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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5684932" data-attributes="member: 2011">Clearly. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" />Well, I agree about novice players. The DM needs to add to their game knowledge by showing them basic tactics and such. But once a player has a fairly firm grasp of the game, the DM should stop being a coach and go back to be a storyteller/referee.I also agree about never fudging. Let the dice fall where they may. But, I do feel that experienced players shouldn't be given too much combat information (and no player should be given role information). To me, a fun portion of the game is about mystery and surprises. Experienced players already know a ton about the game, the monsters they can encounter, etc. By keeping them in the dark about things the PCs shouldn't know about (PCs don't know about roles or hit points or AC, those are metagame terms) and only know about things the PCs know or can observe, even experienced players can re-live some of the wonder of when they were novice players.Player: "Wow, that must have been an elite. I thought my third shot would take him out, but he just kept coming for more." is more enjoyable than knowing it is an elite ahead of time.It's one thing to say "After that last hit, the ogre looks pretty hurt." (which I would rarely do, but a DM might). It's another to say "Wow. You knocked him down to 5 hit points.". There's a difference between saying that the PC missed with a 23, and saying that the 23 misses the monster's AC of 26. One gives information that the PC can observe, the other mystically gives info that the PC, and the player, shouldn't know.And there is nothing wrong with running tough fights, but the combination of running tough fights along with handling out a ton of metagame monster information (beyond what a monster knowledge check and normal perception can observe) seems like holding a carrot in one hand and a stick in the other. "Here, I'm going to help you win the fight, but it's gonna be really really tough.". <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />There's a pretty broad line between telling the players what they need to know about the environment and the monsters in order for them to run their PCs, and telling the players monster information so that they never make mistakes. Minion information is telling the players "Hey, don't use certain powers on these guys cause they are minions.".</blockquote>

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