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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gorgon Zee" data-source="post: 8967462" data-attributes="member: 75787">This implies that for each round of cheering, there are 19 times where the party suffered a TPK and were unable to keep roleplaying their characters. So either you do indeed kill entire parties with high regularity, or you do something as a GM which means that the players are more likely to succeed than the dice odds would indicate. Whether that is dice fudging, making adjudications that favor the players, or ignoring a piece of the world for a bit, there’s the irrefutable fact that either players must have many miserable experiences for each “golden roll of excitement” experience, or you are doing something to bias in the players favor.For me, the way I usually bias in the players’ favor is by being generous in adjudication. So if the players are in a tough situation and one says that they want to distract the monster, I might look at the DC25 for the recommended levels and think that the distraction plan is a good one, so make that a DC20 instead. To me, as a statistician, I don‘t really see a lot of difference between a GM modifying a dice roll by +5 and determining a target number at -5. As a GM, I’m asking subjective decisions all the time that can be life and death to the party (“how thick are the walls between your scuffle and the guardroom”, “how dense is the fog”. “How high is the drop to the valley floor”, ”does this household have a dog”) and it would be ludicrous to think I can be completely objective when I make these decision, so I know I’m already fudging in the players favor. Picking one aspect of the GM’s toolbox and saying ”this I will not be subjective on” should not make a GM think that when a TPK occurs, they have no responsibility for it at all. You made a dozen decisions that lead to it; it’s not the dice that killed them, it’s you</blockquote>

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