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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Daztur" data-source="post: 5948229" data-attributes="member: 55680">Well let's say that one GM runs Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (high lethality system) and another one runs Spirit of the Century (how lethality system) but the Warhammer Fantasy GM fudges rolls to keep characters from dying so that both games have the same death rate in actual play. Same thing? Deciding something before play starts (we'll use Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, I'll put that nasty dungeon over there and I'll use this nasty random critter chart for this area over there) feels a lot different to players dealing with it (at least to me it does) than the DM adjusting stuff on the fly.Creating a world (or choosing which world to use) and deciding on what laws that world obeys (the rules of the game) are different than how the DM actually runs the game face to face. If the DM chooses a different world and a lethal rule set, that does't stop the DM from being impartial in how he/she actually run the game since the world and the ruleset are independent of the players.Information is essential. However, the information should be AVAILABLE if the players go look for it (or there should be clues if the players take the time to investigate them like burned trees or whatnot) but it's not the DM's responsibility to make sure that the players have a certain set of information before entering a certain area.Also you don't have to have a perfect level of impartiality and just because the DM can't be perfectly impartial doesn't mean that some level of impartiality isn't a good thing. In the last campaign I played in the DM wasn't perfectly impartial (I assume, I can't read his mind) but he was impartial enough that I always felt that all of the bad and good things that happened to my character were because of my own decisions or luck and not because of the DM. That made me happy. I want to feel that kind of happiness when I play D&D. If I'm wrong about how impartial my DM is, that doesn't stop me from feeling happy.Of course it's an illusion, that my character is real is an illusion, but it's a FUN illusion that I want to cultivate and I think that the best way to strengthen that illusion is for the DM to be as neutral as possible (unless I'm playing FATE or somesuch, which should operate according to the Rule of Cool).I'm not a completely neutral DM, I just try my best to be (and I screw up sometimes like with the 5ed playtest I got too many rules mixed up to keep the damn wizard behind the curtain where he belongs).</blockquote>

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