NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8173369" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Okay so...What if you could actually have that Santa? Because that's what I'm advocating for. A world where you don't fudge, but you still accomplish all the things fudging is meant to do. Where there need not be a loss of wonder, because there is no falsehood to break it. Because there is a proverbial wizard behind the curtain. The agency is real, and the mechanics are real but not inescapable.Now, maybe (like Kannik) you consider the things I'm advocating for "fudging," because you have a broad definition of the term. If you consider any situation where you ignore or modify the numbers to be "fudging," regardless of context, well...I guess my argument just boils down to "try only use the parts that don't require parents putting the presents under the tree, but which still ensure presents arrive there?" But it sounds like you use the term "fudging" the way I do: that it's about secrecy and illusion, projecting the appearance of agency (for the players) and objectivity (of the world) when neither really applies. If that is how you see it...again, I'm just wondering why it's worthwhile to have the risk of revealing your proverbial Santa isn't real, when a little bit of effort would mean he IS (proverbially) real.It just seems like the trade is "well I save a small amount of effort on relatively infrequent events, in exchange for having to maintain an illusion that would be terrible for my players if it ever broke." (And which you admit must break, if  a person ever decides to sit behind the DM screen for a while before going back to being a player.) When instead it could be, "I spend a bit more effort on relatively infrequent events, but my players can be certain that their agency is real."Faced with such a decision, it's just...really hard for me to see why one would choose the former when you could choose the latter. Further, I don't really see any reason that the implied assertion wrapped up in it--that there's only a small difference in effort between "fudging" as I've defined it and these other tactics I've described--is incorrect. This is, obviously, a squishy value-judgment. But it's just really surprising to me that pro-fudging people don't seem to really care to check it out.</blockquote>

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