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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5709639" data-attributes="member: 42582">But that's not what Bullgrit said.There was some discussion of this upthread, including the relationship between tweaking hit points and deciding that an NPC flees or surrenders. These sorts of decisions don't make the dice rolled of minimal importance.Also, for all we know, by changing hit points for "drama and excitement" Bullgrit meant that, when the PCs were winning a combat and delivered a hit that left a monster standing with 1 hp, Bullgrit treated the hit as a kill instead. This is not an uncommon practice - although it's not one I used - and it doesn't render the dice rolled in combat "of minimal impotance".But an offer to GM a game of D&D is obviously not equivalent to an offer to run a game of Gygaxian/Pulsiferian D&D.I mean, the most common versions of D&D currently played, as far as I can tell, are Pathfinder and 4e. Many Pathfinder players play adventure paths, which is not Gygaxian/Pulsiferian play. I think that many 4e players also play the game in a non-Gygaxian fashion. Indeed, in light of the DMG and DMG 2 for 4e, I think the default style for 4e is, if anything, closer to how Bullgrit ran his game than to the Gygaxian/Pulsiferian version.And "playing D&D" has never meant, by default, playing Gygaxian/Pulsiferian D&D. The game has been played in myriad styles ever since its publication.And what would be wrong with that?And equally there are players who have ZERO interest in Gygaxian/Pulsiferian play. I am one of those. Maybe Bullgrit's players were also among those.Just because people agree to play D&D, does not mean that they have agreed to play Gygaxian D&D.And vice versa for the dramatic player in a Gygaxian game. In the absence of any actual evidence that any of Bullgrit's actual players were "punished" in this way, what excatly is the problem?Well, that happens every day on this messageboard. I've been told, for example, that because I run a game influenced by th GMing style of games like BW and HQ, and (in general approach if not particular tone) by Forge contributers like Vinent Baker and Paul Czege, that I'm not playing a "real" RPG, or that I'm storytelling rather than gaming, or that I'm running a railroad (which is a characerisation of my game that I regard as absurd).I'm not obliged to run my game according to Gygaxian precepts just so that others, who aren't familiar with a broader range of RPG styles, can understand my experience, or my players' experiences. One of my players, who has only ever played in my game, has expressed surprise when I've told him that some posters on ENworld think it is inappropriat for players to have the narrative authority to specify features of the gameworld that pertain to their PCs. But he's never suggested that I've done him a disservice by giving him a play experience that differs from some hypothesised ENworld "default".I think all of the above applies, mutatis mutandis, to Bullgrit and Bullgrit's players.</blockquote>

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