D&D 5E Do you want your DM to fudge?

[EzekielRaiden]

Fudging doesn't always do that, though. The game is designed with a random element and it can handle that random element within certain confines. Unfortunately, as with any bell curve, you will eventually have good luck and/or bad luck happen to an extreme that it falls outside of that range and completely invalidates your choices. That's when fudging should happen. The DM fudging just nudges the situation back into the proper bell curve range and allows your choices to have meaning again. You could still lose, die, win, etc., but it will be because of your decisions and the appropriate amount of randomness, not extreme luck.

Knowing how probability works, and managing risk, is one part of making informed choices.

Having situations dictated to you because they are "more interesting" means you cannot even in principle "manage" that stuff. It's not a function of your choice anymore. It's a function of the DM's opinion.

 

[Li Shenron]

Just think about you being a player at a gaming table, and about your or a random DM that rolls a die behind that screen, or out in the open, be that an attack roll against your PC or otherwise. And then, he tells you the result.

No.

Fudging defies the point of dice. If you don't like randomness, don't roll the dice and choose the outcome. Fudging is the dishonesty of a DM against herself, not able to accept that you can't at the same time ask fate to control the game and always have it on your side.

However, I can imagine that there is one possible kind of fudging that isn't negative. That's when the DM is pretending to roll dice when she really isn't, to let the players believe their PC lives are at stake while the really aren't. If this is done to create "thrilling" feelings, and only the DM knows she's not really gonna let it happen, then at least the whole deception has a purpose: to make the game more fun (assuming it works for a certain group, of course). The difference is that in this case the DM has planned everything in advance: she fixed the outcome, she will pretend to roll dice behind the screen, create tension, but then release it with announcing success. This is not different from movies. I wouldn't consider this really "fudging", instead I see it as playing a non-random game (or single scene/event) with the added trick of make believe it's random.

 

[S'mon]

Of course not. Dice rolls are not story. How we roleplay and speak in character, acting and reacting to what we each come up with creates a story. The dice can change up how our story progresses and gives us new ideas to incorporate, but are in no way necessary, nor a requirement. So if the story is progressing just fine in one direction and an errant die roll would send things careening off in another one... I trust my DM to survey how our story is progressing and determine whether that careen would actually serve the story and our enjoyment of it. Sometimes it might, sometimes it might not. But as I wouldn't see any fudge anyway... I don't care how the story comes out, I'm reacting to it regardless.

So your games are a sort of group story-creation exercise? It's not a pre-written story (like
a published AP or GM-created story) but more of a 'storygame' group authorship thing?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No.

Fudging defies the point of dice. If you don't like randomness, don't roll the dice and choose the outcome. Fudging is the dishonesty of a DM against herself, not able to accept that you can't at the same time ask fate to control the game and always have it on your side.

Well-said, and generally agreed. If the speech was so impressive that you aren't going to accept a failure no matter what the dice say, don't use the dice. If the monster's going to last at least the first round, no matter how good the players' damage is nor how clever their plan is, make your monsters work that way.* If you don't actually want the dice to have final say, don't pretend they do when you're actually choosing it yourself.

However, I can imagine that there is one possible kind of fudging that isn't negative. That's when the DM is pretending to roll dice when she really isn't, to let the players believe their PC lives are at stake while the really aren't. If this is done to create "thrilling" feelings, and only the DM knows she's not really gonna let it happen, then at least the whole deception has a purpose: to make the game more fun (assuming it works for a certain group, of course). The difference is that in this case the DM has planned everything in advance: she fixed the outcome, she will pretend to roll dice behind the screen, create tension, but then release it with announcing success. This is not different from movies. I wouldn't consider this really "fudging", instead I see it as playing a non-random game (or single scene/event) with the added trick of make believe it's random.

At first I thought I disagreed with you, but actually I completely agree. I, too, don't actually consider this fudging--I never even considered it "a kind of fudging" in the first place. I consider it theatrics, equivalent to giving your NPCs funny accents. I still don't care for it--mostly because I think the kind of player that demands dice-rolling in order to enjoy results is being petty and petulant--but if that's what the group needs to feel fear of failure/pleasure in success, so be it.

*For example: give them a feature that makes it so they can't take more than X damage in the first round. Or, if they go below some fraction of their HP (say, 50%, call it bloodied winded!!), they get damage resistance until the end of the first round. Or they have a reaction ability that substantially increases their AC, but can only be used in the first round--or some kind of reaction self-heal. Or make all your monsters flat-out immune to crits, or with a stacking resistance to crits, but only in the first round. As long as the players know that it's really damn hard or even impossible to beat some (or even all) creatures in a single round (it's not necessary to explain precisely why), the specific method doesn't matter.

 

[Pickles III]

Let's see there was the time Steve's Aftermath character managed to fall off a horse, compound fracture his arm and come this close to death... while riding at a walk on a good path.
Ronald's character was killed in Morrow Project while armoured and sitting in the pop-up of a personnel carrier -- by a thrown rock.
There was the time my character managed to kill at least half a dozen people as a doctor -- who was a terrifically skilled surgeon.

I can go on. There are so many that get recounted every so often. "Hah! You think THAT was bad luck! It's nothing compared to..."

The trouble with most of these is that that break immersion for me. When I played Pendragon we bounced from critical failure to critical failure & they drove the story more than decisions or plot considerations. & the story became a farce rather than a drama.

I do think this is orthogonal to fudging though - it's a poor system & DMs who roll for things they probably should not. Fine if you want the Monty Python version of whatever genre you are playing.

 

[DEFCON 1]

So your games are a sort of group story-creation exercise? It's not a pre-written story (like a published AP or GM-created story) but more of a 'storygame' group authorship thing?

No, it's still a GM created plot, but we just don't find the dice to be the end-all-and-be-all of the experience. They are a tool to use just like every other mechanic in the game. Story and character are most important... mechanics come second. But mechanics and dice will certainly influence the direction of how story and character progress, which is why we still use them. For the most part we use the dice as-is because its easy... but as a player I also don't care at all whether the GM has occasionally adjusted a roll to help the story along and make it more compelling.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If the speech was so impressive that you aren't going to accept a failure no matter what the dice say, don't use the dice.

Or... use the dice, see what the say, and adjudicate the story accordingly because the dice are in no way the most important part of the game.

Yes... for many of you the dice are the Voice of God, telling you exactly what happens and you cannot and dare not go against it. Great! Glad that works for you! For the rest of us... they're just a tool. To be used when necessary but never to be beholden to in every situation. There is no reason why they have to be held to a higher standard than the entire rest of the game.

Luckily for everyone... we don't have to play in each other's games. We're free to play the way we want.

 

[S'mon]

No, it's still a GM created plot, but we just don't find the dice to be the end-all-and-be-all of the experience. They are a tool to use just like every other mechanic in the game. Story and character are most important... mechanics come second. But mechanics and dice will certainly influence the direction of how story and character progress, which is why we still use them. For the most part we use the dice as-is because its easy... but as a player I also don't care at all whether the GM has occasionally adjusted a roll to help the story along and make it more compelling.

So ignoring the dice helps the GM maintain the GM-created story? OK, that seems a pretty
traditional approach. Makes sense. Not my cup of tea though.

 

[Nytmare]

I voted "yes" but only because that was the closest choice for me.

If I'm going to a magic show, knowing that they're only tricks isn't going to ruin the experience for me. Knowing how they do the tricks would change my enjoyment, but it would in no way take away from it. Spotting sloppily hidden wires, clumsy sleight of hand, and the sequined assistant climbing out of the back of the mystery box and trying to hide under too-small-for-her table most definitely would.

The same is true for me of an RPG and the DM fudging die rolls.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Or... use the dice, see what the say, and adjudicate the story accordingly because the dice are in no way the most important part of the game.

What is gained by rolling the dice in this scenario? I ask because I am a person that advocates not rolling the dice when you aren't going to go with whatever their result happens to be because the dice are in no way the most important part of the game.

If "adjudicate the story accordingly" and "adjudicate the story as the dice dictate" are not the exact same thing - skip the dice and just adjudicate the story accordingly. It's the same end result as rolling the dice and then ignoring them because they didn't match the desire outcome, but has the benefits of taking less time to resolve, and having no potential to create a situation in which players begin to wonder when, if ever, the dice rolls and actions behind them ever actually matter.

As you say, dice are just a tool... I just don't see why anyone would pretend to use that tool when the tool isn't at all needed, rather than just not use that tool.