The Gaming Den

TheFlatline wrote:The main time I'd ever error on the side of secret rolls is when I didn't want the players to know if their character's effort was at the high or low end of their capability.

If the thief is searching for something and rolls a 19 and you say "you find nothing" the thief can basically learn from the die roll there's either nothing there or the DM's boner for impossible challenges made the thing effectively not there by making the search DC too high.

I go the other way on this. One of the problems of roleplaying is that the players only vector for information about the world around them is through the GM. Due to this there are often times where realistically a character would be able to deduce something about the world but in-game there isn't the explicit feedback there. Sometimes you get a sense of things without putting your finger on it, or know instinctively something you couldn't explain in words.

Players being able to tell whether they rolled high or low accounts for some of that. If you roll high and fail you can tell you performed well but still didn't achieve what you wanted - whatever that means. On the converse if you roll a 2 you have a nagging feeling you slipped up or missed something obvious.

My last pathfinder game the GM rolled Perception checks secretly. It made the game more fun at my table.

The best system ever won't save you from a crap GM and, by the same token, great GMs can make even bearworld apocalypse world enjoyable bearable.

fixed.