D&D General DM's: How transparent are you with game mechanics "in world?"

[iserith]

So it's BS now to call out bad-faith play as simply bad, and as something that isn't good for the game, and therefore shouldn't be done?

Interesting take...

What it is is the DM rolling for stakes in which the failure condition is unacceptable (to the DM at the least) and then correcting for that by ignoring the result of the die when it results in failure.

But whether someone ought to engage in that practice or instead change the stakes to make winning or losing acceptable or not roll for stakes they can't accept is up to them. I don't fudge the dice. My players don't want me to fudge the dice. It would be bad faith for me to do it. At someone else's table, it may be standard practice.

 

[Helldritch]

My players are perfectly aware of the rules I use because we all voted on them. All rolls ae on the open but I recognize the fact that sometimes some rolls should be made without the players' knowledge. So....

I usually make 20 rolls of a D20. Which in a 6 hours session is more than enough. These rolls are taken in order and can be applied to perception rolls or whatever players are not supposed to know. If any were used, I show the sheet on which the numbers were noted so that they know which rolls were taken and how many It rarely goes beyond 8. Everyone at the table is fine with that. As I note what the roll was used for.

We are currently playing on discord and we have reverted to TotM and players have noted that they get way more OA than playing on a gridded mat or the UDT. We use messenger to send pictures of the map and all goes well. We use AVRAE (or whatever it is called) to roll all dice and all dice are seen by everyone. So absolutely no way to cheat or fudge on these rolls and everyone is quite happy with the program.

If a player has question on strange bonuses from a monster, they are welcomed to ask during a break, after the game or before the next game. No inquisition in game as it is a sure way to break the immersion.

Presently, one player is getting suspicious as enemies have a better AC against him than against other character. He is currently using a cursed double bladed axe that deals an additional 1d8 necrotic damage but it is -1 to hit and unknown to him, he could go berserk at the end of any combat but has been quite lucky as all secret dice has been in his favor. I know it is a matter of time before he attacks fellow players but he is a frenzy barb... So he might not see the down sides as such a bad thing... But so far the varying AC is more a mystery than a hinderance for him.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Look it however you want to, but you can't make something that is impossible possible just because you feel that it carries more weight. It is literally impossible for the DM to cheat. Not possible. There are no rules that he can break.

Nah, it depends on the group. In my group, and others that don’t grant supreme executive power to the DM, the DM has to follow the rules as a default, has to respect player agency, changing the rules to restrict PCs has to be agreed on my the group, etc. Breaking those rules is cheating. As is playing in bad faith /

 

[Stalker0]

Fudging rolls is the start of a steep and slippery slope leading down toward bad-faith play*

Except its....not. Its a line not a slope, and a DM decides where that line is drawn.

I've been DMing for over 20 years, and in that 20 years I have fudged a few die in my time. And yet I have players that keep coming back for more. Either I am the greatest dice magician on the planet, or maybe its just not quite as BadWrongFun as you claim it to be.

 

[Lanefan]

Except its....not. Its a line not a slope, and a DM decides where that line is drawn.

I've been DMing for over 20 years, and in that 20 years I have fudged a few die in my time. And yet I have players that keep coming back for more.

Same here - not often, but on rare occasions...

I just recognize that it's wrong, even as I do it; and that even though I'm maybe saving a situation here-and-now I'm probably doing my game a disservice in the long run.

Put another way, I can and do successfully accuse myself of badwrongfun.

 

[TheSword]

DMs decide the HP, the AC, the attack rolls, the special abilities, the number of creatures, when they appear, the weapons they have, the damage their hits do, the spells they cast, the special equipment they use, the conditions they fight in and other things I’m sure.

Sometimes these things are done on the fly or very last minute.

Sometimes DMs are over optimistic or under-value components from the list about.

Therefore it is no problem to my mind the DM revising these things mid combat.

I don’t fudge die rolls, I do firmly believe in fudging encounters occasionally when it improves the game, a sprinkling of extra hp there or toning down the damage here. Maybe loading an extra attack on the boss when you realize he’s woefully under matched. Who cares if you make it up 5 mins before the fight or 5 mins in. Either way you’re making it up.

It doesn’t affect agency when done right, because if the players didn’t know about it before then they couldn’t make decisions based upon it. If the information isn’t changing player decisions then adjusting the information behind the scenes has no impact on agency.

More often than not I see these fudging conversations come down to a very adversarial DM v Player approach to the game world. That may be ok for some, but it’s not my cup of tea.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I can do that anyway. By RAW. Nothing requires me to fudge behind a screen.

Why would it not apply to the players? The rules apply to the players, so breaking them for advantage is cheating.

That's how you play D&D. Unless the DM house rules shackles onto himself anway.

Cheating is a double standard then. Players can do it, but the DM cannot, so it needs to be banned from the game. Oh, wait.

So, you believe that RAW allows a DM to roll a 1, look at the players, and declare he rolled a 15 and they cannot accuse him of cheating, because he is the DM. You haven't claimed, but others have, that questioning a DM on anything shows a lack of trust, and therefore they get booted. And nothing about their statements seems to take into account whether or not the DM is flagrantly lying to their players.

And this is why I say that this is unhealthy for the game. The DM is being viewed with unquestioned, unlimited power to do anything no matter how flagrant. Meanwhile the players must abide by the rules, even if those rules change every day. That is how DnD is played in your view, unless the DM "shackles themselves" like a chained god holding back out of benevolence. This leads to more abuse by DMs on the border of "abusing their unlimited power" because while they might read it in the rules, other people and long term DMs are cheering them on, telling them that they are the unquestioned rulers of their Domains, who can do anything they want as long as their players behave and don't act out.

I've been in dozens of healthy games run like that and 0 unhealthy games that didn't involve abuse of authority.

I'm not talking individually at the table. Why do you think DMs abuse their "authority"? You believe you can't cheat without getting an advantage, so a DM even trying to cheat is pointless. So, what leads to these abuses? Do you think it might be this dichotomy where we treat players like they are playing a game, and therefore should obey the rules, and not question the DM, and make sure they don't take up too much table time, and make sure their backstory isn't too long, and they stay with genre and keep accurate track of their sheets and not use weighted dice and save all questions for later and and and and. Meanwhile, we turn to DMs and say "You have ultimate authority over anything. If your players don't like it, boot them. If your players annoy you. Boot them. If your players try and move out of genre boot them. Everything you say goes, you are beholden to no one but yourself.Make up dice results, change values, ect ect ect"

Again, I'm not against homebrew. I homebrew all the time. But this attitude that DMs cannot possibly cheat because they are the ultimate arbiter of all things, I feel like it just adds to this problem of DMs being treated like they are more special than the players, which just leads to more abuses at more tables, because they can't even concieve of the fact that what they are doing is against the intent of the game.

That's what I said.

So, trying to cheat, but being technically unable to, doesn't mean you didn't cheat. The intent was there, you just have someone defining your actions in such a way that you can't break any rules.

Not in my arguments. Facts and truth are why I'm arguing this.

The truth of ultimate power and authority.

It's a snap of the fingers to insert a new character and in 5e it's another snap of the finger to make a PC. Two snaps and done.

Not in literally any game I've ever DM'd, and the only times as a player it happened, those people "snapped" into existence always felt hollow and tacked on. But, if you feel like you can just snap your fingers and the story happens, that might explain a few things.

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

And if it isn't a trust issue, but an issue of clarity or a desire to understand the system, do you still boot them because you feel like they are distrustful?

There's a clear difference 'tween the two, and the original post is clearly a case of distrusting the GM to adjudicate fairly. If a player is "system curious," I'm happy to to discuss mechanics (nothing I like more than "talking shop" about RPGs)...outside of the game session. Teaching mechanics as we play is one matter, halting the game to explain that Monster XYZ's special powers drains suspense and momentum.

 

[billd91]

There's a clear difference 'tween the two, and the original post is clearly a case of distrusting the GM to adjudicate fairly. If a player is "system curious," I'm happy to to discuss mechanics (nothing I like more than "talking shop" about RPGs)...outside of the game session. Teaching mechanics as we play is one matter, halting the game to explain that Monster XYZ's special powers drains suspense and momentum.

I think you're quoting someone else but I'm in the attribution.

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

Fixed. Millennial Boomers cannot into technology.