What happens when you think everything is a level-appropriate encounter

[Vinyadan]

I guess the guy at the beginning of the thread saying that it all depends on group habits was very right. This whole "they must be able to!" depends on habit. You don't have to RP a reckless guy who is told "There's the ugly fortress of the TurboEvil Emperor, He Who Breaks Anvils With His Fists, which is populated by his best and finest guards, all of whom are lightening-fast, have 100 eyes, and also have 100 arms, each of which is strong enough to destroy the Eiffel Tower by slapping it" and immediately sets off to said fortress. You can be a little weak guy who needs to get into that fortress and therefore tries to get intel about it, prepares himself and then enters it and does his best to get what he needs.

Seeing monsters you can't handle in combat can be the same thing. Avoid them until ready, and, if forced to face them, try to think before you do. Now, a DM forcing a TPK is doing his job wrong (you can do a good TPK, but it can't be the DM who decides, the players may want their party to die rather than surrender, or may want to use grenades while in a black powder depot). But that doesn't mean that you can't give the chance of a TPK.

There's also the fact that you don't need everything to be handled through combat, and you don't need to kill everything you meet. Again, group culture.

[Koo Rehtorb]

I agree with your emotion, but your statement is not entirely true. If you're caught fudging dice rolls, then you are potentially cheapening the entire experience. Those are two very important qualifications.

Okay yes I admit it is possible to get away with cheating once in a while without getting caught at it, and it's not going to ruin the game.

But here's the thing, even if you don't get caught at it and everyone's comfortable in the illusion, you're still cheapening the game for yourself. The GM is playing the game too, and if the GM is breaking the rules then they're robbing themselves of the thrill of randomness.

[Mr Beer]

It's not an arbitrary distinction in the slightest. Without someone portraying the world the world does not exist. This is typically the GM, in some games it can be the players as well. The rules are an independent thing that exist that makes certain everyone in the game are on the same page. You're playing a game, ignoring the rules is cheating. The GM lying about a die roll is cheating just as much as a player lying about a die roll would be.

Now, if you don't like some implications of the rules, you have options. You can play a different game with rules you like more or you can modify the rules of the game in a transparent manner to better suit the experience you want to have. If you don't want players to die randomly in a minor encounter then make a rule that all damage in "minor encounters" is non-lethal, or something. That sounds terribly boring to me, but if you and your players are on the same page about it it's certainly fair to do.

What you don't do is look at the presumably hundreds of pages of rules and go "None of this actually matters. Do whatever you want." That's the grownup version of playing Cops and Robbers. It undermines the entire experience of the game and takes away any possible tension. If you become known as a GM that fudges rolls then literally no victory the players have can ever be legitimate again because it's impossible to know if they earned it fairly or if you gave it to them because you felt like it. Losing now and then because you played poorly or because the dice screwed you is what makes victory meaningful when it does come.

Yeah, it's an arbitrary distinction. You're saying it's OK to rescue PCs via narrative, by simply conjuring up a deus ex machina, but absolutely wrong to change the results of a dice roll. In fact, this is the same thing; we're changing the outcome as desired.

Also it's a strawman to imply that fudging a dice roll is the same thing as throwing away "of pages of rules and go "None of this actually matters. Do whatever you want." ".

By that logic, ignoring or bending or guessing at any rule ever is the same as throwing away the rule book and playing free form Lets Pretend. Every GM has done one or more of these things on occasion, and yet here we are, playing TTRPGs.

[prufock]

Yes, anyone who fudges dice rolls is GMing like they're playing Paranoia. Don't GM like Paranoia if you're not actually playing Paranoia, as much fun as Paranoia is!

You claim fudging dice rolls is universally bad. Paranoia recommends fudging dice rolls. You admit that Paranoia is fun. You are not being consistent.

[kyoryu]

Fudging is, in my mind, the least best way to solve issues. Sometimes, though, it's the best solution you have.

You claim fudging dice rolls is universally bad. Paranoia recommends fudging dice rolls. You admit that Paranoia is fun. You are not being consistent.

Paranoia is definitely a game that proves not all RPGs operate under the same assumption. I don't think it's really a good idea to apply Paranoia advice to other games :)

[Koo Rehtorb]

Yeah, it's an arbitrary distinction. You're saying it's OK to rescue PCs via narrative, by simply conjuring up a deus ex machina, but absolutely wrong to change the results of a dice roll. In fact, this is the same thing; we're changing the outcome as desired.

That's not what Deux ex Machina means.

Any setting related changes are required to make sense in the fiction as established. If you're in a bandit infested forest then bandits showing up is something that makes sense. Zeus randomly showing up does not. It's not the best option, but it is an option.

Also it's a strawman to imply that fudging a dice roll is the same thing as throwing away "of pages of rules and go "None of this actually matters. Do whatever you want." ".

No, it's not. If you're saying ignoring the rules sometimes is okay you're saying the rules don't matter.

By that logic, ignoring or bending or guessing at any rule ever is the same as throwing away the rule book and playing free form Lets Pretend. Every GM has done one or more of these things on occasion, and yet here we are, playing TTRPGs.

Ignoring the rules is not the same as filling in the blanks of the rules when a situation comes up that isn't covered. If there are no rules that cover a situation it's fine to make up a rule that covers that situation. If there is an existing rule that you don't like then the time to change it is in advance, transparently.

You're bein' a bad GM. But I believe in you. You have the power to stop being a bad GM and start being a good GM, Mr Beer.

You claim fudging dice rolls is universally bad. Paranoia recommends fudging dice rolls. You admit that Paranoia is fun. You are not being consistent.

Oh nooooo you have caught me in a logical trap. I am banished back to the abyss for 666 years...

Or maybe you could put in a little bit of effort and try your hardest to interpret those statements in the way they're clearly intended.

[prufock]

Or maybe you could put in a little bit of effort and try your hardest to interpret those statements in the way they're clearly intended.

I struggle to understand what "universally bad" could mean other than universally bad, especially when it's the thesis statement of your argument. If fudging dice rolls isn't universally bad, on which you seem to agree, then there are situations where it is okay to fudge dice rolls. In that case, it's purely a matter of the amount of fudging with which you're comfortable - a much less binary discussion. It's like that famous punchline (often attributed to Winston Churchill): we're just haggling over price.

[Koo Rehtorb]

I struggle to understand what "universally bad" could mean other than universally bad, especially when it's the thesis statement of your argument. If fudging dice rolls isn't universally bad, on which you seem to agree, then there are situations where it is okay to fudge dice rolls. In that case, it's purely a matter of the amount of fudging with which you're comfortable - a much less binary discussion. It's like that famous punchline (often attributed to Winston Churchill): we're just haggling over price.

Paranoia is not like other games. If you GM other games like Paranoia you are messing up. Hope this helps.

[Jay R]

Okay yes I admit it is possible to get away with cheating once in a while without getting caught at it, and it's not going to ruin the game.

You're assuming that making an exception to the rules is cheating. In most games I've played, that is simply not true. The rules as written have included that since the game was first published:

Dungeons and Dragons, The Underground and Wilderness Adventures, p. 36: "... everything herein is fantastic, and the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it that way."

AD&D 1e, DMG, p. 9: "The game is the thing, and certain rules can be distorted or disregarded altogether in favor of play."

AD&D 2E, DMG, p. 3: "At conventions, in letters, and over the phone, I'm often asked for the instant answer to a fine point of the game rules. More often than not, I come back with a question -- what do you feel is right? And the people asking the question discover that not only can they create an answer, but that their answer is as good as anyone else's. The rules are only guidelines."

D&D 3.5 DMG, p. 6: "Good players will always realize that you have ultimate authority over the game mechanics, even superseding something in a rulebook."

Overriding a rule for good reason isn’t cheating. It’s part of the overall rules.

[In fact, you could make an amusing case that demanding that the DM never make a ruling that violates a published rule is cheating - since the published rules say that she can.]

But here's the thing, even if you don't get caught at it and everyone's comfortable in the illusion, you're still cheapening the game for yourself. The GM is playing the game too, and if the GM is breaking the rules then they're robbing themselves of the thrill of randomness.

Only in the same sense that the referee is playing football, or the timekeeper is running a race. What a GM is doing is very different from what a player is doing, and has a very different set of requirements and responsibilities.

I once set the miniatures out for the giant spiders about to attack the party. And then I saw the look of horror on one player's face. She was petrified. So they instantly became the wimpiest giant spiders in the history of D&D. Each one died to a single hit, and the minis were off the table in less than a minute.

It was the best way I had to deal with her phobia without calling other people's attention to it. And I have never once felt that my game was cheapened, or that I was robbed of the thrill of randomness, for doing it.

[Koo Rehtorb]

You're assuming that making an exception to the rules is cheating. In most games I've played, that is simply not true. The rules as written have included that since the game was first published:

Yup. It's common knowledge that earlier editions of D&D and WW games in particular have had a bunch of absolutely terrible GM advice that have done a lot of harm to the hobby as a whole. It's one of the reasons D&D GMing culture in general is so poisonous.

Only in the same sense that the referee is playing football, or the timekeeper is running a race. What a GM is doing is very different from what a player is doing, and has a very different set of requirements and responsibilities.

To expand on this, cheating in D&D is like if a referee in tennis decided that it would be more entertaining for everyone involved if the game was close, so he calls the ball out when it isn't just to keep a competitive match going.

[awa]

I disagree the tennis analogy does not hold because it has two sides

I have definitively fudged in ways that made the game better including, having monsters with two much defense become slightly more fragile so a long fight does not become a frustrating fight. And giving a monster with two powerful an attack a limit on how often they could use that power. I use custom monsters so they have no way of knowing this was not always the case.

Fudging should never be the go to answer but in the right situation it can make the game more fun, I have been in games where fights were decided literally hours before we were allowed to stop rolling attacks against what were effectively harmless foes whose layered defenses so outweighed their ability to actually harm us that victory was a boring slog. I would have loved for the dm to have fudged something either to make them weaker or more damaging something to make them interesting.

and as a dm i do not gain my pleasure from randomness, randomness is a means to an end not the end itself.

[Jay R]

To expand on this, cheating in D&D is like if a referee in tennis decided that it would be more entertaining for everyone involved if the game was close, so he calls the ball out when it isn't just to keep a competitive match going.

Wow. I agree with you that the absurd and horrible example you just made up is a bad idea, and I won't defend it. All I can say is that I've never done anything like it.

Meanwhile, you ignored the actual example I gave. Let's get back to it.

When I saw that a player had a spider phobia, and was being hurt by the presence of the minis on the table, I fudged die results to get them off the table quickly without calling attention to her problem.

Would you describe this as either "absolutely terrible GM advice that have done a lot of harm to the hobby as a whole" or "cheating in D&D"?

Because that's the actual example that you replied to with those phrases.

Here are a couple of other examples.

One DM was running a game in which goblins had been exterminated on the continent we were on. When the random wandering monster table called for an encounter with goblins, he substituted something that actually existed on that continent at that time.

A DM was using a table to randomize an NPC wizard's actions. He rolled "Lightning Bolt". BUt the wizard was fighting in a 50-foot long corridor, and would have been fried by his own bolt. The DM decided to do something else.

A character once rolled "drop weapon" on a fumble table. But the character wasn't using a weapon. So the DM re-rolled.

These are the kinds of things I'm talking about. If you aren't willing to discuss this kind of fudging, then we have not been talking about the same thing.

[Koo Rehtorb]

I have been in games where fights were decided literally hours before we were allowed to stop rolling attacks against what were effectively harmless foes whose layered defenses so outweighed their ability to actually harm us that victory was a boring slog. I would have loved for the dm to have fudged something either to make them weaker or more damaging something to make them interesting.

Oh, there's nothing wrong with saying "This fight is over. You clean the rest of the enemies up." If it's already decided then skipping past combat is acceptable. But if you're frequently finding yourself dong that then you might want to at least consider the possibility that you're either balancing fights wrong, or you're playing the wrong game entirely.

[Jay R]

No, it's not. If you're saying ignoring the rules sometimes is okay you're saying the rules don't matter.

This logic is invalid, as is clearly seen when you try to it in areas besides D&D.

I sometimes drive over the speed limit. I do this when there are no other cars on the road near me, in good road conditions, when arriving earlier has a great deal of value. So I ignore speed limits sometime, but I am absolutely not saying that speed limits don't matter. They are crucial parts of the social contract, making roads much more safe. Instead, I am saying that the published speed limit isn't necessary 100% of the time.

I was once given a Friday afternoon deadline at work. But my boss generally left the office before that time. So rather than rushing it to finish Friday afternoon, I came in and finished it on Saturday. I wasn't saying that the deadlines don't matter. I simply recognized that for the boss's purposes, Saturday was just as good as Friday afternoon.

I think that the rules matter, but occasionally the situation matters more. Making occasional exceptions to the rules is not the same as saying the rules don't matter at all. There really are positions between 0% and 100%.

Ignoring the rules is not the same as filling in the blanks of the rules when a situation comes up that isn't covered.

And fudging a die roll is nowhere near either one. Following the rules most of the time, but recognizing that judgment calls will occasionally require deviating from them, is simply not ignoring the rules. It's not. As long as you equate following the rules 99.99% of the time with never following them, you cannot understand what we're talking about.

If there are no rules that cover a situation it's fine to make up a rule that covers that situation. If there is an existing rule that you don't like then the time to change it is in advance, transparently.

Agreed, but not the topic. We are talking about recognizing the poor effect of a specific application of a generally good rule. Consider the following situation. The party is heading for a battle with an ancient red dragon. They have a one-time-use dragon bane item that was the prize of a long recent adventure. Along the way, I roll for a wandering monster, and get a young green dragon. I'm very likely to change it to a chimera or some other monster, so that the party isn't tempted to use the item right before it's needed much more.

I don't want to change the table for wandering monsters. I just don't want a specific result from it right now.

You're bein' a bad GM. But I believe in you. You have the power to stop being a bad GM and start being a good GM, Mr Beer.

I would never call somebody a bad DM without playing in, or watching, their game for a long time.

Specifically, I occasionally fudge rolls when I think it's necessary. But none of my players think I'm a bad DM, and they all want me to get back to running a game.

Or maybe you could put in a little bit of effort and try your hardest to interpret those statements in the way they're clearly intended.

Yeah, he interpreted your statements far further than you intended them - just like you did, when you treated fudging occasionally as if it were ignoring the rules. This is a tempting mistake we all make too often.

"The brotherhood of man is no mere poet's fancy. It is a most depressing and humiliating reality."
-- Oscar Wilde

Let's forgive each other for misunderstanding and continue to try to learn what the other intends.

[Koo Rehtorb]

When I saw that a player had a spider phobia, and was being hurt by the presence of the minis on the table, I fudged die results to get them off the table quickly without calling attention to her problem.

Unilaterally changing the rules is still bad, yes. I don't think it's a problem if you decided before combat started that these were weaker giant spiders than you had previously planned on, though. Some other things you could do to help mitigate the problem is refrain from describing them in colourful terms at all. Reducing them to stat blocks and moving on is probably the way to go.

One DM was running a game in which goblins had been exterminated on the continent we were on. When the random wandering monster table called for an encounter with goblins, he substituted something that actually existed on that continent at that time.

If the game you're playing calls for strictly following random tables then it'd be bad and his job would be to explain why some goblins still existed in the region. I doubt that was the case, though. He probably should have rewritten the random tables to account for that fact, but a clear understanding that goblins no longer exist and a "goblins" result is actually "wereboars" or whatever is also fine. Fudging random tables is only a problem if you're ignoring results you don't like because "That'd be too hard".

A DM was using a table to randomize an NPC wizard's actions. He rolled "Lightning Bolt". BUt the wizard was fighting in a 50-foot long corridor, and would have been fried by his own bolt. The DM decided to do something else.

That's hard to judge without more information. Why exactly was this wizard choosing his actions randomly? If he's insane and doing things at random then changing it would probably be bad. Otherwise I'd say the whole concept of picking his spells randomly is dumb in the first place. But if you have a reason to commit to "random spells" then you should probably stick to it.

A character once rolled "drop weapon" on a fumble table. But the character wasn't using a weapon. So the DM re-rolled.

I'd probably say the character gets off easy with that result, nothing happens. I don't think it's a grievous sin to reroll either, though. Interpreting results in a way that makes sense is acceptable, as is inventing new rules if existing ones don't cover a situation.

These are the kinds of things I'm talking about. If you aren't willing to discuss this kind of fudging, then we have not been talking about the same thing.

Yeah, this isn't really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about more along the lines of "Mary is at 1 HP and the orc is up next. Orc rolls a crit, which will certainly kill her but that wouldn't be fun so I'll say the orc rolled a 1 instead yay." It crosses into the cheating territory when the GM has some sort of agenda to push that he decides is more important than following the rules of the game that everyone agreed on. Ignoring the rules is basically a form of railroading.

[awa]

it is basically a form of railroading but I'm actually okay with an occasional few second of railroad that I never notice if it makes the game more fun. (remember neither as a player or a dm do I find randomness fun in and of itself) Though personally I find changing dice rolls to be a rather crude way of solving the problem and certainly one that should be indulged rarely if ever.

[Jay R]

I think we're considering a false dichotomy. It's similar to interviewing four people for two open positions, and they turn out to be a qualified woman, a qualified man, an unqualified woman, and an unqualified man. If you ask whether you should hire the men or the women, you're asking the wrong question.

Consider four possibilities:

1. A poor DM makes the game worse by stupidly changing the rules.
2. A good DM makes the game better by intelligently breaking the rules when it would help.
3. A poor DM makes the game worse by blindly following the rules.
4. A good DM makes the game better by intelligently applying the rules as written.

The question asks us to choose to keep either both 1 & 2, or both 3 & 4.

Most of the arguments are either:
A. people who prefer the good DM in #2 to the poor DM in #3, or
B. people who prefer the good DM in #4 to the poor DM in #1.

But all four of these happen in real games. People who have not seen the good DM in 4 assume that fudging is a uniformly bad idea. People like me who have seen excellent DMs using the tool well approve of the tool.

In fact, both 2 & 4 are better than 1 & 3.

The DM should choose the best tool for the job. The tool of the DM making a rules adjustment can be, and has been, used both badly and well.

[kyoryu]

I'm totally okay with changing the rules!

Fudging is just changing the rules *after* the die roll, in an ad-hoc way. I'd rather change the rules *before* the roll, in some way.

Like if your climbing rules say that rolling a one will result in a fall, and you're climbing the Cliffs of Insanity, and so falling will die, I'd rather have the GM say "okay, on a one, I'm going to say that's really just you running into one of the Rocs of Ruin that are nesting in the cliffs, rather than a fall". If you don't do that, and don't want to kill the character when you roll a one, the option that's left is fudging the roll, and that's fine. I'd just prefer the modification being done before the roll. Sometimes that's not possible.

[Koo Rehtorb]

The DM should choose the best tool for the job. The tool of the DM making a rules adjustment can be, and has been, used both badly and well.

I do have a suspicion that we're talking about different things now. Let me try this statement out as a way to separate what we're talking about, though I'm not totally certain if it captures everything or not.

Changing the rules is bad when doing so requires that you lie to your players, either outright or by omission. If you can look at your players and say "I rolled goblins on the random table but goblins don't exist any more so I'm going to reroll", then it's probably fine.

[Jay R]

Changing the rules is bad when doing so requires that you lie to your players, either outright or by omission. If you can look at your players and say "I rolled goblins on the random table but goblins don't exist any more so I'm going to reroll", then it's probably fine.

Like every other flat statement that tries to substitute a universal rule for unique judgment calls in unique situations, it breaks down when a judgment call is needed.

Specifically, it seemed important to not call attention to my player's spider phobia. I did not announce, and would not announce, that I was reducing the encounter due to somebody's psychological issue. So the best example I have of the occasional need to fudge would be bad by your proposed rule.

If you don't trust your DM's judgment, then this rule won't help. Nor will any other. Under any approach, a DM with poor judgment will cause problems.

If you do trust your DM's judgment, then trust it.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Like every other flat statement that tries to substitute a universal rule for unique judgment calls in unique situations, it breaks down when a judgment call is needed.

Specifically, it seemed important to not call attention to my player's spider phobia. I did not announce, and would not announce, that I was reducing the encounter due to somebody's psychological issue. So the best example I have of the occasional need to fudge would be bad by your proposed rule.

If you don't trust your DM's judgment, then this rule won't help. Nor will any other. Under any approach, a DM with poor judgment will cause problems.

If you do trust your DM's judgment, then trust it.

I don't know that I would even call substituting one encounter with another encounter changing the rules of the game. Both stronger and weaker spiders exist and until they're established as being one or the other they can be either.

I also kind of reject the assumption that it's the DM's responsibility to shuffle things around to protect a player from phobias in the first place. Presumably this player was an adult. If you were right in your assumption that having spiders on the table was severely traumatizing to her then she's presumably capable of saying "Hey spiders make me uncomfortable. Can I sit this one out?" or even before the campaign starts "Hey spiders make me uncomfortable. Could we not have any of them in the game please?" Taking it on yourself to protect her from the issues you assumed she had strikes me as uncomfortably patronizing.

[Mr Beer]

That's not what Deux ex Machina means.

I know what it means, I just don't know what you mean. You created an arbitrary distinction between 'creating reality' (cavalry arrive to save PC) and 'creating reality' (fudge a dice roll to save PC). Deus ex-machina falls into the category of 'creating reality'.

Any setting related changes are required to make sense in the fiction as established. If you're in a bandit infested forest then bandits showing up is something that makes sense. Zeus randomly showing up does not. It's not the best option, but it is an option.

So saving the PCs via narrative should be thematically appropriate? No duh. But if we look beyond your 'GM 101' lesson, Zeus showing up can be entirely appropriate in a fantasy setting.

No, it's not. If you're saying ignoring the rules sometimes is okay you're saying the rules don't matter.

Ignoring the rules is not the same as filling in the blanks of the rules when a situation comes up that isn't covered. If there are no rules that cover a situation it's fine to make up a rule that covers that situation. If there is an existing rule that you don't like then the time to change it is in advance, transparently.

Ideally rules should be changed in advance. However the vast majority of GMs have ignored or fudged or changed a rule upon consideration in a given circumstance, having not previously considered it. I suspect that you have likely do so yourself.

This is not the same as throwing away the rulebook and playing Lets Pretend, which is the incorrect assertion you made.

You're bein' a bad GM. But I believe in you. You have the power to stop being a bad GM and start being a good GM, Mr Beer.

You don't know anything about my GM-ing, my game or my group. All you know is that I'm picking apart your incorrect assertion that it is always wrong to fudge a dice roll. I think that you find that frustrating and that's why you are turning to personal insults in lieu of substance.

[Koo Rehtorb]

I know what it means, I just don't know what you mean. You created an arbitrary distinction between 'creating reality' (cavalry arrive to save PC) and 'creating reality' (fudge a dice roll to save PC). Deus ex-machina falls into the category of 'creating reality'.

I don't know how many more ways I have to say "Changing the rules of the game is different from having things happen in the game".

If you play an RPG you are agreeing "Yes the GM can say that things happen". You are not agreeing "Yes the GM can say he rolled a 1 when he rolled a 20." Unless your group has all specifically said "Yes we consent that the GM can make up dice results if he wants to". You're not cheating in that case, but the probability is very high that your group is playing the wrong game for them and would be better served by a system which doesn't require the GM to break the rules of the game to get your preferred play style.

You don't know anything about my GM-ing, my game or my group. All you know is that I'm picking apart your incorrect assertion that it is always wrong to fudge a dice roll. I think that you find that frustrating and that's why you are turning to personal insults in lieu of substance.

I know that you're saying it's sometimes correct to fudge a die roll, which it is not. That's what we call "evidence". You may well be a good GM in other instances, but in this particular one you're bein' a bad GM. So cut it out. You can do better.

[Jay R]

I don't know that I would even call substituting one encounter with another encounter changing the rules of the game. Both stronger and weaker spiders exist and until they're established as being one or the other they can be either.

It certainly falls into your previously described category of "some sort of agenda to push that he decides is more important than following the rules of the game that everyone agreed on".

But in any case, you've agreed that judgment calls changing the rules can be OK in some circumstances.

That's good enough for me. No two people will always make the same judgment call. That's why it's crucial to trust the judgment of your DM.

I also kind of reject the assumption that it's the DM's responsibility to shuffle things around to protect a player from phobias in the first place.

It's not "the DM's responsibility". It's my desire to stop making my friend uncomfortable.

Presumably this player was an adult. If you were right in your assumption that having spiders on the table was severely traumatizing to her then she's presumably capable of saying "Hey spiders make me uncomfortable. Can I sit this one out?" or even before the campaign starts "Hey spiders make me uncomfortable. Could we not have any of them in the game please?" Taking it on yourself to protect her from the issues you assumed she had strikes me as uncomfortably patronizing.

Call it what you like. Since I'd known her for a decade at that point, and you have no idea what she's like, nobody could expect us to make the same judgment call.

In any event, she thanked me for it later.

[Koo Rehtorb]

It certainly falls into your previously described category of "some sort of agenda to push that he decides is more important than following the rules of the game that everyone agreed on".

But in any case, you've agreed that judgment calls changing the rules can be OK in some circumstances.

Unless you agreed to play a particular module 100% straight with the group and that module called for an encounter with X spiders of Y difficulty you're not really changing rules at all, at least in the sense of rules that I'm working with. I also don't really think this breaks my definition of having to have lied to your players over it. If you could have said to them later "Oh yeah, turns out spiders made one of the group uncomfortable so I moved past it" without objections then I think it's fine.

And as a broader point I don't like that you seem to be trying to reduce this down to "DM Judgement is needed, therefore DMs always have the right to change anything they want, so long as it's for the good of the group". DM judgement is sometimes needed for some things, and never needed for some other things. There are different categories of DM actions, some of which are fine for making judgements over, some of which are not.

[prufock]

Paranoia is not like other games. If you GM other games like Paranoia you are messing up. Hope this helps.

It actually does. It changes the framing of the argument from "Fudging dice in RPGs is universally bad" to "Fudging dice in RPGs is bad for a particular subset of games." This becomes an issue of deciding which games go into that subset.

[Jay R]

Unless you agreed to play a particular module 100% straight with the group and that module called for an encounter with X spiders of Y difficulty you're not really changing rules at all, at least in the sense of rules that I'm working with. I also don't really think this breaks my definition of having to have lied to your players over it. If you could have said to them later "Oh yeah, turns out spiders made one of the group uncomfortable so I moved past it" without objections then I think it's fine.

OK. I only objected to your stance that "If you fudge dice rolls you're cheapening the entire experience and will damage the game for everyone involved." Since you now concede that this isn't always true, I'm comfortable with your new stance.

And as a broader point I don't like that you seem to be trying to reduce this down to "DM Judgement is needed, therefore DMs always have the right to change anything they want, so long as it's for the good of the group". DM judgement is sometimes needed for some things, and never needed for some other things. There are different categories of DM actions, some of which are fine for making judgements over, some of which are not.

I suggest that if you want to put something in quotes and ascribe it to me, then it should be words you block-copy from my posts, like I did with your words above.

This statement you put in quotes ("DM Judgement is needed, therefore DMs always have the right to change anything they want, so long as it's for the good of the group") is not a quotation. and is not something I said, implied, or believe.

In fact, in the only post I wrote yesterday that you chose not to reply to, I specifically wrote that "A poor DM makes the game worse by stupidly changing the rules." [This is a direct quote.] You cannot fairly conclude that I believe that DMs always have the right to change anything they want.

In other posts, I wrote:
"I think that fudging, while rare, is a legitimate tool to make the game more fun."
"Ignoring the rules is like taking medicine; it's only a good idea if something is wrong. Taking medicine is essential when you're sick, but don't get addicted to it."
"Like anything else, fudging die rolls can be done well or poorly, and after you've seen a DM doing it poorly, you have every reason to be leery of it."
"I agree with you that the absurd and horrible example you just made up is a bad idea, and I won't defend it. All I can say is that I've never done anything like it."
"Making occasional exceptions to the rules is not the same as saying the rules don't matter at all. There really are positions between 0% and 100%."
"The tool of the DM making a rules adjustment can be, and has been, used both badly and well."
"... judgment calls changing the rules can be OK in some circumstances."

None of this can be accurately characterized as "DMs always have the right to change anything they want".

I've called it rare and occasional exceptions, identified one example as absurd and horrible, pointed out that it can be done well or poorly, said that it's only a good idea when something is wrong, and that the DM shouldn't get addicted for it, and claimed that it can be OK "in some circumstances", and pointed out that it has been used both badly and well.

DMs who believe that they "have the right to change anything they want" aren't making rare judgment calls, aren't making occasional exceptions, and in fact, aren't making judgment calls. They also are not what I've supported.

In fact, I think the rules should govern most things unless an unusual situation comes up in which the rule gives a bad answer. And I believe that a DM should change things only when he or she has a good reason to believe that it's necessary.

I also believe that trusting the DM is a necessary part of making the game work. So you should only play under DMs whose judgment you trust. And then, when something happens, you should trust the DM.

Many years ago, an entire party was turned to stone. When they were rescued by another party, none of their magic items worked. They said that being turned to stone shouldn't have made all their magic items inert, and accused the DM of changing the rules.

In fact, the DM had changed nothing. The party that rescued them had stolen their magic items, and left identical non-magical copies in their place.

If they had trusted their DM, they might have been able to figure out that their items had been stolen (particularly since one of their stolen magic items was a bag that made non-magical duplicates). But without that trust, they never seriously considered that possibility.

I believe that you should finds a trustworthy DM, and then trust. But I don't believe a DM should change things whenever he or she wants. I just don't.

[Koo Rehtorb]

I suggest that if you want to put something in quotes and ascribe it to me, then it should be words you block-copy from my posts, like I did with your words above.

This statement you put in quotes ("DM Judgement is needed, therefore DMs always have the right to change anything they want, so long as it's for the good of the group") is not a quotation. and is not something I said, implied, or believe.

In fact, in the only post I wrote yesterday that you chose not to reply to, I specifically wrote that "A poor DM makes the game worse by stupidly changing the rules." [This is a direct quote.] You cannot fairly conclude that I believe that DMs always have the right to change anything they want

Okay, I apologize for the misrepresentation.

I assumed that was your intent because I'm not even sure what you're arguing otherwise. If you're not using "The GM is empowered to make judgements about things happening in the setting" to support some broader point then what are you arguing for? Obviously the GM can make judgements about things happening in the setting or a game wouldn't exist. This isn't a controversial point.

[Jay R]

Okay, I apologize for the misrepresentation.

No problem. The purpose for a continuing conversation is to make sure we eventually understand each other.

I assumed that was your intent because I'm not even sure what you're arguing otherwise. If you're not using "The GM is empowered to make judgements about things happening in the setting" to support some broader point then what are you arguing for? Obviously the GM can make judgements about things happening in the setting or a game wouldn't exist. This isn't a controversial point.

Any attempt to reduce my position to a single flat statement will be incorrect. It's not a coincidence that my explanations are longer than most people's.

I'm arguing against the simplistic approach in either direction. My first sentence in this thread was "I think I agree with everybody's basic stance, and think most people's statement of their conclusion is too simplistic."

I oppose equally "DMs always have the right to change anything they want" and "If you fudge dice rolls you're cheapening the entire experience and will damage the game for everyone involved." Both basic stances say something important, but both are too simplistic.

I'm arguing against any approach that would lead someone to say "You're bein' a bad GM" without having lots of experience in that DM's games.

A good DM needs the ability to make a final call, despite what the rules say, or the die says. It's a useful tool, just like a hammer is a useful tool. And just like a hammer, if you use it incorrectly, or on the wrong project, you can easily break something.

I believe that you should never break a rule unless you know why that rule is there, and have a good reason to believe that, while that's usually the right thing to do, it would be wrong in this specific case. Judgment calls of this sort are hard to do, and anybody making them should be very careful.

And the proper measure of how well they have done is how much their players keep wanting to come back over and over again.

[Koo Rehtorb]

I'm arguing against the simplistic approach in either direction. My first sentence in this thread was "I think I agree with everybody's basic stance, and think most people's statement of their conclusion is too simplistic."

Noted, I'll try to be more careful.

A good DM needs the ability to make a final call, despite what the rules say, or the die says. It's a useful tool, just like a hammer is a useful tool.

This is where I think I disagree, though, and what led me to thinking you're saying "DMs have the right to change anything they want if they feel a need for it." I never thought you were saying DMs should change anything they want on a whim, but rather that you're saying "DMs need the ability to change any category of things if there's a need for it." I disagree that there's ever a need to change certain things.

Changing the rules (in advance, transparently) is acceptable.
Inventing new rules to fill a gap is acceptable.
Declining to engage certain rules because they're not applicable is acceptable.

Pretending you're engaging the mechanics when you're actually not is never acceptable.

In my mind you were using the first three to try to justify the fourth, which I object to, because I don't view them as similar, let alone the same.