A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

[Maxperson]

I'm not going to be drawn into arguing nonsense, Max. I'm out.

Have fun, but that post you dragged out of the bushes clearly shows that was I was saying is that I give what I get. If you give me twisted crap, be prepared to take it. If you give me honest discourse, you will get honest discourse back. You shouldn't be afraid of engaging me in conversation unless you are unable to keep from deliberately twisting my words in a malicious manner.

 

[Aldarc]

Translation: There is no such rule that allows it.

Your translation is rude and false, Max. I am not engaging on the matter of fudging with you further because we have both been roped into beating a dead horse where it is unwarranted. And I would appreciate if you did not try to turn this unnecessarily into a pissing contest about winning points.

 

[Maxperson]

Your translation is rude and false, Max. I am not engaging on the matter of fudging with you further because we have both been roped into beating a dead horse where it is unwarranted. And I would appreciate if you did not try to turn this unnecessarily into a pissing contest about winning points.

This will be my last post here on the subject, then. It can only be false is there is a rule that allows player fudging. There are rules that allow limited types of fudging, like luck which lets you re-roll, but there is no rule that just allows the players to blanket fudge rolls like the DM can with his rule. The DM and players have different roles. It's okay for the DM to have different game abilities.

 

[Numidius]

A hero desires a sword
and a sword desires truth
(Soulcalibur)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So you don't think there are many tables that don't fudge? Or that play PbtA games in which the GM never rolls dice?

I lack data, but my feeling is, based on experience, that there has been an incident of overt or covert fudging at many tables where the DM drives play to a substantial degree. How often that happens is highly open to question. I know that when we played in this way it was pretty rare. As a DM I assume I must have done it once or twice, but I cannot actually remember a specific instance.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Apologies, I'm breaking this down.



...But there are other ways to find the sect members.



A DM may also reason why sect members are not at the Tea House.

And as far as I remember, the example used is, the DM adjudication rules that there are no sect members at the TH, not that they cannot keep looking for them in any way shape or form (magic, information gathering - whether it be bribery, seduction, coercion...etc, or visit another location).

Right, and I agree that "they aren't at the tea house" is not necessarily a very hard constraint. I would have to base my opinion of it on the specific scenario, what the players are expecting, how much of an obstacle this presents, etc. It could be nothing "we go to the dojo next door." It could be a monumental problem "the oracle told us we can only be victorious if we find the sect in the tea house."

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is why I'm attempting to understand why the Hard No's in the combat pillar are excluded from the definition of MMI.

@Bedrockgames has a narrow definition of MMI, and then you have a number of posters who ascribe all Say No adjudications to MMI, but appear to limit the definition to only the social and exploration pillars.

I don't think they ARE excluded. However, combat is traditionally an activity where the PCs are given the widest range of options. Heck, an AD&D fighter has, basically, NO options that are defined by rules outside of combat! Inside combat he has at least 3-5 basic options at any given time, maybe considerably more, that are covered by the rules (at least to some extent).

The point is, if the DM says "no you cannot aim at the neck of the snake and cut its head off using a called shot." that is simply a rules adjudication, it isn't allowed by the rules. It might also be a 'no' to what might be considered possible under some circumstance, depending on the game, DM, etc. In any case, this isn't removing all good options from the PC, nor thwarting them from continuing on basically the same course (IE killing the monster, etc.).

I don't disagree that saying "no the sect is not in the tea house, period" is not definitively of a different character. There are plenty of other equally convenient places to search, there isn't a hard time constraint, etc. OTOH it falls outside the normal context of 'say yes or roll dice'. I would note that 4e D&D has a 'SYORTD' rule, and it also has page 42 for doing arbitrary actions. So you can try most anything in 4e and there is at least a general rule system to handle that. This is typical of this type of game, there is little need to say 'no'.

Saying Yes though is DM adjudication. This sentence seems to imply you prefer rolling than having a DM automatically Say Yes?

Well, I was stating a preference for how I would approach AD&D play. 'say yes' is fine in AD&D too, sometimes. It just isn't coherent with challenge the player type game play, so it is likely to only come up when the DM deems the task trivial. Either nothing is at stake, so we really don't need to talk about 'yes' that much, or we do need to roll! 2e is an awkward game to talk about, because it has issues with what it thinks the play process is.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hasn't this thread maybe jumped the shark? lol.

 

[Sadras]

But [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] dug-up old debates, and it seems that they are now erupting here too.

No. I was discussing fudging in relation to MMI, not the merits of fudging. I have zero interest on rehashing fudging good/bad, rule or not.

 

[Lanefan]

Monster statistics aren't secret backstory. They're not backstory at all.

OK, they're hidden information. Still something the DM knows and the player doesn't.

A fictional fact about a monster (eg death knights never flee in terror) is backstory, but is it secret? From whom? Not anyone who's read the Monster Manual.

Which opens up the whole 'metagaming' can of worms again...

In 4e, not from anyone who makes a Monster Knowledge check.

Which is certainly a half-decent way of doing it.

But if that check is failed by the PC but the player already knows the answer e.g. from reading the MM, what then? (and if the check is badly failed is the DM allowed to give faulty information?)

If a player declares an attack with a fear effect against a death knight, and fails, is the player allowed a retry? In most approaches to GMing D&D, the answer is yes (perhaps at the cost of some hp loss due to the Death Knight getting in an extra round of actions, having suffered no hp loss itself due to the failed effect). That's already different from the tea house case, where there is no systematic framework for retries. (We try the teahouse. We try the docks. We try the guardhouse. Etc. That's not retries, that seems like the very paradigm of fishing around for an answer from the GM.)

Sure there's retries. How can there not be? We try the teahouse. If nothing, then half an hour later we try the teahouse again. If nothing, then leave off till sunset and try it again. [etc.]

Does the player know that the attack may fail? If the fiction has been well-narrated (eg undead lack mortal minds) then perhaps. Is the aim of play for the player to solve the puzzle of how to defeat a death knight (like the demi-lich in ToH)? Then perhaps we are in "Mother may I" territory, depending on further details about whether it was a puzzle the players were expected to reason out, or a flat-out guessing game.

If this is the first time they've ever met a Death Knight (and they've no reason to know anything about them otherwise) then trial and error is going to have to be their approach in determining how to deal with it.

Trial and error, lacking any other knowledge, is a very valid means of learning about a foe's strengths and weaknesses.