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

[Crimson Longinus]

Is using the full range of random hot points a monster stat block count as fudging?

Or must every monster encountered stick to the average?

Because a roll all attacks in the open. But I decide on-the-fly what hit points any given encountered foe has within the stat block range. Why is this cheating?

It's not cheating, most would probably call it fudging. Though I'm not sure it is said anywhere that you're supposed to roll/choose the HP before the fight begins...

I think you could have Schödinger's HP and only roll/choose the total once the monster has taken damage at least equal to the minimum HP it could theoretically have.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But please focus on what's actually happening in the game and not on how the GM achieves it.

For some, its not entirely separable. As I've noted, people think they're much more clever at hiding things like fudging than they often are.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

For some, its not entirely separable. As I've noted, people think they're much more clever at hiding things like fudging than they often are.

It is rather than people think that they're way better at noticing these things than they actually are. It's just very basic confirmation bias, people of course are not aware of the times they didn't notice, only those on which they did!

But yes, if the players notice, then it has become a thing that affects the actual experience. Like the infamous GM mentioned on these boards who didn't even record the damage and just let the monsters die when they felt like it! That definitely would affect the play experience! But I doubt a GM altering a die roll couple of times in campaign would be noticeable or affect the play experience.

 

[Flamestrike]

I'm not obfuscating - I don't agree with the premise. In reality, I don't in fact know that the encounter will TPK the party because I don't know what the players will do.

Again.

You've 'randomly generated' an encounter with 6 hostile werewolves. The PCs are 4th level, lack any silver or magical weapons, and have no effective magic to stop them. They have been working well together, have bought into your campaign and are having fun. The last campaign ended with a TPK, and the players were unhappy and took some time off from gaming afterwards.

At present they are holed up in a room, badly injured, with only one way in or out (so the way the lycanthropes are coming from), desperately attempting to Short Rest.

It is self evidently a certain TPK.

Do you proceed with the randomly generated encounter, or ignore the roll and select a more appropriate one, that doesn't result in a TPK?

Which is it?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But the key words in that sentence are not just "necessary" but "sometimes" and "evil". The fact I accept its sometimes a practical necessity doesn't mean I have to consider it a virtue.

Yeah. And there is a lot of "but if you prepared better or houseruled the mechanic or had done this or that then you wouldn't need to fudge" going on this thread. Which, sure, is often true. But also not everyone is perfect like me, so sometimes mistakes happen, and fixing it via fudging if you can is not a great sin.

 

[Charlaquin]

And when to overrule the dice when they screw up.

The dice can’t screw up. They are random number generators. If they can generate a result the DM doesn’t want to be possible, then it is the DM who has screwed up in when/how they used the dice.

 

[Seramus]

I sometimes fudge the world, but not combat. If I rolled a random encounter like six hostile werewolves when my party is already badly wounded, I absolutely will fudge and roll again. Or just make up something myself.

But once combat or a skill challenge starts? Whatever happens is what happens. I don't know why that space is sacred compared to only moments prior, but it is for me.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The dice can’t screw up. They are random number generators. If they can generate a result the DM don’t want to be possible, then it is the DM who has screwed up in when/how they used the dice.

And then the DM fixes it.

 

[Charlaquin]

Again.

You've 'randomly generated' an encounter with 6 hostile werewolves. The PCs are 4th level, lack any silver or magical weapons, and have no effective magic to stop them. They have been working well together, have bought into your campaign and are having fun. The last campaign ended with a TPK, and the players were unhappy and took some time off from gaming afterwards.

At present they are holed up in a room, badly injured, with only one way in or out (so the way the lycanthropes are coming from), desperately attempting to Short Rest.

It is self evidently a certain TPK.

Do you proceed with the randomly generated encounter, or ignore the roll and select a more appropriate one, that doesn't result in a TPK?

Which is it?

In that scenario, I wouldn’t roll the dice at all. I’d just pick a different encounter from the table in the first place.

 

[Charlaquin]

And then the DM fixes it.

By lying about the result of the dice roll? No, thank you. I don’t care if the DM thinks it will make the experience better for me, that shouldn’t be their call to make. I don’t like being lied to.