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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Primitive Screwhead" data-source="post: 5111019" data-attributes="member: 20805">I have been rolling dice in the open for many years.. and my reasons are a combination of not liking the DM screen blocking my view of the table and players, and liking the tension it creates when the chips are down and the players know its all on the dice results. That being said, I do fudge the results of a scenario from time to time, generally to allow a monster to be somewhat dramatic in its death or to allow a new player to get the last hit in. I do this by altering hit points and using the 'GMs freind bonus of +/- 2', along with an occasional 'encounter' power that grants the critter a boost to hit.  My players all know I fudge a bit on the side. In one published module encounter I literally rewrote the monster stats mid-combat as they were much more of a challenge than was appropriate. {Had I more time to prep I would have fixed that in advance}. My goal in fudging is simply to advance the entertainment of everyone at the table by boosting dramatic events as dramatic instead of anti-dramatic.  That Lich combat mentioned upthread? That is dramatic... the number of rounds have little to do with how cool the fight is. My players should be talking about the combats afterwards in terms of "Holy Sh<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />, that Crayfish almost ripped the Eladrin in twain!" instead of "That damn Crayfish dealt way too much damage for its level, that was unfair".. GM prep and encounter balance goes a long way to getting there, but sometimes you need to adjust on the fly as the combat goes along.YMMV</blockquote>

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