GMs: Guiding Morals in GMing

[Fenris-77]

Being a storyteller who's a fan of the players does not mean fudging die rolls. If you look at Apocalypse World as an example you a specific exhortation to honesty as a core guide to play for the GM.

 

[pemerton]

It’s also literally true. If the paper says AC 15 and the player rolls 14 to-hit…it is a lie to say that hits. If the paper says 2 HP and the player rolls 1 damage…it is a lie to say that kills the monster.

This is not correct.

Whether or not the monster is struck by a blow, and killed by that blow, is a matter of the shared fiction. @Jahydin is describing an approach to RPGing in which the GM has very strong authority over the content of that fiction, and in which the use of techniques like rolling dice and comparing the number rolled to other numbers on bits of paper is a common way of the GM deciding what to say, but not the only way and not the definitive way.

I think @Composer99, upthread in talking about "neo-trad" approaches, is suggesting a comparable sort of approach to establishing the shared fiction - expressly describing it as "GM-centric".

If the GM said "Your roll of 14 is equal to the monster's AC" that would be a lie - though it might be a rather white lie. But in fact @Jahydin went out of their way to explain how they would actually fudge that issue, by introducing narration around the weariness of the monster.

Just deciding when the fight’s over and who gets the killing blow defeats the whole point of having all those rules and rule books. Why bother if you’re just going to make it up?

The answer to this seems obvious: most of the time, the GM offloads their decision-making onto the rules framework. It reduces the cognitive load. And for many RPGers, rolling dice and getting excited by what is rolled is fun in itself.

The referee’s job isn’t to bolster the morale of the players.

How do you know? Have a look at @Composer99's post - it explains how that is part of the GM's job, for certain approaches to play.

Your post is exactly an example of presenting a hypothetical imperative as if it were categorical; whereas both @Jahydin and @Composer99 have been careful in their posts to make it clear that their prescriptions and methods are goal relative.

 

[pemerton]

Being a storyteller who's a fan of the players does not mean fudging die rolls. If you Apocalypse World as an example you a specific exhortation to honesty as a core guide to play for the GM.

I think we could say it need not mean that.

But clearly playing AW with (say) @Manbearcat or @chaochou GMing is going to be a pretty different play experience from the sort of D&D game @Composer99 has described upthread.

I've got my own preferences here, but it's a mistake (in my view) to conflate one's own preferences with universal prescriptions.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think we could say it need not mean that.

But clearly playing AW with (say) @Manbearcat or @chaochou GMing is going to be a pretty different play experience from the sort of D&D game @Composer99 has described upthread.

I've got my own preferences here, but it's a mistake (in my view) to conflate one's own preferences with universal prescriptions.

That's entirely fair. However, I think I'd need a pretty engaging example before I would agree whole heartedly. Personally, as a GM, if I've done my job framing scenes and adjudicating fairly, then fudging rolls shouldn't be a thing. That is, again, just my opinion, not some sort of holy writ.

 

[Composer99]

Some differences between "story now"/"indie"-type character-driven play, and "neo-trad" approaches, came up in a recent thread that I started: Approaches to prep in RPGing - GMs, players, and what play is about

I think sensitivity to differences of approach, and different principles that are appropriate - as comes out in your post - helps us better grasp these differences. Hence, to reiterate, my preference for not running things together as if there could be system-and-approach neutral "good GMing".

I've been reading that thread with some interest on and off in between grinding through email for work. (Music festival season is busy season.)

---

Riffing a bit on some of @pemerton's subsequent posts in this thread, for those who aren't familiar with the term, neo-trad is described in reasonable detail in this blog post by The Retired Adventurer. I think the blog does a decent job of contrasting trad versus neo-trad play.

Suffice to say that since all WotC editions of D&D can fall comfortably within the remit of neo-trad play, it's fair to say that responsibility for establishing the shared fiction is still (usually) very heavily GM-centric compared to games such as Apocalypse World and its offshoots.

 

[Jahydin]

It’s also literally true. If the paper says AC 15 and the player rolls 14 to-hit…it is a lie to say that hits. If the paper says 2 HP and the player rolls 1 damage…it is a lie to say that kills the monster. It’s a moral judgement only in that people tend to think lying is bad. But it’s still a lie, regardless of one’s moral position on lying.

"Encounter Design doesn't stop once initiative is called." - Matt Colville

As I already stated, as DM, those are all within my realm to change. There is no lying. In the scenario I rattled off, there was a very obvious "wink" to the PCs that the die roll was "close enough" and I wanted to end the fight on a fun note rather than draw it out longer.

What is gained by such a pointlessly minor lie? So it takes one or two more swings to kill the monster? So what?

Funny, this is exactly my reasoning for ending it sooner. I have this golden opportunity to take something boring and make it fun, why not take it?

The referee’s job isn’t to bolster the morale of the players.

We certainly differ here. I don't think of it as a "job", but it should come out naturally when hanging out with friends, right?

This is a common disagreement between those who see the referee as a neutral arbiter of the rules or as a storyteller who’s supposed to be a fan of the players.

I think we just have different attitudes on why we play D&D.

Sounds like you use your friends to play the game. I use the game to play with my friends. Either way is valid, honestly.

Just deciding when the fight’s over and who gets the killing blow defeats the whole point of having all those rules and rule books. Why bother if you’re just going to make it up? As referenced on here recently, it’s like Who’s Line Is It Anyway…where the points don’t matter and the rules are made up.

"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." - Gary Gygax

I think you're being a bit overdramatic here over a single combat turn that we already established had no real consequences if left unaltered.

 

[pemerton]

Personally, as a GM, if I've done my job framing scenes and adjudicating fairly, then fudging rolls shouldn't be a thing.

Putting to one side - as much as one can - issues of "mere" preference, I think this also depends upon assumptions about how the mechanics of dice rolls mediate between framing and consequences.

Those assumptions are very sound for (say) Apocalypse World, or Burning Wheel, or even 4e D&D, which are tightly designed in this respect.

I think they're highly doubtful for 2nd ed AD&D! And I think there are widespread approaches to 5e within which those assumptions probably don't hold good either. Now one could say that those 5e RPGers should look for a better RPG. But in a sense, they've already found it - they've replaced the reliance on fortune mechanics with a reliance on GM decision-making using the dice as a very frequent source of input.

 

[Yora]

It has no consequence on the outcome of the combat. But under our paradigm of running game, it has a severe impact on the relationship between players and GM. Not the single instance, but how it reflects on the entire approach of how the GM deals with encounters. It sets an expectation that the GM will follow the mechanics of the game only as long as it seems convenient (or you might use the term "appropriate"). But this is a purely subjective choice based on the GM's taste. Which means that for players to make the best decisions they can, they have to take the GM's preferences or momentary whim into account. If the GM's approach is adversarial, then this poisons the game for all the players. But even if the GM is benevolent and will make things easy on the PCs when a situation gets dicey, this creates an expectation in the players that they will never have to account for the worst case scenario in their decisions because the GM won't let the worst case happen.

It still comes down to a personal preference of GMs what kind of experience they want to provide for their players. Which is what this whole thread is ultimately about.

 

[damiller]

Hmmm..

My guiding lights as a GM:

I come up with the who, what, when, and where

The players provide the why and how.

And then I throw in some other more whos, and whats, and whens, and wheres (interruptions) on the way through the plot.

and then I use games that support that type of play.

 

[Digdude]

It's interesting to me that we are looking at if fudging the dice rolls for the sake of fun and moving the play along, but what if the DM does the opposite because they want to really want to dial in a challenge? Is it morally wrong for the kobolds that have had a AC of 15 all game to suddenly not be hit by the correct number? Or if the BBEG gets really crushed in the fight early, to fudge on extra hit points or abilities, even if it to the detriment of the PC's? For me, I think all this falls into improv for what drives each table and there are no wrong answers.