Do you "save" the PCs?

[Reynard]

If you decided based on actual evidence (ie. you looked at the paths, saw one was more worn, etc.) then I could understand that. The choice should have been meaningful.

But if you're going "Hmmm, I pick a direction at random, and I expect the GM to have decided what's in each direction already"
No.

The choice wasn't meaningful. You might as well have flipped a coin.

Meaningless choices shouldn't be put on that kind of pedestal, above the needs of GM, players, story, and gameplay.

I think RC was suggesting that in his example there were no meaningful choices because there really was no choice. Left or Right were really both Straight because the "fudging" taking place was of the railroady kind, rather than the die-shifting kind. Moreover, it seems his point is that if you place a lair in hex 8G, it's there whenever and however the PCs wander into that hex, even if they are short on resources and just hoping for a safe place to camp.

 

[Kingreaper]

I think RC was suggesting that in his example there were no meaningful choices because there really was no choice. Left or Right were really both Straight because the "fudging" taking place was of the railroady kind, rather than the die-shifting kind. Moreover, it seems his point is that if you place a lair in hex 8G, it's there whenever and however the PCs wander into that hex, even if they are short on resources and just hoping for a safe place to camp.

If you're playing a Hex exploration game, I expect you to make EVERY choice a meaningful choice.

In a Hex exploration game, where every step might bring disaster, I'm gonna have skills in whatever will give me a chance to see what I'm approaching. So, I'm not going to be picking at random, I'm going to have evidence.

If, after I have that evidence, and base my choice upon it, the result isn't really consistent with the evidence, I'll be annoyed. Because a meaningful choice has been changed.


But if I'm playing a dungeon-crawl as I normally do (rather than a hex-map dungeon-trawl), I likely haven't had enough evidence to pick my path based on. So I won't care if it's a schroedinger's path, because I didn't make a meaningful choice anyway; I just made a choice for narrative necessity

 

[Fifth Element]

Perhaps true, but that doesn't change the fact that discussions of fudging center almost entirely around the GM making that decision and, more importantly (as is very well evidenced by this thread), bearing the primary responsibility for the outcome of the fudging or lack thereof.

Since only the DM is given that authority by the game, I don't see that as an issue.

Does the DM bear primary responsibility for this aspect of the game? I'd say so. But again, since he bears the primary responsibility for the game as a whole, I don't see that as a problem.

 

[Ariosto]

I would suspect it has something to do with breaking their immersion in the game, similar to what would happen if the DM said "oops, can we start again?"

Yes, that's what I would figure.

If the fight is going poorly for the PCs, they need to act, to change their strategy or suffer the consequences of their decisions. If that means going to support a comrade rather than continue to hammer the BBEG, or to flee to fight another day, or whatever, so be it.

Yes.

Now, a TPK is a whole lot easier to come by in OD&D with 1st-level rolled-up HP (potentially as few as ~O~N~E~). It's still not as easy as, say, 1/4 to 1/3 KIA -- but I reckon plenty of people are really just concerned about that basic mortality rate (especially among their very own characters).

Even without the "segments" of surprise a la AD&D, it is sometimes possible for the monsters to get in a couple of rounds of attacks before the party gets to respond -- and in that case breaking off combat to flee would (by common convention from Chainmail, made explicit in Holmes) expose the survivors to attack against their backs.

Every once in a while, even a rear guard won't save the party. It's not that anyone did anything wrong, just fortune. "Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you."

If memory serves, "maximum on the first hit die" is Duh Uffishul Roolz in 3E. At any rate, it was universal custom in my experience. It might not guarantee survival of the first hit, but that's one great leap for first-level-kind!

 

[pawsplay]

Never said anything about you. I said, the lesson that I took from high lethality and PC turnover was that I should never really bother engaging in the setting or the character because, well, why bother? I'll just be rolling up another character in a couple of weeks anyway.

Actually, you did. You said:

Like Pawsplay, I too started off with characters with a half-life measured in minutes.

That seems to be saying that characters in my game have a half-life measured in minutes. Feel free to clarify.

I note you only mention the one character that survived.

Yeah, over 19 levels.

How about the other ones?

Oh, most of them have only been with the campaign since level... 3. One of the other new characters was a late joining player, and I guess you can put him down for one death and resurrection. I've definitely had more characters rotate out due to players wanting to have a new character, and because of new players, each separately, than due to deaths. And even that's counting deaths were resurrection was possible, but the player elected for a heroic burial and to try a new character.

This is the same campaign as the "It's only ogres" comment, so I'm not pulling punches, either.

My campaign has been successful without fudged rolls. I guess that may be hard for some people to believe, but I tend to think that's because the conventional wisdom says that story-driven campaigns rely on it, so that's what people do. I'm not sure how many people try to run games the way I do, but in my experience, it's very doable.

 

[pawsplay]

Since only the DM is given that authority by the game, I don't see that as an issue.

Authority is granted by people, not games. I wonder why it would be different if a player fudged a roll "for the good of the story."

 

[Fifth Element]

Authority is granted by people, not games. I wonder why it would be different if a player fudged a roll "for the good of the story."

Sorry, I'm talking about the default assumption of D&D specifically, which is that the DM has final authority over the game.

If you agree amongst yourselves that players should also have that authority, that's fine. But I was using the default assumption of the game.

 

[Ariosto]

I wonder why it would be different if a player fudged a roll "for the good of the story."

Because it's the GM's story that counts? I dunno. Good question for them as give a hoot about "the good of the story"!

 

[Reynard]

Sorry, I'm talking about the default assumption of D&D specifically, which is that the DM has final authority over the game.

If you agree amongst yourselves that players should also have that authority, that's fine. But I was using the default assumption of the game.

I don't think that the default assumptions of the game are built around fudging, especially as it relates to combat. In the 1E DMG, Gygax talks a lot about using and ignoring the dice at one's pleasure, but in the context of things like treasure rolls or random encounters, about allowing saving throws or just saying "200' fall? You're dead." The much vaunted Page 42 of 4E talks a lot about ways to quantify DM fiat. I cannot, however, think of a single example from any DMG that suggests the DM should toss out a damage roll mid combat -- but maybe I'm not reading that closely.

 

[Fifth Element]

I don't think that the default assumptions of the game are built around fudging, especially as it relates to combat.

That's not what I said. I said the default assumption in D&D is that the DM has ultimate authority over the game.

How one applies that authority is the topic of discussion. I said nothing about there being an assumption that fudging will or will not occur.