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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eyebeams" data-source="post: 3531148" data-attributes="member: 9225">Well randomness doesn't "spike." It's more that it is not just a remote possibility that even a well designed encounter will not have the anticipated effect. While thousands of dice rolls will usually end up averaging the way you'd expect, single dice rolls usually don't.Now you can say, "Let the chips fall where they may!" but when you do that, this kind of silences you as an effective critic of a system's results. At that point, you don't care about the system -- you care about game mechanic results. So to my mind, it's incoherent to be concerned with both balance and an "automated" way of getting results, with one exception: instances where rules lack clarity. But that instance is also interesting in terms of this discussion.RPGs are caught in a trap of subjectivity that only seems to increase with attempts to stamp it out. (WARNING: Observations you may not want to hear follow.) Generally, systems are criticized for allowing too much GM intervention when they are loose/light -- but solutions to this generally increase complexity (if not in the game itself, then in the number of cases for reference by the GM/players), requiring more and more rulings on how game systems apply. These required rulings do not minimize fudging -- they disguise it in a GM's ruling on whether there's a possible AoO or how a given magic item, feat or other game artifact applies. Even WotC engages in this kind of "fudging" by introducing interpretations of systems that were probably not a part of the original, intended design (monks and INA anyone?) This observation is something that comes from observing RPG sessions as a non-participant, deliberately taking notes. One of the things I observed was how fudging tends to attach itself to complex systems when the GM/DM uses it as a pretense (I noticed this in particular when it came to rogues; lots of DMs make debateable calls about sneak attack to restrict its use).Of course, if you stick with a loose system you end up with fudging being made "official."Does this mean that rolling in public, etc. is bad? No, of course not! But there's a difference between saying that GMs who feel it's *necessary* to fudge are engaging with a "broken" system, or that systems that encourage GM moderation are also "broken." People should also recognize that when they do let the dice fall where they made, they are *also* engaging in a form of social and system manipulation. There is really no such thing as a truly "hands off" style, as much as social strategies that suit different groups.</blockquote>

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