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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mallus" data-source="post: 6125359" data-attributes="member: 3887">The simple answer is: the GM's goal (or job) is different from the players.Roughly speaking, the players are out to win. To successfully overcome in-game the challenges and further their characters goals. The GM is out to challenge the players, not to win (that's too easy, and also pointless). That said, this often means the GM should play be the same rules as the players -- but not always, not necessarily.And with complex system like D&D 3.5/Pathfinder (which I'm running now), it's important to recognize when the rules are mainly for the player's benefit -- specifically, I'm thinking of the complicated (and massive) set of character building/developing options. It's fun for the players to build/tinker with all those options. It's fun for them to display their system mastery. For the GM --well, GMs like me-- all those options are a big pain in the ass. The players have one PC to lavish time one. I've got to create a steady stream of them over the course of the campaign. Books of pre-build NPCs like the NPX Codex help, as do sites like this, but I'm sure as hell simply going fudge some NPCs, just give them ballpark number that look right, because I'm not willing to spend the time to do all of them "by the book(s)".Sure, I'm probably make the major, classed, opponents "legitimately". Mostly. Maybe.I don't "cheat" to push a specific, predetermined outcome. It's just that my job as GM is fundamentally different. Plus, I don't get a lot of satisfaction from showing off my system mastery as GM -- well, I get little, from time to time. I often ignore rules --especially the specifics-- simply to save time at the table. For example, I'll ballpark DCs instead of looking up the formal rule. Is that cheating? To me, it's a necessary time-saver. Part of good GMing is knowing when to sacrifice accuracy for speed-of-play.Basically, not all fudging/rule-breaking is about steering the outcome/making the players into passive audience members. That's way too simplistic.I think you're placing too much faith in official encounter-building rules. My experience is they're an... inexact science, at best. Helpful, but frequently prone to bad results and, in the end, no replacement for common sense and good judgement (which can include a bit of fudging...). Sure. But this assumes the dangers are all relatively static, ie that the PCs can control when they encounter danger, like in a traditional dungeon environment where the ludicrously well-behaved monsters stay in their appointed rooms. Once you open that design up, allow for more dynamic challenges, where dangers can seek the PCs out and bash down their doors, well, the whole "pushing on" thing becomes less true. It's also less-than-true in systems with rocket-tag combat, ie games like 3.5e/Pathfinder where PCs have offensive capabilities that far outstrip their defenses, and most PCs can be crippled/killed in a single round, especially by mid-to-high level.</blockquote>

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