> To me, a good GM will just correct for either of these and balance > out the encounter on the fly. By your requirements, he can't do that... > he has to let the imbalance lie and then you're going to take issue with > it because he made a mistake you won't let him correct, or the dice are > doing weird things that you won't let him correct. I agree with this. Take this one step further. If the GM is not allowed to adjust things on the fly, that implys that the GM is not allowed to improvise. He *must* railroad the players, not letting them wander off into things he hasn't completely preplanned, or else he's violating the sacrosanct wall between "adventure preparation" and "adventure running." It seems to me a pity to set up a situation where you require the GM to railroad the players, and forbid creative improvisation. Even if the players stay within areas defined by the GM, they will sometimes go somewhere surprising requiring improvisation on the spot. Why is the GM allowed to make up barmaids and shop keepers on the fly, but not combat opponents? The only other option is to *completely* predefine the entire subset of the world available to the players, to greater-than-Harn detail. That's clearly asking too much. Obviously, I've taken this ad absurdum here, but let's turn around and go the other way with it; if it is OK for the GM to improvise, why is it not OK for the GM to adjust predefined encounters? I think we all agree that in a roleplaying game, it's more fun if the players have some control over their character's destiny. We probably also all agree that control comes from the character's choices and actions, rather than just the fact that the players are the ones rolling the dice in predefined encounters. Given that, it's impossible to expect the GM never to improvise (unless he really is running a closed-environment dungeon crawl style adventure-- and even then, players can be creatively unexpected). The players do something surprising, and based on his preparation the GM makes his best judgement as to how the "world reacts," i.e. what there is where the players go and what whatever is there thinks and does about it. So take this back a little bit further: how is this improvisiation-- making up of the world as you go along, even if firmly based on a good understanding of the world in general-- qualitatively different from adjusting preset encounters? Where is the moral dividing line between the GM creating something he hadn't explicitly thought of in detail, versus something he wrote out ahead of time? In both cases the GM is using his creativity on the fly, to build a part of the world based on his understanding of the world in general and what makes sense-- and, also, presumably, on what will make the game more satisfying and fun. The only difference between in-bounds improvisation and adjusting preset encounters is the degree of detail in the GM's prior thinking about that aspect of the game world. It's just a difference of degree, not the sort of qualitative difference where I can see somebody can define what one "should" or "should not" do. Obviously, both can be done poorly and well; a GM who does any of it poorly will raise the ire of his players. I would say, however, that the problem there was the GM-- either he's a bad GM, or he's running the game in a style which does not play to his strengths. But that's going to be entirely individual to the GM. I would be *very* surprised if any player really had his gaming experience enhanced or hurt by a GM adjusting preset encounters or doing other sorts of "out of bounds" improvisation. What matters, it seems to me, is whether the GM does it *well* or *poorly*, not whether or not the GM does it. And I don't believe the assertion that the adjustment of preset encounters is theoretically impossible to do well. -Rob ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
