Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 CFK Mar 31, 2015 23:22:53	Just want to throw it out there:   Last session a party member went down. Normally we would roll our death saves openly, that caused for a lot of "How many did you fail yet? None, so i'll continue to "wack-at-the-dude"-meta thinking. But then a member mentioned that it'll be more realistic if the saves where blind, rolled behind a DM screen. Unfortunatly the first roll i did was a crittical miss, and he already had 1 failed save...   What are your experiances and how do you roll the death saves on your table?   (P.S. it got us thinking and we are going to roll alot of skills blindly now, like stealth, perception and so on. Your characters don't know when there failing those and players will start to meta-think)
#2 pukunui Mar 31, 2015 23:59:24	Yes, my players have asked me to do more rolls behind the screen. They like the suspense.   That being said, the subject of me rolling their death saves behind the screen hasn't come up. I will have to ask them about that.   If you do decide to roll their death saves for them, do be aware that there will still be the potential for a bit of metagaming - if they dying PC takes any damage, the players will know that the PC has just suffered at least one automatic failure (unless it was a crit, in which case it's two).
#3 Macv12 Apr 01, 2015 1:55:41	I hate not knowing my own death save count. If I'm not allowed to play the game (due to being unconscious), I should at least get to enjoy watching the roulette wheel spin. We play on Roll20 so it's easy to show me the roll and no one else; in a live tabletop setting, I can see why this would be hard and some groups may just roll in secret.   Personally, death saves is one mystery I don't care about preserving; you're looking at potentially permanent character death, and you've only got a couple rounds and a handful of actions to fix it. If it means keeping a character in the game without overreacting and making everything worse, I'll buy more efficient use of actions at the cost of some extra-character knowledge. But then, I don't get a whole lot out of rolling in secret to begin with.
#4 AaronOfBarbaria Apr 01, 2015 2:18:46	My group prefers the transparency of getting to roll their own death saves and keep track of the success/failures, and since I don't want to be bogged down by keeping track of any more info than I absolutely must, I've got no desire to roll their death saves for them.   We don't, however, have a problem with anyone using the knowledge of how many death saves someone has passed or failed having much influence on how the characters act - when a friend lays dying on the ground, somebody goes to help; first by getting any enemies away from the fallen comrade or at least trying to keep them occupied so they don't keep attacking the dying character, and then healing or stabilization  so that dying friend doesn't accidentally become dead friend.   Better, in my opinion, to use the death saves as an in-character indicator of how bad off the character actually looks - stable or well on the way to stable having a different appearance than being just at the edge of death. Especially since, in my opinion, there isn't really such a thing as meta-gaming since the act of avoiding the supposed thing usually requires the doing the exact thing that is said to be being avoided, but for the purpose of an intentionally less beneficial outcome. I.e. if you are trying to avoid using how many death saves the character has failed because you believe it to be out-of-character knowledge that maybe the character doesn't have, you then use that very knowledge to decide on a different course of action - like saying "No, I can't just let this turn pass without helping my fallen comrade because my character doesn't actually know that he is not going to die immediately... so I guess I pop over there and try to stabilize him even though that leaves the monster that put him on the ground in the first place still standing there with zero incentive not to attack him again."
#5 Onelostroad Apr 01, 2015 3:52:27	Actually, my group came to the same conclusion because of meta-game thinking... "Mullyn hasn't failed any death saving throws yet so we'll keep on fighting instead of healing him."   The only thing my group did differently is that the PLAYER makes a blind roll, not the DM. On the honor system, they record their results. They even continue to roll if they've stabilized or died to keep up the mystery. The only roll that's publicly announced is a "20" because that gives the player 1 HP back and would be noticable to the rest of the group.    If you don't think you can trust your players to be honest, having the player roll behind the DM screen so both of you can see would be a good option.
#6 alienux Apr 01, 2015 6:12:18	I never roll death saves for my players. It's their own characters body, damage, will to live, etc. that are (story-wise) either keeping them alive or bringing them closer to death, so it just makes sense to me (and to them) for them to make the rolls.   We just kind of play it similarly to the way Aaron posted; characters know that a downed character needs attention, but based on how bad off they look, they can decide if something else needs dealt with first or not.
(Reply to #5) AaronOfBarbaria	Onelostroad wrote:
#8 iserith Apr 01, 2015 7:46:15	I roll everything in the open and so do my players. My preference as DM is for players to get their fellow players back into the action as soon as possible and not leave their characters on the ground for extended periods of time unless the player of the unconscious character agrees. Unfortunately, sometimes it doesn't work out that way despite the best efforts of the players, especially when the group is split up and the healers aren't near the character in trouble.
#9 Coredump00 Apr 01, 2015 7:59:11	I think the *game* is better with more hidden rolls....  but players (myself included) like rolling dice, and we feel *our* rolls are inherrently better than someone elses.    That said, if you go the route of hiding rolls like perception and stealth, it makes sense that sometimes the PC will know if they rolled good or bad.  A well trained rogue should know when he steps on a bunch of twigs and curses outloud (rolls a 3)
#10 Ralif_Redhammer Apr 01, 2015 9:07:01	I would be uncomfortable rolling someone else's death saves. I could see that getting contentious.    With my group, unfortunately, most of them would rather fight the bad guys than help their fellow PCs out. And that's gotten them in trouble a bunch of times.   iserith wrote:
#11 ChrisTheS Apr 01, 2015 9:53:30	I don't want to roll death saves for my players - actually, I prefer 'dying' to not be the default penalty for failing a combat encounter.  If you rejig death saves as 'blackout saves', then the meta issue is less of a problem.
#12 Rhenny Apr 01, 2015 12:07:57	We roll everything in the open. There is more tension when everyone can see the die rolls.   This is especially true for death saves.  Players hang on and fear the dreaded "1" and they rejoice when someone rolls a "20".  It would not have the same impact with hidden rolls.  Plus, with hidden rolls the players are more likely to attribute the DM as tampering with chance.
#13 sleypy Apr 01, 2015 12:48:17	Rolling out in the open or behind a screen is really dependent on the type of mood I'm creating for the game. As a general rule though I roll out in the open unless I am rolling dice to make a decision and I want it to be random.