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

[Lyxen]

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.

Thanks for badwrongfunning other ways of playing, well done.

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.

Yes, sure, rules are the answer to everything in D&D, well known fact. Bad news for you, however, the designers of the most successful edition of the game happen to think extremely differently, about rules, about playing the game, and about what playing the game "well" means: "To play D&D, and to play it well, you don’t need to read all the rules, memorize every detail of the game, or master the fine art of rolling funny looking dice. None of those things have any bearing on what’s best about the game. [...] Playing D&D is an exercise in collaborative creation. You and your friends create epic stories filled with tension and memorable drama."

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.

Sure, arbitrary DM decision requiring a character change is certainly the way to maintain player agency and to ensure that they will enjoy the rest of the campaign.

Poof!

Yes, poof! the players are gone from the table run by an arrogant bastard who thinks he's there to teach them lessons about the way to survive in his incredibly dangerous universe where it's all about survival of the fittest - as everyone knows that it's the only way the game should be played.

 

[loverdrive]

Sure, arbitrary DM decision requiring a character change is certainly the way to maintain player agency and to ensure that they will enjoy the rest of the campaign.

How this arbitrary decision is different from an arbitrary decision to ignore the rules and save the character? And, y'know, the alternative is losing the character alltogether anyway.

Well, if you don't like it, another option:

Action movie: when the rules say your PC is dead, they're knocked out for 1d4 hours instead, unless you explicitly decide that it's time for your PC to die.

Poof! Death gone. Never happens. No need to fudge dice.

Thanks for badwrongfunning other ways of playing, well done.

D&D community is probably the only place where obvious things like "using a less effective solution, when there's a more effective and reliable one is a bad idea" is met with such hostility.

 

[Lyxen]

How this arbitrary decision is different from an arbitrary decision to ignore the rules and save the character? And, y'know, the alternative is losing the character alltogether anyway.

I'm not saying is a bad solution, I'm saying it's not by definition a better one, because the rules are not the intent of the game, and every single edition ha told you to do away with the rules if they get in the way of fun.

Action movie: when the rules say your PC is dead, they're knocked out for 1d4 hours instead, unless you explicitly decide that it's time for your PC to die.

Why not, but again, why do you need a rule ? It might be a local ruling, or it might even be a DM decision because that's the spirit in which that particular game is played.

D&D community is probably the only place where obvious things like "using a less effective solution, when there's a more effective and reliable one is a bad idea" is met with such hostility.

And again, this is you assuming that your solution is better and that people are idiots for not seeing it and bowing before your wisdom. The problem is that it assumes that your way of playing the game is superior and that your solution fits other people's cases. Both of them are demonstrably wrong.

And by the way, the hostility is not about the solution, but about the way you present it.

 

[Fifth Element]

The dice don't care about the game. A good DM does.

Go Fudge.

I like the succinctness of this. It actually changed my perspective a little bit. Thank you.

 

[beancounter]

I think the bottom line is how the group as a whole feels about fudging. Some tables are going to like it, some won't.

It should be one of the topics covered in session 0 so that everyone is on the same page.

 

[Fifth Element]

If you want to tell a story, go write a novel. If you want to play a game, roll some dice to see what happens next. RPGs are not novels. RPGs are not movies.

Correct, they're RPGs, which are their own thing.

RPGs have emergent story, not predefined plots with a set beginning, middle, and end and rails preventing any possible deviation. Games have agency; stories do not.

The idea that a DM doing some amount of fudging means that the end is determined and there are hard rails is untenable. Your description is hyperbole.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The dice not caring is exactly why I use them. If the situation isn’t appropriate to resolve by way of uncaring number generators, then I don’t think dice should be getting rolled in the first place.

Sometimes you want a range that isn't as extreme as those the dice give, so you dummy out some parts of that range. Hence, fudge.

 

[Fifth Element]

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

And the assumption in this comment is that the DM is acting without regard to the players. But many DMs have a very good idea of what their players like about playing D&D. My current group have been playing together for 14 years now, every two weeks. We know each other and our gaming preferences extremely well at this point. So the DM does actually know what we like in a game, and has the authority to use that information to run the game.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I generally don't want the DM to fudge. But I don't want to have my character killed for no reason.
Sometimes the DM misjudges difficulty of an encounter or there isnextreme bad luck happening.
Then I expect some way out, even if that was not planned ahead of time. That does not mean I want a win, but at least a chance to retreat or surrender.

 

[Fifth Element]

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.

You mean a game such as a D&D game where the DM fudges to prevent too much death by randomness? That sort of game?