this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
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I got down voted for saying this elsewhere, but to my mind there's a huge difference between the GM unilaterally changing the rules, and the group deciding.
Scenario: the goblin rolls a crit that'll kill the wizard. This is the first scene of the night.
Option A: GM decides in secret that's no good and says it's a regular hit.
Option B: GM says "I think it wouldn't be fun for the wizard to just die now. How about he's knocked out instead?". The players can then decide if they want that or would prefer the death.
Some people might legitimately prefer A, but I don't really want the GM to just decide stuff like that. I also make decisions based on the rules, and if they just change based on the GM's whims that's really frustrating and disorienting.
There's also option C where this kind of thing is baked into the rules. And/or deciding in session 0 what rules you're going to change.
I definitely dislike the idea of stopping the action and suggesting a direction. For my games I always try to aim for immersion, and this would really take me out of it.
I think you might have gotten the wrong idea about how I approach it, though. Part of keeping things surprising and impartial is avoiding changing things all the time secretly. That being said, I don't believe in a hard and fast rule of never fudging anything.
Here's an example where I would consider it. The players have been trying really hard to overcome an obstacle, and have had many setbacks already. They come up with an exciting and novel solution, but a bad roll happens on my end that would end this great idea in another failure. Because they've earned it by this point, and it will make for a more exciting game, I would likely fudge that roll and give it to them. I would do this in secret, because calling attention to it deflates the experience for the players.
I see the GM as a storyteller and entertainer, whose primary goal is to immerse the players into a story, and to create an exciting and unpredictable experience. Not everyone will view things like I do, and that's fine, but I wanted to clarify what I mean anyway. Hopefully that makes more sense now.
For your example, I'd probably still ask if the players wanted me to let the dice decide or not before rolling. My players once had a clever idea of setting some poison traps and using earthbind to deal with a wyvern. The thing made all of its saves and nothing worked. I could've lied, but we'd already agreed to openly roll and abide by it. Would lying have made it better? Maybe. The game carried on and that arc had a thrilling climax later.
Alternatively, if we'd been playing a game that has a "succeed with a cost" / "fail forward" mechanic it could have been satisfying. D&D and close relatives are especially prone to disappointment because of how random and binary they tend to be.
Anyway. All of this I think it reveals a difference in how RPGs are enjoyed by different people.
On one hand, there's going for immersion. The player wants to be in the world, be in the character, and feel everything there. It's very zoomed in.
On the other, where I hang out, it's more like a writer's room. I'm interested in telling a cool story, but I'm not really pretending to "be" my character. My character doesn't want a rival wizard to show up, but I as a player think that's interesting (and maybe want the fate point, too) so I can suggest that my "Rivals in the Academy" trouble kicks in now. I enjoy when I can invoke an aspect and shift the result in my favor, or when I can propose a clever way I can get what I want at a cost.
Neither's better or worse than the other, so long as everyone's on the same page. It can be bad if half the table wants to go full immersion and just talk in character for two hours and the other half doesn't.
I definitely agree that the beauty of ttrpgs is how many different things they can be to different people. We've got very different styles, but I think it's great you've found a way to play that works for you and your table!