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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 7768616" data-attributes="member: 177">The quote you use does not contain the word &quot;must&quot;.&nbsp; Much less &quot;MUST&quot;, with all-caps emphasis.&nbsp; This may be the world's most common form of strawman - overstate the other's position using absolute words, and then argue against them as if they were an extremist.&nbsp; It becomes easier to score rhetorical points, but it is counter-factual.&quot;Now and then, a player will die through no fault of their own.&nbsp; He or she will have done everything correctly, taken every reasonable precaution, but still a freakish roll of the dice will kill the character...&nbsp; You can rule that the player, instead of dying, is knocked unconscious, loses a limb, is blinded in one eye, or invoke any reasonably severe penalty that still takes into account what the monster has done.&quot;-E. Gary Gygax, &quot;Rolling the dice and control of the game&quot;, 1E DMG, 1979 If Gygax himself is now no longer old-school enough for us, I think we should all just stop discussing, as we won't get anywhere reasonable.&nbsp; Now, Gygax did include a warning that such GM-fiddling should be extremely rare, but the point is that even he acknowledged that it is fair to have considerations other than what the dice say.&nbsp; Who wants to claim that Gygax was off his nut, here? Great.&nbsp; Fine.&nbsp; Take the idea that it &quot;must&quot; be significant off the table.&nbsp; Because nobody ever said it.&nbsp; I feel no need to defend a position I didn't take.&nbsp; Quite.&nbsp; Very specifically, folks are bemoaning the emergence of mechanics and design points that were chosen because they naturally tend to give you the desired results for this style of play.&nbsp; There's no need to fudge, or use some other deus ex machina, if the way the dice fall out generally results in an appropriate narrative.&nbsp;&nbsp; And there's a variety of games along the spectrum of how much the mechanics are built to lean one way or another.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 7768616, member: 177"] The quote you use does not contain the word "must". Much less "MUST", with all-caps emphasis. This may be the world's most common form of strawman - overstate the other's position using absolute words, and then argue against them as if they were an extremist. It becomes easier to score rhetorical points, but it is counter-factual. [I]"Now and then, a player will die through no fault of their own. He or she will have done everything correctly, taken every reasonable precaution, but still a freakish roll of the dice will kill the character... You can rule that the player, instead of dying, is knocked unconscious, loses a limb, is blinded in one eye, or invoke any reasonably severe penalty that still takes into account what the monster has done."[/I] -E. Gary Gygax, "Rolling the dice and control of the game", 1E DMG, 1979 If Gygax himself is now no longer old-school enough for us, I think we should all just stop discussing, as we won't get anywhere reasonable. Now, Gygax did include a warning that such GM-fiddling should be extremely rare, but the point is that even he acknowledged that it is fair to have considerations other than what the dice say. Who wants to claim that Gygax was off his nut, here? Great. Fine. Take the idea that it "must" be significant off the table. Because [I]nobody ever said it[/I]. I feel no need to defend a position I didn't take. Quite. Very specifically, folks are bemoaning the emergence of mechanics and design points that were chosen because they naturally tend to give you the desired results for this style of play. There's no need to fudge, or use some other deus ex machina, if the way the dice fall out generally results in an appropriate narrative. And there's a variety of games along the spectrum of how much the mechanics are built to lean one way or another. [/QUOTE]

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