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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9597110" data-attributes="member: 4937">That is correct.I do agree that I'm stretching the use of the term which usually involves ignoring a hidden dice roll that would suggest under the rules some particular outcome and instead replacing the result with one of the GMs preferences.  But I protest that I'm not stretching the term that much, because I think we'd also agree that it would be fudging to change the villains hit points (up or down) secretly so that the villain died only at what the GM considered the climatic or dramatic moment (and exactly at that moment).  I think you'd agree that would be within the province of things we normally call "fudging".  I think you'd also agree that it is likewise fudging when reading the notes and it specifically says a spell wouldn't work in this situation, or that loud noises would summon additional reinforcements from an adjacent room and either ignoring that completely or altering the number of prepared reinforcements so that the level of challenge is what the GM would prefer at that moment (either to not overwhelm the party or to challenge them if they've been winning "too easily").  In other words, it's fudging when the GM allows his desires and wants for the situation to override what we'd understand as the rules or the natural consequences of the rules.A game that is PBtA tries to avoid secret rolls and sometimes even prepared fiction ("myth") in order to avoid this practice, but it actually grants the GM far more leeway to insert their own preferences at the moment than traditional play does.  At least in trad play, when the GM fudges they are aware that they are fudging and may feel a twinge of guilt or wonder if the haven't prepared badly for the situation.  In a PBtA game the GM is more or less explicitly empowered by the rules to adjudicate any situation according to their own preferences at the moment, subject to the fact that a player hasn't thrown the 10+ required for the player to have narrative control over the outcome.  This allows the GM to do all the tasks they were trying to accomplish when they fudged in traditional play.  A GM running a PtBA game can decide based on their own whim and preferences to withhold and minimize or exaggerate consequences whenever the result is 9 or less.  Since such rolls are fairly common, and since they are so empowered, they may not even consider whether or not they are fudging by minimizing or exaggerating the negative consequences of a roll.  Yet judged on the basis of outcome, the PtBA GM is every bit as fudging as the Trad GM that ignores dice, or rules, or prepared notes or text when they won't be "good for the game" and making the same sort of internal judgment calls to ramp up the difficulty or hold back the difficulty based on the current struggles or lack thereof.   To a large extent, that 7-9 range gives the GM more ability to insert their own preferences than anything.  One of the reason that I hate ill-defined "partial successes" or "failures with a drawback" is that the are so broadly defined as to be meaningless.  And again, watch that FATE playthrough for moments when the GM is feeling empowered to just make things up to heighten the challenge when the players are winning "too easily".I would go as far as to say that the entire PBtA experience depends on processes of play a Trad GM would see as fudging subject to the idea that the PBtA is fudging to empower the narrative that the players have signaled that they want.  In other words, the PBtA is always supposed to be cheating for the good of the players, and because he's empowered explicitly to metagame in this manner then it's not "cheating".  The fiction comes first as it were, which is very much the reason theoretically GMs are fudging in trad play, to maintain the best fiction for the table.</blockquote>

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