GM Confessional: I fudged like a Banshee (just not on the dice rolls)

[Seraphine_Harmonium]

I used to try to prepare everything, but it just led to clunky enforcements of fiat and railroading, which didn't go over well with my players. Now I have just accepted that at least half of any adventure I DM will be improvisation.

I stat out major villains, and detail likely important NPCs. Sometimes I create a basic outline with an arc of what might happen, but just as often not. I spend time preparing any specifics I foresee needing in between sessions.

 

[Zourin]

I think it depends on whether the NPC's stats ever become 'solid'.

If the GM jots down some NPC stats 30 seconds before the PCs fight them, then that probably counts as winging. Likewise if he has some standard values he uses for, say, minor, moderate or tough challenges and he decides that this will be a moderate challenge or whatever.

But if the GM has nothing written down, and values never become solidified, like an NPC that has however many hit points it needs to make the fight dramatic, then that's fudging.

I'd say the other way around, really. If you have numbers written down for, say, an encounter, but they're having too easy of a time, adding HP or calling hits for damage is probably fudging. Nobody but the GM knows when this happens, but the players notice you have your eyes buried into notebooks, index cards, or rule books detailing what's happening.

Winging is when you don't have anything written down, and you're pulling ballparks out of the thin air of your experience and imagination. Veteran GM's can probably pull the numbers out of the backs of their minds as easily as their phone numbers, while inexperienced GM's who try to do this wind up stumbling into inconsistencies that the players can point out. Either way, chances are the players know you don't have anything but the initiative written down, because that's the only time when you're reading anything other than dice.

For example, I have my encounters set, but if things prove too easy or too tough, i'll fudge the numbers to get a round or two more out of them before they move on. The dungeon itself, however, I haven't written down yet and may opt to simply wing it and let them map it out for me if they decide not to get lost. Alternatively, I have a few notes down in case they take one look at the dungeon and walk back to town, where I could, in theory, still run them through several of the encounters.

 

[diaglo]

IBut I'm curious to hear if what I was doing is unusual, or just "par for the course" for GM-ing.

i am a referee

banshees don't fudge.

they really can't

they are undead.

and therefore they wail.

as for par. this isn't a golf game. no scores are kept. par does not exist.