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

[Miladoon]

If he's getting 2-4 TPKs per campaign, he's probably making encounters too tough, in order to provide a challenge, then fudging to prevent defeat - which means there wasn't really any challenge in the first place. Better to have easier fights that are a genuine challenge than fake difficulty IMO.

This is something that I was thinking about the other day regarding fudging at another level. When you create an encounter you create it towards the players/characters ability. But by doing so, a DM interrupts the flow of the world by creating little quest pockets that the rest of the world is somehow avoiding. I mean, is it not fudging to put higher CR creatures in a module made for low level characters? For me, the fantasy has to have some realism. Can you fudge fantasy realism?

 

[S'mon]

This is something that I was thinking about the other day regarding fudging at another level. When you create an encounter you create it towards the players/characters ability. But by doing so, a DM interrupts the flow of the world by creating little quest pockets that the rest of the world is somehow avoiding. I mean, is it not fudging to put higher CR creatures in a module made for low level characters? For me, the fantasy has to have some realism. Can you fudge fantasy realism?

I wouldn't call that fudging - it's easy to expand a term until it becomes meaningless.
That said, I find 5e really doesn't need tailored encounter design after the first few levels, it plays a lot like 1e AD&D that way.

 

[Miladoon]

5E is improved in that arena. But this poll is not a 5E poll. Unless you play one shots all the time, I think the term might apply to a DM building a campaign.

 

[S'mon]

5E is improved in that arena. But this poll is not a 5E poll. Unless you play one shots all the time, I think the term might apply to a DM building a campaign.

There's an old White Dwarf article which discusses "Scenario Design" vs "Environment Design" - "Scenario Design" being creating an adventure tailored to the PCs & their power level, the standard approach these days. "Environment Design" being the creation of a campaign environment with areas suited to a variety of PC levels, like the traditional Megadungeon or a West Marches hex crawl.

I don't think 'Scenario Design' can be considered fudging, but there is a phenomenon (most obvious in 4e) where opponent power strength varies widely depending on PC level rather than in-world role - 1st level PCs fight 1st level Zhentarim, 25th level PCs fight 25th level Zhentarim. I guess this can look a lot like 'fudging the numbers'. There is no reason for this in 5e (& NB this is the 5e forum); thanks to Bounded Accuracy you can use the same (eg) 5 hit dice Zhent soldiers at any PC level, just use more of them at higher levels.

 

[DEFCON 1]

For some DMs, fudging a number is as much a normal tool as any rule in the book. Because those numbers are no more important than any other to them. Story trumps mechanics.

 

[Maxperson]

If he's getting 2-4 TPKs per campaign, he's probably making encounters too tough, in order to provide a challenge, then fudging to prevent defeat - which means there wasn't really any challenge in the first place. Better to have easier fights that are a genuine challenge than fake difficulty IMO.

Potential TPKs due to bad luck only.

 

[Maxperson]

This is something that I was thinking about the other day regarding fudging at another level. When you create an encounter you create it towards the players/characters ability. But by doing so, a DM interrupts the flow of the world by creating little quest pockets that the rest of the world is somehow avoiding. I mean, is it not fudging to put higher CR creatures in a module made for low level characters? For me, the fantasy has to have some realism. Can you fudge fantasy realism?

I'm not talking about low level PCs vs. a high level encounter. The world should feel real, and that means encounters or potential encounters with creatures both higher and lower than the party level. I once had an ancient red dragon taking a light nap in the sun on a hilltop when a low level (1-3 level) group wandered by. It was enjoying the nap and was aware of them, but wasn't going to do anything. One of the PCs decided he wanted to sneak up and touch its tail. One TPK later...

I don't fudge or hold back when bad decisions are involved.

 

[Maxperson]

True. But, it also means that I won't get torn apart by some minor monster because you step in and stop it. That is the experience I am losing out on. And that is a far, for me anyway, more memorable experience than killing yet another kobold.

Not entirely true. If you make a bad decision in tactics, I won't fudge a thing.

I'm very much in the DM=Referee camp, so, we're going to have to chalk this one up to play style differences. Once you get into the "rules are only guidelines" territory, you're well into the country I don't want to play in anymore.

Fair enough. I house rule the game to make it better. Some people like to follow the rules exactly. I don't like games that follow RAW and refuse to deviate, either. Fortunately, it's easy to find people with like views so we can both be happy

I don't doubt that you believe this. That's what confirmation bias means.


I had a situation where the people observing the same events that I was came up with a totally opposite conclusion based on their perceptions of the situation and it wasn't until I proved it both beforehand with math and afterwards with empirical evidence that lined up almost perfectly with the math I presented that I could cut through that perception. So, claims about how you can "gauge encounters very, very accurately" are something I take with a huge dose of salt. I don't know you, and aren't at your table. But, the experiences you have are not jiving with the presumed math of the game or the displayed math in this thread, so, I'll stick to the statistics thanks.

You're choosing to believe someone who has exhibited extreme confirmation bias. He has great bias against fudging and has blatantly picked math that doesn't have anything to do with what we are discussing here in order to confirm his bias......and yours.

He chose multiple 20's in a row. Something nobody here requires or needs for the situation in order to artificially increase the odds. Then he added in more extreme missing than is required. Again to artificially increase the odds. Then he picked some campaign of non-existence where for some reason there are only ever 2 creatures in an encounter. Yet again, to artificially increase the odds. You're doing exactly what you said your friends did. You are looking at numbers and not seeing the truth due to your own bias. His numbers are less accurate than 1+1=2.

You shouldn't be talking to me about confirmation bias when you yourself clearly can't get past it right here in this thread.

The fact that you haven't provided any math or statistics to back up your claims is painfully obvious. The fact that you can't back up your claims with statistics leads me to believe that your perception of the situation is far more "gut level" than anything and thus, very suspect.

You're claiming that 2-4 times per campaign (which you STILL haven't defined in terms of hours played and numbers of encounters) you need to step in to "fix" the math to make it more fair. Yet, you have not provided any actual facts to support that claim. How many players do you have? How many encounters, roughly, encompass a single campaign? Are we talking dozens of encounters or thousands? Or somewhere in between? What kind of encounters do you generally use? Single big monsters, lots of little monsters (my favoured style personally), high magic, low magic, lots of house rules or fairly close to RAW?

Your claims leave a LOT of unanswered questions, many of which can result in higher numbers of times you need to fudge. You're the one making the claim that you need to step in. And then you're stepping back and saying that we shouldn't question that need - that your DMing abilities are so beyond reproach that we should just automatically trust that you needed to step in when you did.

Unlike Ezekial, I'm not going to invent fictional numbers in order to try and support my side of things. I don't know exactly how many encounters I have over a campaign. It varies. I don't know exactly how many creatures in total they encounter. It varies, but I can say that it is very, very frequently more than 2. How many attacks is that? Heck if I know, but most monsters have more than 1 attack unless we're talking lots of orcs or something. My campaigns go level 1-20, so there are a lot of mid to high level multi-attack monsters out there.

Sorry, not buying it. @Ezekial Raiden showed math that, in fairly common encounters, the number of times you should need to step in are exceedingly rare. Certainly a lot less than 2-4 times per campaign. It's up to you to justify fudging AFAIC.

Your confirmation bias is showing. You should cover it up

 

[Miladoon]

There's an old White Dwarf article which discusses "Scenario Design" vs "Environment Design" - "Scenario Design" being creating an adventure tailored to the PCs & their power level, the standard approach these days. "Environment Design" being the creation of a campaign environment with areas suited to a variety of PC levels, like the traditional Megadungeon or a West Marches hex crawl.

I don't think 'Scenario Design' can be considered fudging, but there is a phenomenon (most obvious in 4e) where opponent power strength varies widely depending on PC level rather than in-world role - 1st level PCs fight 1st level Zhentarim, 25th level PCs fight 25th level Zhentarim. I guess this can look a lot like 'fudging the numbers'. There is no reason for this in 5e (& NB this is the 5e forum); thanks to Bounded Accuracy you can use the same (eg) 5 hit dice Zhent soldiers at any PC level, just use more of them at higher levels.

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..."

 

[rollingForInit]

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.