D&D 5E Would you change a monster's hit points mid-fight?

[ExploderWizard]

Mod Edit: The rules here are well known - if you feel a need to discuss moderation, take it to PM or e-mail. ~Umbran

 

[Tony Vargas]

And yet somehow it's wrong for a player to walk away?

I disagree. I'm not the DM's slave. We're both human beings, and socially we're co-equals.

The DM's also doing a lot more work to entertain you and the other players than each of those players is likely putting into their characters (typically, each for their own agenda).

But, yes, it's fine for a dissatisfied player to leave a campaign - usually best for all involved, if there aren't other relationship dynamics to deal with.

 

[SirAntoine]

Unless of course those interests include playing a game.



Jeebus. What you DON'T know about rule zero could barely fit in the Astrodome. Yes, it is true that the DM is in charge of the game and not the rulebook. There will be situations that require judgment calls and the DM is expected to make fair decisions. There may be factors involved in situations that the players are unaware of, that the DM needs to account for. Rule 0 does not mean that the DM decides everything on a whim.





Again, there is wide excluded middle between playing strictly by the written rule and just going with whatever you feel like at the moment. Serious question-If you can ignore anything you like whenever, for whatever reason, why bother with dice? Don't they just get in the way if they can produce unwanted results?




Likewise, the DM should respect the players (without which there is no game) and not advertise one style of game then secretly run another. A person's time is valuable. Wasting it because you think that you know what they want better than they do is arrogant enough to warrant a walkout.



There is no easy way to say this so I won't sugar coat it. If you have to lie to a player to convince him/her to play in your game than you suck as a DM. Full stop.




So above you say that lying in order to retain a player is fine and here you say that running a game opposite of the one proposed is a breach of trust, then in the same breath say that a complete fudge-fest ISN'T a breach of said trust. Oh Wow.

Hey, I am being serious. You can't do that, I suspect for anyone. If you want to improve your game, take my advice.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Hey, I am being serious. You can't do that, I suspect for anyone. If you want to improve your game, take my advice.

While the tone of the message could use improvement, I have to agree with one of ExploderWizard's central points:

If you have to lie to your players to keep them in your game, something is seriously wrong.

Fudging things, and then explicitly saying you do not do so when asked about it? That is a lie. I do not like being lied to. I would, in fact, prefer to hear the honest answer, even if it did mean that I left the group. I probably wouldn't leave over that, just so we're clear, but I WOULD leave if I found out I was being lied to. If the DM is going to lie about fudging rolls or behind-the-screen numbers, what else will be lied about? How can I possibly make informed decisions for my character when I cannot trust the only source of information about what my character knows?

Now, if this is a once- or twice-a-campaign kind of thing, and the DM admits to it if questioned and provides some kind of reasonable justification (e.g. "I hadn't expected you guys to get three crits in a row; that particular bad guy was meant to run away and would be important later, I just wanted to give her the chance to DO that"), then I have no problems whatsoever, and would in fact agree that that "fudging" could be to the betterment of the game. But if this is happening regularly, and to things other than just HP, and is essentially the DM arbitrarily modifying difficulties and challenges to "control the direction of the game" or something like that? I'm going to be a very unhappy camper. The DM should roll with the punches, not rewrite things whenever it's convenient--that's a railroad masquerading as a free world, which is bollocks.

Edit:
To put this in a different light, SirAntoine, how would you feel if you found out that all of your players fudged their ability scores at character creation, and then lied to you when you asked if they had legitimately rolled them? Would that upset you? Would you ask such players to leave specifically because of their dishonesty? (Assume, for the sake of argument, that you are allowing people to bring in characters that they rolled at home, rather than characters created in front of you; I have no idea what your actual preferences are for how characters are created.)

 

[ExploderWizard]

To put this in a different light, SirAntoine, how would you feel if you found out that all of your players fudged their ability scores at character creation, and then lied to you when you asked if they had legitimately rolled them? Would that upset you? Would you ask such players to leave specifically because of their dishonesty? (Assume, for the sake of argument, that you are allowing people to bring in characters that they rolled at home, rather than characters created in front of you; I have no idea what your actual preferences are for how characters are created.)

Why would that matter? Followed to its natural conclusion nothing the players have or choose cannot be nullified with a sprinkling of behind the screen magic. Let them have all 18's if makes them feel better. If the game is just an episode of "Who's line is it anyway" then the points don't matter.

 

[SirAntoine]

And yet somehow it's wrong for a player to walk away?

I disagree. I'm not the DM's slave. We're both human beings, and socially we're co-equals.

Every DM you ever had may have fudged without your knowledge. If your favorite campaign of all time included fudging, would you want to take it back?

 

[billd91]

Lots of straw men blowing about in here. Must be a blustery day.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Why would that matter? Followed to its natural conclusion nothing the players have or choose cannot be nullified with a sprinkling of behind the screen magic. Let them have all 18's if makes them feel better. If the game is just an episode of "Who's line is it anyway" then the points don't matter.

The point was to present SirAntoine with a situation where he was the one being lied to, to see what his response would be. I decided to keep the positions fixed (that is, SirAntoine as DM) and change who was the one fudging rolls and then falsely asserting that the rolls were not fudged. I'm not considering the effect of later DM fudging, because that wasn't the point of the question.

 

[SirAntoine]

That's great. Your players were on board with the game and you were honest with them. I never claimed to have an issue with an honest DM

Except you wouldn't even play in their group, right? And how many times have you dissed fudging and people who defend it?

 

[Greg Benage]

If your favorite campaign of all time included fudging, would you want to take it back?

Well...it would certainly be diminished, wouldn't it? There's an obvious analogy here with, um, human relations and the possibility of one participant, um, faking in order to produce what, in their view, would be a better experience. No one likes a faker.