D&D General How do players feel about DM fudging?

[Flamestrike]

And watching a magician is like playing in a railroad, their is no player agency.

And it's a lot more than random numbers. You are trying to belittle my view by reducing it to something so ridiculous and something I am not saying. What's that called? Gaslighting?

So, two parts for me;
1) GMs do a lot more than roll dice, they setup situations that allow many outcomes and form the setting for a memorable story being created by everyone. But that's me. You get to be your own kind of GM, whatever that is.
2) Don't assume you know how your actions make your players feel. As I've said, I've seen it before, and over time it erodes the game. Maybe it won't for you and your players, but it does for me and many of those I play with.

There is nothing rail-roady about fudging any more than there is about choosing to let dice do the work for you.

Your argument is essentially hyperbole.

Thats not a good sign.

 

[Flamestrike]

What's the point of using a random number generator if you're not intending to respect the results it gives?

Prevent metagaming, maintain suspense, focus player attention, entertainment, showmanship, avoid fun sapping outcome in a game played for fun, increase challenge and player engagement etc.

I could go on.

 

[LordEntrails]

I'm not the one making accusations and lashing out at multiple people. Chill.

This whole thread really just serves to rile up people and start fights.

I am chill. You keep reading tone and connotations into my posts and that of others that we are not writing. You can not see my body language or facial expressions, and for whatever reason are interpreting things in a way they are not intended. You will find much more... something positive, if you assume the best of people online rather than think they are all out to argue with you.

It also might help if you consider the difference between arguing and discussing. ENWorld is here to discuss, so lets assume we are discussing and not arguing.

And if it's done right, you never know about it. Smooth.

Well, you and I agree that you do it perfectly so your players will never know. But my experience, and that apparently others on this thread is that they have experience many DMs who think they are doing it right, but are not since the players know what they are doing.

As for most DMs, we are not perfect, and therefore in many cases our players will know. So, I would rather err on the side of not getting caught fudging.

Well, to answer the question honestly because many people assume a GM is liable to be taking in the big picture better than individual players are. This isn't always or necessarily true, but its the reason.

Agreed. Seems like such reasoning is full of hubris to me

There is nothing rail-roady about fudging any more than there is about choosing to let dice do the work for you.

Your argument is essentially hyperbole.

Thats not a good sign.

Please explain your logic here to me. Fudging often serves to keep an event with a pre determined outcome. Or preventing a specific outcome (TPK, character death, "failure"). Is that not a degree of railroading? i.e. a prescribed out come rather than one strongly influenced by chance. Seems like opposite approaches to me.

As for hyperbole, If you only bother to pay attention to the extremes of what I have written sure. But then you are ignoring all of the conditionals and nuance I've been trying to convey.

 

[LordEntrails]

To be fair, not 'I have played D&D for Ten Thousand Years' line has ever been useful.

Perhaps to you. But if we are having a discussion based upon the experience of the people in the discussion, it's important to understand their experience. If I'm talking to someone about how good the performance of a Corvette C7 is, it's important to know if they are a 16 year old who got their license yesterday, a Formula 1 driver who has never driven a C7, or a Corvette factory test driver for the last 30 years. I'm going to expect a different perspective and level of experience from each of them.

For this discussion, if someone says 'I've never had a player have a problem with me fudging rolls' It means vastly different things if the DM is on the 2nd month of their first campaign ever. Or if they have had 20 years of DM experience for dozens of different players. etc.

 

[Maxperson]

Keeping secrets from the players is not pro-player, and deciding to change the results of rolls unilaterally without player input is only pro-the-story-the-DM-wants-to-tell.

This is an objectively false statement.

 

[Maxperson]

To be fair, not 'I have played D&D for Ten Thousand Years' line has ever been useful.

But it gives you such a crick in the neck!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mod Note:

Nothing has gotten too serious, yet, but I’m seeing a lot of posts in this thread that made me think of this:

How about we step back from the accusations and denigrations, and just talk about our varied perspectives on fudging? If another poster is getting under your skin, disengage. If it’s REALLY getting to you, use- but do not announce- your ignore list,

 

[Thomas Shey]

Agreed. Seems like such reasoning is full of hubris to me

Yes and no. I think its defensible than many, maybe most players tend to focus on their own character, or at best, the characters as a group and don't really make much attempt at the big picture.

Where it gets excessive is when a GM takes that as a given, sometimes damn near a law of nature. Generalities are risky, and universals are almost always a mistake.

 

[Flamestrike]

Please explain your logic here to me. Fudging often serves to keep an event with a pre determined outcome.

Yeah. My predetermined outcome being 'the Players have fun, tell a collective story, are challenged and the game doesn't come crashing down to a pointless TPK due to nothing more than naughty word luck'.

You sound like the sort of dude who would choose to put your group through a book adventure, then when (through no fault of their own) an encounter that they had no say over crushes them (due to bad adventure writing and/or bad luck) you'd TPK them and shrug your shoulders.

Thats fine for you and all, but it's not how I want to spend my free time, and it kind of ignores the reason we have a human dungeon master in the first place.

 

[loverdrive]

Yeah. My predetermined outcome being 'the Players have fun, tell a collective story, are challenged and the game doesn't come crashing down to a pointless TPK due to nothing more than naughty word luck'.

How, exactly, you're reconciling an irreconcilable conflict between fudging and players being challenged? What's the point of executing smart plans, managing risks and picking your own battles, y'know, addressing the challenge, if you're doing too well enemies will get stronger, and if you're doing too poorly, DM is gonna save your gluteus maximus?