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

[Charlaquin]

It’s intentionally ignoring the dice rolls a number of times to prolong the encounter. The only difference is that it was written down somewhere that this could be done.

And also nobody ever says that using Legendary Resistance can make your players feel like their choices don’t really matter so you should use it sparingly and not let them find out you’re doing it.

Presumably you have decided how many uses that creature has.

If it’s a custom creature, sure. Though, even in that case I’m always going to go with 3 uses, because that’s how many times every monster in the books that has it can use it. But more importantly, it has a fixed limit. It’s a resource that can be spent a specific number of times to achieve a specific result, not just fiat.

Nobody know apart from you right? Unless the players are looking in the MM and holding the DM to account for the number of times written there?

Or they just have basic pattern recognition skills. But more importantly, I announce when I’m using the ability, and everyone’s fine with it. Could the same be said of fudging the result of a die roll? I would bet not.

 

[Lyxen]

Honestly, I find this debate a bit pointless as presented, since it mostly depends on what the table expects. Yes, fudging at a table that expects fights to be totally "fair" and unbiased, and with players who are playing as sport and want victories to be theirs (and consider this playing "well") is bad, it's not what the players expect.

On the other hand, fudging at a table of players who want to enjoy a cool epic story where they are the heroes is certainly a valid way of DMing, in addition to the DM playing probably more using "ignoring the dice" in the DMG.

So I think that the views expressed so far on fudging express more the way to play at the table (with all associated bells an whistles like "The Role of Dice" and "railroading" - which, by the way, is the way all AP and most modules are written anyway, I don't think many players play a complete sandbox) than direct views on fudging itself.

For example, for me, I have had portions of my RPG life where there was 100% no fudging (including a huge campaign where it was "players roll all the dice" which we invented before it was badly written in the 3e UA), and now a long portion using 5e where it is very much story orientated, with "ignoring the dice" being the standard method and some minor fudging (by all DMs, who are also players in other campaigns) when it makes the game more interesting.

In the end, for me, it comes down to you trust your DM:

• Trust him to create fair challenges that you overcome by your wits.
• Trust him to create incredibly interesting stories that you direct through your characters actions.

And personally, I ALWAYS trust my DMs, it's a matter of principle...

 

[Li Shenron]

The DM should adjust things in the spirit of making the game more fun and exciting for the others.

The assumption of this is that the DM knows better what is fun and exciting.

In fact, many people in this thread are saying clearly that if they catch their DM fudging, it pretty much diminishes their fun. So is the DM actually asking their players how they feel, before starting to fudge, or are they making assumptions? How does the DM know in advance their players will like outcome X so much more than outcome Y that fudging becomes acceptable?

I see either a lot of presumption or cowardice in a DM who fudges. I know about that because I used to fudge at the beginning. I was scared that I wasn't being fair in encounter building due to poor DMing experience and I tried to change monsters HP on the fly or fudge monsters attacks rolls if I felt the battle was going too easy to too hard. That was definitely cowardice on my part, but if you can't accept the inherent randomness of the game, you don't have to always roll the dice, make decisions instead of letting the dice decide for you. For instance, I got used to tell my players that should the dice technically kill their PC, we will always decide together if it really means death or another penalty: players who want death to occur will simply go along with it, while players who want a longer story for their PC can feel safe that I'm not going to take it away from them.

 

[clearstream]

This is a sort of a companion thread to the other poll on fudging, which asks DMs, not players. I figure, player responses also matter on this issue. It needs no further description: whatever you consider "fudging" to be, what do you as a player think of DMs doing it?

Word of warning: you cannot change your vote. Pick wisely!

What difference to you draw between fudging and extemporising? Is (in your mind) the latter adding something arbitrarily to the fiction or situation, and the former altering the result of a game mechanic?

 

[Minigiant]

Positive.

And it depends. I am fine with a DM fudging HD of monsters to give them more or less HP. Or if a monster rolls two 3 the DM might roll gain and push one 3 to the next round.. Or the DM might change an evil necromancer's spells mid-fight provided they haveny casted the swapped spell.

It's always fair fudging. Never just swapping out hit and misses to prolong a fight.

 

[TheSword]

And also nobody ever says that using Legendary Resistance can make your players feel like their choices don’t really matter so you should use it sparingly and not let them find out you’re doing it.

If it’s a custom creature, sure. Though, even in that case I’m always going to go with 3 uses, because that’s how many times every monster in the books that has it can use it. But more importantly, it has a fixed limit. It’s a resource that can be spent a specific number of times to achieve a specific result, not just fiat.

Or they just have basic pattern recognition skills. But more importantly, I announce when I’m using the ability, and everyone’s fine with it. Could the same be said of fudging the result of a die roll? I would bet not.

Well I think you absolutely should use legendary resistance sparingly because if every monster had it, it would definitely diminish casters fun.

I find it an odd concept that you make a distinction between custom creatures and stock creatures. To the PCs and particularly the characters they are all just creatures. It’s bad enough that experienced players are meta enough to know the difference but for us as DMs to treat them differently is odd to me.

I certainly would never expect the players to assume a creature has 3 uses of legendary resistance because other creatures did. That seems like pretty bad meta gaming to me, just asking to be disabused.

I mean if you talk to players in an out of game context and show all your rolls then that’s one way to play. A lot of DMs don’t show rolls though and keep descriptions ‘in game’.

The principle remains. The DM extends the encounter by ignoring dice rolls.

 

[Lycurgon]

Honestly, I find this debate a bit pointless as presented, since it mostly depends on what the table expects. Yes, fudging at a table that expects fights to be totally "fair" and unbiased, and with players who are playing as sport and want victories to be theirs (and consider this playing "well") is bad, it's not what the players expect.

On the other hand, fudging at a table of players who want to enjoy a cool epic story where they are the heroes is certainly a valid way of DMing, in addition to the DM playing probably more using "ignoring the dice" in the DMG.

So I think that the views expressed so far on fudging express more the way to play at the table (with all associated bells an whistles like "The Role of Dice" and "railroading" - which, by the way, is the way all AP and most modules are written anyway, I don't think many players play a complete sandbox) than direct views on fudging itself.

For example, for me, I have had portions of my RPG life where there was 100% no fudging (including a huge campaign where it was "players roll all the dice" which we invented before it was badly written in the 3e UA), and now a long portion using 5e where it is very much story orientated, with "ignoring the dice" being the standard method and some minor fudging (by all DMs, who are also players in other campaigns) when it makes the game more interesting.

In the end, for me, it comes down to you trust your DM:

• Trust him to create fair challenges that you overcome by your wits.
• Trust him to create incredibly interesting stories that you direct through your characters actions.

And personally, I ALWAYS trust my DMs, it's a matter of principle...

I completely disagree with those play slyles being the factor in whether fudging is good for a table. I "want to enjoy a cool epic story where they are the heroes". To me that sound much better than "playing as sport". I want my DM "to Create incredible interesting stories that you direct though your characters actions."

But I am also against fudging. I want the combats to be fair and mostly challenging, but I don't want to play as sport. I want to roleplay my character, sometimes doing dumb things, sometimes not, the story and characters matter more to me that winning by wits. But I would still feel like the DM would be taking away from the fun of the game if they fudge rolls and just decide how action will be resolved.

Personnally I am lucky to have talented DMs that are good at running good character driven stories and are good are crafting challenging encounters that are balanced enough so they can be tough and challenging but haven't overdone things to make them too bad to the point of being hopeless. We have had occasional PC deaths, mostly with resurrection coming afterwards, but no TPKs.
So I trust my DMs to make great stories without fudging dice rolls to make it happen.

 

[Lanefan]

Some kinds of fudging are an abuse of authority. Others are not. I do not fudge to favor either myself or the players. In the extremely unlikely event that A) the players made no bad decisions, B) the players are having extreme(not just plain ole) bad luck, and C) I am having extreme(not play ole) good luck, I will fudge a bit to allow them a fighting chance at survival. A TPK should not happen due to extreme die luck.

I disagree; as from the point of view of one who sees D&D to a great extent as being a game built on luck in the first place it's only fair to let luck have its say no matter what it's telling you this time.

That, and IME most players recognize a bad run of luck when it hits and are more than willing to turn tail and run after the first few PCs drop.

That's not an abuse of authority. That's just good DMing.

IMO it is neither an abuse of authority nor good DMing.

 

[Lanefan]

Depends on the reason. We're primarily here at our table with our extremely limited free time to have fun. "Fun" doesn't always mean we win or have it easy, but you know what else isn't fun? Whiffing at a single monster for nearly an hour because the GM refuses to tweak the math.

While at the same time the players are refusing to try a different approach?

That said, I'm much less positive on fudging to increase the difficulty of an encounter. If excellent planning or sheer luck cut an epic encounter short? Take the L. That can be it's own kind of fun, and those are definitely the stories we retell each other the most.

I agree that curb-stomping an epic encounter can be fun and memorable, but I also think what's good for the goose has to be good for the gander; and that sometimes it'll be the PCs' faces meeting the concrete in ways unintended unless they realize things have gone sideways and GTFO.

 

[Lanefan]

As a DM, I often roll the dice (then feign a concerned look on my face, and pretend to look something up, and shake my head ominously) and dont even look at the result.

The dice are a tool, not just a random number generator.

True, they can have multiple uses; and it's on your-as-DM's good faith to keep the fake rolls separate from the real ones.

I also roll way more dice behind the screen than I need to; sometimes to hide a relevant roll, sometimes to generate a bit of paranoia, but most often just out of sheer habit.

I think the point here, though, is that when they are used as a random number generator both a) the number so generated and b) whatever effects and-or outcomes that number would lead to have to be honoured.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What difference to you draw between fudging and extemporising? Is (in your mind) the latter adding something arbitrarily to the fiction or situation, and the former altering the result of a game mechanic?

Good question. And I appreciate you asking it in a fairly neutral manner. I find D&D doesn't handle completely extemporized combats very well regardless, but that's sort of a dodge non-answer. So, I'm going to assume this isn't "DM inventing entire monsters from whole cloth," but some other kind of thing.

Overall, I think my answer would be a qualified yes? While it's necessarily much more of a grey area, I very much do expect DMs to avoid certain kinds of "you thought you had a choice but you didn't" worldbuilding. So, for example, I have criticized very strongly the "quantum ogre" or "quantum haunted house," where the DM ensures that, no matter which direction the players choose to go, the ogre she intends for them to fight or the haunted house she intends for them to visit will be located there.

But if, for example, the DM were simply rolling with the players' choices, and they happened to go looking for a haunted house and said DM was just mocking things up really super quickly, then yeah, in absence of further details, that sounds pretty much just fine to me, so long as the extemporaneous additions are reasonable extensions of the already-established fiction.

To put it a different way, things that "already exist" (for a given definition of "exist") can be learned about. There is already a "fact of the matter," so to speak. (Again, recognizing that these are facts "within the fiction.") Things that are in the process of being invented, there isn't yet a fact of the matter, so I'm comfortable with that needing to be generated as opposed to altered--though it is certainly possible to generate things abusively.

I feel exactly the same way about retconning established story beats: that is, don't do it secretly, instead making sure that the PCs can potentially find out, even if they neglect to do so or make an attempt but the attempt fails. Part of the fun of a mystery story, for example, is that there IS an answer to "whodunnit" or the like, and you just have to figure it out. Having a mystery where the author decides midway through the book that no, the person who was guilty before is actually innocent, so now all those clues you read about before are fake is pulling what I would call the written-fiction form of "fudging," secretly altering stuff already observed and denying the reader even the potential to know that this has happened. It cheapens the mystery and reflects poorly on the author, implying they don't fully respect their readers.

 

[Shiroiken]

Overall against, except under very rare circumstances. As I also DM, I understand you can screw up, and sometimes those screw ups can ruin an entire campaign. If a situation puts you in a weird spot where technically you should make a roll that does this, I can understand if you ignore the results, so long as you learn from this mistake and work to avoid it again. If you roll publicly, fess up before the roll rather than backpedaling, but otherwise don't let me know.

 

[Lyxen]

But I am also against fudging. I want the combats to be fair and mostly challenging, but I don't want to play as sport. I want to roleplay my character, sometimes doing dumb things, sometimes not, the story and characters matter more to me that winning by wits. But I would still feel like the DM would be taking away from the fun of the game if they fudge rolls and just decide how action will be resolved.

First, DMs who "just decide how action will be resolved" do not necessarily fudge (and even less cheat). "Ignoring the Dice" in the DMG is exactly about that, the DM deciding, based on character actions, what succeeds and what fails. And that's the way we are mostly playing in our groups, to the satisfaction of all.

Only sometimes the DM roll dices, for example during combat, and what happens if a player has incredible bad luck ? Are you going to ruin his evening or possibly the entire campaign just because of randomness ? Is that even good DMing ? This is where the expectations of the table come into play. Some tables will like the dices to decide because for them it's part of the fun, others will prefer that the story of the character take precedence, and their relationships, etc.

Personnally I am lucky to have talented DMs that are good at running good character driven stories and are good are crafting challenging encounters that are balanced enough so they can be tough and challenging but haven't overdone things to make them too bad to the point of being hopeless. We have had occasional PC deaths, mostly with resurrection coming afterwards, but no TPKs.
So I trust my DMs to make great stories without fudging dice rolls to make it happen.

Good if you trust them, that's the whole point indeed. Now, are you 100% sure that they are not fudging ? How can you be sure 100% anyway ?

As for me, I don't care if they fudge, they can use every single trick in the book and outside of any books to ensure that we have the best time possible playing the game.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I really dislike a DM fudging when I'm a player. I want to earn my successes and failures. I'd rather a TPK without fudging than a victory with it.

This is my perspective as well. I don’t fudge as a DM, but I try not to judge those who do. As a player, I would rather my character die, whether due to unlucky rolls or player (bad) decision, than have the DM “go easy” on me.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Only sometimes the DM roll dices, for example during combat, and what happens if a player has incredible bad luck ? Are you going to ruin his evening or possibly the entire campaign just because of randomness ? Is that even good DMing ?

I can honestly say that I have never had a player that is so thin-skinned that a run of bad luck would ruin their evening, and I’ve played with 7-year olds.

As a DM, the solution is not to fudge dice, but to prepare situations where players can contribute even without rolling dice. Swinging your sword at a tough monster may be subject to bad luck, but realizing that the monster has a weak spot does not.

 

[loverdrive]

Only sometimes the DM roll dices, for example during combat, and what happens if a player has incredible bad luck ? Are you going to ruin his evening or possibly the entire campaign just because of randomness ?

Managing risks is probably the most important part of player skill. If they ain't happy with that, they're welcome to play a game where death by randomness isn't a thing that happens.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Like anything else, if abused...

 

[Lyxen]

I can honestly say that I have never had a player that is so thin-skinned that a run of bad luck would ruin their evening, and I’ve played with 7-year olds.

That's a bit of a nasty comparison, to be honest. Again, it depends on what your expectations are, but 55+ years people with 40+ years experience in roleplaying can also grow very attached to their characters, their story, and would be very affected by something untoward happening to their character, it would certainly make the rest of the campaign not as interesting to them, or certainly lessen theirs motivation to continue.

As for bad luck, it's not that difficult to go down in 5e, and it's easy to get two death saves just because of bad luck, and that has very little to do with a character decision, it's just rolling a 1 for a death save.

As a DM, the solution is not to fudge dice, but to prepare situations where players can contribute even without rolling dice. Swinging your sword at a tough monster may be subject to bad luck, but realizing that the monster has a weak spot does not.

I was pretty sure that I detected some condescension in your tone and now I'm sure of it. True, all people who have characters dying are idiots who need a DM to compensate for their lack of brains. sigh

 

[Lyxen]

Managing risks is probably the most important part of player skill. If they ain't happy with that, they're welcome to play a game where death by randomness isn't a thing that happens.

Which is exactly what happens with a story-driven game and a DM occasionally fudging dices to help along. Or is that a style of gaming that is somehow inferior in your view ?

 

[loverdrive]

Which is exactly what happens with a story-driven game and a DM occasionally fudging dices to help along. Or is that a style of gaming that is somehow inferior in your view ?

Yes, using opaque ad-hoc fixes instead of solving the problem for good with a transparent rule is an inferior style of gaming in my view.

Even if one is using D&D for a story-driven game (which, itself, is an enterprise of questionable efficacy), the correct solution is to eliminate the issue altogether with a houserule, so the table can expect the rules to work reliably and know that no one is doing something sneaky when others ain't looking.

Dramatic death: when the rules say your PC is dead, they survive, but DM will tell you, what price they'll pay. The more dramatic the circumstances are, the higher the price will be. Negotiate. If you accept the deal, you can get back to playing in the next scene with 1 HP; otherwise, that's it. Roll a new character.

Poof! DM can now stop pulling their punches, without worrying that they'll accidentally kill a PC, players don't need to question whether monsters are actually missing or it's just DM trying to save them, no fudging required.