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Would you change a monster's hit points mid-fight?
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6772859" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>As someone else said: holy thread necromancy, Batman!</p><p></p><p>And I actually don't accept this as an example, no matter what Mr. Allen's character says. Stories are not "lies" even if they do not depict actual facts, as <a href="http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/mythopoeia.html" target="_blank">Tolkien said quite eloquently</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Show me even one instance where this occurs not only without the players' knowledge, but <em>intentionally trying to prevent them finding out.</em> Then, you might have an analogy. Otherwise, what you're talking about is completely different, an open and frank assertion that "hey guys, I/you screwed up, and now something has to be done to rectify that."</p><p></p><p> @<em><strong><u><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=94389" target="_blank">jrowland</a></u></strong></em></p><p>See, I have two huge issues with the "trust" argument.</p><p></p><p>First, how can you call it "trust" when people have explicitly said that the DM not only <em>can</em> do these things, but <em>should</em> do them, and <em>lie to the players</em> when the players ask if it was done? That's precisely the opposite of "building trust." That's answering direct, simple questions with falsehoods.</p><p></p><p>Second, my more fundamental beef <em>isn't even about trust vs. mistrust</em>. It's about making informed decisions, and about enjoying the challenge of a game, rather than a "puzzle" or a pure improv session. I want my choices to matter, and I want my successes to be the consequence of my choices--in addition to my <em>failures</em> being the consequence of my choices. Because that's how you learn: you take in information, create a plan, attempt to execute it, and review the results, which becomes part of the next round of taking in information. If success and failure are primarily a function of <em>what story the DM wants to tell</em>, rather than whether the choices were <em>actually good or bad choices</em> in context*, then I'm not actually <strong>playing</strong> a <strong>game</strong>. I'm <strong>listening</strong> to a <strong>story</strong>, where I get to extemporaneously provide the lines and actions for one of the characters.</p><p></p><p>When I make decisions that are "too good" for the story, then the story will prevent those overly-good choices from impinging upon the narrative (for example, if the group executes a plan exceedingly well and I get a lucky crit, felling the BBEG before he gets a chance to speak). When I make decisions that are "too bad" for the story, then the story will prevent those overly-bad decisions from impinging upon the narrative (for example, an enemy gets a lucky crit after I'm already hurting because I decided to attack again instead of heal--except nope, DM says it's a miss).</p><p></p><p>BOTH of those situations are removing my ability to actually play a game.</p><p></p><p>*The context is DM-chosen. I freely admit this. However, the fact that it is DM-chosen is irrelevant. Either the context is accessible in some manner to me, through the lens of the character I play, thus allowing me to acquire information and make an informed choice, which will be good or bad based on all of the information including some I could not access even in principle; or the context is <em>not</em> accessible to me, in this case because the context can be rewritten not only without my awareness but specifically so that I <em>won't</em> be aware of it, in which case my choices are fundamentally invalid from the get-go, even if they lead to the goals I sought.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 6772859, member: 6790260"] As someone else said: holy thread necromancy, Batman! And I actually don't accept this as an example, no matter what Mr. Allen's character says. Stories are not "lies" even if they do not depict actual facts, as [URL="http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/mythopoeia.html"]Tolkien said quite eloquently[/URL]. Show me even one instance where this occurs not only without the players' knowledge, but [I]intentionally trying to prevent them finding out.[/I] Then, you might have an analogy. Otherwise, what you're talking about is completely different, an open and frank assertion that "hey guys, I/you screwed up, and now something has to be done to rectify that." @[I][B][U][URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=94389"]jrowland[/URL][/U][/B][/I] See, I have two huge issues with the "trust" argument. First, how can you call it "trust" when people have explicitly said that the DM not only [I]can[/I] do these things, but [I]should[/I] do them, and [I]lie to the players[/I] when the players ask if it was done? That's precisely the opposite of "building trust." That's answering direct, simple questions with falsehoods. Second, my more fundamental beef [I]isn't even about trust vs. mistrust[/I]. It's about making informed decisions, and about enjoying the challenge of a game, rather than a "puzzle" or a pure improv session. I want my choices to matter, and I want my successes to be the consequence of my choices--in addition to my [I]failures[/I] being the consequence of my choices. Because that's how you learn: you take in information, create a plan, attempt to execute it, and review the results, which becomes part of the next round of taking in information. If success and failure are primarily a function of [I]what story the DM wants to tell[/I], rather than whether the choices were [I]actually good or bad choices[/I] in context*, then I'm not actually [B]playing[/B] a [B]game[/B]. I'm [B]listening[/B] to a [B]story[/B], where I get to extemporaneously provide the lines and actions for one of the characters. When I make decisions that are "too good" for the story, then the story will prevent those overly-good choices from impinging upon the narrative (for example, if the group executes a plan exceedingly well and I get a lucky crit, felling the BBEG before he gets a chance to speak). When I make decisions that are "too bad" for the story, then the story will prevent those overly-bad decisions from impinging upon the narrative (for example, an enemy gets a lucky crit after I'm already hurting because I decided to attack again instead of heal--except nope, DM says it's a miss). BOTH of those situations are removing my ability to actually play a game. *The context is DM-chosen. I freely admit this. However, the fact that it is DM-chosen is irrelevant. Either the context is accessible in some manner to me, through the lens of the character I play, thus allowing me to acquire information and make an informed choice, which will be good or bad based on all of the information including some I could not access even in principle; or the context is [I]not[/I] accessible to me, in this case because the context can be rewritten not only without my awareness but specifically so that I [I]won't[/I] be aware of it, in which case my choices are fundamentally invalid from the get-go, even if they lead to the goals I sought. [/QUOTE]
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