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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6807859" data-attributes="member: 6790260">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.I don't even think that is possible--too many divergent opinions. We can only discuss when individuals find it acceptable or not.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."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."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....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."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).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).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?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.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."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.</blockquote>

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