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

[Hussar]

There's the element of keeping it secret, of course. I'm not sure why people who feel fudging is perfectly fine also include the need to keep it secret rather than telling everyone when they do it. So that's probably a factor. Then there's a lot of social fear -- if I call this out, this thing I really dislike, what happens in the social setting? So you have that. So, to walk away from a game, you need to have a certain kind of courage and the correct situation. I've been in games where fudging has occurred, I've known about it, and I didn't walk away, although my attachment and care for the game certainly diminished significantly, to the point that I was showing up to hang with friends and didn't really care what happened in the game. Most argument about rules in games sits along this axis as well.

The space isn't "if you dislike fudging you must walk out or you don't really dislike fudging." Fudging will always significantly reduce my enjoyment of a game. If there's not enough other there, then I'll walk. I've done it before. But not every time.

So, it's something that REALLY bothers you, but, not enough to actually say anything to the DM about it or do anything about it, unless it's really egregious.

Now, do you think that your experience is widespread or more just a personal one? Do you feel that the table would have had as strong of a reaction to fudging as you do?

My point isn't to diminish your point of view. We like what we like and I can totally get behind finding a new group if the one you are in is not a good match. Totally get that. My point is that while you feel very strongly about this, and there are others in this thread that do as well, I can honestly say I've never seen it be a particular issue. This is the first time I've ever heard of anyone actually walking from a table because of this.

Which brings me back to my point. If this was a huge issue for players and a widespread problem, don't you think we'd hear a lot more about it? Don't you think that we would not have lines in the DMG condoning it? Like I said before, it's not some conspiracy to not tell players that the DM is fudging. It's that IME, fudging is so expected that we wouldn't bother telling people about it.

I remember when I first started playing online and I realized that I had completely stopped fudging. I remember commenting on boards about the fact that I didn't fudge and people being rather surprised that I wasn't fudging. Not fudging was not the standard. Heck, when it's being called out in The Dragon (not even Dragon magazine yet - heck, I bet I could find quotes about it in The Strategic Review) - it's not like it was this extremely rare thing that never happened at tables.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So, it's something that REALLY bothers you, but, not enough to actually say anything to the DM about it or do anything about it, unless it's really egregious.

Now, do you think that your experience is widespread or more just a personal one? Do you feel that the table would have had as strong of a reaction to fudging as you do?

My point isn't to diminish your point of view. We like what we like and I can totally get behind finding a new group if the one you are in is not a good match. Totally get that. My point is that while you feel very strongly about this, and there are others in this thread that do as well, I can honestly say I've never seen it be a particular issue. This is the first time I've ever heard of anyone actually walking from a table because of this.

Which brings me back to my point. If this was a huge issue for players and a widespread problem, don't you think we'd hear a lot more about it? Don't you think that we would not have lines in the DMG condoning it? Like I said before, it's not some conspiracy to not tell players that the DM is fudging. It's that IME, fudging is so expected that we wouldn't bother telling people about it.

I remember when I first started playing online and I realized that I had completely stopped fudging. I remember commenting on boards about the fact that I didn't fudge and people being rather surprised that I wasn't fudging. Not fudging was not the standard. Heck, when it's being called out in The Dragon (not even Dragon magazine yet - heck, I bet I could find quotes about it in The Strategic Review) - it's not like it was this extremely rare thing that never happened at tables.

Don't your own quotations from earlier show that we DO hear about this pretty regularly? This is a perennial topic. It's been coming up for decades at least.

The follow-up question then becomes: is the fact that this doesn't get discussed proof that it isn't an issue? Or is there some other reason why people might not discuss it? As noted, when DM-advice stuff comes up, if it mentions fudging, the recommendation is always to keep it secret. And, yes, going through several youtube videos on the subject...you'll find that almost all of them make mention of how this is a controversial thing to do! Even the ones that are in favor of it. Even Colville, with his explicit statement that he will use faked die rolls so players believe that he rolled what he claims to have rolled.

So, on the DM side, there is enormous pressure to never speak about it...especially because they are told that players may get upset. You say "it's not some conspiracy to not tell players that the DM is fudging," but so many completely unrelated sources reiterate over and over that the players need to not find out, or have someone whose group did find out looking for advice on how to fix the situation. So....I don't think we can really say that there's nothing whatsoever to the claim that DMs are strongly, strongly encouraged, by a variety of sources, to not talk about this thing.

On the player side, we have people in this thread who have let it slide, with the (sadly often fulfilled) expectation that the game will slowly die for other, related reasons anyway. We have had people (plural) who have left games because of fudging--or who had decided that the only reason to stick around was because of the social activity, with the game being superfluous or even a negative (just not enough to make the activity a net negative). Having just done a quick search in Google for "D&D" "fudging," I have already found multiple threads on D&D Beyond wherein DMs talk about the controversial nature of the practice, or where players somehow "caught" them fudging and now there's a breach of trust.

So....yeah, this would seem to actually be something people talk about pretty regularly! Youtube videos (many, many of them), Reddit posts, forum threads. Many involve DMs with upset players, or DMs looking for validation on whether what they're doing is "okay," etc. That would seem to be a pretty clear indication that there's an ongoing discussion, at least among DMs, and there is a consensus that players shouldn't be allowed to find out that it happens.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Well, I DO think I know why people would interpret neutral as negative, but, it's not a particularly charitable interpretation.

For all the same reasons people are interpreting neutral as tacitly positive. The wording and design of polls is tricky business.

 

[loverdrive]

I agree on principle. But like with computer bugs, if they happen rarely enough, we don't get a new computer. But yeah, if you're fudging often, then it is probably an indication that it is not a system well suited for your needs and it might be a good idea to either fix it or find a new one.

Oh, yeah, sometimes it's a fluke. An extraordinary situation, an ad-hoc ruling, whatever.

But we wouldn't be even having this conversation on a 53rd page of a second thread, if it was only flukes. Nobody talks about house cats slaughtering commoners or elephants jumping 9' into the air and other extraordinary situations that barely ever happen, after all.

 

[Irlo]

I agree on principle. But like with computer bugs, if they happen rarely enough, we don't get a new computer. But yeah, if you're fudging often, then it is probably an indication that it is not a system well suited for your needs and it might be a good idea to either fix it or find a new one.

Keep in mind that fudging might be some people’s way of fixing it.

 

[loverdrive]

Keep in mind that fudging might be some people’s way of fixing it.

It's as much of a fix as restarting crashed Photoshop. Like, yeah, maybe it works, but you still ought to be annoyed that this thing even happened in the first place.

I know only three categories of people as tolerant to bugs as D&D players: 3Ds Max users, ArmA players and Saiga-12 owners.

 

[Irlo]

It's as much of a fix as restarting crashed Photoshop. Like, yeah, maybe it works, but you still ought to be annoyed that this thing even happened in the first place.

I know only three categories of people as tolerant to bugs as D&D players: 3Ds Max users, ArmA players and Saiga-12 owners.

It's a good thing we're all so tolerant of bugs or none of us would be playing D&D. Does it meet anyone's desires perfectly? And, if it does, are those five people all playing at the same table?

 

[loverdrive]

It's a good thing we're all so tolerant of bugs or none of us would be playing D&D. Does it meet anyone's desires perfectly? And, if it does, are those five people all playing at the same table?

Well, maybe none of us should be playing D&D ¯\(ツ)/¯

Joking, of course, but to be brutally frank, almost every single time I show Dungeon World (or, these days, Swords under the Sun), to a D&D player they tell me the exact same thing: "Holy spreadsheet, this is what I thought D&D is gonna be like".

 

[Irlo]

Well, maybe none of us should be playing D&D ¯\(ツ)/¯

Joking, of course, but to be brutally frank, almost every single time I show Dungeon World (or, these days, Swords under the Sun), to a D&D player they tell me the exact same thing: "Holy spreadsheet, this is what I thought D&D is gonna be like".

I’ll take a look!

 

[Thomas Shey]

Keep in mind that fudging might be some people’s way of fixing it.

That's analogous to banging on the side of a piece of equipment when it sticks. It can sometimes be functional, but that doesn't make it best practice.