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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4714857" data-attributes="member: 710">I am not an impartial referee. I have a broad idea of what I like, and what my players do enjoy.My players enjoy to be challenged, and there are certain story-lines they will probably find compelling, while others don't interest them. I will try to facilitate both. That also means that I won't put in unfair (either too easy or too hard) encounters, and if they happen, I'd fast-forward through them - but I'd rather script the scenario in a way to avoid this.I try to avoid restricting the players freedom, but if it seems necessary, I will give them hints and hooks that lead them to a path I feel best prepared for and that will probably lead to the most interesting outcomes.I am not a perfect referee. I will make mistakes. But any short-comings that will result of this will be "my" fault, not that of some random table, and I can use it to learn and do it better the next time.Sometimes I forget an important note or element of the game world, which turns out to make it impossible for the players to gather a vital information. My original world might have been a perfectly coherent world, but just because I forgot to describe a detail of the world, the world I am actually playing in is already inconsistent of the original. And that forces me to adapt the "play instance" of my world furtherI have the most fun if I see the players having fun and being focused on the story, not wasting time on rules arguments or talking about off-topic stuff. This also means I am willing to modify things I thought up - or create something on the fly - if it seems to lead to more "fun" of the players. The world I designed is a starting point, but it is not a guarantee I or my players will enjoy it as envisioned. Why fudge: 1) I, as the DM, made a bad call. I created a situation that seems unfair, because I left out information the players needed to judge it adequately enough - possibly because I misjudged a certain element. (Maybe I thought the players would walk a different route, I underestimated a monster, I myself fracked up and forget to leave a vital clue).2) The dice just suck and make the entire encounter unbeatable (or pointless). My experience tells me I did the right thing.All this doesn't mean I am invalidating the choices of my players or their PCs. All this doesn't mean I am not trying to create a consistent game world, where things happen for a reason and are affected by the actions or inactions of the PCs. What it means is that I am aware of the bolts and nuts of my game. I know what is just a facade I created, and what is a fully fledged adventure. I know where I fudged or diverted from my original notes, and where I did not. Overall, I manage to keep my game world pretty intact and consistent. That's what I do, that's my anecdotal experience. If it works fine for you doing it differently, that's pretty cool. The end goal is to have fun. But you are absolutely right, there are different ways to "have" fun. Whether designing a game or designing a game world or designing an adventure, you will have to figure out what is most likely fun for your target audience, and what is less so.</blockquote>

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