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

[Agamon]

Sometimes pure randomness ends up clicking together into a perfect moment of excitement, I don't think anyone would deny that.

I'm curious, do you allow the players to look at the monster stats while you're playing? Do you tell them how many HP the monsters are currently at? Do you tell them the DCs of all checks before they roll? Do you let them read your notes for the game?

That's the only way for them to be sure you aren't fudging stuff.

Do you have a pair of binoculars? That might help you find my point. I do appreciate you making up for the lack of judgement in my post though.

Seriously though, to each their own. I was just making an observation from my own game.

 

[Umbran]

Do you have a pair of binoculars? That might help you find my point.

Do *you* have binoculars? Well, you don't need them to find a copy of The Rules. They are linked at the bottom of each and every page of the site, so you don't have to look far.

You will note that Rule #1 is, "Keep it civil." Your snarkiness is a sign of disrespect, which is not what we'd call civil.

Don't make it personal. Address the logic of the post, not the person of the poster. Got it? I hope so, because we've banned one person in this thread already.

 

[SuperTD]

I'm curious, do you allow the players to look at the monster stats while you're playing? Do you tell them how many HP the monsters are currently at? Do you tell them the DCs of all checks before they roll? Do you let them read your notes for the game?

For me, the answers are yes, yes, yes, and no because I don't use notes. I have no problem with the players knowing things about the enemies.

 

[MrZeddaPiras]

For me, the answers are yes, yes, yes, and no because I don't use notes. I have no problem with the players knowing things about the enemies.

I don't let them peruse the Monster Manual at the table because I feel that would mess with the flow of the game. Apart from that, any meta-game knowledge they might have, they can use. I don't require the players to pretend they don't know silver is for werewolves and holy water for vampires, we're much too old for that.

 

[The Human Target]

I don't let them peruse the Monster Manual at the table because I feel that would mess with the flow of the game. Apart from that, any meta-game knowledge they might have, they can use. I don't require the players to pretend they don't know silver is for werewolves and holy water for vampires, we're much too old for that.

Do you let them look at the stats of the monsters they are currently in combat with?

 

[The Human Target]

For me, the answers are yes, yes, yes, and no because I don't use notes. I have no problem with the players knowing things about the enemies.

I prefer more mystery than that myself.

 

[Greg Benage]

Do you let them look at the stats of the monsters they are currently in combat with?

I don't, but I expect them to learn those stats as their experience and rules mastery grows, and that's great!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think there's been a major miscommunication in this thread. While I certainly can't speak for all on the "pro fudge" side, it has always been my experience that fudging is not synonymous with lying. I don't want to assossiate with people that willfully and maliciously lie, and I doubt many others do either.

Well, multiple people have specifically said that you *should* do it, perhaps even frequently, and conceal that you are doing it, and tell the players you don't do it if you are asked about it. So...it may not be your position, but it's definitely *a* position that's been held in this thread.

I've asked my players about fudging, or changing things on the fly, and they all looked at me incredulously and said, "You're the DM, of course you should do that."

It also isn't something I do often. I'll even let characters die if that's what the dice decide. I only intervene if I feel the situation warrants it.

Then, as I have seen several other people say, and as I have myself said: awesome, you have your group's buy-in, and that is all that matters. But, as I've said before--if I joined your group, ignorant of this occurring, and later found out about it, I'd be upset, and I think justifiably so. If the rest of the group already had explicit buy-in, then doing something about it is in my court, certainly. But if it was never stated--so I *couldn't* have known and thus couldn't have done something about it earlier--then I'd say it's in your court for being not clear about your DMing methods, especially on a contentious issue like this one.

I agree that tense moments can be created by rolling publicly, but far, far too often I've seen greater "tragedies" occur due to the vaguery of dice. When I first started playing 35 years ago I used to let the dice roll as the would, but over the years I've learned far more fun is to be had for all if I don't allow good play to lead to random death or errors in my planning lead to boring, boring, boring encounters.

Well, uh...as others have said, I'm not really sure why, if the negative result is expressly not wanted, you should even consider rolling. Like, what actually IS the difference between "I rolled...it's a bad roll...I'm going to ignore it and say it's a good roll" and "I'm not going to roll, I'm just going to say it's a good/neutral/nuanced result."? Because both of them result in the same thing--the DM declaring a result--but the former gives a distinctly false impression (that is, the impression that it COULD have gone badly).

If you feel a need to codify this, just think of it as: "good play is a +30 to the roll." Then it (almost surely) doesn't matter what you roll anyway; it'll end up "right." Admittedly, this doesn't quite cover situations like "I have rolled four consecutive crits," but such situations should be vanishingly rare in actual play (0.05^4 = 1 in 160,000 rolls).

All that being said, if you want to play a game where all outcomes are decided entirely randomly and no errors in planning can be corrected once put down on paper then more power to you. I can understand the appeal of such a method of play. All we fudgers ask is that the rest of you find it in your hearts to accept that there are other perfectly valid methods of play...

I believe we have. The issues I have are (1) people saying *every* DM *should* use it, (2) that there's never ever in a million billion trillion years even the slightest thing wrong with it, and (3) that it is not dishonest to do it and then conceal it (especially from a group that would be upset by it).

You Game Your Way. Just don't try to sell it as a method that everyone SHOULD use (a normative statement), nor as something completely free of contextual problems or that can be used without group buy-in. Note: I am not saying you in particular are saying this, but it has been said more than once in the thread.

Do you let them look at the stats of the monsters they are currently in combat with?

I see a distinct difference between "I am not telling you everything, in order to preserve a sense of mystery, suspense, or surprise" and "I am going to actively modify the facts of the world and the consequences of actions (and--for many posters in this thread--then deny doing so when asked)."

The example that comes to mind to illustrate it is, again, a blackjack dealer. If people knew the exact order of upcoming cards, there wouldn't really be a "game" anymore. But there is a clear difference between "don't show all the cards" and "modify the deck (often: whenever and however the dealer wants) to control who wins and who loses." In a very real sense, for me, blackjack of this kind would cease to be a game as well; I'm instead playing "hope your dealer favors you more than she challenges you."

Converting this back to D&D, a DM who explicitly spells out the function of every NPC, plot element, monster, trap, etc. is doing something I wouldn't appreciate--removing most of the appeal of the game, in fact. But hat "better story" means is entirely in the eye of the beholder and probably going to have different interpretations from literally every person at the table. So a DM who fudges--particularly one who fudges regularly--is acting basically on whim. It may be relatively "principled" whim (that is, it may not be totally random), but it's still the things that strike the DM's fancy. The game becomes, to some extent, "the DM giveth, and the DM taketh away"; the things that do/don't happen--good or bad--are due to whether the DM decided to interfere, and not whatever the players+world would have produced.

 

[MechaPilot]

Well, multiple people have specifically said that you *should* do it, perhaps even frequently, and conceal that you are doing it, and tell the players you don't do it if you are asked about it. So...it may not be your position, but it's definitely *a* position that's been held in this thread.

I keep the total and remaining HP of a monster from my players. When a creatures is at or below half HPs I include a brief description of the battle having worn on the creature: it may be bloody, exhausted, or what-have-you. Since I keep HP values secret, the players know not to ask me about them at or away from the table. Therefore, on those rare occasions where I do fudge I never have to lie to my players.

I feel it's worth reiterating that I try not to fudge HPs. I prefer to do something else in the context of the in-game story to handle the situation. I have had players watch with surprise as a monster accidentally triggers a trap that seriously hurts or impairs it, or as another creature or group stumbles into the fight, or as the unstable dungeon begins to collapse around them (spurring all parties to flee), and so on.

 

[Sunseeker]

Do you let them look at the stats of the monsters they are currently in combat with?

I do, because:
A: my monsters are usually customized significantly. Knowing that you're fighting a werewolf may or may not help you against my werewolf.
B: I have a low tolerance for metagaming, if you attempt to bring outside knowledge into the game I will inform you that in lieu of your turn you spent the time racking your brain to remember all you know about whatever you're fighting.
C: They're going to do it anyway, if they don't do it right now they'll do it at home. I generally ask players to put anything but the PHB away while we're actively playing, but even the PHB is not free of monster stats.
D: Strangely, keeping their noses in a book can often keep otherwise talkative players quiet and focused, which aids smooth gameplay.
E: There's no guarantee they're actually looking up the monsters we're fighting and I'm not going to punish a player for that so long as they don't get distracted from the game, especially when half my players are DMs themselves.