From what I've read, the premise of "plot armour" is that failing to win a fight will result in capture, imprisonment, being sold to slavery, and all manner of other things which means that the heroes' stories don't end here. They tend to work in a game where the plot has been roughed out in a manner akin to "The heroes need to face down the BBEG, they can get to the BBEG by following this or these quests, have side quests to make thingsm ore interesting, and their final fate will be decided when they face the big-bad". IE, you can think it a fair bet that the heroes will make it to the big bad, and then the dice can talk normally - they might die there. This is more in line with the "collaborative story telling" aspet of D&D as it means there is a tale to be told, the beginning is written by the DM, the middle is written by the players but guided by the DM, and the ending is written by the players alone. Nobody wants to read Harry Potter and find he died from a bad dexterity save in book 2 when he hit the whomping willow. The DM has made the quest for the players as "Uncover the clues, find the final boss, and see if you survive the fight", and everything in between is kept flowing to avoid TPKs before the party gets there.
The other hand is where you let every dice fall as it falls, and might kill off the party in the first encounter, ten minutes into the game, and the players have to roll new characters. Or you might have an awesome game where some characters are lost on the way, making for another awesome tale with gritty realism and harsh losses. The DM might throw a fiat your way to stop a TPK by having you captured, but they won't stop you from going down, and they might just kill you.
I guess it is whether you're playing a young-adult style story or an adult style story. (And I don't mean that in any derogatoy way, young adult books are some of the best!)
@TorukDuckSlayer, depending on the person on the receiving end of the imprisonment, capture or being pressed into slavery, they will most likely take this as the DM taking away their agency. Simply on the premise that you are controlling what the PC can/can't do and the player no longer has a say in the matter. If DM says you are a slave and must do as told, firstly, probably not high on the list of acceptable-use topics at many a table, and secondly, not a great way to ensure fun at the table. YMMV. I might suggest not doing this.
We can continue to discuss the niche events out at the end of the pendulum swing where on one end the DM protects everything or the DM kills everything that fails a saving throw. But, the gulf of possibilities between the two examples that you provide is really where the meat of the matter exists.
Well, the idea of simply narrating an encounter doesn't appeal to me much from a player perspective, honestly. "You encounter a group of Bandits, who come out onto the road and demand you surrender your goods. What do you do?" Players decide: "We attack!" "Ok, you attack and kill them."
There are dozens of reasons to have a trivial type encounter, from looking to drain a few resources from the group, to giving them a chance to test some new abilities, to simply having SOME direct involvement with the story. This is a situation that can/will arise early in the campaign, I'd guess level 6 and under mostly, where a few crap dice rolls can be a HUGE factor in combat. Post 6, it tends to take a longer string of bad rolling to start putting the encounter into TPK territory. Again it's all personal taste, I just don't have any interest in being part of a campaign, on either side, where the DM isn't in control and that's what a fudged die roll s, the DM taking control. If you prefer to never "cheat" any rolls to either preserve the campaign or enhance the risk of a fight, then it's your call. I simply want to ensure the campaign is interesting, dynamic and enjoyable. Killing the party an hour in doesn't fit any of those criteria.
I can appreciate you for being brave enough to admit that dice fudging is a manner of DM control. I don't disagree with your response here, and appreciate you answering my question, thank you.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
@ThorukDuckSlayer, depending on the person on the receiving end of the imprisonment, capture or being pressed into slavery, they will most likely take this as the DM taking away their agency.
This, I think, is a common misconception about player agency. The idea that allowing the story to restrict a players viable choices is somehow removing their agency, and that removing their agency is the only way to handle these situations.
I 100% agree that if you tell the players how they must act because of their situation then you are reducing their agency, but putting them in a situation which has consequences for acting certain ways is how any story functions, and doesn't remove the agency.
Taking the idea of them being captured and sold as gladiators as a baseline: If you tell the players they have been fitted with magical collars which prevent them from causing harm to anyone who is not also wearing a collar, then you're creating a cleverly run gladiatorial scenario in which attacking the guards will not work. The players can choose to do whatever they want, but they know that some things - like attacking the guards - will be fruitless. The characters losing some form of power is different from the players losing their agency.
To offer a comparison, put the characters in a dungeon. They open the door and clearly see a large pit in front of them, lined with spikes, with several platforms to jump across which form a riddle of some kind. Are you taking away player agency by telling them that continuing to walk forwards wil result in falling into the pit? What if they want to keep walking forwards?
Player agency is reduced when you tell them they cannot even try something - they say "I want to punch the guard" and you say "No, you can't". That's the agency gone.
Player agency is removed when you tell them exactly what they are doing - "you walk slowly and submissively in single file towards the entrance to the arena". Again, the player has no control at all, so the agency is gone.
Player agency is still in full effect when they say "I want to punch the guard" and you tell them what happens and how the guard reacts. Wearing a collar and being trapped in a collosseum isn't player agency removal - it's just another room in the dungeon of life.
Personally I stil lsee the idea of someone being killed in the first round of combat "because the dice decreed it", without a chance to do anything, as taking away their agency. If they doin't respond to almost dying by trying not to die, then their death is not only fair but a direct result of their agency.
I think that's it, actually. I will only ever fudge dice rolls if they are not the result of player agency. The ambushers rolled crits? That was decided by a single perception check that I, the DM, called for, allowing surprise, and then the attack dice rolling 20's. That's not player agency. The party were bickering, nobody looking out or scouting? that's player agency, so the dice can speak. The barbarian charges the entire horde and gets surrounded? They might get cut down.
I guess my goal is to let player agency have the biggest deciding factor in the game, rather than the random number generators.
@ThorukDuckSlayer, depending on the person on the receiving end of the imprisonment, capture or being pressed into slavery, they will most likely take this as the DM taking away their agency.
This, I think, is a common misconception about player agency. The idea that allowing the story to restrict a players viable choices is somehow removing their agency, and that removing their agency is the only way to handle these situations.
I 100% agree that if you tell the players how they must act because of their situation then you are reducing their agency, but putting them in a situation which has consequences for acting certain ways is how any story functions, and doesn't remove the agency.
Taking the idea of them being captured and sold as gladiators as a baseline: If you tell the players they have been fitted with magical collars which prevent them from causing harm to anyone who is not also wearing a collar, then you're creating a cleverly run gladiatorial scenario in which attacking the guards will not work. The players can choose to do whatever they want, but they know that some things - like attacking the guards - will be fruitless. The characters losing some form of power is different from the players losing their agency.
To offer a comparison, put the characters in a dungeon. They open the door and clearly see a large pit in front of them, lined with spikes, with several platforms to jump across which form a riddle of some kind. Are you taking away player agency by telling them that continuing to walk forwards wil result in falling into the pit? What if they want to keep walking forwards?
Player agency is reduced when you tell them they cannot even try something - they say "I want to punch the guard" and you say "No, you can't". That's the agency gone.
Player agency is removed when you tell them exactly what they are doing - "you walk slowly and submissively in single file towards the entrance to the arena". Again, the player has no control at all, so the agency is gone.
Player agency is still in full effect when they say "I want to punch the guard" and you tell them what happens and how the guard reacts. Wearing a collar and being trapped in a collosseum isn't player agency removal - it's just another room in the dungeon of life.
Personally I stil lsee the idea of someone being killed in the first round of combat "because the dice decreed it", without a chance to do anything, as taking away their agency. If they doin't respond to almost dying by trying not to die, then their death is not only fair but a direct result of their agency.
I think that's it, actually. I will only ever fudge dice rolls if they are not the result of player agency. The ambushers rolled crits? That was decided by a single perception check that I, the DM, called for, allowing surprise, and then the attack dice rolling 20's. That's not player agency. The party were bickering, nobody looking out or scouting? that's player agency, so the dice can speak. The barbarian charges the entire horde and gets surrounded? They might get cut down.
I guess my goal is to let player agency have the biggest deciding factor in the game, rather than the random number generators.
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I think you're glassing over a key point in your own statement: "but (a DM) putting them in a situation". I would get behind the idea that if the players made the decision that lead to them arriving at this outcome having known the possible consequence beforehand. You seem to be suggesting is that a DM be allowed to force, or control a choice and that be acceptable by any and all. You even go into detail how this is more benificial for the players than actually allowing their decision to resolve with their intent in mind. Fudging dice is controlling the possible outcome of the story - regardless of player choice. Putting a collar on a character, magical or otherwise is controlling the possible outcome of the story - regardless of player choice. I'm suggesting here that a DM that is resistant to relinquishing control of the story to the players and hesitant to allow a dice roll to neutrally determine the outcome of the story is desparately clinging to their railroad and is using soft-language to avoid admitting it. You also use some allegory in your post that touches on some other topics, but maybe that's not what you meant by "it's just another room in the dungeon of life". Seems like you're trying to diminish the impact and implacation of the limiting of choice because that is the accepted norm.
One approach is to use dice as rarely as possible. Some DMs use them only during combat, and determine success or failure as they like in other situations.
With this approach, the DM decides whether an action or a plan succeeds or fails based on how well the players make their case, how thorough or creative they are, or other factors. For example, the players might describe how they search for a secret door, detailing how they tap on a wall or twist a torch sconce to find its trigger. That could be enough to convince the DM that they find the secret door without having to make an ability check to do so.
This approach rewards creativity by encouraging players to look to the situation you’ve described for an answer, rather than looking to their character sheet or their character’s special abilities. A downside is that no DM is completely neutral. A DM might come to favor certain players or approaches, or even work against good ideas if they send the game in a direction he or she doesn’t like.This approach can also slow the game if the DM focuses on one “correct” action that the characters must describe to overcome an obstacle.
(emphasis mine)
Strange that we are being advised that it's generally not a good idea for the DM to allow player generated input based on DM motivations and likes.
Further down we find:
Many DMs find that using a combination of the two approaches works best. By balancing the use of dice against deciding on success, you can encourage your players to strike a balance between relying on their bonuses and abilities and paying attention to the game and immersing themselves in its world.
Remember that dice don’t run your game — you do. Dice are like rules. They’re tools to help keep the action moving. At any time, you can decide that a player’s action is automatically successful. You can also grant the player advantage on any ability check, reducing the chance of a bad die roll foiling the character’s plans. By the same token, a bad plan or unfortunate circumstances can transform the easiest task into an impossibility, or at least impose disadvantage.
(emphasis mine)
Please note that nowhere does it suggest that the DM should remove, limit or restrict the ability for the player to attempt anything or for the DM to alter an outcome of a dice roll. It makes perfect sense, IMHO, that if a player wants their PC to try to fly by flapping their arms and jumping off a cliff that they be allowed to try. But they will understand and acknowledge, before they are allowed to "make this attempt", that if they don't have an ability, magical or otherwise, that allows for them to fly, that they will most likely fall, potentially to their PC's death.
If what you described is how you and your table get down, I'm all for it. Go have as much fun with that as you can. I still can't agree that what you are suggesting is better for the players being allowed to have their choice heard and actually followed. It sounds more like you are trying to convince them that your story being carried through to the end is for their own good.
I understand being invested in a creation. I've had the same campaign running for years with the same group. I am more a fan of the players and the PCs than I am of my own world. I can create a new one in the span of a weekend, maybe not a complete fleshed out world, but the solid foundation of one anyway.
I have absolutly zero qualms in allowing the players to "derail" the campaign or the world. I made it for them to play in. That was my contribution to the game. Their contribution is what they do with it after I gift it to them. This is how we collaborate at my table. Somehow, I manage to do this without telling my players "No" very often at all. (I'll admit there are a pile of "Yes, But... that fill that void.)
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I see what you're saying (and I've avoided quoting it because there was a lot there!).
I think my key point is that everything in the world you give your players is there by your choice (until the players get hold of it and make it their own). The magical collar that stops them hurting enyone not wearing one is no different fro mthe cliff that stops them continuing to walk in a direction. the player flapping their arms and jumping is no different to the player who keeps trying to hit the guards even though the magic stops them. You put something there which needs a way around it, and they made a choice to do something which doesn't work.
My point is that everything you give the players gives them agency, provided they can make a decision about it. If you restrict them to a definitive decision - EG they get 3 options - go to place A, go to place B, or split up - then you reduce their agency - they can't cast fireball or wall run, pick the lock, use mage hand to poke the barbarian in the back of the head etc.etc. for this decision, because all those things won't affect the decision. A Railroad (in its purest form, I'm a believer that there are levels of railroad!) Is where player agency is removed entirely for the sake of the plot. You are supposed to fight the dragon, so no matter how well you stealth, the dragon hears you and you fight. Agency out of the window, the DM decided what happens before it did.
Now, to divert this ramble back to dice fudging - It is worth noting that dice are (cover your ears dice goblins) entirely devoid of reason, logic, or the concept of anything. They are a random number generator - if you get a critical hit on the wizard and kill them, that could have been a critical hit o nthe barbarian which stung a bit. The dice don't care what you're rolling for, and that means that, in some cases, they can go beyond the extremes of what you wanted to achieve by rolling them. You can listen to them - EG if you critical hit with a longbow and it rolls 16 damage, then the dice are saying "do lots of damage". If you were aiming for the wizard, who has not done anything to promote this amount of damage (EG neglecting to cast defensive spells, or standing atop a rock in the open), and they have 14HP, then the dice would kill him - because the ydon't know what a lot of damage is to him. So you tweak it to 13 damage, and the wizards agency is maintained - they don't have to die because of a random number generator, and can decide what to do in their next turn.
To clarify, if the wizard jumps on top of a rock and waves their arms around, then that's their decision and it had consequences. But if they were just walking when the ambush happened, it would not be fun for the player to have their character die before they get to do anything. And the purpose of D&D is to be fun!
Regarding your point:
" I still can't agree that what you are suggesting is better for the players being allowed to have their choice heard and actually followed. It sounds more like you are trying to convince them that your story being carried through to the end is for their own good. "
Taking just the dead wizard scenario. The two options are:
the wizard starting their turn on 1HP, and being able to decide what to do, or
The wizard starting their turn on 0 HP, and having no option but to roll death saves.
Just because "the dice made the DM do it" doesn't make it more fun for the wizard player, watching the other players enjoy the combat whilst they roll death saving throws. Most players would rather the DM give them that one chance - even if half of them will end up dead the turn after, at least they had one turn to decide whether to heal themselves or cast fireball.
In fact, I might even make this an unwritten rule for my games - everyone gets one turn before they die.
I see what you're saying (and I've avoided quoting it because there was a lot there!).
I think my key point is that everything in the world you give your players is there by your choice (until the players get hold of it and make it their own). The magical collar that stops them hurting enyone not wearing one is no different fro mthe cliff that stops them continuing to walk in a direction. the player flapping their arms and jumping is no different to the player who keeps trying to hit the guards even though the magic stops them. You put something there which needs a way around it, and they made a choice to do something which doesn't work.
Just to trying to be clear in how I'm understanding you. Are you saying that: by you forcing your PCs to not die(fudging the dice roll to prevent death), and forcing your PCs to wear a magical bark-collar (pressing them into slavery/confinement) that you are preserving their agency? And somehow this is the same as me allowing a player to let their PC attempt unpowered flight, off the precipice of a cliff, without any ability granted by any feat, class, subclass or divine intervention?
My point is that everything you give the players gives them agency, provided they can make a decision about it. If you restrict them to a definitive decision - EG they get 3 options - go to place A, go to place B, or split up - then you reduce their agency - they can't cast fireball or wall run, pick the lock, use mage hand to poke the barbarian in the back of the head etc.etc. for this decision, because all those things won't affect the decision. A Railroad (in its purest form, I'm a believer that there are levels of railroad!) Is where player agency is removed entirely for the sake of the plot. You are supposed to fight the dragon, so no matter how well you stealth, the dragon hears you and you fight. Agency out of the window, the DM decided what happens before it did.
Keeping the PCs alive, regardless of their decision to protect a campaign, story, whatever purpose you describe is an attempt by the DM to protect the plot. It might be done subversively, covertly or overtly. But it still is exactly that. I'm not entirely certain that comparing one end of the railroad spectrum to the other is a great way to say that the lesser evil should be allowed and not pushed back against. If you were to reverse the situation, would you call your player a cheater for fudging a dice roll to protect their story? There are plenty of discussions that hinge around not trusting a player or players that cheat at dice rolls. There are plenty of discussions that push back at adversarial DMing and railroads. Considering that the DM is a player, and fudging dice rolls, I could see how they might fit into one of those categories.
End of the day, if you're not going to allow the dice to speak and do what they say, why ask them for an answer?
Now, to divert this ramble back to dice fudging - It is worth noting that dice are (cover your ears dice goblins) entirely devoid of reason, logic, or the concept of anything. They are a random number generator - if you get a critical hit on the wizard and kill them, that could have been a critical hit o nthe barbarian which stung a bit. The dice don't care what you're rolling for, and that means that, in some cases, they can go beyond the extremes of what you wanted to achieve by rolling them. You can listen to them - EG if you critical hit with a longbow and it rolls 16 damage, then the dice are saying "do lots of damage". If you were aiming for the wizard, who has not done anything to promote this amount of damage (EG neglecting to cast defensive spells, or standing atop a rock in the open), and they have 14HP, then the dice would kill him - because the ydon't know what a lot of damage is to him. So you tweak it to 13 damage, and the wizards agency is maintained - they don't have to die because of a random number generator, and can decide what to do in their next turn.
To clarify, if the wizard jumps on top of a rock and waves their arms around, then that's their decision and it had consequences. But if they were just walking when the ambush happened, it would not be fun for the player to have their character die before they get to do anything. And the purpose of D&D is to be fun!
Regarding your point:
" I still can't agree that what you are suggesting is better for the players being allowed to have their choice heard and actually followed. It sounds more like you are trying to convince them that your story being carried through to the end is for their own good. "
Taking just the dead wizard scenario. The two options are:
the wizard starting their turn on 1HP, and being able to decide what to do, or
The wizard starting their turn on 0 HP, and having no option but to roll death saves.
Just because "the dice made the DM do it" doesn't make it more fun for the wizard player, watching the other players enjoy the combat whilst they roll death saving throws. Most players would rather the DM give them that one chance - even if half of them will end up dead the turn after, at least they had one turn to decide whether to heal themselves or cast fireball.
In fact, I might even make this an unwritten rule for my games - everyone gets one turn before they die.
Understand that the DM makes a choice to ask the dice for their input to maintain a neutral, referee, position. I'm not saying that you *have* to use them. Again, all for you ignoring the dice. I might suggest that you make that decision prior to finding out the result of the dice roll.
I actually do this. The last PC to die got the table attention to make one final act (attack, move or object interaction) and make any last words. In my last event, the player chose to attack the creature that was engulfing them (a Boneless), killing it (and taking some final damage themselves) as a final act of defiance, ala "From Hell's Heart, I stab at thee!" The PC was revived via Revivify 3 very tense rounds later. And now the party will find a reason to kill every Green Hag they encounter, just on principle of how they propagate and what their overall goals are.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Again, I won't quote in chunks or it'll get too big ;)
I'm not saying that forcing the PC to live regardless of their choices is the same as forcing them to wear a collar thingy, I'm afraid I've perhaps been unclear here as you've got the wrong end of the stick entirely!
Player acency is the players ability to make decisions and do things which then have consequences - the "Agency" i the fact that it is their decisions which cause the effects. Having a dragon nuke a town doesn't involve player agency, neither does throwing a player onto the button that nukes the town, but putting the button there with "do not press" written on it is player agency.
Back to our well-worn scenario - the oh-crap-that's-a-crit ambush.
I don't want to have to plan for edge-case events like mass critical hits when I plan an encounter. I give the players 4 bandits with a treasure map because I want them to have the treasure map, and I want them to feel like they found/earnt it rather than the bandits just giving it to them. To this end, I set an ambush which the party should be able to deal with.
Now, turn 1 comes around, a surprise round as the party rolled badly on perception (NOTE: DM asks for perceprion and you roll badly, that is not player agency as the player makes no decision). The wizard gets hit by a critical hit which would drop them to 0hp, without having done anything.
Now, the DM has two options here (normally, there are in fact infinite options as we make the game up as we go, but that's beside the point).
Option 1: The random number generators all conspired to kill the wizard without them having made a single decision, which will leave them with no choice but to rol ldeath saves.
Option 2: The random number generators all conspired to deal huge amounts of damage, so if I leave the wizard on 1HP, it gets the "spirit" of the roll over without forcing the player to do anything.
To my mind, option 1 takes away all the player agency. they can't respond, they haven't done anything related to the encounter except walk into it with the rest of the party, and it has no intrinsic difference to "rocks fall, you die", except that you say "The dice said rocks fall, you die". Then you have to consider that you, the DM, chose to target the wizard, so it's still your decision that they died.
Option 2 keeps the result of "the arrow crits, and it hurts a lot" but leaves the player with agency.
If turn 2 comes along and the player doesn't try to survive (EG take cover, heal themselves, etc.) then their choices are what leads to the second arrow killing them. No holds barred there, the PC can still die, but it needs to be because the player did a dumb-dumb, not because the dice said so.
talk of collars and whatnot aside for now - what do you consider option 1 does for player agency? The scenario is, the player walks in, doesn't notice the ambush that the DM put there because when the DM asked for a roll they rolled low, and then they got shot and killed in the surprise round. I fail to see how that is preserving player agency, when all the player did was roll perception when the DM asked them to.
I'm not saying that forcing the PC to live regardless of their choices is the same as forcing them to wear a collar thingy, I'm afraid I've perhaps been unclear here as you've got the wrong end of the stick entirely!
Of course you're not saying they are the same. I'm trying to understand how you think that (A): fudging dice to keep PCs from dying, or forcing imprisonment, slavery or otherwise is the same as (B): allowing a player to make a choice that results in the untimely demise of their PC (jumping off a cliff and trying to fly). How you make a synonym from (A) to (A)isn't the question. How you equivocate (A)to (B) is the part that I was asking about clarification. I have the wrong end of the stick, because you keep handing me the same end of the stick....
<snip>
Now, turn 1 comes around, a surprise round as the party rolled badly on perception (NOTE: DM asks for perceprion and you roll badly, that is not player agency as the player makes no decision). The wizard gets hit by a critical hit which would drop them to 0hp, without having done anything.
They still have the choice to continue on their initial path, change course or do any number of other things that they decide to. They also have the choice of march order. DM could also check passives and get the same result without telegraphing the meta-presence of something that might be perceived. DM intent has a lot to do with outcome. Setting up a "Gotcha" moment with the intent of not allowing the players *any* information is exactly the opposite of allowing them an informed decision.
Now, the DM has two options here (normally, there are in fact infinite options as we make the game up as we go, but that's beside the point).
Here I might disagree with you that the options the DM can excercise are the point. I'll agree that for the sake of you trying to pose a sensible description, it is best to limit options to the relevant talking points. But I'm going to circle back to this in a moment.
Option 1: The random number generators all conspired to kill the wizard without them having made a single decision, which will leave them with no choice but to rol ldeath saves.
Option 2: The random number generators all conspired to deal huge amounts of damage, so if I leave the wizard on 1HP, it gets the "spirit" of the roll over without forcing the player to do anything.
To my mind, option 1 takes away all the player agency. they can't respond, they haven't done anything related to the encounter except walk into it with the rest of the party, and it has no intrinsic difference to "rocks fall, you die", except that you say "The dice said rocks fall, you die". Then you have to consider that you, the DM, chose to target the wizard, so it's still your decision that they died.
Option 2 keeps the result of "the arrow crits, and it hurts a lot" but leaves the player with agency.
You are projecting motivation and intent (remember your comment to the dice goblins in the room?) to the outcome of the dice roll to elicit an emotional response that might be favorable to your argument. I don't see this as a good faith approach. Additionally, you are putting one PC's action and consequence into a vacuum and then showing how that will support your argument citing that they have zero choices because somehow the dice took them away, and you are being the honest broker by changing that outcome. You start with a party then zoom in to just the result that you assigned to the DM citing a lack of options available.
<snip>
talk of collars and whatnot aside for now - what do you consider option 1 does for player agency? The scenario is, the player walks in, doesn't notice the ambush that the DM put there because when the DM asked for a roll they rolled low, and then they got shot and killed in the surprise round. I fail to see how that is preserving player agency, when all the player did was roll perception when the DM asked them to.
What do I consider Option 1 does for player agency? The same thing that any manufactured narrative that only allows for the "lesser of two evils" answer or risk being villified for being a harsh DM might provide. You fail to see how a player making an informed choice that has consequences is not honoring their agency?
You eluded to this earlier and you are right, the options are nearly infinite. The DM in question has many more choices to excercise, as does the rest of the party. How did our beloved wizard become the immediate threat, having taken no actions to prove otherwise? Were there no other potential targets available for the opposition? Is there a method for mitigating damage in the party, or maybe a healer present? Did the DM-in-question set the DC or was it a contested stealth roll? Is the ambush set to catch just-any-ole-body, or do the bandits have a motivation to defend themselves? Which then begs, if the party knows the bandits are there, and knows they have a map, and are intentionally seeking them out to confront them, what is the party's intended outcome? Diplomacy or combat? I find the idea that the party bungled their way into an ambush without knowing that tracking down a pack of bandits might involve combat and the risk of death quite a bit outside verisimilitude. Especially if their intent was to liberate an object from the bandits' possession. What did the party think was gonna happen when they tried to take something by force? An ice creame social?
And understand, I appreciate that you are trying to convey your ideas and opinions in a civil manner, so for that, Thank You. But also understand, I don't find your approach at telling me that it's raining very effective.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I will open with me being 100% behind that if a player knows what they are doing and does it anyway, I have no intention of fudging the dice to make their bad decision easier. If the whole party jumps off a high bridge with a 10% chance of landing in the water below, and nobody makes the roll - they all die. It sucks for the narrative but if I didn't want them to have a chance of failure I wouldn't have made them roll. Making it clear to a player that they are not likely to succeed, and them rolling anyway, is definitely reducing the experience if you then fudge the rolls.
But with a surprise, which the DM puts there and the players roll poorly for spotting, so no player agency comes into the ambush except for the marching order, it's a bit different. Let's say the DM decides that the bugbears will target one character each, expecting to cause a chunk of damage at the start of the battle and make it a challenge. They roll a crit for the wizard, by pure chance, then roll full damage, which would kill him without any of the players decisions mattering. The marching order was irrelevant, the wizard wasn't picked out. The DM knew the bugbears would do good damage but didn't account for a critical hit being able to one-shot the wizard, because it was so unlikely. so the DM says "wow, that does 17 damage" instead of "wow, that does 18 damage", and the wizard player says "holy heck, I've only got 1hp left, now I need to make some serious choices in my turn!".
If the wizard decides to not heal, to charge forward with a dagger, I ain't fudging any more rolls. I tend to do the bare minimum to make it so that the players decisions are what affects the outcomes. I have no qualms about dropping someone in the first round if they have already had a chance to make a decision (EG "my wizard jumps ato pa rock and casts fireball" is going to get them shot, with everything the enemy has).
So yeah, I think we agree for the most part (if the player decides to do a thing which may result in death, then it may result in death), there's just this hangup on "If random chance conspires to make something which the players have not influenced at all or decided to partake in, such as a random ambush they did not detect, instantly kill a character because of an unlikely event, then...". I say you fudge it so they get to make at least one decision, and I take it from your stance that you would let the dice stand and kill the character.
I don't think that either are wrong, and if it is something which the players enjoy then of course it's the right thing to do. There are other things I'd consider as well - is their a healer who can save them if they die, for example. If the character being killed means it's at the whims of death saving throws whether they die, then I would give them one - and only one - chance.
The hang-up between us isn't just an informed decision. I'm pushing back against a DM doing something without the players' being allowed to have a choice, or worse still, the players doing something and the DM reversing that input and effectively ignoring that choice. I'm against the DM being their own favorite player, by any measure or method.
Your first paragraph lets me know that you took some time to make a good faith effort to this point, as you have very well summarized why that is a bad idea. Thank you.
In your second paragraph, you go on to omit everything in the timeline leading up to the ambush that should have been player choice. And this is where we differ. Regardless of monster intent, regardless of dice, if you as a DM were to stop your game and have a meta-knowledge-moment with your players and flat-out tell them that the foes they intend to face may well be above their capabilities, this is on them. In your scenario, you as DM, have the oportunity to put NPCs bearing information directly in front of the party at every step to let them know levels of lethality that the monster is known for, and potential tactics that the enemey is prone to use. It's your task as a DM to describe the environment so the players can make a decision.(How to Play) You control when this happens, and also that it happens at all. Omitting this information is a DM failing, ignoring it is squarely on the players. But, once they make that decision and follow their path to death or glory, it's on them. And, let me be clear, I'm not saying that you give them the intricate details of how the ambush is going to play out, I'm saying that they should have access to enough information regarding level of danger, lethatlity and monster tactics. And also the option to ignore it. Before they set out to attempt their game of capture the flag with bandits and the element of surprise. (In my experience, sometimes you have to be blunt with players about in game information. They often miss subtle clues.)
Claiming that there is no way for the party-in-question to know about the any danger or threat of death is objectively false. Continuing on a path that you know could lead to bodily injury is a decision that should be honored, IMHO. That's what they wanted to do. They didn't specifically want to die, but they wanted to intentionally put themselves in harms way. People do this all day, every day, and sometimes it ends disastrously. Why is it such an unforgiveable sin to allow this in a game about characters that are supposed to embody what it means to be a hero?
As far as the sentiment of "protecting the story"? Why not dispense with the soft language and call it what it is: The DM being too invested in their own creation to allow any other input. This is the prime reason that the DMG guides us in creating worlds, adventures and encounters. I've not seen too much in there telling me how to write a great story or how to convince the players what is in their best interest. I have spotted a couple of mentions of DMs being neutral and fair, and that we shouldn't play favorites. Playing favorites isn't mutually exclusive to the players, the DM can be their own favorite player. Controlling the outcome of dice or controlling choice supports this directly. This is what I take issue with, and why I reject any claim that this is best for the game, best for "fun".
So, no, basically I don't believe we disagree entirely on this topic and I do appreciate that this was kept as civil as it was. I can respect that you want to run things differently at your table, I'm not suggesting that anyone have to agree with any one method. I just want there to be clarity on what it is that's actually being suggested from both sides of this conversation, so that a DM, new or grizzled, can maybe make better informed choice.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Those are some good points, but I disagree that a DM making the call not to let an unlikely dice roll combo (EG a critical hit with maximum damage on a surprise round) kill off a character before the player can do anything to be the DM "protecting a story they are too invested in".
The story isn't that Barry the Wizard survives to the end - if a character dieas, the story continues, but I feel like my players deserve for their deaths to be because of their own poor decisions, not because of random chance. That is the commitment I am making to my players when I change "you died, make a new character" to "You almost died, choose what you do next wisely".
I also agree that if they are given hints, like an abandoned and ransacked cart, some bodies slain by arrows as they fell, and then they still put Barry up front because he has the best perception, then Barry is asking to get shot. Decisions were made, and consequences occur.
The story I am invested in is that of the characters, and I don't feel that it is in the best interests of player fun, therefore "the game", to have one of those stories end in a single blow without warning "because the dice said so".
We, as DM's control what is in the game. We could put a random table in which says on a D100 roll of 1, a meteor strikes the camp and the party dies. Why don't we? Because it would not be fun. You could argue "the players should camp separately if they know there's a risk of weirdly accurate meteor strikes", but ultimately we simply don't include things which can just kill off characters if they roll badly, because it's not fun.
So we have a choice, when we put something in place which, through random chance, does more damage than we thought it would (EG a bugbear rolling a crit and maximum damage on a surprise round for 72 points of damage where their average on a surprise round is 22, and if the PC's roll perception well and aren't surprised it's only 15 damage), then we are in a position to say "you know what, the wizard only has 35hp, so we'll make that 34 damage so they don't just die".
That's literally the only time I fudge, so we're mostly on the same wavelength. But I'd not often hear a player who's invested in a character be upset because I didn't let an unexpectedly powerful surprise attack outright kill them before they get a chance to act. You would expect the wizard to survive 2 rounds, on average, not be instantly killed in one, so you'd plan it based on that. Or you can pretend bugbears are really powerful because they might do 72 damage instead of 15, and let your higher level party walk all over them.
I daresay we'll not agree on this point, and honestly this is by far the most civil discussion on a disagreement I've had so thanks for that! I think you've muddled my motivations (I am interested in preserving the fun of the players, not the story) but otherwise I think we've gotten our points across well!
As a new DM myself, I've come across some things that have worked quite well. Though bear in mind, I say this from the perspective of someone that's running a linear homebrew story campaign:
Always have a session 0, set ground rules immediately (for example, vetting homebrew classes and compare/contrast them against existing published classes)
Address problems in player habits, either ingame or out of character immediately. Not doing so will lead to other players getting frustrated, or worse, you as the DM, and what some people find as "goofy fun" will soon be at the expense of others
Dont be afraid to usher players in the right direction or write linear storylines, even in a sandbox campaign. As a player in the past, I often ran into the issue of the group having no idea what to do or where to find quests because there was less than no direction given. The restlessness can quickly devolve into chaos, leading to anything from entire towns burning down to violations of the Geneva Convention just in the name of finding something to do. I was in a campaign once as a player where two other players snuck into a military camp and caused so much chaos that the DM had to scrap everything he had planned because the situation was wrecked so badly
Similarly, I've found that it's good to not be afraid to inform players when a plan is drastically ready to derail things. I've simply told my players that "I dont have anything written for if you do this." It helps them realize that they're close to derailing the adventure and that they're far out of focus. The reactions from my players have actually been positive and appreciative, thankfully. For example in my current campaign, the party raided a derelict apartment building to fight a ratkin crime ring and collect information for the police department to convict the ringleader. The wizard floated the idea of burning down the entire building twice and I had to inform him each time that doing so would cause massive damage to the city, the authorities would find out who did it, and nobody would want to work with them afterword- and I also had nothing written for if they did that. This is just as much your game as it is theirs
If you're going to do a "DM vs. Players" sort of thing, be up front with it. As a player, I've experienced some frustrating, pointless TPK's because the DM was more focused on creating bait-and-switch encounters
On the other side of that coin, dont baby the players into thinking that you'll just bail them out of encounters they fail every single time. They still need to know that what they're doing is dangerous and comes with associated risk
Be particularly careful with awarding magic items to the party. I was in one campaign where the DM had to keep tweaking and nerfing given feats or magic items because it was making all of his encounters totally worthless. Even +1 weapons can change the dynamic of things. My favorite type of magic items are ones that change certain cantrips or make really cruddy spells or skills somewhat useful as an "extra," though they have to be homebrewed. For example, I gave my rogue/paladin in my campaign a ring that casts guidance as a bonus action, doesnt require concentration and can be used up to 30 feet on a creature he can see. Something that seemed "bleh" suddenly got a lot of use that wasnt broken
I agree with 98% of what you posit here. And well said, overall.
To a vast majority of these ideas we do agree on. But like the Meteor Strike, why include the Bugbear? If it fits the theme of the tapestry that you have woven and laid out infront of your players, ok. The Meteor Strike and the Bugbear can stay! But does the Bugbear have to do 72 points of damage on a crit, during a surprise attack? Can you turn the Meteor Strike into a Party Skill Challenge to avoid getting smoked? You're the DM, you can change how monsters handle critical hits, and this doesn't have to follow the same logic flow-chart as the PCs. A critical hit doesn't have to be solely about the damage to HP, it doesn't have to be double the damage dice. It might, for instance, keep the original damage dice and modifier, (or if I didn't want this to be a lethal encounter I might use the damage average or reduce the damage dice by one category), but on a Nat20, the PC suffers the prone condition, the player has to make a Con save or suffer disadvantage on perception checks and concentration checks until the begining of their next turn. (Set DC at whatever you feel apropriate, but I prefer using something like: 8+damage inflicted, harder hits are harder to resist type of vibe.) Simply because you want that hit to feel lethal without being lethal. The intent here is to take a hit so hard that you loose your feet, can't see straight and can't think straight. The effect is, a normal hit, difficulty focusing on spellcasting, troube noticing their surroundings, disadvantage on any further ranged attacks against Barry, and Barry getting to figure out how to get out of the line of fire before things get worse for him. I refer to this as "motivation". Knowing that a party member is down might provide motivation for the other players of the group to alter their tactics from the typical: poke it till it dies. You've also turned your randomly generated Barry-buster-missle into a more dramatic challenge for the players to figure out.
This is loosley tied to the concept of failing forward with your impromptu dice roll input. Yes, they failed to notice the ambush and got clapped. Now, Barry is on the ground, flat on his back, holding a sucking chest wound and asking if anyone got the liscene plate of that truck. Now, the other players get to scramble to turn this around, but Barry can still stand up on his next turn so long as the party does something to protect him, and the DM doesn't focus fire on Barry. (cause we don't want lethality, we want a near miss that is felt and remembered) (This also might be a great time to discuss healing potions as a bonus action with the party. Your call either way.)
There are several ways for the DM to portray the desired effect without resorting to blowing huge chunks of HP off a PC's character sheet. I'm all about preserving fun and making combat meaningful, even if the players aren't successful and PCs don't survive. There is a piece of advice floating about somewhere that says: During an encounter, players should have a 70% chance of winning and a 30% chance of loosing. But, to them, it should feel like they have a 70% chance of failing and only a 30% chance of success.
Providing unplanned events to the party is the closest analog to actual combat that we can get, without actual speed, surprise, and violence of action. No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Those are some good suggestions for changing the results, and I agree that they would be a lot more fun than just "you almost die", and get the message across far better, as you said.
I am curious now as to:
A: when would you make the call to change this? After you read the bugbears abilities and realise the dice pool you're using for damage, or after the roll and you see that this is going to kill the wizard?
B: Why do you suggest changing the entire mechanics of a creature to avoid killing Barry, but would not consider reducing the damage from such an attack to "doesn't instantly kill Barry"? (It's hard to convey here but I mean this genuinely and not as a "gotcha" counterargument, I think that knocking Barry prone whilst also dealing high damage would be a really good way to not "lose" the damage you're reducing, I am just curious as to why this is an option for you but fudging the dice to achieve a similar effect isn't?)
The TL;DR is: During the design phase of the encounter, well before initiative is rolled. (Also, I don't track PC HP during the game. Some DMs might, I don't. I trust a player to tell the party if they are hurt, or to act accordingly when making PC decisions in combat. And yes, I communicate that well beforehand.) (Also, also, this doesn't remove the possibility of PC death, but it does choke down on the possibility of it happening. We're still allowing for that possibility should the players ignore or mishandle the opportunities they are presented with.)
Answer B: I don't recall suggesting a change to the entire mechanics of a creature, just how a potentially thematic attack (a critical hit) might play out more dramatically, but still inline with the aforementioned design intent. I am absolutely suggesting a change to the size of damage dice, swapping in a conditional ability that inflicts a condition, or assigning a damage value instead of using dice altogether. If I ask the 'ole Murderizer (my D20) to tell me if a monster hits a PC and it says no, the answer is no. If it says Nat 20, I get to flex my creative lizard brain and do what would be dramatic and still land the encounter within intended parameters. I could choose to not ask the dice anything and simply describe the actions as hit or miss, but that might get a little suspicious to the player after a fashion. (I would imagine the player having something to say about this approach.)
For me, and I can't stress this being my own opinion enough, fudging dice is akin to lying to a player about the outcome of a neutral arbitration that both the DM and player have agreed to abide by. Purely a social contract thing. Following the dice can provide unexpected turns and twists that you didn't plan for, but you still get to decide how fast you are going, and how steep the drop-off is. DMs can control time in-game, slow the game down and use your time to think if you need to. We can show danger in more ways than what is provided on a particular statblock. We have the ability as a DM to change monster design and encounter design. However, I might suggest that our responsibility is to remain neutral to the players and still provide a fun experience, and that our neutrality should probably take precedence over story or plot.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
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From what I've read, the premise of "plot armour" is that failing to win a fight will result in capture, imprisonment, being sold to slavery, and all manner of other things which means that the heroes' stories don't end here. They tend to work in a game where the plot has been roughed out in a manner akin to "The heroes need to face down the BBEG, they can get to the BBEG by following this or these quests, have side quests to make thingsm ore interesting, and their final fate will be decided when they face the big-bad". IE, you can think it a fair bet that the heroes will make it to the big bad, and then the dice can talk normally - they might die there. This is more in line with the "collaborative story telling" aspet of D&D as it means there is a tale to be told, the beginning is written by the DM, the middle is written by the players but guided by the DM, and the ending is written by the players alone. Nobody wants to read Harry Potter and find he died from a bad dexterity save in book 2 when he hit the whomping willow. The DM has made the quest for the players as "Uncover the clues, find the final boss, and see if you survive the fight", and everything in between is kept flowing to avoid TPKs before the party gets there.
The other hand is where you let every dice fall as it falls, and might kill off the party in the first encounter, ten minutes into the game, and the players have to roll new characters. Or you might have an awesome game where some characters are lost on the way, making for another awesome tale with gritty realism and harsh losses. The DM might throw a fiat your way to stop a TPK by having you captured, but they won't stop you from going down, and they might just kill you.
I guess it is whether you're playing a young-adult style story or an adult style story. (And I don't mean that in any derogatoy way, young adult books are some of the best!)
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@TorukDuckSlayer, depending on the person on the receiving end of the imprisonment, capture or being pressed into slavery, they will most likely take this as the DM taking away their agency. Simply on the premise that you are controlling what the PC can/can't do and the player no longer has a say in the matter. If DM says you are a slave and must do as told, firstly, probably not high on the list of acceptable-use topics at many a table, and secondly, not a great way to ensure fun at the table. YMMV. I might suggest not doing this.
We can continue to discuss the niche events out at the end of the pendulum swing where on one end the DM protects everything or the DM kills everything that fails a saving throw. But, the gulf of possibilities between the two examples that you provide is really where the meat of the matter exists.
I can appreciate you for being brave enough to admit that dice fudging is a manner of DM control. I don't disagree with your response here, and appreciate you answering my question, thank you.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
This, I think, is a common misconception about player agency. The idea that allowing the story to restrict a players viable choices is somehow removing their agency, and that removing their agency is the only way to handle these situations.
I 100% agree that if you tell the players how they must act because of their situation then you are reducing their agency, but putting them in a situation which has consequences for acting certain ways is how any story functions, and doesn't remove the agency.
Taking the idea of them being captured and sold as gladiators as a baseline: If you tell the players they have been fitted with magical collars which prevent them from causing harm to anyone who is not also wearing a collar, then you're creating a cleverly run gladiatorial scenario in which attacking the guards will not work. The players can choose to do whatever they want, but they know that some things - like attacking the guards - will be fruitless. The characters losing some form of power is different from the players losing their agency.
To offer a comparison, put the characters in a dungeon. They open the door and clearly see a large pit in front of them, lined with spikes, with several platforms to jump across which form a riddle of some kind. Are you taking away player agency by telling them that continuing to walk forwards wil result in falling into the pit? What if they want to keep walking forwards?
Player agency is reduced when you tell them they cannot even try something - they say "I want to punch the guard" and you say "No, you can't". That's the agency gone.
Player agency is removed when you tell them exactly what they are doing - "you walk slowly and submissively in single file towards the entrance to the arena". Again, the player has no control at all, so the agency is gone.
Player agency is still in full effect when they say "I want to punch the guard" and you tell them what happens and how the guard reacts. Wearing a collar and being trapped in a collosseum isn't player agency removal - it's just another room in the dungeon of life.
Personally I stil lsee the idea of someone being killed in the first round of combat "because the dice decreed it", without a chance to do anything, as taking away their agency. If they doin't respond to almost dying by trying not to die, then their death is not only fair but a direct result of their agency.
I think that's it, actually. I will only ever fudge dice rolls if they are not the result of player agency. The ambushers rolled crits? That was decided by a single perception check that I, the DM, called for, allowing surprise, and then the attack dice rolling 20's. That's not player agency. The party were bickering, nobody looking out or scouting? that's player agency, so the dice can speak. The barbarian charges the entire horde and gets surrounded? They might get cut down.
I guess my goal is to let player agency have the biggest deciding factor in the game, rather than the random number generators.
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I think you're glassing over a key point in your own statement: "but (a DM) putting them in a situation". I would get behind the idea that if the players made the decision that lead to them arriving at this outcome having known the possible consequence beforehand. You seem to be suggesting is that a DM be allowed to force, or control a choice and that be acceptable by any and all. You even go into detail how this is more benificial for the players than actually allowing their decision to resolve with their intent in mind. Fudging dice is controlling the possible outcome of the story - regardless of player choice. Putting a collar on a character, magical or otherwise is controlling the possible outcome of the story - regardless of player choice. I'm suggesting here that a DM that is resistant to relinquishing control of the story to the players and hesitant to allow a dice roll to neutrally determine the outcome of the story is desparately clinging to their railroad and is using soft-language to avoid admitting it. You also use some allegory in your post that touches on some other topics, but maybe that's not what you meant by "it's just another room in the dungeon of life". Seems like you're trying to diminish the impact and implacation of the limiting of choice because that is the accepted norm.
Here's what the DMG has to say about Ignoring the Dice:
One approach is to use dice as rarely as possible. Some DMs use them only during combat, and determine success or failure as they like in other situations.
With this approach, the DM decides whether an action or a plan succeeds or fails based on how well the players make their case, how thorough or creative they are, or other factors. For example, the players might describe how they search for a secret door, detailing how they tap on a wall or twist a torch sconce to find its trigger. That could be enough to convince the DM that they find the secret door without having to make an ability check to do so.
This approach rewards creativity by encouraging players to look to the situation you’ve described for an answer, rather than looking to their character sheet or their character’s special abilities. A downside is that no DM is completely neutral. A DM might come to favor certain players or approaches, or even work against good ideas if they send the game in a direction he or she doesn’t like. This approach can also slow the game if the DM focuses on one “correct” action that the characters must describe to overcome an obstacle.
(emphasis mine)
Strange that we are being advised that it's generally not a good idea for the DM to allow player generated input based on DM motivations and likes.
Further down we find:
Many DMs find that using a combination of the two approaches works best. By balancing the use of dice against deciding on success, you can encourage your players to strike a balance between relying on their bonuses and abilities and paying attention to the game and immersing themselves in its world.
Remember that dice don’t run your game — you do. Dice are like rules. They’re tools to help keep the action moving. At any time, you can decide that a player’s action is automatically successful. You can also grant the player advantage on any ability check, reducing the chance of a bad die roll foiling the character’s plans. By the same token, a bad plan or unfortunate circumstances can transform the easiest task into an impossibility, or at least impose disadvantage.
(emphasis mine)
Please note that nowhere does it suggest that the DM should remove, limit or restrict the ability for the player to attempt anything or for the DM to alter an outcome of a dice roll. It makes perfect sense, IMHO, that if a player wants their PC to try to fly by flapping their arms and jumping off a cliff that they be allowed to try. But they will understand and acknowledge, before they are allowed to "make this attempt", that if they don't have an ability, magical or otherwise, that allows for them to fly, that they will most likely fall, potentially to their PC's death.
If what you described is how you and your table get down, I'm all for it. Go have as much fun with that as you can. I still can't agree that what you are suggesting is better for the players being allowed to have their choice heard and actually followed. It sounds more like you are trying to convince them that your story being carried through to the end is for their own good.
I understand being invested in a creation. I've had the same campaign running for years with the same group. I am more a fan of the players and the PCs than I am of my own world. I can create a new one in the span of a weekend, maybe not a complete fleshed out world, but the solid foundation of one anyway.
I have absolutly zero qualms in allowing the players to "derail" the campaign or the world. I made it for them to play in. That was my contribution to the game. Their contribution is what they do with it after I gift it to them. This is how we collaborate at my table. Somehow, I manage to do this without telling my players "No" very often at all. (I'll admit there are a pile of "Yes, But... that fill that void.)
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I see what you're saying (and I've avoided quoting it because there was a lot there!).
I think my key point is that everything in the world you give your players is there by your choice (until the players get hold of it and make it their own). The magical collar that stops them hurting enyone not wearing one is no different fro mthe cliff that stops them continuing to walk in a direction. the player flapping their arms and jumping is no different to the player who keeps trying to hit the guards even though the magic stops them. You put something there which needs a way around it, and they made a choice to do something which doesn't work.
My point is that everything you give the players gives them agency, provided they can make a decision about it. If you restrict them to a definitive decision - EG they get 3 options - go to place A, go to place B, or split up - then you reduce their agency - they can't cast fireball or wall run, pick the lock, use mage hand to poke the barbarian in the back of the head etc.etc. for this decision, because all those things won't affect the decision. A Railroad (in its purest form, I'm a believer that there are levels of railroad!) Is where player agency is removed entirely for the sake of the plot. You are supposed to fight the dragon, so no matter how well you stealth, the dragon hears you and you fight. Agency out of the window, the DM decided what happens before it did.
Now, to divert this ramble back to dice fudging - It is worth noting that dice are (cover your ears dice goblins) entirely devoid of reason, logic, or the concept of anything. They are a random number generator - if you get a critical hit on the wizard and kill them, that could have been a critical hit o nthe barbarian which stung a bit. The dice don't care what you're rolling for, and that means that, in some cases, they can go beyond the extremes of what you wanted to achieve by rolling them. You can listen to them - EG if you critical hit with a longbow and it rolls 16 damage, then the dice are saying "do lots of damage". If you were aiming for the wizard, who has not done anything to promote this amount of damage (EG neglecting to cast defensive spells, or standing atop a rock in the open), and they have 14HP, then the dice would kill him - because the ydon't know what a lot of damage is to him. So you tweak it to 13 damage, and the wizards agency is maintained - they don't have to die because of a random number generator, and can decide what to do in their next turn.
To clarify, if the wizard jumps on top of a rock and waves their arms around, then that's their decision and it had consequences. But if they were just walking when the ambush happened, it would not be fun for the player to have their character die before they get to do anything. And the purpose of D&D is to be fun!
Regarding your point:
" I still can't agree that what you are suggesting is better for the players being allowed to have their choice heard and actually followed. It sounds more like you are trying to convince them that your story being carried through to the end is for their own good. "
Taking just the dead wizard scenario. The two options are:
the wizard starting their turn on 1HP, and being able to decide what to do, or
The wizard starting their turn on 0 HP, and having no option but to roll death saves.
Just because "the dice made the DM do it" doesn't make it more fun for the wizard player, watching the other players enjoy the combat whilst they roll death saving throws. Most players would rather the DM give them that one chance - even if half of them will end up dead the turn after, at least they had one turn to decide whether to heal themselves or cast fireball.
In fact, I might even make this an unwritten rule for my games - everyone gets one turn before they die.
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Just to trying to be clear in how I'm understanding you. Are you saying that: by you forcing your PCs to not die(fudging the dice roll to prevent death), and forcing your PCs to wear a magical bark-collar (pressing them into slavery/confinement) that you are preserving their agency? And somehow this is the same as me allowing a player to let their PC attempt unpowered flight, off the precipice of a cliff, without any ability granted by any feat, class, subclass or divine intervention?
Keeping the PCs alive, regardless of their decision to protect a campaign, story, whatever purpose you describe is an attempt by the DM to protect the plot. It might be done subversively, covertly or overtly. But it still is exactly that. I'm not entirely certain that comparing one end of the railroad spectrum to the other is a great way to say that the lesser evil should be allowed and not pushed back against. If you were to reverse the situation, would you call your player a cheater for fudging a dice roll to protect their story? There are plenty of discussions that hinge around not trusting a player or players that cheat at dice rolls. There are plenty of discussions that push back at adversarial DMing and railroads. Considering that the DM is a player, and fudging dice rolls, I could see how they might fit into one of those categories.
End of the day, if you're not going to allow the dice to speak and do what they say, why ask them for an answer?
Understand that the DM makes a choice to ask the dice for their input to maintain a neutral, referee, position. I'm not saying that you *have* to use them. Again, all for you ignoring the dice. I might suggest that you make that decision prior to finding out the result of the dice roll.
I actually do this. The last PC to die got the table attention to make one final act (attack, move or object interaction) and make any last words. In my last event, the player chose to attack the creature that was engulfing them (a Boneless), killing it (and taking some final damage themselves) as a final act of defiance, ala "From Hell's Heart, I stab at thee!" The PC was revived via Revivify 3 very tense rounds later. And now the party will find a reason to kill every Green Hag they encounter, just on principle of how they propagate and what their overall goals are.
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Again, I won't quote in chunks or it'll get too big ;)
I'm not saying that forcing the PC to live regardless of their choices is the same as forcing them to wear a collar thingy, I'm afraid I've perhaps been unclear here as you've got the wrong end of the stick entirely!
Player acency is the players ability to make decisions and do things which then have consequences - the "Agency" i the fact that it is their decisions which cause the effects. Having a dragon nuke a town doesn't involve player agency, neither does throwing a player onto the button that nukes the town, but putting the button there with "do not press" written on it is player agency.
Back to our well-worn scenario - the oh-crap-that's-a-crit ambush.
I don't want to have to plan for edge-case events like mass critical hits when I plan an encounter. I give the players 4 bandits with a treasure map because I want them to have the treasure map, and I want them to feel like they found/earnt it rather than the bandits just giving it to them. To this end, I set an ambush which the party should be able to deal with.
Now, turn 1 comes around, a surprise round as the party rolled badly on perception (NOTE: DM asks for perceprion and you roll badly, that is not player agency as the player makes no decision). The wizard gets hit by a critical hit which would drop them to 0hp, without having done anything.
Now, the DM has two options here (normally, there are in fact infinite options as we make the game up as we go, but that's beside the point).
Option 1: The random number generators all conspired to kill the wizard without them having made a single decision, which will leave them with no choice but to rol ldeath saves.
Option 2: The random number generators all conspired to deal huge amounts of damage, so if I leave the wizard on 1HP, it gets the "spirit" of the roll over without forcing the player to do anything.
To my mind, option 1 takes away all the player agency. they can't respond, they haven't done anything related to the encounter except walk into it with the rest of the party, and it has no intrinsic difference to "rocks fall, you die", except that you say "The dice said rocks fall, you die". Then you have to consider that you, the DM, chose to target the wizard, so it's still your decision that they died.
Option 2 keeps the result of "the arrow crits, and it hurts a lot" but leaves the player with agency.
If turn 2 comes along and the player doesn't try to survive (EG take cover, heal themselves, etc.) then their choices are what leads to the second arrow killing them. No holds barred there, the PC can still die, but it needs to be because the player did a dumb-dumb, not because the dice said so.
talk of collars and whatnot aside for now - what do you consider option 1 does for player agency? The scenario is, the player walks in, doesn't notice the ambush that the DM put there because when the DM asked for a roll they rolled low, and then they got shot and killed in the surprise round. I fail to see how that is preserving player agency, when all the player did was roll perception when the DM asked them to.
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Of course you're not saying they are the same. I'm trying to understand how you think that (A): fudging dice to keep PCs from dying, or forcing imprisonment, slavery or otherwise is the same as (B): allowing a player to make a choice that results in the untimely demise of their PC (jumping off a cliff and trying to fly). How you make a synonym from (A) to (A) isn't the question. How you equivocate (A) to (B) is the part that I was asking about clarification. I have the wrong end of the stick, because you keep handing me the same end of the stick....
Now, turn 1 comes around, a surprise round as the party rolled badly on perception (NOTE: DM asks for perceprion and you roll badly, that is not player agency as the player makes no decision). The wizard gets hit by a critical hit which would drop them to 0hp, without having done anything.
Now, the DM has two options here (normally, there are in fact infinite options as we make the game up as we go, but that's beside the point).
Here I might disagree with you that the options the DM can excercise are the point. I'll agree that for the sake of you trying to pose a sensible description, it is best to limit options to the relevant talking points. But I'm going to circle back to this in a moment.
Option 1: The random number generators all conspired to kill the wizard without them having made a single decision, which will leave them with no choice but to rol ldeath saves.
Option 2: The random number generators all conspired to deal huge amounts of damage, so if I leave the wizard on 1HP, it gets the "spirit" of the roll over without forcing the player to do anything.
To my mind, option 1 takes away all the player agency. they can't respond, they haven't done anything related to the encounter except walk into it with the rest of the party, and it has no intrinsic difference to "rocks fall, you die", except that you say "The dice said rocks fall, you die". Then you have to consider that you, the DM, chose to target the wizard, so it's still your decision that they died.
Option 2 keeps the result of "the arrow crits, and it hurts a lot" but leaves the player with agency.
You are projecting motivation and intent (remember your comment to the dice goblins in the room?) to the outcome of the dice roll to elicit an emotional response that might be favorable to your argument. I don't see this as a good faith approach. Additionally, you are putting one PC's action and consequence into a vacuum and then showing how that will support your argument citing that they have zero choices because somehow the dice took them away, and you are being the honest broker by changing that outcome. You start with a party then zoom in to just the result that you assigned to the DM citing a lack of options available.
<snip>
talk of collars and whatnot aside for now - what do you consider option 1 does for player agency? The scenario is, the player walks in, doesn't notice the ambush that the DM put there because when the DM asked for a roll they rolled low, and then they got shot and killed in the surprise round. I fail to see how that is preserving player agency, when all the player did was roll perception when the DM asked them to.
What do I consider Option 1 does for player agency? The same thing that any manufactured narrative that only allows for the "lesser of two evils" answer or risk being villified for being a harsh DM might provide. You fail to see how a player making an informed choice that has consequences is not honoring their agency?
You eluded to this earlier and you are right, the options are nearly infinite. The DM in question has many more choices to excercise, as does the rest of the party. How did our beloved wizard become the immediate threat, having taken no actions to prove otherwise? Were there no other potential targets available for the opposition? Is there a method for mitigating damage in the party, or maybe a healer present? Did the DM-in-question set the DC or was it a contested stealth roll? Is the ambush set to catch just-any-ole-body, or do the bandits have a motivation to defend themselves? Which then begs, if the party knows the bandits are there, and knows they have a map, and are intentionally seeking them out to confront them, what is the party's intended outcome? Diplomacy or combat? I find the idea that the party bungled their way into an ambush without knowing that tracking down a pack of bandits might involve combat and the risk of death quite a bit outside verisimilitude. Especially if their intent was to liberate an object from the bandits' possession. What did the party think was gonna happen when they tried to take something by force? An ice creame social?
And understand, I appreciate that you are trying to convey your ideas and opinions in a civil manner, so for that, Thank You. But also understand, I don't find your approach at telling me that it's raining very effective.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Seems the hang-up here is the informed decision.
I will open with me being 100% behind that if a player knows what they are doing and does it anyway, I have no intention of fudging the dice to make their bad decision easier. If the whole party jumps off a high bridge with a 10% chance of landing in the water below, and nobody makes the roll - they all die. It sucks for the narrative but if I didn't want them to have a chance of failure I wouldn't have made them roll. Making it clear to a player that they are not likely to succeed, and them rolling anyway, is definitely reducing the experience if you then fudge the rolls.
But with a surprise, which the DM puts there and the players roll poorly for spotting, so no player agency comes into the ambush except for the marching order, it's a bit different. Let's say the DM decides that the bugbears will target one character each, expecting to cause a chunk of damage at the start of the battle and make it a challenge. They roll a crit for the wizard, by pure chance, then roll full damage, which would kill him without any of the players decisions mattering. The marching order was irrelevant, the wizard wasn't picked out. The DM knew the bugbears would do good damage but didn't account for a critical hit being able to one-shot the wizard, because it was so unlikely. so the DM says "wow, that does 17 damage" instead of "wow, that does 18 damage", and the wizard player says "holy heck, I've only got 1hp left, now I need to make some serious choices in my turn!".
If the wizard decides to not heal, to charge forward with a dagger, I ain't fudging any more rolls. I tend to do the bare minimum to make it so that the players decisions are what affects the outcomes. I have no qualms about dropping someone in the first round if they have already had a chance to make a decision (EG "my wizard jumps ato pa rock and casts fireball" is going to get them shot, with everything the enemy has).
So yeah, I think we agree for the most part (if the player decides to do a thing which may result in death, then it may result in death), there's just this hangup on "If random chance conspires to make something which the players have not influenced at all or decided to partake in, such as a random ambush they did not detect, instantly kill a character because of an unlikely event, then...". I say you fudge it so they get to make at least one decision, and I take it from your stance that you would let the dice stand and kill the character.
I don't think that either are wrong, and if it is something which the players enjoy then of course it's the right thing to do. There are other things I'd consider as well - is their a healer who can save them if they die, for example. If the character being killed means it's at the whims of death saving throws whether they die, then I would give them one - and only one - chance.
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Your first paragraph lets me know that you took some time to make a good faith effort to this point, as you have very well summarized why that is a bad idea. Thank you.
In your second paragraph, you go on to omit everything in the timeline leading up to the ambush that should have been player choice. And this is where we differ. Regardless of monster intent, regardless of dice, if you as a DM were to stop your game and have a meta-knowledge-moment with your players and flat-out tell them that the foes they intend to face may well be above their capabilities, this is on them. In your scenario, you as DM, have the oportunity to put NPCs bearing information directly in front of the party at every step to let them know levels of lethality that the monster is known for, and potential tactics that the enemey is prone to use. It's your task as a DM to describe the environment so the players can make a decision. (How to Play) You control when this happens, and also that it happens at all. Omitting this information is a DM failing, ignoring it is squarely on the players. But, once they make that decision and follow their path to death or glory, it's on them. And, let me be clear, I'm not saying that you give them the intricate details of how the ambush is going to play out, I'm saying that they should have access to enough information regarding level of danger, lethatlity and monster tactics. And also the option to ignore it. Before they set out to attempt their game of capture the flag with bandits and the element of surprise. (In my experience, sometimes you have to be blunt with players about in game information. They often miss subtle clues.)
Claiming that there is no way for the party-in-question to know about the any danger or threat of death is objectively false. Continuing on a path that you know could lead to bodily injury is a decision that should be honored, IMHO. That's what they wanted to do. They didn't specifically want to die, but they wanted to intentionally put themselves in harms way. People do this all day, every day, and sometimes it ends disastrously. Why is it such an unforgiveable sin to allow this in a game about characters that are supposed to embody what it means to be a hero?
As far as the sentiment of "protecting the story"? Why not dispense with the soft language and call it what it is: The DM being too invested in their own creation to allow any other input. This is the prime reason that the DMG guides us in creating worlds, adventures and encounters. I've not seen too much in there telling me how to write a great story or how to convince the players what is in their best interest. I have spotted a couple of mentions of DMs being neutral and fair, and that we shouldn't play favorites. Playing favorites isn't mutually exclusive to the players, the DM can be their own favorite player. Controlling the outcome of dice or controlling choice supports this directly. This is what I take issue with, and why I reject any claim that this is best for the game, best for "fun".
So, no, basically I don't believe we disagree entirely on this topic and I do appreciate that this was kept as civil as it was. I can respect that you want to run things differently at your table, I'm not suggesting that anyone have to agree with any one method. I just want there to be clarity on what it is that's actually being suggested from both sides of this conversation, so that a DM, new or grizzled, can maybe make better informed choice.
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Those are some good points, but I disagree that a DM making the call not to let an unlikely dice roll combo (EG a critical hit with maximum damage on a surprise round) kill off a character before the player can do anything to be the DM "protecting a story they are too invested in".
The story isn't that Barry the Wizard survives to the end - if a character dieas, the story continues, but I feel like my players deserve for their deaths to be because of their own poor decisions, not because of random chance. That is the commitment I am making to my players when I change "you died, make a new character" to "You almost died, choose what you do next wisely".
I also agree that if they are given hints, like an abandoned and ransacked cart, some bodies slain by arrows as they fell, and then they still put Barry up front because he has the best perception, then Barry is asking to get shot. Decisions were made, and consequences occur.
The story I am invested in is that of the characters, and I don't feel that it is in the best interests of player fun, therefore "the game", to have one of those stories end in a single blow without warning "because the dice said so".
We, as DM's control what is in the game. We could put a random table in which says on a D100 roll of 1, a meteor strikes the camp and the party dies. Why don't we? Because it would not be fun. You could argue "the players should camp separately if they know there's a risk of weirdly accurate meteor strikes", but ultimately we simply don't include things which can just kill off characters if they roll badly, because it's not fun.
So we have a choice, when we put something in place which, through random chance, does more damage than we thought it would (EG a bugbear rolling a crit and maximum damage on a surprise round for 72 points of damage where their average on a surprise round is 22, and if the PC's roll perception well and aren't surprised it's only 15 damage), then we are in a position to say "you know what, the wizard only has 35hp, so we'll make that 34 damage so they don't just die".
That's literally the only time I fudge, so we're mostly on the same wavelength. But I'd not often hear a player who's invested in a character be upset because I didn't let an unexpectedly powerful surprise attack outright kill them before they get a chance to act. You would expect the wizard to survive 2 rounds, on average, not be instantly killed in one, so you'd plan it based on that. Or you can pretend bugbears are really powerful because they might do 72 damage instead of 15, and let your higher level party walk all over them.
I daresay we'll not agree on this point, and honestly this is by far the most civil discussion on a disagreement I've had so thanks for that! I think you've muddled my motivations (I am interested in preserving the fun of the players, not the story) but otherwise I think we've gotten our points across well!
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As a new DM myself, I've come across some things that have worked quite well. Though bear in mind, I say this from the perspective of someone that's running a linear homebrew story campaign:
A brain-damaged DM'ing time [roll]1d20[/roll]
I agree with 98% of what you posit here. And well said, overall.
To a vast majority of these ideas we do agree on. But like the Meteor Strike, why include the Bugbear? If it fits the theme of the tapestry that you have woven and laid out infront of your players, ok. The Meteor Strike and the Bugbear can stay! But does the Bugbear have to do 72 points of damage on a crit, during a surprise attack? Can you turn the Meteor Strike into a Party Skill Challenge to avoid getting smoked? You're the DM, you can change how monsters handle critical hits, and this doesn't have to follow the same logic flow-chart as the PCs. A critical hit doesn't have to be solely about the damage to HP, it doesn't have to be double the damage dice. It might, for instance, keep the original damage dice and modifier, (or if I didn't want this to be a lethal encounter I might use the damage average or reduce the damage dice by one category), but on a Nat20, the PC suffers the prone condition, the player has to make a Con save or suffer disadvantage on perception checks and concentration checks until the begining of their next turn. (Set DC at whatever you feel apropriate, but I prefer using something like: 8+damage inflicted, harder hits are harder to resist type of vibe.) Simply because you want that hit to feel lethal without being lethal. The intent here is to take a hit so hard that you loose your feet, can't see straight and can't think straight. The effect is, a normal hit, difficulty focusing on spellcasting, troube noticing their surroundings, disadvantage on any further ranged attacks against Barry, and Barry getting to figure out how to get out of the line of fire before things get worse for him. I refer to this as "motivation". Knowing that a party member is down might provide motivation for the other players of the group to alter their tactics from the typical: poke it till it dies. You've also turned your randomly generated Barry-buster-missle into a more dramatic challenge for the players to figure out.
This is loosley tied to the concept of failing forward with your impromptu dice roll input. Yes, they failed to notice the ambush and got clapped. Now, Barry is on the ground, flat on his back, holding a sucking chest wound and asking if anyone got the liscene plate of that truck. Now, the other players get to scramble to turn this around, but Barry can still stand up on his next turn so long as the party does something to protect him, and the DM doesn't focus fire on Barry. (cause we don't want lethality, we want a near miss that is felt and remembered) (This also might be a great time to discuss healing potions as a bonus action with the party. Your call either way.)
There are several ways for the DM to portray the desired effect without resorting to blowing huge chunks of HP off a PC's character sheet. I'm all about preserving fun and making combat meaningful, even if the players aren't successful and PCs don't survive. There is a piece of advice floating about somewhere that says: During an encounter, players should have a 70% chance of winning and a 30% chance of loosing. But, to them, it should feel like they have a 70% chance of failing and only a 30% chance of success.
Providing unplanned events to the party is the closest analog to actual combat that we can get, without actual speed, surprise, and violence of action. No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
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Those are some good suggestions for changing the results, and I agree that they would be a lot more fun than just "you almost die", and get the message across far better, as you said.
I am curious now as to:
A: when would you make the call to change this? After you read the bugbears abilities and realise the dice pool you're using for damage, or after the roll and you see that this is going to kill the wizard?
B: Why do you suggest changing the entire mechanics of a creature to avoid killing Barry, but would not consider reducing the damage from such an attack to "doesn't instantly kill Barry"? (It's hard to convey here but I mean this genuinely and not as a "gotcha" counterargument, I think that knocking Barry prone whilst also dealing high damage would be a really good way to not "lose" the damage you're reducing, I am just curious as to why this is an option for you but fudging the dice to achieve a similar effect isn't?)
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Answer A: The decison to build a potentially lethal encounter is made when you are designing an encounter. If you have set the bar at Deadly. (A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat.) Firstly, PC death is a clear and present option in this design, so I wouldn't see a need to massage anything to suit a more forgiving design intent. (Unless the monster needs reskinned or altered to meet aesthetic necessity of your world or a particular plot hook.) Should you be aiming at something more inline with our well worn scenario of 4-Lvl 1 PCs and 4 Bandits, then I would aim for maybe a difficulty of Medium. (A medium encounter usually has one or two scary moments for the players, but the characters should emerge victorious with no casualties. One or more of them might need to use healing resources.) So, if our design intent was to use a group of bandits, because it fits thematically in our world and follows a plot hook that has been laid out in front of the party, then I might have reservations about mechanical effects of a statblock, or monster motivations and goals. Again, following design intent. If I've decided that I don't want this encounter to be lethal when I put it together, but find that I've been heavy-handed or overclocked the encounter, I'll alter something on-site to adjust to my intended level of lethality. We are also reminded to be wary of certain creatures' dice pools as: "Such a creature might deal enough damage with a single action to take out adventurers of a lower level. (Note on CR following XP threshold by PC Level table)" The monster motivations and goals are also a consideration as to whether or not they would outright kill a PC.
The TL;DR is: During the design phase of the encounter, well before initiative is rolled. (Also, I don't track PC HP during the game. Some DMs might, I don't. I trust a player to tell the party if they are hurt, or to act accordingly when making PC decisions in combat. And yes, I communicate that well beforehand.) (Also, also, this doesn't remove the possibility of PC death, but it does choke down on the possibility of it happening. We're still allowing for that possibility should the players ignore or mishandle the opportunities they are presented with.)
Answer B: I don't recall suggesting a change to the entire mechanics of a creature, just how a potentially thematic attack (a critical hit) might play out more dramatically, but still inline with the aforementioned design intent. I am absolutely suggesting a change to the size of damage dice, swapping in a conditional ability that inflicts a condition, or assigning a damage value instead of using dice altogether. If I ask the 'ole Murderizer (my D20) to tell me if a monster hits a PC and it says no, the answer is no. If it says Nat 20, I get to flex my creative lizard brain and do what would be dramatic and still land the encounter within intended parameters. I could choose to not ask the dice anything and simply describe the actions as hit or miss, but that might get a little suspicious to the player after a fashion. (I would imagine the player having something to say about this approach.)
For me, and I can't stress this being my own opinion enough, fudging dice is akin to lying to a player about the outcome of a neutral arbitration that both the DM and player have agreed to abide by. Purely a social contract thing. Following the dice can provide unexpected turns and twists that you didn't plan for, but you still get to decide how fast you are going, and how steep the drop-off is. DMs can control time in-game, slow the game down and use your time to think if you need to. We can show danger in more ways than what is provided on a particular statblock. We have the ability as a DM to change monster design and encounter design. However, I might suggest that our responsibility is to remain neutral to the players and still provide a fun experience, and that our neutrality should probably take precedence over story or plot.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad