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

[Maxperson]

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.

I would not fudge that. Sometimes victory comes at great price and a last desperate attack from a dying enemy strikes true.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

The difference is that a simple fact would break the spell.

I mean, consider: "The feeling of having a friend that actually would backstab you if it would be helpful to them, but you fully believe would have your back through thick and thin". Would you not say that that feeling is false, even though the lived experience of that person (until they learn the truth) is one of great friendship. (I use this example because I've, unfortunately, had it happen twice in my life. Only two times ever is a pretty good rate I'd say.)

Or consider: "The feeling of having saved someone from danger when you didn't, but you fully believe you did". Would you not say that this feeling is also false, in this case, a form of false valor? I like this example a little bit better than the previous because there could be many cases where nobody can prove either way that the feeling-haver did or didn't save the deceiver. And the deceiver might even be doing it for a noble reason, like trying to give a self-confidence boost or whatever. But ultimately, that valor really is false, and the feeling produced by that lie really is different from a feeling that is both held, and actually true.

Hence, a player deceived into believing they earned a deserved victory, is not actually feeling the feeling of winning a deserved victory. They are feeling victorious feelings, yes; and in the absence of more information, they'll have the same response to both stimuli. But the feelings are different because the facts are different. They may personally have the visceral response of triumph in that moment, sure. But just as the blue light of an LED is different from the blue light of a star, even though both may be perfectly tuned to primarily output in the 450 nm range (the latter by accident, of course), the false feeling of victory is different from the true.

The truth always matters. We must be very careful--it is, after all, a terribly sharp sword--but it should always be our aim.

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?

I'm not entirely sure. My stance is: there is a difference between a feeling that reflects the factual state of affairs, and a feeling which does not reflect the factual state of affairs, even if the feeling-haver is certain that their feeling is correct despite it being incorrect.

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

Unfortunately, yes, I do think this. Really wish we weren't though.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

That the thing might occur more often in absolute terms is irrelevant to me. I was speaking of frequency. As in, the frequency of GM fudging is, assuredly, higher than the frequency of player fudging, even if the absolute count of fudging-instance moments is higher for players than GMs. GMs are simply subject to more temptations (as in, literally having things they can fudge that players can't, and rolling far, far more things than players do), and reap, or at least appear to reap, substantially greater rewards for doing it.

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.

I mean, I understand the temptation to do a lot of things that I believe people should not do. I feel those temptations myself quite frequently. That doesn't mean I then decide that it's okay just because a lot of people, myself included, feel tempted to do it. I'd even say that my favorite characters are moral paragons who very much DO feel every temptation we all feel--and yet choose to always do the right thing, every time.

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.

One important element I make sure to include with the "surrender is always an option" thing, is that enemies actually take surrender seriously, in both directions.

That is, if the PCs were to surrender, it would take a really, really, REALLY awful person to then just execute the PCs at that point. I can't think of anyone that horrendously evil in my Dungeon World game. And then, symmetrically, when NPCs surrender, they take it seriously. Unless the party is cruel or hurtful to them while they're at the party's mercy (which my players have not done and almost surely would never do), they're going to take seriously any promises they make to not cause harm to the PCs, even when they aren't under the PCs' direct influence anymore.

More or less, it's easy to say "surrender is always an option", only to then make it actually a non-option because 100% of surrendering foes WILL betray the PCs the moment they get the chance. It's one of the unfortunate ways that many GMs (no idea if it's a great many, but it's certainly far too many) train their players to be unrepentant murderhobos.

 

[Maxperson]

Woot! A new tangent!

The real question is, would you fudge to railroad your players into making their own decisions?

 

[Maxperson]

When I am a player, I support the DM and if the DM feels the need to fudge to make a better game for me and the rest of the players, so be it. I don't feel betrayed, it's been part of my roleplaying experience since I started. It has changed in nature, sure, today the DM rolls the dice in the open for greater suspense, which we didn't when we got started.

Of course, there is a spectrum here, as in everything. But we don't normally fall on the extremes of that spectrum, so it all works out in the end.

The real response by me now.

Fudging gives the situation a different feel than changing things out in the open does. I'm not talking about deception, per se. Rather, that even if all the players are on board with being saved if the dice gods come out and smite them hard, while supporting me immensely and they didn't do anything wrong, it would still feel like the DM saved them which alters the feel. They want to and agree that saving is warranted, but it still feels weird.

This is similar to real life where I think we've all been in situations where we couldn't and wouldn't do something differently, but still feel bad about how things turned out.

Fudging is the above situation, but it also avoids the weird feelings of an impartial DM not being impartial, even though the partiality is warranted in that situation. The saving should be done, as should sparing the awkwardness.

 

[Enrahim]

The difference is that a simple fact would break the spell.

I mean, consider: "The feeling of having a friend that actually would backstab you if it would be helpful to them, but you fully believe would have your back through thick and thin". Would you not say that that feeling is false, even though the lived experience of that person (until they learn the truth) is one of great friendship. (I use this example because I've, unfortunately, had it happen twice in my life. Only two times ever is a pretty good rate I'd say.)

Or consider: "The feeling of having saved someone from danger when you didn't, but you fully believe you did". Would you not say that this feeling is also false, in this case, a form of false valor? I like this example a little bit better than the previous because there could be many cases where nobody can prove either way that the feeling-haver did or didn't save the deceiver. And the deceiver might even be doing it for a noble reason, like trying to give a self-confidence boost or whatever. But ultimately, that valor really is false, and the feeling produced by that lie really is different from a feeling that is both held, and actually true.

Hence, a player deceived into believing they earned a deserved victory, is not actually feeling the feeling of winning a deserved victory. They are feeling victorious feelings, yes; and in the absence of more information, they'll have the same response to both stimuli. But the feelings are different because the facts are different. They may personally have the visceral response of triumph in that moment, sure. But just as the blue light of an LED is different from the blue light of a star, even though both may be perfectly tuned to primarily output in the 450 nm range (the latter by accident, of course), the false feeling of victory is different from the true.

Ok, fine. When I have used the words "feel" and "feeling" here, I have been referring exclusively what it appear you recognice as "visceral response". It didn't occur to me that the word could have any wider meaning in the sense you here present.

So with that clarification in place, are we fully on the same page?

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

I would let the crit stand, personally. Mostly for authenticity, but it has the nice narrative bonus if suggesting a "final effort" strike on the enemy's part right before it goes down. Fair and cool.

I'm not interested in manufacturing moments of triumph for the PCs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Evidence produced:

Fair enough. Thanks for engaging.

Too bad, IMO.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Sounds like there definitely was risk, though, in the scenario described.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Ok, fine. When I have used the words "feel" and "feeling" here, I have been referring exclusively what it appear you recognice as "visceral response". It didn't occur to me that the word could have any wider meaning in the sense you here present.

So with that clarification in place, are we fully on the same page?

Sure.

I don't think that a feeling in that sense--a visceral response--is of such dire import that it ever justifies the falsehood. Is it sad that there are a few rare situations where, if only we could act dishonestly, we could otherwise have everything positive we want and nothing negative that we don't? I mean, I suppose so. But I'm very very much of the opinion that pining for the few great things we might theoretically get with just a tiny bit of scrupulous deception aren't worth the cost of, y'know, being deceptive.