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Are you a fudging fudger?
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<blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 5112949" data-attributes="member: 15538"><p>I will clarify as well. Treating someone like an adult means allowing them to assert their preferences and to respect their emotional capacity. I was not trying to pass judgment, but rather, I was trying to say that finding the "right" outcome for an encounter is inherently subjective in a way that does not lend itself to a shared experience, whereas letting a situation unfold as it does lends itself to subjective experiences that are relatable. The way you used "fair" is not how I would use it, as it appears to mean, "According to my preferences," whereas I would tend to use it to mean, "As we agreed." </p><p></p><p>There is certainly nothing wrong with preferring adventures at a certain pitch, but I view that as something independent from fudging. A sufficiently foamy system lends itself to predictable encounters without any fudging required at all, whereas GM caprice can turn a staid game of 4e into a Kafka-esque nightmare of totalitarian PC abuse. Using fudging to make pitch corrections is, in my view, sacrificing too much of the imaginary world in service to a desired outcome. As a player or GM, I would prefer if the GM simply said, "I made a mistake," or introduced some new element, rather than fudging. It also speaks well for the GM to own up to their misjudgement. Should the die rolls become too irrelevant, it becomes exceedingly difficult for a player to discern what is likely or unlikely in a given situation, as the answer strongly depends on the inclination of the GM. Rather than a weighing of risks, it becomes, "What is Ethan likely to think is acceptable?"</p><p></p><p>All that to say... you are not infantilizing your group, if you are in agreement, and I was not trying to say that. But to apply those preferences generally would be, IMO, to treat players as more dependent than they need be. I would probably not run the sort of game that hinges on good die rolls to move forward, except in the sense that death could be lurking around every corner. I can nonetheless appreciate the impulse to run more dramatically-oriented games. My preference would be for a player-controlled resource, but I can live with fiat and (if need be) the occasional willful fudge. </p><p></p><p>The problem arises, in my mind, when someone applies fiat and die-roll fudging to generate "correct" results which are not necessary, for instance, all five members of a party emerging from the Deadly Dungeon of Death, alive, when four, or as few as one, could return and call it something of a victory. Fudging without necessity is futility. While I don't have a reason to believe that is your style, I have seen ample evidence, here and elsewhere, that such games are fairly common. The most extreme are cases where GMs brag about inventing a critical hit, full-cloth, and describing the results in loving detail for the enjoyment of their player. Aside from the basic dishonesty to your players about how the game is being adjudicated, it opens the door for their unconscious preferences to stult the game, and seems almost destined to result in their players finding out about it one day as they are googling.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pawsplay, post: 5112949, member: 15538"] I will clarify as well. Treating someone like an adult means allowing them to assert their preferences and to respect their emotional capacity. I was not trying to pass judgment, but rather, I was trying to say that finding the "right" outcome for an encounter is inherently subjective in a way that does not lend itself to a shared experience, whereas letting a situation unfold as it does lends itself to subjective experiences that are relatable. The way you used "fair" is not how I would use it, as it appears to mean, "According to my preferences," whereas I would tend to use it to mean, "As we agreed." There is certainly nothing wrong with preferring adventures at a certain pitch, but I view that as something independent from fudging. A sufficiently foamy system lends itself to predictable encounters without any fudging required at all, whereas GM caprice can turn a staid game of 4e into a Kafka-esque nightmare of totalitarian PC abuse. Using fudging to make pitch corrections is, in my view, sacrificing too much of the imaginary world in service to a desired outcome. As a player or GM, I would prefer if the GM simply said, "I made a mistake," or introduced some new element, rather than fudging. It also speaks well for the GM to own up to their misjudgement. Should the die rolls become too irrelevant, it becomes exceedingly difficult for a player to discern what is likely or unlikely in a given situation, as the answer strongly depends on the inclination of the GM. Rather than a weighing of risks, it becomes, "What is Ethan likely to think is acceptable?" All that to say... you are not infantilizing your group, if you are in agreement, and I was not trying to say that. But to apply those preferences generally would be, IMO, to treat players as more dependent than they need be. I would probably not run the sort of game that hinges on good die rolls to move forward, except in the sense that death could be lurking around every corner. I can nonetheless appreciate the impulse to run more dramatically-oriented games. My preference would be for a player-controlled resource, but I can live with fiat and (if need be) the occasional willful fudge. The problem arises, in my mind, when someone applies fiat and die-roll fudging to generate "correct" results which are not necessary, for instance, all five members of a party emerging from the Deadly Dungeon of Death, alive, when four, or as few as one, could return and call it something of a victory. Fudging without necessity is futility. While I don't have a reason to believe that is your style, I have seen ample evidence, here and elsewhere, that such games are fairly common. The most extreme are cases where GMs brag about inventing a critical hit, full-cloth, and describing the results in loving detail for the enjoyment of their player. Aside from the basic dishonesty to your players about how the game is being adjudicated, it opens the door for their unconscious preferences to stult the game, and seems almost destined to result in their players finding out about it one day as they are googling. [/QUOTE]
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