To fudge or not to fudge...

[MightyDog16]

...that is the question.

(MILD OOTA SPOILERS AHEAD)

I'm running OotA as my first outing as a DM and the group tends to have a head-on approach to most situations. They went to find a rumored Medusa and didn't even try to bring a mirror of any kind /facepalm

I guess I'm having trouble nudging them towards smarter game play without taking away the challenge. I've fudged a few rolls and encounters so it wasn't too harsh, but I have rendered individuals unconscious a few times as well as turned 3 out of 4 of them to stone at one point (they were restored by a NPC). So I feel I've kept the stakes high without anything... permanent happening yet.

Do I keep fudging to keep the fun going or is it time for Wayne Brady to choke a bitch? At what point do I drop the hammer for dumb gameplay?

[Rhaegar]

...that is the question.

(MILD OOTA SPOILERS AHEAD)

I'm running OotA as my first outing as a DM and the group tends to have a head-on approach to most situations. They went to find a rumored Medusa and didn't even try to bring a mirror of any kind /facepalm

I guess I'm having trouble nudging them towards smarter game play without taking away the challenge. I've fudged a few rolls and encounters so it wasn't too harsh, but I have rendered individuals unconscious a few times as well as turned 3 out of 4 of them to stone at one point (they were restored by a NPC). So I feel I've kept the stakes high without anything... permanent happening yet.

Do I keep fudging to keep the fun going or is it time for Wayne Brady to choke a bitch? At what point do I drop the hammer for dumb gameplay?

I feel you should only fudge numbers to a point. If the dice are all hitting, and a lot of crits, and your party is constantly missing, you may want to fudge some numbers so they don't die due to terrible luck. However I don't believe you should save people from their stupidity to often. You can try to give subtle hints outside of gameplay, maybe comment on a movie in how they defeated a medusa.

While no one likes a total party kill, sometimes you need to lay the hammer down to show them that there are consequences. You could also get very creative with a party wipe. Have them all wake up in a prison cell somewhere, and have to figure out how to get out. If they are all turned to stone, have one of them be de-stoned 6 months later by a mid level mage in a museum hundreds of miles away from where they were, with his friends as part of the same display, but the mage has no more spells to break the rest of the party out.

There are a lot of fun ways to deal with wiping a party without actually killing them. Just like players can choose to knock someone out at zero HP without killing them, so can the NPCs.

[Kane0]

- Try gradually introducing more complex elements like cover, difficult terrain, traps and vertical distances on the battlefield, and have your NPCs/monsters slowly start using them more often. The more exposure your party will get to more tactical ideas than charge in and hack away the more comfortable they will feel attempting the same.

- Make sure not to penalize creative thinking and out of the box solutions to situations. The last thing you want to do is provide them bundles of options then only allow their current course of action as the most efficient.

- Set up situations without predetermined solutions. This saves them from having to guess what you're thinking and stops you from falling into the trap of having a train of thought that doesn't match your players. Their ingenuity will be their saviour.

[Demonslayer666]

The entire idea of the game is to have fun. It's your job as DM to challenge the players appropriately, not kill them for forgetting a mirror, so I think you are handling it correctly. Keep your audience in mind.

Maybe they are roleplaying that they don't know anything about a medusa, or are roleplaying foolhardy. Or maybe the players are not as smart as their characters...

Throw them a bone by providing some of the lore they need, then drop the hammer if they don't heed the warning. Maybe make an example out of one of them. Just try to avoid the TPK. :smallbiggrin:

"You can't fix stupid." ~Ron White

[steppedonad4]

I never, ever fudge. To me, that ruins the game entirely and if I ever find out a DM is doing it in a game I play, I voice my concern and if they're not willing to stick to the dice, I leave the game. To me, fudging is just cheating and worse, it's cheating me the player out of a legitimately earned victory or the threat of character death.

It's much akin to the DM who railroads to tell their story. I'm not there to be a bit-player in the DM's novel. Dues Ex Machina, to me, is the very antithesis of spirit of RP gaming.

[MightyDog16]

All valid opinions. Thanks for the responses. I think I'm going to give a warning to the players next session that the gloves are off. Only one player is brand new so the others have had ample time to figure it out. Someone is probably going down, perhaps the needed example.

[Gignere]

I fudge but only very rarely and only when it is story appropriate. As for dumb gameplay try telegraphing more. For example the medusa hunt, maybe they meet a NPC who lost his whole family to the medusa and is willing to aid the PCs by telling them all that he knows about the medusa including needing to use a mirror to look at it. Of course the NPC happen to have two on him. Make it obvious, and repeat all hints three times in different ways.

A lot of times what seems obvious to you, is only obvious to you.

[Tanarii]

At what point do I drop the hammer for dumb gameplay?Kill them. Nothing teaches proper game play like having to roll up a new character.

Edit: I'm assuming here that they're not total newb players btw, despite it being your first time as a DM. If they are new, ramp it up, and after they pick up the nickname "dirt-eater" or "turf-muncher" from their party members, ask if they'd like a few suggestions. (Nicknames one of my players got in his first two sessions of constant unconsciousness in one campaign.)

[Dralnu]

I'm in the camp of not fudging ever as a DM and I really dislike it when my DMs do it. It cheapens the experience for me, like the DM has total control of the story and the PCs are along for the ride, and ultimately it doesn't matter what you do/roll because the outcome has already been determined.

What I recommend doing is having contingencies in place for when a character dies. I use these either to further the plot or to make sure a player isn't sitting out for the rest of the session. For example, my ongoing campaign had the PCs "summoned" to a different plane as if by the "summon monster" type of spells. Eventually they were TPK'd, but each time one of them died, they instead disappeared. I revealed that the "dead" PCs were actually sent back to their native plane where they were summoned, at full health, just like summoned monsters are.

Another time a character "died" early in the session and the moment before the killing blow happened, a trio of fiends straight from OotS offered a pact to save his life in exchange of 1 hour of his soul. He accepted, and many sessions later the fiends cashed in on that pact to get some plot device pushed forward.

And then sometimes the characters just die. What is the purpose of combat if the PCs are guaranteed to survive every time?

[Kane0]

Definitely seconding the rule of three idea.

If you want them to do something, you give them three indications/warnings/chances. If they don't get it after three tries they deserve their fate and you shouldn't feel bad for their decisions (as long as the hints aren't too subtle as to go over them entirely).

[snacksmoto]

I would ease up on the fudging. Personally, it should be used to counter a TPK or an entire plot derailment and little else. I definitely wouldn't use it in those situations to hand them a win but an escape route. Runs of bad luck go hand in hand with runs of good luck. If the combat is going against them, they should be smart enough to attempt to disengage and regroup.

If the party is playing bull-headed because they are inexperienced, then you should talk to them about it and allow them time to learn and change. If the players are experienced and are playing characters who are not, I would hedge towards escape opportunities albeit fewer and fewer as time goes by. If the players are experienced and are simply playing stupidly, I wouldn't be as lenient.

If complete failure is not a possibility then the stakes are not particularly high and they won't learn to be cautious when they need to be.

[Laserlight]

What you should do depends on you and your players, not on us. If your group likes "a game with strict rules", then feel free to kill them. If your group likes "a heroic story with occasional setbacks", then fudge. There's no "right" answer other than "what your group likes".

[Sigreid]

My preference is don't fudge. If you fudge, and your players know you do then any sense of accomplishment they have is gone.

[MightyDog16]

What you should do depends on you and your players, not on us. If your group likes "a game with struct rules", then feel free to kill them. If your group likes "a heroic story with occasional setbacks", then fudge. There's no "right" answer other than "what your group likes".

I have a pretty loose style of DMING but I think I'm to the point where I can tell the "full steam ahead" approach the group has is getting stale- for them and me. I guess I just want to reward clever gameplsy and if it takes a PC death or two then I'm ok with that.

[MaxWilson]

You cannot have a fun game if the game's referee rigs it so you cannot lose.

[Nu]

I have a pretty loose style of DMING but I think I'm to the point where I can tell the "full steam ahead" approach the group has is getting stale- for them and me. I guess I just want to reward clever gameplsy and if it takes a PC death or two then I'm ok with that.

I think this is a very audience-specific question. If your PCs are enjoying themselves I say keep playing how you're playing, but if it is as you describe and they're getting a little bored, it might be better to switch things up. I'd be certain to have the conversation with them, though, just to get their input on what would make things more interesting--some people don't particularly enjoy the style of DnD where you need to cleverly sidestep the rules and render your mechanical choices irrelevant to overcome the most difficult obstacles. Different strokes and all that.

Personally, I've fudged now and then as a DM, but when I fudge, it's typically because I've homebrewed an encounter mechanic (which I often do, at this point I've run more encounters comprised entirely of monsters that I created myself than encounters using monsters out of the books) that I felt was more punishing than I intended when I wrote the stat block, and I don't feel as though I've given the players a fair shot. I would think fudging should be kept to an absolute minimum in a by-the-book published adventure, of all things.

[ad_hoc]

All valid opinions. Thanks for the responses. I think I'm going to give a warning to the players next session that the gloves are off. Only one player is brand new so the others have had ample time to figure it out. Someone is probably going down, perhaps the needed example.

I think this is the best way to do it.

I am surprised they have made it that far with this playstyle. I wouldn't expect a group like that to make it past the first chapter.

In the games I play everyone is aware of how deadly the game is. Characters act to avoid combats, either by investigating solutions that don't require it or through social interaction. This doesn't ruin the heroism either. When it is time to be heroic there are actual stakes as defeat & death are real possibilities.

It isn't heroic or exciting to charge into battle if you are assured of victory. It's just going through the paces.

[Theodoxus]

You cannot have a fun game if the game's referee rigs it so you cannot lose.

You mind if I call this the MaxWilson Fallacy? Because it certainly is. There are times when you just want to sit back and kill everything. Sure, it's easier to maybe pull out some Diablo III, set it to Regular difficulty and mow through some mobs - but sometimes you want to play with friends, around a table and chomp down Doritos while chomping through orcs.

I don't advocate cheating/fudging/misrepresenting the game all the time - but I've been in a situation where, through no fault of the players, the DM rolls were hot, the group couldn't mitigate and a couple characters died - in not so glorious fashion. A bit of a fudge; a turning of a confirmed crit to just a hit... would have alleviated that heartache, and the players wouldn't have lost months of work on dead characters (and 2 weeks between sessions deciding on whether to spend party resources on a rez or bring in new characters to the middle of a campaign). Plus they would have never known...

Consequences matter. Dice rolls shouldn't.

[bardo]

To fudge.

We play with DM screens for a reason, and that reason is that there are occasions when DM discretion makes the game more fun/interesting/epic/what-have-you than a random roll.

The DM's job is to make decisions. This is an inherently unfair job and it's no use being coy about it. Delegating more decisions to the dice doesn't make the DM more fair, it's still the DM who decides which decisions are allowed to be random. This meta-unfairness can not be escaped.

Railroading is not the same as fudging. Fudging can certainly be an instrument at the service of railroading, but it's not hard to imagine railroading without fudging (or fudging without railroading, for that matter). Separate things.

Bardo.

[JackPhoenix]

To fudge, but with moderation

If the players do something stupid, even after "are you sure you want to do that?" Nope, I won't fudge and let the characters die if the dice wills it.
In a epic boss fight or some other important story event? No way, and it goes both way, I won't fudge to save them and if they manage to kill a NPC I wanted to keep alive for some reason with a lucky crit? Good for them, I'll improvise and adapt the story with the new circumstances in mind. (that happened)
In a semi-random encounter with a band of thugs who just had luck on their side and no other reason for their existence then softening the group a little or adding a little life to the world? Yeah, it would be stupid to get TPK on THAT (the group was in disguise and looked like easy target, and crossed path with a bunch of local crazy cannibal barbarians. Should've been easy fight, they were much weaker then the group, but the dice (or RNG, it was an online game) though otherwise. I rolled in the open, but when the group was getting beaten, I've "forget" the bonuses the barbarians got from their rage)

[steppedonad4]

We play with DM screens for a reason, and that reason is that there are occasions when DM discretion makes the game more fun/interesting/epic/what-have-you than a random roll.

No it's not. The reason for the DM screens is to hide the monster and adventure information from the players, not the rolls.

[Kane0]

The screen hides what you want it to hide. I use it to hide maltesers so my players don't eat them all before I can.

[ChelseaNH]

Do I keep fudging to keep the fun going or is it time for Wayne Brady to choke a bitch? At what point do I drop the hammer for dumb gameplay?

Everyone has their own definition of fun. It sounds like it's not fun for you when players don't put much thought into their actions. How much fun would it be for your players if a character died? At some point, you all need to figure out what you want to get from the game, and try to find a balance.

Also, if you want to train them, is there a way to reward them when they do something smart? Not necessarily in magic items or experience points, but something that adds to their sense of fun.

[Rhaegar]

Ultimately it's the DMs job to make the game as fun as possible. It might be time to sit down with the players and find out what is fun for them. Some players like an unforgiving DM, others may prefer a fun story where they always win. Of course it should also be fun for you too. Without getting into any spoilers about the campaign sit with your players and find out exactly how harsh they would like you to be.

[Kane0]

Also, if you want to train them, is there a way to reward them when they do something smart? Not necessarily in magic items or experience points, but something that adds to their sense of fun.

Inspiration, mayhap.
My group is particularly funny when it comes to inspiration because we give it out by vote. If majority of us reckon that was a great RP / funny / awesome move we call inspiration, and the recipient gets it if not vetoed by anybody else.

[MightyDog16]

Inspiration, mayhap.
My group is particularly funny when it comes to inspiration because we give it out by vote. If majority of us reckon that was a great RP / funny / awesome move we call inspiration, and the recipient gets it if not vetoed by anybody else.

I like this idea a lot, I'm totally stealing it.

[steppedonad4]

I like this idea a lot, I'm totally stealing it.

I've never seen it work. Well, that's not true. Depends on your definition of working. Whenever it came up, everyone voted yes simply because they didn't want to be the ******* who vetoed it. In other words, it tends to end up being self-defeating and if it isn't, then it causes resentment at the table due to whoever it is who has the guts to actually say no.

[Kane0]

It works pretty well, and since you can't have more than one at a time you can't abuse it by handing it out to everyone all the time. Also helps us remember that inspiration exists.

Edit: More often than not handing out inspiration is like giving cookies on the internet for us. Its not a big deal with the way we play.

[Tanarii]

The DM's job is to make decisions. This is an inherently unfair job and it's no use being coy about it. Delegating more decisions to the dice doesn't make the DM more fair, it's still the DM who decides which decisions are allowed to be random. This meta-unfairness can not be escaped.IMo it's the exact opposite. The DM should be striving to be as fair as possible. Taking the decisions away from the dice any robs the players of both consequences for their actions, and victory when they take a risk and are successful, or use good tactics. Fudging makes it so they can't win, because they can't lose.

If players make mistakes, or take the risk of the dice going against them and fail, kill them. That's the only way they can learn to play better and win the game.

[Balain]

In the past I would fudge rolls. The current campaign I am making all my rolls out in the open with everyone else. If there is a roll I need to make in secret I can make it off to the side.

I think I prefer the rolls in the open and no fudging. If you do fudge, do it only in dire situatins. Something like everyone failed their saves on a massive spell and they are all about to die. The damage you "rolled" was enough to kill some but not all the party. Never fudge rolls when the players do something stupid.

[MightyDog16]

So I decided not to fudge and the party picked a fight with the wrong demon. TPK.

[LnGrrrR]

Maybe there's a really pissed off devil who is the sworn enemy of that demon, who is willing to resurrect the party for a small fee? Just a simple contract really..,

[Randomthom]

My personal rule: Fudge rolls only to counteract poor luck, not poor judgement.

Also use the: "Are you sure you want to do that" rule for stupidity. Sometimes what seems like a good idea to the player is because of a disconnect in the mental picture of the scene held by yourself vs the player. They might have misunderstood or your might have failed to explain properly some vital detail. If, given some clarification, they still proceed with stupid then by all means punish the stupid. Even better if that punishment extends to the whole party because it puts emphasis on them exercising greater responsibility regarding their actions in future.

[Tanarii]

If you fudge dice rolls for 'poor luck', how are the players supposed to win the game? You're taking away a clean win by doing that.

[Jormengand]

...that is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The 1s and 20s of outrageous die rolls,
Or to take arms against a sea of fumbles,
And by fudging, end them.

But yeah, it really depends on the circumstances. There's no one clean answer we can give.

[Mjolnirbear]

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The 1s and 20s of outrageous die rolls,
Or to take arms against a sea of fumbles,
And by fudging, end them.

But yeah, it really depends on the circumstances. There's no one clean answer we can give.

Jormengandr reference +1
Firbold reference +1
Shakespeare pulled out of your ass and cleverly adapted, +infinity.

Too bad I'm not single. Smart guys go to the front of the line. ;)

[MightyDog16]

The party had multiple omens pointing them away, the first PC in was charmed and sent out, then the warlock lobs a fireball "ok... roll initiative" I played the encounter fairly given the circumstances but it was too much AND their tank was driven into madness on the way there. They were good sports, had fun as their characters fell one by one.

So after my first campaign and TPK as a DM, I'm in the "fudge only for insanely bad luck" camp. It wasn't so bad killing off the party, it was even fun for the party having realized they finally paid for their cavalier attitudes. So yeah, thank you all for opinions, it was a great learning experience.

[LnGrrrR]

Glad to hear everyone had fun. That's really what matters. :D

[Laserlight]

Also use the: "Are you sure you want to do that" rule for stupidity. Sometimes what seems like a good idea to the player is because of a disconnect in the mental picture of the scene held by yourself vs the player. They might have misunderstood or your might have failed to explain properly some vital detail. If, given some clarification, they still proceed with stupid then by all means punish the stupid.

Concur, with the clarification that the conversation should never be merely DM: "Are you sure?" Player: "Yes". The DM needs to explain why the proposed action is risky, and if he doesn't, the player should ask.

There will be plenty of occasions when the player says "Yes, I know that jumping off a 60ft tower, onto a stone walkway, while naked and armed only with a +0 throwing apple, to pursue a named NPC drider warlock, is risky. I do it anyway."