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GM Confessional: I fudged like a Banshee (just not on the dice rolls)
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<blockquote data-quote="Tovec" data-source="post: 5936464" data-attributes="member: 95493"><p>To paraphrase; Good DM's borrow. Great DM's steal.</p><p></p><p>You SHOULD fudge with the game. Mess with it, mold it. Beat it into <s>submission</s> shape. If anything I'm surprised there aren't more rules about this.</p><p></p><p>The worst offender are skills checks and save DCs, I'm sorry after the first couple of levels I never use DCs out of the box, ever. The party does, sure but they're supposed to. I make things up when I go along CONSTANTLY. Hell, if I can get away with it I change locations, names and NPCs around to fit the story better.</p><p></p><p>I once had an advisor to the king in one kingdom be the same guy who advised the king in the next one over. The party never noticed the change in kingdoms/kings but remembered the evil advisor so it worked out great.</p><p></p><p>Coming up with unique, unexpected or downright broken effects has been some of the coolest things to ever happen in my games. I remember when I gave the party a little glass sphere that could heal them up a number of times a day, or when I had Nerull have several high level contingency spells that would go off when he was killed, or when the party encountered a door that remained sealed even after they disintegrated the building that supported it.</p><p></p><p>Coming up with new stats for monsters is just the easiest way to modify things. I love the GMG for giving me so many NPCs to play around with but too often they aren't the right level so I have to fudge with the numbers to make it work. When that happens I'm not going through character creation all over again so I just figure out the difference.</p><p></p><p>Need something identified? I had an NPC with a magical mirror that could tell the true properties of something. I once gave the party a cloak which would allow them to phase through walls but they didn't know how it worked.</p><p></p><p>Doing these kinds of things keeps my game fresh, unique and most importantly keeps magic magical because they can never be positive on what is going to happen or what a certain effect might truly do.</p><p></p><p>If you have gotten to the stage where you are fudging stats, encounters, even dice rolls when needed then I congratulate you and welcome you to the fraternity of DMs. I find it is a skill all DMs must learn eventually.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tovec, post: 5936464, member: 95493"] To paraphrase; Good DM's borrow. Great DM's steal. You SHOULD fudge with the game. Mess with it, mold it. Beat it into [s]submission[/s] shape. If anything I'm surprised there aren't more rules about this. The worst offender are skills checks and save DCs, I'm sorry after the first couple of levels I never use DCs out of the box, ever. The party does, sure but they're supposed to. I make things up when I go along CONSTANTLY. Hell, if I can get away with it I change locations, names and NPCs around to fit the story better. I once had an advisor to the king in one kingdom be the same guy who advised the king in the next one over. The party never noticed the change in kingdoms/kings but remembered the evil advisor so it worked out great. Coming up with unique, unexpected or downright broken effects has been some of the coolest things to ever happen in my games. I remember when I gave the party a little glass sphere that could heal them up a number of times a day, or when I had Nerull have several high level contingency spells that would go off when he was killed, or when the party encountered a door that remained sealed even after they disintegrated the building that supported it. Coming up with new stats for monsters is just the easiest way to modify things. I love the GMG for giving me so many NPCs to play around with but too often they aren't the right level so I have to fudge with the numbers to make it work. When that happens I'm not going through character creation all over again so I just figure out the difference. Need something identified? I had an NPC with a magical mirror that could tell the true properties of something. I once gave the party a cloak which would allow them to phase through walls but they didn't know how it worked. Doing these kinds of things keeps my game fresh, unique and most importantly keeps magic magical because they can never be positive on what is going to happen or what a certain effect might truly do. If you have gotten to the stage where you are fudging stats, encounters, even dice rolls when needed then I congratulate you and welcome you to the fraternity of DMs. I find it is a skill all DMs must learn eventually. [/QUOTE]
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