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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iosue" data-source="post: 5742248" data-attributes="member: 6680772">When I was regularly DM'ing, we were using B/X and BECMI, so I took my fudging cues from them.  Our style of play was I guess you could say heroic/cinematic, in that we wanted to play characters like in our favorite fantasy literature.  So generally what guided my fudging instincts was the dramatic feel.  Which is not to say "what was good for my story."  This was back in the late 80s, very early 90s, so we weren't thinking "adventure path" or "narrative campaign".  It was very much adventure hooks in a semi-sandbox.  But it was B/X-BECMI, so, you know, wandering monsters.  A heroic death against the villain of the piece was fine.  But no one wanted to buy it against wandering monsters.  Gandalf went down taking out a Balrog of Morgoth in Middle-earth's most infamous dungeon.  He wasn't eaten by spiders in Mirkwood on the way to Hobbiton.  It wasn't a fully articulated thought in my head at the time, but looking back I think if the death felt senseless, like it made the campaign so far a shaggy dog story, if reading such a death in a fantasy novel would have left a bad taste in my mouth, then I was inclined to fudge, if the PCs were having bad luck.There was one time when I threw some level 2-3 characters (with no cleric) against a gold dragon.  This was one of those times as DM that I just kicked it, underestimating the punishment the dragon would deal to the characters.  (I was fairly inexperienced at the time.)  That was a set-piece rather than an off-the-cuff, meaningless encounter, but I was looking at my first TPK, and I felt like it was my fault.  I didn't think I'd given the players a fair shake.  So I fudged a few rolls in that.  A near-miss here, some reduced damage there.  I don't regret the fudging, but I did wish I'd planned the encounter better.I should also note that, while I don't know how other "fudgers" do it, for me fudging was always a matter of 1 or 2 points on a die.  If the monster needed 15 to hit, and they got a 15, if it felt like a time to fudge I'd call it a miss.  If they got an 18, well, I felt like the fates just weren't with the player, and I'd let it stand.  Even when fudging, the dice weren't entirely ignored.  I don't know if that's logically consistent; it just felt right at the time.And I definitely agree with S'mon -- while I haven't yet had the opportunity to DM 4e, just looking over the rules and playing it, I have a hard time imagining fudging in the way I did back in the day.  The fudges are practically built into the system.  (Action points, self-healing, easy-to-balance encounters, etc.)</blockquote>

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