Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 6801912" data-attributes="member: 97077">The DM can't break rules - he or she is not bound by them. There is also no requirement that the DM play a monster in a particular way, though I would suggest remaining reasonably consistent with established characterization is ideal. It is possible to play the dragon in a way that is believable and eliminates the possibility of character death and TPKs, if that's what you want to do. Which it is clear that you do, only you just ignore the die results you don't like rather than give serious thought to other matters like stakes. I don't roll the dice at all if doing so may result in something I don't like.There are many failure conditions - death is just one, and even challenges that don't involve the possibility of death can be highly engaging. By fudging, you're also opening the possibility that your players won't &quot;feel the thrill&quot; either because they may discover that it wasn't their decisions and luck that won the day (be it life or death or some other set of stakes), but rather the DM helping them out.My suggestion for those that resort to fudging to avoid character death is to start introducing different stakes in your game and/or prepare for character death by having the players create backup characters that are already written into the ongoing story so that bringing them into play is quick and logical. Then, either way, you'll have no problem rolling that die and living with the results.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="iserith, post: 6801912, member: 97077"] The DM can't break rules - he or she is not bound by them. There is also no requirement that the DM play a monster in a particular way, though I would suggest remaining reasonably consistent with established characterization is ideal. It is possible to play the dragon in a way that is believable and eliminates the possibility of character death and TPKs, if that's what you want to do. Which it is clear that you do, only you just ignore the die results you don't like rather than give serious thought to other matters like stakes. I don't roll the dice at all if doing so may result in something I don't like. There are many failure conditions - death is just one, and even challenges that don't involve the possibility of death can be highly engaging. By fudging, you're also opening the possibility that your players won't "feel the thrill" either because they may discover that it wasn't their decisions and luck that won the day (be it life or death or some other set of stakes), but rather the DM helping them out. My suggestion for those that resort to fudging to avoid character death is to start introducing different stakes in your game and/or prepare for character death by having the players create backup characters that are already written into the ongoing story so that bringing them into play is quick and logical. Then, either way, you'll have no problem rolling that die and living with the results. [/QUOTE]

Verification