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

[abirdcall]

There might be a bit of confusion here.

I know that I have personally had to put effort into getting players out of the habit of asking for checks instead of performing actions.

The stealth check is a perfect example. I have had players that say, I sneak through the hallway (or wherever) and immediately pick up and roll a d20.

It's a bit frustrating to stop them, especially when their die comes up high.

They say they are sneaking so they are sneaking. If something might detect them and it is in doubt (which it usually would be) then I will call for a roll, from one or both parties depending on circumstances (the other party would use their passive score if not rolling).

They may just automatically fail. This isn't common but there are ways for it to happen. An example would be if a creature saw them before they started sneaking and they remained unconcealed from that creature due to its special abilities.

 

[Hussar]

You suggested players say something like, "Can I make a strength check to break open this door?"

I would answer such a question by asking how they go about breaking open that door because without that information I cannot determine whether the attempt is successful, unsuccessful, or has an uncertain outcome. Only in the case of the latter, will I ask for an appropriate ability check.

My response would generally be, "What do you mean how? I break the door down. Ummm, with my shoulder I guess?" Never minding other checks where you can't really answer that question like stealth for example. "Well, I'm being very quiet" is hardly an answer.

It's the players that feel entitled to request and be granted ability checks that may be upset when the DM rules outright success or failure, given the player's stated approach to the goal in the context of the fictional situation.

Why wouldn't players feel entitled to make the request? Nothing in the game suggests that they shouldn't. Everything in the game points to the idea of stating a goal and then making the check. Sure, a DM can simply rule success or failure, but, IMO, that's going to lead to a very frustrating game and strays pretty hard into "Mother May I" territory where the players have to game the DM rather than actually play the game.

IMO, a DM should strive to be as invisible as possible. I never want to think, "Well, I think we should take prisoners to interrogate them, but, I know the DM will simply rule that they won't give us information, so, buggerit, kill them all."

 

[iserith]

My response would generally be, "What do you mean how? I break the door down. Ummm, with my shoulder I guess?" Never minding other checks where you can't really answer that question like stealth for example. "Well, I'm being very quiet" is hardly an answer.

The specificity of the approach will vary depending on the goal and fictional situation that is unfolding. But you have at least told me that you're not using a tool of some kind - you're using your shoulder. I can now decide whether it's even possible to successfully use your shoulder to break down this particular type of door. If it's heavily barred from the other side or comprised of stone, then perhaps you just fail outright. If it's a rickety wooden door that's barely on the hinges, perhaps you succeed outright. If it's somewhere in between, perhaps I'll ask you to make an ability check. If you, on the other hand, ask to make a check, you're telling me that the outcome is uncertain... which isn't your role as a player.

Why wouldn't players feel entitled to make the request? Nothing in the game suggests that they shouldn't. Everything in the game points to the idea of stating a goal and then making the check. Sure, a DM can simply rule success or failure, but, IMO, that's going to lead to a very frustrating game and strays pretty hard into "Mother May I" territory where the players have to game the DM rather than actually play the game.

I used to make this same argument until it was made clear to me that gaming the DM is an act of bad faith by the players. They should certainly rely upon the DM's reasonably consistent rulings and description to make decisions, but the players have no recourse to the rules. They only describe what they want to do (Basic Rules, page 3). The DM decides whether there is uncertainty as to the outcome and brings rules into play to resolve it. (Per the rules, the players can ask the DM if a particular proficiency applies to an ability check, however.)

IMO, a DM should strive to be as invisible as possible. I never want to think, "Well, I think we should take prisoners to interrogate them, but, I know the DM will simply rule that they won't give us information, so, buggerit, kill them all."

If the enemies will not willingly give up information, then I think the DM should telegraph that fact in the fiction somehow e.g. "The cultists of Vecna are known to chew off their own tongues when captured." If no such telegraphing has been introduced, then you have every right to believe that interrogation is a possibility and the DM should, in my view, honor that.

Bringing this back around to the topic of fudging, it's been made pretty clear to me via the various discussions on the subject that fudging appears to arise from DMs putting the rules rather than their own judgment first. When the rules and dice produce an outcome they don't like, they are tempted to fudge. By putting the DM's judgment first and applying rules only when there is uncertainty, the temptation to fudge goes away.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Why wouldn't players feel entitled to make the request? Nothing in the game suggests that they shouldn't. Everything in the game points to the idea of stating a goal and then making the check.

Stating an action. Not quite the same thing as a goal. The DM then decides how to resolve the action.

Sure, a DM can simply rule success or failure, but, IMO, that's going to lead to a very frustrating game.

It all depends on how the DM uses it. Ironically, avoiding frustration with that kind of thing is something you can do by taking more of the resolution behind the screen and 'fudging' (making a placebo roll, for instance).

IMO, a DM should strive to be as invisible as possible. I never want to think, "Well, I think we should take prisoners to interrogate them, but, I know the DM will simply rule that they won't give us information, so, buggerit, kill them all."

'Gaming the DM' is a fact of gaming. That 5e DMs are so much more 'Empowered' than in 3.x/4e, makes it a potentially more rewarding way to metagame, but it's not like it forces anyone to do it.

 

[Maxperson]

[MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] and [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]

We're going to have to agree to disagree on what Rulings over Rules means for 5e. 1e, 2e and 3e were all rulings over rules systems. The DM had the ability to add, subtract or change any rule he wanted, as well as make rulings when the rules didn't cover something adequately.

When you use "rulings" the way you two suggest, at best the rules are unreliable and at worst they are useless. Players shouldn't be looking at rules that are at best unreliable because you can't trust that they will do what they say they do in any given action.

In my opinion, the Rulings Over Rules motto for 5e is there to show DMs, especially new DMs that they can and should engage in activities that many DMs have been engaging in since 1e. They just made it easier to understand and be okay with.

 

[rollingForInit]

Only the DM can decide if the outcome is uncertain. There is nothing in the game that is always uncertain. It may certainly be the case that hitting a defending creature will generally be ruled to have an uncertain outcome, as well as any resulting damage from a successful hit - it is in my games - but it's not always the case.

Of course. But generally, monsters are designed to have the chance to kill players, correct? And if in general, that's how you play, and if you generally follow the rules which means that ranged attacks can't knock someone prone ... And then design an encounter where enemies do normal ranged damage, and then just when you notice that someone would die from a crit, change all of those premises, then you're altering the rules to prevent a PC death. It's the same as fudging the dice.

Which, again, isn't bad in any way, assuming the scenario that was previously discussed (first 1st level encounter). But there's no real difference.

What would be different is if you designed that first encounter with melee-only enemies that don't want to kill people, and only had the goal of knocking the party down and stealing their belongings, or something along that line. That would be very different from fudging the dice. But changing your mind about the premise of the encounter when someone is about to die, is not.

 

[Imaculata]

Besides, a roll you make isn't the sort of thing the DM will typically 'fudge.' "Nah, that's not a 16, it's a 4," isn't very credible. More likely it'd be taken behind the screen.

Not directly perhaps. But if a monster or npc has to make an opposing check, and the DM fudges that roll, that is something I do not accept as a player. Sure, it's possible that the monster rolled a 20 on his perception check. But how often in a row does that happen?

I have had the displeasure in the past of playing a campaign with a DM who seemed to think that it was him versus the players. Like it was some sort of competition, where only his monsters and his npc's were supposed to come out on top. And we all had the feeling like he was fudging constantly.

That's kind of the point. 5e, like classic D&D, delivers some of its 'feel' by keeping players in the dark. The DM gains degrees of freedom from that, he can see what the players do and how things develop before deciding on how he's going to narrate certain details.

That's not really what is under discussion here. When we talk about keeping the players in the dark, I think of stuff like the story, secret doors, plot twists, traps, that sort of thing. Of course the DM is supposed to keep things a secret. But what we are discussing here is fudging: Which is basically a minor form of cheating on the part of the DM.

If a group isn't comfortable with that, they need to figure it out early on and settle on table conventions - make house rules and 'standing rulings' about how various things will be resolved ahead of time, and stick to them so that things can play out reasonably well above-board. Hopefully there's a few things such a group could handle being behind the screen (monster stats, for instance, or at least, monster hps) or handled off the cuff by DM ruling, so the DM will have /some/ latitude.

To me there's a huge difference between keeping monster stats a secret, and fudging. The first is expected of the DM, the second is discouraged.

 

[iserith]

Of course. But generally, monsters are designed to have the chance to kill players, correct? And if in general, that's how you play, and if you generally follow the rules which means that ranged attacks can't knock someone prone ... And then design an encounter where enemies do normal ranged damage, and then just when you notice that someone would die from a crit, change all of those premises, then you're altering the rules to prevent a PC death. It's the same as fudging the dice.

Which, again, isn't bad in any way, assuming the scenario that was previously discussed (first 1st level encounter). But there's no real difference.

What would be different is if you designed that first encounter with melee-only enemies that don't want to kill people, and only had the goal of knocking the party down and stealing their belongings, or something along that line. That would be very different from fudging the dice. But changing your mind about the premise of the encounter when someone is about to die, is not.

Again, your position is based on rules first, DM judgment second. That is backward in my view and more appropriate to other editions of the game rather than D&D 5e. Fudging is when you bring the rules and dice into play, then ignore or change the result they give you. In the example under discussion, the rules you are suggesting are being changed are not being brought into play at all because there is simply no uncertainty established by the DM as to the outcome of that successful attack.

 

[rollingForInit]

Again, your position is based on rules first, DM judgment second. That is backward in my view and more appropriate to other editions of the game rather than D&D 5e. Fudging is when you bring the rules and dice into play, then ignore or change the result they give you. In the example under discussion, the rules you are suggesting are being changed are not being brought into play at all because there is simply no uncertainty established by the DM as to the outcome of that successful attack.

But who says that the dice have to follow the rules? If you improvise fights and attacks and monsters all the time to get a desired result, you can do the same with dice, and just see the dice as a guideline. "Oh, max damage, so maybe I won't kill the character even though the PC should die, I'll just almost kill the PC instead, since it was high damage".

 

[Maxperson]

What would be different is if you designed that first encounter with melee-only enemies that don't want to kill people, and only had the goal of knocking the party down and stealing their belongings, or something along that line. That would be very different from fudging the dice. But changing your mind about the premise of the encounter when someone is about to die, is not.

I want to play a game where things make sense, and a game where creatures can just decide that deadly arrows are harmless and can't kill is ludicrous. It's bad enough that a PC using a melee weapon can re-wind time and decide that a dead creature is only knocked out AFTER the damage is rolled and it dies. That's why I house ruled that a PC with a melee weapon has to be trying to knock a creature out before he attacks, and you still can't do it at all with ranged.