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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scott Christian" data-source="post: 9543449" data-attributes="member: 6901101">It's ok to call me out. But read what I wrote please. The DM that spends more time prepping their encounters will have less problems with swingy dice rolls - which is what this is all about. The fact that people try to semantically parsnip fudging dice rolls because of game mechanics is silly. If I spend 1 minute and roll an encounter on a random table and then throw up some impromptu terrain vs spending 30 minutes calculating how to challenge the players and make the fight interesting and balanced - 30 minutes wins everytime. (And to be clear, we're not talking about some seventeen-year-old that is DMing their first campaign. They're going to faulter like everyone else has.)As for making people feel inferior, that is "their" feelings. And I would posit those feelings can come from many places - one might come from knowing if you spent more time creating balanced encounters you wouldn't have to fudge dice rolls.And if you go back to my earlier post, I specifically stated that there are players and groups that are fine with them. It fits their table's playstyle. And that's cool. Nothing wrong with that. What I have consistently argued against is the fact that D&D needs fudging. It does not. There are way too many preventative measures (and mechanics) that negate the need for a DM to lie to their players about their dice rolls. Just so we are clear, my claim is not rolling behind the screen is bad or means you are fudging your rolls. My claim is D&D doesn't need to be fudged, especially if you spend time preparing encounters. That's the entire claim. That is not what I mean at all. I wrote that DMs that need to fudge (and therefore always roll behind the screen instead of always out in the open) haven't done the prep work I have seen other DMs do. I laid out some numbers: 500 encounters with 4 DMs, and they always manage to get it right. (Three of them roll in the open.) Who Knows, maybe a fudging DM always has more suspenseful battles than the ones I have played in? That could be true, and it could be an argument for fudging. But it doesn't negate the fact that D&D does not need to be fudged. This says nothing really of rolling behind a screen. Some DMs (and players) feel it builds suspense. That's valid.</blockquote>

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