Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5498494" data-attributes="member: 2011">Too bad. I already gave you XP before you added this last bit. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />I think it's a novice mistake to do what you suggest here. It's human nature to "add to the plan" by the DM, but it's not his role to do so. Just because it is in DMG2 doesn't mean that it's a good idea.The DM should be impartial and keep his mouth shut UNLESS the major party decision will definitively lead to a TPK or something, and even then, he should be very careful how he "nudges" (shy of the situation where it is obvious that the DM did not hand out enough information and needs to fix that). Nudging should be things like reminders at best.DM: "Remember, the Duke did say that you were only supposed to scare off the Orcs, not wipe them out."Nudging should almost never be giving out information that the players do not already have (again, unless the DM forgot to hand out information that the players need). It's ok to stop the game, admit that the DM made a mistake and didn't give the players certain info that he was supposed to, and then continue the game. However, this should only be done for info the DM forgot to give out, not if the PCs avoided the location where that info was located and the PCs avoided it. In that case, the DM should not hand out that info for free. And even giving the players info that was supposed to be handed out but the DM forgot should be rare (that's not how the story orignally went, so let it play out and see where it goes).As a general rule 99% of the time, let the players make their own decisions and don't try to influence it.And this is an especially bad idea in combat except for the most obvious of combat tactics. For example, reminding the player this his PC will provoke an Opportunity Attack if he moves on the squares that he was planning, is probably ok. Telling the PC that if he moves to a certain square, he is setting himself up for an attack by every foe in the room shouldn't be done. IMO. Let the player make his own decisions.To me, nudging is like fudging dice rolls or other forms of "DM cheating". I'm strongly opposed to the DM not being an impartial arbitrator and being a source of "Deus Ex Machina" guardian angel of the PCs and their actions.With some rare exceptions, nudging is a way for the DM to partially railroad the story into the direction that he wants it to go into as opposed to the direction that the players want it to go into, even if that player direction is based on a lack of information or just based on a bad assumption or incorrect knowledge.PC/player mistakes should be allowed the vast majority of the time.The DM sets the scenario. The players decide actions for the PCs. The DM should only influence the decisions of the players if there is an NPC there to do so and that NPC has the appropriate knowledge and motivation for doing so (or if there is a terrain feature already there or some such). But the DM should not influence the decisions of the players for a DM metagame reason and not by just stopping the story and blurting out a nudge.</blockquote>

Verification