this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2025
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If your group has the trust, there is something to be said for making all rolls GM rolls. The GM is going to tell you how it turns out anyway so why not just make them roll? Let them handle the mechanical elements of the game so the players can focus on the role play.
For me as a GM this is a nightmare scenario. You want me to not only manage story, NPCs, physics, metaphysics, narrative cohesion, pacing, world building, encounter design and scheduling, I now have to make your rolls too? Miss me with that shit.
I would turn this around: If there is trust [to not meta game] there is no need for the GM to make any rolls or have hidden stat blocks for any NPCs. This way the GM can focus more on roleplay.
This. In fact wishing I had someone dedicated to managing the rolls and mechanics is why I paid for a program that did it all for me. I have not important things to remember than the ac and HP of half a dozen goblins, three wolves, a bugbear, a druid who forgot she could shape shift, a wizard who can't remember what spells they have and a dragonborn barbarian whi forgot what his breath weapon was. You want me to look up each characters stats for each roll too!? How about everyone is responsible for keeping track of their own shit while juggle an entire worlds worth of flaming adventure in front of you. If you can't be trusted to play fair then suffer the consequences of everyone's ire, and my surprise mind flayer to your shenanigans. You're characters brain is mine now
There is approximately zero weight to being the roller. If the added task of rolling a die you would normally ask them to roll is going to be the straw to break your back, you're probably dealing with something else.
Well but it's not just the rolling is it? And it's not just "a die". Its ALL the dice. And not just the ones I would ask them to roll, but the ones they'd normally roll unquestioned. And all their class feats and modifiers and Free Rerolls and on and on and on. Either the GM has all that data (and must therefore manage it) when making a roll or he has to request the mechanical data from the players, which is just as immersion breaking and way more time consuming.
What are they rolling unquestioned? Genuine question. I've had players roll unasked because they wanted to see if their character would do X or Y but that's not mechanical. That's them letting dice handle something they can't puzzle through in real time.
As for feats, rerolls, and their analogs in other systems, those are things for the character to decide to use. Most of those rolls, in most systems, are 'may' actions, which means the decision lies with the character. You wouldn't decide things for them, even if it seems obviously 'better' in your head for them to do it. You just let them avoid thinking about the numbers. You can even use software so you don't have to do the math. The point is just to move away from the distraction of the numbers.
I used to play when the basic D&D was out, we rolled. Later in highschool we had this amazing story telling dramatic DM, he did all the dicerolls. At first it felt odd, but since he kept the story moving it let you focus on group communication and your own role play.
The modern game is so much simpler than the old ones. I'm so glad to see the back of THAC0
We had transitioned from the Basic, Advanced, then whatever the THACO version was. I didn't mind it so much but didn't have too much exposure to it.
It made for a good comic though, the image was: d&d character in a tavern trying to hit on a female patron. The caption was ; Hey babe what's your THACO
I like making the math rocks go clicky clack though
The math has been within you the whole time, my boy. The rocks do nothing.
This is the heart of tons of table drama. The DM wants to tell a story and the players want to be heroic. The dice add randomness that can add drama, but they also cause chaos by introduction outcomes people don't want.
If you're just trusting the DM, why have rolls at all? Just tell GM what you're doing and GM tells you what happens. But then players feel like they've got less heroic agency. They're not pulling together a brunch of cool traits to do something risky and daring. They're saying "I leap over the battlement and drive my spear into the champion's throat" and the DM either says "Yeah" or "Nah". You need phenomenal trust in your GM for that to work. A bunch of 12 year olds at a table aren't going to have that.
The mechanics are, ostensibly, there to facilitate the roleplay. The paladin's smite isn't just a set of numbers, it's an expression of their role as holy warrior and divine judge.
That's why you would keep the randomness of the dice, but isolate it. It's easy to trust a DM to be reasonable when it comes to some things, but the randomness is useful in making the play more interesting, and people aren't great at creating statistically distributed randomness. And if your DM is just looking at the die and saying, 'yah' or 'nah,' they shouldn't be your DM. If your players can't handle being told their characters' attack didn't land, they aren't ready to play the game. It isn't possible to win or lose DnD, but it's absolutely possible to succeed or fail to play.
And you wouldn't be removing the mechanical elements, such as the smite, just putting player focus on the diegetic space. They can still smite, but with their attention spent on thinking about the righteous smash of their weapon against the enemy's armour and less on going 'okay, then we carry the one, and...'
Where do you think DMs come from?
Same place as everyone else. They're just a peculiar bunch of people who get more enjoyment out of supporting the players than being the heroes of the story. Not having one of those people means you are not equipped to play the game, just as much as if you didn't have dice. You can try to put someone else in that slot, in the same way you can try to play Eberron as a setting using Werewolf: The Apocalypse rules, but your expectations will need to be low.
This sounds like a "GM is the entertainer" thing to me.
Either you think doing rolls is a mechanical burden that strips away immersion and reduces fun. In this case making the GM do all the rolls does the same to them and why would that be ok?
Or you don't think rolling all the dice is a burden for the GM. Well then it wouldn't be a burden for the players to do it either.
There are systems that are all player facing (players make all the rolls), but I've never heard of the system that expects the GM to make all the rolls.
Immediate flaw there; there is no immersion for the DM. You aren't breaking their immersion because it can't exist.
You could argue for breaking their flow, but that's only an issue where they aren't used to it. Once everyone is used to the flow of things, you shorten the workflow from 'player:intent>player:declaration>DM:mechanical interpretation> DM:request>player:roll>player:report>DM:mechanical interpretation>DM:report>repeat' to 'player:intent>player:declaration>DM:mechanical interpretation>DM:report>repeat'
One of the problems that people have understanding RPG dynamics is the GM/DM is not playing the same game as everyone else. They aren't an entertainer, like a Martin Clunes, they are an entertainer like a Martin Scorsese, or like a one-person, brain-powered Superblue. Their real role is in 'making the magic happen.' The players are 'playing DnD' or 'playing Changeling' or whatever. The GM, in any GM focused system, is playing The GM's Game. It's the same game, no matter which of the GM focused systems they are using to play The GM's Game. Sometimes, the group of players is of a certain type, and the numbers don't distract them. Such a group doesn't need the GM to handle the numbers, but many players do find them distracting, and if the GM can handle it, it can make the game better, which means the GM is winning their game.