My DM just told me he fudges rolls....

[JamesonCourage]

Yup, you use the word "cheat."

Yeah. I do. You didn't really address the context of my post, though, so if you have thoughts on it, I'm open to them.

 

[Walking Dad]

If a DM fudges die rolls to make the experience best, why roll the dice at all?

If the DM will ignore a failed save to avoid a first round defeat of the BBEG, why roll the die at all? If the DM will change the damage dealt to avoid killing a PC, why roll the die at all? Etc. etc. etc.

Bullgrit

I like to make good "play" decisions in a game. And I hate the stuff described above. When it is better mechanically to take a "save or suck/die" spell, I will take this spell and want to feel bright about it for taking the more effective spell.
The DM fudging the roll to make my best spell a waste of my round and rewarding the mechanically inferior "fireball boom" spell by not fudging this save it destroys the "game" aspect for me. Good choices should be rewarded and not declared "no-fun / no-climatic".

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I also play mostly PbP lately, with rolls and stats open to everyone to see. So far (the past years) this didn't result in no-fun situations and actually increased the suspension during combat.

Killing the BigBad with one spell can be also memorable in a good way. And the changes are not that high it happens all that often.

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For a middle ground I like the rules in Mutants & Masterminds 3rd, using hero points to "fudge" results, but doing it in the system. Epically with the later option to get a HP as a player when you need it for a sudden complication.

 

[Guest 85555]

Naturally! Roll out in the open! Then fudge the figures behind the scenes if necessary...

That is certainly one approach, but I would still consider that fudging. Don't get me wrong, this is not an absolute thing, you have to be somewhat flexible if you made an honest mistake as GM or something. There will be edge cases in all things. But I really like establishing a sense of consistency and because the players know I don't fudge they approach combat with more caution (and retreat when things go bad).

The system I use actually would make it hard to fudge results behind the scenes (there are ways to do it but it is a much more naturalistic game than say D&D where there is plenty of room to fudge around the rolls). All characters (NPCs and PCs) have the same number of wounds, so I wouldn't be able to get away with having a foe drop early or something.

 

[steenan]

A game requires a social contract - set of rules and expectations that all players (including the GM) share. Without it, a group will, sooner or later, encounter a situation like the one described in the OP, when styles and expectations clash and somebody's fun is ruined.

There is no good answer if fudging is good for the game or not. It depends on what people want and expect. There are also different kinds of what can be called "fudging", at least by some people:

1. Interpreting rules according to their intent, not wording, and removing various loopholes when they show up in game
2. Adding modifiers or overriding rules to have the game world behave in a consistent and sensible way
3. Modifying creature stats on the fly to correct mistakes in encounter balance
4. Overriding rules and rolls to keep characters from dying or otherwise becoming unplayable
5. Overriding rules and rolls to preserve GM's story from random factors (includes 4)
6. Overriding rules and rolls to preserve GM's story from player actions

6 is an obvious sign of railroading. 5 is sometimes called railroading too, but it's accepted by significantly more players. 3 and 4 are expected by some players, accepted by some and loathed by some. 1 and 2 are nearly necessary in all systems with any degree of simulation - trying to put all details in the rules would make them overcomplicated and unusable.


What follows is my personal opinion on the topic:

1 and 2 are normal. 3 and 4 are acceptable if I know about it beforehand, but not otherwise. I don't want to play in a game where 5 or 6 is used, as I don't believe that GM's pre-designed story is any more important than what comes from events in play. Also, if 4 and above are seen as necessary in a group, this group is probably playing a wrong game.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

1. Interpreting rules according to their intent, not wording, and removing various loopholes when they show up in game
2. Adding modifiers or overriding rules to have the game world behave in a consistent and sensible way
3. Modifying creature stats on the fly to correct mistakes in encounter balance
4. Overriding rules and rolls to keep characters from dying or otherwise becoming unplayable
5. Overriding rules and rolls to preserve GM's story from random factors (includes 4)
6. Overriding rules and rolls to preserve GM's story from player actions

Good list. I think there is one other issue that sort of covers the whole list, and also is fundamental in the social contract: If you want a lot of immersion--especially in a system that has flaws for the groups' expected playstyle--then the least immersion-damaging option may be for the DM to quietly fudge away extraneous results. Now, even in this kind of game, I'd want to know that was an option, if not the particulars. But others may not care--or more likely, assume that to be the case.

In a game where you don't care as much about immersion and/or want to balance it with deliberate metagaming as a tool to get the story you want--then it often makes more sense to fix the flaws rather than keep fudging around them. "Action points" and other such currency is a metagaming safety net of just this sort.

Accordingly, I'm fairly convinced that the only logically consistent case that can be made for fudging by an experienced group is ultimately related to preserving immersion.

 

[Dausuul]

A game requires a social contract - set of rules and expectations that all players (including the GM) share. Without it, a group will, sooner or later, encounter a situation like the one described in the OP, when styles and expectations clash and somebody's fun is ruined.

There is no good answer if fudging is good for the game or not. It depends on what people want and expect. There are also different kinds of what can be called "fudging", at least by some people:

1. Interpreting rules according to their intent, not wording, and removing various loopholes when they show up in game
2. Adding modifiers or overriding rules to have the game world behave in a consistent and sensible way
3. Modifying creature stats on the fly to correct mistakes in encounter balance
4. Overriding rules and rolls to keep characters from dying or otherwise becoming unplayable
5. Overriding rules and rolls to preserve GM's story from random factors (includes 4)
6. Overriding rules and rolls to preserve GM's story from player actions

I don't regard 1 and 2 as fudging; to me, fudging implies a level of subterfuge (you don't tell the players you're doing it). As indicated in my post above, I practice 3 to greater or lesser extent depending on the ruleset. I used to do 4 but have discontinued the practice, and I consider both 5 and 6 to be railroading.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Good list.

3. Modifying creature stats on the fly to correct mistakes in encounter balance

When I DM and I notice that this kind of situation is occurring, my normal technique is to modify the behaviour of the creature rather than its stats - maybe it attempts to flee rather than fight to the bitter end against badly wounded foes, maybe the intelligent creatures decide to capture for info or ransom rather than TPK the adventurers, and so on.

 

[was]

I see a lot of straw man arguments in this thread. The "classic fudge" is:

NPC rolls really well for damage. DM puts PC at -8 instead of -12. This gives the other players a couple rounds to scramble rather than killing the PC outright.

Situations like this don't come up very often. Usually no more than once in a session, and generally not most sessions.



This makes sense broadly, but how on Earth would you measure 50/50?

its usually a snap judgement on the the fly..generally based on the current health of the pc's and bbeg and the average damage done by each..and ur right, the easiest way is to fudge the damage rolls and blame it on horrible dice.

 

[Lord Crimson]

I think it's a lot different - the bad rolls for the players and/or the good rolls for the DM still stand, it's just that they get some in-game help. It's like bringing in a relief pitcher in a baseball game.

By the way, while I often have that 'unplanned' ally in reserve, I've only had to use the unplanned ally like that once in 4 1/2 years.

Also, I make all combat rolls (to hit, damage, saving throws) out in the open. Things like NPC reactions and opposed rolls, I do behind the screen because the PCs don't need to see what their bonus is.

You can think it's a lot different. But it isn't in any way other than aesthetically.

You made up a character and put that character someplace they weren't and only revealed the existence of that character when it was necessary to save the party - but pretended that character didn't exist if it wasn't necessary.

Hell, if anything, you've potentially de-protagonized your PCs and fudged at the same time.

The moment you've had that NPC conveniently show up, you've fudged. The moment you have the monster conveniently change targets to the NPC (or even another PC), you've fudged. The moment you have that NPC conveniently armed with some kind of healing magic (or conveniently have some healing magic in the monster's treasure), you've fudged.

I don't think this fudging is a bad thing, mind you. But that's because I acknowledge that a GM is not a computer running an infinitely-detailed simulation tracking exactly where each NPC in the universe actually is and exactly what's the likelihood of said NPC being equipped the way that s/he is and exactly what the "aggro rating" (to borrow from WoW) a given monster has for each combatant in the field. Just like I don't assume the GM is perfectly cognizant of or even interested in every possible outcome when s/he picks up the dice.

This fudging is what the GM must do to be a GM, of course, every time s/he makes a decision - about the existence of an NPC, about what said NPC knows and can or will do, about the power level of the monsters in this particular dungeon or room.

And sometimes the GM unwittingly fudges simply as a result of options s/he didn't think about or realize. Seriously, the number of times I've had monsters fight to the bitter end when I should have had them run or forgot about the NPC that was with the party but wasn't attacking this whole time or choices that I was tactically ignorant of... The list goes on.

But just because you're dressing it up better doesn't make your fudging any less extant.

Or, as Mark points out, better we call it adjudication - because that's what's being done.

Good list.



When I DM and I notice that this kind of situation is occurring, my normal technique is to modify the behaviour of the creature rather than its stats - maybe it attempts to flee rather than fight to the bitter end against badly wounded foes, maybe the intelligent creatures decide to capture for info or ransom rather than TPK the adventurers, and so on.

But, again, modifying behavior is just another form of fudging.

If you or the writer of the monster description initially wrote that creature as "fighting to the bitter end", you're arbitrarily changing those preset behaviors because having it wipe the PCs is no fun. You've fudged. Even if that "preset" wasn't there, you're fudging when you arbitrarily make that decision based on what's convenient (for the PCs, for the story, for the fun, whatever) rather than what is the most brutally efficient.

But you're not a bad GM for that. In fact, you're probably a good GM, since you're attempting to maximize everyone's fun but not TPKing the party because of a bad choice on your part or a run of bad luck on theirs.

But, yet again, you're still fudging.

 

[Dausuul]

When I DM and I notice that this kind of situation is occurring, my normal technique is to modify the behaviour of the creature rather than its stats - maybe it attempts to flee rather than fight to the bitter end against badly wounded foes, maybe the intelligent creatures decide to capture for info or ransom rather than TPK the adventurers, and so on.

I avoid this like the plague. Every time I've done it in the past, the players immediately grasped what I was doing and why, and it left a sour taste in everyone's mouth.

I prefer to silently adjust the monster's hit points or not-yet-used abilities. It's almost impossible to tell that it's happening, and as long as I do it in good faith (that is, re-calibrating the basic encounter difficulty to what I meant it to be, rather than trying to negate the effect of player luck or tactics), I consider it "fair play*." It's worth noting that especially in 4E, almost every time I do this, I'm increasing the monster's hit points rather than reducing them, or boosting its abilities rather than nerfing.

[size=-2]*By which I mean, I would not mind having a DM do it when I was playing, though I would prefer not to know when it was being done.[/size]