That is all true... but not what was said that I was responding to. Here was the quote that I replied to:
"Don’t fudge dice. It’s so unsatisfying as a player to find out the dm spared you. Suddenly nothing feels like a challenge or is exciting anymore."
A declaration of universality that fudging dice is inherently unsatisfying and that all challenge is now lost for the remainder of the game. A declaration of "fact" that I find silly and not at all true.
Now, if
@TaranTheWanderer wants to respond with "Okay, yes, I was exaggerating for effect and that I only meant that some people might feel the way I detailed...", then great! The DM now knows that
some players could find being "saved" by the DM because they screwed up the encounter design has now irrevocably destroyed any vestige of enjoyment in the game going forward. Which... yeah, there may be some who feel that way. But then there are also others-- like I myself am-- who wouldn't care that the DM was trying to fix a mistake. And that the implication
@toucanbuzz I thought made relatively clear in their post was that the encounter seems overtuned and if they just played the fight as-is... the PCs are going to be mowed down. And based on the fact that
@toucanbuzz seems concerned with that happening... it seems to be an indication that just mowing the PCs is
not what they or the players would probably want to see happen or would find satisfying.
There's nothing wrong with PCs dying (or having a TPK)... and if it happens as part of something of worth then most of the time the players probably understand and end up okay with it (once they get past any disappointment.) But when there is a TPK that seems worthless... I'm fairly certain most DMs know how that will be received by their players. And since
@toucanbuzz specifically came here asking for ideas to not have that happen... tells us that most likely a "Let the chips fall where they may because otherwise why bother playing D&D at all and instead just read them a novel" response ain't exactly going to go over. Or at the very least is not a
universal truth of playing this game that could/would/should work every time.