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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ruleslawyer" data-source="post: 2653138" data-attributes="member: 1757">That said, I still don't think it's always a good idea for all dice to be rolled in the open OR for the DM to allow the dice to stand under every possible scenario, for the simple reason that I, as a DM, do not trust myself to have crafted a scenario in which any outcome, no matter how silly the dice become, will lead to an interesting or satisfying story to my players. My axiom is that if my players are happy, I've done a good job. To be honest, if I were playing with gamers who would be happy only to rack up levels and to always win in the end, I'd tailor the scenario (and fudge the dice) to fit their expectations. Why? Because it's a game, and games work best when the players are having fun. So, I make the players' rolls stand, and I fudge the occasional roll if I think things are getting out of hand. Does this take the element of chance out of the game? No way. A 1 blows your save against that wizard's disintegrate, you're dust. Poof. Bye bye. I roll 14 20s in a row, and follow up with confirmed crits, for the band of kobold archers firing on those high-level PCs when the ambush isn't an important part of the story? Fudge fudge. I have had ONE player, in 23 years of DM-ing, MAKE me show him the dice (he died two rounds later, since I rolled all the monsters' attacks on HIM in the open and got unprecedentedly lucky rolls). Everyone else is fine with the arrangement. Besides, it keeps things a bit mysterious; I don't want the players knowing that a 15 is a hit for the BBEG as opposed to a 10, for instance.Now, back to topic: There is little to no availability of raise dead/resurrection spells for PCs below level 15 IMC, and to be honest, I find a Fate Points mechanic (avoiding death in the first place) a bit more narratively sound than resurrection, which I do find a bit too video-gamey. I award Fate Points for roleplaying, exceptional cleverness in achieving story objectives, and similar behaviors. Thus, PCs of mine who find themselves in a fatal situation will get out of it... if they're good enough players to have earned the needed Fate Points. So, death tends to come to the players who (a) weren't holding up their end to begin with; (b) were profligate with their Fate Points; or (c) were very, VERY unlucky (and see the preceding paragraph for my approach at that point). IOW, if you were playing well and took some educated risks, you ain't dying IMC. If you're not playing well, you stand a good chance of becoming meat.</blockquote>

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