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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8596308" data-attributes="member: 6790260">"Say yes or roll the dice" is one of the most traditional pieces of advice there is. Saying yes (or, sometimes, saying no) means you don't invoke the mechanics in the first place, so there's no need to fudge. That's what would cover "calling a fight" type situations, where the DM basically just straight-up says "alright, you guys have won." (I am assuming that DMs wouldn't "call" fights against the party, as that's kind of a jerk move.)Apart from that, what could be controversial about "be diegetic"?I suppose that depends on whether you define "say yes(/no) or roll the dice" and "be diegetic" as baked-in or not.I find this hard to process. If the DM can improvise new diegetic situations when a die roll is not in question and do so quickly enough to not derail the session, what prevents them from doing so when a die roll is in question? That is, if the DM can seamlessly and speedily extemporize about the Queen's response to Garka the dwarf barbarian being unexpectedly articulate when she expected a huge boor, I don't understand how they shouldn't be able to seamlessly and speedily extemporize about (to use my previous example, possibly from a different thread) the Greater Shadow exploiting its powers over life-energy to save itself from an unexpectedly potent assault by the PCs (or whatever).For my part, I see this as even more important than being honest with the players: it's being honest with yourself. DMs cannot live up to a standard of never being able to make mistakes or do something wrong. That's not healthy for them, and it leads to unhealthy expectations from the players. Much better to say, "Aw, beans, y'know I really shouldn't have asked for that roll. Ignore that--instead <stuff.>" I have said this a few times in my own game, where I reflexively asked for a roll only to realize that there were no interesting consequences for failure. Admitting those mistakes has not ruined my game, and has in fact helped my players understand where I'm coming from.I see this as either just a variant of the previous, or an exercise in interesting challenge: how DO we make sense of it? If no sense can be made of it whatsoever, then we should admit it, e.g. "oh...you rolled to decapitate it but uh...this thing doesn't have a head. Reroll that until you get something other than 9, since that doesn't make sense." But if some sense can be made of it, even if it requires some leaps of logic, roll with it! Or, perhaps, ask the players what they think, e.g.:I've had an enormous amount of super cool stuff come from me asking a player to explain how something happened or why it made sense in context. Even with a player who is both shy and brand-new to TTRPGs.</blockquote>

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