Smurf happens.
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Well,first off,I am the DM about 95% of the time that I am playing Pathfinder.
I never fudge die rolls during combat, either for or against the PCs.
I roll right there in front of them, and (Since we use the Fumble and Crit decks), Rolling a '1' or a '20' is a big part of the fun for all involved.
I sometimes 'Edit' (Fudge is a rather negative word) some of the results in the non-combat situation to keep the story moving along for a number of reasons.
1: My time is precious, as is that of everyone involved. We are all adults, with jobs, and slim windows where we can all play together. Someone floundering for an hour, trying to get some crucial piece of info that will advance things is simply, agonizing.
We are playing Kingmaker. Anyone familiar with the AP knows that there is the chance for a lot of time wasting, as the PCs (If they are inclined) can spend a lot of time being bureaucrats... I have had to 'Edit' how things are playing out, so that 5 of my 6 players are not sitting around forever while one player negotiates the price of grain for 45 minutes...
2: A couple of my players, while awesome people, have...quirks in their RL personalities that I must take into account, and I edit appropriately.
One guys has Tourette's, and (obviously) everything said 'In game' isn't left 'As Is'.
One player gets weirdly confrontational late in the evening (Hyypoglycemic, I think...we aren't sure yet), so I cut him some slack.
I also make sure that there is some form of snack at hand ,which has helped recently...
So yeah, I Edit from time to time...
-Uriel
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I never fudge dice.
I just fudge results.
I made some Russian Fudge yesterday and took some to my game. None of the players complained. So according to my survey 100% of players like fudge. DM's that don't use fudge are ripping their players off therefore.
S.
I'm probably bringing Lasagna to the next game. I've been teasing, and this is probably the week. Even a smaller batch for the Vegetarian. the vegan is S.O.L. (Smack Outta Lasagna?), since I have yet to find a Vegan cheese that melts properly...
-Uriel
What's Russian fudge and where do I get some...3 cups sugar
1/2 can sweetened condensed milk
125g butter
1/2 cup milk
Tablespoon Golden SyrupBring to boil for about 5 mins, then beat until thick. Pour into a tray and leave to set.
I assume you should be stirring during the 5 min? Else it seems the sugar would burn.
Is this just a sweet caramelly fudge? Or do you/can you also add chocolate?
There's a great recipe for fudge on the back of most marshmallow fluff jars. It's what my grandmother used to use. This sounds quite tasty as well, however.
Also, for fudging in GM games, if I feel a combat is going to be a letdown/go too fast before being any fun, I boost HP and add a minion or two, as someone else suggested. I've also been known to fudge an occasional saving throw, but only if it was off by one anyway (and because I forget modifiers, so it's usually accidental fudging) but lately I've preferred boosting a fight via HP and minions rather than adjusting rolls. It feels more fair.
On occasion, when the tide turns quickly for the bad guys, HPs have dropped as well.
Ultimately why do I fudge, if I feel I must? (And I really, really do try to avoid it) Pacing, and making sure the party feels challenged. But mostly pacing.
I'm probably bringing Lasagna to the next game. I've been teasing, and this is probably the week. Even a smaller batch for the Vegetarian. the vegan is S.O.L. (Smack Outta Lasagna?), since I have yet to find a Vegan cheese that melts properly...
-Uriel
How about a cheeseless layering of noodles, sauce, and spinach (and/or other veggies?)? You probably don't have to rebake.
I admit to fudging, when i'm DM.
But seldom. Several sessions can go without fudging.
That's about how often I do it too.
Same if they are fighting against normal mobs, and one of them confirms a crit with a high multiplier weapon. For sake of example, a scythe, with +4 strenght bonus. Thats 24-48 damage done. At an inopportune time, that can well "off" a character instantly, and very anticlimatic. Reducing it by a few points so he's negative and dying won't hurt so much, and provides more "fun" to the party, as the one dead player doesn't have to sit out the rest of the session and half of the next before they can get him resurrected.
And about the same reasons too.
Same thing if they fight against the BBEG. Usually they take care of stuff(getting Freedom of Movement and stuff like that), but if the wizard got a rod of meta-magic and just cast an maximized disintegrate at level 15 for 180 damage, basically instant-ending the encounter because the enemy is a caster type and doesn't have a good fort-save or many HP? Yep, i fudge the save. He makes it. That battle was SUPPOSED to be epic, and i'll make sure it will be for my players.
We diverge pretty much here. If the BBEG fails his save vs PC action, I let him fail the save. I may add some melodramatic outcry like, "NO! I can't die like this! It's so... so... common... *ugh*". PCs invest in abilities and I'm not going to take away even slightly outlandish results simply because I think the fight should be epic. I suppose at least not unless the tactic is clearly a rules exploit or too good. Then I'd look at the issue as one PC hogging all the fun rather than having a lucky result.
I fudge sometimes, because I play with optimizers that scour the books for the best of the best, and the cream of the cream, of broken-ass items, broken feat combos and have no problems with ANYTHING unless I send something they did not anticipate (like unique monsters with hitherto unseens powers and DCs), do some epic ass-pulls, AND their rolls go awry. I am looking forward to the end of the kingmaker game I am currently running. I was dumb enough to allow 25 point buy and 3.5 sources.
There has been maybe 3 cases that have been "close", otherwise, everything has been a huge let-down. I ran a dungeon as-is recently to prove a point, and they murdered a boss-encounter that was 4 CR above their level on TWO rounds, after going through 90% of the dungeon without rest, taking down several cr12 and cr13 encounters.
Examples:
- Wizard is immune to just about everything but basic damage... before his initiative. Uses spells that should NOT have been let through the proofread, as their power level is about 2-3 spell-levels above equivalent spells in core.
- Fighter deals 100+ damage per round against anything that doesn't have miss-chance. AC hardly matters, got close to +30 to hit, base. Lots more after buffs. Base AC of 34.
- Rogue has items to mimic the spell potential of a same-level caster in utility, costing him somewhere around 20000gp, courtesy of Magic Item Compendium. Free true-seeing, immediate teleports to dodge damage, like the 3.0 epic feat "Epic Dodge" ("only" 3 times per day) except better, since you can call it, and the enemy doesn't get iterative attacks. He and the wizard could easily solo the rest of Kingmaker.
- Cavalier is the only one that is about right for the level, but his buffs on TOP of the madness makes every encounter a walk in the park.
Attempts to mitigate the difference is met with the same result as telling children there will be no christmas.
So I fudge. The last bastion left to me to even out the bullshit, and at least give a reason to roll dice, and not only recite the adventure path, and treat encounters as following: "You enter a room, there is a huge dragon, you win, the loot is..."
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Ok perhaps I went a little extreme in my example. So, sometimes an adventure can get bogged down by a missed Knowledge or Spot or Search roll. In these cases, and where I think the players are now reaching the point of frustration rather than exploration/consideration, I usually 'fudge' the next roll using the outcome to dictate how much information I give out, rather than a simple pass/fail based on DC, to kick-start the story again. Not changing the outcome of the dice just not adhering 100% to the RAW for how the number is used.That a better example of lying to my players?
Yes, it is.
But now if an adventure hangs on a certain roll here that you don't care for failed outcomes.. why is there a roll?
Not talking about diceless games, but why design an adventure that will paint you into a corner?
I don't really understand here. If there's only one outcome that is acceptable to you, why have dice rolls whose possible outcomes are only yes?
-James
We are not always talking about a game changer moment, in fact must of my fudging takes the form of ignoring an encounter or two if the players are not in a state to fight. Or perhaps add into the adventure a few more hooks. As stated above and I would venture the most used fudge is the "your not dead but rather unco and bleeding". Still allows TPK, but if the rest of the party can win the day that player potentially gets continue on. Even then I have players bleed to death before help arrived. When would I do this? When I think it's justified. For example for the mega-optimizer in our group - never, it would spoil his fun. For the player who is writing the story of her character, unless the player was smiling and penning a paragraph on their heroic death I would do this "not dead yet" fudge more often than not. Never are they told of course.
I'm not there to be a slave to whim or badly molded dice, I'm there to engage my players in an interactive story - rules ultimately are my guidelines to achieve this, note the word guidelines. No one way suits players in a group I adapt to their individual playing styles as much as possible - my players having fun means I'm having fun. Hmmm, as a DM I'm a fun vampire!
S.
DM's only know slightly more about the way an adventure will go than the PC's, fudging can be used as a TOOL to ensure that things don't get out of whack too much.
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It's funny, when I think of fudge, I think of Harry Potter and the Ex Minister of Magic!
Do I fudge rolls as a DM of over 26 years? Absolutely. Would I ever admit it to my players? Hell no. Why do I still bother to roll dice? Because it's freaking fun to roll dice.
For the most part I let the dice fall where they will, especially when the party gets higher than 5th level. But especially at low levels, sometimes fudging is necessary to keep the game alive and moving forward. I'm sorry, but a TPK ruins everyone's fun and it totally means a crapton of work for the DM. For my DMing style, it usually means a new campaign; I don't do reboots very often as it just seems silly to me.
I also hate it when a monster or BBEG that I have spent hours cobbling together gets one-shotted by a lucky die roll. I don't think you are stealing the moment from that character to reduce a one-shot kill to a major wounder that makes a 10-round contest become a 3-round slugfest. I work hard to build my monsters; and the game isn't just for my players. I don't invest hours of my time into prep because I am a martyr or player-servant. I am a player in the game too; and I deserve to have some fun as well. I enjoy the tactical elements and mental chessboarding of a drawn out fight.
Am I being dishonest with my players? Do you really think that your players think that the DM Screen is there for the artwork and tables? The word 'Screen' pretty much gives away the ultimate purpose that it is there for. Your players know that you might not always be totally honest with your rolls; the trick is that you never let them know when you ARE fudging the dice. Develop a poker face and hell, bluff them silly. Be aware of their hps; and just curve the damage a little to take then to negative numbers without killing them.
And just for the record; I tend to reward player stupidity with character death. I'm not a pushover DM. I just don't ever care to be a "killer dm"....
I'm sorry, but a TPK ruins everyone's fun
Depends on the group. One of the most memorable games I've ever seen involved the Spire of Long Shadows in the Age of Worms AP. The first party was wiped out to the last person. Fortunately, some DMs always have an extra set of PCs in play in the same game world, to avoid delay and continuity problems. In this case, the second group, knowing of the first group's prowess, began thinking of the place in legendary terms. They employed drastic cautions in tackling the place, including using speak with dead on the bodies of their predecessors to gain every shred of information they could about the place. The Spire now stands out as having the same "prestige" as the Tomb of Horrors did in 1e.
That campaign ended up being a lot of fun. And ask houstonderek sometime about the museum robbery adventure I ran, that went very, very wrong for the PCs -- I don't think his buddy JJ will ever forget the fate of his halfling bard, and we all laugh when we think about the party wizard being chased in circles by the guards before finally getting nabbed. As for games I've played in vs. DMed, I enjoyed every second of "Treasure of Pirate's Cove" -- silverhair was an exemplary DM, and he sure didn't pull his punches -- I never realized I could have so much fun getting killed. Hell, we made a boneheaded play and paid the price for stupidly splitting the party; I'm very glad he didn't fudge things to "miraculously" save us.
I fully accept that some people get very attached to one particular PC, and can't stand the thought of dying ignominiously in some unspectacular way and having to roll up another one. However, people like houstonderek and I, and I suspect a lot of 1st ed. veterans, undertake adventures with the expectation that they're dangerous, and that PC survival is in no way guaranteed -- so the general statement that "a TPK ruins everyone's fun" isn't necessarily true for all groups.
There are many other tools a DM can use to avoid TPKs than ignoring dice rolls. Changing tactics after a PC drops, perhaps offering the other PCs a chance to surrender. Perhaps doing non-lethal damage. Perhaps dragging off the fallen character to be consumed at leisure (non-humanoid foe or maybe not).
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Never are they told of course.
Why not?
Really look at your answer to this question, whatever it might be.
-James
Because they do not need to know. The FAR more important question is what do your players individually want out of the game? Your posts would seem to indicate that you care more for your dice rolls than the fun the players are having. Inflexibilty in a DM in my experience isn't a good trait.
S.
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There are many other tools a DM can use to avoid TPKs than ignoring dice rolls. Changing tactics after a PC drops, perhaps offering the other PCs a chance to surrender. Perhaps doing non-lethal damage. Perhaps dragging off the fallen character to be consumed at leisure (non-humanoid foe or maybe not).
Is this really any less dishonest, as fudging has been termed, than any other form of fudging?
Just asking.
There are many other tools a DM can use to avoid TPKs than ignoring dice rolls. Changing tactics after a PC drops, perhaps offering the other PCs a chance to surrender. Perhaps doing non-lethal damage. Perhaps dragging off the fallen character to be consumed at leisure (non-humanoid foe or maybe not).Is this really any less dishonest, as fudging has been termed, than any other form of fudging?
Just asking.
Ignoring a roll is changing something that HAS happened. Changing tactics changes something that MIGHT happen. I personally feel there is a difference between the two.
I would suggest the difference is metagaming. 'Let me change my character so I don't kill the player character.'
I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Wouldn't both be metagaming?
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Stuff
-James
It almost seems like you haven't read many of the posts in this thread. Fudgng IS NOT controlling a players actions.
I doubt you will ever understand why some do, my players seem to have had on average fun over the last 26 years of my DMing so your posts are not likely to make me change my, dishonest, ways. Do you seek to actually understand or just project an air of superiority with your holier than thou posts?
I'm just happy knowing I'll never be replaced by an iPhone app...
S.
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Sigh... Wow, some people sure like to argue. It reminds me of when my father and his brother would get together. They'd bring up a topic, and my dad would say, "Which side do you want? Pick one and I'll argue the other one."
But seriously, isn't the GM always metagaming. I mean, I'm really aware that my campaign is fiction and that I'm the one that made it up. If I miscalculated when I created a certain encounter, is anyone harmed if I adjust the difficulty on the fly? Is that fudging? Sure, but a very acceptable kind.
Here's what is really not okay in my book. Suppose my monster is really taking a beating and I'd hoped he would really give the party some trouble. It's the monster's turn and I roll a 1, but I cover it up quickly and tell the fighter he takes 20 points of damage. Not okay. It breaks the contract between the players and the GM that we'll roll dice so that probability matters and sometimes probability bites, although most of the time it's mind-numbingly predictable. A GM that cheats ought to quit GMing and just write a fantasy novel so that the most dramatic thing can always happen.
What is clear to me from this thread is that people play for very different reasons and with different goals. And in my opinion, all these playing styles bring their own good to the game and give it life.
Agreed. My point is that the difference between them is, changing the monsters so they don't kill the party is metagaming on the DMs part.
I still fail to see how changing the dice rolls isn't metagaming. Perhaps your definition of metagaming isn't one I'm familiar with.
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It almost seems like you haven't read many of the posts in this thread. Fudgng IS NOT controlling a players actions.
But it does.
Start with the original post where the OP is concerned that his current DM is going to fudge rolls and thus not only his actions but his PC's build will be effected...
And I'm glad that your players have had fun. Would it have ruined their fun if they had known that you had fudged results?
-James
As I previously posted - I do not 'in combat' ever fudge my powergamer players rolls. I see what he wants out of the game and I attempt to provide this experience for him.
I will agree 100% that interference by a DM on the choices made by PC's is a bad thing. Fudging is not interference in the freedom of choice afforded to my PC's in my games.
S.
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Sigh... Wow, some people sure like to argue. It reminds me of when my father and his brother would get together. They'd bring up a topic, and my dad would say, "Which side do you want? Pick one and I'll argue the other one."
But seriously, isn't the GM always metagaming. I mean, I'm really aware that my campaign is fiction and that I'm the one that made it up. If I miscalculated when I created a certain encounter, is anyone harmed if I adjust the difficulty on the fly? Is that fudging? Sure, but a very acceptable kind.
Here's what is really not okay in my book. Suppose my monster is really taking a beating and I'd hoped he would really give the party some trouble. It's the monster's turn and I roll a 1, but I cover it up quickly and tell the fighter he takes 20 points of damage. Not okay. It breaks the contract between the players and the GM that we'll roll dice so that probability matters and sometimes probability bites, although most of the time it's mind-numbingly predictable. A GM that cheats ought to quit GMing and just write a fantasy novel so that the most dramatic thing can always happen.
What is clear to me from this thread is that people play for very different reasons and with different goals. And in my opinion, all these playing styles bring their own good to the game and give it life.
+1 to every single point you made.
It almost seems like you haven't read many of the posts in this thread. Fudgng IS NOT controlling a players actions.
But it does.
Start with the original post where the OP is concerned that his current DM is going to fudge rolls and thus not only his actions but his PC's build will be effected...
And I'm glad that your players have had fun. Would it have ruined their fun if they had known that you had fudged results?
-James
I would like for you to summarize what the opposing members are trying to say. I don't think you are understanding the other side of the debate.
There are three reasons I fudge:
1) New players. We just spent four hours learning how to make a character, and what his stats are, and worked out a backstory. OK, first fight, my goblin ranger gets a lucky crit, you're dead. Now let's find another four hours some other day. In the meantime, watch everyone else play. Aren't you having fun?
2) Bad design. Usually on my part; due to my circumstances, I generally run large groups (6 to 8 players), and at least half of them are new (maybe not their first session, but their first character or campaign). I try to design for this disparity, but it's very difficult and I get it wrong. I can't always see this coming, and I don't want to hold up eight people while I figure up some new stat blocks. So, things change as the fight goes on. Some of those things are dice rolls.
3) Drama. Sometimes a player who ususally plays pretty straightforward (not much RP, making tactical instead of in-character decisions, etc.) gets a really great idea for a character. Someone who usually writes icons on their character sheet hands in three pages, hand-written, of backstory. I'm not going to kill that character on accident; I accept that, in my position as a DM, I'm going to spend the same amount of time and care killing that character as he did birthing it.
That being said, the fudging is part of the contract. We don't gather to play an advanced or complicated board game; we gather for social interaction, emotional release, and cooperative creative enjoyment. Sometimes that includes me as the DM being sure there's worthy content for our precious four to eight hours. Generally speaking, I try my hardest to roll with my players' punches. As a DM, I love to adapt the campaign to what happens; but I prefer the randomness come more from the players than the dice.
Other times, my brain is fried from a long day (or week) at work, and my creative side is pretty much dead. All I've got left is what I had written down (or what was published). I'm not going to end our precious four-hour session in the first hour because the dice rolled poorly.
And it's not that I don't understand the other side of it. When stated explicity in the player-DM contract, no-fudging can be fun as well. I ran a fairly short game from an online campaign; I hyped it up as being a serious dungeon, with deadly old-school challenges (it's a Monte Cook megadungeon). My players really wanted the gritty, dangerous feel, so we all agreed that I would pull no punches. For that game, that was how we had our fun.
I can understand where some of you are coming from, when you say 'all fudging is bad, why have dice at all if you're going to fudge?' I feel, as I'm sure you do, that my job as a DM is to make sure you're having fun playing (and thus I get to have fun as well). If that fun includes harsh, public die rolls, great! Otherwise, that fun might include inexpert players, a lazy DM, and a scarcity of play time - which I'm not going to risk on just a bad die roll. The fudging I generally do is not a breach of player trust or our player-DM contract; it's assurance that the game won't end too quickly, while at the same time be surprising and wonderful for everyone involved.
So, in short, both sometimes fudging and never fudging are correct.
Fudging.. because Fun is more important than rules.
Fudging... because it just tastes great :D
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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1) New players. We just spent four hours learning how to make a character, and what his stats are, and worked out a backstory. OK, first fight, my goblin ranger gets a lucky crit, you're dead. Now let's find another four hours some other day. In the meantime, watch everyone else play. Aren't you having fun?
I have no intention of changing your opinion, Dan, but I wanted to highlight this here. That moment, when a new player brings a new character onto the table, is the perfect time to let the dice fall where they may. This is a brand new PC. The player has very little time or history invested in him / her. Mechanically, the character should take massive damage and die. (Goblins doing 16 points on a critical? Ouch!)
Let the player roll / build another character, and go on from there. (Four hours? Maybe it won't take that long the second time.) I'll guarantee you this: for the rest of that campaign, when the chips are down and the party's success or anihilation is hanging on a couple of die rolls, that player will be on the edge of his / her seat, because he / she knows that character death can come through no fault of his / her own.
because he / she knows that character death can come through no fault of his / her own.
I have no intention of changing your opinion, Chris, but I wanted to highlight this here. The moment character death happens not becuase you did something dumb, or because you decided to sacrifice yourself in a blaze of glory, but simply because of something you had no control over it isn't fun. At least it isn't for me or my players. And I know that had that happened to me in my first session it would have put me off gaming for a long time, maybe forever.
It's a big part of the DM's job to make sure the group has fun. This involves defacto metagaming to a degree (stimuli / response).
If I was starting a game with newbs and someone's character got dropped in the first session of the first encounter, I'd probably give them to choice of making a new character or bringing in "twin-brother" (same character).
It may be the player made a character that they thought would be "fun" but realized the design they used was basically worthless as an adventurer. Getting a chance to make a new character that can actually be effective as an adventurer (not necessarily "optimized" though), might actually be more fun and satisfying in the long run.
That is my main problem with the idea of people who claim to fudge in order to make the game "fun". The idea is premised on the belief by the person that they actually know what will ultimately be the most fun. TPKs can be fun, maybe you play a ghostwalk campaign. Maybe you play new characters that come across the previous party (either through word of mouth or literally tripping over their remains).
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I have a pretty simple rule. Hit/dmg rolls are done behind screen. I will only fudge if the luck gradient is skewed badly on either side of the screen during what is supposed to be an epic fight. Nobody has fun if the PCs or monsters come out as incompetent due to a run of shear bad luck. Of course with Hero points this happens much less on the player side of the screen.
However, all saving rolls against save or suck spells are made in the open. Being a mage using limited spells it stinks to think the DM might be fudging.
The whole "quick win is lame" attitude, I find a bit funny. Mainly because when it happened in a game I was running it was awesome.
The party learned the truth and the character who was the noble returned. She pretended to say she was coming to take her place and swear alligiance to the king. She bluffed extremely well, ridiculously well. To the point where she and her "servant" (the paladin's cleric cohort) were able to approach the king in full view of the court. At which point the noble (who was an aristocrat/sorcerer[necromancy mostly]/eldritch knight/cleric of WeeJas[for flavor]) cast dispel magic and knocked out the king liche's illusion showing him to be undead. And the cleric cohort (so not even full level character) with the Sun Domain made an amazing turn check and destroyed the king liche before he even got to do a single spell (and my stack of spell cards I had made up got pushed off the edge of the table in sadness).
Nobody at the table could believe the luck of those two characters. Insane bluff rolls, insane initiative rolls, insane turning checks, and dispel magic checks. It was awesome event, and everybody, even the ones who weren't directly involved remember it fondly.
Of course, I had tossed out devoted guards that attacked the party and the others burst in (thanks to noble's familiar being with the other party members outside of the hall). They beat back the guards (with a little help from Hextor clerics they had recruited earlier, who were waiting for "proof" the king was actually undead) and found the king's still living brother in a dungeon below.
If I had handwaved any of those rolls, it would have lessened the fun, even though it made what was suppose to be an epic battle pretty tame (the symbol of death on the brother's prison was a bit more effective, whaaa).
[QUOTE="Mistah Green"I would never fudge the dice. I would be highly offended if anyone at the same table as me did so. Either a player cheating, or the DM doesn't matter, nor does it make any difference as to where I am sitting at the table.
Every instance I've seen in which fudging the dice has came up fits into one of two categories.
1: Things were not going that person's way. For a DM, this means something like the 'plot' was not going how they wanted it. For a player this manifests in forms like being sneaky with the dice or even using loaded dice.
2: (DM only) The DM believed it was impossible for the group to succeed otherwise. Most often this was because the group really couldn't succeed by RAW, though there were multiple instances where the DM put the characters in a situation well beyond their ability to handle without it being their fault, and then fudged them out of it.
As a result I am very suspicious of it. Now anyone not at my table can do whatever they want. It doesn't affect me. But anyone who is at my table, and is DMing needs to understand this is not a railroad, and how to properly balance encounters and anyone who is at my table, and is playing needs to understand the dice will fall where they may, for better or for worse and they need to be able to deal with that. Which includes being able to take on those properly balanced encounters on their own merits.
And if you do screw up encounter balance, just come out and say so. We won't laugh at you. Much. Admitting your mistakes warrants respect, concealing them detracts from it.
So you don't mind TPK's that came about due to the dice gods?
Do you also want your DM to use 100 lethal tactics(not OP's NPC's). I mean kill the casters first then the damage dealers if he can, and cut off escape routes.If not how is playing a monster below its intelligence level any different than fudging.?