Agreed. Because in order to arrive at an answer we would have to first determine if every rule in every situation in this game produces the 'correct' result. Or from a different perspective, a 'fair' result.
Doubt *anything*--even that--would do it. For those who
like fudging, not just neutrally accept it, its goodness is almost an axiom. "Proving" axioms are not merely special cases but outright
wrong is hard enough in an objective thing like math, and downright impossible in something like taste.
So the best we can do is have a discussion about under what circumstances fudging is acceptable to most people when playing this particular ruleset. There will always be a few that say 'never,' and that's fine.
I don't even think
that is possible--too many divergent opinions. We can only discuss when
individuals find it acceptable or not.
Some places where this fails for me (which is where I add house rules) are things like injuries, disease, and other maladies that have a significant impact for a longer amount of time than hit points simulate. But that's an actual change to the rules. We are looking solely at whether or not, once the rules are in place, if that die roll, that 'impartial randomness' is sacred and should never be questioned.
It's not the "impartial randomness" that is "sacred" (I
really hate people ascribing that to the "no fudging ever" position, but it's happened so many times it seems pointless to disagree anymore)--not to me anyway. It's
the decision to let the dice make the determination. THAT is what is "sacred" (again: totally inappropriate word in this context). If you *ask* the dice to decide, then you should abide by that decision. If you don't want the dice to decide,
don't ask for the dice. Use *something else*--whatever else you prefer.
I think it should. Occasionally. One example is a mistake or miscalculation made by the DM. One could say that this is just part of the world, 'fate' if you will, but others feel that a mistake made on the part of the DM shouldn't penalize the players or their characters.
"Sorry guys, I made a mistake, ignore that" is not, in my view, fudging. It is the DM being honest with her players. Sure, it shows a teeny tiny bit of the sausage-making, but it also shows the DM is both human and, in a certain sense, humble despite the power given her. It also helps a huge^billion amount that the DM is
openly saying "Sorry guys, I screwed up, let's fix this" and not secretly monkeying with things to make sure her mistakes are never discovered. If the latter is what you're talking about, I consider it almost
worse than most kinds of fudging, because it seems that the only reason to do it that way (rather than admitting the mistake) is to maintain the illusion of being a perfect DM who never makes mistakes, and that seems pretty clearly "selfish."
Another situation would be the absurd. That 20th level character that rolls a '1' on their climb check, and doesn't have a safety net (like feather fall) to save them. In the current rules, a '1' isn't automatic failure for a skill check, but this is an event that could happen (Strength drained character for example). One could argue that this is a situation where it is again set up by a 'mistake' of the DM. That is, if you aren't willing to accept the consequences of a failed check, then don't make a check. Even if that consequence is that you don't think it's possible for them to fail the check.
See above for my agreement with that "one could argue" bit, however there are also (at least) two other options:
1) "Failure" doesn't equate to "falling off." "Failure" could mean "you're barely holding on and have a sudden keen awareness of how far above the ground you are. Next time you can act, you'll be filled with fear. You can either take a short breather to steady yourself and definitely be ready to keep climbing the round after, or you can try to make a Wisdom save or Charisma save at that point and if you succeed you can continue acting then."
2) The roll isn't a pass/fail, but rather a progress estimator. You're still climbing, but it's slow going--you're not finding many handholds, the rock face is more crumbly than you expected or slopes weirdly in the direction you tried to climb, etc. You were always going to succeed--you're a 20th-level character,
you just don't fall off while climbing something like this anymore--but a natural 1 signifies minimal progress.
There are probably more ways to go about it.
Another thread is perhaps helpful here. In that thread, a character is reduced to a '0' Intelligence by an intellect devourer, but isn't killed. There is no mechanism in the rules to regain the Intelligence outside of magic the party doesn't have, and might not have for several sessions. The DM won't allow a second character, since this one hasn't died, so does the player just hang out at the table to several sessions, or do they 'fudge' a solution (assuming that the paladin and cleric in question won't willingly kill the character).
The consensus in that thread is that the player should be provided an option to play, whether that's changing the state of her character, or some other means (like a second character). Many suggest that the situation shouldn't have existed to start, that is a DM mistake. Other than the original post, I don't think anybody advocated that 'them's the rules, so deal with it.' So there is some tolerance to change (fudge) the situation to make it workable.
...but that's
not fudging. Offering the possibility of a solution outside those present in the standard rules is not "fudging." I've repeatedly and consistently defined it in ways that 100% exclude any kind of thing like that. And while I don't think total transparency
prevents fudging, the fact that this hypothetical situation results in a DM-player/DM-group discussion and shoots for a
consensus resolution DOES seem to make it something I wouldn't consider "fudging."
There's another way to look at it. Suppose that the table rule is no fudging. Period. Now, you come across a situation that the rule doesn't account for. You follow the rules religiously (no fudging), and then decide after the fact to change the rule. This is the approach generally taken by professional sports. But if the rule is going to change, because the inadequacy of the rule is recognized by the group, why not make that change immediately, or at least 'fudge' things to make it acceptable and work out the details afterwards? It's not a competition, and we aren't trying to maintain the integrity of performance statistics from one decade to the next. Is this really necessary?
You keep using that (bolded) phrase. I disagree that it means what you think it means.
Deciding not to employ the rules
in the first place, or deciding to create a new solution by table consent/consensus, is just about the diametric opposite of what I would call "fudging." Others, of course, may agree with you. But every time I have argued against "fudging" it has had exactly nothing, zip zero nada 0%, to do with creatively solving a problem in an open, direct manner--even if that means choosing *not* to employ the rules or dice (again,
in the first place).
Mistrust of the DM is more likely to occur when players think the DM is singling them out, that that remarkable string of attacks and hits against their character isn't fair and the DM must be picking on them. Perhaps a DM fudges by adding a few more creatures, or bumping up hit points because they determine that an encounter is way too easy. Not my preference, but I could roll with it. On the other hand, a DM bumping up an attack roll by a monster would be unacceptable, cheating, and a good sign that the DM has a 'me against them' attitude. This is the type of circumstance that makes groups roll all dice in the open. But that approach also takes away some unknowns (was my Perception or Investigation check high enough that I know there is nothing there, or did I just roll poorly?), but it also makes it much harder, although not impossible, for the DM to fudge. He can still change stats, add or remove monsters, etc. but if that creature just scored a critical on the last character standing and the only one who can stabilize and save the rest of the party, there's no changing that if the dice are in the open.
While trust is vital in any relationship, it's not
really about trust or "favorites-playing" to me, and rather about (a) players being able to make informed decisions, (b) players learning from their past experiences, (c) both players and DM learning how to manage risk, and (d) DMs learning how to handle unexpected or undesirable results in ways that support the first three things. Secret rolling is fine, a useful tool for certain circumstances, and has no negative effect on any of (a)-(d). Fudging, on the other hand, decouples the in game "reality," so that what was true becomes false and what was correct becomes wrong. This decoupling or "retconning" if you will, should it occur purely in secret, abrogates the connection between the players' choices (and, more importantly, their
reasons for those choices) and the results of those choices. Even if the players' choices were only "wrong" because of poor risk management, they were still wrong, and negating those negative results means not learning good risk management (and potentially even encourages bad risk management in the future).
On the other hand, most people would consider 'fudging' by a player to be cheating, so why isn't it cheating for the DM? My answer would be that the DM has to manage an entire world's worth of rules and checks, and that sometimes, whether by DM mistake, poorly written rules, or other situations that aren't taken into account just prior to the roll create a result that is considered unacceptable by the DM.
And as I've said several times: I have yet to see a
single example of these situations that cannot be addressed, 100% perfectly satisfactorily, by a DM that refuses to fudge. In other words, I have never seen a single example situation where fudging was
absolutely necessary to resolve a problem, whereas every single instance of fudging
could be a problem for one or more players. Why do something that has a good chance of offending someone, when there are other alternatives that accomplish the same ends but
don't have that risk?
Ironically enough, most of the actual fudging that I've seen is in the player's favor. So perhaps it's more of a question of whether it's fair between players, rather than fair to the game? To make sure the DM isn't playing favorites?
Oooor a question of, as I have said many, many times now, whether doing it is a
crutch for the DM and a blinder for the players. Given the way you've structured these questions, TBH, it's a little hard to believe that you are truly taking the "no fudging ever" perspective seriously. Like I said: you've taken it as axiomatic that
some fudging
must be good--and therefore "no fudging ever" must, axiomatically, be incorrect without investigation or commentary.
So to me, the fundamental nature of the game requires some leeway on the part of the DM, whether that applies to dice rolls, or modifying encounters on the fly, is very situational. These are much less likely to come up in short casual play, and much more likely to be not only necessary, but important to the campaign for a long-running campaign.
Depending on what you mean by "modifying encounters on the fly," I have no problem with that, either, and have thus not been arguing against it in the slightest. I have, in fact, repeatedly stated that I am okay with modifying the long-term consequences of a fight before it is resolved, having monsters take rationally appropriate but non-optimal choices (e.g. monster tries to flee with its 'food' rather than keep fighting, enemies try to revive their allies rather than kill all enemies first, etc.), eliminating/reducing/increasing fights that have not come to pass yet in response to players doing remarkably awful/poorly/well, etc. If, on the other hand, you are including things like "add HP to a monster so that it does not fall to 0 HP," "pretend that a crit or hit is actually a miss," etc. then, as I said above, I have yet to hear of a situation where such actions are the ONLY response, despite having presented numerous alternatives that involve no such DM "manipulation."
The game reality is that when you fudge, there was never a hit to change into a miss. It was always a miss.
And that is a huge part of why it bothers me. Retconning the world in secret. See above. Just wanted to make sure this was clearly called out, since I made reference to it.
