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

[Vaalingrade]

Except not everyone knows it’s happening, because as this thread makes clear, quite a few DMs do not fudge.

Like the back yard wrestling leagues (not belittling).

They still know it is a larger phenomenon.

...and getting mad that the wrestling shows they don't watch use kayfabe.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Count me among those who has seen a DM fudge. I didn’t confront him about, because I tend to be pretty non-confrontational, but I regret that I didn’t and it definitely impacted my enjoyment of the game.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It's certainly a new thing.

You are literally the first person I've every seen raise an objection and that was like only a year or two ago.

Before that, not fudging was just a piece of plausible deniability for killer DMs; the 'I'm just playing my character' of TPKs.

But that was before it became 'badwrongfuning' to malign railroads, so we may well have plunged beyond the event horizon into a realm of madness.

We literally just had Hussar give examples of threads of this nature, going back to 2010. And there are people in those threads taking positions reasonably equivalent to mine--people specifying how hurt or angry they would feel if they learned the DM fudged, or a player genuinely torn between "I don't want to be in a game where the DM fudges" and "I want to keep playing this game run by a friend that includes my other friends in it."

This isn't new. This isn't me evincing some crazy perspective that only cropped up in the last few years. This has been around for no less than a full decade--and I'm 110% certain if you did any serious looking, you'd see it a hell of a lot earlier. That's very specifically the reason all the people who advocate for fudging in advice blogs and such always specify that you have to keep it your dirty little secret forever and ever.

 

[Maxperson]

You should be not at all surprised to know that I prefer people being honest with me about this sort of thing too--and I prefer to be honest with others about it as well. The challenge, of course, is that honesty of this kind requires a great deal of tact if you intend to give it, otherwise it can be genuinely, deeply hurtful to others in a way pretend elfgames generally can't. I have found that pursuing this kind of honesty with others, avoiding the "white lies" of socialization, has actually improved several of my relationships.

Regardless of your position on fudging, there's nothing dishonest about it.

Then I would openly repudiate that "rule" as an extremely bad move and would genuinely consider never playing D&D again, unless and until such rules were removed. I already dislike the fact that the 5e DMG says "...and don't let on that you're [fudging.] Otherwise, your players might think they don't face any real risks--or worse, that you're playing favorites." Meaning, even the books themselves advocate concealing this from your players. That's bad enough.

Right. It's warning that the players might overreact and not understand what the fudging is for and react poorly to their misperception.

 

[Charlaquin]

See, the part I'm getting tripped over is the "a lot" part. After all, pro wresting is one of the most popular sports on TV and has been so for my entire lifetime. Billions of people watch CGI movies and the most popular movies of all time all use considerable CGI. So, your "a lot" seems to be more, "Me" than anyone else.

I don’t have any problem with pro wrestling or CGI (though I do prefer practical effects). I do know people who don’t like pro wrestling because it’s so staged, and I do know people who dislike CGI in movies.

I mean, of all the things I've heard players complain about, fudging doesn't even crack the top 10. IME, no one really cares. We all know that the DM has his or her thumb on the scales from time to time. That's just part of DMing. @Vaalingrade isn't wrong pointing out that virtually every DMG in existence tells DM's that fudging when, in your best judgement, doing so would result in a more fun game, is perfectly fine and even expected.

The idea that if I change a crit to a regular hit, one time, suddenly no rolls in the game ever matter for all time, is ridiculous. As a DM, I'm going to roll hundreds or thousands of times over the course of a campaign. Ignoring the roll from time to time does not mean that the dice don't matter.

If you hide the dice from your players, and you change the results from time to time, how are they ever supposed to trust the roll results you tell them? They have no way of knowing if you’re telling them the real results or making it up.

Has anyone ever actually had players complain about this? As in seriously walk out of a game because of this? Quit a group over this? I guess it's probably happened sometime, somewhere. But, the overwrought hand wringing we're seeing here is just mind blowing.

Yes, there are in fact players who would quit a game over this, some of whom are participating in this very discussion. About half of the respondents to the poll have said they consider fudging bad. It’s a very serious issue for some players, and even if we are in the minority, it is still a good policy to clear it with your group in session zero if you plan to fudge. If all your players really are ok with it, what do you stand to lose by informing them of your intent to fudge and asking if they are ok with it before the start of the campaign?

 

[Charlaquin]

While I agree that D&D isn't a show, I think showmanship is still a valuable DMing skill. From being able to read the players, to knowing how to keep and direct the players' interest and attention, the showman's art can be applied directly to the role of the DM. I think in many ways a DM is a blend of a storyteller and a close-up magician, with the authorial aspect of the former, the interactivity of the later, and from both the emphasis on captivating the audience.

Sure, showmanship is a valuable DMing skill, but that doesn’t make a play a good analogue for a game of D&D.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I don’t have any problem with pro wrestling or CGI (though I do prefer practical effects). I do know people who don’t like pro wrestling because it’s so staged, and I do know people who dislike CGI in movies.

But do they call the wrestlers and CG artists dishonest to justify that preference?

 

[Charlaquin]

Whereas me, I just assume that it does happen and wouldn't ask.

Dollars to donuts if you ask ten different tabletop DM's (VTT is a bit of a different beast) if they've fudged ever in their current campaign, I'd guess that probably the majority have. That's certainly been my experience.

Here's a pretty small sample size - but it does fit with what I said:

As a GM, How Often Do You Fudge Dice Rolls? about 75% have done it at least once in the past year or more.

and this poll from 2016 has almost the same results as this poll: D&D 5E - Do you want your DM to fudge?

Let's go back to 2010 Are you a fudging fudger? - almost 2/3's of DM's fudge.

2011 - almost 2/3rds of respondents say they fudge. To Fudge or not to Fudge...

Oh and this article from 2018 - Everybody Cheats? detailing a more comprehensive study that shows that almost 90% of DM's admitted to fudging die rolls.

I'd say that there's at least a significant chance that fudging is pretty common and generally a lot more acceptable than one might think given the reactions in this thread.

I don’t doubt for a second that it’s common. That doesn’t mean DMs shouldn’t be checking in with their players to see how they feel about it.

 

[Charlaquin]

It matters because I think you're making a lot more out of this than it needs to be. Since you've never actually had to do it, and never seen it done, I'm thinking that perhaps this isn't that much of a problem. Added to that, from what evidence we have, fudging is very common and done at probably more than half the tables out there. So, declaring that fudging means that you automatically leave the table, well, you might find that a bit of an issue if more than half the tables out there actually fudge.

Or, to put it another way, it's very, very likely you have already played at a table where the DM fudged and you never knew.

it's kind of like asking people if they've read 1984. Something like a 1/3rd of people who say yes are lying. Fudging is, by all accounts, quite common. If players refused to play at tables where the DM fudged, I think we'd hear about it quite a lot more.

I know for a fact that I have been at tables where the DM fudged (and yes, I have left games over it, though not every time). I have never been told by the DM that they were fudging, let alone asked how I felt about it. I think if it was common practice for the DM to discuss this with their players instead of hiding it, you would have a lot more players leaving games because of it.

 

[Maxperson]

I don’t have any problem with pro wrestling or CGI (though I do prefer practical effects). I do know people who don’t like pro wrestling because it’s so staged, and I do know people who dislike CGI in movies.

I don't like staged wrestling, because the winner of the match is predetermined. Predetermination isn't fudging. I'd watch it if once in a great while there was a legitimate one sided beating beat so bad that the refs gave the guy a short break to recover a bit and it made for a better fight that he could still lose. That would be like fudging.

If you hide the dice from your players, and you change the results from time to time, how are they ever supposed to trust the roll results you tell them? They have no way of knowing if you’re telling them the real results or making it up.

They have no way of knowing that you're fudging from time to time.