DM advice: How do you NOT kill your party?

Arilyn · Apr 19, 2018

I think that there is a misconception that I'm willy nilly changing dice rolls. It's rare. I am not constantly designing things that my players need bailing out of. Fudging or altering things is only when the alternative would be ridiculous, for the kind of game that my table prefers. And, as I mentioned earlier, only DnD, and in 5e, it's very rare, as the game has been designed to mitigate player death.

If I were to give an average, maybe once per three sessions in 3e. Once per ten in 5e.

The Crimson Binome · Apr 19, 2018

Arilyn said:
You're right about DnD not being my favourite game. I have fun with it, however, and it can be used to tell satisfying tales. And yes, I'm still role playing. The games I mentioned are all role playing games. We are not doing improvisational theatre.

If you're telling a story, then you're not playing a role. Definitionally, role-playing is something you do as the character. If you're treating them like some narrative construct in a story, then you aren't role-playing.

Arilyn said:
If you restrict role playing games to a narrow band of "Saelorn's way", our hobby will be impoverished.

If you were to kill off every story-telling game that calls itself an RPG, then the RPG hobby will be stronger for it. It would be like pruning diseased, parasite-ridden branches from a tree. The only ones who lose out are the (metaphorical) parasites. Your hobby will be impoverished.

Alternatively, if those branches were deemed to have some value, you might consider grafting them onto a different tree where they would do no harm. The analogy here would be to clearly label those story-based games so that they can no longer contaminate the RPG hobby. Instead of FATE or Apocalypse World existing as degenerate pseudo-RPGs, they could go off and be their own thing, and upstanding role-players would no longer have to put up with that audience.

iserith · Apr 19, 2018

Tony Vargas said:
So you could 're-wind' to fix the problem (some folks don't like that sort of thing, others are fine with it), or just that you need to be infallible, up front?

Also, fudging can cover for system deficiencies, as well as framing or stakes-setting or pick-your-game-theorist-loaded-label 'mistakes' before the check.

And, of course, it can give the player that needs it the illusion that his choice or check matters when it really shouldn't, or that a risk is being taken when the DM would prefer certainty - the sorts of things which aid in establishing & maintaining immersions.

I wouldn't say anyone need be infallible, but I think it helps to think about why someone keeps arriving at problems where fudging is a solution. Stake-setting is a pretty good skill to have and clears up more issues than just fudging.

I don't see where it would be used to cover up for "system deficiencies." And "immersion" is one of those words that means things to different people, so it's hard for me to say whether I agree with you on that score.

Caliban · Apr 19, 2018

Saelorn said:
If you're telling a story, then you're not playing a role. Definitionally, role-playing is something you do as the character. If you're treating them like some narrative construct in a story, then you aren't role-playing.
If you were to kill off every story-telling game that calls itself an RPG, then the RPG hobby will be stronger for it. It would be like pruning diseased, parasite-ridden branches from a tree. The only ones who lose out are the (metaphorical) parasites. Your hobby will be impoverished.

Ooh, the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Nice.

Alternatively, if those branches were deemed to have some value, you might consider grafting them onto a different tree where they would do no harm. The analogy here would be to clearly label those story-based games so that they can no longer contaminate the RPG hobby. Instead of FATE or Apocalypse World existing as degenerate pseudo-RPGs, they could go off and be their own thing, and upstanding role-players would no longer have to put up with that audience.

I really don't think you know what an RPG actually is, despite all your claims to the contrary.

Simply because I've played a lot of D&D (and a lot of other RPG's, but mainly D&D) over the decades, and never, ever have I participated in a game that is played the way you claim a "true" RPG would be.

So I think your opinion is just that -an opinion. One of many. Not a fact. You should probably stop acting as if your way is the only correct way to play the game. Because it ain't.

Tony Vargas · Apr 19, 2018

iserith said:
I wouldn't say anyone need be infallible, but I think it helps to think about why someone keeps arriving at problems where fudging is a solution. Stake-setting is a pretty good skill to have and clears up more issues than just fudging.

I'm not saying it's not a good idea, just that it's not a complete solution (or not necessarily /the/ root problem).

I don't see where it would be used to cover up for "system deficiencies."

On this particular topic, if encounter guidelines aren't dependable, so the difficulty of a given encounter sometimes turned out to be much greater than expected, you could fudge it from behind the screen to bring it back down to an appropriate level.

And "immersion" is one of those words that means things to different people, so it's hard for me to say whether I agree with you on that score.

It very much is, so a flexible, in the moment solution to such issues can be a good thing.

iserith · Apr 19, 2018

Arilyn said:
I think that there is a misconception that I'm willy nilly changing dice rolls. It's rare. I am not constantly designing things that my players need bailing out of. Fudging or altering things is only when the alternative would be ridiculous, for the kind of game that my table prefers. And, as I mentioned earlier, only DnD, and in 5e, it's very rare, as the game has been designed to mitigate player death.

If I were to give an average, maybe once per three sessions in 3e. Once per ten in 5e.

Sure, but I'm not too concerned about frequency. I'm more interested in how folks are arriving at "ridiculous" outcomes at all. The DM decides when the mechanics come into play and also sets the stakes (what happens on a success, what happens on a failure). It therefore seems to me that either the mechanics are being brought into play when they "shouldn't" be or that the DM is not setting the stakes in a way that both success and failure are palatable. Can you see other reasons for it?

iserith · Apr 19, 2018

Tony Vargas said:
I'm not saying it's not a good idea, just that it's not a complete solution (or not necessarily /the/ root problem).

It seems like it is though. DM is not happy with a particular outcome, so he or she fudges the dice. Okay. But the DM determines both outcomes and uncertainty. So how was an undesirable outcome even a possibility?

Tony Vargas said:
On this particular topic, if encounter guidelines aren't dependable, so the difficulty of a given encounter sometimes turned out to be much greater than expected, you could fudge it from behind the screen to bring it back down to an appropriate level.

That goes back to stakes though. The adventurers are boldly confronting deadly perils. Even in an Easy combat challenge where Team Monster's goal is to kill the PCs, the DM is setting the stakes as (success) life or (fail) death. So regardless of whether the encounter guidelines are on point, that's a stakes-setting issue. If you don't want the possibility of death, take that possibility away up front rather than change it on the back end by fudging, I say. A perfectly tense game can be had without putting life on the line - or pretending that it is when it really isn't.

The dice are choosing between two outcomes when the DM can't decide for him or herself. Why make one of those outcomes undesirable enough that fudging is a solution?

Tony Vargas said:
It very much is, so a flexible, in the moment solution to such issues can be a good thing.

Without a firmed up definition of "immersion," I can't really render an opinion here.

Tony Vargas · Apr 19, 2018

iserith said:
It seems like it is though. DM is not happy with a particular outcome, so he or she fudges the dice. Okay. But the DM determines both outcomes and uncertainty. So how was an undesirable outcome even a possibility? The dice are choosing between two outcomes when the DM can't decide for him or herself. Why make one of those outcomes undesirable enough that fudging is a solution?

It sounds like you're limiting yourself to ability checks, here, which do work that way in 5e. Combat, monsters abilities, and spells don't leave as much latitude.

That goes back to stakes though. The adventurers are boldly confronting deadly perils. Even in an Easy combat challenge where Team Monster's goal is to kill the PCs, the DM is setting the stakes as (success) life or (fail) death.

But the chance of overall failure in a 5e easy encounter is /really/ low. Nil even. That success - victory on the party's side, all monsters slain/defeated - could still (at low level, particularly) include an unexpected/unintended/pointless PC death. It's just the vagaries of combat resolution.

So regardless of whether the encounter guidelines are on point, that's a stakes-setting issue. If you don't want the possibility of death, take that possibility away up front rather than change it on the back end by fudging, I say. A perfectly tense game can be had without putting life on the line - or pretending that it is when it really isn't.

An adventure full of gentlemanly sparing might get a tad implausible.

Without a firmed up definition of "immersion," I can't really render an opinion here.

With one, you wouldn't need a flexible solution, you could implement something concrete, up-front.

iserith said:
Can you see other reasons for it?

Sure. He was mentioning 3e, for instance. You design a by-the-numbers 'weak' encounter with a comparable number of orcs vs a 3rd level party, one of 'em happens to crit a PC with 32 hps for 45 damage out of the blue, instantly killing him, because orcs came, standard-issue, with 14 STR & d12(20/x3) greataxes - you fudge it to 30 or 33 damage, and play continues more satisfactorily. The same kinda thing is vanishingly unlikely after 1st level (or maybe 2nd, for a lower-hp PC), in 5e (and was vanishingly unlikely at any level in 4e). As you point out, in other systems with different ways of setting stakes and handling damage, it could be a non-issue.

iserith · Apr 19, 2018

Tony Vargas said:
It sounds like you're limiting yourself to ability checks, here, which do work that way in 5e. Combat, monsters abilities, and spells don't leave as much latitude.

Not at all. I'm referring to both the stakes for individual rolls and for challenges overall.

Tony Vargas said:
But the chance of overall failure in a 5e easy encounter is /really/ low. Nil even. That success - victory on the party's side, all monsters slain/defeated - could still (at low level, particularly) include an unexpected/unintended/pointless PC death. It's just the vagaries of combat resolution.

I think this is irrelevant. If you don't want death as a possibility, just take it off the table up front. There are other possible outcomes to losing a combat challenge.

Tony Vargas said:
An adventure full of gentlemanly sparing might get a tad implausible.

It might be implausible to others that only certain deaths are possible and others ("ridiculous" ones) are not. I'm less concerned about implausibility, which is a matter of preference, than I am of where the technical problem is occurring such that fudging is seen as the solution.

Tony Vargas said:
With one, you wouldn't need a flexible solution, you could implement something concrete, up-front.

To have a discussion about whether fudging is a viable solution to a particular problem, I would need to have a concrete definition of what you mean by "immersion."

Tony Vargas said:
Sure. He was mentioning 3e, for instance. You design a by-the-numbers 'weak' encounter with a comparable number of orcs vs a 3rd level party, one of 'em happens to crit a PC with 32 hps for 45 damage out of the blue, instantly killing him, because orcs came, standard-issue, with 14 STR & d12(20/x3) greataxes - you fudge it to 30 or 33 damage, and play continues more satisfactorily. The same kinda thing is vanishingly unlikely after 1st level (or maybe 2nd, for a lower-hp PC), in 5e (and was vanishingly unlikely at any level in 4e). As you point out, in other systems with different ways of setting stakes and handling damage, it could be a non-issue.

Again, if you don't want death as a possibility, change the stakes.

The Crimson Binome · Apr 19, 2018

Caliban said:
Ooh, the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Nice.

The point that tends to get overlooked, whenever someone brings up that fallacy, is that most people in the world actually aren't Scotsmen. Likewise, most games are not First-Person Shooters, or ball-games, or tabletop RPGs.

If you're not role-playing, then it's not an RPG. Claiming that FATE (for example) is an RPG would be like claiming that ice hockey is a ball-game because a puck is kind of like a ball. I can see where you're coming from, and the historical roots are evident, but it clearly doesn't pass by the obvious definition.

Caliban said:
You should probably stop acting as if your way is the only correct way to play the game. Because it ain't.

There are many correct ways to role-play. Meta-gaming, specifically, is not one of those ways.

DM advice: How do you NOT kill your party?

Arilyn

Hero

The Crimson Binome

Hero

iserith

Magic Wordsmith

Caliban

Rules Monkey

Tony Vargas

Legend

iserith

Magic Wordsmith

iserith

Magic Wordsmith

Tony Vargas

Legend

iserith

Magic Wordsmith

The Crimson Binome

Hero

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