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

[doctorbadwolf]

The thing about fudging is the philosophy and how only one person at the table gets to be philosophical.

DM gets to fudge things in order to make a better/more dramatic/interesting/etc. story.

Players also have a sense of what makes a better/more dramatic/interesting/etc. story...but never get to fudge at all.

Why???

Who says they don’t?

 

[Grendel_Khan]

The unstated end of that sentence is, however, "if they can." This is another one of those cases where avoiding single-points-of-failure is the ideal, but isn't always done for any number of reasons including not realizing one is there until everyone gets there.

I feel like heists-in-RPGs might be its own subtopic, though, since I think they're actually incredibly hard to do in an interesting or genre-appropriate way at the table. Especially since a lot of the best heist narratives wait to reveal the full plan to the audience. No trad game that I've seen provides the mechanics to hide that sort of info from the PCs--meaning stuff that they themselves would have already had to plan.

Which, if we're being honest means it's time to break Forged in the Dark! Or at the very least steal some of its mechanics. I'm running a heavily-modified Shadowrun game right now, and that game always been about heists, while also being terrible at heists, since no edition offers mechanical support for the kind of narrative shenanigans that heists rely on. So we use a version of Blades' flashbacks, as well as the Heat and Wanted mechanics, etc. It works like a charm, and it's honestly pretty depressing that through six editions, Shadowrun has just avoided ever even trying to figure out what makes heists cool or feasible.

(Also I realize that other FitD mechanics, like Devil's Bargains and resisting consequences, are also better tuned for heists, but our SR+FitD jalopy is still bouncing down the road)

 

[Eric V]

Who says they don’t?

So, how do the people who think it's ok for the DM to fudge feel about players doing the same?

 

[Cadence]

So, how do the people who think it's ok for the DM to fudge feel about players doing the same?

The DMG has historically allowed the DM that option (if not encouraged them to use it). I don't think it's ever been formally allowed for the PCs - and so it might feel really odd to even ask that (like it does to me).

But if everyone at the table is good with it (as I think it is for at least one poster here), then the players should feel free to fudge away.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So, how do the people who think it's ok for the DM to fudge feel about players doing the same?

As said, I built levers into my system to make it possible:

• Everyone has Action Points
• There are feats available that let them turn one of their 1's into a 20 once per encounter, or turn an enemy crit into just a hit and at another level cancel the hit, and one that let's you set the die for a roll an ally made. Also skill feats that allow auto-successes per encounter.
• spells that can max or min a damage roll as a reaction, and to cancel and replay an action.
• Expanded Help actions to let players help one another out more effectively.

I called the initiative to add these 'Dice Canceler' (Index reference, not that kind of cancel) because I was done with watching some of my players sit through an entire game growing quietly frustrated that the dice decided they couldn't accomplish anything that session.

 

[iserith]

The DMG has historically allowed the DM that option (if not encouraged them to use it). I don't think it's ever been formally allowed for the PCs - and so it might feel really odd to even ask that (like it does to me).

But if everyone at the table is good with it (as I think it is for at least one poster here), then the players should feel free to fudge away.

Since the DM controls the application of the rules, they can't really cheat at all. Players don't have that kind of power and are expected to follow the rules (the DM is told to mediate between players and the rules) so fudging on their part actually does look like cheating.

Fudging is mostly the DM not accepting the stakes they themselves established. They presented, for example, a life or death struggle of the PCs versus the villain. But when death becomes a real possibility, the DM starts to ignore die results that allow for death to arise. The answer in my view is to not establish stakes you're not willing to live with.

 

[Flamestrike]

You are once again wrong with your assumptions,

OK, lets try a hypothetical.

You're DMing. Your (4th level PCs) players are exploring a dungeon. They're dragging their heels, and have been having a reasonably easy time of it; HP are close to full, the Barbarian has 1 rage left, most Hit Dice have been used, plus a few 2nd level slots. The PCs have enough time remaining for a Short rest however. The BBEG isnt far off (a few rooms away), and the players are getting a little side tracked with table talk and deciding what to do next. You decide to throw a quick 'random' encounter (to focus their attention, and weaken them a little for the BBEG) is in order. The session is due to end in around an hour or two.

You had nothing planned, so you roll on a table provided in the module you're running. You roll an '89'. The players dont see the roll, and have no access to the chart even if they did.

The result tells you '1d6 Werewolves'. You roll a 6. Werewolves don't really make sense in the context of the adventure.

You know your PCs have no silver or magical weapons, and this encounter will almost certainly result in a TPK. You also note that on the same chart, the result of an '88' gives a much more manageable encounter for them, and also ties into the BBEG a lot better (it's the BBEG's henchman, obviously sent out to 'deal' with the PCs).

Do you:

A) Just throw the Werewolves at them because 'the dice say so'?

or

B) Alter the result to an 88, and use the more sensible encounter, that better serves the story and the outcome desired (and the reason you rolled in the first place) and that wont result in a crushing TPK?

Which is it?

 

[Charlaquin]

Interesting.

ID much rather the DM half the main enemy’s HP mid battle than offer a mulligan on the whole fight.

I’d really rather neither, but if the DM feels they made a mistake serious enough to require changing the parameters of the fight, I’d rather they be open and honest about it than do it in secret. Even if it’s adjusting the HP mid-fight, they could say “this isn’t going like I thought it would. What do you all think if I lower the HP values a bit?”

I don’t feel like “be open and honest with your players” should be such controversial advice. In every other situation people advise it, but when it comes to fudging? Oh, no, for some reason that’s different and suddenly it’s better to go behind the players’ backs. I don’t get it.

 

[Flamestrike]

How, exactly, you're reconciling an irreconcilable conflict between fudging and players being challenged?

Because they don't know you're altering the results.

There is no conflict there. If the players are having an easy time of it due to luck (I'm rolling poor, and they're not) I can alter that luck.

I am not a slave to the dice, and as DM can overrule the results of the dice at my discretion. There are higher priorities at play here (the enjoyment of my human players) than the dice.

 

[Vaalingrade]

'Open and honest' is fine. It's the 'interrupt the game for an unnecessary debate' part that's an issue.