Seen a few games where this is apparently a feature or even a selling point. What exactly is this supposed to bring to the table? Apart from emphasising that the PCs are not made of the same stuff as everyone else in the setting.

PC wants to open a locked door, roll dice. They ask their NPC buddy to open it, for some reason it is resolved without the GM rolling dice. I just can't fathom it.

So that you can't say that DM is a bitch? I really can't say given I usually roll far below average. It's not my goal to screw players up but just to provide tension and a bit of realism as a GM.

Less stuff for the GM to manage, more feeling of control for players (even if it's somewhat illusory)

Quote from: Will;773039Less stuff for the GM to manage,

Rolling dice isn't management, it's fun. That said, I usually have the players roll for any damage they receive from traps or radiation or other environmental stuff – they got themselves into the mess, they can see how badly it hurts. I roll damage when its NPCs dolling out the wounds.

Quote from: languagegeek;773040Rolling dice isn't management, it's fun. That said, I usually have the players roll for any damage they receive from traps or radiation or other environmental stuff – they got themselves into the mess, they can see how badly it hurts. I roll damage when its NPCs dolling out the wounds.

I like that. It's fair in a way and on them not me.

The benefit for me is less dice rolling. As GM, I have a lot of things to keep track of and do (especially where I may have many NPCs rather than just 1 PC), so removing the need to roll dice and using that time to focus on other things can be helpful (especially in games where dice rolling is not quick and effortless). Also, many systems can remove the GM rolling and remain mathematically the same as ones where the player rolls.

Quote from: languagegeek;773040Rolling dice isn't management, it's fun. That said, I usually have the players roll for any damage they receive from traps or radiation or other environmental stuff – they got themselves into the mess, they can see how badly it hurts. I roll damage when its NPCs dolling out the wounds.

Co-signed.

I've never felt so overwhelmed by my gm duties that I couldn't toss some dice around. Frankly it sounds pretty boring but I am just one man among many.

If I remember correctly Icons pushed this at first and it turned me off the game entirely until Steve K posted the alternative method where gm's could roll. It was a simple hack but it fixed an issue that had me swear off the game previously.

I think there is a certain segment of gamers who feel that the DM will conspire against them if the DM rolls.

Same reason there are games that have rules for everything, rather than requiring the DM to use common sense or make a ruling.

Yes, people have different desires for a game.

Quote from: The_Shadow;773033What exactly is this supposed to bring to the table?

There are a lot of reasons that boil down to pure preference, but there are a couple of concrete benefits:

(1) It increases player engagement, particularly in turn-based interactions like combat. Off-turn action resolution (like saving throws in classic D&D) keeps players mechanically engaged in the action even when it's not their turn. Making everything player-faced means maximizing their mechanical engagement.

This, of course, comes at the cost of reducing the GM's mechanical engagement. But the GM is pretty much constantly engaged in the game by default, so the cost-benefit analysis looks pretty great (unless you're a GM who is just completely enamored with rolling dice).

(2) It can vastly simplifies opposed actions by making it clear-cut who rolls the dice through a universal metric (i.e., always the player).

This can also be resolved, of course, by having both characters in an opposed check roll the dice. But that method significantly increases the randomness of the outcome (particularly in games that take margin of success into account).

Another reason it works in games like ICONS is that it's a game where the players have the ability to spend resources to modify their dice rolls.

If some rolls are made by the players and some by the GM it can get confusing about which rolls can be modified and how. By designing the system so that the players make all the rolls it avoids this confusion.

Although I have to say that ICONS explains its system very badly, making it sound like PCs and NPCs use asymmetric rules when they actually don't. I think I explain it much better in my Masks mash-up, and I also clarify what happens with PC vs PC rolls and NPC vs NPC rolls.

Quote from: languagegeek;773040Rolling dice isn't management, it's fun. That said, I usually have the players roll for any damage they receive from traps or radiation or other environmental stuff – they got themselves into the mess, they can see how badly it hurts. I roll damage when its NPCs dolling out the wounds.

Very true. A couple of years ago I was running a D&D game for a friend, and one of his sons wanted to sit and watch us play. He was too young to run a character (he does play now as part of our regular group) but I took him under my wing as a "DM's assistant" and let him start rolling all of my dice for me. He had a blast.

I've run a few sessions that way, having players roll when they attack and defend. Other than having to flip criticals against them (their '1' defending is like monster rolling 20 to hit), it was fairly easy and engaging.  Normally, though, I roll everything except traps and perception in the open.

Yeah I like it because it seems to reduce the unspoken GM vs Player mentality that plagues just about every group that I've been a part of. Hell, even in my "uber-indie-nice-storygame-collaborative-hippy" phase, players STILL felt some antagonism toward me. *shrug*

I also like to get the players to roll their own damage dice ("you stepped on the trap, now roll dX to see how bad you're hurt").

This is probably heresy, but I'm actually contemplating an AC saving throw system instead of me making attack rolls. I'm not entirely sure how that would work in the monster's attack bonus, though. Probably a bad idea...

Since I'm usually the GM, any game that says I can't roll dice is immediately dropped from consideration for the table. I like rolling dice.