Balancing "RP" and "G"

[Lord Mhoram]

Out of curiosity -- what if it is ghouls or some other 'eat you' enemies? How do you maintain some sense of versimiltudeif the PC(s) get knocked unconscious in a fight where the enemy is someone that will kill them, eat them, or turn them into stone? Do you avoid those kinds of encounters entirely, or do you try and create a plausible explanation fo why the creatures did, in fact, not kill the PC(s)?
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Those kind of things I have a tendancy to aovid to an extent, and when the do come up, I try and have them be early in the adventure, in the "wear them down, use resources" phase of an adventure - if it is "eat you" mindless enemeis, It shows up early, so the party deals with it - other circumstances warrent other design decisions - if a turn to stone monster is coming up, then the party has found/purchased something that can help - a potion of rock to flesh that has a 2 hour delay (had a player come up with that one, had it made, and fed it to the party right before a medusa encounter.... boy was she surprised).

That does limit adventure design choices, but I don't mind. It helps me and the players have fun.


And again, my primary genre of play is Superheroes, where that kind of thing is pefectly in keeping with source lit.

 

[DonTadow]

Out of curiosity -- what if it is ghouls or some other 'eat you' enemies? How do you maintain some sense of versimiltudeif the PC(s) get knocked unconscious in a fight where the enemy is someone that will kill them, eat them, or turn them into stone? Do you avoid those kinds of encounters entirely, or do you try and create a plausible explanation fo why the creatures did, in fact, not kill the PC(s)?

BTW, this is a serious question, and one that i think has bearing on the topic at hand. Moreso than the endless circle of defining "fudging", anyway, since I think everyone knows what everyone else's definition is, even if we don't agree.

Again, I think the problem is that there is no specified encounter that dictates a good time to fudge. The fact that this keeps getting brought up is more proof that there are some DM's whom don't understand that art and can't figure out its purpose. Its to enchance gameplay. Not move along a story, not save a pc, not kill a terribly dangerious badguy. It's to enhance your players experience. It's that "luck" factor (whether bad or good) that the dice can't mimic. If anyone's ever done a diceless campaign its a great way to hone the art.

It's a house rule some inact and some don't. The house rule, the dm can and will very sparingly fudge roles to enhance game play . There's nothing in the dmg that gives a time when a circumstance bonus can be applied. Again, in an evolving battlefield circmustances always arise and some come out of no where .

Now it seems we're trying to dictate what is and what isn't a house rule, which is just a silly argument. Some house rules are static --- must train to level, some house rules are dynamic--- pcs can use action cards to provide an action their characters would not normally do.

Whenever you devulge from the original rules you're techincally cheating from those rules. I know it makes some feel good when they can all others cheaters and approve their own rule "bends" but in reality its all the same.

 

[The Shaman]

My arguement has always been from my first post that Fudging is a house rule elected by the DM...blah, blah, blah...

You can call it pumpkin pie if you like, it doesn't make it one.

I"m glad you're willing to learn young padawan let me go through my memories ah seeing...blah, blah, blah...

A question: in the first example, what if the character rolled a 1, failing hugely instead just missing - would you have allowed the character to fall?

Judging from this...

A flubbed jump roll missed by 1 shouldn't be the end to a 2 day journey by the pcs. That would have sucked hte life out of the session.

...I'm guessing the answer is no.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you had no intention of allowing the characters to fail at getting across the chasm no matter what they rolled. In this case, missing by one or missing by twenty would have the same effect: end of journey, back to the elven village or whatever.

And that's the part I don't get - miss by a little or a lot, the results are the same. If you're prepared for the adventurers to fail spectacularly, then failing by a narrow margin isn't a big deal, since the outcome is identical. In this case, it doesn't seem like you were prepared for them to fail at all, since that would end the storyline, end the journey, and "suck the life out of the session" - in this case fudging sounds like just an excuse for keeping your plot moving forward.

To me that's just poor encounter design and perhaps a whiff of railroading.

In the case of the second encounter, you wanted to offer a rip-roaring combat challenge...and you put all your eggs in one monster basket, ignoring the possibility of good tactics and good luck on the part of the players bringing a swift conclusion to the encounter.

Had you planned the encounter to include multiple foes from the outset, you'd have a better chance of running a more extended combat session by virtue of the fact that there are more targets to choose from, at the very least. You can also use better tactics of your own with multiple opponents, which adds to the challenge to the players and their characters.

Again, this sounds like poor encounter design.

Thank you for providing these examples, DonTadow - you've reinforced why I think fudging detracts from the game.

 

[Greg K]

This whole discussion is why I prefer the addition of action points/hero points- they give the heroes some protection from untimely bad rolls that result from the d20 spread without me having to fudge rolls.

 

[Barak]

Alright. My posts are getting a bit too wordy. I'll resume my whole position.

If you fudge a dice roll.. Why was the dice even rolled? If there was no chance of failure (or success, or crit, or whatever), why in the blue heck was the dice rolled in the first place? What's the point?

 

[The Shaman]

The fact that this keeps getting brought up is more proof that there are some DM's whom don't understand that art and can't figure out its purpose. Its to enchance gameplay. Not move along a story, not save a pc, not kill a terribly dangerious badguy. It's to enhance your players experience. It's that "luck" factor (whether bad or good) that the dice can't mimic.

It's not luck, DonTadow - it's the elimination of luck.

It's not enhancing gameplay - it's setting aside actual gameplay for the purposes of dramatic storytelling.

And it's not some sort of mystic art of game mastering - it's a crutch to lean on when encounters go south in unexpected ways.

This is getting tedious...no, it's been tedious for awhile now. I'm done here. See you in the funnypapers.

 

[The Shaman]

This whole discussion is why I prefer the addition of action points/hero points- they give the heroes some protection from untimely bad rolls that result from the d20 spread without me having to fudge rolls.

And it puts control of that protection in the players' hands, which is a good thing in my opinion.

 

[DonTadow]

You can call it pumpkin pie if you like, it doesn't make it one.A question: in the first example, what if the character rolled a 1, failing hugely instead just missing - would you have allowed the character to fall?

Judging from this......I'm guessing the answer is no.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you had no intention of allowing the characters to fail at getting across the chasm no matter what they rolled. In this case, missing by one or missing by twenty would have the same effect: end of journey, back to the elven village or whatever.

And that's the part I don't get - miss by a little or a lot, the results are the same. If you're prepared for the adventurers to fail spectacularly, then failing by a narrow margin isn't a big deal, since the outcome is identical. In this case, it doesn't seem like you were prepared for them to fail at all, since that would end the storyline, end the journey, and "suck the life out of the session" - in this case fudging sounds like just an excuse for keeping your plot moving forward.

To me that's just poor encounter design and perhaps a whiff of railroading.

In the case of the second encounter, you wanted to offer a rip-roaring combat challenge...and you put all your eggs in one monster basket, ignoring the possibility of good tactics and good luck on the part of the players bringing a swift conclusion to the encounter.

Had you planned the encounter to include multiple foes from the outset, you'd have a better chance of running a more extended combat session by virtue of the fact that there are more targets to choose from, at the very least. You can also use better tactics of your own with multiple opponents, which adds to the challenge to the players and their characters.

Again, this sounds like poor encounter design.

Thank you for providing these examples, DonTadow - you've reinforced why I think fudging detracts from the game.

I have no problem correcting you .

I believe I say in the option that if it was missed by anything other than by 1 or 2, then the character falls. If I rolled a 1 then the character falls horribly to his death with a massive splat.

A flubbed jump roll missed by 1 shouldn't be the end to a 2 day journey by the pcs. That would have sucked hte life out of the session. I know my players. Syxen , the forged, spent 7 game months looking for his brother, and the pcs hoped that curing him could provide them valuable info. If the roll had been missed by 3 or more maybe that handrail wouldn't have been seen and option 1 isn't that bad.

I use action points too, and there are some things that the character's can't action up, and that includes rolls by the dm (the only thing i believe a dm can alter).

It's not luck, DonTadow - it's the elimination of luck.

It's not enhancing gameplay - it's setting aside actual gameplay for the purposes of dramatic storytelling.

And it's not some sort of mystic art of game mastering - it's a crutch to lean on when encounters go south in unexpected ways.

This is getting tedious...no, it's been tedious for awhile now. I'm done here. See you in the funnypapers.

In niether of my examples did the game go "south". In both cases, the sessiosn could have ended and fun would have been had by alll. But its taking those moments and seeing how much of a level you can take it to without destroying the player options and fabric of the game.

There's the luck of the dice and there's the luck that the world provides. Action cards can not accurately dtermine luck no more than dice can. There's a big difference between randomness and luck. It was previously stated that the dm controls the world and the envioverment and, even in this world, luck has a funny way of sprouting at times.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Alright. My posts are getting a bit too wordy. I'll resume my whole position.

If you fudge a dice roll.. Why was the dice even rolled? If there was no chance of failure (or success, or crit, or whatever), why in the blue heck was the dice rolled in the first place? What's the point?

For my situation....
One) There is always a chance of failure, crit ect even when doing a fugde.

Two) The point is the range/degree of success or failure.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

And it puts control of that protection in the players' hands, which is a good thing in my opinion.

Yeah part of the thing I loved about Spycraft way back when it frist came out. Action dice were added to my D&D game the next seesion after I read the book. And to be honest, since then I really haven't fudged any... because the story the players and I want to create is still intact, with that rule addition.