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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 6808413" data-attributes="member: 6778044">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</blockquote>

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