GMing: How to fudge NOT using the dice.


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So this whole thread goes back to a concept I floated in a thread maybe a year and a half ago of "Principled Illusionism."

The concept of "fudging" only really exists if you accept two key premises:

  1. The GM is the final arbiter and authority of all happenings in the game, regardless of any other mechanical interplay between players and game. In other words, Rule Zero / Rule 0 exists and is a "thing" in your game.
  2. If some nebulous yet "meaningful" interval of time has passed between the GM's creation of a piece of material/prep and the use of (or planned use of) of said prep in the current game session, said GM material must be considered inviolate and part of the game world, regardless of any extenuating circumstance. Even if said material would lead to boring/unsatisfying/tedious play, would largely thwart player/character goals and aims, will consume more in-session time in play than it should otherwise warrant, etc., that's just too darn bad.

I have no problem with Premise 1---I'm totally down with Rule Zero.

I have serious problems with Premise 2.

The Sly Flourish video above points to my position---what is "fudging," exactly? You're basically adjusting "game state" items during play. You're altering scene / situation / framing / NPC motivations / backstory, anything other than the numbers on the dice.

My take is, if you disregard Premise 2 as a thing, "fudging"/"illusionism" is really all that's left. Everything is literally just the GM making stuff up, whether it was 3 seconds ago or 3 decades ago. It's the GM making key decisions based on a multiplicity of factors, which may or may not involve prep / scene / situation / framing / motivation / backstory, regardless of whether any combination of those factors were decided 5 seconds or 5 months ago.

As the video alludes to, it comes down to motivation --- is it "Principled Illusionism" / "Principled Fudging", or is it "Reactionary / Emotionally Charged / Discriminatory / Retaliatory / Self Indulgent Illusionism"?

*Edit: One point of clarification---I agree with Sly Flourish that emotionally charged / reactionary "fudging" is almost universally a bad thing. My last qualifier of "Self-indulgent Illusionism" may not necessarily ALWAYS be bad, if done judiciously and with an eye to fun.
 
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So this whole thread goes back to a concept I floated in a thread maybe a year and a half ago of "Principled Illusionism."

The concept of "fudging" only really exists if you accept two key premises:

  1. The GM is the final arbiter and authority of all happenings in the game, regardless of any other mechanical interplay between players and game. In other words, Rule Zero / Rule 0 exists and is a "thing" in your game.
  2. If some nebulous yet "meaningful" interval of time has passed between the GM's creation of a piece of material/prep and the use of (or planned use of) of said prep in the current game session, said GM material must be considered inviolate and part of the game world, regardless of any extenuating circumstance. Even if said material would lead to boring/unsatisfying/tedious play, would largely thwart player/character goals and aims, will consume more in-session time in play than it should otherwise warrant, etc., that's just too darn bad.

I have no problem with Premise 1---I'm totally down with Rule Zero.

I have serious problems with Premise 2.

The Sly Flourish video above points to my position---what is "fudging," exactly? You're basically adjusting "game state" items during play. You're altering scene / situation / framing / NPC motivations / backstory, anything other than the numbers on the dice.

My take is, if you disregard Premise 2 as a thing, "fudging"/"illusionism" is really all that's left. Everything is literally just the GM making stuff up, whether it was 3 seconds ago or 3 decades ago. It's the GM making key decisions based on a multiplicity of factors, which may or may not involve prep / scene / situation / framing / motivation / backstory, regardless of whether any combination of those factors were decided 5 seconds or 5 months ago.

As the video alludes to, it comes down to motivation --- is it "Principled Illusionism" / "Principled Fudging", or is it "Reactionary / Emotionally Charged / Discriminatory / Retaliatory / Self Indulgent Illusionism"?

*Edit: One point of clarification---I agree with Sly Flourish that emotionally charged / reactionary "fudging" is almost universally a bad thing. My last qualifier of "Self-indulgent Illusionism" may not necessarily ALWAYS be bad, if done judiciously and with an eye to fun.
I'm not sure if such an expansive, all-encompassing understanding of "fudging" that tries to blur the lines between different ways that GMs adjust play is particularly useful.
 

I'm not sure if such an expansive, all-encompassing understanding of "fudging" that tries to blur the lines between different ways that GMs adjust play is particularly useful.

Well, I mean, that's kind of precisely my point. Literally everything a GM does is fudging/illusionism. Why even categorize it as "fudging" in the first place? It's literally just the act of GM-ing, full stop.

Fictional stuff the GM made up anywhere from 1 to 2,600 weeks ago gets magically imbued with the ancillary property of "now and forever an immutable, inviolate part of the in-game 'living world'.

The concept of "fudging" only makes sense if the "inviolate" and "immutable" descriptors have already been applied to the thing in question.

"Well, this thing I made up completely in my head was previously an immutable and inviolate part of the game world, but I'm going to modify properties X and Y about it now, for reasons."

Why does that particular action taken by a GM need a different descriptor than "the act of GM-ing"?

The most obvious answer is that those who call it "fudging" purposefully want to imbue a negative value judgment upon that action.
 

I'm also not sure the formulation of "when does the GM decided a number/property on a monster exists" is as good a get-out-of-jail-free card as some people think. After all, a dedicated fudger doesn't have to adjust the numbers just once, and I don't have a lot of faith in the idea that that's all they'll do. At that point there seems a pretty sharp line present there.
 

Why does that particular action taken by a GM need a different descriptor than "the act of GM-ing"?

The most obvious answer is that those who call it "fudging" purposefully want to imbue a negative value judgment upon that action.

See my comment below you. Its one thing to adjust an error, even on the fly (though I think its an outright sign of poor technique that you hide it), its another to assume everything is made of clay, all the time. I don't think people are required to consider that latter principled GMing just because some people depend on it.
 

See my comment below you. Its one thing to adjust an error, even on the fly (though I think its an outright sign of poor technique that you hide it), its another to assume everything is made of clay, all the time. I don't think people are required to consider that latter principled GMing just because some people depend on it.
Right. particularly for players that enjoy the challenge of solving whatever the GM presents -- be it combat or a puzzle or an NPC -- "fudging" is generally off-putting because it means the situation CAN'T be solved. it only resolves when the GM says so.

I do not buy that "illusionism" is the definition of GMing or even the standard of play. Illusionism eliminates player agency, which is the primary defining factor of an RPG compared to other games.
 

So this whole thread goes back to a concept I floated in a thread maybe a year and a half ago of "Principled Illusionism."

The concept of "fudging" only really exists if you accept two key premises:

  1. The GM is the final arbiter and authority of all happenings in the game, regardless of any other mechanical interplay between players and game. In other words, Rule Zero / Rule 0 exists and is a "thing" in your game.
  2. If some nebulous yet "meaningful" interval of time has passed between the GM's creation of a piece of material/prep and the use of (or planned use of) of said prep in the current game session, said GM material must be considered inviolate and part of the game world, regardless of any extenuating circumstance. Even if said material would lead to boring/unsatisfying/tedious play, would largely thwart player/character goals and aims, will consume more in-session time in play than it should otherwise warrant, etc., that's just too darn bad.

I have no problem with Premise 1---I'm totally down with Rule Zero.

I have serious problems with Premise 2.
Here's a weaker version of Premise 2, let's call it 2-prime:

2': If the GM has established a piece of material/prep as canon in her notes, changing such material bears a higher standard of justification, whether or not players become aware that such retconning occurred behind the scenes. At least sometimes, sacrificing other elements of the play experience for the sake of maintaining the "object permanence" of the secondary world is worthwhile.​

I think there are legitimately different degrees of caring about this, just like there are legitimately different degrees of caring about game balance, or whatever. But if you care somewhere between "sorta" and "a lot" about this, then fudging is a useful concept, because you can then legitimately ask yourself when (or ever, for very strong preferences about this) fudging is justified.
 

Right. particularly for players that enjoy the challenge of solving whatever the GM presents -- be it combat or a puzzle or an NPC -- "fudging" is generally off-putting because it means the situation CAN'T be solved. it only resolves when the GM says so.

I do not buy that "illusionism" is the definition of GMing or even the standard of play. Illusionism eliminates player agency, which is the primary defining factor of an RPG compared to other games.

I think its been a very common technique used by a lot of GM's to moderation, but I agree that assuming its the core of GMing is, well, quite a take.
 

I do not buy that "illusionism" is the definition of GMing or even the standard of play. Illusionism eliminates player agency, which is the primary defining factor of an RPG compared to other games.
Well, that's the question - does it actually do so? Or does it do so in all cases? To use the old example of the quantum ogres that will be encountered whether the PCs take the right or left fork in the road - if one direction is reputed to go to ogres and the other is supposed to be safe (for some reason), then maybe yes, it would foil the agency of the players trying to avoid the ogres. But if the choice of left or right is otherwise meaningless because of lack of information, does it really do so? Suppose the PCs want to encounter ogres as soon as possible to fill out their scavenger quest card (because they're racing against Team B: Shrek's Irregulars who already have ogre checked off on their list). Then isn't serving up the quantum ogres supporting their agency and choice to encounter ogres?

But then, what if the situation is pre-written and thus not "illusionism" and the reputedly ogre-free path is actually a gambit by an unusually clever ogre to funnel ogre-fearing parties his way for a light repast? How does that fit in with player agency? Does it preserve it because it was prewritten and not "fudged" and play time? Sure, they may have been tricked, but if they had spoken to Lefty LaFave at the bar, he'd have told them all about the notorious tricks of Carleton the Crafty Ogre, but they chose not to talk to him because he smelled like sweat socks that have spent too much time in a 13 year old boy's hamper.
 

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