Quote from: Bill;685822I do that all the time when I gm, so it would not bother me.

But there are a lot of gm's that like to make secret rolls.

Unless people are muffling their dice, those rolls aren't actually secret

Quote from: Mistwell;685747Any of those paragraphs could have been used for a simple example of what you're talking about.  And then, it would make sense for you to say "I am backing out now because I am sure you will dissect to death the example I gave", and at least I'd understand.  But not even making an attempt to provide an example of what you mean? That makes it look, to me, like you did not have anything behind your claim, and when backed into a corner to explain you tried to punt.  It went from "cogent argument" to "drive-by bash" with your refusal to even vaguely mention WTF you mean with an example.

What completely confirms this is that he not only refused to give an example of what he was talking about, he also claimed he had already done so when he obviously hadn't.

Pretend that you can't have a mature conversation with me if you like (although why he insists on replying to my posts and asking me explicit questions if that's the case is kind of mind-boggling), but pretending that you did something that you didn't actually do? I can't really imagine how he's justifying that to himself.

Given his recent track record of making up imaginary quotes and then pretending that I said them, it's difficult to take Benoist seriously at this point. Which is unfortunate because, as I said before, he used to be a really valuable poster with a lot of good insight.

And I say that while acknowledging that I'm an asshole with a short fuse who often believes that people are being deliberately obtuse when that's not really the case. Nobody's a perfect poster. But making up fake quotes and pretending you've done things you clearly haven't done? What's the point of that?

Quote from: Bill;685793Many dm's would make that save secret, or at least not tell you it was esp.

I read your initial post the way dbm did, but this makes sense. But as with Spot checks or imperceptible saving throws in D&D, you could move those checks behind the screen if it's a table issue for you.

Yes, the rules say "players make all rolls". But D&D also says the players roll the saving throws for their characters. Deciding to cloak information that the mechanics leave open by default also has a long pedigree.

Quote from: dbm;685827Unless people are muffling their dice, those rolls aren't actually secret

Managing the metagame effect of this sort of thing is a really interesting facet of the GM's art that I think tends to get ignored. A few things I do:

- Make fake rolls behind the screen. Once the players figure out that most of the rolls I make are fake, the sound of dice rolling is no longer a give-away. (OTOH, you lose the ability to make them paranoid by rolling dice.)

- I let them make their own Spot checks because (a) I don't want to be hassled with that extra bookkeeping and (b) I find that it's a really efficient way to refocus the table when necessary. But I also call for Spot checks when there's nothing to see or call for the Spot check early and then let the result ride until there is something to see. The net result, once again, is that they lose the ability to metagame the knowledge of the mechanic being implemented.

OTOH, I generally just let them make their own saving throws and never call for fake saving throws. This may glean them the occasional metagame advantage, but my players are generally pretty good about firewalling metagame knowledge.

You can run into similar issues of technique when it comes to things like charm person spells. And this often depends on the players you're working with: With some players you can just hand them a note that says "you've been charmed" and let them roleplay the result. In other cases, you've got to yank control of the character away from them.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;685833Which is unfortunate because, as I said before, he used to be a really valuable poster with a lot of good insight.

He's still a valuable poster with a lot of good insight, in my opinion.  I am agreeing with you on just this one particularized issue in this thread, not in general.

Quote from: Benoist;685531I'm into the gazetteer of the Ninth World right now. Are you talking about running this adventure in an ongoing D&D campaign? I think you should start a new thread about this. I'd be happy to help.

I'm going to read a bit more tonight and give some thought to how to run it. What I've read thus far of the world-building I like a lot.

I'll figure out in the next day or so if I've got a good thread topic. :-)

Quote from: Benoist;685286there is NO way you can justify the player rolling all the dice from an in-character perspective, UNLESS the setting itself posits something having to do with characters being the mystical poles of attraction of all the randomness in the universe for some in-world reason or other

Counterpoint: there's no good IC justification for the GM rolling any dice either, since the GM is an OOC entity with no IC equivalent.

"Who rolls the dice?" is a question which is impossible from an in-character perspective because from an in-character perspective there are no dice. That sort of logic leads to IC physicists reproducing the game's rulebook with sufficient experiments. ("We've discovered that human beings have an intrinsic quality called a 'level', which appears to affect not only their overall personal capabilities but also manifestations of phenomena around them which were previously thought to be purely random. We have discovered that individuals who test as having a high level are measurably less likely to fall asleep after being administered a standard quantity of a non-lethal anaesthetic drug...")

Quote from: Benoist;685388Part of the point of playing a role playing game, at least to some people, is to fundamentally play "let's pretend". Let's pretend I am standing there as my character in the game world, that I actually say and do these things in the emulated world.

Then why are you thinking about the dice at all?

Personally, I find that immersion is aided primarily by cultivating a certain level of doublethink, being able to think simultaneously as the player and as the character. I don't let the fact that Bob the World's Fattest Dwarf is played by a tall, skinny woman break my immersion, I don't let the fact that we're sat in Oliver's front room instead of the Caves of the Damned break my immersion, I don't let the fact that I'm sat on my rump rather than chasing down some bandits on horseback break my immersion. Why should I let something as minor as who'd rolling the dice break my immersion? Letting your player-side thoughts handle the dice rolling whilst keeping your character-side thoughts focused on the IC action is surely a comparatively small feat compared to the more major acts of suspension of disbelief you're engaging in every second during the session.

Quote from: Warthur;685881Personally, I find that immersion is aided primarily by cultivating a certain level of doublethink, being able to think simultaneously as the player and as the character. I don't let the fact that Bob the World's Fattest Dwarf is played by a tall, skinny woman break my immersion

Or in my case, that a tall skinny woman is being played by The World's Fattest Dwarf.

JG

Looks like Monte's embraced the "mini-adventure" books (although they are ebook only releases)

http://www.montecookgames.com/introducing-glimmers/

I received my copy today and have read/leafed thru it.

Very good first impressions. Not perfect, but very good.

Very well written.

Quote from: JRT;688795Looks like Monte's embraced the "mini-adventure" books (although they are ebook only releases)

http://www.montecookgames.com/introducing-glimmers/

I've picked up the first one; it's the game Monte and co ran at GenCon. Fantastic production values and lovely art work. I haven't read the detail yet, but I intend to run this as an intro game for my group in the next month or so.

Snagged a copy and am reading through it.

Folks who were concerned about the experience/GM interference mechanic will be glad to know that a) XP can be spent on character advancement as well as temporary advantages and b) XP can be earned through discovering stuff, completing missions, or meeting major goals the PCs set for themselves. So you can go very traditional on that front if you like.

Numenera actually has a stat recovery system built in, it's not like you will totally run dry and drop dead at every moment.  It's no different than my Magic-User in LL only being limited to casting 2-1st and 2-2nd level spells at 4th level for the day, except with Numenera, I can have an Intellect of say 17 and an edge of 1 and effort of 1 at Tier 1 as a Nano and probably cast more spells than the 4th level MU in LL in a day.  Example; I can attack a creature with say my "Onslaught" ability (spell, nano power, whatever you want to call it), which would cost me "1 Intellect point" to use per/attempt; if used as a Physical attack it does 4 points of damage.  If I focus as a Mental attack, I can use it as a Mindslice attack bypassing armor but does 2 Intellect damage to the creature instead of physical (which is Might, usually-except all NPC's and creatures just have a straight Health Rating=Difficulty Rankx3).  But since I have an EDGE of 1, I can use that EDGE of 1 to reduce my cost to cast Onslaught by -1 (making it FREE to cast! - WALLA!  Endless spell casting attacks, without loss of my mental stat, unless I say cast "PUSH" which costs "2 Intellect points -1 Edge = a cost of 1 Intellect pont I would pay to use the power.  Note: As you rank up in Tiers from 1-6 max. and earn XP, you can burn XP to raise your 3-Stats, Edges and your Effort levels as well as you can Train New Skills or old ones.  IMO it is really a fine system, so far I don't see the problem and all the hate for it, except the "I HATE MONTY COOK" crowd, like he set their dogs on fire or killed their cats or something on the net.