DM advice: How do you NOT kill your party?

[TheSword]

Inventing, writing, storytelling, improvising, acting, refereeing - every DM handles these roles differently, and you’ll probably enjoy some more than others. It helps to remember that Dungeons and Dragons is a hobby, and being the DM should be fun.

The D&D rules help you and the other players have a good time, but the rules aren’t in charge. You’re the DM and you are in charge of the game.

I’ve never seen this viewpoint as corruptive before.
[FONT=&quot]Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn[/FONT]

 

[Imaculata]

I'm not afraid to fudge dice rolls, and I will often have a plan laid aside should the party start taking a shoeing.

I used to do this, but hearing the criticism of other DM's on this forum changed my mind. Ever since I've stopped fudging, I've noticed just how amazing it is to experience genuine close calls.

Just last session, was such a close call. One of the players had his cohort act as a bodyguard, and take a hit from a Red Guard (homebrew crocodile soldiers, using an anti-paladin template). The Red Guard did a Smite Good on the cohort, and rolled a critical, which was confirmed, causing it to deal more than 60 damage in one hit. A silence fell at the table, and the player said... "He's dead... He's not even dying, he is below -10 HP, he is gone!" (this is a 3.5 campaign mind you).

But then the two healers in the party remembered that they could heal as a reaction, bringing the cohort to -5hp. Still not okay, but at least he could now be stabilized. "Hurray! They all exclaimed."

"Ah, but that was just the Red Guard's first attack. He has two more!" -I told them with an evil grin. And instantly their joy turned to despair, as they anxiously watched me roll those remaining two attacks....

Two misses... the cohort survived!

 

[jasper]

1. The problem with this idea is that we are letting pieces of plastic always have the final say.
2. I fudge rolls as GM because sometimes the dice roll stupidly.
3.The D20 in DnD is way too swingy.
4.The irony is that DnD players are the ones who often shout the loudest against "fudging," but DnD is actually the only game I GM where I need to do some tweaking, in order to avoid dumb deaths.
5.To be honest, 5e is not as bad as earlier editions, because characters seem more survivable. Anyway, my players are not going to want to fall down a pit trap and die before the end of the first session, so yeah, I'll fudge to avoid this.

7. And no, Saelorn, in my many years GMing, I've never had anyone walk away in disgust from my table, or become disenchanted with the hobby because of my "corrupt" ways.

Me added in the numbers.
ALL PRAISE THE HOLY ARILYN.
1. HOLY MOLLY. IN a game of chance using dice, the dice should rule. NAY SATHY HOLY ARILYN
2. No. The dice just roll. Against the group.
3. TRUE. In some games. But hey. Dice rules.
4. pass on this. My bigger sister is still mad at me for beating her in "SORRY" four games in a roll. And I was five at the time.
5. Perhaps your players need to learn that the dice are the creators of their fates. Or just use average damage.
6. was stolen by the EVIL SINISTER SAELORN!
7. I have walked away from tables due to bad players, players doing something STUPID, players doing something totally smart, or dice hating us all. I did walk away recently for 5 minutes when PVP started.

 

[Ranthalan]

I used to do this, but hearing the criticism of other DM's on this forum changed my mind. Ever since I've stopped fudging, I've noticed just how amazing it is to experience genuine close calls.

Note that fudging is just a tool. It shouldn't be done on every single roll (or more than a few percent of rolls). Fudging doesn't even have to be done on a roll. In my last campaign, an assassin succefully snuck in the PC's camp and, based on the critical hit rules of our table, killed the monk outright in her sleep. The player playing the bard, said, "oh, can it be me? I'd like to roll a new character." Clearly, it was more fun for all involved to switch it up and kill the bard. So the bard was murdered.

[ETA] I guess this was actually a fudged die roll, since it was a random determination of which sleeping PC was the target.

 

[Arilyn]

Me added in the numbers.
ALL PRAISE THE HOLY ARILYN.
1. HOLY MOLLY. IN a game of chance using dice, the dice should rule. NAY SATHY HOLY ARILYN
2. No. The dice just roll. Against the group.
3. TRUE. In some games. But hey. Dice rules.
4. pass on this. My bigger sister is still mad at me for beating her in "SORRY" four games in a roll. And I was five at the time.
5. Perhaps your players need to learn that the dice are the creators of their fates. Or just use average damage.
6. was stolen by the EVIL SINISTER SAELORN!
7. I have walked away from tables due to bad players, players doing something STUPID, players doing something totally smart, or dice hating us all. I did walk away recently for 5 minutes when PVP started.

Wow, I think I hit a nerve.

 

[iserith]

I would say fudging is ultimately a correction for a failure to set appropriate stakes before the roll. If that can be corrected upstream, there's no reason to fudge.

 

[Arilyn]

Note that fudging is just a tool. It shouldn't be done on every single roll (or more than a few percent of rolls). Fudging doesn't even have to be done on a roll. In my last campaign, an assassin succefully snuck in the PC's camp and, based on the critical hit rules of our table, killed the monk outright in her sleep. The player playing the bard, said, "oh, can it be me? I'd like to roll a new character." Clearly, it was more fun for all involved to switch it up and kill the bard. So the bard was murdered.

[ETA] I guess this was actually a fudged die roll, since it was a random determination of which sleeping PC was the target.

Yes, a tool, used sparingly to help ensure the group is having fun.
I get letting the dice roll where they will to see if you can survive through luck and skill, but role playing games aren't board games and a little judicious nudging by the GM, who is not a player, can enhance the experience for many tables.

For me, stupid deaths are boring. Player is just going to make a new character anyway. TPKs are worse, and there are better ways to make players suffer from failure...

Does this mean death is off the table? Of course not. But in my game, a player is not going to be killed through a string of ridiculously bad dice rolls or 5 minutes into the game.

 

[iserith]

I wonder if anyone's ideas about character death are different when it comes to one-shots. I run a lot of those and, in many cases, they are even more difficult than my regular campaign. My thinking is that even though I have no expectation of a character surviving in my regular campaign, that's truer still in a one-shot where the character won't be played in a subsequent session.

I ran a one-shot last night, for example, in which 3 of the 4 PCs died. Of course, it was Death House, so it should be no surprise that was a possible if not likely outcome and I pulled no punches. Every PC was knocked out at least once, some several times, during the course of the adventure, culminating in the deaths of three PCs in the end. The players had an absolute blast.
[MENTION=6816042]Arilyn[/MENTION]: As to the "string of ridiculously bad dice rolls" or a character dying "5 minutes into the game," I would wonder why you're rolling at all if those kinds of outcomes can come up. Why not just change the stakes to something where failure is more palatable? Then there's no need to fudge.

 

[jasper]

Wow, I think I hit a nerve.

no. But I did have decaffe this morning. And if you are fudging more than once per game, change games.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I would say fudging is ultimately a correction for a failure to set appropriate stakes before the roll. If that can be corrected upstream, there's no reason to fudge.

So you could 're-wind' to fix the problem (some folks don't like that sort of thing, others are fine with it), or just that you need to be infallible, up front?

Also, fudging can cover for system deficiencies, as well as framing or stakes-setting or pick-your-game-theorist-loaded-label 'mistakes' before the check.

And, of course, it can give the player that needs it the illusion that his choice or check matters when it really shouldn't, or that a risk is being taken when the DM would prefer certainty - the sorts of things which aid in establishing & maintaining immersions.