Doug McCrae
Legend
Strangely, Gary's fudging is mostly to support something more akin to the first style of play, the wargame approach. Gary fudges to ensure that the skillful player wins more often (not always, but more often) even when the dice say he doesn't.My theory (and it is only a theory) is that there are two broad approaches to D&D and that, depending on which one you use, the issue of fudging is very different.
The first is a wargame approach where the DM creates a series of challenges to overcome. Here fudging the dice looks a lot like cheating -- the challenge of thwarting a tough encounter is gone if the DM makes it too easy. Conversely, to lose in an encounter due to DM fiat is pretty lousy.
The second is story-telling. Here, the idea is to tell an interesting story first and to have neat combat challenges second. Knights of the Old Republic is just as good of a game if, occasionally, one has to reboot after a failed battle. Babylon 5 would have been a much worse series if Sheridan had died from a freak accident in the middle of Season three due to a lucky strike by thugs.
Here randomness is used to make the story go in unexpected directions not to completely derail the plot. Here, I would argue, fudging is completely reasonabel if the makes the story and experience better. Doing this in practice is pretty tricky but I am highly sympathetic to good faith errors on the part of DMs who are trying.
I suspect that much of the issue arises when players and DMs are not on the same page with respect to the the approach to the game. I have played (and enjoyed) both styles.
D&D is a bit like poker, in the sense that, purely through random factors, a skillful player can lose and an unskillful player win. Over time of course, this randomness should even itself out. But that's not enough for Gary, he stacks the deck to make sure the guy who goes all in with two aces hits another two on the river, and so doesn't get beaten by a guy who fluked a straight.