D&D 5E Fudging: DM vs player preferences

[Noctem]

I think the real issue is that players and DM can not read each others minds, so "enhance the story" is an inherently subjective thing - meaning that for a particular instance of fudging, only what the DM subjectively thinks of as an enhancement is taken into account and player opinion might differ (unless, of course, the DM actually asks the players for input before changing something - but that's not the kind of fudging that anyone's been talking about thus far).

And when it comes to "move the story along" fudging, most of that comes down to situations like the DM coming up with what they thought would be a particular sort of challenge and they were incorrect because they didn't account for character ability or the choices that a player might make, and I have a personal opinion that to fudge in those situations doesn't actually help the DM better their DMing, while actually admitting the mistake to the players and working together to move past it does.

This is pretty my stance on it as well. Fudging by its very nature is about the DM deciding something which will influence everyone else at the table in secret. That's why I called it a selfish act in the other thread. You're doing what YOU think is the best thing for everyone, without asking for consent or input, in secret. I've admitted many times that I've made a mistake in play while DM'ing. Mistakes WILL happen. Fudging though as a result of a mistake doesn't seem, at least to me, to be the way to become better at DM'ing.

 

[Mecheon]

Fudging is just another tool in a DM's repertoire to make the game run well. I remain believing a good GM will know when to fudge, and when not to. Its highly situational, but I'm not going to deprive anyone of a useful tool because its 'selfish' or the like.

Incidently, in regards to it being in secret, uh, Noctem, you seriously never had a DM roll a few things in secret to plan for an upcoming battle? I thought it was pretty common

 

[wedgeski]

From my experience fudging is done almost entirely within combat. Outside of combat, social die rolls just aren't of enough consequence in most situations to warrant the DM changing his rolls. Most of the time, the rolls revolve around information gathering, exploration and the like which the DM WANTS to have happen successfully. That's how you give information to the party and advance the story.

I don't understand why you automatically equate "fudging" with something that happens at the party's expense, i.e. the DM doesn't "fudge" social interaction because party success is in his interests.

 

[Noctem]

Fudging is just another tool in a DM's repertoire to make the game run well. I remain believing a good GM will know when to fudge, and when not to. Its highly situational, but I'm not going to deprive anyone of a useful tool because its 'selfish' or the like.

Incidently, in regards to it being in secret, uh, Noctem, you seriously never had a DM roll a few things in secret to plan for an upcoming battle? I thought it was pretty common

There's a difference between rolling things in secret for an upcoming battle vs rolling in secret and then changing the results in secret because you want / need a specific thing to happen. At that point, why even bother rolling if you're just going to force a result? But what most people seem to be talking about isn't rolling stuff ahead of time like you suggest. It's being in the middle of a situation and changing a result arbitrarily.

Btw, what situation would you describe is a good time to fudge?

 

[Noctem]

I don't understand why you automatically equate "fudging" with something that happens at the party's expense, i.e. the DM doesn't "fudge" social interaction because party success is in his interests.

The party succeeding at exploration and social interaction is in the best interest of the plot, story and essentially the DM. There's no need to fudge in those cases and fudging itself is way more limited. The DM could change the DC's on a whim, but what's the point? Success usually means information is shared or the plot/storyline advances right?

On the other hand in combat, there's way more situations to fudge for the DM. So odds are, most of the fudging at a table would happen during combat. Next question is what is being fudged? Attack rolls, save vs effects, skills are the biggest names I would think. So let me ask you this: When you fudge, since you openly stated that you do, how do you do it? Do you ask for the consent of the other participants at the table? That could be 4+ people. Do you ask for their input on what would be in their best interest / to their benefit? Do you do it openly, stating that you're going to change the result of the roll to a number you choose?

Or do you do it in secret, without input from the other participants, based on what you and only you believe is in the best interest of everyone else or the game? And if this is the case, why not do it in the open? Why hide it? I think we both know the answer to that question if it applies...

 

[wedgeski]

The party succeeding at exploration and social interaction is in the best interest of the plot, story and essentially the DM. There's no need to fudge in those cases and fudging itself is way more limited. The DM could change the DC's on a whim, but what's the point? Success usually means information is shared or the plot/storyline advances right?

But changing a crit to a normal hit on the first attack roll against a new player's first-level PC is something you would always disagree with?

What I'm saying is, you seem to think all in-combat fudges are at the PC's expense, re:

A Dm changing a miss from a monster into a hit is exactly what fudging essentially represents. Or auto save vs an effect for example. What else is there that the DM can secretly change from behind the screen outside of monster attack rolls, damage rolls, save vs effects, changing of DC's and the like? Any of those when honestly presented will result in a negative response. "I'm going to auto save vs the effect of the spell you just took your full turn to cast.".. "I'm going to make you fail the skill check you just rolled".. "I missed my attack but I'm going to say it hit anyway".

All of your examples are from a put-upon PC whose DM has evilly fudged his way out of defeat. Why do you equate fudging with these outcomes, and not with something that might be beneficial to the player experience?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Explain what you think fudging is and why my simple example of changing an attack missing into a hit from a monster is over-the-top?

What was over-the-top was you suggesting the DM would just SAY to the player straight out before the roll "The monster is going to automatically hit you with his next attack because I've decided it will be so" and you used THAT as the explanation why the player would have a problem with it. Of course he would! We all know that. But the problem is... none of us of who fudge actually do that. So using a fake scenario as your explanation for the reason not to fudge is over-the-top, not at all realistic, something none of us actually do, and a grasp at straws that undermines your actual point.

You did the exact same thing when you tried to combine the "Almost Never want the DM to fudge" crowd percentage into your "Never" percentage... by suggesting an over-the-top scenario that would have turned those "Almost Never" players into "Never" players. All in an attempt to make the "Never want a DM to fudge" group bigger. But as I corrected you right after that... if you have to keep adding on these ridiculous addendums and "if onlys" onto your statements to try and make your point... it says that your point isn't strong enough on its own.

Hyperbole does not help win discussions.

 

[DEFCON 1]

You're putting some pretty heavy personal bias into that conclusion. "Almost Never" can also be interpreted as "Most players don't accept as much fudging."

Uh... no he's not. Because what you are suggestng is not what the poll was trying to inquire about.

The poll is not "Do you want your DM to fudge most of the time?"

If it WAS... then yes, your point would be made. You would add the "Never" group to the "Almost never" group to get the full total of respondents who don't want it done MOST of the time (because "Almost never" does not equal "most")

But instead, the poll was about whether players and DMs want fudging AT ALL. Which means that anyone who allows for ANY amount of fudging, in whatever amount, big or small, 50 times or just 1 time... they ALL fall into the "Yes" group. And only the "Never fudge" crowd is on the other side.

The entire question is getting to the heart of whether or not the DM making calls that go against whatever numbers he or she has written down on the sheets of paper in front of them actually matters. For some... they absolutely do and they would NEVER go against those numbers they have written down or the dice rolled that are compared to them. For MOST of the others though (more than 50% in both polls)... having it happen at least once during the campaign is okay with them.

But they are accepting SOME. And THAT'S the point.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

But changing a crit to a normal hit on the first attack roll against a new player's first-level PC is something you would always disagree with?

That is a very tricky situation, considering that the crit isn't necessarily going to take the character out of the fight any faster than a normal hit would (given that the damage range of a normal hit overlaps with the damage range of a critical hit, unless you use the variant rule that I do where monsters and NPCs do their average damage on a normal hit and add a roll of their damage dice on a critical).

Further complicating this particular scenario is that if you fudge this crit down to a normal hit, you increase the chance that a second normal hit or critical can outright kill the brand-new character - which if your goal in the first fudging was to reduce chance of death has backfired, and now needs more fudging to get things to play out the way you were hoping.

Meanwhile, you could simply ask the players "How about since I don't want to kill your first level characters, but I do want to have combat, we give the characters some kind of safety net until they are a bit more resilient?" to find out if the players actually want you keeping their newbie characters alive and what particular methods of doing so they wouldn't object to, or if they, like me, would rather a character die to "nameless goblin shot him with an arrow" and put together an all new character on the spot than have a DM not be absolutely clear with me what the stakes are (I have my reasons, but explaining them is word-count heavy and off-topic).

 

[Noctem]

That is a very tricky situation, considering that the crit isn't necessarily going to take the character out of the fight any faster than a normal hit would (given that the damage range of a normal hit overlaps with the damage range of a critical hit, unless you use the variant rule that I do where monsters and NPCs do their average damage on a normal hit and add a roll of their damage dice on a critical).

Further complicating this particular scenario is that if you fudge this crit down to a normal hit, you increase the chance that a second normal hit or critical can outright kill the brand-new character - which if your goal in the first fudging was to reduce chance of death has backfired, and now needs more fudging to get things to play out the way you were hoping.

Meanwhile, you could simply ask the players "How about since I don't want to kill your first level characters, but I do want to have combat, we give the characters some kind of safety net until they are a bit more resilient?" to find out if the players actually want you keeping their newbie characters alive and what particular methods of doing so they wouldn't object to, or if they, like me, would rather a character die to "nameless goblin shot him with an arrow" and put together an all new character on the spot than have a DM not be absolutely clear with me what the stakes are (I have my reasons, but explaining them is word-count heavy and off-topic).

I see we're basically in agreement here as well Aaron. The problem with fudging isn't simply about a DM saving an NPC from defeat, it's the fact that it's done in secret without consent from the rest of the table and finally that decisions are being made which can and do affect multiple other people based on only a single person's point of view.