Always Tell Me the Odds

4 reasons why GMs should announce the target number before the players roll

In my experience playing and running 5e, it’s common practice for GMs to not reveal the DC (Difficulty Class, or the target number required for a success). The GM calls for a roll, then the player rolls and calculates their result, then the GM determines if it succeeds or fails.

But I’ve played many other ttrpgs where this is not the case — Mothership, Yokai Hunter’s Society, FIST, and PbtA games like Monster of the Week and Thirsty Sword Lesbians (yes, you heard me right).

After playing these ttrpgs, I realized that not revealing the DC is a dangerous habit. Instead, tell your players the target number before they roll.

Here are four reasons why.

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I’m Colin, and I’m a professional video game designer. This is Drolleries, where I write about d&d, ttrpgs, and game design.

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1. It’s Faster

When the players know the DC, they don’t have to do math as often.

If the die’s result is higher than the DC, they immediately know they succeeded and don’t have to do any math at all. And if they rolled way under the DC, they’ll intuitively know that there’s no way they can get from a 3 to a 15 with any combination of bonuses.

It’s only when they roll under the DC by a small margin that the players have to do any math at all, which drastically speeds up play.

This also means that players can communicate more effectively about when to give each other bonuses on rolls. Knowing the DC gives them more information to make a decision, and reduces the back-and-forth of “is it worth it?” between the players.

2. It’s More Dramatic

The actual physical rolling of a die can be incredibly dramatic, especially in a particularly high-stakes moment. The effect of a die slowing down as it rolls can create a nail-biting feeling of whiplash as a d20 rolls over from a 19 to a 2. That’s my favorite thing about the d20 — how it rolls for so long, and how adjacent faces have numbers on different ends of the range.

If the players know the DC, they know exactly when to celebrate or wince when they see the d20 stop rolling.

And even if the result is below the DC but only by a little, the player who rolled gets a tiny moment in the spotlight as they add their modifier and announce their result while all the other players watch in anticipation.

But this effect isn’t nearly as pronounced if the result of the die presents a question rather than an answer.

If the players never know the DC, they become conditioned to always do the math, so the moment where a player actually does the math is less interesting.

3. It’s More Objective

Despite how good-mannered we act at the table, or how well we’re able to suspend our disbelief, all of us have a small part of their brains that’s aware of the GM’s role in shaping the story. Especially for those of us who’ve sat behind the screen, it’s obvious that no GM is 100% neutral, nor is that really their goal. GMs naturally want to create tension and drama, and that puts them at odds with the players.

This is why rules are useful in the first place — to create the illusion of fairness. GMs rely on rules to distribute their authority over the fiction to the players.

When the DC is known before the roll, players can’t subconsciously blame the GM for their failure. On the other hand, players also can’t subconsciously expect the GM to bail them out on a bad roll by fudging the DC.

This increases the tension. It distributes the GM’s authority to the rules and the dice, making the outcome feel more fair and thus more real.

Making the result more objective also clears up mismatched expectations between the players and the GM. I’ve had the experience where my players expected a roll to be easy, so they celebrated when they got a 15, only for me to tell them the DC was actually 18.

In these circumstances, the GM’s role as the creator of tension in the story becomes obvious, but if the DC was announced beforehand, that feeling would have been passed along to the dice.

This gives more narrative control to the players. When the players decide on a course of action and the GM tells them the odds, it presents the opportunity to clear up any misunderstanding. Maybe the GM misunderstood what the player intended to do, or maybe the player didn’t understand why it would be difficult to take that action in this specific circumstance.

Discussing the odds before a roll lets players think twice and possibly change their course of action if it’s too risky for their taste. It helps the players imagine the same fiction that the GM is conjuring in their mind.

4. It Discourages Unnecessary Rolls

In my experience, 5e GMs often get in the habit of calling for too many rolls. Because it’s the players’ default mode of engagement and the GM is given so much flexibility in how to respond, it becomes a crutch for GMs deciding what to do next. Calling for a roll helps a GM think, it’s like fishing for inspiration.

But it doesn’t make good gameplay for the players. When the stakes are low and the odds of success are unknown, rolls feel meaningless. Most importantly, it lessens the impact of rolls when they actually matter.

I was guilty of this too, so I speak from personal experience. But I broke my habit by announcing the DC beforehand.

If a GM gets in the habit of telling the players the DC beforehand, it makes it obvious to them the meaninglessness of asking for rolls that are trivially easy. Asking for a roll with DC 5 feels silly, which makes it obvious how seldom it should be used.

Announcing the DC also confronts the GM with the possibility of failure. They can’t just ask for a roll and assume the PCs will succeed, and they can’t fudge the DC to ensure it becomes so.

The reality of failure becomes apparent and unavoidable, so they have to start imagining that possibility. What would the story look like if the players failed this roll? And if the answer is that it wouldn’t move the story forward in an interesting way, the GM can just let the players succeed without a roll.

Let me know what you think! Do you announce the difficulty before your players roll? Is there something I missed?