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This is witty, if you understand Italian or have access to Wikipedia, but I'm not sure substantively where this gets you. As someone who has a little bit of both, I'm not sure quoting Galileo gets you anywhere. Given that many posters have disagreed with your premises, it seems to me that the...

I actually think these three are valid. B-)

Sort of. I get that random generation vs. point-buy has a similar level of codification but that the latter gives more control of the outcome to the player of the character. But is it the giving of more control to the defining of the characteristics that you think leads to a greater sense of...

I don't think I understand the distinction you're making here. My general impression is that the content of a rules system is equivalent to the descriptive details of that rules system. What sort of "content" is it that you think might lead to a greater sense of player entitlement?

I'm not sure you're going to get a good answer to that question without reference to other media, either. Without reference to other media, your definition of a RPG will be something very abstract and bloodless like "people who sit around pretending to do things based on a given set of rules...

I think this is true. As Majoru Oakheart amply documents above, pre-3e D&D varied widely in practice from DM to DM. 3e's standardization of lots of formerly loose rules indeed seems to be a response to that problem. The information exchange permitted by the internet, however, leveled the playing...

I see that we haven't entirely managed to avoid duplicating the earlier fudging thread. Given that this discussion is still going on, however, I'll contribute my two cents. As I see it, "fun vs. rules" is a false dichotomy here only because you're defining away the problem. If in your view...

I agree with most of this. With respect to the last sentence, though, I don't recall anyone in this thread advocating that a DM should "smooth over all mistakes" with fudging die rolls. It bears repeating that pretty much everyone who has argued that the DM has the authority to fudge actually...

I don't know about the rest of you, but I want to hear more about jig-winking. Any takers?

Say I look down at my adventure notes and see that a pack of 10 ghouls is in room 15. I decide when the players get to room 15, however, to reduce the number of ghouls to 5 if the party seems low on resources, or to increase it to 15 if they've not been challenged much to that point. This is...

This is true, but it doesn't address Fifth Element's point. RC asserted that the set of possible games that are improved by DM fudging is "empty," i.e. that no such game exists, regardless of whether RC is playing in it. Fifth Element responded that, yes, his game indeed is improved by...

I read the thread, so I'm well-aware of that. I interpreted your comments on that text as endorsing the position that "fudging" necessarily happens solely in the service of "storytelling" by the DM, and my post was an attempt to rebut that position. If I misinterpreted your comments, I...

This is a good observation, but I also think you're using "authoring" here in a sense that doesn't fit the context. I don't think anyone in this thread has suggested that the DM is an "author" in the same sense that the writer of a script is an "author." Although I design the campaign...

"Cheating," I think, is pejorative as well as inaccurate, at least as applied to the sort of DM judgment calls we're discussing here. I design adventures for my players with the general goal that they will be challenging but beatable. The desired outcome of this is a certain level of dramatic...

I've been away from this thread for a while, and it seems to be careening away from the original topic, which was (to paraphrase) whether and to what extent individual GMs provided some sort of plot immunity from death to the PCs. That issue arises in any game system in which PC death is...

This. I'd add that your players also could make your life easier if they told you in advance which plot hooks they intended to follow. That lets you focus your limited prep time on what the players actually want to do for the next session or two. You can put off developing the rest until such...

Badwrongfun! I have no problem with players who want to play in games where everything gets rolled in the open and a TPK could result at any time; that's a legitimate playstyle preference. However, I think it's also a legitimate playstayle preference for my group to want the DM to try to avoid...

I have no problem killing off individual characters, even in situations where the PCs have a run of bad luck or make some bad choices. That's what Raise Dead is for. In a potential TPK scenario, however, I'll try to find some way to save some or all of them unless I'm convinced that the...

I'm the OP, and I'm just now getting a chance to catch up on all the responses. I appreciate all the suggestions so far. As Celebrim suggests, however, the thread has tended to wander from the topic I started with. Perhaps a bit more background will help focus on what I'm looking for...

I'll clarify that I think my position is the same as Nifft's. As a general rule, I roll behind the screen for the reasons I described above. For particularly tense fights, however, or for life-and-death rolls when everyone already knows what's going on, I prefer rolling in the open. (And, as...