D&D General How do players feel about DM fudging?

[loverdrive]

There's no such thing as a perfect rules system. They all fail.

I'm yet to see Apocalypse World, or Fate, or Blades in the Dark, or Dread fail. Well, assuming that the rules are followed.

There's no perfect system, sure, but there are those that just work without bugs.

 

[Maxperson]

I have to say that your contributions are appreciated and you have explained the situation pretty much as clearly as humanly possible and have been far more polite than I would have patience for.

I agree and also appreciate @Irlo's posts. Even the ones I disagreed with.

 

[soviet]

There's no such thing as a perfect rules system. They all fail.

This isn't true at all; there are many systems that do what they're supposed to do and never need to be fudged. (I even wrote and published one.)

D&D's problem is that it's hugely intricate and, as the prototype and then market leader, tries to be all things to all people. It's simply not possible to build a game that is both a Gygaxian tactical challenge with real consequences of defeat and also at the same time a vehicle for generating Epic Fantasy Trilogies that follow the same characters safely from levels 1 to 20.

 

[Irlo]

This isn't true at all; there are many systems that do what they're supposed to do and never need to be fudged. (I even wrote and published one.)

What’s your game?

 

[soviet]

What’s your game?

Other Worlds - it's a fairly light storygame-like RPG for all genres. I made a space opera supplement for it too, called Superluminary.

LINK

/sales pitch

Edit: I guess I should add here that it's a game where the players and GM agree the stakes of each roll, meaning that you have full control over whether any given failure can torpedo your game or not. Players also have points they can spend to manipulate the dice roll or to roll again on an escalated failure stake if they lose.

I will also add that the last game I GMed was actually Rolemaster and I didn't fudge that either, although I did give each PC one fate point that they could cash in to nullify a crit or KO.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm yet to see Apocalypse World, or Fate, or Blades in the Dark, or Dread fail. Well, assuming that the rules are followed.

There's no perfect system, sure, but there are those that just work without bugs.

I have to point out that is because the kind of results all those produce are what people expect--and presumably want--going in. I know for a fact that there are people would consider the probabilities in most PbtA games and what they produce as failing frequently.

The big problem with most D20 based systems isn't that they "fail" so much as they're played by a wide variety of people who's expectations sometimes always match to what the system. That can happen to any game, but with D&D and some others, its more likely just because there hasn't been nearly the degree of sorting among people who play them.

We've seen people in this thread who say they never fudge, and their explanation why is that they don't consider those potentially bad results others do so to avoid a problem. They just happen to be a small subset of users.

Edit: Or, pretty much the same point Soviet makes a couple posts up.

 

[iserith]

There us nothing that I can take off the table to fix the two very rare instances where I will fudge.

Then a solution - if you choose to accept it - is to learn to be okay with whatever it is you consider "extreme bad luck" and that, however much it bothers you, it's not like the players didn't make reasonably informed decisions to put their characters into a situation where that could occur. You can also further mitigate the concern by having the players create backup characters that are already introduced into the setting so that they can be seamlessly brought into play should the current characters be killed. Accept that "extreme bad luck" is just another twist in the emergent story and sometimes that can lead to character death. To find out what happens next, turn the page and carry on.

 

[Maxperson]

Then a solution - if you choose to accept it - is to learn to be okay with whatever it is you consider "extreme bad luck" and that, however much it bothers you, it's not like the players didn't make reasonably informed decisions to put their characters into a situation where that could occur. You can also further mitigate the concern by having the players create backup characters that are already introduced into the setting so that they can be seamlessly brought into play should the current characters be killed. Accept that "extreme bad luck" is just another twist in the emergent story and sometimes that can lead to character death. To find out what happens next, turn the page and carry on.

There are no reasonable informed decisions that they can use for the kind of luck I'm talking about. It's too rare.

It would be like expecting my decisons to reasonably include the chance of being struck by a meteorite. It could happen in my house if I stay, in my car as I drive, or wherever else I go. No matter what I decide, I can get hit by it.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

There are no reasonable informed decisions that they can use for the kind of luck I'm talking about. It's too rare.

It would be like expecting my decisons to reasonably include the chance of being struck by a meteorite. It could happen in my house if I stay, in my car as I drive, or wherever else I go. No matter what I decide, I can get hit by it.

Are you suggesting that, for the sake of realism, that "rocks fall..." is a thing in your games?

 

[Maxperson]

Are you suggesting that, for the sake of realism, that "rocks fall..." is a thing in your games?

They do fall, because gravity and the laws of gravity are part of 5e!