A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

[Maxperson]

Are you mitigating bad outcomes through fudging or not?

The outcome is decided randomly via a fair fight.

And there it is. When all else fails, the walls where defenders of DMs fudging retreat and hide behind.

Yeah. God forbid we use rules.

I agree. I'm not discovering play if I am altering outcomes produced by die results.

The way I do it I am.

 

[Maxperson]

Fudging is not a DM rule. And, yes, GM force can be codified into rules.

It's on page 235 of the DMG under rolling dice. It says very clearly that rolling behind the screen lets you fudge if you want to. Then it gives examples on how to go about it, followed by a cautionary warning.

 

[Aldarc]

The outcome is decided randomly via a fair fight.

It stops being random or fair once you place your thumb on the scale.

The way I do it I am.

That's an assertion for you to prove, Max. Otherwise it's left dangling unsubstantiated.

 

[Maxperson]

It stops being random or fair once you place your thumb on the scale.

Bullpucky! You may not like what I do, but it is in fact random once I even up the odds. The dice control the win or loss randomly, and it is in fact fair as I have gotten rid of the vastly unfair dice god interference.

That's an assertion for you to prove, Max. Otherwise it's left dangling unsubstantiated.

I have no idea how it's going to play out after I fudge, so I am in fact discovering the game play. That was easy to prove.

 

[Aldarc]

Bullpucky! You may not like what I do, but it is in fact random once I even up the odds. The dice control the win or loss randomly, and it is in fact fair as I have gotten rid of the vastly unfair dice god interference.

You keep appealing to putting your thumb on the scale and pretending that it represents randomness. This is not intellectually honest, Max.

I have no idea how it's going to play out after I fudge, so I am in fact discovering the game play. That was easy to prove.

But if you are turning a hit into a miss or a miss into a hit - two common hinges where fudging occurs - then I am at a loss about how you are discovering game play. Those are two different fictions.

 

[Numidius]

When I feel the urge to fudge to facilitate things, I just say yes, or ask the players to focus on gaining an advantage, explaining how the situation might get worse for them

 

[Maxperson]

You keep appealing to putting your thumb on the scale and pretending that it represents randomness. This is not intellectually honest, Max.

Let's continue with your analogy. You are arguing that an unbalanced scale is fair when it isn't. And if the outcome is determined randomly, it doesn't matter if I put my thumb on the scale to balance it out and make it fair, it was still determined randomly.

But if you are turning a hit into a miss or a miss into a hit - two common hinges where fudging occurs - then I am at a loss about how you are discovering game play. Those are two different fictions.

Discovering game play is not binary. That's a False Dichotomy. Sure those very few fudges weren't discovered, but the 99% of the rest of it was, so it's still discovered play.

 

[Aldarc]

Let's continue with your analogy. You are arguing that an unbalanced scale is fair when it isn't.

You are arguing that the scale is unbalanced when it isn't. (Or at least negligibly so.) You are conflating harshness of chance with unfair, but chance can be harsh but fair. If you flip a coin,* you have roughly 50/50 odds. If you project Heads for 50 percent of the time, but get Tails for 80 percent of those times, then yeah that's rough, but that's not unfair. We may call that unlucky. But that doesn't make the process of chance unfair.

* Discounting technicalities of chance such as landing on its thin side.

And if the outcome is determined randomly, it doesn't matter if I put my thumb on the scale to balance it out and make it fair, it was still determined randomly.

No. Repeating something over and over doesn't make it true, Max. The outcome is not determined randomly if you choose to bypass the dice resolution process in favor of another outcome.

Discovering game play is not binary. That's a False Dichotomy. Sure those very few fudges weren't discovered, but the 99% of the rest of it was, so it's still discovered play.

And there we go. An admission that the gameplay wasn't discovered. Thank you. Was that so hard?

 

[Bedrockgames]

And there it is. When all else fails, the walls where defenders of DMs fudging retreat and hide behind.

This is a bit much. I don't care to fudge myself, but it is just a playstyle preference, and there are degrees of fudging for hosts of different reasons. I can understand the logic behind why some people like it, why it may add to play for them, and why it has stuck around. I particularly am sympathetic to the idea of the GM interceding when dice rolls produce results that really don't make sense. Obviously in an ideal world the system never produces senseless results. But it can happen occasionally, even in well crafted systems. For what I like to do, letting the dice fall where they may adds too much significance to key moments for me to shift to fudging. But I get why people do it. These are all just preferences. It is a question of playstyle, not morality.

 

[Aldarc]

This is a bit much.

Possibly. But [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] dug-up old debates, and it seems that they are now erupting here too.

For what I like to do, letting the dice fall where they may adds too much significance to key moments for me to shift to fudging. But I get why people do it. These are all just preferences. It is a question of playstyle, not morality.

One can be sympathetic to the playstyle while not being sympathetic to the duplicitous double-speak that some individuals perform when defending the GMing practice. I appreciate GMs who are honest and forthright about what they are doing and why they are doing it when it comes to fudging. It's especially grating when these individuals go to great-lengths to justify their fudging while being quick to berate players for "fudging."

But none of this discussion actually contributes anything meaningful to the prior discussion about "hidden backstory" or whatever it was we were kicking around.