I have two principles:

1. Players should roll as many dice as possible.

2. There should be as few dice rolls as possible to resolve a test.

Therefore, players rolling attacks and saving throws are awesome. 4E style spell-attack rolls vs monsters (with no saving throw) are good too. I also think Runequest parries for PCs only are good as well. Note, that I think PCs and monsters therefore need to operate under slightly different rules.

Somewhat system specific, but ideally Players roll for PCs to affect the world and for PCs to resist the world, while GM rolls when the PCs may be oblivious to failure and for world RNG.

Quote from: Mishihari on August 24, 2022, 12:55:03 AM
So the question is who rolls the dice in a combat attack?
<snip>
So in your perfect game, who rolls the dice?

For me, I prefer opposed rolls.  It's slightly more work to execute, but I feel that the added feeling of control and added engagement are worth the effort.

I love opposed rolls, since I'm usually GM, so that means I get to roll more often.

Why are opposed rolls "more work to execute"? In our home brew, each side rolls one die (size of die is linked to level, you can go up or down a size for advantage) -- highest die wins with ties going to PC. We picked it because it runs so fast -- no math or anything.

ETA: to answer the question in the subject -- everyone rolls!

Quote from: Trond on August 24, 2022, 01:29:00 PM
The OP sort of begs a follow-up question: do you prefer if there is always some sort of defense roll? Or attack roll vs a set defense value for the opponent? I have seen both done well. I sort of like Runequest's attack roll and then parry roll. But I also made Rolemaster work pretty well, and here you have attack roll plus attack bonus minus defense bonus (refer to table with armor type).

I like all rolls, attack or skill, to be opposed. One die on each side. No math. Die size adjusted up or down based on advantage/disadvantage.

Quote from: Tod13 on September 02, 2022, 05:20:23 PM
Why are opposed rolls "more work to execute"? In our home brew, each side rolls one die (size of die is linked to level, you can go up or down a size for advantage) -- highest die wins with ties going to PC. We picked it because it runs so fast -- no math or anything.

Opposed rolls require the active participation of two people.  If one or both are not prepared, it creates delays.  As a player if you are making a roll against a static value, you can even roll and step away to use the bathroom meaning your rolls didn't take any table time. 

Quote from: deadDMwalking on September 03, 2022, 12:48:13 PM

Quote from: Tod13 on September 02, 2022, 05:20:23 PM
Why are opposed rolls "more work to execute"? In our home brew, each side rolls one die (size of die is linked to level, you can go up or down a size for advantage) -- highest die wins with ties going to PC. We picked it because it runs so fast -- no math or anything.

Opposed rolls require the active participation of two people.  If one or both are not prepared, it creates delays.  As a player if you are making a roll against a static value, you can even roll and step away to use the bathroom meaning your rolls didn't take any table time.

I'm not sure I follow why "active participation of two people" is a slow down? Is it activities other than the roll? (Figuring out skills, etc?) Or do you mean one of the two wasn't paying attention since it "wasn't their turn"? I could see that with large groups -- my group of 3-4 was really engaged. And we didn't do PvP type stuff, so there was never a cause to have two players roll.

For most (99.99%) rolls in our system, it is the player vs the GM. GM's roll is based on difficulty of task or level of monster, which is generally set beforehand. For the player, it is picking the die that goes with that task -- very simple to choose with a handful of tasks/skills -- and going up one size if you have advantage and down one if you have disadvantage. So it helps that only one "extra" person is needed, since the GM is "always on".

Quote
I like this the best. Having a player roll an attack vs every target of a Fireball etc slows the game hugely, as I saw in 4e D&D.

Though it does change the game to some degree, you could simply have the player roll once and use that as the attack roll versus all of them.  Obviously a player rolling a 17 with his fireball is probably going to result in the entire set of enemies being hit (it would be as if the DM rolled a 3 for all of them).

Quote from: Tod13 on September 02, 2022, 05:20:23 PM
Why are opposed rolls "more work to execute"? In our home brew, each side rolls one die (size of die is linked to level, you can go up or down a size for advantage) -- highest die wins with ties going to PC. We picked it because it runs so fast -- no math or anything.

I mean, "no math or anything" implies that your base chance of success is even, meaning the dice aren't taking AC or attack bonus or proficiency at saves into account.  If you eliminated that from a single roll system then you'd be doing it faster too. Or am I missing something here?

Quote from: Venka on September 03, 2022, 10:48:56 PM

Quote from: Tod13 on September 02, 2022, 05:20:23 PM
Why are opposed rolls "more work to execute"? In our home brew, each side rolls one die (size of die is linked to level, you can go up or down a size for advantage) -- highest die wins with ties going to PC. We picked it because it runs so fast -- no math or anything.

I mean, "no math or anything" implies that your base chance of success is even, meaning the dice aren't taking AC or attack bonus or proficiency at saves into account.  If you eliminated that from a single roll system then you'd be doing it faster too. Or am I missing something here?

Well, no addition or subtraction. Just which number is larger, which is pretty fast.

Each side is generally rolling different sized dice. So a beginning fighter probably starts with a d6 for attack. A beginning generic monster has a d4 for attack and defense. And ties always go to the player. In the attached image for "active" read "player".

I tend to prefer attackers make all the dice rolls, and if the defender has response options, they don't involve dice (resource management is better). Dice rolls usually need to be witnessed by the group or at least the GM, but resource management makes it notably more clear that the PC is taking a hit because the Player made a mistake, and not because their dice rolled poorly. As a result, you are much less to see cheating in a system where defenders have diceless defenses, and if you are desperate to speed the game up, you can move on with combat while Frank figures out what the best way to deal with 6 damage is. It's not even immersion-breaking because being momentarily removed from the fray after taking a hit feels reasonable.

I can understand why some GMs would prefer PCs to make all rolls, but I find it immersion breaking to draw such a visible metagame distinction between PC and NPC. I much prefer subtle swaps, like if the GM is rolling for a bunch of mooks in a dice pool system, why not roll 1d6 or 1d8 instead for each actor and count that as the number of successes? That makes perfect sense to me because it's clearly a compression shorthand for how the game would normally work, and if you want to gimp NPCs relative to what they should be able to, it's easy; you just step the dice down. But omitting the roll entirely makes it feel like the PCs are too special for their own good.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on August 24, 2022, 10:50:18 AM

Quote from: deadDMwalking on August 24, 2022, 10:39:57 AMf someone beats your Will check and you fall asleep, it feels like there was nothing you could do.  If you roll a save and fail, you can at least feel that you had a chance.

I noticed this effect as well. It is completely illogical, but if a player rolls badly and gets hit, that player feels responsible. If I roll, it isn't as "fair."

That's why we made all rolls opposed rolls. My players love rolling dice -- and I reading what you wrote makes that make sense. I don't know if I'd say "feels responsible" but they feel more involved and less like things are scripted and just happening to them.