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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5135891" data-attributes="member: 4937">Interestingly, I don't hold players to the rules (although I do hold them to my rulings), but I adhere to them behind the screen.  The reason for this is simple.  I've had to many instances where I decided to fudge for dramatic effect where the results were not what I wanted.  On the other hand, I'm not sure what you call cheating is always what I consider cheating.  'Cheating' in my book is only changing what you've previously decided on based on player propositions.   If you write down that the 1 HD monster has 29 h.p., that's not cheating.  If you decide in the middle of the fight that the 1 HD monster shouldn't die, and in responce to the monster getting damaged you give it 20 more hitpoints to prevent it, that is 'cheating'. That's not cheating.  The DM can stat a monster however he likes.  That's just appropriate time management.  I believe the monster creation rules in 3.X were created to be a help to DM's, not a hinderance to them.  If they ever get in the way, they are easy enough to chunk even while strictly adhering to the rules.  Any monster can have an extraordinary ability that effectively breaks the normal monster creation rules.  Ok, now that is 'cheating'.  Most of the time that I've done this behind the screen, I've regretted it (including most saliently a PC death that occurred when the NPC's bad luck suddenly swung wildly the other way).  I don't think its worth it.  Some fights will just be brief and anti-climatic.  If your plot can't deal with that, then you've got a bad plot with too much novelization and not enough consideration of what works in an RPG.Specifically informing your players that you are using a temporary ruling to handle an ambigious situation is not cheating.  It's, again, just good time management.  Having good pacing trumps having the rules exactly right.  When in doubt, give the PC a slight edge and do a 'coin flip'.  Telling your players that you are 'coin flipping' is just gravy, and not even I think essential to the social contract.  Under most rules, the 16 succeeeds and the 4 fails.  Figuring out edge cases in resolution between the best system and something that works for one use case is generally not worth it if it stops the game.  This isn't exactly cheating, but its too much DM manipulation for my tastes.  The problem with this is that you tend to end up unfairly punishing a player who has made sacrifices to be good in one area of the game.  If the player takes Skill Focus as a feat, he reasonably assumes he'll succeed more often than if he doesn't.  If all DC's a scaled according to a meta-game consideration ('What I want them to know' or anything like it), then you might as well not have skill ranks or progress them.Good job.  I try for that too.   I try to have a plan of action in mind as soon as the DM turn begins.  I roll about 10-20 d20's at once, and then move through the narration as I tick off results for each NPC.  The goal is to get the players back to their decision making point as rapidly as possible so that I don't lose anyone's attention.  If find it also helps to break up the DM's turn into several initiative groups.  You take more time out of the whole cycle, but it comes in less of a wall of narration.</blockquote>

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