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="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 5279472" data-attributes="member: 18280">You're welcome.I try to follow my own endorsement (Take what is written in the best possible way).  I have to admit that, given the number of times that we've come to loggerheads about the same issues, you still don't know where I stand on this.  My main mantras are always the same:1.  If the DM has players, he can run the game any way he likes.  If the players don't like it, they shouldn't play.2.  Complaining isn't helpful.  Start your own game if you don't like the one you are in.3.  Life is too short for bad games.4.  Foreshadowing is vitally important to encounter design.5.  Don't fudge.  If you want the players to maintain narrative control when the dice are rolled, use a system (such as AP) that does so above-board.6.  Encounter design =/= fudging.7.  It is the player's job to seek out information.8.  It is the player's job to decide what risks to confront.You might disagree with me (and I am sure you do on some of them), but I think that I am pretty consistent in what I'm spewing out here.  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" />  Okay.  I can see this.  Here is my counter (again, one you should be expecting from long association with me here):"Deserve's got nothing to do with it."The problem here is the belief that there must be a "fault" (in the assigning blame sense) for something bad to happen.  But that's not true in a game with random elements.  Just as, when you got into the car, you accepted the risks of doing so, the players accept the risks of putting their characters in harm's way.Players try to ameliorate the risks as best they can -- as you do when you put on your seat belt -- and DMs try to present the risks in ways that are both interesting and entertaining.  Again, it comes down to how much narrative control you require, or how much tension you require.  No one is all one thing or the other.  For me, the metric is that what happens "makes sense" from hindsight, and could therefore have been predicted if one knew then what one knows now.  And, I think, one has to accept that sometimes the GM knows why things are happening, and you just don't have enough info to figure it out, or you're being slow, or whatever.  If the GM is generally worthy of trust, it is crass (at best) to suddenly cease to trust him just because you can't tell what's happening right now.Frex, in a Modern game, the chances of running into an impaired driver might be slightly higher than in real life, but they should be comparable.  Sometimes getting from Point A to Point B might be a challenge -- it is in the real world, too -- but the challenge presented should make sense.  And it should exist as part of the milieu, not simply to frustrate player choices.As a player, I have lost many, many characters.  Sometimes these were to failed saves.  Sometimes these were because I made choices that didn't allow saves at all.  Sometimes, I delved too deep.  Sometimes I got greedy.  Sometimes I got unlucky.Unless this was with a bad DM (and it has happened, either because the DM was inexperienced, or because he had a narrative he wanted to play out) none of these things were the DM's fault.  They were my fault.  They were not my fault in a "Bad player!  Bad!  Now go to your room and feel guilty!" sense.  They were my fault in a "These are the consequences of your choices" sense.It is far too easy to cry Bad DM!But, IME anyway, it is a far better game if you do not.  I try to follow my own endorsement:  "Take what happens in the game in the best possible way.  Have fun.  Help others have fun.  Don't pout."  I won't play with whiny gits.  Life is too short for bad games.You shouldn't play under circumstances you don't enjoy.  If you don't like SoD, don't play in games that use it.  But, if you choose to play in those games, don't whine when it happens.  The same mantras apply.RC</blockquote>

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