There is an option of letting the players roll the good dice and you roll the bad dice behind a screen. That way they know how well they did, but they don't know the end result. In the tailing example above, the characters roll Perception (any green, yellow, and white dice) and thus see successes, triumphs, and advantages while the GM rolls the difficulty and setback dice. The players will thus know, "We probably lost him", since they rolled well and the GM is saying, "You quickly take some corners and cut through a parking garage, you no longer seem him". But, they still can't be sure.

As others have said, it's not only about fudging. The post prior points out how sometimes it's important to see if PCs are aware of certain things or if NPCs become aware of the PCs (less so in this system since your checks are opposed versus skill rather than dice versus dice).

It may be important for the PCs to not know something, but its not really a problem if the players know it so long as you have good players that can treat ooc information appropriately.

I'm not going to go so far as to disagree with you because very focused players can ignore meta information and have their PC's not act on that info, but I'm always hoping for those story telling moments that truly surprise/scare/elate everyone at the table. Think of the difference between when you first saw Darth Vader say "I... am your Father!" and the second time you saw it. Both are powerful moments but you have to admit it had a little something more to it the first time.

There is an option of letting the players roll the good dice and you roll the bad dice behind a screen. That way they know how well they did, but they don't know the end result. In the tailing example above, the characters roll Perception (any green, yellow, and white dice) and thus see successes, triumphs, and advantages while the GM rolls the difficulty and setback dice. The players will thus know, "We probably lost him", since they rolled well and the GM is saying, "You quickly take some corners and cut through a parking garage, you no longer seem him". But, they still can't be sure.

I like this idea, In fact I think for this system it's a better way to go. Thanks, I'll try it out and see how it goes.

Think of the difference between when you first saw Darth Vader say "I... am your Father!" and the second time you saw it. Both are powerful moments but you have to admit it had a little something more to it the first time.

I need to remind my older cousin someday how much she and her husband ruined this moment for me in what will inevitably be one of the most favorite movies of my life. I was 11 years old and a Star Wars nut when Empire Strikes Back came out. An adult cousin of mine and her husband were visiting my parents' house and knew I was a Star Wars fan. They started babbling about having just seen the new Star Wars movie. They said yes it's great, Darth Vader is Luke's father, you gotta go see it!

She is in her later 50's now. Perhaps I should get sweet revenge by sending my cousin an anonymous surprise letter. It will be from a fictional person with no return address. It will inform her that the dad who raised her is not her real father and include the phrase, "Rita, I am your father".

I feel your pain brother...

Greg, can you provide examples?

The types of rolls I would have hidden before (in other systems) are now rolls being made by the characters.

Stealth, bluffing, charm and such are all forced out in the open as the players are making the checks against a difficulty level they get to see.

I'm still getting used to EotE so I don't have a lot of specific examples, but just to be clear I don't do it to fudge rolls and all combat or action rolls are out in the open. This game doesn't really need a lot of fudging anyway because of how narrative the system is. Also I want to say that I only ever roll for a player if I don't want to give away something that might affect their actions if they knew what they missed. There are times where even asking for a roll can effect what the players do so its those times that quietly I roll behind the screen (I roll every once and a while regardless just to keep the players from clueing in).

I keep a few player skills written down, Perception is the big one because if you don't spot something then it can't affect your actions and asking players to make perception rolls (even if you do it often and when theres nothing to spot) can tempt them to metagame. In fact Perception is the only one I've done this for for this system because of how the rolls work, (we haven't had an appropriate Stealth moment yet) but as I said before I reserve the right to choose other skills if I think the not knowing if you succeeded adds to the tension.

Heres some examples:

1) Someone is tailing the party. If I ask the players to roll a Perception check I may give away that there is something they should be looking out for. So instead I make the roll and if they succeed I tell them something like "they keep seeing the same guy a half block back, and when you glance back at him he quickly looks away". If the roll is a failure, well they don't see anything and they don't know they missed something.

I understand where you're coming from, but it leaves one big question unanswered:

If they fail their Perception check, but generate Advantage, or even *Triumph*, how can they spend it on something if they don't get to see the results?

That would be one of the cases where the GM should interpret Advantage for the players. While it's great that players can spend their own Advantages (and Triumphs) as they see fit, sometimes the GM is the only one who sees the big picture, and in cases like this it's appropriate that he controls the information the players receive.

Before I played this game I would have agreed with the "some rolls secret because the GM knows the big picture", but so far I haven't seen the need. All I've had is a brief discussion of "player knowledge vs character knowledge", and the players are doing great at accommodating. It's making for a much more open and mutually beneficial experience because it allows the players to inject parts of the story, making it richer.

I never hide the rolls. And the good think is the other guys that occasionally GMs have started to roll in the open also.

I understand where you're coming from, but it leaves one big question unanswered:

If they fail their Perception check, but generate Advantage, or even *Triumph*, how can they spend it on something if they don't get to see the results?

I think Krieger22 answered this well with the exception of the Big Picture thing, I think my examples are less about the big picture than the maintaining of tension by keeping the unknown unknown.

That would be one of the cases where the GM should interpret Advantage for the players. While it's great that players can spend their own Advantages (and Triumphs) as they see fit, sometimes the GM is the only one who sees the big picture, and in cases like this it's appropriate that he controls the information the players receive.

I never hide the rolls. And the good think is the other guys that occasionally GMs have started to roll in the open also.

Never is a long time... but I understand this point of view, I just think that the judicious use of a secret roll now and then is a good thing.

That would be one of the cases where the GM should interpret Advantage for the players. While it's great that players can spend their own Advantages (and Triumphs) as they see fit, sometimes the GM is the only one who sees the big picture, and in cases like this it's appropriate that he controls the information the players receive.

And *that* I disagree with whole-heartedly. Unless of course, you'll let players make rolls in secret for the NPCs where the NPCs wouldn't be aware of the results, and let them decide how to spend the Advantage & Triumphs for those NPCs, too.

If, as GM, you're making decisions for the PCs, you're infringing on the player's primary domain. Even in a narrative-focused system like this, that's dirty pool. You don't know whether the player wants to get strain back, or whether they're hoping for a chance to roll and get Advantage to run into their old buddy from way back who happens to have an inside scoop on info the PCs need, or even just a job. You have the 'big picture', but you don't have the *whole* picture any more than the players/PCs do.

That would be one of the cases where the GM should interpret Advantage for the players. While it's great that players can spend their own Advantages (and Triumphs) as they see fit, sometimes the GM is the only one who sees the big picture, and in cases like this it's appropriate that he controls the information the players receive.

And *that* I disagree with whole-heartedly. Unless of course, you'll let players make rolls in secret for the NPCs where the NPCs wouldn't be aware of the results, and let them decide how to spend the Advantage & Triumphs for those NPCs, too.

If, as GM, you're making decisions for the PCs, you're infringing on the player's primary domain. Even in a narrative-focused system like this, that's dirty pool. You don't know whether the player wants to get strain back, or whether they're hoping for a chance to roll and get Advantage to run into their old buddy from way back who happens to have an inside scoop on info the PCs need, or even just a job. You have the 'big picture', but you don't have the *whole* picture any more than the players/PCs do.

I updated my post, but I agree with you about the "Big Picture" argument. For me it's not about the big picture or making decisions for the players it's entirely about maintaining tension in the the scene. If the player would get some bonus I give them the bonus through my description of the scene and/or if, for example, the PC is low on strain it's my responsibility as the GM to know this so I would just set that aside and give them the strain back later. Keep in mind that the situations I described are not common and as such aren't going to "Break" the trust between the GM and the player or take away a player's ability to control their character's destiny.

I've always hid my rolls in practically every system I've played in, but I'm really looking forward to rolling in the open in EotE. My campaigns have tended to rely too heavily on specific players surviving, and hiding ones rolls means that the story is served before the actual game mechanics. This campaign I'm making a conscious effort to not make the players' characters the ultimate heroes who'll save the galaxy (and as such are immortal until the plot has been served), and as such... those open combat rolls should reintroduce a little fear into every encounter.

There is also certain player abilities which can alter the GMs dice pool, so if you were playing strictly by RAW, you'd have to roll in the open any rolls that the players could affect.

That would be one of the cases where the GM should interpret Advantage for the players. While it's great that players can spend their own Advantages (and Triumphs) as they see fit, sometimes the GM is the only one who sees the big picture, and in cases like this it's appropriate that he controls the information the players receive.

And *that* I disagree with whole-heartedly. Unless of course, you'll let players make rolls in secret for the NPCs where the NPCs wouldn't be aware of the results, and let them decide how to spend the Advantage & Triumphs for those NPCs, too.

If, as GM, you're making decisions for the PCs, you're infringing on the player's primary domain. Even in a narrative-focused system like this, that's dirty pool. You don't know whether the player wants to get strain back, or whether they're hoping for a chance to roll and get Advantage to run into their old buddy from way back who happens to have an inside scoop on info the PCs need, or even just a job. You have the 'big picture', but you don't have the *whole* picture any more than the players/PCs do.

I'm not sure I'd let players use Advantage on a Perception roll to recover strain. But that's not the point here.

In a situation like the one above I'd tell my player straight up that he could use his Advantage/Triumph as he saw fit, or he could let me tell him something he wouldn't otherwise know. If he wanted to meet an old buddy for a job, that's fine, but he would willingly and deliberately pass up on potentially useful information. And he and the rest of the group would have to deal with any consequences of that.

Seems like the best argument for hiding dice is to prevent metagaming. My players said, "we want to be on the lookout for trex", so I had them do a perception roll. They failed, so they know they didn't spot it, nor did they know if there was anything TOO spot (there wasn't). But if I had done the roll in secret, maybe that would have been more interesting.

That would be one of the cases where the GM should interpret Advantage for the players. While it's great that players can spend their own Advantages (and Triumphs) as they see fit, sometimes the GM is the only one who sees the big picture, and in cases like this it's appropriate that he controls the information the players receive.

And *that* I disagree with whole-heartedly. Unless of course, you'll let players make rolls in secret for the NPCs where the NPCs wouldn't be aware of the results, and let them decide how to spend the Advantage & Triumphs for those NPCs, too.

If, as GM, you're making decisions for the PCs, you're infringing on the player's primary domain. Even in a narrative-focused system like this, that's dirty pool. You don't know whether the player wants to get strain back, or whether they're hoping for a chance to roll and get Advantage to run into their old buddy from way back who happens to have an inside scoop on info the PCs need, or even just a job. You have the 'big picture', but you don't have the *whole* picture any more than the players/PCs do.

It's not unheard of. In Pathfinder the GM rolls Perception checks for the players in secret so as not to tip his hand when the party moves into line of sight of something that's hidden. I feel like that's absolutely appropriate here too. Consider: one of the players' adversaries has stealthily concealed a homing beacon aboard the party's vessel. As the players return to their ship, you as the GM decide there's a slight chance they might spy it, but it'll be hard to do. You could tell everyone to roll Perception when they first see their ship, but they'll probably catch on that something is amiss and start scouring the ship for anything out of place. If you as the GM tell each player to hand you his character sheet in turn, and then you roll behind a screen, they won't have quite as easy a time piecing together what's going on.

Better still is to make those secret rolls at the start of the session, so the players don't catch on to what the triggering event might be.

This campaign I'm making a conscious effort to not make the players' characters the ultimate heroes who'll save the galaxy (and as such are immortal until the plot has been served), and as such... those open combat rolls should reintroduce a little fear into every encounter.

Well, it's really hard to kill characters in this game, and to me, player take-down doesn't mean death now, it means a change in scene and an opportunity to further the story. I used to roll D20 behind a screen because inevitably I'd roll a critical or two in a row just as the players were getting to the breaking point. Not only did this throw off the plot, it made the rules for Death kick in. Then the players would inevitably fumble their healing, and now I have to deal with player disappointment, plot screwing, and time wasted getting new characters up to speed. Not to mention the players aren't as invested in the story of their characters if they know it's easy to die.

This game doesn't have such strict rules for death, meaning I don't have to worry about mechanics that work against the story. That, combined with an almost 3D dice result set (or, as a friend said it, putting the Z-axis on dice results) means there is usually enough flexibility to mitigate the worst situations.

It's not unheard of. In Pathfinder the GM rolls Perception checks for the players in secret so as not to tip his hand when the party moves into line of sight of something that's hidden. I feel like that's absolutely appropriate here too.

Alternately, you can make them roll when they don't need to, which means they'll never be sure if it's real, but it still keeps things open.

This campaign I'm making a conscious effort to not make the players' characters the ultimate heroes who'll save the galaxy (and as such are immortal until the plot has been served), and as such... those open combat rolls should reintroduce a little fear into every encounter.

Well, it's really hard to kill characters in this game, and to me, player take-down doesn't mean death now, it means a change in scene and an opportunity to further the story. I used to roll D20 behind a screen because inevitably I'd roll a critical or two in a row just as the players were getting to the breaking point. Not only did this throw off the plot, it made the rules for Death kick in. Then the players would inevitably fumble their healing, and now I have to deal with player disappointment, plot screwing, and time wasted getting new characters up to speed. Not to mention the players aren't as invested in the story of their characters if they know it's easy to die.

This game doesn't have such strict rules for death, meaning I don't have to worry about mechanics that work against the story. That, combined with an almost 3D dice result set (or, as a friend said it, putting the Z-axis on dice results) means there is usually enough flexibility to mitigate the worst situations.

I realize that the string of events to create the situation is pretty rare and extreme, but IIRC the critical hit tables include entries that immediately kill a character, or vaporize their ship. I believe they are the very worst (ie, bottom-most) entries on their respective tables, but I don't have my book on hand.

It's not unheard of. In Pathfinder the GM rolls Perception checks for the players in secret so as not to tip his hand when the party moves into line of sight of something that's hidden. I feel like that's absolutely appropriate here too.

Alternately, you can make them roll when they don't need to, which means they'll never be sure if it's real, but it still keeps things open.

Yep, true. I have tried that in past games and it's not a bad solution, though it sometimes leads to a bit of paranoia because the party knows they had to make Perception rolls, so they start double-checking everything and looking over their shoulders. It can actually be pretty funny, assuming it doesn't slow the game down too much.

I realize that the string of events to create the situation is pretty rare and extreme, but IIRC the critical hit tables include entries that immediately kill a character, or vaporize their ship. I believe they are the very worst (ie, bottom-most) entries on their respective tables, but I don't have my book on hand.

Yes, they exist, but it's not the same as hitting your wound threshold and starting a countdown to player death.

No, definitely not. It's one of the things I really like about the game.

As someone who rolls openly, would you enforce an insta-death result in order to preserve the game having a sense of peril and danger? Or would you be okay with hand-waving it down to something less fatal if the player in question didn't want to lose his character?

I'd enforce an insta-death result, no problem. Nothing makes your players pay attention like the mangled corpse of a comrade cooling at their feet.

And I think I'd be careful about "decoy" skill rolls in EotE. The interactivity of the dice system means you could suddenly have a PCs roll a ton of Advantage (or Threat, for that matter) on a roll that was only meant to throw them off the scent.

As someone who rolls openly, would you enforce an insta-death result in order to preserve the game having a sense of peril and danger? Or would you be okay with hand-waving it down to something less fatal if the player in question didn't want to lose his character?

Honestly, can't say for sure. The characters are all new, and the odds of insta-death now are so low it's not on my radar. You'd need 5 previous criticals and a "00" on the crit dice, or 3 previous criticals and a Wookiee with an axe, and still a "00". I expect the lethality will change as the characters progress and their opponents start having talents and tech that increases it, but maybe that's the price of power. With great power comes great vulnerability The thing is, there still more latitude in these mechanics that you can forestall it in-story if you see things are turning bad.

Maybe I missed a turn here but I don't think anyone was advocating secret rolls when dealing with life and death... really I'm just going to use them on those occasional unknown unknowns kinda rolls.

As for the insta-death roll, it's going to happen at some point but character death is never the result of one roll. It's always a series of actions and roll(s) that lead to that last one, so for me I'd go with it and let the character die. It's happened to me and I only needed a few months of therapy. I guess though it might be best only to play with people that have insurance...

As someone who rolls openly, would you enforce an insta-death result in order to preserve the game having a sense of peril and danger? Or would you be okay with hand-waving it down to something less fatal if the player in question didn't want to lose his character?

Honestly, can't say for sure. The characters are all new, and the odds of insta-death now are so low it's not on my radar. You'd need 5 previous criticals and a "00" on the crit dice, or 3 previous criticals and a Wookiee with an axe, and still a "00". I expect the lethality will change as the characters progress and their opponents start having talents and tech that increases it, but maybe that's the price of power. With great power comes great vulnerability The thing is, there still more latitude in these mechanics that you can forestall it in-story if you see things are turning bad.

Vicious plus talents can make that number go higher pretty quickly. Disrupter weapons are pretty brutal as well since any crit is a crippled or worse plus being vicious 4 or 5 and having a crit rating of 2. And then if you have multiple points of lethal blows... So the average fight might not be very lethal but it doesn't take a lot of work to make a nemesis fight or big encounter potentially lethal. I expect my characters to be very affraid of my attack rolls in the near future