D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Umbran]

Fudging behind the screen, though, isn't the answer. Instead, make the bail-out obvious and put it in the fiction!

It isn't the answer... FOR YOU.

It's like pineapple on pizza all over again.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

(Ignore this. Accidental repeat of previous post because I had a saved draft and thought that meant I hadn't posted it.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Don't get me wrong - I've seen times when as a DM I want to bail the PCs' collective ass out of a jam, be it of their own making or mine, and I'm sure you've had similar moments.

Fudging behind the screen, though, isn't the answer. Instead, make the bail-out obvious and put it in the fiction!

A divine intervention or blessing of some sort is usually the easiest to both pull off and explain; and done in rarity, such events can make for good "war stories" later. Further, events like this can provide useful adventure fodder: for getting them out of trouble then, a deity wants a favour now.....

Oh, I'm in complete agreement on replacing fudging with either pre-prepared answers, or improvised diegetic (and thus discoverable) ones.

I'm very much of the opinion that there is nothing you can achieve using fudging, that you cannot also achieve without using it. This does entail a small amount of extra GM work, but that extra work is a price well worth the prize earned.

 

[Enrahim]

Oh, I'm in complete agreement on replacing fudging with either pre-prepared answers, or improvised diegetic (and thus discoverable) ones.

I'm very much of the opinion that there is nothing you can achieve using fudging, that you cannot also achieve without using it. This does entail a small amount of extra GM work, but that extra work is a price well worth the prize earned.

Ok, now I am curious!

Classic scenario: Battle is almost over, but characters are low on resources. Behind the screen the enemy's last desperate attack shows a crit. You know honoring it will kill a character. You know fudging it to a hit will bring the character to unconscious, and the players will manage to tidy up the situationion and patch them up.

Importantly: You know turning it from crit to miss via fudging will make the players feel the triumph of having won a deserved and hard fought victory against tough odds. In this scenario, how do acheive this particular feeling of triumph without fudging?

Yes, I know that feeling is false. Yes, I know if done excessively it will cheapen the game. Yes, I have long time ago decided I would never ever do this myself. But your claim seem to be that this could indeed be achievable without fudging - and in that case I really want to know how! More reliably providing this feeling is one of the things I have accepted I have to sacrifice for my stance. If that sacrifice is indeed unnecessary, that would really mean something to me.

 

[Enrahim]

You're welcome to have that opinion. But you claiming something is irrefutable doesn't prevent me from refuting it (or at least questioning it), because I don't recognize you as an authority on the behavior of "many, many GMs". Sorry. You make a claim that strongly, expect a request for proof.

Evidence produced:

 

[I'm A Banana]

Classic scenario: Battle is almost over, but characters are low on resources. Behind the screen the enemy's last desperate attack shows a crit. You know honoring it will kill a character. You know fudging it to a hit will bring the character to unconscious, and the players will manage to tidy up the situationion and patch them up.

Importantly: You know turning it from crit to miss via fudging will make the players feel the triumph of having won a deserved and hard fought victory against tough odds. In this scenario, how do acheive this particular feeling without fudging?

If I adhere to the rule of "don't roll dice when it doesn't matter," I am not even running that last round of combat. There's no risk, there's no uncertainty, there's no tension, this is just procedural. No one cares about the last straggler.

The feeling's already there. If the combat system is doing its job, the players are primed for this at the end of the fight. My job as the DM is to deliver it as soon as the question of "are they going to win this fight?" is resolved.

So if the fight's basically already over and there's some minor threats left to mop up, those threats disappear. They flee or surrender. Players get that sense of triumph and also get the empowering feeling of being able to decide the fates of these mooks.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Ok, now I am curious!

Classic scenario: Battle is almost over, but characters are low on resources. Behind the screen the enemy's last desperate attack shows a crit. You know honoring it will kill a character. You know fudging it to a hit will bring the character to unconscious, and the players will manage to tidy up the situationion and patch them up.

Importantly: You know turning it from crit to miss via fudging will make the players feel the triumph of having won a deserved and hard fought victory against tough odds. In this scenario, how do acheive this particular feeling of triumph without fudging?

To be clear, I honour the roll. What is the point of being a gamist when you do not honour the game.
The game + our homebrew rules have a whole bunch of get me out of jail options (even post death) so I don't feel bad if they never used them or were sloppy. If it's a climactic battle, then it makes sense in the fiction to have losses.

What I may do is take the PC aside and get their input into how they may want to play out this final scene and use that to make this loss memorable.

EDIT: I should add we've had plenty of safety nets as well with the players' main characters in the campaign - Simulacrum, deity/immortal intervention with a cost, duplicates due to timeline distortions. I've used death in ways to explore the Fugue Plane, City of the Dead, Wall of the Faithless, soul petitioners etc

 

[Enrahim]

If I adhere to the rule of "don't roll dice when it doesn't matter," I am not even running that last round of combat. There's no risk, there's no uncertainty, there's no tension, this is just procedural. No one cares about the last straggler.

The feeling's already there. If the combat system is doing its job, the players are primed for this at the end of the fight. My job as the DM is to deliver it as soon as the question of "are they going to win this fight?" is resolved.

So if the fight's basically already over and there's some minor threats left to mop up, those threats disappear. They flee or surrender. Players get that sense of triumph and also get the empowering feeling of being able to decide the fates of these mooks.

Nope. Big boss fight - the action is a big known slam that the players fear. The boss is down on 4 HP. You decided to not do a HP fudge no last hit, as you assessed the players could sweat little bit more to really earn the victory (and the last attack also was a relatively low roll boring attack, while you know they are lining up a great finishing move)

Your advice is relevant in that it helps against some swingy fudge provoking situations. But when it come to big triumph moments, there generally should be something clear denoting the point of victory. The GM suddently just going over to narration mode with no clear in fiction trigger just don't cut it.

This is similar to that in chess it is considered poor form to surrender when you see the opponent have a great forced mate in 3. Give the opponent the joy of actually say those coveted words.

 

[clearstream]

Its openness is precisely what makes it not a problem anymore. That it is a roll that could fail is, frankly, irrelevant.

Good point about the possibility of failing.

But your first sentence made me pause, because I don't think GM noticing the odds are overcooked and deciding to insert a reaction roll is necessarily subject to player scrutiny. It can be and I suspect often remains internal cogitation: players see the enactment but they may not see the deciding.

It can be part of GM's job to balance the risks and rewards.

Do you agree with that as an ends? And does deciding in secret matter from your perspective, if the enactment itself is in the open?

 

[Lanefan]

Ok, now I am curious!

Classic scenario: Battle is almost over, but characters are low on resources. Behind the screen the enemy's last desperate attack shows a crit. You know honoring it will kill a character. You know fudging it to a hit will bring the character to unconscious, and the players will manage to tidy up the situationion and patch them up.

Importantly: You know turning it from crit to miss via fudging will make the players feel the triumph of having won a deserved and hard fought victory against tough odds. In this scenario, how do acheive this particular feeling of triumph without fudging?

If the PCs are going to win anyway then in that case I wouldn't change a thing: the crit happens and the character dies. As a group they still get that same feeling of triumph of having won a hard-fought victory, only that victory came at a cost.

I'm referring more to a situation where three rounds into a battle the PCs are already in serious trouble and have barely laid a scratch on the enemy, they have no retreat or way out and are rapidly running out of rabbits to pull out of their hats; a TPK looks inevitable. Here it's occasionally* fun (particularly if the PCs have a Cleric among their number) to "fudge" by having a divine minion show up and somehow save the day.....and said minion might ask a favour in return at some later time.....

* - as in, maybe once every five or ten years, best done only after the players have forgotten the last time it happened.