D&D General Dice Fudging and Twist Endings

[soviet]

Please ignore this message!

 

[Oofta]

This implies that for each round of cheering, there are 19 times where the party suffered a TPK and were unable to keep roleplaying their characters.

Umm ... no. The hyperbole is strong here.

So either you do indeed kill entire parties with high regularity, or you do something as a GM which means that the players are more likely to succeed than the dice odds would indicate. Whether that is dice fudging, making adjudications that favor the players, or ignoring a piece of the world for a bit, there’s the irrefutable fact that either players must have many miserable experiences for each “golden roll of excitement” experience, or you are doing something to bias in the players favor.

I set up encounters that I think are reasonable and generally let people know what kind of risks they are facing. In addition, we discuss how deadly we want the game to be during a session 0, although PC death will always be an option if I DM.

For me, the way I usually bias in the players’ favor is by being generous in adjudication. So if the players are in a tough situation and one says that they want to distract the monster, I might look at the DC25 for the recommended levels and think that the distraction plan is a good one, so make that a DC20 instead. To me, as a statistician, I don‘t really see a lot of difference between a GM modifying a dice roll by +5 and determining a target number at -5. As a GM, I’m asking subjective decisions all the time that can be life and death to the party (“how thick are the walls between your scuffle and the guardroom”, “how dense is the fog”. “How high is the drop to the valley floor”, ”does this household have a dog”) and it would be ludicrous to think I can be completely objective when I make these decision, so I know I’m already fudging in the players favor. Picking one aspect of the GM’s toolbox and saying ”this I will not be subjective on” should not make a GM think that when a TPK occurs, they have no responsibility for it at all. You made a dozen decisions that lead to it; it’s not the dice that killed them, it’s you

I adjust difficulty all the time. But once combat starts I don't remember the last time I changed the stats of the monsters. Fudging? Nah. Not for me. I accept the random variability of the dice as part of the game and changing the value of a role would feel like playing a video game with all the cheat codes turned on. It's just not as fun for me and there are plenty of options that make it unnecessary. Including accepting that failure is always an option.

 

[GrahamWills]

I adjust difficulty all the time. But once combat starts I don't remember the last time I changed the stats of the monsters. Fudging? Nah. Not for me.

You see, for me I just don't see that the difference between "I will fudge numbers up until the rules are focused on combat" and "I will fudge numbers at any time" is particularly strong. It seems weird that you consider that up until initiative is rolled (assuming we're playing D&D) you are happy to use a non-standard DC for opposition, but immediately initiative is rolled, you consider that fudging.

It seems a bit weird that you'd subjectively assign difficulty stats for walls, poisons, interactions, etc. outside combat, but once in combat, unless you had previously explicitly written them down, you'd stick with standard mandated stats. Maybe I'm more used to playing systems that don't have that big a difference between combat and non-combat and that's why it's odd to me.

So, for others in this thread -- do you subjectively set difficulties or other stats (aka "fudging") differently in combat scenes from other scenes? Is it because you are threatening players with the deaths of their characters in combat scenes, so you want to distance yourself from as much subjectivity as possible?

For me, the times I have been most involved in causing / stopping player deaths, it hasn't actually been around changing numbers. It's nearly always been around fiat decisions that tend to be subjective:

• "Do the guards in the next room hear and join in?" (Sure I know the DC per foot of wall, but I am right now deciding if the wall is 6" or 2' thick, and if the guards are awake or asleep, and if they are noisy or quiet)
• "Can I get past this monster without causing an AOO?" (My drawing doesn't make it 100% clear if that's a hard or soft corner, for example, even if I am using a grid)
• "How much concealment does the smoking fire give?"
• How many guards are likely to be in the area?

GMs make subjective decisions all the time, and when characters die, very likely a decision you made played a big part. You need to own that, and saying that "oh no it was all the dice" is at best disingenuous.

 

[Oofta]

You see, for me I just don't see that the difference between "I will fudge numbers up until the rules are focused on combat" and "I will fudge numbers at any time" is particularly strong. It seems weird that you consider that up until initiative is rolled (assuming we're playing D&D) you are happy to use a non-standard DC for opposition, but immediately initiative is rolled, you consider that fudging.

It seems a bit weird that you'd subjectively assign difficulty stats for walls, poisons, interactions, etc. outside combat, but once in combat, unless you had previously explicitly written them down, you'd stick with standard mandated stats. Maybe I'm more used to playing systems that don't have that big a difference between combat and non-combat and that's why it's odd to me.

So, for others in this thread -- do you subjectively set difficulties or other stats (aka "fudging") differently in combat scenes from other scenes? Is it because you are threatening players with the deaths of their characters in combat scenes, so you want to distance yourself from as much subjectivity as possible?

For me, the times I have been most involved in causing / stopping player deaths, it hasn't actually been around changing numbers. It's nearly always been around fiat decisions that tend to be subjective:

• "Do the guards in the next room hear and join in?" (Sure I know the DC per foot of wall, but I am right now deciding if the wall is 6" or 2' thick, and if the guards are awake or asleep, and if they are noisy or quiet)
• "Can I get past this monster without causing an AOO?" (My drawing doesn't make it 100% clear if that's a hard or soft corner, for example, even if I am using a grid)
• "How much concealment does the smoking fire give?"
• How many guards are likely to be in the area?

GMs make subjective decisions all the time, and when characters die, very likely a decision you made played a big part. You need to own that, and saying that "oh no it was all the dice" is at best disingenuous.

I want some impartiality in the game. Obviously the DM is making decisions all the time, it doesn't matter to me if I make a decision 30 days or 30 seconds before combat starts. But once combat starts, it's pretty set in stone. The dice may be random, but they are impartial. I've had DMs that I could tell were adjusting difficulty during combat (both in favor of the party and against) and I didn't enjoy the game as much.

For me it's more fun when sometimes the players go through the encounter like it was wet tissue paper. They feel awesome when it happens now and then. On some other occasions the dice gods smile on the DM and the party has a rough go of it, that's and seat-of-the-pants-are-we-going-to-make-it tension which is also fun. But if I know the DM is ensuring success or arbitrarily increasing difficulty in the middle of the encounter then it sends the signal to me that my tactics, planning and actions during the encounter don't really matter. It's just the DM putting their thumb on the scale to get whatever result they want.

I don't call your preferred style "weird" so please return the favor. There is no one true way.

 

[iserith]

GMs make subjective decisions all the time, and when characters die, very likely a decision you made played a big part. You need to own that, and saying that "oh no it was all the dice" is at best disingenuous.

DM decisions, player decisions, and dice all play into it. I think anyone claiming it's just the dice is mistaken.

Changing the result of the die after rolling it though is a failure to accept the stakes the DM themselves created, which raises the question of "Why did the DM create those stakes in the first place?"

 

[GrahamWills]

I don't call your preferred style "weird" so please return the favor. There is no one true way.

Apologies; if it works for you and your players and harms no one (all of which appear to be true), it is a fine and fun way to play! I meant to use weird in the sense of "unusual" not "outlandish", but you are right to call me on it; sorry for being insulting.

I do however feel that you are characterizing the opposite approach as bit extremist though:

But if I know the DM is ensuring success or arbitrarily increasing difficulty in the middle of the encounter then it sends the signal to me that my tactics, planning and actions during the encounter don't really matter. It's just the DM putting their thumb on the scale to get whatever result they want.

I don't think most GMs who make subject decisions in combat do so arbitrarily, as you are indicating. They do so for reasonable reasons, which include (1) realizing they made a mistake and fixing it (2) adjusting to real-world needs (3) adhering to the game genre.

An example of (1) from last month is when I didn't notice that a level 6 monster was actually both double-strength and large, so it was 4x as dangerous as it should have been, making my design of an encounter flawed as I had added 3 of them. To fix that, I changed the monster's attack to do half damage. Perhaps most GMs don't consider this fudging, as the initial design was an error, so it's a fix, but I don't want to put words in your mouth. Is this something you would do? Or maybe you would solve this another way? Whichever, I don't feel it it's arbitrary or enforcing a GM's planned outcome.

An example of (2) is from last week, when we were past our end-time, but the combat was effectively over. I had the enemy run away earlier than their description indicated they would. Again this does not feel arbitrary. You could argue that the "result I wanted" was to be finished in time, but the impression your quote gives is that I am looking for the outcome of the encounter to be whatever I wanted. Am I correct there, or do you consider things like "trying to finish on time" as reprehensible behavior where the GM is forcing their desired outcomes on others?

An example of (3) is also from last week. In this campaign, we had set the genre to be one where character death was expected, especially at big occasions. This was a big occasion, and the players were having a much easier time of it (mostly randomly through drawing easy battle encounters) so I deliberately took out some potential trivial encounters to make the mix harder and increase the chance of character death. I do not feel this was "arbitrary", but rather exactly the opposite! You could argue that it was to get a result I wanted, but since that was the agreed-on result we all wanted, I'm not sure your second designation fits either.

I'm also interested in your statement that when a GM helps your character, you feel your "tactics, planning and actions during the encounter don't really matter." For me, it's the exact opposite. If I identify a dangerous foe, tactically interposing myself, as the best defender, between them and the party, and showing planning by getting the cleric to buff my AC, then if the GM rolls 4 straight crits as the enraged ogre kills me, THAT is when I feel that nothing mattered. If the GM instead says "wow that's too unlucky. The ogre is so excited by his first three successes that his last attack only does enough to knock you out" then I feel that my tactics, planning and actions during the encounter have been rewarded by the GM. The dice make my tactics not matter, the GM fixes that and makes it matter by overriding the dice.

For me the is maybe the most interesting of the "fudge scenarios" -- when a player has done all the cool, fun, clever things they should and the dice just kill them. For me, this really makes me feel like all my activity was pointless. Much more so than if the GM subjectively makes a call to reward my skilled play, overriding the dice. The GM you appear to describing seems to regularly override the dice not to fix errors, not to allow people to get to bed on time, not to compensate for terrible luck, but to enforce an in-game outcome they want. I agree that I don't want to play in that game, bit I would submit that this is not very common.

In fact, I might almost call it "weird"

 

[GrahamWills]

DM decisions, player decisions, and dice all play into it. I think anyone claiming it's just the dice is mistaken.

Changing the result of the die after rolling it though is a failure to accept the stakes the DM themselves created, which raises the question of "Why did the DM create those stakes in the first place?"

No, it's not a failure to accept the stakes. It is saying that the mechanics of a dice roll are part of the overall decision-making process and that they do not need to be the final step. The adjudication of the results depends on many factors, but most importantly on the style of game you and your players have agreed to.

Here are two examples that might help you see what I mean. In one, I am running AD&D with an explicit "combat is deadly" style. In another game, we're playing 13th Age with the rule that "only named PCs get to kill players".

For the latter game, we have effectively an extra rule that overrides the dice. If I roll a third critical from Ogre #2 that would kill a player, then I let the player see the 20 on the dice and then narrate the result for a regular hit. Because the rule that says "only named PCs get to kill players" overrides the dice roll rule. If I let the 20 kill the character, that would be a failure to accept the game stakes.

The 13th age case is an explicit one (it's actually quite a good rule to consider!) but I have other similar rules I tend to use:

• If I am running a convention or other payed for game, I will not kill you unless there's 90 minutes or less left in the slot. Even in horror games. Even if you are very stupid. Even if I really, really want to see your character suffer the fate they so richly deserve by your annoying play.
• I will check with the parents of a child playing the game before I kill them or their animal companion. Hopefully I'll have had a chance to do this before starting play.
• If I a running Toon or a comedy game, and it's funnier to kill you, that dice was a 20. Or maybe a 40.

 

[iserith]

No, it's not a failure to accept the stakes. It is saying that the mechanics of a dice roll are part of the overall decision-making process and that they do not need to be the final step. The adjudication of the results depends on many factors, but most importantly on the style of game you and your players have agreed to.

Here are two examples that might help you see what I mean. In one, I am running AD&D with an explicit "combat is deadly" style. In another game, we're playing 13th Age with the rule that "only named PCs get to kill players".

For the latter game, we have effectively an extra rule that overrides the dice. If I roll a third critical from Ogre #2 that would kill a player, then I let the player see the 20 on the dice and then narrate the result for a regular hit. Because the rule that says "only named PCs get to kill players" overrides the dice roll rule. If I let the 20 kill the character, that would be a failure to accept the game stakes.

The 13th age case is an explicit one (it's actually quite a good rule to consider!) but I have other similar rules I tend to use:

• If I am running a convention or other payed for game, I will not kill you unless there's 90 minutes or less left in the slot. Even in horror games. Even if you are very stupid. Even if I really, really want to see your character suffer the fate they so richly deserve by your annoying play.
• I will check with the parents of a child playing the game before I kill them or their animal companion. Hopefully I'll have had a chance to do this before starting play.
• If I a running Toon or a comedy game, and it's funnier to kill you, that dice was a 20. Or maybe a 40.

What I'm referring to is "Heads, you live; tails, you die." Then flipping a coin, getting a result of tails, and saying "You live!" If you're specifically changing the rules to resolve the situation beforehand and everyone knows that's the rule, and you abide by that rule, then I don't see how that is fudging. You're changing the rules, the stakes, or both prior to rolling. I think you may be using an overly-broad definition of "fudging." At a certain point it gets kind of silly - "If you're breathing oxygen, you're fudging so everybody does it!"

 

[Oofta]

Apologies; if it works for you and your players and harms no one (all of which appear to be true), it is a fine and fun way to play! I meant to use weird in the sense of "unusual" not "outlandish", but you are right to call me on it; sorry for being insulting.

No worries.

I do however feel that you are characterizing the opposite approach as bit extremist though:

I've seen DMs that both throw extra waves of enemies because we defeated the opponents too easily and DMs that go to extremes to not kill PCs.

I don't think most GMs who make subject decisions in combat do so arbitrarily, as you are indicating. They do so for reasonable reasons, which include (1) realizing they made a mistake and fixing it (2) adjusting to real-world needs (3) adhering to the game genre.

An example of (1) from last month is when I didn't notice that a level 6 monster was actually both double-strength and large, so it was 4x as dangerous as it should have been, making my design of an encounter flawed as I had added 3 of them. To fix that, I changed the monster's attack to do half damage. Perhaps most GMs don't consider this fudging, as the initial design was an error, so it's a fix, but I don't want to put words in your mouth. Is this something you would do? Or maybe you would solve this another way? Whichever, I don't feel it it's arbitrary or enforcing a GM's planned outcome.

If I truly screw up and grab the wrong monster, that's the one exception I'll make. I don't remember the last time it happened but I'm sure it has.

An example of (2) is from last week, when we were past our end-time, but the combat was effectively over. I had the enemy run away earlier than their description indicated they would. Again this does not feel arbitrary. You could argue that the "result I wanted" was to be finished in time, but the impression your quote gives is that I am looking for the outcome of the encounter to be whatever I wanted. Am I correct there, or do you consider things like "trying to finish on time" as reprehensible behavior where the GM is forcing their desired outcomes on others?

I don't consider calling a fight fudging. Tactics of the enemy can change and they can decide to flee or we can just call the fight because the end is in sight and it's inevitable. I generally don't call fights, it's rare that my fights aren't dynamic enough to maintain interest. Enemies may decide to flee depending on several factors such as type of monster.

An example of (3) is also from last week. In this campaign, we had set the genre to be one where character death was expected, especially at big occasions. This was a big occasion, and the players were having a much easier time of it (mostly randomly through drawing easy battle encounters) so I deliberately took out some potential trivial encounters to make the mix harder and increase the chance of character death. I do not feel this was "arbitrary", but rather exactly the opposite! You could argue that it was to get a result I wanted, but since that was the agreed-on result we all wanted, I'm not sure your second designation fits either.

I don't use random encounters, although I usually create extras in case the PCs go a different direction than I expect. In addition, if they cleverly bypass the guards then the guard encounter doesn't happen.

I'm also interested in your statement that when a GM helps your character, you feel your "tactics, planning and actions during the encounter don't really matter." For me, it's the exact opposite. If I identify a dangerous foe, tactically interposing myself, as the best defender, between them and the party, and showing planning by getting the cleric to buff my AC, then if the GM rolls 4 straight crits as the enraged ogre kills me, THAT is when I feel that nothing mattered. If the GM instead says "wow that's too unlucky. The ogre is so excited by his first three successes that his last attack only does enough to knock you out" then I feel that my tactics, planning and actions during the encounter have been rewarded by the GM. The dice make my tactics not matter, the GM fixes that and makes it matter by overriding the dice.

I would feel cheated if the DM ignored the crits, let the dice fall where they may. Maybe some other party member has to get creative with how to heal me, maybe I just died a glorious death defending my compatriots. Maybe I decide to once again play an elf, so it was never a question of whether or not the PC would die just how quickly*.

Adventuring is a dangerous career. Tales of fallen heroes are part of the game. Because my players don't want a super deadly game, I generally don't double tap but I also don't pull punches. It's hard to savor any win if I know the DM will pull their punches.

For me the is maybe the most interesting of the "fudge scenarios" -- when a player has done all the cool, fun, clever things they should and the dice just kill them. For me, this really makes me feel like all my activity was pointless. Much more so than if the GM subjectively makes a call to reward my skilled play, overriding the dice. The GM you appear to describing seems to regularly override the dice not to fix errors, not to allow people to get to bed on time, not to compensate for terrible luck, but to enforce an in-game outcome they want. I agree that I don't want to play in that game, bit I would submit that this is not very common.

If I wanted no risk to my PC I'd play "Crafters and Commoners". In addition, I regularly call the game in the middle of a fight. One of the benefits of having a home group where everyone tracks spells and HP on DDB.

In fact, I might almost call it "weird"

*Every elf or half elf I have ever played in any edition, and there have been several, die by the time their 3rd level. Even 3rd level was kind of an exception because in that case it was a half elf. Last one in 5E died at the end of their first session. The DM was kind of horrified and then a bit confused when I just started laughing.

 

[Imaculata]

For me it's the exact opposite. If I identify a dangerous foe, tactically interposing myself, as the best defender, between them and the party, and showing planning by getting the cleric to buff my AC, then if the GM rolls 4 straight crits as the enraged ogre kills me, THAT is when I feel that nothing mattered. If the GM instead says "wow that's too unlucky. The ogre is so excited by his first three successes that his last attack only does enough to knock you out" then I feel that my tactics, planning and actions during the encounter have been rewarded by the GM. The dice make my tactics not matter, the GM fixes that and makes it matter by overriding the dice.

For me this would be unacceptable. Buffing your AC does not mean you can't be hit. It just reduces your chance to get hit. A monster scoring several crits in a row is unfortunate, but it IS the outcome of the dice, which the DM decided to roll. So the player takes a lot of damage... so what? They can heal, can't they? A few crits are not the end of the battle.

I've been in a campaign where my DM clearly turned a crit into a regular hit, and I hated it. It's okay if I lose a lot of hitpoints, that is how the game works. Thats what hitpoints are for.