D&D 5E Would you change a monster's hit points mid-fight?

[Celtavian]

Yes, its a role-playing game. That means that the players "win" or "lose" based on the role they play, not because the DM thinks it would be enhance his idea of the story by the PCs losing now or making them win despite multiple blunders on their side.
You can of course stack an encounter in a way to encourage a certain result. But this is at first just another situation for the players to deal with. If they manage to win an encounter they are supposed to lose they should get that victory despite it throwing off your "awesome dramatic idea". And if they lose an encounter they are supposed to win then it leads to another situation for them to deal with in game. Don't make them win just so that the railroad can continue.

Sure, if they manage to win, good for them. It's so easy to kill a player that you don't have to work hard to do it. I'm telling a story when I DM. I'm not a referee creating perfectly balanced encounters. It's rare it doesn't work out how I plan it including the players suffering a loss because I planned it.

I never understood the DM vs. Player mentality. A DM's job is to make the campaign fun, interesting, and challenging. We all use different methods.

Why can't a DM add specific encounters because he thinks the story is interesting? Players do things because they think it makes their character interesting whether it is a particular appearance, desire to a specific magic item, ability choice, or the like. If I think something is going to enhance my idea of the story, I do it.

Why some people think a DM shouldn't enjoy the campaign he creates, I have no idea. Why do you think people DM? To run a game exactly by the rules so players can feel an amazing rush beating monsters? Hell, no. They run it because they find some aspect of running it pleasurable whether that is encounter or monster design, tactics, role-playing NPCs, or whatever. If I find orchestrating a story a particular way I find interesting, I get to do it. Otherwise, someone else can step up and do the work DMing. If players don't like it, I offer them that option.

You don't get to use the DM for your own purposes. It's a group game. The DM gets to have fun too including doing what he feels enhances the story for no other person than himself. Just like the players get to make all the decisions about their characters capabilities themselves.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Sure, if they manage to win, good for them. It's so easy to kill a player that you don't have to work hard to do it. I'm telling a story when I DM. I'm not a referee creating perfectly balanced encounters. It's rare it doesn't work out how I plan it including the players suffering a loss because I planned it.

I never understood the DM vs. Player mentality.

While it's not my mentality either, I'll take a stab at outlining it: If you limit yourself, as a DM, to strict, somehow 'fair' challenges, and map out (literally and figuratively) every aspect of each challenge ahead of time, then run through it with the players 'impartially' (including no fudging anything, all rolls in the open, monsters behaving according to their stated int/objectives/knowledge/tactics, etc), then you can consider wiping them out a 'win' - fair and square, as it were. The DM presents a fair challenge - trapped labyrinth filled with monsters, typically - the players either overcome it (win) or not (DM wins). In that paradigm of D&D, 'bad' DMs were the Killer DM, who presented unfair challenges and few rewards even if you somehow won, and the opposite, the Monty Haul DM who presented too-easy challenges and too-rich rewards.

Make any more sense, now?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I enjoy a bit of DM vs Players and that vibe is definitely running at my table. They call the monsters "my boys" and stuff like that. But I keep it fair and am not trying to kill the players, which as some have said would be trivial if I wanted to just do it. "hey a huge ancient dragon attacks..".

 

[Derren]

Sure, if they manage to win, good for them. It's so easy to kill a player that you don't have to work hard to do it. I'm telling a story when I DM. I'm not a referee creating perfectly balanced encounters. It's rare it doesn't work out how I plan it including the players suffering a loss because I planned it.

I never understood the DM vs. Player mentality. A DM's job is to make the campaign fun, interesting, and challenging. We all use different methods.

Why do you think that not railroading players automatically means an adversarial "DM vs. Player" relationship?

I do have a lot of respect for my players and that respect includes letting them shape the story of their characters and not forcing them onto a story I want to tell by various means, including changing the HP of monsters mid game to get the outcome I want or to make specific events ("they are killing it too fast. Lets double its HP so it can get off its cool moves...") happen.

If you only derive enjoyment from letting players run along a story you created you should really ask yourself if you even need a rules system or if rules just get in the way of controlling the story, so much that you have to bend or break them if they do not lead to the result you want.
And what do think your players would say if you would be honest and told them "It doesn't really matter how good your characters are in combat as I will modify every encounter until it gets the result I need to tell my story. Most of the time that means ensuring that you defeat the enemy, but sometimes I make sure you lose when I think it enhances it"?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I've never tried to tell a particular story in a game, and when I've tried to do so with AP style stuff it always chafes me. I figure I'll set the stage and some kind of story may develop from the mayhem that results due to game play. I'm a game trumps DM's story type, even when I'm the DM.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I really appreciated the balanced approach to the issue of style preferences taken by yesterday's DMing article over at the WotC website. It shows that the game crew want to validate either style and acknowledge what people find enjoyable about each of them.

Why some people think a DM shouldn't enjoy the campaign he creates, I have no idea. Why do you think people DM? To run a game exactly by the rules so players can feel an amazing rush beating monsters? Hell, no. They run it because they find some aspect of running it pleasurable whether that is encounter or monster design, tactics, role-playing NPCs, or whatever. If I find orchestrating a story a particular way I find interesting, I get to do it. Otherwise, someone else can step up and do the work DMing. If players don't like it, I offer them that option.

You don't get to use the DM for your own purposes. It's a group game. The DM gets to have fun too including doing what he feels enhances the story for no other person than himself. Just like the players get to make all the decisions about their characters capabilities themselves.

The funny thing, is that a huge part of my fun as a DM is creating a consistent and expansive world and letting it mostly operate on its own. Sure I grab adventures and hooks and throw them in for the players to accept or ignore, but what I like is creating the virtual imagination environment where my wonderful world has its own identity and agency, so to speak. To overrule things on the fly is, for me, to invalidate the actions of my world in much the same way as stopping a PC from doing something they should be able to do is to invalidate their choice.

 

[SirAntoine]

You are jumping to a conclusion, not knowing the situation.

One of the players was leaving to go away to school. For dramatic purposes, the GM suggested he give her a major death scene, and she agreed. In this case, setting us up to lose was entirely appropriate. Afterwards, when it all played out (there was a resurrection involved) and he told us what was going on, we all agreed it was a good thing.

Okay.

 

[The Human Target]

While it's not my mentality either, I'll take a stab at outlining it: If you limit yourself, as a DM, to strict, somehow 'fair' challenges, and map out (literally and figuratively) every aspect of each challenge ahead of time, then run through it with the players 'impartially' (including no fudging anything, all rolls in the open, monsters behaving according to their stated int/objectives/knowledge/tactics, etc), then you can consider wiping them out a 'win' - fair and square, as it were. The DM presents a fair challenge - trapped labyrinth filled with monsters, typically - the players either overcome it (win) or not (DM wins). In that paradigm of D&D, 'bad' DMs were the Killer DM, who presented unfair challenges and few rewards even if you somehow won, and the opposite, the Monty Haul DM who presented too-easy challenges and too-rich rewards.

Make any more sense, now?

The idea that someone thinks they can perfectly do that fascinates me.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The idea that someone thinks they can perfectly do that fascinates me.

It is, on the other hand, pretty easy to run monsters accurately to the best of your ability and then just watch in horrified fascination as players get themselves into nasty trouble. All you have to do is master the ability to keep your mouth shut. :-D

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

The op was asking about combat fudging, which I took to read as helping the party survive what would otherwise be a tpk, etc.
In terms of this, as I outlined before, yep, I'll nudge them away from the brink or at least, and this is the thing, give them the opportunity to turn the tide. But I don't adjust the hp.
Where the conversation seems to be going in terms of railroading - nope. I'm running LMOP and, honestly, if they decided to become desert nomad punch and judy men, I'd love it. Lost mine can run in the background and bite them on the bum later maybe. But I'd like them to swing off road and kind of make me wing it. I certainly wouldn't force them. The scenario will play out with or without them, and somebody will gain control of the mine. There may be news and consequences but who am I to stop their riddley walker careers if that's where it ends up going?
I would still give them the _chance_ to get out of sticky combat situations though, wherever they take the plot. And if I _need_ villain A to capture them, or to escape, whilst in a fight, I'll play that villain to the best if his abilities, but if they zap him round one...ok. There's always the wife, or brother, or Stockholm syndromed captive to move that plot along later.