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

[Cadence]

I'm not sure I am, as I'm not sure if I'm reading your categories correctly.

I place high importance on the authentic results of the dice rolls. If you're not going to honour the result, why roll?
I also place high importance on faithfully portraying a character. "Do what the character would do" trumps pretty much everything else.

I'm anti-fudging, though perhaps not to the extreme degree of a few here: I can see rare - as in, maybe once every few years - cases where it fits.
I'm anti-metagaming, perhaps as strongly as anyone here.

Does any of that square with your categories?

Bad bad it is!

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm not sure I am, as I'm not sure if I'm reading your categories correctly.

I place high importance on the authentic results of the dice rolls. If you're not going to honour the result, why roll?
I also place high importance on faithfully portraying a character. "Do what the character would do" trumps pretty much everything else.

I'm anti-fudging, though perhaps not to the extreme degree of a few here: I can see rare - as in, maybe once every few years - cases where it fits.
I'm anti-metagaming, perhaps as strongly as anyone here.

Does any of that square with your categories?

Right, so bad/bad, as in “fudging is bad and metagaming is bad.” Which is what I thought, but I may not have expressed it very clearly.

 

[Maxperson]

There's no amount of words you can write that will convince me a plain reading of that section is a recommendation of anything other than figuring things out for your table and setting expectations. Everything else is just things to consider when deciding what those things to communicate will be. That includes using a DM screen which it says, if you do use a screen, you can fudge (but don't do it often). Not a recommendation in my book. Neither does it recommend you don't fudge.

A plain reading can yield nothing other than it as a recommended table rule. It literally says...

"This section gives recommendations for table rules you can establish to help meet that goal."

The English doesn't get much plainer than that.

 

[iserith]

A plain reading can yield nothing other than it as a recommended table rule. It literally says...

"This section gives recommendations for table rules you can establish to help meet that goal."

Like using a DM screen or rolling in the open, whichever the group finds the most fun, which is the goal that is being referred to. It's not an endorsement of fudging or, conversely, not fudging. There's nothing in that section that supports anyone's position in this thread on the matter of fudging or not fudging. To suggest anything else in my view is cherry-picking to justify a preference that needs no justification.

I'll reiterate: There's no amount of words you can write that will convince me a plain reading of that section is a recommendation of anything other than figuring things out for your table and setting expectations.

 

[Maxperson]

Like using a DM screen or rolling in the open, whichever the group finds the most fun, which is the goal that is being referred to. It's not an endorsement of fudging or, conversely, not fudging. There's nothing in that section that supports anyone's position in this thread on the matter of fudging or not fudging. To suggest anything else in my view is cherry-picking to justify a preference that needs no justification.

Every table rule in that section is recommended(endorsed). That means fudging is endorsed with the recommended table rule of "Rolling behind a screen lets you fudge the results if you want to." And not fudging is endorsed with the recommended table rule of "If you roll dice where the players can see, they know you're playing impartially and not fudging rolls."

You get to pick which of the myriad of endorsed table rules you like, if any.

 

[LordEntrails]

On the contrary. If a game ends because it was discovered there was that large of a fissure between the playstyles of all the players, I think everybody wins. Because now they can go find other players who better suit them.

Wouldn't it be better if that game with that group of people had never happened? Yes its good that the game is over, but it doesn't mean their hasn't been pain and negativity related to the game comin got an ending. For instance, in one of those campaigns I mentioned, when it came to light about one of the people who was fudging die rolls (yes, in this case both a player and te DM), other players in the group decided to end their professional IRL relationships with said player. i.e. if "Bob" is going to cheat at D&D, how do I know he's not going to cheat at business with me to? There's a lot of negativity there. Good thing the campaign came to an end, but would have been better in many ways had it never started (the professional relationships did not start and were a direct result of the D&D campaign).

Playing a game with a ticking timebomb of a group is no way to go through life. Always being on edge checking to make sure everyone is going to play the way I need it to be? No thanks! Rip the bandaid off early and move on, I say.

Absolutely. Hence why I've come to he conclusion that every DM should address this in session 0.

 

[iserith]

Every table rule in that section is recommended(endorsed). That means fudging is endorsed with the recommended table rule of "Rolling behind a screen lets you fudge the results if you want to." And not fudging is endorsed with the recommended table rule of "If you roll dice where the players can see, they know you're playing impartially and not fudging rolls."

You get to pick which of the myriad of endorsed table rules you like, if any.

No. What's endorsed is deciding on these things and getting on the same page as a group so that you can achieve the goal of fun. Everything else are just suggestions of what those things to decide on might be. It makes no sense to endorse two things that are odds with each other and your position looks to me increasingly strained trying to say otherwise, and does actual harm to whatever other good points you may have made so far.

 

[LordEntrails]

recommended(endorsed).

Those words may be similar, but they are not synonymous.
Recommended = Should do something
Endorsed = May do something.

 

[Maxperson]

Those words may be similar, but they are not synonymous.
Recommended = Should do something
Endorsed = May do something.

So you're saying that they chose the wrong word and should have used endorsed, rather than recommended. Because they recommend(say you should) both fudge and not fudge.

Oh, and they are synonyms.

 

[Mort]

Like using a DM screen or rolling in the open, whichever the group finds the most fun, which is the goal that is being referred to. It's not an endorsement of fudging or, conversely, not fudging. There's nothing in that section that supports anyone's position in this thread on the matter of fudging or not fudging. To suggest anything else in my view is cherry-picking to justify a preference that needs no justification.

I'll reiterate: There's no amount of words you can write that will convince me a plain reading of that section is a recommendation of anything other than figuring things out for your table and setting expectations.

It's not a ringing endorsement, but neither is it a condemnation - It just says here's something rolling behind a DM screen allows you to do. It's presented as an option.

Contrast this with - a few paragraphs later - Metagame Thinking. The DMG flat condemns metagame thinking and specifically says the DM should discourage players from practicing it.