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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 6577533" data-attributes="member: 5834">First, I don't modify encounters once they are made.My players have a lot of trust and respect for me as a DM. They know I'm going to make the adventure fun and give them a hell of a ride from beginning to end. They like me to design a story. Why? Same reason a person likes to read a story: to find out what happens next. In my experience, players like to be surprised. This railroading talk is utter garbage. What do you think a movie is? A railroad experience. A book? A railroad experience. A video game? A railroad experience. Yet millions and billions of people love to read books, watch movies, and play video games because they want to be surprised and entertained by someone that is taking them on some kind of adventure, so that is what I do. When I pull off an encounter that works as I wanted it to work, that is an amazing feeling. Do you have any idea how hard it is to create an encounter where the players fight a hard fought battle, lose, but still survive without fudging anything? Do you?I tend to follow the rules because it creates verisimilitude. That is what the rules provide from my perspective. They set the world parameters equal for both the DM and players creating the fiction that the world is real and static. I follow the rules carefully when engaging in encounter design. Once I set something up, I don't deviate from my designed encounter whether changing hit points or spell lists. So if the players win, they earned it. I don't mind if they beat something intended to cause them to lose or retreat. It happens sometimes just as something being too strong happens. When you hit that sweet spot, it's a thing of beauty. Bottom line is my enjoyment as a DM comes from setting up a story. I let the players react to the encounters and the outcome of the encounters affect future parts of the story. The players make the story dynamic, win or lose. I adjust after the encounter is complete, not during. So not sure why we're having this discussion. I'm one of those DMs that doesn't change hit points. That is different from designing encounters to force players to retreat or to suffer a loss. Even when I do so, nothing is guaranteed. If the players get lucky or come up with amazing tactics, I don't change things to make them lose. I adjust future encounters to account for their victory and give them a pat on the back.Telling the story is a group effort with both the DM and players adding a dynamic element.</blockquote>

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