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<blockquote data-quote="The Shaman" data-source="post: 2744090" data-attributes="member: 26473">So it's okay to cheat the players, as long as they don't figure it out?&nbsp;:\&nbsp; So you don't roll to see if monsters hit, or to makes saves for NPCs? You just decide to hit the adventurers or not, to avoid a spell effect or not?Saying that you fudge sparingly is the same as saying you cheat, but only when it really matters. It also misses the larger point: you're taking control of the players' characters out of their hands. As Barak astutely observed, there's little reason to weigh different mechanical options, since you will decide if a given action succeeds or fails based solely on your personal sense of drama or significance, or to cover your GMing mistakes in encounter design.When I'm behind the screen, I am playing the game - I have different &quot;game pieces,&quot; but those pieces are still govererned by the same rules as the players'. Moreover, I'm not &quot;telling a story&quot; - I'm setting a scene sprinkled with chances for random outcomes, then interpreting the action through roleplaying based on those random outcomes.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="The Shaman, post: 2744090, member: 26473"] So it's okay to cheat the players, as long as they don't figure it out? :\ So you don't roll to see if monsters hit, or to makes saves for NPCs? You just decide to hit the adventurers or not, to avoid a spell effect or not? Saying that you fudge sparingly is the same as saying you cheat, but only when it really matters. It also misses the larger point: you're taking control of the players' characters out of their hands. As [b]Barak[/b] astutely observed, there's little reason to weigh different mechanical options, since you will decide if a given action succeeds or fails based solely on your personal sense of drama or significance, or to cover your GMing mistakes in encounter design. When I'm behind the screen, I [U]am[/U] playing the game - I have different "game pieces," but those pieces are still govererned by the same rules as the players'. Moreover, I'm not "telling a story" - I'm setting a scene sprinkled with chances for random outcomes, then interpreting the action through roleplaying based on those random outcomes. [/QUOTE]

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