GM Confessional: I fudged like a Banshee (just not on the dice rolls)

[Piratecat]

This sounds like great DMing. I don't even write down 4e monsters any more; I find something similar, pare back HP, double damage inflicted, reduce defenses by 2, pick the other options I want to change, and describe it as a completely different beast.

The one thing I don't fudge are die rolls to save players!

 

[Oryan77]

I think it is normal for a lot (maybe even most?) DMs to fudge entire NPC stats as they game. But I think it requires a certain skill to be able to do it and still be fair to the players.

I personally don't fudge stats unless I can't avoid it. I over prepare.

A reason I began doing this was because I had bad experiences in 2e with my DM fudging NPC stats all the time. As I became more familiar with playing D&D, I realized that every single NPC I encountered, no matter what kind of NPC he was, was as powerful as I was or more, and was prepared for anything that I tried to do to defeat him.

For example, when I reached 9th level Thief/8th level Fighter in Darksun, I thought I was finally pretty tough. When 4 thugs in the street randomly tried to mug me, I thought to myself, "Oh no, not this time." I was going to teach these guys a lesson, and when they initiated combat, it took 1 round until I was forced to run away. I was the guy with a metal sword and a metal dagger and these were "common" thugs. I thought maybe they just hit hard but had low hitpoints, so I stopped and threw my metal dagger at one that I already wounded. The dagger simply hit him, he pulled it out, said, "Ahh a METAL dagger!" And they ran away with it. Common thugs were just as hard for me at that level as they were when I was level 3. I always got a butt whooping. He never referenced books for stats with these random encounters. I'm sure he didn't even have notes with stats. He just knew what our attacks and Thaco was and created a number for his NPCs to be close or better than that.

I also realized that every time I encountered a magic user, he had just the right spell prepared to counter any of our attacks. I am sure most DMs do this. They don't prepare spell lists because it is a pain in the butt. So they use spells that seem appropriate for the situation. I can't stand that as a player. I would love to spontaneously cast any spell from the PHB as I need it. Oh, this NPC has resistance to fire? Ok, I will cast only cold spells. I was bull rushed off a bridge? No worries, I'll just use Feather Fall even though I would have had no reason to prepare it for the day. No spell slot goes to waste when a DM spontaneously casts NPC spells! But mine sure do.

If you can balance it so that I can't tell that you just happened to be ready for a specific attack, then it is not a problem. But if I constantly feel as if everything I do is pointless, then why bother playing? You would obviously have won D&D.

 

[Umbran]

In my Deadlands game, it is a rare NPC indeed that has a full character sheet.

I recently had call to look back at notes from other games I've run, and I've realized that I'm not just fudging up stats, but session plots as well. In the past I built out some fairly elaborate webs of interrelations of events and NPCs, but these days I make up a lot of them on the fly, as well. I'm not sure if my players notice the difference, to be honest.

I'm thinking of going back, and running at least a short arc of a game in the way I used to, to see if it gets received differently or if is much more difficult to run...

 

[Lwaxy]

In the past I built out some fairly elaborate webs of interrelations of events and NPCs, but these days I make up a lot of them on the fly, as well. I'm not sure if my players notice the difference, to be honest.

But that's what it is all about.

 

[Janx]

Is this really fudging, or just abstracting/simplifying NPC/monster definitions?

[MENTION=158]Henry[/MENTION]/[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] have a link in their sig for their easy-bake NPC definition method. It's equivalent to shortcuts folks have talked about in this thread.

I don't see that as fudging, so much as paperwork reduction. Not defining information or simplyfying the definition process is not the same as changing the definition because you no longer like it during game play.

Fudging in its most commonly accepted form is lying about what the dice roll result was. That is, changing a defined fact (defined at least to the GM) to achieve a result by DM intent.

Only writing down for spells and no skills for an NPC sorceror who will probably die in 6 rounds is hardly the same thing.

 

[Umbran]

Is this really fudging, or just abstracting/simplifying NPC/monster definitions?

I think it is fudging.

Some folks will try to narrowly define fudging down to only those activities they find objectionable. I don't generally find any of these things objectionable in principle (though some applications may be so), so I end up with a more broad definition.

Fudging in its most commonly accepted form is lying about what the dice roll result was. That is, changing a defined fact (defined at least to the GM) to achieve a result by DM intent.

I don't think I could argue that, when I assign a skill value on the fly, that my intent is somehow absent from the proceedings. Nor do I guarantee that the resulting NPC or monster will conform to the rules for PC, NPC, or monster generation as stated in the rulebooks (for whatever game it is). How is not flagrant disregard for the stated rules not fudging?

Just remember, I don't think fudging is a dirty word.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

While fudging isn't a dirty word,

winging =/= fudging.

In my understanding of the terms, winging is tossing together some rudimentary numbers so that you don't have to prep (or because the players went off course and you have to make stuff up on the fly).

Fudging, in its broadest term, is changing the situation because the players are either too powerful, or not enough (or the corresponding monsters are too powerful or not enough) or because the dice "didn't fall where they should".


Fudging, in my understanding, is not "making stuff up on the fly" but rather "making stuff different due to the situation at hand in a metagame sense (another, more limited definition of SOME fudging would be "tailoring").

The alternative (i.e. never fudging) would be creating a very, almost dogmatically "sandboxy" world, in which nothing was ever tailored to the levels and ablities of the pcs.

 

[IronWolf]

Sounds more like winging it, but in either case - yeah, I rarely use fully stated out NPCs. For so many of them it just doesn't matter. If something does come up that requires needing stats it is easy enough to approximate it. It definitely makes game prep a little easier.

Now what I *need* to do is take the time I save from not stating NPCs and put more time into making them "pop to life" in the game. I need more practice at doing that, especially in campaigns that have a large number of NPCs.

 

[Janx]

my apologies for getting pedantic. I don't consider fudging to be a dirty word, but I know some do.

Hence I saw some value to detaching what the OP was doing from lying about dice results.

Phrased the way I said it and not using the word fudge, I see a fair bit of difference in simplying/abstracting/non-defining from lying/changing things that were undefined.

Never mind that I have no problem doing either should a situation arise where either one would be useful to me.

 

[fba827]

if you're a PC, it's called fudging, if you're a DM, it's called DMing.