The DM as Storyteller versus the DM as Referee - a Meditation

I have recently seen some discussion about the idea of the ref massaging the gameplay results to “make things more dramatic”, or to “give a player a break” and that sort of thing. I don’t do this in D&D. I’ve played in D&D games where this was done, where the ref took it upon themselves to control the story beats and the tension, and tried to maximize our “fun” at the table.  

I get the appeal. When a session is not going the way you expected, and you just KNOW there is a more interesting way it could play out. There is a STRONG temptation to muck about with things. When someone is about to lose a treasured character, follower or item, when the players are walking over their opposition and appear unchallenged, when a “far too powerful” magic item appears on a treasure list, when a random encounter appears that the party might not be able to handle, etc, etc, etc.

So I regularly see advice given to refs to increase or decrease monster HP on the fly to keep the fight going or end it sooner, or to give a player a non-lethal consequence to keep their character in the game, that sort of thing.

I know there are games with sophisticated built in narrative mechanics for managing all of this, and I would recommend them to you. But I think running D&D this way can cause some problems. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but that it might be worth some consideration.

Narrative Consequentialism

There are a number of reasons why I think that manipulating the game this way can be a bad idea.in D&D.

1. Sense of achievement. When you muck about with a game like this, sooner or later your players catch on. They may notice that the same attack works differently, that you always seem to remember a rule that helps at the last minute, or for some reason every session has the same “story beats”, e.g. initial encounter, small setback, small success, big setback, final conflict and win. However it happens, sooner or later the players KNOW you are manipulating things in their favor. This robs the player of their sense of accomplishment, as they now wonder if their ideas and actions are what won the day, or was it DM fiat? 

2. Agency. It has been said by others and said more eloquently, but the idea is simple, if you make a monster “last a bit longer” to make a fight challenging you are robbing the PCs of their agency, the choices they made created the advantages, when you neutralize them you are also invalidating their choices. It is uniquely deflating to a player to think that the prep they engage in, the planning, the choices, are really irrelevant as the DM won’t let you fail. 

3. Unfairness. For better or for worse, if the ref can change whatever they want, and soften or harden a result, prevent a death or cause it, etc, etc, if they are making that decision, rather than the dice or the rules, there is a vector for bias, favoritism, unfairness, etc. Because players often won’t know the details of how it is done it is often possible for this to go on for a long time before being noticed, but it is important to the players that the ref doesn’t seem to favor any one of them over the other. 

4. Tactical Challenges. When you treat monster HP as a sliding scale, when you adjust things on the fly all the time then the game world becomes impermanent and variable, unpredictable in a significant fashion. Some aspects of game play will always be unpredictable, due to lack of knowledge and randomness, but the game world should have knowable regularities, and the lack of these can make things less immersive and less enjoyable. How can players learn and get better unless the game world has some sort of independence and regularity?

5. Dissent. What happens when the DM’s chosen story beat or climax or narrative trigger is not to a player’s liking? In some games there are rules to set these things, so the ref can point to the rules to show fairness and appropriateness. But in D&D there are no rules about whether or not to give a PC a break, to make things easier or harder, etc. So it’s up to the ref, and what happens if a player or players doesn’t like the way the ref chooses to structure the narrative? You can of course rely on some form of negotiation for that, but, again, the game has no mechanism for that, so it is inviting a lot of time consuming discussion in certain cases.

6. Burden on the Ref. This is in fact my number 1 reason why I don’t do this, it’s far too much work for the ref. In addition to role playing EVERYONE but the characters, creating the whole world setting, and coming up with adventure hooks, monitoring level progress, etc, etc, etc. the ref is now expected to manage, monitor and manipulate story beats, conclusions and outcomes? MADNESS! One of the points of leaving HP alone and accepting dice rolls, etc, is to take the burden off the ref. 

7. Responsibility. The number 2 reason I don’t suggested doing this in D&D is that once you do this, then any result that occurs is in part, the ref’s responsibility. When a PC dies IMC it is due to the decisions of the player, the environment and the luck of the dice. When a PC dies in a D&D game where the ref manipulates mechanics and dice results to achieve a particular result, then any result is in part their responsibility. 

Look at it this way, let’s say DM X runs a game where they feel that it is their job to decide when a death “sticks” or a negative consequence becomes a positive one, etc. And let’s say character A is in a life or death situation and the ref saves them in some way, because it wouldn’t be a dramatic, meaningful way to die, and so instead they live. And in another case character B is in a life or death situation and the ref doesn’t help them out, as in this case it makes the story more “tragic” to have one of the PCs die. 

It isn’t hard to see how player B might find this unsatisfying. In short, ANY CHARACTER DEATH in a game like this is the ref’s responsibility, as they have established that they have the power to save any PC, so if they don’t, they are choosing to not exercise that power. Once you decide that you can change anything, then everything is your responsibility. This is an incredibly unfair burden to put on your referee. I don’t want to be responsible for either saving everyone or choosing who dies. And I don’t think D&D is particularly exciting when those decisions are given up to group vote. 

8. Immersion. I know this varies for individuals, but for some people, and I’m certainly one of them, knowing there are things in the game that the ref doesn’t change, that stand even if the ref might want otherwise, that makes the game more immersive for me. Why? Because in real life there are things beyond your control, so to whatever extent the game mirrors this sort of lack of control, it gives the environment an immersive feeling. In short, knowing the ref can change whatever they want makes the game push back less, and pushing back against your PC is one way the game world gains some reality.

Letting it Stand

The longer I’m on Twitter the more I see discussions of precisely these issues. People complaining that their ref let a PC die, or didn’t let a PC succeed. Or a ref always ends fights fast so they aren’t a challenge, or makes them drag out too long. Or every adventure follows the same beats. Why put that burden on a ref, why not let the game decide?

There is a remarkable power to learning to accommodate and improvise to handle an undesired or unintuitive result. So the dice say that the ogre dies quickly, making the encounter “too easy”. Rather than messing with the dice to make the encounter harder, let it be easy. Then the PCs get confident, and walk into their next fight cocky, and get their clocks cleaned. I know it may sound like a truism, but it all works out.

I am currently in the fourth consecutive session where my PCs in our home game are rolling hot. It happens sometimes. So they have had a lot of success lately. There is always the temptation to beef up the opposition, or say they had the right defense, or save them somehow, because its TOO EASY. But I know better, the dice are a fickle mistress, and sooner or later they will deal up bad news. Nothing lasts forever. But if you let it happen the game will feel right, your players will get the experience of being up against things that push back, and will get the satisfying experience of seeing their actions make a difference, rather than having the ref change things to help them out.

Of course, YMMV. Perhaps you prefer it if every adventure follows similar beats, and if the worse consequences are blunted somewhat. I won’t judge anyone’s fun. But for D&D I think that what you gain from not messing around with things in play far outweighs what you lose. And I think that running a game like D&D in a way that requires you to make these in game adjustments to maintain some sort of narrative structure produces a huge logistical and ethical burden on the ref that is better left to the game mechanics.