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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eirikrautha" data-source="post: 6358244" data-attributes="member: 6777843">These arguments always annoy me, because both sides are treating assumptions as if they are facts.  First of all, references to TPKs as part of a "game" require that the definition of game be warped to the point where it means "the way I play."  For example, randomness is NOT a defining feature of games.  Chess is one of the oldest games played in the western world, and randomness has no part in it.  So appeals to the dice as justification for any outcome have NOTHING to do with the "game" of D&D.  The inclusion of randomness is a play style.  What makes a "game" is choice and consequence.  That's it.  Each choice you make has some consequence that either increases or decreases the number and kind of available choices you have afterwards.  In a game like D&D, the game rules incorporate the random rolling of dice to add chance as an additional factor in your choices.  Without it, you could say "I'm stronger than this goblin, so I kill it."  You'd still be playing a game (as you might have many other things you could do other than killing the goblin).  Adding randomness means that not all logical choices will be correct (as I could roll crappily and the goblin crits twice, leading to my death rather than its).  So randomness serves as a confounding factor in D&D, rather than a foundational element of the game.  For this reason, arguments over whether or not a DM should abide by the dice are pretty stupid.  What should actually be discussed is the role of randomness in narrative outcomes.  If the dice rolls matter that much, why not simply roll a d100 on a chart and determine the character's career that way ("I rolled a 63.  My character makes it to 7th level, then dies in a random encounter with a manticore.  Let's play again.")?  Because the dice don't matter, except to confound expectations.  It's the thousands of choices along the way that makes the "game."  A party of four 3rd-level PCs should beat four goblins.  That is the reasonable expectations, and 99 times out of 100 they will, regardless of any individual dice rolls.  An adult dragon should kill the same party, 99 out of 100 times.  So, without a single dice roll, we could play this game and tell this "story."  The question is, how tolerant is your group to counter-intuitive (non-logical) outcomes?  A group that is not very comfortable with said counter-intuitive results will be very uncomfortable with TPKs that result from logical choices ("How did we lose to 4 goblins?  This game is stupid!") or from encounters with no obvious good choices ("How can we be expected to kill a dragon?  Your adventure sucks!").  Note that randomness plays no role in this; it is the outcome that causes the issue.  A different group with more tolerance might be OK with the idea that death can come in an illogical manner ("Oh, well, that was just bad luck.") or that characters might encounter no win scenarios.  But the results would be the same if the DM just announced the outcome based on a single roll of the dice and skipped the entire combat (or if he just decide it in advance).  This is one reason a game like Texas Hold-Em is such a difficult game for non-professionals to succeed at.  There are many cases in a game with limited information (you can only see a few of the cards) and a high degree of randomness where a player can play exactly right and still lose.  It is a rare person who can be comfortable with this.  It would also be a rare gaming group that would be comfortable with the same.  To the OPs story, it is obvious that the consequence of the player's choices were logical, but without a good choice obvious to the PCs (due to the encounter being played differently that written).  Based on the type of group he describes, it seems to be no big deal to retcon the encounter.</blockquote>

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