How DMs can see player rolls live (the dice trust problem)
Quick answer: the fix for invisible dice is structural, not social. Move the table to a setup where every roll lands where everyone sees it: a VTT chat log (Roll20, Foundry), a Discord dice bot (Avrae), or a shared browser dice room (DiceDND, free, no accounts). Framed as "we all get to see the crits together," nobody gets accused of anything, and the problem quietly stops existing.
Why is this such an awkward problem?
Every online DM knows the moment: a remote player rolls in their own app, or behind their webcam, and calls out "19!" You have no reason to doubt them. You also have no way to know. And a suspicious pattern, three clutch saves in a row, a character who never fails a death save, puts you in the worst spot at the table: your options are to accuse a friend of cheating with no proof, or to quietly resent the dice forever.
That's why treating this as a social problem fails. The fix is infrastructure: make visible rolls the default for everyone, so trust never has to be discussed at all.
What are the options?
| Setup | How rolls become visible | Cost of adoption |
|---|---|---|
| Full VTT (Roll20, Foundry) | Rolls appear in the session chat log | Real setup effort; worth it if you want maps and automation anyway |
| Discord dice bot (Avrae) | Rolls happen as chat commands in the server | Free; players learn command syntax; rolls live in the text scroll |
| Shared browser dice room (DiceDND) | One room link; every roll lands live for the whole table, name attached | Free, no accounts, nothing to learn; phones work |
| Physical dice on camera | Everyone squints at a webcam | Free and wobbly; fine until the die rolls off-screen |
All four beat the honor system. Pick by what your table already uses: if you run Foundry, its log is enough; if your table lives in Discord text, a bot fits; if you want the lightest possible thing everyone opens on a phone, that's the shared room.
How does a shared dice room work?
One player opens DiceDND, picks a room name, and shares the link. Everyone who opens it is in the same room, and every roll is made server-side and broadcast to the whole table the moment it lands, with the roller's name and the full modifier breakdown attached. Nobody can quietly reroll or edit a result; the roll everyone sees is the roll that happened. There's a per-room history too, so "wait, what did she roll for initiative?" has an answer.
We built it because half our table moved cities and the trust question kept almost-coming-up without anyone wanting to say it out loud. Disclosure: this site is that tool. It's free with no accounts; Roll20 and Avrae above are the established alternatives.
Can the DM still roll in secret?
Yes, and that asymmetry is the point of the DM screen. Hidden perception checks, deception contests, and "roll nothing, look worried" theatrics all need private DM dice. VTTs have GM-only rolls, and DiceDND has a private-roll toggle: the DM's private rolls stay off the shared feed while player rolls remain visible to everyone.
Won't players feel accused if I introduce this?
Only if you frame it as anti-cheat. Don't. The honest framing is also the better one: shared rolls are how online tables get the best part of physical dice back, the whole table watching a natural 20 land at the same moment and erupting. Introduce it as "I want us all to see the crits together" and it reads as more fun, not more surveillance, because that's what it actually is. The trust problem dissolving is a side effect nobody has to mention.
Open a shared dice room → Free, no signup, works on phones