Game Devs Lying to You is A Good Thing, Actually | Design Delve
Added 2024-08-23 15:05:28 +0000 UTCThis week's episode of Design Delve is now available!
Comments
I just do my rolls in secret and if my players are about to get utterly merced I’ll just lie, because otherwise at least one of them will just rage quit and it’s hard enough keeping a group together. I guess my equivalent is the “last hit point” mechanic where if a hit would take them out then I’ll fudge the damage roll just enough to give them a final chance and the next round of attacks won’t be focused on them. If they get close enough to killing a hard boss, normally within 5-10% and I don’t think they’ll survive another round then I’ll kill the boss on next hit; they don’t know the boss’s HP and I’ve been describing how it’s taking damage for a while so they have no reason to believe otherwise. At the end of the day I think a GM is there to facilitate fun and a good story. Everyone dying because your starting encounter happened to keep rolling nat 20’s and a max damage roll isn’t fun. The GM being the God of the world is also a factor. They like to feel like they’re playing against me but I could kill them all easily if I wanted to because I literally control the world. The challenge I have is that balance of fun challenge and killer-bs.
Tim Wilson
2024-08-28 12:39:32 +0000 UTCI think the idea of being lied to in the game would largely depend on the game. As I play games for narrative, not for skill or score, I'm fine with it. In the end I want a good story. From being a GM with numerous TTRPGs I know that this kind of lying is essential to get a good story.
Daniel Craddock
2024-08-24 03:15:37 +0000 UTCI know it's a completely different medium, but I've always been curious about how anyone else thinks this lying applies to tabletop roleplaying games. You could do the usual fudging rolls, but this is much harder to hide in person. Plus letting the game made story decisions is one of the reasons you would want to play a TTRPG over simplly writing a callaberate narrative with your players. Instead, Ive always believed a better alternative is leveraging the control the game master has over consequences, their interpretaction of mechanical failures and success, and the challenges a character is facing, either making an opposition a character would have an advantage or disadvantage facing, to better curate an experience more talaried for each player. What is also important is increased communication over the game experience the players want to have and the story the game master would have fun running. This will help determine the actions a game mater has the implement in order to increase the odds of an enjoyable experience.
chronicDreamer
2024-08-23 17:27:46 +0000 UTCthey really did it, the madman
William Bryce Bedah
2024-08-23 15:38:20 +0000 UTC
