Aces in tower

[ApesAmongUs]

Is there any way to prevent players from seeing the animation of dice re-rolling when they are rolled in the tower?

[Moon Wizard]

The dice rolling is hard-coded into the physics simulation that resolves dice rolls. The only way to bypass would be to write an extension that intercepts the rolls and use random number generation instead.

Regards,
JPG

[Doswelk]

Why would you want to hide that?

Savage Worlds uses the Ace die mechanic, when a GM rolls a die behind the screen and it aces he is going to have to roll again, therefore the tower shows that, it is no different than at the table top :D

Personally my players love it when they see the shadowy dice acing, they know the dice have exploded, but they do not know the final score, the tension is increased as is their joy when their dice ace and they succeed or accept defeat when they fail :D

[ApesAmongUs]

"Why would you want to hide that?"

Because it gives them information if the roll was good or not. That's information they use to decide on spending bennies. I don't use the tower on a ton of rolls, but if I'm using it, it is because I don't want them to know how good the roll was.

[Doswelk]

But like I said in a face-to-face game they would know, as it is physically impossible for a gm to hide the acing of a roll, without not making the second roll, and just deciding what the final score is, so this is no different.

The functionality cannot be changed in FG due to how the dice rolling works, all I can suggest is you roll physical dice if you do not want the tower to show the acing, but turn off your mic or people may hear you pick up the die and roll it again :)

[Mgrancey]

I would suggest just doing what i do, roll dice for no reason. I do my best to make it a practice to randomly roll dice, no purpose other than to roll and make players wonder. I will do that same thing by having them roll a Notice roll for no reason at times as well.

[ApesAmongUs]

I can just grab any of the physical dice on my desk and roll them. I don't see why people are so concerned that I would look for a way for the tool I'm using to make sunning the game smoother to actually make things run smoother. I mean, I'm not furious that there is no way, it's just strange that FG was designed this way. It's not like it's the only place FG does something I find strange.

[mac40k]

At the end of the day, FG is a VTT. By definition it is trying to allow you to have a virtual tabletop game session. What I think is strange is that you are asking for functionality that goes beyond that. As Doswelk has so aptly put, you want functionality that you could never have in an actual face-to-face game. While you might think it would make your games more interesting, it really goes beyond the mission statement of being able to recreate that face-to-face experience online.

[ApesAmongUs]

I can do that easily in a face to face game. Roll 3-4 dice of different colors for the hidden skill roll. Read them in roy-g-biv order starting with the most red die and moving to the next if I get an ace. You're not going to hit 100 or anything, but it covers normal play.

But, that is just me being difficult/argumentative. I wouldn't actually do that in play; although, I could. In reality, if you're just looking for a 4, all dice can hit that without acing and all but the d4 can hit a 5 or 6. So, for the most common die rolls, seeing the ace tells you with 100% certainty that you succeeded. In a face to face game, I'd just not re-roll those dice, since I know they hit the target I was rolling against after the first roll. They would not get a chance to see the re-roll, because it wouldn't happen. Do you normally keep rolling past the point where you need to just to see how high it goes? Technically those are the rules, but I don't think it actually matches a face-to-face experience.

[Mgrancey]

Yes I do roll to see how many raises NPCs get, but I have built up a framework for expanded raises for myself and the players that if multiple raises occur what can be done with them.

As far as hiding, that's your choice but honestly as a player I dislike it and as a GM I at worst use the tower.

[mac40k]

I understand the attraction of hiding rolls from players in other systems. After all, it's not uncommon and why the tower in FG exists in the first place, but Savage Worlds is one of those systems where I always roll in the open because there is a meta-currency involved. Players always have to have the necessary info to decide if they want to spend a benny or not. For an opposed roll where the GM is rolling first, they are setting the target number to beat. Keeping that secret from the player and asking them to decide whether or not they want to spend a benny on their roll is a **** move. As a player, I don't want to hear a GM say, "sorry, you roll wasn't high enough, should have spent a benny," anymore than I want to spend a benny on a roll where my 5 may have been good enough for fear that it might not be. The GM may as well just decide what outcome they want without requiring either side to roll in that case. I am a not an adversarial GM and it is not my job to "trick" players into spending bennies needlessly. In fact, I can't think of a single situation where hiding a roll would enhance the game, but maybe I just lack imagination. Would love to see some examples of how using the tower and hiding the shadow animation of acing dice would actually enhance the game.