Butthurt Wizard dies in final fight? Did I do bad?


Advice

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taldanrebel2187 wrote:

Very few cheesers add Silent Spell to their metamagics these days.

Odd, I see Silent Spell come up a lot.

Mainly when I run Eberron games, though. Being able to cast without others knowing you were casting is quite useful in some cases. It can probably still occasionally be useful in a dungeon crawl (don't let the monsters in the next room know you are coming!), but I don't run straight dungeon crawls very often so I can't really comment.

Then again, I still don't know what a 'cheeser' is, so maybe that just means I've never met a 'cheeser'.

Shadow Lodge

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taldanrebel2187 wrote:

I can do you one better, OP.

Store a dissintegrate or teleport object. Do a sundering strike on his *spellbook*. Watch wizard's PC rage quit as he now plays a level 18 commoner.

If he doesn't have MULTIPLE backup spellbooks and he takes his spellbook into combat, he was already a commoner, since there's no way his INT exceeded 10.

Dark Archive

My 2 copper: Math problems aside, the final fight needs to be lethal. The final SEVERAL fights need to be lethal. If not, then what's the point? Your players, and more importantly, their characters, need to fully respect the danger they are in, and the risks associated with the business they're doing. I don't kill my players off on purpose.

I fudge rolls when it's thematically appropriate. But the last 4-5 sessions are when the kiddie gloves come off and they have to use every tactical advantage they have against the encounters, or they're going to die. Victory has to mean something, so I think the Player was justified in feeling upset over character death, but not in throwing a fit about it. It's the final showdown, dude, someone is going to die.

Also, Illusion is great, and no buffs? LOLWAT.


Tabletop Prophet wrote:
The final SEVERAL fights need to be lethal.

Well it doesn't need to be, that's just your opinion on how it should be.


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I don't think an admitted dice fudger's opinions are of much interest. Dice fudging is purely narrativist and directly anti-gamist behavior and fun is a gamist concern.

When I want to be part of an overarching narrative more than I want to play a game I'll look for amateur theater troupes. In the mean time dice fudgers can GM to an empty table.


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Tabletop Prophet wrote:

My 2 copper: Math problems aside, the final fight needs to be lethal. The final SEVERAL fights need to be lethal. If not, then what's the point? Your players, and more importantly, their characters, need to fully respect the danger they are in, and the risks associated with the business they're doing. I don't kill my players off on purpose.

Dying without a clue from out of the blue is essentially rocks fall everyone dies gming.

Lethality is fine as long as it's fair. Fair meaning the players either had an opportunity to get a clue or etc.

Killing their characters like this is just telling them, "I can and will kill your characters from out of the blue with no warning and there's nothing you can do to stop me."

At which point theres really no sense in continuing to play. The GM always wins if he wants to which is exactly what I'm reading here.


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Oh goody, a flame war is brewing. Anyone want to share some kettle corn?

Sovereign Court

Epic level encounters are often fatal. They're the things of legends, near-deity level fights. If a level 18 character fears death, they are being played by juveniles. Honestly, it takes experienced and mature players to realize that the powerful legends of the land don't fear death... They expect it.

It comes down a fundamental assumption of D&D and Pathfinder: Don't let novice players (or babies) play high level PCs. It's like giving a toddler plutonium and expecting it to end well.


So a char got killed at level 18+ most encounter can and probably will kill party members, there are spells te repair and prevent that, if they dont use those than it is the party's own doing they get snuffed


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Walter Leeuwen wrote:
So a char got killed at level 18+ most encounter can and probably will kill party members, there are spells te repair and prevent that, if they dont use those than it is the party's own doing they get snuffed

So a DM incorrectly used the rules and killed off a party member what a bunch of babies for feeling like that's a shitty thing to do ...


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I'm still trying to figure out why the Cleric wasn't all Quickened Breath of Life, Mass Heal, thanks for the warning, now lets get down to some real fighting.


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The OP did lots of stuff wrong and his wizard PC deserves a do-over/refund/apology for the cheatery that was going on (even accidentally) and probably for being called butthurt (it's generally not only natural but appropriate for people to be upset when someone is cheating against them).

However, I don't know why people are saying vampiric touch was a bad idea because of false life. Temporary HP from different sources stack. They have since 3E. They still do today. You can't cast false life over and over and over, nor can you cast vampiric touch lots of times and juice up on the Temp. Hp (same source), but you most certainly can false life + vampiric touch.

Dark Archive

MrSin wrote:
Tabletop Prophet wrote:
The final SEVERAL fights need to be lethal.
Well it doesn't need to be, that's just your opinion on how it should be.

Yes, quite so. I believe the entire post is prefaced with "Just my 2 copper".

Atarlost wrote:

I don't think an admitted dice fudger's opinions are of much interest. Dice fudging is purely narrativist and directly anti-gamist behavior and fun is a gamist concern.

When I want to be part of an overarching narrative more than I want to play a game I'll look for amateur theater troupes. In the mean time dice fudgers can GM to an empty table.

Now, now. Can't we have a genuine conversation without resorting to Ad Hominem?

To respond to your position: Dice fudging is "gamist". The game is a game of narrative first and foremost, and the System gives me, as a GM, the power to override it when it fails to serve the narrative.

I prefer to preserve my character's lives when in difficult early fights, because it is anti-fun to have your character one shot by an Ankheg Acid Spray, or a rampaging Owlbear.

Regardless, I can see that you feel strongly about this, and doubt that my words will mean anything to you, but if you care to correct your logic, may I recommend visiting this site?

Scavion wrote:
Tabletop Prophet wrote:
My 2 copper: Math problems aside, the final fight needs to be lethal. The final SEVERAL fights need to be lethal. If not, then what's the point? Your players, and more importantly, their characters, need to fully respect the danger they are in, and the risks associated with the business they're doing. I don't kill my players off on purpose.

Dying without a clue from out of the blue is essentially rocks fall everyone dies gming.

Lethality is fine as long as it's fair. Fair meaning the players either had an opportunity to get a clue or etc.

Killing their characters like this is just telling them, "I can and will kill your characters from out of the blue with no warning and there's nothing you can do to stop me."

At which point theres really no sense in continuing to play. The GM always wins if he wants to which is exactly what I'm reading here.

I don't think I advocated the "rocks fall, everyone dies" model for GMing. I believe that my worst experiences as a player were at the hands of those GMs who played ran their games this way, and I abhor it.

In the situation the OP's party were in, this was a recurring BBEG. That's warning enough, especially when they're waltzing into the final fight in the campaign.

And I agree with your last two statements, it's not fair and it's not fun. I don't run my games that way. My players know that they are going to have to fight to win. I refuse to use my narrative powers to tell a story where the good guys always win. They don't, and it doesn't make a good story. I also refuse to use my narrative powers to annihilate months of gameplay and character growth and attachment in one fell swoop because I "can".

Sure, I can kill everyone... but why would I do that? What purpose does that serve? Much better to challenge my players to survive when it's thematically and narratively appropriate, and in the unfortunate occurrence that someone does die, it will not be a random "rocks fall" event. It will be during the final stretch of the story arch, when they're striving to achieve the goal of the whole game.

It will be worth something.

Since I am the storyteller, I can make that death as tragic or heroic or awesome or heart-wrenching or rage-inducing as I want, and trust me, my PC's deaths have been infrequent (due to experienced players) and noteworthy.

Every PC death I've had to deal with has been a point where I end the session, and discuss at length with the player whose character died how they feel and what they want for their character's future. Anytime they stayed dead, it was a moment of epic glory:

  • A Wizard who manages to, with his dying breath, summon a Solar through a Gate spell to fight the Balor that's bearing down on the party.
  • A Druid encasing the BBEG and Himself in a sphere of stone (gave the party a chance to regroup and discover that the Druid's animal companion had been awakened by the druid, who was that Player's new character).
  • A Paladin, throwing himself in between the athiest fighter and a Lich's Power Word: Kill.

They died doing something awesome, and I will never have a meaningless death in my games.

I hope this is enough of an elaboration for some who may dislike my earlier post, but if it's not, you weren't going to anyway. No disrespect intended, just trying to respond to those that quoted me.


Tabletop Prophet wrote:
In the situation the OP's party were in, this was a recurring BBEG.

We don't know that.


Looking at the math TC put out it looks like he got some stuff wrong but also forgot to add some stuff in so it about amounted to a wash, so the damage would still have been enough to murder the wizard. The BBEG had the feat to let him act after a Dim Door. The only thing really wrong was that he cast it while under the effects of Rage... which adds +1 hit/dam so it was pretty irrelevant to the Wizard's death; I'd be inclined to just disregard that spell because even if the DM didn't realize he was nerfing his BBEG, I'm sure the BBEG caster with a much higher intelligence/wisdom score than the DM would have.

Overall it looks like the math was "close enough," which I can sympathize with when it comes to NPCs. I don't really see anything wrong here besides the dismissive and scornful tone toward the player.

Dark Archive

Scavion wrote:
Tabletop Prophet wrote:
In the situation the OP's party were in, this was a recurring BBEG.
We don't know that.

True enough.

In OP, he does say it's the final fight with a BBEG. However, I can't seem to find the "recurring" part. I think it may have been another poster implying it that got it in my head, but I don't know for sure. Sorry about that.

I'm still inclined to believe that they had enough prior notice of the BBEG's capabilities (at least in the broadest sense) and should have prepared themselves accordingly when walking into the boss battle, but again, with his maths and rules comprehension being off, it was a bit unfair.


A wizard at that level who does not have an empowered False Life up at all times is a wizard who has grown tired of living.


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To the OP

IMO - dickish move

Here's why;

It doesn't matter what anyone else says is the 'right' or 'wrong' way to play, or what level of lethality makes the game worthwhile.

You can play the game any way you want, so long as the expectations of that game are the same on both sides of the screen. The fact that your player reacted poorly indicates that his expectations don't match yours. As GM you are the only person at the table with the power to manage this.

Trivialising his reaction and then posting on forums seeking validation is also a dickish move.

Hope this answers your question


The OP was the one who first introduced the phrase "dickish move" as applicable to himself, he was hardly fishing for compliments.
I don't see how not PERFECTLY aligning expectations before hand to cover all situations = dickish move.
One could say that misrepresenting others' statements is a dickish move... or just accept people make mistakes.


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I do think Tarkeighas raises a fair point though; the wizard clearly wasn't expecting bad guys teleporting in and killing him with a single attack to be a part of how the game worked.

Could the wizard have done more to protect himself if he had better system mastery? Sure. But when GMing for a relatively low-mastery wizard, perhaps it is not the best time to use enemies who are designed to one-hit-kill the wizard before he even gets to act. The point of Pathfinder is to make the game for everyone at the table, not kill the players with your leet skillz, then teabag their corpses while shouting 'Git gud newbfag!' (Not saying the OP did anything like that, just breaking out an extreme example.)


I didn't say "fishing for compliments" I said validation. There is a difference. If you feel I've misrepresented his statement then perhaps you shouldn't misrepresent mine.

It's not dissimilar to the "help me my build is too powerful and it's unbalancing the game" posts that appear periodically. Often these are just faux negative posts masking a desire to showcase their 'clever' power build.

The OP set the tone of the post. The tone was set with 'butthurt'. You don't use this if you are unsure of your actions. He clearly had an opinion of the situation, and that opinion was that the player, not himself, was incorrect in their reactions. Since they are in opposite positions, he by default implies his actions were correct, and posts his massive damage build and encounter setup for us all to admire.

Also, I did not say PERFECTLY align expectations. I said manage. Another misrepresentation of my post, and by your own words, one could say a dickish move by you.

He is the GM. He sets the tone and rules for the campaign. If it is high lethality pulp with characters dropping faster than a George Martin epic, and everyone is happy with it then it's the 'right' way to play by consensus. That will be the agreed upon tone of the campaign.

But if a player has a reaction strong enough to be described as 'butthurt' then clearly he thought the OPs actions were extremely surprising and presumably unfair. It's not about PERFECT alignment so much as at least ballpark management.

Players have no power at a table to manage anything other than their character actions within set limits. The GM controls the setting, environment, opposition, pace, challenge level etc etc. GMs have the responsibility to manage this for the group. It is the PRIMARY function of the GM.

Ultimately this is a matter between him and his player. He doesn't have to care for my opinion (as you clearly don't) but he did ask for it.


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Tabletop Prophet wrote:

Now, now. Can't we have a genuine conversation without resorting to Ad Hominem?

To respond to your position: Dice fudging is "gamist". The game is a game of narrative first and foremost, and the System gives me, as a GM, the power to override it when it fails to serve the narrative.

Wow. Not only a hardcore narrativist but one that doesn't even recognize that the other gaming philosophies even exist.

Yeah, any reservations about ignoring you just evaporated.

Look, there's an entire industry of purely narrativist story games. Pathfinder is about as far from it as it is possible to get and still have game entities called characters.

Shadow Lodge

thorin001 wrote:
A wizard at that level who does not have an empowered False Life up at all times is a wizard who has grown tired of living.

*Multiple* Simulacrum and stacked Contingency are mandatory preps for the highteenth-level wizard.

Locating and getting through to your real meat-body should be an ordeal for the opposition.


Sir Thugsalot wrote:
thorin001 wrote:
A wizard at that level who does not have an empowered False Life up at all times is a wizard who has grown tired of living.

*Multiple* Simulacrum and stacked Contingency are mandatory preps for the highteenth-level wizard.

Locating and getting through to your real meat-body should be an ordeal for the opposition.

Sending expensive copies of you that are half your real level and don't net you experience doesn't necessarily seem like a good idea unless you mean you are still going out in person but want an entourage of body doubles to thwart assassination attempts... which is kinda awesome actually so by all means. Can only have one contingency up on yourself at a time though.


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Korthis wrote:

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but this reads as if you are proud that you were able to kill him and decimate the fighter in 1 round. If so:

*slow clap

Congratulations
You as the DM, who is essentially the god over the game, who can make/remake the world at will were able to kill a character in it.
The first rule of DMing is you don't talk... I mean is to make sure that the characters are challenged but having fun.

Right on.


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Tarkeighas wrote:

To the OP

IMO - dickish move

Here's why;

It doesn't matter what anyone else says is the 'right' or 'wrong' way to play, or what level of lethality makes the game worthwhile.

You can play the game any way you want, so long as the expectations of that game are the same on both sides of the screen. The fact that your player reacted poorly indicates that his expectations don't match yours. As GM you are the only person at the table with the power to manage this.

Trivialising his reaction and then posting on forums seeking validation is also a dickish move.

Hope this answers your question

I suspect the GM in this case wasn't expecting a player to throw a tantrum when his player got killed. Talk about managing expectations, the players should be up front about their inability to be mature so the GM knows what to expect if something bad happens.

To call the GM a big mean poopyhead because a player died is exactly as childish as it sounds.
Saying that because a GM has the power to kill anyone at any time if anyone does die ever it's because the GM is a big mean poopyhead is also childish.
Unless you're playing with children, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect players to behavematurely.

Shadow Lodge

Quote:

I suspect the GM in this case wasn't expecting a player to throw a tantrum when his [character] got killed. Talk about managing expectations, the players should be up front about their inability to be mature so the GM knows what to expect if something bad happens.

To call the GM a big mean poopyhead because a player died is exactly as childish as it sounds.

Agreed.

Butthurt got critted by a x4 weapon in a CR20 encounter. Squishie? *splat*

Jeez....

Can we stir some diamond dust into the hamburger and cast Raise Dead already, then get on with the show?

_______________
Rogue: "Now wait just a minute! If we raise him, we'll have to listen to him whine some more. How about we sell his gear instead?"


I fall under the line of thought that this was a bit dickish of a move. It is not fun to have your character die, without any chance of acting. Yes, he should have probably had spells up to counter/mitigate the situation, but regardless of that, dying before you can even act, just kinda sucks. It's not heroic, epic, or even meaningful. It might as well be "rock fall you die" since he would have got the same amount of reaction time to that as well.


Atarlost wrote:

You certainly did bad. You put a scythe on a hostile NPC.

Large crit multipliers create a large luck factor. When creating appropriate challenges for the players luck is the enemy. You should either be using the biggest die weapons (with a preference for 19-20 over X3, though when building something like a cleric that may not be an option) or the most frequently critting weapons.

If the BBEG hadn't crit he would have been wasting his actions. What he did with the assistance of an 8th level slot, a 4th level slot, and a 3rd level spell the Cleric would have made irrelevant with a 6th.

That leads to mistake number two: using spell storing for a damage spell. If you hadn't scored a kill you'd have been trading an 8th level and 4th level slot to deliver something the cleric could negate with a 6th level slot that itself cost a slot. You should have used a non-damaging touch spell. Possibly Touch of Idiocy if you were planning on going after the wizard. That would have certainly hurt him (unless he has spell resistance) and in a way I don't think the cleric could fix without an opposed caster level check.

Dunno. Having minions with scythes for example could make an otherwise easier seeming combat a little more concerning, as a few good rolls could cause some havoc.


RDM42 wrote:
Dunno. Having minions with scythes for example could make an otherwise easier seeming combat a little more concerning, as a few good rolls could cause some havoc.

Well, if you roll badly they could totally suck, but if you roll too well you just crit someone to death on accident. High critical modifier weapons can be hard to control or predict, as opposed to high range weapons. High crit range is somewhat easier to predict, and can cause more damage over time with much less of a chance of just Insta-gibbing someone.

I'd rather have the more predictable damage personally. Can still be very devastating and menacing, but I'm less likely to lose control of the situation if rolling in the open.


Chengar wrote:
kill the players with your leet skillz, then teabag their corpses while shouting 'Git gud newbfag!

Lol I love this place so much. I definately have to find a reason to tell someone 'Git gud newbfag!' lol

Prophet and Atarlost wrote:
Angry stuff leading to flame war

Can't we agree that all gaming philosophies are valid and have their place? You both have valid points and all philosophies have a place in pathfinder and that's what makes it great; Everyone can gm the way they want and if there's no world that represents what you want, then you make your own.

Now lets get back to the OP killing his players relentlessly by breaking the rules and then feeling good about it.

(the last sentence was a joke intended to break the tension between Prophet and Atarlost. Any semblance of ill feelings and/or intensions by the writers towards the OP are unintentional)


When I play 98% ish of the time the dice do what they want - then again I use a program called DM's familiar to run combats and it rolls the dice for me (interestingly it has a nifty dice roller that runs 1000 rolls and shows you the results table with a calculation of how off your randoms are from standard - my laptop is around .03% off - way better than my physical dice which hate me).

Now I do give the players a hero point to use to 'cheat death' at their option - sometimes they don't use the point - it's a good way to retire a character they just don't 'feel'.

Until the point is used dice are 100% as they roll - no fudging. Once the point is used a lucky crit on a throwaway encounter is grounds for me to sometimes fudge the dice - it happens and I don't like killing my players in what should have been a walkthrough but due to their dice only rolling 1's (5 players and 3 rounds later die rolls were 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 4, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 1 - and yes we laughed because the 12345 was rolled in sequence... how are the odds for that...) and the monsters getting really lucky turns an encounter that should have made them feel powerful into a nightmare.

That being said on the final fight - all bets are off and I don't hold back - although I let them know going in that it's the last fight - now if they half fail and somehow manage to escape I'll be happy to work on the story of regrouping and revenge - but the final encounter is (in my view) the most appropriate place to be a lethal encounter.


Well, outside of the rules its as mentioned (rage and damage stuff)
I believe the last feat in the dimensional line would allow all of that, since you can teleport and take attack actions (I believe teleporting in does not provoke AOO as there are feats specifically for making teleporting provoke aoo) and then back out of combat, as long as the total distance is less than some multiplication of movement speed.


Scavion wrote:
Tabletop Prophet wrote:
In the situation the OP's party were in, this was a recurring BBEG.
We don't know that.

It was not stated definitively; however, I re-read the OP, and saw this excerpt:

Duboris wrote:
That's a lot of buffs. That's a very prepared wizard who's been watching everyone's strengths, and has come to respect, as well as understand the fact that the wizard in the party is the most dangerous.

Whether the party has directly fought or even encountered the BBEG before, the bolded part at the very least hints at the fact that the BBEG was indeed a recurring (or incurring) BBEG that the PCs would come across eventually.

---

That being said, time for my input.

First off, Wizard had very minimal buffs. Only using a single scroll, although a decent one, is absolutely pointless by the endgame, to cover your rear = bad preparation as a Wizard who has access to every possible thing in the game = free openings to get hit and go splat. The party should've known the BBEG was coming according to the OP's referencing of how he knew the party's strengths, and the party Wizard, the most powerful character in the group, drops the ball in (both) knowing the BBEG's capabilities and properly strategizing his method to beating the encounter. He's 18th level, and he has: No Contingency, Simulacrums, Mirror Images, Mage Armor/Shield, etc. Wizard has no right to complain he died, because quite frankly if you're facing the Big Bad, you need all hands on deck. "Even the smallest lapse invites death." And all he did was pop a single scroll. No, he deserved it fair and square. Don't bring a knife to the big gun fight, it's just going to get incinerated along with the arm holding it.

Secondly, I will agree that the GM's math and BBEG capability is off according to what's on paper. Some stuff didn't add up, though on an actual roll it would've probably killed the Wizard anyway, and anything that could've saved the Wizard's life, wasn't popped because the Wizard either got cocky, ran out of his precious resource (doubtful), or simply didn't think that far ahead. (A mere 4th level Emergency Force Sphere would've saved him from that devastating hit entirely.) He also glossed over some important mechanics and just about TPK'd the group of 4 in one round when, by the book, he would've at-best downed the Wizard in a single critical attack without risk of counter-attack. In most cases, the GM would have to retcon the fight from that point, because he screwed up big time and it cost the party 2 members when it should've only been 1 at best.

Thirdly, I will point out that in the cases of high level play, most encounters are over before they even really begin, assuming both sides are at their maximum, so this result of a nigh-TPK would actually be, according to several min-maxers whom could probably destroy this encounter in the first round, just another Tuesday at Joey's Place. So this is hardly a difficult encounter in the eyes of a min-maxer, and an average difficulty encounter when you throw in casual players (like myself).

In the end, the Wizard should've saw this coming, since the GM did mention the BBEG, whom the party is facing in this encounter, has seen the party perform. He should also know he's the most powerful sort of character in the game world, both in-character and out of character. (What kind of Wizard doesn't just laugh at a silly melee character who can't even touch him if he tried?) At this point, I can't really blame the GM when it appears to me the Wizard was so lazy and either simply expected his party members to carry him through the encounter or that the encounters leading up to that point were so easy that he didn't try (and didn't think this encounter would be any different).


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Atarlost wrote:
fun is a gamist concern.

I hope you realize that "fun" is everyone's concern. The very reason we play these games is "we want to have fun." The difference between gamists, narrativists, and simulationists is that they have different ideas about what is fun for them.

Plus, I mean, this is a spanning set for tabletop gamers, it's not three bins since almost nobody falls wholly in any one of these categories, we're just tend to be more concerned with one thing than another thing. Everyone playing these games is some part gamist (because we're playing a game with rules), some part narrativist (because we rely on a plot to tie encounters together), and some part simulationist (because the plot and the mechanics have to make some kind of logical sense.)

I mean, sometimes even people who are hardcore into narrativist tabletop games will want to do something different for a while and will pick up a more simulationist or gamist game for a change. They'll still play that game with a more of an N focus than others might (I once had a 3.0 game that pretty much stopped rolling dice midway through the campaign, since it became almost 100% politics and intrigue), but it's still going to be a lot more G or S than what they're used to, which is probably the appeal. As long as the group at the table is having fun, you're not doing it wrong. Fun is everyone's concern because it's the litmus test for "you're doing it correctly."

I've been playing in and running largely narrativist D&D games since, I think, 1989 and I've never been under the impression that I've been doing it wrong. You always have to be reactive to your players, and some groups will veer to one of the three corners of the triangle than others, but it's not like there's a wrong way to play these games if everybody at the table is having fun (which, again, is everyone's concern.)

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