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

[EzekielRaiden]

I think we are agreeing in all the premises and the conclusion. I think the only thing that seperates us might be this one sentence.

I acknowledged the core you seem to put into it in my first post in this exchange:


However even if the feeling is based on a deception, the feeling is felt.

Keeping the deus ex machina hidden makes me the only one at the table not feeling the joy.

By revealing the deus ex machina, I know the players get a more authentic experience, but I also bereft them of that joy they could have felt if I hadn't done so.

This is a trade off. I have arrived at the same conclusion as you have for myself. But this has not been an easy choice. The thing we chose away is something I recognise has a real value for many.

I have had deep conversations with people indicating that they beyond doubt would prefer to be deceived. Who am I to say that their preferences is wrong? I can just decide that I myself am not willing to pay the price of providing them the experience they say they prefer.

So they very much can have that feeling, even if it is false.

I just don't think that a false feeling can be...well, really had. Because...it's false. That's just what it being a false belief means?

 

[Enrahim]

Thus, while an unpleasant experience for those involved, it was a very important learning experience: Don't have magic-using enemies with disintegrate in a one-shot, because it's much too likely to create a severe downer ending that tarnishes the experience. Using disintegrate at all involves careful application of various extremely important GM skills, like reading the room and getting the measure of one's players. That's very hard to do in a one-shot format.

As a side note. I find this part a bit funny. This was an official WotC adventure. Hope someone over there are taking notes

 

[Enrahim]

I just don't think that a false feeling can be...well, really had. Because...it's false. That's just what it being a false belief means?

I would think the world would have been a much better place, if it hadn't been possible to have false beliefs...?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

As a side note. I find this part a bit funny. This was an official WotC adventure. Hope someone over there are taking notes

I have played official WotC adventures which include extremely difficult save DCs (IIRC it was DC 17-18?) against an effect that, if not passed, literally guarantee that your character is useless for the next month.

Wise design has not been a priority at WotC for at least a decade.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I would think the world would have been a much better place, if it hadn't been possible to have false beliefs...?

The belief is actually had. But the feeling isn't what they think it is. Again, you have repeatedly emphasized that the joy arises from having a "deserved" victory, when it isn't. That very specific thing, as far as I'm concerned, is an overtly harmful thing the GM should not cause. The alternative is better, even if painful, just as (for example) lying to a person that you love their cooking when you really don't is worse than being honest, but doing so as kindly as you can, or expressing how you think they could adjust their cooking so you would like it.

 

[clearstream]

What is the difference between "oh crap, that roll was max damage, I'm...just going to pretend the dice were average" and "oh crap, that roll was max damage, I'm...just going to pretend that the monster has a -5 damage modifier instead of whatever positive modifier it has." Or even "I'm going to pretend that the dice were d4s rather than d10s." Modifying a monster mid-combat, without diegetic justification (and thus a justification that is reasonably learn-able by the players, even if they coincidentally end up not learning of it) has identical effects to replacing its rolls with different rolls. I think the only possible exception is specifically to do with crits, but even then there are ways that modifications end up doing the same thing. It'll just be a more roundabout way.

My intuitions on this are so far similar. Your example of changing the monster's damage modifier to -5 shows how it can be comparable. The monster crits, but fails to deliver a killing blow because its damage modifier is changed in midsession.

There's a discernible conflict between GM's role in sustaining enjoyable play, and game design and GM functional limitations. Sometimes the way system plays out will be to the detriment of everyone's interests, and not in a way that adds anything desirable to play. If a group sees it as part of GM's role to spot problems and course-correct in live, as I think many do, then GM ought to remedy such problems.

I suppose that makes it an ends and means sort of problem. The ends could be something everyone agrees with. Permissible means is probably down to praxis, but I believe designs could be assessed on what tools they offer to support that. Caveated that the putative "problems" to solve needs validation, e.g. I don't know that monster critical hits are necessarily a showstopper in 5e because they will rarely deal Massive Damage: thus, Death Saving Throws and tier-2 revival magic will mean that death is not the end.

 

[Enrahim]

The belief is actually had. But the feeling isn't what they think it is. Again, you have repeatedly emphasized that the joy arises from having a "deserved" victory, when it isn't.

How would you describe "the feeling of having had a victory that wasn't actually deserved, but you fully believe was deserved"? I have a hard time seeing how this feeling would be different from "the feeling of a deserved victory"? As such, I have been using the latter, shorter form to describe the feeling involved.

edit: As such, I have not meant to imply where the feeling is actually coming from. The cause of the feeling I have described in detail with language I think you would find sufficiently precise?

That very specific thing, as far as I'm concerned, is an overtly harmful thing the GM should not cause. The alternative is better, even if painful, just as (for example) lying to a person that you love their cooking when you really don't is worse than being honest, but doing so as kindly as you can, or expressing how you think they could adjust their cooking so you would like it.

And on this we agree. (Though I get the impression we are in a minority)

 

[AlViking]

Either at ENworlds, or at all other RPG forums, I have never seen anyone defending a player fudging die rolls as something positive.

Other people have pointed to DM guides indicating that fudging is acceptable. Several GMs here and in other forums have indicated the circumstances they themselves are OK with fudging.

You can pretend that there is no evidence that DMs fudge more than players, but you are holding others to a standard of evidence that you do not hold yourself too.

Moreover, it comes across as trying to shut down another poster for raising a point you dislike.

The reason I think players fudge more than DMs is simply a numbers game. Let's say that 1 in 10 DMs fudge now and then while 1 in 25 players do. Basic math tells me that if you look at 10 tables you'll have on average 1 fudging DM and 2 fudging players. I have no clue what the ratio is of course.

While I don't care for DM fudging, it also has different motivation most of the time. A DM fudges because they don't want to kill off characters, a player judges to win the fight. I know I'm tempted to fudge now and then as a player just another +1 here or not Marking off a lower level spell slot there. I don't but I understand the temptation.

In any case we can go back and forth on this all weal want. For me? I don't fudge. I may not always use killer tactics. Some monster may retreat if they're also badly hurt, especially animals. Surrender or running away are frequently an option. Oh, and he'll may be close to freezing over because @EzekielRaiden and I seem to agree on something, at least in part.

 

[Pedantic]

I mostly see this particular fudging example as more evidence that critical hits are a bad general mechanic that is specifically targeted at making high variability things happen to players. They should be a fairly limited class feature, tied to whatever trait is providing PCs with protagonistic focus, or not included.

 

[Maxperson]

For what its worth, I saw a lot of GMs talking about doing it back in the OD&D days though. Most of them at least claimed they were doing the thing Nevin said above and fudging to backstop really bad die roll chains, but if they were willing to do it there, its hard to see as a given they wouldn't do it for other reasons if they told themselves they were benign.

I think the bolded part is certainly the case. That's the only reason that I do it, which ends up happening every 1-3 years. The reason it's that rare for me is that it not only has to be really bad chain of rolls(good for me and bad for the players), but also that the players haven't made any bad decisions to get there as well. If they've put themselves into a bad spot and the dice gods are angry at the same time, I'm not going to fudge things.

To go along with @nevin and yourself, I've seen a lot of it happen for those reasons over the years. I think the 5e rules were put into the book to reflect a fairly common practice, rather than to sanction something not that many engage in.