D&D General Dice Fudging and Twist Endings

[Paul Farquhar]

The best twists are the ones not even the DM saw coming.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The question is too small. You have only considered one, narrow, limited branch of wise decision-making. How should we spend resources? How should we spend time? What places are worth going to, when we don't have all the info to make a perfect choice, nor enough time to go everywhere? Which people are worthy of trust vs suspicion? What goods are worth buying, and why? When should we sell what we do not use? Etc., etc., etc. All of these things are part of learning to make wiser decisions--to play the game better, not just the math, nor just the DM.

I appreciate you taking the time to go over your way of thinking on all of this. You wrote a lot of stuff trying to get your point across (the whole train thing took me a little time trying to make the connection between that and D&D, but I think I got it) and I understand conceptually where you are coming from. You have certain beliefs that you think are important and a part of the game... and I imagine you think are so standard that everyone probably follows it (whether they realize it or not.)

But as I parsed all of it... it was the quoted section above that seemed to me to be the heart of the whole thing of what it is exactly that the players are supposed to learn. Making wiser decisions and to "play the game better".

But that turns out to be the exact thing that I've sort of gotten from you all along... and unfortunately has nothing to do with how I myself run my game.

Why? Because I AM the game. The game is me. I am coming up with everything that is happening. "Learning" about the game is pointless, because at any point I can and probably will CHANGE things. I am not following a script. I am not using an Adventure Path or module and just running it as-is like I am some computer-- reading what each bit says and doing exactly what the book writes as what is meant to happen. No... I am adapting material. I am creating material. If the players choose to do something that I haven't thought about yet then I am inventing material right then and there. Players can't "learn" things, because that assumes there is a STANDARD that the game has that they can figure out. And in my experience, Dungeons & Dragons does not have that unless you just run every written adventure you have bought by rote. There is nothing to learn about the game, because the game is always different. And what was true in one adventure might not be true in another. What is true in one dungeon corridor might not be true in another. Especially when I am making stuff up as I go along.

I can't remember every single ruling I've ever made and I think it is ridiculous to even put that thought upon myself to try. All in the name of some standardized thing that the players at the table can "learn"? No thanks. Especially when I don't even know what they gain by doing so. So the players "learn" something about the game. Okay. So what? Did it affect their characters at all? Did it affect the story at all? Or is it strictly an ego thing where the players are just giving themselves a pat on the back for "learning" about X thing and "playing great"?

Perhaps for some people learning to "play the game better" has meaning. But I can tell you straight away that for me and the players I play with... it does not. Because playing "well" can oftentimes be incredibly boring. Making sure you do everything by the book using all the tools you've "learned" about how to play the game so that everything comes up roses. To me... that seems like death. No creativity, no playing towards character strengths and weaknesses (rather than player strengths and weaknesses), no making intentionally bad choices because that's what the character would do (even if the player knows it's going to be a bad idea) and being happy just seeing the calamity that results from it.

I fully expect my players to screw around and play "sub-optimally" on occasion because they are playing their characters, who themselves are sub-optimal. And any and all "learning" those players may have picked up? Will go right out the window. They might as well never have even learned it in the first place. And that's my biggest thing when I say I don't see the need for players to "learn" how to play the game. Something you learn that is never actually used? It's as though you never even bothered.

But of course, that's just my opinion... I could be wrong.

 

[jasper]

I am very much let the dice fall where they may

Dammit bed I told to pick up the d4s before you go to bed. And your lego set

 

[tabletopreloaded]

I've always struggled with this in my own games. I used to be a hardcore proponent for dice absolutism, but that often gave me premature player deaths and a frustrated party. These days, I've learned to take the dice a little less seriously. I think there's a place for fudging at most tables, but it has to be used sparingly and consciously. At the end of the day, the DM is ultimately responsible for keeping the game balanced for players. Sometimes, softening that unexpectedly brutal crit or strengthening an underpowered BBEG is better for the campaign than strict adherence to the rules. Remember: without nuance, a DM is little more than a rulebook. Players need a DM not just to apply some rules, but to help them have an engaging, story-driven campaign.

 

[iserith]

I've always struggled with this in my own games. I used to be a hardcore proponent for dice absolutism, but that often gave me premature player deaths and a frustrated party. These days, I've learned to take the dice a little less seriously. I think there's a place for fudging at most tables, but it has to be used sparingly and consciously. At the end of the day, the DM is ultimately responsible for keeping the game balanced for players. Sometimes, softening that unexpectedly brutal crit or strengthening an underpowered BBEG is better for the campaign than strict adherence to the rules. Remember: without nuance, a DM is little more than a rulebook. Players need a DM not just to apply some rules, but to help them have an engaging, story-driven campaign.

In a situation where I have any concerns about character death, I'm just going to take death off the table full stop. Or at least establish at the outset of any given encounter that this one's for all the marbles or failure means capture or something other than death. Then I don't have to worry about what the dice say or fudge, if character death is an undesirable outcome. I can instead choose failure states that are appropriate for the group and campaign.

As far as the last bit, notably many DMs don't have or want "story-driven" campaigns. "Story" can be viewed as a byproduct of play as I noted upthread. A character death from an "unexpectedly brutal crit" is just another turn in that emergent story. What happens in the story after that? Play on to find out.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

But as I parsed all of it... it was the quoted section above that seemed to me to be the heart of the whole thing of what it is exactly that the players are supposed to learn. Making wiser decisions and to "play the game better".

But that turns out to be the exact thing that I've sort of gotten from you all along... and unfortunately has nothing to do with how I myself run my game.

Why? Because I AM the game. The game is me.

Surely not. The game is more than just you. Yes, you provide the context and enable it to come alive, but if it is exclusively you and nothing else, there would be no rulebooks and no players. Since there are both of these things, and you clearly care about both of these things, the game is more than just you.

I am coming up with everything that is happening.

Everything? So the players have no input? (Rhetorical. I know they do. I am challenging your assertion that the game begins and ends with you and never includes anything else.)

"Learning" about the game is pointless, because at any point I can and probably will CHANGE things.

But you make those changes within the limits of rules, don't you? You don't just arbitrarily rewrite things on a whim, without rhyme or reason, without sense or sensibility? Those things, the consistencies, the rhymes and reasons, the sense and sensibility, are the game. They exist beyond you, they have to, otherwise the whole thing is nothing more than "DEFCON 1's surrealist fiction displayed for a private audience." I know you aren't doing that, so there must be more to it.

I am not following a script. I am not using an Adventure Path or module and just running it as-is like I am some computer-- reading what each bit says and doing exactly what the book writes as what is meant to happen.

I never said otherwise.

No... I am adapting material. I am creating material. If the players choose to do something that I haven't thought about yet then I am inventing material right then and there.

But, again, there are rules, limits. You aren't allowed to just declare "rocks fall, everyone dies, game over" for no reason. Likewise, just showing up one day and declaring the players have "won D&D," puppies and fairy cakes and rainbows for all, would not be permitted. To "adapt," there must be conditions you adapt to. Those conditions are the game, and can be learned.

Players can't "learn" things, because that assumes there is a STANDARD that the game has that they can figure out.

No. It assumes that there are consistencies. That doesn't mean every DM is identical. It means that a given DM, with a given ruleset, and a given group, will have patterns and principles. These can be learned. Some few of these things may generalize to all games, but that is not guaranteed. What is worthwhile in one campaign may be fruitless in another. Each campaign is its own learning process. (And even there, one can still gain learning: learning how to learn a given game better, faster, more fully.)

And in my experience, Dungeons & Dragons does not have that unless you just run every written adventure you have bought by rote. There is nothing to learn about the game, because the game is always different.

And yet there is often much that is the same. I don't deny that there are differences. But there are always some similarities because it is ultimately a collaborative (even if it need not be cooperative) experience involving conflict, challenge, investigation, and creative problem-solving. Managing conflict (be it violent or peaceful), overcoming challenges (whatever their nature), investigating and acquiring information (whatever methods are relevant), and creatively solvong problems (whatever those problems may be) are skills. These skills can be learned.

Moreover, there is the moral element. Even if the game is openly eschewing passing any moral judgments on any participants (PC or NPC), roleplay provides a toy model for experiencing ethical questions and facing difficult moral quandaries safely. This, too, is a form of learning, and many games actually make a point of it (there are few things as satisfying as bringing deserved comeuppance or achieving true atonement for wrongs done, for instance, even in deeply morally grey works, e.g. Avatar: the Last Airbender.)

And what was true in one adventure might not be true in another.

Correct. Learning how to play includes learning how to adapt to changing contexts. An incredibly useful skill well outside D&D.

What is true in one dungeon corridor might not be true in another. Especially when I am making stuff up as I go along.

But surely there is some consistency, no? Surely this is not dream-logic where for no reason other than because you can, object permanence is hazy at best and physical properties waver and disappear and "the truth" becomes a hilarious joke, where fire becomes cold and ice burns you simply by visiting the next room over and for no reason other than that?

Because if you do give reasons for this sort of change, if you do expect internal consistency, the "ontological inertia" I spoke of, then that is where the learning lies. I struggle to believe that you rewrite all of reality for no reason at all every other corridor, and thus don't really buy that there is nothing to learn.

I can't remember every single ruling I've ever made and I think it is ridiculous to even put that thought upon myself to try.

Does that mean you never, ever bother to remember any ruling you have ever made, forgetting each one the instant it is decided? Again, I cannot believe that this is so. Hence, even if you recognize that perfection is unattainable, you still value consistency, and likely to a high degree.

All in the name of some standardized thing that the players at the table can "learn"?

No. All in the name of consistency, which is all you need to begin learning.

No thanks. Especially when I don't even know what they gain by doing so. So the players "learn" something about the game. Okay. So what? Did it affect their characters at all?

Yes. It empowers them to pursue the best success they can. If brute, straightforward success is their only goal, they will be better-equipped to seek it; if it is not their only goal, if they care about more complicated or nuanced things, it empowers them to make well-informed decisions about what they are willing to sacrifice. Perhaps giving up the easy tactical advantage in order to protect the innocent is more important than securing victory regardless of the collateral damage.

Did it affect the story at all?

Whether, and how, the players succeed should always affect the story. Their choices are the story.

Or is it strictly an ego thing where the players are just giving themselves a pat on the back for "learning" about X thing and "playing great"?

If a player chooses to play for this reason, that is their prerogative. Far be it for me to judge them for it. But this is entirely irrelevant to my goals.

Perhaps for some people learning to "play the game better" has meaning. But I can tell you straight away that for me and the players I play with... it does not. Because playing "well" can oftentimes be incredibly boring.

Learning to play does not mean you always play optimally. It means that, when you play, whether optimally or not, it is by choice, clear-eyed. There will always be uncertainty (dice, differing human opinions, character and/or player ignorance, etc.) But learning to play well improves your ability to confidently choose what truly matters to you, even if it means paying some kind of price to do so.

Making sure you do everything by the book

...is not learning to play the game. It is learning the rules. I explicitly said—as you quoted!—that the game is more than either the rules or the DM. The rules are the absolute barebones starting point; they are the baseline from which things proceed. That doesn't mean they cannot ever change, but how they change is important. The DM is vital to play, I don't want to ever deny or minimize that, but if the game is reduced to "sweet-talk the DM"/"read the DM's mind," then there is no game, just playing armchair psychologist with an autocratic godhead.

using all the tools you've "learned" about how to play the game so that everything comes up roses.

No: using them to decide what outcomes matter most. Perhaps striving to make them all come up roses will be some players' goal. It won't be everyone's. If the group has done a good job building and developing a compelling story, other goals will almost certainly be more compelling.

To me... that seems like death. No creativity, no playing towards character strengths and weaknesses (rather than player strengths and weaknesses), no making intentionally bad choices because that's what the character would do (even if the player knows it's going to be a bad idea) and being happy just seeing the calamity that results from it.

Then you have ignored the core of what I said. I did speak of this, in the post you quoted.

I fully expect my players to screw around and play "sub-optimally" on occasion because they are playing their characters, who themselves are sub-optimal.

Note the bolded words: on occasion. That is exactly what I speak of. They are choosing this path, because it serves a higher, more worthy goal than brute success. But surely knowing what you intend do, and why what you do will have the effects it has, is valuable? You don't want them to be accidentally self-sabotaging all the time, do you?

And any and all "learning" those players may have picked up? Will go right out the window.

Not at all. It will empower them, by knowing the actual cost of the choices they make. It will be an intentional choice, not an ignorant blunder.

They might as well never have even learned it in the first place. And that's my biggest thing when I say I don't see the need for players to "learn" how to play the game. Something you learn that is never actually used? It's as though you never even bothered.

Again, this paints choosing to do something despite knowing what it will cost as somehow discarding that knowledge. This is incorrect. Choosing to do something despite knowing the cost means making an informed sacrifice. The knowledge serves by making the choice more meaningful.

If a man happens to trip and fall upon a live grenade, saving his comrades' lives, we do not think him a noble hero, we think him an almost pitiable figure, albeit one whose pitiable death at least did something good. Conversely, if a man knows that he will be leaving a wife and child at home with no father, but that by diving on that grenade he will spare (at least!) four other children that fate, and he chooses to save his comrades nonetheless, that doesn't mean he may as well have never learned to value his wife and child; it means he understands the sacrifice he is making, knows exactly how much pain he will cause those he loves, but chooses to accept that cost because the alternatives are simply not tolerable.

Learning to play means becoming more like the solider who dives onto the grenade because he knows exactly what he is sacrificing and accepts it, and becoming less like the soldier who trips and falls into a grenade without ever considering the consequences.

Sometimes, softening that unexpectedly brutal crit or strengthening an underpowered BBEG is better for the campaign than strict adherence to the rules. Remember: without nuance, a DM is little more than a rulebook. Players need a DM not just to apply some rules, but to help them have an engaging, story-driven campaign.

But you can achieve every single one of these goals without ever fudging. That is my whole point here.

There is no useful goal that can be achieved with fudging that cannot also be achieved without it.

Take, for instance, your "softening a crit" example. If you are genuinely certain that allowing that crit is going to ruin someone's night...you don't have to allow it! But you also don't have to fudge it either. There is a third option: diegetically altering the result.

Ragnar: "I swing my axe wide, hoping to catch more than one of the undead warriors in one blow." [dice clatter, actions are resolved] "Fifteen damage to the first, seven to the second."
DM: "Your axe swings true, but these things are clearly empowered by a strong necromancer; even with broken bones and torn flesh, they press on, ghostly magic filling their many stinking wounds. They swing at you and..." [dice clatter. The second attack is a crit.]
Ragnar: [Player looks fearful.]
DM: "...the first attack bites deep, but it's survivable. The second...isn't. You have a rusted sword passing halfway through your chest, until it is brutally torn back out again. Your furs are drenched in blood and ichor, and you feel your life begin to leak out with the blood."
Ragnar: "Oh...is this...the end?"
DM: [smiles enigmatically] "No, it is not. Suddenly, you feel...something. Like the warmth of the forge after spelunking the frigid depths, like hot mushroom soup after a long day in the mines. It swells inside you, and you feel yourself surging back to life. You know, with absolute and incontrovertible certainty, that you should be dead. But you are not. Stand and fight, Ragnar. Someone...or some*thing*...has smiled on you this night."
Ragnar: "But...but what?"
DM: "Guess you need to live long enough to find out, eh?"

The crit happened. The character should be dead. The character and the player know this. And yet, Ragnar lives. Why? Perhaps the DM already knew beforehand. Perhaps they still do not know. Perhaps they invented something on the spot. Whatever it is, it will create a brand-new story, and the player gets to feel both the crushing defeat, just for a moment, and the thrill of barely holding on...and further, the concern about who or what might have done this for (or to?) Ragnar.

There are also other methods. This one is not appropriate for all situations. It is quite versatile, but is not the one and only non-fudging method for dealing with "the dice generated something that would make the game worse." If, as people are so prompt to claim, fudging is truly such a rare event as to be almost unheard-of, then such diegetic intrusions should be just as rare, and thus avoid becoming a problem, especially if there are multiple other options in the toolbox.

And for those who truly cannot stand such interventions...well, fudging is no less an intervention, so I expect such DMs to be the type who are, as you say, "dice absolutists."

Going beyond the dice does not have to entail deception and illusionism. You can go beyond the dice without fudging.

In a situation where I have any concerns about character death, I'm just going to take death off the table full stop. Or at least establish at the outset of any given encounter that this one's for all the marbles or failure means capture or something other than death. Then I don't have to worry about what the dice say or fudge, if character death is an undesirable outcome. I can instead choose failure states that are appropriate for the group and campaign.

As far as the last bit, notably many DMs don't have or want "story-driven" campaigns. "Story" can be viewed as a byproduct of play as I noted upthread. A character death from an "unexpectedly brutal crit" is just another turn in that emergent story. What happens in the story after that? Play on to find out.

Right. And for these DMs, never going "beyond" the dice is the best choice.

For those who do value narrative structure however, some kind of method of going beyond the dice is necessary. Fudging is the worst, most problematic method of going beyond the dice. Nothing productive that can be achieved with fudging cannot be achieved without it. Since other tools for going beyond the dice exist, don't have the problems fudging has, aren't any harder to implement, and actually have the potential to improve the experience through their use, what motive is there to not use them?

 

[CreamCloud0]

There is no useful goal that can be achieved with fudging that cannot also be achieved without it.

Take, for instance, your "softening a crit" example. If you are genuinely certain that allowing that crit is going to ruin someone's night...you don't have to allow it! But you also don't have to fudge it either. There is a third option: diegetically altering the result.

Ragnar: "I swing my axe wide, hoping to catch more than one of the undead warriors in one blow." [dice clatter, actions are resolved] "Fifteen damage to the first, seven to the second."
DM: "Your axe swings true, but these things are clearly empowered by a strong necromancer; even with broken bones and torn flesh, they press on, ghostly magic filling their many stinking wounds. They swing at you and..." [dice clatter. The second attack is a crit.]
Ragnar: [Player looks fearful.]
DM: "...the first attack bites deep, but it's survivable. The second...isn't. You have a rusted sword passing halfway through your chest, until it is brutally torn back out again. Your furs are drenched in blood and ichor, and you feel your life begin to leak out with the blood."
Ragnar: "Oh...is this...the end?"
DM: [smiles enigmatically] "No, it is not. Suddenly, you feel...something. Like the warmth of the forge after spelunking the frigid depths, like hot mushroom soup after a long day in the mines. It swells inside you, and you feel yourself surging back to life. You know, with absolute and incontrovertible certainty, that you should be dead. But you are not. Stand and fight, Ragnar. Someone...or some*thing*...has smiled on you this night."
Ragnar: "But...but what?"
DM: "Guess you need to live long enough to find out, eh?"

The crit happened. The character should be dead. The character and the player know this. And yet, Ragnar lives. Why? Perhaps the DM already knew beforehand. Perhaps they still do not know. Perhaps they invented something on the spot. Whatever it is, it will create a brand-new story, and the player gets to feel both the crushing defeat, just for a moment, and the thrill of barely holding on...and further, the concern about who or what might have done this for (or to?) Ragnar.

sorry but this just feels like fudging with extra steps to justify it to yourself to me, just because you involved a god or some other nameless force and made a plot point of it doesn't mean what you just did wasn't fudging, you just changed something that wasn't the dice, and it's much more obvious IMO that you as the GM have just intervened and pulled some off the cuff shenaniganery to save that player from what should've been their death rather than silently changing a 20CRIT! into a 20just-a-regular-damage-hit.

 

[tabletopreloaded]

EzekielRaiden, I see your point. Maybe I wasn't fully clear in my initial post, but I fully understand if a DM and party chooses to go the public dice route. That's an absolutely valid way to play the game, and I'm sure it can work well at many tables. But at the same time, I encourage you to see the value in keeping the dice hidden. Rolling in the open makes it clear to players when they're being shielded--or burned--by the DM. We can dress it up in mystery, but however you present it, it's going to be clear that the DM vetoed a dice outcome. Personally, I'd rather my players not know that their narrow escape I had planned required some divine ntervention because a lucky shot should've downed a PC at the last moment. Hidden dice keeps the world mysterious for them and allows much more flexibility for me. This way, the party never has to know that I quietly cancelled an arrow mid-flight to keep the story intact. Putting the dice out just makes it that much harder to provide a seamless campaign. To each their own, though

 

[EzekielRaiden]

sorry but this just feels like fudging with extra steps to justify it to yourself to me, just because you involved a god or some other nameless force and made a plot point of it doesn't mean what you just did wasn't fudging, you just changed something that wasn't the dice, and it's much more obvious IMO that you as the GM have just intervened and pulled some off the cuff shenaniganery to save that player from what should've been their death rather than silently changing a 20CRIT! into a 20just-a-regular-damage-hit.

...yes. It is obvious. That is the point.

If it is obvious, it isn't fudging. Fudging is, definitionally, secret. If it isn't secret, it isn't fudging. Period.

 

[CreamCloud0]

...yes. It is obvious. That is the point.

If it is obvious, it isn't fudging. Fudging is, definitionally, secret. If it isn't secret, it isn't fudging. Period.

It was never the secrecy factor that made it fudging in my eyes, you could’ve rolled in the open and clear as day in front of everyone declared you were going to change the dice and it would’ve been just as much fudging as doing it behind a screen only that then because it’s visible your players are immediately going to comment on it happening which is why obviously it doesn’t happen that way very much, but just as much in rescinding a crit as in saving ragnar’s life through divine intervention the GM has just reached in and directly altered the gamestate for the sake of the game overriding the dice which is what defines fudging to me.