- I wanna get a higher vantage point
and see if I can spot any movement.
Maybe the parapet? I climb the ladder.
- Okay. Roll athletics for me.
(buzzer rings)
Did you see that?
Did you see what that super charming,
extremely good looking DM with cool hair did wrong?
That right there
risks making the whole session grind to a halt.
Let's talk about what it was.
(upbeat music)
We all love rolling dice.
The clicky sounds, the anticipation, the drama,
the pretty little polyhedral nuggets.
You just wanna pop 'em in your mouth and crunch 'em up-
No? Just me?
In the scene we just watched,
the player tried to climb a ladder
and the DM called for athletics,
but your average person can climb a ladder.
That's what they're for!
And if the player rolls low, what's next?
What's the explanation for why an adventurer -
who at level one is already exceptional
compared to a normal person - can't climb a ladder?
Can they try again or just roll until they succeed
or does the DM ignore the low roll
and just let them climb the ladder anyway
in which case everyone is left wondering
what the point of rolling dice is
if the outcome doesn't affect the game.
Calling for the wrong rolls can slow a game down,
make players frustrated or bored,
and even stop narrative progress in its tracks.
Today we are gonna learn how to spot those problem rolls
and then eliminate them so that your games can run smoothly
and rolling dice can stay delicious-
I mean... exciting. 'Cause you can't eat dice.
A lot of beginner DMs,
my past self included, get the idea in their heads
that their job is to make players roll for stuff
and it is part of your job,
but if you just call for rolls without thinking
about why you actually need dice in that moment,
you're gonna end up
accidentally creating a lot of easily avoidable problems.
So when should you call for a roll?
I've created a handy dandy flow chart
to help you decide when--
- Um, hello?
Doesn't anyone wanna hear what I have to say?
- Oh yeah! There are rule books
that cover this kind of thing.
Go ahead.
- In cases where the outcome of an action is uncertain
the Dungeons and Dragons game relies on rolls
of a 20 sided die, a D20, to determine success or failure.
- That's from the player's handbook,
just a basic explanation,
but there's more depth in the Dungeon Master's Guide.
- Dice are neutral arbiters.
They can determine the outcome of an action
without assigning any motivation to the DM
and without playing favorites.
Remember that dice don't run your game. You do.
Dice are like rules.
They're tools to help keep the action moving.
The extent to which you use them is entirely up to you.
- It sounds like on a basic level,
you roll when you're not sure whether
or not an action would succeed,
but the text suggests that there should be a level
of DM discretion about when dice are and aren't needed.
So how do you develop that skill?
The skill to identify when you should
or shouldn't call for a roll?
That's where my flow chart comes in. Right?
- Yeah. Go ahead.
- First things first.
I think it's a good idea to ask yourself
if players have done enough already
to succeed without rolling.
Let me explain what I mean by that.
Let's imagine a scenario where your party
is exploring a room.
You know that there is a trap door
hidden underneath the rug.
Now perhaps your players will say
that they'd like to search the room
and in that case,
it makes sense to call for an investigation check.
It's uncertain whether or not they would find the trap door
depending on how thorough their search is.
But let's say that instead, one of your players says
that they want to look underneath the rug.
That's where the trap door is!
Why make your player roll
to figure out something that they have already figured out?
Of course, it's not always that simple,
so let's try a more nuanced scenario.
Your party just killed a powerful wizard
that they have been tracking for weeks.
Maybe the players searched the body looking for loot.
In that case, they might need to roll
a pretty high investigation roll to find the wizard's Amulet
of Proof Against Detection and Location.
But if a player remembers their failed scrying attempts
from previous days.
They might ask I wanna see if he has a magic item on him
that was blocking our scry spells.
That's a clever idea!
It shows that the player was paying attention,
that they're engaged in the game,
that they're thinking complexly
about the problems in front of them.
That kind of thinking should be encouraged.
The books have something to say about this
that I think we really need to pay attention to.
- Yes! Thank you!
Roleplaying can diminish if players feel
that their die rolls,
rather than their decisions and characterizations,
always determine success.
- If you always defer to random dice rolls,
even when your players are paying attention,
thinking critically, and problem solving,
you're basically nullifying the power
of roleplay in your game.
Why should your players bother actually thinking
about the narrative
and trying to come up with smart ideas and strategies
if in the end,
every single choice is gonna come down to random chance?
At some point, you might as well get together for a session,
call for a "do you complete the quest" roll,
and then high five and go home.
I do think this should be the very first thing
that you think about before calling for a roll
because putting this concept into practice
is a direct line to a more satisfying game.
If players haven't already solved the problem,
you should ask yourself next
if the action that they wanna perform is even possible.
This is part of the uncertainty thing
that the player's handbook was talking about.
If an action is impossible,
you can be certain that it won't succeed.
But I wanted to address this specifically
because I think it's a really common mistake.
Imagine a scenario where your party has an audience
with the king.
They walk into the throne room
and the bard demands that the king hand over his crown
and let the bard rule in his stead.
What would be the point
of calling for a persuasion rule here?
Is there a world in which the king will willingly abdicate
and hand over his crown to a stranger?
And if you call for this roll
and the bard rolls super high,
you're suddenly in an awkward position.
Do you have the roll fail,
in which case it becomes clear
that there was no point in rolling at all?
Or do you have the roll succeed,
teaching your party that they can functionally do anything,
no matter how ridiculous, if they roll high enough?
This is an easy mistake to make
because it feels natural to call for persuasion
when a player tries to get someone to do something.
Most DMs are way more likely to call for a roll
in a scenario like this than in a scenario
where players ask for some physical impossibility,
like to try and fly by flapping their arms really hard.
Have you ever described your character doing some sort
of totally normal task, like opening the drawers
in a desk or walking up a flight of stairs,
and been surprised to hear your DM call
for an ability check?
Many DMs respond almost instinctively
when players describe a task,
trying to mentally fit that task,
no matter what it is,
into an ability listed on a character sheet.
But if it's a task that your average person
would have no problem doing,
making your players roll for it
can create some bizarre situations.
For example, let's say
that your rogue wants to climb some stairs.
What is the recommended DC for a very easy task?
- Five.
- Okay, five.
Let's assume we have a rogue
with a pretty solid DEX score, like 17.
How does that compare to your average person?
- A score of 10 or 11 is the normal human average.
A score of 18 is the highest that of person usually reaches.
Adventurers can have scores as high as 20.
- I am one
of the least dexterous people I have ever encountered.
Realistically, if I had a DEX score,
it would be like an eight
and I trip on stairs maybe once a month.
But if your DC for climbing stairs is five
because it is a very easy task and your rogue has a Dex 17,
that's still a 5% chance that your rogue
just physically can't climb the stairs.
To put that in perspective,
that means that I am more dexterous than this rogue.
Me, someone who once broke my pinky toe
on a recliner while performing the risky endeavor
of entering the living room.
In short, if the average person off the street
could accomplish a task, don't call for a roll.
This isn't controversial or anything.
The DMG actually says this directly.
- Most people can accomplish a DC5 task
with little chance of failure.
Unless circumstances are unusual,
let characters succeed at such a task
without making a check.
- I bring it up not because it's my genius idea or something
but because I have seen DMs do this again and again.
But there's another part of this step
that's a little less cut and dry.
After all, your adventurers
are not average people off the street.
Sometimes they will attempt a task that you
or I couldn't probably accomplish
but that the character should still find easy.
A strong character should be able to do things
that strong people can do.
A smart person shouldn't magically become an idiot
just because they rolled low.
Dexterous people shouldn't start tripping
over their own feet when doing something simple
that they are experienced with.
These scenarios can be so immersion breaking
that the DMG actually calls them out.
- Sometimes the randomness of a D20 roll
leads to ludicrous results.
Let's say a door requires a successful DC 15 strength check
to battered down.
A fighter with a strength of 20 might helplessly flail
at the door because of bad die rolls.
Meanwhile, the rogue with the strength of 10
rolls a 20 and knocks the door from its hinges.
- To combat this, the DMG offers a variant rule
for automatic success as well as mechanics
for passive checks in other skills beyond just perception.
But however you choose to handle it,
you should have some idea
of how to deal with these situations
in a way that doesn't turn your skilled experienced warriors
into fumbling buffoons a solid 5% of the time.
Ask yourself,
with this character's abilities and experience,
how likely is failure in this specific case?
If the answer is slim to none,
then it often just makes more sense
to not call for a roll at all.
Once you've thought through
whether it's even possible to fail at this task,
it's time to ask yourself what's next.
If they fail, what happens?
Is there a consequence for failure?
Let's compare two situations.
On the one hand, a character is trying to climb a fence.
On the other hand,
a character is trying to steal from a shop.
What happens if the character fails to climb the fence?
If it's not high enough for them to take fall damage,
if they're not in a rush being chased or something,
they could presumably attempt to climb the fence
an infinite number of times.
If the first time doesn't work, then the second might,
or the third. They can keep trying until they succeed.
Imagine that they roll low on that check.
What do you do?
Just have them roll again until they succeed?
Or does failing to climb the fence
somehow make it impossible to try again?
How do you explain that?
Instead, since there is no meaningful consequence
for that failure, it's probably not worth rolling for.
But if the character trying to steal rolls poorly,
they might get caught.
They might get kicked out of the shop
or punched in the face or arrested.
Those are meaningful consequences.
The difference between rolling high
and rolling low actually changes the way
that the game moves forward
and that is exactly what the dice are for.
Most of the stuff on this flow chart is stuff
that I have seen people talk
about in tabletop gaming spaces before,
but this particular section is something
that I think is super important to consider
that I haven't heard very many people address
and that is: if failing a check has consequences,
are you, the DM, prepared to accept
and enforce those consequences?
DMs, tell me if you can relate.
Your players are moving through a space
and you have them roll to get through a door, but they fail.
There are no alternate routes.
You expected them to get through that door!
It wasn't even a high DC!
But they just had bad luck with the dice
and now they're stuck.
Here's another one.
The players are doing something illegal.
You have them roll stealth. They fail.
The guards catch 'em
and they try to lie their way out of it
so you have them roll deception.
They fail. Come on!
Now you have to arrest them.
What a pain in the ass.
Some DMs don't realize
that they weren't prepared to deliver negative consequences
until the roll has already been failed.
This can lead to a super unsatisfying situation
where the player fails a roll
and then the DM just lets them succeed anywayl
I know I'm not alone when I say that as a player,
I find that's so boring.
It takes all teeth out of a game.
There is nothing fun about succeeding
if there is no alternative.
Anytime you call for a roll,
there is a chance that your players will fail it.
So if the consequences for failure screw up your game,
then don't introduce the potential for failure.
You are allowed as a DM to just let players do things,
even things that they could feasibly fail at
if you need them to succeed
in order for the game to move forward.
The last stop on the flow chart
will probably not be surprising to anyone
who watches my channel
because pretty much all of my D&D opinions boil down to
"hey, it's a game, it should be fun!"
But if you've made it this far
and you still think it's worth rolling,
the final stop is to consider whether
or not the outcome of this roll will add to the game.
Sometimes a player tries to do something
that it's uncertain whether or not they can do,
but possible, that has a chance of failure
and that failure would come with a consequence
that you are prepared to put into play...
but that consequence won't make the game better.
A good consequence can
and often should affect the direction of the game.
If the party accidentally collapses a tunnel,
they have to find a different route.
If the party upsets an NPC, they may lose a valuable ally.
These kinds of branching choices
are what make tabletop games so exciting!
But don't be that DM that introduces a manufactured,
frustrating consequence anytime a player
tries to do something just because you think you should.
There's a difference between players' decisions
having stakes and just torturing your players
based on random dice rolls.
In the end, you are the DM
and you get to decide how things unfold.
The dice are there
for times when introducing chance improves the game.
We all want our players
to make it through our adventure and get to see
and experience all the cool stuff
that we've spent so many hours prepping.
There is nothing more frustrating
than having a whole incredible arc planned
and then having a game just peter out before you get there.
Unnecessary dice rolls are obstacles
between your party and a great game,
so stop getting in your own way.
Speaking of which, this might not be the only thing
that you're tripping yourself up with.
Check out this video next
to see which other common mistake
you might not even realize you're making
that's turning players off of your game.