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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6586070" data-attributes="member: 996">Fine, it's a lie. But, deceiving or 'tricking' your players and withholding details of the rules from them was a big part of classic D&D.  Read the 1e DMG, EGG tells you to do that sort of thing all the time.  The DM/player dynamic simply wasn't co-equal back then.  5e harkens back to that with it's 'rulings not rules' philosophy.  In essence, a lot of rules don't exist, or actively call for a DM ruling, or are open to re-interpretation or overruling moment by moment, so the player doesn't have a sense of certainty to begin with.  Being 'lied to' doesn't change that much.  You don't know exactly what your character can do, nor exactly how the challenges he faces work.  You make decisions in the face of that uncertainty - uncertainty that makes easy (or even automatic) things seem risky, so when you succeed it seems like a dramatic success, even though it might have been a forgone conclusion.  By the same token, when you're confident of your plan, it can always fall apart.  Run just right, that style can create tension, excitement, and even a sense of your characters being heroic - it can also easily slip into paranoia, futility, and cynicism, so making good use of all your DMing tricks is a good idea.And, even if you want to look at it as lying, one could just look at that lying as part of the DMs role.  It's not like the world he's presenting really exists.  He's a 'professional liar' in the same sense an actor or author of fiction could be said to be.</blockquote>

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