Do you use a ST screen?

[Vanman]

important things' date=' like secret dice rolls[/color']

What's important about secret dice rolls? Or, more to the point, what's the purpose of keeping a roll secret?


If yout just pick up some dice and roll them, your players shouldn't have any idea why you rolled those dice, so them seeing the result should be meaningless, no?


-S

Not necessarily. I make secret dice rolls for things like Awareness checks. I don't want my players knowing how many successes were rolled, if only to keep them off balance. If I make a roll and they the result, any information I give them may be colored by their knowledge of the number of successes I rolled.


Likewise, my players are smart enough to twig that, if I roll the dice and then pass a note or impart some information, they know what the roll was for. So there is a time and a place for hidden rolls, IMO.


And yes, I use a screen. With Wordman's excellent screen posted there. Thanks, Wordman.

 

[Flagg]

I make secret dice rolls for things like Awareness checks. I don't want my players knowing how many successes were rolled, if only to keep them off balance. If I make a roll and they the result, any information I give them may be colored by their knowledge of the number of successes I rolled.

Here's what I do:


I have each of my players make 10 Perception+Awareness rolls before each session, and jot the results down on my Perception Sheets. Then, when when I need an Awareness roll, I roll 1d10, and look up the result on the chart. The players don't know which result they're getting, yet they're still able to feel that it was "their" roll.


-S

 

[Ker'ion]

I don't use a ST screen for a few reasons:


1.) I don't need to hide written plotlines, prefering to keep my storylines fluid so that the players don't know what to expect.


2.) Clear dice with white numbers make it a wee bit difficult for the players to read my dice from across the room.


And


3.) If I forget a rule, I have a psychotic rules lawyer playing in the game that knows most of them (though when he throws a hissy, I make him look up and show me the rule in question).

 

[DugCoffin]

I use it.  Besides being handy for quick reference, it also helps to hide the power levels of their enemies.  At least initially.  There are some dice players can't read, but dropping 30 at a time in their faces tells them a little something about their adversaries.  


Furthermore, I'm really lucky or really unlucky.  I'll ocasionally have to fudge dice to get things to move like I need them to or to make things more interesting.

 

[Flyck]

I have a get-out-of-death-free card policy for all of my players. Once per story, if the character dies, but the player would rather they didn't, I fudge things to spare them. The second time, they're just plain fucked.


-S

The next game I run, I'm soooooo Looting that!


On the topic of the screens, my DM in a D&D game uses one, but I prefer not having one for when I run anything.  Dice rolls are dice rolls... Besides if anyone REALLY wants to look at my notes for game, they're treated to a bizarre mess of chicken-scratch and odd phrases clipped together (designed to jog my memory).  For example, if I have plans of Octavion materializing to wreck hell on the party, my note will usually be something like "Club to -Player name-, ST wants popcorn please!"

 

[Persell]

I use one occasionally, to hide notes or dice rolls. I have a tendency to poorly judge PC/enemy power level, so I don't want to let my players know when I've accidently made somebody waaay to powerful for them to handle. Plus I tend to throw baddies at them along the story to sound out what they can handle and fudge if I kill them with random baddy #42, that way when its time for the final throwdown I can hit them with something really challenging but with a reasonable chance of winning.

 

[Persell]

I keep one handy for the tables, or in case I need to use it to beat some wayward burglar to death. That thing is heavy!


I don't use it to hide my rolls. The dice fall where they may at our table, with no concern for nudging of stories or making sure that all fights (except the plot-necessary ones) are winnable by the PCs.

 

[Kkat]

"Yes"-ish. I use a laptop, and have many Exalted resources in pdf form, as well as other tools for helping run the game. (For example, I have an Excel sheet for keeping track of how much XP everyone has gotten, just in case someone loses track. And several important NPC's have character sheets created as .png files, which makes alterations easy and makes it simple to bring up the one I want -- no shuffling through stacks of paper.)


As a result, the laptop screen acts as a ST screen. I don't use it to hide dice rolls, but I do use it as an information source.


--Kkat

 

[Persell]

Hmm, I use one but mostly to corral my dice so my cats don't attack them, I'll also use it to hold down notes while the window is open or the fan is on. For the most part the offical WW screen is not so good (really do I need the stats for all the armor and weapons). Now if I could only figure out how to keep the cats out of the chips and away from the pencils....

 

[JadedSmile]

I do use one, but not the exalted one.the stores around here charge way too much for it, considering it's just a piece of cardboard.

 

[DasDom]

Yeah, I've got the official one. I like the outside with the map, but most of the inner content is pretty bad...who decided I needed a Weapon list of all things??