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Okay folks, that was a fun Pathfinder game. Hope to see you all next week. Oh and make sure you bring another character sheet okay? Great see you then.
As opposed to "Oh, you're 1st level and you encounter Cthulhu! Roll initiative! A 6! Cthulhu rolls... 19! I mean 1! He slips on a banana peal and dies! You win!!! Okay folks, that was a fun Pathfinder game."
If you thought your post was scathing commentary, this reply is what it sounds like coming from the other direction.
I had a guy who was #1 could tell if the GM adjusted anything if the monster had 1 more hp than the MM entry he would ask why it wasn't dying.Would a response of "this one's tougher" elicit protest?
Everytime, he was also the type who would suddenly get upset when all trolls have 22 AC and his roll of a 22 missed.
Everytime, he was also the type who would suddenly get upset when all trolls have 22 AC and his roll of a 22 missed.I had a guy who was #1 could tell if the GM adjusted anything if the monster had 1 more hp than the MM entry he would ask why it wasn't dying.Would a response of "this one's tougher" elicit protest?
Every group gets its black pit of fun destruction at one point or another.
Clearly, fudging rolls upsets a whole lot of people, so maybe GMs should consider not doing it.
Clearly, fudging rolls upsets a whole lot of people, so maybe GMs should consider not doing it.
Maybe those people should accept that its enshrined in the CRB as a tool gms can use.
Clearly, fudging rolls upsets a whole lot of people, so maybe GMs should consider not doing it.
I think what we haven't concluded necessarily is whether this upsets a lot (as in high percentage of the playerbase) of people or whether it upsets a handful of people very very much.
I'm pretty sure every GM worth his or her salt who has thought about it considers fudging to be a clumsy tool and a last resort. They may not want to do it, but that also doesn't mean they will categorically rule out doing it.
Every group gets its black pit of fun destruction at one point or another.Everytime, he was also the type who would suddenly get upset when all trolls have 22 AC and his roll of a 22 missed.I had a guy who was #1 could tell if the GM adjusted anything if the monster had 1 more hp than the MM entry he would ask why it wasn't dying.Would a response of "this one's tougher" elicit protest?
Yea, if he can't accept that the monsters stats will not match up with the MM entries. And this has been made abundantly clear, yet he still chooses to play and complain then he's being a jerk for placing what he wants over the collective enjoyment of the group.
Okay folks, that was a fun Pathfinder game. Hope to see you all next week. Oh and make sure you bring another character sheet okay? Great see you then.As opposed to "Oh, you're 1st level and you encounter Cthulhu! Roll initiative! A 6! Cthulhu rolls... 19! I mean 1! He slips on a banana peal and dies! You win!!! Okay folks, that was a fun Pathfinder game."
If you thought your post was scathing commentary, this reply is what it sounds like coming from the other direction.
Great retort really....except that no one is arguing from our side that the gm is playing fantasy land make believe tea time. But if the GM has a hot streak on the other side the entire party is dead and has to make new characters. I know I have seen a six person party be reduced to 1 in a couple of rounds of openly rolled high damage rolls and crits. So yes everyone stop and make new characters, so guess we are done for the night. Big difference to that assuming that altering the dice means that a GM would let the party overcome everything.
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Clearly, fudging rolls upsets a whole lot of people, so maybe GMs should consider not doing it.
People get upset over all sorts of things in games, from someone sitting in their place (where they wanted to sit) to drinking all the milk to using the wrong dice to not having as much system knowledge as the viewer would want to .. well, you get the picture.
It's a matter of talking it out and figuring out why they are upset. Some things are fixable. Some things are not.
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Everytime, he was also the type who would suddenly get upset when all trolls have 22 AC and his roll of a 22 missed.I had a guy who was #1 could tell if the GM adjusted anything if the monster had 1 more hp than the MM entry he would ask why it wasn't dying.Would a response of "this one's tougher" elicit protest?
Sounds like a serious metagamer. Maybe the Dm was trying to quash that?
Sounds like a serious metagamer. Maybe the Dm was trying to quash that?Everytime, he was also the type who would suddenly get upset when all trolls have 22 AC and his roll of a 22 missed.I had a guy who was #1 could tell if the GM adjusted anything if the monster had 1 more hp than the MM entry he would ask why it wasn't dying.Would a response of "this one's tougher" elicit protest?
Yes I was
Yea, if he can't accept that the monsters stats will not match up with the MM entries. And this has been made abundantly clear, yet he still chooses to play and complain then he's being a jerk for placing what he wants over the collective enjoyment of the group.Every group gets its black pit of fun destruction at one point or another.Everytime, he was also the type who would suddenly get upset when all trolls have 22 AC and his roll of a 22 missed.I had a guy who was #1 could tell if the GM adjusted anything if the monster had 1 more hp than the MM entry he would ask why it wasn't dying.Would a response of "this one's tougher" elicit protest?
No GM should be forced to tell every explicit change they put in a game. That would make it exceedingly boring and be a slog.
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Yea, if he can't accept that the monsters stats will not match up with the MM entries. And this has been made abundantly clear, yet he still chooses to play and complain then he's being a jerk for placing what he wants over the collective enjoyment of the group.Every group gets its black pit of fun destruction at one point or another.Everytime, he was also the type who would suddenly get upset when all trolls have 22 AC and his roll of a 22 missed.I had a guy who was #1 could tell if the GM adjusted anything if the monster had 1 more hp than the MM entry he would ask why it wasn't dying.Would a response of "this one's tougher" elicit protest?
I completely agree with this. Overall, cheating or no, fudging or no, "rocks fall" or not, as long as the COLLECTIVE experience is positive and people keep coming back for more, then everybody wins REGARDLESS. The experience of the whole group, DM and Party, is paramount to any tabletop game.
I figure I might as well just say "every antagonist either has class levels or is popcorn, have fun."
Clearly, fudging rolls upsets a whole lot of people, so maybe GMs should consider not doing it.
More like it upset a few people and they won't accept that it says in the rule book that the GM can do it.
GM Rule 0. Make sure everyone is having fun, including yourself.
GM Rule 1. There are no rules.
GM Rule 2. Cheat Anyway.
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Clearly, fudging rolls upsets a whole lot of people, so maybe GMs should consider not doing it.People get upset over all sorts of things in games, from someone sitting in their place (where they wanted to sit) to drinking all the milk to using the wrong dice to not having as much system knowledge as the viewer would want to .. well, you get the picture.
It's a matter of talking it out and figuring out why they are upset. Some things are fixable. Some things are not.
Not my MIIIILK!!!11!
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Clearly, fudging rolls upsets a whole lot of people, so maybe GMs should consider not doing it.People get upset over all sorts of things in games, from someone sitting in their place (where they wanted to sit) to drinking all the milk to using the wrong dice to not having as much system knowledge as the viewer would want to .. well, you get the picture.
It's a matter of talking it out and figuring out why they are upset. Some things are fixable. Some things are not.
+1
I feel the over-reaching failure here is not that the DM is "cheating" or "fudging" but that people really just don't know how to communicate. If you have a problem, be an adult and have a rational conversation. Don't be a child and pout that things aren't going your way an blame everyone else. I had one guy who pretended everything was fine at the table and then sent a flaming and aggressive email about how we were all a+&%*!~s for making a party decision he didn't like and that he wouldn't be coming back. I mean, really? An email? What are we, 14 year-old jr. high school kids? For christ's sake, talk it out it's alot easier and more constructive.
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Yea, if he can't accept that the monsters stats will not match up with the MM entries. And this has been made abundantly clear, yet he still chooses to play and complain then he's being a jerk for placing what he wants over the collective enjoyment of the group.Every group gets its black pit of fun destruction at one point or another.Everytime, he was also the type who would suddenly get upset when all trolls have 22 AC and his roll of a 22 missed.I had a guy who was #1 could tell if the GM adjusted anything if the monster had 1 more hp than the MM entry he would ask why it wasn't dying.Would a response of "this one's tougher" elicit protest?No GM should be forced to tell every explicit change they put in a game. That would make it exceedingly boring and be a slog.
Agreed, but if such an issue were to come up it's something that should be addressed. And if any player personally has a strong set of preferences that are a deal breaker for them then it should be brought up, preferably at the outset of the game by that player.
It would be absurd to suggest that a newly formed group should have an 8 hour sit down to discuss the nuance of each's personal preferences. But if those preferences are brought up and become an issue then they should be dealt with respectfully and in a civil manner.
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...To expound...
I am forced to turn this on the players. You are really quick to label GMs who run the game the way it has been run forever as cheaters. Are YOU aware how that behavior forces us to label YOU in response?
Not kidding here, this is an honest question. You realize the reason we react with such shock and surprise is because (to us) your reaction simply isn't normal.
It is an alien reaction. Not only is it alien, to me (and many others I know) it is suspicious. The old saying is that thieves have the best locks.
I do realize that this is a generational thing. It tends to be a split in gamers who are post 35 currently. Those of us who, for the vast majority of our formative gaming years, was 4-5 buddies sitting around a table in their parent's basement/kitchen with a couple bowls of various snacks (pretzels don't grease stain character sheets!) overnight on a Friday. (See the opening of Stranger Things.)
We gamed with (usually) only one, or maybe two, people who owned the books. What the GM said was how it was and you moved on. We trusted our GMs and our GMs trusted us.
Modern gaming is... Different. If the GM has a monster cast a spell you can expect the shuffling of pages and the frantic mouse clicks as players dive to ensure that no funny stuff is going on.
The point is this may also just be another generational divide.
This deserves a repost.
I think some of who we see in the Fudge==Cheaters side in this thread are in the same age category as you and I, but they are playing more as you describe it.
In my opinion, I see the was I played inthe 80s compared to how I see the game played in the eary 2000s to today.
In the early days of my gaming there were no rules debates. No RAW discussions. The GM was the world and what they said was how it was. We all knew the rules, but it was that GM's game.
As you point out it has shifted from that view to a more, it is the players game and the GM takes a backseat.
Agreed, it wasn't all rainbows and unicorns. There was disagreements becasue we may have been unhappy about something the GM did, but we understood it was his game and his right to manipulate the world to provide the game for us.
I had never heard of the Rules Lawyer term until into 3E. We never thought of Power Imbalances between classes or Martial Caster disparity.
These to me started later, though I will say this, I never played 2E after 93/94, I never saw or played the Tactics-Skills books (or whatever they were named). So maybe I just missed that part of DnD history.
Clearly, fudging rolls upsets a whole lot of people, so maybe GMs should consider not doing it.More like it upset a few people and they won't accept that it says in the rule book that the GM can do it.
GM Rule 0. Make sure everyone is having fun, including yourself.
GM Rule 1. There are no rules.
GM Rule 2. Cheat Anyway.
I would agree to that so long as your rule 0 supersedes the other 2 in all cases.
That way if a groups notion of fun is playing a game with a particular set of rules then rules 1 and 2 can be ignored.
Otherwise those 3 rules simply cannot be applicable in all circumstances.
Yea, if he can't accept that the monsters stats will not match up with the MM entries. And this has been made abundantly clear, yet he still chooses to play and complain then he's being a jerk for placing what he wants over the collective enjoyment of the group.Every group gets its black pit of fun destruction at one point or another.Everytime, he was also the type who would suddenly get upset when all trolls have 22 AC and his roll of a 22 missed.I had a guy who was #1 could tell if the GM adjusted anything if the monster had 1 more hp than the MM entry he would ask why it wasn't dying.Would a response of "this one's tougher" elicit protest?No GM should be forced to tell every explicit change they put in a game. That would make it exceedingly boring and be a slog.
Agreed, but if such an issue were to come up it's something that should be addressed. And if any player personally has a strong set of preferences that are a deal breaker for them then it should be brought up, preferably at the outset of the game by that player.
It would be absurd to suggest that a newly formed group should have an 8 hour sit down to discuss the nuance of each's personal preferences. But if those preferences are brought up and become an issue then they should be dealt with respectfully and in a civil manner.
If the fact that some monsters may take class levels or use gear other than the Bestiary entry is your make or break then go play a video game. The only and i mean only reason to insist that nothing be changed on a stat block when an adventure is written is so you can metagame.
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I'll fudge like a fiend if players over-optimize to the point that nothing, at all, presents a challenge for them. Suddenly monsters will get bonuses to saves (usually I'll do this long before session during one of the many hours I was setting the adventure for the weekend) that they didn't have before.
I think it depends. If players over-optimize and still demand that they be regularly challenged, then your options are pretty much "work really hard to prepare stuff" or "stack the deck behind the scenes so it's harder for them." If players over-optimize, still demand to be regularly challenged, and insist everything much be done 100% in the open and by the book, find new players.
If players over-optimize and they don't mind steamrolling all who deign to stand before them, then roll with it. Lots of people just like to win, save the kingdom, marry the prince, etc.
N.B. The idiom "stack the deck" was precisely chosen. This is an activity that is absolutely cheating in one context (i.e. card games) and absolutely within bounds in a different context (i.e. stage magic). A GM's role in a TTRPG is more akin to the latter than the former, but not precisely either.
Clumsy tool? No.
It requires skill to use though and you need to know when to appropriately use it. You don't fudge every combat, you don't fudge, just because, you fudge when you need to fudge. If all goes well you may not need to, but it is a tool that you use when appropriate, it is no more clumsy than any other tool.
I personally strongly prefer to have it figured out in advance how to adapt to any gross outcome based on random chance. If I have to change a 13 to an 11 in order to prevent something from going into territory that's not fun or interesting and I have nothing in hand for it, then I'll do it but afterwards I'll try to figure out what I could have done beforehand to make it so I didn't need to do that.
One of the particular problems with Pathfinder regarding this is is that death is fairly easy, and is also seldom fun, funny, or interesting for the player whose character died. It's generally just a "roll a different character" or "the party is now poorer for having resurrected someone."
Clearly, fudging rolls upsets a whole lot of people, so maybe GMs should consider not doing it.Clearly some people are oversensitive about it and need to get over it.
I don't mean to be harsh but seriously that is how I am starting to feel. I'm a bleeding heart, but there is a limit. If it upsets you that much, seriously, go play RPGA or PFS, you aren't able to handle the traditional way that Tabletop RPGs are run.
It really depends. Every player has the right to make a request to their group on what kind of game they want to experience and what's fun for them. Past that it comes down to negotiation and compromise.
To clarify I don't have any issue with your methods described in your previous post. As you obviously have an agreement with you players on how the game should be run for the most fun for your group.
Wouldn't work. I've fudged in PFS.
Does PFS have specific guidelines for GMs on this issue that are separate from the ones in the Gamemastery sections of various rulebooks?
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Isn't that a breach of PFS? I know you'd get kicked out of the RPGA for fudging.I don't mean to be harsh but seriously that is how I am starting to feel. I'm a bleeding heart, but there is a limit. If it upsets you that much, seriously, go play RPGA or PFS, you aren't able to handle the traditional way that Tabletop RPGs are run.Wouldn't work. I've fudged in PFS.
I am not very familiar with PFS, but aren't the GM rolls done in secret? If so how can the fact that a GM fudged be corroborated?
I am not doing that if the players are just going to steamroll everything. Why? Because, at that point, *I* am not having fun.
To each their own, I generally find "the players are happy" to be fun for me and likewise that if players just want to stomp everything in their path, I have to work less hard on the stuff I don't like doing (like trying to make fights challenging but fair.)
I am not doing that if the players are just going to steamroll everything. Why? Because, at that point, *I* am not having fun.
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Gonna be honest and YMMV on this one clearly, but some of my favorite campaigns went the route of very few things being a challenge to the party. So I boosted low level enemy numbers and let the party feel like 18th level should against those guys. The rogue disabling whole encampments in there sleep. The fighter and ranger slaughter mooks in mass. That was fun
You fiend!I KNOW! <maniacal laugh>
This is an insane breach of trust, im going to need my spare apartment key back since now i dont know that i cant trust you not to take a dump in my houseplants rather than watering them while im gone.
And I would most likely knock you out. See I can make bold claims on the internet hiding behind the screen too.
Remember how I said people with these extreme reactions strike me as those who have been booted or otherwise frozen out of campaigns for being fun vampires?
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I don't think you quite understand what it means to some of us when you lie like that. You are implying that your opinion matters more than mine, when it comes to how I spend my time, wich you have also wasted. Also I might have declined another game to join yours and now as a adult that time is very much premium. Those are no insignificant offenses, so yeah I do not need those kind of persons in my life.
If you took it so seriously then I would snicker in your face. Then I would tell you to calm down and not take it so seriously.
How do you react when you find out that people were not telling you the truth in real life about some things that may be embarrassing to you, like maybe something stuck in your teeth, or your breath is just not very pleasant. Things along that line. Do you throw hissy fits? I doubt it.
You probably would get more upset if that one person said your breath smells like turds in front of everyone,because he was being honest.
And I would most likely knock you out. See I can make bold claims on the internet hiding behind the screen too.
As to the rest of the post, you just don't get it. It is not some white lie. It is changing the activity we are doing on a fundamental level. aka it ain't rpg anymore. You did so with intent to do so. Wasted my time for lets say 4 sessions 6 hours each, so 24h you have wasted. And you see someone getting annoyed at that something to snicker at. I don't know even how to respond properly to that level of ignorance, I just hope that your tubes are tied so those genes don't pass on.
Gots us an internet tough guy here.
I would actually do what I said, you wouldn't. You take yourself too seriously if you act like that to a GM fudging.
Lies are lies. Or does that only apply to things you are ok with. You are inconsistent in your approval of when to lie.
Fudging as mentioned in the CRB is done to help improve the game. Isn't that what you expect from the GM? I will figure that you would want that.
If there is a trust issue then that is actually on you.
This is an insane breach of trustYou never trusted me in the first place.
Clearly i was right not to. Fiend.
Clearly, fudging rolls upsets a whole lot of people, so maybe GMs should consider not doing it.More like it upset a few people and they won't accept that it says in the rule book that the GM can do it.
GM Rule 0. Make sure everyone is having fun, including yourself.
GM Rule 1. There are no rules.
GM Rule 2. Cheat Anyway.
I would agree to that so long as your rule 0 supersedes the other 2 in all cases.
That way if a groups notion of fun is playing a game with a particular set of rules then rules 1 and 2 can be ignored.
Otherwise those 3 rules simply cannot be applicable in all circumstances.
Rule 0 Supersedes everything, if I have to cheat a rule to make sure a player is having fun (including me) I will do so. Hence Rule 2.
In saying this someone having fun at the expense of another player is breaking rule Zero.
I don't mean to be harsh but seriously that is how I am starting to feel. I'm a bleeding heart, but there is a limit. If it upsets you that much, seriously, go play RPGA or PFS, you aren't able to handle the traditional way that Tabletop RPGs are run.Wouldn't work. I've fudged in PFS.
You are literally Hitler.
And I've Godwinned the thread! Everyone can go home now!