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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 5705946" data-attributes="member: 463">I am an extremely anti-fudging, anti-illusionist GM.Re Bullgrit's game - you can run a game diceless, you can run a game determined entirely by GM judgement ('fiat'), and IMO that is an entirely legitimate style of free kriegspiel.  You can also create content ad hoc, whether randomly or by GM fiat, again I think that is completely fine.  Content may be created with a Simulationist approach - this is what is likely there - or Dramatic - this is what would make the most engaging adventure.Illusionism comes in if the GM has already decided the outcome and ensures that all roads lead there.  This negates player choice.  From what Bullgrit says, he didn't do that.Fudging comes in if the GM appears to be using the rules, but ignores the results of dice rolls - such as changing misses to hits, and secretly changes already-encountered reality on the fly, such as arbitrarily lowering or raising hp totals of monsters.  That's the stuff that players will object to if they find out (it can be a 'no Santa Claus' moment when they discover their trusted GM is a fudging fudger), and why Bullgrit rightly feels 'dirty' despite a good game overall.I play with my 4.5 year old son, when he's not taking over the game, I run it free kriegspiel - when we roll dice it is meaningful, I pre-announce "on a 2-6 you kill the monster" or "on a 6 the dragon kills you" - so the dice represent a genuine element of risk rather than the illusion of risk.  There is no dishonesty, no cheating the player, no pretending to use rules when really I'm not.Edit: If previous game sessions have failed, it may be that Bullgrit was running too harsh a game for his player group - I've seen a lot of GMs do that.  With brand new players you generally want a game very heavily slanted in favour of the players; the risk of failure can be almost arbitrarily small, but it needs to be there for the victory to be genuine.  They will enjoy destroying a 1st level adventure with their 4th level PCs just as much as they'll enjoy beating a 4th level adventure where the GM cheats to let them win - and the GM won't be cheating either them or himself.  So if running eg 4e, you treat the effective party level as 2 or 3 under their actual level, but you still play up the enemy as major threats - a lot of it is the presentation.  For 1st level 4e PCs the 1st level goblin warrior becomes a mighty goblin champion, leading the horde of mook goblin minion-1s - and you build an encounter on 300 XP rather than the standard 500.</blockquote>

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