D&D 5E To fudge or not to fudge: that is the question

[Hussar]

If fudging were that horrible and destructive, 79% of those polled here would not be doing it. It's not whether you fudge that makes something bad. It's how and why you fudge. Bad DMs will fudge badly, using it as a beat stick to punish players. Good and average DMs will use it as a tool to enhance enjoyment or to avoid gross unfairness that occasionally results from random die rolls.

The question I think that @EzekialRaiden is asking though is, does fudging enhance enjoyment? For me, the answer is now a resounding no. As a DM or a player, I have zero interest in a game where the DM is telling the story. The dice, again, for me, tell a much more interesting story. Even in the extreme situation where a PC dies due to the DM rolling well, is generally a MUCH more memorable event than one where the PC just took a lot of damage before killing the monster.

That one time I rolled three crits on three separate attacks in a 3e game and obliterated the party's rogue in a single round became a defining event of that campaign. The other players role played brilliantly around this entirely random death at the hands of some critter that probably shouldn't have killed anyone. Had I just fudged the die rolls to keep the PC alive, the campaign would have lost a very poignant moment. In our current Dragonlance campaign, the DM killing the bard had a major effect on the group.

I used to be like others here and fudge when it "felt right" to do so. I've learned that gut feelings are rarely as good as I think they are and that letting the dice dictate, at least in part, the story, makes for a much richer experience.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

He explained it to you twice now. It was an example, not to be taken literally. Cases where the players roll misses several times in a row, while the monsters do the opposite, can happen quite often. And the results of that can be quite devastating, especially if you play something like 3rd edition, which is far less forgiving than 5th is.

Your statistics are completely irrelevant. You know what the point was that I was trying to make. So please stop derailing it into a tangent about statistical improbabilities. What are you, C3PO?

Extremely bad luck happens to players. That is just a fact. And when a DM is trying to challenge his players, this could mean that a well balanced encounter suddenly turns into quite an unfair one, simply due to the way dice can fall. That is a good reason to fudge.

Statistics are irrelevant? How about confirmation bias? [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] is claiming that this sort of thing happens 2-4 times per campaign. Now, I don't know how many hours of play that is, or how many die rolling events that consists of, but, apparently he feels that it happens often enough that he needs to step in. But, the odds say that this shouldn't happen that often.

So, who should we believe? The anecdotal evidence of a single person self-reporting an event, or the statistical probabilities? Is it more likely that the math is wrong or that confirmation bias is influencing how often people fudge results? The math says that this should happen about once in a few hundred encounters. It's not like missing for one round will result in a TPK. 5e math is pretty forgiving. You can have multiple characters miss for multiple rounds and still win the fight.

I wonder if people fudge because their "gut" makes them feel like they should step in, where if they actually stepped back and let the dice dictate results, they'd get largely the same results than if they hadn't fudged at all. Sure, the fight may take a few more rounds, it might result in a dead PC, or it might not. Just because the party misses the first round and the baddies put the slippers to them, doesn't mean that they will automatically lose.

Fudging, for me, is generally a DM who hasn't learned to let go and feels the need to "control" the story. It's something I have zero interest anymore. Like I said, our group rolls almost 100% in the open. Certainly all combat rolls are 100% open. About the only thing that isn't rolled in the open, and there is still a written transcript available after the game ends for fact checking, is skill checks where you don't know if you succeeded or not. Things like Stealth and that sort of thing. Otherwise, everything is in the open. it's a very liberating way to play and something I highly recommend.

 

[Maxperson]

The question I think that @EzekialRaiden is asking though is, does fudging enhance enjoyment? For me, the answer is now a resounding no. As a DM or a player, I have zero interest in a game where the DM is telling the story. The dice, again, for me, tell a much more interesting story. Even in the extreme situation where a PC dies due to the DM rolling well, is generally a MUCH more memorable event than one where the PC just took a lot of damage before killing the monster.

You'd never know, so it couldn't negatively affect your enjoyment. It's not as if I announce when I fudge things.

Statistics are irrelevant? How about confirmation bias? [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] is claiming that this sort of thing happens 2-4 times per campaign. Now, I don't know how many hours of play that is, or how many die rolling events that consists of, but, apparently he feels that it happens often enough that he needs to step in. But, the odds say that this shouldn't happen that often.

So, who should we believe? The anecdotal evidence of a single person self-reporting an event, or the statistical probabilities? Is it more likely that the math is wrong or that confirmation bias is influencing how often people fudge results? The math says that this should happen about once in a few hundred encounters. It's not like missing for one round will result in a TPK. 5e math is pretty forgiving. You can have multiple characters miss for multiple rounds and still win the fight.

Should you believe the one who experiences it 2-4 times a campaign, or the guy who is misrepresenting statistics by calculating things not asked for or required AND who is only using 2 monsters per encounter, which greatly twists the "statistics" in his favor? That's an easy one.

Fudging, for me, is generally a DM who hasn't learned to let go and feels the need to "control" the story. It's something I have zero interest anymore. Like I said, our group rolls almost 100% in the open. Certainly all combat rolls are 100% open. About the only thing that isn't rolled in the open, and there is still a written transcript available after the game ends for fact checking, is skill checks where you don't know if you succeeded or not. Things like Stealth and that sort of thing. Otherwise, everything is in the open. it's a very liberating way to play and something I highly recommend.

Speaking for myself, it's not about control or the story. It's about fairness to the players. I'm not a slave to the dice and refuse to punish the players for bad luck.

 

[billd91]

Statistics are irrelevant? How about confirmation bias? [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] is claiming that this sort of thing happens 2-4 times per campaign. Now, I don't know how many hours of play that is, or how many die rolling events that consists of, but, apparently he feels that it happens often enough that he needs to step in. But, the odds say that this shouldn't happen that often.

No, his attempt to try to disprove other people's experiences with his contrived statistics is irrelevant (particularly his first straw man shot at it). Do you claim people don't see or experience what they see? Do you claim that someone's back of the envelope calculations somehow disprove their experiences?

 

[Hussar]

You'd never know, so it couldn't negatively affect your enjoyment. It's not as if I announce when I fudge things.

Well, yes it would, because now I'm being deprived of an interesting experience that I want to have.

Should you believe the one who experiences it 2-4 times a campaign, or the guy who is misrepresenting statistics by calculating things not asked for or required AND who is only using 2 monsters per encounter, which greatly twists the "statistics" in his favor? That's an easy one.

Having seen far too many of these kinds of threads where people's experience is so far out of whack with the math that would be needed to achieve that experience, no, I'll go with the math thanks.

Speaking for myself, it's not about control or the story. It's about fairness to the players. I'm not a slave to the dice and refuse to punish the players for bad luck.

How is it "fair"? How is over ruling the dice, in order to get a result you happen to like, rather than one the player might want, fair? How is it punishing anyone to obey the rules of the game?

No, his attempt to try to disprove other people's experiences with his contrived statistics is irrelevant (particularly his first straw man shot at it). Do you claim people don't see or experience what they see? Do you claim that someone's back of the envelope calculations somehow disprove their experiences?

Do you honestly think that people's anecdotal evidence is anything other than confirmation bias? I don't. I recently had this out with my current group. I swore, up and down, that my character was doing far, far less damage than every other character in the group. I was told, in no uncertain terms that I was wrong and that they didn't see it at all. Then I actually tracked the damage for a session and, lo and behold, my character was doing less than HALF the damage of the next highest character, who was dealing a bit more than half the damage of the highest damage character. I was doing about 1/3 the damage of the highest damage characters.

It wasn't until I could actually show the numbers that I could break through the confirmation bias in the group. That was SIX other people at the same table as me, all telling me that I was flat out wrong, despite me showing the math beforehand. I showed, pretty darn clearly, that I was doing far less than the other characters, but, it wasn't until I could actually report the empirical evidence that people would give up their own anecdotal views.

So, no, I don't believe anecdotal evidence over math. No one should. Back of the envelope calculations are often far, far more accurate than what someone "sees" at the table.

If the math says that the number of times that someone needs to actually step in and "correct" the dice is statistically irrelevant, I trust that much more than someone's claim that they "know" better.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, yes it would, because now I'm being deprived of an interesting experience that I want to have.

You're going to have to explain how being unaware that any fudging ever happens will do that. From your perspective, it will play out the same as if the dice rolled that way.

Having seen far too many of these kinds of threads where people's experience is so far out of whack with the math that would be needed to achieve that experience, no, I'll go with the math thanks.

You're seriously going to go with math that has nothing to do with the situation? That's...................kinda crazy.

How is it "fair"? How is over ruling the dice, in order to get a result you happen to like, rather than one the player might want, fair? How is it punishing anyone to obey the rules of the game?

Unfairness is rarely what the players want. The rules serve the DM, not the other way around. To the DM they are really guidelines.

Do you honestly think that people's anecdotal evidence is anything other than confirmation bias? I don't. I recently had this out with my current group. I swore, up and down, that my character was doing far, far less damage than every other character in the group. I was told, in no uncertain terms that I was wrong and that they didn't see it at all. Then I actually tracked the damage for a session and, lo and behold, my character was doing less than HALF the damage of the next highest character, who was dealing a bit more than half the damage of the highest damage character. I was doing about 1/3 the damage of the highest damage characters.

It happening 2-4 times on average per campaign that I run is a fact. What is not a fact are Ezekial's fabricated numbers. Those are not what I asked for, or what is required to produce the results I encounter. They have nothing to do with my claim, so they are invalid.

It wasn't until I could actually show the numbers that I could break through the confirmation bias in the group. That was SIX other people at the same table as me, all telling me that I was flat out wrong, despite me showing the math beforehand. I showed, pretty darn clearly, that I was doing far less than the other characters, but, it wasn't until I could actually report the empirical evidence that people would give up their own anecdotal views.

Yay! You had a different situation that has nothing to do with what I am talking about and are equating it to me. That's a False Equivalence.

I watch the combat numbers very closely and can gauge encounters very, very accurately. There is no confirmation bias. There is only Zuul.

So, no, I don't believe anecdotal evidence over math. No one should. Back of the envelope calculations are often far, far more accurate than what someone "sees" at the table.

This is what you are doing.

Me: I encounter this combat situation 2-4 times per campaign on average.
Ezekial: 1+1=2
You: He used math! It must be more accurate than what Maxperson is saying, because......math!

If the math says that the number of times that someone needs to actually step in and "correct" the dice is statistically irrelevant, I trust that much more than someone's claim that they "know" better.

No math has been provided that measures what I have claimed.

 

[Hussar]

You're going to have to explain how being unaware that any fudging ever happens will do that. From your perspective, it will play out the same as if the dice rolled that way.

True. But, it also means that I won't get torn apart by some minor monster because you step in and stop it. That is the experience I am losing out on. And that is a far, for me anyway, more memorable experience than killing yet another kobold.

You're seriously going to go with math that has nothing to do with the situation? That's...................kinda crazy.



Unfairness is rarely what the players want. The rules serve the DM, not the other way around. To the DM they are really guidelines.

I'm very much in the DM=Referee camp, so, we're going to have to chalk this one up to play style differences. Once you get into the "rules are only guidelines" territory, you're well into the country I don't want to play in anymore.

It happening 2-4 times on average per campaign that I run is a fact. What is not a fact are Ezekial's fabricated numbers. Those are not what I asked for, or what is required to produce the results I encounter. They have nothing to do with my claim, so they are invalid.

I don't doubt that you believe this. That's what confirmation bias means.

Yay! You had a different situation that has nothing to do with what I am talking about and are equating it to me. That's a False Equivalence.

I watch the combat numbers very closely and can gauge encounters very, very accurately. There is no confirmation bias. There is only Zuul.

I had a situation where the people observing the same events that I was came up with a totally opposite conclusion based on their perceptions of the situation and it wasn't until I proved it both beforehand with math and afterwards with empirical evidence that lined up almost perfectly with the math I presented that I could cut through that perception. So, claims about how you can "gauge encounters very, very accurately" are something I take with a huge dose of salt. I don't know you, and aren't at your table. But, the experiences you have are not jiving with the presumed math of the game or the displayed math in this thread, so, I'll stick to the statistics thanks.

This is what you are doing.

Me: I encounter this combat situation 2-4 times per campaign on average.
Ezekial: 1+1=2
You: He used math! It must be more accurate than what Maxperson is saying, because......math!


No math has been provided that measures what I have claimed.

The fact that you haven't provided any math or statistics to back up your claims is painfully obvious. The fact that you can't back up your claims with statistics leads me to believe that your perception of the situation is far more "gut level" than anything and thus, very suspect.

You're claiming that 2-4 times per campaign (which you STILL haven't defined in terms of hours played and numbers of encounters) you need to step in to "fix" the math to make it more fair. Yet, you have not provided any actual facts to support that claim. How many players do you have? How many encounters, roughly, encompass a single campaign? Are we talking dozens of encounters or thousands? Or somewhere in between? What kind of encounters do you generally use? Single big monsters, lots of little monsters (my favoured style personally), high magic, low magic, lots of house rules or fairly close to RAW?

Your claims leave a LOT of unanswered questions, many of which can result in higher numbers of times you need to fudge. You're the one making the claim that you need to step in. And then you're stepping back and saying that we shouldn't question that need - that your DMing abilities are so beyond reproach that we should just automatically trust that you needed to step in when you did.

Sorry, not buying it. @Ezekial Raiden showed math that, in fairly common encounters, the number of times you should need to step in are exceedingly rare. Certainly a lot less than 2-4 times per campaign. It's up to you to justify fudging AFAIC.

 

[Dit464]

I to date haven't lied about a DC that I rolled, leaving some BBG's and PC's dead in a matter of moments. I do change the DC after pre-determining it, but that's only because my players often try to come up with situations I find plausibly effective or interesting enough in the situation/character that I may drop the DC to be passable.

 

[Miladoon]

IME, people that know math, or don't know math, don't always know D&D. I am certain Mary Poppins, would never fudge. But if you step in time on the rooftops of London long enough, even Mrs. Practically Perfect in Every Way will end up with soot on her face.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No, his attempt to try to disprove other people's experiences with his contrived statistics is irrelevant (particularly his first straw man shot at it). Do you claim people don't see or experience what they see? Do you claim that someone's back of the envelope calculations somehow disprove their experiences?

I wasn't planning to say anything more--my contributions having been quite vehemently pronounced unwelcome--but I must respond to this.

1. I wasn't setting up a straw man in the slightest. The statement made was:

This is a poor example. Here is a good one: The players fight against an enemy which they should be able to defeat with ease. But due to insanely bad luck, the players keep rolling 1's, and the DM keeps rolling 20's for his monsters. The players are starting to get annoyed, and clearly feel that this isn't fair.

Insanely bad luck; players roll 1 multiple times; DM rolls 20 multiple times. "Insanely bad" is clearly a squishy, qualitative judgment that cannot be parsed mathematically, but it (coupled with "should be able to defeat [them] with ease") established a perspective of not merely below-average results, but divergently below-average. Explicit reference to multiple DM crits and multiple player nat-1s--these are clear, numerical results, which can be translated into specific probabilities. Which then people criticized me for taking seriously, despite the fact that I explicitly said "y'know, maybe this was not really what you meant" and thus provided an entirely separate set of calculations where I ignored the description provided and made the example much less extreme.

2. I wasn't "disproving" anyone's personal experiences. I was stating that either the situation was not as bad as described, or quite rare and thus not something DMs should worry about, or a systemic fault of the system being used. If the situation(s) were not as bad as described, that doesn't mean they didn't happen--it just means that the perception of it made it seem like more of a problem than it really was. If it was exactly as described, which I explicitly allowed for by having those other options, then it's either a highly unrepresentative* result (and thus not a good example for why people in general should consider fudging) or it's caused by the underlying system being poorly designed for handling results that do happen with sufficient statistical frequency, at which point the better answer would seem to be "fix the system's math so you don't have to make these ad hoc corrections."

Or, alternatively, the original assumption--that the DM and the players are not in any way responsible for this situation occurring--is wrong. If that gets rejected, then all my calculations are out the window. No amount of theoretical calculation can account for such unique details...but at the same time, that would still weaken the (purely hypothetical) example Imaculata made, because it would be "fudging to fix a DM/player bad decision," not "fudging to fix an otherwise-insoluble problem."

I'll continue reading the thread, but from where I'm sitting now, I have nothing further to add. I think my analysis reveals meaningful weaknesses in the examples given. To say anything further would be merely to incite debate while saying "not gonna respond, goodbye!" And I don't wanna be that much of a jerk.

*Events of low probability happen. They have to happen, at least some of the time, because they have a non-zero probability of occurring. Even some events of "0 probability" have to occur, when working with infinitely large sets, e.g. the number of points covering a particular area.

 

[S'mon]

Do you honestly think that people's anecdotal evidence is anything
other than confirmation bias?

If he's getting 2-4 TPKs per campaign, he's probably making encounters too tough, in order to provide a challenge, then fudging to prevent defeat - which means there wasn't really any challenge in the first place. Better to have easier fights that are a genuine challenge than fake difficulty IMO.