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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6801125" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Oh, well that's...rather a different situation than what people have presented thus far. That is, every example as I've understood it is "Player did something cool/awesome/interesting, I set a DC, they rolled, and missed" (sometimes with an added "by one" at the end). Your example is, "I've already decided they succeed/fail, no randomness will apply, but their enjoyment COMPLETELY hinges on it being probabilistic, so I pretend to roll the dice but never even care what value it shows." I don't, actually, consider that at all the same thing as "fudging." Because you've decided, before you even lift the die, that the die doesn't matter--it's just for show. In other words, I see the rolling of the die as being equivalent to deciding to give your NPCs foonee akzents: it's purely presentational fluff, which matters a huge amount for some people and not at all for others. Admittedly, this does still include the "deceiving the player" side of things...but the deception has nothing to do with their ability to make informed choices, nor with their ability to progressively improve their decision-making skills. It's purely theatrics, and doesn't involve you "changing your mind" after you've already "committed" to employing the probabilistic resolution system.Of course, I also think that a player that DESPERATELY NEEDS to have dice hit the table in order to feel any pleasure whatsoever in their successes...is being ridiculously demanding and petty. But since it doesn't hurt anyone else's fun, requires merely a minor physical action on the DM's part, and has minimal to zero effect on the player's informed-ness and choice-making ability, sure, whatever. A ridiculous but harmless and trivial demand is acceptable.Well, firstly I don't actually think it's such an either-or (which you might not have meant to imply, but you definitely did imply it). Those are certainly two points in the "aim-space" of D&D. But not only can games lie on any point on the line between those points, they can also lie in places other than those two points--all while still remaining in the realm of RP.I do not, at all, think that DMs need to "play with their cards face up." It's perfectly fine for the DM to make decisions about future events, unseen locations, or whatever else, without immediately and thoroughly explaining those things to the players. But--and this is crucial--I believe it is essential for the DM to be honest, when information is "earned." What does that mean, though, to "earn" information? Well, to use a Dungeon World example, the Spout Lore move: "When you consult your accumulated knowledge about something, roll+INT [read: 2d6+Int mod]. On a 10+, the GM will tell you something interesting and useful about the subject relevant to your situation. On a 7-9 the GM will only tell you something interesting--it's on to you to make it useful. The GM might ask you, 'How did you know this?' Tell them the truth now." Getting a complete success (that is, your total result is 10 or higher) is equivalent to having earned, from the dice, good information. Acquiring information without needing to roll at all, because the idea is just sound or the proposal just makes sense--something DW puts great emphasis on--also counts as "earning" your information.I see that "earned" information as something that "belongs" to the players no less than their gear, their gold, or their moves; simply taking it away from them because you decided things would be more interesting that way is just as much a dick move as deciding that things will be more interesting if a rust monster suddenly appears and eats the Fighter's gear. That is: a huge dick move that would need enormous justification--and may not be justifiable at all, much of the time.However, if it is not possible that they could have accurate information about the event in question, then until that information does become something they could know, it's okay to change it. Re-writing or ditching an encounter before it happens, because the party's rolled poorly and might not be able to take the beating you'd prepared? Totally kosher, unless they somehow KNOW precisely the enemies they're about to face (e.g. that guard duty roster I mentioned). Spicing things up with an unexpected but plausible encounter because the party is tossing crits like they're going out of style? Perfectly fine--again, as long as the party doesn't have good, reliable information that such an unexpected encounter won't happen (in other words, it's not a plausible encounter), e.g. they've taken down literally ALL the guards listed on the roster, partially through lucky combats, partially through clever plans, so you don't get to add extra guards just because.But there are ways to build justifications for this. I gave one example above: letting a particular player (or the whole group, via speaking openly to that player) know that because they stole the duty roster, the guard may be heightened or changed. Telling the players, in advance, that the corrupted druid grove they're headed to is in the middle of an old, old forest, with links to both the Feywild and Shadowfell--many are the myths that talk of someone getting lost in the forest for days or weeks at a time and coming back "touched" by the other planes, or worse, running into something that wandered into our world from...elsewhere. Giving them opportunities to seek out knowledge about these surprises, IF the players take them. That is: making sure they know that, when time isn't an extremely pressing concern, taking a moment to think and observe and reconnoiter is a good idea. If they're new to the concept, give them subtle (or, y'know, not so subtle) hints to do it, and slowly wean them off the hints until they start seeking out this information themselves, if it's in-character to do so (and it may not be for everyone, but surely it will be for somebody in the party...)You thus empower them to take charge of their own level of informed-ness, while retaining most of the benefits of changing the world around them. It's not seamless, and it's a certain level of work, remembering what information you've allowed them to acquire and avoiding changes that conflict with that unless you give them a chance to learn about the change (whether or not they take it). But I see that as being hardly different from expecting an author to avoid creating contradictions in their stories, either by not saying contradictory things in the first place, or by providing the reader with sufficient information (subtly or bluntly) to resolve the contradiction themselves.</blockquote>

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