D&D 5E DM: I think my players WANT me to fudge my dice roles!

Klaudius Rex said:

turned undead right away. This poor beholder critically failed (he rolled a natural 1), and was subsequently turned as per the rules.

This made this particular battle easy as the beholder could not escape and was tucked into a corner.

What bugged me,...is later that night, i heard one of the players scoffing at the battle, telling someone on the phone, that "I went easy on them" by throwing a "cowardly beholder".

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We could just blame the system, since you followed it. The beholder was undead, the cleric could turn, it failed it's save. Not your fault, D&D's fault.

Except D&D isn't written to be perfect for your table, that night - rather, it Empowers you to adapt it to your needs. IDK if 'fudging' would have been the best course of action, or if making the beholder immune to turning in the first place might have been better, or if it'd've made sense to you to give it some other way out of the effect - but there was probably some way you could have ruled or run it or set it up that might've given better results.

Doesn't mean you should beat yourself up over it, but you've had an experience that you can learn from. You know a bit more about one of your players' attitudes and expectations. You've been reminded of the vagaries of a linear-distribution dice mechanic.

Just part of the DMing journey.

I wanted to have a more challenging battle myself, of course. A Death Tyrant is the most difficult beholder in the game, with a CR 14. He was a guardian in a wizards tower. By no means, was he a coward.

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But it was turned, in effect, because Clerics have always had 'Turn Undead' that could swing an undead encounter (indeed, if you look at old modules, they tend to have a /lot/ more minor undead per room/'encounter' than similarly-tough creatures of other types) and 5e wasn't about the change nor bowdlerize that.

I can only speculate that this player wanted me to fudge the dice so the battle would be more formidable...

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I can't speak for him, but, per the above, I don't think that's nearly the only way you could have handled it. Indeed, under slightly different circumstances, you might've had reason to fudge it the other way...

Admittedly, I have fudged dice in the past. But its a tricky thing to do as DM. I want some adherence to the rules, and dont want to break them every time. Plus, the beholder rolled a critical fail, in which really I really couldn't justify fudging the saving throw for this poor beholder.

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Remember the core 5e resolution system isn't "roll a d20," it's player describes action, DM decides what happens including whether a roll is called for. So, really, you're always within your rights to not even roll, and just describe the results of a PC action. Fudging is a minor, defensible, IMHO, corollary of that.

Interesting. A few sessions ago, my players asked me to hide the DM dice rolls. They said it was more exciting not to see them. I wonder if this was code for "fudge when necessary to make a better story."

Really it is the table that needs to decide what is more important. The rules, or the story. Sure, sometimes the story is exciting when we follow the rules, but not always. The anticlimactic bad die roll, could be a kill joy for some.

I like that the players in my group don't care about the dice that I roll. They trust me to provide them with entertainment, not in an adversarial way. But, I'm equally happy to roll out front and let the dice fall where they may. Personally, I like to hide the rolls and not fudge. The players seem more surprised when I tell them that the creature fumbles or fails a save even when it might make the fight easier.

Beholders are highly intelligent and extremely paranoid. They spend much of their time expecting and planning for incursions and attacks. A Death Tyrant has had AGES to plan it lairs to its advantage. It would know that their is a chance, even if small, that it could be turned by a cleric. It should have prepared for that.

First, I can't imagine a beholder having any location in its lair without multiple avenues of escape, most of them designed for its unique shape and movement and difficult for non-flying creatures to follow.

Second, it should have minions. It would include minions with a variety of resistances and immunities. It would have minions that are not undead and subject to being turned. I would say that it would train and instruct these minions that should it ever be turned that they hurt it. Give it damage to shake it out of being turned.

Third, traps and mechanisms to control movement through its lair, designed for its form factor and abilities. I can see that their may be some story reason why a death tyrant may be a lone inhabitant of its lair, but it would still have designed traps, ways to trigger stone blocks or gates to slam shut as it floats past them, pits to open, etc.

Fourth, escape routes may be designed to cause a small amount of damage so that if the reason it is escape is due to being turned, it can be shaken out of it.

Also, how did this go down? Did the party walk in, turn it, and since it was turned move on. Or was it that because it was turned, they were able to kill it in one round? If it take damage it is no longer turned. If the former, there should have been ways for it to hunt down the party after the minute passed and perhaps some traps and other obstacles to slow them down. If the later, even if it wasn't turned, it seems like they would have taken it out easily.

As for the crit fail. Instead of fudging the roll, I would just ad hoc homebrew a bit and have fun with the crit fail. It is SOOO repulsed by the power of the cleric that is dashes at reckless speed and smashes into the wall taking the equivalent of falling damage based upon the distance moved before hitting the wall. This snaps it out of being turned.

Also, why does it have to huddle in a corner. Yes, some terrified creatures in real life act like that, some play dead, but some just go nuts racing from wall to wall, floor to ceiling... I'm think of birds or bats that get stuck inside a house. Crit fail? No exit? Have that beholder bounce around the room full-dash, keeping away from the cleric, and make all attempts to hit it a disadvantage.

In the end though, the issue here was that the death tyrant got in this situation to begin with and that should never happen unless the players painstakingly took steps to force it into a corner by methodically discovery and eliminating all avenues of escape, in which case the final result would have been well earned and not seen as going easy on them.

Also, don't be so sensitive to player comments. Some of my friends and I like to bust each other's chops. I guarantee that if they thought an encounter was poorly designed, I wouldn't learn of it by overhearing a telephone conversation.

Lastly, not sure why the players would care that much. Are they really combat focused? My players would have one HELL of a time having fun with the poor cowardly death tyrant. I just know they would come up with some sick joke to play on it. They know how to make their own entertainment--often at my expense.

One reason why we use dice is so we can have these crazy moments. Sometimes you get a well matched, epic battle, other times its a TPK, and sometime--if the gods are well rested and paying notice to the party cleric--you get a cowardly beholder. All three outcomes are worthy of a bard's song.

To me fudging to nullify a player ability just because "oh, I don't want that to happen" would have been pretty bad DMing.

You know, for all the non-undead you fight, and all of undead that you don't get to turn, letting the player have his spotlight when it actually comes up is important.

Now, you could take the player's comment in a "we can turn undead, it was poor encounter design to have one roll make it trivial", but even there I don't agree - each character needs times to shine, and maybe this encounter is easy because fo the cleric, and another one a monk shutting down a caster might make it easy - as long as everyone gets points to shine that's good DMing in my book.

I don't think you did anything wrong or that you should take this as a sign to start fudging more.

MNblockhead said:

Also, how did this go down? Did the party walk in, turn it, and since it was turned move on. Or was it that because it was turned, they were able to kill it in one round? If it take damage it is no longer turned.

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This is exactly the same question that passed through my mind. What exactly happened? If the beholder did nothing but cower, even after receiving damage, then there's a bit of misplay here and the player might have tought that you really went easy on them. Considering that iirc the beholder should have access to legendary actions.

See, this is the problem when you fudge, even if you only fudge once in a rare while. If your players know that you will change die rolls, then every die roll you make is suspect. No matter what, unless you start rolling in the open, the players will have a suspicion in the back of their mind that you are fudging a die roll.

Doesn't matter if you do it every session or once in a blue moon. Once you do it, you make every die roll suspect.

Didn't need to fudge dice. Needed to have it shake off the Turn with Legendary Resistance. All monsters that fight alone should (in the very least) be Legendary.

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Sometimes the dice give, and sometimes the dice take. It’s okay for PCs to win the battle handily now and then. One thing I find is that, unless a monster is designed as a solo opponent, PCs can really focus their fire to take them down.

I wouldn’t feel too badly about the encounter, but would definitely look at what could be done differently next time. Maybe it’s a question of terrain and strategy, of giving them multiple targets, or of putting more combat encounters in front of this one, to wear down their resources. If we feel we could’ve done better as DMs one session, then that’s an opportunity to learn and become better DMs.

That being said, if that player’s words are still getting to you, at the beginning of the next session say “let’s hope the dice roll better for me than they did last session.” Or you could just put his character into a solo battle with Demogorgon.

I think in the game, a little good-natured trash talking is acceptable, but there’s no excuse for players to say rude things or be jerks. If you can’t be civil about a game, you’ve no place sitting down to the table. Not having been there, I can't say for sure which this was.