In what other games is fudging acceptable?

[enrious]

How do you fudgers decide when to fudge to save a PC, and when to let him/her die?

Obviously speaking only for myself here...

I have no hard and fast rules - there is no rulebook in use of when to fudge because I see every instance as unique and should be evaluated (however briefly) using my intelligence guided by experience (props if you catch that reference).

I can provide you with a few examples and the thinking I had behind deciding to employ nor not employ fudging.

1) World's Largest Dungeon campaign - billed to the players as a meat-grinder no-holds barred event. Player is playing a level-appropriate martial artist class (Chainmail Bikini Games) and in his first combat, is gored by a minotaur who rolls a 20-20-hit insta-kill. PC is dead, create a new one. I had no intention of fudging it because it added to the stakes the players had (they also had a party limit on the number of new characters they could create in order to "win" the dungeon).

2) Same WLD campaign, many levels later. A dwarven cleric was insta-killed by a demon within 10 minutes of the session starting. Had the cleric remain dead but ruled that the cleric could be temporarily brought back to life (mainly to avoid having the player spend around an hour creating a new character and then waiting on a time for his character to be introduced to the party) by some devi and told that he was brought back to fulfill a service to the devi that was prophesied. *That* turned out great because they were being troubled by a greater abyssal basilisk, who was in turn insta-killed by the priest on the very first round of combat. When the party finished that section of the dungeon, the cleric said his good-byes and returned to the devi for his final sleep. (The player had prepared a replacement ahead of time)

3) An anything-goes Ptolus game. A PC essentially murdered another PC. Allowed to happen because anything-goes was advertised and by that point, even the player of the murdered PC agreed that it was justified.

4) Same Ptolus game, three PCs are fighting 2 NPCs that are behind the door to a room - vicious fight and two of the PCs have died, while the two NPCs are on their last legs (as is the remaining PC) - the PC tosses in a bomb that would have killed one of the PCs, but ruled that they were both reduced to calling for a truce with PC, which he accepted. The result was that the players of the dead PCs ended up turning the NPCs into PCs and the campaign focus shifted to the original PC.

5) Same Ptolus game, three PCs have broken into a store and are confronted with some nasty PCs armed with firearms. The PCs make a few ill-advised moves, which results in one of them standing out in the open and unsupported by his teammates (he was expecting their help). No reason to mitigate it because it helped serve as a campaign definer.

6) Kingmaker campaign - probably 5 or so PC deaths, none of which were alleviated as the party had access to resurrections, albeit at the cost of very valuable resources. That put the onus on the players - make a new character or use up those resources, which I was fine with either way.

7) Scarred Lands campaign - the party encountered a wrack dragon that hadn't yet observed them. Everyone but the sorcerer decided to back-track and go around the wrack dragon, but the sorcerer opted to go invisible and walk past it. Sadly, the wrack dragon had excellent hearing and smelling and soon, a full belly. Not mitigated because I saw no reason to reward poking the bear (or dragon in this case).

In general, I won't fudge to save a character, especially if they're dead because the player was being foolish or there wasn't a meta-game reason for doing so (the player will be spending an inordinate amount of time on a new character, it will be an inordinate amount of time to introduce the new character, etc). However, sometimes I will reduce the damage of an attack from outright killing a PC to being a round or two from death, to give players a chance to save 'em. Sometimes the gods favor the PCs.

That and I prefer to antagonize players by burning their barge. Death becomes a sweet release.

 

[S'mon]

2) Same WLD campaign, many levels later. A dwarven cleric was insta-killed by a demon within 10 minutes of the session starting. Had the cleric remain dead but ruled that the cleric could be temporarily brought back to life (mainly to avoid having the player spend around an hour creating a new character and then waiting on a time for his character to be introduced to the party) by some devi and told that he was brought back to fulfill a service to the devi that was prophesied. *That* turned out great because they were being troubled by a greater abyssal basilisk, who was in turn insta-killed by the priest on the very first round of combat. When the party finished that section of the dungeon, the cleric said his good-byes and returned to the devi for his final sleep. (The player had prepared a replacement ahead of time)

That seems like an interesting, cool thing to have happen. I'm not sure I'd call it fudging though. I was thinking about the changing of die roll results to preserve PCs.

 

[enrious]

That seems like an interesting, cool thing to have happen. I'm not sure I'd call it fudging though. I was thinking about the changing of die roll results to preserve PCs.

Thanks. I call it fudging because the very first rule given to the players was no resurrections because of the unique nature of the WLD.

Also, if I may, I think you're asking the wrong question. You are, in effect, asking police officers why they have fired or not fired their sidearm, rather than why they have or have not waived or reduced a traffic ticket.

 

[S'mon]

Thanks. I call it fudging because the very first rule given to the players was no resurrections because of the unique nature of the WLD.

Also, if I may, I think you're asking the wrong question. You are, in effect, asking police officers why they have fired or not fired their sidearm, rather than why they have or have not waived or reduced a traffic ticket.

It's wrong to ask police officers what factors they consider in deciding to discharge their firearm?! Surely not?

 

[enrious]

It's wrong to ask police officers what factors they consider in deciding to discharge their firearm?! Surely not?

Relative to the number of times a police officer is in a position to issue a traffic ticket, how often do you think they are in a position to discharge their firearm?

 

[Elf Witch]

How do you fudgers decide when to fudge to save a PC, and when to let him/her die?

I have only done it twice so far.

The first time I did it the player had been having a huge run of bad luck she failed a will save and sat out a combat with a dragon for almost the entire combat. Then I had designed an encounter where she would have a chance to shine with her bow and she couldn't roll to hit. She was having bad luck with the dice that day. I could tell she was getting frustrated. I also knew that she had just found out that she was going blind in real life.

I did massive damage on her character and killed it outright and my instincts told me that while she would put a brave face on her losing this character at third with no way to get it raised at this point in the game would suck all the fun out of the entire gaming day for her. So you bet I fudged I halved the damage and left her hurting and low on hit points but still standing and able to play.


The second time was with a player who had lost his character in chasm so no way to get the body back. He spent the rest of the session working on his new character. I added him to the game as a member of another adventuring party who had been slaughtered he and the party ran into each other.

I believe that one way to get a group together fast is to throw a enemy at them right away which I did. My bugbear rolled a crit and confirmed it and did massive damage knocking him down to less than half his points. The next round I rolled and confirmed a crit again and I rolled enough to kill him outright.

I could see from his face that he was dreading it. He had put a lot of work in the character and I knew he had been bummed about losing the other one but accepted it as part of the game. I was also worried about what he was going to do for another character. I don't think my players would have enjoyed look another survivor from a doomed party. So instead of killing him I knocked him down to -6 giving him a chance to stabilize on his own or a party member to get to him.

After the game he said to me I don't know if you fudged that but if you did thank you. I would not have enjoyed losing this character as soon as I started playing him.

So fudging to save a character from death for me depends on a lot of things. And I have seen where it can be a valuable tool to make the game better in that instance.

I don't know if I will ever fudge to save a character again but if the situation comes up and I think it is the best way to make the game fun then I will do it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

That's your right. But by the same token, if a player dies within the first 30 minutes of what is supposed to be an all-day game session, and there's no place to introduce a new PC until like seven hours in... there will also be plenty of players who would not find having to wait all that time as being 'fun'. Because that's no longer a 'brief moment of frustration'.

That is a highly unusual situation. Both as a player and GM my preference would be not designing such an encounter in the first place or working around it so that in the event of a character death the player has some role to play in the intervening 7 hours.

 

[enrious]

That is a highly unusual situation. Both as a player and GM my preference would be not designing such an encounter in the first place or working around it so that in the event of a character death the player has some role to play in the intervening 7 hours.

And yet I've seen it. High-level game of 3.5, maybe an hour into a session and the DM hit a PC with Plane Shift, because that PC had the highest save and just needed to roll a 1 or higher to save.

A 1 later and the PC was out of the session...as was the player.

The player never returned. I don't blame him.

 

[Umbran]

How do you fudgers decide when to fudge to save a PC, and when to let him/her die?

If it could be easily and simply stated and codified, then we could put it into our house rules, and it wouldn't be fudging, now would it?

Let me come at the answer a little sideways. Folks who fudge say that they do so to make the game more fun. Opponents of fudging ask, "Well, how do you *know* the fudge will be more fun than what the dice roll?"

My answer is that the only things certain in human life are death and taxes. If I have to wait for certainty to take an action, I'm gong to be sitting on my thumbs most of my life. I don't need to be certain. I only need to have a certain level of confidence.

Where do you get the confidence? From experience, and from your knowledge of your game, your scenario, your players, and their expectations. With that information at hand, when it is time to fudge can be pretty bleeding obvious, even if it is hard to elucidate.

 

[prosfilaes]

And yet I've seen it. High-level game of 3.5, maybe an hour into a session and the DM hit a PC with Plane Shift, because that PC had the highest save and just needed to roll a 1 or higher to save.

I think this goes back to the "don't roll the dice if you don't want the action". Yes, sometimes you roll and then you get the crit and it's bad. But if an NPC is casting a spell/using a power, and everything is going to go wrong if the PCs don't make their save, don't blame everything going wrong on not-fudging. (And even if he saved, what fun is an enemy that stood there casting spells that fizzled?)

Let me come at the answer a little sideways. Folks who fudge say that they do so to make the game more fun. Opponents of fudging ask, "Well, how do you *know* the fudge will be more fun than what the dice roll?"

My answer is that the only things certain in human life are death and taxes. If I have to wait for certainty to take an action, I'm gong to be sitting on my thumbs most of my life. I don't need to be certain. I only need to have a certain level of confidence.

Where do you get the confidence? From experience, and from your knowledge of your game, your scenario, your players, and their expectations. With that information at hand, when it is time to fudge can be pretty bleeding obvious, even if it is hard to elucidate.

Some of the people above have made pretty persuasive arguments for particular cases of fudging. But I'd say "How do you fudgers decide when to fudge to save a PC, and when to let him/her die?" is still a good question; that's part of the place we get the confidence from, from talking to other people about when they fudged, and evaluating it for ourselves.

I think there's definitely DMs out there who I would rather they didn't fudge at all rather than fudge the way they do when I'm playing with them. This has been a bit binary of a discussion, but I stand by my opinion that people who fudge for things like making boss battles come up to the "right" length would make the game less fun for me. People who don't like fudging often have bad experience with fudging.