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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grendel_Khan" data-source="post: 8595226" data-attributes="member: 7028554">I hear you, but I'm exposing my biases--I don't care how a written adventure was written (beyond it having interesting ideas) and I strip them for maps and NPCs. And anything I've prepped, I consider a loose outline, that can and will be reframed in the moment by what the PCs do.But I should have clarified. I do think that, in some games, it would be clearly cheesy and eye-roll-inducing to have reinforcements rappel in through the nearest skylight every time things look grim for the PCs. But when folks argue that fudging can help address bad prep or bad encounter design, I personally think some deus ex machina action is preferable--but also it can be interesting, if it has narrative consequences. Maybe the rescuers wind up taking the PCs prisoner. Maybe they demand a share of the eventual spoils. Maybe they just lord it over the players for the rest of the campaign, setting up an emergent conflict to come, one that players will be really invested in (we're a prideful sort). Some games, though, fully rely on those kinds of improvised beats to function. In 2d20, one of the coolest things a GM can do with the Doom points generated during play is to spend them on some narrative shift, like enemy reinforcements showing up. Works really well for the generally pulpy settings that 2d20 uses, where players often deal with mobs of enemies, and where maps are more abstract and retreating is easier. Or the GM could spend Doom to make the floor collapse. And players can use one of their few Fortune points to establish some detail or truth about the situation, like that there's a rope to grab. But at some point the collaborative, improvisational reality-warping still comes up against dice rolls.I'm not saying everyone should be into those kinds of games, just that in the larger context of RPGs, the GM putting their hand on the scale in that way is sometimes a part of a system, or even a requirement. But flicking the dice till they show the numbers you want? That's a different move entirely.</blockquote>

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