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

[Maxperson]

Sure. I contemplated running Amber which is a RPG with absolutely no random determination in it at all (ultimately I didn't -- I prefer to not be the sole arbiter of success). Running it or making calls without resorting to dice in other games isn't fudging, Fudging is turning to a determination system and then overruling the result -- typically covertly. When making a ruling without turning to dice there is no misunderstanding. The table knows the situation and can question the rationale as desired and the apparent stakes aren't co-opted by the DM to his desires.

I've never played Amber, but I read the original rule set years ago. From what I recall, the DM isn't the sole arbiter of success. If you had a higher level ability at something, you won. If not, you lost. That's about all I remember, though, and I'll bet I'm missing some finer details.

 

[Nagol]

I've never played Amber, but I read the original rule set years ago. From what I recall, the DM isn't the sole arbiter of success. If you had a higher level ability at something, you won. If not, you lost. That's about all I remember, though, and I'll bet I'm missing some finer details.

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly how it works; there is no random element to success. However, the DM is wholly in charge of scene creation. What contests a PC participates in is based on the player's stated actions and GM whimsy.

 

[Maxperson]

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly how it works; there is no random element to success. However, the DM is wholly in charge of scene creation. What contests a PC participates in is based on the player's stated actions and GM whimsy.

I thought it was a mutual thing. I mean, if I start shadow walking to go to a world where everyone walks around in boxing gloves and starts fighting the nearest person when bells ring on the hour, then I've either created or participated in creating that scene. Again, I'm talking as someone who read partial rules many years ago, so my memory is spotty at best.

 

[Nagol]

I thought it was a mutual thing. I mean, if I start shadow walking to go to a world where everyone walks around in boxing gloves and starts fighting the nearest person when bells ring on the hour, then I've either created or participated in creating that scene. Again, I'm talking as someone who read partial rules many years ago, so my memory is spotty at best.

Sort of. One of the base play examples is one PC trying to contact another through Trump use. The GM had the other PC in the midst of dealing with a gale in the upper rigging of a sailing vessel and so the second PC refused the contact.

 

[Maxperson]

Sort of. One of the base play examples is one PC trying to contact another through Trump use. The GM had the other PC in the midst of dealing with a gale in the upper rigging of a sailing vessel and so the second PC refused the contact.

Point of clarification. The DM played the second PC and refused contact, or the second PC refused contact due to the gale that the DM created?

 

[Nagol]

Point of clarification. The DM played the second PC and refused contact, or the second PC refused contact due to the gale that the DM created?

The latter. The GM effectively forces a fail of the player conversation by having one PC hanging by his foot tens of feet above the deck in the midst of a gale when the call comes in.

 

[Maxperson]

The latter. The GM effectively forces a fail of the player conversation by having one PC hanging by his foot tens of feet above the deck in the midst of a gale when the call comes in.

I don't know, I think it would have been very cool to take the call and trump out of the gale, getting PC 1 all wet with rain and seawater.

I'm glad it was the latter, though. A game that lets the DM take over play of a PC from a player is not one I'd ever want to play.

 

[Hussar]

Yes it absolutely does. The justification hiding maps/stats is the exact same as fudging. Player enjoyment.



Maybe you're looking at a different poll. The one in this thread says that 77.54% of people fudge. Almost never = I fudge sometimes.

You missed the second requirement of the point about fudging. If fudging is perfectly acceptable, why do DM's think the players would get angry about it if they knew the DM was doing it. We can hide maps to our heart's content, players won't get angry about it. I've never once heard a player complain that the DM was hiding maps from him. I've certainly heard complaints about DM's hiding fudging.

There's two parts here. One, it's true, is player enjoyment. The other though, is that the players will get actively upset about DM's fudging. DM's are hiding the fact that they are fudging to prevent the players from complaining about it. OTOH, there is absolutely no hiding of the fact that the DM is hiding the map. We know and expect the DM to hide the map from us.

In fact, DM's who start changing map are equally held in poor regard - it's called rail roading when the DM changes the map in order to force a particular outcome. And it's seen as one of the worst things that DM's can do. If I have two doors out of a chamber, behind one is a very cool monster and the other is an empty room, and I decide that no matter which door the PC's open, the cool monster will be behind that door, that's rail roading, and most players will react very, very negatively to any DM doing that.

Really, what's the difference here? If I start changing the adventure in order to force a particular result, that's railroading and considered a pretty bad thing for DM's to do. If I start changing die rolls to force a particular result, why is that also considered rail roading? How can one be justifiable and the other not?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So you're saying it's wrong of me to hide my maps and monster statistics?

Nope. As I've said, repeatedly, here and elsewhere, there is a difference between actively preventing your players from acquiring information about something, and not openly stating absolutely everything.

It's perfectly fine to keep maps concealed, or partially concealed, up until such point as the players should in fact know the lay of the land. When their characters actually do in fact observe, for instance, the arena they're fighting in, do you keep those maps concealed, so you can secretly alter the layout without the players knowing that it's been changed?

It's also perfectly fine to not speak openly about a monster's statistics. To use an old phrase in an actually correct way: the proof of the pudding shall be the tasting thereof, or in this case, the proof of the monsters shall be in the fighting thereof. Once the monster is in actual play--"minis hit the map," for those who use such tools--then its numbers shouldn't change except by some kind of observable in-world action (whether your action or the players). Because those numbers will be tested ("proved" in the archaic sense) by the actions that occur in combat. Initiative, hit points, attack bonus, damage dice, save or defense values, etc.

The course of a fight is heavily controlled by how much information you can gain about your opponent, and how well you make use of that information. Changing that information on the sly rips the carpet out from under the players. They now cannot trust the information they've gathered--any part of it could be flat-out mistaken. Bad intel produces bad choices: garbage in equals garbage out.

Edit:
As for the "people only do it for player enjoyment," well, that's kind of a problem, isn't it? Because the secrecy is seen as a critical part of making it enjoyable in the first place. I can show people the full map of the area they'll be adventuring in, and it won't make a substantial difference in their enjoyment. I can show people the statblocks of the monsters they fight, and that won't make a substantial change in whether the fight is enjoyable or not. But numerous people--the plurality of the voters in this thread (not that I think any more highly of forum polls than you do, probably less!)--being told, before or after the fact, that the DM fudges rolls in combat WILL reduce their enjoyment. Reduce it enough to make them leave the game, even! It certainly would for me, if I found out the DM had been fudging and especially if I found out they'd been fudging after I'd point-blank asked them, "Do you fudge rolls?" or "Did you fudge any of the rolls in that combat?"

So even by the "for player enjoyment" standard, there DOES seem to be a difference. Merely useful for enjoyment, vs. legitimately critical.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If a table agrees that the DM is responsible for adjudicating actions/outcomes to run a campaign, it is hard to determine what is fudging and what is just playing the game.

And, I bet in most games, even DMs who say they don't fudge, do. What is fudging? Changing die rolls? Deciding situations without die rolls? Having foes run unexpectedly when all seems lost for the heroes? Handwaving the end of a battle because there are only a few badly wounded foes left to threaten the heroes?

That would be why I attempted to articulate a clear, consistent, and (relatively...) simple standard of what "fudging" is. Fudging is when you change something the players already "know" about, or that is under direct observation by their characters, without subsequently informing them of the change. Changing a map they've never seen and which hasn't been even remotely nailed-down in the fiction? No problem--the players haven't yet learned of it, and will be able to learn of it before it becomes relevant to the choices they make. Changing or removing an encounter before it happens? No problem, unless the players have good reason to expect a specific encounter setup at a specific location/time. Handwaving the last few rolls because the PCs have already won? Again, no problem--both the PCs and the players inherently must be aware of this happening, there's no possibility for deception or "pulling the [informational] rug out from under them."

What is most important seems to be that a DM be fair and make sure that player choices become meaningful for the campaign/adventure. Using dice is the main mechanism for decision making when an action is in doubt, but I bet a good DM can run a game without a single die roll as long as rulings are fair and take into consideration player agency. Would that be considered fudging?

No. I find it unlikely that a DM can be 100% perfectly impartial at all times, but an absence of die-rolls is neither inherently fudging nor inherently not-fudging. Simple example: group uses TotM combat, group goes to fight in a "Roman-style arena" (DM's exact words as part of describing the scene). Players naturally visualize something like the Roman Colosseum, e.g. something circular, with a recessed "pit" where the fighting happens and raised "seats" where the action happens. However, partway through, the DM decides it would be "more interesting" (that phrase...) if the central area is actually raised above a pit of spikes around the edge--and the pit is square, not circular--despite having intended her description to refer to exactly what the players imagined, a Colosseum-style fighting arena. Despite being purely non-numerical, I would call that "fudging," because it is giving the players reliable information, information the DM herself actually intended, only to subsequently "change" that information after the fact.

The "switching the murderer from the original suspect to the stable boy" example is another purely non-numerical instance of "fudging." Feeding the players correct, if circumstantial, evidence that the original suspect was the murderer, only to later switch away to some other thing. Players who were actually trying to "solve" the murder are thus stymied, because efforts they made in the past, which were correct efforts at the time, are now wasted and incorrect efforts.