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

[Maxperson]

You seem to be missing that the deception part is not in whether or not the attack “really” missed or not, it’s in whether or not you are modifying the results of rolls. Concealing the fact that you fudge, or at the very least not disclosing it, is the deception in question.

Unknown =/= deceiving. Sorry. You guys seem to think I'm actively concealing. I'm not. I roll behind the screen, because that's what I've always done. Not actively telling them about it =/= concealing.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Not sure we're talking about the same things.

The DM doesn't need to conceal the tactics. It's that the choice of the tactics is determined opaquely, by DM fiat. Did the orcs retreat because during game prep the DM determined that they would if three or more of their number fell in battle? Did they retreat because the PCs were taking a beating and the DM wants them to live another day? Did they attack the fighter because the DM didn't want to take down the wizard?

It's all invisible. The players can't know.

The motive for the choice is irrelevant. Is the choice visible to the players, or not? With fudging, it is intentionally not visible to the players. With all those other things, the choice is visible.

For goodness' sake, are you really going to claim that because players aren't mind readers, obvious and diegetic actions are exactly the same as concealed fudging? To the best of my knowledge, every single person here who has criticized fudging has specifically done so because of the secrecy.

 

[Charlaquin]

Unknown =/= deceiving. Sorry. You guys seem to think I'm actively concealing. I'm not. I roll behind the screen, because that's what I've always done. Not actively telling them about it =/= concealing.

My dude, earlier in this thread you actually said you don’t tell your players because some of them might feel deceived if you told them.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I never fudge. Partly because we use a Discord dice bot, partly because I'm opposed to it. I also don't include random, irrevocable, permanent character death. You and others keep acting like fudging is the only way to achieve this end. It is not. The DM toolbox is full almost to bursting with tools to prevent or ameliorate unforeseen or undesirable consequences, and no other tool is so inherently anti-diegetic and controversial as fudging.

Sure, there are other tools. And any that allow the players to keep thinking that the risks were greater than they actually were involve some sort of misdirection. Because that's what we are talking about here: creating an illusion of danger.

That it includes any text whatsoever about "don't let your players find out" is morally objectionable to me.

"Morally objectionable!" Get a grip, man, it's an elf game! This sort of hyperbolic judgemental language is just uncalled-for.

As noted above, I find this very curious. Why does the inherently metagame nature of fudging not put it on equal footing with player-sourced metagame behavior?


As above: I strongly oppose such a distinction, where blatant DM metagaming is acceptable but no form of player metagaming is acceptable.

Being a GM by necessity contains a massive amount of metalevel thinking. GM has a different role than the players.

 

[Charlaquin]

"Morally objectionable!" Get a grip, man, it's an elf game! This sort of hyperbolic judgemental language is just uncalled-for.

The morally objectionable part isn’t the fudging, it’s the active hiding of it from players because you know they wouldn’t like it.

 

[Maxperson]

My dude, earlier in this thread you actually said you don’t tell your players because some of them might feel deceived if you told them.

So first, that's not actively concealing or even concealing. It's just not actively revealing. Second, whether they feel deceived or not is 100% irrelevant to whether they are actually being deceived. You can feel something is true without it being true. I'm not deceiving them. Not even a little.

Given you and the other two who went out of your way to mock me with the laugh button over your misperceptions of what I'm doing, what makes you think I want to actively bring up fudging to my group?

 

[Irlo]

The motive for the choice is irrelevant. Is the choice visible to the players, or not? With fudging, it is intentionally not visible to the players. With all those other things, the choice is visible.

For goodness' sake, are you really going to claim that because players aren't mind readers, obvious and diegetic actions are exactly the same as concealed fudging? To the best of my knowledge, every single person here who has criticized fudging has specifically done so because of the secrecy.

Uh, no. Now I know we're not talking about the same thing.

The point I was making, lost in the array of quoted posts somewhere up there, was that the effects of bias in DM decisions about tactics, targets, threshholds of surrender, etc., are enormously more important to how a game is run than any occassional fudging of an attack roll or saving throw.

We're not arguing. We're just having different conversations.

 

[Vaalingrade]

~turns off fog of war on VVT map~

 

[soviet]

Uh, no. Now I know we're not talking about the same thing.

The point I was making, lost in the array of quoted posts somewhere up there, was that the effects of bias in DM decisions about tactics, targets, threshholds of surrender, etc., are enormously more important to how a game is run than any occassional fudging of an attack roll or saving throw.

We're not arguing. We're just having different conversations.

I think the difference is that those tactics, thresholds, etc. are visible to the players. Meaning, if they aren't satisfied they're plausible or fair, they can make that objection known, or ask why something happened and maybe try to present a counter proposal. A dice roll fudged behind a screen offers none of those opportunities for redress.

 

[Arilyn]

D&D has always invited fudging because of the frequency of combat and the linear wide range nature of the d20. Luck plays too big a part. This causes streaks of supposedly competent characters falling on their faces. It's ok for some GMs to soften these results.

Because of the many monsters and monster abilities, it becomes possible to create an unwinnable fight for the players accidentally. Thus fudging.

You can choose to never fudge but accusing fellow GMs of deceitful play is going too far. If you don't like a tool, throw it out of the toolbox. If you suspect a particular group of players wouldn't like it, don't use it.

Not seeing a moral debate here.