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

[Miladoon]

I fudge occasionally, but only to increase the fun for players, never because they "beat" my plan or because I dislike what they're doing. For instance, if I were playing with 1st level characters, there's an ambush, and the goblin rolls a crit on the first shot and instantly kills the low-hp character ... I'd probably fudge the roll so the character is knocked unconscious instead of dying outright.

I wouldn't fudge because I think it'd be more fun for me, or because they're beating an encounter too quickly or they're doing something I don't want them to do. There are much better ways to handle those situations.

That is kinda funny. I ran Lost Mines of Phandelver as a solo game for a D&D newb. We didn't have time to get the crew together. We spent about an hour and a half making a character and going over rules. At the goblin ambush he fought with one goblin. Was he supposed to die because of the dice. Yes. Did he...No! I didn't want him to think that people that play D&D are all sick, twisted, and essentially sadistic. We finished the session and he had a blast.

 

[iserith]

The text for the goblin ambush at the start of Phandelver calls for downed PCs to be knocked out and robbed rather than killed, so you didn't really need to fudge. Though I like my write-up better.

I would also note that it is a lot easier to pull the trigger and kill PCs if you're already prepared for the aftermath, such as by having back-up characters at the ready.

 

[Miladoon]

Good point. But still.

EDIT: Your write-up is very creative.

 

[billd91]

Do you honestly think that people's anecdotal evidence is anything other than confirmation bias? I don't.

You need to be aware of the possibility, but to assume it's nothing but confirmation bias is pretty insulting.

So, no, I don't believe anecdotal evidence over math. No one should. Back of the envelope calculations are often far, far more accurate than what someone "sees" at the table.

That depends a lot on the assumptions being made by the person doing the back of the envelope calculations.
But ultimately, I trust the DM's assessment of the mood at the table and their assessment of the pacing of the adventure over back of the envelope calculations of someone who isn't there.

 

[thalmin]

OK, I answered "No, never." But I need to qualify that. Yes, I fudge when I am doing a demo or otherwise teaching a new player. A new player should not have his first character die, at least not in the first game or two.
But in my campaign, I can't fudge, as my die rolls are all in the open (unless they need to be hidden, such as skills checks or saves where the party should not yet know if monster succeeded or failed).

 

[S'mon]

I wanted to try something fun and run my older B1-12 modules with 5E. Instead of converting them before the game started, I moved my sliders around during the game. According to the definition, I fudged. The good thing is, I won't have to fudge again when I play them again with 5E. That was not just creating DCs on the fly and raising/lowering HP. I fingered treasure hoards, too.

I know the theory is not solid but there are some considerations. Do your random encounters make sense? Do you reroll a random dungeon result? I mean, 3 unguarded treasure vaults in a row is pretty sweet. What about that player that has a 'build'. They need that +2 Glaive to be roxxor. Does that weapon just kinda show up next plunder? How do you determine XP awards? Do you have to kill exactly this many monsters to gain a level? I typically just announce to everyone at the end of session how much xp they get.

EDIT: Oh I thought of something funny but forgot to add it. I picture a Boromir meme..."One does not simply walk into 5E without fudging..."

To me 'fudging' means the changing of task-resolution results after the die roll. I wouldn't
call any of the above fudging, although I don't 'drop' loot to fit a PC 'build' (is that a thing
in 5e?) and I definitely prefer to calculate XP rather than assign it arbitrarily - but even then the 'quest award' XP amounts based off PC level are pretty arbitrary I guess. But the wisdom of
tailored loot and arbitrary XP is a different question from task-resolution fudging.

Re monster stats & conversions, I agree it can be a grey area when you're converting on the fly during the game. Sometimes it just comes down to mindset - if I am giving the orc 13 hit points to
ensure it dies or doesn't die from a particular blow, that looks like fudging.

 

[Miladoon]

... although I don't 'drop' loot to fit a PC 'build' (is that a thing
in 5e?)...

I recall a heated debate on the WoTC boards about player entitlement and DMs being jerks. It is probably more of a niche thing. Truth be told, if I am watching a player put feats into a build, I might throw them a bone if they have been a trooper about it. Maybe not if they get all whiney, tho.

Its interesting to see how players respond to weapons that they don't want. I have a perfectly good +1 trident sitting back at the plundered crypts.

 

[Rhenny]

If a DM is good at improvisation and has contingency plans, and can run NPCs/monsters using a variety of motivations/reactions, there is no need to fudge die rolls.

Additionally, the DM needs to know his/her players well so that all of the improve, contingencies, monster motivations/reactions work for them.

Sometimes death happens and even a TPK might happen. If I pre-think the possibility of that occurring, I can usually react and give the players what they want as a result. In some cases, the PC dies and the other PCs have to find a way to raise him or her, or the player just decides to play a new PC. I've had a number of players enjoy their PCs death and use it as an opportunity to move on and try something new. In other cases, a world event or an npc/monster/god happens to provide an answer or path to take that helps the PCs reestablish their party for a cost.

I used to fudge rolls, but grew out of it as I became a more experienced DM. Now, if I fudge, I bend the narrative (usually with some input from the players involved), and any narrative bending always keeps in mind the overall story that makes up the campaign. If it makes a better story, and the players will buy into it, it works.

 

[Hussar]

You need to be aware of the possibility, but to assume it's nothing but confirmation bias is pretty insulting.




That depends a lot on the assumptions being made by the person doing the back of the envelope calculations.
But ultimately, I trust the DM's assessment of the mood at the table and their assessment of the pacing of the adventure over back of the envelope calculations of someone who isn't there.

See, I don't. The DM is far too involved to be anything but biased. That was the point of my little anecdote a few pages back where no less than six other people at the same table as me couldn't see past their own gut feelings, despite being shown pretty clear math beforehand until such time as I had to actually track the damage and present it after the session. People playing are far too involved to be an unbiased observer. [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] pretty much admits that he isn't tracking things very closely - he doesn't know how many monsters he's using, he doesn't know how many rounds combat usually takes, he doesn't know a lot of the actual details - just his gut feeling that he needed to adjust the math 2-4 times/campaign (a still very nebulous concept since he hasn't defined what a campaign is for him) to avoid a TPK.

In my experience, this shouldn't be needed. I've never needed to adjust the numbers to avoid a TPK in the last ten years. That's through 3e, 4e AND 5e. So, we have two anedotal bits of evidence - one claims that you need to adjust the numbers to avoid TPK's and another that says, nope, the numbers are fine the way they are.

Woohoo, dueling anecdotes. Absolutely meaningless and totally unuseful. If you cannot back up the claims with a bit of math, then the claims can't actually be reproduced and are therefore meaningless.

The fact that 40% of the people responding in this thread feel that fudging is something they do without any qualifiers, means to me that there are a lot of DM's out there who really need to brush up on some statistics classes. That or they are defining fudging really, really broadly. My question to anyone who does fudge is, why do you feel the need to fudge? Are the numbers coming up that often? Why are these outlier numbers coming up so often?

Look, for my group, we generally play about 50x3 hour sessions per year (probably a bit less, maybe 45, but, work with me here, this makes the math easier). Now, we run fairly short sessions, so, generally, in 5e, we're getting in about 3 combats per session. That's 150 combats per year. Figure 4 rounds/combat, which is about right for 5e. That's 600 rounds of combat/year. Again, presume 10 attacks from the baddies per round, giving us 6000 attacks per year.

Anything that is less than 1 in 6000 might occur in that space, but, is increasingly unlikely. A TPK from a standard encounter (since an overwhelming encounter is SUPPOSED to kill PC's and we don't have to worry about that according to [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]) requires that the PC's miss more often than usual and the baddies hit more often - right? Standard encounter means that the PC's have about a 50-60% hit chance. The baddies should hit about the same, maybe less, say 30%. Now, work out the chances that the PC's will miss so often and the baddies hit so often that it results in a TPK. That's a heck of a lot less than 1 in 6000.

Now, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] is saying he needs to step in 2-4 times per campaign. He still hasn't stated how long that is. How many hours of gameplay are we talking about. For my back of the envelope calculation, 1 year of gaming is about 150 hours of play. So, we need to know how many hours of play he considers to be a campaign so we can do comparisons. If a campaign is 10000 hours of play, then fair enough, 2-4 times to fudge probably isn't a big deal - it's just such a huge sample size that it's very likely to come up. But, if a campaign is closer to 200 hours of play, then it would be extremely unlikely that, barring changes to the rules or possible user error, you would need to step in that many times.

So, to sum up, no, I don't trust DM's perceptions of the game over the math. I've seen far too many posters try to pass off incredibly unlikely events as "evidence" to prove their point. And, just like always, when you point out that the odds of their events actually occurring are extremely remote, they get all annoyed that I'm trying to "disprove their experience." Sorry, just because you say you experienced something is not good enough. I refuse to play duelling anecdotes. Back up your point. Time after time after time, people try to pass off anecdote as proof. The plural of anecdote is not data.

 

[Maxperson]

See, I don't. The DM is far too involved to be anything but biased. That was the point of my little anecdote a few pages back where no less than six other people at the same table as me couldn't see past their own gut feelings, despite being shown pretty clear math beforehand until such time as I had to actually track the damage and present it after the session. People playing are far too involved to be an unbiased observer. [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] pretty much admits that he isn't tracking things very closely - he doesn't know how many monsters he's using, he doesn't know how many rounds combat usually takes, he doesn't know a lot of the actual details - just his gut feeling that he needed to adjust the math 2-4 times/campaign (a still very nebulous concept since he hasn't defined what a campaign is for him) to avoid a TPK.

I don't need to track things closely. During an encounter if things go south, I am aware of it. It happens 2-4 times a campaign.

The fact that 40% of the people responding in this thread feel that fudging is something they do without any qualifiers, means to me that there are a lot of DM's out there who really need to brush up on some statistics classes. That or they are defining fudging really, really broadly. My question to anyone who does fudge is, why do you feel the need to fudge? Are the numbers coming up that often? Why are these outlier numbers coming up so often?

Again, they aren't. The math shown to you is a pile of absurdity. That you ignore how absurd it is and maintain that it shows something that it doesn't, just means that you are guilty of what your 6 players were guilty of. Confirmation bias. You are staring at the math and denying it in favor of your bias.

Look, for my group, we generally play about 50x3 hour sessions per year (probably a bit less, maybe 45, but, work with me here, this makes the math easier). Now, we run fairly short sessions, so, generally, in 5e, we're getting in about 3 combats per session. That's 150 combats per year. Figure 4 rounds/combat, which is about right for 5e. That's 600 rounds of combat/year. Again, presume 10 attacks from the baddies per round, giving us 6000 attacks per year.

Anything that is less than 1 in 6000 might occur in that space, but, is increasingly unlikely. A TPK from a standard encounter (since an overwhelming encounter is SUPPOSED to kill PC's and we don't have to worry about that according to [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]) requires that the PC's miss more often than usual and the baddies hit more often - right? Standard encounter means that the PC's have about a 50-60% hit chance. The baddies should hit about the same, maybe less, say 30%. Now, work out the chances that the PC's will miss so often and the baddies hit so often that it results in a TPK. That's a heck of a lot less than 1 in 6000.

Now, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] is saying he needs to step in 2-4 times per campaign. He still hasn't stated how long that is. How many hours of gameplay are we talking about. For my back of the envelope calculation, 1 year of gaming is about 150 hours of play. So, we need to know how many hours of play he considers to be a campaign so we can do comparisons. If a campaign is 10000 hours of play, then fair enough, 2-4 times to fudge probably isn't a big deal - it's just such a huge sample size that it's very likely to come up. But, if a campaign is closer to 200 hours of play, then it would be extremely unlikely that, barring changes to the rules or possible user error, you would need to step in that many times.

I run games weekly for about 6 hours a session. A couple sessions a year don't happen for one reason or another. Call it 50 sessions a year, so 75 sessions for a typical campaign. 450ish hours. Now, I'm exceptionally good at gauging encounters and my players like a big challenge, so I will often design a single encounter to push their limits, rather than have 3+ encounters a night. When you have 3+ encounters a night, the extreme bad luck that I am talking about (not the absurdity that Ezekial put forth) won't mean much other than using up some extra resources. When you're as good as I am at gauging what the party can handle, there is little room for bad luck and the extreme bad luck that you won't notice in your much weaker encounters will be devastating to my players' PCs.

That's probably why I see it and you're blind to it. My encounters are designed differently. They aren't too hard, but they have little room for the more extreme variances that will be encountered during a typical campaign.