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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnLynch" data-source="post: 6808869" data-attributes="member: 6749563">Sure.And yet you still decided to fudge. Despite the fact that there was no actual reason to do so. All you had to do, to avoid fudging, was have the bear attack the first person who separated themselves from the group that wasn't a skinny little fellow who looks like a stiff breeze would knock them over. OR you could have had the bear deal subdual damage. After all, the bear wasn't trying to kill them, it was simply trying to get them to leave it's territory.I'm not really sure what the real life inspiration has to do with the discussion at hand, except that you felt frightened of a bear despite not being attacked and wanted to convey that fear to the players. Fudging was not necessary.You are responsible for deciding what challenges the players are placed with and you are responsible for the possible outcomes that are on the table as a result. You have a whole suite of tools available to you that doesn't require you to fudge the dice. IMO fudging is a result of failing to present the players with an appropriate challenge (an appropriate challenge being one where all potential outcomes have a desired effect to the game). Failing to present an appropriate challenge or requiring that the challenge become appropriate by fudging is a failure on the part of the DM IMO. The exact same challenge could have easily been presented with the players being none-the-wiser. All that you required was to have this bear be slightly below average strength than the average bear. This is within purview of the DM to determine the strength of any given creature. Fudging was not necessary and a better DM would have found a way to have the exact same scenario play out without being requiring to potentially fudge anything.Your reliance on ignorance of your players part does not make a persuasive argument for having a fudging DM. Either you tell the players "I may fudge some of my rolls" and they then choose whether they want to play with you, or you do not inform your players and rely on deceit to keep them at the table. If you aren't relying on deception (and you've stated several times that you tell your players you will fudge), then they know any given roll could be one that is fudged.As a DM one of your jobs is to present players with challenges for them to interact with and then by their own action choose an outcome from a list of possible outcomes (this list need not be predefined or exhaustive). By fudging the dice rolls you are removing player agency by removing the impact their actions had on the sequence of events. You are presenting them with false choices and then forcing them to go onto a smaller subset of choices you deem acceptable. Nothing should be presented before the players if the players cannot choose it. Doing so and then taking it away from the player without them having any control over it is a failure on the DM's part IMO as it removes player agency.Here's a classic example: DM tells the players that they're going to start a new game and to make new characters, including buying equipment. The DM then, in the opening scene, removes all of the player's equipment, leaving them with no recourse to ever get that equipment back. This sort of thing will result in a lot of players being unhappy (not all, but I expect a decent percentage would be), especially if they've spent hours selecting the best equipment. Why are the players upset? Because you've removed the consequences of the choices they made. This is what fudging does. It presents the players with a possible option, and then takes it away from them if they choose an option the DM didn't want them to. A better DM will simply not present them with the option in the first place.Hiding the map can allow the DM to fudge and some DMs do it so that they can fudge. This was called in an internet post somewhere, the "Quantum Ogre". That is, presenting the  players with choices to make and an array o potential consequences, and then then no matter what choice they make you force them to suffer the exact same consequence. This is the same as fudging in that both remove player agency from the game to one degree or another by removing the ability for the player to experience the consequences of their choices.Giving  them a black bear with 13 strength would have also resulted in no  player dying in the first encounter.</blockquote>

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