was

and b) I was using Delta's Target20 method.

D&D is sorta confused in this regard (specifically, what difficulty classes players know and do not know). Cf. saving throws

Quote from: Gizmoduck5000;738193I don't like how D&D difficulty classes work...I have no idea what DC 30 means in terms of scale, especially in a system where DC is potentially limitless.

The D&D editions that use DC are actually pretty remarkable in terms of how much they do define such things! Try Call of Cthulhu (or for some things GURPS) if you want to see vague.  

QuoteI prefer games that use natural language to describe target numbers like FATE, so that I can describe a roll as being good, difficult, challenging, etc. That way they can be aware of the roll, without reciting numbers back and forth across the table.

That's like old D&D level titles: "Here come two myrmidons, a theurgist and a lama." Removing such stuff seems pointless to me, but I can understand not every game designer feeling obligated to make it up in the first place.

Nothing to stop you from doing so yourself for home use among consenting adults, eh?

Quote from: RPGPundit;737597When the PC has to roll something, do you as GM tell the player what the difficulty number is?

Yes if it's one and done thing. But remember I mostly only run MtAw so it's mostly expected to know the target number..mostly.. maybe..

Quote from: Marleycat;739259Yes if it's one and done thing. But remember I mostly only run MtAw so it's mostly expected to know the target number..mostly.. maybe..

Your difficulty number is the target number then? Is the target number always calculated for each PC's roll? Or is it already known and the difficulty is added?

In roll-under systems the unmodified target number is already on the character sheet, though I *may* at times not tell them the modifiers I am applying.
Overall, I found that knowing the target number does not interfere much with immersion, if at all.

Quote from: 3rik;739399In roll-under systems the unmodified target number is already on the character sheet, though I *may* at times not tell them the modifiers I am applying.
Overall, I found that knowing the target number does not interfere much with immersion, if at all.

The players in my last group knew the base target number all the time, but weren't looking at their sheets to see what best to do to get the maximum DMs added (some of them had already maxed their characters out to prevent any failures anyway). I could tell they still were not happy whenever their rolls missed the target if something got real difficult.