D&D 5E To fudge or not to fudge: that is the question

[iserith]

Maybe the GM wants Darth Vader to be an epic bad guy, but Luke rolled a high charisma check to persuade Darth Vader to change sides. I'm not going to increase Darth Vader's resistance to charisma checks just because I didn't like the die roll result.

And Luke's player doesn't get to make a check just because he or she tries to be persuasive anyway. It's just a failure, no roll.

 

[Imaculata]

Maybe the GM wants Darth Vader to be an epic bad guy, but Luke rolled a high charisma check to persuade Darth Vader to change sides.

Since when does the player decide if he should roll for something? Isn't it the job of the DM to say if he should, or should not roll for his charisma attempt?

In which case, as Iserith pointed out, you simply don't ask for a roll, and declare it a failure.

I'm not going to increase Darth Vader's resistance to charisma checks just because I didn't like the die roll result.

This is a poor example. Here is a good one: The players fight against an enemy which they should be able to defeat with ease. But due to insanely bad luck, the players keep rolling 1's, and the DM keeps rolling 20's for his monsters. The players are starting to get annoyed, and clearly feel that this isn't fair.

Now you could just roll with it, and accept the fact that your group of players gets absolutely butchered in an encounter that they should have been able to handle. And that's a perfectly fine way to handle it. Some DM's play this way, and I have nothing against that.

Or, you could change some of those crits to normal hits. This is something that I'm not against either. I've done it on rare occasion.

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

I fudge on occasion, primarily due to time constraints or to give the party a fighting chance. I try to prevent deaths of first-time players so that they don't leave with a bad experience. As an AL DM, player retention is vital to keeping the program alive at my FLGS.

If I ask a player how many HP they have before telling them damage, it usually means that RNGesus wanted me to strike them down in one shot but I choose not to. Of course, the pendulum swings both ways. Players who piss me off severely may find a couple extra points of damage added to the roll if it will drop them. RNGesus giveth and He can taketh away.

In the case of skill checks, I will give an answer of uncertainty to those who miss by 1-2. "You don't see any outward traps, but your gut is telling you to tread carefully." "Your recollection of X is hazy, but you do remember hearing something about Y that could relate to X."

 

[S'mon]

Very few groups would be entertained by the outcome of a strict adherence to the dice. Some gamists are probably fine with losing they're playing pieces to a lucky crit from a kobold, but even most simulationists would probably cop to random and sudden death being a bit annoying. Ditto to one-round kills against the BBEG that comes from pure chance, rather than good planning.

While I have been 'annoyed' by the random & sudden death of my PC in poorly designed games
like 3e & PF where a x3 critical hit will kill most low level PCs outright (worse in no-raise
dead campaigns and in campaigns where it seems genre inappropriate), I still prefer that to fudging the dice results. Better yet would be to change the rules to something that works better, like 4e & 5e crits.

IME changing the rules to make PC death less likely is fine, most players support that sort of houseruling. Fudging by contrast is a breach of the social contract and is unwelcome, most players IME find it annoying and harmful to their enjoyment of the game. If there are large numbers of players who welcome fudging I have never met them, whereas I have seen campaigns destroyed by fudging.

 

[Maxperson]

If fudging were that horrible and destructive, 79% of those polled here would not be doing it. It's not whether you fudge that makes something bad. It's how and why you fudge. Bad DMs will fudge badly, using it as a beat stick to punish players. Good and average DMs will use it as a tool to enhance enjoyment or to avoid gross unfairness that occasionally results from random die rolls.

 

[Cody C. Lewis]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]

I think that is a good point. Gradation may be the key concept here.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't understand why you need to fudge.

Hypotheticals:

1) Players are bored; GM wants the fight to be over so that we can do something that will be more interesting. Instead of having players insta-kill the monsters on their next to-hit roll, the monsters could flee, surrender, feign death, etc. No fudging required to end the fight. You can also just hand-wave the fight narrartively and say, "the PCs defeat the party of orcs" without rolling dice.

2) Monsters are winning the fight and/or going to reduce one or more players to zero hit points and GM doesn't want players to die. D&D allows you to have people reduced to zero hit points be unconscious, the monsters don't have to kill enemies if they don't want to.

And so on. There are plenty of options for the GMs to accomplish what they want to. No need to modify monsters or die rolls during the fight.

I personally see no difference between having monsters flee and fudging a roll to have them die one attack sooner. They are both accomplishing the same exact thing-- ending an inevitable conclusion quicker.

I just don't have the same worship at the altar of the almighty die roll that many other players seem to have. Dice rolls are just tools like every other part of the game. They are used to create excitement, joy and fun for the people at the table.

Maybe the GM wants Darth Vader to be an epic bad guy, but Luke rolled a high charisma check to persuade Darth Vader to change sides. I'm not going to increase Darth Vader's resistance to charisma checks just because I didn't like the die roll result.

Not the best example I don't think. I would tend to believe that most DMs who fudge wouldn't do this at the time of the check. They would have already put in the stat block of Vader that all CHA checks to influence him are at Disadvantage. Or even more to the point... as the BBEG not have Vader able to be coerced by CHA checks to begin with (except in the case of magical coercion, in which case Vader might possibly already be statted to be immune to Charm effects.)

 

[Pvt. Winslow]

Sometimes I think it's not whether you Fudge that's the issue, it's whether you get caught fudging that's the issue.

Lots of DMs at some time or another have altered an outcome or roll, to increase the fun at the table, lengthen or shorten a combat, or anything in between. However, I know from experience that tons of players dislike finding out the DM fudged, even if it was on their behalf. It can cheapen a victory, or feel like betrayal if it led to a loss. I've found that just like some posters have said, deciding whether or not the roll is needed in the first place is the better plan. Most players I've gamed with are more okay with being told something just succeeds, or fails, then if they find out you let them roll, but their roll result was ignored in favor of whatever you decided.

Like they say, all a player has control of is their own actions. When a DM gives the player the chance to make a roll, the player feels like they're making a choice. If they find out that the DM already has decided what would happen, or changed the result, they can feel like that choice was taken from them, or was a lie from the start.

So, in essence, there's a lot of reasons to Fudge or not to Fudge, but I think the most important thing is to make sure your players don't realize you're doing it.

 

[iserith]

Sometimes I think it's not whether you Fudge that's the issue, it's whether you get caught fudging that's the issue.

Lots of DMs at some time or another have altered an outcome or roll, to increase the fun at the table, lengthen or shorten a combat, or anything in between. However, I know from experience that tons of players dislike finding out the DM fudged, even if it was on their behalf. It can cheapen a victory, or feel like betrayal if it led to a loss. I've found that just like some posters have said, deciding whether or not the roll is needed in the first place is the better plan. Most players I've gamed with are more okay with being told something just succeeds, or fails, then if they find out you let them roll, but their roll result was ignored in favor of whatever you decided.

Like they say, all a player has control of is their own actions. When a DM gives the player the chance to make a roll, the player feels like they're making a choice. If they find out that the DM already has decided what would happen, or changed the result, they can feel like that choice was taken from them, or was a lie from the start.

So, in essence, there's a lot of reasons to Fudge or not to Fudge, but I think the most important thing is to make sure your players don't realize you're doing it.

I largely agree, but I don't like to mislead my players. If I was going to fudge, I'd just tell them that I do it and why, then seek their buy-in.

 

[Pvt. Winslow]

I largely agree, but I don't like to mislead my players. If I was going to fudge, I'd just tell them that I do it and why, then seek their buy-in.

That's a very honest way of doing it, and I'll bet many players would appreciate knowing. Transparency between DM and Player is a great way to build trust. I've recently stopped fudging entirely, as I've started an open policy. I use Roll20 so all my rolls are in the open, and I even go so far as to tell players the AC of monsters after a few attacks and the DC of checks beforehand so they can have more information for their decisions. I give out perks to players for playing to their characters personality and mannerisms instead of always taking the most optimal approaches, and they seem to enjoy it. Not for every group, but I'm glad mine is full of good friends.