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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 9554534" data-attributes="member: 85870">So this whole thread goes back to a concept I floated in a thread maybe a year and a half ago of "Principled Illusionism."The concept of "fudging" only really exists if you accept two key premises:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The GM is the final arbiter and authority of all happenings in the game, regardless of any other mechanical interplay between players and game. In other words, Rule Zero / Rule 0 exists and is a "thing" in your game.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">If some nebulous yet "meaningful" interval of time has passed between the GM's creation of a piece of material/prep and the use of (or planned use of) of said prep in the current game session, said GM material must be considered inviolate and part of the game world, regardless of any extenuating circumstance. Even if said material would lead to boring/unsatisfying/tedious play, would largely thwart player/character goals and aims, will consume more in-session time in play than it should otherwise warrant, etc., that's just too darn bad.</li> </ol>I have no problem with Premise 1---I'm totally down with Rule Zero.I have serious problems with Premise 2.The Sly Flourish video above points to my position---what is "fudging," exactly? You're basically adjusting "game state" items during play. You're altering scene / situation / framing / NPC motivations / backstory, anything other than the numbers on the dice.My take is, if you disregard Premise 2 as a thing, "fudging"/"illusionism" is really all that's left. Everything is literally just the GM making stuff up, whether it was 3 seconds ago or 3 decades ago. It's the GM making key decisions based on a multiplicity of factors, which may or may not involve prep / scene / situation / framing / motivation / backstory, regardless of whether any combination of those factors were decided 5 seconds or 5 months ago.As the video alludes to, it comes down to motivation --- is it "Principled Illusionism" / "Principled Fudging", or is it "Reactionary / Emotionally Charged / Discriminatory / Retaliatory / Self Indulgent Illusionism"?*Edit: One point of clarification---I agree with Sly Flourish that emotionally charged / reactionary "fudging" is almost universally a bad thing. My last qualifier of "Self-indulgent Illusionism" may not necessarily ALWAYS be bad, if done judiciously and with an eye to fun.</blockquote>

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