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

[Campbell]

@Hussar

What I have seen in the days I used to be a wayward traveler is a very strong resistance in the mainstream of our hobby to any sort of transparency when it comes to GM procedures. In the past when I have made overtures to talk shop (as a fellow GM) with people running some of the games I have been a player in there has been (usually) I have had a hard time getting the GM to even be willing to open up. Getting to that place where speaking to my concerns was worth the social cost was a challenge I often would choose not to take on. Instead, I would usually just pull back on how much I would invest and engage with the game or just start engaging more with other hobbies.

In general, I think there is a strong undercurrent of go along to get along in our hobby. Often issues like fudging might only matter to one or two people in a 5-7 player group. Even if you are not the only one you feel like the only one because we just do not talk about this stuff on a regular basis. So, you do not speak up because you do not want to be critical of your friends or get shot down. When I was younger this was a constant part of my gaming experience.

 

[iserith]

D&D rules aren't perfect, but in this case, I don't think it's the rules that are encouraging some DMs to fudge. As I said before, it's DMs setting stakes they can't accept. If the dice would result in a dead PC and you can't accept that for any reason - including bad luck - why did you have character death as a possibility in the first place? Why didn't you have the monster knock them out? That's within the rules.

 

[Irlo]

Deleted. Never mind. Not worth it.

 

[loverdrive]

@Hussar

What I have seen in the days I used to be a wayward traveler is a very strong resistance in the mainstream of our hobby to any sort of transparency when it comes to GM procedures. In the past when I have made overtures to talk shop (as a fellow GM) with people running some of the games I have been a player in there has been (usually) I have had a hard time getting the GM to even be willing to open up. Getting to that place where speaking to my concerns was worth the social cost was a challenge I often would choose not to take on. Instead, I would usually just pull back on how much I would invest and engage with the game or just start engaging more with other hobbies.

In general, I think there is a strong undercurrent of go along to get along in our hobby. Often issues like fudging might only matter to one or two people in a 5-7 player group. Even if you are not the only one you feel like the only one because we just do not talk about this stuff on a regular basis. So, you do not speak up because you do not want to be critical of your friends or get shot down. When I was younger this was a constant part of my gaming experience.

Agree, 100%.

Talking about GMing with an actual person you actually play with is freaking hard. I don't think I ever had such a conversation with any DM/Storyteller/whoever that wasn't immediately taken as a personal attack. Well, unless they see me as some kind of mother figure or roleplaying guru.

At some point I just stopped, and now I leave because "I don't have time" or "I'm kinda tired of fantasy/sci-fi/whatever" and not because I don't enjoy playing.

 

[iserith]

Okay, then. DMs who occassionaly fudge are playing the wrong game and playing the game wrong. Got it.

"Wrong" is an unnecessary judgment.

Fudging is on its face a temporary fix for a problem that sometimes arises. So it's helpful in my view to examine where the problem comes from and whether there's a solution to it that removes the possibility of the problem arising in the first place. Why am I not okay with the dice producing a given result? Can I just take that result off the table in favor of something I am willing to accept? The answer is obviously that I can. And in the doing, I don't have to fudge at all.

 

[soviet]

I think of it in terms of weight. Fudging - even if done sparingly - has a significant gravitational pull on the style of game you're playing, moving things toward a certain level of safety and GM showmanship and away from a certain level of player challenge and/or player empowerment. If you want to play on the first side of the river, fudging can be a helpful or perhaps necessary tool. But if you want to play on the second, fudging can be very destructive. I always want to play on the second. I guess many others feel the same way. So I think the point is, fudging should not be a default assumption, it should be a playstyle choice that's made clear in advance (in principle- I accept that once agreed to, individual instances will probably be invisible).

 

[Monayuris]

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

Fudging is like going to the doctor and the doctor not remembering the correct drug to prescribe or the quantity because you’re allergic to the standard one (and because there are thousands of drugs.) So the doctor asks you to take a seat in the waiting room, gets out the very thick British National Formulary and looks it up. Then invites you back in, asks a couple of extra questions for cover and then gives you your prescription.

The doctor doesn’t tell you they’re looking up the drug and dosage in a book because patients don’t want to think their doctor doesn’t have the answer, doesn’t want to think the drug they’re taking is obscure and doesn’t want to contemplate that the doctor might be guessing. The doctor makes sure the patient leaves confident and happy there is a resolution.

It’s a deception, but a polite and harmless one. Just like fudging. It also doesn’t work if the doctor explains what they are doing… just like fudging.

View attachment 155043

That is not even in the sane galaxy ti what fudging is.

What your analogy describes is more akin to looking up a rule in the middle of a game.
If you feel it is a poor showing of a DM to not know every rule that’s another conversation.

Personally, I wouldn’t be concerned if my doctor had to look up the medication. I’d prefer my doctor do their diligence and get it right.

 

[Irlo]

"Wrong" is an unnecessary judgment.

Fudging is on its face a temporary fix for a problem that sometimes arises. So it's helpful in my view to examine where the problem comes from and whether there's a solution to it that removes the possibility of the problem arising in the first place. Why am I not okay with the dice producing a given result? Can I just take that result off the table in favor of something I am willing to accept? The answer is obviously that I can. And in the doing, I don't have to fudge at all.

Well, I found myself making an argument on behalf of hypothetical gamers who use fudging to fix a ruleset, and I'm not among them, so I deleted my comment. I'm more than happy to let it go. Thanks, though, for your response.

 

[Irlo]

Agree, 100%.

Talking about GMing with an actual person you actually play with is freaking hard. I don't think I ever had such a conversation with any DM/Storyteller/whoever that wasn't immediately taken as a personal attack. Well, unless they see me as some kind of mother figure or roleplaying guru.

At some point I just stopped, and now I leave because "I don't have time" or "I'm kinda tired of fantasy/sci-fi/whatever" and not because I don't enjoy playing.

I would LOVE to have conversations with my players about DMing, if only to convince them to do it and let me play.

 

[Lanefan]

Tolerating versus Accepting. Feels like splitting hairs, but okay.

Perhaps a better mid-grade delineator would be willingness. So the whole option set might look something like:

--- Actively support/endorse
--- Willingly accept/tolerate
--- Unwillingly accept/tolerate
--- Actively oppose

What we don't (and can't, from this poll) know is how many of the "accept" votes are from players who either don't know it's a thing at all (yes, there's some of those out there!) or who simply feel powerless to oppose it, along the lines of "meh - that's how my DM runs, I have to accept it whether I personally like it or not if I want to stay in the game".