In what other games is fudging acceptable?

[TarionzCousin]

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

Fudge.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I will analogize:

Maybe you like to repair cars using only crescent wrenches. Me, I like to also have a ratchet nut driver in my toolbox.

The ratchet driver isn't better for everything, but neither is it a fundamentally inferior tool. I have one not because I feel some insecurity, or because my approach to fixing cars is generally flawed. It is simply because sometimes there's a tight corner, and the ratchet driver manages the job more easily than the crescent.

I really have no idea what this example is supposed to be analogous of, given the subject matter.

 

[Wild Gazebo]

The Dungeon Masters guide, in every edition, lists the ignoring of a die result as a legitimate tool for making your game better. The use of dice also ads tension and excitement to what would otherwise be a storyteller experience.

The example is analogous of fudging die results or not. Both examples of a DMs tools to improve the game at hand.

 

[S'mon]

My approach is by no means high-handed (at least how I understand that term), whether or not it is illusionist. Note how I mention that knowledge of your players is important? Note how I've mentioned in the past that I *asked* my players if they had a problem with it, in general? I'm a service-oriented GM, and the player's sensibilities are most certainly in the forefront of my mind.

Thanks, yes I remember now you talked upthread about getting advance player buy-in to your fudging. Sorry I was overly critical in my response to your last post: if you're fudging with explicit player consent, it isn't really illusionism as I understand it, or high-handed.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The Dungeon Masters guide, in every edition, lists the ignoring of a die result as a legitimate tool for making your game better. The use of dice also ads tension and excitement to what would otherwise be a storyteller experience.

The example is analogous of fudging die results or not. Both examples of a DMs tools to improve the game at hand.

Tension and excitement?

Perhaps I am in the minority, but the mere rolling of dice doesn't bring these things to the table. Tension and excitement are felt when something of importance hangs in the balance and the final disposition and resolution of the situation are unknown.

Rolling dice can qualify at certain times, but if the result can be discarded for a different one that same tension and excitement just don't seem to be there.

If die results are changed there what you have is a storyteller experience. Don't let chunks of plastic hitting the table cloud this. If the players agree that story continuity is more important than gameplay then change to taste and enjoy.

 

[enrious]

Tension and excitement?

Perhaps I am in the minority, but the mere rolling of dice doesn't bring these things to the table. Tension and excitement are felt when something of importance hangs in the balance and the final disposition and resolution of the situation are unknown.

Rolling dice can qualify at certain times, but if the result can be discarded for a different one that same tension and excitement just don't seem to be there.

If die results are changed there what you have is a storyteller experience. Don't let chunks of plastic hitting the table cloud this. If the players agree that story continuity is more important than gameplay then change to taste and enjoy.

(Exploder, using your post as an example because it may serve to illustrate the disconnect betwixt the various sides - the questions below are open to anyone)

Do you think everyone who fudges rolls disagrees with you? Do you think they arbitrarily change results for whim, every round of combat?

Do you think that everyone who fudges does so every time "tension and excitement"?

Is this where the strawmen arguments come from amongst the dice-slaves? (hey, if S'mon can coin "fudgers" for we-who-fudge, then I'm coining "dice-slaves" for those-who-detest-fudging. My lawyers will be filing the copyright paperwork on the morrow.)

Would it surprise you to know that I agree with your post, and I wager most if not all who fudge do as well? Dice are not the final arbiters of fun, glad we cleared that up.

 

[Wild Gazebo]

Tension and excitement?

The 'purpose' of dice isn't tension and excitement. But, the mere act of rolling said dice coupled with something 'hanging in the balance' can 'add' to tension and excitement. I'm sorry...I thought your problem was with not seeing 'fudging' as a tool...not 'rolling dice' I thought that was so systemic to the game it didn't need the literal outline.

Perhaps I am in the minority, but the mere rolling of dice doesn't bring these things to the table. Tension and excitement are felt when something of importance hangs in the balance and the final disposition and resolution of the situation are unknown.

No, I think you are in the majority. I've never felt the slightest pang of tension watching a random die roll across the counter.

I don't feel any drama when I imagine a sphere dropping from a predetermined height in a mythical 'physics' world so that I can determine the relative gravity either. But, I can get a little choked up if I have a character I've been playing for the past 4 years teetering on the edge of a cliff with a pit of lava below and a balor looking down over him threatening to push him over--he's at 2 hp--and the DM looks at me with a glint in his eye and says "If this die rolls a 12 or higher Lector will fall to his fiery death" and then the Dm casts the die across the table letting it spin extra-long.

The die has become a great tool for the improvement of the game...it is adding tension and excitement to the gaming experience. Whereas the fudging of a die in this situation could hinder the gaming experience.

Rolling dice can qualify at certain times, but if the result can be discarded for a different one that same tension and excitement just don't seem to be there.

Yes. If you have some strange arbitrary system of childish interference I imagine an environment of distrust and spite could definitely be harbored. And the players would never know if the results rolled would be pertinent...and then that crazy DM could go play by himself somewhere.

Perhaps I'm talking out of turn here; but, I'm assuming that fudging happens out of sight of the players. It's the DMs roll to create a fun experience for his players and if you can't trust the person running the game I'm not sure how anyone could enjoy the game regardless of the rolls.

If die results are changed there what you have is a storyteller experience. Don't let chunks of plastic hitting the table cloud this.

Yes. If there are no rolls you have a storyteller experience. That's why they are good as 'tools' to avoid that kind of mediocrity.

That is why the analogy is apt. Rolling is a good tool...and fudging is a good tool. Only a fool wouldn't use the best tools available to him.

If the players agree that story continuity is more important than gameplay then change to taste and enjoy.

Ahhh. I think I'm getting a glimmer of understanding here. I really couldn't fathom your reasoning with the exception of some obscure authority figure complex that was triggering a paranoia that culminates with a complete lack of trust...which is really not fair of me: its just the only thing I could think of.

You think that fudging fundamentally changes the game-play of the system. Right? So that the simple change of a point here and there messes with the probability of the whole schematic of the game...like a butterfly flapping his wings in China or the ability to count cards in a revolving five deck system.

There might be something to this. But, the demonstrable results would be so small that I would have a hard time catering to them.

I find it hard that game-play can be seriously effected by the 'hidden' change of a single result to heighten story continuity. If there were some kind of public retractions, or obvious arbitrary shenanigans I could understand a serious breach of trust and I would have a hard time playing with these mythical people...simply for the sake of continuity. I mean who wants to play in a game were the rules change every session?

But, this isn't what people are talking about.

Fudging...like rolling...can be used to heighten a gaming experience.

 

[S'mon]

Is this where the strawmen arguments come from amongst the dice-slaves? (hey, if S'mon can coin "fudgers" for we-who-fudge, then I'm coining "dice-slaves" for those-who-detest-fudging. My lawyers will be filing the copyright paperwork on the morrow.)

Sorry, mate - you can't copyright a single word. Even with a hyphen.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Fudging...like rolling...can be used to heighten a gaming experience.

Fudging turns a gaming experience into a storytelling one. If storytelling is what everyone wants then yes it can be helpful.

 

[Iosue]

Fudging turns a gaming experience into a storytelling one.

Given the quotes I provided earlier in the thread by Gary Gygax and Frank Mentzer, I have to disagree. Ignore the one from 4e if you want, but those two were writing at a time when the dominant form of role-playing was not "storytelling".