I totally and completely disagree with this I feel being a slave to the rules is what disrupts immersion for storytellers and method actors and even casual players.
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D&D 5E Would you change a monster's hit points mid-fight?
- Thread starter Jester David
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I totally and completely disagree with this I feel being a slave to the rules is what disrupts immersion for storytellers and method actors and even casual players.
My comment wasn't so much "be a slave to the rules", which I completely agree can be stifling and bad, as "if the rules constantly fail to provide a desired experience, then maybe they are bad rules."
This I agree with some what. Sometimes it is not that rules are bad but that they may be a bad fit for the game style being attepted.
I must be misunderstanding here. You're saying changing a monsters hit points is cheating, but having more monsters simply show up is perfectly valid?
Either something is being lost in the translation or I've entered some sort of Bizarro world.
Further explanation is required.
Ok, I'll explain.
Changing a current monster's HP on the fly makes every action leading up to that point meaningless.
Adding more new monsters to a scene doesn't re-write history, it changes the future.
Retconning should happen only in rare circumstances, such as a mistake by the DM or players who misinterpreted the scene and the DM feels the way it went down wouldn't be fair in light of this. It happens.
I also take mild exception to the idea that 5th edition is focused around "encounters" with some kind of pre-set, static, difficulty level that can't change in response to events dynamically. It's the job of the DM to not be a dick, or try to force PCs to do certain things, but having new monsters start coming in is a standard tool in the DM's toolbox. My example was a way to give PCs a choice in the matter, stay one more round to finish off the boss in light of his allies showing up, or risk getting overwhelmed. That's totally fair.
I should also say there's a wide grey area for Deus Ex Machine type events that a DM can drop in mid-fight or mid-adventure. Some like "rocks fall, you die" are so heavyhanded they would probably result in players quitting. But others like, the sounds of your combat alert others and the dragon's roar has brought his draconian minions rushing in to his rescue. As a DM I don't like static adventures, the fact that you can react to events in real-time is what makes D&D great. DMs do have Deus Ex Machina powers, it's a question of how sutbly they use or abuse that power. I just think altering HP on the fly is a cheap way to DM, it's lazy and there are better ways. It's not just lazy, but actually cheating. Where does it say a DM can't alter the difficulty or challenge or a combat after it's begun? Who ever told you life was fair?
Dynamic combats are way more interesting than those that have a guaranteed outcome and fixed pieces. I like the fact that I can add more pawns or conversely have some run away on a whim. It's what makes being a DM great. But you don't do these things to be mean to players, you do it to give them an exciting adventure. If there is no real danger, or players are crushing enemies, it's not only recommended but a good DM's duty to react to changing circumstances. Within reason. Hard and fast rules don't always apply, and DMing isn't a science, it's an art. But there are lessons you learn over the years, and one of them is that players who know the DM will fudge in their favor or roll behind the curtain are being deprived of the benefit of that attachment to their characters that can only come as a result of playing fairly and by the rules for both sides.
Changing a monster's HP on the fly is not a "ruling", it's cheating. The current HP of a creature is not something that requires a "ruling", because if it did then player's dice rolls and actions are retconned and erased from history. That is a violation of trust.
Adding more monsters in, or having some run away, is not a violation of trust, because there is no, and there shouldn't be, any expectation from the players that combats have static difficulty ratings. Leave that to simpler games. If D&D isn't being played dynamically, it's not approaching its true potential, and I think you are better off playing something else.
Static combats are lame.
I have to wonder if those of you insisting on using the word cheating realize how offensive it is in this context. Obviously you feel that not only are we bad DMs but we are also dishonest. How can there possibly be any rational discussion when you are choosing to come at it from this point of view?
cheat
CHēt/Submit
verb
gerund or present participle: cheating
1.
act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage, especially in a game or examination.
"she always cheats at cards"
Please tell me how shaving off a few HP to speed up the end of combat is cheating how is the DM gaining an advantage? Also please tell me if I have a monster go down at 3 HP instead of waiting until 0 how I have undone everything the players have done before?
cheat
CHēt/Submit
verb
gerund or present participle: cheating
1.
act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage, especially in a game or examination.
"she always cheats at cards"
Please tell me how shaving off a few HP to speed up the end of combat is cheating how is the DM gaining an advantage? Also please tell me if I have a monster go down at 3 HP instead of waiting until 0 how I have undone everything the players have done before?
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I have a question those of you adamantly opposed to ever fudging where do you fall on the player type according to Robin's Rules of Good game mastering? As a player are you more of power gamer or tactitrcan as opposed to a method actor or story teller?
The reason I am asking this is because I do think what kicks you get out as a player influence you as a DM. Power gamers, butt kickers and especially tacticians rely on knowing the rules and making their choices of play based on the rules. So if a DM fudges or uses rule O that can be seen as mitigating their choices and thus interfering in what they enjoy in the game.
But there are more ways to play then just this and the method actors and story tellers have as much right to enjoy the game as the other type of players and for them never fudging even if that means denying them what they most enjoy in a game is seen as bad DMing.
So as a DM don't you think part of your job is to identify what your players like best and try and accommodate them to some extent. There has been a lot of talk about dishonesty here and one thing I consider very dishonest is a DM who is not upfront with players and does not comes out and says I think your style of role play is badfun and I have no intention of ever accommodating you as a player. Because that is what I am reading here with words like cheating and cheaters being thrown around to describe rule O.
I don't think that there is a badfun way to play the game I do acknowledge that there are different play styles.
One of the biggest issues when it comes to players and DMs having issues that ruins the fun for them is based on miscommunication. I consider it a huge miscommunication when a DM does not acknowledge that maybe because of their own prejudice on styles of play that they should not be the DM for certain players. Just talking to players is often enough to get an idea on what they want out of a game. If you can bring yourself to bend to allow a certain playstyle in your game then you need to be honest and say that.
For myself I hate DMing for casual players I will play with them but I am upfront that as a DM they annoy me and are not a good fit for my table. I will also be upfront that if you are mainly a butt kicker looking for a game that is mainly butt kicking then you most likely won't have fun in my game. This is not a judgement that they play wrong just that they play differently.
The reason I am asking this is because I do think what kicks you get out as a player influence you as a DM. Power gamers, butt kickers and especially tacticians rely on knowing the rules and making their choices of play based on the rules. So if a DM fudges or uses rule O that can be seen as mitigating their choices and thus interfering in what they enjoy in the game.
But there are more ways to play then just this and the method actors and story tellers have as much right to enjoy the game as the other type of players and for them never fudging even if that means denying them what they most enjoy in a game is seen as bad DMing.
So as a DM don't you think part of your job is to identify what your players like best and try and accommodate them to some extent. There has been a lot of talk about dishonesty here and one thing I consider very dishonest is a DM who is not upfront with players and does not comes out and says I think your style of role play is badfun and I have no intention of ever accommodating you as a player. Because that is what I am reading here with words like cheating and cheaters being thrown around to describe rule O.
I don't think that there is a badfun way to play the game I do acknowledge that there are different play styles.
One of the biggest issues when it comes to players and DMs having issues that ruins the fun for them is based on miscommunication. I consider it a huge miscommunication when a DM does not acknowledge that maybe because of their own prejudice on styles of play that they should not be the DM for certain players. Just talking to players is often enough to get an idea on what they want out of a game. If you can bring yourself to bend to allow a certain playstyle in your game then you need to be honest and say that.
For myself I hate DMing for casual players I will play with them but I am upfront that as a DM they annoy me and are not a good fit for my table. I will also be upfront that if you are mainly a butt kicker looking for a game that is mainly butt kicking then you most likely won't have fun in my game. This is not a judgement that they play wrong just that they play differently.
No, it doesn't. Sometimes it actually validates the choices made, provided they were good ones...
The two are exactly the same. In both cases you are, on the fly, adding or subtracting from the world that was previously created. This point is so obvious that I am beginning to think some of the anti-fudgers are being disingenuous.
On this we absolutely agree. The choices the players make and way the dice fall do have to impact the game, sometimes severely, but if you allow the dice to ruin any fun that your players are having then I think perhaps other options should possibly be explored.
Slow down, and consider very carefully the language you're using here.
Again, you are arguing my side, but I'm not sure why you can't see that.
Life isn't fair, true. Now I can't speak for everyone, but the last time I checked D&D was a game.
Again, we completely agree, although one man's reason is another man's folly.
Saying it's okay to change the number of monsters, but not the number of HP they have makes no sense to me. If you want to play that way fine. If you want to play that once it's down on paper it can't be altered, fine. If you want to play the game without dice and just talk through everything that's fine too. All the shades between the latter two examples I just gave are fine too. But telling people that fudging is dishonest, cheating, against the rules, or what-have-you is problematic, at best.
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I've never heard of Robin's Laws before, so I hope these are accurate and that people can be a part of more than one category. I'd say I'm a combination Method Actor/Powergamer/Storyteller in that order. I develop a character and use the system as best as I can to create him or her and play as that person would. If the story is slacking for some reason (people can't figure something out but I'm playing a "dumb barbarian", or my powerful but hasty mage has a clearly bad choice that would make an interesting plot point), then I'll find a way to justify it.
I definitely agree that communication is a very key point in group gaming, and expectations are incredibly important.
Changing the past and changing the future are not the same thing at all, and you know it. One is immutable and the other isn't. One has already happened, and the other isn't set in stone. I want the plot to remain consistent. Rectonning is implicitly introducing inconsistencies and leads to contradictions. Sometimes this is unavoidable, such as telling the group, ok guys, we're gonna go ahead and forget that happened because I made a mistake in the rules and suddenly Bob isn't dead any more.
What? No. If someone is claiming cheating is ok, that's on them, not me. The language I use is a reflection of my understanding of the rationalizations I see for cheating in this thread. I will use the word cheating any time it's appropriate, like this one, because changing HP when there is no rules reason for it is cheating. HP go down when damage is taken, and go up when healing or rest is taken. And at no other time. Period. That's what the rules state. Feel free to ignore the rules, but then don't claim outrage when others call you out on it.
Yes, and while playing games players can and often do, cheat.
Problematic for you maybe.
Let me explain the difference to you once again. As a DM, I control the world and the monsters, their motivations, their activities, their location, their number. Right? Right.
An existing monster's current HP total is max unless it was injured recently, usually by PCs. Right? Yes. If you increase their HP artificially without giving them a rest, you are effectively giving them additional healing potions or undoing the effects of some portion of attacks the players have dealt it. That's retconning and therefore cheating. The ways that HP change, up or down, are strictly defined by the rules and not by some arbitrary DM ruling like "I rolled 7 damage, but just take 5 instead.". That's not a game, that's a waste of time.
If a monster is at 2HP and about to die, and suddenly I give them 15 or 20 bonus HP, and after the fight the players add it all up and say, huh? Why did that orc have 2x the total hit points it should have? They would start asking questions. Trust is lost. Same thing if I as a DM record how many HP I've dealt to a player, and when I crit the player and know it's likely to bring them down, and it doesn't, and I recalculate their HP and find out they haven't the proper total, that I call cheating. Cheating in this case is symmetric. I can't tell PCs they have to record their HP faithfully if I don't hold myself to that same standard. Because I like being fair and playing by the rules.
Show me one place in the DMG that states it's ok to change the HP of a monster on the fly mid-combat, or somewhere else where it says it's unfair for additional monsters to start approaching the noisy commotion they hear down the dungeon corridor.
It's funny that you should even mention that I would enjoy playing a game of D&D without using dice, because I wouldn't. I like that the dice are impartial god-like determiners of outcomes. It's because I want the dice rolls to have meaning that I don't want the HP totals changed arbitrarily after the fact.
Fudging is synonymous with cheating. Just like fibbing is just a prettied up way of saying "lying". Using another word that means the same thing doesn't change the reality of the situation. Let's be real here. Pretending like fudging isn't cheating doesn't make it any less dishonest or acceptable. It's not dishonest for a DM to bring in more monsters to harangue the PCs in the middle of a battle, that's actually part of their expected duties and it is completely above board. It isn't fair, however, to erase damage they've already given or taken to make monsters last longer or die sooner. Longer combats aren't more interesting anyway. Plenty of BBEG villains have been one-shotted in popular entertainment. It's getting to them then rolling that natural 20 that's the satisfying part. Unless they win initiative and do that to your PC first.
Fair's fair. Keeping enemies around longer just to prolong the fight is not a good way to make the fight more interesting anyway. So why cheat? Don't do it. Play by the rules, and learn to adjust combat difficulty by increasing the number of monsters or hazards or giving the enemies a few healing potions instead. But for goodness sake, don't erase the damage your players just did to it so it will take them another round to kill it. That's not only cheating, it's lame.
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ExploderWizard
Hero
Not every instance of fudging is cheating. It is only really cheating if your players are uninformed that it can happen or you lie about doing it. If you are open about the type of game that you run, then there is no cheating no matter what you do. Do you understand now?
If you fudge and try to convince your players that it isn't happening the yes, you are a cheater because deception is involved. It doesn't have to be.
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