D&D General Dice Fudging and Twist Endings

[Swarmkeeper]

In my view, there are only two ways to treat your dice rolls:

-The outcome is uncertain, and should be determined by a roll of the dice. This is usually how I would treat most attacks and damage rolls in combat, and some ability checks. Once you decide to roll dice, I feel you should also accept their outcome. If you don't like an outcome, don't roll dice to begin with.

-The outcome IS certain, and shouldn't be determined by a roll of the dice. If you decide an action can't fail or can't succeed, then no roll is needed. You already know what the outcome should be. This also means that you probably shouldn't make your players roll for something, if the outcome is predetermined.

I tell my players up front what to expect. If they are considering an action, I tell them if and what they would need to roll for. If it will be an auto success or auto fail, I also tell them up front. If I fear the outcome of the dice, I may even let my players know before they roll, that it is a difficult challenge.

Very much this.

I also am in the habit of telling the player the DC and what will happen on a failed ability check - the fictional justification being that the PCs are bold, competent adventurers who have some sense of the difficulty of what they are attempting and what is at stake should they fail. This also lends credence to the stance that the PCs often have abilities and knowledge within the fiction that the player probably does not IRL - and allows the player to rethink the options and try a different approach if they feel stakes are too high.

 

[soviet]

For sure. I deliberately remove all possibility of fudging from my toolbox. I always state the target numbers beforehand and roll things out in the open. Sometimes I have the players roll things for me. In a recent session the players' cart took a nasty hit at high speed and I wrote a quick d6 random table on a postit note to see which character or valuable fell off - I gave one player the table and had another player roll the dice.

Even setting aside all the stuff about agency for a moment, the biggest reason I don't fudge is that setting out the stakes clearly and then having everyone see the roll together is just so damn suspenseful and exciting.

 

[tabletopreloaded]

Hmm, all fair points. But isn't there something to be said for player uncertainty? As the chief architect of the players' world, the DM works not just to manage the game mechanics, but also to build atmosphere. Sometimes, even if I've mentally ruled out player death in an encounter, I roll anyway because saying so outright would rob my players of the thrill of uncertainty. This is why many DMs have players roll unnecessary Perception checks during tense moments--not to actually check for an outcome, but simply to instill fear in a party. In the short-term. Sure, dice control the immediate flow of action in a d20 system like 5e. But in the bigger picture, I think it is the DM's and players' conscious choices that should ultimately decide the next page of a campaign. Every once in a while, that means I choose to make a decision in spite of the dice. Hope that makes sense

 

[Umbran]

In my view, there are only two ways to treat your dice rolls:

-The outcome is uncertain, and should be determined by a roll of the dice. This is usually how I would treat most attacks and damage rolls in combat, and some ability checks. Once you decide to roll dice, I feel you should also accept their outcome. If you don't like an outcome, don't roll dice to begin with.

We are in the D&D forum, but it pays to note that lots of games don't have binary success or failure. They have degrees of success and failure. And this flat all-or-nothing approach starts to have problems in such cases.

We can see this in D&D in a couple of places as well. An attack isn't necessarily just a hit or a miss. It could be a hit, or a miss, or a critical hit. The damage could be low, or could be high.

So, for example, a GM may be fine with a particular attack being a miss, or a hit, but not fine with it being a critical hit. The GM doesn't feel they have to decide the entire outcome of the attack themselves, but want to put bounds on the effect.

 

[Imaculata]

We are in the D&D forum, but it pays to note that lots of games don't have binary success or failure. They have degrees of success and failure. And this flat all-or-nothing approach starts to have problems in such cases.

We can see this in D&D in a couple of places as well. An attack isn't necessarily just a hit or a miss. It could be a hit, or a miss, or a critical hit. The damage could be low, or could be high.

So, for example, a GM may be fine with a particular attack being a miss, or a hit, but not fine with it being a critical hit. The GM doesn't feel they have to decide the entire outcome of the attack themselves, but want to put bounds on the effect.

I don't think this matters to the core question: Are you resolving an uncertain outcome with dice?

If you are, then yes, a critical hit or miss should be on the table. As are high or low damage rolls. If not, then those things are automatically off the table as well.

Just decide up front if you are willing to accept the outcome of dice, whatever it might be. Or don't roll dice at all.

 

[soviet]

Hmm, all fair points. But isn't there something to be said for player uncertainty? As the chief architect of the players' world, the DM works not just to manage the game mechanics, but also to build atmosphere. Sometimes, even if I've mentally ruled out player death in an encounter, I roll anyway because saying so outright would rob my players of the thrill of uncertainty. This is why many DMs have players roll unnecessary Perception checks during tense moments--not to actually check for an outcome, but simply to instill fear in a party. In the short-term. Sure, dice control the immediate flow of action in a d20 system like 5e. But in the bigger picture, I think it is the DM's and players' conscious choices that should ultimately decide the next page of a campaign. Every once in a while, that means I choose to make a decision in spite of the dice. Hope that makes sense

I think fudging reduces uncertainty by removing wild swings in fortune from the menu. If the players get a lucky crit or three against the villain in the first round... oh look, turns out he had more hit points than that after all. If the villain gets a lucky crit against a PC that may well kill them... oh wait, I'll just put them to 1hp. These guard rails mean that every fight runs along familiar parameters, that being the 'looked like we were in trouble for a while but we just about made it in the end' fight that happens in the third act of every Marvel movie.

 

[Umbran]

I don't think this matters to the core question: Are you resolving an uncertain outcome with dice?

If you are, then yes, a critical hit or miss should be on the table. As are high or low damage rolls. If not, then those things are automatically off the table as well.

Just decide up front if you are willing to accept the outcome of dice, whatever it might be. Or don't roll dice at all.

In a word: No.

In another few words: Your phrasing here is as if you get to tell others what to do. Which, obviously, you don't. This phrasing is nearly guaranteed to produce more pushback than understanding or agreement. I choose to not engage with it while it is presented in this form.

 

[Imaculata]

In a word: No.

In another few words: Your phrasing here is as if you get to tell others what to do. Which, obviously, you don't. This phrasing is nearly guaranteed to produce more pushback than understanding or agreement. I choose to not engage with it while it is presented in this form.

I think another way to look at it is:

If you don't want dice to have swingy outcomes, then why resolve it with dice, or use crits? There are other ways to resolve game situations.

It can happen that your players roll really well. And it can turn what was intended as a challenging encounter, into a trivial one. But to a player, those lucky streaks are pretty rare, and they feel pretty good. Wouldn't the players feel cheated if you negated the outcome of their dice, by turning those crits into normal hits, or by adding a few hundred extra hitpoints to the boss? I know I would feel cheated.

Likewise, a fight could become a lot harder than intended, by an enemy that rolled really well. Will that lucky crit on that powerful attack down a player? Do you know for sure that it will? What if the players improvise a brilliant way to cheat death? Wouldn't you be robbing the players of a chance for a memorable escape, or a memorable defeat, by bending the rules?

I've been surprised by my players plenty of times, when I wasn't pulling my punches. But at lower levels, I did make defeat a bit more forgiving.

After all, during the opening of Empire Strikes Back, Luke didn't get instantly eaten. He got dragged to the Wampa's lair first, where he could escape, and eventually be saved by Han. You have the power to design your encounters that way, without fudging dice.

 

[tabletopreloaded]

I think fudging reduces uncertainty by removing wild swings in fortune from the menu. If the players get a lucky crit or three against the villain in the first round... oh look, turns out he had more hit points than that after all. If the villain gets a lucky crit against a PC that may well kill them... oh wait, I'll just put them to 1hp. These guard rails mean that every fight runs along familiar parameters, that being the 'looked like we were in trouble for a while but we just about made it in the end' fight that happens in the third act of every Marvel movie.

From the DM's point of view, sure. But this is why I said that public, stakes-declared rolling reduces player uncertainty If they know what the possible outcomes are in advance of every roll, there can be no immediate surprises from the players' perspective. When a monster strikes for heavy damage, did it just a lucky hit, or is it really that powerful? I'd rather my descriptions tell them than my dice:

"The demon lurches forward with an otherworldly grin. Raising his monstrous, solid-marble club fifteen feet into the air, he crashes down on Gryfyth's sprawling, incapacitated form . . . "

* The dice roll behind a DM screen. * I count the damage up: 36 bludgeoning damage, which is enough to finish off the PC. But this scene is merely a fearful introduction to the BBEG's demon-accomplice. This guy should not be killing a player, and doing so now would derail the party right before it reaches the town and restocks their supplies. So for the first (and hopefully last) time in the campaign, I change the dice.

" . . . delivering a crushing blow to the helpless fighter. His party can only watch in horror as the weight shatters his plate armor, grinding his bones down in a single blow to ashen rubble. Gryfyth is alive--his HP reduced to just 2HP--but he won't be battle-ready for a long, long time."

 

[soviet]

From the DM's point of view, sure. But this is why I said that public, stakes-declared rolling reduces player uncertainty If they know what the possible outcomes are in advance of every roll, there can be no immediate surprises from the players' perspective.

Stakes here is really a shorthand, a statement of intent. There is normally still room for some interpretation of the roll by the GM depending on whether it was a normal failure or a crit, etc.

Note that as the example you provided was an attack roll, in D&D the stakes of this are normally crystal clear - roll the fixed calculation of damage. You're adding a descriptive flourish to that, and quite rightly so, but it's no different to what a GM in another game might add to a stakes-already-set dice result to give it a particular spin or sense of depth.

When a monster strikes for heavy damage, did it just a lucky hit, or is it really that powerful? I'd rather my descriptions tell them than my dice:

"The demon lurches forward with an otherworldly grin. Raising his monstrous, solid-marble club fifteen feet into the air, he crashes down on Gryfyth's sprawling, incapacitated form . . . "

* The dice roll behind a DM screen. * I count the damage up: 36 bludgeoning damage, which is enough to finish off the PC. But this scene is merely a fearful introduction to the BBEG's demon-accomplice. This guy should not be killing a player, and doing so now would derail the party right before it reaches the town and restocks their supplies. So for the first (and hopefully last) time in the campaign, I change the dice.

" . . . delivering a crushing blow to the helpless fighter. His party can only watch in horror as the weight shatters his plate armor, grinding his bones down in a single blow to ashen rubble. Gryfyth is alive--his HP reduced to just 2HP--but he won't be battle-ready for a long, long time."

What you describe isn't unreasonable, and I might well do something similar (albeit in the open). I'd say you have softened/reinterpreted the crit result rather than fudged it away. The PC here is still badly hurt in a way that can't just be hitpointed back on, so you have preserved the poor swing in fortune that occurred.