DM Cheating

[Midknightsun]

As a player, I'm strongly in the camp of "if my DM is cheating on dice rolls to save my bacon, I'll start to lose interest." As some others have said I see little value in the rewards I've gained if the risks really weren't all that risky. I would be bummed for sure if my favorite character gets axed, but thems the breaks sometimes.

As a DM . . . I rarely . . . .very rarely . . . fudge dice to save characters, but only when the resulting PK would be patheticly non-heroic (and it wasn't the player's fault). Even after those situations, I feel like I need to take a shower to scrub off the dirty feeling . . .

Now, I also offer warnings for dire challenges and give reasonable chances for my PCs to escape if stuff goes down bad. (hey, if the bad guys can escape now and then . . .) So I guess, after a fashion, I do cheat now and then in their favor in more non-mechanical ways.

 

[Pbartender]

I roll in the open, but a GM can still "adjust" things if he needs to even when the players are looking at the dice.

Things players don't know: Modifiers, HPs, Spells available, Special abilities. Any of these things can be modified on the fly if you misjudge an encounter.

Right, but you need to be careful... For example, if you tell the players one round that the bad guy missed an AC of 25 when your die showed a 15, he'd better not be hitting an AC of 21 the next round, when your die shows an 8. The players will notice that.

 

[buzz]

Fudging of any kind makes me question why we're using the system in the first place. If the results the rules produce are "getting in the way of the fun" (as many GM advice sections put it), then either the system is badly designed, or else our group simply wants something it can't provide.

Ergo, as both a player and a GM, I don't want any fudging. Otherwise, it will simply prolong our getting to the realization mentioned above.

 

[Faraer]

Can't provide on its own as a final mechanistic judge*, but perhaps can help to provide as part of the GMing process. Theory aside, lots of campaigns which include competent GM fudging work very well.

* Which isn't how the rules of D&D, at least pre-3E, are intended to be used. Designing a ruleset which on its own can create outcomes as fun as a good GM can is extremely difficult, to say the least.

 

[SavageRobby]

Heck, apart from rolls that need to be secret (Notice, Stealth, etc), I usually have the players do most of the rolling for opponents attacks and damage. Hard to fudge that.

I've found that it is way more interesting - and tense - when the player himself is rolls attacks and damage against them, especially when the dice explode and they roll a massive damage roll that will likely cripple or kill their character. Plus, there is never the remotest thought of GM intervention on the dice; they fall where they fall. (And as a side benefit, from the GM perspective, having the players roll frees me up to do other things.)

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Fudging of any kind makes me question why we're using the system in the first place. If the results the rules produce are "getting in the way of the fun" (as many GM advice sections put it), then either the system is badly designed, or else our group simply wants something it can't provide.

Ergo, as both a player and a GM, I don't want any fudging. Otherwise, it will simply prolong our getting to the realization mentioned above.

QFT

 

[buzz]

First off, let me clarify that by "fudging," I mean "consciously ignoring results produced by using the rules," e.g., the dice say X, but the GM decides to ignore them and do Y. I don't consider techniques like scene framing or creative application of rules ("Let's decide this with an opposed skill roll") to be "fudging."

Designing a ruleset which on its own can create outcomes as fun as a good GM can is extremely difficult, to say the least.

No ruleset can do anything on its own; it needs people to play it. The question is whether invoking the ruleset helps or hinders those people's play. If I need to consistently alter the results produced by invoking the rules to insure that everyone has a good time, then the ruleset isn't helping, and thus, IMO, needs to be shown the door.

Whether the design side of things is difficult or not, I dunno. I do know that I've played rulesets that I did not need to fudge at all. These are the ones I feel are worth my time.

FWIW, I consider D&D 3.5 among these. The closer we stick to the ruleset, the more fun we seem to have.

 

[Pbartender]

Fudging of any kind makes me question why we're using the system in the first place. If the results the rules produce are "getting in the way of the fun" (as many GM advice sections put it), then either the system is badly designed, or else our group simply wants something it can't provide.

Well, I think you have to make a distinction here, Buzz... Why are the results getting in the way of the fun?

It could be because the rules are poorly written, in which case you're right, and you should be using a different, more consistant rule system.

Or, the rules work just fine but your group simply wants something it can't provide, in which case you're right again, and you should be using a different rule system that better suits your group's gaming style.

Or, the rules work just fine but the GM made a mistake planning the encounter, in which case you either play it as is (too easy or difficult as the case may be) or you fudge the numbers a bit to bring the encounter in line. Either way, you simply take note of the problem so you don't make the same mistake the next time a similar encounter crops up, and continue using the same system.

That sort of fudging bothers me less, especially if the GM can enact the changes without the PCs ever knowing.

And fudging to make up for a player's mistake is anathema to me... If a player does something that results in his own character's (or a fellow character's) death, that's his own fault and a problem for the players to take care of, not the GM.

 

[Zimri]

In my humble opinion (which matters entirely only to myself)
1) DMs can't cheat (see rule 0)

2) I really don't mind (in the long term, the short term can be frustrating) if a BBEG gets away by virtue of DM fiat. I assume this will mean he will be coming after us / we will be going after him again.

3) I also kind of like the idea that bad (or good) die rolling won't undo weeks or months of preplay concept building and however long of in-game character growth and tweakage.

I am not against PC death per-se but it should MEAN something. During the Shackled city adventure path the final confrontation in Occipitus (smoking eye part) had the entire party ( and no I trust my group that no one had read ahead) falling all over themselves to leap into the pillar of flame to get to the bbeg (was years ago I forget the exact setup). We each knew the flame damage would likely kill us but it was a sacrifice worth making to get to the guy that tricked us.

Of course as previously stated I also don't think meaningful antagonists should die before thier time because we get a lucky shot or think of a strategy the DM / Module writer didn't think of. What fun would "vampire's blade" have been had we actually caught lucan outside the city before the ball and killed him ?

My main DM has said and I tend to agree "happy characters are mangled and exhausted characters"

 

[Umbran]

Fudging of any kind makes me question why we're using the system in the first place. If the results the rules produce are "getting in the way of the fun" (as many GM advice sections put it), then either the system is badly designed, or else our group simply wants something it can't provide.

How about a middle ground? Is there no room between something that is "badly designed" and something that is so perfect it never calls for intervention in its operation?

There's a limited number of systems out there - so I'm expecting that for most groups, it may not be possible to find the perfect one that needs no correction whatsoever. It sounds like you're making Perfection the enemy of Pretty-Darned-Good, and that way lies eternal disappointment.