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

[Cadence]

There is one key issue with your intended analogy, @Cadence . The doctor is not just following the rules, she is actually explaining what the patient needs to know and doing so in a thorough manner. The one and only thing being concealed here is the looking up part. In all other ways, specifically including what is prescribed, why it should be taken, and what the patient should do both when taking the medication and in general, the doctor is required to be as transparent and explicit as possible or be liable for malpractice.

This is disanalogous with fudging, but entirely analogous with several of the non-fudging tools for addressing these issues. E.g., adding or removing intended participants to a combat that is lies in wait but has not been observed yet: the players are not notified about this, but that knowledge is outside what their characters could reasonably possess, and thus (so long as the change does not exceed what IS known to them) such changes may be acceptable. Or turning an incoming crit into a miss, and giving a fully diegetic explanation of why that happened, inviting players to investigate.

To address this problem, you would need to have the doctor intentionally conceal medical information from the patient. So, for example, if the doctor had misdiagnosed a problem in a previous visit, but then realized that the problem must be something else, then if she did not ever tell the patient that it was a misdiagnosis, but instead massaged the medical technobabble that most patients don't understand so that the misdiagnosis got corrected to the right diagnosis, then that would be analogous to fudging...and would be significantly more problematic, wouldn't you say? I don't expect doctors to be perfect, medicine is an extremely difficult profession, but concealing a misdiagnosis and "fudging" medical records so that the correct treatment was indicated all along sounds absolutely unacceptable and, if revealed, would almost certainly be grounds for a lawsuit and possibly getting the doctor's medical license revoked.

Not my analogy!

 

[LordEntrails]

So I have a better analogy for fudging than my biscuit analogy.

Sorry, not sure their could be a worse analogy than this one, it's really bad. Given that we all play a game by the same name, why bother with poor analogies when we could discuss real or even theoretical examples from the actual game.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Not my analogy!

My sincere apologies! I have no idea how I made that error. I will correct the post now.

 

[Steampunkette]

So, based on the poll:

Most respondents either don't mind fudging or are actively positive about fudging, but only a tiny percentage are -very- positive about fudging.

On the other side of the equation, marginally less players are actively against fudging, but are much more vehemently opposed to fudging when they are against it.

It's almost like there's a moral or disgust imperative involved in being anti-fudging, while the other side mostly just doesn't care.

So that's interesting.

 

[soviet]

So, based on the poll:

Most respondents either don't mind fudging or are actively positive about fudging, but only a tiny percentage are -very- positive about fudging.

On the other side of the equation, marginally less players are actively against fudging, but are much more vehemently opposed to fudging when they are against it.

It's almost like there's a moral or disgust imperative involved in being anti-fudging, while the other side mostly just doesn't care.

So that's interesting.

You seem to be counting the neutral votes as 'don't mind' and therefore counting it as the (loosely) positive side of the equation. I'm not sure that's accurate.

What the poll does show is that the people who dislike fudging or find it dubious outnumber the people who like it or find it acceptable 2 to 1.

 

[Steampunkette]

You seem to be counting the neutral votes as 'don't mind' and therefore counting it as the (loosely) positive side of the equation. I'm not sure that's accurate.

What the poll does show is that the people who dislike fudging or find it dubious outnumber the people who like it or find it acceptable 2 to 1.

Neutral people -don't- mind. That's what makes them neutral.

And that's kind of a problem in how the poll was structured. By giving respondents 5 points with a neutral response available, the only conclusions we can draw either utterly ignore almost 1/3rd of respondents to say 'most people hate it', or acknowledge that people who are against it are marginally outnumbered by the people who either don't hate it or actively like it.

It's part of why people have suggested remaking the poll in a more polarized fashion off and on through the last 50 pages.

I'm curious as to what position you feel "Neutral" individuals meant to take rather than "Don't mind"?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You seem to be counting the neutral votes as 'don't mind' and therefore counting it as the (loosely) positive side of the equation. I'm not sure that's accurate.

What the poll does show is that the people who dislike fudging or find it dubious outnumber the people who like it or find it acceptable 2 to 1.

No, I think @Steampunkette is completely right. The neutral option means that you don't really care that much whether GM fudges or not. And like I said earlier, as most of the people in this thread who accept fudging, tend to see it is as some sort of awkward kludge to be used sparingly in emergencies or some sort of necessary evil, I'm not surprised that options labelled as 'positive' are not terribly popular.

 

[Cadence]

Neutral people -don't- mind. That's what makes them neutral.

I'd agree, except that the "Positive" is called "acceptable". "Acceptable" feels very similar to "neutral" to me.

 

[soviet]

Neutral people -don't- mind. That's what makes them neutral.

And that's kind of a problem in how the poll was structured. By giving respondents 5 points with a neutral response available, the only conclusions we can draw either utterly ignore almost 1/3rd of respondents to say 'most people hate it', or acknowledge that people who are against it are marginally outnumbered by the people who either don't hate it or actively like it.

It's part of why people have suggested remaking the poll in a more polarized fashion off and on through the last 50 pages.

I'm curious as to what position you feel "Neutral" individuals meant to take rather than "Don't mind"?

Do you have to vote to see the poll results? I wondered if it's that.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'd agree, except that the "Positive" is called "acceptable". "Acceptable" feels very similar to "neutral" to me.

But what if I don't find fudging positive, but I still think it is acceptable? It's just a tool, one I personally tend to not to use as a GM, but I don't really mind whether my GM uses it in non-distributive way, nor I even think that it is my business as player whether they do or don't.