Savage Worlds and 'The Box'

[Lysander]

Okay, I just got what I wished for on the new Savage Worlds Ruleset, 'The Box', but I seemed to have overlooked a vital gameplay aspect.

Savage Worlds uses bennies. They are often used to reroll bad rolls at the players discretion. However, 'The Box' is sort of a tool to limit metagaming by players. If they know their notice roll sucked, they could reroll, avoiding an ambush that fate otherwise would inflict. Whereas in a non bennie system with 'The Box', they roll but don't know, and it raises the possible anticipation factor.

What to do?

I don't have an answer as to how best to utilize both features. Do you? Could you tell me what balance you may have struck between these diametrically opposed ideas?


(BTW - I do sometimes use the box for some GM rolls [did the guard see the sneak?] but I tend to roll the attacks out in the open more than not...)

[Doswelk]

The point of the box (IMHO) is to leave the players guessing, one thing I do like about the box is that a player can see when a die explodes (just like if at the table the GM picked up a dice again and re-rolled it)

If you want the players to know what they rolled they do not use the box, if you want to keep 'em guessing then you ask them to roll on the box, I give them a chance to spend a bennie (even though they do not know what they rolled) and sometimes they risk it - of course you automatically pick the best roll.

If they saw their dice explode then they probably won't spend a bennie.

If that made any sense at all I'd be surprised!

[Indarien]

I play with two groups. One rolls everything in the Dice Tower. The other group never does.
So it really comes down to play style.

For the group that rolls everything in the dice tower, I take the result and type up what happens. If they decide it "sucks" then they can spend a benny.

For instance, they swing at the troll and miss. I tell them, "You swung and missed." They have the option of spending a benny, just like normal.
A few others are more interesting. The character gets a 1 on their Persuasion skill die but they get a success with the Wild Die. In the Dice Tower they have no way of knowing what that roll was. I have the NPC respond in such a way that they seem helpful but really are not. Or when they roll a critical failure while trying to disarm the bomb..."You all die!" The player, "Okay, I spend a benny."

[phantomwhale]

I tried the dice tower a few times, but to be honest, I rarely, if ever, use it. Like you say my players want to re-roll things, and they don't like the idea of re-rolling a "blind roll", so I basically play everything open.

I guess you need to offer enough verbal hint as to when a roll was bad (e.g. you all sneak past the inattentive guard, but Paul clumsily kicks a pile of gravel at the last moment) to help with spending bennies on blind rolls, but yeah it's not an easy thing. Hence I just stopped using it 99% of the time.