Player die rolls/details I watch - and the ones I don't

I take a pretty hands-off approach as a GM for a lot of PC details in my game.

For other details, I take an extremely hands-on approach.

I think this says a lot about how I run game.

Hand-On

These things, I pay close attention to.

Die Rolls - There is a short list of die rolls I watch. As in, I stand up and watch the players make the roll. They are:

- Resistance Rolls

- "To Hit" rolls

- Death checks

- Knockdown/Stunning and Consciousness rolls

- success rolls with real, critical and immediate effects

Sometimes I'll watch other ones - almost any other ones - especially if it's dramatically important or really fun (like damage rolls when someone is doing extra damage, or rolling lots of dice such as an 18d missile spell.) A lot of these I watch because of modifiers, margin of success concerns, or to make sure players are rolling against the right number in a critical situation.

Point Totals. I track point totals, XP earned, and advantages, disadvantages, skills, etc. in GCA. If my notes disagree with the players, it's on the players to show I'm wrong. Generally, I'm not, as I'm meticulous about tracking them and doing the point totals in a specific, repeatable way.

Session participation. I write the summaries, so I've got close notes on who was at what game, with what PC, with roughly the right character point total when they participated.

Otherwise:

Hands-Off

Die Rolls - basically every die roll not listed above, I don't bother to look at. It's not that I don't care, it's just that only the results really matter to me. Defense rolls, damage rolls in most situations, spell casting rolls, healing rolls for potion effects, etc. - the players do that. I don't even look. I often find out after it's all over. "Okay, my guy is up and around." Me: "Wasn't he just like 2 HP from -5xHP?" "Yeah, but I roll X, Y, and Z on my healing potions." Me: "Oh, nice! Okay, you're up and around." I don't even look over the screen unless I feel like the roll might be entertaining.

Equipment - I track some gear for the PCs - mostly armor and weapons, just so I have a handy way of telling them damage and and DR and making sure it's added up correctly or modified correctly (or quickly!) when modified by magic. Other gear? Up to the players. I trust them with our very simple, elegant encumbrance system.*

Sometimes gear gets lost - "What ever happened to that ____________?" If you don't know, don't ask me. I don't know. Maybe it's on some PC that doesn't play anymore. Maybe you sold it. Maybe it's lost in the dungeon. In any case, it's gone.

Money falls in the same category.

Energy - players are in charge of dealing with energy costs, spells on, recovery, using Pool A to recharge buddies's Pool B to min-max the recovery rules to finish up 1 minute faster and avoid a Wandering Monster roll, whatever. They do that. I couldn't even tell you how they do it except that when I ask, it's accurate and detailed.

Everything else, really - Besides those specific examples, I don't really track much for the PCs. The players do that. They do it well enough. The game setting is fairly adversarial, but we aren't. I trust them with their roll.





* Also known as "add up the weight in pounds." Heh. Sorry, I know a lot of people love alternate encumbrance systems, but real-world measures is just so easy for me and works well in play.