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

[Ilbranteloth]

The bear ignoring a non threat is the bear reacting in response to the world around it and the player's choice to play a character that looks weaker than others. Their decisions have directly impacted the situation. There is greater player agency than there is with fudging because they're experiencing the consequences of their decisions.

First, I don't think a bear would assess threat in this manner. A weak human and a strong human are still humans. Regardless, it attacked the character within reach, as is what I would expect of a wild animal. The reason I explained where the concept came from is that it explains the motives I assigned the bear. It wasn't interested in attacking anybody, nor is it defending anything. It just happens to be in the same place at the same time as another creature that it is startled by. It instinctively hits it then runs away. Nothing more.

More importantly, I think that making the bear attack only the stronger character not only stronger Plot Armor than a contingency that would only affect the scenario 5% of the time. More troubling to me is that it also feels like favoritism.

I have no doubt that certain intelligent creatures will target specific players for different reasons (attack the spell casters!), but when general monsters ignore some characters because they might be too weak and die, so they can attack that ones that won't just sounds wrong to me.

I still fail to see the difference between my contingency and many of your suggestions, particularly since many of them change the risk and the challenge. If the bear only attacks the stronger human, who probably won't die, then the risk is not only lessened, but eliminated for the other players. In addition, the challenge is lessened for the players because the likelihood that they will all be available to attack each round is increased. In my scenario, the surprise attack weakens the character, increases the potential challenge, and doesn't rely on logic that I can't swallow, nor favoritism.

Beyond even that, my solution is a last resort, and otherwise doesn't change the dynamics at all. Yours inherently does.

I certainly don't expect you to change your position, I think it's a reasonable position, and one that works for you and many others. I guess the reason I don't throw out fudging as an option is I still think it's a useful tool occasionally.

Maybe it's poor DMing in some people's eyes. Or lazy, or I made a mistake. In this case, though, from an objective standpoint, my option has a lower impact on the encounter. It didn't require any modifications of the rules, the encounter, or the creatures involved, it doesn't alter the challenge, reduces the risk to a very small degree, and only momentarily, and I don't think it would alter the view of most players if they knew that the approach was a simple "I won't allow the first blow to be critical." The only issue (for some) is that it involves potential fudging.

I have used most if not all of the ideas you presented as well. Some others options are younger monsters, injured monsters, etc. But none of the other options would serve my intended purpose, and the other options were really unnecessary since all I needed to ensure is that it would not score a critical hit.

And before Zak S jumps in here - I did not change the challenge one little bit. The challenge and available actions to the players remained the same. I reduced the risk of the initial blow, and then the risk returned to the default of the game. The challenge remained the same - the chance of detecting the bear, and the chance of killing the bear never changed.

Ilbranteloth

 

[JohnLynch]

[MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION]

Re: Bear

If you decide a bear would not dismiss a CON 10 human that is physically weaker than his party members as a threat, than you are correct in that avoiding the wizard would be lessening that player's agency, just as fudging the dice would.

You are also correct that throwing in a strength 13 bear would lower the challenge (not enough to alter the challenge rating though), but the player's agency remains intact and untouched. Presented correctly they would be able to determine this is slightly weaker than average and respond accordingly. If they face a bear with higher strength later, they will also be able to respond appropriately if that fact is presented to them appropriately.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Ilbranteloth could not want that PC to die because his grandmother said she'd kill herself if that PC died, the fact is he still anticipated fudging would prevent/cause a given in-story event and did it because that prevented/caused in-story event (no matter what its ultimate point) was more important to Ilbranteloth than the advantages gained by never fudging.

Which means:

At the moment of that choice, and for the length of that choice, making a STORY thing happen or not was placed OVER making a challenge thing happen or not.

Even if making that story thing happen was itself in service of some other off-screen value.

And your other statement was:

That is 100% Prioritizing story. Or prioritizing 'making a thing happen that you planned instead of letting the full tactical possibilities play out". Same thing.

And in this case you are wrong. I don't say that often, but in this case I will. The intent is entirely relevant when you are declaring what the intent is/was for another individual - in this case me. Intent is the difference between an accident, manslaughter or murder. The end result is the same, at least for the deceased. It's quite different for the accused.

And this is from somebody who explicitly stated that they dislike people who present opinion as fact.

The fact is, I 100% prioritized the metagame over the fleeting risk of a single attack. That's it. Your statement that I prioritized story is an opinion, because you have no way of knowing what my intent was. Except that I've told you. Several times. So repeating that opinion is incorrect, and annoying.

A story thing happened. A story thing happens if I don't fudge. Pretty much everything a DM does affects the story, and also often affects the challenge and/or risk. This decision was made with no consideration of the story. I put the realities of running a game in a limited amount of time ahead of the situation in the game. I put that ahead of both story and risk. It had a potential story and risk effect.

In this case I did not impact the challenge. The challenge remains the same. The chance to detect the bear, and the chance to kill the bear remained the same. There was no impact on the challenge. I impacted the risk, and I impacted that risk in a very minor and fleeting fashion. Should the dice decide that a character should die after that single moment, so be it.

Furthermore, I'm not even sure what your ultimate point is. Yes, fudging a roll alters the potential story, risk, and/or challenge.

So does adding a second monster. Or a weaker monster. Or a higher DC. Or the monsters using tactical advantage due to the terrain. All of these affect the story, and all of them affect the challenge and risk. So what? Are they good? Are they bad? All of them (including fudging) are within the rules. All have similar impacts.

How does this statement - "fudging places story above challenge and/or risk" - further the discussion on fudging? In the context of the game what makes it different than:

Increasing the number of monsters.
Using weaker monsters.
Using different monsters.
Placing the PCs on a narrow cliff before encountering the monsters.
Making the cliff wet and increasing the climbing DC.
Placing the monsters at long range.
Having a friendly NPC wander in just before a battle. During a battle.
Finding a magic item before a battle.

Some of these activities place story above challenge and/or risk. Others increase/decrease these elements in different degrees. They are all tools that the DM can use to alter the story, challenge, and/or risk. In a void none of them are particularly interesting or helpful. Taken as a whole, within the ruleset, they take on a different meaning. If the only tool that the DM uses is fudging, then it's not going to be a very interesting adventure. But if it's one tool of many, used in moderation or very rarely, then it's just another part of developing the story, challenges, and risks. In and of itself it doesn't take away anything from the players. How it's used might. My example didn't change their options, didn't reduce their challenge, and didn't alter their perception of bears.

"The bear didn't score a critical, therefore bears can't score criticals" isn't a true statement. The odds were 95% in favor of not scoring a critical, perhaps 90% if I rolled with advantage. Therefore, the expected result would be no critical. That wouldn't have any impact on the players or characters perception of bears.

What about that? The bear surprised the character, was behind them, and unseen. Oops, I should have rolled the attack with advantage. Is my inadvertent omission as bad as fudging? What if I didn't roll with advantage on purpose? Is that different? Why? Maybe I decided that despite initially being unseen, as it stood up to attack the character turned and saw the bear just as the attack occurred. Perhaps because the target happened to be a wood elf barbarian, he noticed the bear at the last moment, enough to prevent the bear to have advantage.

With vast number of possibilities of how I may or may not have adjudicated the scenario behind the screen, how would the players ever know anything other than a bear attacked and ran away, and the barbarian took a bunch of damage? Why would they iwant to know? Why would they want to question it rather than jump right into character and go with the exciting scene that's unfolding?

On fudging in general, if the purpose of the DM is to present the world, the story, and the challenges in a way that the players can act freely and suffer the potential consequences of their actions materially changed in this instance? Yes, on a strict comparison of the same encounter played between two teams, one with and one without potential fudging, there will be a possibility of a difference between the two scenes. But statistically that would be 1 in 20 tables, and that's assuming that the critical at #20 was actually enough to drop the character in question. The variables of what the PCs might do are far greater than ignoring a 5% chance fudge.

OK, I might have greatly reduced the chance of a "Hey, my character got killed by a bear in the first encounter. Cool!" moment. Sorry. But I'm ok with that. I think my players were pretty happy with it as well.

Ilbranteloth

 

[Maxperson]

It is for LOTS of people who aren't playing by your values. So that's just like saying "I don't like brussels sprouts so if they appear, food is BROKEN!"

The word "broken" is not actually a synonym for "not Maxperson's preference".



Nope, because the point is the instrument the DM chooses to keep granny alive is making a given a story even happen.

So, abstractly, keeping granny alive may be more important than "story" but:

in the moment of that decision

the DM decided making a given story thing happen was more important than increasing the feeling of challenge by not fudging.

The use of "Story" as the instrument to exert the GM's will may have been incidental, but it was still what happened in that moment.

What you seem to be missing is that story also as greater and lesser degrees, like challenge. Just because the change over grandma altered the story, doesn't mean that the story is now better. The story could have been harmed more than challenge was. You can't reasonably say that story was chosen over challenge without knowing a lot more than was told to you. Especially since grandma was the reason for the action, not story or challenge.

 

[Maxperson]

The point you're missing though is that the players do have the chance of discovering all of the things you mentioned. They are there to be discovered, if the players want to. IOW, actual discovery isn't really the issue. it's the opportunity to discover.

In secret fudging, there is no chance to discover that it was done, and that's the entire point of keeping it secret - to ensure that the players never see the strings being pulled. And, again, the only reason that it's being kept secret is because if it is discovered, the players won't be happy about it. OTOH, if I discover that secret door, I'm pretty happy. If I uncover the monster's AC, I'm pretty ok with that. Presuming the monster has a name and a kind, I can leverage all sorts of character resources (skill checks, magic, class abilities) to discover that. If I'm a 7th level battle master, I can discover at least two things about the monster's stat block simply by observing it.

I can see what you are saying. I will add, though, that stopping the action to announce that you fudged a roll can be disruptive to the game even if the players don't mind. Also, there's no good reason that I can see to announce fudging to people who are okay with it. If they're okay with it, it's not worth the time or effort to bring it up.

Yes, I am changing my original point. You're right, fudging need not be secret, if you define fudging as simply changing die rolls. Like I said earlier, 5e has a plethora of means for changing die rolls, on both sides of the screen. My issue is solely with what I'm going to term "secret fudging" and I define that as changing a roll without the table being aware that you are doing so, and specifically keeping that information from the table.

Other than fudging, name one means of changing die rolls that the DM has for altering a die roll after he has rolled it. It's the players that get all of the abilities.

It is interesting to note that games which include fudging mechanics - Savage World's Bennies, Fate's Fate Points, I'm sure there are many others, don't include advice for fudging. They place fudging completely in the open and it would actually be pretty counter to the mechanics for the DM to secretly fudge. IMO, since 5e has numerous ways for the players to mitigate luck and change die rolls, I really don't think 5e needs secret fudging. I'd actually go some ways further and say that the advice included in the DMG is more a sop to older players who haven't quite wrapped their heads around the fact that 5e isn't AD&D and doesn't need secret fudging.

Although, that being said, if you were playing Basic 5e rules, where so many of those character mechanics for changing die rolls don't exist, then I could see the need for the DM to step in and adjust things more often.

Player methods of changing die rolls are already taken into consideration when I fudge rolls. If the party is changing rolls and the game math doesn't break over extreme luck because of it, no fudging would occur. If extreme bad luck breaks the game math with those changes OR the party doesn't have access to those changes and the game math breaks over extreme luck, fudging happens.

 

[Hussar]

Well any time the DM uses a PC classed monster he has all those resources. I'm away from my books but I would be surprised if monsters have no dice altering abilities.

 

[Zak S]

The intent is entirely relevant when you are declaring what the intent is/was for another individual - in this case me. Intent is the difference between an accident, manslaughter or murder. The end result is the same, at least for the deceased. It's quite different for the accused.

This decision was made with no consideration of the story.

Regardless of intent-the instrument of the "crime" was the story.

You PRIORITIZED having a certain thing happen in the STORY over other considerations. Why you did that is not important.

Much as a driver might prioritize driving fast over safety and yet argue that they didn't prioritize driving fast they prioritized the pizza just getting out of the oven when they got home. Well: the difference is academic--the driving
fast was the instrument of the pizza being warm.

"But officer I had no consideration of how fast I was going. Only WARM PIZZA!"
Sure, but the cop would totally be legit in saying you prioritized speed over safety even if
you "don't care about speed" for its own sake. Speed was the way to warm pizza so you
focused on it. In your example. A story event not happening was the way to get the reaction
you wanted so you fudged to ensure it.

You seem to be kicking against this for unknown reasons. It's not like prioritizing having a story thing
happen over challenge makes you a mass murderer or even a bad GM.

A story thing happened. A story thing happens if I don't fudge.

Yes, but a different story thing.

In this case I did not impact the challenge. The challenge remains the same.

Totally incorrect. If the bear had immediately killed a PC because of dice rolls rather than doing what you planned, that'd be one less PC to fight the bear, thus changing the odds.

In fact, you point this out:

I impacted the risk,

Bam, right there. You made there be less risk. More risk means completely different tactical situation.

Furthermore, I'm not even sure what your ultimate point is.

Then ask rather than assert bizarre things.

Yes, fudging a roll alters the potential story, risk, and/or challenge.

You just asserted above that your fudge DIDN'T change the challenge.

Which is it?

So does adding a second monster.

Yes that would usually get more challenge.

Or a weaker monster.

Less challenge.

Or a higher DC.

More challenge--assuming DC's are done right.

Or the monsters using tactical advantage due to the terrain.

More challenge.

All of these affect the story,

Yup.

and all of them affect the challenge and risk

Yup.

. So what? Are they good? Are they bad?

Again, I've stated several times that "good" and "bad" aren't what we're discussing and I don't have a judgment there.

Why do you keep asking that?

My point is:

-If the player is aware of fudging (or a weaker monster, or a lower DC) it reduces their feeling of challenge.

and

-If you choose to fudge it is because you value some specific thing happening or not happening in the story more than that feeling of challenge (WHY you want that thing to happen in the story--the subject of your early paragraphs above, is not part of the conversation. Suffice it to say whatever it is you want REQUIRES certain story events occurring or not.)

"The bear didn't score a critical, therefore bears can't score criticals" isn't a true statement. The odds were 95% in favor of not scoring a critical, perhaps 90% if I rolled with advantage. Therefore, the expected result would be no critical. That wouldn't have any impact on the players or characters perception of bears.

But it did affect how many hit points they had. And thus how challenging the encounter was.

Oops, I should have rolled the attack with advantage. Is my inadvertent omission as bad as fudging?

Again, asking about "bad" after I've said 6 times that fudging isn't "bad" suggests you're not actually reading these posts.

OK, I might have greatly reduced the chance of a "Hey, my character got killed by a bear in the first encounter. Cool!" moment.

This is a frank admission that:

-you decreased the amount of challenge
and
-you chose to have a story thing not happen (as furtherance of some other goal)
and therefore
-you prioritized having that story thing not happen OVER keeping the challenge where it was

which is my whole point.

It has nothing to do with whether this is good or bad and it's really disturbing that you continually ask me about that over and over. If you're going to respond to what I say, please do us all the favor of reading it first.

Sorry. But I'm ok with that. I think my players were pretty happy with it as well.

Again: not in question.

It is utterly bizarre you'd feel the need to point that out. We're not talking about whether it was fun or not.

p.s. its super weird that Nytmare, Rhenny and Maxperson would give xp for such an irrational post.

 

[Zak S]

What you seem to be missing is that story also as greater and lesser degrees, like challenge. Just because the change over grandma altered the story, doesn't mean that the story is now better.

I am not asserting you want the story to be "better" (or "worse").

I am asserting you fudged because:
-a certain thing occurring or not occurring in the story (in this case: TPK from side of the road ogres)
was more important to you than
-the advantages of never fudging (ie not risking a threat to the feeling of challenge).

 

[Maxperson]

I am not asserting you want the story to be "better" (or "worse").

I am asserting you fudged because:
-a certain thing occurring or not occurring in the story (in this case: TPK from side of the road ogres)
was more important to you than

Considering that you have him stating that he fudges solely based on his grandma, it cannot be because something occurred or did no occur in the story. Something happening in the story can be the trigger, but it can only be because of grandma. Grandma was the sole cause of the change. Story was merely the trigger.

-the advantages of never fudging (ie not risking a threat to the feeling of challenge).

Again, the cause was grandma, challenge was not even a consideration.


Maybe this will help you understand what is being done.

When I pass a homeless person I do not give that homeless person money, but it's challenging to resist giving some. (leaving the challenge and story the same). Now let's say I pass a homeless man who reminds me of my departed father and because he reminds me of my father, I give him $5 (changing both challenge and story).

The cause of the change there is my father (even though both challenge and story were altered, neither one was the cause).

 

[iserith]

Again, I've stated several times that "good" and "bad" aren't what we're discussing and I don't have a judgment there.

Why do you keep asking that?

Forum Tactic: Get someone to say that somebody else's preference is Bad and then you get to claim the high ground and shout "One True Wayism!" and "Badwrongfun!" as a means to shut that person down. I don't assert that is what is going on here, but it's common enough.

As an aside and at the risk of sounding like I'm arguing semantics, I think your position is helped by differentiating challenge (a situation you can win or lose on your own merits) and difficulty (how hard you have to think/work to win). Challenge and difficulty are frequently conflated because "challenging" can mean "difficult." Both can be impacted by fudging in different ways.

It's hard to argue that fudging doesn't affect difficulty - change a monster's hit to a miss and difficulty necessarily goes down. But if a DM who fudges a particular die roll still keeps the loss conditions on the table (perhaps he or she is just prolonging a battle or the like or trying to avoid what is perceived as "extreme bad luck"), then challenge hasn't actually be reduced because you can still win or lose. This may be why some are not accepting your position, solid though it may be. Of course, if the loss conditions are taken off the table as well, then challenge has been removed.