D&D 5E Would you change a monster's hit points mid-fight?

[Greg Benage]

I guess my point is, I don't see much difference between swaying the game via a DM's roleplaying or exposition (which all DMs do whether they mean to or not) and swaying the game with some creative accounting.

I wouldn't change an NPC's personality, motivations or goals in the middle of an interaction with a PC, either. So, no different in combat or out. The interesting question, for me, is about locations or the physical environment. The detail on the page or in my mind always falls short of what would actually be there, so I'm happy to say "yes" to those "Is there a..." questions when the result is appropriate and helps to flesh-out the world. This is just adding, or better yet, revealing what is there, though. I would think the difference between that and changing something that is there is obvious.

 

[Umbran]

You are correct that D&D is not a contest of the players vs. the DM. It is a contest of the players vs. their environment.

That is one thing it can be. There are others.

In case you were not aware, D&D is directly descended from tabletop wargaming. It is essentially a tabletop wargame in which players each command a unit of one. A lot of cool role playing grew out of this but the game is still very much a type of tabletop wargame.

For you, it is this. That's fine.

I happen to think that it has rather changed from the original state. While it still includes tactical wargame aspects, it is no longer *limited* to those. You can do a lot of things with the game, even as written, that *aren't* contests and wargames.

 

[aramis erak]

As the title asks: it's the middle of an encounter, would you change a monster's hit points?

This might be during a boss fight where the PCs roll well and it looks like the big bad is going to die before taking a turn. Or maybe during a long fight that looks like it might drag. Or perhaps a tense fight where the party is toeing on a TPK.

Would you?

Not recently, tho' until about 15 years ago, I would have.

 

[The Human Target]

I wouldn't change an NPC's personality, motivations or goals in the middle of an interaction with a PC, either. So, no different in combat or out. The interesting question, for me, is about locations or the physical environment. The detail on the page or in my mind always falls short of what would actually be there, so I'm happy to say "yes" to those "Is there a..." questions when the result is appropriate and helps to flesh-out the world. This is just adding, or better yet, revealing what is there, though. I would think the difference between that and changing something that is there is obvious.

You never tweak an NPC on the fly?

Like say one of the PCs is talking to a bartender to gain information.

And mid conversation the PC decides to hit on the young waitress that you the DM happened to have said drops off the PC's dinner.

And you decide, spur of the moment, that the waitress is the bartenders fiance and that he is now less than happy with the PC because of it.

Just because you realize it would make the scene much more interesting and memorable.

That's a no no?

 

[Greg Benage]

You never tweak an NPC on the fly?

Like say one of the PCs is talking to a bartender to gain information.

And mid conversation the PC decides to hit on the young waitress that you the DM happened to have said drops off the PC's dinner.

And you decide, spur of the moment, that the waitress is the bartenders fiance and that he is now less than happy with the PC because of it.

Just because you realize it would make the scene much more interesting and memorable.

That's a no no?

Saying it's a "no-no" sounds like some categorical imperative, and I don't care about it that much. But yeah, I might create a bartender with a fiancé waitress, but I wouldn't contrive the relationship when the PC hit on her.

To be honest, though, I'm not usually looking to tell a story about domestic drama, so more likely the bartender would provide whatever information he had, the waitress would welcome or rebuff the advance, and then we'd get on with the swords & sorcery adventure for which we came to the table. Different strokes.

 

[travathian]

Thanks to everyone for the replies, it has been interesting to see the different points of view.

If I have messed up an encounter and haven't given good hints about the difficulty about it in advance, one way of fixing it would be to just say: "Hey guys, I messed up here, this encounter was completely off the chart due to my inexperience with this monster/new to the system/I wasn't thinking. What do you say, shall we just pretend this encounter never happened?". I think that's a better, more open approach than "secretly" fudging the dice. Mostly because I can tell when the DM is fudging and it sucks the thrill of combat right out of it.

I have played with a DM that after a random encounter where he killed my PC asked if I wanted to just treat it as my character just going down, not dying (due to one huge crit). I chose to let my character live, since it was totally random and really nobody's fault. The DM isn't throwing his arm up saying "I didn't cheat", but it isn't fudging either. I know that if my PC had done something stupid, or if I was seeking trouble, the DM would never have let me have the option to "not die".

So then my question would be, what if the DM could pull of the fudging in such a way that the PCs wouldn't ever know about it?

Because for me at least, the DM retconning an entire encounter seems far more disruptive then behind the scenes adjusting of an encounter. Maybe it is just that your experiences of bad fudging have led you to believe it can't be done well?

 

[The Human Target]

Huh, I missed that post.

Yeah both bringing a character back to life and wiping an encounter seem massively more disruptive.

 

[KarinsDad]

So essentially all you are as a DM is a dice roller and the voice of the NPCs?


This is the problem with so many of the responses in this thread. You make it seem like it is the DM vs PCs and in order to make it 'fair' you roll in the open, so regardless of the outcome you can just throw your arms up and say "well I didn't cheat!" D&D isn't a tabletop wargame. There is no such thing as cheating.

Is it cheating to play with Legos and not build what is on the outside of the box?

Is it cheating to play with Play-doh and not make what is on the outside of the package?

D&D is a game of make believe. Treat it as such. Again, it isn't DM against PCs, it is a bunch of friends hanging out having fun playing make believe.

I can't help but notice the join dates of people in the die hard "omg that's cheating!" camp and wonder if this attitude is mostly prevalent in the 4E/WoW generation.

I don't think it has anything to do with 4E/WoW.


Personally, I almost never fudge because I have an extremely strong sense of fairness. I've played that way for nearly 4 decades. I try to put together a game ahead of time, I try to put some spotlight on each of the PCs, I try to not significantly modify my game unless players actions change the scenario during a given session, and 98% of my rolls are in front of the players (there are a few that are not when rolling would inform the players that something is going on).

No, I cannot plan for everything, so I do have to come up with some things on the fly, but my rule of thumb is moderation. My ability to do things on the fly is subpar at best and I know my limitations, so I tend to make middle of the road plausible / reasonable decisions during a game and save my imaginative game ideas for between sessions when I can take time to flesh them out and think about them a bit.

Modifying hit points or dice rolls to me feels like DM cheating. Not cheating in the sense that the DM can do whatever he wants, so he cannot cheat POV, but cheating in the sense of cheating the players and the story of opportunities.

Say for example that a DM feels that an encounter is going too easy, so he beefs up the monster hit points or does something else on the fly to make the encounter more difficult. Nobody is omniscient, even the DM, so the party ends up using a few more resources that they would not have used. Later on, lower on resources, the party decides to run away and not go to one more room in the dungeon. In my mind, the DM is cheating the players of "what might have happened" by fudging stuff on the fly. The next room might have been a dud, but it also might have been one of the most memorable encounters of the campaign and the DM inadvertently nixed it. Granted, running away could also result in one of the most memorable encounters of the campaign, but in the former case, it was a environment / player decision / random roll decision and in the latter, it was DM whim that led to player decision. I'm not big on DM on the fly whimsy, so I don't prefer this path. DM whimsy seems like the antithesis of a level playing field and jars my strong sense of fairness. All DMs have to make on the fly decisions, but in the sense of fairness, these should be unthought of scenario modifications / reactions and NPC decisions, not changing the rules, hit points, AC, etc. based on player decisions and the current flow of the dice. JMO.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You are correct that D&D is not a contest of the players vs. the DM. It is a contest of the players vs. their environment. The DM is the referee and not in competition with the players. D&D features two key roles to play; player and dungeon master. Only players can 'win' the game. In the case of a TPK the DM does not 'win' because there was never a competition with the players to begin with, but the players in this case DO lose and need to roll up new PCs to play again.

That's a very old-school vision of the DM, going right back to the origins of the game in...

In case you were not aware, D&D is directly descended from tabletop wargaming.

:ding!:

Exactly. The referee in a wargame, when you had one, was there to moderate between two opposing players. Early on DMs were often called 'referees,' or 'judges' (as in 'Judge's Guild'). But, the DM's function is different. All the players are potentially cooperating rather than being in direct competition. The opposing 'forces' are thus controlled by the DM/referee, which would not have been the case in a traditional wargame.

It is essentially a tabletop wargame in which players each command a unit of one. A lot of cool role playing grew out of this but the game is still very much a type of tabletop wargame.

It's an RPG now, has been for a long time, but it's are still very clearly in wargaming, yes.

I started in 1980.

And that makes three of us in this thread. I'd say 'it was a great year,' but I'd be lying. At least the 70s were over.

It is prevalent in anyone who plays D&D primarily as a GAME. Stories are grown from events that transpire during play not something you focus on building DURING play. So fudging to move things in a desired direction because it better fits with the desired narrative is the antithesis of game play, unless of course telling a story is your object of play. A different animal completely than D&D was originally designed for.

If you can say something is the "antithesis of something else, unless..." I'm guessing antithesis was the wrong word. I guess I do see building narrative as part of the object of play, along with RP opportunities, and the tactical side. All parts of the game. In a game where the DM is openly free to change the rules, even overrule them on the fly, fudging the result of a die roll or tweaking a stat are just special cases of that general freedom. That's arguably the kind of game 1e was, and it's certainly the kind of game 5e presents itself as.

Or a simulation. Fudging may be even more antithetical to simulation play than to game play.

Unless you're fudging for greater realism or better simulation, of course.

Whether you're fudging a die roll or changing a rule, you're adapting the game to whatever you're trying to get out of it, because it's not delivering. Every RPG is a fixer-upper in that sense, some just need more work, or are more up-front about it in the listing.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I'm a bit confused, because I don't run a story-driven game (except in the "emergent") sense, and also because the thing you're saying you despise here is essentially the same as what you approve in paragraph one above (fast-forwarding in full view of the players, unless they object and want to play things out). Is that second paragraph really addressed to me, and if so, what about "you throw a few more Call Lightnings and then the kobolds are all dead or fled" is objectionable in D&D?

Sorry, it looks like I was responding the wrong post in that part, because I agree with your method of addressing it when victory is a foregone conclusion. (I probably latched on to a phrase that I thought was from somewhere else and hit the quote button.)

I can count on one hand in all the years I have been dming how many times I have fudged to save a PCs life.

Random aside...am I the only one who runs character death the following way:

1. Let the dice fall where they may.
2. I will never permanently take your character away from you (unless you're okay with it). Resurrection is always an option.

?