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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 7941058" data-attributes="member: 21169">Role-Playing Mastery (1987) Gary Gygax.Page 49:There are times when the GM will bend or break the rules of the game system in order to allow his players to maintain their characters. Just as he sometimes metes out punishment for infractions, the GM at other times intervenes benevolently, spreading his aegis over the PCs to save them from probabilities gone awry. To put it bluntly, when play is at a low ebb, or it is quite likely that the players’ characters are about to suffer undue loss or extinction, the GM cheats and decrees otherwise. Opponents miss their blows, PCs manage to strike their foes, and various sorts of miracles occur. This is wrong only when it is done too liberally or when it is unwarranted. If the PC party is in danger of extermination through no direct fault of its own and because a string of unlikely occurrences have all somehow come to pass, then this is the time for the GM to step in and set things back on the right track, or at least keep them from getting any worse. Page 55: In specific cases in which the PCs are in jeopardy because the rules of the game have worked against them through a rare succession of unlikely and adverse occurrences, the GM is within his rights to override the provisions of the rules for the sake of guaranteeing (for the moment, at least) the continued survival and viability of the player characters.Gygax goes further here than he does in the 1e DMG. He's now prepared to overrule the dice, not just for wandering monsters and secret door detection, but also in combat. The use of the phrase "set things back on the right track" might make his play style seem story-oriented, but I think the following excerpts show it's still challenge-oriented, as it is in 1e AD&D.Page 48:The dedicated GM is not only an impartial judge of events, but at the same time he is an active force championing the cause of both the preservation of PCs not bent on self-destruction and the continued satisfaction of players who do not seek to see the campaign ruined. Conversely, he has no ethical or moral obligation to keep a PC alive and viable if that character’s player insists on leaping into the jaws of adversity - and he owes it to himself and the others in the group to discipline or dismiss a player who has a selfish and treacherous attitude toward the campaign. Page 50-51: You respond to the players’ needs by revising and expanding the campaign milieu. First they may demand more intense and detailed combat frequently. Then they might find more esoteric approaches to unusual problems more interesting. You address these preferences as soon as you become aware of the trend… difficulty arises when players try to revise the game system, violate the spirit, or make the campaign into a playground - as opposed to a testing ground - for their game personas.</blockquote>

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