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

[Sepulchrave II]

Not a fan of anything which denies player agency (I'd rather find ways to increase player agency in D&D, which isn't always easy). Don't like deceiving players.

Prefer to push events/scenarios forward through dialogue, but if the dice are invoked, let them do their job. If a roll were to completely upend the game, I'd prefer to find a mutually agreed solution which recasts its meaning.

I don't enforce character death (see posts by @loverdrive on page 3 of this thread), which essentially removes the 90% of the urge to fudge, anyway, IMO.

 

[Maxperson]

Max, this is exactly what makes it fuzzy. Who defines "extreme" bad luck? Why is three failed death saves after a failed opening banshee save not "extreme bad luck" but (say) three crits in a row is "extreme bad luck"? That is the very fuzziness you claim to have removed.

Three crits in a row doesn't qualify, either. I've already said it has to strike the entire party and be extreme AND I also have to have extreme good luck going on at the same time AND the group has to not have made poor decisions to end up there. There are some years I don't see a situation like that happen.

 

[Maxperson]

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

Regardless, neutral people all find fudging acceptable. It's a true dichotomy. Either fudging is acceptable or it's unacceptable. Unacceptable = bad to some degree. Neutral = willing to accept it. The polls definitions of neutral, positive and very positive are in error.

 

[Maxperson]

I -sincerely- doubt people who dislike fudging decided to click Neutral -just- to check the results when they could've just clicked Negative and checked the results.

It's nonsensical.

Correct. Everything from neutral on up = acceptable.

 

[Maxperson]

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

Neutral does equal accepts. There's no other position for neutral to be. Unacceptable is not a neutral position.

 

[Maxperson]

I think there's a third option - tolerating it. Acceptance does have a positive connotation, while tolerance is more neutral.

Acceptance has no such connotation. Accepting what comes is a very neutral outlook on life.

 

[Campbell]

I have left games in part due to discovering fudging, but really, it's usually the last straw. In my experience fudging almost always corresponds to a focus on GM as Storyteller or the sort of spotlight balancing that exists to enable power fantasy or player desires for particular sorts of character arcs. It's often a symptom rather than the disease.

In every case where I have done so I always have a conversation about GM techniques before moving on. Each time there were substantial disagreements that we had been avoiding hashing out.

 

[loverdrive]

I don't particularly care whether GM or a player or whoever the hell fudges at the table. If I spot it, I'd be displeased and if it's directed at me, I'll call it out, but I ain't gonna watch every diceroll as a hawk.

But that's absolutely besides the point.

What I'm opposed to is treating fudging as a normal state of affairs instead of a bug. When you have a desire to fudge, it means that the rules failed and you have to clean up their mess.

A situation where rules produce undesirable output with a valid input shouldn't happen, just like your Photoshop shouldn't crash and your rifle shouldn't jam.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

Yeah, I'm kinda like that too, and I think a lot of people basically feel that way about it, so that makes answering the poll hard. But I chose the middle option. Polls are never perfectly worded, so you just have to go with he option closest to your actual one.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What I'm opposed to is treating fudging as a normal state of affairs instead of a bug. When you have a desire to fudge, it means that the rules failed and you have to clean up their mess.

A situation where rules produce undesirable output with a valid input shouldn't happen, just like your Photoshop shouldn't crash and your rifle shouldn't jam.

I agree on principle. But like with computer bugs, if they happen rarely enough, we don't get a new computer. But yeah, if you're fudging often, then it is probably an indication that it is not a system well suited for your needs and it might be a good idea to either fix it or find a new one.