Pathfinder GMs, how do you roll?

I'm currently refactoring the NPC sheet and was wondering what the common way GMs roll would be. I'd like the default behavior to reflect what the most common use would be. Do you hide all rolls, show all rolls, hide and show some rolls? For instance, I show all my attack and damage rolls, combat maneuvers, and saving throws to my players. I tend to hide skill rolls because those can be opposed.

I am a behind the screen roller personally. I don't want the story and excitement to be derailed by RNG (luck or even bad luck), sure some random elements are fun, but often you can burst a players bubble quite easily with a string of good luck, or even a poorly tuned/created encounter.

I also roll privately. This lets me 'fudge' the dice if certain circumstances call for it. In physical games it also provides another avenue to incite mental turmoil in my players by randomly rolling for no reason when they walk down a corridor or enter a room. I've not DM'd much in Roll20, only a one shot here and there, but I still roll privately to boost the immersion factor of not knowing how good or bad a roll was when the effect is revealed. ie: Passive perception "you detect no traps... ohhhh you stepped in a trap",whether or not a monster notices you hiding and just doesn't react right away , etc. Basically anything I can do to make the experience more 'real' and less 'oh, I rolled low so someone should try'.

I actually add a hint to the players that I am rolling something. /em The GM seems to be rolling some dice.. and then I'll either use /w gm or /gmroll Most of my rolls are hidden.

Personally, I like my players to see most of my rolls as GM. The only ones I hide are things like stealth or perception, certain skill rolls, etc. I like Vince's idea for a 'hint' that something's being rolled, though, and will be incorporating that into my future setup. I have a sheet set up with special GM-only macros, which helps a lot. For example, if I want to check a character's passive perception, I can just hit GM-Perc and pick the token, and they have no idea that anything's been done at all. I also have a few other macros, like language-checks and the like, that the player's never see but come in mighty handy as a GM. -Phnord

With 100 GMs you're likely to get 200 different responses, to be honest. For that reason, I'd recommend looking at how the 4e sheet handled the skill/initiative roll buttons, with customizable text in the settings tab.

I have customizable text for the repeating sections of the PC sheet. It looks like I'm making the NPC buttons default to hiding the rolls but letting the PCs know that something's happening. This shouldn't be a big deal since the NPC sheet pulls the same information that the PC sheet does, therefore a GM can use the PC buttons if he wants to show the results to the PCs.

Relative to the game: I hide almost all rolls. I do try to let them know when a monster does minimum or maximum damage, to help them gauge the threat. Similarly, I also mention the monster's AC once they exactly hit that number. I do make secret rolls for the PCs. I actually used a special attack on the party (save or take damage) several times with a creature that did not outwardly display a threat (it was a mental attack, so no physical actions took place). The PCs got suspicious but could not nail down the source until it finally moved to dodge the PCs first attack against it. Great for tension building and suspense. Relative to Roll20: I've had moments when the 3d dice move really slowly on screen. As a way to lessen screen congestion, I just grab my real dice and roll by my keyboard. Everybody knows I'm the only one allowed to use real dice, so they definitely get the "uh oh," effect of hearing me roll dice (through my mic, obviously) just before something happens. Bonus: rolling real dice is sooooooo much faster and easier for me and really saves time. Not so bonus: if you keep a chat log, you will NOT have a record of your dice unless you type a note to yourself through chat. Kills any time savings of using real dice.

Quintus, you know you can turn off the 3d dice, right? ( My Settings [cog] -> uncheck Enable 3D Dice )

Yeah, I know, and I have in the past turned it off when it became really bad, but I hate to lose that feeling of watching the die turn over the last face. I just figure they aren't going to see my private gm rolls on screen anyway, so I just do it on my desk for expediency.

That's cool. It is beautiful!

I dont play pathfinder, but GM rolls are pretty much the same across platforms :) I made an API script that sends to chat a message I rolled some hidden dice, and gives me the result so they can see Im doing rolls 'behind the screen' but not see the results. such as: !GM 1d?{Die|100} so !GM 1d100 (or 1d20/1d8/1dwhatever I put as the answer)

Personally as a GM, I do not hide most rolls from players. I do hide percentiles though when factoring things like random encounter chance while traveling on the world map. But for monster attack rolls, no. There is no harm in them knowing what monsters attack rolls are or AC... they can't influence the dice rolls anyway.

Disclosure : I don't play pathfinder. I hide my rolls. Because even though the players can't influence them, neither can I if I show them. I'm more interested in a good story and and dramatic pacing than completely random events. =D I've run entire games where I didn't even have stats for enemies, and just determined hit or miss by whim, and those were some of the most rewarding games for all involved.

That is a very good point Aaron. I run my games with light role playing, mainly because pathfinder is 90% tactical rules (bloated rules IMO so can't wait for D&D PHB in 6 weeks) so I feel I am not playing pathfinder if I am not running mostly combat scenarios.

=D Totally makes sense. I've not played Pathfinder, but I know many of the 3.5-4.0 DnD and it's ilk (which I have played) run pretty tactical.