Cheating, Action Points, and Second Wind

[Hussar]

In my campaign, both as a player and as a DM, all combat rolls are made 100% in the open. Mistakes happen, of course, but, that's not cheating, that's just being wrong.

Try it. It's incredibly liberating. I've found, over the years, that the action becomes a ton more fun when everything is out in the open.

I would also point out that action points aren't really cheating since you have to apply the action point modifiers BEFORE you know the result of the action. You might think you succeeded, or you might not, you don't really know. All Action Points should do is tweak the odds in your favour, not act as a Mulligan.

 

[LostSoul]

I second this. The degree of "cheating" is tied to the playstyle of the group. The story driven party is more likely to have a DM who fudges rules to get the story to go the way they want.

Not necessarily.

From the perspective of the story driven campaign, if a bad dice roll ruins months of story building drama, character background, intricate plots and emotional investment, then why let one bad dice roll do that? Its like having a good movie suddenly go the entire wrong direction.

Why indeed? Why have the outcome (success or failure) ruin the drama? The trick is to make outcomes dramatic and exciting, so you've got a good story whichever way the dice fall. How the story turns out you won't know, but it will be interesting!

In the perspective of the wargamer D&D player, fudging dice rolls is near blasphemous. It takes something away from their hard earned victory and cheapens their accomplishments.

The same can be said for some story-driven campaigns. Fudging dice rolls takes away meaningful player choices - it puts the "fudger" in a position of priviliged authorship, and you get one guy telling a story instead of a group creating one.

 

[Hussar]

The same can be said for some story-driven campaigns. Fudging dice rolls takes away meaningful player choices - it puts the "fudger" in a position of priviliged authorship, and you get one guy telling a story instead of a group creating one.

See, the trick is though, typically, IME, in a story driven campaign, the story IS driven by one guy - the DM. Not that that's a bad thing necessarily. It can be a great thing. But, since the DM is actively involved in the story AND has the priveleged position, it seems pretty common, again IME, that story driven campaigns tend to lend themselves towards fudging more often.

Doesn't have to be true, just a tendency.

 

[Professor Phobos]

The same can be said for some story-driven campaigns. Fudging dice rolls takes away meaningful player choices - it puts the "fudger" in a position of priviliged authorship, and you get one guy telling a story instead of a group creating one.

Not necessarily. One could fudge merely to narrow the range of possible outcomes to focus on the "more interesting" ones. One of the best ways to fudge is to simply not request a dice roll, even if the rules, strictly speaking, demand one for that particular situation.

For example, I usually handwave combats I don't think would be a meaningful contest and just let the PCs do what they will. If they're up against foes so inferior there'd be no tension to a fight scene, then I prefer to have the narrative (and game time) dwell on that- do they offer mercy? Do they let their opponents flee? Massacre them? Torture them for information? Whether or not they lost a marginal amount of resources in a pointless fight scene is, to me, irrelevant.

Things of that nature. Or, for a more classic example of fudging- let's say I have a group of NPCs intent on capturing a PC. Unfortunately, in the battle the PC is hit by a surprise critical and instantly killed. Now I, as a GM, have a choice between letting the death happen (a valid and interesting way for a PC to go) or quietly moving the lost hit points up a few notches so he's merely badly wounded and helpless. Then I can do the whole "Captured by the Bad Guy, Hears Evil Plan, Escapes/Is Rescued" story.

Now, I might ask the PC- "Hey, you're dead- but if you trade in some Action Points, you can be captured instead. Or if you trade in a lot of 'em, you can be left for dead and escape." I do this often in my preferred system because it has such a metagame resource (Drama Points, in Unisystem) but in games without we usually just work out some arrangement.

My contention is that both are reasonably valid uses of the GM's authorial control. If the whole "Captured and Escaped!" story is something the PCs end up enjoying I really don't see how it is bad gaming. This is especially valid in groups that share authorial control- I'll fudge in a particular direction if a PC requests a particular sideplot.

As another example. Say I want to do an "Enemy Within" story, where one of the PCs is suborned or mind controlled or possessed. So I go to a player I'd expect to be amenable and ask if they'd be willing to go secretly evil for a few sessions. They agree, and we fudge the "Possession Roll" so that the demon/spirit/whatever automatically succeeds. Is that wrong?

I don't think so.

See, the trick is though, typically, IME, in a story driven campaign, the story IS driven by one guy - the DM.

Nah, not really. The GM usually has a lot of influence over how the story goes, but ideally...

1. The players have a large amount of input and authorial direction as well, making things unpredictable.
2. The randomness of dice rolls at least sometimes comes into play, making things unpredictable.

The whole point of a narrative RPG is emergent story. As in, the story doesn't appear until the game is over- at the end of the day you've got an interesting tale. It's not normally viable to go into it wanting a particular set of outcomes. Obviously you have to go into with a good story hook or setup for a story, but preparing the ending in advance is not how it should go, IMHO.

 

[marune]

Why indeed? Why have the outcome (success or failure) ruin the drama? The trick is to make outcomes dramatic and exciting, so you've got a good story whichever way the dice fall. How the story turns out you won't know, but it will be interesting!

Because in the d20 task resolution system, failure and sometimes success aren't always meaningful and can lead to dead-ends.

The same can be said for some story-driven campaigns. Fudging dice rolls takes away meaningful player choices - it puts the "fudger" in a position of priviliged authorship, and you get one guy telling a story instead of a group creating one.

You are right, but usually "story-driven" RPG uses a conflict resolution system.

In other words, it's not surprising that players & DM who want to have a story-driven RPG cheats when playing D&D.

 

[LostSoul]

You are right, but usually "story-driven" RPG uses a conflict resolution system.

It's easy enough to run d20 using conflict- (or intent-relevant) resolution. Just ask what the player is trying to accomplish on the roll, and the roll resolves it. Maybe that's against the RAW, though.

 

[Najo]

Not necessarily.

I wasn't being all inclusive. From my experience and what others have said, story driven GMs tend to fudge over simulation driven GMs.

Why indeed? Why have the outcome (success or failure) ruin the drama? The trick is to make outcomes dramatic and exciting, so you've got a good story whichever way the dice fall. How the story turns out you won't know, but it will be interesting!

I think this is a given. I also think 99% of story driven games do this. But, when all of those statistically modified random results that did help build a story come to a lurching halt from time to time, many GMs and players both fudge to get the best entertainment possible. Notice I said many, not all. I do think most of the time a good GM can work with whatever the dice say happens, but a good storyteller knows when a random result ruins months of effort and they are doing nothing wrong by bending rules. That is why in nearly every role playing game it says that the GM can break the rules when they deem it appropriate.

The same can be said for some story-driven campaigns. Fudging dice rolls takes away meaningful player choices - it puts the "fudger" in a position of priviliged authorship, and you get one guy telling a story instead of a group creating one.

This can happen, but more often than not, the randominess of dice hurt smart player choices that should work, even with all of their effort, planning and high levels of bonuses and skills, when the die rolls a 1. Most of the time its ok to let failure occur, but if it entirely ruins the campaign, why let an abstract and poor simulation of reality being represented by the dice rolls do that when 95% of the time it would have gone the other way any ways?

Keep in mind, there are entire camps within the roleplaying hobby that are advocates of diceless role playing or games without systems at all. They tend to be high drama and story driven, require a degree of maturity to resolve disagreements and usually spend time exploring character development, puzzles and the hidden aspects of the campaign's world. These groups using this play style use common sense and drama, incuding allowing characters to die, when the story and the player's actions deems it necessary.

Some groups enjoy a form of this style of play that plays off the dice to give random results so that the game is more unexpected, but still driven by story (as you are suggesting). Then there are all of the styles of play ranging in between. The conclusion is still, a GM who fudges dice from time to time is not cheating or spoiling the experience as long as they are not taking anything away from the player's choices and allow positive and negative consequences to occur.

 

[marune]

It's easy enough to run d20 using conflict- (or intent-relevant) resolution. Just ask what the player is trying to accomplish on the roll, and the roll resolves it. Maybe that's against the RAW, though.

Of course you can use a d20 and the skills name on the character sheet forgetting about the DC tables in the PHB.

You can also make the changes to death a poster gived above, etc.

However, you will eventually face some fundamental aspect of D&D (like levels) that doesn't really make sense for a "story-driven" RPG.

 

[Professor Phobos]

Generally speaking, I prefer to only use the game mechanics when I'm prepared for any possible outcome. If I don't want the possibility of character death to occur as a result of a particular combat, I'll just handwave it entirely, or skip over it. This certainly cuts down on the fudging I have to do- only when I failed to anticipate an unacceptable outcome do I have to do it. I haven't fudged in the classic sense (secretly altering a dice result) in years, now that I think about it.

Though obviously due to the "selective enforcement of game mechanics" technique, I have fudged in that sense all the damn time.

I like game mechanics to introduce an element of randomness and tension to a storyline.

 

[Najo]

It's easy enough to run d20 using conflict- (or intent-relevant) resolution. Just ask what the player is trying to accomplish on the roll, and the roll resolves it. Maybe that's against the RAW, though.

Which it is sounding like 4e is finally incorporating something of this nature.