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Hubert
2010-08-30, 09:49 AM
Hello everyone. I'd like to have your opinion on this topic: should the GM "cheat"? And if so, in which situations?

To explain, let's take an example. You, as a GM, decide to throw an encounter to your players. You think that this encounter is appropriated for their level, but for some reasons the party is wiped out. Maybe you were exceptionally lucky, or the players were exceptionally unlucky, or they made bad tactical decisions,... Let's say that their very survival will depend on one dice throw. You roll the dice and it appears that all the players should be dead. Assuming that your dice rolls were secret, would you follow strictly the rules (and hand to your player new character sheets), or bend the rules (so that your awesome campaign is not ruined at its very beginning)?

dsmiles
2010-08-30, 09:55 AM
Depends on the situation. If the players are all "into" the campaign, I'd probably fudge the dice and let them live. If they weren't, they get the "DECEASED" stamp all around (which I normally reserve for Darwinian demises, and, yes, I do have a 4" wide stamp that prints DECEASED in large, red, capital letters).

EDIT: Ultimately, it comes down to, "Are the players having fun with these characters?"

Kylarra
2010-08-30, 09:56 AM
Personally I believe that the GM should "cheat", as it is defined for the purposes of this thread, in moderation. My basic rule of thumb is player agency, if a TPK is falling from something that they had no control over, say random encounter or somesuch, then sure I'll "cheat" because for my group it would be dumb to TPK when they had no chance to stop it. They're utterly aware that I know the rules better than they do and if I wanted them dead without trying it can happen, so there's no point in demonstrating that in an apparently arbitrary manner. Much better for the enjoyment of all if it just leaves them battered and bruised. If the players themselves are being dumb, well, I do always ask "are you sure?", so let those dice fall where they may.

Frog Dragon
2010-08-30, 09:56 AM
I personally, would nudge the dice a bit. Rule of fun and all that. It's not much fun to die to the first gnoll you encounter.

Esser-Z
2010-08-30, 09:57 AM
Personally I believe that the GM should "cheat", as it is defined for the purposes of this thread, in moderation. My basic rule of thumb is player agency, if a TPK is falling from something that they had no control over, say random encounter or somesuch, then sure I'll "cheat" because for my group it would be dumb to TPK when they had no chance to stop it. They're utterly aware that I know the rules better than they do and if I wanted them dead without trying it can happen, so there's no point in demonstrating that in an apparently arbitrary manner. Much better for the enjoyment of all if it just leaves them battered and bruised. If the players themselves are being dumb, well, I do always ask "are you sure?", so let those dice fall where they may.

This. Just... this!

Ormagoden
2010-08-30, 10:05 AM
Yes, but not to win.

Ignition
2010-08-30, 10:07 AM
I think it's inevitable that most GMs run by fiat far more than they care to admit - though some I've met make no bones about it, and I love them dearly for it :smallwink: . I don't think that, per se, is cheating, though, since that's such a loaded word. It's playing by Rule 0 - defined by Urban Dictionary as "The unwritten rule of tabletop Role Playing Games: The Game/Dungeon Master has the right to veto anything any player says, he has the right to change any rule or make up his own, he need not explain why he choses to do these things. If players complain the GM may choose any of the following to do to the player; slap, call a (Censored), restrict snackage privileges and/or threaten injury to ingame character(be it through loss of xp, health, items or gold) ". To me, by playing Rule 0, you are never cheating, from a certain point of view :smallbiggrin:

Rules are, for the most part, intended to be an arbiter of fairness in games, of balance and of equality between players and GMs. All of that is very important to helping promote an atmosphere of fun, and really, this is a game, it should be fun, right? However, to make something unequal is to make it interesting, to make it challenging, and I don't know about you but I get more enjoyment out of interesting challenges than I do from "no-win" scenarios, even if they are "fair". Naturally there are extremes to both ends, where a GM can Rule 0 so much the game loses all definition, or you play so close to the rules that you can't do anything without a say-so from someone else. If the point of "balance" in games is to make them fun, then the rules themselves have to be balanced between encouraging fairness and encouraging challenges.

Let's be honest, though: most rule systems have loose ends and gaps meant for GM interpretation. There are only so many pages to fit so many rules - and, for that matter, only so much attention span you can fill before you start missing the point of the game, which is to have fun. It's a careful balancing act, and there's no real right answer for everyone; that's why you and your GM have to really work together, rather than against one another, to make Rule 0 work to its fullest extent.

So, TL;DR - It's not cheating to use GM Fiat, since GM Fiat is written into the rules of most systems to one degree or another. Just have fun and promote fun wherever you go in a game :smallwink:

valadil
2010-08-30, 10:14 AM
Depends on the game and the players. I used to fudge dice all the time. But I stopped doing it in my current game. One session I just didn't want to bother with the screen so I rolled dice in the open. I really liked the results, so I stuck with it.

Playing by the dice allows for weirder results. Sometimes the dice do strange things. If you've established that you're fudging, players will think you're cheating unless normalcy happens. When I roll in the open, my NPCs can crit 5 times in a row. Or my AoE attack can hit 4 PCs and 0 NPCs. I see this as an opening up of possibilities.

It's also easy to fudge too much. I don't mind when a GM fudges. I do mind when I notice. I get that they're trying to improve the combat. But if I see them fudging, the combat becomes worthless to me.

I'm coming across as more anti-fudge than intended. In previous games I fudged constantly. I think the difference was the system. When I ran 3.5, it was really easy to make an encounter too weak or too powerful. 4th ed's XP budget guidelines do a better job of making balanced encounters than 3.5's CR system ever did. I used to fudge because I had to. Either fights ended in one round or the PCs died. Fudging was necessary, unless I wanted to run trial combats (I didn't) and tweak things until the fight became fair. With a system that gives you better balance in encounters, fudging to correct your own mistakes becomes obsolete.

Oh and I'd also like to add that you can still fudge combats without changing die rolls. Until the MM3 damage update, I was making bigger fights than the DMG recommended. When that update hit I did not adjust the fights accordingly and had to do some fudging to keep my previous adjustments (250 XP of extra enemies) from killing the PCs. Instead of changing die rolls I made the monsters forget their action points and take a little extra damage. I don't expect enemies to play optimally all the time anyway.

I'll admit to one other bit of fudging I've been doing in 4e. I cheat on initiative. Well, as of last session I've been cheating initiative. We'll see how it works out. Basically I roll all my initiative dice at once and give the highest roll to the fastest monster, lowest roll to the slowest monster, etc. I like this because it encourages a more staggered initiative order, but still offers the chance for there to be 3 monsters in a row followed by 4 PCs. What I don't like about it is that it almost guarantees that an NPC will go first in every combat. That part feels like cheating, but I haven't decided if I'll do something about it. Maybe throw in another 1 or 2 dice and remove the highest?

Xefas
2010-08-30, 10:22 AM
I'd like to have your opinion on this topic: should the GM "cheat"? And if so, in which situations?

I guess just ask yourself "Would I tolerate being bored and having no fun at all for hours on end, if I knew that at least the GM isn't cheating utilizing a system we all agreed upon such that we would have the maximum amount of fun possible, that also explicitly states that he should cheat if it makes things more fun or interesting?"

If no, then you've set the precedent for there being at least some situation in which cheating should be done (i.e. when everyone is miserable while following the rules).

I guess the degree of situation is up to each individual person to decide their preference.

Me? I'd play freeform, given the chance. Most rules are generally nothing more than obstacles to me, and 'cheating' at any of them is 100% okay in my book, so long as it adds to the enjoyment of everyone at the table. That goes for players too. I know that's a weird idea, but, yeah, if you can do something incredibly awesome that improves everyone's night unambiguously, do it! ****in' cheat!.

Obviously this requires a group of people that are friendly, like-minded, and know each other's expectations beforehand, as not to offend.

Satyr
2010-08-30, 10:23 AM
I don't like to cheat as a gamemaster, neither to make the game harder nor to grow soft on the players.

It is certainly debatable, but I think that changing the results of dice to soften up a threat cheats the player of their triumphs. Without a significant risk, the overcoming of the threat is significantly lessened. I prefer to make the players work for their victories, because they become much sweeter by it.
And when one suffers a tragedy, this is fate as well and adds to the verisimilitude of the game.

JaxGaret
2010-08-30, 10:46 AM
Playing by the dice allows for weirder results. Sometimes the dice do strange things. If you've established that you're fudging, players will think you're cheating unless normalcy happens. When I roll in the open, my NPCs can crit 5 times in a row. Or my AoE attack can hit 4 PCs and 0 NPCs. I see this as an opening up of possibilities.

It's also easy to fudge too much. I don't mind when a GM fudges. I do mind when I notice. I get that they're trying to improve the combat. But if I see them fudging, the combat becomes worthless to me.

This is basically my stance as well. Fudging is sometimes necessary, but for the most part it should be completely avoided, especially when the plot is on the line. Let the story tell itself. Let the combat resolve itself, and adjust the story accordingly.

Of course, this takes more work as the DM - you have to incorporate random elements into your campaign on the fly. But that's what it takes to run a good campaign.


I'll admit to one other bit of fudging I've been doing in 4e. I cheat on initiative. Well, as of last session I've been cheating initiative. We'll see how it works out. Basically I roll all my initiative dice at once and give the highest roll to the fastest monster, lowest roll to the slowest monster, etc. I like this because it encourages a more staggered initiative order, but still offers the chance for there to be 3 monsters in a row followed by 4 PCs. What I don't like about it is that it almost guarantees that an NPC will go first in every combat. That part feels like cheating, but I haven't decided if I'll do something about it. Maybe throw in another 1 or 2 dice and remove the highest?

This change makes combat slightly more difficult for PCs, due to the fact that in general, the higher XP monsters will likely have higher Init bonuses. You should give the PCs a small XP bonus accordingly.

valadil
2010-08-30, 10:51 AM
This change makes combat slightly more difficult for PCs, due to the fact that in general, the higher XP monsters will likely have higher Init bonuses. You should give the PCs a small XP bonus accordingly.

So far I've only used it on a large group of lower level enemies. It worked out fine there. Against a single high level enemy, well the enemy only gets one die so it's not so bad. I think that where I'll have to be careful is with one big enemy and a lot of mooks. In those cases I'll probably just drop this rule instead of trying to figure out how much XP its worth.

ericgrau
2010-08-30, 11:07 AM
Some say yes, but IMO no. It cheapens successes when you're on the brink of death for the 11th time, and makes the game less dependent on player ingenuity so they're less likely to stay alert and on their toes. Instead I might lower the CR but warn players I never pull punches. Someone may still die, but TPK is unlikely that way.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-30, 11:11 AM
GMs, as the assigned authority on what happens with the world, don't cheat. Their will is what happens.

That said, bypassing rules is something that should be very, very subtle and preferably scarce, lest the players will get the feeling they can't rely on what they know of the world.

Person_Man
2010-08-30, 11:23 AM
I allow my players to roll almost all of the dice in the game. If an enemy attacks them, they roll it. They roll the monster's saving throws, opposed checks, etc. If an enemy makes a check that the players can't know (like a Hide, Spot, or Bluff check) then the enemy Takes 10. I've found that the extra fun value of rolling all the dice far outweighs the un-fun down side of occasional death. And the PCs always feel that I'm being fair, because they know that they had a chance to avoid being killed if only they had rolled differently.

Also, virtually all of my encounters can be resolved in multiple ways. For example, instead of tracking the Ogre down to his cave and killing him in combat, the PCs can try to sneak poison into his food or lure him into a trap. If ambushed, they're often given a chance to surrender. If captured by a monster, they're brought back to the cave to be eaten later. Mooks can often be convinced or bribed into abandoning their BBEG. The denizens of dungeons have "day jobs" and/or routines (they leave to find food, sleep, go out in raiding parties, etc). And so on. If PCs are in over their heads in an encounter, it's usually their own fault for attacking a more powerful enemy head on.

Lord Loss
2010-08-30, 12:41 PM
Only if it makes for a more enjoyable game. In your case, I would fudge in fsvor of the PCs. In others, you can fudge for the monsters, making them seem scarier (horror games) or so that tehy don't one shot tour BBEG because of poor rolls. It should be used sparsely, but the objective of the game is to create a tale that's fun for everyone. Or at least that's my take on it.

Mushroom Ninja
2010-08-30, 12:44 PM
If, as GM, you are certain that the game will be improved by your fudging something, then go ahead. However, if there is any doubt at all, I suggest erring on the side of not cheating.

Ruinix
2010-08-30, 12:49 PM
Hello everyone. I'd like to have your opinion on this topic: should the GM "cheat"? And if so, in which situations?

To explain, let's take an example. You, as a GM, decide to throw an encounter to your players. You think that this encounter is appropriated for their level, but for some reasons the party is wiped out. Maybe you were exceptionally lucky, or the players were exceptionally unlucky, or they made bad tactical decisions,... Let's say that their very survival will depend on one dice throw. You roll the dice and it appears that all the players should be dead. Assuming that your dice rolls were secret, would you follow strictly the rules (and hand to your player new character sheets), or bend the rules (so that your awesome campaign is not ruined at its very beginning)?

we alredy discuss this.

the DM should not cheat ever.

that its. if the all thing depend on 1 throw, and u WANT or NEED or what ever a succeful or a failure, then dont throw, just say what happend.

if the players screw it with a bad tactic so be it. if the players had bad luck, **** happend. if u have too much luck, **** happend.

the game have a narrator and rules for something. cheat or fudge a rol is the easy mindless way out the situation.

be creative and fullfil ur rol as narrator.

The Big Dice
2010-08-30, 12:51 PM
I'm a firm believr that a GM should cheat outrageously. A Gm should completely ignore the rules when required. Don't just fudge the dice, roll them for the noise they make and then pick the result you wanted. Change encounters and NPCs not just on the fly, but while they are in progress and generally don't follow the same proceures and processes as the players.

But only to make the game better for the players, never for self aggrandisement or personal ego massage or other selfish reasons.

I mean, it's not like your NPCs have to be rolled up in the same way as the players made their characters. You cherry pick every aspect of an NPC, so why not apply the same thought process to every aspect of your game? Including the actual process of playing it.

I've seen some people claim that they never "cheat" and that they roll all their dice right there in front of the players. And that's fine as long as you accept that you're guaranteeing that one day you're going to have a run of fluke rolls that ends with a TPK. I call that style of play "Iron Man" and that's how I run Cyberpunk. If the dice say your number is up, your character dies.

But it doesn't have to be like that. You can hide your dice rolls and have an NPC fail a save that they passed, or roll much lower damage than they really did without ever breaking the illusion that the characters are in real danger of death. Which is useful in high lethality games like Legend of the Five Rings or GURPS. Or low level D&D (other than 4th ed), come to think of it.

You can also mix it up with encounters and combats. It's still cheating if you go off the flight plan your notes give you.

Suppose the BBEG dies in a massive anticlimax in the first round of combat, having been set up as a huge threat. You could double his hit points, or alter them so that he had one more than the damage he took and then have hordes of minions storm the chamber the battle is in.

Yes, you cheated. But you did it in such a way that the players don't think of it, and it keeps the exitement levels up in your game session. And that's what it's all about at the end of the day.

Tharck
2010-08-30, 12:51 PM
The DMG goes over cheating or not towards the beginning of the book. I find cheating intolerable. I think as a beginning DM it might be needed to curve some of your mess ups, but it should never be used to make an encounter more challenging. So the PCs had an easy time, whatever.

Cheating generally brings into question things like: I dont want to kill PC-A because they are new, love their char, are enjoying the game, have had bad luck, are my girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife/PersonIWantToGetWith. But when PC-B who knows a good deal of the game is on the brink of death its easier to kill them. The root of cheating is favoritism and there should be none at the table.

Cheating is never fair.

And denying a person the kill on the BBEG because he rolled a 1 on his save and got one shot is about the lamest thing, imho, that a DM can ever do.

Can my PC decide not to die?

Drakevarg
2010-08-30, 12:54 PM
I never fudge dice. I WILL, however, allow an entire scene to be retconned out if something bad happens due to an honest mistake of my own. For example, in my campaign's last session, I accidently caused a TPK by fiddling around with variant zombies from Libris Mortis. Deciding it was bad judgement on my part to pit first level characters (with no cleric) against zombies that had Fast Healing 5 AND DR 5/Slashing, I removed the variants and simply stated "that didn't happen."

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 12:55 PM
Hello everyone. I'd like to have your opinion on this topic: should the GM "cheat"? And if so, in which situations?

To explain, let's take an example. You, as a GM, decide to throw an encounter to your players. You think that this encounter is appropriated for their level, but for some reasons the party is wiped out. Maybe you were exceptionally lucky, or the players were exceptionally unlucky, or they made bad tactical decisions,... Let's say that their very survival will depend on one dice throw. You roll the dice and it appears that all the players should be dead. Assuming that your dice rolls were secret, would you follow strictly the rules (and hand to your player new character sheets), or bend the rules (so that your awesome campaign is not ruined at its very beginning)?

Well, first off, I roll my dice in the open. So, cheating is very likely not a possibility without it being overt, and doing so overtly would frankly spoil the game.

However, it's never come up. Why? First off, appropriate encounters are fairly easy to design. Luck plays a factor, but in any battle, lots of attacks are made, and dice rolled. It takes a rather large swing to go from normal fight to TPK.

More importantly, most fights I design are not "you must kill all of X or die". Sometimes the party can surrender. Frequently, they have the ability to run away. Occasionally, they have powerful resources available(scrolls, etc) that they can use to survive, but that they'll conserve unless they really have to use them. Plenty of fights can also be circumvented, or approached in a strategic manner to reduce risk. On some occasions, death is not the end, as ressurection of some sort might be possible, or even use of ghosts, etc.

Now, if the party ignores all strategy, charges in to something stupidly strong, and fights to the death, well...such is life. Hopefully their next characters will be wiser.

Note: The only time I've *ever* had to TPK an entire party was in tomb of horrors, when they all held hands and walked into the demon's mouth.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-30, 12:55 PM
Ah, a perennial favorite.

IMHO, a DM should only cheat when he has been unfair to his players. If he has mis-CR'd an encounter, or made a disasterous rules decision, he needs to "cheat" until the books are balanced. If the PCs are dying because of their own mistakes or misfortune, the dice must fall as the may.

A DM must never cheat to thwart PC actions. Don't inflate the HP of baddies, don't cause their attacks to miss whent hey should hit, and under no circumstances say "it just doesn't work, OK!"

EDIT: Oh yeah, and make sure nobody sees you cheat. When the PCs suspect that you are cheating - even in their favor - everything goes to hell.

dsmiles
2010-08-30, 01:04 PM
Note: The only time I've *ever* had to TPK an entire party was in tomb of horrors, when they all held hands and walked into the demon's mouth.

Don't you mean 'skipped merrily into the demon's mouth?' :smallwink: I've played ToH (the original), and there ain't no comin' back. We tried to run away, and we still lost. (Of course, 1e AD&D was more lethal than any other edition I've played, and I'm trying to bring back that feeling in 4e.)

Volos
2010-08-30, 01:07 PM
First of all, the DM can never cheat at a tabletop roleplaying game anymore then a computer can cheat at a video game. When you are the first, only, and final ruling of what is and isn't possible, much less what does and doesn't happen; how can you cheat?

But on a more serious note, why is this a topic that is constantly brought up? Either players who feel that they have been cheated out of a fun time by an overly controlling DM or DMs who feel they have no power to do anything to their overly cheesy players end up asking this question over and over again. "Can the DM cheat?" Either way the answer is still no, as there isn't anything the DM can do to cheat. And neither can the players. If the DM decides that everyone dies, no save. It happens. If the players decide that they have +infinity Base Attack Bonus, they aren't cheating, because the DM can just say "No." Anything the DM allows is automatically rules legit. Anything he doesn't allow is illegal and you won't be doing it.

Why can't people just learn to play the game and let the little things go?

Esser-Z
2010-08-30, 01:09 PM
First of all, the DM can never cheat at a tabletop roleplaying game anymore then a computer can cheat at a video game. When you are the first, only, and final ruling of what is and isn't possible, much less what does and doesn't happen; how can you cheat?


About that computer... (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheComputerIsACheatingBastard)

Yukitsu
2010-08-30, 01:10 PM
I think they can if they want to, but I think as well that failure is always an option.

Or more to the style of 3.5, raise dead is always an option.

If the players get killed, that's really OK at most levels. Just get the raise dead and carry on. Cheating for drama and character continuation is should be used more often however, for games that have perma death or limit resurrection magic.

Tengu_temp
2010-08-30, 01:14 PM
I sometimes fudge rolls when it makes the story better, more interesting - sometimes to the players' advantage, sometimes to their disadvantage, though in the latter case I always try to make it up for them in some other way. "Fudging the rolls to keep PCs from dying takes all the challenge out of the game" is a very gamist viewpoint, one that I do not share - for me RPGs are, first and foremost, about telling interesting stories, not about providing the PCs with carefully balanced encounters where the DM doesn't intervene in order to stay fair, nor about running a gritty world where even the hero of the story can die easily when he gets unlucky. These approaches work for some people, they don't work for me.

The Big Dice
2010-08-30, 01:15 PM
Well, first off, I roll my dice in the open. So, cheating is very likely not a possibility without it being overt, and doing so overtly would frankly spoil the game.

However, it's never come up. Why? First off, appropriate encounters are fairly easy to design. Luck plays a factor, but in any battle, lots of attacks are made, and dice rolled. It takes a rather large swing to go from normal fight to TPK.
This begs a question. Do NPCs want to live, or are they there simply to die?

The answer to that question is absolutely critical. An NPC that doesn't want to live isn't a threat. Therefore the character was never in danger and therefore there's little to no risk, barring fluke rolls.

As for how long it takes a fight to go south and end with a TPK, tht does vary based on the size of your gaming group. but I find if a half of the characters present in the scene go down within a round or two of each other, the chances of a TPK just went up exponentially.

Also it depends on the relative lethality of the system you're playing. One lucky hit from a peasant can kill a high rank L5R character, a single head hit from an assault rifle will probably kill a Cyberpunk character and three crits in a row from a CR appropriate enemy will more than likely kill a D&D 3.5 character.


Ah, a perennial favorite.

IMHO, a DM should only cheat when he has been unfair to his players. If he has mis-CR'd an encounter, or made a disasterous rules decision, he needs to "cheat" until the books are balanced. If the PCs are dying because of their own mistakes or misfortune, the dice must fall as the may.

A DM must never cheat to thwart PC actions. Don't inflate the HP of baddies, don't cause their attacks to miss whent hey should hit, and under no circumstances say "it just doesn't work, OK!"
How do you define "been unfair to the players" without including the idea that an encounter that they had been anticipating was unsatisfyingly easy? Surely that's the very definition of being ufair: building their hopes up and then dashing them down with an anticlimax.

It's like telling them Santa doesn't exist and there's no Easter Bunny.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and make sure nobody sees you cheat. When the PCs suspect that you are cheating - even in their favor - everything goes to hell.
My players know I cheat, I make no bones about it. What they don't know is when I'm cheating. Especially as there's times when I'll life the GM screen and show them a particularly good or bad roll.

That's the thing, I cheat both ways: for the players and against the NPCs.

Mr.Moron
2010-08-30, 01:16 PM
I wouldn't fudge a TPK. However I would do something like an adventure in the afterlife where the party earns their return to mortal realm by doing favors for some entity capable of reviving them.

Kaww
2010-08-30, 01:17 PM
If it was SOLELY because of the bad dice rolls, AND if they did not see me roll, I'd let it slip. I would never cheat to kill the PCs, although sometimes I'm tempted. In first one I DMd I showed mercy once publicly and it made a crappy atmosphere, both for me and for the PCs. It is fun when a hill giant charges them rolls 1 1 1 and knocks himself unconscious, no xp though.

valadil
2010-08-30, 01:25 PM
More importantly, most fights I design are not "you must kill all of X or die". Sometimes the party can surrender. Frequently, they have the ability to run away.

Do your players all know that these are valid options? I've had a few too many run-ins with players who believe that anything in the game is killable and as long as they stick it out, the GM has their backs.

tcrudisi
2010-08-30, 01:28 PM
Well, I'm torn. As a player, I do not mind character death, so long as the DM does not penalize me for it. By that, I mean some DM's have rules where when a player dies, he comes back at level 1 (and everyone else is level 10), or as the lowest level player -1, etc. That, to me, is a penalty. Yeah, I can be brought back to life - but sometimes it just makes sense to keep the character dead and start a new one. And I like to play new characters, darn it!

As a DM, I hate to kill players. However, I do not pull punches. I set up level appropriate encounters and if the players fail in those encounters, well, they fail. Plus, I find it hard to judge sometimes.

I was running a module up at GenCon this year when a group was getting their butts kicked. I mean kicked. Three were dead, one was unconscious and in an area where the trap was going to hit him, and two were standing... with so few hit points that the aura of the beast would kill them if they did not take him down on their turn. The Fighter went, but due to bad luck did not get to attack and had to try to move in such a way as to avoid the trap. The Ranger? He gets one attack to try and kill the beast... and does so. It was beautiful. Everyone was celebrating, clapping hands, cheering... it was truly an epic battle. Yes, some people died, but no biggy. Their deaths made it all the sweeter.

However, if that Ranger had missed? Ouch - the story of the party that came so close...

But sometimes you need that. You can't always have the victory or it goes stale. You need the close calls, and yes the failures, to make those moments of triumph all the grander.

So I do not pull punches. I do not fudge rolls. I use the character death as a springboard to continue the story in new and (hopefully) interesting ways. If the players continue with those characters, I will not punish them any more than the gold to be resurrected and the death penalty clause (I play 4e). If they create new ones, they'll start at the same level as their old characters, but these new characters will be integrated into a suddenly (hopefully) more interesting plot.

Tharck
2010-08-30, 01:28 PM
What's the point in dice if success or failure is already predetermined.

I don't know about the rest of you, but when im a PC I really hate going through the motions to find out a result that's been cemented already.

I cast "who cares" at the BBEG because killing him at this point in the plotline is impossible. I always say "blah blah" at him because what I say doesn't matter. He hits me for "damage" but I don't record it because im waiting to hear wether I live or die.

I have another idea, how bout the PCs hand their sheets to the DM and he can tell them how they did at the end of the campaign next week. Should be exciting to hear. But not something anyone but the DM need be around for.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-30, 01:34 PM
How do you define "been unfair to the players" without including the idea that an encounter that they had been anticipating was unsatisfyingly easy? Surely that's the very definition of being ufair: building their hopes up and then dashing them down with an anticlimax.

It's like telling them Santa doesn't exist and there's no Easter Bunny.
Think of it as a precautionary principle: it's very easy to fool yourself that an encounter which is not as "tough" as you'd like it to be was unsatisfying to the Players; in truth, even "easy" encounters can be quite satisfying in the eyes of the PCs because it's always fun to win. On the contrary, watching your DM thwart your fairly-won victories by "cheating" is intensely frustrating.

Rather than cheat, it is better to add in new elements if you've failed to make the BBEG encounter sufficiently tough. For 4e, this can be stuff such as spawning minions when the BBEG is bloodied or activating newly-added traps that up the difficulty a bit. In a sense this is "cheating" but, as it merely adds in new challenges rather than fiddling with stats to stretch out an encounter, I do not consider it as such.

N.B. This particular principle arose from my previous habit of shutting down PCs whenever they did something I thought was dumb. It is just too easy to convince yourself that you're making the campaign better when you use DM Fiat to make things go your way. It was only after spending some time in the PC's seat that I grew to appreciate how annoying it was when the DM used his fiat in certain ways; now I use precautionary principles in my DMing to check my natural authoritarian tendencies :smallsmile:

The Big Dice
2010-08-30, 01:43 PM
Think of it as a precautionary principle: it's very easy to fool yourself that an encounter which is not as "tough" as you'd like it to be was unsatisfying to the Players; in truth, even "easy" encounters can be quite satisfying in the eyes of the PCs because it's always fun to win. On the contrary, watching your DM thwart your fairly-won victories by "cheating" is intensely frustrating.
Players want to win, But there's something I call "Die Hard Sydrome."

That is, players want to beat the BBEG, but they want to be like Bruce Willis as the end of Die Hard. They came through by the skin of their teeth, beaten and bloody but victorious. And that's what the GM cheats to ensure.

Too many people think "Cheating = cheating to win" when that's really not how you should do it. You should cheat to make the game experience better for the players. That's the only reason to cheat. Cheat dice rolls,. encounter difficulty, magic item charges and any and all things that you need to in order to give your players the feeling that they were a dice roll from death.

Never take away a "fairly won victory." Get rid of those annoying all too easy moments and walks in the park that modern D&D encourages. They are far, far less satisfying than taking down the Dragon with your last arrow while everyone else is waiting for the Mass Vigor cast the round before the Cleric went down to get them back to positive HP totals.

arrowhen
2010-08-30, 01:45 PM
I switched to rolling all dice in the open 5 years ago and never looked back.

If I've screwed up the CR of an encounter, it's easy enough to adjust HP and tactics on the fly without spoiling the randomness anf tension of rolling openly and fairly.

Tengu_temp
2010-08-30, 01:47 PM
Players want to win, But there's something I call "Die Hard Sydrome."

That is, players want to beat the BBEG, but they want to be like Bruce Willis as the end of Die Hard. They came through by the skin of their teeth, beaten and bloody but victorious. And that's what the GM cheats to ensure.

Too many people think "Cheating = cheating to win" when that's really not how you should do it. You should cheat to make the game experience better for the players. That's the only reason to cheat. Cheat dice rolls,. encounter difficulty, magic item charges and any and all things that you need to in order to give your players the feeling that they were a dice roll from death.

Never take away a "fairly won victory." Get rid of those annoying all too easy moments and walks in the park that modern D&D encourages. They are far, far less satisfying than taking down the Dragon with your last arrow while everyone else is waiting for the Mass Vigor cast the round before the Cleric went down to get them back to positive HP totals.

I second this.

tcrudisi
2010-08-30, 01:52 PM
Players want to win, But there's something I call "Die Hard Sydrome."

That is, players want to beat the BBEG, but they want to be like Bruce Willis as the end of Die Hard. They came through by the skin of their teeth, beaten and bloody but victorious. And that's what the GM cheats to ensure.

Too many people think "Cheating = cheating to win" when that's really not how you should do it. You should cheat to make the game experience better for the players. That's the only reason to cheat. Cheat dice rolls,. encounter difficulty, magic item charges and any and all things that you need to in order to give your players the feeling that they were a dice roll from death.

Never take away a "fairly won victory." Get rid of those annoying all too easy moments and walks in the park that modern D&D encourages. They are far, far less satisfying than taking down the Dragon with your last arrow while everyone else is waiting for the Mass Vigor cast the round before the Cleric went down to get them back to positive HP totals.

I disagree. As a player, I don't want every combat to be barely won. Sometimes I want to roll over my foes. It becomes predictable if we barely win every one. Even with BBEG's - most of the time I want it to be a close fight, but it would be awesome to get that one that we just steamroll.

I've been in games where the DM just makes fights harder and harder in an attempt to find that balance where we just barely win. What happened? Our characters became more and more optimized until we could optimize no more. Then we wiped. It was frustrating how long combats were starting to take and they were just annoying. We would always "just barely" win. Sometimes, by god, the players just want to know their characters are the heroes that can beat up on some bad guy butt.

Have a few be easy, then when that hard one comes by, the suspense will get to us, the intensity will be there, and the feeling of success will be all the better.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-30, 01:54 PM
That is, players want to beat the BBEG, but they want to be like Bruce Willis as the end of Die Hard. They came through by the skin of their teeth, beaten and bloody but victorious. And that's what the GM cheats to ensure.
This is exactly the sort of thinking my rule is design to prevent.
Players don't want every BBEG encounter to be a skin-of-their-teeth sort of deal; they want the Encounter to be exciting and novel. Yes, this can be done by making it a Die Hard situation where the rest of the campaign has not but it doesn't have to be that way; it is equally satisfying to cleverly trick the BBEG to his death, or to have some A-Team Plan work out.

Once you start cheating to ensure a Die Hard ending, it's hard to stop. Sure, you want the BBEG to fight brutally, but you don't want to make any of the PCs die because of your cheating, right? So you start cheating on the other side, just to create the right illusion that you, as the DM, desire.

Eventually your Players either notice all the cheating that's going on, or begin their descent into Railbreaker Player Syndrome ("RPS"): faced with an inexcapable conclusion, the Players begin to fight against it - sometimes irrationally - resulting in a downward spiral that can only end with the game a black mockery of its original form.

For example, if the PCs know that the BBEG will "cheat" their plans, they start to make new, more elaborate ones; maybe they start planning in secret away from the DM, or maybe they keep it all to themselves only to spring it at the last moment. It isn't long before an Arms Race develops - the DM frantically fiats away each new, elaborate plan while the PCs work harder to thwart him. Or maybe the PCs start entering each fight without preparation, knowing that whatever they do, the BBEG will counter - an equally disruptive state of mind.
In my experience, this line of thinking never ends well - hence The OH Precautionary Principle :smallcool:

valadil
2010-08-30, 01:57 PM
I disagree. As a player, I don't want every combat to be barely won. Sometimes I want to roll over my foes. It becomes predictable if we barely win every one. Even with BBEG's - most of the time I want it to be a close fight, but it would be awesome to get that one that we just steamroll.


I think this is one of those issues that players will differ on. A skilled GM will be able to read his players and adapt accordingly.

Some players play to win. Others play for a challenge. Most probably fall somewhere in between. It's not fair to your players to give them the game you want to play, when they may want something entirely different.

Volomon
2010-08-30, 01:59 PM
Technically a GM CAN'T cheat, soo.....

Though I want to point out if the game gets especially fishy, then players will lose confidence in the GM whether they realize the GM can do whatever they want.

Tengu_temp
2010-08-30, 01:59 PM
It's fun to effortlessly roll over a Small Bad Evil Guy from time to time. But a major, important villain? This fight must feel like a very hard challenge that the PCs won only through huge effort and determination, otherwise it's a big anticlimax. A BBEG must feel threatening.

LansXero
2010-08-30, 02:00 PM
What's the point in dice if success or failure is already predetermined.

I don't know about the rest of you, but when im a PC I really hate going through the motions to find out a result that's been cemented already.

I cast "who cares" at the BBEG because killing him at this point in the plotline is impossible. I always say "blah blah" at him because what I say doesn't matter. He hits me for "damage" but I don't record it because im waiting to hear wether I live or die.

I have another idea, how bout the PCs hand their sheets to the DM and he can tell them how they did at the end of the campaign next week. Should be exciting to hear. But not something anyone but the DM need be around for.

I think thats pretty much everything that needs to be said on the subject; I personally have never used an screen to roll the dice (never knew you were supposed to) and I dont think any players wouldve let me anyways. And Im sure I wouldnt have wanted a DM to do so either.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 02:03 PM
Don't you mean 'skipped merrily into the demon's mouth?' :smallwink: I've played ToH (the original), and there ain't no comin' back. We tried to run away, and we still lost. (Of course, 1e AD&D was more lethal than any other edition I've played, and I'm trying to bring back that feeling in 4e.)

Exactly. I even gave them the "are you sure". They were convinced it was some sort of portal, and that holding hands would ensure they would all end up in the same place. Oh, the poor deluded souls. Oh well, they were warned before they went in.

Tengu, telling interesting stories doesn't negate the need for challenge. Surviving in the face of difficulty is a huge part of drama and storytelling. After all, if it wasn't, why did you bother with the encounter in the first place?

The Big Dice, NPCs want to live. I actually had to explain this to a player recently when he was bitterly complaining about the last coupla soldiers in an encounter running away. Well duh, they just saw everyone around them, including their superior officers die horribly. They're not mindless. Zombies and such, of course, are handled differently, but I tend to use mindless enemies a minority of the time. They're fun, but if overused, they can be a bit repetitive. I definitely agree that lethality varies between systems. However, expectations generally match that. You break out Paranoia or CoC, and you can watch the expectations of character lifespans dwindle.

valadil, yup, the players are explicitly told beforehand that charging up and stabbing everything in the face, chaotic neutral style, leads to exceedingly short lifespans. Tbh, I don't have to explain it any more...players who've played with me before will occasionally just suggest "damn. That's a lot of them. Perhaps we should leave now, and get help." or similar options. There is occasionally that one player, though, who's convinced that his low level butt can kill absolutely anything, provided he stabs hard enough and sets enough things on fire.

As a player, character death can be dissapointing...though occasionally awesome, depending on circumstances. However, it's short lived, and successes are definitely superior when you've really earned them. When a character dies, and the remainder of the party beats the encounter, you can definitely see the elation. Finding out that the DM is cheating is really annoying, though. I find the best way to test is by SoDing solo "boss" mobs on round 1. Track the results. It's amazing how many bosses make their saves on round 1, it really is. Many players habitually track what rolls are hitting or missing, and pretty much all of them have a rough idea of how much damage a given mob is doing to them. Significant changes are exceedingly likely to be noticed.

Oracle is completely correct. DMs and players often view the same encounter very differently. I didn't realize how dramatic this was until I heard a bunch of players once talking about how nasty a fight was...and it was one I considered fairly easy. Nobody went down, it wasn't terribly complicated, and nobody took ridiculous damage, but to them, it felt dangerous. The occasional walk-over isn't a problem either. Lots of players LOVE the chance to show off how powerful they are. If a *lot* of your encounters start falling into the too easy category, you need to up the difficulty of them in advance.

Tengu_temp
2010-08-30, 02:09 PM
Tengu, telling interesting stories doesn't negate the need for challenge. Surviving in the face of difficulty is a huge part of drama and storytelling. After all, if it wasn't, why did you bother with the encounter in the first place?

Did I say it does? It is important to make the players feel accomplished, to make them feel that the fights were dangerous and that their victories matter, but when the story and fairness/challenge take opposite sides, my favour goes to the story.

dsmiles
2010-08-30, 02:10 PM
Players want to win, But there's something I call "Die Hard Sydrome."

That is, players want to beat the BBEG, but they want to be like Bruce Willis as the end of Die Hard. They came through by the skin of their teeth, beaten and bloody but victorious. And that's what the GM cheats to ensure.

Too many people think "Cheating = cheating to win" when that's really not how you should do it. You should cheat to make the game experience better for the players. That's the only reason to cheat. Cheat dice rolls,. encounter difficulty, magic item charges and any and all things that you need to in order to give your players the feeling that they were a dice roll from death.

Never take away a "fairly won victory." Get rid of those annoying all too easy moments and walks in the park that modern D&D encourages. They are far, far less satisfying than taking down the Dragon with your last arrow while everyone else is waiting for the Mass Vigor cast the round before the Cleric went down to get them back to positive HP totals.

Consider this thirded(ed?) :smallwink:

valadil
2010-08-30, 02:11 PM
I think thats pretty much everything that needs to be said on the subject; I personally have never used an screen to roll the dice (never knew you were supposed to) and I dont think any players wouldve let me anyways. And Im sure I wouldnt have wanted a DM to do so either.

For me it started off as a way to hide my maps. When we first started with RPGs in middle school, they were basically just treasure hunts with monsters. Run through the dungeon, don't get killed, and try to find all the secret doors along the way. If you could see the map, the game was ruined. DMing screens were a necessity. And as long as the screen is up, you might as well roll dice behind it. It's kinda clumsy to look around the screen if you're rolling them where the players can see.

I don't really do maps anymore, but I do a lot of plot. If I thought my players could actually read my writing, I'd still use a screen if only to hide my notes.

valadil
2010-08-30, 02:12 PM
valadil, yup, the players are explicitly told beforehand that charging up and stabbing everything in the face, chaotic neutral style, leads to exceedingly short lifespans. Tbh, I don't have to explain it any more...players who've played with me before will occasionally just suggest "damn. That's a lot of them. Perhaps we should leave now, and get help." or similar options. There is occasionally that one player, though, who's convinced that his low level butt can kill absolutely anything, provided he stabs hard enough and sets enough things on fire.


Nice. I applaud the conditioning you've done to your players. One of my groups still insists on blowing all their resources when they know it's the last session, with no regard to where their characters go once we stop playing them.

tcrudisi
2010-08-30, 02:19 PM
I think this is one of those issues that players will differ on. A skilled GM will be able to read his players and adapt accordingly.

Some players play to win. Others play for a challenge. Most probably fall somewhere in between. It's not fair to your players to give them the game you want to play, when they may want something entirely different.

Yes, but most issues are not easily agreed upon. Here's the thing: The Big Dice did not mention adapting to his players, he mentioned giving them the Die Hard effect because as a DM that's what he wants to do.

As a DM, I want some fights to be easy and some to be a challenge. That way when they get the challenge, it truly feels challenging and not just another combat. Yes, it is what I prefer, but I have never heard any objections to having an occasional easy fight (in person, mind you). I have, however, heard objections to when the fights are always "barely won".

I like to bring up one of my favorite 4e characters, as he managed, several times, to take a challenge and rip it to shreds. I'll post one now:

Xorqu, the Wizard, was just becoming good at using his controller powers. They were having an easy time of the module I was running, so I decided to throw a little side quest at them with an incredibly difficult fight at the end. They get to it and it's literally a level +2 dragon and a level +4 encounter mixed. It was way beyond what they should have been able to handle, but I expected them to use every available resource and either run away or barely win. Xorqu almost single-handedly won that fight.

The name of the spell slips my mind, but he starts by placing it in the middle of the room. It's an illusionary treasure chest that makes enemies want to get closer to it - in game terms, it pulls them in and immobilizes them beside the chest. Then he casts Sleep, an area spell. Only a couple fall asleep, but the big one, the dragon does.

I left out the parts where the group worked together to make sure his spells landed, but that is only important to know, not to know for the story. The group realized just how difficult this challenge was supposed to be and by god, they were all literally jumping up and down, clapping hands, hooting and hollering. It was so much fun. And yeah, they steamrolled what should have been, by all rights, a TPK.

Would it have been better if they had fought it without those spells and barely won? I'm not so sure. I'm not even sure it could have came close to equaling it. Sometimes players want to feel like they were just completely awesome, and letting them steamroll an encounter does that.

They sensed the danger in this fight, they knew what was at stake, and they rose to the occasion. As players, that was their favorite session with those characters. Yeah, they had tough fights they barely survived, but this is the fight that they talk about when they talk about those characters.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 02:29 PM
The <brilliant solution> that completely, unexpectedly worked to defeat <uber bad guy who was horribly difficult to kill> is a classic among RPG stories. The good stories are the ones players like enough to repeat.

The story of the time <brilliant solution> failed, and they then traded blows until low on hp, eventually killing him, like they did the six before him is much less catchy.



Val, I'm tempted to write a blog post about conditioning players now. My favorite one was when my current GF started playing and, in a spot where it was "make the roll or die" she looks up and says "oh, you wouldn't kill ME, would you?". Everyone just started laughing. Funny thing is, I don't actually kill all that many PCs. Often, just knowing you will is enough.

valadil
2010-08-30, 02:30 PM
As a DM, I want some fights to be easy and some to be a challenge. That way when they get the challenge, it truly feels challenging and not just another combat. Yes, it is what I prefer, but I have never heard any objections to having an occasional easy fight (in person, mind you). I have, however, heard objections to when the fights are always "barely won".


I haven't heard objections to too many easy fights either, but that's because I rarely run easy fights. The best criticism I've heard for too many hard fights is that the players wanted to see their own progression. They feel that even if they moved on up in the world, it didn't feel that way if all their opponents were 2 levels higher. They wanted to see that they'd gotten better by way of easily beating foes that were a challenge before.

I have been asked to recalibrate what challenging means. Specifically, one of my players asked me to knock someone unconscious instead of just bloodying people. However, I don't think he wanted a challenging fight every night. He just wanted the hard fights to be harder.

I think what I need to learn to do is run more quick and dirty fights. 4 fights that don't kill anyone can be dramatic if they happen in the same day and nobody has surges left by the end of it.

Umael
2010-08-30, 02:32 PM
1) Depends on the game, the group, the campaign, and how everyone is feeling at the time.
2) Use sparingly, and only to improve the game (i.e., how much will people enjoy it).
3) Don't get caught doing it.
4) When in doubt, don't.



What's the point in dice if success or failure is already predetermined.

I don't know about the rest of you, but when im a PC I really hate going through the motions to find out a result that's been cemented already.

This kind of rhetoric completely misses the point.

"Cheating", as I see it, does not make a result predetermined (("already predetermined" is a redundancy)). "Cheating" is deciding to quickly make up the stats because you didn't expect them to actually fight that NPC. "Cheating" is deciding that all PCs secretly have the equivalent of the "Great Destiny" merit from Legend of the Five Rings (nevermind we are playing D&D).

The opposite of "cheating" is letting the character die, regardless of how much player investment there is, no matter how much the GM screwed up by overestimating the party's relative strength to the challenge.



I cast "who cares" at the BBEG because killing him at this point in the plotline is impossible. I always say "blah blah" at him because what I say doesn't matter. He hits me for "damage" but I don't record it because im waiting to hear wether I live or die.

That isn't cheating.

That's the player being apathetic towards the game because the GM is blatantly railroading.

Ashiel
2010-08-30, 02:33 PM
What's the point in dice if success or failure is already predetermined.

I don't know about the rest of you, but when im a PC I really hate going through the motions to find out a result that's been cemented already.

I cast "who cares" at the BBEG because killing him at this point in the plotline is impossible. I always say "blah blah" at him because what I say doesn't matter. He hits me for "damage" but I don't record it because im waiting to hear wether I live or die.

I have another idea, how bout the PCs hand their sheets to the DM and he can tell them how they did at the end of the campaign next week. Should be exciting to hear. But not something anyone but the DM need be around for.

So true, so true.

I never cheat for my players. In fact, my players have told me to never think of fudging the dice in their favor - and I wouldn't do it out of their favor - because they want to win and loose by their choices and the roll of the dice; because that keeps the interest. If you wanna just tell a story, go write a book (writing is fun too); but it cheapens it.

I just build encounters that would be tough but not impossible. The best way to avoid these "problem encounters" that apparently need fudging is to stop throwing single high CR opponents at players - because either they kill players outright or they get focus-fired down; and neither is very satisfying.

valadil
2010-08-30, 02:35 PM
Val, I'm tempted to write a blog post about conditioning players now. My favorite one was when my current GF started playing and, in a spot where it was "make the roll or die" she looks up and says "oh, you wouldn't kill ME, would you?". Everyone just started laughing. Funny thing is, I don't actually kill all that many PCs. Often, just knowing you will is enough.

If you give in to that temptation, let me know. I'd love to read it.

Oh and I agree about there being a magical amount of killing known as "enough." 3 campaigns ago I cheated my ass off. I often doubled HP on a whim and I usually knocked PCs into the negatives. But I was better at fudging transparently than the other players in that group. They actually sat me down after a session and told me about fudging, under the assumption that I didn't know what it was and never tried using it. They thought there was no safety net, and that alone was enough to put the fear into them and make them take all the combats seriously.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 02:38 PM
I'll probably kick one up in a day or two, then.

Naturally, at that point, you clearly had to play dumb. Fudging? What? That doesn't sound like much fun... :smallbiggrin:

Ruinix
2010-08-30, 03:15 PM
Too many people think "Cheating = cheating to win" when that's really not how you should do it. You should cheat to make the game experience better for the players.

excuse me i really don't want to be rude, but this is the worse lame excuse to cheat.

is there is anything why a DM cheat is because his own stupidity or lack of work in desing encounters as it should be.

Ashiel
2010-08-30, 03:16 PM
excuse me i really don't want to be rude, but this is the worse lame excuse to cheat.

is there is anything why a DM cheat is because his own stupidity or lack of work in desing encounters as it should be.

Agreed. It's a cop-out.

dsmiles
2010-08-30, 03:19 PM
Agreed. It's a cop-out.

So, in a supposedly balanced, published adventure, played after the characters have gotten involved in an epic plotline, you would let them die instead of "rolling just under their AC" or "the character has 5 HP left, and takes exactly 5 damage instead of 16" on the hit that would have proven fatal?

Seems like "not fun" to me. And isn't the only way to "play DnD wrong" to not have fun?

valadil
2010-08-30, 03:23 PM
is there is anything why a DM cheat is because his own stupidity or lack of work in desing encounters as it should be.

I disagree with the bolded part. As a GM I have a limited amount of free time to plan. If I designed encounters to be balanced, I wouldn't have time to write plot. I think plot is more important than combat, so I focus on plot and end up with flawed combats. When this happens, I'd rather be able to correct my errors and move on than screw up the game.

Note that I haven't actually had to fudge since moving to 4e, with a few exceptions. I found my combats were more fudge prone in 3.5 because it was easier to write an unbalanced encounter. In 4th ed I'll hit a few combats that don't go as expected, but the results aren't so off that I'll feel the need to fudge.

LansXero
2010-08-30, 03:24 PM
There is a random factor to the game, and there are several ways to minimize the importance of said random factor. From an in-game and out-of-game perspective, if you bring yourself to the point where your life or death depends on a dice roll, there was something you couldve done differently to avoid being there. So either the DM messed up on the CR of the encounter (which you as a player and as a character couldve realized earlier and tried to disengage) or you didnt take those necessary steps. If you remove the random factor, why even have sheets and formulas and rules? Why not just sit around and listen to a tale?

Sipex
2010-08-30, 03:27 PM
I cheat like a madman if I need to but I DM 4th edition so often it's not because the monsters are too strong.

I cheat if I realise the PCs are going to blow through a trap/encounter too easily. Like the wizard in our other encounter blasting away at the door, I originally gave it only 25HP and realised that it should be much higher afterwards to keep the tension of the trap appropriate so I bolstered it up to 50. Not a bad thing.

I also fudge monster defenses which tend to be too high for quite a few people in my group and when your players don't hit they tend to get bored and irritated so I might fudge it so monster defenses are a bit lower if I find my party is having a hard time hitting.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-30, 03:27 PM
So, in a supposedly balanced, published adventure, played after the characters have gotten involved in an epic plotline, you would let them die instead of "rolling just under their AC" or "the character has 5 HP left, and takes exactly 5 damage instead of 16" on the hit that would have proven fatal?

Seems like "not fun" to me. And isn't the only way to "play DnD wrong" to not have fun?
If there is no problem with the game design, then the PC must die. Cheating to keep the PCs alive when the dice say they should die will remove the threat of danger sooner or later. Even if the PCs don't notice, RPS will kick in on a subconscious level.

Remember: sometimes the Good Death is as rewarding to a Player as the Good Life :smallbiggrin:

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 03:28 PM
So, in a supposedly balanced, published adventure, played after the characters have gotten involved in an epic plotline, you would let them die instead of "rolling just under their AC" or "the character has 5 HP left, and takes exactly 5 damage instead of 16" on the hit that would have proven fatal?

Seems like "not fun" to me. And isn't the only way to "play DnD wrong" to not have fun?

You have a couple of significant assumptions in here.

1. Published adventures are balanced for your characters. This is a big one. Groups vary wildly, as does game design, and I strongly advise at least thumbing through a module before playing it.

2. Death makes the game not fun. It's true that losing is often not fun, at least for then, but death done well, especially in D&D, need not be a permanent defeat. With good roleplaying, sometimes death can be quite dramatic.

3. Players won't figure it out...or if they do, it wont be a bad thing. If a monster is routinely doing damage in the 10-20 range, and suddenly, when my life is on the line, he ends up not quite killing me, well, that's pretty lucky. It's not hard to notice a pattern if this comes up repeatedly.

The answer would undoubtably be yes. I don't even track the hp the players have, they do that. I know how much is left in a general sense, much as they have a general idea on if a mob is badly hurt, but I simply tell them what damage they took, and it's up to them to keep track.

Techsmart
2010-08-30, 03:31 PM
It depends on the situation for me. I don't fudge a roll if its because of the party doing something stupid (I.E. we had a campaign where the cleric rarely used heal spells, except when using it to punch an undead, the barbarian then went into battle against a trio of ogres, knowing he would be pounded on. I felt bad for him, since he played his character's personality to a point. However, I wasn't going to spare him on both hits because he was below 1/4 hp from the start.)
I will fudge a roll if it is something that is entirely out of the PC's control (I ran a session where the party was ambushed by skeletons, and all 5 skeletons won initiatives and all got natural 20's to hit the fighter. that would have been 10d6 +10 on the very start of a CR2 encounter. I refused to let the party wipe at lvl 2 of a campaign intended to go to at least lvl 10).


I do have a 4" wide stamp that prints DECEASED in large, red, capital letters
I do need one of these from some people in my group. Where can I get one?

dsmiles
2010-08-30, 03:31 PM
You have a couple of significant assumptions in here.

1. Published adventures are balanced for your characters. This is a big one. Groups vary wildly, as does game design, and I strongly advise at least thumbing through a module before playing it.

2. Death makes the game not fun. It's true that losing is often not fun, at least for then, but death done well, especially in D&D, need not be a permanent defeat. With good roleplaying, sometimes death can be quite dramatic.

3. Players won't figure it out...or if they do, it wont be a bad thing. If a monster is routinely doing damage in the 10-20 range, and suddenly, when my life is on the line, he ends up not quite killing me, well, that's pretty lucky. It's not hard to notice a pattern if this comes up repeatedly.

The answer would undoubtably be yes. I don't even track the hp the players have, they do that. I know how much is left in a general sense, much as they have a general idea on if a mob is badly hurt, but I simply tell them what damage they took, and it's up to them to keep track.

The only thing I can say to this is, "Luck, she is a fickle mistress."

Even monsters roll ones sometimes.

Jastermereel
2010-08-30, 03:32 PM
I'd like my players to survive as long as they're engaged and paying attention.

A. Characters that have secondary or parallel goals (i.e. not just working against the BBEG but also working to open up diplomatic relations with a host nation, searching for a stolen child) get a little plot armor. They aren't invincible, but I'm more likely to bend the rules or a situation in their favor if death is possible.

B. Characters that do something foolish have to deal with the consequences. You're a wizard and you walk up to a troll to punch him in the nose just because you can? Yeah, you're going to feel his rending claws right quick UNLESS...

C. Rule of A. For characters that do something particularly awesome or stretch themselves, I'm willing to let things slide and play along with their ideas. Three members of the party are unconscious or disabled and only the cowardly rogue can save them from the advanced Yellow Musk Creeper? I might "forget" it doesn't rely on sight when she turns invisible to save them. Sure, it could sense her, but if she's trying something new and acting heroic, so I'd rather bend the rules in her favor than nullify her idea and hit them with a near certain TPK. Instead of running off into the forest and taking on a large group of bandits on your own, you rally the town to help rescue those that were kidnapped, surround the bandit's hideout and threaten to burn it down? Sure, diplomacy might not work exactly as it was used, but if the players had an idea that was better than the default I was expecting, Why not bend the rules to let all involved, players and DM alike, have more fun?

tcrudisi
2010-08-30, 03:34 PM
...Instead of running off into the forest and taking on a large group of bandits on your own, you rally the town to help rescue those that were kidnapped, surround the bandit's hideout and threaten to burn it down? Sure, diplomacy might not work exactly as it was used, but if the players had an idea that was better than the default I was expecting, Why not bend the rules to let all involved, players and DM alike, have more fun?

I don't think this is anything like what we have been discussing. Having players do something unexpected and the DM going with it? That's not the DM cheating, that is the DM being a good DM.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 03:35 PM
That is awesome.

I'm seriously going to go find a custom stamp maker, and order one. If necessary, I'll order a box of them.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 03:37 PM
I don't think this is anything like what we have been discussing. Having players do something unexpected and the DM going with it? That's not the DM cheating, that is the DM being a good DM.

This. DM flexibility is definitely not cheating. Players who use creativity to solve a situation should be rewarded.

And the diplomacy rules in 3.5, as written, are terrible. I highly reccomend using the Giants rules, or another similar ruleset.

Mikeavelli
2010-08-30, 03:40 PM
In really big fights (BBEG style) I usually keep track of the Players HP so that when (inevitably) it does enough damage to drop someone, the monster conveniently does enough damage to put them at between -1 to -9 HP, instead of outright killing them. The only times players have actually died is when they get healed mid-battle and run blindly back into the Fray.

Which actually happens quite often, you'd think they'd stop doing it.



"Cheating" is deciding that all PCs secretly have the equivalent of the "Great Destiny" merit from Legend of the Five Rings (nevermind we are playing D&D).


This is actually a feat in the Races of Destiny Book.

Once per... I think week, when they would "die" they really don't, and are automatically stabilized at -9. AT least I think that's it, I don't have my books here to look it up at the moment.

It's entirely possible to just freely give that feat to all of your characters.

[hr]

It's very often I have to make up statistics on the spot because I didn't expect the players to actually go off and kill this or that NPC. My players are murderous little monsters that consistently surprise me, and doubly so when they meet a murderous little guy I fully expected them to kill, and they don't, so I have to do the reverse and invent a plotline for this guy on the spot because they decided to talk with him for once instead of *BLARGH MURDER DEATH KILL!*

There's a whole bunch of tricks to making up statistics on the spot (sometimes I steal the stat block from an existing monster of the appropriate CR, and use that. Sometimes I churn out some HP, Attack bonuses, AC, etc. based on instinct.)

Esser-Z
2010-08-30, 03:40 PM
This. DM flexibility is definitely not cheating. Players who use creativity to solve a situation should be rewarded.


Indeed. In fact, if the players do something unanticipated but awesome, I'll be less inclined to cheat in favor of my NPCs, because dude. Players doing something awesome deserve a chance to succeed!

DaMullet
2010-08-30, 03:42 PM
I'm going to have to weigh in on the Pro-"Cheating" side, with the good old Nixon Defense, but at the same time I have to concur that the level of on-the-fly recalculation must be based on the DM's ability to read the party.

I've been known to 'knock over' dice rolls for and against the PCs if it looked like they weren't having fun. In some cases, they failed some trivial skill roll or save on a trap that would have incapacitated or killed them, too early in the night to let them just sit around, so I told them they passed.

Similarly, I've kept villains alive for a few rounds to give each player more time to act in the combat before the inevitable victory.

Balain
2010-08-30, 03:56 PM
I have been playing 4E lately. I don't fudge dice rolls but sometimes the monsters might get a bit more or a bit less Hit Points. That is normally only done if it looks like the fight is going to be way easier or way tougher than I expected. This tends to work out well. Most fights go by with no deaths but players take some damage here and there,. The major combats Some players dropped to 0 or negative hits but in the end the party as a whole survived. If the party wasn't able to save a player and he finally took too much damage and died and they couldn't find a way to bring him back. then they get to make a new character

In the past There was a time I would fudge rolls and try not to let the party die. It was alright. Then as we started university I started a phase of If the players stick around or do something stupid and die then they die. So no fudging of anything at all

Esser-Z
2010-08-30, 03:57 PM
As applied to fudging monster stat in case of difficulty issues...


Anything behind the screen is always subject to change.

The Big Dice
2010-08-30, 03:58 PM
You have a couple of significant assumptions in here.

1. Published adventures are balanced for your characters. This is a big one. Groups vary wildly, as does game design, and I strongly advise at least thumbing through a module before playing it.
Published adventures need work before you run them. You need to be familiar with the content and you often need to tweak encounters, either up or down in difficulty.

2. Death makes the game not fun. It's true that losing is often not fun, at least for then, but death done well, especially in D&D, need not be a permanent defeat. With good roleplaying, sometimes death can be quite dramatic.
Without risk of death, there is no reward to getting into a dangerous sitution. That's not to say every situation should be dangerous, but there are times when a character has to die, either because of players making bad choices or because you as a GM decided to roll the dice in front of everyone. And then the Cave Troll gets a crit on a pounce attack, both claws hit and the rend on top of that sends the character to -15 hp. At a point in the campaign where there's no realistic way the characters can afford a Ressurection.


3. Players won't figure it out...or if they do, it wont be a bad thing. If a monster is routinely doing damage in the 10-20 range, and suddenly, when my life is on the line, he ends up not quite killing me, well, that's pretty lucky. It's not hard to notice a pattern if this comes up repeatedly.
It doesn't need to come up repeatedly.

What it seems I'm seeing is a difference of opinion about the role of the GM. Issues about "killer" versus "touchy-feely" styles aside, some people (me included) think it's not the role of the GM to hold the hands of the players. Concerns of "fairness" and "level appropriate" have nothing to do with things. There are times a player should know better, and that the character should run for his life. And that as a GM, I should be prepared to use all the tools at my disposal as a GM to make sure my players have fun.

Other people have their own ideas, but I say they should go read page 18 in the 3.5 DMG. That covers most of the issues with when and if a GM should (or even can) cheat.

calar
2010-08-30, 04:01 PM
Depends on the people in the party. If they were a party of newbies I'd be inclined to be merciful so as to maintain their interest in the game. On vets I'd be more likely to let them feel the consequences of their actions.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 04:17 PM
Without risk of death, there is no reward to getting into a dangerous sitution. That's not to say every situation should be dangerous, but there are times when a character has to die, either because of players making bad choices or because you as a GM decided to roll the dice in front of everyone. And then the Cave Troll gets a crit on a pounce attack, both claws hit and the rend on top of that sends the character to -15 hp. At a point in the campaign where there's no realistic way the characters can afford a Ressurection.

If you're not prepared for the dice to come up 1 or 20, don't bother rolling them.

Ressurection is possible relatively early in D&D. This is not true in every game system, but if a party really wants to save someone, it can be arranged relatively quickly. Assuming that such an unlucky situation happens, and the party is still short of the necessary funds(5k gp is no joke at level 5), think about what the characters could do. Is there any way they could get either the money or the spell otherwise in the setting? A loan perhaps? Ah, the possible plot hooks off this are numerous.


It doesn't need to come up repeatedly.

How do you know it won't come up again? Perhaps next time the wizard with a meh con score will take a crit to the face.

Drascin
2010-08-30, 05:11 PM
Yep, he certainly should, and do so without guilt, as long as he's convinced that what he's doing will increase the enjoyment not of himself, but of the players. In a perfect world with perfect DMs, it might not be necessary, because all encounters would be perfectly calculated and the dice wouldn't decide to have the player roll a nice string of 1s as they are just knocking out the three idiot guards at the back door of the BBEG's lair, so sorry Jim, here, have a new sheet, just fill it quick and we'll think of a backstory after the session.

But we don't have a perfect world. And when the choice is between keeping the story direction that my players are enjoying heading towards, and the whims of a silly plastic polihedron? Not a hard choice, in my experience :smallwink:.

The Big Dice
2010-08-30, 05:24 PM
If you're not prepared for the dice to come up 1 or 20, don't bother rolling them.

Ressurection is possible relatively early in D&D. This is not true in every game system, but if a party really wants to save someone, it can be arranged relatively quickly. Assuming that such an unlucky situation happens, and the party is still short of the necessary funds(5k gp is no joke at level 5), think about what the characters could do. Is there any way they could get either the money or the spell otherwise in the setting? A loan perhaps? Ah, the possible plot hooks off this are numerous.
Most players in my experience would sooner be hit in the face by a sock full of D20s than to be brought back from the dead with the double penalty of losing a level and missing out on the XP that everyone else got while they were dead. And that's not taking into account campaign details like them possibly being weeks of game time or sessions of real time away from the nearest settlement big enough to support a 9th level Cleric.

The thing is, recent editions of D&D treat characters as something sacred, that must be protected at all costs. Like they are an endangered species or something. Just as players are to be appeased and GMs are there simply to hand out treasure, exerprience and nothing but level appropriate encounters.

I'm sorry, but I want to see characters that know when they are out of their depth. I want to see them run from the dinosaur or to think better of attacking the slaver camp. And quite frankly, that's an unfashionable attitude in this day and age.



How do you know it won't come up again? Perhaps next time the wizard with a meh con score will take a crit to the face.
And if it's dramatically apropriate for a character to die at that point, or if the player has expressed an interest in playing something else, or if any of a multitude of possible factors are involved, that wizard will be getting a funeral.

Or, more likely, his body will be getting looted for his magic items.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 05:48 PM
Most players in my experience would sooner be hit in the face by a sock full of D20s than to be brought back from the dead with the double penalty of losing a level and missing out on the XP that everyone else got while they were dead. And that's not taking into account campaign details like them possibly being weeks of game time or sessions of real time away from the nearest settlement big enough to support a 9th level Cleric.

Your cynicism seems sadly appropriate. If it ain't true rez, it ain't worth having, apparently. The idea of xp as a river never seems to quite catch on with them.

Granted, I think allowing creation of new characters at a higher level than they'd come back with if raised might be part of this. This isn't explicit in the rules, but DMs frequently allow characters to be created at the same level as the rest of the party, leading to shenanigans.


The thing is, recent editions of D&D treat characters as something sacred, that must be protected at all costs. Like they are an endangered species or something. Just as players are to be appeased and GMs are there simply to hand out treasure, exerprience and nothing but level appropriate encounters.

Apparently. I frequently drastically violate the CR guidelines. The world does not magically level up to provide an appropriate challenge for you at all times. I better say no more, lest Wotc come for me in my sleep.


I'm sorry, but I want to see characters that know when they are out of their depth. I want to see them run from the dinosaur or to think better of attacking the slaver camp. And quite frankly, that's an unfashionable attitude in this day and age.

I've been shocked by people who wanted to talk to an enemy before ambushing them. They actually struck a deal, based solely on the in game knowledge that they shared a deity. Of course, they then betrayed him gleefully, stabbed him to death and looted all his possessions, but for a moment there, I thought they'd actually found a non-violent solution where they could have just stabbed their way through.

Of course, groups vary, but when you're among strangers, the default attitude does seem to be that of a greedy, violent hobo.


Or, more likely, his body will be getting looted for his magic items.

Hey, respect for the dead has it's limits. I respect my comrades, sure, but not nearly so much as I respect gold pieces.

dsmiles
2010-08-30, 05:50 PM
Most players in my experience would sooner be hit in the face by a sock full of D20s than to be brought back from the dead with the double penalty of losing a level and missing out on the XP that everyone else got while they were dead. And that's not taking into account campaign details like them possibly being weeks of game time or sessions of real time away from the nearest settlement big enough to support a 9th level Cleric.
Sock full of d20s. LOL, classic.

The thing is, recent editions of D&D treat characters as something sacred, that must be protected at all costs. Like they are an endangered species or something. Just as players are to be appeased and GMs are there simply to hand out treasure, exerprience and nothing but level appropriate encounters.
All bow down before the sacred character sheet, for it is a piece of paper, and shall be missed. Bah! It's a piece of paper, death comes to all men (and women, unless you go undead).

I'm sorry, but I want to see characters that know when they are out of their depth. I want to see them run from the dinosaur or to think better of attacking the slaver camp. And quite frankly, that's an unfashionable attitude in this day and age.
Bash the dinosaur! Burn the slaver camp! (From a safe distance, of course.)

And if it's dramatically apropriate for a character to die at that point, or if the player has expressed an interest in playing something else, or if any of a multitude of possible factors are involved, that wizard will be getting a funeral.
Dearly beloved, we are gathered her today to celebrate the life, and death, of Jack the wizard who liked doughnuts for dinner...

Or, more likely, his body will be getting looted for his magic items.
Can I get a w00t for phat l00ts?!?!?
(Once again, I find myself unable to control my loony instincts. Man, do I need a comedy campaign right about now!)

That is awesome.

I'm seriously going to go find a custom stamp maker, and order one. If necessary, I'll order a box of them.
To which custom stamp do you refer?

The Big Dice
2010-08-30, 06:01 PM
I've been shocked by people who wanted to talk to an enemy before ambushing them. They actually struck a deal, based solely on the in game knowledge that they shared a deity. Of course, they then betrayed him gleefully, stabbed him to death and looted all his possessions, but for a moment there, I thought they'd actually found a non-violent solution where they could have just stabbed their way through.

Of course, groups vary, but when you're among strangers, the default attitude does seem to be that of a greedy, violent hobo.
I've done the opposite and had a roving band of Gnolls, with no language in common with the PCs, show the characters where the entrance to a cave full of Orcs that the Gnolls had been feuding with could be found. I was running the Keep on the Borderlands at the time and this took place not far from the Caves of Chaos. Needless to say, the players were shocked at the fact that the hyena heads didn't howl and then charge at them barking madly all the while.

But you're right, most PCs are motivated by the phatness of the lewt and would sooner spend 15k on a cloak they can sleep wrapped up in than on buying a house to live in.

Tharck
2010-08-30, 06:20 PM
Published adventures need work before you run them. You need to be familiar with the content and you often need to tweak encounters, either up or down in difficulty.

I entirely agree.


Without risk of death, there is no reward to getting into a dangerous sitution. That's not to say every situation should be dangerous, but there are times when a character has to die, either because of players making bad choices or because you as a GM decided to roll the dice in front of everyone. And then the Cave Troll gets a crit on a pounce attack, both claws hit and the rend on top of that sends the character to -15 hp. At a point in the campaign where there's no realistic way the characters can afford a Ressurection.

If you're worried about killing the PCs, throw something weaker. Also let them know ahead of time they can march through the campaign like Storm Troopers on the search for Jedi Knights. It's alright to be timid.



What it seems I'm seeing is a difference of opinion about the role of the GM. Issues about "killer" versus "touchy-feely" styles aside, some people (me included) think it's not the role of the GM to hold the hands of the players. Concerns of "fairness" and "level appropriate" have nothing to do with things. There are times a player should know better, and that the character should run for his life. And that as a GM, I should be prepared to use all the tools at my disposal as a GM to make sure my players have fun.

I haven't seen anyone talk about being a "Killer" DM here yet. I've seen people mention dice fall where they may, but so far, people seem to be aiming at the heart of the matter. Which is fun.

Quick question though, when you play Darts do you let everyone else stand 5 feet closer? If you did, and they won, do you think it would taste as sweet? Or do you wait until the very last throw against them, and then fudge it, giving them another shot to win. Either way, you rob them of a real victory - they just might know you did.


Other people have their own ideas, but I say they should go read page 18 in the 3.5 DMG. That covers most of the issues with when and if a GM should (or even can) cheat.

It's odd you would post a rule about cheating.

Kaun
2010-08-30, 06:51 PM
Silly Rabbits,

GM's can't "Cheat".

GM's are either good, bad or some where in between.

How they get there is up to them.

Curmudgeon
2010-08-30, 07:01 PM
Cheat, in any way that's at all obvious? Never. I roll a large d20 right out in the open for everybody to see, and live with the consequences. Same for damage dice.

Now, if the PCs have been having poor results with their dice, the reinforcements for their enemies may be delayed, or not show up at all. But once any characters are engaged I don't pull any punches. The opposing forces want to win and survive just as much as the PCs do.

ScionoftheVoid
2010-08-30, 07:02 PM
I hate cheating. And it is cheating, Rule 0 or no it's cheating me of my result. A SoD succeeds against the BBEG on round one? That's what it's supposed to do. I want to make meaningful decisions. Deciding to try something which may lead to an anticlimactic victory included.

Who is the DM to decide whether or not a foe is going down "too quickly"? They arbitrate the rules and provide scenarios for the PCs. Nothing more.

If a TPK happens due to my own lacking I may well replay that scene, adjusting the encounter as necessary before the combat starts.

The only time I might cheat is having a small "floating" section of a prepared casters spells, if they have super-human mental stats (i.e. 22 and higher) and time to prepare. And then I probably wouldn't use it unless I'd forgotten something obvious to an in-game character or had somehow run out of other spells.

On fudging die rolls, I can't (no screen) and won't (see above).

My basic method: Lay out rules before play begins, do not alter them during play (between sessions, informing the players of this, is fine).

I am willing to play under DMs who cheat, but that's because I like the game (D&D 3.5 specifically, Pen and Paper RPGs more generally), not because I think the practice is acceptable (in the games I have played previously. I'd be much more open to cheating in a game using Hero System rules as they suggest you play, though I'd be less open to playing in such a game in the first place).

The Big Dice
2010-08-30, 07:35 PM
Who is the DM to decide whether or not a foe is going down "too quickly"? They arbitrate the rules and provide scenarios for the PCs. Nothing more.
Seriously, this attitude is the single most annoying thing about the current generation of roleplayers. The GM is does so much more than this. In fact, in terms of hourse dedicated to the hobby, the Gm far and away outstrips all but the most hardcore player.

Besides which, if the rules say that as a GM, I can't really cheat, under any fair arbitration of those rules, i can't cheat and therefore all arguments against cheating are rendered null and void.

If a TPK happens due to my own lacking I may well replay that scene, adjusting the encounter as necessary before the combat starts.
Which would be cheating. The Book (ALL HAIL THE BOOK!) doesn't have anything about do-overs in there. And adjusting an encounter is also cheating, though of a different (and probably far more serious) order than simply claiming a dice rolled a 17 when it really rolled a 20.

I am willing to play under DMs who cheat, but that's because I like the game (D&D 3.5 specifically, Pen and Paper RPGs more generally), not because I think the practice is acceptable (in the games I have played previously. I'd be much more open to cheating in a game using Hero System rules as they suggest you play, though I'd be less open to playing in such a game in the first place).
As I've said before, all GMs cheat. They may justify it to themselves in various ways, but there are things that every GM does that they won't let the players do. And that makes it cheating.

The only thing is, don't tell me when you cheat until after the session is over. Unless we're playing Mutants and Masterminds. Then I get Hero Points if you cheat against me.

Curmudgeon
2010-08-30, 07:45 PM
I hate cheating. And it is cheating, Rule 0 or no it's cheating me of my result. A SoD succeeds against the BBEG on round one? That's what it's supposed to do.
...
If a TPK happens due to my own lacking I may well replay that scene, adjusting the encounter as necessary before the combat starts.
I just can't couple this difference in treatment (BBEG dies ─ OK; party dies ─ do over) with "no cheating". The rules don't have "replays" or "do overs"; that, to me, is the very example of cheating: changing things simply because you don't like the results.

As I see it, you love cheating.

Kaun
2010-08-30, 07:49 PM
There is nothing like a TPK because of some bad luck with the dice in what was ment to be the warm up fight 10 mins into a session.

GM's dont need to cheat to win. If they want to win then they can just throw an un beatable encounter at you and let the dice fall where they may if thats what you want.

GM's "cheat" to make the game flow better and to make the game more fun for all involved.

Esser-Z
2010-08-30, 07:50 PM
I just can't couple this difference in treatment (BBEG dies ─ OK; party dies ─ do over) with "no cheating". The rules don't have "replays" or "do overs"; that, to me, is the very example of cheating: changing things simply because you don't like the results.

As I see it, you love cheating.
Dude. Story purposes, conventions, and tropes. The story is about the PCs, not the BBEG. They're the heroes. It's not some sort of contest to see who can kill who, it's a heroic fantasy tale.

Dr.Epic
2010-08-30, 07:56 PM
If it meant the entire party would die, then yeah I'd cheat so long as they didn't do something extremely stupid to provoke it ("Hey, let's attack the king in his throne room while he's surrounded by 30 of his most powerful guards!"). I'd also do it for plot reason, say if I wanted a villain to return later or something like that. I wouldn't go as far in cheating with those though.

Ajadea
2010-08-30, 08:12 PM
I don't personally, unless it will kill a player before anything cool and plot-related happens. Or a TPK in the same circumstances.

Curmudgeon
2010-08-30, 08:22 PM
Dude. Story purposes, conventions, and tropes. The story is about the PCs, not the BBEG. They're the heroes. It's not some sort of contest to see who can kill who, it's a heroic fantasy tale.
Heroes die. The 300 Spartans at Thermopylae didn't live, but they told a great story.

If the PCs always win there's no story to those victories: they're just passing Go and collecting $200.

Esser-Z
2010-08-30, 08:24 PM
Always win and die because of a single bad roll are not the only possibilities, man.

The Spartans (and the couple thousand OTHER Greeks everyone forgets), like examples from before, had an awesome heroic last stand. Just...dying during an encounter is not a fitting death.

I mean, the DM could fudge death into unconsciousness. PC's still lose, but live to fight another day. And so forth.

Kaun
2010-08-30, 08:31 PM
Heroes die. The 300 Spartans at Thermopylae didn't live, but they told a great story.

If the PCs always win there's no story to those victories: they're just passing Go and collecting $200.

Yeah but a heroic death takes some enginering.

Most deaths can be kind of pointless.

ScionoftheVoid
2010-08-30, 09:06 PM
Seriously, this attitude is the single most annoying thing about the current generation of roleplayers. The GM is does so much more than this. In fact, in terms of hourse dedicated to the hobby, the Gm far and away outstrips all but the most hardcore player.

First of all, I am currently DMing for my group. I will insist that my description encompasses the things I do as a DM. Time dedicated does not necessarily lead to a great breadth in what that time is spent on, so that's irrelevant.


Besides which, if the rules say that as a GM, I can't really cheat, under any fair arbitration of those rules, i can't cheat and therefore all arguments against cheating are rendered null and void.

I don't have access to my DMG right now, so unless you would like to provide a quote I'll have to wait to discuss this particular point further. Regardless I took "Rule 0" into account. I am still being cheated out of something I should have had, whether or not there is a vague and ultimately (IMO) horrid rule to justify it.


I just can't couple this difference in treatment (BBEG dies ─ OK; party dies ─ do over) with "no cheating". The rules don't have "replays" or "do overs"; that, to me, is the very example of cheating: changing things simply because you don't like the results.

As I see it, you love cheating.


Which would be cheating. The Book (ALL HAIL THE BOOK!) doesn't have anything about do-overs in there. And adjusting an encounter is also cheating, though of a different (and probably far more serious) order than simply claiming a dice rolled a 17 when it really rolled a 20.

Addressing these at the same time, I did mention that this only happens if due to my own error, didn't I? As such, bad luck or poor tactics are valid reasons for a TPK. A single, average full-attack taking down the parties melee and then getting into its stride as it goes after the casters is not (Dragons are badly CRed), and I would redo that with a less powerful creature. Because it's my fault, and because I have laid down previous to the game that I'm not that great at knowing what is and is not appropriate until it gets into play and I don't have time to playtest encounters (or have this discussion, really).

Did I include something about sticking not to the rules in the book, but to the rules in the book altered to suit and laid out clearly before play begins? As in, sticking to the base rules in additions to any houserules. Like the houserule of redesigning an encounter that was far too challenging due to my own lack of preparation time. I meant to, sorry if I did not.

Now you could argue that you lay out the fact that you will fudge the rules before the game, clearly and in the same manner as any other quirk particular to your group, at least until this approach to the game was assumed as standard. This approach is just about the only way I would tolerate a DM cheating and I should have made that clear, terribly sorry.


As I've said before, all GMs cheat. They may justify it to themselves in various ways, but there are things that every GM does that they won't let the players do. And that makes it cheating.

The only thing is, don't tell me when you cheat until after the session is over. Unless we're playing Mutants and Masterminds. Then I get Hero Points if you cheat against me.

The DM works in the same basic rules as the other players, what is the DM allowed to do that the players are not, that does not merely come with the DM's responsibilities (rules and scenario)? That you are making a generalised and unsupported statement about a highly varied group of people (which includes myself, however new I am to the ranks) is odd, but I would like to see your evidence for the statement.

It is now three in the morning here, so I'll thank you for forgiving some possible lapses in coherency and I look forward to reading your responses tommorow.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 09:23 PM
Yeah but a heroic death takes some enginering.

Most deaths can be kind of pointless.

If the death is pointless, it's because the encounter in which it took place was pointless. Avoid such encounters.



Misjudging an encounter level badly, then realizing you made a mistake that will lead to a TPK doesn't have to be cheating. It might be just learning how to DM. Nobody started off awesome at it. However, when you do make that realization, it's perfectly ok to admit you screwed up. Your party probably does not expect perfection from a new DM(and if they do, they're insane) anyhow. In any case, it's vastly better to admit something than get caught trying to cover it up.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 09:31 PM
To which custom stamp do you refer?

The large DECEASED stamp mentioned earlier, for character sheets. On the basis that it's truly awesome.

Kaun
2010-08-30, 09:36 PM
If the death is pointless, it's because the encounter in which it took place was pointless. Avoid such encounters.


...

Yes because that is always possible.

Like when the PC's are trying to cross the orc infested marsh lands to steal back the stolen McGuffin.

The fights with the orcs of the marsh are basicly pointless but it wouldnt be an orc infested marsh if it didnt have orcs in it and if they die to said orcs because the dice wern't with them it is kind of a pointless death.

It won't make much of heroic ballad for the bards to sing about the heros who ventured into the orc infested marsh to recover the McGuffin from the evil wizards tower but were taken out by an orc scouting party because the fighters sword broke and the cleric took an unlucky arrow to the eye ball two seconds into the fight.

Esser-Z
2010-08-30, 09:38 PM
Thank you, Kaun. Not every encounter is going to be a Big Honkin' Deal. That would result in a very sparsely populated world and, really, a boring game.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 10:00 PM
*sigh* If it's an encounter big enough to potentially pull off a TPK, it should be memorable.

If you are killing your entire party off with the first throwaway encounter, you seriously need to adjust the difficulty level.

Esser-Z
2010-08-30, 10:01 PM
Well, yes, but I thought the thread went beyond just TPKs. Lucking rolls from a normal encounter that'd down one guy still qualify.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 10:04 PM
Well, if you're not going to let even a singe character die, then why bother packing dice? Just play freeform.

Esser-Z
2010-08-30, 10:08 PM
Depends on the context. Is it bad tactics? Legitimate threats? Or just a die that keeps coming up high? PC death should be possible, but I'm not sure blind luck alone should be allowed to cause it every time.

Kaun
2010-08-30, 10:11 PM
*sigh* If it's an encounter big enough to potentially pull off a TPK, it should be memorable.

If you are killing your entire party off with the first throwaway encounter, you seriously need to adjust the difficulty level.

But if you let the dice fall where they may then the chance for TPK is ever present regardless of how the encounter is built.

Umael
2010-08-30, 10:35 PM
*sigh* If it's an encounter big enough to potentially pull off a TPK, it should be memorable.

If you are killing your entire party off with the first throwaway encounter, you seriously need to adjust the difficulty level.

...

You don't play Legend of the Five Rings, do you? Or any other high-lethality game?

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 10:38 PM
But if you let the dice fall where they may then the chance for TPK is ever present regardless of how the encounter is built.

Not really. Look at how many dice are rolled in a single encounter.

We'll continue the level 5 scenario, because that's what was mentioned earlier, and assume a generic party of rogue, wizard, cleric, fighter. A fight 1 CR below them would be fairly appropriate for a minor encounter that isn't really important.

A brown bear attacks at +11 for 1d8+8. He only has 51 hp and AC 15. How lucky does he have to get to kill off the entire party?

Another classic, an owlbear, attacks at +9 for 1d6+5, and has 52 hp. AC 15.

Both have 2 attacks like that, plus another weaker one on full attacks, but only the characters built for melee should be trading full attacks anyhow. Player stupidity can kill, sure, but that's an entirely different scenario.

Your basic fighter at level 5 has +5Bab, probably around +4 str, and +1 from a mwk or magical weapon. So, about +10, for a fighter too unoptimized to even bother with weapon focus, and still he hits 80% of the time. He can't possibly die to a lucky crit or two, and will certainly have a much better AC. One on one, the fighter would be HEAVILY favored to win this matchup.

With the other three members thrown in, the odds of the PCs missing everything for long enough for an owlbear to slowly kill them all is pretty minimal. Less than one in a million. If luck really comes up with odd results that often for you, go buy lottery tickets.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 10:39 PM
...

You don't play Legend of the Five Rings, do you? Or any other high-lethality game?

Why are you playing a high-lethality game if you don't want anyone to die?

The Glyphstone
2010-08-30, 10:48 PM
Not really. Look at how many dice are rolled in a single encounter.

We'll continue the level 5 scenario, because that's what was mentioned earlier, and assume a generic party of rogue, wizard, cleric, fighter. A fight 1 CR below them would be fairly appropriate for a minor encounter that isn't really important.

A brown bear attacks at +11 for 1d8+8. He only has 51 hp and AC 15. How lucky does he have to get to kill off the entire party?

Another classic, an owlbear, attacks at +9 for 1d6+5, and has 52 hp. AC 15.

Both have 2 attacks like that, plus another weaker one on full attacks, but only the characters built for melee should be trading full attacks anyhow. Player stupidity can kill, sure, but that's an entirely different scenario.

Your basic fighter at level 5 has +5Bab, probably around +4 str, and +1 from a mwk or magical weapon. So, about +10, for a fighter too unoptimized to even bother with weapon focus, and still he hits 80% of the time. He can't possibly die to a lucky crit or two, and will certainly have a much better AC. One on one, the fighter would be HEAVILY favored to win this matchup.

With the other three members thrown in, the odds of the PCs missing everything for long enough for an owlbear to slowly kill them all is pretty minimal. Less than one in a million. If luck really comes up with odd results that often for you, go buy lottery tickets.

Those are both single-monsters though, which tend to get focus-fired down. An Orc Warrior 2 is CR 1. 4 of them would be a CR4 fight. They only swing at +5, but unless the fighter is a lockdown build, the odds are 4x as likely that one of the squishies will have an Orc in his face, and they only need to get two or three crits (with an 18-20 weapon) to take out an unarmored caster.

Zhalath
2010-08-30, 10:50 PM
Personally, I never stick to rules. I make up my own on the fly if I can't look it up immediately.

If PCs are going to die, I either do something to avert it or ignore some dice rolls. The one exception is if they were asking for it, and was actively trying to die or was giving up.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 10:55 PM
An orc is also considered the most powerful of it's level of CR, and you've miscalculated the CR. A monster with class levels has a CR equal to it's levels.

Thus, a Warrior 2 is a CR 2 fight. Two of them become CR 4, and four of them become CR 6. If you're pitting a CR 6 encounter against a level 5 party, then it SHOULD be a challenge.

Consider instead, four CR 1s. By the book, this is a CR 4 fight, but it's usually trivial for a level 5 party.

Umael
2010-08-30, 11:18 PM
Why are you playing a high-lethality game if you don't want anyone to die?

Possibly because I like Legend of the Five Rings?

Do you know anything about L5R?

RebelRogue
2010-08-30, 11:21 PM
An orc is also considered the most powerful of it's level of CR, and you've miscalculated the CR. A monster with class levels has a CR equal to it's levels.

Thus, a Warrior 2 is a CR 2 fight. Two of them become CR 4, and four of them become CR 6. If you're pitting a CR 6 encounter against a level 5 party, then it SHOULD be a challenge.

Consider instead, four CR 1s. By the book, this is a CR 4 fight, but it's usually trivial for a level 5 party.
NPC classes only count as half for calculating CRs, rounded down (a friend of mine once used that against us, adding a single warrior level to every member of a gang of rogues, giving them a few more HP for no increase in CR).

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 11:40 PM
Not mentioned in the SRD.



Adding a nonassociated class level to a monster increases its CR by ½ per level until one of its nonassociated class levels equals its original Hit Dice. At that point, each additional level of the same class or a similar one is considered associated and increases the monster’s CR by 1.

Note that an Orc has only a single hit die. Therefore, the second level is treated as associated, even though NPC classes are normally nonassociated by default.

So, technically, the Orc Warrior 2 has an ECL of 2, and a CR of 1.5. However, fractionals above 1 are not generally handled. In the rare instances where CR doesn't come out even, they are typically rounded up.


Also, going through non-associated classes, trying to find the technical way to make it toughest for characters is directly opposed to making a throwaway minion fight. Yes, CR can be abused if you really want to. That's really not what it's there for.

RebelRogue
2010-08-31, 12:07 AM
Note that an Orc has only a single hit die. Therefore, the second level is treated as associated, even though NPC classes are normally nonassociated by default.

So, technically, the Orc Warrior 2 has an ECL of 2, and a CR of 1.5. However, fractionals above 1 are not generally handled. In the rare instances where CR doesn't come out even, they are typically rounded up.
Ah, I forgot about all those fancy associated class rules. But even then, it really should be rounded down like everything else in 3.5, shouldn't it?


Also, going through non-associated classes, trying to find the technical way to make it toughest for characters is directly opposed to making a throwaway minion fight. Yes, CR can be abused if you really want to. That's really not what it's there for.
Don't worry, it was mostly done in jest.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-31, 12:14 AM
Ah, I forgot about all those fancy associated class rules. But even then, it really should be rounded down like everything else in 3.5, shouldn't it?

Honestly, I couldn't find, either in the SRD or DMG, any rule that addressed such a situation. RC has nothing. Fractionals ARE used when below 1, but the use strongly implies that it won't come up in any other situation. It's a bit of an odd case, I grant you, and one that doesn't entirely make sense.

Frankly, I think it's best to treat EVERYTHING as associated classes, unless you're doing, say, a wizard/sorc multiclass or something clearly not synergistic. That's the stated purpose of those rules, but CR is sometimes sketchy(see also, that damned crab)

Dairun Cates
2010-08-31, 01:54 AM
Not really. Look at how many dice are rolled in a single encounter.

We'll continue the level 5 scenario, because that's what was mentioned earlier, and assume a generic party of rogue, wizard, cleric, fighter. A fight 1 CR below them would be fairly appropriate for a minor encounter that isn't really important.

A brown bear attacks at +11 for 1d8+8. He only has 51 hp and AC 15. How lucky does he have to get to kill off the entire party?

Another classic, an owlbear, attacks at +9 for 1d6+5, and has 52 hp. AC 15.

Both have 2 attacks like that, plus another weaker one on full attacks, but only the characters built for melee should be trading full attacks anyhow. Player stupidity can kill, sure, but that's an entirely different scenario.

Your basic fighter at level 5 has +5Bab, probably around +4 str, and +1 from a mwk or magical weapon. So, about +10, for a fighter too unoptimized to even bother with weapon focus, and still he hits 80% of the time. He can't possibly die to a lucky crit or two, and will certainly have a much better AC. One on one, the fighter would be HEAVILY favored to win this matchup.

With the other three members thrown in, the odds of the PCs missing everything for long enough for an owlbear to slowly kill them all is pretty minimal. Less than one in a million. If luck really comes up with odd results that often for you, go buy lottery tickets.

For the record, I addressed this in a previous thread on the same topic, but I don't feel like digging up the results. I will say that there are quite a few common monsters in D&D that can 1-shot just about anything at their CR level. These aren't all obscure monsters either. A Minotaur is pretty brutal in his damage, but is well-balanced for his CR. Still, a high-end crit on that Greataxe and even the fighter is a smear on the wall.

The short of it was that if you're using D&D rules and the monster manuals, you will either need to alter monsters (which is incredibly similar to gm fiat and dice fudging from an end-game standpoint) or you'll just inevitably put players in a situation where they could just die from purely bad luck from time to time.

Also, I've always wondered why there's an inherent assumption between challenge and character deaths, especially when character death is permanent in most games that aren't D&D. There are ways to challenge a player without putting him or her without killing them, and there are DEFINITELY ways to put pressure on characters without the constant looming threat of death. Put possessions, loved ones, friends, cities at risk. A player doesn't need the grim reaper to constantly breathe down their neck to feel danger or challenge.

Double also, most of these posts assume D&D. Things get a lot different in systems where raise dead spells don't exists. Even if the results are the same, having the option to get a character back goes a long way.

Kaun
2010-08-31, 02:29 AM
Not really. Look at how many dice are rolled in a single encounter.

We'll continue the level 5 scenario, because that's what was mentioned earlier, and assume a generic party of rogue, wizard, cleric, fighter. A fight 1 CR below them would be fairly appropriate for a minor encounter that isn't really important.

A brown bear attacks at +11 for 1d8+8. He only has 51 hp and AC 15. How lucky does he have to get to kill off the entire party?

Another classic, an owlbear, attacks at +9 for 1d6+5, and has 52 hp. AC 15.

Both have 2 attacks like that, plus another weaker one on full attacks, but only the characters built for melee should be trading full attacks anyhow. Player stupidity can kill, sure, but that's an entirely different scenario.

Your basic fighter at level 5 has +5Bab, probably around +4 str, and +1 from a mwk or magical weapon. So, about +10, for a fighter too unoptimized to even bother with weapon focus, and still he hits 80% of the time. He can't possibly die to a lucky crit or two, and will certainly have a much better AC. One on one, the fighter would be HEAVILY favored to win this matchup.

With the other three members thrown in, the odds of the PCs missing everything for long enough for an owlbear to slowly kill them all is pretty minimal. Less than one in a million. If luck really comes up with odd results that often for you, go buy lottery tickets.

SO your saying because it shouldn't happen it doesn't?

Or even if it deosn't end in tpk an only one of the chrs dies then what?

and whats the differance between the DM making the game easier by lowering the cr of encounters and the dming fudging the rolls occasionaly to avoid needless chr death?

Hubert
2010-08-31, 02:54 AM
Thanks for all the answers. :smallsmile:

It's very interesting to see that all the opinions are represented, from "never ever fudge dice" to "cheat as you want so long that it improves the players' experience".

It seems that in D&D, a TPK on a random encounter is uncommon. I have played some D&D games, but I mainly play other game systems with (potentially) very high mortality rate like Rêve: the Dream Ouroboros (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%AAve:_the_Dream_Ouroboros). In this game, there is no such thing as "level", and even a veteran adventurer can quickly go down when fighting more than one opponent at the same time. In Rêve, killing a player's character now and then is actually a good thing. But it is very close from "0 to 1 casualties" to "TPK".

About the dice rolls, I think that the GM should keep them most of the time behind the screen. After all, the players doesn't need to know OOC information about the fight (like knowing that the enemy saving throws are at least X). And rolling behind the screen doesn't mean that you will cheat every dice roll.

However, in order to build up dramatic tension, the GM could sometimes make important dice rolls in plain sight. If the GM makes only a few rolls in plain sight, the players will know that these rolls are very important ones (e.g. the last save-or-die roll for a big bad).

dsmiles
2010-08-31, 04:19 AM
GM's dont need to cheat to win. If they want to win then they can just throw an un beatable encounter at you and let the dice fall where they may if thats what you want.


As much as I agree that GMs can't "cheat," I have to disagree with this. You can't "win" DnD.

The large DECEASED stamp mentioned earlier, for character sheets. On the basis that it's truly awesome.

One of my friends custom ordered it for me for Christmas one year, after we watched "Monkeybone."

Tyndmyr
2010-08-31, 08:46 AM
SO your saying because it shouldn't happen it doesn't?

If you roll up 1 in a million odds with any kind of frequency, then you need to either buy lottery tickets or new dice.


Or even if it deosn't end in tpk an only one of the chrs dies then what?

Well then, he's dead, Jim. If a single character dying is unacceptable to you, you have to question why you're playing a system in which death is possible(or at least, likely).


and whats the differance between the DM making the game easier by lowering the cr of encounters and the dming fudging the rolls occasionaly to avoid needless chr death?

The first is a planning event. Properly judging CR is learned, and you do have to get accustomed to the occasional poorly CRed creature. The book guidelines are generally helpful, but not perfect.

The difference is not in the results, but how you get there. Sure, in either case, they're alive at the end, but that isn't the critical point in most games. The point is the story of how they survived, and why they're still alive. Ignoring what happens between encounter planning and looting is literally ignoring the encounter itself.


Sure, some games, like CoC or Paranoia, are vastly more lethal. However, such lethality is expected. Taking the lethality out of them would change the games significantly, and probably not for the better. Imagine playing CoC if you knew that the DM wouldn't let you die or go insane.

dsmiles
2010-08-31, 08:49 AM
Imagine playing CoC if you knew that the DM wouldn't let you die or go insane.

I'd probably cry. :smallfrown:

FelixG
2010-08-31, 08:50 AM
Im not sure if it counts as cheating but:

If i TPK a party, and they are having fun with their characters (assuming it wasn't a screw up on my part) i will have them wake up the previous night, having shared a communal dream. From there they can approach the encounter a different way or avoid it completely.

dsmiles
2010-08-31, 08:55 AM
Im not sure if it counts as cheating but:

If i TPK a party, and they are having fun with their characters (assuming it wasn't a screw up on my part) i will have them wake up the previous night, having shared a communal dream. From there they can approach the encounter a different way or avoid it completely.

No. Just no. No do-overs. A TPK is a TPK. TPK's aren't accidents. There is either poor planning on the PCs part, or poor planning on the DMs part.

TPK = New campaign.

Fudging a die every now and again to save a character during their critical portion of the plot, however, is completely justified. Saving a character with no plot connection, however, is not justified.

FelixG
2010-08-31, 08:56 AM
No. Just no. No do-overs. A TPK is a TPK. TPK's aren't accidents. There is either poor planning on the PCs part, or poor planning on the DMs part.

TPK = New campaign.

Fudging a die every now and again to save a character during their critical portion of the plot, however, is completely justified. Saving a character with no plot connection, however, is not justified.

I have said i dont pull punches, but i have a small place in my little black heart for when a group cant seem to roll higher than a 5 during a whole encounter and get wiped out because of it

Psyx
2010-08-31, 09:16 AM
It depends.

Mainly on if the PCs would notice me fudging. If they even suspected that I was going to, I'd not do it, because it totally destroys any sense of achievement and the element of risk.

I have fudged things to save player characters, but I've blue iced more than my fair share, too.

Secondly it depends on the game: Short-lived dungeon-bash, or gritty historical game and my mercy is non-existent. Character-driven heroic game: Not really a problem.

It does depend a bit on the player, too. If someone is optimised to the hilt and playing a set of numbers with a Me vs. You mentality, then they can expect to die when the odds turn on them: Live by the rules, die by the rules is a fair maxim. Whereas a less rules-reliant an unoptimised character who is heavily involved with the plot and story itself can expect more slack. Let's just call it a handicap system.

If it's a call for me to make out of the blue that could kill or save the PCs, I tend to roll a dice (low = bad. High = good. Sliding scale), because otherwise I fear that I might be being overly kind or harsh. Although once again, I have what I call my 'yes' games: Games where if a player asks 'can I do...?' then my default answer is 'yes'. These are my more heroic games, and so players get away with stuff that they wouldn't in most of my games.

Statting a scenario with 'reinforcements' and then not having them turn up on combat rounds X when the party are hugely struggling due to a series of awful dice rolls isn't even cheating. It's just sensible GMing.

Ignoring the random encounter of 2d100 vampires when the party are 5th level and itching to get on with the main plotline is likewise just common sense.

Killer Angel
2010-08-31, 09:23 AM
The objective is to have fun, so, sometime, you "fudge" for the fun.
The climatic encounter is going too easy for the players? OK I'll let the BBEG live a couple of round more, spreadin havoc 'til I see a real apprehension in the eyes of my players (of course, if I'm cheating in favour of the BBEG, I won't kill anyone in those "bonus rounds").


Im not sure if it counts as cheating but:

If i TPK a party, and they are having fun with their characters (assuming it wasn't a screw up on my part) i will have them wake up the previous night, having shared a communal dream.

I personally find the dream thing, one of the lamest tricks in the hand of the DM, and I HATED it, when my old DM used it to compensate his errors in the previous encounter.
But is a matter of personal tastes. :smallwink:

valadil
2010-08-31, 09:23 AM
So out of curiosity, how many people view it as cheating and not fudging? I've seen a mix of the terms in here and I can't tell if it's deliberate or just people replying to someone else's term. I explicitly use fudge, as I do not believe it's cheating, even though I don't do it.

Here's why I don't necessarily think it's all that bad. As a GM you're designing the encounters to begin with. It's just as easy for me to say a die rolled 2 points higher as it is to give a dude 4 more points in strength. Or maybe say that he had Bull's Strength up all along. Or instead of saying he got a 20 on his save against Finger of Death, the BBEG had up a Deathward (assuming of course that the PCs hadn't already checked his buffs or tried to dispel them).

If the GM is making up the encounter anyway, why does it need to be made up in advance? Why can't it be made up on the spot?

Discuss.

Psyx
2010-08-31, 09:27 AM
"I want to see them run from the dinosaur or to think better of attacking the slaver camp. And quite frankly, that's an unfashionable attitude in this day and age."


There's a bit in the DMG that recommends that 5% of encounters should be 'overwhelming' and the party should know when to run away. A lot of players tend to forget this attitude and assume that if the monster appears unkillable, that they just aren't hitting it enough.

I recommend photocopying that bit of the GM and sticking it on the outside of a GM screen. Then when players bleat about 'unwinnable' encounters, point out that running away is always an option...

FelixG
2010-08-31, 09:31 AM
The objective is to have fun, so, sometime, you "fudge" for the fun.
The climatic encounter is going too easy for the players? OK I'll let the BBEG live a couple of round more, spreadin havoc 'til I see a real apprehension in the eyes of my players (of course, if I'm cheating in favour of the BBEG, I won't kill anyone in those "bonus rounds").


What happens if the BBEG say, scores a crit on a caster in those bonus rounds that would just murder said caster and kill em? do you fudge it further and let him live or reroll ect?



I personally find the dream thing, one of the lamest tricks in the hand of the DM, and I HATED it, when my old DM used it to compensate his errors in the previous encounter.
But is a matter of personal tastes. :smallwink:

Eh i dont do it with every TPK, if i did then i would be making the game just too easy, its just the simplest thing i can set up, if players get themselves killed through stupidity i wont do a rewind for em. :smallbiggrin:

Tyndmyr
2010-08-31, 09:35 AM
Because making up stats on the spot lead to shrodinger's NPCs. Why can't the PCs make up their list of prepared spells on the spot? Because it totally violates anything resembling balance in the game world. Oh look, they just happen to have "prepared" spells that work in the situation. It's extremely easy to violate verisimulitude, and it tends to lead to shallower characters.

If you planned for a character to have death ward up for some logical reason, then great. But it's a minute/level buff. This isn't going to be appropriate unless the caster is preparing for a combat in which he expects SoDs. Any caster capable of finger of deathing him is going to make the spellcraft check to identify it if he casts it, too.

The other problem with this approach is that it encourages metagaming. I've played against such approaches, and it makes SoD's weaker, as you HAVE to check buffs first. It makes invisibility poor, as true seeing just *happens* to be up. However, unless the DM is prepared to get utterly ridiculous, scry and die usually works. Scry and detect magic(if it works) is immensely powerful(remember, you can scry people around him, not just him), as it then locks the DM into a set of buffs that he has to think up on the spot. In fact, any information gathering spells then become ridiculously powerful.

Of course, such a blatantly metagame DM vs PCs approach is generally terrible for immersion.

Killer Angel
2010-08-31, 09:40 AM
Here's why I don't necessarily think it's all that bad. As a GM you're designing the encounters to begin with. It's just as easy for me to say a die rolled 2 points higher as it is to give a dude 4 more points in strength. Or maybe say that he had Bull's Strength up all along. Or instead of saying he got a 20 on his save against Finger of Death, the BBEG had up a Deathward (assuming of course that the PCs hadn't already checked his buffs or tried to dispel them).

If the GM is making up the encounter anyway, why does it need to be made up in advance? Why can't it be made up on the spot?


The way I see it:

Fudgin': I modify a roll to obtain a certain result.
The wizard casts disintegrate at my vampire, It needs a 14 to save. I roll a 13... I declare: "the vampire saved".

Cheatin': giving the monsters abilities or buffs I didn't think of.
The wizard casts Black Tentacles at my Werevolf Lord.
I declare: "the werewolf had Freedom of movement".


There's a bit in the DMG that recommends that 5% of encounters should be 'overwhelming' and the party should know when to run away. A lot of players tend to forget this attitude and assume that if the monster appears unkillable, that they just aren't hitting it enough.

I recommend photocopying that bit of the GM and sticking it on the outside of a GM screen. Then when players bleat about 'unwinnable' encounters, point out that running away is always an option...

This is really a good suggestion. :smallsmile:

valadil
2010-08-31, 09:46 AM
I've played against such approaches, and it makes SoD's weaker, as you HAVE to check buffs first. It makes invisibility poor, as true seeing just *happens* to be up. However, unless the DM is prepared to get utterly ridiculous, scry and die usually works. Scry and detect magic(if it works) is immensely powerful(remember, you can scry people around him, not just him), as it then locks the DM into a set of buffs that he has to think up on the spot. In fact, any information gathering spells then become ridiculously powerful.


This is the only way I've seen high level D&D get played. I'm okay with info gathering spells being powerful in that way. If the PCs are doing their homework outside of combat, good for them they deserve to do well.

The Glyphstone
2010-08-31, 09:46 AM
No. Just no. No do-overs. A TPK is a TPK. TPK's aren't accidents. There is either poor planning on the PCs part, or poor planning on the DMs part.

TPK = New campaign.

Fudging a die every now and again to save a character during their critical portion of the plot, however, is completely justified. Saving a character with no plot connection, however, is not justified.

Why?

Just to throw a current and first-hand example out there, I'm currently running a game where the band of PCs ran headlong into something way too tough for them (the main camp of a bandit raiding force), and decided to stick it out and fight rather than run away. It's looking like they'll be wiped out, and probably dumped in the forest while the bandits go loot and pillage like bandits do. In this case, I happen to have a previously established Druid NPC lurking in the area (a former PC) who can cast Reincarnate. Does it make me a bad GM that I intend to have them Reincarnated rather than just saying "Game Over Man! Game Over!", hopefully with an IC lesson learned?

dsmiles
2010-08-31, 09:49 AM
Why?

Just to throw a current and first-hand example out there, I'm currently running a game where the band of PCs ran headlong into something way too tough for them (the main camp of a bandit raiding force), and decided to stick it out and fight rather than run away. It's looking like they'll be wiped out, and probably dumped in the forest while the bandits go loot and pillage like bandits do. In this case, I happen to have a previously established Druid NPC lurking in the area (a former PC) who can cast Reincarnate. Does it make me a bad GM that I intend to have them Reincarnated rather than just saying "Game Over Man! Game Over!", hopefully with an IC lesson learned?

Never. Reincarnate is one of the most fun spells in the game, IMO.

"Badgers? We don't need no stinkin' badgers!"

EDIT: Espacially badgers with class levels.

Killer Angel
2010-08-31, 09:49 AM
What happens if the BBEG say, scores a crit on a caster in those bonus rounds that would just murder said caster and kill em? do you fudge it further and let him live or reroll ect?


If I fudged in favor of the BBEG, I’ll ignore a rolled crit, fudgin also in favor of the PCs, otherwise, it wouldn’t be fair.
(At that point, in my mind the fight is over, only my players still don't know it... I'm simply doing some theatre for their fun, to keep the fight exciting and, since i do this very rarely, it passes unnoticed).

If I’m not fudging in favor of the BBEG, well, I go with the crit.

Kylarra
2010-08-31, 09:49 AM
Why?

Just to throw a current and first-hand example out there, I'm currently running a game where the band of PCs ran headlong into something way too tough for them (the main camp of a bandit raiding force), and decided to stick it out and fight rather than run away. It's looking like they'll be wiped out, and probably dumped in the forest while the bandits go loot and pillage like bandits do. In this case, I happen to have a previously established Druid NPC lurking in the area (a former PC) who can cast Reincarnate. Does it make me a bad GM that I intend to have them Reincarnated rather than just saying "Game Over Man! Game Over!", hopefully with an IC lesson learned?Maximize and empower the reincarnation so that they end up in the next spell!

valadil
2010-08-31, 10:04 AM
I had another thought. Actually I had this one a while ago in another fudging/cheating thread but I don't remember getting a clear answer.

Obviously people are of mixed opinions about whether or not GMs can or should adjust the dice. How would it work out if before the game, the GM asked everybody at the table to write down their own personal preference and then the GM stuck to that preference for each individual. Hardcore players lost their characters to an errant d20. Players too attached to their characters wouldn't have to give them up. Everybody wins!

Tyndmyr
2010-08-31, 10:17 AM
This is the only way I've seen high level D&D get played. I'm okay with info gathering spells being powerful in that way. If the PCs are doing their homework outside of combat, good for them they deserve to do well.

It's certainly not the only way I've seen high level D&D played. It's one way...but DMing in such a fashion will make such tactics necessary asap. It traps the players into engaging in magical one-upmanship.

Glyph, nah, that doesn't make you a bad GM. I already brought up the possibility of story related raise dead's and the like. Great plot hook.

Im not sure that it would make a great deal of sense to have different players playing essentially a different game. It could be done, sure, but it might lead to again, the risk of metagaming. If you're pretty sure the DM'll cheat a die to save you, so long as he doesn't view your actions as stupid, you might make different decisions than your more mortal teammates.

valadil
2010-08-31, 10:21 AM
Im not sure that it would make a great deal of sense to have different players playing essentially a different game. It could be done, sure, but it might lead to again, the risk of metagaming. If you're pretty sure the DM'll cheat a die to save you, so long as he doesn't view your actions as stupid, you might make different decisions than your more mortal teammates.

True, but I think the fudging could go both ways. If a player is okay with being saved, I might just fudge out his attempt to one shot the BBEG. Played that way, the safe characters would have less potential for awesome than the hardcore ones.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-31, 10:28 AM
Obviously people are of mixed opinions about whether or not GMs can or should adjust the dice. How would it work out if before the game, the GM asked everybody at the table to write down their own personal preference and then the GM stuck to that preference for each individual. Hardcore players lost their characters to an errant d20. Players too attached to their characters wouldn't have to give them up. Everybody wins!
Except that then you have hardcore players getting annoyed that their allies never seem to get in trouble while they live in fear of every encounter. It's the DM's Girlfriend Problem writ large - players expect equal treatment from the DM; unless the unequal treatment is part of the game, suspecting that it exists can be enough to spoil a campaign.

Plus, every player who wrote "safe" will now expect to walk-on-water and will get angry when their character does die - or the DM will get angry when nobody takes his challenges seriously.

valadil
2010-08-31, 10:37 AM
Except that then you have hardcore players getting annoyed that their allies never seem to get in trouble while they live in fear of every encounter. It's the DM's Girlfriend Problem writ large - players expect equal treatment from the DM; unless the unequal treatment is part of the game, suspecting that it exists can be enough to spoil a campaign.


There's death and there's trouble. Safe players will still be knocked into negatives and have to sit out for the fight.



Plus, every player who wrote "safe" will now expect to walk-on-water and will get angry when their character does die - or the DM will get angry when nobody takes his challenges seriously.

I already deal with players who expect the game to work that way. I've been told I don't fudge enough.

3? years ago I had a player throw a hissy fit. I crit and killed his character, but he got a free and immediate resurrection due to the circumstances. The crit was for something along the lines of 40 damage. That's what he was doing on a regular hit. He argued that it was too much damage and no enemy should be capable of that. It wasn't even a one hit kill - he was already wounded. Hypocrisy aside, his argument was that because he only had 10 Con (despite being a front line fighter) I should take that into account when I made enemies and only use foes that won't kill a low con character.

When dealing with players that already have that attitude, I don't see the harm in letting them opt in to GM fudging.

-- edit --

I do see your point about not taking challenges seriously though. I think that if I offered this to my players I'd have to define fudging for them a little more rigorously than I did in my previous description. The definition would probably include something about being saved from death outside of a boss fight, but against a boss anything goes.

dsmiles
2010-08-31, 10:43 AM
When dealing with players that already have that attitude,

Oooo...that player would have had some serious issues with me DMing. Even I can see that that's bad optimizing, and a bad attitude to boot.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-31, 10:50 AM
I do see your point about not taking challenges seriously though. I think that if I offered this to my players I'd have to define fudging for them a little more rigorously than I did in my previous description. The definition would probably include something about being saved from death outside of a boss fight, but against a boss anything goes.
If you want a more rigorous system, there's a mechanic I'm using in my rebuild of oWoD Mage [/shameless plug]
As part of a SR3-style "category" character creation system, people can invest in a certain rank of "Unmei." Low ranks of Unmei grant you the power to make a certain number of personal rerolls per encounter. Higher ranks allow you to force an enemy to make a reroll or - at the highest level - allow you to upgrade one die into an exploding Success die.
This is an example of a "fudging mechanic" that gives the players more control over their character's mortality without removing risk entirely. IMHO, if you want to use fudging for dramatic purposes, it's better to make it an open mechanic in the game.

For D&D3.5, you can give PCs Fate Points and let them know that some baddies will have Drama Points. These points can be spent to force a reroll and can be regained under certain conditions. In my experience, 4E doesn't require such a mechanic since it is relatively easy for PCs to purchase re-rolls of their own and there are few times when a single d20 is going to wreck an Encounter.

Caphi
2010-08-31, 10:59 AM
Hypocrisy aside, his argument was that because he only had 10 Con (despite being a front line fighter) I should take that into account when I made enemies and only use foes that won't kill a low con character.

I'm on the "no stupid deaths please" side, but honestly... if I made a low-constitution character and got done in by one simple attack, it would probably be because I failed to adjust for my weakness accordingly. That's actually happened to be before, and I totally accept the reason being because I didn't tactics hard enough.

A character should be able to function in a variety of situations, not only ones crafted to suit him. That's just ludicrous.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-31, 11:15 AM
3? years ago I had a player throw a hissy fit. I crit and killed his character, but he got a free and immediate resurrection due to the circumstances. The crit was for something along the lines of 40 damage. That's what he was doing on a regular hit. He argued that it was too much damage and no enemy should be capable of that. It wasn't even a one hit kill - he was already wounded. Hypocrisy aside, his argument was that because he only had 10 Con (despite being a front line fighter) I should take that into account when I made enemies and only use foes that won't kill a low con character.

When dealing with players that already have that attitude, I don't see the harm in letting them opt in to GM fudging.

I would personally suggest that the problem is the player viewing enemies as walking supplies of xp and loot.

Tharck
2010-08-31, 11:15 AM
I don't cheat and i've never seen a TPK due to bad rolls once the group is past level 6. It's a result of how hard the encounter is. But even creatures of equal CR is generally going to only tax the PCs around 20% of their resources.

I also try to shy away from single mob encounters.

Run the game in however you need to for people to come back. Remember to make sure everyone is having fun, including yourself.

But "Fudging" is cheating, not a horse of a different color. The same as deciding a Naga from the book you didn't write before hand has Dispel Magic on it's list because the PCs have a Minor Globe of Invulnerability active.

Also understand by deciding something as simple as that you have made the choice of that PC to memorize (or choose as a spell if a spont caster) trivial and meaningless.

"Fudging" a die roll to score a hit, miss a hit, make a saving throw, ect does the same thing by making character build, feat selection, itemization, and tactics (ot lack there-of) equally meaningless.

Why do I have Spell Focus if the BBEG will make his save until you decide he can fail.

Why do I habe Greater Wpn Fcs if you lower the mobs AC by 3?

Why use Power Attack for more damage if you're just going to double it's HPs?

Why play out a battle against orcs in the Orc infested swamp if our getting through it is guarenteed? Couldn't a cut-scene type of story telling had gone on for that?

{Scrubbed}

Kylarra
2010-08-31, 11:16 AM
I would personally suggest that the problem is the player viewing enemies as walking supplies of xp and loot.That's how you're supposed to view players, right?

The Big Dice
2010-08-31, 11:16 AM
For D&D3.5, you can give PCs Fate Points and let them know that some baddies will have Drama Points. These points can be spent to force a reroll and can be regained under certain conditions. In my experience, 4E doesn't require such a mechanic since it is relatively easy for PCs to purchase re-rolls of their own and there are few times when a single d20 is going to wreck an Encounter.
I like Fate Points as described in Warhammer 1st edition. You can use them to dodge death, but not the circumstance that caused your death. So if you get killed in a fight, the death blow just knocked you out. If you got killed by the roof falling in on you, you're now trapped under the rubble. Destiny Points in Star Wars Saga Edition are fun too. Though it's really difficult to kill a PC in that game.

My personal favourite PC "benny" are Hero Points as found in Mutants and Masterminds. They can manipulate things in all kinds of ways, but the way the player gets them is by the GM using GM Fiat against them. It rewards the players for the GM turning the cruise control off.


As much as I agree that GMs can't "cheat," I have to disagree with this. You can't "win" DnD.
You can win BECMI/RC D&D. All you have to do is play through 36 levels as a Mortal, then 36 levels of the Immortal game. At which point your character disperses his immortal essence back into the universe and becomes a 1st level character again. Then you play through all 72 levels of Mortal and Immortal. At which point the Old Ones, mysterious and enigmatic beings who may be the creators of the universe (but who aren't in the least bit Lovecraftian, or at least most of them aren't) come and take you beyond the Great Vortex or something.

At which point not only do you win the game, but you've probably been playing the same character for the best part of 20 years.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-31, 11:21 AM
Why do I have Spell Focus if the BBEG will make his save until you decide he can fail.

Why do I habe Greater Wpn Fcs if you lower the mobs AC by 3?


I've actually heard players discussing the mechanics of AC, wherin they decided that boosting it was a pointless waste of money in most cases, as the DMs just boosted mobs ability to hit to compensate. They decided that it was optimal to have one extremely high AC character in a party of general low AC people, as the DM wouldn't be able to boost it much without putting them at risk.

Better uses of money were described as things that gave you more counters or options that the DM couldn't easily negate. IE, the christmas tree effect.

Grifthin
2010-08-31, 11:24 AM
I cheat all the time - I also try and optimize npc's etc. However the way I do it is to push major encounters, more enemies, more Hitpoints, more damage - I make the party fight every battle like it's their last. If see a group of kobolds my players don't go - "oh we are level 15, they don't stand a chance". They approach cautiously, I try and find new traps all the time, enemy characters buff before hand, they use the enviroment to their advantage. It's possible for my players to die pointlessly - I won't stop them from dying. I will however fudge dice on my side and make saves when I deem it necessary so that even a horribly under CR encounter will be talked about for weeks later. Smart tactics, Exploiting party weaknesses etc.

We had a young black dragon recently face the party - They where gestalt and about 2 levels above what I had planned originally - I tacked on some ac, Hp and slightly higher saves. I gave it 1-2 different feats and some clever item use. It started poorly for them with the little bugger busting out Mirror image/darkness, spring attack/snatch etc - wearing the party down with hit and run maneuvers, spells, summons etc. Net result - it needed some crazy inventive strategy from them, insanely lucky (they where gambling, so insanely) and creative item use. They killed it but they are still talking about it - how so and so did this, how another player did that etc.

So yeah I "cheat" - but only so that players can have fun. I keep them on their toes, I bleed their resources, I give them puzzles and make them think. I think it's fun for us all, me trying to outwit them and them coming up with improbably schemes to destroy my cleverly laid plans. I'm thinking the black dragon's mommy is gonna have a talk with them soon. Actions have consequences after all....

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-31, 11:28 AM
We had a young black dragon recently face the party - They where gestalt and about 2 levels above what I had planned originally - I tacked on some ac, Hp and slightly higher saves. I gave it 1-2 different feats and some clever item use. It started poorly for them with the little bugger busting out Mirror image/darkness, spring attack/snatch etc - wearing the party down with hit and run maneuvers, spells, summons etc. Net result - it needed some crazy inventive strategy from them, insanely lucky (they where gambling, so insanely) and creative item use. They killed it but they are still talking about it - how so and so did this, how another player did that etc.
This sounds less like cheating and more like intelligent encounter design.

I suppose we need a baseline definition. How about : "revising enemy abilities/statistics mid-fight and misreporting die rolls?"

Also, I think it's time for this thread to enter the "arguing about definitions" phase of any ambigious topic :smalltongue:

Tyndmyr
2010-08-31, 11:34 AM
Designing challenging encounters is explicitly what a DM is supposed to do, and what his players expect him to do. It's not something he needs to hide. Definitely not cheating.

Something is cheating if you need to avoid being caught at it.

Therefore, house rules such as "fate dice", etc that you can spend to decrease odds of an unlucky death(these exist formally in some systems) are not cheating. They are merely a set of rules, since no deception is involved.

Ruinix
2010-08-31, 11:35 AM
all this cheat and fudge it sound to me like start a game on easy mode with a lot of save points and fast reload. :smallannoyed:


a P&P rol game should be as simulationist as could be, including risk for death and death inself. if not is like run Diablo II in god mode on.

Umael
2010-08-31, 11:42 AM
all this cheat and fudge it sound to me like start a game on easy mode with a lot of save points and fast reload. :smallannoyed:


a P&P rol game should be as simulationist as could be, including risk for death and death inself. if not is like run Diablo II in god mode on.

You mean, a P&P game should be this way for you.

Not everyone plays the same style of game or enjoys it the same way as you might.

Serenity
2010-08-31, 11:45 AM
RPGs are all illusion, anyway. If we can feel suspense and fear for a character's life in a TV show or movie even if we know they're too important to actually kill off, then there's no particular reason we cannot feel suspense even if we know the DM is fudging. By all means, the DM should not do so frequently, and should try to avoid doing so explicitly--though their have been times I have explicitly told them I'm saving one of their lives, and things haven't suffered for it. I play D&D to take part in a heroic epic. But by all means, I cheat. But when I run D&D, I'm running a heroic epic. If the ancient wizard king at the climax of the whole bloody campaign goes down like a bitch in the first round and never gets to show how he got to be a feared ancient wizard-king in the process, something's very wrong with that picture. And while character death can certainly be dramatic, I've always found the aftermath, well, isn't. Either they have a raise spell on hand, in which case, death is just another status ailment--with a stiff penalty attached to curing it. Or they drag them back to town, for much the same effect with a side order of disrupting the quest. Or else, a new character must be brought in, which often strains credulity. I can't attach a quest to raising fallen comrades, because one of my players would be sitting outside the game, twiddling his thumbs.

On the other hand, when I ST for the VtM LARP at college, I have utterly no compunction about letting a character die, so long as they aren't on their first handful of games--and there's a reason we urge new players to take the Common Sense merit! A matter of genre, really.

Drascin
2010-08-31, 11:45 AM
all this cheat and fudge it sound to me like start a game on easy mode with a lot of save points and fast reload. :smallannoyed:


a P&P rol game should be as simulationist as could be, including risk for death and death inself. if not is like run Diablo II in god mode on.

I respectfully disagree with the bolded part. I have never cared much for simulationism, and never will. And I don't give much weight to the idea that PC death is absolutely necessary.

For example, I am playing right now in two campaigns where according to the game's rules it's basically impossible for the players to die (M&M will do that) - and yet they still manage to be tense, interesting affairs, because there's a lot more at stake than our lives. Certainly a lot more than my old romps with my old killer DM, that much is certain :smalltongue:.

As a DM, I try to go for the same thing myself.

The Glyphstone
2010-08-31, 11:47 AM
all this cheat and fudge it sound to me like start a game on easy mode with a lot of save points and fast reload. :smallannoyed:


a P&P rol game should be as simulationist as could be, including risk for death and death inself. if not is like run Diablo II in god mode on.

Not everyone likes playing Diablo II in Hardcore.

Psyx
2010-08-31, 11:51 AM
"If the GM is making up the encounter anyway, why does it need to be made up in advance? Why can't it be made up on the spot?"

Well; mechanically that's difficult in complex games anyway. Sure: For Feng Shui, you can dream up 50 mooks on the spot. Not so much for Rolemaster.


More crucially it leads to literally moving the goalposts for the players. The GM is aiming for an end result, and robbing his PCs of... almost an element of free will by doing things in this manner. It means that the encounter always will fit the GM's preconceived idea, rather than be in the PC's hands.

'Hmm... they cast KILLSPELL on the NPC who I really like... Hah: He has Protection from KILLSPELL running.'

With moving goalposts, players give up on using their best efforts. Why spend 4 combat rounds using your 'best' spells when you know that your GM is determined to make the fight last at least 5 rounds? All you are doing -as a player- is wasting your best resources trying to achieve something unobtainable. Why try for results when they happen only when they coincide with what the GM wants? It's micro-railroading, really.

***

Someone mentioned Fate Points, and I like things like that. I always write Luck Points of some kind into my systems. That way if the dice suck, Players can bail themselves out in a fair manner, within the rules. If they REALLY want to do something cool... it's in their hands. Luck Points stop the GM having to fudge with a poker face.

***

Mention has been made of 'do overs'. I would never even consider it, as a GM. It's far too late by that point.

dsmiles
2010-08-31, 11:58 AM
"If the GM is making up the encounter anyway, why does it need to be made up in advance? Why can't it be made up on the spot?"

Well; mechanically that's difficult in complex games anyway. Sure: For Feng Shui, you can dream up 50 mooks on the spot. Not so much for Rolemaster.


More crucially it leads to literally moving the goalposts for the players. The GM is aiming for an end result, and robbing his PCs of... almost an element of free will by doing things in this manner. It means that the encounter always will fit the GM's preconceived idea, rather than be in the PC's hands.

'Hmm... they cast KILLSPELL on the NPC who I really like... Hah: He has Protection from KILLSPELL running.'

With moving goalposts, players give up on using their best efforts. Why spend 4 combat rounds using your 'best' spells when you know that your GM is determined to make the fight last at least 5 rounds? All you are doing -as a player- is wasting your best resources trying to achieve something unobtainable. Why try for results when they happen only when they coincide with what the GM wants? It's micro-railroading, really.

***

Someone mentioned Fate Points, and I like things like that. I always write Luck Points of some kind into my systems. That way if the dice suck, Players can bail themselves out in a fair manner, within the rules. If they REALLY want to do something cool... it's in their hands. Luck Points stop the GM having to fudge with a poker face.

***

Mention has been made of 'do overs'. I would never even consider it, as a GM. It's far too late by that point.

In HoL, you have the Grace of God pool. It contains 1d4 divine interventions to save the party's butts. It only contains 1d4 divine interventions, ever. the first player to call on the Grace of God when it's at 0 points, instead calls down the Wrath of God.

I like this system.

The Big Dice
2010-08-31, 12:29 PM
a P&P rol game should be as simulationist as could be, including risk for death and death inself. if not is like run Diablo II in god mode on.
Someone always tries to bring in GNS :smallfrown:

"If the GM is making up the encounter anyway, why does it need to be made up in advance? Why can't it be made up on the spot?"
It can be. I certainly used to make up encounters on the fly or from random encounter tables when I was running Cyberpunk.

Of course now i realise that random encounters means random damage and chance of death, so I tend not to use them. But that's a different story.

More crucially it leads to literally moving the goalposts for the players. The GM is aiming for an end result, and robbing his PCs of... almost an element of free will by doing things in this manner. It means that the encounter always will fit the GM's preconceived idea, rather than be in the PC's hands.

'Hmm... they cast KILLSPELL on the NPC who I really like... Hah: He has Protection from KILLSPELL running.'

With moving goalposts, players give up on using their best efforts. Why spend 4 combat rounds using your 'best' spells when you know that your GM is determined to make the fight last at least 5 rounds? All you are doing -as a player- is wasting your best resources trying to achieve something unobtainable. Why try for results when they happen only when they coincide with what the GM wants? It's micro-railroading, really.
All roleplaying involves micro railroading if you look at it from the right angle.

The thing is, a GM is a person in the room with the players. This often gets forgotten in discussion. Especially D&D discussions, since D&D has taken the route of treating the GM as being both of secondary importance and being removed from the events taking place in-game. And those moving goalposts should be getting shifted just enough so the players have to work to get a goal. Not quite enough to make them miss, but enough so that they cross their fingers once the ball is in the air.

Which is a stupid mindset. The GM is an active participant in the game. It falls to the GM to make sure that the other players have a good time, just as it falls to the players to ensure that the GM has fun.

If the Gm isn't empowered to do whatever needs to be done to make sure that the players are enjoying themselves then there's a problem.

Back in the day it was an accepted fact that the GM was going to fudge dice and mess with stat blocks. In fact it was encouraged, so that players could be kept on their toes. But now, it's a case of All Hail the Book! Play by the rules all the time no matter what. No matter that the rules just killed your game off or gave your players a very unsatisfying experience.

If your players are happy and you're happy as a GM, then that's good. Personally, I find my players don't like having their characters killed in an anticlimactic fluke becaue the Gm decided to roll everything in front of them any more than they enjoy those nights when they don't roll a single dice that hits double figures.

JBento
2010-08-31, 01:31 PM
I dislike fudging a lot. I don't do it, and I'm pretty annoyed if my DM does it - this is the point I hand him my character and say "here, you play it, and I'll be doing something that I can actually impact."

There was a post 2 pages back of someone saying they'd fudge to keep the hit-by-disintegrate vampire alive - well, I want my spell slot and standard actionback, and I'd also like to be informed of all the spells that don't work in your campaign.

I don't see what's everyone's problem with 3.5 TPK: I mean, it's not like the afterlife doesn't have a revolving door - several actually - and you can always have an NPC bring them back to life, geas'd for that little special service.

dsmiles
2010-08-31, 01:35 PM
All Hail the Book! All Hail the Book! All Hail the Book! All Hail the Book!

Drascin
2010-08-31, 01:40 PM
I don't see what's everyone's problem with 3.5 TPK: I mean, it's not like the afterlife doesn't have a revolving door - several actually - and you can always have an NPC bring them back to life, geas'd for that little special service.

I have to say, I keep hearing this suggestion and it always struck me as a bit odd - not wrong or anything, God knows I've done more contrived stuff myself, but just a tad curious on the philosophical level. Shifting the DC of a spell a bit downwards so the players survive is railroading and you feel like you aren't making choices or having an impact, but having an exceedingly convenient NPC appear from nowhere in the middle of a dungeon and resurrect the characters under bound service they can't escape from so they have to do whatever he says is a-ok? :smallconfused:

dsmiles
2010-08-31, 01:43 PM
I have to say, I keep hearing this suggestion and it always struck me as a bit odd - not wrong or anything, God knows I've done more contrived stuff myself, but just a tad curious on the philosophical level. Shifting the DC of a spell a bit downwards so the players survive is railroading and you feel like you aren't making choices or having an impact, but having an exceedingly convenient NPC appear from nowhere in the middle of a dungeon and resurrect the characters under bound service they can't escape from so they have to do whatever he says is a-ok? :smallconfused:

Of course, it all depends on what size village/hamlet happens to be close by, and if they have a population large enough to support someone who can cast Resurrection, or even Raise Dead for that matter. It also depends on the slim chance that someone in said village/hamlet would even care about a bunch of dead adventurers beyond, "Look at the phat lewts! I can git me some gold from this here magic stuff."

Caphi
2010-08-31, 01:43 PM
All Hail the Book! All Hail the Book! All Hail the Book! All Hail the Book!

You may make a contribution at any time. Preferably one that isn't a poor insult at people who don't share your views about monster statistics in play?

LansXero
2010-08-31, 01:43 PM
having an exceedingly convenient NPC appear from nowhere in the middle of a dungeon and resurrect the characters under bound service they can't escape from so they have to do whatever he says is a-ok? :smallconfused:

Its the railroading you earn for getting yourself killed, I guess that sort of makes it ok, because if you hadnt gotten in over your head, it wouldnt have happened. Players want to live or die by their actions, not by dramatic tension. If I screw up as a player, I want to get killed for it, at most be given a chance to reevaluate and retreat, but not to miraculously dodge all incoming attacks or be ignored when Im at 1 hp (or -9). If I screw up as a DM on making an encounter too easy, the party deserves that curbstomp battle for figuring it out; If I make it too hard and the party overstimates themselves, they deserve getting their butts handed to them. Its rarely inmediate or inevitable, and its always based on people's actions, not on the DM wanting a "grand finale".

dsmiles
2010-08-31, 01:48 PM
You may make a contribution at any time. Preferably one that isn't a poor insult at people who don't share your views about monster statistics in play?

This isn't a discussion about monster statistics, it's about whether people can have fun, or not, when the dice are fudged either for or against them. And yes, I am in the "fudge the dice" camp. I find that TPKs from poor dice rolls tend to just disappoint the players and DM alike, so why should I not fudge if it's going to let the players have more fun?

JBento
2010-08-31, 01:48 PM
Except that an NPC doesn't, as you put it, appear in the middle of the dungeon. Nor does he necessarily do it anytime close to the time the characters died.

Maybe the characters were fighting the Evil Overlord(TM) in his fortress and are killed. The EO displays their corpses, under heavy guard, as an example for anyone else that would like to try something funny. As time passes and the EO's power is consolidated, the guard becomes laxer, and a cleric working with the Resistance(C) gets a rogue of the aforementioned Resistance to steal a bit of each of their corpses so he can ressurect them, seeing as they were the ones who got the closest to defeating the EO.

Caphi
2010-08-31, 01:49 PM
This isn't a discussion about monster statistics, it's about whether people can have fun, or not, when the dice are fudged either for or against them. And yes, I am in the "fudge the dice" camp. I find that TPKs from poor dice rolls tend to just disappoint the players and DM alike, so why should I not fudge if it's going to let the players have more fun?

Oh, I agree. I just think you could make that point in a way that doesn't make you look exceedingly immature.

dsmiles
2010-08-31, 01:53 PM
Depends on the situation. If the players are all "into" the campaign, I'd probably fudge the dice and let them live. If they weren't, they get the "DECEASED" stamp all around (which I normally reserve for Darwinian demises, and, yes, I do have a 4" wide stamp that prints DECEASED in large, red, capital letters).

EDIT: Ultimately, it comes down to, "Are the players having fun with these characters?"

Hrm...immature you say? Check your math on that one.

awesomessake
2010-08-31, 01:56 PM
The GM can do whatever he wants, but if he's not careful he'll lose all of his players...

Tharck
2010-08-31, 01:57 PM
I have to say, I keep hearing this suggestion and it always struck me as a bit odd - not wrong or anything, God knows I've done more contrived stuff myself, but just a tad curious on the philosophical level. Shifting the DC of a spell a bit downwards so the players survive is railroading and you feel like you aren't making choices or having an impact, but having an exceedingly convenient NPC appear from nowhere in the middle of a dungeon and resurrect the characters under bound service they can't escape from so they have to do whatever he says is a-ok? :smallconfused:

Sometimes the PCs see an end to a campaign i've written.

Sometimes they don't because they die before getting there.

They are of course upset when they fail to live to a campaign end, or make poor choices. But when they do, and when they win, they know THEY did it. Be it got lucky, made good decisions, or out-thought the module or campaign and the NPCs therein. It's the part of the game I enjoy the most.

Imagine the Olympics if after years of practice and losing and finally making it to the Olympics when you were running slow, the lead runner would suddenly trip on themselves - buying you those much needed extra seconds - and you win by a nose!!! HUURAY!. You might have won.
But you know you lost.

Umael
2010-08-31, 02:00 PM
I don't see what's everyone's problem with 3.5 TPK: I mean, it's not like the afterlife doesn't have a revolving door - several actually - and you can always have an NPC bring them back to life, geas'd for that little special service.

True, but not all games are the same, even if my campaign and your campaign are both D&D 3.5.

Play the game hardcore - no raise dead, resurrection, or reincarnation. When you are dead, you're dead. TPK looks a little different now, yes?

See, you don't see what everyone's problem is, when the problem is that not everyone plays the same game as you, and that's what you seem not to be seeing.

dsmiles
2010-08-31, 02:00 PM
Sometimes the PCs see an end to a campaign i've written.

Sometimes they don't because they die before getting there.

They are of course upset when they fail to live to a campaign end, or make poor choices. But when they do, and when they win, they know THEY did it. Be it got lucky, made good decisions, or out-thought the module or campaign and the NPCs therein. It's the part of the game I enjoy the most.

Imagine the Olympics if after years of practice and losing and finally making it to the Olympics when you were running slow, the lead runner would suddenly trip on themselves - buying you those much needed extra seconds - and you win by a nose!!! HUURAY!. You might have won.
But you know you lost.

In theory, you'd rather see your character, whom you've put weeks, if not months, working on within the plot die because of a single random die roll, than to have him live to see the end of the adventure because the DM rolls the dice behind a screen?

Tharck
2010-08-31, 02:01 PM
In theory, you'd rather see your character, whom you've put weeks, if not months, working on within the plot die because of a single random die roll, than to have him live to see the end of the adventure because the DM rolls the dice behind a screen?


Yes. (I would prefer to reply with just "Yes" but I need at least 10 characters)

dsmiles
2010-08-31, 02:03 PM
Yes. (I would prefer to reply with just "Yes" but I need at least 10 characters)

To me, that's like going to the movies or reading a book where the main character dies in chapter 2. And you can use white text for shorter answers. :smallwink:

JBento
2010-08-31, 02:03 PM
True, but not all games are the same, even if my campaign and your campaign are both D&D 3.5.

Play the game hardcore - no raise dead, resurrection, or reincarnation. When you are dead, you're dead. TPK looks a little different now, yes?

See, you don't see what everyone's problem is, when the problem is that not everyone plays the same game as you, and that's what you seem not to be seeing.

If you're playing the game "hardcore," fudging hardly seems the way to go about it.

But the OP's post is exactly about how I play the game - or , better, how I feel about a certain way of playing the game. Also, the presence of "afterlife revolving doors" is both RAW and RAI, and I assume people play like that unless they inform otherwise.

Umael
2010-08-31, 02:07 PM
They are of course upset when they fail to live to a campaign end, or make poor choices. But when they do, and when they win, they know THEY did it. Be it got lucky, made good decisions, or out-thought the module or campaign and the NPCs therein. It's the part of the game I enjoy the most.

That is a perfectly valid way to play the game, and it's cool that you play it that way.

But that is your way. Not mine, or at least, not universally accepted by my gaming group.

We don't care about the end of the campaign story; we care about the characters' stories. An ill-timed death could spell a bad game session.

(Might you, we might play hardball the next campaign. Who knows?)



Imagine the Olympics if after years of practice and losing and finally making it to the Olympics when you were running slow, the lead runner would suddenly trip on themselves - buying you those much needed extra seconds - and you win by a nose!!! HUURAY!. You might have won.
But you know you lost.

Bad example.

If the lead athlete trips and falters, giving you what you need to succeed - you still win. The Olympics are competitive, and you need to be in your top form, physically and psychologically. The lead runner stumbled; you didn't. You were the better runner, even if the lead runner was faster.

A better example would be if the lead runner decided to give it up, maybe because he already had 3 gold medals and he felt sorry for you.

THAT would be a hollow victory.

(Mind you, I'm not agreeing that such an example is what happens in these gaming scenarios, just correcting your example.)

Tharck
2010-08-31, 02:09 PM
That is a perfectly valid way to play the game, and it's cool that you play it that way.

But that is your way. Not mine, or at least, not universally accepted by my gaming group.

We don't care about the end of the campaign story; we care about the characters' stories. An ill-timed death could spell a bad game session.

(Might you, we might play hardball the next campaign. Who knows?)



Bad example.

If the lead athlete trips and falters, giving you what you need to succeed - you still win. The Olympics are competitive, and you need to be in your top form, physically and psychologically. The lead runner stumbled; you didn't. You were the better runner, even if the lead runner was faster.

A better example would be if the lead runner decided to give it up, maybe because he already had 3 gold medals and he felt sorry for you.

THAT would be a hollow victory.

(Mind you, I'm not agreeing that such an example is what happens in these gaming scenarios, just correcting your example.)

Thanks for the correction. Much more fitting. He felt sorry for you. Perfect.

Caphi
2010-08-31, 02:14 PM
Okay. Let's try and get this thread centered again.

I see a consistent pattern of misunderstanding where one side is (seemingly) for fudging to save players no matter what, and the other side is (seemingly) for calling the dice as they are no matter what, and this is, as extreme views always do, causing friction. I don't even care if the points are as they seem to be or not. Compounding the problem, we have a lot of embarrassing behavior and name-calling from certain unnamed parties.

So let's make this clearer.

A few of you advocate fudging to prevent PC death.

To those people, I commend your dedication to your characters, but point out that the pro-dice faction probably enjoys a harsher, more lethal game.

A few of you advocate always playing by the luck of the dice.

To those people... see above, but reversed.

A few moderates advocate fudging to prevent egregiously boring events from happening as a result of GM misplanning or plain rotten luck.

To you, I ask where one draws the line between what a player could help and what he couldn't. (Probably the answer is "depends on the intended difficulty of the game").

And yes, dsmiles, immature. You've made some actual arguments, but "people that play with hard luck and no breaks are imaginationless morons who are invariably playing the game wrong by thoughtlessly slaving themselves to printed material" (or, as you prefer to put it, "All Hail the Book! All Hail the Book!") is definitely not one of them.

Umael
2010-08-31, 02:16 PM
If you're playing the game "hardcore," fudging hardly seems the way to go about it.

I suppose "hardcore" does imply no fudging as well. Is there a term for playing in a world that does not have a way of returning to life?

Because, yes, I can see a campaign where the GM is willing to fudge the die rolls while still going with the idea that once your PC is dead, dead is dead, no coming back. And I can see it as possibly being enjoyable, although that is more a matter of opinion.



But the OP's post is exactly about how I play the game - or , better, how I feel about a certain way of playing the game. Also, the presence of "afterlife revolving doors" is both RAW and RAI, and I assume people play like that unless they inform otherwise.

You assume incorrectly.

I will give you points for specifying 3.5 earlier, but the fact is not everyone plays the same way, even with 3.5, nor do they need to be informed otherwise.

The "revolving door" works for some games, the gaming groups, the play styles, the campaign. But there are a number of ways of limiting involvement in such things, be it the GM's campaign setting, in-character access, personal taste, or just ignorance.

(I also point out that once you step aside from D&D, your assumption breaks down even faster.)

Tyndmyr
2010-08-31, 02:17 PM
In theory, you'd rather see your character, whom you've put weeks, if not months, working on within the plot die because of a single random die roll, than to have him live to see the end of the adventure because the DM rolls the dice behind a screen?

Yes.

A story that only works because of Deus Ex Machina is a terrible story. Not every protaganist always makes it to the end of the plot. It might be tragic for him, but he is not the only protaganist. Plus, occasionally, death is not the end. Especially in D&D. Sometimes such things make sense within the story, sometimes they don't. Which type of game you play is up to you, and should be discussed beforehand if it's dramatically non-standard for the system.

Umael
2010-08-31, 02:23 PM
Okay. Let's try and get this thread centered again.

I guess I am one of the moderates then, as I can see why playing one way or the other would be enjoyable. I know with my gaming group that it would be fun to shake things up by running a "hardcore" game once to see how people react to it.

My issue is that a bunch of people who are solidly against "cheating" seem to be completely unwilling to believe that for some groups, in certain circumstances, "cheating" works.

(Conversely, sometimes you should play a game where the dice DO fall where they may. Different experiences, don't get in a rut and all.)

"Cheating" is not that dissimilar from having "scripted" events. For some groups, in some campaigns, it works. For others, it doesn't.

Drascin
2010-08-31, 02:25 PM
Except that an NPC doesn't, as you put it, appear in the middle of the dungeon. Nor does he necessarily do it anytime close to the time the characters died.

Maybe the characters were fighting the Evil Overlord(TM) in his fortress and are killed. The EO displays their corpses, under heavy guard, as an example for anyone else that would like to try something funny. As time passes and the EO's power is consolidated, the guard becomes laxer, and a cleric working with the Resistance(C) gets a rogue of the aforementioned Resistance to steal a bit of each of their corpses so he can ressurect them, seeing as they were the ones who got the closest to defeating the EO.

Thing is, TPKs in the depths of a dungeon do happen. Getting eaten by a monster is a pretty common risk for adventurers of all stripes. And there you can't quite just have a friendly cleric just happen to be visiting the dungeon with 25000 gp of diamonds in his pocket there without the players thinking that this breaks the immersion a heck of a lot more than a little fudge.

And even in your example... this being necessarily a Cleric around level 9, for Resurrection to be available - Raise Dead's time limit is pretty strict. And the fact that a little resistance cell has 25000 gp worth of diamonds and the will to spend them in the similarly-leveled (at most - never have seen or GM'd a game over tenth level) party? I dunno, that would probably hurt my immersion a lot more than the GM simply thinking"...these guys are having horrid luck today. I think I'll tune the baddie's rolls down a bit to match"

Besides, not that it matters, because I've never actually seen a player who wanted to go to the trouble of resurrecting a character :smalltongue:. Death is as final as can be in my games, because you could have a resurrect-o-matic in the village corner, and the players would still refuse to lose the level and money :smalltongue:.

LansXero
2010-08-31, 02:33 PM
"Cheating" is not that dissimilar from having "scripted" events. For some groups, in some campaigns, it works. For others, it doesn't.

Thats just the thing; if you want something to happen, why make the players go through the hoops? Just script / narrate / cinematic it and everyone can enjoy the awesome tail without being led by the nose into a foolish semblance of free will.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-31, 02:41 PM
Besides, not that it matters, because I've never actually seen a player who wanted to go to the trouble of resurrecting a character :smalltongue:. Death is as final as can be in my games, because you could have a resurrect-o-matic in the village corner, and the players would still refuse to lose the level and money :smalltongue:.

I always have players come in at minimum xp at whatever level the lowest player is on. Due to attendance discrepancies, party level typically sits at about a two level spread. Any more than that tends to get canceled out by the whole xp is a river thing. New characters come in with strict WBL guidelines, which tends to be somewhat less than you get by randomly rolling loot. The loot guidelines tend to assume decent consumable usage, and most parties are reasonably stingy on burning valuable items.

In short, getting a raise dead or true rez is usually less painful than rerolling.

This results in the players using interesting methods to ensure ressurection. A common high leveled arrangement includes a deposit of a large sum of gold at a temple(lawful ones are strangely preferred for this purpose), with instructions to true rez them if they are ever out of contact for a specified length of time. Low leveled parties take less magical, cheaper methods, such as actually telling trusted townsfolk where they're going and when they plan to be back.

tcrudisi
2010-08-31, 02:55 PM
Admittedly, I have only run modules at a few gaming conventions (so I understand that I am certainly not speaking for everyone, obviously), but that does mean I've ran several dozen different groups that I would not have ever run for in my local area. Yet, when I sit down to DM at a convention, as soon as we do player introductions, I inform them that "I am Tim - I'm your DM for this module. There are a few things I want you guys to know. First, I'm running the game because I enjoy it. I want you guys to succeed. When you score a crit or do something amazing, I'll cheer with you. What I won't do is hold my punches. I roll out in the open for everyone to see and if one or all of you dies, I'm sorry, but sometimes the story doesn't have a happy ending. I want this to be a challenge that you all have fun overcoming."

The response has always been something along the lines of, "That's how we want it" or "We enjoy a challenge" or "That sounds fair." My feedback has always been positive, even when characters die.

I understand the counter-argument: these are modules. There's not nearly as much time invested into the characters and certainly not nearly as much actual "roleplaying" time, since modules do tend to be combat-first affairs.

Ashiel
2010-08-31, 02:56 PM
The way I see it:

Cheatin': I modify a roll to obtain a certain result.
The wizard casts disintegrate at my vampire, It needs a 14 to save. I roll a 13... I declare: "the vampire saved".

Cheatin': giving the monsters abilities or buffs I didn't think of.
The wizard casts Black Tentacles at my Werevolf Lord.
I declare: "the werewolf had Freedom of movement".



This is really a good suggestion. :smallsmile:

Fixed that for you. Also, if you don't give the wizard back their spell slot and immediately allow them to cast a spell that they didn't prepare that you will allow them to use, then you are also not only cheating, but a jerk.

This has been a punlic service announcement. :smallcool:

Umael
2010-08-31, 02:57 PM
Thats just the thing; if you want something to happen, why make the players go through the hoops? Just script / narrate / cinematic it and everyone can enjoy the awesome tail without being led by the nose into a foolish semblance of free will.

I think you are thinking of something a little different when it comes to "fudging".

Let's say that as GM, you plan for the PCs to encounter one of the BBEG's minions right after a tough fight. The minion, an ogre with class levels, has no interest in attacking the PCs because he is actually willing to give the PCs information to take out another one of the BBEG's minions - basically, be the pawns for some backstabbing on Team Evil.

The players have worked on their characters for a long time. As GM, you have worked on the campaign for a long time. You have maybe three sessions before half the guys go off to university; gaming time is a premium.

All you intend to have happen is for the ogre to talk to the (low-level) PCs. After all, they just got through a tough fight. One of them might well be dead. Even if they were fresh, the ogre would probably wipe the floor with them. So it should just be a little talk.

But before you get one word out in-character, one of the PCs decides to attack.

Now, the player might be the overconfident type. He might be the annoying type that's still everyone's friend, even if everyone wished he would grow up the rest of the way. Or maybe he didn't grasp the situation and is prone to over-reacting. In any case, he's attacking, and unless the situation is defused immediately, a full-attack, no-quarters-asked, is about to erupt.

At this point, for this example, you have the choice. You can "fudge" that the ogre KO's the PC so that the rest of the game can continue - or you can allow the dice to fall where they may, risking a premature end to a long-anticipated never-to-be-repeated campaign.

In this example, at this point, if I were the GM, I would fudge it. Why? This is the only point I have scripted. I didn't fudge the fight. One death, maybe two, as the dice fall, sure. But this might well be a TPK.

From the sounds of it, you would just say, "Go for it!" and if it was a TPK, so be it.

But here's the problem.

It's not just you.

It's everyone else.

You might be fine with risking a premature ending to the campaign, but what about everyone else? They might not want the campaign to end so soon - this would not be fun for them.

So what's more important, that everyone who can has fun, or that people have fun only the way you dictate?


Now assuming that my example was enough to convince you that there is a situation where it is actually acceptable to "fudge", you might say, "Well, yes, fine. ONE example! How likely is that?"

My answer: I don't know. Probably not very.

But then again, I don't advocate wide- spread "fudging". "Fudging", "cheating", "scripted" events, all of these things are tools to be used when the time is right, and never to be used lightly.

Tharck
2010-08-31, 02:57 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRyluOL-bYE

You rolled a 19 Mark...

Tyndmyr
2010-08-31, 03:02 PM
All you intend to have happen is for the ogre to talk to the (low-level) PCs. After all, they just got through a tough fight. One of them might well be dead. Even if they were fresh, the ogre would probably wipe the floor with them. So it should just be a little talk.

But before you get one word out in-character, one of the PCs decides to attack.

Now, the player might be the overconfident type. He might be the annoying type that's still everyone's friend, even if everyone wished he would grow up the rest of the way. Or maybe he didn't grasp the situation and is prone to over-reacting. In any case, he's attacking, and unless the situation is defused immediately, a full-attack, no-quarters-asked, is about to erupt.

So, he dies a horrible death for blindly attacking things when he's low on hp. This falls into my category of "you brought that on yourself".

What happens to the other players depends on what they do. Just because a known impulsive/aggressive player does something stupid doesn't mean they also have to.

LansXero
2010-08-31, 03:03 PM
Now assuming that my example was enough to convince you that there is a situation where it is actually acceptable to "fudge", you might say, "Well, yes, fine. ONE example! How likely is that?"

My answer: I don't know. Probably not very.

But then again, I don't advocate wide- spread "fudging". "Fudging", "cheating", "scripted" events, all of these things are tools to be used when the time is right, and never to be used lightly.

But thats just the thing, see? If I dont want the rolls to happen, then they dont happen. The ogre deflects the blow / gets fed up and walks away or yells or foregoes the weapon and slap the party which is very obviously not a real threat. IF I decide to engage in battle; if I decide to make it a matter of rolling at all, then the dice come rolling and whatever they say goes. If I dont want to accept those results, I simply dont roll. That way no one gets 'cheated' by making them believe they ever had any choice in the matter.

JBento
2010-08-31, 03:12 PM
A very possible situation

Then the charger dies - the Ogre stomps him to the ground, maybe even before the character reaches him, since he has reach. Then he turns to the rest of the party and says:

"A'right, you - the lot that aren't stabby happy idiots - one of two things is going to happen now. Since one is this *kicks the corpse*, I take it you would like option behind door number two?"

(Alter speech to match the ogre's Int score)

Umael
2010-08-31, 03:18 PM
"I am Tim - I'm your DM for this module. There are a few things I want you guys to know. First, I'm running the game because I enjoy it. I want you guys to succeed. When you score a crit or do something amazing, I'll cheer with you. What I won't do is hold my punches. I roll out in the open for everyone to see and if one or all of you dies, I'm sorry, but sometimes the story doesn't have a happy ending. I want this to be a challenge that you all have fun overcoming."

This is a very cool way of doing it.

(For the record, my response would probably have been along the lines of "That sounds fair.")



So, he dies a horrible death for blindly attacking things when he's low on hp. This falls into my category of "you brought that on yourself".

Kinda. I mean, it is understandable to just assume that the ogre walking into the room is going to attack.

But I think you missed the heart of the matter - see below, my reply to LansXero.



What happens to the other players depends on what they do. Just because a known impulsive/aggressive player does something stupid doesn't mean they also have to.

The example included the idea that the rest of the party WOULD join in if a fight erupted.



But thats just the thing, see? If I dont want the rolls to happen, then they dont happen. The ogre deflects the blow / gets fed up and walks away or yells or foregoes the weapon and slap the party which is very obviously not a real threat. IF I decide to engage in battle; if I decide to make it a matter of rolling at all, then the dice come rolling and whatever they say goes. If I dont want to accept those results, I simply dont roll. That way no one gets 'cheated' by making them believe they ever had any choice in the matter.

:smallconfused:

Okay, I'm a little puzzled here.

First you talk about how "fudging" takes away free will, but now you are saying that things just "don't happen".

I'm not condemning you, I'm just a little puzzled. According to what I am inferring from your comment, it is better to just say, "Nope, doesn't happen" or otherwise ignore the PC's attempt than it is to say "Roll it - doesn't happen", no matter what is rolled?

If that is true, I'm cool with it, but the two seem very, very similar.

(Also, it is not that they have no choice in the matter. Remember that I said "risk", as in, there is actually a chance the PCs could defeat the ogre. As a GM, I could "fudge" the dice by just seeing if the number looked high enough to high to give the illusion, but if I actually roll a "1", the ogre misses.)

Kylarra
2010-08-31, 03:21 PM
But thats just the thing, see? If I dont want the rolls to happen, then they dont happen. The ogre deflects the blow / gets fed up and walks away or yells or foregoes the weapon and slap the party which is very obviously not a real threat. IF I decide to engage in battle; if I decide to make it a matter of rolling at all, then the dice come rolling and whatever they say goes. If I dont want to accept those results, I simply dont roll. That way no one gets 'cheated' by making them believe they ever had any choice in the matter.I think most players would prefer the illusion of choice to fiat.

They are very similar, and both are "cheating" of a sort, but one doesn't break verisimilitude as much, in my opinion. Sure, it can be handled badly, as can all DM tools, but "fudging" dice is significantly less breaking, in my opinion, than saying "oops no you can't do that sorry :smallsmile:".

Umael
2010-08-31, 03:27 PM
Then the charger dies - the Ogre stomps him to the ground, maybe even before the character reaches him, since he has reach. Then he turns to the rest of the party and says:

"A'right, you - the lot that aren't stabby happy idiots - one of two things is going to happen now. Since one is this *kicks the corpse*, I take it you would like option behind door number two?"

(Alter speech to match the ogre's Int score)

This is still assuming that the combat will play out that way. Without a little bit of GM override, it is possible for the situation to escalate into a full fight. Do you just declare the charger dead? Does the ogre get to act before the rest of the party even roll initiative?

If you think it is cool to just say, "You, charger, you're dead," and move on with the game session, that's fine with me. But will the players be okay with that?


Another example, a little simpler, one based on an actual experience as I had read:

The group sat down to play a science-fiction game. After spending two plus hours making the characters, they got in their spaceship and headed off toward a planet. On the way (either by plot device or by player choice), they went through a meteroid shower. The GM rolled randomly for damage... and got a critical. The ship blew up, everyone died.

Two plus hours to make a character... 15 minutes for everyone to die due to a bad roll.

In this situation, I think a little fudging is okay.


(Just a reminder - I'm not saying every campaign is okay to have the GM "cheat". I'm just arguing against the blanket rejection.)

JBento
2010-08-31, 03:39 PM
That's not a bad die roll, it's not being very smart. If the players drove merrily into the shower, they're not very smart. If it's a plot device, then the DM isn't. Why is the shower there? Did the players choose to go in? Who goes in a meteor shower anyway (besides, of course, dirty meteors)? If the DM put it there, why did he put something that could cause a wipe without player input?

The example claimed that the ogre had a really good chance of "wiping the floor" with the PCs if they were fresh. After a hard fight, they're pretty much dead - or at least that's what I got from reading the example. I could be mistaken.

The ogre doesn't have to act at all - in fact, I'm considering the charger (explicitly claimed to be the one who acts) to act first. He charges the ogre, triggers an AoO, and is clobbered. Talking is a free action.

If the ogre REALLY wants them *all* alive, well, -4 to hit and its subdual damage. In fact, as soon as he deals subdual damage, the players will probably catch on that there's something not right.

Umael
2010-08-31, 03:55 PM
That's not a bad die roll, it's not being very smart. If the players drove merrily into the shower, they're not very smart. If it's a plot device, then the DM isn't. Why is the shower there? Did the players choose to go in? Who goes in a meteor shower anyway (besides, of course, dirty meteors)? If the DM put it there, why did he put something that could cause a wipe without player input?

I don't know; that story was long ago and I wasn't a part of it.

My point though doesn't depend on the intelligence of the people involved, but on what would have been the best way to handle it.

Given that either the players or the GM* made a mistake, the question is: what now? The person who wrote the story said that the other players were cool with the game ending right then and there; he wasn't.

((*Minor nitpick - DM is almost a trademark term for D&D. GM is the generic term. This game setting is science-fiction, hence, GM. *shrug*))



The example claimed that the ogre had a really good chance of "wiping the floor" with the PCs if they were fresh. After a hard fight, they're pretty much dead - or at least that's what I got from reading the example. I could be mistaken.

The ogre doesn't have to act at all - in fact, I'm considering the charger (explicitly claimed to be the one who acts) to act first. He charges the ogre, triggers an AoO, and is clobbered. Talking is a free action.

If the ogre REALLY wants them *all* alive, well, -4 to hit and its subdual damage. In fact, as soon as he deals subdual damage, the players will probably catch on that there's something not right.

True, it could play out that way.

But, then again, maybe not.

The charger could be the only one left with most of his hit points. He might be trying to do a Heroic Last Stand, thinking the ogre is just a run-of-the-mill thug.

As a sidenote, you know your mechanics - so it is very likely that you WOULD be able to avoid "fudging". But if your DM in this case wasn't so experienced, would you fault him or her for "fudging" under these circumstances?

(Again, please, remember, I'm not even saying that any of you who disagree with "fudging" should be convinced that you personally should be converted and start "fudging". I am only arguing that for certain games, certain people, certain settings, it is understandable and acceptable to "fudge".)

Tyndmyr
2010-09-01, 12:18 AM
The example included the idea that the rest of the party WOULD join in if a fight erupted.


I've seen multiple times characters desperately try to stop one another from attacking, by words, spells, and grapple checks.

I've also seen an entire table gape in horror as someone does something incredibly foolish/risky/offensive, then say "we're not with him".

If you let players use "stab it to death" as a viable substitute for actual tactics, diplomacy, etc, some players gladly will. They have all sorts of alternative actions they can take...readied actions if he attacks, and attempt to talk down from the standoff. Run away wildly. Bluff or diplomacy. Note that these are all generally more interesting than "Meh, he's an ogre. Stab him too." Now, if the violent player gets lucky and pulls it off, good for him. There's no need to enable such behavior, though.

Driving through a meteor shower is even more stupid. The first rule of all environmental hazards, in all RPGs, is that you should generally avoid them. This isn't rocket science.

Psyx
2010-09-01, 05:27 AM
There was a post 2 pages back of someone saying they'd fudge to keep the hit-by-disintegrate vampire alive - well, I want my spell slot and standard actionback, and I'd also like to be informed of all the spells that don't work in your campaign.


This.
I played a lot before I started to GM. And one of the things I grew to hate was the 99% chance of failure that SoDs have on GM-favourite NPCs/BBEG and the blatant transparency of the fact. Players aren't dumb. They notice. And they think it sucks. Every time you fudge a dice roll, think 'If they knew I was doing this, would it reduce their enjoyment IN THE LONG RUN?'

If players know that you fudge in any way, the game looses impact. So only do it when it's not obvious, and do it seldom enough that statistics don't ever point towards you cheating.

So they one-shot the bad guy. That's cool sometimes. Sometimes you just face up to a challenge and it's amazingly easy. Great: Well done. Not every fight needs to be to the wire. Adventurers whose every fight is to the wire should probably go somewhere less deadly!
You're the GM: You have lots more bad guys. Let them have their easy victory. They're not going to enjoy it less because you didn't suck dry their spells for the day before dying.



The thing is, a GM is a person in the room with the players. This often gets forgotten in discussion. Especially D&D discussions, since D&D has taken the route of treating the GM as being both of secondary importance and being removed from the events taking place in-game. And those moving goalposts should be getting shifted just enough so the players have to work to get a goal. Not quite enough to make them miss, but enough so that they cross their fingers once the ball is in the air.

Which is a stupid mindset. The GM is an active participant in the game. It falls to the GM to make sure that the other players have a good time, just as it falls to the players to ensure that the GM has fun.


I have all the time in the world to do my fudging, before the game even starts. I've written the adventure and stat blocks. I have the confidence to know that if I have statted a monster that has a slim (5% say) chance of a TPK, then I'm happy to live with that 5% turning up. If I don't want a TPK, I don't stat for one. I make my balance choices in the cold light of day, rather than while excited/drunk/annoyed and around the game table in the thick of it.

Once I'm at the table, I try to adjudicate in a manner that is fair: Neither going for kills deliberately (unless I have set out a very serious 'I am going to try to kill X' encounter; which has happened before) or giving the party an easy time. I might fudge something sometimes, but 99% of the time I don't. Not because I'm a cruel GM who is out to prevent my players from having fun, but because I'm a GOOD GM, who knows how to balance challenges before picking the dice up.

GMs that need to fudge all the while, or 'do over' encounters which pointlessly killed the characters need to take a look at their pre-game planning.

If I wasn't happy to live by the dice, I'd go play Amber or something narrative. Or patty-cake. Everyone wins and can have a big care-bear hug at the end: what a great sense of accomplishment!




No matter that the rules just killed your game off or gave your players a very unsatisfying experience.

The rules didn't: The GM did it by putting that monster there. You're not absolved of responsibility by the vampire killing the party on a lucky dice roll if you put the darned thing there in the first place.

It takes a truly staggering number of bad dice for an encounter not intended to kill a single PC to instead TPK the party. If that's happening; you can probably squeeze a fudge in there. More likely though that the problem was the encounter. Don't get into the habit of fudging dice: Get into the habit of learning what the party can and can't handle and build safety nets into encounters, or just cross out the 'rend' attack on the troll before the fight starts.

Think first, then roll dice. Then stick to what you first thought.




If your players are happy and you're happy as a GM, then that's good. Personally, I find my players don't like having their characters killed in an anticlimactic fluke becaue the Gm decided to roll everything in front of them any more than they enjoy those nights when they don't roll a single dice that hits double figures.

Then you're maybe missing out on some memorably poignant deaths. Some of the most memorable deaths in my games have been essentially pointless: The samurai who fought his way through a castle who lifted the gate bar before dropping to bleed out on the dirt when his lord elected not to send men to storm the gates because he viewed it as impossible that one man could take them.
Or the seasoned adventurer who died on a side-quest on his way home to marry his sweetheart and retire.
The brave young warrior who did all the right things in his first encounter yet still was taken out while his more reckless and gung-ho colleagues easily survived.

All of these deaths would have been averted in the name of avoiding anti-climatic flukes if I'd have fudged the dice. But my players not only love the game because those deaths happened, but because they also know that they could happen again, rather than GM fiat and karma protecting them constantly from random pointless death.

If every death is heroic, then heroic deaths are the norm, and not heroic. Sometimes PCs just die in stinking holes in the ground to skeletons.

Killer Angel
2010-09-01, 06:00 AM
Fixed that for you. Also, if you don't give the wizard back their spell slot and immediately allow them to cast a spell that they didn't prepare that you will allow them to use, then you are also not only cheating, but a jerk.


First:
Fudge dice rolls IS cheating, but cheating isn't always fudging.
Technically, if I'm assigning immunities on the run, I'm not fudgin dices, and since we were discussin' the definitions, I gave those two examples.

Second:
I could be offended by the jerk implication, but probably it wasn't your intention and it would be too much closeminded from me, so let's stay on your point, 'cause I'm interested in your line of thoughts. :smallwink:
I fudge dices to favour the BBEG: I'm a jerk? why?
If i'm favouring the BBEG to render more exciting for the players a boring fight: am I a Jerk? if not, Why? I'm cheating anyway...
Of course I'm not giving back the spell slot to the PC: the players would notice it. Is that the fact that makes me a jerk? why? How can't you know that i'll compensate that character later?
I fudge dices to favor PCs (avoiding a killing Crit): I'm a jerk in the same way as when I fudge favoring BBEG? why?


A few moderates advocate fudging to prevent egregiously boring events from happening as a result of GM misplanning or plain rotten luck.

To you, I ask where one draws the line between what a player could help and what he couldn't. (Probably the answer is "depends on the intended difficulty of the game").


I'm on the moderate side.
Not fudging would be always better, but sometime (rarely) you "have" to (very IMO).
Your responsability as DM is also to provide fun and entertainement, so fudge/cheating is a possibility to obtain entertainement, and you must judge and decide case by case.
But this doesn't mean saving characters' life, 'cause not dying, is not the same as "having fun".

Psyx
2010-09-01, 06:30 AM
"If i'm favouring the BBEG to render more exciting for the players a boring fight"


That's your opinion. Your players probably don't share it. To them you are doing one or more of the following:

1) Wasting their precious resources, such as potions and charged items.

2) Trying to kill them.

3) Negating their hard-fought-for and paid-for abilities and uber-spells in a manner that disgusts even Final Fantasy players. Essentially rendering their progression and XP -and to many that is the whole point of the game - useless.

4) Belittling their efforts. Making their 'best efforts' pointless. If you negate their best abilities by fiat, they might as well get stuck in with daggers until the 'required' number of combat rounds have passed before you 'let' the BBEG get killed.

5) Ruining the fight. Who are you to say what is 'boring' and not? Ask a player how it felt to drop a red dragon in one combat round, and they will tell you that it felt good. Scraping a victory in round 20 is tense, but nothing says 'we WIN' more than blowing the socks off it in round 2.

6) Railroading and overly controlling. If you make their spell choices moot and their tactics moot, you're starting to make all their choices moot.

7) Wasting their time that they could have spent on the NEXT cool combat. Just because one fight is over fast, it doesn't mean you can't throw three more at them that session.

8) Flat-out cheating.


This might not be true, but it's what your players see. And with so many potentially negative effects , it's bound to irritate the player in at least one of the stated ways. Multiply that by the number of players and you have an ENORMOUS amount of scope for discontent. Do it more than once and things increase exponentially.


I certainly never prologue the NPC's life, because players LOVE 'outwitting' GMs by hosing their BBEGs easily. They EXPECT to be able to 'do' the adventure and eventually win (unless it's CoC...), so that's a weak win condition for them. Doing it fairly easily, against all expectation feels great to them.

Killer Angel
2010-09-01, 06:38 AM
Tnx for your toughts. :smallsmile:


"If i'm favouring the BBEG to render more exciting for the players a boring fight"

That's your opinion. Your players probably don't share it. To them you are doing one or more of the following:
(snip)


Given that is based on opinions, everyone has his own...
I as a DM, give to my players the things that I like to have when I am a player. At least, I'm coherent with myself (and in my case, I know well my friend, we play togheter since 20 years).

But I canot say that the things you say are wrong, on the contrary, all are perfectly valid points.

My opinion is that fudging should be avoided, but to never fudge, neither cheat, while is a more correct behaviour, is a way to avoid some responsibility as a DM.
Oh, yes, you cannot be attacked ("I don't favor anyone, my players knows that i never do strange things behind the screen and their game experience is tue"), but you have an excuse if things go wrong and the players are unsatisfied ("it wasn't me. The dices were").

I'm not saying that my method is the better, but really depends on a lot of factors, including the style of play of the group.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-01, 06:54 AM
I certainly never prologue the NPC's life, because players LOVE 'outwitting' GMs by hosing their BBEGs easily. They EXPECT to be able to 'do' the adventure and eventually win (unless it's CoC...), so that's a weak win condition for them. Doing it fairly easily, against all expectation feels great to them.

Oh, definitely. When you pause, go "hmm, hadn't thought of that, but yeah, that would definitely work", there is invariably much celebration. Sometimes players kill things easier than you expect.

And of course, the drama of a long, hard fought battle is entirely ruined if every battle is that way. Think of some of the best movies you've watched, with the most epic heroes. Did every single battle leave them taxed of resources and near death? Or did they occasionally just obliterate opponents in seconds? Consider, say, Equalibrium. The rival character throughout the film, when finally faced for real after some tension and buildup gets utterly destroyed in something like a second. And it's awesome.

The Big Dice
2010-09-01, 06:59 AM
"If i'm favouring the BBEG to render more exciting for the players a boring fight"


That's your opinion. Your players probably don't share it. To them you are doing one or more of the following:

1) Wasting their precious resources, such as potions and charged items.

2) Trying to kill them.

3) Negating their hard-fought-for and paid-for abilities and uber-spells in a manner that disgusts even Final Fantasy players. Essentially rendering their progression and XP -and to many that is the whole point of the game - useless.

4) Belittling their efforts. Making their 'best efforts' pointless. If you negate their best abilities by fiat, they might as well get stuck in with daggers until the 'required' number of combat rounds have passed before you 'let' the BBEG get killed.

5) Ruining the fight. Who are you to say what is 'boring' and not? Ask a player how it felt to drop a red dragon in one combat round, and they will tell you that it felt good. Scraping a victory in round 20 is tense, but nothing says 'we WIN' more than blowing the socks off it in round 2.

6) Railroading and overly controlling. If you make their spell choices moot and their tactics moot, you're starting to make all their choices moot.

7) Wasting their time that they could have spent on the NEXT cool combat. Just because one fight is over fast, it doesn't mean you can't throw three more at them that session.

8) Flat-out cheating.


This might not be true, but it's what your players see. And with so many potentially negative effects , it's bound to irritate the player in at least one of the stated ways. Multiply that by the number of players and you have an ENORMOUS amount of scope for discontent. Do it more than once and things increase exponentially.


I certainly never prologue the NPC's life, because players LOVE 'outwitting' GMs by hosing their BBEGs easily. They EXPECT to be able to 'do' the adventure and eventually win (unless it's CoC...), so that's a weak win condition for them. Doing it fairly easily, against all expectation feels great to them.
I'm sorry, but it sounds like you're talking about your players as if they were in a separate room and you're watching them play through a one way mirror. In other words, like you're being quite patronising towards your friends.

Am I the only person who actually watches how people respond during the game and tweaks things on the fly so that my friends are enjoying themselves? Because it certainly sounds like there's a whole bunch of GMs out there who absolutely will not deviate from The Plan or The Rules no matter what. Under any circumstances, no way not ever.

I ceratinly don't think I'd want to game with an absolutist like that. Someone who is prepared to dash me and the rest of the people in the room's enjoyment of the evening on the cold hard fact of random number generating plastic polyhedrons. To me, that's as big a problem as players who munchkin or rules lawyer. It's a sign that the GM isn't really involved in the game, he's just going through the motions as if it were a paint by numbers kit.

Some people might take comfort in the fact tha their GM is being impersonal, impartial and only ever pitching them balls they can hit. Not me. I want to be a GM who is actively involved, keeping the players on their toes and having fun. I know the kind of things my players like, and what they don't like is feeling like things are too easy for them.

Nobody wants a boss fightthat's too easy. Which is why sometimes a boss needs to make a save that the dice say he failed. Just as nobody likes to lose a character in a pointless and random way. Which is why sometimes the crit needs to not be confirmed. And speaking as a GM, when I've ran games on Hardcore, every time I hung a plot off a character, that character would die within two sessions.

Which is frustrating from my perspective, and why would I want to do something that ruins my own enjoyment of the game?

Tyndmyr
2010-09-01, 07:09 AM
Someone who is prepared to dash me and the rest of the people in the room's enjoyment of the evening on the cold hard fact of random number generating plastic polyhedrons. To me, that's as big a problem as players who munchkin or rules lawyer. It's a sign that the GM isn't really involved in the game, he's just going through the motions as if it were a paint by numbers kit.

Some people might take comfort in the fact tha their GM is being impersonal, impartial and only ever pitching them balls they can hit. Not me. I want to be a GM who is actively involved, keeping the players on their toes and having fun. I know the kind of things my players like, and what they don't like is feeling like things are too easy for them.

Wow, strawman much? Nobody ever claimed that not fudging dice means you need to be impersonal, or prepared to "dash their fun". We claimed that fudging REDUCES fun.

And "pitching them only balls they can hit" seems like a silly accusation, given that you're willing to fudge dice to prevent them from failing.


Nobody wants a boss fightthat's too easy. Which is why sometimes a boss needs to make a save that the dice say he failed.

:smallconfused: Plenty of people have already described quick boss fights as awesome. I've certainly heard plenty of people proudly tell stories of the time they obliterated (big monster x) in a single round.

Drascin
2010-09-01, 07:28 AM
The rules didn't: The GM did it by putting that monster there. You're not absolved of responsibility by the vampire killing the party on a lucky dice roll if you put the darned thing there in the first place.

It takes a truly staggering number of bad dice for an encounter not intended to kill a single PC to instead TPK the party. If that's happening; you can probably squeeze a fudge in there. More likely though that the problem was the encounter. Don't get into the habit of fudging dice: Get into the habit of learning what the party can and can't handle and build safety nets into encounters, or just cross out the 'rend' attack on the troll before the fight starts.

Think first, then roll dice. Then stick to what you first thought.

Yyyyyyeah no, sorry. For one, it takes a lot of bad dice to turn one encounter into a TPK, true. But it only takes a couple to turn a perfectly normal encounter into one character death, though, and attrition hurts. Even at my most merciless, when I rolled out in the open, I never had an actual TPK-in-one-encounter - it's a pretty hard thing to have! However, it would come the point where we'd realize, none of the characters in the party were actually any of the ones that started the adventure - they were all going just on second-hand retales from the other party members! This got really rather silly.

And about the preparation, I've found that preparing more than the important characters and a rough timeline, and a decent estimation of next session, has proven massively useless in every camapign I've GM'd - I have needed to make up NPCs in three seconds flat when the players decide that instead of taking any of the ten reasonable exits they'd rather blow up the room, metaphorically speaking. So even if it was true that you could make decently challenging encounters that nonetheless don't risk killing a player on a couple bad rolls, "preparing your encounters perfectly beforehand", as I said before, could work in a perfect world, but I don't really have a perfect world. What I have is a self-building story the players are making, and which tends to have more twists than a Shaymalan movie :smalltongue:. I simply have adapted to it - and if I need to fudge because otherwise it's going to come to an anticlimax worthy of Brian Clevinger instead, or simply because in the "building a full character sheet in my head in three seconds" bit I miscalculated, you can bet I'm doing it. And if that's cheating, alrighty - I'm a cheater then! :smallbiggrin:


That's your opinion. Your players probably don't share it. To them you are doing one or more of the following:

*snip'd to avoid huge quote tree*


...or, you know, not? My players know that I will sometimes ignore the dice if I feel it'll be better for the campaign - I have told them openly as such. They may never know when I'm doing it, but they know sometimes I do it. I haven't got complaints, and in fact I universally get praises (far more than I think I actually deserve, though, since I think I'm a pretty average DM - I figure it's mostly because with most DMs around here being of the Old D&D school of Hard Knocks and Trap Deaths, the all-but-shellshocked players tend to react very well to nicer handling, once you manage to get it into their heads that no, attempting something unusual is actually unlikely to end in their death in this campaign :smallsmile:).

So, basically, this is a matter of opinion. Much like some people would feel cheated by a GM fudging, some, like me, would feel downright annoyed with a GM that stuck to the rules all the time. Groups obviously work better if everyone is in the same page, and asking what side of the spectrum his players fall is something a DM has to do. But decrying it as universally bad and player-angering because you personally don't like it, I'll admit, annoyed me more than it should.

The Big Dice
2010-09-01, 07:33 AM
Wow, strawman much? Nobody ever claimed that not fudging dice means you need to be impersonal, or prepared to "dash their fun". We claimed that fudging REDUCES fun.
A strawman is setting up an argument of your own as if it were from someone else, then using your own points to bring it down. Building a man of straw so he can be torn apart.

My own direct experience of being a GM has led me to the conclusion that slavishly following the dice and being unwilling to change an encounter on the fly leads to a reduction of fun. The example I gave about a puncing Cave Troll a few pages back? That happened.

I've seen 4/5ths of the party massacred by a single hand grenade in Cyberpunk because I rolled the dice openly. I've seen GURPS plot hook characters torn apart by the very dogs they were supposed to escape from because I rolled the dice in front of the players. I've seen entire L5R parties wiped out by a handful of peasants because I rolled the dice openly.

I'd hardly call my points a strawman argument.


And "pitching them only balls they can hit" seems like a silly accusation, given that you're willing to fudge dice to prevent them from failing.
I'm more likely to fudge things to increase the tension than simply to bring about failue.

In music, there's a concept called tension and release. The same concept exists in creative writing and it works incredibly well in roleplying. You know that moment when your players all lean forwards in their seats at the same time? That's tension building. That is what you should be aiming for in a boss fight.

:smallconfused: Plenty of people have already described quick boss fights as awesome. I've certainly heard plenty of people proudly tell stories of the time they obliterated (big monster x) in a single round.
Sure, sometime the one hit kill can be spectacular. But what about the third or fourth boss that gets one shotted? Even worse, what if that one hit is coming from the same character all the time?

I'm not going to tell anyone that they are doingit wrong. But, I will say there are alternatives. And simply dismissing those alternatives out of hand isn't always a good idea.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-01, 07:34 AM
And about the preparation, I've found that preparing more than the important characters and a rough timeline, and a decent estimation of next session, has proven massively useless in every camapign I've GM'd - I have needed to make up NPCs in three seconds flat when the players decide that instead of taking any of the ten reasonable exits they'd rather blow up the room, metaphorically speaking. So even if it was true that you could make decently challenging encounters that nonetheless don't risk killing a player on a couple bad rolls, "preparing your encounters perfectly beforehand", as I said before, could work in a perfect world, but I don't really have a perfect world.

That happens. I suggest keeping around a few appropriately leveled NPC sheets of different styles, and just grabbing the first appropriate one in such an event. Players will ALWAYS do something unexpected at some point. Thus, my characters can literally fight anyone in the game world, and I have stats available. It's not as if you need seperate character sheets for every single city guard.

I've statted up NPCs that the players worked with, and were never planned to fight, just because they were in contact with the players a lot. Every time they meet is a chance for something to go astray, and very unique characters sometimes benefit from not using a generic sheet. If it doesn't get used...oh well. I now have a statted out character I can use somewhere down the road. Material that doesn't get used ALWAYS gets recycled, but staying well ahead on the preparation curve avoids nasty surprises.

JBento
2010-09-01, 07:50 AM
@The Big Dice: but, if your bad guys always survive the wizard's Save or Die/Lose/Suck, you ARE telling him he's doing it wrong. Worse, he IS doing it wrong (in your game) and you're not telling him. And you're robbing him of both his spell slot and his standard action.

If I were the wizard, I'd much prefer you to tell me: "look, I think this list of spells would hurt people's enjoyment of the game, so I'd like you not to use them." And then, instead of being blatantly pickpocketed, the wizard can actually put his resources where they can actually do something.

Killer Angel
2010-09-01, 08:01 AM
@The Big Dice: but, if your bad guys always survive the wizard's Save or Die/Lose/Suck, you ARE telling him he's doing it wrong. Worse, he IS doing it wrong (in your game) and you're not telling him. And you're robbing him of both his spell slot and his standard action.


If this were true, you're certainly right.
I highly doubt some of us is sustaining that is fine to always (or even frequently) negate the effect of a powerful SoD spell. :smallamused:
The key word is "rarely", and only if serves the purpose of entartainement, possibly followed by a compensative satisfaction for the wizard's player (adjudicatin' automatically a success to him the next time).
But maybe that's only me...

Tyndmyr
2010-09-01, 08:03 AM
It's always classier to tell people up front that something isn't allowed than to fiat it autofailing.

It also gets really hard to explain when they trying to fix the save problem by save optimization and picking up levels of fatespinner. Yup. The boss rolled a 20. Twice. Per round.

Now, it might not get to that point before they figure out that you really don't want it to work, but it's certainly frustrating getting to that point.

And fiating failure and success is not as desirable. See my SoD thread for why...Allowing the SoD to automatically work when hp damage would kill him anyhow does not in any way negate the wasted rounds earlier.

Jayabalard
2010-09-01, 08:06 AM
Also, the presence of "afterlife revolving doors" is both RAW and RAI, and I assume people play like that unless they inform otherwise.Two bad assumptions:
First: the OP does not specify 3.5 D&D; in fact, he uses the non-D&D term "GM" instead of the D&D specific term "DM" ... so you shouldn't assume that anyone is talking about D&D, much less a specific edition (since the idea of a revolving door afterlife in earlier editions is laughable).
Second: Even in D&D, the vast majority of people play with house rules (the polls I've seen have all been between 70 and 90% of people use house rules rather than the RAW), so you should never make sweeping, general arguments based on the assumption that people play by RAW, or even RAI. In this particular case, you're talking about resurrection, and from my experience I'd put the availability and mechanics of resurrection on my top 10 list of "most commonly houseruled mechanics"

Psyx
2010-09-01, 08:09 AM
"Given that is based on opinions, everyone has his own..."

And I'm pointing out the possibilities that the player's may vary to the GM. And they almost certainly do.
Being purely logical, we have one reason held by one person to prolong the fight (The GM and 'It needs to be more dramatic').
There are -say- 6 players. One 'version' of opinion ('I want a tense fight') is shared with the GM's goal. The other 8 or so that I outlined are all opposed to the fight being prolonged, plus the opinion that a short successful fight is very satisfying indeed.

Statistically then; prolonging fights by fudging dice is far more likely to annoy players than satisfying them. That's my point. You stand to loose more than you stand to gain, on aggregate. And any GM who says that players will never know that he cheats is deluding themselves (and by the way: Fancy a game of poker sometime?)


"But it only takes a couple to turn a perfectly normal encounter into one character death, though, and attrition hurts."

That's why I like luck points and use them in everything I run. It takes those one-off minor fudges out of the GM's hands and passes it to the player. It sidesteps this whole 'grey' area of GMing entirely. Whatever your feelings on a GM fudging, if you can fudge yourself, the point becomes moot.
For the GM it means that you don't have to 'worry' so much about the issue and can get on with telling your story and adjudicating in a fair way. It also reduces the chances of favouritism or accusations of favouritism by a degree.

As a side-note, I also use luck points in fear checks. It sucks when you fail a roll and run away as a player. It takes away your control. So in my games when you fail a fear check it means that you don't run away, but that you can't use luck points for the encounter. Then the choice is the player's, and the risk is theirs.

3.5 is a pretty arbitrary game to run: A dice roll can easily kill a player and there is no luck point system by default. That's part of why it's a bad system. If you run and play systems that give more of a statistical safety net, there is far less need to 'cheat'.


" I've found that preparing more than the important characters and a rough timeline, and a decent estimation of next session, has proven massively useless in every camapign I've GM'd"

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. It's a separate discussion, but I keep an index box full of NPCs and adversaries handy in case of emergencies. Plus: Players are unpredictable, but you can plan for that as well if you think about it, and at least reduce the chances of them straying into unknown areas. I tend to assume that my players are going to proverbially blow the room up most of the time, so I'm fairly ready for it when it happens.


"Nobody wants a boss fightthat's too easy."

That's demonstrably untrue. We discuss opinion, and then state another opinion as some kind of axiom.


"Just as nobody likes to lose a character in a pointless and random way."

As above. Sometimes players DO like a death like that, or make it poignant. Sometimes it does suck, but it improves the story for everyone else. If you are under the impression that the GM can kill you at any time (even if you mostly DO fudge to make sure it doesn't happen), then players gain greater satisfaction by their victories. Risk vs. Reward.


"Am I the only person who actually watches how people respond during the game..."

Yes. You are the only GM in the world with basic GMing skills. The rest of us never considered that option. :smallconfused:

If you scroll back several pages, you'll see that I *do* fudge. It's just an exception, rather than a habit. I most certainly NEVER let my players know when I have though or in fact that I do it at all, and I would rob them of an awful lot of the satisfaction they are getting from playing in some pretty gritty campaigns by doing so.

Sometimes I roll my dice in the open: In tense life or death situations which I'm happy to kill a PC for. If it matters to me that much that the players succeed, then I'll simply roll the dice behind my screen.


"and only ever pitching them balls they can hit."

Eh? Why is planning and scaling an encounter well only pitching a ball they can hit. Who said I always pitch fights to be easy? If I want a tough fight, I'll give them a tough fight. I just don't do it by making my BBEGs magically pass every dice roll they have to make, because I consider that to be shoddy and lazy GMing. Sometimes I stat encounters thinking 'This will probably kill them' too, if they've screwed up enough to deserve it to happen, or don't recognise the threat enough to run away.


"And speaking as a GM, when I've ran games on Hardcore, every time I hung a plot off a character, that character would die within two sessions."

If I want to run 'hardcore', then I build in safety nets for the plot. Although in my experience, hanging essential plot off a character can always go wrong regardless of what you do, because a PC dying before plot happening is probably less likely than them messing it up in some other imaginative manner.

Psyx
2010-09-01, 08:14 AM
I
Now, it might not get to that point before they figure out that you really don't want it to work, but it's certainly frustrating getting to that point.

I would personally be seething with the GM if I knew that I had put time, effort and class levels into some 'big gun' specifically for use on 'boss mobs', that I sacrificed other stuff for, and only used when needed, only for it to be negated. I'd want to know why the tank wasn't taking -3 damage penalty on every attack he launched and if the rogue was suffering a -10 penalty to disarm all the traps.

Jayabalard
2010-09-01, 08:22 AM
:smallconfused: Plenty of people have already described quick boss fights as awesome. I've certainly heard plenty of people proudly tell stories of the time they obliterated (big monster x) in a single round.Look, there's nothing wrong with enjoying a quickie boss fight once in a while; they're a great thing to add some variety to your pen and paper gaming, and sometimes that's all you really have time for. But I'd get pretty bored if that was all we ever got; most of the time, I'd prefer a much longer boss fight: set the stage, build some tension before you really start anything serious and then work at hammering the boss for a while. I'm all in favor of fudging dice if that's what it takes to get the latter.

Drascin
2010-09-01, 08:36 AM
@Tyndymyr: Personally, I don't keep premade generic NPC sheets, as said. I simply make things up in a moment. Most important NPCs get one, but the generics or random monsters get made up on the spot. It's not particularly hard, and since I have no guilt or shame with tuning the numbers a bit downwards if after the first turn if it seems I overshot, it works plenty well without adding a million and a half sheets to my already entirely too big notes :smalltongue:.


"Given that is based on opinions, everyone has his own..."

And I'm pointing out the possibilities that the player's may vary to the GM. And they almost certainly do.
Being purely logical, we have one reason held by one person to prolong the fight (The GM and 'It needs to be more dramatic').
There are -say- 6 players. One 'version' of opinion ('I want a tense fight') is shared with the GM's goal. The other 8 or so that I outlined are all opposed to the fight being prolonged, plus the opinion that a short successful fight is very satisfying indeed.

Statistically then; prolonging fights by fudging dice is far more likely to annoy players than satisfying them. That's my point. You stand to loose more than you stand to gain, on aggregate. And any GM who says that players will never know that he cheats is deluding themselves (and by the way: Fancy a game of poker sometime?)

Not necessarily. You seem to work under the idea that many players will mind if the GM fudges, but that nobody will mind if he sticks to the rules religiously, which of course leads to the obvious logical result that not fudging is statistically better. This axiom is however, to use your own words, demonstrably untrue, as I have said myself that any GM that tells me outright "I will stick to the rules under all circumstances" is instantly a GM I'm going to be innately distrustful of, simply because of the mentality itself. And from this thread, one could gather I'm not the only one.

And as said - my players know I fudge. They don't know when, however - in fact, I tend to get more "you changed that roll, right? :smallwink:" after the session regarding rolls I didn't fudge, for some odd reason. I figure it's because dice tend to bring a lot more strangeness than actual fudging or plotting. I don't doubt they'll suspect, because they're smart guys, but the uncertainty is certainly there.

Killer Angel
2010-09-01, 08:37 AM
That's why I like luck points and use them in everything I run. It takes those one-off minor fudges out of the GM's hands and passes it to the player. It sidesteps this whole 'grey' area of GMing entirely. Whatever your feelings on a GM fudging, if you can fudge yourself, the point becomes moot.
For the GM it means that you don't have to 'worry' so much about the issue and can get on with telling your story and adjudicating in a fair way. It also reduces the chances of favouritism or accusations of favouritism by a degree.


That's a good idea.
Using luck points for characters and notable npcs or BBEGS, would eliminate the need to fudge (at least the way I use fudgin').
I'll use it in my next short campaign. :smallsmile:

Tyndmyr
2010-09-01, 08:43 AM
I would personally be seething with the GM if I knew that I had put time, effort and class levels into some 'big gun' specifically for use on 'boss mobs', that I sacrificed other stuff for, and only used when needed, only for it to be negated. I'd want to know why the tank wasn't taking -3 damage penalty on every attack he launched and if the rogue was suffering a -10 penalty to disarm all the traps.

I've been in such a situation. After about four fiated fails(watch the eyes as they roll at the dice), I got royally annoyed. Normally, I hold back on the utterly crazy things I can do, but I'm willing to pull out ludicrous stuff when nothing else is allowed to work.

I believe the next thing I cast was an invisible solid fog, knowing they all had see invisibility up, before utterly trashing the encounter with thousands and thousands of damage to each of them. It got to a point where the other players were calling out the GM on the ridiculously obvious fiat.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-01, 08:48 AM
Look, there's nothing wrong with enjoying a quickie boss fight once in a while; they're a great thing to add some variety to your pen and paper gaming, and sometimes that's all you really have time for. But I'd get pretty bored if that was all we ever got; most of the time, I'd prefer a much longer boss fight: set the stage, build some tension before you really start anything serious and then work at hammering the boss for a while. I'm all in favor of fudging dice if that's what it takes to get the latter.

If fudging is the only way you can get a boss fight that lasts a while and has some tension, you need to get help with designing and selecting encounters.

I mostly see fudging as a way for people to avoid proper preparation. Proper preparation is not terribly hard, and it doesn't take that much time, either.

Killer Angel
2010-09-01, 09:01 AM
If fudging is the only way you can get a boss fight that lasts a while and has some tension, you need to get help with designing and selecting encounters.

When you work 6 days on 7 and you had a wife and 2 childrens, sometime your DM's ability to balance the encounters is somehow different in respect to the good old school times. :smalltongue:
But that's only my personal example. :smallwink:

Psyx
2010-09-01, 09:09 AM
@
And as said - my players know I fudge. They don't know when, however - in fact, I tend to get more "you changed that roll, right? :smallwink:" after the session regarding rolls I didn't fudge, for some odd reason.


They probably know more than you give them credit for, to be fair. We've been lying to each other for 50,000 years, and are surprisingly good at picking up on it. (Or you aren't gaming with a bunch of hawk-eyed psychologists and brilliant poker players. I envy you...)

And the very fact that they know that you fudge clearly does affect them, because they are questioning sometimes legitimate fair fights. On some level that does affect their level of satisfaction in winning. Wouldn't it be better if you still acted EXACTLY as you do as regards fudging, but that you had a reputation as a completely fair GM who NEVER fudges? Wouldn't they be more hyped about their successes?

That to me is the crux of why I try to avoid fudging: Because I don't want them to know that I ever do it because it would decrease their sense of accomplishment. And if I did it more, they would be more likely to notice.



You seem to work under the idea that many players will mind if the GM fudges, but that nobody will mind if he sticks to the rules religiously

The rules are there as a framework for the game that you accept before sitting down, so inherently people are going to be more amiable towards following them than not, because they are sat there to play the game. Likewise people generally are more satisfied to know that the rules apply to everyone than that they apply to themselves, but not to someone else. That's not a truism for everyone, but generally people prefer to feel that things are 'fair'. Of course they aren't because you're the GM and can write in 20 elder dragons; but the rules provide an illusion of fairness, which is generally worth maintaining for games of a serious tone. Ignore all this if you're playing something ridiculously heroic or silly, obviously.



Look, there's nothing wrong with enjoying a quickie boss fight once in a while; they're a great thing to add some variety to your pen and paper gaming, and sometimes that's all you really have time for. But I'd get pretty bored if that was all we ever got

And if the GM has statted the BBEG properly, with good consideration for the PC's abilities, then that one-shot kill would be a statistical abnormality, and hence unusual: The '1' on the saving throw. Most of the time the boss fight WILL last a while.

If the players are one-shotting 75% of the tough monsters, then frankly the monsters aren't tough enough, or are not designed with PC capability in mind. If the GM has to fudge dice every time there is a BBEG and the dice turn up pretty averagely, then the GM needs to stop doing it and take a good look at the way they build encounters and NPCs.

Fudging dice left right and centre is not some kind of thing that should be done to make up for totally failing to take player character's abilities into account when writing a scenario.

Psyx
2010-09-01, 09:17 AM
When you work 6 days on 7 and you had a wife and 2 childrens, sometime your DM's ability to balance the encounters is somehow different in respect to the good old school times. :smalltongue:
But that's only my personal example. :smallwink:

Then perhaps asking your players for a break from GMing in order to plan the next bit of the scenario (maybe alternate weeks with another GM) would give you more of the time that you need. Or to do what I do and run games that aren't such an epic pain in the backside to stat for, like 3.5 is.

Seriously: If I've got a lot of projects (or indeed nights of drinking) coming up, I put my complex campaign on hold for a couple of month and run something that I can stat a week's encounters for in under an hour. I'd never run a 3.5 game at even medium levels, because it's so darned time consuming to GM. Feng Shui FTW!

Drascin
2010-09-01, 09:43 AM
They probably know more than you give them credit for, to be fair. We've been lying to each other for 50,000 years, and are surprisingly good at picking up on it. (Or you aren't gaming with a bunch of hawk-eyed psychologists and brilliant poker players. I envy you...)

And the very fact that they know that you fudge clearly does affect them, because they are questioning sometimes legitimate fair fights. On some level that does affect their level of satisfaction in winning. Wouldn't it be better if you still acted EXACTLY as you do as regards fudging, but that you had a reputation as a completely fair GM who NEVER fudges? Wouldn't they be more hyped about their successes?

Nope - because then they wouldn't have many successes. They'd advance each dungeon tile per tile, set two people per guard because only one feels unsafe to them, and not roleplay anything other than utter survivalists.

In fact, at first I didn't admit that I fudged - I tried to keep that reputation you just said, for those exact same reasons. I felt that not knowing might be better for their feeling of success, while still fixing the trouble that occassional fudging requires - but to this particular group, I ended up telling them that if there ever were any absolutely horrific bad luck scenarios I would either fudge or ignore the dice completely, simply to reassure them. It was an offering of peace, a way to tell them louder than words - no, I don't hate you. I'm on your side, people. I want you to succeed, because that we make a good story together is more important to me than silly things like rules, and if I need to ignore a bad save for it, well... what bad save, again? :smallwink:

Up to now, it seems to have worked. With other groups, I would just have done it surreptitiously - it was my usual modus operandi. In this one, people need to be reassured that while characters are not immortal, their chances of death due to anything that's not big stupidity are low - that if they roll massively badly, it will just be a fail, not instant death, because I may kill people for their choices, but I sure as hell don't let a couple 1s kill them. It was necessary to get them to actually roleplay - it was months until I could get them to know each other's character names, and a couple didn't even actually name them until I insisted and entered the campaign with ideas for backup characters, that's the kind of survival rate these people expected. I felt that in this case, I really should tell them stuff openly :smalltongue:. I worked my way slowly, to making them realize that character death being impossible doesn't mean a boring or challenge-less game (because they believed what many other DMs had told them) - and recently, once I saw they had got comfortable with the idea and were roleplaying freely and liking taking risks, we had a talk, and switched to M&M, where death is basically impossible, and they seem to be loving it (though the whole point-based equipment instead of loot annoys them a bit! :smallbiggrin:). I'll tell you how it goes.

And no, I certainly don't play with poker experts - hell, they don't notice when I'm rolling twice the dice I should be due to the amount of visible enemies (and doing so noisily, as an extremely deliberate hint), much less when I just move a die result up or down :smalltongue:. They're just not observant guys.

But really, you seem to be thinking I fudge continuously. In truth, it's only needed every now and then. Maybe a little result every four or so sessions - perhaps the players have all but rendered the enemy harmless through intelligent tactics, but fact remains it has a fair bit of HP, so instead of letting them slog through it, the thing just has a rather opportune critical fail on the next Will save against Paralysis and gets a quick coup-de-grace. Or the monster gets off a crit right before it dies that has a pretty good chance to send the character that has been slugging it with it straight to meet his maker the very round before victory - so hey, it doesn't confirm.

The Big Dice
2010-09-01, 09:56 AM
If the players are one-shotting 75% of the tough monsters, then frankly the monsters aren't tough enough, or are not designed with PC capability in mind. If the GM has to fudge dice every time there is a BBEG and the dice turn up pretty averagely, then the GM needs to stop doing it and take a good look at the way they build encounters and NPCs.

Fudging dice left right and centre is not some kind of thing that should be done to make up for totally failing to take player character's abilities into account when writing a scenario.
You're making assumptions about game systems. In GURPS it's very easy to one shot an opponent. Feint followed by a head shot with a decent Swing/Cutting weapon will do it more often than not. In Cybperpunk, a single bullet that does 8 damage to your head after all modifiers will kill you. No save. In L5R, an average character might have 57 Wounds. Which an average character can do in a single combat round with only mild optimisation. And then there's Call of Cthulhu, where your character might have 12 hit points. And that 30-06 is doing 2d6+4 damage. Not to mention what the horrible things can do.

Even in D&D, it's possible to miscalculate CR, as the system is wildly inaccurate. And you can never account for a fluke. One crit against you and one save you fail in the same round or in close succession, can spell disaster.

But hey, I'm obviously doing it wring as several people have pointed out. 25 years of learning the hard way about life as a GM is obviously not something I should take account in my decision making process. Especially decisions that affect my style as a GM and the enjoyment of the people sat round the gaming table with me.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-01, 10:50 AM
When you work 6 days on 7 and you had a wife and 2 childrens, sometime your DM's ability to balance the encounters is somehow different in respect to the good old school times. :smalltongue:
But that's only my personal example. :smallwink:

That sounds about normal for GMs I know. At any rate, everyone at least has a job, frequently two(lots of reservists), but that's probably just a side effect of age bracket.

It's not about spending more time preparing, it's about preparing in a flexible manner. I spend very little on a per session basis preparing, but I always have a good deal of material prepared at any one time. Anything ever prepared, and not used, for any reason, is kept on hand to be used later. A castle floorplan? Bound to come up. Dungeons? Definitely. Generic NPC stats? Er, repeatedly in every campaign ever.

dsmiles
2010-09-01, 10:53 AM
Anything ever prepared, and not used, for any reason, is kept on hand to be used later. A castle floorplan? Bound to come up. Dungeons? Definitely. Generic NPC stats? Er, repeatedly in every campaign ever.

I actually keep everything I've ever put to paper. Including stuff I've used. You may see a dungeon designed in 1985 pop up in my campaigns from time to time. :smallbiggrin:

JBento
2010-09-01, 10:54 AM
Frankly, if you don't want people to die easily, why are you playing in a system that easily allows such? CoC (not the d20) is certainly NOT the system to play if you want low mortality rates.

GURPS has the cinematic optional rules designed to prevent exactly that.

Never played the other two, but it seems odd to play a system that easily allows random, unexpected deaths if you don't want random, unexpected deaths.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-01, 10:57 AM
Frankly, if you don't want people to die easily, why are you playing in a system that easily allows such? CoC (not the d20) is certainly NOT the system to play if you want low mortality rates.

Yeah, if you're playing CoC, and are shocked by the mortality rate, you clearly are unfamiliar with CoC.

It's part and parcel of what the game is. If you want a game without frequent death, play a game without frequent death, or add rules to mitigate it. Death frequency is a preference. Fudging is not necessary to aquire a given level of lethality in a system.

dsmiles
2010-09-01, 10:59 AM
Frankly, if you don't want people to die easily, why are you playing in a system that easily allows such? CoC (not the d20) is certainly NOT the system to play if you want low mortality rates.

GURPS has the cinematic optional rules designed to prevent exactly that.

Never played the other two, but it seems odd to play a system that easily allows random, unexpected deaths if you don't want random, unexpected deaths.

I still don't see what's wrong with fudging die rolls as long as everybody is having fun. Even the book says that the book is not the final authority. It tells you that the so-called "rules" are actually just guidelines.

If you don't like GMs who fudge die rolls, don't game with them. If you don't like GMs who roll in the open, don't game with them. As a DM, I know I prefer to not see what the DM is doing when I'm a player. If he/she is back there fudging die rolls, then so be it.

Killer Angel
2010-09-01, 11:06 AM
It's not about spending more time preparing, it's about preparing in a flexible manner. I spend very little on a per session basis preparing, but I always have a good deal of material prepared at any one time. Anything ever prepared, and not used, for any reason, is kept on hand to be used later. A castle floorplan? Bound to come up. Dungeons? Definitely. Generic NPC stats? Er, repeatedly in every campaign ever.

Yep, I agree, but it's not exactly the same thing as "balancing an encounter in a proper way, remembering al the tricks your players can do".
But that's a little OT.


But hey, I'm obviously doing it wring as several people have pointed out. 25 years of learning the hard way about life as a GM is obviously not something I should take account in my decision making process. Especially decisions that affect my style as a GM and the enjoyment of the people sat round the gaming table with me.

I think you'd just overloaded my ISD (Internet Sarcasm Detector). :smalltongue:

Serenity
2010-09-01, 11:28 AM
As far as the vampire example from earlier, most of the anti-fudging crowd seem to be ignoring that the GM rolled merely one under the necessary save. Presumably the same GM might at other times allow a player who rolled one under a plot-important skill check (upon which the GM has not yet stated the DC) to pass it. These are minor adjustments, and done with due judiciousness, I can honestly see no problem with them. None of us claim the GM should 'cheat' (insofar as such a thing is even possible when you dictate the rules of the world) with immense regularity, but rather with discretion in certain isolated instances. None of us advocate foiling PC SoDs in every instance--but in the final battle of the campaign, is it really appropriate to allow the Biggest Bad to be turned into pudding before he gets the chance to act? I'm somewhat shy of killing my players, but I wouldn't pull all punches, especially as they gain more and more access to ressurection magic. But what I certainly do not want is to be put in the position where every player's character is replaced, potentially negating much of the NPC ties, interaction, etc. that came before.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-01, 11:32 AM
As far as the vampire example from earlier, most of the anti-fudging crowd seem to be ignoring that the GM rolled merely one under the necessary save. Presumably the same GM might at other times allow a player who rolled one under a plot-important skill check (upon which the GM has not yet stated the DC) to pass it.

If the plot depends on them making a skill check, either the plot was terribly designed(single points of failure are bad), or it's something you can just dispense with rolling for.

Rolling is for when you need randomness.

Psyx
2010-09-01, 11:37 AM
Nope - because then they wouldn't have many successes. They'd advance each dungeon tile per tile, set two people per guard because only one feels unsafe to them, and not roleplay anything other than utter survivalists.


Then getting them out of D&D and onto something more heroic was definitely the best thing that you could have done for them, I think. Or removing the part of their brain that holds memories of their last GM.



You're making assumptions about game systems. In GURPS it's very easy to one shot an opponent.

And in all those game systems, one shotting the BBEG is perfectly fine in my eyes. Although I'm not really sure how I'd pull off NOT killing the BBEG in those systems, as the dice are on the Player's side of the table, generally. If all it takes is a decent 'to hit' with a hand cannon, then there's nothing that I can fudge to make it otherwise, other than the 'err...and -4 for it being dark, err...-1 for it being Friday the 13th' kind of rubbish that I've sometimes seen pulled. I digress...

CP2020, Gurps and L5r (I only own two of them) are nasty systems. I like the way that in all of them, every time there is the threat of combat you have to think 'I could DIE here. How can I avert this, or stack the odds to minimise that?'
Rules systems are a reflection on the world that they are trying to portray, and CP and L5R both have lethal combat because combat is supposed to be arbitrarily lethal and not something you do unless you *really* have to.

CP2020 practically *needs* people to be semi-pointlessly gunned down and bad guys to be dropped easily. It's kind of important for the genre to my mind. Cyberpunk is supposed to be down and gritty, after all.

If my players don't want a gritty game where they have a chance of dying in pretty much any fight, then we play something where that's designed not to happen. Horses for courses: If I don't want to loose a finger; I don't play 'knifey knifey'. If a system has a problem with easily killing players and I don't want that, then instead of arbitrarily fudging dice regularly I'll use a system that suits my needs better, or give everyone twice as many HP. That way it's consistent and fair.



But hey, I'm obviously doing it wring as several people have pointed out. 25 years of learning the hard way about life as a GM is obviously not something I should take account in my decision making process. Especially decisions that affect my style as a GM and the enjoyment of the people sat round the gaming table with me.

I don't think that 25 years of gaming experience is actually that unusual on this forum, and probably not on this thread, either. So it's certainly not some kind of trump card. Being passive aggressive doesn't make your point any more valid.

dsmiles
2010-09-01, 11:37 AM
As far as the vampire example from earlier, most of the anti-fudging crowd seem to be ignoring that the GM rolled merely one under the necessary save. Presumably the same GM might at other times allow a player who rolled one under a plot-important skill check (upon which the GM has not yet stated the DC) to pass it.

Which is why, as a DM, I never state a DC in advance. I don't want to hear from the player, "I made it." All I want to hear is a number. Just like you'll never be told what your opponent's AC is, or how many HP it has left, or what it's saves are. Sure, you can figure it out ("Well, I hit with a 17, but missed with a 16. I guess it's AC is 17, then."), but if you don't, that's fine by me.
I am the final arbiter on any roll anyways, not the book. If you're climbing a wall with a rope, and it's DC 10 in the book, who's to say I can't change that? Guidelines, people, guidelines, the book even says so.

Psyx
2010-09-01, 11:42 AM
If the plot depends on them making a skill check, either the plot was terribly designed(single points of failure are bad), or it's something you can just dispense with rolling for.

Rolling is for when you need randomness.

^
This. If it is essential for the whole plot that a skill check be made, and there were no other alternatives; then there needed to be other alternatives, no die roll, or a way of gaining enough modifiers to make the roll moot.

JBento
2010-09-01, 11:44 AM
It doesn't matter if he rolled minus 1 or minus 15. In the example, there's no difference: either he makes it or he doesn't, there's no "he just missed it" (or there is, but it's no different from "he totally botched it"). It's therefore NOT a minor adjustment (and even if it were).

I don't want my character to succeed because the GM threw me a freebie. I want him to succeed because he's competent, and because he's played smartly (competent and played smartly includes a way to be immune to death effects at the appropriate levels, btw).

If my SoD's won't work in a Big Bad, I want to be told from the get go, since then I won't prolly bother with them at all. SoD's are pretty much hit-or-miss already, and there really is no point is SoD'ing goblin#33459. Not when a party buff takes care of that goblin *and* his friends.

Umael
2010-09-01, 12:01 PM
I've seen multiple times characters desperately try to stop one another from attacking, by words, spells, and grapple checks.

I've also seen an entire table gape in horror as someone does something incredibly foolish/risky/offensive, then say "we're not with him".

Anecdotal evidence proves nothing.

I've seen one PC do something stupid and the others join in.

I believe someone mentioned the "holding hands and jumping into the demon's mouth" from ToH.



If you let players use "stab it to death" as a viable substitute for actual tactics, diplomacy, etc, some players gladly will. They have all sorts of alternative actions they can take...readied actions if he attacks, and attempt to talk down from the standoff. Run away wildly. Bluff or diplomacy. Note that these are all generally more interesting than "Meh, he's an ogre. Stab him too." Now, if the violent player gets lucky and pulls it off, good for him. There's no need to enable such behavior, though.

Tyndmyr, that's not my point (well, two of them, neither of which you addressed).

It is not "what can they do as PCs" but "what can you do as GM" when this situation arises. The second point is, if the GM is inexperienced and doesn't know the game system well enough, whether "fudging" a forgivable tactic.

(For the second, I say, yes, sparingly. Emphasis on the last word, contingency on the promising potential of the GM in question.)



Driving through a meteor shower is even more stupid. The first rule of all environmental hazards, in all RPGs, is that you should generally avoid them. This isn't rocket science.

Like I said, I wasn't there. It was a story I read about a long time ago, so I don't know how easy it would have been to avoid the environmental hazard. I suppose you could have replaced the spaceship in a meteor shower with sailing ship and a hidden reef, if you like - not as quick, but potentially just as bad.

In any case, bad call or not - that's not the point.

It happened.

Now what?

((Actually, since we are talking about spaceships, it IS rocket science. :smalltongue:))

valadil
2010-09-01, 12:11 PM
If you don't like GMs who fudge die rolls, don't game with them. If you don't like GMs who roll in the open, don't game with them. As a DM, I know I prefer to not see what the DM is doing when I'm a player. If he/she is back there fudging die rolls, then so be it.

I'm with dsmiles on this one. Fudging is too small of an issue to affect the quality of a game I'm playing in. I've never left thinking the game would have been good if only the GM had fudged/not fudged. I've also never been in a game and thought the game was crap, but thank Pelor the GM was fudging/not fudging. There's a lot more behind what makes a GM good. I'll stick with a quality GM even if his preferences don't mesh up with mine.

I also still say that fudging works in different games. I'm tempted to say that fudging is for the narrativists, but this thread is contentious enough without GNS.

JBento
2010-09-01, 12:13 PM
I suppose you could have replaced the spaceship in a meteor shower with sailing ship and a hidden reef, if you like - not as quick, but potentially just as bad.


What?! No you couldn't. You could replace it with a REEF, but meteor showers aren't exactly hidden. And yes, driving a ship into a reef is utterly and mind-numbingly stupid - unless you're actually trying to sink the ship, in which case it's a very efficient way to go about it.


I've seen one PC do something stupid and the others join in.

So now we're enabling stupidity? :smallconfused: There's a reason WHY "Leroy Jenkins" makes party members cringe - stupidity against an enemy that takes good tactics to defeat get you killed or, at the very least, thoroughly clobbered - as it should be.

Serenity
2010-09-01, 12:24 PM
I never said the plot depended on the skill check. I said it was plot-important. If they have a chance to find something useful/enlightening, are making an intelligent effort at the task, and come within a hair's breadth of accomplishing it, then I would argue there are many cases where it's better for the GM to secretly add +1 to the roll then let them pass it by.

The Big Dice
2010-09-01, 12:27 PM
I don't think that 25 years of gaming experience is actually that unusual on this forum, and probably not on this thread, either. So it's certainly not some kind of trump card. Being passive aggressive doesn't make your point any more valid.
I was being a combination of sarcastic and making the statement that in my experience, playing "fair and by The Book" has led to more games being derailed than fudging the odd dice roll to ensure that the players have a good time and that the plot doesn't go down the toilet because of a bad dice roll.

The intertubes are a terrible place to have discussions or debates.

Which is why, as a DM, I never state a DC in advance. <snip>
I am the final arbiter on any roll anyways, not the book. If you're climbing a wall with a rope, and it's DC 10 in the book, who's to say I can't change that? Guidelines, people, guidelines, the book even says so.
+1 to both of these. As a player I might ask "How hard does it look to scale the castle wall? With my special Ninja Climbing Gear?" And I'd expect the GM to answer with "Hard, but your climbing tools should make it possible, even if it is dark."

I don't want to hear "That's gonna be a DC of Y, with a -X penalty on your roll because of doing it in the dark. And the climbing gear gives you a +Z."

That's just boring and takes me out of character and into mathland. Which is a dreary place at the best of times and has nothing to do with my ninja wannabe sneaking into a castle to open the gates.

Like I said, I wasn't there. It was a story I read about a long time ago, so I don't know how easy it would have been to avoid the environmental hazard. I suppose you could have replaced the spaceship in a meteor shower with sailing ship and a hidden reef, if you like - not as quick, but potentially just as bad.

In any case, bad call or not - that's not the point.

It happened.

Now what?

((Actually, since we are talking about spaceships, it IS rocket science. :smalltongue:))
Back when Star Wars was a West End game, I had a ship shot out from under me by a fluke hit (and the only one of the chase, I might add). This was after flying through an asteroid field at full speed to try and get away from the Imperials.

The ship went boom, we escaped in the escape pod and got captured. Which drove the GM crazy because he hadn't anticipated the ship being destroyed by the only TIE Fighter to keep up with us. Cue some frantic improvising from the GM.


So now we're enabling stupidity? :smallconfused: There's a reason WHY "Leroy Jenkins" makes party members cringe - stupidity against an enemy that takes good tactics to defeat get you killed or, at the very least, thoroughly clobbered - as it should be.
The reason people cringe when they hear cries of LEEEROY! is because they either see themselves, or they see someone they know who does the same thing in tabletop games.

Caphi
2010-09-01, 12:28 PM
I never said the plot depended on the skill check. I said it was plot-important. If they have a chance to find something useful/enlightening, are making an intelligent effort at the task, and come within a hair's breadth of accomplishing it, then I would argue there are many cases where it's better for the GM to secretly add +1 to the roll then let them pass it by.

If you want them to have the information, just give it to them. If you wanted the DC lower, it should have been lower in the first place. I'm for fudging in places, but this isn't one of them.

If you want to honor the state of being "lower than the DC by one" for some reason, have it produce a lesser effect - you learn vaguer information, the door becomes loosened, the innkeeper will give you one night but then you have to get out.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-01, 12:28 PM
Anecdotal evidence proves nothing.

I've seen one PC do something stupid and the others join in.

I believe someone mentioned the "holding hands and jumping into the demon's mouth" from ToH.

Anecdotal evidence DOES prove that players don't have to be lemmings.

As for the tale of leaping into the demon's mouth? That was also me. They all died for that, of course. It's the only time I've ever had a TPK while GMing.

The players treated the remainder of the dungeon with much more caution.


It is not "what can they do as PCs" but "what can you do as GM" when this situation arises. The second point is, if the GM is inexperienced and doesn't know the game system well enough, whether "fudging" a forgivable tactic.

If a GM is brand new, they will make mistakes. This is normal, and to be expected. It's part of learning. It's better that they admit when they made a mistake, and correct it. Usually it's nothing more than a "gee, I really didn't know these guys could do that. Do you mind if we do x,y,z to correct it?".

This is generally not a big deal, though players will occasionally suggest other ways to fix things, or give you tips for the future. This works. The idea of hiding your mistakes by fudging your way out of them is not generally an ideal way to learn.


Like I said, I wasn't there. It was a story I read about a long time ago, so I don't know how easy it would have been to avoid the environmental hazard. I suppose you could have replaced the spaceship in a meteor shower with sailing ship and a hidden reef, if you like - not as quick, but potentially just as bad.

If you sail a ship into a reef, you did something terribly wrong. Charts and such exist for a reason. Sailing ships generally dont go nearby reefs.

If players make such a mistake, the next bit becomes saving the ship, or saving your skins. This isn't an unsalvageable situation, but it did get a lot tougher as a result of their carelessness. Most mistakes can be salvaged to some degree, but sometimes you get acts of stupidity that are just too blatantly fatal for any reasonable way to roleplay out of them. Oh well. Most professions in RPGs are horribly dangerous for a reason.

The Big Dice
2010-09-01, 12:35 PM
If you sail a ship into a reef, you did something terribly wrong. Charts and such exist for a reason. Sailing ships generally dont go nearby reefs.

If players make such a mistake, the next bit becomes saving the ship, or saving your skins. This isn't an unsalvageable situation, but it did get a lot tougher as a result of their carelessness. Most mistakes can be salvaged to some degree, but sometimes you get acts of stupidity that are just too blatantly fatal for any reasonable way to roleplay out of them. Oh well. Most professions in RPGs are horribly dangerous for a reason.
There are situations that can drive a ship onto a reef no matter what the payers do. Real world situations side, one example is a bad Navigation check...

Or a randomly rolled storm from your Random Encounters at Sea table...

And in space it's even more complicated. At least on an ocean, you can rely on reefs to mostly be in the same place as they were when they were charted. Assuming whoever made the charts passed his Cartography roll, but the GM giving false information out is another story.

In space, everything moves and there are trillions of objects to identify and then plot their orbits so they can be tracked. And if it doesn't give off heat, it's pretty hard to spot it before it's in your face.

So flying into a meteor shower isn't so improbable, especially if there's a lot of traffic in the setting.

Umael
2010-09-01, 12:48 PM
What?! No you couldn't. You could replace it with a REEF, but meteor showers aren't exactly hidden.

The mechanics of the game were old-game, as I recall (it was a LONG time ago, so it was probably one of these "Roll Random Encounter: 23 - Meteor shower"). Without the meteors going through atmosphere, they are harder to detect.

Although I did use the wrong terminology. I should have said "asteroid field", not "meteor shower". Meteors are asteroids that go through atmosphere, and the story implied they were in deep space (well, at least not too close to a plantary system).



And yes, driving a ship into a reef is utterly and mind-numbingly stupid - unless you're actually trying to sink the ship, in which case it's a very efficient way to go about it.

Storms.
Navigator dead.
Fleeing into uncharted waters.

Don't be so fast to assume it is stupid.

(Usually is though.)



So now we're enabling stupidity? :smallconfused: There's a reason WHY "Leroy Jenkins" makes party members cringe - stupidity against an enemy that takes good tactics to defeat get you killed or, at the very least, thoroughly clobbered - as it should be.

:smallconfused:
Nooo... we're not.

Look, the situation is that one PC does something stupid, like attacking a dragon by yourself. If everyone joins in, it still might be stupid, but it is a LOT less stupid, because instead of it being a one-on-one fight, it is a party-versus-boss fight.

Killer Angel
2010-09-01, 01:31 PM
^
This. If it is essential for the whole plot that a skill check be made, and there were no other alternatives; then there needed to be other alternatives, no die roll, or a way of gaining enough modifiers to make the roll moot.

Elaborate, please.
It seems that, if you don't want the risk of a failure from the players due to a bad roll (ex. gather information), you don't require the roll at all and go on with the story.
If it's so, it's no more different than fudge the dices.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-01, 01:53 PM
Elaborate, please.
It seems that, if you don't want the risk of a failure from the players due to a bad roll (ex. gather information), you don't require the roll at all and go on with the story.
If it's so, it's no more different than fudge the dices.

The point is that the die roll is pointless and deceptive if you will allow it on a failure anyway.

It's like a rule saying that players must roll a d20 at the beginning of their turn. On a 1+, they continue normally.