D&D General The Problem with Talking About D&D

[EzekielRaiden]

There are a million ways to adjust encounter difficulty. When does it become “fudging”?

Secretly altering the values generated by dice that have been rolled or the numerical statistics of a monster that has already entered the active play space (e.g., it has entered combat). "Secretly" is vital; as noted, diegetic modifications are perfectly acceptable, so long as they can be discovered.

Everything else, I agree, is too greyscale to make hard and fast rules. But the above? Those are objective and binary. Either you respect all die rolls, or you do not. Either you never modify creatures in a secret way, or you do at least sometimes do so. Hence why I gave my definition of "fudging" earlier in the thread.

 

[Hussar]

So it is only adjusting numbers?

I mean that’s one definition but doesn’t seem tiki e withwhat I was responding to. After all my decision process was purely meta level.

 

[beancounter]

I agree that the need to change monster stats on the fly is an indication that the DM didn't balance the encounter well. However, the players will eventually get bored if ever encounter is a cakewalk, or discouraged if they get keep on getting TPKed.

 

[Jahydin]

Appreciate all the feedback and thought on it all night, but I guess for me it just seems like an arbitrary line in the sand when the DM is allowed to change things. I understand the need to preserve the game world's logic and be a neutral arbiter, but up until the specifics actual become reality to the players, I don't see any point in handcuffing yourself.

Orcs have 2d8 + 6 HP, can wear a variety of armor, and wield a variety of weapons. As long I don't exceed these parameters and keep them constant once "observed", in game logic is kept.

If I roll a random encounter of 6 orcs, then in the heat of combat, I decide rather than use the average of HP value of 15 and AC 12, I'm going to go with 20 HP and AC 13 and ham this guy's description up to get my players pumped, I've not only haven't broken any game logic, but I just made my random encounter a tad more interesting and exciting. And again, the players were fairly rewarded with extra XP.

And I just want to point out, we are specifically talking about 5E here. I appreciate the fact you all are so amazing you can perfectly balance every encounter (especially high level), but IME, 5E combats are so wishy-washy to begin with, having any sort of reverence for the math is kind of funny to me.

 

[pemerton]

Appreciate all the feedback and thought on it all night, but I guess for me it just seems like an arbitrary line in the sand

<snip>

And I just want to point out, we are specifically talking about 5E here.

If the game is a "hidden information" one of the sort I've described upthread, then the line is not an arbitrary one.

I don't see any real reason why 5e D&D couldn't be played as a "hidden information" game similar to some classic approaches to D&D. The Yawning Portal book even converts some of the most famous modules associated with this play style!

 

[Jahydin]

If the game is a "hidden information" one of the sort I've described upthread, then the line is not an arbitrary one.

I don't see any real reason why 5e D&D couldn't be played as a "hidden information" game similar to some classic approaches to D&D. The Yawning Portal book even converts some of the most famous modules associated with this play style!

I reread your "hidden information" comment and don't see any difference in our playstyles. Like I said, as long as changes aren't made after the factor is "observed", then for me it's okay.

In your example, if the party's ranger scouted ahead to see who was in the orc party, that is the time it would be appropriate to "solidify" weapons, armor, and if any of them looked like a "leader". Once combat starts, I agree changing those things would hurt emersion.

 

[Jahydin]

In a way, this reminds me of the hidden factors in video games that I think many would considering "cheating". If they can do it, why can't DMs!?

To name a few:

• Shadow of Mordor grants additional health to dueling Uruks to increase the length of the fight for the sake of spectacle.
• Assassin's Creed and Doom have more health associated with the last tick of the health bar, to make you feel like you barely survived.
• Ratchet and Clank scaled enemy damage and hid enemies based on time played and total deaths of the player.
• Enemies in some LEGO games have a hit or miss chance. If a projectile misses, it's offset and has no collision. This is done to make fights more hectic.

 

[DND_Reborn]

But my reason for the monster running away was mostly about pacing - we’d spent a lot of time in combat and I wanted to change pace. Also I had a sliver of an idea that the monster might now become a recurring villain.

I can in game justify the decision however I like but I’m honest enough to admit that my decision was not driven by any “in game” knowledge.

So, am I fudging now?

I really thought I was fairly clear before, but since you asked again I'll reiterate:

You made the decision based on the narrative of the scene which is exactly what the DM is supposed to do. You didn't establish the parameters of the world (the monster's AC and HP, for instance, along with attack modifiers, damage, saves, and such) and then decide to arbitrarily change those parameters on the fly simply because the challenge wasn't going how you wanted it to. That would be like a sport's referee changing a call on the field simply because the game wasn't going the way he wanted. The players would not like it and I doubt the fans would, either. (Sure, your D&D players might like if you ruled in their favor, and if they know you are doing that and ok with it, then there is no issue.)

A non-number example would be this: a monster's motive might be, clearly, to eliminate the threat to itself (the PCs). Yet, because you simply don't want a TPK and the players are too stubborn to flee, surrender, negotiate, etc. you decide instead to have the "winning" monster retreat to spare the PCs. Clearly, the monster would push on to defeat the PCs, but your meta knowledge of the PCs' condition and likelihood of a TPK made you decide to "spare them".

Now, that isn't necessarily "fudging" (a term more appropriate to numbers and changing die rolls), but it is along the same lines IMO. I play the protagonists as the world dictates (and my imagination of course) they would act. Now, if a monster is toying with the PCs, then retreating and giving them time to recover before confronting them again would make sense---I did this in my 1-20 level campaign, with the BBEG wizard actually used a wish to raise a defeated PC from death--just to kill him again later on!

I hope that is clearer?

 

[Fifth Element]

I mean...I explicitly referred to doing it in play ("once battle is joined," which I said twice) so it feels more than a little unfair to skewer me on "but clearly this can happen BEFORE play!" Statistics that haven't entered play yet are not inviolate. I have no problem with that. I am specifically and exclusively talking about modifying a creature's statistics or rolls during combat.

And I explicitly noted that the fact that "battle has been joined" does not mean a particular combatant's combat-related stats have been interacted with yet. Adjusting the AC of a combatant has not been attacked yet, for example.

But this doesn't address my real point. I'm not arguing whether doing such a thing is a good idea or not. I was addressing the fact that you called it cheating, which is an extremely loaded word with implications of the morality of the act. That's what I'm talking about. You can say that you don't think DMs should do it, that it's better if they don't, but calling it cheating takes it to a whole 'nother level.

Again, I reject this. I have never--not one single time--needed to fudge a single roll or secretly alter a single creature's stats, in four years of gaming (with a fair number of "we need a week off" breaks now and then, but definitely not a full year's worth of them). It is not necessary to do this, and it is absolutely deceptive to do it.

No one needs to do anything as a DM. But there are many things that can be done to improve the game experience for some people. Maybe this is one of them?

Coleville himself openly said he will fake dice rolls so he can "prove" that the die "really" rolled what he said it did, even though it didn't. That is actively deceptive and, thus, cheating.

I flatly reject the idea that "deceptive" and "cheating" are synonymous. DMs till tend to do all kinds of things that could be described as deceptive, as part of the game to make it more interesting.

 

[Fifth Element]

You can’t fix a problem until you recognize that it exists.

You also can't fix a problem that's illusory.