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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 6809567" data-attributes="member: 6778044">And your other statement was:And in this case you are wrong. I don't say that often, but in this case I will. The intent is entirely relevant when you are declaring what the intent is/was for another individual - in this case me. Intent is the difference between an accident, manslaughter or murder. The end result is the same, at least for the deceased. It's quite different for the accused.And this is from somebody who explicitly stated that they dislike people who present opinion as fact.The fact is, I 100% prioritized the metagame over the fleeting risk of a single attack. That's it. Your statement that I prioritized story is an opinion, because you have no way of knowing what my intent was. Except that I've told you. Several times. So repeating that opinion is incorrect, and annoying.A story thing happened. A story thing happens if I don't fudge. Pretty much everything a DM does affects the story, and also often affects the challenge and/or risk. This decision was made with no consideration of the story. I put the realities of running a game in a limited amount of time ahead of the situation in the game. I put that ahead of both story and risk. It had a potential story and risk effect. In this case I did not impact the challenge. The challenge remains the same. The chance to detect the bear, and the chance to kill the bear remained the same. There was no impact on the challenge. I impacted the risk, and I impacted that risk in a very minor and fleeting fashion. Should the dice decide that a character should die after that single moment, so be it. Furthermore, I'm not even sure what your ultimate point is. Yes, fudging a roll alters the potential story, risk, and/or challenge.So does adding a second monster. Or a weaker monster. Or a higher DC. Or the monsters using tactical advantage due to the terrain. All of these affect the story, and all of them affect the challenge and risk. So what? Are they good? Are they bad? All of them (including fudging) are within the rules. All have similar impacts.How does this statement - "fudging places story above challenge and/or risk" - further the discussion on fudging? In the context of the game what makes it different than:Increasing the number of monsters.Using weaker monsters.Using different monsters.Placing the PCs on a narrow cliff before encountering the monsters.Making the cliff wet and increasing the climbing DC.Placing the monsters at long range.Having a friendly NPC wander in just before a battle. During a battle.Finding a magic item before a battle. Some of these activities place story above challenge and/or risk. Others increase/decrease these elements in different degrees. They are all tools that the DM can use to alter the story, challenge, and/or risk. In a void none of them are particularly interesting or helpful. Taken as a whole, within the ruleset, they take on a different meaning. If the only tool that the DM uses is fudging, then it's not going to be a very interesting adventure. But if it's one tool of many, used in moderation or very rarely, then it's just another part of developing the story, challenges, and risks. In and of itself it doesn't take away anything from the players. How it's used might. My example didn't change their options, didn't reduce their challenge, and didn't alter their perception of bears. "The bear didn't score a critical, therefore bears can't score criticals" isn't a true statement. The odds were 95% in favor of not scoring a critical, perhaps 90% if I rolled with advantage. Therefore, the expected result would be no critical. That wouldn't have any impact on the players or characters perception of bears. What about that? The bear surprised the character, was behind them, and unseen. Oops, I should have rolled the attack with advantage. Is my inadvertent omission as bad as fudging? What if I didn't roll with advantage on purpose? Is that different? Why? Maybe I decided that despite initially being unseen, as it stood up to attack the character turned and saw the bear just as the attack occurred. Perhaps because the target happened to be a wood elf barbarian, he noticed the bear at the last moment, enough to prevent the bear to have advantage.With vast number of possibilities of how I may or may not have adjudicated the scenario behind the screen, how would the players ever know anything other than a bear attacked and ran away, and the barbarian took a bunch of damage? Why would they iwant to know? Why would they want to question it rather than jump right into character and go with the exciting scene that's unfolding?On fudging in general, if the purpose of the DM is to present the world, the story, and the challenges in a way that the players can act freely and suffer the potential consequences of their actions materially changed in this instance? Yes, on a strict comparison of the same encounter played between two teams, one with and one without potential fudging, there will be a possibility of a difference between the two scenes. But statistically that would be 1 in 20 tables, and that's assuming that the critical at #20 was actually enough to drop the character in question. The variables of what the PCs might do are far greater than ignoring a 5% chance fudge. OK, I might have greatly reduced the chance of a "Hey, my character got killed by a bear in the first encounter. Cool!" moment. Sorry. But I'm ok with that. I think my players were pretty happy with it as well.Ilbranteloth</blockquote>

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