catsclaw227
First Post
Given the context of my comment, it's a good question.So, serious question, why roll the dice at all? If you've already judged that it's a good idea, and you already know about yourself that you don't want good ideas to possibly get screwed by the dice, why roll the dice?
I'm asking, more precisely, why go through the motions of rolling the dice, hoping for a good result. You already know you'll only accept a good result? In that situation I might very well roll the dice, but I'd do so already knowing that it's just for appearance's sake.
I really don't understand the point of rolling, looking at the result, and then discarding the result. Just don't make a "genuine" roll in the first place, if you don't want a random result in the range provided by the dice.
We had a game just two weekends ago, and I almost just handwaved the results because the plan was right on. I didn't, though because... well I don't know. Maybe I felt compelled to roll the dice because we are playing D&D and dice needed to be involved or something (OK, partially in jest, but there's a smidge of truth to that)
I swear I have a couple of players that roll so bad it's sick. And there they were... rolling no more than a 3 on a d20 like 8 times in a row. I (the DM) was rolling 15+ and the other two players couldn't get higher than a 8 or 10. And the fun was wiped away from the table.
I mean, really, we are there to have fun and the fun was immediately sucked out. I supposed it comes back to my fault as a DM for even rolling in the first place, but I have been recently seduced by some "roll-em-and-weep" blog posts and threads in RPG cyberspace and I let it influence me.
I have been trying hard to open my mind a bit to other playing and DMing styles and try some things out that have been anathema to me in the past.
Now... this was an isolated incident, and not indicative of my gaming experience in general. I don't willy-nilly change around my DMing style because of where the winds blow, but I have been trying to be more open-minded lately.
Maybe I should have just rolled fake or not rolled at all and then described the outcome as expected. I should have changed some of the parameters behind the screen on the fly, but I didn't. We've been rolling out in the open for 4e, so I naturally rolled out in the open.
I know better, and I like to think I am a pretty good DM, but this time was bad. So, in my opinion, sometimes it's OK to fudge the dice. I might start rolling more behind the screen.