When a player handed me a character who had no known family a dead master, but a known rival, I immediately used them to do a pastiche of Star Wars, with half the big-bads turned out to be immediate family, including the rival, and allowed me to utter the line “…I *am* your mother”.

When another player in the same campaign announced that his elven druid had absolutely no history at all I set into motion a series of events that revealed that his family were infernalists and that no matter how far or fast he ran he could never escape his dark past.

My players have learned that I take an absence of background as permission for me to go to work and invent something for them.

Lots of superheroes have few close family members, what with a lot of them being orphaned by criminals and so on.

It’s more a problem with lazy writers in the early days deciding that it was easier to write stories about the brooding, mysterious loner type than have to create a guy’s whole family….

#2 – This depends upon the game you are playing or the social contract you have developed. In the groups I play in, the GM is not the final arbiter of the rules. Instead, the final arbiter is determined by a vote. We do, however, only do this for bigger conflicts.

Take throwing. Most systems let you throw lighter things further and that’s that. But I think we all know that you can throw a baseball a lot further than you can a wadded up sheet of paper, even tho the baseball weighs more. Can any game simulate the fact you can throw a 1″ ball of stone or lead much further than you can throw a 1″ ball of low density styrorfoam?

There are just some things either no amount of rules can simulate, or that the rules to simulate would be too much trouble for, like having an exhaustive rules section that took into account mass, density, aerodynamics, etc, to get a set of throwing rules that let you throw a small lead ball further than a small styrofoam one…

“Okay everyone… there’s been a request to play ‘real life’ for a bit. Please push your books and dice to the side, take out a clean sheet of paper, and please spend the next thirty minutes preparing a disseration on the logistical challenges of medieval food distribution, starting… now.”

Your players all make smart-ass comments about pigs flying and global cooling in hell. Of course, the argument is usually a bit more subtle. In those situations, I like to have the discussion with all of the arguments presented by the players and myself as the dispassionate judge. I steer the group to a concensus that I can live with. Often, the groups concensus is that the ruling (or rule) may not be completely realistic, but a reasonable trade-off between reality and playability.

If most of your players are reasonable, you’ll come to a reasonable conclusion. If they aren’t, why are you wasting your time with these guys? In the games that I participate in, the players are always the most jealous guardians of game balance–to the point that they will voluntarily avoid using exploits that are known game-breakers or that prove to be game-breaking on the first use.

One of my prime directives is that, if someone is serious, take them seriously. If you want to be a benevolent dictator, buy and island in the South Pacific and dictate to the gulls and turtles. Otherwise, you are exactly 1/(you+number of players) of the people seeking enjoyment from the game. Be reasonable.

Argument 4: “Yes, my character is single, an orphan, and has no real attachments.”

Reward your players, discretely, according to the amount of creative effort they put into the game. Some will lead with elaborate back-stories full of opportunities to hook into the game. Others will put less into the history of their character, but work like dogs to develop relationships within the game. Everyone has their own style, and all should get out of it what they invest.

For those who try to remain invulnerable by offering nothing of themselves to the game, they will quickly see the benefits that others derive from their investment and start investing themselves, or they will remain aloof and accept the lack of reciprocity. Either way, they’ve gotten what they want from the game. If everyone seems to Rambo on you, it might say more about your GM’ing than their playing.

Argument 3: “I am not being a jerk, I am playing in character!”

If you’ve got a solid group, that type of behavior will never survive to adjudication. A disruptive character will be chased off or neutralized. If the other players are too passive to challenge the disruptor, call a break and pull that person off for a side discussion. If you’re reasonable and non-confrontational, you’ll put him or her in the position of either moderating their character’s behavior or leaving the game.

This type of thing is more common in an evil party, but isn’t that what the players are looking for when they agree to play evil characters? The characters are that period’s equivalent of reality-TV contestants, and their shallow, selfish behavior is a feature, not a bug.

Argument 2: “That’s not what is written in the rules!”

You should be clear up front if you are going to modify some of the rules. You should also retain the right to exercise discretion when necessary (like when someone drops a game-breaker on you). If there are players who do not understand the concept that not everything is covered in the rules and that you will have to resolve things that fall outside of the rules from time to time, explain it to them. Most people understand that implicitly without being told. But barring that sort of thing, you really should play the rules as they are written so that the players will feel comfortable that the rules do mean something.

Argument 1: The Sanctity of the Dice

The best GMs I’ve played with have never had to deal with this issue. The GM rolls behind the screen or on the table for a myriad of reasons, most of them having to do with what’s most convenient at that moment. If a GM fudges so much that the characters can’t seem to get themselves killed for love or money, the players will catch on and complain, and eventually quit. Nobody wants to play a game they can’t lose. But I don’t expect a GM to allow a TPK of a moderate to high-level party because the dice aren’t behaving. As a GM, you have a lot of tools in your toolbox to prevent that from happening, fudged rolls being only one of them. I wouldn’t give that tool up though. Your function as the GM is to weave an entertaining yarn around the characters, and be entertained by where they take it. It is silly to think that you would be required to watch a carefully planned campaign go down the tubes because your players don’t trust you. We all have to learn to strike a careful balance. Do the best you can, and let the players pay for their mistakes, to a point.

For argument one: If I didn’t fudge an occational die roll, my players would be dieing left & right. I find,much to my irritation, that when I don’t want to roll high I tend to roll high with a vengence.
I have too many games ruined by letting the die roll ecide the outcome.
Ofcourse I’m talking about fudging the roll in the players favor or to keep an npa that I need later from dieing too soon.
I think the real problem comes from Dm’s that want to win & fudge rolls to railroad their palyers or to keep their favorite npc’s alive.
I don’t think about winning when I Dm, I just want the players to have fun & having a Player die at the wrong moment can kill a game.

With argument #5 I usually point out the fact that I ride horses and also motorcycles. And indeed, I have fallen off both at one time or another. But since I am an experienced rider, when I fall I know how to fall in such a way that I minimize damage. Hence I can still type here… So, someone with 10 hit points should have some experience riding a horse, thus when falling off they can minimize damage and not die. Now if I have an inexperienced rider jumping on an unbroken horse and playing rodeo – well then that person is in danger of taking a lot more than 10 points of damage.

This sort of leads into the realism argument – I had someone fall off a vehicle in a modern-era game and, feeling realistic (and physics minded) we figured out based on speed the equivalent fall in feet (as in from a cliff) and rolled said damage. Was it fun, sure it was a one-off experiment, but if I rolled for each bounce of the cannonball or computed diminishing armor value as you slide along the ground; well then I’d not be role-playing, I’d be simulating – which is a whole other genre of game.

On #3 (the “in character” jerk), I have a player’s response to that problem: React as your character would react, without regard for “group cohesion”. You wouldn’t let an NPC treat you this way, why a PC?

Simply put, if the player in question isn’t respecting the “hands off the rest of the party” rule, why should anyone else? Stealing from the party generally leads to a quick and painful death. Thwarting the party’s already-agreed-upon plans leads to suspicion of a traitor in our midst. Dragging the rest of the party into a no-win situation gives them full rights to step back and watch you destroy yourself (see the Firefly episode “The Message” for more).

If the “jerk” is open to it, talk about it above-game. A five minute “what the hell are you doing?” conversation may point out the error of his ways. Or it may give him a chance to repeat that he’s doing what his character would do. At which point the gloves are off, and the night’s entertainment has been postponed until the ‘current issue’ is disposed of.

When it’s all said and done, be willing to let bygones go if he is willing to create a character who can play well with others.

Me? Yeah, I fudge. My players suspect sometimes, but I’ll reveal “true” dice rolls now and then, and don’t do it too much. I keep the fear of character death there and random madness there, but for us, our “perfect system” includes fudging sometimes. I don’t bend all the way to sacrificing the dice roll to the imagined sanctity of some “story”, but when it keeps us rolling when we’ve hit a good hot spot, I have no qualms about doing it.

Also: I’m a huge proponent of Group CharGen. In my campaigns now, Group CharGen is sort of an opening night party–we bring snacks (more than usual), have a meal, make it a special night, and only brainstorm and do chargen. Its saved a lot (though not all) of Wolverines from showing up unexpectedly.

The real essence of the argument is: With a perfect system fudging is not necessary. The question is: Are you and your players willing to create the perfect system for your group and are you even able to do it? Here “system” includes game mastering and playing styles.

I’ve found that for argument four (Wolverine), having a character generation session with your whole group is a big help. That way everyone will start bouncing ideas off each other, and you can chime in to help as needed. It’s also good to have clear expectations in mind, and communicate them — asking for three NPC contacts in each character background, for example (and then using those contacts, of course).

I love the approach you took with this post, Phil, and it’s very well thought out. Great first post!