Fate of the Game

In my experience this seems to be a rather heated debate. More so for GM's that use some form of random element (IE: Flip a coin, roll some dice)

I love a good story and I don't believe in telling the players what is going on behind the scene. I may roll some dice here or there, but I'm not rolling them for any particular reason. Just as I may ask the players to roll something and they don't know what I am thinking so even if they may not have made the roll. I try to play with what I think would be the best for the overall story and to keep the game fun. Now if they make a roll and the number is way way off, then there is a good chance I will go with that. because I don't want to ruin the element of a chance there might be a death.

What are your thoughts on things like that? Should the rolls and outcomes be "fudged" if within reason or should the rolls be law?

The dice are there to help determine mechanical outcomes that are beyond the ability of the character to will or control. As a GM, it is your prerogative to follow them as ye wish to reasonably progress the story.

If the dice indicate that the only fighter in the party drowns in the first scenario, fudging the roll to make him merely choke on swallowed water for the duration would salvage play time to something more worthwhile. Theres Role Playing, then theres Roll Playing, but ultimately, its the GMs story. If dice determine everything, then what do ye need people for?

For me, online RP that isn't a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG (MMORPG or MMO for short) with swords and sorcery or guns and cars or spaceships and light sabers, is meant to be storytelling. (And I don't mean White Wolf/World of Darkness Storytelling, either.) If I want to "gain levels" and collect "phat lewt" (n00b term for expensive inventory items or in-game currency) so I can feel better than my peers to aid my own pitiful self-esteem, I'll get on an MMO to do that. I've never been interested in "fighting styles" in text-based RP except where I'm forced to play with potentially tens or hundreds of random players, because my main goal isn't to show off any prowess or beat any character into submission.

Even when I play a potentially powerful character, by my own world-building standards, I don't try to play him as stronger or better than other actual player characters, only NPCs I create and control. I want to create a collaborative, shared experience, so I look at who my RP partners will be and pick a character from my stable of characters created by me, that will be easily accepted and interacted with reasonably, by said partners. If they're all playing something basic and human, I won't whip out a fallen angel character. If we're playing something ancient times, I won't pull out an android character. I try to fit the style, scene, and mood of the RP and its principle players.

What this rambling mess of mine means is that if I wander into an IMVU RP room that needs dice/T1/whatever "fighting style" constantly to resolve issues, I thank them for their time and walk away. I'm not going to tell them to lighten up and stop being emotional leeches who use IMVU RP to make themselves feel better at the expense of others. That may not actually be what they're about. They may just like to write a good fight scene. If that's not my thing, that's my problem. Instead, I will search until I find less fight-happy RPers and try to join in with them.

The best scenario, to me? Find people who RP in a genre I enjoy and make friends such that I can ask to play any character I have and because we're friends, we trust each other not to godmod or otherwise abuse each other for ego gains. Thus, even my more powerfully-designed characters may get a chance to see some play time, since my RP friends know I won't use these characters to godmod, myself.

To get back to the main point of the topic, since I'm in this to write a beautiful shared story, dice rolls or whatever might be helpful when we really can't decide who should prevail in a fight of whatever kind, but beating a character to death with the dice makes for a weird, ugly, and short RP. Character who has been accepted as an Olympic Champion swimmer rolls dice against a lazy river current and somehow manages to get 00 or whatever the fail roll is and then has to roll off the Critical Hit table and rolls a fatal critical hit, and thus drowns? That's stupid. Can even an Olympian drown, if say he got cramps while swimming or a leg got caught in weeds he didn't see through the murky river water? Sure. But does that make for an epic adventure or a dumb "page 3" footnote in the local newspaper?

So, my TL;DR is that if you're looking for fight scenes, let dice mean to you as much as you need them to. If you want to tell an epic, sweeping story, only use dice as a back-up and let the story, itself, decide what happens. Would it be dramatic to kill our Olympic character and the player wants to start a new character anyway? Sure! Drown him! Do whatever. But would that be a dumb footnote in an otherwise reasonable tale? Ignore the dice or minimize their effects, like the Olympic swimmer gets cramps and some old lady character hollers at him to wait an hour before going swimming.

If you're in a game where dice matter more than story and that's not what you want? Walk away and look for RP that suits what you want more.

*Disclaimer because people are dumb: I'm not saying dice/T1/whatever RPers are bad or stupid or not fun. I'm saying it's not my thing, so I don't try to force their game to be played my way. I just look for other people who want to play more in my style. I'm offering that same advice to others here.