This is a post I was reluctant to make, but Eric Diaz (shout-out) persuaded me in another thread that the topic had value, so here it is. Long post ahead:

Around here, and in other old-school spaces, a lot of people talk about how role-playing games aren't meant to be fair. I agree up to a point, but it's more complicated than that. Yes, a role-playing game is not supposed to be a videogame. Yes, things like perfectly balanced encounters and cheating to save the players ruin the sense of immersion and world simulation. However, it is still a game, and the GM does have immense power. That power comes with an obligation to not misuse it.

I think everyone basically agrees that the GM has an obligation to be even-handed in their treatment of the players, but my own philosophy is that the obligation goes a bit beyond that. As overarching principles, there are two that I believe are important:

1) The game world need not be fair, but the metagame should be.
2) The world must play by the same rules as the players.

In more practical terms, here are some of the rules I try and hold myself to:

NPCs are played as if they were PCs: This doesn't just mean that NPCs will do whatever they possibly can to preserve their own lives. It also means that they adhere to the same limitations as PCs. This is particularly important in a game like D&D which includes a lot of resource management. So if the dungeon is full of illusions and magically locked doors, the NPC wizard has used up those spell slots when the PCs encounter him. The wizard also will not have only prepared combat spells. Unless he knew the PCs were coming, he prepared whatever spells he would expect to use in a normal day. If he has a single-use spell or item, he will only use it in a desperate situation, because he doesn't know if he might need it later. This rule can be fudged a bit in the case of games that include "mob" or "goon" type enemies, but ranked/leveled NPCs, "wild cards" etc. should always behave this way.

Dungeons are never designed just to be dungeons: Except where that are in-universe justifications for it, no environment in the game world should exist just to be a challenge for the players. Ruins, palaces, castles, and even monster lairs should all be designed based on what their in-world function was before the players went there. Traps and obstacles should be conceived in a way that they wouldn't unduly inconvenience the dungeon's occupants. Monsters and NPCs should have a reason to be in the dungeon, and are always doing something. They are never just standing around in a small room, waiting for some heroes to walk in.

What is on paper is permanent: Once a session starts, I try to avoid altering enemy numbers, statistics or positions. I do not spawn enemies out of nowhere, or delete them when the players aren't looking. If my notes say "3d6 bandits", I roll the 3d6 once and that's how many bandits there are. I never fudge dice, and I only retcon things in order to correct my own mistakes as a GM. I will retcon a fatal injury if it occurred because I misapplied the rules, but not if it occurred because the dice went against the player. I will re-stat a monster mid-session only if it is a monster I created, and it turned out stronger/weaker than it should be in the context of the game world. 

If the PCs would have to roll for something, the NPCs do too: If an NPC is tracking the party, they have to roll a tracking check. If two NPCs are going to fight in the PC's absence, I try and find time to run that combat between sessions. If I can't, I at least assign a probability to who will win and roll some dice. 

Do not lie to your players: The GM's descriptions are the game world, and they have to be accurate. You may say "it looks like..." or "you see", but if you say "this thing is here", it has to be. NPCs can lie to the players all they want, but when talking out of character, the GM has to be true to his word. This applies doubly when talking about the meta-game. If a player wants to do something and you say "we'll have some downtime next session, and you can do it then", you had better have that downtime next session. 

Players must be given appropriate opportunities to respond to NPC behavior: Descriptions of NPC actions should be broken down to the smallest reasonable subdivisions, so that players can react to them in real time.  This is a bit abstract, but maybe best illustrated by example: I've had multiple GMs pull the old "the guards come and arrest you" gambit, when that sentence encompasses a long string of individual actions, all of which the players have numerous possible responses to. I think a lot of GMs violate this rule unconsciously, out of a sincere desire to keep up the pace of the game, but I regard it as one of the most egregious forms of railroading in the hobby.

This is not an exhaustive list, nor are any of the above points without specific exceptions. I also won't claim to perfectly follow  any of these rules in all cases. However, I think since there are a lot of experienced GMs here, putting together a list of principles or best practices (beyond the standard DM advice given everywhere else) strikes me as a worthwhile endeavor.

What would you all add, what would you remove?

I like a lot of your ideas, though I'm not sure characterizing all of them as "playing fair" is the most useful terminology. The GM's job is ultimately to provide entertainingly difficult, but not impossible, challenges to the players, and in service of that goal I think any of the rules you suggest could be suspended:

- NPCs should not be played as if they know what the GM knows, but a well-designed NPC will have GM-written reasons for knowing things the players may not expect him to know. Similarly, an NPC may in principle be able to fail just as PCs do, but in practice, if a necessary event has to happen, it has to happen; if an NPC failure can radically change the flow of events, the GM has to be prepared for that, and there does come a point where accounting in advance for all such possible outcomes becomes prohibitive. The idea of running an NPC-vs.-NPC combat between games, to use your example, certainly honours objective verisimilitude, but in practice, it's simply an unnecessary consumption of time.

- What's on the paper should only be permanent if the players have "seen" it (i.e. their PCs have learned it through some means the rules of the game declare to be accurate). Until then, as far as the players are concerned, it only exists in whatever knock-on effects it may have generated. Keeping the game exciting, challenging, and moving fast will require most GMs to change something on the fly at some point, and every GM has committed the action of underestimating or overestimating how much of a problem a given opponent or obstacle will be.

These could be boiled down to my own version of a practical GM rule: If the players don't participate in a given event, conflict or challenge, don't bother with dice or rules; declare the outcome by Rule of Most Interesting, provide that information at the first opportunity the PCs have to learn about it, and move on.

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 10, 2022, 07:55:41 PM
If the PCs would have to roll for something, the NPCs do too: If an NPC is tracking the party, they have to roll a tracking check. If two NPCs are going to fight in the PC's absence, I try and find time to run that combat between sessions. If I can't, I at least assign a probability to who will win and roll some dice. 

I definitely prefer "assign probability and roll" for events off-screen, unless I'd actually enjoy running the NPC vs NPC battle for its own sake. I don't regard character stats as literally real in-world, they are just an approximation for game purposes. Hit Points, for instance, are an approximation, a game element, not real in-world. An NPC could have his arm broken or suffer a sucking chest wound despite those not being possible in the game combat rules. I try to consciously avoid "rules as physics". Likewise the rules may not fully encapsulate NPC capabilities, since they are only designed to cover PC capabilities (if that). NPCs may have access to powers not defined in the game rules; eg in my Wilderlands games psychic powers are NPC-only and pretty much undefined; this makes them a mysterious unknown from the PC and player POV, a lot like the supernatural IRL. I find this enhances the game and aids immersion.

Great topic. I generally agree, but I have a few caveats on some of them.

One I would add is about "NPCs are ignorant too". This is one of the most common issues of fairness in my experience. In many games, NPCs act as if they know exactly what's going on, while the PCs know nothing at the start. As a result, the PCs can often look bumbling about in ignorance, while the NPCs are well-informed. The GM tends to act from GM point of view when playing NPCs. I take care in most of my games to avoid this, and have NPCs often be ignorant or mistaken about what is going on.

Some caveats on your links:

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 10, 2022, 07:55:41 PM
NPCs are played as if they were PCs: This doesn't just mean that NPCs will do whatever they possibly can to preserve their own lives. It also means that they adhere to the same limitations as PCs. This is particularly important in a game like D&D which includes a lot of resource management. So if the dungeon is full of illusions and magically locked doors, the NPC wizard has used up those spell slots when the PCs encounter him. The wizard also will not have only prepared combat spells. Unless he knew the PCs were coming, he prepared whatever spells he would expect to use in a normal day. If he has a single-use spell or item, he will only use it in a desperate situation, because he doesn't know if he might need it later. This rule can be fudged a bit in the case of games that include "mob" or "goon" type enemies, but ranked/leveled NPCs, "wild cards" etc. should always behave this way.

I have problems with this because in certain systems, running a PC is a huge headache of bookkeeping. I particularly have this issue with D&D spellcasters. I hate hate hate running D&D NPC spellcasters according to PC rules, because it puts a huge load on my thinking as GM. Right now I just semi-fudge it, using NPCs with simplified options and skipping some tracking.

Ideally, I'd like there to be a low-bookkeeping option for spellcaster, and have most NPCs conform to that instead. But they should be knowable and predictable rules.

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 10, 2022, 07:55:41 PM
What is on paper is permanent: Once a session starts, I try to avoid altering enemy numbers, statistics or positions. I do not spawn enemies out of nowhere, or delete them when the players aren't looking. If my notes say "3d6 bandits", I roll the 3d6 once and that's how many bandits there are. I never fudge dice, and I only retcon things in order to correct my own mistakes as a GM. I will retcon a fatal injury if it occurred because I misapplied the rules, but not if it occurred because the dice went against the player. I will re-stat a monster mid-session only if it is a monster I created, and it turned out stronger/weaker than it should be in the context of the game world.

This is also an ideal that I struggle with. When I'm running a campaign, I often rush prep for a given session. What I write down on paper is often a quick rough draft of ideas rather than fully thought-through details. So I'll often change some of the stuff that I've written down if it makes more sense. This does make for opportunity for bias, but it is corners that I prefer to cut.

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 10, 2022, 07:55:41 PM
Do not lie to your players: The GM's descriptions are the game world, and they have to be accurate. You may say "it looks like..." or "you see", but if you say "this thing is here", it has to be. NPCs can lie to the players all they want, but when talking out of character, the GM has to be true to his word. This applies doubly when talking about the meta-game. If a player wants to do something and you say "we'll have some downtime next session, and you can do it then", you had better have that downtime next session.

If I say something meta-game, then I'll explicitly say it is meta-game, and it will be guaranteed true. However, if I say something like "There's a table in the middle of the room" - then that's the same as "You see what appears to be a table in the middle of the room". It's a description of the characters' experience. It's awkward to always phrase things as "you see what appears to be" - but if that isn't done, then using such language becomes a meta-game signal that something is an illusion or deception.

Quote from: jhkim on December 11, 2022, 11:21:56 AM
If I say something meta-game, then I'll explicitly say it is meta-game, and it will be guaranteed true. However, if I say something like "There's a table in the middle of the room" - then that's the same as "You see what appears to be a table in the middle of the room". It's a description of the characters' experience. It's awkward to always phrase things as "you see what appears to be" - but if that isn't done, then using such language becomes a meta-game signal that something is an illusion or deception.

Not only is it awkward, but if I always preface things that aren't true with "It appears to be..." or something like that, it basically means any time I do that, the players are going to quickly learn that "It appears to be..." can be mentally followed by, "... but isn't."

Unless we're talking explicitly meta-gamey, anything I tell the players is what their characters are aware of. If they ask me, "Do I know anything about this duke?" and I say "You know him to be a just and honorable ruler, well liked by his people", that doesn't mean that he isn't also secretly a necromancer who operates a secret gold mine under his keep, using the reanimated bodies of his citizens until their rotting cadavers literally fall apart. And I don't feel I should have to use weasel words to avoid "lying" to my players.

But, likewise, that doesn't mean that the peasant who came crying to the party in the inn about the horrible zombie mining operation was telling the truth, either. Maybe they had a grudge against the duke, or maybe they were telling the truth, but were actually an evil wizard in disguise who just wanted to be rid of the duke without implicating himself, so that he could secretly take over the same operation.

Things like that make the game interesting.

The only rules you are really obligated to follow are the ones you agreed to follow.  This can, of course, be more or less explicit, which leaves some room for expectations of "fair play" and also disagreement.

For example, I now never use the illusionism technique, and this is made explicit to any player that joins.  I state it won't happen, and it doesn't. 

However, I also tell the players that I will lie to them on occasion, and then give some example of how and why.  Some of it is outright lies through unreliable NPCs.  Some of it is misleading information through focus on something or misdirection away from something.  That's another reason why elaborate PC backgrounds are a no go in my games:  There's no guarantee that their background will be accepted as is, even if I "agree" to it up front, because all the background really does is explain what the PC believes about their past.  I can and will monkey with it in ways that they might not know or even approve of.  But again, this is something that's made clear any time it comes up.  In another game, that might be foul.  In ours, it is fair.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 11, 2022, 01:08:38 AM
I like a lot of your ideas, though I'm not sure characterizing all of them as "playing fair" is the most useful terminology. The GM's job is ultimately to provide entertainingly difficult, but not impossible, challenges to the players, and in service of that goal I think any of the rules you suggest could be suspended:

- NPCs should not be played as if they know what the GM knows, but a well-designed NPC will have GM-written reasons for knowing things the players may not expect him to know. Similarly, an NPC may in principle be able to fail just as PCs do, but in practice, if a necessary event has to happen, it has to happen; if an NPC failure can radically change the flow of events, the GM has to be prepared for that, and there does come a point where accounting in advance for all such possible outcomes becomes prohibitive. The idea of running an NPC-vs.-NPC combat between games, to use your example, certainly honours objective verisimilitude, but in practice, it's simply an unnecessary consumption of time.

- What's on the paper should only be permanent if the players have "seen" it (i.e. their PCs have learned it through some means the rules of the game declare to be accurate). Until then, as far as the players are concerned, it only exists in whatever knock-on effects it may have generated. Keeping the game exciting, challenging, and moving fast will require most GMs to change something on the fly at some point, and every GM has committed the action of underestimating or overestimating how much of a problem a given opponent or obstacle will be.

These could be boiled down to my own version of a practical GM rule: If the players don't participate in a given event, conflict or challenge, don't bother with dice or rules; declare the outcome by Rule of Most Interesting, provide that information at the first opportunity the PCs have to learn about it, and move on.

This was admittedly not clear in the original post, but the reason I refer to rules like this as "playing fair" is twofold: Firstly, a lot of those rules are ones I've adopted as checks on the GM's power relative to the players. I think I'm a bit of an extremist on this point, but I've been trying lately to adopt a GM-ing style where the as much as possible, the GM is just there to "play the world/NPCs", so my self-imposed rules are often there to deter myself from being tempted to engage in too much of an attempt to guide the progress of events in the game. .

Secondly, these rules are in place to address some common complaints I've encountered on the player side. For example, there was a thread here not long ago about instant-kill traps, and how to deal with them. The rule about dungeon design having to adhere to in-world logic is part of my answer to that. My experience is that being killed by a trap/ambush/hazard etc. is considerably more frustrating for a player if the hazard had no business being where it was. That kind of thing makes it feel like you're being killed by DM fiat, even if the hazard was random rolled or written in a module. I consider a game world with more internal logic to be more fair to the players, in that they can use that logic to make intuitive or deductive choices about how to engage with it. A similar line of reasoning applies with NPCs having to adhere to PC limitations. It takes some of the sting out of loss, if the players at least feel that the NPCs are playing by the same rules they are.

Quote from: S'mon on December 11, 2022, 03:25:03 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 10, 2022, 07:55:41 PM
If the PCs would have to roll for something, the NPCs do too: If an NPC is tracking the party, they have to roll a tracking check. If two NPCs are going to fight in the PC's absence, I try and find time to run that combat between sessions. If I can't, I at least assign a probability to who will win and roll some dice. 

I definitely prefer "assign probability and roll" for events off-screen, unless I'd actually enjoy running the NPC vs NPC battle for its own sake. I don't regard character stats as literally real in-world, they are just an approximation for game purposes. Hit Points, for instance, are an approximation, a game element, not real in-world. An NPC could have his arm broken or suffer a sucking chest wound despite those not being possible in the game combat rules. I try to consciously avoid "rules as physics". Likewise the rules may not fully encapsulate NPC capabilities, since they are only designed to cover PC capabilities (if that). NPCs may have access to powers not defined in the game rules; eg in my Wilderlands games psychic powers are NPC-only and pretty much undefined; this makes them a mysterious unknown from the PC and player POV, a lot like the supernatural IRL. I find this enhances the game and aids immersion.

Running combats off screen is definitely something that isn't always practicable. The reason I like to do it when I can is that it can lead to more nuance in the outcome. I reserve it for situations where this kind of thing matters, but sometimes it's worth knowing not just which side won, but also how many of losses each side took, who was wounded, who escaped, etc. You can work out a complex roll system for solving all that, but at a certain point it's easier to just run the combat (as long as the system you're running has relatively simple combat).

My big ones for "fairness" are more basic. They aren't even rules I necessarily spell out to my players, it's more of a personal code of conduct.

I will never use the game to punish the player. I've experienced more than my share of DMs like this throughout my life. One of my favorite characters was more or less summarily executed by an NPC villian because I had pissed the GM off - the villain went out of his way, at great risk to himself, to finish off my downed character, despite me being no threat to him, having no particular grudge against my character, had never met my character before in fact, while other players actively attacking him, purely because the GM was annoyed at me. I've experienced other examples of this. It's infuriating to me, and I've vowed to never do it to my players.

I won't deliberately set players up for complete, unavoidable failure. I tend to run my games as a mix of sandbox and story-driven, but when I'm using story elements, I never present a completely hopeless situation or make a horrific twist ending that isn't at least potentially avoidable with smart play. I know some DMs get off on stories about setting the party up on some great quest, only it turns out that the drow they were slaughtering were actually mind controlled, polymorphed halfling children, and hahahaha, isn't it funny that the party has to live with the guilt  of it and now the entire country hates them. I might use similar twists, but there will always be ample chances to avoid them, too. Similarly, my DM screen isn't a fighter cockpit, I don't paint silhouettes of adventurers on it. I don't relish TPKS, or even player deaths. Not that you can't die in my campaign, but if an NPC wants you to get the McGuffin from EvilMcNasty, your 3rd level party isn't going to get slaughtered by a 20th level wizard without opportunities to avoid or outsmart them. Basically, as much as I love Knights of the Dinner Table, I never have viewed the DM/player relationship as being fundamentally oppositional. I'm the DM. I can always "win". That's easy. But in doing so I actually lose, because my job is to facilitate a good time for everyone.

The flip side of this one, though, is that I expect my players to understand that not everything in the world is there for them to play with. A small party of low level adventurers isn't going to be able to just throw themselves at just every problem in the world and expect not to wind up as a dragon snack or mindless slaves or something. I'll respect the players enough not to deliberately try to kill them off, but they have to show a bit of common sense, too.

I pretty much agree!

Do not lie to your players is a golden rule to me. I'd add that this include lying by omission, which is often inadvertent. Silly example:

GM: You open the door and see an empty room.

PC: I walk in.

GM: Turns out the doorway was 20' above the room's floor, so you fall for 20' for 2d6 damage!

If the players seem to be contemplating an action based on poorly communicated info, then clarify things for them.

I also particularly like Players must be given appropriate opportunities to respond to NPC behavior. I've never seen it written down, but this a solid rule to help avoid railroading.

Quote from: jhkim on December 11, 2022, 11:21:56 AM
Great topic. I generally agree, but I have a few caveats on some of them.

One I would add is about "NPCs are ignorant too". This is one of the most common issues of fairness in my experience. In many games, NPCs act as if they know exactly what's going on, while the PCs know nothing at the start. As a result, the PCs can often look bumbling about in ignorance, while the NPCs are well-informed. The GM tends to act from GM point of view when playing NPCs. I take care in most of my games to avoid this, and have NPCs often be ignorant or mistaken about what is going on.

Some caveats on your links:

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 10, 2022, 07:55:41 PM
NPCs are played as if they were PCs: This doesn't just mean that NPCs will do whatever they possibly can to preserve their own lives. It also means that they adhere to the same limitations as PCs. This is particularly important in a game like D&D which includes a lot of resource management. So if the dungeon is full of illusions and magically locked doors, the NPC wizard has used up those spell slots when the PCs encounter him. The wizard also will not have only prepared combat spells. Unless he knew the PCs were coming, he prepared whatever spells he would expect to use in a normal day. If he has a single-use spell or item, he will only use it in a desperate situation, because he doesn't know if he might need it later. This rule can be fudged a bit in the case of games that include "mob" or "goon" type enemies, but ranked/leveled NPCs, "wild cards" etc. should always behave this way.

I have problems with this because in certain systems, running a PC is a huge headache of bookkeeping. I particularly have this issue with D&D spellcasters. I hate hate hate running D&D NPC spellcasters according to PC rules, because it puts a huge load on my thinking as GM. Right now I just semi-fudge it, using NPCs with simplified options and skipping some tracking.

Ideally, I'd like there to be a low-bookkeeping option for spellcaster, and have most NPCs conform to that instead. But they should be knowable and predictable rules.

Thanks.

Yeah, that's for sure an issue with more complicated games. Personally, Its a big part of why I don't run those games.

I wasn't intending to say that every NPC needs a fully filled out character sheet, and I'm a fan of games with simplified stat blocks for NPCs. My concern is mostly about NPCs not being able to use the fact that they don't have concerns outside of fighting the PCs to get an unfair advantage. Where I think the DM is not playing fair is when NPCs get to be perfectly placed and kitted out for an encounter, only because the GM has the meta-knowledge that the fight is coming.

And again, this is context sensitive. If an NPC baddie has seen the players in action and is specifically coming after them, then yeah, he should be loaded for bear with spells and allies specifically designed to counter their abilities.

Quote from: jhkim on December 11, 2022, 11:21:56 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 10, 2022, 07:55:41 PM
What is on paper is permanent: Once a session starts, I try to avoid altering enemy numbers, statistics or positions. I do not spawn enemies out of nowhere, or delete them when the players aren't looking. If my notes say "3d6 bandits", I roll the 3d6 once and that's how many bandits there are. I never fudge dice, and I only retcon things in order to correct my own mistakes as a GM. I will retcon a fatal injury if it occurred because I misapplied the rules, but not if it occurred because the dice went against the player. I will re-stat a monster mid-session only if it is a monster I created, and it turned out stronger/weaker than it should be in the context of the game world.

This is also an ideal that I struggle with. When I'm running a campaign, I often rush prep for a given session. What I write down on paper is often a quick rough draft of ideas rather than fully thought-through details. So I'll often change some of the stuff that I've written down if it makes more sense. This does make for opportunity for bias, but it is corners that I prefer to cut.

All of my rules are aspirational more than set-in-stone, but this is a particularly tough one. You can't prepare absolutely everything and we all have limited time. When I have to improvise, I'll usually try and use randomness to check myself, so I'll assign a percentage chance for new NPCs to come in, or fall back on an encounter table. Incidentally, I find this is one of the double-edged swords of VTT play. The expectation of having maps and tokens for everything has forced me to be way more prepared for my sessions than I used to be, but it also makes it much harder to play things freeform the way you can on the tabletop.

Replying to several posts about the subject of accuracy in your descriptions:

There's certainly room for nuance on this one as well, but I think there's a lot to be done with careful language and misdirection. Personally, I try to be careful to use vague language to describe things until it is clear to the players what they are. I also try to mix in some of the "it looks like" or "what appears to be" verbiage even when I'm giving my players accurate information, in order to wrongfoot them into not using specific words I use to predict when they're being tricked.

As an example, I had a situation where I was doing the whole King Arthur myth of the group of knights magically sleeping in a tomb somewhere. When my players entered the tomb, I wanted them to think that the knights were carved effigies on top of sarcophagi, so I was careful to describe them as "dust-covered grey figures in armor". The reference to them being covered in dust was there intentionally for the purpose of allowing my players to interpret that the reason they were grey was because they were made of stone, when I didn't specifically say that. One of my players asked if they looked like the knights' tombs you see in medieval churches, and I said they did. That is true, but admittedly its intentionally misleading. I think of it, because I actually got a bit of pushback from my players over the deception, and to this day I'm not sure if I went too far on it.

One exception I absolutely would make is for illusions. In that case I think it's totally fair to lie to players, because their characters' senses are lying to them.

My bigger beef is definitely with GMs lying in the metagame. I brought up the example about promised downtime, because I recently saw a GM almost face a full-on mutiny over the issue of going back on that exact promise.

Problem is some posters here are gibbering idiots and seem to have never actually played D&D or most other RPGs. Or been playing in really fucked up ones to the point their own worldviews are just as fucked up.

The idea that RPGs and the DM are not fair is about as crack-head as it gets.

The DICE are not fair. No really. The dice are out to get your character!

The system and the DM should be fair otherwise its a worthless meatgrinder system.

Now all that said. It is the PLAYERS who skew things. The PLAYERS who decide to delve deeper than they should, press their luck and make their own adventure not fair. By their own hand.

But even then there are usually, but not always, ways to mitigate this or at the very least usually an option to run away, hide, whatever.

I was just playing a game that was supposed to be a callback to real roguelikes and did a pretty good job of it. Except that the game was as unbalanced as it gets. You could and would die on level one to completely unwinnable odds and end up without even the most basic items even several levels down. So the game fails miserably there because even running may not be an option.

Contrast that with RPGs games where as long as you play well you have a fair chance of getting through. You might fail due to circumstance or poor planning. But overall as long as you play well and think, you have a good chance of winning and even in failure there may be options out.

Then you get what D&D is gradually drifting into where the game gets too fair to the point the PCs are just short of guaranteed a win in every battle and the DM has to hold their hand every step. It probably will not happen full on in 6e. But we see traces of it in 4e, 5e and looks to be so in 6e.

For me 4e feels like the worst of the hand holding so far and 5e a step away from that to actual balanced play where 4e's balance feels like a sham.

YMMV as ever. But there you go.

A part of the Stephen King novel Misery is how Paul Sheldon's first attempt to bring back his own fictional character of Misery at the coercion of his captor was pointed out to be a "cheat". King writes in that part of Misery, and also in On Writing, about how good fiction flows from the situations and motivations of the characters, and a sense of believeability.

"Sure it wasn't all that realistic, but it was fair."

A GM also is the primary conduit of information for the players. Whether describing a country, or creating a map, or a handout. If the players learn that every time the GM is willing to "fudge" results in favor of the PCs, then information like "You have heard rumors of the Tomb of Horrors being a very dangerous place, no one has ever come back!" does not impart any useful information. The Tomb is only as dangerous as the GM is willing to enforce.

But D&D is also a game, and "fairness" has been baked into the system since the early editions. Dungeons are usually laid out in levels, and the difficulty of the dungeon increases as you explore and descend. No GM worth his salt is going to put a Mind Flayer with 20 high level minions on the 1st level of a dungeon with the expectation that he's going to run it like any other combat encounter.

Quote from: Omega on December 11, 2022, 03:53:35 PMThe system and the DM should be fair otherwise its a worthless meatgrinder system.

...But even then there are usually, but not always, ways to mitigate this or at the very least usually an option to run away, hide, whatever.

This sparked an interesting train of thought (to me at least) about what it means for a game to be "fair".

In the classic definition, a contest is "fair" if, after all factors are accounted for, each side seems as likely to win as the other does, and betting on it would be a straight 1-1, 50%-50% gamble. But if you assume that an RPG session is "fair" by the criterion that after everything that happens shakes down, each individual PC has a 50-50 chance of being alive at the end, then a truly "fair" RPG would actually have a much higher character mortality rate than, in practice, most gamers seem to want -- only one in eight PCs would make it past their third session.

The logical implication is that in practice, most games are actually quite un- fair in the players' favour, or at least they wind up getting played that way.

Going back to the original topic: It seems like the biggest way a GM can be un-fair to his players is basically by creating situations, through denial of either possible options or the information needed to take advantage of them, in which the characters cannot take any action that offers a chance of victory or survival.

Now this can in principle be answered by the objection: "Sometimes the realistic representation of the inevitable consequences of a stupid or foolhardy player choice requires exactly this kind of ruthlessness," and that's true. But the key there is that while you can't prevent a player making a stupid choice, and shouldn't spare him the consequences of it or it will only encourage further such behaviour, you can at least offer every option for a character to not have to make an uninformed choice.