In what other games is fudging acceptable?

[delericho]

Why roll dice if you will only accept positive outcomes and ignore negative outcomes? Possible answer: The DM made the encounter too hard and that's not fair.

Yeah. I try really hard not to fudge the dice. Occasionally, I find that I have screwed up when designing an encounter, in which case I'll try to give the PCs an out. But otherwise, they're on their own. I like to be surprised just as they do!

 

[Celebrim]

Judging from the current thread on the subject, and previous threads on the subject, it seems that most people consider fudging, (usually by the DM), to be completely acceptable. One argument is that fudging can make the experience more fun.

What other games are there in which fudging by one or more participants is acceptable and fun?

I would imagine that fudging is acceptable in any cooperative or at least non-competitive game. An example that most people might be familiar with is 'take backs', when you play a game and a player makes a really bone headed move, it's often more fun for all participants to grant a 'take back' so that the game is not ruined by ending prematurely. This tends to occur in casual gaming of all sorts, and at pretty much all age levels especially when competitiveness is low within the group by choice or due to large differences in skill between the participants.

I would hold however that in RPGs, even though I've fudged a time or three in my DMing career that "makes the game more fun" is actually a pretty harsh restriction on when you can fudge:

a) Only when it doesn't show favoritism: For this reason, players aren't allowed to fudge, since they would be fudging on their own behalf. Likewise, a DM can't fudge to reward a favored player or punish a disfavored one.
b) Only when it isn't obvious: There are a lot of reasons why you can't let the players know when you fudge, from avoiding social contrivery because of the appearance of favoritism or cultivating an expectation of future fudging on the player's behalf and then withholding it, to avoiding the player's metagaming ("I'll do this risky thing because the DM is going to fudge for me."), keeping suspension of disbelief, and maintaining the tension of percieved risk. The upshot of this is you can fudge only rarely. If it's happening every session, something is wrong.
c) Only when it is compensating for bad luck or your own bad DMing: Fudging to get your own way is wrong. Fudging to stop players from doing something reasonable but unexpected is wrong. The only real reason to fudge is to prevent the game ending prematurely because of your own boneheaded design or incredible bad luck (monster rolls three 20's in a round, player fails a saving throw by rolling a 1). Virtually all of the time that means you are fudging to prevent an unpredictable and uninteresting player death. Saving an NPC from death is too much like showing yourself favoritism, IMO.

 

[Elf Witch]

This is the thing - most players don't want their PCs to die, but most D&D players do want the possibility of death/failure; it's the possibility of defeat which makes success possible. And IME most players who find out their DM fudges are very disappointed, even to the point of quitting the game in some cases.

The 4e DMG (and Mentzer) advocates lying to the players, taking an illusionist approach where the players don't realise what is going on. I'd rather just be honest, seek to create a fair challenge (whether by encounter or by environment), and let things resolve naturally, so that success or failure is always genuine.

Ironically, 4e D&D is probably the easiest iteration to run without fudging.

IME most players would rather have the DM fudge when their character is going to die in a way that is not heroic, are in a place that will delay getting their character raised or because the encounter was to much for the group and way over powered.

I have to say this I am getting the impression that DMs who don't fudge think DMs that do end up doing it in every session.

I fudge but I the last time I fudged not killing a character was several years ago and has only happened twice in all the years I have been playing.

The main fudging I do and again not in every session is usually knocking off a few HPs when I see combat dragging on and on and can tell my players are getting restless.

 

[Bedrockgames]

IME most players would rather have the DM fudge when their character is going to die in a way that is not heroic, are in a place that will delay getting their character raised or because the encounter was to much for the group and way over powered.
.

While I do think a lot of players do prefer this, I also believe people overestimate how widespread it is. Personally I don't like it when the GM fudges on my behalf in these conditions. I want the dice and mechanics to determine the outcome, not the GMs sense of drama or pacing. If a stray arrow kills my guy, I'd much rather the GM keep that as the result than gloss over it because he feels it is not heroic. Part of the fun is overcoming the odds, and if the deck is stacked in my favor it just doesn't feel like my heroic exploits are all that heroic.

 

[Elf Witch]

While I do think a lot of players do prefer this, I also believe people overestimate how widespread it is. Personally I don't like it when the GM fudges on my behalf in these conditions. I want the dice and mechanics to determine the outcome, not the GMs sense of drama or pacing. If a stray arrow kills my guy, I'd much rather the GM keep that as the result than gloss over it because he feels it is not heroic. Part of the fun is overcoming the odds, and if the deck is stacked in my favor it just doesn't feel like my heroic exploits are all that heroic.

I don't ever try to guess gaming trends based just on my gaming experience. Coming here over the years has shown me that there is a wide variety of play styles.

I play because I want to be like the heroes in the fantasy stories I love and in those the hero does not die by a stray arrow from goblin number 1. Now covering the rear while your fellow party members escape is glorious way to die.

Several of the DMs I have played with have a rule that non named mooks can't crit.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't ever try to guess gaming trends based just on my gaming experience. Coming here over the years has shown me that there is a wide variety of play styles.

I play because I want to be like the heroes in the fantasy stories I love and in those the hero does not die by a stray arrow from goblin number 1. Now covering the rear while your fellow party members escape is glorious way to die.

Several of the DMs I have played with have a rule that non named mooks can't crit.

I don't think there is anything wrong with your style. We are just coming at it from different angles is all.

 

[Elf Witch]

I don't think there is anything wrong with your style. We are just coming at it from different angles is all.

I don't think there is anything wrong with your play style either.

Which is one of the things I think is great about RPGs is that they support different styles of play.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Fudging is used to negate certain results or ensure certain results. Why is any result more fun than another in an activity devoid of competition?

The most obvious example is one result can knock a player completely out of the game. And if the party is in no position to deal or fix that situation... then the player is left with nothing to do for as long as that fact is true.

I'd say that's definitely a case of one result being less fun that another in an activity devoid of competition.

 

[Wild Gazebo]

And this is why, on the rare occasion I fudge a result, I never tell anyone.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The most obvious example is one result can knock a player completely out of the game. And if the party is in no position to deal or fix that situation... then the player is left with nothing to do for as long as that fact is true.

I'd say that's definitely a case of one result being less fun that another in an activity devoid of competition.

For me this would actually reduce my overall level of fun, even if it was done to save me from a brief moment of frustration.