shilsen said:
Nope. The game is full of fudging to allow PCs to survive. We call them rules because they are codified by the game designers. The Evasion ability is fudging to cause some PCs to take less damage on a successful save than the dice say they should. Resist Energy is fudging to allow PCs to take less energy damage than the dice say they should. Dodge is fudging that allows a PC to avoid being hit by an attack that the dice says should hit, as is Mobility, or for that matter, Armor Class as a whole. Rules are codified fudging. Every time you add a rule, you're adding codified fudging.
In short, for me, fudging is when it's done arbitrarily. Rules are when it's not.
Ok, appologies for using the term gamist. That was my bad.
However, I do disagree with the point that codified hero points are greatly different from fudging.
In all the above examples, and the examples that others have given, the player (or the GM) has changed the odds before the result of the dice is known. I have no problems with that. Adding armor does not make me immune to damage, but, it does make me harder to hit. Fair enough. Taking dodge means that I didn't take Iron Will, so it balances in the wash anyway. Elements are added or subtracted before the die is thrown, and that will affect the odds, but not definitively determine the result.
Move away from D&D for a second and look at roulette. I can bet a single number and have a 1:36 chance of winning. I can bet 2/3rds of the table and get a 66% chance of winning. What I can't do is move the ball after it stops. And that's what hero points do.
Take a cleric with the luck domain. He can reroll a single die roll. Seems like he's moving the ball right? But, the problem is, he cannot know the result of the first roll before deciding to reroll. He might think he knows, but, he's not sure. Here's a forex: Our Lucky Cleric is making a save vs a death effect. After mods, he needs to roll a 13. Of course, he doesn't know this beforehand.
He rolls a 12. Now, he can reroll or he can stand pat. But, even if he rerolls, he has a 60% chance of not doing any better. Even on the reroll, all he has done is improve his odds, not determined the outcome.
Now, give that same cleric hero points. He knows that he fails on a 12 and THEN decides to use a Fate point. He automatically succeeds. He has taken his fail and mulliganned it into a success. He's retconned the results of the game.
He's fudged.