Topic: Fudging rolls like crazy

Today I ran my first lamentations game with Better Than Any Man.

My group of three went to the farmhouse and suddently I was rolling 14s with High damage. Does the appeal of the game requires a lot of behind the screen cheating to let the characters see the more interesting parts or is it part of the Oldschool feel?

Re: Fudging rolls like crazy

No, sometimes characters die if they make poor decisions.

How did you play the bandits? How did the players react to what you were doing?

Old-school play rewards creative thinking and planning.

Re: Fudging rolls like crazy

I never fudge rolls.  Combat, even with low level NPCs can be very deadly for PCs. 

When my players went to the farmhouse:

-one died trying to climb a ladder one-handed (he wanted his rapier ready to stab whatever was at the top of the ladder, hiding in the hay).  He failed his climb check (I even gave him a more generous 1 in 10 chance of falling!), fell 10 feet and rolled a 6 on a d6.  (Out of the dozens of deaths, this one is still talked about!)

-when climbing down the ladder into area 6, another was nearly killed by the bandits all taking stabs at him, but managed to live long enough for everyone else to get down.  Here, the PCs got lucky and killed all but the head bandit,  who surrendered after witnessing the brutal slaughter of his gang.  The party invited him to join the group, which he hesitantly did (and later fled when the party went into the insect shrine).

It very easily could have gone the other way, with the party getting wiped out.  Roll up new characters and try again!

I have a few recommendations for you:

The free Quick Primer for Old School Gaming.  It's short, and clearly differentiates modern style gaming with OSR.  In addition to helping me, I shared it with my players and it improved their game as well.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/matthew-finch/ … 59558.html

Courtney Campbell's blog, Hack & Slash.  He has a lot of great advice, examples, and discussions on how to GM OSR games.

http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/p/index.html

Finally, if you're on G+, join the OSR and Lamentations of the Flame Princess communities - there are lots of great blogs, discussions and helpful people there, too.

(I started playing LotFP/OSR with Better Than Any Man as well, and over a year later, my same group of players and I are still enjoying playing through all the LotFP modules.  I hope your group ends up loving it as much as we do!)

Re: Fudging rolls like crazy

I recommend rolling in the open  for everything, except possibly for random encounters (although I do that in the open as well). It's a bit unnerving at first, but really liberating after that.

Blogging about OSR at Deep Delving

Re: Fudging rolls like crazy

Do what you need to do. Remember that you're the GM, not the dice!

Re: Fudging rolls like crazy

The more interesting parts are the characters getting killed because they chose to engage in combat.

Re: Fudging rolls like crazy

If they get into combat it's in the hands of the dice.
Generally make sure you remind them that they can run away if necessary.

This is good to read:
http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.co.uk/2 … s-war.html

Basically if your players aren't stacking the odds in their favour before combat starts, they deserve whatever they get.

Also remember that the game doesn't end at a TPK. Just roll new dudes and go again.

Re: Fudging rolls like crazy

As a Player I'd much rather have my PC die than be saved by a GM pulling his punches... I might not know it the first time, or even the second... but eventually I'll realize it's happening and it really just sinks the game for me.

Re: Fudging rolls like crazy

As a GM, I try to always live by a kind of personal rule: once I put it in the game, it will behave as it should. So the only time I will ever "pull a punch" is by choosing not to put something in the game. And that usually manifests as placing 4 bandits instead of 6, if I think 6 would be unfair (unless they earned it!).