On the one hand, games should enable you to tell the story you want to tell. If you’re fighting against the games rules and contents to make your story work, changing a rule, or even the system you’re using, is the right call.
On the other hand, we’ve all seen stories where the established rules of the world break for a moment to let the protagonist win a fight they’d obviously lose. It’s always a low point in the story, unless the story is just bad. The audience starts to feel like there are no stakes because physics will just bend to help the hero win.
If the rules of the system already in use would kill a character, then maybe the story is one where that character dies. It’s not the one you planned, but it’s the one that’s happening.
One way to think of this is that the players and the GM are all trying to tell a story together, and dice rolls exist to resolve conflicts between the stories they’re trying to tell. Or if you prefer, conflicts between their stories and a world that has other ideas.
Normally the player wants something to happen, and the GM calls for a a die roll, the GM is represents the world opposing that event… and that’s one of the many roles they fulfill at the table. However if the GM and the players all agree that the story should go the same way, you don’t need to roll a die at all. That means if the player thinks they made a persuasive argument, and the GM believes the NPC should be convinced by it, then the GM doesn’t have to say “roll persuasion” they can just say “yes that works”
Perhaps a better example - you don’t always need to make a player roll to find traps when they’re looking, especially if their score is much higher than the DC - you can just say “while investigating, you find this trap”. Maybe your story is more interesting because the trap is ingenious and needs something clever to disarm it, maybe it can’t be disarmed, and triggering it is a choice they have to make or go another way. Maybe the existence of the trap is only there to provide context or detail to the group, and it’s not intended to be a threat.
This goes for attacks too. Almost all of the time, the players will have less fun if they know the world is pulling its punches, because they’ll know there’s no risk and they’ll always win - it’s not fun or satisfying to beat a challenge that was rigged in your favour after all.
But… if the GM knows for sure that everyone will be miserable if (x character) dies, and they think it will make the game or the story worse, they can just roll a die behind the screen and not look at it, then say “oh it missed” just… don’t do it every time.
That is one perspective that works for some people but I strongly disagree.
Dice rolls exist to resolve conflicts between the player and DM stories, yes…but they also exist to create new and interesting situations which neither player nor DM would have chosen.
Yes, the dice can create unsatisfying moments and even end characters or entire parties in a way that doesn’t feel great. But for each time they have done so in my experience, they have created far more awesome moments, simply by following the rules. And without allowing the unsatisfying ones, the good ones don’t really happen either, and don’t feel as satisfying.
This example is what I think of as “a world that has other ideas”
The DM (and players) build the world, but when they do so, the world will have elements that push for certain outcomes by themselves. The DM might choose for story A to happen, and the players might choose for story B to happen, but the elements in the world have defined motivations too, and might push for story C to happen. Often story C is the most exciting thing, because nobody is following a script.
On the one hand, games should enable you to tell the story you want to tell. If you’re fighting against the games rules and contents to make your story work, changing a rule, or even the system you’re using, is the right call.
On the other hand, we’ve all seen stories where the established rules of the world break for a moment to let the protagonist win a fight they’d obviously lose. It’s always a low point in the story, unless the story is just bad. The audience starts to feel like there are no stakes because physics will just bend to help the hero win.
If the rules of the system already in use would kill a character, then maybe the story is one where that character dies. It’s not the one you planned, but it’s the one that’s happening.
One way to think of this is that the players and the GM are all trying to tell a story together, and dice rolls exist to resolve conflicts between the stories they’re trying to tell. Or if you prefer, conflicts between their stories and a world that has other ideas.
Normally the player wants something to happen, and the GM calls for a a die roll, the GM is represents the world opposing that event… and that’s one of the many roles they fulfill at the table. However if the GM and the players all agree that the story should go the same way, you don’t need to roll a die at all. That means if the player thinks they made a persuasive argument, and the GM believes the NPC should be convinced by it, then the GM doesn’t have to say “roll persuasion” they can just say “yes that works”
Perhaps a better example - you don’t always need to make a player roll to find traps when they’re looking, especially if their score is much higher than the DC - you can just say “while investigating, you find this trap”. Maybe your story is more interesting because the trap is ingenious and needs something clever to disarm it, maybe it can’t be disarmed, and triggering it is a choice they have to make or go another way. Maybe the existence of the trap is only there to provide context or detail to the group, and it’s not intended to be a threat.
This goes for attacks too. Almost all of the time, the players will have less fun if they know the world is pulling its punches, because they’ll know there’s no risk and they’ll always win - it’s not fun or satisfying to beat a challenge that was rigged in your favour after all.
But… if the GM knows for sure that everyone will be miserable if (x character) dies, and they think it will make the game or the story worse, they can just roll a die behind the screen and not look at it, then say “oh it missed” just… don’t do it every time.
That is one perspective that works for some people but I strongly disagree.
Dice rolls exist to resolve conflicts between the player and DM stories, yes…but they also exist to create new and interesting situations which neither player nor DM would have chosen.
Yes, the dice can create unsatisfying moments and even end characters or entire parties in a way that doesn’t feel great. But for each time they have done so in my experience, they have created far more awesome moments, simply by following the rules. And without allowing the unsatisfying ones, the good ones don’t really happen either, and don’t feel as satisfying.
This example is what I think of as “a world that has other ideas”
The DM (and players) build the world, but when they do so, the world will have elements that push for certain outcomes by themselves. The DM might choose for story A to happen, and the players might choose for story B to happen, but the elements in the world have defined motivations too, and might push for story C to happen. Often story C is the most exciting thing, because nobody is following a script.