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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6783043" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Er...yeah, if people mean to include "fail forward" in "fudging" then there's a huge disconnect of definition here.Things I do not consider to be fudging:- Fail Forward- Changing an encounter before it happens/the combatants appear- Deciding a roll isn't necessary- Granting a situational bonus/penalty (for whatever reason)- Having a combatant retreat, or use sub-optimal tactics- Allowing a character other than the one who reduces an enemy to 0 HP to be the one that "kills" itThings I do consider to be fudging:- Secretly modifying any stats of a creature/object, without in-world justification, once that creature/object has been instantiated- Rolling a die, and then deciding to ignore its meaning- Presenting information about a person, place, or thing, and then later, secretly modifying that informationAll of the former things are either (a) behaviors of actors "in the world," and thus a perfectly cromulent place for things not being universally consistent, or (b) information that the players could not yet know, and thus "changing" it has no impact on the players' ability to make choices. The other big things I'll note are the secret and without in-world justification aspects of the fudging thing. If you make these changes openly, and people don't mind? Well, more power to you, though my (largely unfounded) belief is that they won't be fine with it. But it's perfectly fine to modify something's stats, if there is a reason why those stats would be modified, even if you don't explicitly call it out. It doesn't even necessarily need to be a reason the players already know of, but it needs to be one they could have known about in advance of the change, if they'd tried to find out. In a real pinch, I MIGHT--and I stress *MIGHT*--allow a situation where the act of changing the stats is announced, becoming the way that the players learn about this effect, but I hesitate to give even that an endorsement.The big, big things I care about are players being empowered to make informed choices, and players being able to rationally adapt their future choices (both in terms of character-build, and in terms of actions-in-encounters, combat or not) based on the results of their past choices. If their information can change beneath their feet, even in their favor, they can no longer make informed choices--you have denied them that ability. If the consequences of their actions are ultimately controlled by what you as a DM "like," rather than ultimately following from their choices (including, yes, a bit of risk-assessment due to the presence of randomness!), you have denied them the ability to rationally adapt to those consequences, regardless of whether those consequences are good or bad. They cannot "learn" how to play well, nor how to avoid unwise play, because the real determiner of victory (or defeat) is "What do I as DM want to see happen right now?" and not "What is the resolved consequence of this situation?" The DM just happens to want to see what the dice say, some of the time.Edit:Another way of putting my issue here is the way people present a lot of their example stuff. Like the Thief who gets a one-HP-less-than-the-guard's-max roll, or...say a Bard whose player comes up with an awesome, stirring speech and gets a nat 2 for the Persuasion check. In every single case, the presentation is something like, "I asked for a roll, to see what happened. Then, when I saw what happened, I ignored it." If the play is sufficiently "good" that you will ignore a failure and only consider success, don't ask for a roll. It's that simple. Only ask for a roll when you ACTUALLY think there's a possibility of success AND a possibility of failure, no matter how small either one is. If there's no meaningful chance of success, then just don't roll--say it fails, or (better yet) advise the player that that idea sounds unwise, preferably through some in-character information (e.g. "You know how to read people, even if you aren't really trying, and this guard doesn't look like the kind easily fazed by honeyed words, though you do notice that his gear seems a little worse for wear, as though he's had trouble maintaining it.")And, as I noted above, if it would be more dramatic for Player X to land the killing blow on BBEG #1, rather than Player Y, don't narrate Player Y as killing them! Make the "killing blow" ACTUALLY a story event, outside the bounds of combat, so that it doesn't matter whether Player X or Player Y drops them to 0 HP. You won't be denying Player Y anything they would have retained under the "fudging" method, but you'll avoid denying their ability to make informed choices and to adapt for future challenges. You also avoid needing to juggle numbers in your head, or hide rolls from the players. As far as I can tell, nothing is lost, but something meaningful is gained.</blockquote>

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