DM Cheating

[Umbran]

I think the person writing the column has a very different view of the DM/player relationship than I do.

 

[buzz]

I think the person writing the column has a very different view of the DM/player relationship than I do.

FWIW, the context of the bit I quoted involved a description of a very asshat DM.

 

[rowport]

... I've played games that worked as advertised, so I know that it's possible. Ergo, my tolerance level for tweaking mechanics and living with fudging is pretty low these days. Whether that tolerance equates to demanding perfection, I don't know.

For me, D&D is pretty darn close to perfect run as written. Even in the case of those oddball rules that always cause debate (e.g. flurry of blows and natural weapons, grappling, sniping, etc.) as long as the group agrees how it plans to handle them, there should really be no cause for fudging rolls by anybody, including the GM. If I felt that my GM was changing dice roll results to make it easy on us I would really wonder why we were using the dice at all-- that risk makes it fun to play. I am also of the 'dead is dead' camp, and will not resurrect my dead PCs. (Admittedly, since I really enjoy making characters, I can see how using a new replacement character might be less of a sacrifice for me than for folks who get really emotionally invested in their PCs-- still, if you cheat the dice then you are not really surviving on your wits and abilities, so why bother?)

That said, if an encounter was clearly unbalanced and both GM and players wanted to change the scene, alter a problematic ability, or whatever I would have no problem with that. At least then everybody is playing from the same rules, so to speak. For example, if the demonic BBEG could fly, and for whatever reason the party had no ranged weapons that could overcome its DR, I could see where the table might have to agree to make some changes, or just have the party run away!

And, for clarity's sake, the above is not a slam. I just mean that some of my buddies have this one specific thing they want form gaming, and rules live or die by how well they provide that one thing. ...

And by "that one thing", I presume that Buzz means tough combats. 'Cause let's face it, D&D rules for Diplomacy suck.

(This is why I often get random results from those "Wat kind of roleplayer are you?" quizzes. It's hard for me to conclusively answer the questions without the context of a specific game.)

My result was "Doctor Doom"! No, wait, that was a different online test.

 

[rowport]

...If you take tabletop RPGs as essentially an outgrowth of cops and robbers, but with rules to resolve the "I shot you!"/"No you didn't!" dichotomy, you can have a 100% comprehensive rules system that will never, ever require a judgement call:

PCs do whatever their players says they do until two players disagree. When that happens, each player rolls 1d6. High roll wins. Reroll ties.



It may sound silly, but when you come down to it, that right there is a 'complete' setting-neutral RPG. I've actually played 'games' like that, and they can be pretty fun with the right group. Indeed, from what I understand of Dave Arneson's pre-Chainmail Blackmoor campaign, it was alot like that, except with paper-scissors-rock as the resolution mechanic.

The real trick is in adding complexity to the 'game' part.

This is a pretty darn cool post, Moogle. I completely get your point and entirely agree with your argument. Mind you, I would sooner pull out my toenails one by one with my teeth than *play* such a game, but that's just me. Your point is still dead-on right!

 

[rowport]

Well randomness doesn't "spike." It's more that it is not just a remote possibility that even a well designed encounter will not have the anticipated effect. While thousands of dice rolls will usually end up averaging the way you'd expect, single dice rolls usually don't.

Now you can say, "Let the chips fall where they may!" but when you do that, this kind of silences you as an effective critic of a system's results. At that point, you don't care about the system -- you care about game mechanic results. So to my mind, it's incoherent to be concerned with both balance and an "automated" way of getting results, with one exception: instances where rules lack clarity. But that instance is also interesting in terms of this discussion.

RPGs are caught in a trap of subjectivity that only seems to increase with attempts to stamp it out. ...Of course, if you stick with a loose system you end up with fudging being made "official."

Does this mean that rolling in public, etc. is bad? No, of course not! But there's a difference between saying that GMs who feel it's *necessary* to fudge are engaging with a "broken" system, or that systems that encourage GM moderation are also "broken."

People should also recognize that when they do let the dice fall where they made, they are *also* engaging in a form of social and system manipulation. There is really no such thing as a truly "hands off" style, as much as social strategies that suit different groups.

First, a disclaimer: I strongly suspect that my idea of a "fun game" would not match yours, eyebeams, so we might have to just agree to disagree. That said, I am puzzled by your central premise, as I understand it.

You seem to be saying that while an average result (in micro for a particular attack roll, or in macro for a particular encounter) might predict a positive outcome for the game-- e.g. party beats up group of orcs-- that statistics cannot predict each outlier result. So, carrying the example encounter, the orcs' CR was appropriate to the party, but still leads to a TPK. To avoid a negative outcome for the game (in the sense of non-fun, frustration, etc.) then you advocate GMs fudging the rolls to move the results back to the positive outcomes that the average results would have predicted.

Is that right? If so...

1. If fudging rolls is required to re-adjust back to the baseline average result that would be expected, then why roll at all? Why not just use average dice rolls? Or, if you still wanted some level of randomness, but more controlled towards the norm, then use average dice rolls for some plus a smaller random factor (e.g. 11d6 vs. 35+1d6). I have played a few HERO games using that method, and really found no real difference from just rolling dice because...

2. Even though each roll cannot be predicted to fall within the norm, given the number of rolls in each encounter, to say nothing of a full session or campaign, it seems extraordinarily unlikely that bad rolls are not balanced by good rolls, and so on. Sure, you might miss your attack while the orc crits, but it is likely that you will hit on the next attack-- odds predict that result, certainly.

3. Either way, if reducing negative outcomes due to unexpected randomness is your goal, would it not be consistent to apply that to both enemies and allies? Otherwise, the players would be protected from fate, but monsters would not. That just seems unsatisfying to me.

 

[buzz]

And by "that one thing", I presume that Buzz means tough combats. 'Cause let's face it, D&D rules for Diplomacy suck.

Full disclosure: rowport is in my Saturday group. (Hey, dude!)

And, yeah. Tactical challenge and ass-kicking are high on our group's list of desirable traits. Ergo, D&D 3.5 pretty much delivers the goods as-written for us. Fudging would make the game pointless.

 

[Zimri]

so my DM called. She said she took all the party stats and all the encounter stats in the module we were going to be playing this weekend and ran them through the "computron 5000". Turns out there is a TPK part way through so we all get to re-roll and start over as level 1 next weekend. Good thing a compelling story and social activity didn't get in the way of random numbers, but now what do we do with all the cheeto-s and mountain dew ?

 

[Halivar]

The game Moog describes is similar in some ways to The Pool. It does not have the problem you describe because it's not resolving tasks, it's resolving conflicts. You're not rolling to see whether PC A's shot hit PC B. You're rolling to see whether the player of PC A gets to narrate the outcome or not.

Holy crap. I have to try this out.

 

[Warbringer]

I don't roll.

My players make all the rolls, so AC and spell DC are now active rolls. Every thing else I simply take 10 and add the '+' adjustment.

So to hit +7, is simply a DC 17 for player to 'defend' against

 

[rowport]

so my DM called. She said she took all the party stats and all the encounter stats in the module we were going to be playing this weekend and ran them through the "computron 5000". Turns out there is a TPK part way through so we all get to re-roll and start over as level 1 next weekend. Good thing a compelling story and social activity didn't get in the way of random numbers, but now what do we do with all the cheeto-s and mountain dew ?

Zimri-

Oh, how will you overcome this dilemma? Wait-- I know! You can just get together around the table and tell campfire stories (compelling ones, natch)! That will save money on buying those pesky dice and rules books! Who needs games statistics, when you have pure imagination and Cheetos? You go, girl!