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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6359288" data-attributes="member: 42582">Out of a series of excellent posts, I think this is the most important remark. And it is true of a lot of exchanges on these boards: there is a failure to analyse the actual decision-processes that take place at the table - including GM decisions about NPC/monster actions - and that lead to the various outcomes of play.I'm not sure if the following remark is a contradiction of what you've said, or an elaboration: but I think of the main role of randmoness in RPG resolution being to ensure surprise. Randomness generates parameters within which outcomes must be narrated, which weren't chosen by any participant and therefore can come as a surprise to all participants.I think that such arguments are generally about one of three things.If the funtion of the dice is to introduce surprise/spontaneity, then the GM, by ignoring the dice, is usurping a type of narrative authority that s/he ostensibly lacks. For some groups that might be seen as objectionable.If the function of the dice is to determine whether the players win or lose, then the GM, by ignoring the dice, is in effect cheating. For some groups that might be seen as objectionable.If the function of the dice is to simulate ingame causal processs then the GM, by ignoring the dice, is unermining that simulationist aesthetic. Again, for some groups that will be objectionable.Arguments about whether fudging is good or bad are generally (poor) proxies for discussions about these different playstyles and social contracts.These two remarks strike me as somewhat at odds. Exactly because it is just a game, and there is no actual loss of life, so there is no actual mortal danger. It's all about emotional investment in a fiction. (Or, if you are playing mostly in wargame-y pawn stance, it's about emotional investment in winning or losing the game.)And I think it is actually quite easy to generate emotional investment in fictions where the stakes are something other than the life or death of the protagonist. (Or, in the alternative, it's easy to come up with win/loss conditions that don't involve the death of the pawn eg missing out on a whole lot of treasure.)Without having actually read or played the module, this seems like a serious issue.The blurb for the Starter Set says "This box contains the essential rules of the game plus everything you need to play heroic characters on perilous adventures in worlds of fantasy." Heroes who are confonted by a dragon attacking a town will try to defend the town, which probably includes fighting the dragon. Sacrificing NPCs because, at the table, their deaths are less significant than deaths of the protagonists, doesn't look very heroic to me! How are players meant to realise that they should be playing expedient, rather than heroic, protagonists?</blockquote>

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