I suppose all or most of GMing takes place behind the curtain, or a GM screen of some kind. Im not talking about hiding your notes or whatever though. I'm referring to decisions and actions taking place beyond the knowledge of the players, and in this case not hidden plot elements but actual game mechanics.

I have found in over 35 years of GMing that fairly regularly the actions of NPCs, if handled strictly as per the rules, would slow the pace of the game down and kill the tension/drama and excitement that is typically the goal of any session. No matter how versed you are with the rules, no matter how streamlined the process, it takes time to decide on an action, glance at a stat, consider modifiers, roll the dice, interpret and assign damage etc. then relay the information. (if indeed the players would notice) This is just a combat example but the same applies in any number of situations where there are a number of other figures involved.

I could give an actual example but I think most of you know exactly what Im talking about. Conclude a series of actions by the players with a long pause as you roll for henchmen #1 through #4 then check on the mooks your fighting, A-J etc.

BIG ADMISSION FOLLOWS - Please don't tell my buddies from 1979

When confronted with these situations I often fudge the die rolls and simply narrate the action in a way that seems plausible and typically beneficial to the flow of the story. I may roll the dice behind my screen, pretend to consult a chart or two to keep the players guessing but those NPCs and Mooks hit or miss based on my whim, not the dice.

There it is, I said it aloud.... I feel sooooo much better. Ok, Im prepared to take on whatever penance handed me.

Seriously though, is this such a rare practice? Do you guys really roll for each and every one of 8 Orcs/Pirates/Ape Soldiers/Romulans/Democrats that your players are up against?

Do you make rolls for NPCs who aren't even in the scene but are performing some function that may affect the story or do you just rule it?

Ok, on second thought here are a couple examples....

1. Players are waiting for a riverboat, the pilot was supposed to meet them at sundown. As GM you know a group of mooks were following the boat and ordered to detain or sink it. Do you roll for this encounter or do you just assign an outcome given the player characters weren't even there?

2. The PCs are fighting in a saloon, a typical brawl. They square off with first one drunk cowboy then another. In between, are you actually rolling for any of the other guys?

3. The PCs are stuck behind a barricade fighting a group of musket armed Frenchmen. There are a dozen or so indian warriors with them. The characters have 6 English regulars lending a hand. Do you really roll for each and every combatant between players turns? Or does it sound something like...

"Ok, Roderick hits an Indian pretty hard, the guy goes down. While you reload and pick out targets muskets continue to fire, filling the air with smoke. A few balls zip by and you hear more than one painful cry and see at least a couple of your fellow Englishman fall back from the barricade clutching their face. (GM rolls a few dice, interprets a better roll for the French as 3 kills to one by the English) Alright Bob, you've got initiative, your turn.

I will readily admit I always feel a little guilty about this. It completely eliminates the quality of the NPCs, their stats, talents, or whatever. Unless you spend the time to come up with some mass combat system that takes that into consideration. I do roll a random dice or two, just to see sort of how a side is doing but its nothing technical, just kind of helps me make up my mind. In the end, if the players were a major part of the action, then their performance steers the result, but if they weren't (Say in a battle of hundreds or thousands) then its totally up to me.

Thoughts?

I am guilty of similar crimes, and I suspect we are not alone.

Example: Two PCs (investigators for the League of Nations - fictitious - detection bureau) are attempting the arrest of a criminal mastermind on an island between Switzerland and Italy, in 1935. They are accompanied by 3 Italian OVRA agents (they dislike the fascist organisation, but have to work with them).

When one of the League agents is confronted by a guard and then a henchwoman of the major villain, gunplay ensues. Action has consequences - the PC has pushed ahead of her colleagues and has no back up - let the dice fall where they may. (She's a badass bitch and plugs the bad guys.)

Two of the Italian agents come up against a guard with a tommy gun - meanwhile the other League investigator is running down the head villain. A few quick  abstract rolls leave one OVRA man dead while the other kills the guard. Therefore I'm able to move on quickly to concentrate on the attempted arrest of the major villain by the other PC - that's what is important. (The villain is a pussy, so he surrenders).

It keeps the game moving and really, who cares about poor Luigi, the fascist creep? Similarly, in a small fight - the PCs do well, then their side does well - or not if they roll/plan bad. In a big battle, yeah - their actions just effect them and their immediate bit of the battle. I'll determine the major outcome with a few separate rolls based on troop levels/type/generals/ect.

At least with D&D just RPing the NPCs is how you are supposed to do it. You resort to dice rolls only when you are unsure or want a degree of uncertainty in how an NPC acts. Rolls then occur only when the players are trying to directly effect/change a NPCs reactions.

EG: You know the mayor is hostile to clerics due to some past problem. You didnt need to roll any of that. But say the PC cleric is trying to persuade the mayor to do something. Here you can either RP it as you think the mayor should act based on what the cleric said, or have a persuasion check to see if hes swayed despite his mood or because you are unsure if the cleric swayed him or not and so let the dice decide.

Thus you arent roll-roll-rolling and its down to common sense points that matter.

Example: when DMing Hoard of the Dragon Queen when the party encountered the first blue kobold band. Nox, a blue dragonborn, decided to bluff them. No rolls were made. I just played them believing his story enthusiastically. Later at the cult base he tried it with some black kobolds and here we did a check because they are predisposed to distrust a blue. But his cover story was believable.

Same with incidental NPCs. I roll only when its really needed. Like a morale check to see if followers break. Otherwise they are just doing their things. World in motion continues as it will if the PCs arent there so.

1: Why would the PCs not being there matter. Later they find out the boat was sank if they didnt stay around. If they did stay around then thered be a possible encounter depending on how the mooks go about sinking the boat.

2: Not unless theres a good reason for it.

3: I roll for the NPCs to-hits and such as in most RPGs thats usually pretty quick. Say 6 guys with bows thats just 6 rolls and its over in less than a minute. If some arent fighting then ignore them as needed.

Oh yeah. For background combats I'll usually guesstimate odds and roll just once to see which side won.
Giving players an auto-success for good play should be more of a thing, IMO.
And often in the interest of pacing I'll gloss over all kinds of stuff.

I have all the rolls in the open, but don't always have rolls for everything.  I think it's okay to make just make a decision where you deem necessary because, like you, I like to keep things moving along, and keep the actions of the players center stage. Whatever happens offscreen, I deal with offscreen, until it makes a difference. For example, we recently finished a short arc in which the encounter I presumed to happen simply didn't materialize, because the party made other decisions. So the encounter (a raid), happened without them there. I've deemed the raid a success, and had the perps eat feet back to their hideout. It is possible the PCs may cross paths with them in their current travels (they should -- they have a nemesis leading the bad guys), but, then again, they may not. Had we run the actual raid, I would certainly not have rolled for everyone involved. I'd have concentrated on the spotlit PCs.

As for your other examples:

Quote1. Players are waiting for a riverboat, the pilot was supposed to meet them at sundown. As GM you know a group of mooks were following the boat and ordered to detain or sink it. Do you roll for this encounter or do you just assign an outcome given the player characters weren't even there?

I assume the mooks will follow their orders, unless they've been told otherwise. So I'd assign an outcome (the boat is detained). Of course, if the players aren't there, the question is, how does the outcome affect anything? If it's a difference which makes no difference, then I don't bother with it. If they were waiting on the boat, and the mooks detained it or whatever, then I'd just make it clear to them that "Pushboat Willie is overdue...way overdue." Then see how they react. I guess the question is, who hired the mooks and why?

Quote2. The PCs are fighting in a saloon, a typical brawl. They square off with first one drunk cowboy then another. In between, are you actually rolling for any of the other guys?

Depends on the point of the brawl. If it's just a bar fight, you can narrate the entire thing, or go ahead and do the combat. If the point of the fight is to draw unwanted attention to them, the then have at, and have whoever's supposed to notice, notice. If it's just a fight, I run it by the rules. Since we've been using Dungeon World, the brawler's friends just add to the damage roll (at +1 per). I'd have them Defy Danger from getting jumped, dodging flying bottles, etc. Afterward, I'd assume their rep would suffer in some way, depending on the context of the brawl. Short version: No, I would not roll for every combatant.

Quote3. The PCs are stuck behind a barricade fighting a group of musket armed Frenchmen. There are a dozen or so indian warriors with them. The characters have 6 English regulars lending a hand. Do you really roll for each and every combatant between players turns? Or does it sound something like..."Ok, Roderick hits an Indian pretty hard, the guy goes down. While you reload and pick out targets muskets continue to fire, filling the air with smoke. A few balls zip by and you hear more than one painful cry and see at least a couple of your fellow Englishman fall back from the barricade clutching their face. (GM rolls a few dice, interprets a better roll for the French as 3 kills to one by the English) Alright Bob, you've got initiative, your turn.

I'd more than likely go with the latter. But I think system can make a difference, too. If the Regulars augment the PCs abilities, I'll have them make use of them. Otherwise, I'd narrate the combat as it made sense with the scenario. In short, I'd go with the way you just described it.

The "Behind the Curtain" aspect you speak of here reminds me of the "Think offscreen" aspect of GMing, where the world moves on, sometimes reacting directly to what the PCs are doing, sometimes just moving on as the major players see fit.  For example, our current campaign has some offscreen political and commercial maneuvering going on. I handle these things logically and inexorably, until the PCs become embroiled. But, as a general rule, in a table situation with many actors doing their thing, I just don't make the rolls. I did that once before when we were doing a large, set piece battle involving a castle raid, and all I did was bore the players.

Quote from: Omega;911969At least with D&D just RPing the NPCs is how you are supposed to do it. You resort to dice rolls only when you are unsure or want a degree of uncertainty in how an NPC acts. Rolls then occur only when the players are trying to directly effect/change a NPCs reactions.

This, as a rule of thumb.

Savage Worlds addresses this by having a system which was designed to make large scale combats easy and fast and to allow players to control large quantities of NPCs along with their PCs.

So in these particular examples, you could easily assign the various groups of NPCs to specific PCs and have them fight it out, or in the case of the riverboat just let some players run the riverboat crew and some run the bandits and fight it out even if none of their PCs are present.

Another thing is you can treat a group of NPCs in a fight as a single unit. One roll to hit or just have them all on the same initiative for ease of handling. Works best when the NPCs are all the same sort.

Not only do I roll for every NPC, but all the NPCs tend to have different attributes, skills, equipment, etc. Often I'm even adding rolls for the state of mind and situational awareness of each NPC, too. And sometimes I do battles with hundreds of NPCs.

To me, the gameplay is one of the main reasons I am playing, so I rarely handwave anything unless I'm not interested in it, or circumstances require that I handwave it. Every time something gets ignored and handwaved, it's no longer really part of the game.

And no, it does not take me forever to run action, even in GURPS with many potentially complicating house rules. I can generally resolve it about as quickly as I can describe it in English. It probably actually helps that I always play on a hex map. It would be harder if there were no map showing where people are, as that limits what makes sense for them to do.

After a combat, I am also tracking the bleeding on every wounded figure (whose individual wounds have been recorded by type, hit location, severity and stuck weapons/arrows/etc), and figuring out who is stopping bleeding and who is applying first aid and who is looting or finishing off the fallen, and who might be playing dead and still trying to sneak away, etc.

The game situation and its cause & effects and the odds of things and factors involved, tend to be one of the main reasons I'm playing the game. So I want to savor that stuff, not throw it out.

If there's a LOT of monsters fighting the PCs I break them up into groups and roll them as one. One attack roll, one damage roll and then multiply it by the creatures. They either all hit or miss.

But if it's just NPC fighting NPC I just decide what happens. Rolls are only for players or when you don't have an answer already.

Quote from: rgrove0172;911952When confronted with these situations I often fudge the die rolls and simply narrate the action in a way that seems plausible and typically beneficial to the flow of the story. I may roll the dice behind my screen, pretend to consult a chart or two to keep the players guessing but those NPCs and Mooks hit or miss based on my whim, not the dice.

On the rare occasion that I'm going to just decide something by GM fiat, I simply do that.  I don't ignore the dice or fudge, I just don't roll them at all.  If I roll something, then I am committing myself to letting fate decide the outcome.

Quote from: rgrove0172;911952Seriously though, is this such a rare practice? Do you guys really roll for each and every one of 8 Orcs/Pirates/Ape Soldiers/Romulans/Democrats that your players are up against?

Yes, absolutely.  I can't imagine any situation where I would declare an attack against a PC to succeed or fail purely on my own whim instead of randomizing it.  That sort of thing is exactly why I stopped running Amber Diceless after only two or three sessions - I don't want the responsibility of deciding whether bad things happen to PCs or not.  I want to have a randomizer to blame it on when something bad happens.

Quote from: rgrove0172;911952Do you make rolls for NPCs who aren't even in the scene but are performing some function that may affect the story or do you just rule it?

I roll for it, but usually simplify/abstract it down to a single roll rather than going through the full process that would take place if we were playing it out with the PCs present.

Quote from: rgrove0172;9119521. Players are waiting for a riverboat, the pilot was supposed to meet them at sundown. As GM you know a group of mooks were following the boat and ordered to detain or sink it. Do you roll for this encounter or do you just assign an outcome given the player characters weren't even there?

If the entire process of the mooks being dispatched, the boat being intercepted (or not), and the PCs learning that the boat was behind schedule all took place within a single session, then I'd do a one-roll resolution.  e.g., Roll a d6 and on 1-3 the boat was detained by the mooks, 4-5 it was destroyed, and 6 the mooks weren't in position and it slipped past.

If that process was split between two or more sessions, I'd resolve it between sessions.  Probably in a more detailed manner, but just how detailed would depend on how much fun I thought it would be to deal with.

Quote from: rgrove0172;9119522. The PCs are fighting in a saloon, a typical brawl. They square off with first one drunk cowboy then another. In between, are you actually rolling for any of the other guys?

Probably not, because a bar brawl doesn't really matter, regardless of how things go.  I would still roll to see how much prior damage each new cowboy had already taken as they came to the players' attention, but that would usually be all I'd feel was necessary.

Well, that and I'd also throw a handful of d6s each round (one for each NPC who isn't engaged with a PC) to see how many of them go down while fighting amongst themselves.

Quote from: rgrove0172;9119523. The PCs are stuck behind a barricade fighting a group of musket armed Frenchmen. There are a dozen or so indian warriors with them. The characters have 6 English regulars lending a hand. Do you really roll for each and every combatant between players turns? Or does it sound something like...

"Ok, Roderick hits an Indian pretty hard, the guy goes down. While you reload and pick out targets muskets continue to fire, filling the air with smoke. A few balls zip by and you hear more than one painful cry and see at least a couple of your fellow Englishman fall back from the barricade clutching their face. (GM rolls a few dice, interprets a better roll for the French as 3 kills to one by the English) Alright Bob, you've got initiative, your turn.

I would definitely determine group initiative for the opposition (probably as two groups, Frenchmen and natives), then handle their actions as part of the normal combat sequence, making all to-hit and damage rolls as appropriate.

For the Englishmen, it could go one of two ways:

1) I roll group initiative, to-hit, and damage for them, the same as the opposing groups.

2) Give one or more of the Englishmen to each player and have them act on the same initiative as that player's character, with the player making the NPC's to-hit and damage rolls.  (This is how Savage Worlds does it, as daniel_ream mentioned above.)

Quote from: rgrove0172;911952Seriously though, is this such a rare practice? Do you guys really roll for each and every one of 8 Orcs/Pirates/Ape Soldiers/Romulans/Democrats that your players are up against?

Yes. And I will generally stop playing with any GM doing what you describe doing.

QuoteDo you make rolls for NPCs who aren't even in the scene but are performing some function that may affect the story or do you just rule it?

Generally no. The game world is self-evidently too large and too complicated for me to personally simulate every aspect of it to the same degree of detail that we do with the on-screen actions of the PCs.

Quote3. The PCs are stuck behind a barricade fighting a group of musket armed Frenchmen. There are a dozen or so indian warriors with them. The characters have 6 English regulars lending a hand. Do you really roll for each and every combatant between players turns?

Again, yes. Sounds like you're describing a scenario with about two dozen combatants with maybe 3-5 distinct NPC stat blocks. I run similar encounters on a regular basis while rolling for each NPC's actions and attacks individually. As the encounter size grows larger, there are practical tricks I'll employ to keep focus and interest at the table. (For example, letting players control their NPC allies.)

At some point, of course, encounters get large enough that they're too large to handle through every-combatant-gets-an-individual-turn mechanics. (For example, if the PCs are fighting on the fields of Agincourt I'm not rolling for every French and English knight.) This generally doesn't mean that I start waving my hands: It means I either need a different mechanical structure for resolving that conflict (mass combat rules); or I've made in an error on what the focus of the scene actually is and I need to redefine what's onscreen. (In other words, PCs on the battlefield of Agincourt are only going to be concerned about what's happening immediately around them and that's what we should be focusing on. We don't need to describe/play through the actions on the other side of the battlefield for much the same reason that I don't act out the conversations of every NPC in a crowded bar.)

The point at which "this encounter is too large for me to manage" will, of course, vary from one GM to the next. But it is, in general, a skill that can be learned. And, as I mentioned above, there are a variety of practical tricks you can use. Off the top of my head:

- Use a system with group initiatives (all the goblins go on 12; all the ogres go on 15).
- Hand-off NPC allies to the players to keep them engaged through long initiative cycles (and to invest them in their fates).
- Use some form of battlemap to keep the battlefield clearly defined in everyone's mind.
- Print each NPC stat block on a single note card or sheet of paper. Lay them all out so that you can easily glance from one to another during combat
- Write down the initiative order so that you can jump quickly and efficiently from one character to the next.
- While Player 1 is rolling their dice to resolve their current action, tell the next player that they're on deck (if it's a PC) or roll the dice for their next action (if it's an NPC). (If you've got a really good group, you can often get to the point where you can have Player 2 declare and start rolling their dice while you bounce back to Player 1 to get the results of their roll.)
- Jot down key stats for the PCs (particularly target numbers like AC in D&D) so that you don't have to keep asking for them. (Works less well in systems where those target numbers are constantly shifting.)
- Make multiple rolls for your NPCs simultaneously. (If there are 8 goblins attacking, roll eight d20s all at once. You don't need to roll one d20 eight times.)

i generally would not roll in any of the three situations described. i'd just decide the outcome. but, if i wanted randomness to determine it, i would make one representational roll, or a percentile check - something quick and easy.

In general I only roll dice in my games for things that interface with the Player Characters. If it doesn't affect the PCs why roll? I have a special die I sometimes use, it is labled with a range from "certain" to "impossible". That to determine the odds followed by a dice tosss to determine the result if I really feel the need to roll something. But I am not going to roll every single check for every single NPC.

Quote from: rgrove0172;911952I suppose all or most of GMing takes place behind the curtain, or a GM screen of some kind.

Not at my table. Any GM screens are folded up and put next to me for the reference material.

QuoteSeriously though, is this such a rare practice? Do you guys really roll for each and every one of 8 Orcs/Pirates/Ape Soldiers/Romulans/Democrats that your players are up against?

Yes, unless the players' roll is so good it will be an autokill anyway.

QuoteDo you make rolls for NPCs who aren't even in the scene but are performing some function that may affect the story or do you just rule it?

I roll, though it might be just a single opposed roll with appropriate bonuses and penalties for skill.

Ok, on second thought here are a couple examples....

Quote3. The PCs are stuck behind a barricade fighting a group of musket armed Frenchmen. There are a dozen or so indian warriors with them. The characters have 6 English regulars lending a hand. Do you really roll for each and every combatant between players turns? Or does it sound something like...

Neither: the players roll for everyone on their side, and I roll for the opposition.

QuoteI will readily admit I always feel a little guilty about this. It completely eliminates the quality of the NPCs, their stats, talents, or whatever.

Indeed it does, unless your "narration" accounts for all of these...which is possible, but I kinda doubt it's really the case:).

QuoteThoughts?

I really hope you don't run anything heavier than Risus or Barbarians of Lemuria. BoL+supplements, Savage Worlds or half the retro-clones would be pushing into "unnecessary and time-wasting mechanics" already when the PC's stats don't matter anyway:D!

Also, if it works for you and your group, keep doing it. If I ever apply for a game you run online, please notify me so I could skip it;)!