NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6194941" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm not sure what you mean by "platonic pre-planned 4e", but I don't think and didn't intend to imply that the Gygaxian-sandbox GM and the 4e GM play the same role. The thieving and the ethereal mummies are both metagame-motivated ways of sorting out various forms of trouble in the game. I don't really class them as the GM being final arbiter of all events within the game, but rather as particular devices the GM uses to correct errors.The disregarding of random encounter rolls I would put in the same category as fudging to avoid death to the PC of a skilled player: the GM's arbitration is intended to serve the interests of challenging but not punishing the skilled.The improvisation point is one that I had forgotten!, and does contradict what I said, I agree. I think I must have been running Gygax together with Lewis Pulsipher, who is hostile to improvisation because it undermines skill (eg if the players use Detect Magic and the GM just improvises, then the outcome - either way - does not reward player skill in using divination effectively, but is rather just a random GM response the spell as a plot-coupon style trigger).I think I've always read those references to disregarding of rolls outside the death context as pertaining to random generation or random effect rolls rather than action resolution in the stricter sense. And likewise, on p 9, I've read that as an invitation to change the rules (ie the GM is an arbiter of what the rules are) rather than to suspend them mid-resolution.This fits with my sense of 2nd ed AD&D, although for me it is gained via the PHB than the DMG (which I've never read). I see this as marking a strong departure from the Gygaxian approach, but I could see how differing interpretations of the passages you've pointed to about being arbiter of the rules and about disregarding dice rolls could lead to a different view about the transition.</blockquote>

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