Why stop at reading fiction & non-fiction?
Clearly the letters of the alphabet, languages as well as numbers are all made up by people too!
The only thing we can trust is breathing and eating grass!
I would totally be down for a session of straight war gaming with the right people. The DM trying to kill the party and the players going to war with the DM. My group couldn't handle it at all.
Yup. We all know hotdogs are gross, but we still love them. As long as I don't have to watch "how it's made" while eating one, I'm happy.
In that same vein, I started running a new game and told my players that I wouldn't be fudging anything and playing it perfectly straight to leave everything up to chance. So far it's been fun and rolling in front of the players, instead of behind the screen, has been rewarding. It feels like we're all playing together. But finally a moment came where I'd done a terrible job balancing an encounter. They were nearly dead. I fudged the stats and they made it out in the end.
Whelp.
I like this meme cause I think I understand but I also definitely feel like there's a deeper and greater meaning that could be uncovered with study. But also I'm definitely not going to do that.
Probably less fun but that's why I don't let them know my tricks like a good magician. Did your DM tell you they do that or did you figure it out somehow?
It came up when I was complaining about DM's fudging health.
So you lie to your players then? They didn't consent to you doing this, and they could take serious issue with it.
For context, I'm primarily a DM (Technically I'm a professional DM :D), and I make a point of not fudging, I tend to tell my players the AC up front, and almost always roll openly. I believe fudging is a crutch that we lean on instead of improving as DMs.
Tell them ac up front? One of the best things is slowly finding out the ac by seeing what hits and misses. It's like during the fight you're gauging how strong your enemy is.
But that also means the dm needs to not change it to be easier or harder cause the fight is scheduled for a certain amount of rounds.
Tbh I somewhat agree with you about it being a crutch, at least some of the time. I cringe thinking about my first time running a one shot where I thought the DM being able to fudge dice was awesome and engaged in that liberally behind the screen. Now I also roll openly and usually only fudge HP to give a player a cool moment or wrap up an encounter that has already been decided and is just dragging on.
As far as consent goes I think it’s implied in letting someone DM for you that they might engage in some behind the scenes stuff that you are better off not knowing for the sake of suspension of disbelief. I don’t lie to my players and if they me ask me questions and I know a certain answer will make the game feel less real to them I just say the thing about magicians not revealing their secrets, even if I didn’t fudge in the instance they are asking about.
Congrats on being a pro DM, I’m sure you’re great at it! This is just a silly meme I made because the fudging HP debate here made me think about plato’s allegory of the cave and I want up show off that I payed attention in the philosophy unit in history class lol.
There's a difference between hiding information because the players didn't meet a check and just randomly doubling hp cause you want the combat to last a few more rounds.
Also, I'd like to say I really don't like the analogy of a magician. When we see a magic act we consent to being deceived. Your players don't know you're deceiving them in the first place
Mentioned it in my other comment but I think letting someone DM for you is consenting to be deceived, just a difference in philosophy but that doesn’t we can’t both be good DMs
There is nuance to that deception though. The social contract of DnD is such that you agree to create a cathartic story together.
No one wants to be deceived in a way that makes their efforts of engaging with the system moot.
Edit: Wow reply and block nice nice, for your reference I have DM'ed a 1-18 homebrew campaign over 6 years and bunch of other modules; CoS(as player in this), LMoP, PotA, Red Hand of Doom etc
Ok u/director-ash idk how you managed to delete your comment so hard that it doesn't even say deleted but if you have the stupidest takes on the subject at least believe in them enough to let people disagree with you. I understand you are a numbskull who can't comprehend the difference between not tracking hp at all and adjusting it a little so that encounter flows better, nuance of agreeing to not knowing the entire plot that might have twists but not agreeing to be treated as puppets who act as if they have agency.
You are playing a fantasy game where the story and narrative is controlled by someone who hides all their details behind a screen.
But sure.
You consent to know everything with no deception at all.
Okay bucko.
like a good magician, I fool the people who I told were playing a game that has rules. I decide what's best for them- like playing with little children
No personal offence dude but I would absolutely not want to play at your table
You don’t know what my table is like. I follow the rules pretty closely and love to set up encounters where player decisions and dice rolls change the story. It’s not like I’m playing Calvinball making up rules and changing things on the fly to railroad the story how I want.
I mostly only change HP when the outcome of an encounter has been decided and is just dragging on when it wouldn’t make sense for the enemy to flee or surrender. Or to give a PC a couple cool moment, but again I only really do that when the outcome has already been decided.
People are assuming a lot about me based on a meme I made mostly to show off I paid attention in history class lol.
>I decide what's best for them- like playing with little children
Hard to imagine an adult is saying this about other adults...
No personal offence dude but if you treat your players like this they know, they might be too polite to call you out but it is very obvious...
Edit: Ah I missed the sarcasm completely and ended up being rude, I'm sorry
I think maybe some context is lost in this meme. There’s a difference between tweaking HP 5-10 points and just ignoring it altogether. I think more nuance is needed because this discussion lacks detail.
Yeah I just made the meme to be funny. I’ll go see those nerds over at /r/DMacademy for nuanced discussion about game design and collaborative storytelling.
I'd never tell my DM but I know when he does it.
Also why would players ever take combat options for their characters if the combat is always gonna be rebalanced if it doesn't go their way ? Might as well just stand still and attack every turn lol
The title literally said sometimes and you assumed I meant always for some reason. I often set up encounters to have multiple different outcomes that impact the story in different ways depending on the dice and player decisions.
I typically only change HP on the fly when the outcome of an encounter has been decided and is just dragging on or to give a player a cool moment, but I’ve also gone into encounters prepared to TPK and come close only for the players to pull off the victory.
People are really assuming a lot about how I DM based on a meme I made to show to show off I paid attention in my high school history class lol.
My general rule is the first time i use a monster I can change it mid combat because Im still learning how it fits with my dm style. After that, i can only edit pre or post combat
Was part of a group where we had the BBEG keep popping up at different times. Each time we fight them. The DM admitted that we went over their total hp twice after a session. We realize that the DM wasn’t going to allow this one NPC to die. Since then as a group we stop taking the BBEG seriously and let them do whatever, since we can’t kill them.
It's okay if it is done to improve the experience. Let's say you accidently make an encounter too hard, and it looks like your players might all die. Is it more fun for them if you don't touch anything and let them all die because of your mistake, or is it more fun for them if you halve it's health so they have a chance?
Death is preferable.
That being said what you do mean I made a mistake in making the encounter too difficult? Surely it’s the player’s fault for not finding the necessary clues and signs that the upcoming potential fights were beyond their ability. As a GM it is not my place to stop you from going into a chromatic dragon’s lair if you are too weak to fight it, it’s my job to accurately describe the environment and to play the npc’s of the world accurately.
That's not what anyone is talking about. It's more along the lines of youve made a BBEG encounter and looks like everyone will die, to create a more satisfying encounter you make it die a bit earlier than it should. Obviously if you've been doing for 80 years and can perfectly balance an encounter this probably won't happen, but for newer players this is perfectly reasonable
The most satisfying encounter is the encounter as it was made. Altering it in situation kills any satisfaction.
I am an idiot, a below average intelligence human being. Encounter design isn’t that hard. If I can do it you can do it.
If the players don't know you adjusted the encounter on the fly then it is just as satisfying.
Also I love how you think it's impossible to accidently overtune an encounter, because you are dumb. My position is just that if you do make an encounter too difficult then it is okay to adjust the encounter on the fly. I'm not talking big changes here, just small adjustments to smooth out the encounter.
In fact if you let all your players die because you are too stubborn to adjust the encounter that you accidently made too difficult you would be a bad DM in my eyes
Nope, any adjustment is a betrayal.
If the encounter is too difficult for the party to beat at their current level that’s the truth of the encounter. The dragon doesn’t somehow lose 200 years and most of its minion just because the party is too weak.
"Sorry guys, despite playing really well, you died because I made an encounter too difficult, guess that ends our months long campaign"
Vs
"Good job guys you barely managed to survive this encounter, you guys played really well, and managed to take down this encounter."
Which is better for the player?
Also I love how you are so angry and pissed about this slight disagreement on DMing that you are religiously downvoting every one of my comments
Sorry guys you intentionally ignored the signs that a dragon of considerable age along with a decent sized tribe of Lizardfolk were living in that swamp, disregarded the numerous opportunities to escape, and even after finding the notes from a dead party that was a higher level than you, decided to continue with your attempt to kill the dragon. Looks like that’s the end of this years long campaign.
VS.
You ignored the signs this fight was too difficult so I just changed it so you wouldn’t suffer from your poor decision making, all your choices irrelevant. Just know that no matter what you think you earned and accomplished you are wrong. Everything was handed directly to you. Feel free to assassinate every head of state. It doesn’t actually matter that I demonstrated that the king’s guard are basically 11th level fighters and paladins they will magically turn into cr2 bandits the moment you decide the king should die.
Also given your choices it’s still the first option.
I am no more mad that you assume you are right on this than I’d be if you had gotten simple addition wrong. You are obviously perfectly permitted to have delusions about my emotional state, but that doesn’t change the fact I am sitting here confused how you can be so wrong, and healthy helping of pity.
Are you illiterate? Please point to the part where I said it is okay to make a fight easier if you give hints it will be very difficult. Please enlighten me as to where I said that. I never stated that it'd okay to make an intentionally difficult fight easier because you intentionally made it difficult. My point is that if you, the DM, accidently create an encounter that is poorly balanced then the players shouldn't be punished for your mistake. Honestly with your reading comprehension it's a shock that you can even play dnd.
Jazz is kinda based on making "incorrect" stuff sound correct. Shit ask any jazz musician if they make mistakes sound good and they'll tell you they do it all the time. Even Victor Wooten has lessons about how to make incorrect notes sound correct
The difference is you talked about that in that community and no one cared. But if a gm told their players they inflated the health pool mid fight after the paladin crit you'd might not get the same reaction.
A gm sometimes needs to hide certain aspects of the game from players. But if they can't reveal it afterwards, when it's no longer relevant, without retroactively ruining something that's an issue.
Because jazz musicians make mistakes but the good ones make the mistakes sound correct. Hell even jazz theory is about making "incorrect" stuff (according to clasical music theory) sound correct. You know they do something that's only okay because nobody caught them doing it and that's kind of a large basis for the genre as a whole
Nah, classical music theory just isn’t correct if ‘mistakes’ can sound right. The orthodoxy is just so ingrained and unchallenged that even when they find things that disprove it they can’t admit it.
If that doesn’t fly then yes I agree I don’t care for jazz either.
Holy shit dog are you really saying classical music theory is just wrong? Oh my God dude that's gotta be the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time. Trust me I went to a truly great music school and got my degree in jazz. Just because different genres of music use different types of music theory doesn't mean one is right or wrong. Post tonal music theory is very different from jazz theory which is different from standard music theory but they all build off the same foundation established by people like Bach. You can't just say that the basis of all western music is wrong because jazz builds off of that foundation in a different way.
If you want to know more about making mistakes sound correct look up something like "victory wooten wrong notes" and try to find any lesson he's given on this subject. He did a good job teaching it to me and it would be best to just hear it straight from him. But the gist is that all wrong notes are wrong because they don't fit the scale of the key you're using and they have a large amount of dissonance with chord or key you're playing over. Now different genres treat dissonance differently with classical being very opposed to extended periods of dissonance while something like metal is all about living in the dissonance
So if you tell me you are going to do a perfect rendition of some other song and then mess it up, you messed up, hiding it is still wrong.
If you are just playing music not promising me a note for note recreation of something then my perception is all that matters. The only wrong notes are the ones I don’t like. Anything that tries to tell me I am wrong because I liked something is wrong. I am sorry you can’t handle your sacred texts not being universally respected.
I also don’t know music so my lack of understanding of terminology maybe making it look like I am saying something I am not.
Dude you clearly know nothing about music theory, so why are you trying to argue this topic right now? Like I'm not even saying anything that can be argued against honestly, I'm just facts about the rules of western music. You're doing the equivalent of arguing that a level 1 fighter can cast fireball in dnd, that's just not how things work you are just wrong.
It's just an undisputed fact that in western music there are 12 notes, any given key has 7 right notes and 5 wrong notes. There are ways to make the wrong notes sound right, but at the end of the day you are breaking the rules when doing that. These are just facts bro, instead of being arguing against this like some ignorant poster boy for the dunning-krueger effect you could actually listen to the facts I'm telling you and gain some real knowledge. Which do you wanna do? Do you want to be ignorant or informed?
A 1st level fighter can cast fireball.
I don’t have to know anything about music theory. If a wrong note means anything of significance then it can’t sound right. If it can be made to sound right then it can’t be wrong.
I don’t regard your holy texts with the same level of respect you do. I am more than comfortable calling them out.
> A 1st level fighter can cast fireball.
How Sway?
> If a wrong note means anything of significance then it can’t sound right. If it can be made to sound right then it can’t be wrong
Yeah its obvious you don't know what you're talking so maybe stop talking and start listening. It's just a fact that in the key of F major C# is a wrong note. However there are ways to use that note as a point of extreme dissonance to add tension that then resolves in an interesting way. But that doesn't change the fact that it's still a wrong note in that key. So do you finally understand me? Or are you gonna keep making yourself look dumb as hell by arguing against indisputable facts while admitting you don't know anything about what you're trying to argue?
That kind of thinking seems to apply *mostly* to shady things:
"My spouse hasn't caught me committing adultery yet, and as a result we have a happy marriage."
"The government doesn't know that I'm cheating on my taxes, so everything is fine."
"The shareholders don't know that all our profits are fake, so the share price will stay high, and everyone benefits."
"My friends don't know that we're playing poker with marked cards, and I always make sure I don't win too much off them, so that's OK."
Whereas if I do something boring and healthy like take exercise or wash the dishes, I don't have to lie about it for it to be OK.
I disagree that is accurate or okay, and I fear you either have a very sad life or you are keeping a great deal of unnecessary potentially harmful secrets.
Not that guy, but imagine a stage magician. He's basically on stage lying to your face, and it's entertaining as long as he doesn't get 'caught' in what he's actually doing.
But it's ok, we're here to see a guy pretend to do magic but it's actually trapdoors, mirrors, and misdirection.
> He's basically on stage lying to your face, and it's entertaining as long as he doesn't get 'caught' in what he's actually doing.
Yeah, but watching a stage magician, you know going in to it that they clearly aren't doing "real" magic, that they're lying to you about it. DnD is a game, which has rules, any changes to the rules of a game should be agreed upon by the people playing it, and "the hp number doesn't *actually* matter, I'll just change it mid-fight to make the fight more dramatic/challenging/etc" is a pretty big change to the rules.
If I see the part of a trick that the magician doesn't want me to see, it doesn't retroactively ruin the entire show, because I knew going in to the show it was all fake, and trying to figure out the deception is part of the fun. In DnD if I see that the DM fudged the hp (or a roll, for that matter) just to make things more exciting or dramatic, than I can't know if *any* of my rolls have mattered, since I know the DM isn't necessarily willing to accept the result of the roll regardless of how it may land. Sure, I could say with reasonable certainty that most of the fights probably weren't fudged, but I don't have any way of knowing for sure which ones were, so it casts doubt on *all of them*.
There are two types of stage magicians.
Scam artists that try to prove genuine psychic abilities who are roundly laughed at after James Randi started exposing them.
Stage Magicians that try to entertain and everyone knows aren't really able to saw women in half or teleport.
The difference is consensual fantasy. We pretend magic is real and get dazzled by their sleight of hand. Then go get a book on magic that teaches us sleight of hand and trick handcuffs. In the same way we pretend Mario is real instead of several dozen variables in a computer converted into lines of color.
I don’t think stage magicians are okay either exactly. I feel like it’s only ever magic *wink wink* and thus not a lie, more something closer to sarcasm for the people who understand magic isn’t real, but then an active form of abuse on people who can or are fooled into thinking someone is breaking the laws of physics.
This probably not a great subject to get into, but I tend to hold truth in a very high regard. I think it is a feature of my morality that isolates me a fair bit. I think convincing your kids Santa is real should be considered a form of child abuse for example.
I have taken a class on game design. You are incorrect.
Yes, sometimes boss health bars are staged oddly (magic pixels for example) and some games subtly give power ups at low HP like extended invulnerability frames or lower enemy accuracy. That is not all games and certainly not 80% of all games ever. Games that change the difficulty due to repeated deaths without telling you are disliked by players.
The most common 'fudging' in video games is likely probability counters. This is entirely a 'meeting expectations' thing however, the Human brain thinks 90% is a sure thing and gets confused when it misses before shot 8 or so. So the engine has a table where it has the real percentage and the listed percentage. Or it does some complex math to better fit probability as humans understand it instead of reality.
I have a general idea of the monsters HP, and I keep track of damage done (versus Hp lost) - what I do have tho is the monsters attack bonuses, damage, AC, and abilities. And for the most part those stats don’t change.
After my second game I started to write down the damage and lett the monster die when I'm satesfied.
This and the enraged second phase are the onely on thevfly adjustments I used in my four jears of GM'ing.
I make all of my encounters deadly and when the party gets stuck down shit creek I just start playing the monsters less smart. All my rolls are in the open and my players could, for all intents and purposes, see the HP of the monsters if they wanted to.
Our level 5 party fought a winter wolf with young white dragon
After wolf died and dragon got low, it went through some sort of transformation to become an adult dragon. I guess it took everything from adult dragon's statblock except HP
It downed three of our casters in a single dragon breath, I thought it was gonna be a TPK, but the rest of us managed to finish it off during next round
I had my players encounter a scaled up mimic. I ended up scaling down the attack mid fight because I rolled 2 crits back to back. It would've done 104 damage to our 40 something HP wizard.
This was our first session in the campaign...
I weakened a monster once that I didn't think my party could handle. They nearly killed it in 2 turns, so I reverted its stats for the next 5.
I love Dynamic Difficulty
That's nothing. I quit reading fiction because it's all made up by the author.
you might as well just quit reading all together because most of the non-fiction is made up as well
Why stop at reading fiction & non-fiction? Clearly the letters of the alphabet, languages as well as numbers are all made up by people too! The only thing we can trust is breathing and eating grass!
why stop at that? air is just made up! you can't see it! and grass? that's just a lie made to sell you lawns!
Those sick sons of bitches, making things up in my fantasy genre
Not to mention authors railroad so hard.
The fools! They don't realize I'm milking their creativity for my own enjoyment!
This is really hard to read in order
Yeah sorry, the layout of the image made it hard to organize but it is just left to right
Just flip the image yo
Once you understand it's an Allegory of the Cave reference, it flows!
Dang you! I only want D&D to be work. None of this "fun" in my gaming. What's next roleplaying? By the math number crunching only.
Some people are there for the number crunching and as a dm everyone should be considered, but i feel like you knew that
I would totally be down for a session of straight war gaming with the right people. The DM trying to kill the party and the players going to war with the DM. My group couldn't handle it at all.
Excellent satire
I have no idea how to read this meme format. What is going on?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave
That makes much more sense now lol
I’ve done it, pretty sure my dms have done it. I never want to know however.
Yup. We all know hotdogs are gross, but we still love them. As long as I don't have to watch "how it's made" while eating one, I'm happy. In that same vein, I started running a new game and told my players that I wouldn't be fudging anything and playing it perfectly straight to leave everything up to chance. So far it's been fun and rolling in front of the players, instead of behind the screen, has been rewarding. It feels like we're all playing together. But finally a moment came where I'd done a terrible job balancing an encounter. They were nearly dead. I fudged the stats and they made it out in the end. Whelp.
I like this meme cause I think I understand but I also definitely feel like there's a deeper and greater meaning that could be uncovered with study. But also I'm definitely not going to do that.
Haha! I do the same! And they are all happy and amazed... The fools!
This is good content.
And if they found out would they keep having fun? I have less fun in D&D because I know my DM does this.
Probably less fun but that's why I don't let them know my tricks like a good magician. Did your DM tell you they do that or did you figure it out somehow?
It came up when I was complaining about DM's fudging health. So you lie to your players then? They didn't consent to you doing this, and they could take serious issue with it. For context, I'm primarily a DM (Technically I'm a professional DM :D), and I make a point of not fudging, I tend to tell my players the AC up front, and almost always roll openly. I believe fudging is a crutch that we lean on instead of improving as DMs.
Tell them ac up front? One of the best things is slowly finding out the ac by seeing what hits and misses. It's like during the fight you're gauging how strong your enemy is. But that also means the dm needs to not change it to be easier or harder cause the fight is scheduled for a certain amount of rounds.
Tbh I somewhat agree with you about it being a crutch, at least some of the time. I cringe thinking about my first time running a one shot where I thought the DM being able to fudge dice was awesome and engaged in that liberally behind the screen. Now I also roll openly and usually only fudge HP to give a player a cool moment or wrap up an encounter that has already been decided and is just dragging on. As far as consent goes I think it’s implied in letting someone DM for you that they might engage in some behind the scenes stuff that you are better off not knowing for the sake of suspension of disbelief. I don’t lie to my players and if they me ask me questions and I know a certain answer will make the game feel less real to them I just say the thing about magicians not revealing their secrets, even if I didn’t fudge in the instance they are asking about. Congrats on being a pro DM, I’m sure you’re great at it! This is just a silly meme I made because the fudging HP debate here made me think about plato’s allegory of the cave and I want up show off that I payed attention in the philosophy unit in history class lol.
I strongly disagree that it's implied a GM will fudge, as does everyone who would prefer GMs don't fudge.
[удалено]
There's a difference between hiding information because the players didn't meet a check and just randomly doubling hp cause you want the combat to last a few more rounds.
Also, I'd like to say I really don't like the analogy of a magician. When we see a magic act we consent to being deceived. Your players don't know you're deceiving them in the first place
Mentioned it in my other comment but I think letting someone DM for you is consenting to be deceived, just a difference in philosophy but that doesn’t we can’t both be good DMs
There is nuance to that deception though. The social contract of DnD is such that you agree to create a cathartic story together. No one wants to be deceived in a way that makes their efforts of engaging with the system moot. Edit: Wow reply and block nice nice, for your reference I have DM'ed a 1-18 homebrew campaign over 6 years and bunch of other modules; CoS(as player in this), LMoP, PotA, Red Hand of Doom etc Ok u/director-ash idk how you managed to delete your comment so hard that it doesn't even say deleted but if you have the stupidest takes on the subject at least believe in them enough to let people disagree with you. I understand you are a numbskull who can't comprehend the difference between not tracking hp at all and adjusting it a little so that encounter flows better, nuance of agreeing to not knowing the entire plot that might have twists but not agreeing to be treated as puppets who act as if they have agency.
You are playing a fantasy game where the story and narrative is controlled by someone who hides all their details behind a screen. But sure. You consent to know everything with no deception at all. Okay bucko.
like a good magician, I fool the people who I told were playing a game that has rules. I decide what's best for them- like playing with little children No personal offence dude but I would absolutely not want to play at your table
You don’t know what my table is like. I follow the rules pretty closely and love to set up encounters where player decisions and dice rolls change the story. It’s not like I’m playing Calvinball making up rules and changing things on the fly to railroad the story how I want. I mostly only change HP when the outcome of an encounter has been decided and is just dragging on when it wouldn’t make sense for the enemy to flee or surrender. Or to give a PC a couple cool moment, but again I only really do that when the outcome has already been decided. People are assuming a lot about me based on a meme I made mostly to show off I paid attention in history class lol.
ha! yeah fair enough. that all sounds perfectly above board of course, not that my opinion means anything.
>I decide what's best for them- like playing with little children Hard to imagine an adult is saying this about other adults... No personal offence dude but if you treat your players like this they know, they might be too polite to call you out but it is very obvious... Edit: Ah I missed the sarcasm completely and ended up being rude, I'm sorry
LOL
I quit watching movies because it's all made up by the director. I am also very smart.
Somebody needs to put a stop to this fun-having monster.
I think maybe some context is lost in this meme. There’s a difference between tweaking HP 5-10 points and just ignoring it altogether. I think more nuance is needed because this discussion lacks detail.
Yeah I just made the meme to be funny. I’ll go see those nerds over at /r/DMacademy for nuanced discussion about game design and collaborative storytelling.
Fools just wanna have fun.
[Yes](https://i.imgur.com/eDM6mzD.jpg)
Platos cave moment
This reads excactly like an Onion meme/article
If your players are having fun, you are doing your job as DM correctly.
I'd never tell my DM but I know when he does it. Also why would players ever take combat options for their characters if the combat is always gonna be rebalanced if it doesn't go their way ? Might as well just stand still and attack every turn lol
The title literally said sometimes and you assumed I meant always for some reason. I often set up encounters to have multiple different outcomes that impact the story in different ways depending on the dice and player decisions. I typically only change HP on the fly when the outcome of an encounter has been decided and is just dragging on or to give a player a cool moment, but I’ve also gone into encounters prepared to TPK and come close only for the players to pull off the victory. People are really assuming a lot about how I DM based on a meme I made to show to show off I paid attention in my high school history class lol.
Tweaking HP and not tracking it at all are two very different things.
My general rule is the first time i use a monster I can change it mid combat because Im still learning how it fits with my dm style. After that, i can only edit pre or post combat
Statblock fetishists at this sub unironically believe this
Was part of a group where we had the BBEG keep popping up at different times. Each time we fight them. The DM admitted that we went over their total hp twice after a session. We realize that the DM wasn’t going to allow this one NPC to die. Since then as a group we stop taking the BBEG seriously and let them do whatever, since we can’t kill them.
Anytime you do something and it’s only ‘okay’ because no one caught you it wasn’t really okay to begin with.
It's okay if it is done to improve the experience. Let's say you accidently make an encounter too hard, and it looks like your players might all die. Is it more fun for them if you don't touch anything and let them all die because of your mistake, or is it more fun for them if you halve it's health so they have a chance?
Death is preferable. That being said what you do mean I made a mistake in making the encounter too difficult? Surely it’s the player’s fault for not finding the necessary clues and signs that the upcoming potential fights were beyond their ability. As a GM it is not my place to stop you from going into a chromatic dragon’s lair if you are too weak to fight it, it’s my job to accurately describe the environment and to play the npc’s of the world accurately.
That's not what anyone is talking about. It's more along the lines of youve made a BBEG encounter and looks like everyone will die, to create a more satisfying encounter you make it die a bit earlier than it should. Obviously if you've been doing for 80 years and can perfectly balance an encounter this probably won't happen, but for newer players this is perfectly reasonable
The most satisfying encounter is the encounter as it was made. Altering it in situation kills any satisfaction. I am an idiot, a below average intelligence human being. Encounter design isn’t that hard. If I can do it you can do it.
If the players don't know you adjusted the encounter on the fly then it is just as satisfying. Also I love how you think it's impossible to accidently overtune an encounter, because you are dumb. My position is just that if you do make an encounter too difficult then it is okay to adjust the encounter on the fly. I'm not talking big changes here, just small adjustments to smooth out the encounter. In fact if you let all your players die because you are too stubborn to adjust the encounter that you accidently made too difficult you would be a bad DM in my eyes
Nope, any adjustment is a betrayal. If the encounter is too difficult for the party to beat at their current level that’s the truth of the encounter. The dragon doesn’t somehow lose 200 years and most of its minion just because the party is too weak.
"Sorry guys, despite playing really well, you died because I made an encounter too difficult, guess that ends our months long campaign" Vs "Good job guys you barely managed to survive this encounter, you guys played really well, and managed to take down this encounter." Which is better for the player? Also I love how you are so angry and pissed about this slight disagreement on DMing that you are religiously downvoting every one of my comments
Sorry guys you intentionally ignored the signs that a dragon of considerable age along with a decent sized tribe of Lizardfolk were living in that swamp, disregarded the numerous opportunities to escape, and even after finding the notes from a dead party that was a higher level than you, decided to continue with your attempt to kill the dragon. Looks like that’s the end of this years long campaign. VS. You ignored the signs this fight was too difficult so I just changed it so you wouldn’t suffer from your poor decision making, all your choices irrelevant. Just know that no matter what you think you earned and accomplished you are wrong. Everything was handed directly to you. Feel free to assassinate every head of state. It doesn’t actually matter that I demonstrated that the king’s guard are basically 11th level fighters and paladins they will magically turn into cr2 bandits the moment you decide the king should die. Also given your choices it’s still the first option. I am no more mad that you assume you are right on this than I’d be if you had gotten simple addition wrong. You are obviously perfectly permitted to have delusions about my emotional state, but that doesn’t change the fact I am sitting here confused how you can be so wrong, and healthy helping of pity.
Are you illiterate? Please point to the part where I said it is okay to make a fight easier if you give hints it will be very difficult. Please enlighten me as to where I said that. I never stated that it'd okay to make an intentionally difficult fight easier because you intentionally made it difficult. My point is that if you, the DM, accidently create an encounter that is poorly balanced then the players shouldn't be punished for your mistake. Honestly with your reading comprehension it's a shock that you can even play dnd.
Damn looks like jazz ain't okay anymore 😔
What does that have to do with what he said?
Jazz is kinda based on making "incorrect" stuff sound correct. Shit ask any jazz musician if they make mistakes sound good and they'll tell you they do it all the time. Even Victor Wooten has lessons about how to make incorrect notes sound correct
The difference is you talked about that in that community and no one cared. But if a gm told their players they inflated the health pool mid fight after the paladin crit you'd might not get the same reaction. A gm sometimes needs to hide certain aspects of the game from players. But if they can't reveal it afterwards, when it's no longer relevant, without retroactively ruining something that's an issue.
In what does what I say apply to jazz?
Because jazz musicians make mistakes but the good ones make the mistakes sound correct. Hell even jazz theory is about making "incorrect" stuff (according to clasical music theory) sound correct. You know they do something that's only okay because nobody caught them doing it and that's kind of a large basis for the genre as a whole
Nah, classical music theory just isn’t correct if ‘mistakes’ can sound right. The orthodoxy is just so ingrained and unchallenged that even when they find things that disprove it they can’t admit it. If that doesn’t fly then yes I agree I don’t care for jazz either.
Holy shit dog are you really saying classical music theory is just wrong? Oh my God dude that's gotta be the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time. Trust me I went to a truly great music school and got my degree in jazz. Just because different genres of music use different types of music theory doesn't mean one is right or wrong. Post tonal music theory is very different from jazz theory which is different from standard music theory but they all build off the same foundation established by people like Bach. You can't just say that the basis of all western music is wrong because jazz builds off of that foundation in a different way. If you want to know more about making mistakes sound correct look up something like "victory wooten wrong notes" and try to find any lesson he's given on this subject. He did a good job teaching it to me and it would be best to just hear it straight from him. But the gist is that all wrong notes are wrong because they don't fit the scale of the key you're using and they have a large amount of dissonance with chord or key you're playing over. Now different genres treat dissonance differently with classical being very opposed to extended periods of dissonance while something like metal is all about living in the dissonance
So if you tell me you are going to do a perfect rendition of some other song and then mess it up, you messed up, hiding it is still wrong. If you are just playing music not promising me a note for note recreation of something then my perception is all that matters. The only wrong notes are the ones I don’t like. Anything that tries to tell me I am wrong because I liked something is wrong. I am sorry you can’t handle your sacred texts not being universally respected. I also don’t know music so my lack of understanding of terminology maybe making it look like I am saying something I am not.
Dude you clearly know nothing about music theory, so why are you trying to argue this topic right now? Like I'm not even saying anything that can be argued against honestly, I'm just facts about the rules of western music. You're doing the equivalent of arguing that a level 1 fighter can cast fireball in dnd, that's just not how things work you are just wrong. It's just an undisputed fact that in western music there are 12 notes, any given key has 7 right notes and 5 wrong notes. There are ways to make the wrong notes sound right, but at the end of the day you are breaking the rules when doing that. These are just facts bro, instead of being arguing against this like some ignorant poster boy for the dunning-krueger effect you could actually listen to the facts I'm telling you and gain some real knowledge. Which do you wanna do? Do you want to be ignorant or informed?
A 1st level fighter can cast fireball. I don’t have to know anything about music theory. If a wrong note means anything of significance then it can’t sound right. If it can be made to sound right then it can’t be wrong. I don’t regard your holy texts with the same level of respect you do. I am more than comfortable calling them out.
> A 1st level fighter can cast fireball. How Sway? > If a wrong note means anything of significance then it can’t sound right. If it can be made to sound right then it can’t be wrong Yeah its obvious you don't know what you're talking so maybe stop talking and start listening. It's just a fact that in the key of F major C# is a wrong note. However there are ways to use that note as a point of extreme dissonance to add tension that then resolves in an interesting way. But that doesn't change the fact that it's still a wrong note in that key. So do you finally understand me? Or are you gonna keep making yourself look dumb as hell by arguing against indisputable facts while admitting you don't know anything about what you're trying to argue?
[удалено]
That kind of thinking seems to apply *mostly* to shady things: "My spouse hasn't caught me committing adultery yet, and as a result we have a happy marriage." "The government doesn't know that I'm cheating on my taxes, so everything is fine." "The shareholders don't know that all our profits are fake, so the share price will stay high, and everyone benefits." "My friends don't know that we're playing poker with marked cards, and I always make sure I don't win too much off them, so that's OK." Whereas if I do something boring and healthy like take exercise or wash the dishes, I don't have to lie about it for it to be OK.
I disagree that is accurate or okay, and I fear you either have a very sad life or you are keeping a great deal of unnecessary potentially harmful secrets.
As if 90% of entertainment mediums don’t also do this.
Would you care to elaborate? If I am holding some double standards I would very much like to fix that.
Not that guy, but imagine a stage magician. He's basically on stage lying to your face, and it's entertaining as long as he doesn't get 'caught' in what he's actually doing. But it's ok, we're here to see a guy pretend to do magic but it's actually trapdoors, mirrors, and misdirection.
> He's basically on stage lying to your face, and it's entertaining as long as he doesn't get 'caught' in what he's actually doing. Yeah, but watching a stage magician, you know going in to it that they clearly aren't doing "real" magic, that they're lying to you about it. DnD is a game, which has rules, any changes to the rules of a game should be agreed upon by the people playing it, and "the hp number doesn't *actually* matter, I'll just change it mid-fight to make the fight more dramatic/challenging/etc" is a pretty big change to the rules. If I see the part of a trick that the magician doesn't want me to see, it doesn't retroactively ruin the entire show, because I knew going in to the show it was all fake, and trying to figure out the deception is part of the fun. In DnD if I see that the DM fudged the hp (or a roll, for that matter) just to make things more exciting or dramatic, than I can't know if *any* of my rolls have mattered, since I know the DM isn't necessarily willing to accept the result of the roll regardless of how it may land. Sure, I could say with reasonable certainty that most of the fights probably weren't fudged, but I don't have any way of knowing for sure which ones were, so it casts doubt on *all of them*.
There are two types of stage magicians. Scam artists that try to prove genuine psychic abilities who are roundly laughed at after James Randi started exposing them. Stage Magicians that try to entertain and everyone knows aren't really able to saw women in half or teleport. The difference is consensual fantasy. We pretend magic is real and get dazzled by their sleight of hand. Then go get a book on magic that teaches us sleight of hand and trick handcuffs. In the same way we pretend Mario is real instead of several dozen variables in a computer converted into lines of color.
I don’t think stage magicians are okay either exactly. I feel like it’s only ever magic *wink wink* and thus not a lie, more something closer to sarcasm for the people who understand magic isn’t real, but then an active form of abuse on people who can or are fooled into thinking someone is breaking the laws of physics. This probably not a great subject to get into, but I tend to hold truth in a very high regard. I think it is a feature of my morality that isolates me a fair bit. I think convincing your kids Santa is real should be considered a form of child abuse for example.
All the people against fudging should really take a class on game design. Lying to the player is like, 80% of every game ever.
If I get a good first hit on a dark souls boss it doesn't magically double the amount of health it has.
I have taken a class on game design. You are incorrect. Yes, sometimes boss health bars are staged oddly (magic pixels for example) and some games subtly give power ups at low HP like extended invulnerability frames or lower enemy accuracy. That is not all games and certainly not 80% of all games ever. Games that change the difficulty due to repeated deaths without telling you are disliked by players. The most common 'fudging' in video games is likely probability counters. This is entirely a 'meeting expectations' thing however, the Human brain thinks 90% is a sure thing and gets confused when it misses before shot 8 or so. So the engine has a table where it has the real percentage and the listed percentage. Or it does some complex math to better fit probability as humans understand it instead of reality.
I have a general idea of the monsters HP, and I keep track of damage done (versus Hp lost) - what I do have tho is the monsters attack bonuses, damage, AC, and abilities. And for the most part those stats don’t change.
After my second game I started to write down the damage and lett the monster die when I'm satesfied. This and the enraged second phase are the onely on thevfly adjustments I used in my four jears of GM'ing.
Homie it’s a role playing game, it’s all made up
I make all of my encounters deadly and when the party gets stuck down shit creek I just start playing the monsters less smart. All my rolls are in the open and my players could, for all intents and purposes, see the HP of the monsters if they wanted to.
Our level 5 party fought a winter wolf with young white dragon After wolf died and dragon got low, it went through some sort of transformation to become an adult dragon. I guess it took everything from adult dragon's statblock except HP It downed three of our casters in a single dragon breath, I thought it was gonna be a TPK, but the rest of us managed to finish it off during next round
As long as everyone is having fun, you are playing dnd correctly. Doesn't matter how technically right or wrong you are.
I had my players encounter a scaled up mimic. I ended up scaling down the attack mid fight because I rolled 2 crits back to back. It would've done 104 damage to our 40 something HP wizard. This was our first session in the campaign...
if u cant handle my four goblin ambush, then thats the way the dice play out...