Do you "save" the PCs?

[Raven Crowking]

1) Nope. If powerful regeneration was important to the area I wouldn't discard it. It would be very obvious to anyone there what was happening. There would certainly be alternative ways of dealing with the situation other than chopping through a roomful of augmented skellies.

2) As per #1

3) Could only happen if handed material to run verbatim on a playtest.

4) See #3

5) See #3

6) If I added the extra monsters then I would have added additional rewards as well. I would let the extra monsters stand in that situation. The players can learn on the fly or suffer a TPK.

7)

8) I would rather have a reputation as a killer DM instead of setting up my game for major league action then playing teeball once the PC's are at bat.

I would have just given EW some XP here to chime in that I agree with his responses, but I have to spread some around.


RC

 

[ExploderWizard]

And, how does changing a monster's die roll have anything to do with the player's controlling the action? The players have no control here either way. Whether their fate is left to the dice or to the DM, at no point are they masters of their own fate. Barring, of course, game mechanics like in Mutants and Masterminds which explicitly give them this power.

The power of the players to control their own fate doesn't require mechanics or any ability to manipulate the dice.

These situations will always come back to the question of why.

Example: The party is fighting a group of monsters that are too powerful to defeat.

Why?

If the answer is because it was the first encounter scheduled for the evening for a single fall and a 60 minute time limit then you have an answer.

If the answer is because the party had the element of surprise and ambushed the monsters because, heck they might have decent treasure then you have an answer.

As the DM of the above example which situation of the two do you think would be the most appropriate to fudge a bit?

What blows my mind is this total unwillingness to accept even the possibility that it could be good. Raven Crowking flat out states that it is 100% wrong. Ariosto has compared it to blowing up your campaign with an asteroid. I'm sure there are other examples.

For some people fudging is only bad because they would like for the game to remain a game and not some other activity that fudging turns the play session into. That is the main reason I see fudging as bad. It isn't the end of the world, just the end of the game.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Too true. However, the incredibly boring, bad, and crappy stuff can also come from exactly the same place.

Hey, I agree with you here!

The height to which you can rise is, IMHO, inextricably linked to the depths to which you can fall.

(Not that there is a parity between them in actual play experience, of course, as players presumably attempt for the heights and succeed more often than they fail dismally! )

RC

 

[ExploderWizard]

If the expected outcome is as described above, then the game can be cratered if the mechanics of the game don't ensure that such an outcome results.

What this describes is not a game.

 

[Raven Crowking]

But it is possible to fudge a die roll, for instance, without then making every decision that way.

Obviously.

Indeed. Say you fudge one out of every 100 rolls, just for argument's sake. Does this tiny change have any real effect on how the players control their actions, or indeed play the game?

It it had no effect, just for argument's sake, why are you doing it?

I would suggest that, simply because you are doing it, it follows that you believe it has an effect.

I'm sorry, but no. Pretending that a monster rolled a 10 on his attack instead of a 17 at times is not in the same ballpark as suddenly changing a character's ability scores or having the world blow up all of a sudden. It's not in the same universe.

Agreed.

Raven Crowking flat out states that it is 100% wrong.

Raven Crowking accepts that a particular GM's makeup of strengths and weaknesses might make fudging the best option for that GM. Raven Crowking also argues that the set of GMs to which this applies is vanishingly small. Far less than 1% of the total population.

However, IME, the number of GMs who are not good judges of their effectiveness is remarkably high. I have, myself, failed in this test on many occasions. Indeed, I have seldom (if ever) encountered a GM that can be trusted to be fully able to judge his or her own effectiveness.

Raven Crowking's camp, who asserted that it is wrong for anyone to fudge.

You're not wrong to not fudge, you're wrong to suggest that it's wrong that I fudge. Again, if that's not your position (for it was Raven Crowking's), I apologize.

Again, Raven Crowking accepts that a particular GM's makeup of strengths and weaknesses might make fudging the best option for that GM.

But, just as you would (I hope) suggest that I would be wrong to suddenly change a character's ability scores or have the world blow up all of a sudden -- even if I claimed that worked in my game -- I do not feel I am wrong in suggesting that not fudging might improve ove 99% of all games in which fudging now occurs.

You might be an exception; if so, you have beaten the odds IME and IMHO.

You raise an interesting point about it getting late and the players being tired though. I've noticed that the quality of decision making goes waay down in these situations. How does one handle that kind of thing in a game which is mostly about challenging the players?

One option would be for the DM to call a halt to proceedings (though if he's tired too it's unlikely he'd notice). Another would be to allow a redo next session if it was felt that everyone had been 'off'.

Those are both acceptable options, the first being the best.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Perhaps it would help if we were able to discuss an example of fudging that is not intended to cover a weakness in design or implementation, or to promote the outcome the GM desires? Frankly, I cannot think of one. But I keep hearing that they exist, so that direction might be fruitful for discussion?

Can anyone give me one such example?


RC

 

[Sammael]

If a game has mechanics that allow the GM or players to fudge without attempting to deceive the other party, said fudging causes no problem IMHO. But, the minute you (and not your NPCs or PCs) are trying to deceive the other party as to how you are using the game rules, there is, IMHO a problem.

I came to a similar conclusion myself some time ago, and introduced Fate points to compensate. Fate points are rare and, unlike some other systems (Warhammer FRP), never reverse the outcome to "it didn't happen."

Fate Points

A player can use a single Fate Point per encounter to influence the narrative in some way. This can be as simple as negating a potentially deadly blow or as complex as pulling a cinematic move to succeed at a seemingly impossible task. You may use your Fate Point to help another character.

Some examples of Fate Point use include:

• Proactively gain a +10 bonus to a single check
• Proactively gain +10 to AC against a single attack
• Gain an interrupt standard action
• Reroll a single roll (whether a check or a damage roll)
• Turn a critical failure into a regular failure
• Turn a regular success into a critical success (even if you do not have skill ranks)
• If you are about to die, you can reduce the amount of damage taken so that you are at your death threshold, unconscious and stable (you are unconscious even if you have the ability to remain conscious while dying, e.g. the Diehard feat)

Fate Points are a built-in fudge mechanism for the players, provided you make sure your players have some Fate Points before particularly challenging encounters. The limit of 1 Fate Point per encounter ensures that players don't rely on Fate Points to solve all their problems.

 

[Umbran]

Or so close to empty that it makes little practical difference whether there is an empty set or a set in which .00000000001% of games fall.

I do believe that there are GMs who believe that thier fudging helps their game; that is quite a large set. The GMs who are right about this is a vanishingly small set.

If anyone has wondered at what some of us have meant by "OneTrueWayism" - above we have a prime example. Perhaps the most politely phrased example I've seen in a while, but also one of the most clearly put.

 

[pemerton]

I said:

Suppose that the ultimate outcomes is known to all participants to be "an exciting fantasy adventure in which the PCs bring about some changes to the gameworld that have both ingame significance and metagame thematic consequence." Knowing this need not spoil the fun and excitement of play. The fun and excitement of play consists in finding out exactly what the ingame change, and the metagame theme, are.

(Btw, this is not just a hypothetical example. Games like HeroQuest, The Dying Earth, and (I would argue) D&D 4e are all designed to ensure that this ultimate outcome is the result of play.)

If the expected outcome is as described above, then the game can be cratered if the mechanics of the game don't ensure that such an outcome results.

ExploderWizard responded:

What this describes is not a game.

I don't understand. How are HeroQuest, The Dying Earth, The Burning Wheel, My Life With Master, etc, etc, etc , not games? What is the special criterion for "gamehood" such that only RPGs where the goal of play is to keep the PCs alive are games? Presumably, by this criterion, even most superhero games, or many Traveller and Runequest games, would not be games.

I really don't understand.

 

[Raven Crowking]

If anyone has wondered at what some of us have meant by "OneTrueWayism" - above we have a prime example. Perhaps the most politely phrased example I've seen in a while, but also one of the most clearly put.

Well, thank you for at least suggesting that I am polite.

If there is a purpose to your post, apart from attempting to be insulting, I would like to hear it. As I argue GMs shouldn't fudge, or cops shouldn't commit crimes, I would also argue that mods shouldn't attempt to insult other posters.

OTOH, hardly an insult, so I guess you're off the hook. (To whatever degree you were on the hook, of course! ) If the only alternative to "OneTrueWayism" is "Absolute Relativism", then I guess you've got me. Just so long as you remember to exclude the middle!

I also believe that the set of games for which setting the players on fire is a good idea is vanishingly small......much smaller, even, than the set in which fudging is a good idea. I also believe that the set of times when it is a good idea to run a red light is vanishingly small. There are, I guess, quite a few things where I am not willing to accept that things are completely relative.

Of course, that probably stems from my belief that most people have much more in common than they differ. Philosophies that require that we rewrite the basics of ethics or psychology to make sense of what we are told do cause me to question the underlying basis of that philosophy. Guilty as charged.

However, I would also like to point out that there are many, many ways in which one can frame a game while either fudging or not fudging dice. Probably an infinite set.

This is hardly OneTrueWayism. InfiniteTrueWayism seems more appropriate.

But, just as one can have an infinite set that excludes some items, I feel that some level of judicious discretion -- valuation, if you prefer -- is acceptable. Or should be acceptable, anyway, especially given the questions asked in the OP (which, IMHO, seem to require some valuation to answer).

YMMV, of course.


RC