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Well, death isn't necessarily permanent. Also, I think you are assuming here an expectation that fights are going to be fair. In some editions/games they are not, and players should recognise when they're in a bad spot and get the hell out of Dodge. This is also where healing potions and one-use...

Stealth v Perception checks are an issue. I have rolled in secret for this kind of stuff before, although I don't like it. One way round it is what I call the deferred conflict. There's a magical silent alarm at the doorway to the temple, which if triggered means a guardian spirit is now...

I think the point that EzekielRaiden is making is that when GMs skip ahead for long journeys or those times the characters are sleeping or pooping, they are making that decision for narrative reasons. A single session only spans days or weeks because the participants are skipping ahead like...

Many games have laughable mechanics

If the GM decided in their prep that Suspect B is the murderer, and I figure this out in play, I feel like I have achieved something. If the GM decided in their prep that Suspect B is the murderer, and I guess C, but the GM decides that C makes the better story or it's easier to finish the...

See my other posts in this thread. Basically, rolling in the open (and announcing modifiers, DCs, etc to put that roll into context) makes play more exciting because it builds a group tension over the outcome of the roll. We all see it happen together rather than have one person see it and then...

No. As GM I roll in the open and do not fudge because I find it makes for a better game. The trust aspect is something you have inserted yourself.

I'M THE GM

I think it is easier to have an interesting game if your characters are not a boring featureless void awaiting external motivation to adventure, but instead have things they want to do built in already.

It isn't about trust, it's about player agency. A GM that fudges entirely for positive reasons, such as making things an 'appropriate' level of challenge or mitigating extreme swings of luck, is still placing their own sense of what should happen above the say of the dice and the rules. I do not...

They don't trust themselves?

I guess it is possible to fudge story games but it's worth noting that i) a lot of the game texts explicitly forbid it and ii) stake setting (or in PbtA games, the move tables) make it more difficult for the GM to interpret particular results into different outcomes.

Most of the people you're talking about are DMs. It's a matter of playstyle.

This is actually an underused safety valve IMO. I always try to give players a bunch of one-use healing potions and offensive spell scrolls or equivalent. This lets me play with zero fudging but if I ever misjudge a particular encounter or something really unlucky happens the players already...

Surely fudging is not welcome (or possible?) in Fiasco either?

I think a key difference, though, is that this stuff is visible to the players. 'Hey, why'd they come over here when I'm actually invisible?'. 'Hey, how did he get over there so fast?'. They have an opportunity to challenge things that don't seem to make sense. The GM silently changing a roll of...

I understand this. To me, not fudging is about preserving player agency. I think random encounters, magic item generators, NPC personality trait tables, etc do sit in a different category. I tend to stick with what they produce but if it definitely doesn't fit the situation I will sometimes...

Stop fudging me!!!one!!!eleven