My DM just told me he fudges rolls....

[Mark CMG]

I liked this chart:

Must spread XP around before . . .

 

[Hassassin]

In many cases, it's because the player has been conditioned to expect the GM to save them with fudging. Why run away when you can always count on the GM to fudge things so that you'll win?

I don't think fudging is the main issue here. It's more that they know most adventures throw encounters of their EL at them. The world "levels up" the same speed, so they should be able to beat anything if they just put enough effort into it.

This is something I personally try to avoid - I make it clear that the PCs will most likely meet opponents they won't win (in a fair fight at least). This will especially happen if they do something stupid, like insulting someone under parley or whatever, but also sometimes in the due course of things.

 

[Hassassin]

By the way, one question I haven't seen in the thread (though I might have missed it) is whether DMs add/subtract XP when fudging. I.e. you let the BBEG survive a round 1 lethal save, do you award more XP?

 

[The Shaman]

By the way, one question I haven't seen in the thread (though I might have missed it) is whether DMs add/subtract XP when fudging. I.e. you let the BBEG survive a round 1 lethal save, do you award more XP?

Or if you reduce a monster's hit points or change its tactics so the adventurers don't get killed, do you give them less - or zero - experience for the encounter?

 

[Bedrockgames]

WotC got the stats wrong, do you mind if I fix the stats mid-game to reflect what I think they should be?

This I wouldn't consider fudging. If there is an obvious error and you are bringing it into line for consistency that wouldn't bother me.

you're killing my monster too fast, do you mind if I adjust the stats to make him last longer?

This one really bothers me as a player. I hate when GMs adjust monster hp achieve the "correct" length of time for an encounter.

the attack roll will kill you way too quick. Do you mind if I lower the damage?

I mind very much. Not a huge fan of combat heavy games but when it happens make it a real threat, don't save my guy because that feels like playing a video game with the cheats on to me.

 

[molepunch]

Interesting discussion. I've read through most of the post over the course a few days and I've come away feeling torn (still).

As a DM I'm protagonist-centric, and I tend to dislike seeing my players' heroes fumble and mess-up so badly on a simple-ish task. I fudge rolls to assist my players or help their crappy NPCs do a little better.

In this current campaign, I'm running a pure 4E-Essentials game, and I am rolling in the open with no fudging whatsoever. I also do not adjust DCs or defenses on the enemies to assist the players.

My players hate how lucky I roll (I do roll high and I am famous in our group for getting great poker hands). Only one of them is excited by how "dangerous" combat has become. I crit very often and I come close to killing the party's defender. I rarely miss.


Some people don't mind DM fudging, and may even expect it. Some people take it very seriously and feel cheated. Perhaps we all need to realize that it's something we must first set ground rules on when starting a new campaign.

 

[The Shaman]

By the way, one question I haven't seen in the thread (though I might have missed it) is whether DMs add/subtract XP when fudging. I.e. you let the BBEG survive a round 1 lethal save, do you award more XP?

Or if you reduce a monster's hit points or change its tactics so the adventurers don't get killed, do you give them less - or zero - experience for the encounter?

Interesting that neither of these questions generated a response.

I'm guessing the answer is, "Of course not, because then the players would know I was fudging."

 

[Dausuul]

Interesting that neither of these questions generated a response.

I'm guessing the answer is, "Of course not, because then the players would know I was fudging."

In my case, it's "I don't award XP any more, I just tell the players when their characters level up. And even when I did award XP, I didn't award it on the basis of creatures defeated, so the question wouldn't apply."

 

[Celtavian]

this touches on another aspect of the fudging issue.

playing with the dice rolls in public view and vowing to never fudge sort of assumes the system is so perfect and balanced (and run correctly by the GM), that all encounters are "fair". I quoted that word and use it loosely for a reason.

In the realm of not changing die results, but changing HP on a BBEG, how is that different than the work you did during adventure design, where you decided the BBEG would have 200 instead of 100 HP?

What rules guided you that said 200 HP is fair for the NPC to have when you designed the encounter?

If you can build unreasonable or unfair during the design stage legally, what makes changing things during the execution stage illegal? Functionally, the outcome is equivalent.

Personally, if I have decent challenge level calculations that I follow during the design stage, I then can assume that my BBEG is of a correct difficulty level over the party, and that whatever happens from the dice rolls should be accepted as fair.

I don't know about 4e, but prior editions have yet to hit that mark. As such, I think that drives some GMs to make in-game corrections when they are realized.

When I fugde, it is generally to save the life of a PC that would otherwise die so quickly that the player cannot make a course correction. Frex, round 1, the BBEG hitting the PC for enough damage to kill him. The PC would have no chance to realize he is in over his head and withdraw. Whacking him down to 2HP makes it pretty clear that his next action should be to change tactics, or he will die. You can bet, the next round will kill the PC if I score a hit and the PC was dumb enough to stick around.

I never give the bad guy more or less hitpoints. I never negate a saving throw to spare the bad guy. I might be a softy for giving the PCs a second chance from damage, but that's about as far as I go.

I usually fudge in the players favor also for the reasons you listed. I design my encounters based on factors like players average damage output, average spell DCs, average ACs, and the like. So I generally have a pretty good idea of how tough my NPC should be. It can get a little hard on the PCs if they have a series of bad rolls, so I might fudge a little in their favor to keep the campaign going.

Fudging on behalf of the monsters generally doesn't work anyhow. There are five players in my group. I can't fudge the monster for all of them or they'll figure it out.

 

[korjik]

Interesting that neither of these questions generated a response.

I'm guessing the answer is, "Of course not, because then the players would know I was fudging."

Yes, I would award more XP if I let the BBEG live, but I would not let him live. If the players outthought me, I dont penalize them for it.

If I deliberately throw the fight for no reason, they dont get the xp. If I change the monster tactics so that I dont accidently kill off the party, I will still give them the xp (usually it is far less than the encounter deserved anyway). If I fudge a crit or two so that someone dosent have to sit around watching everyone else play, then I will still give them the XP. I have done all these cases several times.

By the way, I do not care if my players know I am fudging. I know that they are fully capable of figuring out the stats of monsters and when I lay off. Heck, I have blatantly ignored monster crits on openly rolled dice. My players dont have any problem with my encounters, and dont have any problem with me not TPKing them. Before anyone says anything, I also dont have that much problem with killing them, if it wont wreck the game, and they also know that I have no problem using their own tactics against them. I have more than once ended up with the Wizard and Ranger in hand to hand cause the Paladin and Cleric went running off after the first monster they saw.