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Should a GM be allowed to arbitrarily make things up as they go along?
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<blockquote data-quote="Dungeoneer" data-source="post: 6234881" data-attributes="member: 91777"><p>Yes, I am sure bad game experiences can leave a sour taste in someone's mouth when it comes to 'DM fiat'. And I think trust is a huge part of the player-DM relationship. </p><p></p><p>I <em>like</em> to think that my players learn to trust me pretty quickly: I don't punish them for doing things I didn't want them to do (without fair warning, anyway!); I generally allow any legal character; I try to reward creativity and initiative. </p><p></p><p>But in this specific case, Billy hasn't played in my game before. As far as I know he hasn't played any TRPGs at all before, so I if he's had a bad game experience it must have been with some other type of game.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Just to clarify, I generally stick pretty closely to the rules-as-written. If I am going to introduce some new mechanic, I explain it to the players. My improvisation is more likely to come within the context of the adventure or the monsters or whatever.</p><p></p><p>As an example, my players recently became obsessed with finding trapped doors in a dungeon that, as it turned out, didn't have any trapped doors. But they were spending so much time looking for traps that I thought I should, um, 'reward' their expectations! So I put a trap on the next door. The tank barged into it in typical fashion, got a mild dose of lightning damage, everyone had a laugh, and we moved on. I honestly think if there had not been a trapped door they would have felt cheated.</p><p></p><p>Technically that was an arbitrary change. It was, of course, completely invisible to the players. That's the kind of 'arbitrariness' I prefer. I'm not going to suddenly change the to-hit roll rule so that you miss on a tie rather than hitting on a tie, for example.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That's very interesting that you had a player with the same background who had similar reservations. Did they eventually come around?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>One of my dilemmas here is how much to push for Billy to join the game. Like I said, it SEEMS like something he would really enjoy, given his background. But if his hang up with 'arbitrary rule changes' is serious, I don't want to force him to play something he won't enjoy.</p><p></p><p>I also want to make sure that I don't have bad habits as a GM which are in fact rubbing my players the wrong way.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dungeoneer, post: 6234881, member: 91777"] Yes, I am sure bad game experiences can leave a sour taste in someone's mouth when it comes to 'DM fiat'. And I think trust is a huge part of the player-DM relationship. I [I]like[/I] to think that my players learn to trust me pretty quickly: I don't punish them for doing things I didn't want them to do (without fair warning, anyway!); I generally allow any legal character; I try to reward creativity and initiative. But in this specific case, Billy hasn't played in my game before. As far as I know he hasn't played any TRPGs at all before, so I if he's had a bad game experience it must have been with some other type of game. Just to clarify, I generally stick pretty closely to the rules-as-written. If I am going to introduce some new mechanic, I explain it to the players. My improvisation is more likely to come within the context of the adventure or the monsters or whatever. As an example, my players recently became obsessed with finding trapped doors in a dungeon that, as it turned out, didn't have any trapped doors. But they were spending so much time looking for traps that I thought I should, um, 'reward' their expectations! So I put a trap on the next door. The tank barged into it in typical fashion, got a mild dose of lightning damage, everyone had a laugh, and we moved on. I honestly think if there had not been a trapped door they would have felt cheated. Technically that was an arbitrary change. It was, of course, completely invisible to the players. That's the kind of 'arbitrariness' I prefer. I'm not going to suddenly change the to-hit roll rule so that you miss on a tie rather than hitting on a tie, for example. That's very interesting that you had a player with the same background who had similar reservations. Did they eventually come around? One of my dilemmas here is how much to push for Billy to join the game. Like I said, it SEEMS like something he would really enjoy, given his background. But if his hang up with 'arbitrary rule changes' is serious, I don't want to force him to play something he won't enjoy. I also want to make sure that I don't have bad habits as a GM which are in fact rubbing my players the wrong way. [/QUOTE]
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Should a GM be allowed to arbitrarily make things up as they go along?
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