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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 5740737" data-attributes="member: 2205">Yeah, I know.  My point is merely that the conventions of a game are more guidelines rather than "laws"--if we all agree that the result is lame, then we can change the result, regardless of how legitimate it is.  Your examples aren't really exactly what I had in mind, because I doubt I'd get very many people to agree that those results were lame, but you're on the right track conceptually, at least.In roleplaying games, and in D&D at least in particular, this is explicitly stated as a core tenet of the game.  I think that there's two issues here, one of which I imagine I'm in the minority, and the other I imagine that I'm not.1) My take on a game--any game--is that it's supposed to be a fun time between friends and family, most of the time.  Being too rigid about the rules, at the expense of other considerations, defeats that purpose, thus making the whole point of playing a game moot.2) Roleplaying games have a number of features that cause them to be different than any other type of game (which is also true of sports, board games, card games, and other types of games, but that's neither here nor there).  Thus making comparisons and contrasts between RPGs and other games is of dubious utility.  In other words, it doesn't really matter if any other game has this feature.  If it's unique to RPGs, well it isn't the only feature that would be, after all.All that said and done, I don't really consider myself much of a fudger.  In fact, back when those GM Merit Badges thingies were all the rage, I picked the "I roll my dice in the open" merit badge to describe my GM style.  I don't literally do that all the time, just for convenience, it's easier to roll them right there in front of me, which means on my side of the screen, but I'm also not very secretive about my rolls, if I'm standing or whatever (which is frequent during combat) then I'll roll them openly, and if anyone asks I'll tell them what the roll was, usually.  That said, I still reserve the right to alter anything that needs altering to enhance the experience for the group.  And I expect other GMs to do the same.  In my group currently--where I'm not running right now anyway--our GM is quite open about what he's fudging, in fact.  He believes that the modules he's running are rather poorly designed and if run as is will result in multiple TPKs--at least for the way we play the game, which isn't always the most tactically savvy.  So in the middle of combat that's going badly, he'll stop and complain loudly about encounter design, and then make a big show of using some form of fiat to make the encounter be a little more fair, if necessary.  I neither see this as bad nor wrong--in fact, if he didn't do this, I'd probably consider him a bad GM.  If you can't balance encounters to get--on average--the result you anticipate--including adjustements needed on the fly--then you're not a good GM.  Sure, I wish he'd do it a bit more discretely, frankly, but it's not a big deal to me either way.As I mentioned in the other thread, though--it's also a little hard to define exactly what fudging is with my GMing style.  Although I do have some pregenerated stats and monsters, naturally, at least 50% of the challenges and combats that I run for my players tend to be on the fly.  There isn't a target DC except what I set on the fly for that Jump check, or whatever.  There isn't an AC except what I pull out of my hat when the first PC makes a roll to hit him.  There isn't a hit point total on these bad guys, because I just whipped the whole thing up on the fly--so combat stops when I feel like it's time to stop.  I'm a big fan of Schrodinger's stats.  (A lot of people will try to tell you that you can't run 3e/3.5 that way, but I'm living proof that that's not true.  Although, again, that's neither here nor there.)How exactly do you fudge anything in that environment?  Bad rolls are still bad rolls and their results are obvious.  Good rolls are still good rolls, and their results are obvious.  It's only in the mediocre rolls where it really matters... but again, if I'm making up the targets on the fly anyway, then conceptually, do they really matter?  You could certainly make an argument that they don't.That's why I say that RPGs are different than any other kind of game.  The dice are still important, and having that element of randomness is still crucial to my enjoyment of the game.  But at the same time, I refuse to become a slave to dice results.  Dice rolls are a guideline to actual in-game results more often than not, not an immutable law of physics.</blockquote>

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