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If you know how everything is going to play out, then why are the players there?Of course the GM knows going in that the players are going to win. But if one player's character consistently steals the spotlight at the expense of the other players, that's what we GMs like to call "A Problem." And fudging dice to allow someone else to beat the monster for a change is something that I'm surprised that people are having difficulty seeing the advantage in.There are nigh-infinite ways to address imbalance problems. Dice-fudging has to be both the worst and laziest approach.
One of which is just straight up banning the mechanic instead of deluding the players into thinking their actions have any efficacy.
Don't take this as a personal attack, because it isn't. But you do seem to be under a delusion yourself. You appear to believe that in my suggesting dice fudging as an available tool I'm advocating fugding every die roll ever. I'm rather sure if you reread my posts that's definitely not what I was saying, nor is it even reasonably construed from what I was saying. To be fair, it's not just you, but several people seem to have gotten this wrong message.
So, no, "deluding players into thinking their actions have any efficacy" isn't what I was advocating. I even pointed out the very real danger of the tactic as having an opposite effect instead of suppressing the disruptive ability.
If you know how everything is going to play out, then why are the players there?Of course the GM knows going in that the players are going to win. But if one player's character consistently steals the spotlight at the expense of the other players, that's what we GMs like to call "A Problem." And fudging dice to allow someone else to beat the monster for a change is something that I'm surprised that people are having difficulty seeing the advantage in.There are nigh-infinite ways to address imbalance problems. Dice-fudging has to be both the worst and laziest approach.
I dont care much for die-fudging, but I found myself using it to save a PC more often that save a monster.
So it is simple. Keep track. Every time you fudge a natural 20 which would kill a PC before his time, you get to fudge a Save for a monster.
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Yep. Pretty much ruins encounters. It allows a caster to do damage, while mitigating threats. The real problem is not Dazing Spell itself. It's the dazed condition.
Nothing is immune to daze. Not undead, elementals, or anything. Daze seems like a lesser version of stun, but for some reason nothing is immune. It's not marked as a mind-affecting effect.
I would have zero problem with Dazing Spell or daze effects if there were creatures immune to the condition. Or they said "Anything immune to mind-affecting effects or stun is immune to daze." That would stop all the problems right there, while still making Dazing Spell useful.
It seems like the Dazed condition was another one of those oversights by Paizo designers that gets taken advantage by aware players. It's fairly obvious that dazed is a lesser version of stunned, similar to shaken versus panicked. But for some reason they have cleaned up the niggling little rule disconnect between the two making the Dazed condition far superior to every other condition due to the lack of creatures immune to the condition.
I remember pouring over the books to find creatures immune to daze, when a player designed a character to take advantage of the lack of immunity. He took Dazing Critical for his monk to take advantage of Medusa's Wrath. Fortunately undead are immune to effects that require fort saves that don't affect objects. So that was a workaround. But there is no workaround for Dazing Spell for the following reasons:
1. It's not marked as a mind-affecting affect.
2. Nothing is immune to being dazed when a Will save is required.
It trivializes a ton of encounters due to the sheer number of opponents with weak will saves as well as the ability to scale DCs for PC casters. It's an easy fix if Paizo would implement it. I hope they do at some point.
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Fudging dice can easily be misused*, but it's a legitimate strategy in the GM toolkit. If you don't like it, don't use it. But it's still there.Great. Tell your players before the campaign starts so they have the chance to flip you the bird and walk out.Why should one have to? It's right there on page 402-403 of the CRB. Players may not fudge dice, but the GM gets to do it whenever he feels like it.* If I don't tell you I'm NOT using that rule, then why get upset?
*= subject to the GM's own sense of telling a good story/furthering fun for the entire table. It might be one player's idea of a good time to find what breaks encounters and defeating monsters at no risk to his or her character. And it's not right for the GM to aribitrarily short-cut that player's idea of fun "Just Because". But, OTOH, it likely isn't everyone else's idea of fun to watch that first player do it so that their characters are routinely rendered moot.
No flipping way. If you're going to fudge the dice to make a player ability not work, just tell me so I can not take the ability. Don't let me take an ability thinking it actually does what it says it does. If I found out after the fact that you'd been doing that, . . . Let's just say I wouldn't come back to the table and you'd be short one GM screen. Do not fudge die rolls without player knowledge unless you actually want to piss them off.
If you want a more positive approach to this sort of thing, consider integrating GM Intrusions. It's a far more cooperative means of allowing the GM to override the rules for the benefit of the game with a minimum of tableflipping. You'd have to adjust the carrot/stick since Pathfinder doesn't use Numenara's XP system--I suggest using hero points.
Well, that was insulting and hostile.Fudging dice can easily be misused*, but it's a legitimate strategy in the GM toolkit. If you don't like it, don't use it. But it's still there.Great. Tell your players before the campaign starts so they have the chance to flip you the bird and walk out.
So is letting your player take options then breaking the rules to make them not work as designed in such a manner that the player doesn't realize you've done it. Better to be up front about it and not let them take it at all; that would be reasonable and wholly undeserving of bird-flipping. : )
Seriously, an RPG is an investment, and deceiving your players in this manner is a waste of time that they could be spending playing at tables with grown-ups.
What can I say? It's explicitly legal whether you like it or not. Now that I'm home and can look at my CRB, it is indeed on page 402.
Promises of property damage over a rule one doesn't like is exactly what's wrong with the 'rules lawyer' stereotype.
Everything is explicitly legal by Rule Zero. That doesn't make you less of a jerk for doing it. I'm not the rules lawyer in this case; you're the one posting CRB page numbers and ignoring the consequences of your suggestions/actions.
I'm trying (hyperbolically, I admit) to encourage being upfront about changes to the way players expect their own abilities to work so that everybody is on board for the ride instead of setting up a passive-aggressive, adversarial relationship between GM and player. Ain't nobody got time for that. I get enough "teh dramas" on this board to put up with it at the table. : D
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Everything is explicitly legal by Rule Zero. That doesn't make you less of a jerk for doing it. I'm not the rules lawyer in this case; I'm trying (hyperbolically, I admit) to encourage being upfront about changes to the way players expect their own abilities to work so that everybody is on board for the ride instead of setting up a passive-aggressive, adversarial relationship between GM and player.What can I say? It's explicitly legal whether you like it or not. Now that I'm home and can look at my CRB, it is indeed on page 402.
Promises of property damage over a rule one doesn't like is exactly what's wrong with the 'rules lawyer' stereotype.
Since you appear to refuse to believe me, here's the quote:
Cheating and Fudging We all know that cheating is bad. But sometimes, as a GM, you might find yourself where cheating might improve the game. We prefer to call this "fudging" rather than cheating, and while you should try to avoid it when you can, you are the law in your world and you shouldn't feel bound by the dice."
It's not "rule zero", it's a bona fide rule. Quite literally spelled out in black and white. You can not like it all you want but it won't lessen its legitimacy.
I'm quite aware of the rule and never said that it didn't exist. I'm saying that it's a terrible rule, that the designer that printed that rule should be smacked with a wet noodle, and that the rule should be tossed in the gutter in favor of a more responsible approach. Player do not expect it to be enforced in the manner you describe; they expect it to be used exceedingly sparingly if at all, generally in order to avoid a party wipe. (I'm not in favor of even that, but at least I understand it.)
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I'm quite aware of the rule and never said that it didn't exist. I'm saying that it's a terrible rule, that the designer that printed that rule should be smacked with a wet noodle, and that the rule should be tossed in the gutter in favor of a more responsible approach. Player do not expect it to be enforced in the manner you describe; they expect it to be used exceedingly sparingly if at all, generally in order to avoid a party wipe. (I'm not in favor of even that, but at least I understand it.)
Then it sounds like you're confused about how I was advocating its use. Feel free to reread my posts.
TLDR: I only advocated its use when the GM feels the ability is being disruptive. is being disruptive. The GM isn't doing his job when he just lets disruptive stuff go on, especially if it negatively impacts everyone else at the table (apparently besides the player being disruptive)
If you can't trust your GM to make that distinction, then there are more important issues going on than what's on any given page of the rulebook.
Everything is explicitly legal by Rule Zero. That doesn't make you less of a jerk for doing it. I'm not the rules lawyer in this case; I'm trying (hyperbolically, I admit) to encourage being upfront about changes to the way players expect their own abilities to work so that everybody is on board for the ride instead of setting up a passive-aggressive, adversarial relationship between GM and player.What can I say? It's explicitly legal whether you like it or not. Now that I'm home and can look at my CRB, it is indeed on page 402.
Promises of property damage over a rule one doesn't like is exactly what's wrong with the 'rules lawyer' stereotype.
Since you appear to refuse to believe me, here's the quote:
Cheating and Fudging We all know that cheating is bad. But sometimes, as a GM, you might find yourself where cheating might improve the game. We prefer to call this "fudging" rather than cheating, and while you should try to avoid it when you can, you are the law in your world and you shouldn't feel bound by the dice."It's not "rule zero", it's a bona fide rule. Quite literally spelled out in black and white. You can not like it all you want but it won't lessen its legitimacy.
You referenced a rule called "cheating" to defend it as not cheating...
Well, that was insulting and hostile.Fudging dice can easily be misused*, but it's a legitimate strategy in the GM toolkit. If you don't like it, don't use it. But it's still there.Great. Tell your players before the campaign starts so they have the chance to flip you the bird and walk out.So is letting your player take options then breaking the rules to make them not work as designed in such a manner that the player doesn't realize you've done it. Better to be up front about it and not let them take it at all; that would be reasonable and wholly undeserving of bird-flipping. : )
Seriously, an RPG is an investment, and deceiving your players in this manner is a waste of time that they could be spending playing at tables with grown-ups.
Never said it was a good idea.
All I said was that the manner in which you responded to him was both insulting, and hostile. His comment did not merit that response.
And you just did it again.
Just because you don't agree with him, doesn't mean you need to be rude.
It undermines your argument, and makes him look more sympathetic.
You referenced a rule called "cheating" to defend it as not cheating...No, I said it was legal. If you'd like to argue that the rule itself isn't legal, I'd be amused to hear it....
To reference the alignment system. Lawful != good.
You still aren't denying that it is cheating. Whether or not it is legal cheating is more or less irrelevant.
The GM is the rules. Nothing in the CRB is relevant without the GM saying so. While that is awesome authority, that also means the GM must own all rulings. He or she does not have the privilege of blaming the developers for poor game mastery.
*shrug* If it's really pissing you off that your players are abusing this, and you don't just wanna ban it then just do it back to them. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
Badly designed rules should still be addressed by Paizo regardless of whether I ban it in my personal games. What I stated about the Dazed condition stands, that should be addressed by Paizo. It is that oversight concerning the Dazed condition that makes Dazing Spell so powerful. Mark it a mind-affecting effect and Dazing Spell is effectively limited. An ability that can Daze enemies based on whichever of the three saves the enemy is weakest is a problem.
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Whether or not it is legal cheating is more or less irrelevant.
Yes, it is irrelevant. If it's legal cheating, then it's not illegal cheating. And, as the rule itself says, it's better thought of as not cheating at all but "fudging".
The GM is the rules. Nothing in the CRB is relevant without the GM saying so. While that is awesome authority, that also means the GM must own all rulings.
So we agree then that if a GM wants to not use the rule it's kosher. The problem is you're not making any sense as to why using a rule that is in the CRB is not kosher. The rule says you can do it, and all I can make of what you're saying is essentially this: "It says cheating is allowed, but cheating is against the rules, so the rule is nonsensical!" Do I understand you correctly?
He or she does not have the privilege of blaming the developers for poor game mastery.
I'm not the one saying the rule is nonsensical. The rule is actually quite clear. It says, in other words: The GM, in stark contrast to the Players, is free to ignore or change the result of the dice whenever he feels it is beneficial for the game to do so.
You can alternately look at the rule as being a repudiation of "Let the Dice Fall Where They May" as being the only authorized way to play the game within the confines of the rules as presented.
Yeah, not seeing how you can really argue that lying to your players about core gameplay information and intentionally sabotaging their build choices behind their back is anything approaching good or fair or reasonable.
Because, most likely, you are falling into the trap of thinking I'm saying something I'm not. The rule goes on to specify this, as I did (repeatedly) upthread. Fudging dice shouldn't be done routinely OR lightly.
Once you get past the idea that anyone (me, or the CRB) is suggesting that's how most die rolls should be handled, and you focus on the situation I was applying (where the GM believes an ability is being disruptive) it's actually an elegant, and most importantly completely within the rules answer. Yes, it's not the best answer in all cases, but in some cases, it certainly works. For example, if I'm playing at a table with someone who's soloed every fight due to some ability (be it dazing spell, sleep hex, or even a ranged full attack) and no one else got to do anything meaningful, then I'd get up and walk if the GM did NOT do something about it. I'm there to play, not just watch someone else carry the adventure.
Does that happen all the time? Even a lot of the time? Probably not. We're talking about corner cases here, not every day SOP. That's the context in which I was suggesting shutting down a dazing spell with a fudged will save. If the entire table is having a blast not being challenged, then obviously there's no need to break out page 402. If you see 1 player strutting his stuff and 5 players resenting that they don't get to do anything meaningful, then there's a problem. And fudging is one possible way to address it, at least in the short term.
This argument does seem to be turning into a loop of "That's bad GMing" "But the book says I can!" "It's still bad GMing" "But the book says I can!"
For what my opinion's worth, fudging is something a GM should use very sparingly, for all the reasons others have brought up. Personally, I'd be a lot more comfortable with something like the spell Undone posted, or tweaking Freedom of Movement to effect dazed as well, or any of the changes proposed to Dazing Spell. Openly house-ruling is a lot better than just fudging around the rules behind the screen.
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This argument does seem to be turning into a loop of "That's bad GMing" "But the book says I can!" "It's still bad GMing" "But the book says I can!"
For what my opinion's worth, fudging is something a GM should use very sparingly, for all the reasons others have brought up. Personally, I'd be a lot more comfortable with something like the spell Undone posted, or tweaking Freedom of Movement to effect dazed as well, or any of the changes proposed to Dazing Spell. Openly house-ruling is a lot better than just fudging around the rules behind the screen.
For what your opinion is worth, how again is it different from my alleged position of "Bad GMing is Legal"? I've stressed in virtually every post that if die fudging is used, it should be used sparingly and responsibly. If your GM can't be trusted to know what is disruptive or what is responsible (or what is "beneficial to the game"), then your group suffers from more important issues than how to deal with a (possibly) disruptive ability.
There are some valid house rule suggestions, but those aren't always feasible (for example, PFS). What's perfectly legal, however, as I've said a BUNCH of times now... is.. you know.
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Yep. Pretty much ruins encounters. It allows a caster to do damage, while mitigating threats. The real problem is not Dazing Spell itself. It's the dazed condition.
Nothing is immune to daze. Not undead, elementals, or anything. Daze seems like a lesser version of stun, but for some reason nothing is immune. It's not marked as a mind-affecting effect.
I would have zero problem with Dazing Spell or daze effects if there were creatures immune to the condition. Or they said "Anything immune to mind-affecting effects or stun is immune to daze." That would stop all the problems right there, while still making Dazing Spell useful.
It seems like the Dazed condition was another one of those oversights by Paizo designers that gets taken advantage by aware players. It's fairly obvious that dazed is a lesser version of stunned, similar to shaken versus panicked. But for some reason they have cleaned up the niggling little rule disconnect between the two making the Dazed condition far superior to every other condition due to the lack of creatures immune to the condition.
I remember pouring over the books to find creatures immune to daze, when a player designed a character to take advantage of the lack of immunity. He took Dazing Critical for his monk to take advantage of Medusa's Wrath. Fortunately undead are immune to effects that require fort saves that don't affect objects. So that was a workaround. But there is no workaround for Dazing Spell for the following reasons:
1. It's not marked as a mind-affecting affect.
2. Nothing is immune to being dazed when a Will save is required.
It trivializes a ton of encounters due to the sheer number of opponents with weak will saves as well as the ability to scale DCs for PC casters. It's an easy fix if Paizo would implement it. I hope they do at some point.
You have cited Dazing critical (from what book? I can't find it?), others have cited Dazing Assault. How can you see them as a mind affecting effect (assuming that Dazing critical work as other critical feat)?
This is a situation where curbing the power of the spellcasters shouldn't affect the martial.Deciding that Dazing assault or other effects are too strong should be a separate issue from deciding that the Daze metamagic is too strong.
Note: I agree that generally immunity to stun should include immunity to daze, my argument is about making daze a mind affecting effect.
A dazing physical attack would presumably work by causing a head injury that inflicts temporary brain damage / concussion and stops someone acting normally for a round. Something that's immune to mind-affecting effects (a plant, a skeleton, a golem) doesn't have a brain in the conventional sense and logically would be unaffected.
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...I've stressed in virtually every post that if die fudging is used, it should be used sparingly and responsibly....There are some valid house rule suggestions, but those aren't always feasible (for example, PFS). What's perfectly legal, however, as I've said a BUNCH of times now... is.. you know.
You've said it in every post, and people keep acting/responding like you're advocating changing every roll a player makes. You've also been nothing but polite, and yet been insulted repeatedly as well.
I'm not on board with the exact situation you're advocating (If one player is dominating, then it's not the rolls that need to be fixed, it's the situation causing that domination), but, I am on board with GMs fudging dice rolls for the good of the game in other circumstances.
Fudging dice rolls has been around for longer than I've been playing, before 2nd edition. It's not something Pathfinder made, and it's widely done in many systems, while not as widely talked about. That isn't to say that everyone does it, I know plenty of GMs who don't.
I've done it a handful of times to enhance the player's experience, but never to go against them, or their characters, or to trivialize an encounter. You don't want to take player choice and actions away, or trivialize them. Fudging dice is just another tool a DM has, like adding an additional Mob wave to a fight that ended up being too easy, finding some way to magically remove a mob from a fight that's too strong, adding in an additional clue to a mystery because they walked past the last 4, etc.
GMs changing things is nothing new, the key is to not take away the player's power of choice, either directly, or in seeming.
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A dazing physical attack would presumably work by causing a head injury that inflicts temporary brain damage / concussion and stops someone acting normally for a round. Something that's immune to mind-affecting effects (a plant, a skeleton, a golem) doesn't have a brain in the conventional sense and logically would be unaffected.
All examples of creatures that are immune to stun and so would fall under
Note: I agree that generally immunity to stun should include immunity to daze, my argument is about making daze a mind affecting effect.
As a type we have only vermin that are affected by stun but unaffected by mind-affecting effects.
As sub-types we have: Behemoth, Inevitable, Kami, Qlippoth and swarm.Plus we have several spells that ill make someone immune from mind affecting effects.
You think that all those creatures should be immune to be dazed by a physical attack or effect?
I think that the Daze metamagic feat and a few other dazing effects should be made mind affecting effects, but that ti should not be a general rule as it will break other parts of the game, as other abilities have been written with the explicit intention of making them work on all kind of creatures.
So, I guess you guys don't see a lot of rod-sundering in your games.To sunder you have to be next to the caster and capable of effectively targeting them. By the time I see many rods coming into play that has become exceptionally difficult to achieve if the caster player is even vaguely competent.
Eventually, they're going to run out of dimension doors. :)
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The GM is the rules. Nothing he or she does can be against the rules. So a GM cheating with the dice or saying "rocks fall party dies" are equivalently being poor GMs and legal.
Saying your actions are legal is no defense. Being legal means absolutely nothing as a GM, since the GM can't break the rules. Everything a GM does is inherently legal for their game.
This argument does seem to be turning into a loop of "That's bad GMing" "But the book says I can!" "It's still bad GMing" "But the book says I can!"
For what my opinion's worth, fudging is something a GM should use very sparingly, for all the reasons others have brought up. Personally, I'd be a lot more comfortable with something like the spell Undone posted, or tweaking Freedom of Movement to effect dazed as well, or any of the changes proposed to Dazing Spell. Openly house-ruling is a lot better than just fudging around the rules behind the screen.
For what your opinion is worth, how again is it different from my alleged position of "Bad GMing is Legal"? I've stressed in virtually every post that if die fudging is used, it should be used sparingly and responsibly. If your GM can't be trusted to know what is disruptive or what is responsible (or what is "beneficial to the game"), then your group suffers from more important issues than how to deal with a (possibly) disruptive ability.
There are some valid house rule suggestions, but those aren't always feasible (for example, PFS). What's perfectly legal, however, as I've said a BUNCH of times now... is.. you know.
You're not really advocating that though. You are saying dice cheating is the answer to dazing spell and sleep hex. So you let the player build around those options just to negate them whenever you want instead of just telling the player you are banning those abilities.
Now I for one dislike any and all dice fudging, but I also don't make stories that are so inflexible as to require it or allow builds that I would negate with it.
This argument does seem to be turning into a loop of "That's bad GMing" "But the book says I can!" "It's still bad GMing" "But the book says I can!"
For what my opinion's worth, fudging is something a GM should use very sparingly, for all the reasons others have brought up. Personally, I'd be a lot more comfortable with something like the spell Undone posted, or tweaking Freedom of Movement to effect dazed as well, or any of the changes proposed to Dazing Spell. Openly house-ruling is a lot better than just fudging around the rules behind the screen.
For what your opinion is worth, how again is it different from my alleged position of "Bad GMing is Legal"? I've stressed in virtually every post that if die fudging is used, it should be used sparingly and responsibly. If your GM can't be trusted to know what is disruptive or what is responsible (or what is "beneficial to the game"), then your group suffers from more important issues than how to deal with a (possibly) disruptive ability.
There are some valid house rule suggestions, but those aren't always feasible (for example, PFS). What's perfectly legal, however, as I've said a BUNCH of times now... is.. you know.
To be clear, I wasn't calling you a bad GM for fudging. Just pointing out that you and the others were arguing completely different points. Continually citing a single passage in the CRB doesn't change the fact that a lot of players don't like fudging, especially when it takes the form of "all enemies roll nat 20s on their saves, because I don't like your character's abilities."
Simply put, nobody cares if the CRB mentions fudging as a GM tool. "You're all captured, thrown in prison, and your gear is taken away" or "Your level ten characters encounter five CR 20 monsters" or "The party encounters a sunder specialist who breaks all the fighter's gear, but doesn't target anyone else" are also things the GM is allowed to do under the rules.
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You're not really advocating that though. You are saying dice cheating is the answer to dazing spell and sleep hex.
Actually, I was advocating that sometimes fudging dice is an answer. There's an important distinction. I've agreed several times now that there are indeed other options as well, and when you have a stable group, the ability to make house rules, and/or mold the plot to player choices, then yes fudging just to address disruption is not the ideal option.
But consider that sometimes you don't have those options. PFS GMs don't have any of those luxuries. That appears to be how we're not on the same page. I'm advocating an answer that is not dependent on "breaking" or altering any existing rules. That might not be a shared consideration.
But consider that sometimes you don't have those options. PFS GMs don't have any of those luxuries. That appears to be how we're not on the same page. I'm advocating an answer that is not dependent on "breaking" or altering any existing rules. That might not be a shared consideration.
Considering what little I know about PFS, the idea of GMs fudging the dice seems to run counter to the whole concept.
It also seems like a good reason to avoid PFS.
"Goblin walks up to the party with great cleave and rolls 20000 nat 20s in a row, so you all died, as per the rules."
"Sorry wizard all monsters will be passing their saves because I need a chance to win."
'Oh but you should only fudge in moderation!' Which means fudge only when the witch cast sleep hex or when the wizard uses dazing spell. Doesn't strike me as moderation at all.
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But consider that sometimes you don't have those options. PFS GMs don't have any of those luxuries. That appears to be how we're not on the same page. I'm advocating an answer that is not dependent on "breaking" or altering any existing rules. That might not be a shared consideration.Considering what little I know about PFS, the idea of GMs fudging the dice seems to run counter to the whole concept.
It also seems like a good reason to avoid PFS.
"Goblin walks up to the party with great cleave and rolls 20000 nat 20s in a row, so you all died, as per the rules."
"Sorry wizard all monsters will be passing their saves because I need a chance to win."'Oh but you should only fudge in moderation!' Which means fudge only when the witch cast sleep hex or when the wizard uses dazing spell. Doesn't strike me as moderation at all.
Of course, none of those examples resemble what I was suggesting. I never even advocated fudging for EVERY dazing spell (or sleep hex). I advocated only being done to better the game. My example was when the rest of the party is visibly bored because Mr Dazing spell appears he's about to solo the Nth encounter by himself.
That situation might never happen. But if you find yourself running that table, then it's your responsibility to do something about it. If the table is cheering him on and having a blast watching it, then yeah there's no disruption to address.
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I can't speak for anyone else. But personally the part that about your statement that I would take offense if I was at the table and GM pulled stunt like that.
1) I was not informed of fudging before hand. Now I can't speak globally but at least around these parts, in any system. It is considered massive offense in the unwrititten social rules regarding to GMing to not inform of such things before hand. You do not hide this sort of stuff.
2) It is bad GMing. Yes in this spesific case I will call bad wrong fun. It is simple instead of adressing the problem, the GM decides to negate the game part of the RPG. If the GM wants to play magical story time sure but count me out and better tell me beforehand, so I can find a GM that I wouldn't be described by words that would be censored on this site.(Granted if I was told no harm no foul.)
Persoanlly in that situation I would stand up leave and never play with that person again and made sure to tell everyone in my rpg circles of his/her dickery, so they will not have to go into that unknowingly.
I've stressed so often that noone is advocating systematic fudgery that I'll choose to assume from here on that the point has been made. Which leaves me fairly surprised at the visceral reaction to anything less than a complete adherence to the "Let the Dice Fall Where They May" school of gaming. That's what pages 402 and 403 are saying... that's a valid way to play but it's not the ONLY way to play, at least within the Pathfinder brand.
So, going with your complaint, the rules about dice fudging and hiding the results are on pages 402 and 403-404. Despite them being there in black and white, you get to decree that it's unfair/bad faith to use said rules without warning people ahead of time? That's pretty incredulous, if not arrogant. Obviously the extenstion of that position is to ask if there are any other rules GMs shouldn't use without your permission.
I presume everyone agrees that, a GM should tailor his game to suit the playstyles of his group. But there's only one veto, and it's not on the player side of the GM screen. You, sir, appear to think (real) RPGs should be run like video games.
I played a Witch character with the Sleep hex plus having a high initiative. When several encounters became walk-overs, I stopped using the hex. Strangely enough I was the first person to complain about it, not the GM or other players.
The problem with using dice fudging to rein in the power of dazing metamagic is that the fudging would have to be systematic.
I see dice fudging as more intended for one time situations where changing the result would enhance the fun of the encounter. Even then, purists would disagree and let the dice fall as they may.
So, going with your complaint, the rules about dice fudging and hiding the results are on pages 402 and 403-404. Despite them being there in black and white, you get to decree that it's unfair/bad faith to use said rules without warning people ahead of time?
If you're using the fudging rules to systematically nerf a particular character, it's both unfair and in bad faith.
It doesn't really matter whether you warn people ahead of time -- it's still unfair and in bad faith. The main difference is how people are likely respond upon learning. If you warn them ahead of time, they're likely simply not to play in your game. If you've been systematically fudging die rolls to deprive them of fun in the past, and they only find out now, they may act to systematically deprive you of fun in the future, such as by setting your books on fire. I hope you didn't store them on a laptop.
It is very simple, deusvult, no one is very happy with GM changing the results of the die rolls, but someone feel that it violate his god given rights and to make his opinion stick has to distort what you are saying to make it "I will fudge every roll".
...Who did that, exactly?
I think the main reason that people object to a GM changing the result of dice rolls is that it takes away player agency.
It makes Pathfinder less of a cooperative game with real tension into a place where every serious challenge is either solved by "No Problem! The monsters always fail all saves while we are in trouble!"
or "Darn, it seems like I can enchant the mooks fine but the boss monsters always save!"
For myself this would make a game feel much more deterministic and honestly boring. If the story is decided then just hand me a novel, I don't want to waste my precious time trying to build a serious character that needs to survive against all odds, when we are just going to let the GM decide the outcome of any high tension moments regardless.
You may only have 2-3 truly climatic moments in the campaign and if your GM was willing to cheat at lesser moments so as to "Create the right story" then I would assume the GM would do so at the truly important moments making them in essence determined already, so why are we playing?
I also feel that unless something like the system for GM intrusions is explicitly spelled out before a game starts that my players would feel both betrayed and disillusioned if I was found to be cheating even once.
I used to do it, maybe once or twice a campaign, but we sat down and had a round table discussion about it and my players hate the idea of them not being in control of their fate.
As for "problematic" abilities, well my players tend to be rather optimized and they also know that as their fame and levels grow so does the oppositions knowledge of them. This means that with the exception of my very small banned list (Sacred Geometry, Arithmancy, Leadership, Antagonize, Emergency force sphere, Planar Binding, Simulacrum, blood money) mostly everything is on the table. This means for their opponents also.
Even dazing while very strong is not really a problem due to characters having to build in directions that allow for the party to have multiple avenues of attack and very solid defenses.
In short I feel that while there are definitively high grades of differentiation between the power levels of abilities I feel that very few are broken.
I know that if during an important encounter I cheated at even one die roll and invalidated an ability my players had spent character resources attaining, that the social contract at the table would be strained if not broken.
If it works for you please enjoy it, but from the perspective of a GM who has seen both sides, I feel it is lazy and there are better options such as hero points, GM intrusions, or even just using something like the mythic ruleset.
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If you're using the fudging rules to systematically nerf a particular character, it's both unfair and in bad faith.
So, going with your complaint, the rules about dice fudging and hiding the results are on pages 402 and 403-404. Despite them being there in black and white, you get to decree that it's unfair/bad faith to use said rules without warning people ahead of time?
And if you steal your players' minis when they're not looking, or break their cell phones because you think they're distracting to the game, that's also bad. But those examples of badness don't have any more relevance to the discussion than systematic fudging does. Noone is advocating that.
Yes, there are people who want to play "always let the dice fall where they may", even when it means their own characters won't get mercy. I respect that there are people who like that version of the game, and agree that if the GM has a table full of players who want that then that's what the GM should give them, even if he doesn't share their preference. Communication counts, and if the GM makes such a big mistake as misreading (or not bothering to discern) the players' tastes, the campaign is doomed for failure with or without die fudging anyway.
You don't like dice fudging? Fine, don't use it. There's another thread for house rules, there's probably already at least one for Dazing Spell fixes already. But if you want to moan about how badwrong you think the entire idea of die fudging is, please do everyone a favor and do so in another thread because your opinions don't change that it's both legal in Pathfinder AND has a long tradition going back more than thirty years in the RPG scene.
If one wants to refute the applicability of using the tactic of fudging as an answer to something being disruptive, then I invite you to reread posts from people like Teatime42 and Thac20. Consider how those rebuttals are such a far cry from promises of violence or passive aggressive behavior in response to seeing it in place, or even stubbornly sticking to the (demonstrably incorrect/ignorant) insistence that the very idea is never OK at all.
This is getting nowhere. Suffice it to say that I will never play at your table and that you shouldn't be surprised if at some point you find yourself legally correct but bereft of players should such things come to light (Rule Negative One).
Also, this has completely derailed the thread from its original topic, and for my part in that, I apologize.
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This is getting nowhere. Suffice it to say that I will never play at your table
While that's a regrettable opinion to have, that would of course be your loss rather than mine.
and that you shouldn't be surprised if at some point you find yourself legally correct but bereft of players should such things come to light (Rule Negative One).
Actually, I can say that with no exaggeration and complete honesty that with over 30 years of experience behind the GM screen and players both past and present flocking to my tables I would find such the circumstance of not having players wanting to run in one of my games to be highly surprising.
I say humbly that you know not with whom you speak, and for all you know you MAY actually be one of my players past or present. Just because you don't agree with something I'm saying on this website, and especially because you keep (near as I can tell, deliberately) misconstruing the implications of that thing, that you know anything else about my GMing capabilities or style.
Please take it as a learning opportunity. One can disagree with someone else and still come to some conclusion other than "You Suck, I'm Never Playing With You." That lesson has applicability that transcends this thread, but I hope it doesn't further derail it.
For my own part in derailing the thread, I'll try to atone by adding something other than die fudging:
Is dazing metamagic annoying for anyone else?
For me, it's a question of disruption. If the entire table is fine with it, then there's nothing to "fix". if the players enjoy whacking on defenseless monsters at no risk to themselves, then who is the GM to tell them they're playing wrong? And that's not sarcasm, people.
On the other hand, if one player is hogging all the glory and the other players are beginning to resent it, then there IS a problem. That's the point that dazing metamagic would have to cross for me to find it disruptive and become in need of addressing.
This is getting nowhere. Suffice it to say that I will never play at your tableWhile that's a regrettable opinion to have, that would of course be your loss rather than mine.
and that you shouldn't be surprised if at some point you find yourself legally correct but bereft of players should such things come to light (Rule Negative One).Actually, I can say that with no exaggeration and complete honesty that with over 30 years of experience behind the GM screen and players both past and present flocking to my tables I would find such the circumstance of not having players wanting to run in one of my games to be highly surprising.
I say humbly that you know not with whom you speak, and for all you know you MAY actually be one of my players past or present. Just because you don't agree with something I'm saying on this website, and especially because you keep (near as I can tell, deliberately) misconstruing the implications of that thing, that you know anything else about my GMing capabilities or style.
Please take it as a learning opportunity. One can disagree with someone else and still come to some conclusion other than "You Suck, I'm Never Playing With You." That lesson has applicability that transcends this thread, but I hope it doesn't further derail it.
For my own part in derailing the thread, I'll try to atone by adding something other than die fudging:
Is dazing metamagic annoying for anyone else?
For me, it's a question of disruption. If the entire table is fine with it, then there's nothing to "fix". if the players enjoy whacking on defenseless monsters at no risk to themselves, then who is the GM to tell them they're playing wrong? And that's not sarcasm, people.
On the other hand, if one player is hogging all the glory and the other players are beginning to resent it, then there IS a problem. That's the point that dazing metamagic would have to cross for me to find it disruptive and become in need of addressing.