Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
The bolded section isn't true for my game for two reasons. 1) they don't know that I fudge. 2) they can still TPK. It just won't be for extreme bad luck.
D&D 5E Do you want your DM to fudge?
The bolded section isn't true for my game for two reasons. 1) they don't know that I fudge. 2) they can still TPK. It just won't be for extreme bad luck.
Skyscraper
Explorer
My text was unclear. Please ignore "another" before the word "player". I was referring to the fact that both the player and the DM are players, ultimately, in the same game, and the player's PC benefits from something that goes on between the players.
Combat indeed includes some metagaming, as I mentioned in my first post addressing this issue in this thread. I prefer to keep as much out of the RP-part of the game if I can.
This said, I indeed do not use XP. PCs level up at storyline milestones determined by me. Players have elected this method (that I also happen to prefer).
Trait, ideals, bonds, flaws are a fun way of helping players to flesh out a background and the PBH offering tables also allows random determination of those elements, if players so wish. I have no problem with that, on the contrary. Although, we haven't used them yet (my players are rather imaginative and those character elements or equivalents thereof come up easily). But I'm looking at proposing to my players to actually select some in my upcoming campaign, from the PHB or invented, I don't mind either way.
Tony Vargas
Legend
That's just the thing, what you're doing is running a game from behind a DM screen. Players know that when you make rolls behind the screen, you have the option to 'fudge' die rolls among many other things. They just don't know when. So, it's not deception, it's just limited information sharing. That may seem like a fine line, and it is, but it's legitimate for that style of play. And it's not remotely dishonest.
In that example, you're objecting to the DM's style and use of available tools and he's meeting you half way in accommodating you as much as he can without just letting you dictate how everyone at the table play. Yes, that might be uncomfortable, compromises often are.
It's not, I've run many games in that style, too. Neither is taking resolution behind the screen and using techniques like 'fudging' or placebo rolls or the like such a horrible thing. Depending upon the group and the system in question, one might give better results than the other.
Yes. If you want the DM to run his game differently, when the rest of the table was fine with his style, you are dictating to the entire table. That's the line you cross in your example when the DM meets you half way by rolling in the open for you, since you are bothered by it.
It's like any other issue that a group might need to agree upon. Like what game to play in the first place. Which often bundles a lot these issues together. If we're playing D&D, it's pretty likely there's a DM screen, more likely in some eds than others, but it's pretty common, and that implies the DM has freedom to fudge rolls, roll placebo dice, or roll imaginary 'random encounters' to lend a sense of urgency, or all sorts of cute little DM tricks.
That'd be a unilateral ultimatum. Or that player might be able to compromise, or he just isn't right for the current campaign.
What about all the other players in your ultimatum scenario, above? That /is/ one player forcing everyone to play a specific way.
Dishonesty is a bad thing. It might be necessary at times, but that's about it. Nothing about the style of DMing a game from behind the screen is dishonest. Nothing. No, not even 'fudging.'
If you're trying to wiggle away from the uncomfortable fact that you've been resorting to insults this whole time, BTW, /that's/ dishonest.
Or at least is considerate enough to accommodate some differences in style.I'm not missing that at all. I've never said everyone enjoys the same things. The key is to find a group that shares the same goals and desires in roleplaying games.
There's always a little difficulty with that, because the DM really isn't limited the way another player or AI is, by ability or by some selected difficulty mode. The DM can dial challenges up or down to the point the outcome is certain, 'guidelines' (if any) be damned.
Whether you run 'above board' and are very careful about the kinds of challenges you put before the players, or run behind the screen, and adjust challenges on the fly, the goal is still to run a game that's actually enjoyable.
Ilbranteloth
Explorer
On the idea of fudging be dishonest.
Note, dishonesty is not necessarily a bad thing. In many games, it's outright expected. One deceives ones opponents in poker, for instance, whenever bluffing. Bluffing is trying to deceive opponents about the strength of a hand. It's neither good nor bad, but, part of the game. We play with our cards secret from each other precisely so that we can bluff. It's 100% expected that everyone at the table will do so. You could play poker with all cards face up, but, it would be a much more boring game. So, deceptive behaviour isn't necessarily a bad thing in a game. And note, at the end of the hand, on a successful call, cards are revealed.
OTOH, if I start dealing from the bottom of the deck, I'm going to get my ass beaten. And rightfully so. I'm changing the odds of the game in my favour. It would particularly be bad if I were to tell everyone that I was dealing from the bottom of the deck. Or, at least bad for me.
And that's where the difference lies between simply hiding dice (which is perfectly acceptable and a commonly necessary part of play) and fudging lies. We hide search checks, for example, because there might be a trap there and you missed it, or there might be no trap at all and there is no way for the player to know which is true. No problems, no foul. We know that the DM is rolling the dice for us and we accept this as part of the game.
Fudging, OTOH, has no formal role in the game. You don't need to fudge. You do need to roll some checks secretly, but, you never actually need to fudge. The DM might want to fudge some results, but, there is never a need for it. And the fact that you have to keep it a secret from the players places it squarely in the same camp as dealing from the bottom of the deck, AFAIC.
This is a good example, although there are a few things missing.
Bluffing is acceptable because it's considered part of the game by those playing. It's part of the social contract, if you will. Try playing with a 5 year old who asks you if you have a particular card, and you 'bluff' and they find out after. Typically it's a different reaction because you have a different social contract. In addition, bluffing is inherently part of the game itself. It's a competitive, not cooperative game, and part of the nature of it is outwitting your opponent. Without it, it would be boring because it would be largely dependent on random chance.
Fudging can absolutely have a formal role in the game. If the table agrees that it's OK for the DM to fudge if necessary, then it is formal and acceptable.
What you (the greater 'you') mean is that there is no published rule allowing it. But this is also incorrect. In the 1st Edition DMG, pg 110:
"However, it is your right to control the dice at any time and to roll the dice for the players. You might wish to do this from knowing some specific fact...You do have every right to overrule the dice at any time if there is a particular course of events that you would like to occur. In making such a decision you should never seriously harm a party or non-player character with your actions. "ALWAYS GIVE THE MONSTER AN EVEN BREAK!"
Exampled of dice rolls which should always be made secretly are:...
Now and then a player will die through no fault of his own. He or she will have done everything correctly, taken every reasonable precaution, but still the freakish roll of the dice will kill the character. In the long run you should let such things pass as the players will kill more than one opponent with their own freakish rolls at some later time. Yet you do have the right to arbitrate the situation. You can rule the the player, instead of dying, is knocked unconscious, loses a limb, is blinded in one eye..."
- all emphasis in the original text.
And in the 5th Edition DMG pg 235 it's even more specific:
"Rolling the dice behind the screen lets you fudge the dice results if you want to...Don't distort dice rolls too often, though, and don't let on that you're doing it."
In other words, fudging dice has always, and continues to be, a perfectly acceptable part of the rules if that's the way the group likes it. Some of the discussion about whether it's necessary or not is interesting. Part of the problem I've got with one of my campaigns is that I don't think that everybody would be OK if one of their PCs died. Because of the group of people, and what they are interested in, it's more of an epic style campaign where the PCs are the protagonists. One of the players probably wouldn't care, two of them would definitely care, and the third is in a strange situation that makes it very difficult to die.
Ilbranteloth
Zak S
Guest
I think if they genuinely don't know that you fudge then, yes, it won't affect how they think and their feeling of challenge.
But it is still 100% true that THE REASON that you are fudging is 100% prioritizing in-game drama over something else. You openly stated that you were trying to go against "extreme bad luck"--a possibility all players could have included in their calcuclations, and one included in the game design.
In other words: you fudged in order to disallow a possibility the rules allow and the stated reason to disallow it was to create a situation where death from what your story considers a "minor" encounter is less likely than death from what your story considers a "major" encounter.
Hussar
Legend
Tony Vargas said:
Nope. You're the one trying to wiggle because you've never actually answered my question. How is doing something you KNOW other people don't want you to do, would be unhappy if they knew you did it, and keeping the fact that you are doing it a secret specifically BECAUSE you know it would make the other person(s) unhappy, not dishonest? In what way is this upfront, transparent, or honest behaviour? You can take it as an insult all you like, but, it doesn't change the fact that you are specifically lying to your players.
And note, as far as playing behind a screen goes, nothing about that is necessarily dishonest. It's information being withheld as a specific time, sure, but, that information is meant to be revealed to the players at the appropriate time. it's not like we hide a map behind the screen and then use an entirely different map. Well, I suppose we could, but, what would be the point? And changing the map (or adventure details) in order to bring about a specific event that the DM wants to happen is called railroading and it's generally seen as a bad thing. No one wants to be called a railroading DM.
There is no appropriate time to reveal fudging. The advice in the DMG even specifically calls this out that you are not to inform the players that you are doing this. See, AFAIC, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] is focused on the wrong issue. The issue isn't really changing the die rolls - there are loads of ways to do that within the rules as they stand. Good grief, you have Inspiration, the Luck feat, umpteen magical reactions, rogues can "take 10" after the fact on skill checks by a certain level, and I'm sure there are more. It's not that the die roll is specifically sacred. It's the fact that you are changing the die roll AND keeping that change a secret.
If it was a good thing, you wouldn't be hiding it.
Ilbranteloth
Explorer
No, that's not 100% the case. It's a lot of the time, but it's also often a question as to what's 'fair' or at least seems fair. One way of looking at what's fair is noted in the 1st edition DMG - that is, let the freakish roll stand, because the players will have freakish rolls from time-to-time as well.
But another way of looking at whether that is fair or not is the fact that the players will have far more attack rolls made against them, then they will against any given creature. That is, if going by strict statistics, the players should always die eventually during the course of the game. Is that fair?
Well, in a strict numbers game, sure. But in a heroic rpg, maybe not. Or more accurately, maybe not for every game. My last campaign ran with the same core characters for 8+ years. A current one has been running for over a year. The players have a lot of investment in these characters, and the campaign is built around the characters to a large degree as well. These are the heroic characters, not necessarily known on a global level, but certainly a local, and sometimes regional level, that have beaten the odds and survived. Strict statistics doesn't support that.
When we could play for hours a day, multiple days a week, then some characters naturally survived to legendary status, and many others didn't. But now we're once a week for about 3 hours a week, statistics aren't our friend. At least not for the sort of epic story that ties these specific characters closely together.
There's another poll/thread about fail forward and what that entails. The 1st Ed DMG comment on "maybe they lose a limb, or fall unconscious instead" and other options instead of death feels an awful lot like 'fail forward' and some people find that very objectionable. Is that approach better or worse than just fudging the roll? It depends on the person I'd guess.
I was not the one that discussed the minor over major encounter. That's not typically a concern of mine. My main concern if I do fudge is that the result works for the story, combined with the 'freakish die roll' that would inappropriately affect that story. Hey, if the PCs are going to die because they are stupid (like the bard that decided she was going to jump into a seemingly bottomless shaft to the underdark), that's fine with me. I'll usually make sure they understand what I'm describing before that. And give the other PCs an opportunity to stop her. But if she dies, she dies. That's their own stupidity. But if it's a bad die roll, or sequence of die rolls, that might make a difference.
Others state that challenge-oriented players are naturally against fudging. I'd also question that. If they don't know fudging is happening, how would that alter their perception? I certainly don't think it's impossible to have a challenging game while allowing fudging, even if you learn about it afterwards. Some people obviously place a greater emphasis on succeeding because/despite the die rolls (beating the odds, essentially), which I guess puts more emphasis on that over the story. But even if given a bit of help from the Gods (DM fudging), they still beat the odds. They just were weighted a little bit in their favor.
But the reality is that not fudging is also disallowing a possibility the rules allow, which is, well, fudging.
If fudging is against the rules, that's one thing. But it's not. Explicitly so. They are mutually exclusive options, but both are acceptable by the rules as written. It is not called out in a sidebar as a variant rule, it is in the main text as an acceptable, and core rule.
So since they are both allowed by the rules, then the question becomes who gets to make that decision?
Here the rules lean very heavily toward the DM. Repeatedly throughout the core books, in questions regarding variant rules (which this is not), players are told to 'ask their DM.' The DM guide specifically names the DM as the master of their world, whether based on a published world or otherwise, a master of adventures, and a master of rules. That is, the DM decides what rules are in play in their game.
So based on the rules as written, it would appear that:
The DM decides what rules are in play, and that fudging is an acceptable and core rule, as is not fudging. That doesn't exclude other alternatives, but it is RAW. The DM doesn't even necessarily need to declare a preference. Fudging is one of the many tools (along with dice) that the DM has at their disposal. And at a given point in time, fudging might be the tool they feel is most appropriate. And RAW - that's fine. No apology or explanation required.
Does that mean that a DM shouldn't take into account the players' preferences? Of course not. There is a page entitled "Know your players" that talks about different play styles. Note that it describes play styles, but does not prescribe any specific rules based on play style. It doesn't tell you that DM's should include specific variant rules, nor does it specify which rules are appropriate when one or more rules are conflicting (in the case of to fudge/not to fudge).
But we're playing with people, and people's preferences, even down to a rule level, need to be addressed if there's an issue. It might not always go in a specific player's favor, but it should at least be addressed. I'm an 'intent' of the rule guy. To me, the intent of fudging, whether narrowly defined as modifying a die roll on the fly, vs modifying monster stats, adding removing monsters, etc., the intent of the rule allowing fudging is to ensure that the DM is in control of the game, and not the dice. The dice are tools, and the vast majority of the time are the right tool at the time, and should not be changed. But every once in a while, they aren't. And for those that would argue this point, 5th Ed DMG, pg 237:
"Remember that dice don't run your game-you do. Dice are like rules. They're tools to help keep the action moving. At any time you, can decide that a player's action is automatically successful. you can also grant the player advantage on any ability check, reducing the chance of a bad die roll for foiling the character's plans."
At any time includes following a die roll.
As I've said, I'm finding the discussion interesting because I'm always looking for ways to improve as a DM. If nothing else, it forces me to try to answer why I do things the way I do, and that's not always an easy answer as well. I'm am interested in what my players think if we were to start rolling everything out in the open, and what happens, happens. Personally I don't think they'll like it. I also don't think it's crossed their mind. All of my groups have seemed to view the job of the DM as a writer and a referee. A part of the job of the referee is to adjudicate, whether it's a written rule or a die roll. So they've never seemed to care. They just like the game, like the story, and it's sort of "whatever it is you're doing we like, so keep doing what you're doing."
Ilbranteloth
Ilbranteloth
Explorer
Nytmare
David Jose
As a player who does not mind, and who arguably even wants their DM to fudge, the reason I want my DM to hide it, to not acknowledge it, and to never reveal it, is that because in doing so the DM would be ruining the illusion. The illusion that it hasn't happened is part and parcel of the entire process.
I think it's disingenuous to say that fudging without malicious, selfish, or unscrupulous intent is dishonest, and thereby malicious, selfish, and/or unscrupulous unless you are at the same exact time destroying the illusion and thereby robbing the act of its raison d'être.
Ilbranteloth
Explorer
I suppose I should elaborate on this.
Your objection is that a player has specifically indicated that they don't like the DM fudging. If the DM fudges anyway, without telling them that they will potentially fudge, that is a problem.
Here's how it would go at my table.
If the majority of players don't like DM's who fudge. I wouldn't.
If it's a single player, I would let the table know that I might fudge, but I won't fudge any rolls involving only that player.
I would still hide an individual situation where I fudged, because that's the most effective use of the tool, as well as the prescribed use of the tool. That is not bad, and it's within the rules.
I would not hide the fact that I might fudge. I would probably still use behind the screen rolls for some things. If a player objects to that, it's a different issue.
Hiding the fact that you might fudge is bad. Hiding the times that you actually do fudge is not.
However, I provide, ahead of time, a booklet with my house rules, campaign backgrounds, etc. So I will add a notation that I might fudge, and that's the general way I work. Most likely, those that object just won't join my groups.
Ilbranteloth
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