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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DonTadow" data-source="post: 2746726" data-attributes="member: 22622">You overestimate the amount of randomness in the game.  If there was that much randomness in this game, there would be NO way to made diceless modules.  I'd estimate maybe less the 20 to 33 percent of this game (as far as pages dedicated to them in the PHB, DMG and MM are about randomness).  To further the point, there are few if any books (wotc or other) that are dedicated to the randomness of d and d.  The game is  66 percent story (Role Playing) and 33 percent game (Game).  How can you not care about the story.   I think a lot of rpgers do but don't realize it.   If you didnt care about the story, you'd go in there with a vanilla character, with a vanilla weapon fighting vanilla monsters for no reason.  Everyday session would be like an rpg demo.  No story just a long mini competition.  I suspect few games are like this, thus you have to care about the story in some ways.  My arguement has always been from my first post that Fudging is a house rule elected by the DM.  It is no different than a house rule.  TO attempt to define house rule is comical.  A house rule, is anything yo uwish.  It can be a bend, a total break, a slightlty alternative version.  To say (a house rule is this) is to attempt to limit the VAST amount of house rules created itn things that either change the game or grow on the game, when often, they only slightly bend the game rule.  But lets talk about weak arguments, for instance, a suggestion by one of the authors of the DMG is NOT SRD.  The statement first starts out with "however" which means that it is going to contradict something previously stated.  There's also that nice little conditional statement "IF" there, which also backs up that this is just another way to play the game.  But the book does have really gooood rules about allowing dms to put in circumstance bonsues whereever they see fit, and sorry there's nothing there that says when they have to do it.  I don't stop analzying the situation after the battle, I analyze during every hit and magic spell.  There's not a time i fudged that it didnt make sense from a circumstance point of view.  On that same note, this statement says nothing about fudging dice rolls though a broad interpretation may certainly attempt to bottle this up into this statement.  A strict statement goes to say as to not flip out everytime the pcs do something you don't expect. Even the second thing you found the book says nothing about changing dice rolls, only that games that have wins and losses are fun.  IF I'm correct, SWrushing nor myself have both said that fudging is rare and does not take away from the pcs risk factor.  If anything, it increases the risk factor.  I"m glad you're willing to learn young padawan let me go through my memories ah seeing Example 1:  The Iron Keep- Instance: A massive chasm stands between the party and reaching their destination.  The Forged had just reuinted with his brother whom he spent quite a bit of time to find.  They need to repair his brother whom was effected by the gearwell virus.  Whatever the cure was it was in the keep.  The Forged jumps first.  Then his brother.  His brother misses the jump roll by 1.  And the Forged reflex roll to catch him was flubbed.  The only person in the area who could have made another reflex save was a pc whom did not like the brother.  She rolls the dice and rolls one below DC.  OPtion 1: The brother forge falls to his death, with the forged pc cursing the hated player for not saving his brother.  The reason for visiting the keep is gone and the pcs head back to the elven village and try to protect it from a threat the pcs opted not to protect it from. Or they head to the Elven kingdom to negotiate a treaty with the king.  NOthhng wrong with it.  I could see some more tension between the pc characters but that was going to happen anyway regardess.  It doesnt take anything from the game or add anything to the game considering the quest they were on had nothing to do with the plot anyway and was something I was surprised the party opted to go on (instead of protecting the elven village which was the home of oneo f the pcs).  Option 2: The hated pc (spot 5)  finds the remnants of a handrail in the area which gave her a plus 1 on her roll she hangs on to it with her foot, grabs the brother forged hands just before it was out of his reach.  SHe pulls him to saftey.  "The player then tells the npc "You now owe me one tin man".  Now the forged (lawful) finds himself in debt to the scoundral he hates.  They continue on to the keep.  The scene was a lot more dramatic than if he had fell.  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.  But option 2 was better for the party and didn't take a anything out of the believablity of the game.  The party traveled on to the iron keep, Syxen's brother fource was still killed deeper into the keep and the death in battle was a little more honorable for the PC.  The role playing about the debt was awesome as was the diagolue inside of the keep.  The innicident is still brought up between the Forged and the hated PC as the debt carried on to him.  Gaming experience enhanced and the party is not let down.  (which you never want to end a session on). Example 2The PCs have traveled into the hell dimension to retrieve the fabled Masamune.  They've finally reached hte BBEG and his minions.  The messageboards from the combat oriented pcs had been very busy as the pcs had been looking forward to a massive battle with them.  I borrowed the cinderspawn from the Libris Mortis thinking that it would be  ahard challenge at cr +3.  However, the rolling was horrible and the PCs found the challenge quite easy as it lasted a measily 3 rounds.  The disappointment was almost visible among the combat oriented pcs whom hadnt had much combat in this dungeon by design.  Option 1: Move on with the adventure.  Not a bad option, they still receive the masamune and there will always be more combat that could happen.  Could I have designed the encounter wit hthe BBEG better, in hindsight yeah, but I see now the cr of the creature vs the smarts of the mages (whom used different tactics and a different spell list than she's used before).  The mage is rewarded for being smart enough to use different tactics.Option 2: The party celebrates pulling the Masamune from the sword from the magma.  However, as one of them pulls the hande one of the walls starts to shimmer and out emerges another Cinderspawn, this one much larger than the previous one.  His face is obviously frustrated as he comments that no one has ever killed one of his spawns before.  He especially applausds the wizard as he had not seen a display of wizardry from a human like that in some time.  He provides the wizard with some background info that he came upon in the hell dimensions that  the pc may not have received for some time if not for his magnficient display.  (i make sure to play up the dioaglue so that hte pc knows that he wouldn't have received the info if not for his great tactics)   He vows to the party that it will never be that easy again.  I fudge the cinderspawns ac by +2 this time, adding 1 to his damage.   The fight lasted an hour, several pcs and a key NPC priest were killed but the pcs prevailed.  The level of satisfaction was overwhelming.  Itturned an OK session into an excellent session.</blockquote>

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