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

[Maxperson]

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.

Some players will get upset, others will not. The main reason I don't say anything, though, is that it happens so very rarely that I don't want the players constantly wondering if I am fudging or not. Even though when I do fudge it always raises enjoyment, that wondering, even if they are 100% okay with fudging, will distract them from the game and that distraction will have a negative effect on enjoyment.

Not telling them = a guaranteed net increase in enjoyment. Telling even people who are okay with it = a net decrease in enjoyment, even when the actual fudging increases the enjoyment of that scene.

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.

If you've been paying attention to the railroading threads, not all railroading is bad. It depends on what it is, what the purpose is, and player buy-in. Not all fudging is bad, either. You are trying to apply absolute standards to something that is not absolute. That's why your arguments break down.

 

[Nagol]

Some players will get upset, others will not. The main reason I don't say anything, though, is that it happens so very rarely that I don't want the players constantly wondering if I am fudging or not. Even though when I do fudge it always raises enjoyment, that wondering, even if they are 100% okay with fudging, will distract them from the game and that distraction will have a negative effect on enjoyment.

Not telling them = a guaranteed net increase in enjoyment. Telling even people who are okay with it = a net decrease in enjoyment, even when the actual fudging increases the enjoyment of that scene.



If you've been paying attention to the railroading threads, not all railroading is bad. It depends on what it is, what the purpose is, and player buy-in. Not all fudging is bad, either. You are trying to apply absolute standards to something that is not absolute. That's why your arguments break down.

I used to have a DM who thought like that.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

You're fighting a monster that I have written down as AC 15 and 80 hit points. You roll a 19 on the die and do 12 points of damage to it. If I then change the AC to 16 and the hit points to 90, no rug has been pulled out from under you. You still would have hit for the same damage, so what you have experienced has not changed. You could not determine the AC or hit points of the creature from the roll, so the information you received and that you are going to use as informational still tells you the exact same thing after my change. Your don't have enough intel to make a choice that is any better or worse from from the first set of stats vs. the second. No rug has been pulled out from under you.

Now, if you had rolled a 15 and hit and then I changed it to 16 so you later miss, THEN your argument that the rug was pulled out from under you would have some merit.

As for the "people only do it for player enjoyment," well, that's kind of a problem, isn't it?

No. Increased player enjoyment is never a problem.

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.

It would ruin my enjoyment and the enjoyment of many others.

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.

It would ruin my enjoyment and the enjoyment of many others

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.

And for numerous people it wouldn't reduce their enjoyment of the fudged fight.

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?"

Er, yay? You've just shown that people are different and that you don't like fudging. However, people are different and other people do like fudging.

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

No. Your examples showed nothing of the sort. Revealing maps and monster stats ruins the enjoyment for many people. Fudging does not ruin the enjoyment of the fight for many people. They are essentially the same with regard to enjoyment.

 

[Maxperson]

I used to have a DM who thought like that.

He was correct

 

[Nagol]

He was correct

Not for me. I take issue with the level of... paternalism inherent in the belief as it applies to me and my happiness. Luckily it is a self-correcting problem.

 

[Maxperson]

Not for me. I take issue with the level of... paternalism inherent in the belief as it applies to me and my happiness. Luckily it is a self-correcting problem.

How? You would never know. I fudge about 2-4 times over a two year campaign played weekly and I'm smooth. The extreme bad luck required to throw the game out of whack so that it breaks happens very, very rarely. There's no way for you to ever figure it out.

 

[Nagol]

How? You would never know. I fudge about 2-4 times over a two year campaign played weekly and I'm smooth. The extreme bad luck required to throw the game out of whack so that it breaks happens very, very rarely. There's no way for you to ever figure it out.

ROFL people are never as clever at hiding it as they think. Like I said I used to have a DM like that.

 

[Maxperson]

ROFL people are never as clever at hiding it as they think. Like I said I used to have a DM like that.

30 years and no one has figured it out yet. I'm sure you're the exception, though. People always think they are.

 

[Imaculata]

I tend to be very open about when I fudged, and when I didn't. For example, when a cannibal was about to kill a level 1 player character, I had the cannibal try and drag his unconscious body into the jungle instead. This gave the party the opportunity to catch up with the cannibal, and save their unconscious friend.

I explained why I did it (I thought it as more interesting story-wise), and my players agreed with my decision. I also discussed with them how one of our fellow players had a tendency for suicidal behavior, which I tried to discourage. This sometimes meant I had to fudge a little, to prevent an outright death of his character (which has happened about 4 times in the campaign now). But I also explained to them that this did not mean that I would prevent all deaths, just the ones that felt unfair, or due to a player's clumsiness. I often try to offer an opportunity for the players to recover from a mistake, but if they mess that up too, then it really is game over.

For example, the very same player had a random encounter with 4 Aswang (vampire-like bat creatures with a stun ability). Instead of just running, he decided to fight them, which he was sure to lose. A poor decision on his part, but I can't blame him entirely for overestimating his own abilities. So I made a secret roll to see if there was a chance the local guards would be able to hear his plight. I made a listen check fair and square, and had a paladin of the local church come to his aid who succeeded on his Listen check.

It still was a pretty close battle, and both him and the paladin almost bit the dust. But they were victorious in the end, and heavily wounded. I was being pretty lenient by having the paladin show up. While it made sense story-wise, and considering how close he was to a church, it still was a case where I fudged things a bit more in his favor. I figured this was also an excellent opportunity for me to introduce a new npc, which would shine a more positive light on an organization that the players disliked.

I discussed this and the other example with my players a few weeks ago, and we talked at great length about when it was alright to fudge, and when it wasn't. I explained how I always fudged in their favor, to maximize fun, and never in the favor of the villains.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You're fighting a monster that I have written down as AC 15 and 80 hit points. You roll a 19 on the die and do 12 points of damage to it. If I then change the AC to 16 and the hit points to 90, no rug has been pulled out from under you. You still would have hit for the same damage, so what you have experienced has not changed. You could not determine the AC or hit points of the creature from the roll, so the information you received and that you are going to use as informational still tells you the exact same thing after my change. Your don't have enough intel to make a choice that is any better or worse from from the first set of stats vs. the second. No rug has been pulled out from under you.

Now, if you had rolled a 15 and hit and then I changed it to 16 so you later miss, THEN your argument that the rug was pulled out from under you would have some merit.

Still pulls the rug out from under me because my abilities cannot work consistently in a world that isn't fixed. Until I actually "encounter" something (observe it, witness it, am told sufficient detail about it, etc.), whether it's fixed or not doesn't matter. But once I have encountered something, e.g. a monster in a fight, a world that retcons at any and every instance where the DM isn't pleased with the results--whether that's every fight or one in a thousand--my abilities, my choices, my results are no longer in any meaningful way under my control. The DM is deciding how things work. Sure, sometimes, even most of the time, they decide that the way I think they work is the way they should work. But any number of times where they don't work that way destroys the whole thing, because, as I've said repeatedly, it makes YOU--the DM--the one who's REALLY in control of everything, even what my character can accomplish. YOU decide. YOU dictate. YOU control. I have no control, except the allowance you oh-so-graciously grant me, except when it doesn't please you to do so. That you are a benevolent dictator doesn't mean you aren't a dictator, one who tells what is.

No. Increased player enjoyment is never a problem.

Oh come off it. Really? I was saying it was a problem that you use that to argue your point. Not that player enjoyment is a bad thing. Now I'm starting to wonder if you're actually arguing in good faith.

It would ruin my enjoyment and the enjoyment of many others.

It would ruin my enjoyment and the enjoyment of many others

Oh? Then how on earth can you ever enjoy the game, once you've read the DMG? You've seen the stats of dozens, hundreds, perhaps even thousands of creatures. Odds are pretty damn close to 100% that, for any given fight, you know EXACTLY how it works. Does that mean becoming a DM has "ruined forever" your ability to play? I feel bad for you if that's true, but I strongly suspect it isn't.

And for numerous people it wouldn't reduce their enjoyment of the fudged fight.

No. Your examples showed nothing of the sort. Revealing maps and monster stats ruins the enjoyment for many people. Fudging does not ruin the enjoyment of the fight for many people. They are essentially the same with regard to enjoyment.

Okay. Show me. Show me how "many"--I don't even need a majority, I don't even need a plurality. Show me ANYONE else who has their enjoyment of the game TOTALLY COMPLETELY THOROUGHLY DESTROYED by getting a map or a seeing a statblock. I look forward to it.

Because for me, fudging--of ANY kind--DOES totally, completely, thoroughly destroy my enjoyment of the game. Hence why it would make me walk--if I'd ever knowingly experienced it.