The Clicky Clacky Math-rock Dilemma.

The rolling of pretty dice is a beautiful thing. They sound great, they look great. It is exciting waiting that moment to see if you have received the hoped for result. The different combinations of possibilities. Rolling with advantage. That first time rolling a fire ball with all those D6s. It connects with something very primal inside of every one of us. Change, risk, low control.

If that was a game. I would be all about it. I love Yahtzee. I love dice rolling games. But I hate when D&D becomes a dive rolling came with a light veneer of story telling.

I have dreamed about replacing dice with a coin. Flip the coin, tell me how you battle. Flip the coin again. And the results plus how much reasonableness you included in your description. OR how creative and ridiculous you were, and the story continues.

The difference between “I got a 16?….. and I roll a 10!!!!” and “My character rolls between the ogres legs, miss times his shoulder placement and bowls into the ogres right knee. As he is a little off balanced I try slashing at the ogres right knee with my dagger to off balance him further, hoping that he doesn’t fall on top of me.” Flips coin – “Heads” Coin lands tails. “Although you have permanently damaged his knee, and he will not walk properly for a long time, he also over balances right on top of you. Doing…” Flips coin – “Heads” coin shows heads. “It is not a direct hit, you are just winded but you are prone and will struggle to do much for a while.”

One paints a story, a scene, focuses on the feelings and the tension. One enjoys the clicky clacky of the math rocks and forgets entirely about what their character is actually doing, as if everyone is just standing still stabbing each other.

As a DM I will reward the descriptions over the dice rolls every time. And I am wondered if I should communicate that up front with all my players.

Some will adjudicate the game differently. Making all the descriptive choices. Having the players decide what they want to do, and rolling, and then the DM pulls all the weight by describing what is happening. This I find takes away from the fun of playing with other people. So then when are the dice rolled / coin flipped. If the dice are rolled first, looked at, processed, and then action is described the story goes smoothly. If each player struggles with what they need to add, or what dice to roll, then usually I will rush past them – unintentionally, making it harder for the story to be built because I am trying to let everyone be involved, but as I do this – I miss out on good story.

Then when the enemy fights, all of my hopes and dreams fly out the window because I just want to push the story back on the players.

But sometimes I think I need to slow down. The entire process. Slow down. The players are there for the story that I am hosting. They don’t have to be there. And most of them in my current campaign give very direct feedback on how they like it. And this is in North Europe. That is not a norm.

Slow down. Describe the combatants so that conflict is real, is tense, needs strategy to over come. Not just rolling the math rocks to hand back the math rock rolling position to them.

The large pack of brain dead Mournland residents drag their feet slowly along the ground toward you. They don’t seem to have weapons, but most of them have long sharp nails. They look solid as rocks and you definitely do not want them to get closer. But they look very determined to overwhelm your position with numbers. From the back of the pack you see a smaller figure with a large stick. And over the murmuring of the crowd you hear. “FIREBOLT”.

TL:DR for myself. – Describe battle the way you want your players to. If battle takes longer but is more entertaining, that is a win.