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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Would you change a monster's hit points mid-fight?
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6597900" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>The issue goes way back and speaks to why we have DM screens. It's not just that the DM should conceal dice rolls when there are going to be factors other than the dice involved, or audibly roll the dice to make the players nervous, or just hide his notes so they can't read over his shoulders. It's that the DM is the players interface with the world of the game, and letting them know too much about the world, it's challenges (or even their characters), dilutes that. Keeping some of the details of the rules - and rulings - from the players is part of that. If the players know all the rules governing their characters, and take note of what, say, a monster does to them, what they do to it, and on what rolls, they can reverse engineer all sorts of information about that monsters, even about rules of the game that apply to that monsters, but apply to none of their characters. So you keep as much as possible on your side of the screen.</p><p></p><p>The 'problem' with players knowing too much can be put different ways: immersion, suspension of disbelief, DM authority, narrative control, force, etc... It doesn't even have to be a problem, some games play just fine with everything out in the open (some games are even designed to work without one player always being in the dedicated DM role). </p><p></p><p>But, avoiding that problem is part of achieving DM empowerment and ending player entitlement.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 6597900, member: 996"] The issue goes way back and speaks to why we have DM screens. It's not just that the DM should conceal dice rolls when there are going to be factors other than the dice involved, or audibly roll the dice to make the players nervous, or just hide his notes so they can't read over his shoulders. It's that the DM is the players interface with the world of the game, and letting them know too much about the world, it's challenges (or even their characters), dilutes that. Keeping some of the details of the rules - and rulings - from the players is part of that. If the players know all the rules governing their characters, and take note of what, say, a monster does to them, what they do to it, and on what rolls, they can reverse engineer all sorts of information about that monsters, even about rules of the game that apply to that monsters, but apply to none of their characters. So you keep as much as possible on your side of the screen. The 'problem' with players knowing too much can be put different ways: immersion, suspension of disbelief, DM authority, narrative control, force, etc... It doesn't even have to be a problem, some games play just fine with everything out in the open (some games are even designed to work without one player always being in the dedicated DM role). But, avoiding that problem is part of achieving DM empowerment and ending player entitlement. [/QUOTE]
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Would you change a monster's hit points mid-fight?
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