D&D 5E Do you want your DM to fudge?

[Maxperson]

Sorry to split your post, I had a hardware failure in the interface between screen and keyboard.

It can't go in all expected directions: that what a fudge does. There is this one niggling direction that the DM simply refuses to allow. That is inserting a preferred outcome. This is acceptable;that is not. The dice indicate that so I will announce this without allowing the group to know that is prohibited.

I don't agree. Even when I fudge due to the game breaking over extreme luck, a TPK is still possible. After I've nudged things back into the appropriate range of luck, the party can still be totally wiped out. I'm not shutting out any avenues at all.

 

[Maxperson]

Fudging is a tool that when used correctly can still cause difficulty in your players trusting that you are using it correctly, so even when used correctly it is a tool that carries a risk of harming the shared fun - thus it is not as good for the shared fun as a different tool, like not-fudging, that supports the fun of the group but does not carry the same risk.

When used correctly, the players aren't aware that it was ever used, so there is no risk in harm to shared fun.

You are delusional if you think I need to know what the actual die result was in order to be able to tell that you are lying about the result of the die roll - and worse, a player need not actually be correct in thinking a DM has fudged for damage to be done to the fun of the game, they just need to think the DM is fudging and the DM not be ready and able to provide evidence otherwise.

As I said before. 30 years and no one has figured it out yet, but everyone thinks they're the exception to the rule. I suppose it's possible that you are, but I really doubt it.

You don't actually know that your fudging resulted in more fun that what would have happened if you let their bad luck carry through and just progress from their, so you might actually already have been wrong by having prevented the players the cathartic "revenge" after a loss.

Which you have already admitted you can't guarantee you are actual increasing.

In so far as nothing the DM ever does can guarantee increased fun, you are correct. Otherwise, I'm certain that it does. I know my players very well. You don't.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

When used correctly, the players aren't aware that it was ever used, so there is no risk in harm to shared fun.

If you think that there is literally no chance a player is aware that you are fudging, you are delusional.

As I said before. 30 years and no one has figured it out yet, but everyone thinks they're the exception to the rule. I suppose it's possible that you are, but I really doubt it.

You are a very interesting person. You claim everyone thinks they are the exception to the rule, and then insist that you are the exception - while I think it is more likely that you have just been lucky enough to have players that, when they did figure it out, were able to continue trusting you have good intentions despite your deception.

In so far as nothing the DM ever does can guarantee increased fun, you are correct. Otherwise, I'm certain that it does. I know my players very well. You don't.

No, I don't know your players... and I never said I did. As for a DM not being able to guarantee increased fun, I fully agree - which is why I advocate getting input from players (i.e. "It looks like you aren't having much fun right now, would you rather we move forward to the next thing?), rather than assuming I am correct at any given moment what will be enjoyable and to what degree if numerous things would be enjoyable in that situation.

I mean, your friends may be different, but my experience is that people in general even have times when they aren't in the mood for what they consider their favorite thing (like when my buddy Nick doesn't feel like playing a fighting video-game, or when my wife doesn't want to eat sushi, or the rare case when I don't want to gather friends around the table and play an RPG). So that's why your "I'm certain that it does," sounds like self-deception to me.

 

[Hussar]

One person's "waste of time" is another person's "building atmosphere and paranoid tension". Sure I wouldn't like it if this happened lots. But happening once in a campaign (and not every campaign) is fine.

It's the sort of thing that players/PCs will refer "fondly" back to later, "You want to sneak into and ambush the bandits in their lair? You remember that time we did that in the Waterdeep and the bastards weren't even fecking there. Are you absolutely sure they are here..." It becomes part of the lore of the campaign/playgroup. You don't get that effect from one sentence "You search the tower and it's empty".

Oh, for sure. I wasn't meaning to imply that he was doing it wrong or it was wrongbadfun. Not at all. Just differences in tables. I would absolutely lose my cool if a DM did this to me. But, then again, we play very short sessions (about 3 hours per week) and it's not unusual for use to have breaks in there as well. So, "wasting" (in my mind, this is wasting, thus the scare quotes, I totally accept that other people view it differently) a large chunk of a session only to have it be a non-issue is not something I would enjoy. I totally get that others might think this is great. For me? I'd lose my freaking mind in frustration.
[MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] - for me, and again, I'm only talking about myself, if the DM feels the need to hide things in order to run an entertaining game, I simply do not want to play at that table. I do not like it. Not that it's wrong or bad or anything like that. It's that it's wrong for me. I don't play that way. Heck, I'm not even a big fan of Fantasy Ground's dice tower for hiding rolls. I grit my teeth and accept it, but, it bugs me every time the DM uses it. I'm not a child. If I roll a poor Diplomacy check, I'm perfectly capable of role playing that. If I miss and the baddie crits me and kills me? Fantastic. I'm a happy camper.

I used to have a sig quote from a long time ago that went something like this: "In D&D, the DM provides the script, the dice provide the direction". To me, that's exactly right. The DM sets the event, sets the mood, does all the things that you would find in a script for a play, and then the dice are the director, telling me what I should be reacting to. I have zero interest in having the DM be both the script writer and the director. And that's true for me whether I'm playing or DMing. I implicitly trust and expect my players to play out bad rolls and deal with bad luck. That's part of playing the game. In exactly the same way that I implicitly trust them to play out great luck as well. And it works for me.

For me, (and I cannot stress this enough that I'm ONLY talking about myself) fudging like this shows a lack of trust on the DM's part that the players cannot handle certain situations in the game. If the DM truly trusts the players, then there's no need for fudging whatsoever. At least, that's the position I'm working from.

 

[Noctem]

Apologies for stepping into this, as I really probably shouldn't, but I have a note of advice that I pass around every now and then. This is a forum, it's own little country in the world of the internet. It has its own laws, and it's own government. Whatever free speech you have in your IRL country does not apply here. Forum rules are the only law here.

EDIT: I should also note, I believe the rules say to contact a different mod if you believe a mod has overstepped their rights. Though that may have been on a different forum.

EDIT AGAIN: here are the rules. Nothing about contacting other mods, but a few things about not doing what you are doing right now.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/faq.php?faq=faq_rules#faq_new_faq_irule1

Freedom of speech applies to everyone. In the US it's protected by the First Amendment, in Canada it is considered a fundamental freedom and is listed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms section 2. This applies online, in person, in writing and so on. You may wish to believe that this public forum is somehow it's own country but that's not the case at all. It is fully subject to these laws and fundamental rights. For example, I can say publicly here that I strongly dislike apple sauce. Not only is it my right to state that I don't like apple sauce, I am legally protected by the laws of either the US or Canada and most countries of the world in fact to say as much. So when I earlier explained my opinion, based on personal experience, about fudging I was ALSO doing it under the same protections.

Now, as for the response a MOD posted to my opinion which didn't specifically target anyone, call out names or even make personal attacks I would think that he would be able to follow his own advice which he posts all over these boards. What he posted was FULL of personal attacks, passive aggressive remarks and the like. Commenting about my psychology? Inferring that I should have been taught something in kindergarten? I mean this person essentially white knighted into the thread for no reason and decided to specifically harass and publicly shame someone for participating in a public discussion, who expressed an opinion he obviously disagreed with. This is basically the very nature of why the freedom of speech laws were created. So that the people in authority or even others around you, can't try and censor you just because they don't agree with what you're saying. And really, a MOD doing this? He stomped all over the "Keep it civil" portion of the forum rules.

And as explained I've tried multiple times to PM this particular MOD about some issues and he/she simply doesn't respond. So if you're going to completely ignore me after inviting me to PM you, I'm going to post in public when you act like this. All this being said, I think it's best if we just collectively move on from this ugliness. It's derailing the thread. I won't be posting about this any further especially since you were kind enough to link to the forum rules

 

[wedgeski]

I've never heard a player say "I really enjoyed when the DM cheated the dice result which then had a negative impact for the group" or "Man, the highlight of the session was when the DM cheated the dice result and downed my character!" or "When the DM just decided that I was detected with my rogue at the worst possible moment, that was awesome!" or "Dude! When that monster automatically saved against my spell effect because he's important to the DM's plot.. EPIC!" etc...

I fudge dice *only* to the benefit of the group. That's a cast iron DM guarantee.

 

[Noctem]

I fudge dice *only* to the benefit of the group. That's a cast iron DM guarantee.

When you fudge do you ask the group for consent? Discuss why you're doing it? Or do you do it in secret without discussion and based solely on what you believe is to the benefit of the group? If you actually openly discuss with the group, you would fall within what I believe is a very small percentile of people who fudge openly. However if you do the latter, I would like to point out that's why I called the act selfish in my earlier post. One person deciding what is the best result, or what is to the benefit for a group of people, without discussion in secret and only based on what their own beliefs are isn't what I would call altruistic. Especially when it comes down to essentially cheating at a game while at the same time telling others they can't do the same thing. My 2 c.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I fudge dice *only* to the benefit of the group. That's a cast iron DM guarantee.

Does that mean you can give a "cast iron guarantee" that the things you think are beneficial for the group are also the things your players think are beneficial for the group?

Because the CIA analogy--I can't remember which thread it was in--strikes me as almost painfully apt. I genuinely straight-up don't care if the CIA has done clandestine law-/treaty-breaking operations that resulted in good things for the United States, even ones that have long-lasting and unequivocally good results in the end that specifically apply to me. Breaking laws and treaties, flaunting the guaranteed rights in the Constitution, is wrong regardless of the results you might--or even do--reap. I neither need nor want that kind of "parentalist" approach. I neither need nor want the government to spy on people--whether or not "people" includes me--without oversight, nor for it to be able to evade getting warrants for things that, in any other context, would absolutely require one. And the vast majority of rhetoric in defense of fudging comes across as perfectly identical: "I know what's best for you better than you do, and it's perfectly fine for me to lie to you, hide my activities from you, and stonewall your attempts to figure out what happened, in order to make sure you don't get upset about the things I've done 'for your benefit.' "

 

[wedgeski]

When you fudge do you ask the group for consent? Discuss why you're doing it? Or do you do it in secret without discussion and based solely on what you believe is to the benefit of the group? If you actually openly discuss with the group, you would fall within what I believe is a very small percentile of people who fudge openly.

I've known the players my main group for thirty years. There isn't much more we need to say to one-other about how the various campaigns are run. Since we're all still sitting round the table after three decades, it seems we're happy with the situation.

To your question, I always have a session zero with new groups, and I always ask them to trust that what I'm doing is in the interests of everyone at the table. If they have any specific bug-bears, I invite them to bring them up.

I don't seek permission for fudging, or using a DM's screen, or deciding which combats need a battlemat, or all dwarves having scottish accents, any more than I would seek consent in-game for the drow patrol crossing by at exactly the wrong moment, or the ogre being caught with his pants down on the latrine when the rogue looked inside, or the paladin happening to hear the king implicate himself in the murder of his brother, or the evil wizard happening to have studied at the same university as the party invoker, or it starting to rain as you approach the cursed temple, or during prep when I'm deciding between an underground lair or a floating castle, or whether the corridor turns left or right at the bottomless chasm. I make dozens of decisions a minute about what I think is in the interests of a good game, including whether or not to occasionally lie to the table about the result of a d20. I do all these these things without consent because they are in the interests of what I call a fun game, and the ultimate sanction for not agreeing with me about the definition of fun is not to pre-negotiate changes to my methods, but in fact to move to another game altogether. If so, I'll shake your hand and wish you well.

 

[Maxperson]

When you fudge do you ask the group for consent? Discuss why you're doing it? Or do you do it in secret without discussion and based solely on what you believe is to the benefit of the group? If you actually openly discuss with the group, you would fall within what I believe is a very small percentile of people who fudge openly. However if you do the latter, I would like to point out that's why I called the act selfish in my earlier post. One person deciding what is the best result, or what is to the benefit for a group of people, without discussion in secret and only based on what their own beliefs are isn't what I would call altruistic. Especially when it comes down to essentially cheating at a game while at the same time telling others they can't do the same thing. My 2 c.

Fudging in secret =/= selfish no matter how often you mischaracterize it as such. According to your reasoning, if I secretly put someone in my will and leave them lots of money, I'm selfish for doing so. It couldn't be for their benefit. That's crazy talk.