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

[Charlaquin]

It was an answer to your question. It's not my fault if people misperceive what fudging is. Trust eroded over a misperception isn't my doing.

But literally, if they know you fudge, they can’t know any given roll isn’t fudged. They may or may not trust you to fudge in their best interest, but there’s no way to trust that the results are impartial if you know the DM isn’t bound by the actual results of the rolls.

It's not even that. The roll is what I want it to be. The rules serve me, not the other way around.

The rules absolutely do serve you, yes. But if tell me that an attack missed me, I’m naturally going to assume that you rolled below my AC. If you actually rolled above my AC, I have quite literally been misled. Is that within your purview as DM to do? Yes. The book literally says as much, and even if it didn’t, the rules do indeed serve you. But it is still misleading. It’s allowing me to believe something that is not true. Now, maybe I have agreed to that (hypothetically, of course; I wouldn’t actually agree to it). In that case, I don’t think it’s deceptive. I know it might happen and I’ve consented to it. But, if we haven’t discussed it, or worse yet if you claim not to do it (not saying you do, but I know many DMs do, Matt Colville being a particularly public example), that is deceptive, in the literal sense of the word.

 

[Maxperson]

But literally, if they know you fudge, they can’t know any given roll isn’t fudged. They may or may not trust you to fudge in their best interest, but there’s no way to trust that the results are impartial if you know the DM isn’t bound by the actual results of the rolls.

This is false. If you trust the DM, you can trust him to be impartial, fudging or no.

The rules absolutely do serve you, yes. But if tell me that an attack missed me, I’m naturally going to assume that you rolled below my AC. If you actually rolled above my AC, I have quite literally been misled.

No you haven't been misled. Or if you have, you've only been misled by your own assumption.

It’s allowing me to believe something that is not true.

I'm not responsible for your assumptions or the beliefs that stem from those assumptions.

 

[Charlaquin]

This is false. If you trust the DM, you can trust him to be impartial, fudging or no.

Fudging is literally partial.

No you haven't been misled. Or if you have, you've only been misled by your own assumption.

The assumption that the game will function according to the rules in the rulebook, except where the DM has house ruled otherwise.

I'm not responsible for your assumptions or the beliefs that stem from those assumptions.

That’s just taking advantage of an assumption you know the players will have.

 

[Monayuris]

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.

I think this makes a good point. I generally do not like fudging as a player and try very hard to not do it as a DM.

But if a DM is going to fudge, why not just tell players that they will do it and when they do it? Why the need to keep it a secret?

For me, a DM fudging and hiding it feels like being lied to. Of course I would be upset if I found out. I’d be more amenable if the DM just told me that they will fudge the story interesting or that they changed a hit into a miss because of whatever reason.

This whole idea of illusionism with regards to D&D is problematic and needs to go away. Either don’t fudge/lie to players or be up front about fudging so they know and understand.

 

[Maxperson]

Fudging is literally partial.

Not if done fairly and impartially. I never fudge partially. It's done neutrally in all cases.

The assumption that the game will function according to the rules in the rulebook, except where the DM has house ruled otherwise.

That's a poor assumption in a game that literally is written in a way where that's not possible. 5e was deliberately written vaguely in huge numbers of areas just so that DMs would have to change things or set things up for their game that are different from how you might interpret it. If you're assuming that your interpretation of anything in the rules is how the DM is running it, it's on you when something you assumed turns out to be wrong.

 

[billd91]

Fudging is literally partial.

Well, there's your disconnect. You seem to be equating impartial with, I dunno, impersonal or arbitrary. Impartial doesn't require the lack of personal DM judgment over things including whether or not a result generated by the dice are appropriate to the situation. Impartial means that the judgment is fair, just, and/or treats sides equally. And that doesn't mean that the judge needs to be an unfudged die roll. Is fudging to blunt the effect of a string of bad luck really unfair or unjust? I don't think so.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The fact that these had so much (necessary) impact on opponent's ability to stay up produced a phenomenon I referred to in a post on the Green Ronin forums back when they were still a thing as "Has the GM Decided We Win Yet?" It could seriously impact how meaningful what you were doing felt, because the GM could (and there was no solid guidance not to, other than his sense of appropriate pacing) keep shovelling Fiats out all day, and hero points/Fiats were stronger on the whole on defense than offense because of how they worked. That lead us locally to develop and announce more finite schemes, because then the players knew that at some point your supply of Fiats would be exhausted, so they were at least making progress.

Sounds to me like the GM had not mastered their own particular style of storytelling yet if those uses of GM Fiat were noticeable roadblocks to compelling fights and the resultant drama they were trying to help get across. Personally... I think that's when you know when you have become a really good GM... when you can use the concept of GM Fiat judiciously to help a game reach even greater heights without the players ever caring or even noticing that it may or may not be happening. The game is so compelling and fun that no one is spending their time even thinking about it, let alone looking for it.

I mean, it seems like there's all this talk in these threads about "DM Trust"... and how that appears to be an actual impediment for a lot of player's gaming. And I feel kinda bad about that, because it sounds like they've played with some DMs in the past who just were not at the level they felt they wanted their DM to be, which is what led to even the possibility of the loss of "DM trust". And it makes me realize that I am playing D&D from a position of privilege... because I have never had to even think about or consider "DM trust". That's never been an issue. Apparently I have just lucked out or been just choosy enough that I've never played for a DM where the issue of trust needed to be a consideration. As far as I've ever experienced... the DM does their job, we players do our jobs, the resultant game and story is a lot of fun, and we all go home. That's it. And so if there's even been fudging on either side of the screen... it has not in any way, shape, or form been something we have ever had to worry about or think about. And I feel sorry for all of you who don't have that luxury and have to keep one eye open to make sure your games are on the up-and-up. Splitting your attention like that I imagine must be really tiresome and it's no wonder there's these hard and fast rules for some of you-- it's one less thing you need to worry about when trying to play.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Note my example with the Damage Reduction, however. That actually happened. I just happened to notice before it became a problem (say after the fight had started), but it easily could have gone the other way.

I will concede that that example did not seem to be very contrived, but it also did not seem to be an example that most people who dislike fudging consider fudging.

As I understood it, you had chosen a monster for an encounter on the basis that you believed it had 10 DR. Before combat started, you realised it had 30 DR instead. Even if you had only realised this during the combat, wouldn’t it have been at the moment you went to calculate damage taken and realised you were subtracting 30 instead of 10?

I don’t see this as fudging. You were planning an encounter with a DR 10 monster, you provided an encounter with a DR 10 monster.

 

[Irlo]

As a DM, I have fudged rolls. It tends to be in low-stakes situations. When a PC caster threw down an AoE spell on a roomful of mooks and, against all odds, all of them saved, I changed a few to failing. It didn't save the PCs or doom the mooks -- there was no real danger to the PCs at that point, the mooks weren't going to survive two rounds of combat anyway, reduced the grind of taking out everyone individually, and made that 3rd level spell slot not a total waste.

I have made intentionally questionable tactical decisions on behalf of monsters that were steamrolling the PCs to avoid kills and TPKs, but those poor tactics aren't fun and suck the fun out of the game (for everyone) faster than fudging a few die rolls, so I won't do that again (unless I screw up and do it again, in which case I'll feel bad about it again).

I'm not currently running a game, but when I do, I might empower the in-game pseudo-fudge powers -- inspiration, bardic combat inspiration and cutting words, the lucky feat, legendary resistance, etc. -- to be more flexible and fill the niche of fudged dice rolls. Giving monsters and PCs extra abilities to use reactions to re-roll is another option.

And I absolutely and unapologetically curate random encounter and rumor tables. Usually I don't roll at all, but if I'm rolling to help me decide, I still reserve the right to veto any roll that has an unappealing result.

After reading this thread, I will definitely talk to the group during the game prep phase to tell them explicitly what I might do with the dice.

 

[Monayuris]

I will concede that that example did not seem to be very contrived, but it also did not seem to be an example that most people who dislike fudging consider fudging.

As I understood it, you had chosen a monster for an encounter on the basis that you believed it had 10 DR. Before combat started, you realised it had 30 DR instead. Even if you had only realised this during the combat, wouldn’t it have been at the moment you went to calculate DR and realised you were subtracting 30 instead of 10?

I don’t see this as fudging. You were planning an encounter with a DR 10 monster, you provided an encounter with a DR 10 monster.

Fudging to me is more about player expectation and experience than anything else.

If you designed an encounter as above and realized your mistake; it is not fudging to fix it. You’ll probably catch it the first time it takes damage, change it immediately, and players would never know. But in that case it likely doesn’t matter because players would not have had actionable knowledge of it anyway.

It would be more of a problem is the players had some knowledge of the creature, took steps and spent time and resources in reaction to that knowledge, and then you change it in the middle of the battle. (If the players cast a bunch of spells to overcome DR 30 and you change it to 10… they just wasted a lot of resources)

It is when there are expectations of certain outcomes that make sense to players but outcomes are changes behind the scenes to intentionally subvert those outcomes is when fudging comes into play.

DM decisions like changing or even choosing what random encounter will occur, or deciding on a trap in the room, on the fly, are also not fudging. Unless, they subvert predefined player knowledge and expectations.