I suspect the GM fudges and that's ruining it for me.

[The Big Dice]

You have to be a pretentious chain-smoker? :smallcool:
You have to be a drunk pretentious chain smoker :smallbiggrin:

My heart -at the table - often screams 'let the players win'. Which is why I don't like knee-jerk fudging and try to be a fair referee.
That's why I always say, cheat in favour of making the game better. It's utimately not about some GM patting himself on the back. It's about having fun with friends and giving them a sense of acheivement. Not many people I know ever get a sense of acheivement from their character dying pointlessly because of a bad roll.


And in music, improvisation comes after you've done the basics, not before. You master the rote playing before you truly develop an interpretation of a piece.
I've been roleplaying for longer than I've been playing guitar. I think I know what I'm doing by now. Also, I started improvising pretty much as soon as I started playing guitar. Intuition and letting my ear get to know what notes were sour and which ones were sweet, plus a developing sense of phrasing were more use early on in my playing than playing scales to a metronome.


You don't need to recycle with the same players. Odds are pretty strong you'll game with more than one group of people in your life. Well prepared material is always of use. I played a campaign recently that the GM used for the third time. None of the three groups played through it in the same way, but there was a great deal of overlap, and the campaign was extremely well prepared and polished. If the art of DMing appeals to you, spending the time to make well rounded adventures is well worth it.
Here's the thing. I've been gaming with the same group for almost 15 years now. Recycling is a bad thing in my situation. Once I left college, my gaming group settled down and I learned what the difference between playing the field and married life was.

Well prepared material that people have already played through is almost useless to me. Which is why I'm a strong advocate of people trying new game systems out. First, you never know what you might stumble on that you like more than your current game. Secondly, a change is as good as a rest and sometimes better.

When it comes to the art of the GM (DM is a term from one specific game and gives both the wrong impression and the wrong tone), I've read a lot. Enough to fill a good sized book. And one piece of advice keeps coming up. It can be summarised as, good GMs play fair, great ones cheat. But only in order to make the experience round the gaming table better. This has come from people as diverse as Gary Gygax, Frank Mentzer, John Wick, Andrew Rilstone, Rick Preistly, Steve Jackson and Greg Stafford.

If creative dice reading is good enough for them, I'm sure it's good enough for me.

[obliged_salmon]

Mediation powers activate!

Serpentine - Britter is trying to say he wishes all gamers would "realize" his perspective to be superior - his perspective being that DM should be considered as just another player.

Britter - Serpentine believes you are saying that there is no difference between DM's and players in all games, everywhere, right now.

Apologies if no clarification was necessary here. I just feel compelled to jump in where communication seems blocked, sometimes.

Anyway.

My thoughts on fudging: I agree with folks who say fudging implies an unacceptable result, in which case why roll?

E.G. Barbarian charges the BBEG and yells "By Grepthor's hammer, I shall avenge you!" DM should stop the game right there. Mid axe swing. He should say "hey bob, what's your intention here?"
bob says "uhh...to kill the BBEG? Thought that was pretty obvious."
"Cool. In order to kill him, you need to roll a 12. If you roll under 12, you KILL HIM, but die dramatically in the process. That cool with you?"
"Sure...."
"Cool with everyone else?"
"Yeah, that's cool" "Whatev" "Booyah!"
"All right. Bob? Roll that sucker."

Then you watch everyone hold their breath as Bob feels the heavy, heavy weight of that d20 in his hand. No fudging necessary.

[Zherog]

The task of the GM is to challenge and entertain his players. It's not PvP with an umpire, like a wargame. It's PvE, player versus Environment. And who provides the environment?

I agree with this. But where we differ, I think, is that I believe the environment has to play by the same rules as the players -- ie, what you roll on the dice is what you get; you can't alter it (barring, of course, special rules such as action points etc).

As the DM for both my groups, it's my job to set up the environment for the players. One game is currently running an urban campaign, the other is running an elaborate dungeon delve. I'm responsible for bringing both environments to life, so that through descriptions and actions and reactions the mind's eye of each player at my table can see the events unfolding. For me, the dice always determine the results of those actions and reactions (barring "take 10" and "take 20' situations). I never change a 20 to a 19 to avoid a crit, for example. In fact, I can't do that because I roll my dice in the open - on purpose.

[Psyx]

You have to be a drunk pretentious chain smoker :smallbiggrin:

I thought 'stoned' was more gauche?



That's why I always say, cheat in favour of making the game better.

Or 'follow the rules in favour of making the game better' too.
It's why I like to work things through in the cold light of day and NOT make snap choices to fudge. Letting a player 'win' a die roll does not automatically make the game better and that snap call could be the wrong one.

We also change systems on a regular basis. It really spices things up, and I'd hate to be chained to one system forever. The 'feel' of the system is often crucial for atmosphere, and many games have very unique feels.

[Typewriter]

Or 'follow the rules in favour of making the game better' too.
It's why I like to work things through in the cold light of day and NOT make snap choices to fudge. Letting a player 'win' a die roll does not automatically make the game better and that snap call could be the wrong one.


You're right, letting a player win does not always make things better, but neither does always following the rules. You need to handle every situation as it comes. Fudging should not be abused, but there is no reason to swear it off completely.

Sometimes you might make a poor choice, but I've found that, more often than not, fudging makes things run smoother and everyone has a good time. If something goes wrong the players never know it's because something got fudged, if everything goes right they still have no idea.

[Tyndmyr]

You're right, letting a player win does not always make things better, but neither does always following the rules. You need to handle every situation as it comes. Fudging should not be abused, but there is no reason to swear it off completely.

If the rules make things worse, fix the rules. Lets take the example so many people used, triple 20s.

Just chat with your gamers. Ask them how much they like instagibbing monsters with triple 20s, and if it's worth the extra chance of death. If it is, use it all round. If it isn't, or they later decide it isn't...stop using it.

Bam, problem fixed for good. No worrying about if this is or isn't the time to fudge it. No worries about it being fair or not.


Sometimes you might make a poor choice, but I've found that, more often than not, fudging makes things run smoother and everyone has a good time. If something goes wrong the players never know it's because something got fudged, if everything goes right they still have no idea.

We've already established that you cannot be certain that fudging will always go unnoticed. Sometimes, it is, and that's almost always a Bad Thing. Therefore, you have a risk/reward choice involved with even the most well intentioned of fudges in addition to the risk of just being wrong.

Big Dice, your post is one long appeal to authority. Name dropping proves nothing. Neither does a lengthy history of DMing. A great many people on this forum and thread have a lengthy history of DMing, so "it's always been done this way" is not a justification for continuing to do it that way.

[Ashiel]

It's not just attack rolls. PCs can be incredibly dumb. It's often necessary to fudge DCs, saves, damage etc. to prevent them from killing themselves.

If it worked for Darwin...


Moreover telling the PCs what happens isn't as satisfying to them as having a chance of failure, but succeeding.

Predetermined success is not something that is satisfying to me or my group, so thus certainly is not a universally accurate statement.


E.g. PCs running after gang of people. They're about 100m behind. The gang crosses a rope bridge. The PCs follow them. The gang cuts the ropes supporting the bridge.

Sure I could tell the PCs that they made their reflex save to avoid plummetting to their deaths. But most people would feel more satisfied if I rolled a reflex save for them and then told them they succeeded, regardless of the actual die result. It's the literary equivalent of telling v. showing.

I would probably quit your game. This would also be amazingly suspicious if the group had say, a low dexterity fellow with a below average reflex save? Everyone happily evaded falling after chasing enemies out onto a bridge that could indeed be severed easily. Hmmm...

Worse yet, once you were suspected of cheating, then if you did it legitimately but hid the dice, and somebody did fall...well now you're targeting their character, or you have some sort of vendetta against the player, it seems. You cheat for everyone else, now why make my character fall, hmm? Yes, no good comes from this.


There are other ways to fudge of course, many of which have been mentioned.

A monster intelligent enough to target the same PC? PC getting low on health? Have him attack the PC, and bash him on the head, stunning the PC for a few rounds. This takes the PC out of the fight for a short while giving the monster a logical reason to start targetting another PC and allowing the PC to heal themselves after recovering from the stun.

I would have declared my PC to have suffered a brain hemorrhage from the concussion, and began rolling a new character. Your suggestion does not sound appealing in the slightest. It sounds as though it breaks verisimilitude and toys with the player. You instigate the threat of danger but then do something so obvious as to show it never existed. An illusion of success is not as satisfying as success.


Sense motive checks often require fudging. PCs don't always put points into sense motive, and it's irritating when they go off of on multiple useless tangents in the same session because they keep failing.

Example:
PCs sent on a minor side quest to collect a debt for the thieves gold in a village a few days from the castle. When they arrive, the person tells them someone has already been around to collect the gold. The PCs fail their sense motive check and believe him. They go back to town and get chewed out by the thieves guild. When they go back, the guy has packed up and left.

Later in that session, the PCs enter the minor villain's lair. When they reach they clear out the dungeon, they find him asleep in a bed. I meant for them to capture him. They wake him up with a sword to his throat. He does what anyone would do. He lies. He tells them that he was captured and forced to work under threat as a servant for the MBEG. He claims his master isn't in the lair but is travelling to X village. The PCs ask to roll a sense motive. The PCs fail their sense motive check. They let him go.

At this point I was getting annoyed by the PCs naivety, so I started fudging their sense motive rolls here and there if it would be better for the story for things to go their way. (I also spent a good 10 minutes openly laughing at them).

Alternative paths to finding out what is going on are just as valid and don't require cheating. Let them go off on their wild goose chase, and they could find clues suggesting that their benefactor is actually a malefactor. They could ask other people, or just look at what is presented in front of them (if someone came by to collect the gold, why did the guild send you? Hmm?). PCs have the choice to believe what they want to believe to a point. PCs don't have to trust someone, even if they don't think they're lying.

You diminish the benefits of having a good sense motive. You diminish the point for an evildoer to be able to lie in the first place. He lies, someone wants to see if they can tell if he's lying so they roll a Sense Motive. If not, then they don't know if he's lying and he seems sincere. That's kind of the point.

It sounds like not only were you cheating, but you were throwing away great opportunities for re-occurring villains. So they find him sleeping and release him, only to find out later that they had been deceived and he has been responsible for the mysterious assailants dogging their steps while they were looking for the real villain? Seriously? Wow.

[ryzouken]

Ashiel's last post is why I almost never look at character sheets, make my players roll their saves, and generally only fudge things when I can "feel" things getting dicey for the party. PC deaths happen. I've even almost killed a PC in their introductory scene (underestimated the damage 4 rasts can accomplish on a single druid). It comes from working with incomplete information. (which brings to mind another time where a single gargantuan constrictor snake ate a 9th level warblade... oops!)

It's fine if you tweek some numbers here and there to prolong an encounter, but when it comes to it, sometimes you just have to hit the nail with the hammer. If a PC's death is assured, ass-pulling to save them does no one any favors.

[Zherog]

It's fine if you tweek some numbers here and there to prolong an encounter...

Well, as long as we're going to continue to espouse personal opinion as fact: No, it's not.

[Grelna the Blue]

Big Dice, your post is one long appeal to authority. Name dropping proves nothing. Neither does a lengthy history of DMing. A great many people on this forum and thread have a lengthy history of DMing, so "it's always been done this way" is not a justification for continuing to do it that way.

If we accept your paraphrase as a fair summation of Big Dice's line of argument, it's not any less worthy than the other sides' expressed preference for random chance to dominate a PC's fate, rather than guided destiny. It's not as if he started his argument there, anyway. The same posters have been going round and round here with very close to the same arguments, each side failing to convince the other. It looks to me as if Big Dice tried a different line of argument, perhaps in the hopes of breaking the logjam.

I think in the end it comes down to YMMV.

[Zherog]

I think in the end it comes down to YMMV.

I agree.

We've also gone a long way from the original issue raised by Glug.

[Tyndmyr]

Ashiel's last post is why I almost never look at character sheets, make my players roll their saves,

Sadly, the only time I really look at character sheets are when a player is prone to cheating. Gotta do it to everyone to be fair, but I dislike it. I generally know all I need to know about characters just from listening to them talk about their chars. Most players are pretty eager to describe them to you in general.

Grelna, Fudging is not a preference for or against randomness. It is a choice to take over narrative control of the game at a given point. You can have a game with absolutely no fudging and no randomness(amber diceless, for instance) or a game with a great deal of randomness(Paranoia, for instance). These things are orthogonal to one another.

[Typewriter]

If the rules make things worse, fix the rules. Lets take the example so many people used, triple 20s.

Just chat with your gamers. Ask them how much they like instagibbing monsters with triple 20s, and if it's worth the extra chance of death. If it is, use it all round. If it isn't, or they later decide it isn't...stop using it.

Bam, problem fixed for good. No worrying about if this is or isn't the time to fudge it. No worries about it being fair or not.



We've already established that you cannot be certain that fudging will always go unnoticed. Sometimes, it is, and that's almost always a Bad Thing. Therefore, you have a risk/reward choice involved with even the most well intentioned of fudges in addition to the risk of just being wrong.



So fudge the rules instead of fudging rolls? My group wants to play "X system" and we generally don't do homebrew. Don't most game systems explicitly allow the DM to fudge? My group has never once questioned me about my rolls, or DC's.

So your recommendation would be that in a group where everything is working fine and no one is questioning we should switch to re-writing the system, which is something we don't like doing.

If you prefer to re-write the rules (even if you do it as a group) then do so, but in my opinion that is fudging way more than pretending a 19 was a 9 every few sessions to keep players enjoying their game.

[Britter]

Firstly. Once again if it works for you, thats cool. Have fun doing what you are doing.

Second. Don't rewrite your system. Try other systems. Out there somewhere is the perfect system for you and your group. Really. Too many groups spend years playing in a system that doesn't do what they want it to do. They juryrig it and houserule it till it is kinda-sorta what they want, but it still has issues or is wonky in some way. Meanwhile, the system that does exactly what they want is availible, but since they have only ever played one system, they never learn about it.

I strongly encourage people to try as many systems as possible, and to switch up systems on occasion. It is not only fun to try somethng different, but it gives you a broader perspective on the types of games out there and the other ways to play. At the worst, it can help you with your houserules and efforts to customize your favored system to do what you want it to do.

Take the effort to check out other games. It pays dividends.

Anyway, I have said my piece here, and had a good exchange and a pleasant discussion with you all. Thanks! Gonna bow out of this thread. Might start a discussion about the whys and wherefores of rolls at some point, so that we can discuss some of these other related issues.

[Emmerask]

Sadly there are no perfect systems every single one had at least one major flaw or did stuff not as good as the other system but others better etc ...and I tried a lot of them ^^

[Tyndmyr]

So fudge the rules instead of fudging rolls? My group wants to play "X system" and we generally don't do homebrew. Don't most game systems explicitly allow the DM to fudge? My group has never once questioned me about my rolls, or DC's.

Not fudge, change. If your group agrees to play with rule A, then it's a house rule.

House rules may be good, bad, or whatever, but they're a different ball of wax from fudging rolls.


And I strongly encourage people to try multiple systems. Too many people just play lots of D&D, including mangling D&D to try to fit their idea of a perfect system. D&D is good for what it is, but there are better systems for a great many niches. Plus, you don't really know what you want from a system until you've played more than one.

[Typewriter]

But that's the thing - my group likes the system we're playing. Our system specifies the DM should fudge, and he does. Nobody talks about, everyone knows it exists. The game allows character creation the way we like, character fulfillment the way we like, and adventuring the way we like. Sure we may find another system we enjoy more, and if we do we'll migrate over to it.

If your group enjoys playing with transparency then more power to you, but one group enjoying playing that way does not mean that there is anything wrong with fudging, just like playing with a group that enjoys fudging doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with transparency. Every group is unique, and the DM should do whatever his players enjoy.

Have a good one Britter!

[Typewriter]

Not fudge, change. If your group agrees to play with rule A, then it's a house rule.

House rules may be good, bad, or whatever, but they're a different ball of wax from fudging rolls.


And I strongly encourage people to try multiple systems. Too many people just play lots of D&D, including mangling D&D to try to fit their idea of a perfect system. D&D is good for what it is, but there are better systems for a great many niches. Plus, you don't really know what you want from a system until you've played more than one.

Sorry, when I said my group tends to shy away from homebrew I was including house rules. It's very rare for us to do anything not as written in the book.

As I said, my group is more comfortable with the DM fudging rolls (an actual rule) than we are fudging the rules (which is what we see homebrew/house rules as).

My current group has played around 6 different systems. Pathfinder is pretty much exactly what my group has been looking for in regards to D&D(fantasy), but we're also trying to find the perfect 'non-D&D' system (Vampire, Shadowrun, etc.).

[Lord Loss]

Here are the rules I go by for fudging:

Only fudge if...:

a) doesn't harm the players much more than the other roll would have.
b) doesn't make the PCs feel immortal
c) does improve their enjoyement of the game. Don't fudge to save a BBEG that was "supposed to survive" (or for any plot reasons, really) . If they foiled your plans, they deserve their victory and shouldn't be railroaded just to conserve your plot

[The Big Dice]

We've also gone a long way from the original issue raised by Glug.
This subject always does. Some people say a GM looking at his dice and deciding they rolled something other than the number they show is bad. Others don't see the problem.

To my mind, the side in favour af the GM having the final say make valid points, where the people who want the dice to have the final say can't give a good reason why they should surrender control of their game to some chunks of plastic.

But then, the people who say the dice must make the final decision don't see the validity of the other side's claims, so we end up with a stalemate.

If we accept your paraphrase as a fair summation of Big Dice's line of argument, it's not any less worthy than the other sides' expressed preference for random chance to dominate a PC's fate, rather than guided destiny. It's not as if he started his argument there, anyway. The same posters have been going round and round here with very close to the same arguments, each side failing to convince the other. It looks to me as if Big Dice tried a different line of argument, perhaps in the hopes of breaking the logjam.

I think in the end it comes down to YMMV.
The thing is, my own experience in the field has convinced me that sometimes the critical head shot that the dice shows isn't the result that's best for the game. Just like sometimes you didn't anticipate something and so the Evil Wizard needs a spell that might not be on his sheet. These aren't things that happen all the time, but they are things that happen.

And that means that I, like many GMs before me, feel that I have the responsibility to take control of things. I'm not going to let my campaign come to an end because three out of four characters blew a save and died to an an AoE spell cast on the first round of combat. Been there, done that, didn't like it at all.

And how is that any different from rolling up magic items for a treasure and deciding that a +2 siangham isn't the weapon yourplayers need to find? You either play by the dice and by nothing but the dice, or you don't. And I think that more people don't than would like ot admit it.

Sadly, the only time I really look at character sheets are when a player is prone to cheating. Gotta do it to everyone to be fair, but I dislike it. I generally know all I need to know about characters just from listening to them talk about their chars. Most players are pretty eager to describe them to you in general.
I tend to be the one who looks after charcter sheets, so if I need to look I can. Most of the time I don't, unless I think there's a problem. And the problem usually turns out to be someone forgetting to do something when they level up.

Grelna, Fudging is not a preference for or against randomness. It is a choice to take over narrative control of the game at a given point. You can have a game with absolutely no fudging and no randomness(amber diceless, for instance) or a game with a great deal of randomness(Paranoia, for instance). These things are orthogonal to one another.
Fudging is deciding that a particular roll you make as a GM isn't the most dramatic result you could have. Sometimes a damage roll is too high, sometimes a save made by an NPC needs to be passed or failed. It's not a constant thing, either. I can go months without needing to adjust a roll, tweak an NPC on the fly or any other kind of fudging of the situation.

People talk about "GM Fiat" a lot. The thing is, like railroading, fiat is a tool to be used when the time is right. Mutants and Masterminds encourages it, rewarding the players when the GM decides to overrule the dice or the situation. But mostly, as a GM you need to develop a feel for when you should change things and when you shold let them stand.

How many times has a critical NPC been killed by your players and you've had to do some written gymnastics to get your plot heading back in the direction you spent weeks or months planning? How many times has a bad dice roll killed a critical PC, or a number of them, at a time where they are absolutely needed? Or when it is simply not possible to bring in new characters without coming over like that bit in The Gamers where a new wizard joins the group?

The thing with dice is, they are random number generators, but they are also props. Just like a player handing a note, or a GM handing one to a player, a roll of the dice and a concerned look or a grin can ramp up tension round the table. It's all part of the performance that a GM puts on during a game session.

Edit:

Here are the rules I go by for fudging:

Only fudge if...:

a) doesn't harm the players much more than the other roll would have.
b) doesn't make the PCs feel immortal
c) does improve their enjoyement of the game. Don't fudge to save a BBEG that was "supposed to survive" (or for any plot reasons, really) . If they foiled your plans, they deserve their victory and shouldn't be railroaded just to conserve your plot
A and B are what I've been driving at since I got involved with the thread. However, C is more of a grey area. Foiling my plans is ok, but killing the BBEG at the wrong time can be like Luke shooting Vader dead right after Vader kills Ben Kenobi.

[Ashiel]

A and B are what I've been driving at since I got involved with the thread. However, C is more of a grey area. Foiling my plans is ok, but killing the BBEG at the wrong time can be like Luke shooting Vader dead right after Vader kills Ben Kenobi.

What you call a problem is what I call the reason RPGs are better than watching movies. Technically Vader couldn't have been shot dead by Luke when he killed Obi; but here's the stick. If Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, and the Droids, somehow managed to overthrow Vader, then the movie would have ended differently. That's part of why many of us play tabletop RPGs instead of just playing through Dragon Age for the 13th time; the ability to step outside the bonds of whatever is laid out before you.

Then again, they could have also been smart and realized that "Hey, he just killed a guy that could kill all of us if he wanted to, so maybe we should run"; and then run as intended. Or maybe Luke rushes in and gets cut down by Vader, and then it falls to Leia to become the the savior of the galaxy.

For many of us, rail-roading is not the reason we play RPGs.

[Typewriter]

I agree. I would never prevent the characters from doing something they legitimately pulled off. Whether it be luck, skill, or genius.

[Lord Loss]

A and B are what I've been driving at since I got involved with the thread. However, C is more of a grey area. Foiling my plans is ok, but killing the BBEG at the wrong time can be like Luke shooting Vader dead right after Vader kills Ben Kenobi.

As Ashiel said, you're comparing RPGs to movies. In an RPG perspective, were that a Star Wars D6 campaign, it would have been better for the GM to bring in The Emperor as main villain or take the plot in a new direction (fighting off the remainder of the Empire, or a totally new conflict) than to go "Nope. You miss" or "With cruel glance, Vader sends your blaster flying from your hands as you fire it off. The Storm Troopers rush at you. What do you do?" (That's my take on it anyway. Each to his own, I guess).

[Jayabalard]

Big Dice, your post is one long appeal to authority. Name dropping proves nothing. Neither does a lengthy history of DMing. A great many people on this forum and thread have a lengthy history of DMing, so "it's always been done this way" is not a justification for continuing to do it that way.That doesn't seem like a valid characterization of his statements; an appeal to authority is only fallacious if you assert that the authoritative claim made by the person in question cannot be questioned simply because that person is an authority.

Really, this is a message board for discussions about gaming, not a forum that's strictly for formal debate. Citing the advice of well known game designers (name dropping), and citing personal experience (long history of DMing) is certainly a valid way of discussing the topic. He's not claiming that they're (or that he is) above criticism, just that their advice, coupled with his own experience, is more than enough to convince him that it's worth any supposed risk.


And in music, improvisation comes after you've done the basics, not before. You master the rote playing before you truly develop an interpretation of a piece. There's really 2 problems with this.

Firstly, lots of people (even some of the greats) skipped most of the basics, and jump right into the improvisational part of jazz. So it's simply not true.

Secondly "learning the basics" is a terrible analogy if you're trying to imply that you should follow what the dice say rather than improvising. If anything it says the opposite: that by learning what the notes on the page (ie dice) say, and then ignoring them and fudging in places you get a more pleasing performance than if you just follow it exactly.

[The Big Dice]

As Ashiel said, you're comparing RPGs to movies. In an RPG perspective, were that a Star Wars D6 campaign, it would have been better for the GM to bring in The Emperor as main villain or take the plot in a new direction (fighting off the remainder of the Empire, or a totally new conflict) than to go "Nope. You miss" or "With cruel glance, Vader sends your blaster flying from your hands as you fire it off. The Storm Troopers rush at you. What do you do?" (That's my take on it anyway. Each to his own, I guess).

Bear in mind that Vader at that point wasn't well defined. He was big and bad, but he was also Tarkin's hound. Jedi were ill defined, other than they used swords in an age when everyone else uses guns. Other than the mind trick and choke, both of which could have been unique to the people doing them for all anyone knew, we only see jedi fight each other. And Vader might not even have been a jedi at that point. The moral being, don't believe everything George Lucas tells you :smallwink:

And if you want to go by video game Vader, there's no rason he couldn't have sliced the blast door open, then stopped the Falcon from taking off just by making a fist.

Ultimately, how is saying "You hit him, he goes down and the door slams shut" going to change anything? Especially if you don't tell the players than he suddenly had exactly enough hit points to survive the damage he took. By 1.

My way ends up in "We'll get him next time!"

Which is good, it means that the players are involved in the game, the events around them and the setting.

[Grelna the Blue]

Grelna, Fudging is not a preference for or against randomness. It is a choice to take over narrative control of the game at a given point. You can have a game with absolutely no fudging and no randomness(amber diceless, for instance) or a game with a great deal of randomness(Paranoia, for instance). These things are orthogonal to one another.

Actually, I think Paranoia is like Call of Cthulhu in being fairly structured--the only question is when and how something horrible and entertaining is going to happen to you, not whether something will. However, more to the point, I think that increased control of the narrative is absolutely antithetical to randomness.

My view is that the GM has narrative control of the game at all times, except for those PC decisions that affect the game. Aside from tactics, PCs seldom do much deciding in combat. The whole purpose of using dice in the first place is supposedly to reflect a PC's skill and power. If they've got an attack bonus of +5, they're supposed to hit an AC of 13 at least 65% of the time (even more often with situational bonuses). If they roll less than 8 on the dice on attack after attack while the enemy succeeds in repeatedly critting, I don't think that's either fun or realistic. I wrestled in high school and college. Unless two opponents were extremely closely matched, you could predict the winner every time after seeing only one bout (and that was inside the same weight class). D&D doesn't work anything like that.

So I will sometimes--not always, but sometimes--give an invisible assist when the party is losing a fight they objectively should win and they've done nothing wrong. I do this because I think the story is more important than the dice. If the players were in a competition of some sort, then this would be cheating, but it's not. The game is a story that they help to tell and the dice are valuable only insofar as they reflect (or are supposed to reflect) the PC's power level. When the dice forget, sometimes I choose to adjust the odds another way.

I have on many occasions impartially allowed parties to lose a fight or lose a PC to death when such a result was likely or easily predictable (i.e., the PCs either had no business being in this fight or fought stupid). Less than a month ago I watched a 7th level unarmored elven cleric PC came to grief from a few 1st level orc scouts armed with bows and one of the weakest poisons in the book (Fort save 11). She'd have been fine if she had cured herself after the first round or had kept to the cover she had at the start of the fight. Instead she drew attention by casting a spell and then stood up the next round. Hit 3 times each round, she took 12d6 plus the poison and the other PCs didn't give her help in time (they were busy with an ettin and didn't take her problems seriously).

More often, I'll adjust reality to stretch out a fight the players are winning handily. I don't make them lose or take away their crits; I just give them more chances to actually use those hardearned skills.

Bottom line, I think story considerations should at times be allowed to trump die rolls, because I don't play for the sake of rolling dice.

[Totally Guy]

Out of interest, if you were caught fudging a roll or you accidentally confessed or something, and a player was unhappy about it, what would you do next?

[Emmerask]

As long as the rest of the group is perfectly happy with it I would put the happiness of the group above this one player, that player has three choices he can either leave the group, stay and accept it or dm himself and do things differently.
If its more then one player its a different matter but you asked about one so thats the answer ^^

[Typewriter]

Out of interest, if you were caught fudging a roll or you accidentally confessed or something, and a player was unhappy about it, what would you do next?

I think I would probably explain to them that it's something I do to prevent chance from ruining the flow of the game. If he still didn't like it I'd say he's more than welcome to bring it up to the group. If the group didn't like it I would stop doing it.

As I said, every group should be treated as it wants to be treated. My players know I fudge. They're too smart not to know. Yet they prefer this to dying two sessions into a campaign, which puts everyone in a foul mood.

[Ashiel]

Bear in mind that Vader at that point wasn't well defined. He was big and bad, but he was also Tarkin's hound. Jedi were ill defined, other than they used swords in an age when everyone else uses guns. Other than the mind trick and choke, both of which could have been unique to the people doing them for all anyone knew, we only see jedi fight each other. And Vader might not even have been a jedi at that point. The moral being, don't believe everything George Lucas tells you :smallwink:

Which is entirely irrelevant to the point. Unless you just mean that as a GM, the "Vader" figure is the nameless big bad. If you hadn't thought it out any further than "this Vader guy captured you", then why would it be hard to go "Ok, well they managed to defeat my nameless Vader guy, so let's say he was working for something else..." and not cheat your players?


And if you want to go by video game Vader, there's no rason he couldn't have sliced the blast door open, then stopped the Falcon from taking off just by making a fist.

Doesn't matter what "Vader" can or cannot do. "Vader" is an example. A stand-in for the BBEG of the week. He could easily be Velkor the Corrupt Archbishop of Andervale; but we're callin' him "Vader" 'cause its a good metaphor in this case.

All that really matters for the purposes of discussion is this: Either you cheat your players, or you don't. If you cheat your players 'cause you think that's more cinematic, then fine for you, but I wouldn't play in your game because I don't want to watch a movie that plays out like an RPG, I want to play and RPG that plays out like an RPG. Get it?

Part of the beauty to some of us about RPGs is the fact things can change suddenly at the last minute. Heck, the current adventure I'm running right now has so many different directions it can go in its hilarious. One moment they're working for Templar and hunting heretics, next adventure they ended up working for the cultists against the Templar, next adventure they decided they think the cultists are bad and are going to help the Templar invade them. In the middle of it you got were-wolves, cross-faction love stories, and high adventure and action all 'round.

Not cheating them has been infinitely more entertaining than "Cultist bad, you fight cultists, you win or you don't, I say".

[Emmerask]

You again somehow try to make it sound like fudging roles means you take away player decisions which is completely wrong...
Players make decisions without knowing the outcome if the outcome is rolled randomly or arbitrarily fiated is completely irrelevant for the decision making process

[Drascin]

Out of interest, if you were caught fudging a roll or you accidentally confessed or something, and a player was unhappy about it, what would you do next?

Well, generally I'm pretty open from square one about the fact that I will retcon and fudge things, and I have even done so a couple times in the open. So that is not something I have to worry about much, usually.

But if a player came to me and said this was making him unhappy, I would consult with the whole group. If it was unanimous, I'd apologize for misreading them all so badly and step down as a GM, let someone else run, and find another game to play. If the other players were alright with it... thing is, I can't ruin three (four, counting me) people's fun for the sake of one. I would probably suggest that he should try running his own game, or finding something else, or something, because roleplaying time is really in limited supply enough for him to waste his fun hobby-dedicated time in a group that has utterly different priorities than him - I know I personally would scram if I was in his place in the reverse situation!

[Ashiel]

You again somehow try to make it sound like fudging roles means you take away player decisions which is completely wrong...
Players make decisions without knowing the outcome if the outcome is rolled randomly or arbitrarily fiated is completely irrelevant for the decision making process

Isn't it? Even my 12 year old brother realized it was true when he read through some of these posts. We had a discussion about this discussion.

If he made a character about dealing damage to kill his foes before they could hurt his allies (let's call him Mr. DPS) then arbitrarily increasing Hp of foes because he deals more damage is cheating him. You undermine his decision to focus on damage.

If you fudge a roll to save an NPC from a baleful polymorph, you undermine the player's decision to learn and prepare that spell; the player's decision to use it; the players decision to even act during that round.

If you fudge a roll to make sure everyone saves on a rope-bridge collapse, you diminish the drawbacks of everyone who chose to have a low dexterity and a higher something else. You undermine the characters who are supposed to have good reflex saves and be nimble, and their choice to be so.

{Scrubbed}

[Emmerask]

The success or failure has nothing to do with the player being able to make the decision... otherwise you could argue that the dice take away players decisions with an x% chance.
And it seems its always going into the negatives ie the dm denies something cool when it is also perfectly possible that the dm allows something ie the vader example:

The players decide to attack vader he rolls and the pc would be dead the dm though likes the players decision so much that he fudges the roll allowing the player succeed with his decision...

In one case according to your logic the dice just took away the players decision in the other case the dm allowed the player decisions with fudging the roll

And yes you are kind of lying to them though lying is kind of a hard word if you are not playing dm vs pcs its more of an altering reality for the sake of fun :smallwink:

/edit


If he made a character about dealing damage to kill his foes before they could hurt his allies (let's call him Mr. DPS) then arbitrarily increasing Hp of foes because he deals more damage is cheating him. You undermine his decision to focus on damage.

You do have a point here if this is true for nearly every foe the group encounters, yes you do undermine the decision in this case and it would be wrong to do so but this has very little to do with fudging rolls, the general consensus from those who fudge rolls is that you are using it very sparingly and only in situations where it will increase the fun for everybody.
To get back to Mr. DPS if you increase one or maybe two monsters HP´s during the whole campaign because you determine that its more fun if those bosses survive more then one successful attack by MR DPS then you have a much better analogy and to be honest if I would play MR DPS it wouldn´t bother me :smallwink:

[Ashiel]

The success or failure has nothing to do with the player being able to make the decision... otherwise you could argue that the dice take away players decisions with an x% chance.
And it seems its always going into the negatives ie the dm denies something cool when it is also perfectly possible that the dm allows something ie the vader example:

The players decide to attack vader he rolls and the pc would be dead the dm though likes the players decision so much that he fudges the roll allowing the player succeed with his decision...

In one case according to your logic the dice just took away the players decision in the other case the dm allowed the player decisions with fudging the roll

And yes you are kind of lying to them though lying is kind of a hard word if you are not playing dm vs pcs its more of an altering reality for the sake of fun :smallwink:

The % chance for failure is part of the player's decision. They know there is a chance for failure, but there is a chance for success (even if it's only 5%). Dice don't deny players actions, they facilitate them. They keep things a bit closer to being fair and not entirely an arbitrary series of events as defined by whomever seems to have authority.

{Scrubbed}

Also, everyone in my group says "it's not fun if you're always cheating". So I prefer not to cheat. I can't understand exactly when and where someone got the idea that it's 100% cool to cheat at a game with your friends, for any reason. It's got to be one of the greatest shams of our entire hobby; the idea that not only is cheating acceptable but it's expected. Yet people complain when a GM finds their players cheating at dice rolls? Dropping the dice and covering the results? Cheating on their character sheets?

Dishonest and cheating is a nice way of putting it. It's also a huge double standard. In my games, I don't cheat. Ever. I won't cheat against you, I won't cheat for you. If I catch you cheating once, then I will cheat once; and that cheating will probably come in the form of an an orc barbarian with an amazingly luck swing on his scythe while he's in the middle of his rage.

[Emmerask]

Well it could always just be done by AO (or insert other overdeity) then it is not cheating anymore, he/she/it simply altered reality to something he/she/it likes more :smalltongue:

Anyway we have a really completely different approach to DMing as long as your way works for you and mine works for me its all fine :smallsmile:

[Grelna the Blue]

Out of interest, if you were caught fudging a roll or you accidentally confessed or something, and a player was unhappy about it, what would you do next?

I understand that players prefer to believe that I am constantly throwing the kitchen sink at them and that their survival is in spite of me, not because of me, so I avoid using ways that can easily be detected. However, if I did nonetheless get sloppy and someone noticed and confronted me about the fact that her party only won through a certain fight because the bad guys suddenly threw away a tactical advantage and the PCs were able to take advantage of it, I'd take this tack:


"The bandit chieftain [or whatever] could easily have become overconfident because of her string of crits, seeing as the tide of battle had been going all her gang's way. It isn't unbelievable she simply got careless. Certainly playing her as an unemotional battle robot was never my intent. But yeah, I had my thumb on the scale just a little. Every hit and miss and damage die rolled was honest, but a few opportunities got thrown out there to mitigate the dice curse that was hanging over the table tonight. You and the others were still the ones who took advantage of them. Sometimes I make a fight a little harder when it looks as if you guys are going to steamroll it, because I don't think anticlimax is much fun either.

Don't worry though, it's still the decisions you guys make that mostly determine your destiny in my game. The dice only lend a hand."

If the player was not satisfied, I'd have to bring in the rest of the group to solicit their opinion. If they demanded perfect impartiality, I'd give it to them. However, I'd first point out my previous argument:


The GM's job is certainly not to guarantee a party's success, but neither is it to roleplay a world in which the PCs' story truly doesn't matter and they get no special breaks, ever. It might be argued that some players are up to and in fact WANT the challenge of succeeding in such an impartial world, but it is an illusory goal. In a truly impartial, uncaring world encounters would frequently (not just sometimes) be level inappropriate and powerful and intelligent villains wouldn't be balanced to be (hopefully) just within a party's capabilities to defeat.

After that, the decision would be in their hands. This is not something that has ever come up, though.

[Yora]

Did you just quote and reply to yourself? :smallbiggrin:

[Grelna the Blue]

Did you just quote and reply to yourself? :smallbiggrin:


Replied to Glug,
middle quote made up,
last quote just because I didn't feel like copy-pasting what I'd already written, but wanted to reference it.

[The Big Dice]

The % chance for failure is part of the player's decision. They know there is a chance for failure, but there is a chance for success (even if it's only 5%). Dice don't deny players actions, they facilitate them. They keep things a bit closer to being fair and not entirely an arbitrary series of events as defined by whomever seems to have authority.
Again, hyperbole. The players don't choose to fail rolls. The players don't choose to have the GM roll multiple high dice against them. There are times when a fight goes sour and by the end of the round, there are multiple dead characters. I've seen it happen. Ok, so the kender getting torn apart by one troll isn't so bad. But the second one getting a maximium damage rend and a crit on it's bite against the wizard sealed the fate of the party. That happened before anybody could even make the decision to regroup, retreat of flee.

So saying that there is always a 5% chance of success, other than it only being relevant in a minority of games, is patently untrue. And therefore is a gross exaggeration.

There are times the dice need telling what they rolled, rather than the dice telling you that your campaign now needs to be scrapped because of a single combat round going south.

If your players are fine with losing characters and also losing the lynchpin that was driving that stage of the campaign, fine. I'm not prepared to let the dice spoil everybody's fun.

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}
First, I'm not American, so that comment is actually irrelevant. Second, how can someone who is the final arbiter of the rules and the person who decides what applies at his table, be a cheat?

I'm still not seeing a valid reason why a GM shouldn't have the last word on what happens when he rolls the dice.

Also, everyone in my group says "it's not fun if you're always cheating". So I prefer not to cheat. I can't understand exactly when and where someone got the idea that it's 100% cool to cheat at a game with your friends, for any reason. It's got to be one of the greatest shams of our entire hobby; the idea that not only is cheating acceptable but it's expected. Yet people complain when a GM finds their players cheating at dice rolls? Dropping the dice and covering the results? Cheating on their character sheets?
Here's the meat and bones.

At no point has any advocate of fudging said that they are always cheating. That's more hyperbole. No here's some advice from my first D&D set, the famous Frank Mentzer Red Box edition:


But remember - although the monsters may be fighting the characters, you are not fighting the players. If you try to entertain them, they will entertain you.

Think about what that means for a moment. If I am going by the dice, the whole dice and nothing but the dice, I am by definition competing with the players. Because I'm either competing with them or I'm going easy on them. And in my experience, players are all too aware when a GM is going soft on them. And they tend to lose respect for the GM, as well as losing interest in the game when that happens.


Dishonest and cheating is a nice way of putting it. It's also a huge double standard. In my games, I don't cheat. Ever. I won't cheat against you, I won't cheat for you. If I catch you cheating once, then I will cheat once; and that cheating will probably come in the form of an an orc barbarian with an amazingly luck swing on his scythe while he's in the middle of his rage.
That's the wrong kind of cheating. That's revenge cheating, That's GM v player cheating. That's bad form, highly offensive and not going to end well.

On the other hand, if that orc has just rolled a near maximum damage critical hit against the last party member still standing, leaving that character and everyone else in the party on negative hit points, what do you do?

[Gnaeus]

On the other hand, if that orc has just rolled a near maximum damage critical hit against the last party member still standing, leaving that character and everyone else in the party on negative hit points, what do you do?

I pull out the players handbook, turn to page 6, and ask if I can play a druid in the next game.

[Trixie]

Every gm in every game fudges. And it has always been that way.

I do not. Therefore I feel your statement is a bit too broad.

As for the problem in OP, I feel you and the other players should unionize and demand all rolls (or at least all boss battle rolls) to be done in the open, with at least 12+ cm rolling distance being guarantee of fairness.

[The Big Dice]

I pull out the players handbook, turn to page 6, and ask if I can play a druid in the next game.

I don't, I say he didn't confirm the crit, but got a reasonable damage hit. He's looking pretty beat up from the epic battle and ask the player what he does next.

Hopefully it's either some sub optimal in combat healing either of himself or of another PC. Or he does something that lets the orc get dropped in what is a convincing (but not necessarily what was on my stat block) manner.

A small amount of legerdemain from me means that several people don't have to roll up new characters and I don't have to go through all the hassle of having to either start a whole new campaign, or go back over the setup again for new characters who are played by people who know exactly what's going on already.

[Gnaeus]

I don't, I say he didn't confirm the crit, but got a reasonable damage hit. He's looking pretty beat up from the epic battle and ask the player what he does next.

Hopefully it's either some sub optimal in combat healing either of himself or of another PC. Or he does something that lets the orc get dropped in what is a convincing (but not necessarily what was on my stat block) manner.

A small amount of legerdemain from me means that several people don't have to roll up new characters and I don't have to go through all the hassle of having to either start a whole new campaign, or go back over the setup again for new characters who are played by people who know exactly what's going on already.

That seems a lot like playing Arkham Horror with stacked card decks. Yay! We just beat down cthulhu for the 12th straight time! Why does it feel so....meaningless?

[The Big Dice]

That seems a lot like playing Arkham Horror with stacked card decks. Yay! We just beat down cthulhu for the 12th straight time! Why does it feel so....meaningless?

Because you didn't beat down Cthulhu. You survived to go on to beat him down, instead of everyone getting wiped out by Third Cultist from the Left.

The Die Hard analogy has been used a few times in this thread, and it's a highly relevant one. Bruce Willis at the end of that movie is how most players secretly want to be after a big fight. They want to be battered and bloody, but victorious.

What they don't want is to end up as the guy tied to the chair and shoved in the elevator wearing a sign that says "Now I have a machine gun too."

[Raum]

I'm still not seeing a valid reason why a GM shouldn't have the last word on what happens when he rolls the dice.Do other players have the same option? If not, why not?

"Because I'm your father" was a lousy reason when I was five and it was coming from dad. However dad had the authority to enforce it...at least until I got older. "Because I'm the DM" is a worse answer. We're talking about a social recreation among equals...GMs don't have any more authority than the players cede* them.

*I have no objection to retcons, fudging, or whatever as long as it's based on consensus. I do object to arbitrary decisions because it fits one player's (GM or not) personal vision.

[woodenbandman]

If it's acceptable to put players in situations where they cannot fail (random encounters to "showcase" some part of the world), is it also acceptable to put them in situations where they cannot succeed?

There is no need to roll to see whether or not my 40th level wizard kills that bandit. There is no need to give level 1 bandits the triple crit instant kill rule because level 1 bandits are not important.

Now pretend I am a level 5 bandit, trying to kill a level 10 wizard. You are the DM, and this is your wizard. He is your favorite NPC. I have researched said wizard's strengths and weaknesses to the nth degree. I know his spellbook backwards. I know he will die to the poison on my blade. I have just stabbed him with godslaying poison leaving him paralyzed and hopeless, unless he makes a DC 25 fortitude save, which he cannot do unless he rolls a 20. What do you do, what do you do?

Now flip that around. I am the DM, that is your level 10 wizard, and your level 10 wizard has pissed off my level 5 bandit. The level 5 bandit has studied your weaknesses. He knows your spellbook forwards and backwards. He has scried on you, paid in sweat and blood to find you, so he can deliver a deadly strike that will kill you in your sleep. You will die unless you fail a DC 20 fortitude save, a save to which you have +5. you roll a 13. What do you expect ME to do? What if you have +17 to that save, and you roll a two? What should I do then? Should I fudge the roll because I think you deserve to live? What about that wizard? What does he deserve?

Every time you betray the dice you are betraying the motivations of someone or something. Every time you keep someone alive with a fudge, you are betraying the creature that worked hard to kill them. You wouldn't want me, as DM, to fudge the death of my wizard so that your hard work came to nothing, would you? Conversely, I would not expect you as the DM to fudge the death of my character if I were stalked and killed by a level 5 bandit (provided that you did everything fairly and didn't just decide how it happens).

Now, with that said, sometimes you may find it acceptable to ignore the roll of a die, usually in a situation with nothing riding on it (ok you open the lock to the empty chest), or in a situation where there is no real drama (you slay the bandits handily), which brings up the question: Why bother rolling dice at all? I think that dice rolls should be used when necessary and not otherwise. You all see the important scenery details, you all cross the bridge safely, you all climb the cliff of intermediate amount of peril.

[olentu]

And why do you think fudging rolls means that there are no repercussions for actions? Infact rolling a random number to see if there are repercussions at all for an action does (potentially) take it away, not the other way around :smallwink:



So the players choose what number to roll before they roll? That is news to me

Er no they choose to cause a roll of the dice and accept the outcome of said roll.


The big dice that tells all the little dice in the pouch what's what? It's not the kind of gag I'd expect anyone but me to think was particularly funny, really.

I don't see how the dice are making the player's choice. The dice are what you use to determine an outcome when the result of an action is in doubt. And the players certainly don't choose for themselves to have a run of lousiy rolls, while the GM rolls nothing below a 17 for the entire fight. The players don't choose to be hit for max damage four times in one fight. The players don't choose to have three out of five characters killed while the group is deep underground trying to rescue the wife of one of the dead characters from the Drow slavers that took her.

That's all stuff that the dice decide and that the GM (or Big Dice as I might call the post if I ever write my own RPG) should be making the calls on.

The dice are not making the players choice but rather the players choice is to make a roll and accept what that roll gives.

[Typewriter]

Wow. I'm a bit surprised at the sudden shift in tone in some of the comments going on here. It went from "My group doesn't like fudging" to "If you're fudging your a cheater and a liar, who does nothing but cheat and lie".

That's great.

I suppose I could point out, again, that fudging is a rule. And for some is considered much more favorable than home brew/house rules.

Or I could point out that fudging a roll does not mean you're running a campaign, let alone a single encounter, where the players are at zero risk. Fudging a roll to keep a player alive does not mean you're going to do so every round. It doesn't mean invincibility (it can if that's what the DM decides, but it sounds to me like most people are taking this to completely illogical extremes) for the party.

If a party member is down, and another is about to be killed and I roll a crit I may negate the crit and make it a regular hit. If one round later the player is still fighting, and he gets hit again, that may kill him.

Saying that you fudge rolls does not mean you admit to anything other than the fact that you occasionally fudge rolls. It's not admitting to stripping player power, it's not admitting to railroading. These are not the same thing.

On the whole 'Vader' thing - I personally agree that negating a players action is uncool, and I would not do such a thing.

I see fudging as giving players a second chance when randomness is screwing them over. I'm not going to repeatedly allow people extra chances, but I think that a player who is enjoying the game, and his character, should not have his fun interrupted by what could amount to nothing but a 1 in 100 occurrence.

[Typewriter]

Er no they choose to cause a roll of the dice and accept the outcome of said roll.



The dice are not making the players choice but rather the players choice is to make a roll and accept what that roll gives.

And dice are what you choose as your final arbiter. Goody for you. For some of us having our 'choices' determined by nothing other than a piece of plastic engineered towards randomness doesn't feel much like choice.

Whatever works for you works for you, but we play the game we do because we enjoy it. I fudge because the rules tell me to. And it works. No matter what you say, when it comes right down to it - it works. Well. And it's in the rules. There is absolutely no reason to not do it if it works for the group. If it doesn't then don't.

[olentu]

Is not fudging in its essence negating at least a part of the choice of action made by the player since is is removing part of the outcome and so whatever part of the player's choice that produced that outcome is negated.


And dice are what you choose as your final arbiter. Goody for you. For some of us having our 'choices' determined by nothing other than a piece of plastic engineered towards randomness doesn't feel much like choice.

Whatever works for you works for you, but we play the game we do because we enjoy it. I fudge because the rules tell me to. And it works. No matter what you say, when it comes right down to it - it works. Well. And it's in the rules. There is absolutely no reason to not do it if it works for the group. If it doesn't then don't.


You see this is why I said more freeform games are a different matter in that they player has actually made the choice to use the DM decided outcome rather then the dice decided outcome. Less dice based games are fine and fun and etc. but if the player has not chosen such a course then one is negating the players choice to use the dice and thus removing player choice.

[The Big Dice]

I feel like I'm failing at putting across a fundamental issue here. The point is not to take away risk, The point is not to ensure player success no matter what. The point of a GM fudging a roll is to ensure that the players have a good experience of the game.

The players don't cheat. Player rolls are relevant. However, the GM sometimes needs to adjust the outcome OF ROLLS THAT HE ALONE AND NOBODY ELSE MIGHT MAKE.

If you don't like that, that's fine. But bear in mind that I have been on both sides of this discussion at different times in my gaming career. And I know for a fact which one has led to less problems in my games.

Every time you betray the dice you are betraying the motivations of someone or something. Every time you keep someone alive with a fudge, you are betraying the creature that worked hard to kill them. You wouldn't want me, as DM, to fudge the death of my wizard so that your hard work came to nothing, would you? Conversely, I would not expect you as the DM to fudge the death of my character if I were stalked and killed by a level 5 bandit (provided that you did everything fairly and didn't just decide how it happens).
Betrayal is a very strong accusation to make. Here's a fact: as a GM I have a limitless cast of creatures of all power levels and I have unlimited resources. If I want a PC dead, it's easy. And I don't care who that PC is or what level wizard the PC is. If I want him to die, I can find a counter to anything and everything the player can throw at me.

Except I don't, because that is bad sportsmanship.

So in what way is it a betrayal for me to copy an array from the DMG, add some equipment and then decide that the fluke roll I just made shouldn't be applied in play?

Exactly how is that a betrayal? Is it a betrayal because I I chose not to let a character die when the death would not have been dramatic and would just have made things more difficult for me, the player with the dead character and the rest of the group?


Now, with that said, sometimes you may find it acceptable to ignore the roll of a die, usually in a situation with nothing riding on it (ok you open the lock to the empty chest), or in a situation where there is no real drama (you slay the bandits handily), which brings up the question: Why bother rolling dice at all? I think that dice rolls should be used when necessary and not otherwise. You all see the important scenery details, you all cross the bridge safely, you all climb the cliff of intermediate amount of peril.
Sometimes I find it neccessary to ignore or alter the roll of a dice that I have just rolled.

I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself, but I'm feeling that this point is getting obscured.

Sometimes the dice give a result that is either unsatisfactory or undesireable. This is not a frequent or regular thing and is something that I have learned to judge based on my experience as a GM.

The dice are not making the players choice but rather the players choice is to make a roll and accept what that roll gives.
I haven't been talking about player rolls. I sometimes go with a "Roll the dice and I'll see if I like the number you get" approach, especially if I haven't set a difficuly for a specific task. Usually something that isn't covered by the list on my GM screen.

What I am talking about is me as a GM choosing to not let the dice murder your character. Unless you like having your characters killed by a fluke of the dice, of course.

[Serpentine]

Out of interest, if you were caught fudging a roll or you accidentally confessed or something, and a player was unhappy about it, what would you do next?A single roll, I would shrug and take it as it lands, keeping in mind that there's pretty much a 50% chance that the error was in their favour. If they just correct my maths or a rule (which has happened before) then I carry on as usual. If they make it clear that it's the fudging they don't like - and noone else comments - then I will try to remember not to fudge for or against them in future, and work on my subtlety skills.
If I "accidentally confessed" - which isn't really a thing, I'm not gonna shout "HAY GUISE, I LIEK TOTES FUDGE", but I don't feel the need to lie about it or anything, either - and one or more players were unhappy, I would explain my point of view, and hope they understand. Assuming they do, I would take it as a sign that I'm relying too much on them and ease back, try to be more subtle about it too. If they're adamant that they don't like it, it partially depends on how polite they are about it - if Ashiel gave me his schpiel about how I'm a low-down dirty rotten cheat, for example, I might suggest that he would find a different game more to his liking. If, on the other hand, they simply politely explained that they would rather that the dice are played as they land by everyone, then I would agree to at least give it a shot for a while. I would make sure that they clearly understand that it means they're at risk of some really dumb deaths and very frustrating plot-loss, first, though.

All that really matters for the purposes of discussion is this: Either you cheat your players, or you don't. If you cheat your players 'cause you think that's more cinematic, then fine for you, but I wouldn't play in your game because I don't want to watch a movie that plays out like an RPG, I want to play and RPG that plays out like an RPG. Get it?
...
Not cheating them has been infinitely more entertaining than "Cultist bad, you fight cultists, you win or you don't, I say".Again with this :sigh: As I already tried to explain, it's not as though I fudge every single roll. I'm pretty sure that few, if any, of any of our battles have been completely decided by fudging. It's not "I will make this character/enemy die/survive", it's "I will give this character/enemy a greater chance of dying/surviving".
It is certainly not "Cultist bad, you fight cultists, you win or you don't, I say". Well, in fact that's already a domain of DMs - the DM decides the strengths, weaknesses, tactics, resources and simply the CR of all enemies, and thus the likelihood of the outcome. But rather, what fudging does is "cultist bad, if you fight cultists, you probably win or you don't depending on the nature of the encounter, dice rolls and tactics, I tweak it to resolve sooner or later than it otherwise would or with greater or lesser casualties or with greater or lesser chance of escape for either party".

[olentu]

I haven't been talking about player rolls. I sometimes go with a "Roll the dice and I'll see if I like the number you get" approach, especially if I haven't set a difficuly for a specific task. Usually something that isn't covered by the list on my GM screen.

What I am talking about is me as a GM choosing to not let the dice murder your character. Unless you like having your characters killed by a fluke of the dice, of course.

The reactions of the environment are part of the outcome of the choice that I have made and so yes I would absolutely desire death if that is the outcome of my choice to have my character preform action x regardless of if it is by a fluke of the dice or just bad planning.

E.g. if I choose to have the character run through a room full of traps for whatever reason I fully accept the possibility of bad rolls and getting the character killed because the DM rolled max damage on all the traps. I would not want it any other way and certainly would not want the damage reduced one point even if that would avoid character death.

[Typewriter]

The reactions of the environment are part of the outcome of the choice that I have made and so yes I would absolutely desire death if that is the outcome of my choice to have my character preform action x regardless of if it is by a fluke of the dice or just bad planning.

E.g. if I choose to have the character run through a room full of traps for whatever reason I fully accept the possibility of bad rolls and getting the character killed because the DM rolled max damage on all the traps. I would not want it any other way and certainly would not want the damage reduced one point even if that would avoid character death.

Goody for you. That makes you one of the people who shouldn't play with a group that prefers less random chance. That doesn't mean theres anything wrong with fudging, just that you don't like it.

[olentu]

Goody for you. That makes you one of the people who shouldn't play with a group that prefers less random chance. That doesn't mean theres anything wrong with fudging, just that you don't like it.

Yes and. While it is possible I have misspoken (though on review it does not look to me like I have) there is I agree nothing inherently wrong with fudging any more then there is anything inherently wrong with anything. However right or wrong does not change what the action is.

I am still not sure where the whole "fudging is inherently morally wrong and the greatest of the evils that plague modern society. If fudging was eradicated surely it would lead to world peace, a chicken pizza in every session, the eradication of disease (while keeping a robust immune system so as not to end up as in war of the worlds), etc." (this is hyperbole if you can not guess) view got applied to me but perhaps I have been unclear in my phrasing.

[valadil]

Out of interest, if you were caught fudging a roll or you accidentally confessed or something, and a player was unhappy about it, what would you do next?

I'd ask if that player had a problem with fudging. If they did, I'd stop fudging for them.

I've actually put some thought into running a variable fudge group. What I mean by that is asking ahead of time if each player wants to play with kid gloves on or not. Players who receive fudging will be less likely to die, but will never one shot a BBEG. Haven't tried it yet though, as my current group is anti-fudge, so I'm rolling screenless. I worry that it might cause petty resentment between different fudge preferences, but can't say for sure.

[Merellis]

... Is there really a reason for all of this arguing over a DM using Rule 0?

I mean, I think we can all agree that the OP would have been just fine with everything if his DM had kept his mouth shut and never mentioned fudging/fiating the rolls that said DM made.

In fact, this thread would have never existed if his DM had just not let it slipped out. But he did, and now the OP is stuck wondering if the DM is fudging or not for eternity, unless said DM starts rolling in the open, which he doesn't need to do.

And for the ones arguing for or against fudging, good for you in sticking to your guns and DMing how you want to DM. Now if only most of you would stop insinuating that other side is pure evil, then we can all just get along, play RPG's, and laugh when the cat gets a crit and kills us all.

[Serpentine]

And for the ones arguing for or against fudging, good for you in sticking to your guns and DMing how you want to DM. Now if only most of you would stop insinuating that other side is pure evil...If you can find a place where I have done so, I will gladly apologise.

[Merellis]

If you can find a place where I have done so, I will gladly apologise.

... Allow me to re-word that sentence.

And for the ones arguing for or against fudging (or even just saying, do what you want), good for you in sticking to your guns and DMing how you want to DM. Now if only those of you who are arguing that the opposite side of the one you are arguing for is pure evil would desist, then everything would be peachy?

Is that a bit better? :smallredface:

[Serpentine]

Much, ta :biggrin:

[woodenbandman]

Sometimes I find it neccessary to ignore or alter the roll of a dice that I have just rolled.

I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself, but I'm feeling that this point is getting obscured.

Sometimes the dice give a result that is either unsatisfactory or undesireable.


Consider setting as the condition for failure something that is not "unsatisfactory or undesireable." If the NPC succeeds on his open lock check, then he opens the door. If he fails, he opens the door as the PCs are arriving. This could apply to PCs as well.

I don't mean to say that it's bad to reroll a crit that occurs on the first round of the first combat of the first session, but other than that you shouldn't be fudging that much.

[Ytaker]

If, on the other hand, they simply politely explained that they would rather that the dice are played as they land by everyone, then I would agree to at least give it a shot for a while. I would make sure that they clearly understand that it means they're at risk of some really dumb deaths and very frustrating plot-loss, first, though.

There are reasons why people fudge the rolls. Instant death mechanics, instant disable mechanics, and the ease of being killed. If you have a problem with the fudging there are objective ways to solve these problems.

Make death effects do constitution damage (4d6 say) make disabled last longer. You're disabled between 0 hp and -total hit points. Any action you take costs 1HP and every time you take damage you have make a fortitude save against falling unconsious at DC10-HP total.

http://thealexandrian.net/creations/advanced-rules/optional-death.html


Again with this :sigh: As I already tried to explain, it's not as though I fudge every single roll. I'm pretty sure that few, if any, of any of our battles have been completely decided by fudging. It's not "I will make this character/enemy die/survive", it's "I will give this character/enemy a greater chance of dying/surviving".

That is the real problem, not fudging. Death. It's too easy.

[Cerlis]

I thought the Dice where just a way to make a fair system to accomidate for the random variables of complex combat, so as to prevent the need to make arbitrary rules about minor things.

This all just feels like a debate of two sides who only see the best of their side and the worst of the other.

(at least the same arguments being said on page 1 are still beign said"

[Serpentine]

There are reasons why people fudge the rolls. Instant death mechanics, instant disable mechanics, and the ease of being killed. If you have a problem with the fudging there are objective ways to solve these problems.

Make death effects do constitution damage (4d6 say) make disabled last longer. You're disabled between 0 hp and -total hit points. Any action you take costs 1HP and every time you take damage you have make a fortitude save against falling unconsious at DC10-HP total.Why should I, when simply tweaking the occasional roll works fine for me?

That is the real problem, not fudging. Death. It's too easy.To repeat, yet again.
My fudging rarely, if ever, means the difference between death and survival. Almost always, it means the difference between death next round, or death in 5 more rounds. It sometimes means an increased or decreased likelihood of death or survival, or the ease or difficulty of escape, rather than deterimining without a doubt one way or the other.

[Ytaker]

Well, some people dislike those tweaks. If you got into a game where those tweaks proved problematic then there would be an easier solution than stopping all fudging, with all the problems that come with that.

Yes, you've made your point clear. I'm saying that the reason you might have to fudge so that your characters don't die in 1 or five rounds is because death is quite easy. If the character has a wider range of HP where they are unconsious or disabled but not dead, then that would not be a worry. It also enhances drama as people are more able to make a last stand, or say some final words.

You don't have to do this. There are many things you can do which you don't have to do. This is just one optional way to fix a problem in the game. Just as your tweaks are an optional way to fix a problem in the game.

[Darklord Bright]

I'm a little biased, as my first game of DnD we had an awful DM who fudged rolls in his favour and against us, believed that the DM's job was to beat the players, and would change entire rules to suit his purpose while flaunting rule 0.

Since those dark days, I have never fudged a roll. The few people I've run games for have said they really miss when I ran them games, because apparently the way I did things was more fun than the DMs they were used to. I must be doing something right. :smalltongue:

[Ytaker]

I'm a little biased, as my first game of DnD we had an awful DM who fudged rolls in his favour and against us, believed that the DM's job was to beat the players, and would change entire rules to suit his purpose while flaunting rule 0.

Since those dark days, I have never fudged a roll. The few people I've run games for have said they really miss when I ran them games, because apparently the way I did things was more fun than the DMs they were used to. I must be doing something right. :smalltongue:

It's a pretty good feeling. Knowing that you can do anything and that the DM will roll with it means some exceptional things can happen. If you fudge then the story will be more predictable.

Or you could just be an excellent DM.

[Psyx]

You're right, letting a player win does not always make things better, but neither does always following the rules. You need to handle every situation as it comes. Fudging should not be abused, but there is no reason to swear it off completely.



As others have stated: Rigorous and decent rules are a step towards minimising issues. Furthermore I believe that trying to swear off fudging IS good for the game. Fudging is a lazy way of fixing problems to my mind. Better that I try to prevent those problems in the first way by better writing my plot, balancing my combats and whatever. If I have to cheat to stop my campaign exploding, I have to cheat. But I would much rather not be in that position to start with because I'd rigorously prepared and thought matters through.

I honestly think that if GMs -after the session where they fudged- went back and really looked at the reasons why they fudged and worked to remove that reason from future play- that they'd be a better GM for it.

[Emmerask]

I'm a little biased, as my first game of DnD we had an awful DM who fudged rolls in his favour and against us, believed that the DM's job was to beat the players, and would change entire rules to suit his purpose while flaunting rule 0.

Since those dark days, I have never fudged a roll. The few people I've run games for have said they really miss when I ran them games, because apparently the way I did things was more fun than the DMs they were used to. I must be doing something right. :smalltongue:

His mistake though was to think about the game as dm vs players and not the fudging part ^^

[Serpentine]

As others have stated: Rigorous and decent rules are a step towards minimising issues. Furthermore I believe that trying to swear off fudging IS good for the game. Fudging is a lazy way of fixing problems to my mind. Better that I try to prevent those problems in the first way by better writing my plot, balancing my combats and whatever. If I have to cheat to stop my campaign exploding, I have to cheat. But I would much rather not be in that position to start with because I'd rigorously prepared and thought matters through.

I honestly think that if GMs -after the session where they fudged- went back and really looked at the reasons why they fudged and worked to remove that reason from future play- that they'd be a better GM for it.I accept this as a generalisation of a good goal. However, the fact that it would be better to avoid falling over and skinning your knee doesn't mean that bandaids are terrible things that should be condemned and that anyone who uses them are just coddling sooks or masochists.

edit: I just thought of something possibly relevant. In games such as World of Warcraft (iirc, it's been a while since I read about it), many factors are dictated by random number generators. Such a generator, being random, should be fair. However, part of randomness is that there can be clumps of results - a whole bunch of high numbers in a row, or a bunch of low ones. A player of one of these games who just happened to get a clump of randomly generated numbers against them - say, a stack of whatever the highest result would be for an attack - would perceive it as unfair, and the game creators would receive complaints because "random" does not mean "evenly distributed". So, what such games have, is a mechanism that reduces the randomness. Something along the lines of, if X result is generated, then there is less chance of X result occurring again in the next Y number of generations. Randomness is sacrificed in the name of even distribution, or variety.
Fudging is just incorporating that mechanism into a live game *shrug*

[Drascin]

I'm a little biased, as my first game of DnD we had an awful DM who fudged rolls in his favour and against us, believed that the DM's job was to beat the players, and would change entire rules to suit his purpose while flaunting rule 0.

Since those dark days, I have never fudged a roll. The few people I've run games for have said they really miss when I ran them games, because apparently the way I did things was more fun than the DMs they were used to. I must be doing something right. :smalltongue:

First experiences really are key, it seems. Me, I started play with a very dice-stickler DM. We mutinied and ousted him out a couple months (and three characters each on average) afterwards, and I got the DM mantle from then on, to many compliments for the following four years. I have since then refused to play with anyone who insists on strict adherence to rules and dice.

[Psyx]

I accept this as a generalisation of a good goal. However, the fact that it would be better to avoid falling over and skinning your knee doesn't mean that bandaids are terrible things that should be condemned and that anyone who uses them are just coddling sooks or masochists.

I've never stated that. However, isn't it a shame when you have to resort to band aids sticky plasters? I wouldn't trust a cub-scout leader who had no health and safety training but always carried around a big roll of band aids sticky plasters with my child, after all! Likewise, I'd prefer the GM to be thoughtful and experienced and not rely on fudging to get us through games.

I've been trying to think of a time where I'd fudge against the players, and I really can't think of a situation where I've done so in recent years. Possibly because my scenarios are hard enough as it is! :smallbiggrin:



Such a generator, being random, should be fair. However, part of randomness is that there can be clumps of results

Dice have no memory, but an effective way of reducing repeated results would be to base a system on playing card draws, and only reshuffle after using -say- half the deck.

[Serpentine]

I've never stated that. However, isn't it a shame when you have to resort to band aids sticky plasters? I wouldn't trust a cub-scout leader who had no health and safety training but always carried around a big roll of band aids sticky plasters with my child, after all! Likewise, I'd prefer the GM to be thoughtful and experienced and not rely on fudging to get us through games.I, on the other hand, wouldn't trust my child with a cub scout leader who refused to carry bandaids because he is confident in his ability to prevent kids from falling over at all. It's impressive if he can manage it, but I'd feel a lot more comfortable if he let himself have it on hand just in case.

[Saph]

I honestly think that if GMs -after the session where they fudged- went back and really looked at the reasons why they fudged and worked to remove that reason from future play- that they'd be a better GM for it.

I think this bears repeating. I've fudged results before, but in 9 out of 10 cases, when I look back on it afterwards, I realise that the reason I had to fudge was because I'd made a mistake earlier - making the encounter too hard for the PCs, or leaving out something really important in the NPC design.

Fudging is a good short-term solution and a bad long-term solution. It works as a stopgap, but the more you do it, the more you erode the players' belief in a consistent world. To be fair, I think most pro-fudge GMs realise this.

A much more serious problem is when GMs use fudging as a railroading tool, basically saying "no, the story isn't supposed to go that way, so I'll change the dice rolls until you get back on script". Thankfully, this is less common.

[Ytaker]

It sounds pretty common. People here have talked about protecting big villains from being killed by one unlucky roll. If they can't actually kill an enemy you shouldn't let them fight them.

It might be an obsenely unlikely occurance involving two 20s in a row, but the character should have the option to do so. Because it's a totally awesome experience that they will remember forever.

[Serpentine]

It sounds pretty common. People here have talked about protecting big villains from being killed by one unlucky roll. If they can't actually kill an enemy you shouldn't let them fight them.Protecting a villain from being killed by one unlucky roll IS NOT THE SAME AS not actually being able to kill an enemy. How many times do I have to say this?

[Emmerask]

It sounds pretty common. People here have talked about protecting big villains from being killed by one unlucky roll. If they can't actually kill an enemy you shouldn't let them fight them.

It might be an obsenely unlikely occurance involving two 20s in a row, but the character should have the option to do so. Because it's a totally awesome experience that they will remember forever.

I don´t know, I would actually be kind of underwhelmed, so we did all this 10 session story arc in which the BBEG was made up to be a real menace and then he keels over after one hit?
"That was kind of disappointing" would be my first reaction as a player :smallbiggrin:

[Earthwalker]

Out of interest, if you were caught fudging a roll or you accidentally confessed or something, and a player was unhappy about it, what would you do next?

If a player complained about me fudging dice rolls I would take the issue to the group. If the group did not want any dice fudging from me then I would change to rolling my dice in the open. I would finish the campaign then probably GM for a different group, or change to Torg for the next campaign.

Torg had odd rules for allowing the players to cheat (giving them posibilities to reroll, or add on to rolls or soak damage) Similary NPC had possibities as well as rulles for the players or GMs changing the cards there drawm, all thee rules were in place to allow for grand adventures.


Dishonest and cheating is a nice way of putting it. It's also a huge double standard. In my games, I don't cheat. Ever. I won't cheat against you, I won't cheat for you. If I catch you cheating once, then I will cheat once; and that cheating will probably come in the form of an an orc barbarian with an amazingly luck swing on his scythe while he's in the middle of his rage.

I find it ironic that this post stems from Glug finding out that the SR4 rule book says that GamesMasters should fudge results (not sure what the wording is in the 4ed book). So the rules says that GMs can fudge the results, but this is cheating. How is following the rules cheating ?

/boggle

[Totally Guy]

So the rules says that GMs can fudge the results, but this is cheating. How is following the rules cheating ?

/boggle

It boggled why it's in the book for the players to read. I mean that's pretty much telling the group that the GM fudges right off the bat.

And whether you do or not the consensus is pretty much to keep it a secret.

So the GM is keeping it secret, like he's supposed to but the rule book is holding up a big sign saying "Doubt im! Doubt him!" So I'm fool of doubt.

[Psyx]

I, on the other hand, wouldn't trust my child with a cub scout leader who refused to carry bandaids because he is confident in his ability to prevent kids from falling over at all. It's impressive if he can manage it, but I'd feel a lot more comfortable if he let himself have it on hand just in case.

I agree. But prevention is better than cure.


"That was kind of disappointing" would be my first reaction as a player

I'd be likewise disappointed if I'd charged up to him having slugged down half a dozen potions and blown all of my 'blag points' (be it spells or luck points or whatever) into one massive attack only for the GM to fudge a saving throw or parry roll, or whatever. It's especially frustrating for casters at times: It's just not worth using big spells or save or die spells against 'big' bad guys, because the GM fudges the roll 'for a better fight'. Players like it when their 'uber spell/attack' works, and are disappointed when it fails. They're even more upset if this starts to follow a pattern. Frankly, it's why I gave up playing 2e: We had a GM who used to blatantly fudge everything to draw out 'big' fights, to the point where PCs would get dropped and killed despite having an awesome plan and making all the right spell choices. We didn't want an 'epic' fight; we just wanted the GM to be an impartial referee.

[Emmerask]

It boggled why it's in the book for the players to read. I mean that's pretty much telling the group that the GM fudges right off the bat.

And whether you do or not the consensus is pretty much to keep it a secret.

So the GM is keeping it secret, like he's supposed to but the rule book is holding up a big sign saying "Doubt im! Doubt him!" So I'm fool of doubt.



Just trust your dm to make the correct call :smallwink:
If you can´t trust his judgment then he shouldn´t dm in the first place because there are a ton of stuff you have to trust him with anyway with or without fudging rolls... setting the dcs correctly, getting the monster Crs appropriate for your group etc etc...

[Serpentine]

I agree. But prevention is better than cure.I agree, but all we're saying is that it's okay to have a cure in one's arsenal. Many of you are saying anyone who even considers the cure has failed as a game master.

[FelixG]

Protecting a villain from being killed by one unlucky roll IS NOT THE SAME AS not actually being able to kill an enemy. How many times do I have to say this?

"well the player used a sod and my bbeg failed his save but I don't want him to die yet so I am going to just ignore my players action for all intents and purposes." Is pretty much what I am seeing here. Sod spells are on save away from death.

So if you can change the dice so your villain can survive that fail why shouldn't the player get to cheat right back?

Also out of interest what if because of your dice cheat that kept the villain alive he lands a couple of crits that kill two pcs, do you cheat more to keep them alive in the face of your own error?

[Emmerask]

So if you can change the dice so your villain can survive that fail why shouldn't the player get to cheat right back?

Actually my players do have fatepoints(luckpoints however you want to call them) which they can spend for rerolls boosts etc ^^

[Jayabalard]

And whether you do or not the consensus is pretty much to keep it a secret.Actually, the consensus is more like "Don't draw attention to it"

[Saph]

Protecting a villain from being killed by one unlucky roll IS NOT THE SAME AS not actually being able to kill an enemy. How many times do I have to say this?

I know I'd be pretty annoyed if the GM fudged to save a villain because of "one unlucky roll". Okay, so how many rolls is it supposed to take?

[Amphetryon]

Food for thought example from my gaming table:

Enemy scout sneaks up on the party as they are sleeping for the night, bypassing the lookout successfully. With multiple targets to choose from, the enemy scout randomly aims at the sorcerer, who is played by a new player, B, just joining the game. Roll of attack and damage indicates a maximum damage critical hit, which would kill B's sorcerer in his sleep. This would make B roll up a new character before his first character ever rolled a die, or at least force B to introduce his sorcerer's long lost twin brother.


Do you fudge?

[Emmerask]

I would need to know a bit more about all the circumstances.
- Did they know they are followed by said scout
- did they realize that this spot wasn´t all that save etc

If they had planty of warning that such a thing might happen but still happily ignored it and gone to sleep then I would not fudge anything.

If it was a night like any other and I just rolled unlucky on the encounter table, then yes I would leave the sorcerer with 1 Hp and give him a good scare ^^

[FelixG]

Food for thought example from my gaming table:

Enemy scout sneaks up on the party as they are sleeping for the night, bypassing the lookout successfully. With multiple targets to choose from, the enemy scout randomly aims at the sorcerer, who is played by a new player, B, just joining the game. Roll of attack and damage indicates a maximum damage critical hit, which would kill B's sorcerer in his sleep. This would make B roll up a new character before his first character ever rolled a die, or at least force B to introduce his sorcerer's long lost twin brother.


Do you fudge?

If it was me? Nope, he still had a five percent Chanel of living through the attack but when you join a game you accept the risk that your character might die.

Depending on the level he could also ne rezed with little issue, so no reason to cheat.

[Saph]

Food for thought example from my gaming table:

Enemy scout sneaks up on the party as they are sleeping for the night, bypassing the lookout successfully. With multiple targets to choose from, the enemy scout randomly aims at the sorcerer, who is played by a new player, B, just joining the game. Roll of attack and damage indicates a maximum damage critical hit, which would kill B's sorcerer in his sleep. This would make B roll up a new character before his first character ever rolled a die, or at least force B to introduce his sorcerer's long lost twin brother.


Do you fudge?

This is an excellent example IMO, because it shows the process leading up to the character's death, rather than taking it in isolation.

My question for the GM would be: why did you have the enemy scout sneak into the PC camp in the first place? This isn't a 'gotcha' question, it's a serious question.

Did the GM do it because he was playing the enemies tactically and wanted the enemy to do maximum damage? In that case, you absolutely shouldn't fudge - it was a reasonable result.

Did the GM do it because he's playing a gritty, dangerous game and wants to make it clear that the bad guys will kill the PCs in their sleep if they can? Then that's a success. Don't fudge.

Did the GM just want to scare the players and do a bit of damage, but not actually kill anyone because killing the PCs in their sleep isn't fair? Then the GM should have picked a different target, or had the scout attack the lookout instead. Should fudge, but this is a clear example of the GM making a mistake.

Did the GM just not think about it, and suddenly realise he'd put himself in a position where he didn't like the consequences of the roll he'd just made? Then smack the GM around the head. If you can't forsee that attacking sleeping PCs can result in dead PCs, you're an idiot. Next time, use your brains!

[The Big Dice]

I know I'd be pretty annoyed if the GM fudged to save a villain because of "one unlucky roll". Okay, so how many rolls is it supposed to take?
Enough to not be anticlimactic, not so many as to be tedious.

Food for thought example from my gaming table:

Enemy scout sneaks up on the party as they are sleeping for the night, bypassing the lookout successfully. With multiple targets to choose from, the enemy scout randomly aims at the sorcerer, who is played by a new player, B, just joining the game. Roll of attack and damage indicates a maximum damage critical hit, which would kill B's sorcerer in his sleep. This would make B roll up a new character before his first character ever rolled a die, or at least force B to introduce his sorcerer's long lost twin brother.


Do you fudge?

Absolutely yes.

This is an excellent example IMO, because it shows the process leading up to the character's death, rather than taking it in isolation.

My question for the GM would be: why did you have the enemy scout sneak into the PC camp in the first place? This isn't a 'gotcha' question, it's a serious question.

Did the GM do it because he was playing the enemies tactically and wanted the enemy to do maximum damage? In that case, you absolutely shouldn't fudge - it was a reasonable result.

Did the GM do it because he's playing a gritty, dangerous game and wants to make it clear that the bad guys will kill the PCs in their sleep if they can? Then that's a success. Don't fudge.
So in other words, some sense of personal integrity is more important than the fun of a new player. One who may well leave the game over this what he feels is you the GM murdering his charcter in it's sleep.


Fudge, because the people around the table matter more than anything else.
Did the GM just want to scare the players and do a bit of damage, but not actually kill anyone because killing the PCs in their sleep isn't fair? Then the GM should have picked a different target, or had the scout attack the lookout instead. Should fudge, but this is a clear example of the GM making a mistake.

Did the GM just not think about it, and suddenly realise he'd put himself in a position where he didn't like the consequences of the roll he'd just made? Then smack the GM around the head. If you can't forsee that attacking sleeping PCs can result in dead PCs, you're an idiot. Next time, use your brains!
Here's a fact: people make mistakes and what is one GMs perfect decision is another player's arrogant smugness.

The fact is, I've seen GMs drive players away from games with what seems like a reasonable call, but is in fact nothing more than a **** move. And I've seen it over and over again.

As a GM you have a responsibility to make sure your players have a good time. Just because you might be happy with having your character killed off before they actually have a chance to do anything doesn't mean everyone will.

[Trekkin]

Do you fudge?
Assuming that for storyline reasons the sorcerer had to join the party while sleeping, I would probably not have had this assassin pick from a list of targets that included him. Admittedly that relies on the choice being truly random and not influenced by relative proximity, but if the sorcerer can be quietly bumped from the list, I'd do it.

Yes, it's a slippery slope and all that, but I'm not really comfortable with the risk of a PC not getting to DO anything before that player has to run through character generation again. Once everyone's woken up and he can choose how to ward himself and where he's going back to sleep, I'd be less worried.

[pingcode20]

There's three main things I ask of a GM when it comes to fudging in general:

1. Fudge rules and dice when not doing so would be clearly detrimental to the game.

Not fudging stuff like 'The damage got rolled high and I'm sorry but your character bought it', but more stuff like 'The bomb you didn't quite manage to disarm goes off and *roll* unfortunately it kills the entire party instantly.'

In this case, I'd expect the GM to fudge it so the party has at least got some chance at survival. Maybe the tough guy manages to get up afterwards, maybe everyone's bleeding out and has to try their best to stabilise before they run out of blood, etc. And if the dice have spoken in the end, well, there's always the cleanup crew.

2. Fudge dice to avoid unfair PC kills.

Particularly, in situations where the PC can't reasonably have avoided their fate or make decisions that could save themselves.

For example, if the PCs were walking through a forest, for reasons out of their control (eg. The king asked them to explore it), when out of nowhere one of them gets sneak-attacked with an bow and instantly killed by the damage.

While it might not be much fun to have a character taken out of a fight in the opening move, it's worse to have your character taken out of the adventure or even game by a lucky roll.

3. Don't tell me the dice were fudged with respect to me.

I understand a GM will probably fudge, and even expect it sometimes, but I'd really rather not be told I was 'allowed to win' or 'cheated of my win'. It breaks my suspension of disbelief in the same way that a Deus Ex Machina save would. So long as I'm not placed in a situation where the fudging can't be ignored, I'm happy to just doublethink it away. Sure it happened, but I can only assume the GM did it for the good of the game and as far as I'm concerned it didn't happen.

I honestly prefer fair rolls except in the above situations, and a lot of my most memorable moments have come from when the dice seemed to have an agenda of their own. One of the best was when the party fighter was beaten to death by the dominated party face from full health to zero. Sure, it meant that the GM had to come up with something quick to let the fighter's player participate in the final battle, but it was amazing nonetheless.

[Saph]

So in other words, some sense of personal integrity is more important than the fun of a new player. One who may well leave the game over this what he feels is you the GM murdering his charcter in it's sleep.

Here's a fact: people make mistakes and what is one GMs perfect decision is another player's arrogant smugness.

The fact is, I've seen GMs drive players away from games with what seems like a reasonable call, but is in fact nothing more than a **** move. And I've seen it over and over again.

As a GM you have a responsibility to make sure your players have a good time. Just because you might be happy with having your character killed off before they actually have a chance to do anything doesn't mean everyone will.

You haven't actually answered the question. If you, as a DM, are making an attack that you know can kill one of the newbies, then why are you doing it?

If you're doing it because you want a gritty, high-chance-of-death game, then fudging to save a PC is obviously silly. You're getting exactly what you asked for.

If you DON'T want a gritty and dangerous game, and don't want any of the newbies to die, then why did you make the attack in the first place?

If you don't want a PC to die, then don't put them in situations where it can happen. Dice are, as you keep on telling us, bits of plastic. They don't choose to roll themselves - you do. Don't blame them for your own mistakes.

[Raum]

Food for thought example from my gaming table:

Enemy scout sneaks up on the party as they are sleeping for the night, bypassing the lookout successfully. With multiple targets to choose from, the enemy scout randomly aims at the sorcerer, who is played by a new player, B, just joining the game. Roll of attack and damage indicates a maximum damage critical hit, which would kill B's sorcerer in his sleep. This would make B roll up a new character before his first character ever rolled a die, or at least force B to introduce his sorcerer's long lost twin brother.
Let's see here...the GM starts with a binary pass / fail to detect the enemy and the PCs' rolls presumably fail. (I'm hoping they did get a chance at least. Either way, this is worth an entire rant on perception.*)

Next the GM decided to attack one of the squishier party members, using what appears to be a miss / hit / critical roll...and gets a critical. He then rolls enough damage to kill.

Then he retcons his own decision process.

He'd have been better off going with a decision process that wouldn't have put him in that situation. Why was detecting the sneak simply pass / fail? Might it have been better framed as detect outside camp / detect as he's standing over you with a knife? That sounds much more fun to me!

Then there's the second GM choice point - choosing to attack someone he has a good chance of killing or disabling in one blow. This may be fine...if that's how the group likes to play. Given the subsequent retcon, I'm guessing it wasn't.

So the GM's retcon was correcting his own mistakes. All that said I don't see any issue with it as long as the group consensus supported the retcon. If it was an arbitrary decision by the GM to hide his mistakes...well that has ethical implications.

*Perception mini-rant (no time for a long rant): Perception is one of the worst things to frame as pass / fail and base it on a roll! You put things in the setting so the PCs can interact with them. How can they interact with something you don't allow them to perceive?


Do you fudge?Still not without consensus.

[The Big Dice]

You haven't actually answered the question. If you, as a DM, are making an attack that you know can kill one of the newbies, then why are you doing it?

If you're doing it because you want a gritty, high-chance-of-death game, then fudging to save a PC is obviously silly. You're getting exactly what you asked for.

If you DON'T want a gritty and dangerous game, and don't want any of the newbies to die, then why did you make the attack in the first place?

If you don't want a PC to die, then don't put them in situations where it can happen. Dice are, as you keep on telling us, bits of plastic. They don't choose to roll themselves - you do. Don't blame them for your own mistakes.
What if your intent is to scare the players and to show them that they have no crossed into disputed territory? Is killing the new guy the way to go? Having a shot at him could well be the way to introduce him to combat with a feeling of real jepoardy. But killing him outright in the surprise round isn't cool.

As I've said before, if I as a GM want characters dead, they will die. Characters are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. But that doesn't mean that the dice are god. And by that I mean, if a character dies it should ALWAYS be traceable to a decision the PLAYER made. It shouldn't be because the GM decided something and then the dice very kindly thought they'd kill the character.

And why does everyone act like GMs who fudge rolls do it all the time? That's pure hyperbole.

[Saph]

What if your intent is to scare the players and to show them that they have no crossed into disputed territory?

Then have the monster attack the lookout. Or have the monster do something other than a sneak attack. Attacking sleeping PCs is one of the most surefire ways of killing them in all D&D. Everyone with a minimal knowledge of the system ought to know this.

The problem here is that you keep presenting this as an either-or dilemma. Either the DM fudges the dice roll, or the character dies and the game is ruined and the DM is a horrible person.

What Raum and I are trying to show is this is a false dilemma. There are more than two options. If you make the decision to have a monster try to bypass a scout (which you know might succeed) then make the decision to have the monster attack the sleeping PCs, then make the decision to roll randomly for the target (when you know one is a newbie) and then make the decision to roll the hit and damage (when you know that it might kill the newbie, which you don't consider an acceptable outcome) . . . then maybe you should reconsider some of those decisions. There are dozens of ways in which a 'monster sneaks into the camp' scenario can play out: consider using a different one.

[Amphetryon]

Quoting Saph here to answer clarifying questions; I think I'll be addressing Emmerask's queries at the same time


This is an excellent example IMO, because it shows the process leading up to the character's death, rather than taking it in isolation.

My question for the GM would be: why did you have the enemy scout sneak into the PC camp in the first place? This isn't a 'gotcha' question, it's a serious question.

Did the GM do it because he was playing the enemies tactically and wanted the enemy to do maximum damage? In that case, you absolutely shouldn't fudge - it was a reasonable result.

Did the GM do it because he's playing a gritty, dangerous game and wants to make it clear that the bad guys will kill the PCs in their sleep if they can? Then that's a success. Don't fudge.

Did the GM just want to scare the players and do a bit of damage, but not actually kill anyone because killing the PCs in their sleep isn't fair? Then the GM should have picked a different target, or had the scout attack the lookout instead. Should fudge, but this is a clear example of the GM making a mistake.

Did the GM just not think about it, and suddenly realise he'd put himself in a position where he didn't like the consequences of the roll he'd just made? Then smack the GM around the head. If you can't forsee that attacking sleeping PCs can result in dead PCs, you're an idiot. Next time, use your brains!


The scout sneaked in because the campaign was a 3.5 D&D 'dragons war', and the scout was a Spellscale Rogue 2/Scout 1 in thrall of a Green Dragon the party was aware of. The party, by the way, was 4th level at the time.

The party chose to camp in the wilderness in a relatively defensible position because they were depleted, it was late in the day, and far from towns and the comfort of inns.

They did, as indicated, assign a watch rotation, but the one on watch during the scout's invasion had +2/+2 total on Spot/Listen. The scout's invasion time was chosen by die roll before the rotation was set.

The scout's initial target once sneaking past the guard on watch was chosen by random die roll, as is the convention at my gaming table for surprise rounds, because it avoids any appearance of bias toward or against a particular player. Realistically, that's another spot where a GM might, in theory, fudge the dice.

The sorcerer had joined the party at that point because it was the first session he could attend, because it was the point at which his character sheet was finished, and because he chose, given the option, to join then rather than wait until morning.

The scout rolled a confirmed critical hit with max damage. The scout did not have the Telling Blow feat. The sorcerer was the only party member - out of 10 present - with d4s for hit dice; none of the other party members could have been reduced to negative CON as he was by a single max crit.

[Saph]

Quoting Saph here to answer clarifying questions; I think I'll be addressing Emmerask's queries at the same time.

Cool, that does clear things up.

I think in this situation our group would probably (not definitely) fudge, because we have a general rule that you go easy on newbies for their first couple of sessions - not to the extent of making them bulletproof, but they get much more leeway than everyone else.

If it was a veteran player, and I was DMing, then I wouldn't fudge it. However, the only reason I'd be having enemy scouts sneak into the PCs camp in that way if I already wanted PCs to die. Attacking PCs in their sleep is REALLY REALLY likely to result in character death, and I can't think of many situations where I'd want that to happen.

So the most likely way I'd have resolved it would be to not have the enemy scout attack the sleeping PCs in the first place.

[The Big Dice]

The problem here is that you keep presenting this as an either-or dilemma. Either the DM fudges the dice roll, or the character dies and the game is ruined and the DM is a horrible person.
Actually, no. I am saying that sometimes the GM needs to over rule the dice. In certain situations, an either/or comes up. As in, what would be an awesomely good roll for a player is an awesomely bad one for a GM.

At which point the GM says "Non!" in his best French accent.

What Raum and I are trying to show is this is a false dilemma. There are more than two options. If you make the decision to have a monster try to bypass a scout (which you know might succeed) then make the decision to have the monster attack the sleeping PCs, then make the decision to roll randomly for the target (when you know one is a newbie) and then make the decision to roll the hit and damage (when you know that it might kill the newbie, which you don't consider an acceptable outcome) . . . then maybe you should reconsider some of those decisions. There are dozens of ways in which a 'monster sneaks into the camp' scenario can play out: consider using a different one.
There's a lot of variables I've bolded there. In other words, if you make a choice and the stars align just wrong, by your suggestions, tough. And what I say is, the GM is there to ignore the dice when the come up with a result that in not-fun. Sometimes there are moments when this happens. To my mind, there is a time and a place. When the players make the choices that can lead to deth, that's when the gloves come off. When the dice decide that the decision I made as a GM is going to execute characters, I step in.

[Emmerask]

So you wouldn´t fudge the rolls you would fudge the scouts thinking process so to speak ^^

[Psyx]

I agree, but all we're saying is that it's okay to have a cure in one's arsenal. Many of you are saying anyone who even considers the cure has failed as a game master.

'we', 'us'?

I've already stated that I've fudged before on an irregular basis and I will do so as the situation warrants. It's just that I've worked hard to reach that point where I don't need to very often. And I strive to completely remove those fudges, in the same way that a cub-scout leader should strive to never to need the plasters in the first place.



For example, if the PCs were walking through a forest, for reasons out of their control (eg. The king asked them to explore it), when out of nowhere one of them gets sneak-attacked with an bow and instantly killed by the damage.

That's not a reason outside their control. They went into the woods and didn't notice the guy.

I've shot a character from ten yards as a called shot to the head with a musket. Is that unfair? They got a spot check that was practically impossible to make (because the guy was on a rooftop and good at stealth), too.
Unfair?
Yet the party had knowingly created the situation where assassins were sent after them. They'd thwarted attempts before, and - 2 months later when their guard dropped - I did this to a lone party member walking home after a day's training. On one hand he had 'no chance', but on the other he'd sealed his own fate with choices in the past, and it was perfectly fair.


Telling a player you've cheated them is an awful thing to do. If you wanted the players to 'win', so fudged, it takes a petty-minded individual in my opinion to then feel the need to deprive them of that victory by bringing attention to it.

[FelixG]

There's a lot of variables I've bolded there. In other words, if you make a choice and the stars align just wrong, by your suggestions, tough. And what I say is, the GM is there to ignore the dice when the come up with a result that in not-fun. Sometimes there are moments when this happens. To my mind, there is a time and a place. When the players make the choices that can lead to death, that's when the gloves come off. When the dice decide that the decision I made as a GM is going to execute characters, I step in.


I could understand some of it I suppose, but yes if a gm decides to go all the way up to a point where he rolls max damage on a newb then decides "Huh, maybe this was a bad idea" he deserves to be smacked in the head to get it back on straight. :smallconfused:

And so what if the newbie dies anyway? ok new guy, hasn't rolled ect, the dice are rolled, the GM wanted a random person to get the smack it could have been anyone, the new guy quits because he looses the character he just rolled up, if hes that childish let him, you could also potentially kill the person who has been playing that character a long while and has grown attached to it. Apparently there are people who will go into deep depressions and quit playing games all together if a beloved character dies if the chaotic stupid thread is to be believed.

Either way someone is going to have a sad face that they just got ganked and died because of a failed fort save on a coup but thats what the GM had intended after all.

[Serpentine]

Food for thought example from my gaming table:

Enemy scout sneaks up on the party as they are sleeping for the night, bypassing the lookout successfully. With multiple targets to choose from, the enemy scout randomly aims at the sorcerer, who is played by a new player, B, just joining the game. Roll of attack and damage indicates a maximum damage critical hit, which would kill B's sorcerer in his sleep. This would make B roll up a new character before his first character ever rolled a die, or at least force B to introduce his sorcerer's long lost twin brother.
Do you fudge?If the players don't know any of the results, I reroll the target choice with or without the Sorcerer as an option (if I include him and he comes up again, I'll probably figure he had his second chance) or simply choose who it would make sense to target.
If the players know that the Sorcerer was the target but not about the crit, I'll just make it a hit.
If the players know that the Sorcerer got hit by a crit, I'll try making it a lower amount of damage.
If the players know the Sorcerer should die, I might give him a second chance - a Fortitude save to cling to life, for example, or the quick-thinking of another character. Actually, that's probably the most "regular" bit of fudging I do, to the point where it's nearly a houserule - if a character is killed and the next character in initiative or close by has a means to heal, they can dive in while the dying character is making their "death rattle" to snatch them from the arms of death.
Finally, alternatively, I can change the environment rules: it's too dark for the enemy to see the party well enough to get a sneak attack; a rabbit leaps up out of nowhere and takes the blow; the Sorcerers patron deity (or a sinister shadow o.o) whispers a warning in his ear letting him avoid the hit. Whatever.
So, yeah, I fudge.

The problem here is that you keep presenting this as an either-or dilemma. Either the DM fudges the dice roll, or the character dies and the game is ruined and the DM is a horrible person.

What Raum and I are trying to show is this is a false dilemma. There are more than two options.That goes exactly as much for you (plural). Over and over again you present the options: fudging always changes a death to a survival or vice-versa; fudging always turns a win into a loss or vice-versa. EITHER a character dies, OR the DM fudges and they live. In practice, the main use of fudging is much more subtle, a matter of degrees rather than either/or.

Oh, and FelixG: I've houseruled Save or Dies and Save or Loses to at least take a few rounds to kick in, or to give the target a second chance to make it through. So, not an issue in my games.

[Saph]

There's a lot of variables I've bolded there. In other words, if you make a choice and the stars align just wrong, by your suggestions, tough.

No, I didn't. Read my previous posts more carefully, please.


That goes exactly as much for you (plural). Over and over again you present the options: fudging always changes a death to a survival or vice-versa; fudging always turns a win into a loss or vice-versa. EITHER a character dies, OR the DM fudges and they live. In practice, the main use of fudging is much more subtle, a matter of degrees rather than either/or.

*sigh* Refer back to where I said that I HAVE fudged rolls and that I think fudging is a GOOD short-term solution.

[FelixG]

Oh, and FelixG: I've houseruled Save or Dies and Save or Loses to at least take a few rounds to kick in, or to give the target a second chance to make it through. So, not an issue in my games.

I am still waiting on an answer from somebody about my other question: :smallwink:

What happens if cheating the roll to keep that villain alive for a more "cinematic" game results in the villain criting a few times on players and killing two of them off? Does one cheat the rolls even further to keep the players alive through ones own error?

If so why not just sit back and describe the whole battle to them as the actions of both side don't really matter?

[hamishspence]

In the first few levels- the DM might want to "cut the players some slack" if they're new.

Ways might include:

Lower than average monster hit points- instead of rolling.
Weaker weapons for the monsters to be equipped with- instead of the base weapons in the MM.
No monster criticals- at least at first.
Poor tactics- monsters spread out, rather than ganging up on one PC- and tend to focus on the fighters rather than the casters.
Bad feats- if the base feat is a powerful one.

This is to ensure the PCs don't die in the introductory games- unless they do something very silly. Later on, as the players improve their skills, the DM can "take the gloves off" but otherwise, it's better to go out of his way not to kill off their PCs if it can be avoided.

[Serpentine]

*sigh* Refer back to where I said that I HAVE fudged rolls and that I think fudging is a GOOD short-term solution.Doesn't change my point. Anti-fudgers are presenting far more either/or dilemmas than okay-with-fudgers. You're criticising us for errors the others are making at our expense.

Felix: I might make one of the crits an ordinary attack. More likely, I'll allow that thing I said before, the dive-in-at-the-last-minute option. Or maybe I'll accept that as a satisfyingly challenging encounter - chances are the villain was only barely saved from death, and he'll be dead shortly.

As for your last question, because a battle is more than one or two rolls.

[Psyx]

I am still waiting on an answer from somebody about my other question: :smallwink:


I wouldn't have cheated in the first place, so it wouldn't be a problem.

If I had, then I guess I'd cheerfully cheat some more to undo the damage I'd done.


Some of the best boss-fights I've run have involved players running through BBEGs with one blow, after fighting their way through far, far tougher bodyguards. After all: 'criminal mastermind' does not have to equate to 'can use a sword and has more than 10HP' :smallbiggrin:

[Tyndmyr]

What you call a problem is what I call the reason RPGs are better than watching movies. Technically Vader couldn't have been shot dead by Luke when he killed Obi; but here's the stick. If Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, and the Droids, somehow managed to overthrow Vader, then the movie would have ended differently. That's part of why many of us play tabletop RPGs instead of just playing through Dragon Age for the 13th time; the ability to step outside the bonds of whatever is laid out before you.

Then again, they could have also been smart and realized that "Hey, he just killed a guy that could kill all of us if he wanted to, so maybe we should run"; and then run as intended. Or maybe Luke rushes in and gets cut down by Vader, and then it falls to Leia to become the the savior of the galaxy.

For many of us, rail-roading is not the reason we play RPGs.

This. If I want an epic story, I will go read a book or watch a movie. They will almost certainly do a better job than the unedited job the DM whipped together in his spare time.

I play a RPG because I want to participate in playing the game. A good story can make it compelling, but it's not the point of it.

[Serpentine]

After all, as we have already established, altering the occasional roll completely removes any random, decision-making or participatory element whatsoever :sigh:

[The Big Dice]

*sigh* Refer back to where I said that I HAVE fudged rolls and that I think fudging is a GOOD short-term solution.
Then you accept the validity of the technique.

Nobody on the pro side of the fence is claiming that fudging is anything but an immediate solution. People who are anti fudging are the ones presenting the option to ignore the dice as the first choice. The name of the thread even states outright that the OP no longer trusts his GM.

The GMs who use the technique aren't trying to take anything away from players. If anything, it's the opposite. The people who claim that fudging is cheating and that the GM doing so is taking away any meaning from their victory, think on this: if I was cheating, you would lose.

[Psyx]

The GMs who use the technique aren't trying to take anything away from players.

Only the ones who then ram it down their player's throats afterwards are doing that. ("You couldn't have won with out me!")

[Saph]

Doesn't change my point. Anti-fudgers are presenting far more either/or dilemmas than okay-with-fudgers. You're criticising us for errors the others are making at our expense.

I'm not even going to try to figure out who the 'anti-fudgers' are and who you're talking about when you say 'us'. Here's what I think:

By far the most common reason for fudging is because the GM's made a mistake. E.g. Amphetryon's example: if you don't want PCs killed, it's generally a bad idea to attack them while they're sleeping.
Fudging is a good short-term solution. It is a bad long-term solution. The long-term solution is to fix the mistake so that next time, you don't need to fudge.

[Typewriter]

Yes and. While it is possible I have misspoken (though on review it does not look to me like I have) there is I agree nothing inherently wrong with fudging any more then there is anything inherently wrong with anything. However right or wrong does not change what the action is.

I am still not sure where the whole "fudging is inherently morally wrong and the greatest of the evils that plague modern society. If fudging was eradicated surely it would lead to world peace, a chicken pizza in every session, the eradication of disease (while keeping a robust immune system so as not to end up as in war of the worlds), etc." (this is hyperbole if you can not guess) view got applied to me but perhaps I have been unclear in my phrasing.

I apologize. A few very insulting posts got made calling people who fudge (like me) liars, cheats, and bad DMs. As a result I got defensive in my posting.

@Saph

It seems to me that what you're suggesting is that DM's should only fudge when they make a mistake. I suppose I can agree with that to a certain degree, but no DM is perfect. That's why he has the ability to fudge.

I could have a kobold with a stick run up and attach the sorceror during the night, doing only 1d4-1, but what if I roll triple 20 and that's a rule I use? I should stop using that rule completely because I don't want it to completely hose a sleeping player? Or I can fudge, and pretend it was only a regular crit, and my group can continue using a variant rule we're a fan of.

I don't believe that everything the characters do should be boiled down to complete randomness. Fudging is a good way to create order in my opinion. If I do it right my players never know, and the game experience is just as immersive for them as it is for any other group.


Fudging is a good short-term solution. It is a bad long-term solution. The long-term solution is to fix the mistake so that next time, you don't need to fudge.


My players hate it when dice kill their 3rd straight character because of bad luck. Good build, good strategy. Bad rolls.

My players like using dice.

Solution 1: Fudge
Solution 2: ???

[hamishspence]

I'm not even going to try to figure out who the 'anti-fudgers' are and who you're talking about when you say 'us'.

"Us" I think was supposed to be "people who think fudging is a good short term solution- and feel that if it wasn't a valid DM tool, the DMG wouldn't have mentioned it as an option."

"anti-fudgers" are people who use terms like "betrayal", "dishonesty", "deception" and so on, for fudging- and seem to argue that it is actually immoral for the DM to fudge in a game for any reason.

[Serpentine]

Only the ones who then ram it down their player's throats afterwards are doing that. ("You couldn't have won with out me!")As far as I'm aware, none of us here is that sort of DM.

Saph: I have no particular problem with any of that, except the implication that the "mistake" is necessarily something the DM should have foretold and therefore failed in. But I am specifically talking about your accusation of pro-fudgers "presenting a false dichotemy". It is not we who are claiming it's "fudge or die!".

edit: It's not even that fudging is "good", just that it is an acceptable tool for a DM to use occasionally and that it's not a terrible disaster or betrayal if they do so.

[Reverent-One]

By far the most common reason for fudging is because the GM's made a mistake. E.g. Amphetryon's example: if you don't want PCs killed, it's generally a bad idea to attack them while they're sleeping.

Except that the chance of a PC dying (in the surprise round at least) in that example was miniscule. It's hardly a mistake on the DM's part when they take steps to minimize an unwanted outcome and the dice simply want to cause that outcome, which is now extremely unlikely, anyway.

[Typewriter]

Only the ones who then ram it down their player's throats afterwards are doing that. ("You couldn't have won with out me!")

In my very first post (one the first page of this thread) I mentioned that the DM should not rub your nose in it. You should never even know your DM fudges. If you 'show off' your taking away from your players actions. If you do it right they never know.

I like to keep them on their toes about it too.

"How much HP do you have left?"
"52"
"Sorry...the orc cuts deep...68 damage."

Two weeks later, same player
"How much HP do you have left?"
"22"
*Looks at die, 35 damage"
"27 damage, close call"

9 out of 10 times I ask someone their HP they die afterwords. Doing so makes it so that when I decide to fudge (usually because a player has had a string of bad luck, or is on a brand new character he's excited about) it doesn't seem out of the ordinary.

[Saph]

It seems to me that what you're suggesting is that DM's should only fudge when they make a mistake. I suppose I can agree with that to a certain degree, but no DM is perfect. That's why he has the ability to fudge.

Problem is, DMs also aren't perfect at judging when they need to fudge. And it's very, very easy for "I should fudge because it's for the good of the game" to turn into "I should fudge because it's what I want". I've seen an awful lot of DMs convince themselves that they only fudge for the sake of their players. And sometimes it's true. But sometimes the fudging shuts down something that in the long run, could have made the game more interesting.


My players hate it when dice kill their 3rd straight character because of bad luck. Good build, good strategy. Bad rolls.

My players like using dice.

Have your players roll a d10+10 instead of a d20. :smalltongue:

[Emmerask]

The dice just sometimes don´t get it, lets say you are in an audience with the king, the beacons are lit gondor calls for aid the King is not really sure if he wants to send his riders... but one of your players gloriously rises to the occasion and gives the most epic speech you have ever heard.

Still with tears in your eyes you see the player rolling his beloved d20 for the diplomacy check... you didn´t even ask for it he has played enough d&d to know that a diplomacy check is required by the rules for such actions... then a 1 - A ONE??? WTF! even with the beforehand agreed upon roleplay bonus and his skill in diplomacy that is only a 6 thats not nearly enough to sway the king...

To heck with these damned dice not knowing when to roll high :smallwink:

[FelixG]

The people who claim that fudging is cheating and that the GM doing so is taking away any meaning from their victory, think on this: if I was cheating, you would lose.

You can cheat to make yourself loose, IE throwing the game, taking a dive, ect. Its still cheating.

Nice attempt though!

[Typewriter]

Problem is, DMs also aren't perfect at judging when they need to fudge. And it's very, very easy for "I should fudge because it's for the good of the game" to turn into "I should fudge because it's what I want". I've seen an awful lot of DMs convince themselves that they only fudge for the sake of their players. And sometimes it's true. But sometimes the fudging shuts down something that in the long run, could have made the game more interesting.



Have your players roll a d10+10 instead of a d20. :smalltongue:

You're right. DM's aren't perfect and sometimes they make poor decisions. Whether it's over fudging or other things. When I DM I fudge and I do my best. When other people DM and I get to have a break people usually start asking me about my next campaign within a week or two, so I have to think I'm doing something right.

And I think my players would set me on fire if I asked them if they wanted to do that :yuk:

[Saph]

Except that the chance of a PC dying (in the surprise round at least) in that example was miniscule. It's hardly a mistake on the DM's part when they take steps to minimize an unwanted outcome and the dice simply want to cause that outcome, which is now extremely unlikely, anyway.

Yes, it is a mistake. If something has a 1% chance of happening, and you make the roll fifty, a hundred, two hundred times, then you should expect it to happen and you shouldn't blame the dice when it does. If you aren't willing to accept a certain outcome, then don't make it a miniscule chance, make it a zero chance.


You're right. DM's aren't perfect and sometimes they make poor decisions. Whether it's over fudging or other things. When I DM I fudge and I do my best. When other people DM and I get to have a break people usually start asking me about my next campaign within a week or two, so I have to think I'm doing something right.

Fair enough.

Personally I think most players are capable of enjoying both ruthless, rules-above-all games and also heavily fudged plot-protected ones. I once ran two back-to-back campaigns of which the first was very deadly with a high PC death rate, and the second had a setup that made it literally impossible for the PCs to die unless they committed suicide. It was the same group in both cases, and they enjoyed both just as much.

[Tyndmyr]

You do have a point here if this is true for nearly every foe the group encounters, yes you do undermine the decision in this case and it would be wrong to do so but this has very little to do with fudging rolls, the general consensus from those who fudge rolls is that you are using it very sparingly and only in situations where it will increase the fun for everybody.
To get back to Mr. DPS if you increase one or maybe two monsters HP´s during the whole campaign because you determine that its more fun if those bosses survive more then one successful attack by MR DPS then you have a much better analogy and to be honest if I would play MR DPS it wouldn´t bother me :smallwink:

No. Not at all. Being Mr DPS is specifically so you can deal lots of damage, right? In this case, let's say he's focused on high amounts of single-target damage(since that makes it plausible that he downs your boss too rapidly).

Why do you focus on such a thing? Is it so you can down the mobs of mooks that you fight? Or so that you can rapidly kill a single target with lots of HP....ie, bosses and important encounters?

It is specifically a way to deal with the very encounters you're cheating on. Therefore, you've negated the purpose of such a build. The fact that you only do so for important opponents, and only when it works does not change anything, because those are the times when it matters.

I even hear this come up in character discussion. IE...don't make a SoD focused character, because the DM'll just fudge the saves on the boss anyhow, meaning your character doesn't actually have a chance to kill them faster than hp damage would, making the character design pointless.

I've also heard players discussing a DM who cheated to keep chars alive(and who believed his players didn't know). They generally placed a very low value on defensive things, since they weren't really needed. Note that this sort of bias would happen even if the players honestly didn't know, because from their pov...it just wouldn't be necessary to have more hp/better saves.

This sort of metagaming based on what the DM fudges strikes me as unhealthy for the game, and inherently destructive to player choices.

[Reverent-One]

Yes, it is a mistake. If something has a 1% chance of happening, and you make the roll fifty, a hundred, two hundred times, then you should expect it to happen and you shouldn't blame the dice when it does. If you aren't willing to accept a certain outcome, then don't make it a miniscule chance, make it a zero chance.

And where did the example mention that the DM made the roll "fifty, a hundred, two hundred times"?

[Typewriter]

The dice just sometimes don´t get it, lets say you are in an audience with the king, the beacons are lit gondor calls for aid the King is not really sure if he wants to send his riders... but one of your players gloriously rises to the occasion and gives the most epic speech you have ever heard.

Still with tears in your eyes you see the player rolling his beloved d20 for the diplomacy check... you didn´t even ask for it he has played enough d&d to know that a diplomacy check is required by the rules for such actions... then a 1 - A ONE??? WTF! even with the beforehand agreed upon roleplay bonus and his skill in diplomacy that is only a 6 thats not nearly enough to sway the king...

To heck with these damned dice not knowing when to roll high :smallwink:

My group handles social skills differently than any other skill or check in the game. They're made instead of roleplaying, so if you think you can make a speech better than you can roll a speech - go for it. And if it's rolled we use heavy, heavy situational modifiers.

[Drascin]

Yes, it is a mistake. If something has a 1% chance of happening, and you make the roll fifty, a hundred, two hundred times, then you should expect it to happen and you shouldn't blame the dice when it does. If you aren't willing to accept a certain outcome, then don't make it a miniscule chance, make it a zero chance.

How do you do that, then, without downright rewriting the rules for damage rolls (extra-large fudging with extra sundae) or lowering the damage that you roll so much that the likely average is going to be "laughable" instead of "could be dangerous, gear up guys"?

Easiest solution? Just roll as normal, knowing that if you get the massively unlikely statistical outlier, you will either reroll or knock it down a few notches before telling the players. Which is what I personally would have done and do.

[Emmerask]

Why do you focus on such a thing? Is it so you can down the mobs of mooks that you fight? Or so that you can rapidly kill a single target with lots of HP....ie, bosses and important encounters?

Uh that post is quite old ^^
I wasn´t talking about bosses in general I was talking about the boss (or in my post I said something about 1 or 2 bosses over a whole campaign... mind you the campaigns I participate in are all long running 4 years+)

And yes as a player I would feel cheated if the final boss would keel over because Mr dps over there hit him once.

[Emmerask]

My group handles social skills differently than any other skill or check in the game. They're made instead of roleplaying, so if you think you can make a speech better than you can roll a speech - go for it. And if it's rolled we use heavy, heavy situational modifiers.

Yes we do the same though admitting this has earned me quite a few flames on these boards^^
Though this is by no means raw and it favors eloquent players quite a bit... luckily all of mine know how to sweet talk ^^

Anyway with a group that is not using such rulings and with the dm not "fudging" "cheating" "being a dirty liar" etc the outcome would be:
Nice effort dude but that was clearly not rolled well enough :smallbiggrin:

[Saph]

How do you do that, then, without downright rewriting the rules for damage rolls (extra-large fudging with extra sundae) or lowering the damage that you roll so much that the likely average is going to be "laughable" instead of "could be dangerous, gear up guys"?

Reduce the variance of the enemy attacks. Or say PCs don't die until they hit some very low HP number, say -50. Or give PCs some sort of mechanic that they can use to occasionally turn a fatal blow into one that leaves them on -1. Lots of systems have ways of handling this sort of thing, so I don't have to be very creative - I can just pick one from existing games.

[Ytaker]

I'm not even going to try to figure out who the 'anti-fudgers' are and who you're talking about when you say 'us'. Here's what I think:

By far the most common reason for fudging is because the GM's made a mistake. E.g. Amphetryon's example: if you don't want PCs killed, it's generally a bad idea to attack them while they're sleeping.
Fudging is a good short-term solution. It is a bad long-term solution. The long-term solution is to fix the mistake so that next time, you don't need to fudge.

The way dnd is made, it's inevitable that ocassionally stuff will go wrong. You'll have a routine encounter and every fifth roll by the enemy will be a 20. One of the squishy characters will get hit by too many swords. If the DM doesn't fudge player death is inevitable at some points, through no fault of the player or the DM.

The dice should have a very strong role though. Allowing the game to go in unexpected and unwanted directions is good. Sometimes an encounter should be over in one or two dice rolls too, if luck dictates that. Other times it should take an hour or more. I find it much more suspect when a DM fudges in favour of a monster. The players have to survive for them to have fun- the monsters don't have to survive.

[Typewriter]

Uh that post is quite old ^^
I wasn´t talking about bosses in general I was talking about the boss (or in my post I said something about 1 or 2 bosses over a whole campaign... mind you the campaigns I participate in are all long running 4 years+)

And yes as a player I would feel cheated if the final boss would keel over because Mr dps over there hit him once.

Then the party should either never encounter him, or he should have a back up plan. Someone to cast true ressurection on him, the Clone spell, maybe he's a lich. Killing him doesn't need to mean that the campaign is over. Maybe it means the players have successfully delayed the final baddies plan, and they have some time to do something else. Maybe it gets them some bonus XP. Maybe it makes the baddie send something viscious after them to try and kill them. Maybe they get to the next city and find him walking around, and he gets them arrested for assaulting him. Now they know he came back, but how.... a mystery!

Putting an invincible enemy against the party is fine if theres a plot reason he's invincible. Does he have an artifact? Is there going to be a quest to sever the artifacts power, or to get a sword that can strike through it's barrier?

If he's invincible because the DM says so then that's the exact same thing as having invisible barriers all around the game world.

If you don't want him to die, don't let him interact with the PC's.

[pingcode20]

Hmm. Perhaps it was a bad example, but I agree that when past decisions catch up it's fair play. In your example, yes - if they had assassins after them, and they let their guard down, then I'd call it fair.

A bit mean, but certainly fair, and while I'd be shocked at first and probably need to have it pointed out that there were assassins after my character, it's a fair death. Should have known better, didn't, paid the price. I would have preferred to have at least a chance to spot the assassin, maybe avoid that first shot, but overall it's fair play.

What I meant was situations where the players could not have averted their fate, without knowing it ahead of time or even in spite of knowing it ahead of time.

The time I've run into the sort of situation where that kind of fudge was called for was in a PbP - the PCs were soldiers marching uphill against indirect machinegun fire, escorting an APC. Hits were rolled for, and two PCs were promptly killed off on the spot. Bam.

Realistic and gritty, perhaps, but we lost two potential regulars right there.

[Drascin]

Reduce the variance of the enemy attacks. Or say PCs don't die until they hit some very low HP number, say -50. Or give PCs some sort of mechanic that they can use to occasionally turn a fatal blow into one that leaves them on -1. Lots of systems have ways of handling this sort of thing, so I don't have to be very creative - I can just pick one from existing games.

Personally, I just make all damage PCs take while conscious nonlethal first, then you have to be actively finished off to die. Avoids annoying "zero to death" situations swimmingly, and makes death something that's very hard long as you have companions to bail you out.

But obviously the guy doing it wasn't using such houserules. He was working within the standard D&D rules. And if someone is going to take exception to you changing a roll, chances are he'll be downright indignated and fuming if you decided to change a rule mid-game to save someone.

[Emmerask]

Then the party should either never encounter him, or he should have a back up plan. Someone to cast true ressurection on him, the Clone spell, maybe he's a lich. Killing him doesn't need to mean that the campaign is over. Maybe it means the players have successfully delayed the final baddies plan, and they have some time to do something else. Maybe it gets them some bonus XP. Maybe it makes the baddie send something viscious after them to try and kill them. Maybe they get to the next city and find him walking around, and he gets them arrested for assaulting him. Now they know he came back, but how.... a mystery!

Putting an invincible enemy against the party is fine if theres a plot reason he's invincible. Does he have an artifact? Is there going to be a quest to sever the artifacts power, or to get a sword that can strike through it's barrier?

If he's invincible because the DM says so then that's the exact same thing as having invisible barriers all around the game world.

If you don't want him to die, don't let him interact with the PC's.


no, you misunderstand as a player I want him to die of course, thats what we fought to do the past x years I want it to be a good fight though and not mr ubercharger dealing him 1,5k dmg with a lucky roll that penetrated mirror image and all the other defenses one could possibly think of in the first round...

That would for me as a player feel very unsatisfying and a major let down ^^

[Jayabalard]

"Us" I think was supposed to be "people who think fudging is a good short term solution- and feel that if it wasn't a valid DM tool, the DMG wouldn't have mentioned it as an option."

"anti-fudgers" are people who use terms like "betrayal", "dishonesty", "deception" and so on, for fudging- and seem to argue that it is actually immoral for the DM to fudge in a game for any reason.That looks about right to me, though you left out "Cheat", "lying" and "warm steamy pile of slightly overdone dishonesty"


Reduce the variance of the enemy attacks. Or say PCs don't die until they hit some very low HP number, say -50. Or give PCs some sort of mechanic that they can use to occasionally turn a fatal blow into one that leaves them on -1. Lots of systems have ways of handling this sort of thing, so I don't have to be very creative - I can just pick one from existing games.Even with these, I don't see any reason to not use fiat as appropriate during the game.

[Saph]

But obviously the guy doing it wasn't using such houserules. He was working within the standard D&D rules.

Which is my point. If you don't like the way that standard D&D rules make combat genuinely dangerous for the PCs, then you should change the rules.

[BlackSheep]

Then the party should either never encounter him, or he should have a back up plan. Someone to cast true ressurection on him, the Clone spell, maybe he's a lich. Killing him doesn't need to mean that the campaign is over. Maybe it means the players have successfully delayed the final baddies plan, and they have some time to do something else. Maybe it gets them some bonus XP. Maybe it makes the baddie send something viscious after them to try and kill them. Maybe they get to the next city and find him walking around, and he gets them arrested for assaulting him. Now they know he came back, but how.... a mystery!

Putting an invincible enemy against the party is fine if theres a plot reason he's invincible. Does he have an artifact? Is there going to be a quest to sever the artifacts power, or to get a sword that can strike through it's barrier?

If he's invincible because the DM says so then that's the exact same thing as having invisible barriers all around the game world.

If you don't want him to die, don't let him interact with the PC's.


I think that the pro-fudge faction sees very little difference between fudging the dice to get a more satisfactory outcome now and fudging the storyline to pull a "...but WAIT! He's still alive!" I'd be far more annoyed if, because the final showdown with a BBEG was anticlimactic, the DM brought him back to life behind the scenes than if he secretly kept him alive for a few rounds to let him put up at least a little resistance.

Honestly, if the plot, the enemies, the world and even the rules exist by DM fiat, it's really disingenuous to say fudging a die roll or two to nudge an encounter more in line with everyone's expectations is better or worse than "playing it straight" and just rewriting the plot behind the scenes. If you can retroactively give someone a way to survive death, you can retroactively apply an AC bonus or a contingent healing spell to keep them on their feet. It all depends on the preferences of the group.

[Typewriter]

no, you misunderstand as a player I want him to die of course, thats what we fought to do the past x years I want it to be a good fight though and not mr ubercharger dealing him 1,5k dmg with a lucky roll that penetrated mirror image and all the other defenses one could possibly think of in the first round...

That would for me as a player feel very unsatisfying and a major let down ^^

If the ubercharger does that much damage regularly then he's been ending fights quickly the entire game. If no one has had a problem with that the entire time then they shouldn't have a problem with it now.

You would find it a let down to have your character do exactly what he's been built to do? Sounds to me more like the DM just wants the encounter to go for a set number of rounds before the baddy can die. If that's the case then give him an amulet that grants him the power of a frenzied berserker. At least then there's an in game reason for him to survive a while.

[Saph]

Honestly, if the plot, the enemies, the world and even the rules exist by DM fiat, it's really disingenuous to say fudging a die roll or two to nudge an encounter more in line with everyone's expectations is better or worse than "playing it straight" and just rewriting the plot behind the scenes.

The distinction's more important than you think, because it impacts the world's verisimilitude. Does the gameworld seem to run on consistent rules, or not? If my character does a combat maneuver, will it always work the same way, or does it depend on the GM's mood?

Obviously everything's ultimately created by the GM, but a game where the GM tries to keep the world consistent and only nudges things when he absolutely has to feels VERY different from a game where the GM changes things whenever he feels like it.

[Typewriter]

I think that the pro-fudge faction sees very little difference between fudging the dice to get a more satisfactory outcome now and fudging the storyline to pull a "...but WAIT! He's still alive!" I'd be far more annoyed if, because the final showdown with a BBEG was anticlimactic, the DM brought him back to life behind the scenes than if he secretly kept him alive for a few rounds to let him put up at least a little resistance.

Honestly, if the plot, the enemies, the world and even the rules exist by DM fiat, it's really disingenuous to say fudging a die roll or two to nudge an encounter more in line with everyone's expectations is better or worse than "playing it straight" and just rewriting the plot behind the scenes. If you can retroactively give someone a way to survive death, you can retroactively apply an AC bonus or a contingent healing spell to keep them on their feet. It all depends on the preferences of the group.

So you prefer to pretend your players didn't do something they did rather than have an in-game reason for something to happen?

I don't know what your expectations are when you play, but I expect that killing someone will result in them dying. If they have a method of coming back, then that works. It's D&D. If I killed someone then found out I didn't I would not play with that DM anymore.

What you're describing to me is railroading. You're creating a situation that can only go one way. That's not what you should use fudging for, in my opinion.

[Totally Guy]

That sounds like goalpost moving.

To get through the door of destiny you need the 7 lordly swords!

*Party goes away and gets them*

To get through the door of destiny you need the 7 lordly swords... and a key made of moonrock!

:smallsigh:

Edit: The session starts in less than 3 hours. Lets see if I can keep my suspicions under control... I don't want to be disruptive, but I want to be assured that I am actually playing.

[Jayabalard]

If the ubercharger does that much damage regularly Not necessarily; he may have been holding back, or simply not been lucky enough for it to be an issue.

[Drascin]

Which is my point. If you don't like the way that standard D&D rules make combat genuinely dangerous for the PCs, then you should change the rules.

Chances of a mid-game rules change going over well with the same kind of person that would take exception to a DM simply dictating a roll wasn't valid seem really kind of slim, to put it politely.


I think that the pro-fudge faction sees very little difference between fudging the dice to get a more satisfactory outcome now and fudging the storyline to pull a "...but WAIT! He's still alive!" I'd be far more annoyed if, because the final showdown with a BBEG was anticlimactic, the DM brought him back to life behind the scenes than if he secretly kept him alive for a few rounds to let him put up at least a little resistance.


Indeed. In fact, I would definitely be more annoyed at the GM making a guy coming back out of nowhere because the previous fight was unsatisfying, than him fudging a couple results for the fight to be cooler. That's a double-bad.

[Typewriter]

Not necessarily; he may have been holding back, or simply not been lucky enough for it to be an issue.

Fair enough.

I just see fudging against the players as railroading.

[Saph]

Chances of a mid-game rules change going over well with the same kind of person that would take exception to a DM simply dictating a roll wasn't valid seem really kind of slim, to put it politely.

*sigh*

Once again: Fudging is the short-term solution. Changing the rules is the long-term solution.

Short-term, sure, fudge.

Long-term, your GM and party need to have a talk about what you do and don't consider acceptable outcomes in combat. If you don't want PCs to die in certain circumstances, change the rules so that they don't, or just make sure those situations don't come up.

[Typewriter]

Indeed. In fact, I would definitely be more annoyed at the GM making a guy coming back out of nowhere because the previous fight was unsatisfying, than him fudging a couple results for the fight to be cooler. That's a double-bad.

I'm not talking about it coming out of nowhere. It may be somewhere the player doesn't know about but that doesn't mean he can't find out.

All I'm saying is that if you have an NPC you don't want to lose don't let him interact with the party unless that NPC has something in place for ressurecting himself. It's not like D&D isn't full of ways bring someone back from the dead.

[Zherog]

Finally, alternatively, I can change the environment rules: it's too dark for the enemy to see the party well enough to get a sneak attack;

[side comment]

Actually, this may not be "fudging" the environment at all. If it's dark (in a tent with no lantern, for example) and the attacker doesn't have darkvision, then the target has concealment. And if the target has concealment then they aren't a valid target for sneak attack. (And, actually, it also means there's a 20% chance the attack didn't actually hit, but that's another matter.)

[/side comment]


I could have a kobold with a stick run up and attach the sorceror during the night, doing only 1d4-1, but what if I roll triple 20 and that's a rule I use? I should stop using that rule completely because I don't want it to completely hose a sleeping player? Or I can fudge, and pretend it was only a regular crit, and my group can continue using a variant rule we're a fan of.

I generally don't like this sort of term in these discussions, but... you've set up another false dichotomy. There's other options beyond the two you listed. For example, you could alter the rule so that only PCs and very important NPCs (major villains, mentors, etc) get to use the rule; mooks and other riff raff play by the normal rules. Now your PCs have a rule they like, they're still in danger from the BBEG, but the kobold with a stick can't simply whack them because he managed to jam the stick in their eye socket just right.



"Us" I think was supposed to be "people who think fudging is a good short term solution- and feel that if it wasn't a valid DM tool, the DMG wouldn't have mentioned it as an option."

"anti-fudgers" are people who use terms like "betrayal", "dishonesty", "deception" and so on, for fudging- and seem to argue that it is actually immoral for the DM to fudge in a game for any reason.

I'm an anti-fudger* and I don't recall using those sorts of words in my posts. However, I am old and have memory issues, so I certainly could have. If so, I apologize.

I'm very much in the "this doesn't fly for me, but if it truly works for your group, then go for it" camp. My only wish would be that you listen to some of the more well-spoken "anti-fudgers" such as Saph, and hear the points they're making. (and to be clear, I'm not saying you aren't listening; I'm just stating what my desire to have as the outcome of the conversation is.)

* While I'm an anti-fudger, I'm pro fudge. Mmmm, sweet, delicious, creamy, yummy fudge... *drools on the internet*

[Jay R]

I have a thought experiment for people who don't want the DM to fudge rolls ever. You are starting to create a new character. Through some absurd twist of probability, you roll nothing but 1s and 2s throughout the process, and now have a character whose highest stat is a 6. The DM says, "Forget it; he's unplayable. Start over and roll another one."

Are you upset with him for fudging the die rolls? If you don't want to fudge die rolls under any circumstances, then you will play the character. If you would re-roll the character, then you accept fudging under some conditions. In that case the issue isn't fudging or not fudging, but rather, making judgment calls about when to do so.

The problem is that we are all talking about this backwards. DMs make judgment calls all the time, and the effect of fudging the dice is trivial compared to what else the DM is doing.

"The DM is fudging and so I don't trust him" is not the actual issue. It's really "I don't trust the DM, so I don't want him to ever fudge the dice."

Players who trust their DM trust her to make judgment calls and rules decisions for the good of the game. Players who don't trust the DM do not trust her to do so.

I've played with one DM I don't trust. I don't care if he's fudging or not; I don't trust his judgment calls in general, and I won't play with him again.

I've played with DMs I do trust. Therefore I don't care if they are fudging the dice or not; I think the game will be fair and reasonable.

The problem isn't fudging; it's trusting the DM's judgment. Fudging is one way to make a judgment call, and not the most obnoxious. If the DM wants to cheat to hurt you, he won't use something as trivial as fudging the dice to do it.

[Ytaker]

Honestly, if the plot, the enemies, the world and even the rules exist by DM fiat, it's really disingenuous to say fudging a die roll or two to nudge an encounter more in line with everyone's expectations is better or worse than "playing it straight" and just rewriting the plot behind the scenes. If you can retroactively give someone a way to survive death, you can retroactively apply an AC bonus or a contingent healing spell to keep them on their feet. It all depends on the preferences of the group.

Interesting way to consider this battle. The villain has no allies who are going to resurrect them on the event of death? They deserve to die then. It doesn't have to be a retroactive death. A villain should have resources, people behind the scenes. In our comic it was just noted that if Elan's dad got killed his priest would resurrect him. The big bad can regenerate.

The whole idea, that there's no need to consider bad rolls, is troubling. The villain shouldn't know he has plot armour. He should be worried he'll get killed.

[BlackSheep]

So you prefer to pretend your players didn't do something they did rather than have an in-game reason for something to happen?

I don't know what your expectations are when you play, but I expect that killing someone will result in them dying. If they have a method of coming back, then that works. It's D&D. If I killed someone then found out I didn't I would not play with that DM anymore.

What you're describing to me is railroading. You're creating a situation that can only go one way. That's not what you should use fudging for, in my opinion.

Not... really. Railroading would be saying that the characters have to fight the BBEG a certain way. Fudging is saying that the party has to fight the BBEG in a way that doesn't destroy him in one shot. There are still a host of choices for the players to make.

As for killing something and it not dying, you would only be disappointed by that if you know it occurred. Players shouldn't know that they accidentally blew up the encounter but the GM is "fixing" it. Nor should they know when the monsters got lucky and the GM fixes that. Killing a boss quickly, only to find out he has a "twin brother" who's now out for revenge would get very tiresome very quickly.

An epic battle ranging across interesting terrain against formidable foes is something special and takes a lot of work to put together. Throwing that out the window just so you can say you played it by the dice seems pointless, especially if you're willing to invent some other "in game" reason that they have to face the same foe again.

[Saph]

I have a thought experiment for people who don't want the DM to fudge rolls ever. You are starting to create a new character. Through some absurd twist of probability, you roll nothing but 1s and 2s throughout the process, and now have a character whose highest stat is a 6. The DM says, "Forget it; he's unplayable. Start over and roll another one."

Are you upset with him for fudging the die rolls?

Hate to break this to you, but he's not fudging. Re-read the character creation chapter of the 3.5 PHB. If your stats are below a certain minimum, you can re-roll them. Your DM's playing entirely by the book. :smallwink:

[Typewriter]

*sigh*

Once again: Fudging is the short-term solution. Changing the rules is the long-term solution.

Short-term, sure, fudge.

Long-term, your GM and party need to have a talk about what you do and don't consider acceptable outcomes in combat. If you don't want PCs to die in certain circumstances, change the rules so that they don't, or just make sure those situations don't come up.

I personally just don't see that as something that can always be done. Bad luck is bad luck, and sometimes that's not what the players want. Changing rules is not an option to all groups.

What if the party has been tracking a rogue whose max damage is 60, and the watch's HP is 50. The rogue wants to send a message to stop tracking him, so he sneaks up and fires a shot into the watch, then runs off. Random chance kills the character, by you accidentally rolling max damage. Or you fudge. I suppose you could change the NPC they've been tracking for the last 2 sessions to reduce his max damage. Or you could have attacked someone other than the watch who had more HP.

I consider rewriting the rules to be a mess. I think mixing systems is a mess. I've told my group we can if they want to, but they have never shown an interest.

Rewriting the rules only works if that's what your group considers an option. For my group that's not a long term solution. That's not any option.

[BlackSheep]

Interesting way to consider this battle. The villain has no allies who are going to resurrect them on the event of death? They deserve to die then. It doesn't have to be a retroactive death. A villain should have resources, people behind the scenes. In our comic it was just noted that if Elan's dad got killed his priest would resurrect him. The big bad can regenerate.

The whole idea, that there's no need to consider bad rolls, is troubling. The villain shouldn't know he has plot armour. He should be worried he'll get killed.

The villain doesn't exist, he's a figment of the DM's imagination. So too his motivations, his history, his defenses, his allies, etc.

Also, don't put words in my mouth. There's nothing wrong with anyone having a strategy in case of unexpected death. I'm just asserting that inventing that strategy after the PCs roll over a boss, or heck, inventing that strategy *in case* the PCs roll over a boss is not inherently better than fudging rolls so that he gets a chance to do something to the party.

And as for the argument that that's spoiling the fun, I say again that the party shouldn't be made aware of the mechanics behind every outcome.

[some guy]

I think a main problem with fudging is one that didn't come up too often in this thread (I read the whole thing, an interesting read). It isn't that fudging is a bad or good GM's tool in it itself.
The problem lies with how the player views it. If a player notices a fudge, it can destroy his certainty about what was influenced by his actions* and what by the GM's hand. A near survival is much more exhilarating if you know it was by shear luck than if you can't be sure if it was luck or a fudge.
A player can never be certain again if it are his/her actions that lead to triumph/defeat or if it was influenced by the GM.
And there are players that have no problem with this and there are players who do have a problem with it. And if they didn't get in touch with fudging, they will probably not know their stance on this issue yet. If you ask an inexperienced player their stance on this subject, the question might trigger their (for a lack of a better word) distrust in the GM.
So you can't be entirely sure in the players' stance on fudging without the possibility of creating distrust**. And fudging without asking creates the possibility of a noticed fudge***. And this might lessen the enjoyment of one of the players. So, in my view, it is safest to go entirely without fudging****.

Long story short: my main problem with fudging is it creates uncertainty in some players about their influence on their actions and the GM's influence on the actions.

Mind you, I think it's possible to run a perfect game with fudging, you just have to know your players and the players have to know the GM.

*actions include rolling the dice
**I'm thinking new players here who don't know about fudging.
***Players that have experience as a GM will have a very high chance of noticing a fudge, players totally new with RPG's a much lower. Is it therefore better for the enjoyment of the game to fudge more often with rookies? Could be.
****I would say keep fudging at a minimum, but it is hard to say when you should and when you shouldn't fudge. So, the safest way would be entirely without fudging.

[Zherog]

I have a thought experiment for people who don't want the DM to fudge rolls ever. You are starting to create a new character. Through some absurd twist of probability, you roll nothing but 1s and 2s throughout the process, and now have a character whose highest stat is a 6. The DM says, "Forget it; he's unplayable. Start over and roll another one."


Interesting question. I have three answers:

A) This wouldn't happen in my games, because of the way I handle character creation. When we make new characters, players get to roll 4d6 take the best three seven times, then pick the best result; do that twice; if you still don't get a set of numbers you like, you can have the array of 15, 14, 13, 10, 8, 8 assigned as you like.

I also have a buffer for rolling hit points. Every player is guaranteed at least half, regardless of what they roll. So, if the fighter rolls a 10, he gets 10+Con. If he rolls a 2, he gets 5+Con.

I do this because in my experience players like rolling dice for character creation, but dislike completely sucky characters (like your example of somebody with nothing higher than a 6). these houserules are laid out up front (along with the others I use) and I'm always willing to negotiate any other options beforehand as well.

B) If we're talking about D&D (specifically the 3.5 version) then the rules themselves already cover this. Somewhere in the character creation section, it talks about PCs with total modifiers under a certain threshold and/or not having any stat higher than a certain value. So even without my houserules, D&D3.5 covers the scenario and makes it completely OK for the player to reroll those terribad stats.

C) Now, here's the answer you want. If my houserules weren't in play and we were ignoring the rules in the PHB (or playing a game other than D&D), then yes - I would be completely OK with the DM allowing that player to reroll stats. However, I see two major differences between this and the fudging we've been talking about:

1) This is character creation, not gameplay. I'm willing to accept you treat them as one and the same, just please accept that I don't.

2) More importantly, this isn't being done in secret behind the DM screen. This s out in the open, visible (so to speak) for everybody to see. Again, I'm willing to accept if a "pro fudger' views it as the same thing; I only ask that it be accepted that I don't.

[Ytaker]

The villain doesn't exist, he's a figment of the DM's imagination. So too his motivations, his history, his defenses, his allies, etc.

Yes, and he should prepare the villain's motivations, history, defences, allies, etc before a battle. Not after. Going into a session unprepared is just unkind to your players.


Also, don't put words in my mouth. There's nothing wrong with anyone having a strategy in case of unexpected death. I'm just asserting that inventing that strategy after the PCs roll over a boss, or heck, inventing that strategy *in case* the PCs roll over a boss is not inherently better than fudging rolls so that he gets a chance to do something to the party.

If you invent it "in case" the PCs roll over a boss that is better because then you have more tools ready to use to entertain them. You can even involve the priest in the plotline, if some machination of a player forces it. It also limits harmful metagaming such as avoiding fighting at full force because you know the DM is gonna veto it by fudging. It is inherently better. You should try to come better prepared, not worse.


And as for the argument that that's spoiling the fun, I say again that the party shouldn't be made aware of the mechanics behind every outcome.

Your players aren't stupid. They're going to notice that the plot enemies strangely don't die ever.

[Typewriter]

I generally don't like this sort of term in these discussions, but... you've set up another false dichotomy. There's other options beyond the two you listed. For example, you could alter the rule so that only PCs and very important NPCs (major villains, mentors, etc) get to use the rule; mooks and other riff raff play by the normal rules. Now your PCs have a rule they like, they're still in danger from the BBEG, but the kobold with a stick can't simply whack them because he managed to jam the stick in their eye socket just right.



That doesn't necessarily work though. I've had peons kill characters in combat with this rule. It usually leads to a great laugh. Sometimes things just don't work. Rewriting the rules to fit specific situations just doesn't fix everything.


Not... really. Railroading would be saying that the characters have to fight the BBEG a certain way. Fudging is saying that the party has to fight the BBEG in a way that doesn't destroy him in one shot. There are still a host of choices for the players to make.

As for killing something and it not dying, you would only be disappointed by that if you know it occurred. Players shouldn't know that they accidentally blew up the encounter but the GM is "fixing" it. Nor should they know when the monsters got lucky and the GM fixes that. Killing a boss quickly, only to find out he has a "twin brother" who's now out for revenge would get very tiresome very quickly.

An epic battle ranging across interesting terrain against formidable foes is something special and takes a lot of work to put together. Throwing that out the window just so you can say you played it by the dice seems pointless, especially if you're willing to invent some other "in game" reason that they have to face the same foe again.

So I think we're in two conversations here. One is what happens if the player kill the BBEG too early in the campaign, and the other is killing him too early in the final fight.

1. If the BBEG is made available to the party they might kill him. If that doesn't work, then don't reveal him to the party. Have him work thorugh agents, or have a back up plan in case of his death. Make him an outsider so he just gets returned to his plane. Don't just negate the players actions because that doens't work for you. That is blatant railroading. It's not 'inventing' some in game reason for them to have to fight the same foe, it's creating a villain who actually plans ahead. How is having a villain get ressurected any different from a player getting ressurected? The whole pro-fudging argument is that it's a tool for the DM. So are spells. Like ressurection, clone, contingency, etc.

2. If your players never find out about it then yes, obviously, they won't be upset about it. But why are you doing it? You built a BBEG who could die in one hit, so why not let it happen when your player does really well? Do your players only get enjoyment out of tough fights? They don't just enjoy winning because they did well? I've had end fights go for 1 round, I've had them go for 20 rounds, I've had some end with party deaths and the villain winning, totally effing the world up for the next campaign. Preventing your players from doing well is just self-serving in my opinion. That's DM vs. Player.

[Earthwalker]

It boggled why it's in the book for the players to read. I mean that's pretty much telling the group that the GM fudges right off the bat.

And whether you do or not the consensus is pretty much to keep it a secret.

So the GM is keeping it secret, like he's supposed to but the rule book is holding up a big sign saying "Doubt im! Doubt him!" So I'm fool of doubt.

I think what might have been best to start with is if when you asked if it was ok to read the gamemasters section your GM said no, unless you plan to run a game.

Then even if you have and you have an issue with him fudging the dice is for your group to come to some understanding.

I would suggest the GM rolling the dice in the open, but also empowering the players by allowing them to spend edge to re-roll any dice that effect them. For example you is sneaking into a corporate research center and all roll your stealths.

Everyone rolled well but you got a only one success.

The GM rolls and scores 5 hits on hit 5 dice (what are the odds)

You can spend edge to try to roll 4 more hits on your 3 dice (unlikly) or you can force the GM to re-roll all his dice.

it costs you edge but thats what its for.

[Tyndmyr]

Because you didn't beat down Cthulhu. You survived to go on to beat him down, instead of everyone getting wiped out by Third Cultist from the Left.

The Die Hard analogy has been used a few times in this thread, and it's a highly relevant one. Bruce Willis at the end of that movie is how most players secretly want to be after a big fight. They want to be battered and bloody, but victorious.

What they don't want is to end up as the guy tied to the chair and shoved in the elevator wearing a sign that says "Now I have a machine gun too."

In Arkham Horror, getting wiped out by the third cultist from the left is not unexpected. Death due to an unfortunate result of the cards or a bad roll is quite possible, and can in fact lead to everyone losing the game. If you cheat your way out of these, the game becomes meaningless.

But if EVERY time, you end up battered, bloody, but victorious...then the victory is hollow.

Players also enjoy the time they utterly steamroll someone. They get to feel awesome, and show off their power/skills/luck. Again, this would also lose it's attraction if it happened every time.

Players often don't enjoy losing, but it makes winning matter. Losing isn't always death, but death is a particularly dramatic form of losing that exists in most RPGs.

[Saph]

I personally just don't see that as something that can always be done. Bad luck is bad luck, and sometimes that's not what the players want.

I guess, but you're getting into a real minefield here. "Bad luck" is really subjective. I've known players who think that rolling a 13 on 5d6 is a justification for throwing their dice across the table. I've known others who can roll five 1s on ten attack rolls and take it good-humouredly. Usually players who complain a lot about bad luck don't have bad luck at all - they're just bad at statistics.

There's no objective way to decide when a player's luck is bad enough that you should help them, and there's a high risk of being seen as playing favourites. If Bob's character gets killed and you fudge to save him, then a couple of weeks Dave's character gets killed and you let it happen, it can cause major resentment.

[Drascin]

*sigh*

Once again: Fudging is the short-term solution. Changing the rules is the long-term solution.

Short-term, sure, fudge.

Long-term, your GM and party need to have a talk about what you do and don't consider acceptable outcomes in combat. If you don't want PCs to die in certain circumstances, change the rules so that they don't, or just make sure those situations don't come up.

And I would actually agree with that (the "change the rules" bit, I mean. The "make sure those situations don't come up" bit is basically unrealistic). Fudging is an emergency measure (one that I feel the GM should always have open to him in case of emergency), a big red button button the GM has to avoid sudden unforeseen campaign implosion. You can then easily notice which things have forced you to fudge most and make some house rules to administer them.

Though, it has to be said, that to many players - you can even see a couple in this very thread - changing rules is in fact the absolute last resort. I do not quite understand the mentality, but it is there.

[Ytaker]

I guess, but you're getting into a real minefield here. "Bad luck" is really subjective. I've known players who think that rolling a 13 on 5d6 is a justification for throwing their dice across the table. I've known others who can roll five 1s on ten attack rolls and take it good-humouredly. Usually players who complain a lot about bad luck don't have bad luck at all - they're just bad at statistics.

There's no objective way to decide when a player's luck is bad enough that you should help them, and there's a high risk of being seen as playing favourites. If Bob's character gets killed and you fudge to save him, then a couple of weeks Dave's character gets killed and you let it happen, it can cause major resentment.

What if you fudge fudge fudge and never let a player die except in a plot battle?

[Tyndmyr]

Food for thought example from my gaming table:

Enemy scout sneaks up on the party as they are sleeping for the night, bypassing the lookout successfully. With multiple targets to choose from, the enemy scout randomly aims at the sorcerer, who is played by a new player, B, just joining the game. Roll of attack and damage indicates a maximum damage critical hit, which would kill B's sorcerer in his sleep. This would make B roll up a new character before his first character ever rolled a die, or at least force B to introduce his sorcerer's long lost twin brother.


Do you fudge?

No. I just don't do such encounters in the first place. A scout is a scout, not an assassin.

Assassins have specific targets, not random ones. Assassins also work for a living. They come after you for an actual reason. If you decided it would be fun to publicly offend the rich and powerful, or steal from the assassins guild or the like, then yes, assassins are a plausible repercussion for you to deal with. They do not arrive randomly to kill a new character they've never met before.

[Typewriter]

I guess, but you're getting into a real minefield here. "Bad luck" is really subjective. I've known players who think that rolling a 13 on 5d6 is a justification for throwing their dice across the table. I've known others who can roll five 1s on ten attack rolls and take it good-humouredly. Usually players who complain a lot about bad luck don't have bad luck at all - they're just bad at statistics.

There's no objective way to decide when a player's luck is bad enough that you should help them, and there's a high risk of being seen as playing favourites. If Bob's character gets killed and you fudge to save him, then a couple of weeks Dave's character gets killed and you let it happen, it can cause major resentment.

Very true. That's why a groups DM is the one who has to make those decisions.

I generally fudge at two times:

1. A new character, Bob, is about to be killed because of a CRIT, or some other random factor. It's not really the players fault, he's just been unable to hit the goblin/troll/deity because he hasn't rolled above a 3 the entire fight. The rest of the party has gotten the baddy down to 20 HP left. The baddy does an attack that includes Bob, and deals 30 19 damage. If they don't down him this round Bob is going to going to die.

2. The party has planned something that requires some work. The first thing to happen is the rogue stealths near the enemy camp and rolls a 1+25, opposed by a perception check of 20+10. That 20 becomes a 10. If the same thing happens on the next check, bam - you're seen. Deal with it from here.

I don't believe in continually fudging things to make things easy for the party, I think that a DM should give players second chances when they have had bad luck, or done a good job of planning. It's not something to be used constantly, it's not to give them immunity. It's just there as a second chance. A tool to keep the game flowing, and everyone happy.

[BlackSheep]

Yes, and he should prepare the villain's motivations, history, defences, allies, etc before a battle. Not after. Going into a session unprepared is just unkind to your players.

GMs are only human and cannot take every possible outcome into consideration at all times. Having a tool to handle corner cases is helpful. Your assertion that undesirable outcomes are the GM's fault may have merit, but correcting the mistake is up to the GM. Sending him back to the drawing board every time he screws up is not the only way. And for someone with limited amounts of free time, it's not even the best way.



Your players aren't stupid. They're going to notice that the plot enemies strangely don't die ever.

I'm not sure where this idea that enemies will "never" die comes from. If you want to create an invincible enemy so he can toss off some lines before sending his minions to deal with the party, there are plenty of ways to do that without anyone rolling dice. But if you want create an enemy who fights viciously and then dies after facing the party in epic combat, but he gets one-shotted by someone's vorpal blade because you didn't think of the right combination of magical defenses, then yes, it should be acceptable to say that an attack missed or he's somehow immune to critical hits.

And as an aside, I value the arguments people make about maybe choosing a different system. But I don't think most people fully evaluate each system's pros and cons before diving into a campaign. After investing months and months on a story and a world in a given system, it's not easy to just say "we're switching to X" because I don't want to deal with random 20s blowing up encounters.

[Saph]

What if you fudge fudge fudge and never let a player die except in a plot battle?

Then the only combats with any elements of risk will be the plot battles. Personally, if that's the way we're running the game, I'd prefer the GM cut out all the non-plot battles and skipped to the ones which matter.

Though I've never really seen the logic of "it's OK for PCs to die in plot battles, but not in normal battles" anyway.

[Amphetryon]

A scout is a scout, not an assassin.Does this mean that a scout can't attack, or merely is proscribed against lethal attacks, or...? :smallconfused:

[JBento]

I think it means that a scout is supposed to chek stuff and come back to report, not go in, reveal its position, and then potentially getting killed leaving his commanding officer without intel.

[obliged_salmon]

To me and my indie gaming ways, the dice roll represents something almost sacred. It's a turning point, a major choice that, once done, cannot be undone. It should be spectacular, it should be memorable. It won't always be, but the point is, it should be rare.

Also, the stakes should be clearly set on the table before any dice are ever rolled.

IF you succeed, your foeman will die. IF you fail...he shoves your lady love into the path of your sword. Do you still decide to attack? You have the choice to back down and surrender....

Otherwise, you're just rolling dice to roll dice. Screw that.

[BlackSheep]

1. If the BBEG is made available to the party they might kill him. If that doesn't work, then don't reveal him to the party. Have him work thorugh agents, or have a back up plan in case of his death. Make him an outsider so he just gets returned to his plane. Don't just negate the players actions because that doens't work for you. That is blatant railroading. It's not 'inventing' some in game reason for them to have to fight the same foe, it's creating a villain who actually plans ahead. How is having a villain get ressurected any different from a player getting ressurected? The whole pro-fudging argument is that it's a tool for the DM. So are spells. Like ressurection, clone, contingency, etc.

This I agree with. If you don't want the party to kill something, it's not unreasonable to expect a DM to keep that thing away from the party. If you want them to fight it, it's not unreasonable to create a contingency plan in case of accidental death. I'm arguing about the cases where the GM wants the party to kill the boss, but he dies in such an anticlimactic manner that the moment is ruined.


2. If your players never find out about it then yes, obviously, they won't be upset about it. But why are you doing it? You built a BBEG who could die in one hit, so why not let it happen when your player does really well? Do your players only get enjoyment out of tough fights? They don't just enjoy winning because they did well? I've had end fights go for 1 round, I've had them go for 20 rounds, I've had some end with party deaths and the villain winning, totally effing the world up for the next campaign. Preventing your players from doing well is just self-serving in my opinion. That's DM vs. Player.

Because you didn't intend to build a BBEG who could die in one hit? You intended to pit the players against a balanced encounter that taxed their resources, their strategy and their teamwork. You wanted to see how they reacted when the boss set off the lava geysers and completely changed the landscape. And so forth.

Do your players only get enjoyment when they get lucky and take down something with one crit? I would argue that if a more traditional exchanging of blows were boring, the players would have abandoned the game long ago since that's what happens the majority of the time.

Do only players get to enjoy encounters? Can't the GM have fun while playing too? If one 20 ruins an encounter for the GM, is it really so offensive if he changes something behind the scenes to preserve his hard work?

[Ashiel]

I, on the other hand, wouldn't trust my child with a cub scout leader who refused to carry bandaids because he is confident in his ability to prevent kids from falling over at all. It's impressive if he can manage it, but I'd feel a lot more comfortable if he let himself have it on hand just in case.

If I'm not allowed to fall down, what's the point of being a kid? How will I grow if I have no obstacles, or cannot learn from my mistakes? Why will I respect riding my bicycle if I don't fall down a few times?

To put it another way, why should the GM fudge to prevent PCs from dying? Sorry but that's part of the game. Adventuring isn't a cakewalk. People die. That's why not everyone's an adventurer. Do you think that you shouldn't fear the stray arrow of an orcish archer because that's not a heroic way to die?

It's not like we cannot roll up a new character; have a member raised, reincarnated, or even turned into a ghoul or mummy. It doesn't mean diddly these days to have a character that legitimately beat the odds and succeeded through a harrowing adventure, because it seems like people expect the GM to get them through stuff.

How can one not look at this and die a little inside as a gamer? Are we, as a community, so spoiled that we much cheat at dice so that things go our way? To pretend we're playing the game but ignore it when the orc warrior criticals with his greataxe for 3d12+18 on the first round?

My players have often told me that they love my games because I won't fudge for or against them, so they feel accomplished. They remark on how they are excited by the sense of danger because it's real for them. They know that those kobolds aren't going to fight fair, and that they just might get set on fire, in a pit trap, with spikes, while four kobolds are throwing flasks of acid and shooting small light crossbows at the party trying to help them up. I didn't cheat my player who died at the hands of the Ettin in Red Hand of Doom, and yet the player remarks even today about the event and how it was an awesome fight. His character was later raised, and he decided he wouldn't try to solo a giant two-headed monster with beatsticks so carelessly next time.

My players refuse to play with another GM we had. Not a bad GM, but he fudged rolls and has been caught at it. He finally admitted that if the druid tried baleful polymorph the dragon, he would have fudged it because it's a dragon and shouldn't go down like that. Do you know why they won't play with him? Because he cheats. They don't care if he cheats for the NPCs, for the PCs, but that he cheats. They know that there's always that chance that whatever they do was merely be his whims. They would rather be destroyed in the first fight by that orc's lucky critical than make it to the giant 7 headed firebreathing monster at the end because someone decided to cheat.

[Tyndmyr]

"Us" I think was supposed to be "people who think fudging is a good short term solution- and feel that if it wasn't a valid DM tool, the DMG wouldn't have mentioned it as an option."

Not everything printed in the DMG is a good idea. Or in other D&D books and RPG systems, for that matter.

The quality of rules published vary wildly, and some are almost invariably ignored, and some are pretty commonly accepted in almost all groups. I would not assume that because a rule is published, it is a good option.

[Typewriter]

GMs are only human and cannot take every possible outcome into consideration at all times. Having a tool to handle corner cases is helpful. Your assertion that undesirable outcomes are the GM's fault may have merit, but correcting the mistake is up to the GM. Sending him back to the drawing board every time he screws up is not the only way. And for someone with limited amounts of free time, it's not even the best way.
.

Yes, but any time you put a piece of meat in front of a dog you should realize there's a chance for that dog to get that meat. He could break his restraints, he could knock you over and pull it from your hand. Don't put that meat in front of that dog unless you're prepared for the possibility of losing that meat, or you have a backup plan.

This is one of those instances where I can see it happening and Saphs comment about using it as a short term solution really fits. If you are not prepared, and the party takes an action that would kill someone you don't want dead, then fudge if you need to - but learn from that. Don't make it available for them to do again, or have a backup plan in case they do. Repeatedly fudging the same thing is pretty lame. And I still call it railroading.

I really enjoyed comparing my party to an agnry dog. In my imagination it was a Weimaraner.

[Jay R]

Out of interest, if you were caught fudging a roll or you accidentally confessed or something, and a player was unhappy about it, what would you do next?

First of all, the phrasing of the question assumes things that are not true. I cannot "accidentally confess" to running the way I think the game should be run.

Secondly, I can't be "caught" following the rules. As has already been documented, many DM guides and sourcebooks have said that the DM's job is to make reasonable calls. Fudging is explicitly mentioned in the character creation rules, as I've already discussed.

If they Fireball the guy who has the map they need, it's going to make its saving throw. If they all miss the saving throw to the first trap they see, and they all roll enough damage to die, I'm not going to watch a simple roll kill newly-created characters who never had an adventure.

If I do it well, then it will seem like a reasonable approach. These kinds of decisions are significantly easier to get right than handling a Wish.

But to answer your question, if somebody complains about what I do as DM, I will listen respectfully, and give my side respecfully. And I will tell him openly and honestly that if he doesn't want to play that way, then I'm probably not the DM for him. (And then I will wonder what he was doing when he was introduced to the game and I told him what to expect, since he clearly wasn't listening.)

[Typewriter]

Because you didn't intend to build a BBEG who could die in one hit? You intended to pit the players against a balanced encounter that taxed their resources, their strategy and their teamwork. You wanted to see how they reacted when the boss set off the lava geysers and completely changed the landscape. And so forth.


Not to sound rude, but your intentions, and what you want, don't matter. That's why your the DM. If having a guy die in one hit is not fun for your party then that's a reason to fudge. Not your desire or intentions.




Do your players only get enjoyment when they get lucky and take down something with one crit? I would argue that if a more traditional exchanging of blows were boring, the players would have abandoned the game long ago since that's what happens the majority of the time.



I've seen it go both ways. Players enjoy different things at different times. I really doubt that every single game would end with a one hit kill, just like every game won't end with a long epic encounter if you go by the dice.



Do only players get to enjoy encounters? Can't the GM have fun while playing too? If one 20 ruins an encounter for the GM, is it really so offensive if he changes something behind the scenes to preserve his hard work?

Yes. God yes. I cannot stress enough - yes.

EDIT, more detail:

Your job is to set the blocks up and watch the players clean up. Yes, you want to have fun, but you should never change results for yourself. Never.

[Psyx]

GMs are only human and cannot take every possible outcome into consideration at all times.

No, but GMs should aim for that.
Fudging should be an 'emergency tool' in the GM's kit, rather than one that sees routine use, to my mind. It works for me, though I appreciate 'each to his own'.


And I would actually agree with that (the "change the rules" bit, I mean

/waves the 'luck point' banner.


could have a kobold with a stick run up and attach the sorceror during the night

I'm firmly on the side of 'if you don't want a lone scout to murder a PC in the night then don't try to do it and then fudge when it works' camp.


As far as I'm aware, none of us here is that sort of DM.

I wasn't stating that was the case...

[Gnaeus]

Do your players only get enjoyment when they get lucky and take down something with one crit? I would argue that if a more traditional exchanging of blows were boring, the players would have abandoned the game long ago since that's what happens the majority of the time.


Not only, but it is awesome to sometimes take down an enemy with one crit. That is a story that will live through the campaign and maybe beyond.

Also, pay attention to what this mindset does in character creation. If a player is playing a caster, who uses save type effects, or something like a charger that focuses on damage over defense, you are nerfing their character into the dirt without telling them about it. I mean, if you want a house rule like "no save or die spells before turn 3" that is fine if everyone knows about it. But if they made a character with certain spells/attacks, and you didn't stop them, then they have every right to have those spells/attacks actually work when the dice say they should work. Otherwise you are invalidating what is potentially their entire build just so that you can watch your lava geysers.

[Ytaker]

GMs are only human and cannot take every possible outcome into consideration at all times. Having a tool to handle corner cases is helpful. Your assertion that undesirable outcomes are the GM's fault may have merit, but correcting the mistake is up to the GM. Sending him back to the drawing board every time he screws up is not the only way. And for someone with limited amounts of free time, it's not even the best way.

It doesn't take long to prepare a priest who can resurrect him. If "cannot take every possible outcome into consideration" means they didn't consider the possibility of death in deadly combat then you are using fudging to cover deficiencies in your DMing style, and it will show.

If you don't even cover the basics then you'll have to fudge. You'll just, not be a very good dm. Or you could just take the hit, and next time, spend five minutes making a priest for him.


I'm not sure where this idea that enemies will "never" die comes from. If you want to create an invincible enemy so he can toss off some lines before sending his minions to deal with the party, there are plenty of ways to do that without anyone rolling dice. But if you want create an enemy who fights viciously and then dies after facing the party in epic combat, but he gets one-shotted by someone's vorpal blade because you didn't think of the right combination of magical defenses, then yes, it should be acceptable to say that an attack missed or he's somehow immune to critical hits.

I guess your players will just learn that vorpal swords are only useful when they don't matter and stop using them.

[Amphetryon]

I think it means that a scout is supposed to chek stuff and come back to report, not go in, reveal its position, and then potentially getting killed leaving his commanding officer without intel.

That's assuming a whole bunch of facts not in evidence, but we're getting well sidetracked.

[Typewriter]

I'm firmly on the side of 'if you don't want a lone scout to murder a PC in the night then don't try to do it and then fudge when it works' camp.


It's kind of hard to tell when you selectively quote things, and don't list who you're quoting and from when/where in a 15 page thread, but I think that was directed at a scenario I mentioned.

I'm sure your players would be perfectly happy with a kobold randomly killing them in their sleep in what wasn't supposed to be anything other than a funny encounter, possibly one letting them onto the fact that they're in kobold territory. My group isn't like that.

[Emmerask]

It doesn't take long to prepare a priest who can resurrect him. If "cannot take every possible outcome into consideration" means they didn't consider the possibility of death in deadly combat then you are using fudging to cover deficiencies in your DMing style, and it will show.

If you don't even cover the basics then you'll have to fudge. You'll just, not be a very good dm. Or you could just take the hit, and next time, spend five minutes making a priest for him.


Ah I see now it is good form not to invalidate players action by fudging a roll but to invalidate players actions by using cheap tricks like true resurrecting the BBEG over and over and over again.
Thanks that was very enlightening :smallbiggrin:

[Tyndmyr]

And where did the example mention that the DM made the roll "fifty, a hundred, two hundred times"?

It's an attack roll. You know how many attack rolls are going to be made that can possibly kill a player with a max damage crit? Possibly a lot, if you don't put any thought into avoiding this situation.

Now, if you like lucky crits offing players, no problem. If you dislike lucky crits offing players, you can take any number of steps to avoid this trend. My current campaign is 7th Sea, in which hp are not used, but a roughly analogous system is, in which the damage it takes to kill someone is 3x the amount needed to cripple someone, and the damage it takes to knock them out is roughly 2x the cripple damage. Therefore, it is quite easy to arrange combats in which accidental deaths are not a concern, if this is desired. In addition, 7th Sea has a built in "bonus roll" system so that statistical abberations need not end in death.

The above is not the only system to accomplish the desired goal, but it does demonstrate that it is possible to remove even the faintest possibility of a purely accidental death, if that is suitable to a campaign.

There is an unfortunately poor understanding of statistics in general society. One such result is the unfortunate idea that "1 in a million" results are rare enough to be ignored. Humans have a lot of events in their lifetime.

Consider the house rule of triple 20s resulting in death of the target. The odds of any given attack doing this is 1/8000. Many will discount this as fairly unlikely. Now, consider a campaign. Assume an average of four encounters per day, with an average of 3 adversaries lasting an average of four rounds each. Assume that, thanks to iteratives, dual wielding, or multiple natural attacks, they average 3 attacks per combat round. For the purposes of making the math easy, we'll ignore surprise rounds, coup de graces, and other such things that only make death more likely for the players.

This means that in a single game day, there are an average 144 of these 1/8000 events directed at the players. Notice the probability of this "rare" event is now a great deal less so. Consider how many of such game days happen in a typical campaign. Yup, the odds that a player will die to a "unlucky" roll are actually pretty good. Play with this rule long enough, and it will happen.

[Ashiel]

It doesn't take long to prepare a priest who can resurrect him. If "cannot take every possible outcome into consideration" means they didn't consider the possibility of death in deadly combat then you are using fudging to cover deficiencies in your DMing style, and it will show.

If you don't even cover the basics then you'll have to fudge. You'll just, not be a very good dm. Or you could just take the hit, and next time, spend five minutes making a priest for him.



I guess your players will just learn that vorpal swords are only useful when they don't matter and stop using them.

I pretty much agree with everything Ytaker has said here.

[Gnaeus]

I'm sure your players would be perfectly happy with a kobold randomly killing them in their sleep in what wasn't supposed to be anything other than a funny encounter, possibly one letting them onto the fact that they're in kobold territory. My group isn't like that.

My group would be pissed at the sentry, not the DM. I had a 1HD orc kill 4, 8th level adventurers because the sentry decided not to wake up his buddies when he saw something moving towards the camp. We still razz the sentry's player about it, 20 years later. That is a learning experience.

[Typewriter]

Ah I see now it is good for not to invalidate players action by fudging a roll but to invalidate players actions by using cheap tricks like true resurrecting the BBEG over and over and over again.


It's a cheap trick to use any spell that a BBEG with an INT of at least 13 would know to have prepared in case of his death? Wow, you must go really easy on your group if that's a cheap trick.

I'll say again - what's the difference between the BBEG getting a ressurection or having a Clone at the ready and the party ressurecting the tank?

You haven't invalidated anything. You put a hamper on his plan. If it happens again maybe you should go and find the cleric that keeps ressurecting him and kill the cleric next.

[Grelna the Blue]

Fair enough.

I just see fudging against the players as railroading.

And sometimes it could be. Any time the GM sets up a fight and then secretly alters the parameters midway, it is possible that the GM is being unfair to the players, either by giving them an unearned and cheap victory or by cheating them out of a fairly earned win.

I'm not defending that kind of fudging. I don't think most of the fudge-ists posting are defending that. But that's not the only kind of fudging there is.

I actually believe there is a very strong chance (50% at least) that in my current game a TPK is waiting in the wings, because near the beginning of the current campaign I acquired a new player who is both personally very charismatic and seemingly incapable of tactical thinking. He knows how to play a character well, but not how to play a party, and as the other players are deferring to him in many cases, their tactics are utter crap (in WoW terms, they're playing like a mob of DPSers, with no one concerned with tanking or healing). They've already had two character deaths and I expect that more will happen. The two deaths that have occurred thus far should have underscored my out of game statement to them that they were setting themselves up for disaster, but I haven't seen any change in behavior yet. So at the moment fudging (to ease or to toughen fights) is off the table. I like every one of them, but frankly at the moment they aren't earning that level of consideration from me.

When I have fudged in favor of PCs in the past (and it's never been common and regular practice), it's been because the party was doing everything right to succeed and the dice were choosing to pretend that randomness only applies in other games. If there are any posters here who has never seen their supposedly highly skilled warriors repeatedly miss over the course of a night because the dice refuse to roll anything above a 4, then I congratulate them. I roll in the open because I like the look of fear in the players' eyes when they actually see the nat 20 come up on the big black Die of Doom, but it's all the same. There is only a technical difference between my methods and the methods of those GMs who roll behind a screen and alter dice rolls. I don't have to change monster rolls to alter the outcome or length of a fight, but that doesn't mean it's any less fudging. I can have enemies start ignoring PCs who are seemingly less dangerous (because of poor rolls), thereby granting attacks of opportunity and flanking bonuses. I'd say granting PCs the chance to roll extra attacks or to get a bonus to their rolls is certainly fudging at least as much as giving a plus or minus 2 to a d20 roll. Another way, more closely connected to what is being argued here, is adding or subtracting a few hit points from an enemy's total (whose hit points are always known only to me anyway), not so it can prevail but so a fight lasts slightly longer and seems less anticlimactic or so a player's dramatic swing-from-the-changelier attack finishes it, rather than leaving it at 2 hp. Heck, sometimes I just start playing intelligent monsters in a slightly smarter way than I'd originally planned, readying attacks to disrupt spellcasters and so on (now that they've seen the threat they pose). I don't play every monster every time to the fullest extent of its capabilities because that's completely unrealistic. If every monster was a Tucker's kobold, Tucker's kobolds wouldn't be special. But occasionally, if a fight seems to demand a certain extra something, I've got a list of tricks to pull something from.

I see it as an abdication of GM duty to disclaim any and all responsibility for how a fight (that the GM set up and caused to happen in the first place) progresses. I think it's a cop-out, in fact.

[Reverent-One]

This means that in a single game day, there are an average 144 of these 1/8000 events directed at the players. Notice the probability of this "rare" event is now a great deal less so. Consider how many of such game days happen in a typical campaign. Yup, the odds that a player will die to a "unlucky" roll are actually pretty good. Play with this rule long enough, and it will happen.

And yet the odds of that event happening in that one attack in the surprise round is still 1/8000. Granted, it's not a triple-20 that would have killed the sorceror in that example, but the idea is still the same.

[Typewriter]

My group would be pissed at the sentry, not the DM. I had a 1HD orc kill 4, 8th level adventurers because the sentry decided not to wake up his buddies when he saw something moving towards the camp. We still razz the sentry's player about it, 20 years later. That is a learning experience.

There's a difference between that and a kobold running up and rolling triple 20s.

Surprise round: Run up to camp.
Initiative: Kobold Wins.
Sentry: Free action, "Everyone wake up"
Kobold: Charge Sorceror, triple 20

[Ytaker]

Ah I see now it is good for not to invalidate players action by fudging a roll but to invalidate players actions by using cheap tricks like true resurrecting the BBEG over and over and over again.
Thanks that was very enlightening :smallbiggrin:

It's level dependent. If he has acess to level 9 clerical magic though, sure. Otherwise raise dead or resurrection with some sort of requirement for someone to steal back the body or part of it.

He's also going to lose some of his most powerful magical items, probably going to lose some powerful lieutenants and soldiers, have some plan you didn't want foiled utterly foiled. You should include consequences to his death, so that it isn't an invalidation.

[Tyndmyr]

I have a thought experiment for people who don't want the DM to fudge rolls ever. You are starting to create a new character. Through some absurd twist of probability, you roll nothing but 1s and 2s throughout the process, and now have a character whose highest stat is a 6. The DM says, "Forget it; he's unplayable. Start over and roll another one."

Are you upset with him for fudging the die rolls? If you don't want to fudge die rolls under any circumstances, then you will play the character. If you would re-roll the character, then you accept fudging under some conditions. In that case the issue isn't fudging or not fudging, but rather, making judgment calls about when to do so.

Seriously, if a DM proposed a stat rolling system which involved a possibility of rolling 1s and 2s(such as rolling a d20 for each stat), I'd point out that it's a terrible system. I'd then suggest using a much more fair system, such as point buy, or a much less random rolling system.

Obvious problems are obvious, and should be fixed in general, for everyone, not on a case by case basis for those the DM deems worthy. What happens if you reroll a character, and end up with better stats than another person that didn't get a reroll? Isn't this whole system fairly arbitrary?

[Emmerask]

It's a cheap trick to use any spell that a BBEG with an INT of at least 13 would know to have prepared in case of his death? Wow, you must go really easy on your group if that's a cheap trick.

I'll say again - what's the difference between the BBEG getting a ressurection or having a Clone at the ready and the party ressurecting the tank?

You haven't invalidated anything. You put a hamper on his plan. If it happens again maybe you should go and find the cleric that keeps ressurecting him and kill the cleric next.

What hamper? the BBEG just keeps on teleporting in until the party is dead or the players don´t want to play anymore I figure it should be somewhere around the 20th BBEG death ^^

[Tyndmyr]

I think what might have been best to start with is if when you asked if it was ok to read the gamemasters section your GM said no, unless you plan to run a game.


Why would he have to ask? It's not like the book advertises that it's forbidden.*

*In some systems, it is forbidden. Just not in this one.

[Psyx]

I'm sure your players would be perfectly happy with a kobold randomly killing them in their sleep in what wasn't supposed to be anything other than a funny encounter, possibly one letting them onto the fact that they're in kobold territory. My group isn't like that.

You obviously haven't met my players, then.
No: They would not be happy. But then: I would not have let the situation crop up in the first place.

My players look back on 'the time a ninja clan were trying to murder us' with fond but paranoid memories, because if the situation had occurred, I would have followed through with the death. The stakes were massively high and they knew it.
I would not have employed the same level of ruthlessness with a kobold and a random encounter.

[Ytaker]

What hamper? the BBEG just keeps on teleporting in until the party is dead or the players don´t want to play anymore I figure it should be somewhere around the 20th BBEG death ^^

That's a pretty stupid move. They just killed him. In one round, no less, with a 1hko weapon. Clearly the best course of action is to gather more intelligence.

He hasn't read the rule book. He doesn't know that his enemies can gain exp. To him it makes perfect sense to wait, gather more information.

He also doesn't know about levels. He knows about power. This party of adventurers somehow killed him in one turn. Why the hell would he go back, unprepared? He doesn't know that they just got a lucky roll.

Maybe if he had an intelligence and wisdom of 6.

[Tyndmyr]

Does this mean that a scout can't attack, or merely is proscribed against lethal attacks, or...? :smallconfused:

Scout is a role, in addition to a character class.

You need to look at the scout as more than just a cutout NPC adversary. What is his goal in this war? Is it to scout them out? Great. He found them, was undetected by them, and can now sneak back to camp and tip off the baddies. Bad news for the party, but never brings up the problem of the newbie dying.

Is he out to kill a specific person? In this case, he would hardly roll randomly, and this specificity would have been prompted by past events. Bad news for that person, but hardly a problem with random luck.

Is he out to just kill the entire party indiscriminately, since it's a war and he's on the other team? Then he should logically take out the watchman first. It gives you the highest probability of getting out alive and successfully completing the mission.

Your players wont die for random, pointless reasons unless your NPCs are doing things for random, pointless reasons.


That's assuming a whole bunch of facts not in evidence, but we're getting well sidetracked.

That's what a scout is for. Scouting.

[Amphetryon]

Scout is a role, in addition to a character class.

You need to look at the scout as more than just a cutout NPC adversary. What is his goal in this war? Is it to scout them out? Great. He found them, was undetected by them, and can now sneak back to camp and tip off the baddies. Bad news for the party, but never brings up the problem of the newbie dying.

Is he out to kill a specific person? In this case, he would hardly roll randomly, and this specificity would have been prompted by past events. Bad news for that person, but hardly a problem with random luck.

Is he out to just kill the entire party indiscriminately, since it's a war and he's on the other team? Then he should logically take out the watchman first. It gives you the highest probability of getting out alive and successfully completing the mission.

Your players wont die for random, pointless reasons unless your NPCs are doing things for random, pointless reasons.

His assignment was to go in and cause as much damage/chaos as possible. As I indicated, I don't single out the guards in the surprise rounds (verisimilitude be damned) because the same players are typically the ones on guard duty and they would feel put-upon if consistently punished for taking that role - and have expressed as much.

[Megaduck]

The reason this discussion hasn't gotten anywhere for the last 15 pages is that we're basically arguing alignments.

The anti fudging people are arguing for the Lawful style of DMing. Everyone needs to play by the rules, go with the numbers, plan everything in advance. Very left brained.

The fudging people are arguing for a more Chaotic style of DMing. The group story trumps all, react to the party, be spontaneous. Very right brained.

No agreement is really possible because neither side of the argument would want to play the other way. The antifudgers would feel their freedom is being cut off by the DM's whims, and the Fudgers would feel that their freedom is being cut off by the inflexible rules. Ytaker and Tyndmyr would have no more desire to play with Serpentine and myself then we would want to play with them.

The play-styles just wouldn't match, and really that's fine.

We'd just get about the same value as arguing Cake or Pie as arguing this. (Cake.)

[Ashiel]

Why would he have to ask? It's not like the book advertises that it's forbidden.*

*In some systems, it is forbidden. Just not in this one.

Indeed. I must be weird 'cause I purchased all three. :smallamused:

[Gnaeus]

There's a difference between that and a kobold running up and rolling triple 20s.

Surprise round: Run up to camp.
Initiative: Kobold Wins.
Sentry: Free action, "Everyone wake up"
Kobold: Charge Sorceror, triple 20

Actually, in your original example, the sorcerer was sleeping. That is an automatic crit followed by a fort save or die with DC based on damage delt.

As other people have already pointed out, having the kobold suicide charge the party's camp was your decision. Having the triple 20 rule is likewise your decision. If you don't like them, don't use them, or only use them in boss battles, etc. If you use them, be aware that people may die. That threat of risk is presumably why the party uses the triple 20 rule to begin with.

I don't like insta death based on a single crit. That is why the game rules we play with (like starting at level 3, having a higher neg hp before death ratio, not using insta-kill house rules) minimize that chance. The rules you play with MAXIMIZE that chance.

[Tyndmyr]

It's a cheap trick to use any spell that a BBEG with an INT of at least 13 would know to have prepared in case of his death? Wow, you must go really easy on your group if that's a cheap trick.

I'll say again - what's the difference between the BBEG getting a ressurection or having a Clone at the ready and the party ressurecting the tank?

You haven't invalidated anything. You put a hamper on his plan. If it happens again maybe you should go and find the cleric that keeps ressurecting him and kill the cleric next.

I'm generally disappointed when I find out that a supposed evil mastermind didn't bother to prepare backup plans, learn his spell list, and acts in a way blatantly contrary to the Evil Genius List. Unless, of course, the game is parody.

You can't just SAY a villain is competent and have it be convincing. You've got to demonstrate it. At higher levels of play, laying a backup plan for death is pretty standard. That's why liches and things exist.

Entirely apart from the fudging issue, BBEGs should generally have some backup plans in place anyhow, just for plausibility's sake. You don't get to be an evil overlord by being an idiot. Taking him down SHOULD be challenging. If the players decide the best course of action after killing him is to burn his entire palace to the ground, just to be sure...well, good for them.

Grelna the Blue: I definitely agree that rolling in the open does give a greater sense of anticipation, and yes...intentionally nerfing tactics can be another form of a fudge. There's usually some wiggle room in plausible tactics, but if you find yourself deliberately trying to stretch things to make something easier/harder...it's still an ad hoc adjustment. Adding or subtracting hp definitely is. But keep in mind...you say your players are getting worse and worse at tactics. If it keeps working, is anything likely to change?


And yet the odds of that event happening in that one attack in the surprise round is still 1/8000. Granted, it's not a triple-20 that would have killed the sorceror in that example, but the idea is still the same.

That is correct. But the point is that if it coming up is a problem, then regardless of the individual odds, the problem will arise. Merely handwaving it away as unlikely does nothing but delay when you must address it. By fudging the result, you've merely procrastinated until the last minute, then changed the rules.


We'd just get about the same value as arguing Cake or Pie as arguing this. (Cake.)

Well, that's the sort of thing a filthy cake-lover WOULD say.

Pie or Death. MMmm, pie.

[Reverent-One]

That is correct. But the point is that if it coming up is a problem, then regardless of the individual odds, the problem will arise. Merely handwaving it away as unlikely does nothing but delay when you must address it. By fudging the result, you've merely procrastinated until the last minute, then changed the rules.

Except if in 99.9% of the cases in which it comes up, there's no problem with it. Then fudging it in that last .1% of the time isn't delaying handling the big picture problem, because in general, there is no problem with it.

[Tyndmyr]

Except if in 99.9% of the cases in which it comes up, there's no problem with it. Then fudging it in that last .1% of the time isn't delaying handling the big picture problem, because in general, there is no problem with it.

In 99.9% of cases it has no effect.
In the last .1% of cases, it causes a problem.
And, given the frequency with which the dice are rolled, it will cause a problem.

Why would you add such a rule to your game?*


*Only applies to those who dislike random crits killing you horribly. All others, carry on.

[Ytaker]

I'm mainly pissed when DMs cheat to make monsters tougher mid battle.


The group story trumps all, react to the party, be spontaneous.

The DM's story trumps all. The group's rolls are overriden when they have too spontaneous a result. That's the problem. When the players get a roll that they like but the DM doesn't, veto'd. We are rail roaded.

I'm fine with Serpentine as a DM protecting me as a player. If I die and I don't have a backup character sheet I can't play any more and the whole purpose of the game is for me and others to be able to play. She sounds like she's introduced several house rule measures to limit save or die effects too, which I'd enjoy.


No agreement is really possible because neither side of the argument would want to play the other way. The antifudgers would feel their freedom is being cut off by the DM's whims, and the Fudgers would feel that their freedom is being cut off by the inflexible rules. Ytaker and Tyndmyr would have no more desire to play with Serpentine and myself then we would want to play with them.

It's not too big a factor in who I'd want to play with. If I felt the DM was obviously cheating to protect their baddies it'd be annoying, but otherwise it'd be pretty low on my list of reasons to not play.

[Captain Kidd]

First an example of me fudging. The other night the party was faced off against a spirit naga. Two of the party rushed into melee while the rest stayed behind with the barbarian's mule and wagon. A couple rounds in and the naga's gotten POed at the spellcasters and the ranger attacking from range. So it drops a fireball into their midst. Everybody made their saves ... except the mule, who missed it by 1. As I look up from the roll, it's dead silence and everybody's eyes are glued on me. This mule had become their mascot and loved by all. They could tell from my expression it had failed and the outcome wasn't going to be pretty, I'm pretty sure somebody nearly sobbed "please, not Percy." So I bumped the result up by one and rather than going splat, the mule collapsed, burned, unconscious, and dying. The barbarian shrieks and attacks the naga with renewed vigor. The druid quickly stops what he's about to do and scurries over to the mule to save it. "For Percy!" became the battlecry for the rest of the battle.

So I fudged. I fudged with full player knowledge, and support, of the fudging. And it caused a fun battle to become memorable.

To fudge or not is best decided on an individual group basis. My group supports it as we put story above mechanics. Following the sight of his beloved mule falling and muddy swamp water flying up from it, the barbarian received a +2 circumstance on his attacks. The druid was out of the battle for a round as he desperately tried to reach the mule and save it. The others, while not receiving bonuses, were simiarily invigorated and started working out how to drop the naga even faster. Had I let the die roll rule, the group wouldn't have had near the reaction they did and, in fact, it would have put a serious damper on everyone's fun.

So, in our group I'll fudge for cinematics and to keep up the fun. Especially fun. Sure, not everyone is going to be pleased all the time and they just have to deal with it the best they can, but if no one's going to be happy what's the point of playing?

Most of my fudging happens out of combat. If they're roleplaying an encounter right but the dice just aren't being agreeable, I'll give it to them. Likewise, if they roll awesome, but their approach was completely boneheaded and shouldn't have worked, they fail. (Ref The Gamers "I steal his pants") Occasionally I'll rule without a roll being made if they're roleplaying it right.

There are lines though. The naga was the BBEG with 6 medium elements for support, and they dropped it in 3 or 4 rounds with minimal damage to themselves. It was a bit aggravating for me to see an encounter that was planned to be a drawn out battle of attrition end so quickly, but it made the victory that much more satisfying for them.

These are my thoughts, your experience may vary.

[Megaduck]

Well, that's the sort of thing a filthy cake-lover WOULD say.

Pie or Death. MMmm, pie.

Heresy! The Church of England only offers Cake or Death!
http://site.houstoncustomhomes.org/images/cake-inspirational.jpg {Spoilered}

[Tyndmyr]

Heresy! The Church of England only offers Cake or Death!

If pie is heresy, then heresy is delicious.

The cake is a lie.

[Reverent-One]

In 99.9% of cases it has no effect.
In the last .1% of cases, it causes a problem.
And, given the frequency with which the dice are rolled, it will cause a problem.

Why would you add such a rule to your game?*

Because you like what it does in the 99.9% of cases (which is certainly more than "no effect"), perhaps? And those rare occurances where it causes a problem would be 1) few and far between, and 2) easily handled.

[BlackSheep]

If a player is playing a caster, who uses save type effects, or something like a charger that focuses on damage over defense, you are nerfing their character into the dirt without telling them about it.

If you know that your party's wizard can SoD the boss, and more importantly, the boss knows that, then yeah, having some sort of death ward in place is a good idea. This will also completely negate that character's feature. In either that case or in the case of fudging the save roll, the player has no idea why his spell failed.

If mister ubercharger could only kill the boss in one hit if he rolled two twenties and then rolled maximum damage, and then that happens, if I decide to bump up his hp total by 2 so that he gets a chance to quaff a potion while running behind his minions to recover, the players will never know about it. He'll still be at, say, half health before taking an offensive action.

I don't get this idea of the sanctity of the player's action. Players come up with all sorts of crazy ideas. The GM can't plan for every possible outcome, but he has to adjudicate each of their actions. If something unexpected comes up, whether you set an impossibly high DC, or retcon a resurrecting priest or buff a creature's HPs by a few, you're still steering the action in a direction of your choosing. Telling the players, "Hooray, you killed the bad guy in one shot. You're awesome. 2 months later, you learn he came back to life," simply because that's what the dice said seems very silly to me. It seems even sillier to tell other people they're doing it wrong in a game that actually has a rule that says to ignore all the other rules if necessary.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I don't get this idea of the sanctity of the player's action.
I know this doesn't mean what it looks like it means but...

don't say that to your Players. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be happy to hear their DM doesn't respect their autonomy :smalltongue:

[Gnaeus]

If you know that your party's wizard can SoD the boss, and more importantly, the boss knows that, then yeah, having some sort of death ward in place is a good idea. This will also completely negate that character's feature. In either that case or in the case of fudging the save roll, the player has no idea why his spell failed.

Those are 2 TOTALLY different things. If the boss knows that he will be fighting a wizard, and that the wizard uses those spells, a death ward isn't fudging at all, even a little bit. And the wizard can take actions to negate the boss's actions (like Baleful polymorph, which isn't affected by death ward, or quickened dispel magic followed by SOD of choice). If you just don't think Bosses should be hit by save or loses, you are cheating that player in a really unfair way, that he may not even realize when he is making his character and cannot circumvent. The fair way to act, if you don't like those spells and what they can do to the game, is to nerf them up front so that if the player doesn't like how they work, he won't take them.

And you really don't think that the player will realize that his SoD's never work, or never work before round 5? C'mon.

[Grelna the Blue]

Grelna the Blue: I definitely agree that rolling in the open does give a greater sense of anticipation, and yes...intentionally nerfing tactics can be another form of a fudge. There's usually some wiggle room in plausible tactics, but if you find yourself deliberately trying to stretch things to make something easier/harder...it's still an ad hoc adjustment. Adding or subtracting hp definitely is. But keep in mind...you say your players are getting worse and worse at tactics. If it keeps working, is anything likely to change?

Well, I did also say in that same post that I haven't been doing anything to help or hinder them recently. That's a privilege they simply haven't been earning. But I have done so in campaigns past and will start doing so again on an occasional basis if they begin playing as if their characters had positive mods to Int and Wis (and they all do).

[Earthwalker]

Why would he have to ask? It's not like the book advertises that it's forbidden.*

*In some systems, it is forbidden. Just not in this one.

Clearly we have different ideas of what to read. if I was playing a new system and thier was a GM book or GM section in the base book. I would ask the GM if it was ok to read it before I did read it.

if it was something I GMed before I would let the GM know.

I am not saying its forbidden but just being polite. I get the idea the chapter is for GMs and not players as its called the GM chapter.

[Earthwalker]

Indeed. I must be weird 'cause I purchased all three. :smallamused:

to turn the question round, why as a player do you need to read the gamemasters section of a book.

I also don't understand all three shadowrun books ?

[BlackSheep]

I know this doesn't mean what it looks like it means but...

don't say that to your Players. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be happy to hear their DM doesn't respect their autonomy :smalltongue:

There are always limits. This board is full of players and GMs asking for help dealing with disruptive players. Now I don't mean to imply that players getting lucky on rolls is the same as behaving badly, but in both cases the storyline is getting disrupted. Handling an undesirable outcome behind the scenes is, to me, the most direct method of patching things up so the game can continue. But the key phrase there is behind the scenes. Rubbing players' faces in it isn't fun for anybody. When there are strict limits on prep time and play time, however, letting everything unfold "by the book" becomes a limitation instead of a virtue.

[randomhero00]

My DM fudges all the time. If he didn't we'd have died a way more because of our character quirks.

[BlackSheep]

Those are 2 TOTALLY different things. If the boss knows that he will be fighting a wizard, and that the wizard uses those spells, a death ward isn't fudging at all, even a little bit. And the wizard can take actions to negate the boss's actions (like Baleful polymorph, which isn't affected by death ward, or quickened dispel magic followed by SOD of choice). If you just don't think Bosses should be hit by save or loses, you are cheating that player in a really unfair way, that he may not even realize when he is making his character and cannot circumvent. The fair way to act, if you don't like those spells and what they can do to the game, is to nerf them up front so that if the player doesn't like how they work, he won't take them.

And you really don't think that the player will realize that his SoD's never work, or never work before round 5? C'mon.

Yes, I think that if the GM wants the whole party to fight the boss, not just the tier-1 caster, then I have no problem if he either invents a set of circumstances to negate save or die effects for one battle or fudges saving throws to extend the battle. The outcome is the same: a longer fight.

All these examples really twist the main point, which is that these are cases that should be rare. It shouldn't be unexpected that a wizard casts a spell that they prepared that day. Hell, it shouldn't even be unexpected for an ubercharger to charge and crit. That's really a bad example of poor prep. But poor prep does exist and accidents do happen. Citing examples of things that could have been done to prevent the accident doesn't really speak to what should be done when it occurs. People seem to be fiercely divided between "suck it up" and "do what you think is best."

[Ytaker]

I probably wouldn't play well under Blacksheep. I like unexpectedly lucky or unlucky rolls. I have many fond memories of storylines being disrupted and an ad libed response based on a well prepared campaign. The idea that


Players come up with all sorts of crazy ideas.

And that it's the dm's job to stop those ideas with an impossibly high DC is not one I'd enjoy.

Maybe I just have too chaotic a soul. Crazy ideas are my forte.

[Gnaeus]

Yes, I think that if the GM wants the whole party to fight the boss, not just the tier-1 caster, then I have no problem if he either invents a set of circumstances to negate save or die effects for one battle or fudges saving throws to extend the battle. The outcome is the same: a longer fight.

That is brutally, cruelly unfair. You have a de facto house rule that "x doesn't work in this situation" which you did not tell to the player, who should know that you feel that way, or the character, who should know how his spells work. If you don't like tier 1s, ban them. Or nerf them. Or man up and tell the player that his schtick isn't going to work, and let him swap out the spell for something that you allow. Just making it fail is simply mean. Not "have a conversation with your DM and let him know how you feel about this" mean. Full on "leave the game and never come back and urinate on his cat as you are leaving" mean.

[BlackSheep]

That is brutally, cruelly unfair. You have a de facto house rule that "x doesn't work in this situation" which you did not tell to the player, who should know that you feel that way, or the character, who should know how his spells work. If you don't like tier 1s, ban them. Or nerf them. Or man up and tell the player that his schtick isn't going to work, and let him swap out the spell for something that you allow. Just making it fail is simply mean. Not "have a conversation with your DM and let him know how you feel about this" mean. Full on "leave the game and never come back and urinate on his cat as you are leaving" mean.

Once again you're citing the specific as an answer to the general and also ignoring a key point. I followed up that statement by saying that a GM should plan for players to use the spells they've prepared.

And I've repeatedly said that the players shouldn't be given complete information. I don't know anyone who would storm off in a huff when a spell that has a chance of failure actually fails.

[Ytaker]

Yeah, but are those spells ever going to be useful for the wizard on potent enemies? The effect of preparation and fudging combined is that the wizard simply shouldn't use such spells because they will never be effective on a major enemy before someone else can kill the monster.

And he should know that you nerfed his spells.

[BlackSheep]

Yeah, but are those spells ever going to be useful for the wizard on potent enemies? The effect of preparation and fudging combined is that the wizard simply shouldn't use such spells because they will never be effective on a major enemy before someone else can kill the monster.

And he should know that you nerfed his spells.

Specific -> General

It's ok for the GM to prepare a specific type of magical defense for his BBEG (if you believe Gnaeus, which I do), but if he forgets one, it's not ok for him to fix that behind the screen?

[Gnaeus]

And I've repeatedly said that the players shouldn't be given complete information. I don't know anyone who would storm off in a huff when a spell that has a chance of failure actually fails.

No, the angry part would come when he ultimately realized that his spells, which should have had a chance of failure, never actually had a chance of success.


Specific -> General
It's ok for the GM to prepare a specific type of magical defense for his BBEG (if you believe Gnaeus, which I do), but if he forgets one, it's not ok for him to fix that behind the screen?

It is ok for enemies to have defenses which they would reasonably have. It is questionable, but maybe acceptable to ret-con them defenses which they should have had based on the game world (For example, I and many people on the list might take into account if the BB had a superhuman intelligence and wisdom, which the DM, presumably being human, lacks, and amend holes if the BB had the brain power, the information, and the opportunity to have them fixed.) It is NOT ok to just decide that because a fight is a climactic battle that the PCs spells or other attacks just won't work until it suits you without letting them know, preferably when they built their character or chose or prepared those spells/attacks, that they won't work in the early parts of boss fights.

Note: the preparation part of that should be based on the in game knowledge of the boss, not on the knowledge that you, the DM have on which spells the wizard prepped that day, unless the Boss also had some way to know which spells were prepped.

[Tyndmyr]

Clearly we have different ideas of what to read. if I was playing a new system and thier was a GM book or GM section in the base book. I would ask the GM if it was ok to read it before I did read it.

if it was something I GMed before I would let the GM know.

I am not saying its forbidden but just being polite. I get the idea the chapter is for GMs and not players as its called the GM chapter.

This was already addressed earlier. The section forward identified itself as information more helpful for GMs than players. It doesn't forbid players from reading it, nor does it tell them to ask their GMs for permission. Therefore, it is unreasonable to expect that a player will never read it.

You cannot possibly expect that players all share a similar background in systems, and will expect that the GM book be secret in a system that does not advertise it as such.

If you TELL the players not to read it, or the system does so, then reading it anyways is very poor sportsmanship on the part of the players. But you can't just assume they'll know this desire.


Because you like what it does in the 99.9% of cases (which is certainly more than "no effect"), perhaps? And those rare occurances where it causes a problem would be 1) few and far between, and 2) easily handled.

Look, the only thing the triple 20 rules does is cause death when three 20s are rolled. In the 99.9% of cases where triple 20s are not rolled, it literally does have no effect. The exact same outcome would have happened without the rule. That is the definition of no effect. I would like to thank you for providing further evidence for the theory that people understand statistics poorly.

[Ytaker]

Specific -> General

It's ok for the GM to prepare a specific type of magical defense for his BBEG (if you believe Gnaeus, which I do), but if he forgets one, it's not ok for him to fix that behind the screen?

Not always. The villains aren't perfect. They shouldn't counter every move the enemy makes with perfection and perfect spell choice based on out of character knowledge. If they do you are making the wizard's spells useless. Just as you can forget to counter a spell, so can they.

Likewise, the party can forget a buff or a protective spell. They can't retroactively remake their defences. Why should the wizard be able to? It's simply unfair. And after a while, the wizard will realize.

[Tyndmyr]

Magical defenses are part of D&D. If you never defend against other casters, well...again, we have a surprisingly incompetent evil genius who probably shouldn't plausibly be a BBEG.

He can't prepare against everything all the time, sure, but some preparations are quite reasonable, and should not be considered fudging, especially if he has foreknowledge of the players usual tactics.

Now, if the DM hadn't bothered to prepare any defences, instead just retroactively deciding that the first spells the wizard cast failed due to defenses...he is fudging. And I'd tend to blame laziness and/or lack of preparation in this instance. If this fight is the capstone to your campaign, put a little work into it.

[Reverent-One]

Look, the only thing the triple 20 rules does is cause death when three 20s are rolled. In the 99.9% of cases where triple 20s are not rolled, it literally does have no effect. The exact same outcome would have happened without the rule. That is the definition of no effect. I would like to thank you for providing further evidence for the theory that people understand statistics poorly.

*sigh* I was referring to 99.9% of the time that triple 20s are rolled (or, back in the post of mine you orignially quoted, when someone crits for max damage), not 99.9% of all die rolls. Just because a group doesn't like one or two specific instances when one of these occurs, whether it's triple 20s or a crit for max damage, doesn't mean they have a problem with it in general.

[olentu]

And I've repeatedly said that the players shouldn't be given complete information. I don't know anyone who would storm off in a huff when a spell that has a chance of failure actually fails.

It would be more of a storm off in a huff when a spell that should have a chance of success actually does not and no one told them.

[Typewriter]

What hamper? the BBEG just keeps on teleporting in until the party is dead or the players don´t want to play anymore I figure it should be somewhere around the 20th BBEG death ^^

So he comes back with no gear then? And he has 20 back up ressurections?

:P


You obviously haven't met my players, then.
No: They would not be happy. But then: I would not have let the situation crop up in the first place.

My players look back on 'the time a ninja clan were trying to murder us' with fond but paranoid memories, because if the situation had occurred, I would have followed through with the death. The stakes were massively high and they knew it.
I would not have employed the same level of ruthlessness with a kobold and a random encounter.

If your players like the trip-20 rule, and it comes up during an encounter with a kobold then the only way to not be ruthless is to fudge the rules, or the roll.


The reason this discussion hasn't gotten anywhere for the last 15 pages is that we're basically arguing alignments.

The anti fudging people are arguing for the Lawful style of DMing. Everyone needs to play by the rules, go with the numbers, plan everything in advance. Very left brained.

The fudging people are arguing for a more Chaotic style of DMing. The group story trumps all, react to the party, be spontaneous. Very right brained.

No agreement is really possible because neither side of the argument would want to play the other way. The antifudgers would feel their freedom is being cut off by the DM's whims, and the Fudgers would feel that their freedom is being cut off by the inflexible rules. Ytaker and Tyndmyr would have no more desire to play with Serpentine and myself then we would want to play with them.

The play-styles just wouldn't match, and really that's fine.

We'd just get about the same value as arguing Cake or Pie as arguing this. (Cake.)

I agree. I never said it's required that you fudge. I'm perfectly fine if you don't fudge in your game. What's bugging me is that some people (not everyone) are throwing around fairly insulting terms, and others are acting like their play style is superior. It's not. It's different.


Actually, in your original example, the sorcerer was sleeping. That is an automatic crit followed by a fort save or die with DC based on damage delt.

As other people have already pointed out, having the kobold suicide charge the party's camp was your decision. Having the triple 20 rule is likewise your decision. If you don't like them, don't use them, or only use them in boss battles, etc. If you use them, be aware that people may die. That threat of risk is presumably why the party uses the triple 20 rule to begin with.

I don't like insta death based on a single crit. That is why the game rules we play with (like starting at level 3, having a higher neg hp before death ratio, not using insta-kill house rules) minimize that chance. The rules you play with MAXIMIZE that chance.

1. I've already discussed the trip-20 rule, and you're actually starting a conversation that's already been had at least once. Short answer - it's used. By everyone. Because that's the way my players want it. I'm not going to use it to ruin peoples fun though. That's what I'm saying the point of fudging is.

2. Most of the time things like this come up I'm fine with them. Unless I have reason to think that it's going to put a hamper on anyones fun. I've had some players get pretty pissy having a character die the first session it's created. Those are the players I know not to kill one session into their character.

Again, every group is different, and it's up to the DM to figure out the best course of action. Ignoring fudge is ignoring a tool. Do it if you want, but I'm not going to ignore a tool that enhances the game for my players.


I'm generally disappointed when I find out that a supposed evil mastermind didn't bother to prepare backup plans, learn his spell list, and acts in a way blatantly contrary to the Evil Genius List. Unless, of course, the game is parody.

You can't just SAY a villain is competent and have it be convincing. You've got to demonstrate it. At higher levels of play, laying a backup plan for death is pretty standard. That's why liches and things exist.

Entirely apart from the fudging issue, BBEGs should generally have some backup plans in place anyhow, just for plausibility's sake. You don't get to be an evil overlord by being an idiot. Taking him down SHOULD be challenging. If the players decide the best course of action after killing him is to burn his entire palace to the ground, just to be sure...well, good for them.


Exactly. A smart BBEG should have something prepared in case something happens to him early. He shouldn't just survive when he should have died because the DM wants him to. That's bad fudge.


In 99.9% of cases it has no effect.
In the last .1% of cases, it causes a problem.
And, given the frequency with which the dice are rolled, it will cause a problem.

Why would you add such a rule to your game?*


*Only applies to those who dislike random crits killing you horribly. All others, carry on.

Because the other 99.9% of the time it's enhancing peoples fun. And, as DM for my group, I know when to prevent that last .1%


If you know that your party's wizard can SoD the boss, and more importantly, the boss knows that, then yeah, having some sort of death ward in place is a good idea. This will also completely negate that character's feature. In either that case or in the case of fudging the save roll, the player has no idea why his spell failed.

If mister ubercharger could only kill the boss in one hit if he rolled two twenties and then rolled maximum damage, and then that happens, if I decide to bump up his hp total by 2 so that he gets a chance to quaff a potion while running behind his minions to recover, the players will never know about it. He'll still be at, say, half health before taking an offensive action.

I don't get this idea of the sanctity of the player's action. Players come up with all sorts of crazy ideas. The GM can't plan for every possible outcome, but he has to adjudicate each of their actions. If something unexpected comes up, whether you set an impossibly high DC, or retcon a resurrecting priest or buff a creature's HPs by a few, you're still steering the action in a direction of your choosing. Telling the players, "Hooray, you killed the bad guy in one shot. You're awesome. 2 months later, you learn he came back to life," simply because that's what the dice said seems very silly to me. It seems even sillier to tell other people they're doing it wrong in a game that actually has a rule that says to ignore all the other rules if necessary.

The problem is that you're doing it for you, not for them. That's bad. You're not supposed to plan for every contingency, you're supposed to respond to your characters. If you set up a campaign, and they go in the opposite direction you do not try to force them back on track. That's railroading.

If the bad guy comes back your characters should have more of a response than "That sucks". How about something like "Oh my god, how did he come back? We have to figure this out before we engage him again so that he can't do it again."

In my opinion it sounds like your DMing for yourself, not for your players, and that's what most consider bad. Regardless of whether your players find out about it or not, you're working towards your goals, nobody elses.

You don't have to retroactively do anything. If the BBEG is going around pissing off adventurers and he's not brainless he probably has some clue to the fact that his life may be in danger. A good baddy doesn't require retroactive planning, he requires planning.


Once again you're citing the specific as an answer to the general and also ignoring a key point. I followed up that statement by saying that a GM should plan for players to use the spells they've prepared.

And I've repeatedly said that the players shouldn't be given complete information. I don't know anyone who would storm off in a huff when a spell that has a chance of failure actually fails.

You're missing the point though. Someone who pats themselves on the back for not being found out when negating the players power is not what most people want from their DM. If I ever found out a DM was doing what you're describing I would leave the game, and would probably never play with that person again. I'm fairly certain my entire group would leave.

Obfuscation of the rules is not a 100% free excuse to do whatever you want.

[Tyndmyr]

*sigh* I was referring to 99.9% of the time that triple 20s are rolled (or, back in the post of mine you orignially quoted, when someone crits for max damage), not 99.9% of all die rolls. Just because a group doesn't like one or two specific instances when one of these occurs, whether it's triple 20s or a crit for max damage, doesn't mean they have a problem with it in general.

What justification do you have for your 99.9% number?

Remember, more attacks are rolled vs the PCs than vs any monster. In general, I would imagine that the amounts of attacks rolled by the DM are roughly equal to that rolled by players. Surely, the players do not roll 99.9% of attacks.

Therefore, if roughly half the attack rolls are vs players, roughly half the results of the triple 20 rule will be vs players. 50% is a very different thing than 99.9%.

I am also unsurprised that your players want the triple 20 rule used when you "happen" to not roll triple 20s on them. Most players eagerly nod yes whenever you offer them extra killing power.

[Earthwalker]

This was already addressed earlier. The section forward identified itself as information more helpful for GMs than players. It doesn't forbid players from reading it, nor does it tell them to ask their GMs for permission. Therefore, it is unreasonable to expect that a player will never read it.

You cannot possibly expect that players all share a similar background in systems, and will expect that the GM book be secret in a system that does not advertise it as such.

If you TELL the players not to read it, or the system does so, then reading it anyways is very poor sportsmanship on the part of the players. But you can't just assume they'll know this desire.


Fair point remembering the post from Glug I thought he asked the GM and he said that its ok the Gm isection is for Gms but its ok for players to read, no it was the book that said that.

Hopfully Glug can get an answer from his GM that improves the game for him.

[Jayabalard]

Any time the GM sets up a fight and then secretly alters the parameters midway, it is possible that the GM is being unfair to the players, either by giving them an unearned and cheap victory or by cheating them out of a fairly earned win.I don't see how making the change makes things any different as far as fairness goes.

Any time the GM sets up a fight and then does not alter the parameters from his initial plan in any way, is possible that the GM is being unfair to the players, either by giving them an easy and cheap victory or by cheating them out of a fairly earned win by setting them up in unwinnable situation.

If anything, you know more about the situation so you can change things to be more correctly balanced vs the party, which seems like it's inherently more fair to me, not less.


That is brutally, cruelly unfair. You have a de facto house rule that "x doesn't work in this situation" which you did not tell to the player, who should know that you feel that way, or the character, who should know how his spells work. I totally disagree with your premise here. There's nothing wrong with homebrewing things and not telling the players in advance.

Being a wizard does not mean that they know everything there is to know about magic, any more than being Sir Isaac Newton would mean that you know everything there is to know about physics. You may have an understanding that rivals any other mortal being... it does not mean that you know everything.

Magic... is magical. by it's very nature, it defies explanation. If anything, you should expect to run into situations where magic does not function normally.

[Tyndmyr]

I totally disagree with your premise here. There's nothing wrong with homebrewing things and not telling the players in advance.

Well, this requires a bit more parsing. There's nothing wrong with homebrewing per se. No question there.

As for the not telling players that you've swapped over to homebrew material, this is entirely a matter of player expectations. If they believe you're following the rules, and you are not...well, that deceptive at best, and may set up a situation which they feel is unfair. On the other hand, if homebrew is expected by the players, there is little cause for concern.


Being a wizard does not mean that they know everything there is to know about magic, any more than being Sir Isaac Newton would mean that you know everything there is to know about physics. You may have an understanding that rivals any other mortal being... it does not mean that you know everything.

I don't think anyone ever said any different. However, if you are a high level mage/evil genius, you should have a pretty decent knowledge of the stuff that you use to take over the world/accomplish other nefarious plans, and be at least mildly concerned with those who try to stop you.

At least a cursory investigation into spells that help you not die is...pretty reasonable.


Magic... is magical. by it's very nature, it defies explanation. If anything, you should expect to run into situations where magic does not function normally.

This is not consistent with D&D, in which wizards learn magic via books and practice, and in which spell levels are in-character knowledge.



You're missing the point though. Someone who pats themselves on the back for not being found out when negating the players power is not what most people want from their DM. If I ever found out a DM was doing what you're describing I would leave the game, and would probably never play with that person again. I'm fairly certain my entire group would leave.

Obfuscation of the rules is not a 100% free excuse to do whatever you want.

To expand on this, many long-time players have learned tells for a number of common practices of other players and DMs.

One practice I actually do is compare success rate of SoDs on important characters by round cast. It's not just "man, that's unlucky". I write them down in the same notebook used to track spells prepared. It's a great, unbiased way to detect fudging.

Variations on the same theme are used to detect player cheating in situations where the player rolls their own saves. If important rolls have a significantly different success rate than unimportant ones, something's up.

[Reverent-One]

What justification do you have for your 99.9% number?

Remember, more attacks are rolled vs the PCs than vs any monster. In general, I would imagine that the amounts of attacks rolled by the DM are roughly equal to that rolled by players. Surely, the players do not roll 99.9% of attacks.

Therefore, if roughly half the attack rolls are vs players, roughly half the results of the triple 20 rule will be vs players. 50% is a very different thing than 99.9%.

I am also unsurprised that your players want the triple 20 rule used when you "happen" to not roll triple 20s on them. Most players eagerly nod yes whenever you offer them extra killing power.

Let's go back to that post of mine again:



That is correct. But the point is that if it coming up is a problem, then regardless of the individual odds, the problem will arise. Merely handwaving it away as unlikely does nothing but delay when you must address it. By fudging the result, you've merely procrastinated until the last minute, then changed the rules.

Except if in 99.9% of the cases in which it comes up, there's no problem with it. Then fudging it in that last .1% of the time isn't delaying handling the big picture problem, because in general, there is no problem with it.

Your point assumed that whenever (or at least, most of the time) a certain bad die result, like triple 20s, comes up against a player that the DM will fudge it, since in that case fudging it would be merely delaying a problem. I was pointing out that just because there is one specific instance in which the DM will fudge the roll, like in the example involving the enemy sneaking into camp and attacking the sorceror and scoring a maxed out crit, does NOT mean that the DM/group would have a problem with either some, most, or even nearly all other instances of that die roll coming up.

[Gnaeus]

Magic... is magical. by it's very nature, it defies explanation. If anything, you should expect to run into situations where magic does not function normally.

Yeah, like wild magic or anti-magic zones. Not "magic doesn't work against enemies who have plot armor." Having an enemy boss who has fought a lot of druids and has therefore researched an anti-polymorph defense is homebrew, the PCs wouldn't know it, and it makes sense in the world. ESPECIALLY if the PCs later find his research notes and realize why he was immune to their polymorph spells. It is also circumventable, by dispelling defenses or picking a different kind of attack. Making the enemy fighter boss immune to polymorph for the first x rounds of combat for no reason other than it is convenient for you is a cop-out, and is very unfair.

[Typewriter]

If the baddy is immune to death affects for some reason then that's fine. I don't care if it's because the DM decided the gods protect him, if it's because he has a spell, if he has a DM-custom feat called "Immune to death magic".

But if he is, stop rolling saves. Have a reason for it. Let it be something the characters can learn. Don't have the power leave suddenly for no reason. Don't just decide a die said something other than it did for yourself. That's not planning, it's cheating your players.

No, I do not think your players need to know if you decide a BBEG has immunity to death magic, but you need to have already made that decision. And if that's your decision, then when the player casts FoD on him, just smile and say, "OK, he seems unbothered, Bob it's your turn".

Trip-20s(or, as I remember the actual variant rule, 20, 20, confirm)

Sounds like the assumption that's being made is that players are always unhappy when they get killed by it. Not necessarily true. In the last 7 years I've rolled eleven trip-20s that the players knew about, and 2 they didn't. One of those two was in the middle of the first session of a campaign, and the other was from an attack that was meant to be a warning shot from someone in a fortified location they were trying to open diplomatic relationships with. Both became normal crits. The other 11 have been great fun. I've had around 2 dozen enemies killed by the variant rule. Always great fun. Especially when it's someone 'important'.

[Tyndmyr]

Let's go back to that post of mine again:

Your point assumed that whenever (or at least, most of the time) a certain bad die result, like triple 20s, comes up against a player that the DM will fudge it, since in that case fudging it would be merely delaying a problem. I was pointing out that just because there is one specific instance in which the DM will fudge the roll, like in the example involving the enemy sneaking into camp and attacking the sorceror and scoring a maxed out crit, does NOT mean that the DM/group would have a problem with either some, most, or even nearly all other instances of that die roll coming up.

Every instance of where triple 20s has an effect results in the same effect: A player dies due to random chance to an attack that would have otherwise not killed him.

If the DM allows some of these to work, and some not to, well then, he's merely playing favorites.

Incidentally, if 99.9% of instances of triple 20s having an effect are problematic, as you claimed, then clearly, only 1/1000 of random deaths are worthy of fudging. Given half are characters, this means 1/500 random char deaths. If you fudge only once for every 500 chars you randomly kill, you are either effectively in the non-fudging camp, or you really, really like randomly killing characters.

[Reverent-One]

Every instance of where triple 20s has an effect results in the same effect: A player dies due to random chance to an attack that would have otherwise not killed him.

If the DM allows some of these to work, and some not to, well then, he's merely playing favorites.

Or he's simply being reasonable about how bad luck can be sometimes, like in the post above yours where typewriter mentions a triple crit from a warning shot that he merely turned into a normal crit, since it was just supposed to be a warning shot.

[Tyndmyr]

Or he's simply being reasonable about how bad luck can be sometimes, like in the post above yours where typewriter mentions a triple crit from a warning shot that he merely turned into a normal crit, since it was just supposed to be a warning shot.

And those two cases would have resulted in random death had they not been fudged. Just like the cases that he didn't fudge.

Im apathetic about random death. It's use depends on how much the group likes it, and I generally determine it's use by player vote, but the rule is fairly concise. It only does one thing. If you don't want it to happen, don't use the rule.

Note that shots fired at someone are not what is traditionally meant by the use of "warning shot". Shots across the bow of a ship, into the air, in front of people, etc...those are warnings. Shooting someone is generally considered to be rather more severe than a warning.

I agree that death will not always make players unhappy...and does not always harm the game. How do you know that the two instances that were fudged would have been received more poorly than the others?

[Reverent-One]

I agree that death will not always make players unhappy...and does not always harm the game. How do you know that the two instances that were fudged would have been received more poorly than the others?

Who said anything about them being received more poorly? Typewriter did not explain his reasoning for not using those as insta-kills, so he'll have to come in and answer why exactly he choose to do it.

[Typewriter]

And those two cases would have resulted in random death had they not been fudged. Just like the cases that he didn't fudge.

Im apathetic about random death. It's use depends on how much the group likes it, and I generally determine it's use by player vote, but the rule is fairly concise. It only does one thing. If you don't want it to happen, don't use the rule.

Note that shots fired at someone are not what is traditionally meant by the use of "warning shot". Shots across the bow of a ship, into the air, in front of people, etc...those are warnings. Shooting someone is generally considered to be rather more severe than a warning.

I agree that death will not always make players unhappy...and does not always harm the game. How do you know that the two instances that were fudged would have been received more poorly than the others?

Making the same statement for the third time.

My group likes using the rule. It doesn't always work well. I can either abolish or fudge. Abolishing it gets rid of a rule the group likes. Therefore I fudge.

Traditionally warning shots are not hits. This was intended to hit. The group they were approaching was not friendly.

[Tyndmyr]

But you haven't really explained why allowing those instakills would be so detrimental, yet the others were ok.

If it was meant to hit, then it's not a warning shot. It's just a shot. Death from the first arrow from the keep might be pretty ominous indeed.

[Typewriter]

But you haven't really explained why allowing those instakills would be so detrimental, yet the others were ok.

If it was meant to hit, then it's not a warning shot. It's just a shot. Death from the first arrow from the keep might be pretty ominous indeed.

Sorry, I missed that part of your last post:

The player who would have been insta-killed in the first session was on the 5th Dread Necromancer he had ever created. To that point he had never been able to play one for more than 3 sessions (usually less) due to death, campaigns ending abruptly, and other things. He was getting pretty upset because he really wanted to play one, but he hated building the same character twice in a row.

The other 'auto-kill fudge' was because the party had been specifically told they would probably be fired upon, but as long as they didn't return fire they should be fine. At this point in the campaign they had been betrayed by NPC's lying to them 3 times and were getting pretty angry. Having it happen again would have likely ended the campaign.

EDIT: Better explanation of the second one below.

The party was trying to unite several factions of a world that was under siege by an undead force. They were completely broken up. One of their benefactors was a spy for the other side who had gotten one of them kidnapped and tortured at one point, tricked them into getting a good guy (and his only rival) killed, and then - when they confronted him about it - he told them he had been working on orders from the king. They believed him, and he escaped. They had been pretty upset after the second 'gotcha' and when they realized they let him get away they were furious (good furious, ready to hunt him down and murder his face off).

His replacement with their army told them to go into elven territory, and seek the help of the elves. He told them they were violent, but never killed intruders unless the intruder attacked first.

No I cannot prove or guarantee for sure that having one of them get killed when they were specifically told they wouldn't would have ended the campaign, but I have no doubt in my mind.

NOTE: When they finally caught the bad guy again, he convinced them again he was on their side. Luckily this time they bound him and hauled him along while they investigated his actions. He freed himself and killed one of them, but that's when they finally put him down. And then celebrated. God, how they celebrated.

*None of these bluffs from this guy were rolls. It was just me tricking them

[Jayabalard]

I don't think anyone ever said any different. However, if you are a high level mage/evil genius, you should have a pretty decent knowledge of the stuff that you use to take over the world/accomplish other nefarious plans, and be at least mildly concerned with those who try to stop you.. maybe we have different understandings of what was meant by "the character, who should know how his spells work." and that if "x doesn't work in this situation" without the character knowing then it is "that is brutally, cruelly unfair."

I mean, that's how I read it:
"That is brutally, cruelly unfair. You have a de facto house rule that "x doesn't work in this situation" which you did not tell to the player, who should know that you feel that way, or the character, who should know how his spells work."



This is not consistent with D&D, in which wizards learn magic via books and practice, and in which spell levels are in-character knowledge.Not at all. There are things like "wild magic" and null magic zones, and there's nothing that says that the effects of a spell (other than it's strictly mechanical effects) are exactly the same every time you cast that spell. Even with the mechanical effects:

Sometimes a wizard will call a ball of fire into and a wisp of fire, barely more dangerous than a fart (low damage roll, saves made by enemies), and sometimes he gets a raging inferno (max damage, noone makes their save). Sometimes these happen one cast after another.
Sometimes a spell just fizzes out and does nothing, or so little that it has no discernable effect (which is as valid a characterization of what happens when someone makes their save on a "save negates" spell).


Now, I agree, it's certainly less variation than some systems of magic (say GURPS) but that's primarily for mechanical simplicity, and there's nothing that precludes the DM from including that type of magic while handwaving away why spells (almost) always work.


Yeah, like wild magic or anti-magic zones. Not "magic doesn't work against enemies who have plot armor." Having an enemy boss who has fought a lot of druids and has therefore researched an anti-polymorph defense is homebrew, the PCs wouldn't know it, and it makes sense in the world. ESPECIALLY if the PCs later find his research notes and realize why he was immune to their polymorph spells. It is also circumventable, by dispelling defenses or picking a different kind of attack. Making the enemy fighter boss immune to polymorph for the first x rounds of combat for no reason other than it is convenient for you is a cop-out, and is very unfair.I fail to see much of a difference between a Defense that you don't know about and have no way of knowing about that is decided before combat starts and one that is decided after combat starts. The result are the same.

What if it turned out after the fact that he had researched a short duration protection from polymorph (and since we're talking about the BBEG, it probably requires a ritual too vile to discuss on these fora)? Still unfair? It's the exact same plot armor, with a retconned explanation.

[Tyndmyr]

Well, easy alternative present themselves.

First, dread necro is a notoriously poor class. To use the old trope, you can roll a fighter with a cohort fighter who has a cohort standard cleric, and you'll be better at necromancy that if you went dread necro. Abrupt campaign endings happen, but the deaths at least can be solved by an different approach. Some characters just are more likely to die than others.

Secondly, the betrayal issue. Have NPCs betray them less is one way. Another is for them, knowing they'll be shot at and won't be shooting back, to take precautions. Anything from mirror image to a helmet on a stick.

More importantly, they both follow the same format: Already frustrated players whom you fear the death would further frustrate. This indicates that you believe those players view being instakilled as a frustration after all. It's good that you're trying to avoid this frustration, but it indicates that the random deaths may be frustrating in general, and that the others may have been viewed as negative, but acceptable losses due to better general circumstances.

[Typewriter]

I fail to see much of a difference between a Defense that you don't know about and have no way of knowing about that is decided before combat starts and one that is decided after combat starts. The result are the same.

What if it turned out after the fact that he had researched a short duration protection from polymorph (and since we're talking about the BBEG, it probably requires a ritual too vile to discuss on these fora)? Still unfair? It's the exact same plot armor, with a retconned explanation.

I see that as something that a beginner could do, but that's because they're not used to planning ahead. Once it happens once though you should realize that you either need to keep the BBEG away from players or have back ups/protection.

Repeatedly just deciding to negate your players is pretty lame.

Here's a question for you: You negate something one of the players does that would have killed the baddy, and then by pure chance the party winds up getting killed.

Rather than having created an encounter challenging enough to kill some to all of them, you just killed them because you felt like it.

Fudging for yourself is not cool.

[Emmerask]

So he comes back with no gear then? And he has 20 back up ressurections?

:P

Why limit yourself to twenty? after all I´m the BBEG with an int above 13...
I would have thousands of secret places all over the world all with a personal rez bot and of course the most important gear at my disposal :smallwink:

Even if I could only kill them after the 100th resurrection I would still make an overall profit selling there stuff afterwards ^^

Otherwise you are really going to easy with your group and obviously that would be being a bad gm :smallwink:

[Typewriter]

Well, easy alternative present themselves.

First, dread necro is a notoriously poor class. To use the old trope, you can roll a fighter with a cohort fighter who has a cohort standard cleric, and you'll be better at necromancy that if you went dread necro. Abrupt campaign endings happen, but the deaths at least can be solved by an different approach. Some characters just are more likely to die than others.

Secondly, the betrayal issue. Have NPCs betray them less is one way. Another is for them, knowing they'll be shot at and won't be shooting back, to take precautions. Anything from mirror image to a helmet on a stick.

More importantly, they both follow the same format: Already frustrated players whom you fear the death would further frustrate. This indicates that you believe those players view being instakilled as a frustration after all. It's good that you're trying to avoid this frustration, but it indicates that the random deaths may be frustrating in general, and that the others may have been viewed as negative, but acceptable losses due to better general circumstances.

So at this point you're pretty much just ignoring me. Or you've missed half my posts. Or are selectively readin them. I don't really know which.

Betraying the party works well for creating motivation. A DM needs to know how far to push people though. I pushed them as far as needed, and then stopped. It required some fudge, but it worked. And they had a great time because they actually cared about killing the guy they were after. It was a lot of fun for my players.

And again (fourth time now) : My players like the rule. Yes, random deaths can be fun. The DM needs to know when they will be fun and when they will not be. That's the whole purpose of fudging.

And thank you for your opinion on Dread Necromancer. Doesn't change the fact that it's that players favorite 3.5 class. Monk is my favorite 3.5 class. We're talking about adding some order to random chance. Random chance means that it would have killed a wizard as well as a dread necromancer. It means he's had bad luck, and that bad luck has happened when he was playing Dread Necromancers.