Fudging for fun and profit.

[Nagol]

I am not sure that's true - the power to do a thing does not imply the DM has a particular personal stake in how it turns out. It moves the DM to a role where, if he or she had a vested interest, he has nigh-infinite influence, true.

And, shouldn't the GM have a vested interest in providing an entertaining session?

Yes, but an entertaining session != particular game outcome.

If you are using a published module, that is true.

That is one area where my design method may differ from many other DMs. I design the situations and environments without a thought as to the player character capabilities. There will be traps where trap should be logically placed regardless of whether the group has a rogue. There will be undead where undead would be found regardless of whether the group has a cleric, etc. In short, I try to design the environment to fit its conception. It is the player's job to devise strategies to play to their strengths and minimise thier weaknesses.

I don't know about the rest of you GMs, but my players tend to wander off the beaten track, out into areas for which no design work has been done. I have to "wing it" every once in a while. I may have the most bare of notes, or nothing at all - there is no design to refer to. I may need to grab a beastie and throw it at the party. Now, what happens if I have over or underestimated the strength of that beastie?

Happens to me all the time. Usually the players rise to the occasion and gain ragging rights. Occasionally, the group devises a retreat. Very occasionally, the group suffers substantial losses and needs to regroup and recover. But, that simply moves the narrative in an unexpected but still plausible direction.

Or, let's say the GM did have time to do a really good design (when a major complaint of GMs is lack of prep time, I don't think it is a given, but for argument's sake) - even the guidelines in the DMG aren't perfect, and the GM is a human being, and there is no playtesting of what the GM bring to the table. What if the design isn't very good - maybe it is over- or under-powered. Either way can be a lot less than fun. Everyone at the table is stuck with that?

From my expereince, the majority of games that still receive comment 10-20 years later come from over/under-powered opposition. Those events can become the stuff of legend for the players. The fun for the players can come from the mix of casual steam-rolling the opposition through terror-stricken characters.

You mention the possibility of stealing someone's feeling of success. That's a possibility, but not a given - I'm pretty sure that if you press that all players feel the same way, you'll find sufficient pushback to prove it not generally true. The GM should know his or her players, right? Shouldn't the GM's knowledge of players trump your theoretical?

Which is why I qualified my comment by stating some player types. Certainly, there are player types that have no interest in what I'm discussing. There is no 'wrong' way to play other than using a way that violates the group's expectations. There are ways I like and there are ways I don't. There are game systems that better support one style than another. I pick the system that offers the appropriate narrative/collaborative control for the experience I want to achieve.

I'd counter with the idea that the design is done by a single person in whatever time he or she has, with no playtesting to speak of, and the results are highly subject to variation at runtime. At the table, the GM has loads of player feedback where he or she had none at the design stage.

The results aren't really subject to variation because the typical scenario is only used once by one group. Published work can often have huge variation across the gaming population, but that doesn't mean it failed -- just that the groups ended up telling wildly different stories with the same material.

If you mean the outcome can be wildly different than designer expecations, I think that's a feature not a flaw.

 

[Umbran]

Yes, but an entertaining session != particular game outcome.

Maybe yes, maybe no. That'd depend upon the group, and the outcome, now wouldn't it? More to the point it may be that an unentertaining session might well equal a particular game outcome.

The old saw seems to be about GMs using fudging to drive to a particular outcome, often because they have some "vested interest".

Well, if your GM has a vested interest of they type that I think is being alluded to here (all unspokenly sinister) there's deeper problems to the dynamic at the table than fudging an occasional die roll.

And, it seems to me from reading the threads that come up, the people who use fudges aren't using them to force a particular outcome, but to avoid a specifically undesirable outcome, which isn't the same thing - forbidding one specific end leaves myriad other ends still open, where driving to one specific end does not.

If you mean the outcome can be wildly different than designer expectations, I think that's a feature not a flaw.

Yes, that's what I mean. My point is simply that it is not always a feature. Sometimes it is a flaw.

You see, if I always wanted really completely unexpected results, I'd never do an adventure design - I'd just build a random encounter tables, and let the chips fall where they may. That, sir, would be a narrative where nobody, GM or player, could predict where things would go. Somehow, though, I think that'd fall well short of the ideal play experience for all but a small percentage of players.

The fact that I (and I daresay most) don't do this means that sometimes there are some expectations that ought to be met. Seems to me that (within reason) the tools used to accomplish that don't matter all that much.

 

[pemerton]

On the issue of fudging to prevent unsatisfying PC deaths which compromise the fun of play: isn't it a design weakness in the game if the application of its mechanics (character build, encounter design, action resolution) has anything other than an utterly miniscule likelihood of producing this sort of outcome?

DMG2 has a bit to say about this, in its discussion of dead plot branches and costly victories (pp 9-10). In the case of a mistake in encounter preparation or improvisation which is likely to kill PCs in a way that will stall the story, it suggests either secretly setting the DC to 1, so that the PCs succeed, or openly making the PCs' success automatic, by describing a change of circumstances that lets them overcome the obstacle, perhaps at cost - maybe a rescuer appears and extorts a reward, or a crack opens up in the cavern floor and the monsters fall through, together with about the same amount of treasure as a Raise Dead ritual would cost to perform.

The first option is fudging (of stats, not die rolls) but the second looks like it can work even for a non-fudging GM.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

snip

A recent session, I blame on the players. The characters found clues to an abandoned elven temple and are greeted at the entrance by a nymph who claims to occupy the grounds and invites them in. Feeling something isn't quite right (i.e. making a Sense Motive check), the players apologise and fall back. The inhabitants, recognising an adventuring band and expecting an assault, start to buff heavily.

The characters cast a Divination spell asking about the prospects of going into the temple. Their answer is a curt "Don't." Do the characters trust their god's message? Do they back off to discover what could possibly prompt such a straightforward command?

Of course not. They're the heroes! They'll just take extra precautions!

The battle ends when the Wizard, fearing eveyone else is lost, teleports out with the one other character in reach. Party loses 4 of 6 characters and all 3 cohorts.

The players picked the direction of the story and I don't doubt the story going forward will work through the recovery and repair of the group from the setback .

Had I fudged, the story would be different. Their god would have underestimated the heroes. The group would have escaped unscathed or won the fight and reaped the reward as opposed to losing 75-90% of its wealth and being very chastened and needing to recover.

[/TANGENT]

As a DM that has admitted to fudging in the past I would never have fudged in that encounter, they brought that on themselves. Nor do I think that DM's that fudge would either in that case.
The thing about fudging is that it has to be rare.
Trying to think of cases where I have fudged, I think that if I threw an encounter that was tougher than I intended I would fudge and if a player came up with a cool thing to do I'd make him die roll but I would really let him succeed with anything other than a one. Though bad rolls would come with some negative side effect.

 

[Nightson]

I fudge on rare occasion and I do so without the players having any inkling. How you ask? We play online over maptools and with macros. If I need a certain outcome, I just modify the macro to have the range or result I want.

Now fortunately I haven't had to do this very often at all, I generally like letting the dice fall where they will and I'm not afraid to kill players. But I used it when a creature that was supposed to have a big scary attack wiffed three times in a row with amazingly bad rolls (1, 2, 2) and he was in danger of dying soon, so I had him roll a 17 for his next attack and send a PC flying. And so that fight wasn't a laugh about the suboss who couldn't hit at all, it was the players laughing about how lucky they were he had missed those first three attacks.

And later when the PCs had to roll for a situation which was slightly hazardous but not really they proceeded to wiff over and over again. They weren't in any danger, so the session started to drag. So I made them roll high.

And there's one situation I would definitely fudge, that of a TPK. Now I say that because I know my players aren't going to try and do something like fight on after 3/5 of the party is dead. The only situations I'd need to adjust would be a severely weakened party fighting against a severely weakened enemy, and the party retreating while taking ranged fire.

 

[Ariosto]

What, fundamentally, is the difference between putting all of that editorial control on the back end (in the design) and taking some of it up front (at runtime)?

You've got your ends mixed up. Why the need to mess with the dice-roll not up front but behind a screen?

Maybe that's because you know very well that the common word for it is not so sweet as "fudge".

Why not let the players do it themselves as often as they like? Surely they are the best judges of whether they want to play a game of skill and chance, or whether they want to "fudge".

Roll or roll not. There is no fudge.

 

[Wormwood]

[addendum to previous post]

While I roll in the open and play 'em where they lie, I often invoke Schrödinger's Monster ("there's no such thing as a fixed Hit Point total once the players get bored").

 

[Votan]

[addendum to previous post]

While I roll in the open and play 'em where they lie, I often invoke Schrödinger's Monster ("there's no such thing as a fixed Hit Point total once the players get bored").

I kind of like that approach . . . There will be combats where the ending is certain but which great boredom can happen as the players grind to the conclusion.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

The fact that I (and I daresay most) don't do this means that sometimes there are some expectations that ought to be met. Seems to me that (within reason) the tools used to accomplish that don't matter all that much.

This.

While I can certainly understand the attractiveness of the "no fudging" approach to some, it doesn't work for me or my players. I don't fudge often, but will do so in order to either:
(a) maximise the group enjoyment of an encounter; or
(b) pursue some narrative agenda.

I design all my own encounters, and therefore every encounter is a "playtest" which may or may not be balanced. This is where I have control as a designer. Usually I'll get the balance right, but every so often I won't. And during the rolling of the dice during the encounter is where I have control as a DM (along with all the other techniques for combat management, such as sub-optimal monster choices, early retreats, additional reinforcements, etc.). So long as the outcome of the encounter is achieved - the characters win, get the widget or the clue, have the narrowest of escapes, whatever - me and my players don't really care whether it's due to good design or bad design coupled with some element of fudging.

I also have a group of players who aren't there to create a joint narrative with the DM. Sometimes I have to fight with them just to give their characters names! They're there to beat on the bad guys and get the gold. They enjoy the story that I create for thenm, but they're not going out of their way to create their own. Give them a sand box, and they're going to leave the sand box and go play computer games. Give them a compass and a pair of blinkers and they'll go exactly where I want them to, by the route I want to take them. And that's perfectly fine with them. So because I actually have ultimate narrative control, I don't want my players to "lose" because I've put them in a situation of my creation that's turned out bad for them through no fault of their own. So, yes, I fudge. That doesn't stop me from committing TPKs if they're downright stupid...

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[Ariosto]

Now, what happens if I have over or underestimated the strength of that beastie?

From my perspective? I guess you just keep doing your best to pull that cart while the horse enjoys the ride.

What really matters is how well the players assess the situation, and how they deal with it. It's the same as if you knew to the utmost precision the strength of an ogre ... but not of the next band of psychotically murderous human and semi-human "adventurers" to invade its home. You might not even know whether they would be psychotically murderous. What really matters is what is up to the players, how they play the game.

What matters is what you not only do not, but cannot know in advance -- because finding out is the process that is the point.

At least, that's what matters in the D&D game I like to play. Suit yourself.

It really beats the heck out of me, though, why people make up -- and pretend to follow! -- a "rule" of rolling dice when that is not really what they want at all. There seems to be some confusion as to the point of rolling dice, and/or of stipulating rules.