Do you "save" the PCs?

[Imaginary Number]

Imaginary Number, I was commenting upon a lengthy text extracted (by Doug McCrae) from West End Games' 1987 Star Wars game.

I read the thread, so I'm well-aware of that. I interpreted your comments on that text as endorsing the position that "fudging" necessarily happens solely in the service of "storytelling" by the DM, and my post was an attempt to rebut that position. If I misinterpreted your comments, I apologize. I'm also interested in hearing why you think "judicious deviation" from the rules is somehow different from "fudging," although after 30+ pages on this topic I can see that we might want to call it a day.

 

[ExploderWizard]

It's interesting. I used to track PC hit points and give the p[layers hints about how hurt they were. I am not sure why, other than assuming it would somehow increase immersion. It didn't really work that way and I don't do such things any more.

I remember discovering recently that the combat example from (I think) the original Basic set has the DM rolling damage for the PCs' hits behind the screen, without telling the PCs how much was scored but merely describing the blow and the remaining health of the enemy (hobgoblins, if I recall) to the players. I have never done this, though I do keep the hit points of the enemies secret behind the screen and use descriptive language to indicate how hurt the enemy may be.

Actually, the DM rolling all damage was a standard rule from basic D&D, and one that we always ignored. Players rolled damage for thier own attacks and the DM rolled damage for monster attacks. Players would know how much damage they had inflicted but not the exact number of remaining hp.

I find it interesting what individual DMs do keep secret. Some keep DCs secret even upon success or failure, while others write the enemy hit points on a card or white board for all to see. How does secret versus "public" information interact with the idea of fudging and immersion and game play?

It depends on the situation. For passive detection purposes merely telling the player to roll will be a giveaway. Other tasks that are being attempted may be easy to measure difficulty before the attempt.

The interaction of public rolls on the perception of fudging is dramatic. If players are suspicious then this is a great way to prove to them that your random rolls are honest.

Rolling in the open can possibly make combat feel very board-game like and less like a struggle taking place within the adventure. It depends on how the group approaches combat and what they enjoy.
If the group really enjoys the tactical angle and making decisions based on the mathematical facts then they are going to need all that data in order to make the informed decisions required.
If the group likes combat to flow as part of the rest of the adventure then too much mechanical data will result in an unwanted tactical exercise.

Laying out all the raw information in combat would be similar to answering a player query about a section of wall during exploration with " Hardness 10, hp 60 per 10 foot section" instead of describing the wall.

While perfectly legitimate, to me its like removing the skin from the game world and running it with the wire frame code.

 

[Ariosto]

I'm also interested in hearing why you think "judicious deviation" from the rules is somehow different from "fudging"

Because I am not about to define myself by your false dichotomy. You claim far too much not only about me but about people on both sides.

Why do you do that? Why do you insist that there must be some other motive for not "fudging" than simply not wanting "fudge"?

It really is that simple! The result of the dice-toss is what I want. That's why I roll the dice in the first place, why I choose the game in the first place.

 

[Hussar]

Actually, you did. You said:



That seems to be saying that characters in my game have a half-life measured in minutes. Feel free to clarify.
/snip

I was pointing out that my EARLY experience in the game was similar to what you stated yours was. I'm not about to go back and swim through the original post, but, you said when you started playing, PC's died like flies.

Thus the PAST TENSE part of what you quoted. It had nothing to do with how you play now.

 

[Ariosto]

Laying out all the raw information in combat would be similar to answering a player query about a section of wall during exploration with " Hardness 10, hp 60 per 10 foot section" instead of describing the wall.

All we're actually talking about here is rolling monster dice in the open. It is not really very similar to something completely different. What it is similar to is your own practice, from which it differs in detail.

I don't recall Jeff Wilder mentioning any commentary on the dice-rolls, or substitution of that for qualitative description, or telling the players the monsters' hit point scores.

Disagree -- but disagree with what is actually proposed, rather than misrepresenting others' positions.

 

[Hussar]

To be completely honest, I haven't fudged a die roll in years. I play over VTT. 99% of all die rolls are done completely in the open, and even those that are "whispered" to myself as the GM are still stored in the transcript. Any fudging I might do would be in the "Oh, look that hit brough the baddie down to 1 hit point, ah screw it, he trips and falls on his sword and dies." Which is a bit of fudging I've done and seen done in many groups.

But fudge a die roll? I actually wouldn't know how.

That being said, I'm actually quite surprised by this thread. Raven Crowking (and others) has argued at length and quite vocally that DM's are the ultimate authority in a game. They should not feel that they have to change for the players or for the mechanics. They should be the masters of the game - with authority over the game, the mechanics and pretty much everything that happes at the table.

But, here, we see that the ultimate authority in his game is actually the dice. Talk about disempowering the DM. It's okay to change the rules, it's okay to over rule a player's wishes, but thou shalt not change a die roll? Ever? Since when do the dice know better what's going to be fun at the table than a good DM?

I mean, we change mechanics to make the game better (for our groups). We create house rules and campaign and setting rules to make our game better. We can tell players "no" whenever the whim hits us. Don't want elves in the game? Tell the player no. I know for a fact that Raven Crowking has argued this many, many times.

But, the DM's authority does apparently have limits. It is limited by the fall of the dice during play.

I'll admit, I play this way a lot of the times. But mostly because, for the past year or so anyway, I have played games where the players have a LOT of editorial control. My last D&D campaign pretty much took death off the table, so, fudging wasn't an issue there either.

But, I'm enough of a DM's authority advocate to say that yup, a DM should know whether a result is good for the game or not.

 

[Ariosto]

Hussar, it is sometimes hard to believe that you really cannot see how it is with one foot that the back-pedaling of a thousand miles begins ...

 

[Nagol]

<snip>

But, here, we see that the ultimate authority in his game is actually the dice. Talk about disempowering the DM. It's okay to change the rules, it's okay to over rule a player's wishes, but thou shalt not change a die roll? Ever? Since when do the dice know better what's going to be fun at the table than a good DM?

I mean, we change mechanics to make the game better (for our groups). We create house rules and campaign and setting rules to make our game better. We can tell players "no" whenever the whim hits us. Don't want elves in the game? Tell the player no. I know for a fact that Raven Crowking has argued this many, many times.

But, the DM's authority does apparently have limits. It is limited by the fall of the dice during play.

I'll admit, I play this way a lot of the times. But mostly because, for the past year or so anyway, I have played games where the players have a LOT of editorial control. My last D&D campaign pretty much took death off the table, so, fudging wasn't an issue there either.

But, I'm enough of a DM's authority advocate to say that yup, a DM should know whether a result is good for the game or not.

The DM remains the ultimate authority. Dice are only rolled when the DM wishes to have a random determination. All that has been suggested is once a random result is called for and rolled, it should be used. If you didn't want a a particular result, it shouldn't have been included in the intital probability distribution.

I change mechanics and options (with player agreement) prior to play. The primary reason is to tailor the game experience to a particular set of genre, setting conceit, or play experience.

I do not change the game rules on a whim during the game -- especially in a manner hidden from player knowledge and explicit agreement.

As for whether a DM is in a better position to know what's "good" for the game, I disagree. In this regard, he is just one of the voices at the table -- a player at the table with a different role. The "good" of the game is very subjective and will vary from participant to participant. The group dynamic and group expectation lead to determining "good" for the game.

I've had characters saved from fairly obvious fudges that hurt the good of the game as I see it. I've seen games lose participation because some players were looking for more challenge/understandable risk/reward than what was on display. I've grown frustrated because making good tactical calls became bad choices as riskier behaviour was cushioned from dealing with failure.

I've also seen the game grow organically in wondrous ways I wouldn't have imagined as a result of the players responding to the losses at the table. That growth simply wouldn't have happened had I fudged.

 

[Hussar]

Nagol - no one, certainly not me, is claiming that fudging can't be abused or mis-used. That's certainly true. I had a DM once who would regularly throw encounters that were way above the party's pay grade at the party, only to fudge willy nilly and "save" the party, time after time.

I think everyone here would agree that that's a bad thing. I know I certainly would.

And, there's been a fairly strong current throughout this thread to characterize fudging in this light. That if you fudge once, you must fudge all the time and that simply isn't true.

To me, fudging a result is just another tool in the DM's toolkit. It's a difficult tool to use, and not one that should get pulled out often, but, like any tool, it has its uses.

Just as you've had games lose participation because of fudging, I've already stated that I lost participation because I refused to fudge. That a little judicious application of creative interpretation of die results would have resulted in a much better experience for everyone at the table.

Just like real life fudge, it's something that should not be used at every chance or opportunity. But, also like real fudge, it can be a good thing if done right.

 

[Hussar]

To give another example, I just recently ran Savage Worlds for the first time. I made a scenario and ran it. The first fight the party ran into, I killed three of the four PC's in the first round. Oops. Now, this was totally due to my own inexperience with the mechanics. 100% my fault.

So, I reached down, (well virtually anyway) stood the PC's back up, took about half the baddies off the board, reduced the remaining baddies considerably in status and reran the encounter.

A pretty obvious example of fudging. No one had a problem with it.

GM's make mistakes. We all do. Sometimes you can spackle up mistakes with a little bit of tipping the dice and no one is the wiser.