Re: Help for starting a PBEM??

From: John Cooke <John.Cooke@parallax.co.uk>

Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 00:00:00 +0000

Karen J. Cravens wrote:
>
> In article <aBq6LMA8O7ayEwS9@phildee.demon.co.uk>,
> Phil Shulkind <phil@phildee.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >kept saying roll. In the end he came up with a fudge whereby I crashed in
>
> Basic GM'ing Rule #1:  If it's necessary to fudge a die roll to
> keep a plot on track, don't make the die roll in the first place. :}
>
> It's boring for me to gamemaster without dice, but I don't
> usually use dice in conventional ways, and I don't hesitate to
> throw out a roll I don't like.  I use it more like the old hint
> on how to decide between two items you think you have no
> preference about:  flip a coin, and if you're unhappy with the
> result, you know you weren't really as ambivalent as you thought
> you were.  But if you know your preference, you run with it.  As
> true in tabletop as PBeM, except that in PBeM the players don't
> generally know whether you rolled or decided.
>

I completely agree, the way I like to run it is that the GM
is the only one to roll any dice and they only do so in do
decide between a number of choices, each of which you are
happy with (and in your example throw out the one which
you realise after the roll you aren't happy with).

If you are rolling to decided if a PC dies or not, and you
don't want to PC to die then don't roll the die, or roll it
so that the player thinks the dice are important and count
any result as a success.

It's amazing how paranoid players can get if the GM sits there
rolling die at random, either for genuine rolls or for fake.

In the PBM world it is much easier for the GM the keep the game
consistent and still running since the player never sees or
even knows about die rolls (if there are any at all). The
dice don't get in the way of the game, which is the way that
it should be.

- John

--
"You just gotta learn to dance while life is throwing chainsaws
and chickens at you...after the first few cuts and pecks,
it's easy." - jms

References

Help for starting a PBEM??
kiwif@southeast.net (Mrkiwi)
Thu, 03 Oct 1996 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Help for starting a PBEM??
Beowulfe <beowulfe@mindspring.com>
Thu, 03 Oct 1996 00:00:00 +0000