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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8956491" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Are the dice not part of the gameplay? That's rather confusing, considering how critical dice are to play. I mean, the d20 is practically the physical symbol of D&D at this point.With all due respect, I don't consider that relevant. If the gameplay matters, it needs to exhibit fundamental consistency; the trick many people fail to understand about the famous phrase, "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" is the foolish part, which is much, much more important than the consistency part. Emerson was not saying that consistency itself is bad; he was saying that adhering to consistency when doing so would make you a fool is bad. Hence, there must be a fundamental consistency, even if the day to day implementation may appear at odds. The dice are there, and we claim that they matter, otherwise we would just dispense with them entirely. Yet sometimes they tell us to do things that are not acceptable. One way to stop that is to abjure, to falsify, which means breaking fundamental consistency: the dice only matter if I feel like it. Another set of ways, one I consider far and away superior, is to accept and reframe, reframe in advance, or reject openly. The first preserves fundamental consistency in that the dice still matter, what they say still happens, but it happens in a way that does not cause a problem. The second preserves fundamental consistency by making it so the dice give results that one can accept (even if they are not always happy results.) The third preserves fundamental consistency by being clear about what one is doing: normally the dice matter, but we agree that they have led us astray. All show respect for the players as active agents, rather than as passive observers.I don't really understand why dice being means or ends is relevant. Fundamental consistency applies to either.I don't understand the difference between "I regret[ted] the circumstances that led up to those dice rolls" and "I don't regret [altering] any of them." There is no gap. It is a regrettable thing. Why not use a method which addresses that regret without doing something that secretly takes away player agency?Further, whoever said you had to declare DC? I don't do that. Not even in Dungeon World, where I essentially don't roll dice (as noted, the only DM rolls are monster/trap/etc. damage.) The only thing equivalent to a "DC" in Dungeon World is monster armor (DW uses "armor as DR" type rules), and I don't tell my players how much armor a creature has. I also never change how much armor a creature has, unless I do so diegetically.I don't understand why. Isn't playing D&D fundamentally improv to begin with? Why is this bad "forced improv," but (say) a player doing something entirely unexpected is somehow good "forced improv"?Certainly. But the dice, and their use, are part of the rules. The rules are what you agree to abide by when you offer to run a game. They form the baseline of interaction. Going beyond that baseline is perfectly acceptable--but it matters a great deal how you go beyond that baseline. Otherwise, we're in "I have altered the deal, pray I don't alter it any further" territory.Then why the need for secrecy? if the players know you can and will modify anything and everything whenever it suits you, what value does secrecy give? You're still presenting the results as though they were the real, honest-to-goodness results.It relates to dice-rolling by being a preemptive effort. Now, if something goes so absolutely pear-shaped that I truly cannot see ANY way around it, I have one already-made, woven into the game, that is explicitly and totally under the players' control. They get to decide when we collectively say "no" to the dice. Their agency is preserved.</blockquote>

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