In what other games is fudging acceptable?

[Umbran]

Why is any result more fun than another in an activity devoid of competition?

There's no clear and simple answer for that. Why does anyone like anything more than something else? Personal tastes and desires.

 

[Jhaelen]

Er, no? If we're playing Pandemic or Arkham Horror, I'm not likely to have any patience with fudging of any sort. I assume you're thinking of different games than those, because I've never seen any evidence that anyone fudges at cooperative board games.

I don't recall it ever happening in Pandemic, but it's a fairly easy game.

In Arkham Horror? All the time. Since the rules are frigging complicated and you can accumulate a ton of equipment and spells over time what happens is that less experienced players have trouble deciding on their best options. They'll say something like "I move over here and attack the monster." Then we turn over the monster chit and notice that the character will go insane before he's able to do anything. The next thing that happens is either that we look over the character's options as a group and if we notice something that might help to avoid that, e.g. a spell. If not, the player will typically choose a different action, i.e. we make a roll-back.

I'm starting to wonder if some of the posters have a different idea than I do what 'fudging' means. My definition of fudging is something like: "Ignoring or reinterpreting a rule or die-roll if it's likely to be un-fun for a player (or all players)."

In cooperative board games the goal is typically to avoid one of the players getting frustrated because he has no good grasp on the rules. The other goal is to just keep playing:
Instead of forfeiting and starting all over, we roll-back part of the actions and continue even if we effectively already lost. This seems to be a good option for games that take a very long time to setup and play.

The goal isn't to make sure we win every time but that the game continues long enough to be fun. We don't count a game that we rolled-back a win. Winning isn't important, having fun playing the game is!

 

[prosfilaes]

I would imagine that fudging is acceptable in any cooperative or at least non-competitive game.

Again, I don't know what games you're thinking of when you're talking about cooperative games, but the games that come to my mind are Pandemic and Arkham Horror. And in neither case would I find fudging acceptable. If your opponent is a person who can agree to the fudging, that's one thing. (We had a lot of takebacks in Imperial tonight.) If your opponent is the game, well, you can fudge your way to victory and it will never complain, but where's the challenge in that?

The most obvious example is one result can knock a player completely out of the game. And if the party is in no position to deal or fix that situation... then the player is left with nothing to do for as long as that fact is true.

I'd say that's definitely a case of one result being less fun that another in an activity devoid of competition.

John Wick wrote a column for Pyramid Magazine about one of his greatest campaigns, the one where he had one PC in jail for several sessions on end. He said the player was really pumped when he was finally released.

Or alternately you can just listen to the people here, who find that a game without that possibility is less fun then a game with, who would rather be knocked out once in a while rather then have battles where there's no chance of being knocked out.

 

[prosfilaes]

In cooperative board games the goal is typically to avoid one of the players getting frustrated because he has no good grasp on the rules.

I can't say I've ever had that problem with AH.

The other goal is to just keep playing:
Instead of forfeiting and starting all over, we roll-back part of the actions and continue even if we effectively already lost. This seems to be a good option for games that take a very long time to setup and play.

That doesn't really strike me as fudging to me. It's too large scale, too overt. It's also not something I'd do, but to each their own, and I'm not a huge fan of Arkham Horror in any case.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The most obvious example is one result can knock a player completely out of the game. And if the party is in no position to deal or fix that situation... then the player is left with nothing to do for as long as that fact is true.

I'd say that's definitely a case of one result being less fun that another in an activity devoid of competition.

When playing a game in which there is a possibility of getting knocked out of action, is it not reasonable for a participant to be aware of, and thus prepared for that?

I do think that games with a high degree of peril for the PCs should feature either backup replacement characters or a super fast generation system for PCs that get players back in action quickly.

A well prepared DM can ensure that the loss of one or more PCs doesn't mean the end of participation for the players. Ready to play NPCs, or even a villiain for a short time can keep a player actively involved in the game until a more permenant replacement character can join in.

If the player isn't interested in playing anything but his/her deceased PC then the fault of having nothing to do rests with the player.

Problems arise when players say that they want to face real risk of failure but don't mean it. If there is indeed no chance of getting knocked out of play (at least in a D&D style game) then the entire point of playing a game rather than narrating a story is lost. Why roll the dice at all if success is a guarantee?

 

[Iosue]

This is the thing - most players don't want their PCs to die, but most D&D players do want the possibility of death/failure; it's the possibility of defeat which makes success possible.

I don't disagree. However, I don't think the fudging suggested in the passages I quoted (nor what most "pro-fudging" posters here are suggesting) in any way removes or significantly mitigates that possibility. Unless one defines "fudging" as lying about the result of all or most of the significant die rolls, which I don't think pro-fudge folks are suggesting.

And IME most players who find out their DM fudges are very disappointed, even to the point of quitting the game in some cases.

I don't doubt that, but I think for many players (as evidenced by this thread and the other) it depends on the nature and frequency of fudging.

The 4e DMG (and Mentzer) advocates lying to the players, taking an illusionist approach where the players don't realise what is going on.

Here I disagree. I think they are following an idea present in D&D from early on (and explicitly noted in the 1e DMG) that the dice are there for the fun of the players. What that means is that how they are used will vary from table to table. For some, no fudging because [that] is fun. For others, fun is increased by fudging certain rolls in certain situations as they come up (case-by-case) so that the course of the game isn't dictated by unlucky chance. It goes hand and hand with the idea that the rules are malleable for each DM to create the best game for their players. Rules and dice provide structure. Fudging rolls and rules allows for freedom. Even the freedom not to fudge, depending on the tenor of the table.

 

[Umbran]

If there is indeed no chance of getting knocked out of play (at least in a D&D style game) then the entire point of playing a game rather than narrating a story is lost. Why roll the dice at all if success is a guarantee?

I don't think any of us have said there is *no* chance of getting knocked out of play, or of guarantees. Saying they might fudge one die roll to prevent character death at one particular point does not say they *never* allow PC death.

So, you seem to be asking folks to explain or justify a position they haven't taken.

There is a middle ground, where fudging is used judiciously, and not too frequently, and does not outright guarantee PC success (or failure), but instead only adjusts the timing or level of difficulty.

Or, if fudging does guarantee success or failure, it may well be because the GM has decided the player/PC's efforts may have met the criteria for success (or failure) in the encounter, which may not be limited to eliminating hit points from a creature.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I don't think any of us have said there is *no* chance of getting knocked out of play, or of guarantees. Saying they might fudge one die roll to prevent character death at one particular point does not say they *never* allow PC death.

So, you seem to be asking folks to explain or justify a position they haven't taken.

There is a middle ground, where fudging is used judiciously, and not too frequently, and does not outright guarantee PC success (or failure), but instead only adjusts the timing or level of difficulty.

Or, if fudging does guarantee success or failure, it may well be because the GM has decided the player/PC's efforts may have met the criteria for success (or failure) in the encounter, which may not be limited to eliminating hit points from a creature.

We might be talking past one another on the definition of fudging. Using good judgement in making rulings isn't what I would define as fudging.

Part of a DMs job is knowing when to leave decisions to the dice (and how to assign odds to those rolls) and when to make a judgement call based on relevant factors. It isn't a simple matter of everything being fudged if it isn't rolled for. One does not have to be a slave to random chance.

Once the odds are determined and the die is rolled, changing the result is fudging. If you cannot accept a result a die could produce then don't bother rolling it.

 

[enrious]

We might be talking past one another on the definition of fudging. Using good judgement in making rulings isn't what I would define as fudging.

Part of a DMs job is knowing when to leave decisions to the dice (and how to assign odds to those rolls) and when to make a judgement call based on relevant factors. It isn't a simple matter of everything being fudged if it isn't rolled for. One does not have to be a slave to random chance.

Once the odds are determined and the die is rolled, changing the result is fudging. If you cannot accept a result a die could produce then don't bother rolling it.

And yet even here is a middle ground you're overlooking.

Why insist that every roll of the dice is a binary either/or situation? As has been expressed, often times the roll of the dice is to determine the degree of success or failure, not the occurrence of success or failure.

Thus, the DM may roll to give a natural chance at say 7 of 8 things happening but if the roll is an 8, altering it to one of the other 7.

Artificial bifurication and strawmen are both logical fallacies. There's no need for either if the people arguing that fudging is bad/naughty/wrong fun simply listen to the people who fudge explain how and why they do so.

 

[ExploderWizard]

And yet even here is a middle ground you're overlooking.

Why insist that every roll of the dice is a binary either/or situation? As has been expressed, often times the roll of the dice is to determine the degree of success or failure, not the occurrence of success or failure.

How is this not simply a matter of deciding on odds of various possibilities before rolling? Degree of success or failure is a valid value to determine.

Thus, the DM may roll to give a natural chance at say 7 of 8 things happening but if the roll is an 8, altering it to one of the other 7.

Why roll? Pick the result most suitable from among the choices and go with it.