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At our session this week, I asked my players what they thought would make an interesting combat. I asked them the reasons for it, the ways they could see it concluding, the means the enemies used, who the enemies might be, and the overall significance of the encounter. They helped me arrange an ambush of two of the characters, while the third made saving throws to determine when he would join the encounter.

We ended up with an encounter that I don't think I could have just declared, especially since it happened at an earlier in-game moment than when the previous session ended. The players were firmly invested in the encounter and its significance, had no issues with being surprised, or with the enemies getting away, and were very interested in the long term implications of the fight, namely that word of their capabilities (and misinformation about same) might reach their enemies.

This is substantially different from the OP's situation, but it did involve some less than idea positioning, and what might have been seen as incaution on the part of the characters. But working with them on it seemed to make it palatable.

We also discussed how future encounters might go, reasons why they might be attacked. They offered even more that I suggested.

I also had a player roll percentile dice to see if his character died, because he thought there ought to be a 5% chance of it happening in one particular situation. I'm not sure how we would have handled it if he'd rolled that, but it's what he wanted.

Having given it a bit more thought, I think I am also one of those persons who in the heat of the moment is very likely to object to "unfair" situations. In this case I would define "unfair" as something happening that go against the RAW or the DM having a NPC do something that I consider going against character or which I feel my character would have been able to prevent (especially at that time). It is the tactician in me. When I spend time making the "perfect" build* or devising the "best" strategy, I want it to succeed. If the dice or rules object, it somehow feels fairer. The funny thing is that I am also a storyteller at heart, so all too often when things go badly, I realize after 30 minutes that things going wrong are more fun anyway. In short, surprise me with the bad situation and I might get really irritated. Warn me in advance, or give me some time to adjust, and chances are I will love it

* And note that to me the perfect build is not to just create a character that destroys adventures. There is no fun in that for me. It is about making odd concepts work decently and adding flaws that make things more challenging

Oct 9, 2012 -- 12:09PM, Centauri wrote:

We've all been in situations in which the rules conflict or are unclear, and both the DM and the players point to "rules" as a reason why the action should have the result they expect. Often, the rules only tenuously support either side anyway, and there is no clear answer, and so one side or the other has to give in.

In such cases, the DM can still roll a die. My own house rule is: "standard rules are followed as best as possible, but rules discussions can be replaced with a quick die roll (low=bad for player, high=good for player) until it can be researched later."

Mind you: I'm a simulationist DM that uses pre-generated adventures and has a firm grasp of the 4e rules (which are pretty solid). My decisions as a DM are usually pretty black and white. When something ambiguous comes up that people have different opinions on... that's what dice are for. If my players didn't trust my rules knowledge, I'd want them to look things up for themselves. And if they didn't trust that was handling something objectively, I'd want them to ask (since I have no desire to be biased).

Oct 9, 2012 -- 4:44PM, Centauri wrote:

It still comes down to the DM deciding when something could go either way instead of clearly going for or against the players. The players might have a cool, rock solid plan except for one minor ambiguity, in which case there's a possibility that what they want to do doesn't even make sense inside the game.

That's why I say that I'm a simulationist: I try to base the outcomes on what makes sense (i.e. exactly what the players would decide if they had the same information). I'll even try to provide them that information if they ask. It's usually pretty black and white. Otherwise, the dice can decide. Seriously: never tell them no... just let them know if something seems terribly unlikely, then offer to let the dice decide.

I suppose I might sometimes make decisions based on what seems most fun: but in those cases I actually want players to say if the prefer different.