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

[Scott Christian]

Funny how tone is so hard to understand in writing. To me, there's no sarcasm there at all. It's the perfectly reasonable reaction of "Yeah, I know the DM fudges. So do most DM's out there. In other news, rain is wet."

I would come close to agreeing if it stated: "Fudging happens." But the fact they use "sure" in the sentence, I see no other way to read it. But you are right. Sarcasm is difficult to read.
On a side note, I was told that was the reason the was invented - because the engineers using text in the original days of the internet couldn't decide if something was sarcastic or not. I have never fact checked this, but do remember seeing or reading it.

 

[Hussar]

some pages ago, I posted links to a bunch of similar threads on the topic, and they all had pretty similar responses - those that didn't like fudging, REALLY didn't like it, and the rest were mostly ambivalent about it.

I think it's fair to say that very few people think it's a really good thing.

 

[Scott Christian]

Agree with @Hussar on this one, with a heaping helping of:

Regardless of tone inferred by you, it remains neutral, not against.

So we should ignore 83% of the words written? I can't think of a time that has ever been a good idea.

 

[Steampunkette]

So we should ignore 83% of the words written? I can't think of a time that has ever been a good idea.

The fact that the OP put it in as "Neutral" means that it's meant to be Neutral.

Regardless of what sarcasm you, personally, see in it.

 

[soviet]

The fact that the OP put it in as "Neutral" means that it's meant to be Neutral.

Regardless of what sarcasm you, personally, see in it.

You're the one trying to reframe it as 'accepts'. It's not a great poll; I think we should just move on.

 

[Steampunkette]

You're the one trying to reframe it as 'accepts'. It's not a great poll; I think we should just move on.

No... that's what the poll -says-. Because if you don't -oppose- something, you -accept- it.

If you don't oppose violence then you accept violence, for example. Regardless of whether you actively participate in violence.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

While it is true that "most people are neutral-or-positive," as in a narrow majority (53.9%), it is also true that the vast majority are neutral-or-negative (77.4%). Or, if we go with three categories instead of four--positive, neutral, negative--then the clear plurality (47.1%) is negative.

Now, before anyone replies with "this poll isn't representative!!!" I know that, I know it's not useful data for statistical reasoning. But even if this inflates the people strongly opposed by a factor of 3 and even if we completely ignore the somewhat-negative response, the well-established fact that a lot of DMs DO fudge runs headlong into the fact that a significant number of groups have at least one player opposed to fudging. If the poll is even remotely useful, that is if the overall population of gamers has even half just the highly-negative response group, then 44% of four-person groups and 52% of five-person groups would have at least one player strongly opposed to fudging. If "almost everyone" fudges, that means somewhere between 40% and 50% of groups could have a serious problem if it were revealed!

YES. This^

People keep trying to fudge the results to make it "See? Everyone hates it!" when it is, as far as the data provides "Slightly more people either don't care or think it's okay, and a significant minority absolutely hate it".

Which is more than a little annoying for what tiny amusement it has in it.

I mean...I have been pretty clear this entire time that it is a minority view, but it is a substantial minority view. As in, there is (as shown above) a reasonably high probability that at least one player in a randomly-selected group would have a problem. You cannot know without asking...and several of people have said that they haven't ever noticed (or been) a DM asking about it, or conversely that they presume it just doesn't happen and would find it a nasty surprise to know that it did/does happen.

It states:
"Neutral - Fudging sure is a thing."
The back half of this implies sarcasm. Wait, doesn't imply it, it states it. That makes neutral lean towards the negative. As in: "I guess I'm neutral, but people are gonna do it whether I like it or not. (complete with eyeroll)"

That's...not how I have ever used that phrase. "X sure is a thing" is how one intentionally avoids making any kind of assessment, positive or negative, by falling back to an utterly inarguable objective statement. Because, as I think we can all agree, fudging actually is a thing! Whether it is a good thing or a bad thing isn't specified. I meant exactly zero sarcasm with it.

 

[soviet]

No... that's what the poll -says-. Because if you don't -oppose- something, you -accept- it.

If you don't oppose violence then you accept violence, for example. Regardless of whether you actively participate in violence.

But they don't accept it; 'fudging is acceptable' is a verbatim option on the poll and they did. not. vote for it.

 

[Steampunkette]

But they don't accept it; 'fudging is acceptable' is a verbatim option on the poll and they did. not. vote for it.

That's nice. Reality still works the way it works, regardless of how a poll is phrased.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yes, but, either way, the meaning is still the same - fudging just isn't that big of a deal.

I'd say this tends to be one of those things where if you do have a problem with fudging, you have a BIG problem with it. Otherwise, most people just don't care that much one way or another.

The problem is, that excludes the people (like myself) who do have something of a problem with it, but don't find the other solutions to the problems it address practical or acceptable for one reason or another. I've referred to it as "the lesser evil" a number of times.