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

[Cadence]

All of these are a product of DM knows best.

I'm not sure that's a useful summary statement.

Are you ok with someone flicking a straw wrapper at you? Flicking you with a straw? Throwing you down the steps? Shooting you with a rocket launcher? All of these are products of interpersonal violence. ;-)

Anyway.

Rarely, sometimes , rarely.
Very rarely.
No.
Yes.

 

[Scott Christian]

I just want to inject a "One of the things is (strongly) not like the others" here; change a player roll that intrinsically will effect the play of the character for their entire lifespan has a bigger footprint than the other things you mention.

(Not that I'm a fan of random character gen anyway, but this strikes me as particularly disruptive).

Or positive. Think:
Player: Dang, I didn't roll anything above a 14.
DM: Look again - one of the 1s changes to a 6.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I think there's a little bit of a heavy load to have characterized my statement that way. That wasn't me so much telling you to do that as suggesting it seems to be a little perverse to play a game with dice if you're frequently unhappy with their results.

Or put another way, my saying people's choice of sticking with game systems that are doing things they actively dislike is a little perverse is not my demanding they do something different; its my saying I see it as perverse.

You can rest assured you are not the one I'm talking about. You know how to argue your point reasonably and without being an insulting git. You are a gem.

Maybe without using the word 'perverse'.

 

[Scott Christian]

I'm not sure that's a useful summary statement.

Are you ok with someone flicking a straw wrapper at you? Flicking you with a straw? Throwing you down the steps? Shooting you with a rocket launcher? All of these are products of interpersonal violence. ;-)

Anyway.

Rarely, sometimes , rarely.
Very rarely.
No.
Yes.

It is an accurate summary statement. DM knows his world best. DM knows the adventure best. DM knows the encounters best. DM knows the skill checks best. All these things are associated with the events I mentioned. So... DM knows best.

 

[Cadence]

It is an accurate summary statement. DM knows his world best. DM knows the adventure best. DM knows the encounters best. DM knows the skill checks best. All these things are associated with the events I mentioned. So... DM knows best.

I didn't question it's accuracy.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Or positive. Think:
Player: Dang, I didn't roll anything above a 14.
DM: Look again - one of the 1s changes to a 6.

Still disruptive. Its not like you have to have direct personal intervention to produce that result; a house rule about rolling will do the same job without you having to directly get your oar in, and then everyone knows when it'll occur.

 

[soviet]

Side questions to the OP's question are:

• Would you be ok with having the DM shift hit points of the boss during the final battle? At the beginning of the fight? At the last second?
• Would you be ok with rolling on a random treasure table because that is what the DM told you to do, and then the DM changes your roll?
• Would you be ok with the DM shifting your rolls for the six core attributes?
• Would you be ok with the DM rolling for a wandering monster, and then changing said roll?

All of these are a product of DM knows best.

I think there are some interesting points here. I'm wondering if it's useful to think of areas of control here.

I suspect we all agree that a GM rerolling or fudging a player's own stats would be inappropriate- even if they did somehow 'know better' in terms of optimisation or best fit for the planned adventure. To take over here would be to remove agency from the player. Chargen is in the player's domain.

I suspect many of us (even firm anti-fudgers like myself) might agree that a GM changing a random encounter roll is not really fudging, as it's not so much a part of the resolution system as a means of giving the GM ideas (YMMV). Encounter tables are in the GM's domain.

Where we disagree is in the middle - combat and general skill resolution. Are the dice and associated resolution mechanisms just a suggestion, a way of giving the GM ideas that they can then choose to override? Or are they outside the GM's control, not so much in the players' sphere as no-one's sphere, a kind of no mans land where the outcome is neutrally determined?

 

[Thomas Shey]

You can rest assured you are not the one I'm talking about. You know how to argue your point reasonably and without being an insulting git. You are a gem.

Maybe without using the word 'perverse'.

I don't really know another term to express how it looks from here. While there can be exterior reasons to keep using a system that actively does things you dislike, both doing so and not houseruling it to make it do that less is a--I don't know, contrarian? Like I said there doesn't seem a good synonym with less semantic loading--position unless forced into it by a lot of exterior situations that would have to be pretty abnormal.

I'll freely admit to always being baffled by people who seem to be using the wrong tool for the job, it just gets really hard for me to understand when they clearly recognize that at least in some ways its the wrong tool for the job.

 

[Scott Christian]

Still disruptive. Its not like you have to have direct personal intervention to produce that result; a house rule about rolling will do the same job without you having to directly get your oar in, and then everyone knows when it'll occur.

And if the houserule wasn't discussed or decided upon or wanted in the beginning, you might have the DM do exactly what I said. It is the same as the DM deciding the dragon breath targeted a player and then changing their rolls to say the player was just in the periphery.

And, for the record, I stated the positive because I thought you implied negative by using the term disruptive But I hear. It is an intervention in the least.

 

[Scott Christian]

I didn't question it's accuracy.

So summary statements aren't useful? Sorry. I am confused.