D&D 5E Do you want your DM to fudge?

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Yeah, [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION], you are right. We should all assume that we are the absolute best DM we can possible be for our group and stop sharing ideas and discussing techniques and how/when/why we do or don't use them in order to try and improve our own, and maybe some other folks, gaming experiences - because someone might take comments that maybe something other than what they do would work for them if they tried it as an accusation of badwrongfun.

 

[iserith]

For people who don't want their DM to fudge, does that mean that they don't want their DM to hide any rolls?

I prefer the stakes to be clear, the rulings to be consistent, and all rolls to be in the open.

 

[Umbran]

Yeah, [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION], you are right. We should all assume that we are the absolute best DM we can possible be for our group and stop sharing ideas and discussing techniques and how/when/why we do or don't use them in order to try and improve our own, and maybe some other folks, gaming experiences - because someone might take comments that maybe something other than what they do would work for them if they tried it as an accusation of badwrongfun.

Aaron, thank you so much for misrepresenting my statement. You are helping to prove my point of how polarized the discussion is - when you cannot accept criticism of the discussion, there's a problem.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

...and when you cannot accept criticism of your own criticism? (Which, by the way, was itself a misrepresentation of basically this entire thread because almost no one present has accused anyone else of badwrongfun.)

 

[Nytmare]

Yeah, [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION], you are right. We should all assume that we are the absolute best DM we can possible be for our group and stop sharing ideas and discussing techniques and how/when/why we do or don't use them in order to try and improve our own, and maybe some other folks, gaming experiences - because someone might take comments that maybe something other than what they do would work for them if they tried it as an accusation of badwrongfun.

I think that the point of this you might be missing is that most of this (and its two sister threads) are not a discussion of techniques, they've devolved into page after page of people defending themselves, their games, their relationships with their friends, their motivations, and their morality from a minority of a minority of people who have laid claim to a moral high horse and are looking to convert them to the one true way of "playing the game correctly."

 

[Noctem]

Yeah, @Umbran, you are right. We should all assume that we are the absolute best DM we can possible be for our group and stop sharing ideas and discussing techniques and how/when/why we do or don't use them in order to try and improve our own, and maybe some other folks, gaming experiences - because someone might take comments that maybe something other than what they do would work for them if they tried it as an accusation of badwrongfun.

+1 And he entered the discussion in such a positive way too!

I think the problem is that Umbran has a personal stake in this discussion at this point and considers himself to have the moral high ground. He's injecting a very negative point of view into this thread and is actually the one attempting to polarize it by creating a good side vs bad side! We're the bad guys here.

And I also agree that he doesn't seem to take criticism very well, as can be seen again here. Maybe if we mention it, he will be able to see the "symmetry", as he once said to me. Or not

***As a notice, this is simply my opinion and criticism of Humbran's posts in this thread. I am not making a personal attack against his person. I am simply commenting on his choice of words used in this thread and how he seems to want to create a caricature of multiple people he doesn't agree and/or create a divide between thread participants. Specifically in regards to his "wrongfunbad" post above. I do believe that his latest posts are in violation of rule 1: Keep it civil of this forum.***

 

[Noctem]

...and when you cannot accept criticism of your own criticism? (Which, by the way, was itself a misrepresentation of basically this entire thread because almost no one present has accused anyone else of badwrongfun.)

I haven't seen anyone here accuse someone of badwrongfun. What I have seen is a discussion about what fudging represents, what it can affect, what it would mean if done in the open, alternatives to fudging, suggestions from multiple people about how and when to fudge and so on. Basically a search for understanding from multiple point of views of other point of views. It was indeed a misrepresentation

 

[rlor]

I am honestly flummoxed.

Just because something is determined by some means other than chance doesn't mean that it can be expected.

Just because something is determined by some means other than chance doesn't mean that it doesn't look like it was determined by chance.

All of the times that you HAVE been surprised by a movie, do you think it was because the screenwriters were rolling dice to see what the outcome was?

All of the times that you have been surprised by something that happened in an RPG due to a die roll, if you didn't see the die roll, would you have still been surprised?

If something surprised the DM then it is probably more likely to surprise me. As an example: a villain takes a woman hostage to be used as a human shield and she struggles to break free. The DM rolls for her struggle as they describe the situation and then suddenly stops, blinks twice as they look at the result and say "and she grabs his arm, steps back to throw him off balance, then tosses him to the ground". I'm more likely to be surprised by that then if I see the DM focus intently on the roll because they know she's secretly a monk and is likely to succeed. The DM is going to have a different way of delivering the same line, pausing at different places and giving different body language.

Now if the DM is the type that commonly plays the lead in amateur theater performances and brings tears to the eyes of the audience I might not be able to tell the difference. Though their inclinations may make the above more predictable than a random result even with flawless acting.

If I'm the DM and don't want her to succeed for whatever reason then I just describe it as "she struggles in its grasp" without touching the dice. Likewise I could have her successfully toss the villain to the ground without picking up a die. Only if I'm fine with it going either way am I going to roll.

I picked the above example because I've witnessed a DM fudging this situation before so it seemed apt. They needlessly put themselves in this situation and while I personally would have welcomed the surprise (as a DM or player) they clearly didn't because they wanted a hostage scenario.

 

[Noctem]

For me the opportunity created by the unexpected result of the roll, the woman throwing the guy to the ground, allows me to flex my imagination muscle:

So as to narrate the new event in a way that matches the dice. I didn't expect it and I would convey that surprise to the players by narrating how it happened. Gasps from the various witnesses would be heard as a result. The attacker would be on the ground, dazed and confused, looking up at his would-be victim in complete surprise. Then I would ask the party how they react and what they do next.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This has zero to do with DM empowerment. Not a single thing.

You can't see how the DMG pointing out that the DM can change die rolls, rather than, say, advising that all rolls be in the open and their results final, isn't a little more on the side of DM Empowerment.

My point was the next time you feel compelled to alter results, don't do it. Make a conscious decision that you won't. See what happens. IME, it results in much better games.

I've long since done that many times, and learned from the experience. I did it all through the playtest, because you can't test a system by ignoring it, and, out of force of habbit, into the first season of 5e encounters. There are systems that run well in that above-board style and systems that don't. 5e is one of the latter.

"Please make rolls that affect only my character in the open" would be a more reasonable thing for a player who didn't want fudging to ask, than asking that the DM not fudge any rolls at all.
Any problem with that?

That sort of information makes sense as a roll that occurs in secret--but I expect that, one way or another, the truth will come out in the end.

This may be overly philosophical, but the world your PC interacts with is the DMs creation. The 'truth' of that world is what the DM ends up narrating, not what he jotted down in notes before hand, not a rule in a book, and not what the natural results of a die roll might have been.