Re: [DL] Fudging

[Greg Vose <kitsune@xmission.com>]

You obviously missed the point, Wishkah.  

The point is that the payoff of the story was saving the galaxy.  The
reality of what happened was that a dice mechanic killed the group before
they even got there.  There's nothing wrong with the characters failing to
achieve the payoff and there is nothing wrong with the characters dying.
It is the manner in which it happened and the slavish devotion to dice
rolls expressed by what is a truly incompetent GM.  

If I, as an SF&F author, wrote a novel where the payoff was that hero was
going to save the galaxy (survive or not), killing off the hero in the
sixth chapter while he was traveling to his destination because he flew
into an asteroid would make my editor very unhappy and if it managed to get
past my editor, my readers (who are smart people) would pick the book up
and chuck it across the room.  

The exact same thing holds true here.  The GM screwed up.  It is all about
suspense. It is all about the "good death."  It is all about the story.  It
is not in the slightest bit about the die rolls.  It means that you have to
be a good Marshall/DM/GM (this applies to all RPGs) rather than a mediocre
one.  And the mediocre GM is always the one who relies on those die rolls.

At 07:55 PM 3/15/2003 +0000, you wrote:
>On Sat, Mar 15, 2003 at 02:48:17PM -0500, Paul-André Beaulieu said:
>> > The story is always more important than the rolls. Always.
>> BLAM! End of campaign. The GM's reply to this? "The dice have spoken".
>> I could have strangled him there and then...
>
> Each to his own, but I'd be pretty bored with a campaign where we have to
> save the galaxy and we KNOW we're going to succeed because the GM won't
> abide by the rules.  There's no sense of danger then.
>
> Wishkah
>
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