Why Fudging is Happening


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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EWHM wrote:

Pres man,

The occasional, nonrepeatable SOD against the BBEG doesn't piss the narrativists off too much. It's ok for Indiana Jones to occasionally just shoot the guy :-) It's when the wizard whips out a hard to save against SOD against BBEG's as a matter of course. That seriously irks them. It even rankles the simulationist somewhat, as it's not something that should work in the genre all that often, but it's a dominant strategy unless you spend a lot of energy countering it (which I do, you damn well better believe any BBEG with access to contact other plane/commune/divination/et al is going to be using the dickens out of it to plan defenses against the threats he's likely to be facing).

I'm not sure if that is what is being discussed. If the player is so powered up they make every challenge a cake walk, then that is an issue you need to discuss with the group about expectations and what power level you are shooting for.

But people here are specificly saying they fudge in moments where it is to make the game more "exciting". In the case you describe the DM would pretty much have to fudge every encounter not just the rare one.

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The Admiral Jose Monkamuck wrote:


I have no intention of changing your opinion, Chris, but I wanted to highlight this here. The moment character death happens ... 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.

Jose,

I've picked on the Amber RPG system at times; right now, I'm going to pick on a good friend's Amber campaign, and his GM style. He believed that, when a character "walks the Pattern" the correct thing to do is always to pay attention to each footstep. Walking the Pattern supposed to be incredibly dangerous -- in Zelazny's novels, only the most fool-hardy or desperate of characters attempt it without thorough preparation -- and becoming distracted while walking the Pattern is a guaranteed ticket to annihilation. So, in my friend's campaign, if your PC is walking the Pattern, and there's something else going on, the correct thing to do is always "pay attention to the Pattern".

Now, Amber famously has no random element. It's diceless. So if your PC is weakened or tired or injured (so long as he's not bleeding) you can just walk the Pattern. Keep your nose to the task, and this breath-takingly dangerous activity ... is guaranteed to be successful. So, in his campaign, the players caught on, and walked the Pattern all the time. Need to get up to the dining hall? Walk the Pattern. He would try to sell this as terribly dangerous, but those warnings were all window dressing. As long as we didn't do something stupid, like announce we were paying attention to something else, the danger never presented itself in game.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

If characters cannot die except through the will of the player, or a blunder on the players' part, then combats, which are supposed to be perilous, end up being completely safe. (One of my friends calls this a "Pirates of the Caribbean" encounter: like an amusement-park ride, it looks scary, but there's no danger.) The PCs can wade into any combat, no matter how overpowering the bad guy, and not have to worry about dying. (I sometimes enjoy that play-style myself: when I'm reading a "Choose Your Own Adventure" novel, I never actually play out the combats; I just assume the protagonist wins, and I move on to page 47.)

And if your reply were to be: "well, there are some opponents that I just don't expect the PCs to be able to handle. (A half-dozen trolls at 2nd Level, for example.) Simply entering into that fight in the first place is, if not a blunder, then an implicit acceptance that death is on the line." Then I would say back to you: "The reason normal villagers don't go into the Caves of Chaos is that the career of a dungeon delver is supposed to be filled with peril. Simply crossing that thresh-hold into the world of adventure brings with it a certain threat-level. My tolerance for fights where death is on the line, is set lower than yours."

Peace, and good gaming, Jose. Thanks for the opportunity to express my views.


wraithstrike wrote:
So you don't mind TPK's that came about due to the dice gods?

A fair death is a fair death. I have no problem with it. Some whiner might get mad that their character died but I won't.

Quote:
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.

Of course the enemies are going to always go for the casters first. This is both because the casters are a threat, and because the others are not. Really, this is a given. And since it's not like Fighters can actually make things fight them, it comes down to whether or not those casters can defend themselves, and their fellow casters. The answer to this is yes, unless you got one of those silly Fireballers. Then their days are numbered.

It's also a given you can't escape from battle, regardless of whether escape routes are blocked or not.

Since when is playing enemies with a little common sense 100% lethal tactics? Seriously, what's the alternative? MOBs? I dunno about the rest of you, but when I want to fight dumb AI I'll log onto DDO.

Story 1: So I joined this campaign. I'll spare you all the details but in the first round of the first fight of the first session my character gets attacked. 20, 20, takes ~150% of max HP in damage from a greataxe crit. The extent of my reaction? "Well, damn." And this being after spending multiple hours designing and fleshing out that character mechanically and conceptually. Even so I was completely ok with it because it was a fair death, and it isn't as if being raised is that difficult anyways. Most importantly though he showed me with his response to this unexpected bad luck that I could trust him to be fair and honest. And that meant no 'Oh, your character doesn't die even though they did' and also no trying to roadblock a normal raise.

Had he tried to hide his dice rolls, no matter what his reasons were I would have grew suspicious of him instead. But because he showed himself to be fair and honest I still to this day keep in contact with him even though the game ended a year ago (his wife had his son, which severely cut down on his gaming time).

Story 2: This campaign had gone on for a little while before the incident happened. Long story short, we're all raiding a necromancer coven. Naturally we were packing Death Ward. Just as naturally, the necromancers figured no one would be stupid enough to come here without using protection.

Necromancer A casts a Dispel. It removes two things - something that wasn't important, and my character's Death Ward.

Necromancer B casts a Finger of Death. Anything but a 1 would have saved. Guess what number I got?

Now I was completely ok with this. Everyone else was doing just fine without me and could easily raise me after. The DM wasn't. He starts insisting that 'No, my character didn't die'. Even though they obviously did. He refuses to relent on this either. Apparently 'his plot' demanded my character not die, even if they only actually stayed dead for about 1 hour of game time. I immediately started to wonder if 'his plot' would start demanding things like that we all die, or be captured or what have you.

Once it became clear he would not be a fair and honest man, I got up and walked away from that game. 2 sessions later it dissolved, because it turned into single author fiction a lot sooner than I expected so everyone else walked.

So you see I'm quite ok with bad things happening to my character as long as the DM is being fair and honest about it. That means dice out in the open, and fairly balanced encounters (as opposed to level 20 dragons vs level 7 parties). Anything else is a direct attack on the integrity of the game, of the guy running the game and on the enjoyment of everyone playing the game. After all once a DM starts fudging, there's no way to tell whether anything you do is your characters succeeding, or a DM pity prize. Same with any risk your characters encounter.

Like I said, people not at my table can do whatever they want. But anyone who comes to my table expecting cheating to be tolerated or endorsed by anyone is in for a very rude awakening. Those at my table will succeed or fail on their own merits, and they'll know their victories are their own, and their defeats were of some fault of their own. They'll know that when they one shot the BBEG before they can move with a save or lose, that that is a testament to that character's awesomeness.


Chris Mortika wrote:

Do you see where I'm going with this?

If characters cannot die except through the will of the player, or a blunder on the players' part, then combats, which are supposed to be perilous, end up being completely safe. (One of my friends calls this a "Pirates of the Caribbean" encounter: like an amusement-park ride, it looks scary, but there's no danger.) The PCs can wade into any combat, no matter how overpowering the bad guy, and not have to worry about dying. (I sometimes enjoy that play-style myself: when I'm reading a "Choose Your Own Adventure" novel, I never actually play out the combats; I just assume the protagonist wins, and I move on to page 47.)

And if your reply were to be: "well, there are some opponents that I just don't expect the PCs to be able to handle. (A half-dozen trolls at 2nd Level, for example.) Simply entering into that fight in the first place is, if not a blunder, then an implicit acceptance that death is on the line." Then I would say back to you: "The reason normal villagers don't go into the Caves of Chaos is that the career of a dungeon delver is supposed to be filled with peril. Simply crossing that thresh-hold into the world of adventure brings with it a certain threat-level. My tolerance for fights where death is on the line, is set lower than yours."

Peace, and good gaming, Jose. Thanks for the opportunity to express my views.

I certainly do see where you are going with this and agree wholeheartedly. I've killed plenty of characters in my time behind the screen, and fully expect to kill many more.

Still I do feel that occational judicious use of fudging has it's place. Particularly with new players and at low levels. Still at this point I think we may have to agree to disagree.

Chris I wish good gaming and many happy sessions to you and your players.


Mistah Green wrote:
stuff about accepting his fate

While I agree with you that characters should make their own fate, and your willing to accept fate is something I like in a player, I don't think every fudging DM is an evil rules breaker trying to manipulate the story.

edit:I know I exaggerated, but I think you get the point about the evil DM.


wraithstrike wrote:
Mistah Green wrote:
stuff about accepting his fate

While I agree with you that characters should make their own fate, and your willing to accept fate is something I like in a player, I don't think every fudging DM is an evil rules breaker trying to manipulate the story.

edit:I know I exaggerated, but I think you get the point about the evil DM.

Even if you can't ascribe it to malicious intent, every single thing that happens henceforth is tainted.

Someone around here said something to the effect of 'Never tell your players you fudged dice, because the moment you do you undermine everything they accomplish in the future.'

No, all their accomplishments from that day forward were undermined the moment that dice fudging took place. There's just a non zero length of time where the players erroneously continue to believe their actions amount to anything before learning, effectively that their character's lives were a lie. At which point they realize that not only have they wasted a lot of their time, but that the DM is willing to both lie and cover it up instead of just coming out and saying "Hey, listen guys. I screwed up this encounter by putting two dragons instead of one. We could play it out like this but it won't end well for you. Or we can play it out against one dragon."

In such a case the DM still screwed up encounter balance and is having to change it, but at least is willing to own up to, and offer fixes to his mistakes. And he isn't doing so in an underhanded manner.


wraithstrike wrote:
Mistah Green wrote:
stuff about accepting his fate

While I agree with you that characters should make their own fate, and your willing to accept fate is something I like in a player, I don't think every fudging DM is an evil rules breaker trying to manipulate the story.

edit:I know I exaggerated, but I think you get the point about the evil DM.

The problem with fudging DMs and player trust is this. Imagine you are in a game, and you are aware the DM on occasion fudges rolls. In a session, your character is killed. This means one of two things in this situation. Either (1) the DM fudged to kill your character which would indicate he had something "against" you or your character, or (2) the DM intentionally did not fudge to save your character which would indicate he had something "against" you or your character.

When you don't fudge, but instead let the dice land how they may, you are not indicating any preference for a player or their character. If they win and survive, great. If they die and fail, shame but oh well. Once you start fudging living and dying, then you have put yourself in a position where you are constantly deciding the value of a player or their character, even whether you are conscious of it or not.


GeraintElberion wrote:
james maissen wrote:
A rant directly challenging other people for their playstyle which you obviously regard as inferior and 'dishonest'.

Stop, please, just be nice to other people.

It's not hard. It probably took a lot more effort to get worked up and write that long rant than it would to just think: "Fair enough, we're all different."

I'm not perfect but the games I GM are fun, for me and my players: I haven't told you whether I fudge or not, but I have told you everything you need to know.

Generally, I've found this thread really interesting.

Say it again! I think this thread is getting a little too personal.


pres man wrote:


The problem with fudging DMs and player trust is this. Imagine you are in a game, and you are aware the DM on occasion fudges rolls. In a session, your character is killed. This means one of two things in this situation. Either (1) the DM fudged to kill your character which would indicate he had something "against" you or your character, or (2) the DM intentionally did not fudge to save your character which would indicate he had something "against" you or your character.

When you don't fudge, but instead let the dice land how they may, you are not indicating any preference for a player or their character. If they win and survive, great. If they die and fail, shame but oh well. Once you start fudging living and dying, then you have put yourself in a position where you are constantly deciding the value of a player or their character, even whether you are conscious of it or not.

If I ever thought that a GM purposely fudged to kill a character I would consider him a bad GM. I have fudged, but never to kill the character, that is bad use of fudging.

As for being in a game where I knew the GM fudged and I still died, I still would not be upset with him. It's his job as the GM to use it when it would be necessary.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Quote:
Either (1) the DM fudged to kill your character which would indicate he had something "against" you or your character, or (2) the DM intentionally did not fudge to save your character which would indicate he had something "against" you or your character.

Why is there no option where the DM doesn't have something against a character? A DM who only occasionally fudges must always have something against a character who dies in his game?


Err... A DM who wants to kill a character don't have to fudge you know... He can throw a very ancient red dragon at you and he won't have to fudge a die at all... :p

And sometimes a GM wants to kill you because he wants to give you something... like an interview with your god and a way back in your corpse after that... fudging for rp reason (and not really killing th player) is not really fudging isn't it ? ;)


TriOmegaZero wrote:
Quote:
Either (1) the DM fudged to kill your character which would indicate he had something "against" you or your character, or (2) the DM intentionally did not fudge to save your character which would indicate he had something "against" you or your character.
Why is there no option where the DM doesn't have something against a character? A DM who only occasionally fudges must always have something against a character who dies in his game?

A man who builds a bridge is a bridge builder.

A man who builds a thousand bridges is a bridge builder.
A man who builds a thousand bridges, and kills one man is a murderer.

Sometimes introducing the bad outweighs any and all good. And when you introduce that precedent, people start to expect it.

Silver Crusade

I think people are assuming that fudging means that you are somehow protecting your players from nasty things. Or picking on players for some reason.

I fudge rolls on occassion (only as a GM mind). I do it to make the story more interesting NOT to mollycoddle the players or to undermine them.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

Bob the antipaladin is the BBEG for a campaign. You have been hyping the final fight against this dispicable opponent for months. The players get through to face him and roll initiative. The first round of combat occurs, the enchanter PC casts Dominate Person, Bob rolls a 1 and the enchanter gets him to jump in a lava pool.

In less than a round that would be the end of the campaign and would make the final boss fight an appalling anticlimax.

How lame would Buffy the Vampire Slayer have been if they had built up the BBEG only to have Buffy punch the bad guy once to kill him.

LAME!!!!!!

In that instance I would have him pass that save because it's good for the story. Players want a challenge they don't want a curb stomp battle.

Second example.

The players are up against 3 Umber Hulks and everybody has failed their confusion saves. This was not meant to be a TPK encounter but through bad dice rolling the PC's are getting minced.

You know that the wizard has an item that can remove the confusion effect and you feel that a TPK in a random encounter is not the way for the heroic party to go. So you pretend that the wizard rolled "act normally" on the confusion test to give the players a chance to survive.

There are 3 rules of fudging

1) Don't retcon something that has already happened.
2) Don't let the players know what you are doing.
3) Prevention is better than cure.

By the last one what I mean is that you should anticipate problems before they arise wherever possible. In example 1 it would have been better to give Bob a ring of spell turning to avoid this. In example 2 it may have been better to add Trolls rather than Umber Hulks.

This evening I am running the BBEG encounter of a published campaign against an opponent who is deemed to be powerful and dangerous. Against a 10th level party she has 39hp and would last at best half a round... So I rewrote her to be more powerful. That for me is a form of fudging and I'm entirely OK with it. However it's better to do that before the game than on the fly.

Fudging is NOT cheating folks...


TriOmegaZero wrote:
Quote:
Either (1) the DM fudged to kill your character which would indicate he had something "against" you or your character, or (2) the DM intentionally did not fudge to save your character which would indicate he had something "against" you or your character.
Why is there no option where the DM doesn't have something against a character? A DM who only occasionally fudges must always have something against a character who dies in his game?

Because the DM has set up a system where they get to decide who really matters and who is just along for the ride. If the DM decides to fudge to save Bob's character, but two sessions later doesn't do so to save Mary's character, isn't that making some kind of judgement on the value of Bob's and Mary's characters? That is the problem with fudging, you either have to treat everyone the same or it is favoritism.

We can argue that Bob's character has a fuller background and is intimately tied to the overall campaign story, thus losing his character would be more harmful than losing Mary's character that has no background and just showed up two sessions before. And thus it is more "rational" for the DM to save Bob's character than it is for the DM to intervene to save Mary's, but again we are making judgments of the value of the different characters and that is hardly being impartial.


Mistah Green wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:
Mistah Green wrote:
stuff about accepting his fate

While I agree with you that characters should make their own fate, and your willing to accept fate is something I like in a player, I don't think every fudging DM is an evil rules breaker trying to manipulate the story.

edit:I know I exaggerated, but I think you get the point about the evil DM.

Even if you can't ascribe it to malicious intent, every single thing that happens henceforth is tainted.

Someone around here said something to the effect of 'Never tell your players you fudged dice, because the moment you do you undermine everything they accomplish in the future.'

No, all their accomplishments from that day forward were undermined the moment that dice fudging took place. There's just a non zero length of time where the players erroneously continue to believe their actions amount to anything before learning, effectively that their character's lives were a lie. At which point they realize that not only have they wasted a lot of their time, but that the DM is willing to both lie and cover it up instead of just coming out and saying "Hey, listen guys. I screwed up this encounter by putting two dragons instead of one. We could play it out like this but it won't end well for you. Or we can play it out against one dragon."

In such a case the DM still screwed up encounter balance and is having to change it, but at least is willing to own up to, and offer fixes to his mistakes. And he isn't doing so in an underhanded manner.

If my players know I fudged they generally asked what they could have done to be less "DM dependent". I normally tell them how they did not ask about a specific NPC, or they forget that I told them about X meaning they should have prepared spell Y, which in turn would prevent Z. In the end it makes them better players, and I don't have to help as much. I don't fudge all time, and rarely at all. I think if I allow them to die it reminds them to be careful. I also never fudge a fight to ensure victory. If they are low on HP, as an example, and I "miss" and they are silly enough to stick around instead of retreat then they just have to live or die with their choices. Sometimes I will have a new player, and I will ask something along the lines of "are you sure you want to do that". If they proceed with the action then I feel no sympathy for them.


For six hours every week, my group gathers for an evening’s entertainment. This entertainment could come in a variety of forms, but we choose to spend this time together, away from our families or other pursuits. During that time, players are entertained by each other through their interactions with each other and NPCs, engaging in battles of various difficulty and other challenges. The GM is entertained by the antics of the players and the both clever and stupid things they may do. It is the job of the GM to orchestrate the entertainment and to see that all participants including him or herself have a good time. The rules are the skeleton of the entertainment and the random element (dice or whatever) are the musculature that moves the fleshy adventure bits along. Sometimes, the players need to get a swift kick in the fleshy bits to keep thing tense and exciting and other times they need to knock someone’s fleshy bits into the dirt. It is keeping whose fleshy bits are going where that is the challenge to the GM.

I like my players to feel challenged but I also want them to be satisfied by the entertainment. I also want to be entertained at the same time. Wholesale slaughter of a PC is not something I find entertaining, but if a player jumps blindly into a pool of angry crocodiles, I AM going to laugh a little bit. I will try to help the guy out of the jaws of death, but sometimes a lesson needs to be taught. Again, it is a balancing act between deciding when to allow the actions and the die rolling to speak for themselves and when to step in and give a helping hand.

I also feel that the good of the story should be considered at all times. If the good of the story is going to suffer because of a stupid action, I try to stop it in a hopefully seamless way. If I think a less-than stupid action could be disruptive but obviously doable, I might try to stop it somehow, again seamlessly if possible. But, if an idea is clever and goes outside the normal conventions, this I try to reward with success, total or partial.

In the end, given the competition for the player’s attention and time and the desire to entertain (which is what drives me as a GM), I will do what I need to do (within the game and within reason) to keep the players coming back for more. I have found that one cannot be selfish if one is going to be a successful GM and still get to kick the PC’s in the fleshy bits once in a while.


Loengrin wrote:

Err... A DM who wants to kill a character don't have to fudge you know... He can throw a very ancient red dragon at you and he won't have to fudge a die at all... :p

And sometimes a GM wants to kill you because he wants to give you something... like an interview with your god and a way back in your corpse after that... fudging for rp reason (and not really killing th player) is not really fudging isn't it ? ;)

Would this not be considered "railroading"?


FallofCamelot wrote:
This evening I am running the BBEG encounter of a published campaign against an opponent who is deemed to be powerful and dangerous. Against a 10th level party she has 39hp and would last at best half a round... So I rewrote her to be more powerful. That for me is a form of fudging and I'm entirely OK with it. However it's better to do that before the game than on the fly.

Why would this be considered fudging? The original designer has no clue what your party make-up is. I can kinda see why as deviating from the printed material, but i would like to hear your reasoning.


FallofCamelot wrote:

Bob the antipaladin is the BBEG for a campaign. You have been hyping the final fight against this dispicable opponent for months. The players get through to face him and roll initiative. The first round of combat occurs, the enchanter PC casts Dominate Person, Bob rolls a 1 and the enchanter gets him to jump in a lava pool.

In less than a round that would be the end of the campaign and would make the final boss fight an appalling anticlimax.

Let me translate what you have described.

DM: You finally come face to face with the opponent you have been after. Roll initiative.
*bunch of rolls later*
DM: Ok what does Gled the enchanter do?
Gled: I cast Dominate Person on him and tell him to leap into the lava.
DM: *rolls dice, thinks for a second* You lose your turn.
Gled: Wait, what, how do I lose my turn?
DM: You cast something that would make the encounter lame. You lose your turn.

FallofCamelot wrote:
Fudging is NOT cheating folks...

If a player had done what you described here ("You fail your save." "Nah, uh!"), we would all agree that was cheating. I fail to see how it is any different when the DM does it, except for the lame claim of "DMs can't cheat, by definition."


pres man wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:
Mistah Green wrote:
stuff about accepting his fate

While I agree with you that characters should make their own fate, and your willing to accept fate is something I like in a player, I don't think every fudging DM is an evil rules breaker trying to manipulate the story.

edit:I know I exaggerated, but I think you get the point about the evil DM.

The problem with fudging DMs and player trust is this. Imagine you are in a game, and you are aware the DM on occasion fudges rolls. In a session, your character is killed. This means one of two things in this situation. Either (1) the DM fudged to kill your character which would indicate he had something "against" you or your character, or (2) the DM intentionally did not fudge to save your character which would indicate he had something "against" you or your character.

When you don't fudge, but instead let the dice land how they may, you are not indicating any preference for a player or their character. If they win and survive, great. If they die and fail, shame but oh well. Once you start fudging living and dying, then you have put yourself in a position where you are constantly deciding the value of a player or their character, even whether you are conscious of it or not.

I don't expect the DM to fudge to save my character even if he fudges on occasion so if I die then I die. The only way I would think of bad of my character dying was if I observed favoritism towards another player.

An example(based on real life events)
PC 1: I want to climb the wall(about 30 feet high).
DM: OK, give me 4 climbs checks the DC is 20.
PC 1: <rolls and makes all of his checks> ok, I made it.
PC 2: I want to climb the wall. I made a DC 25 jump check
DM: OK, you're up there.
PC 1: <his jaw drops, and his eyes bulge>

Silver Crusade

pres man wrote:
FallofCamelot wrote:

Bob the antipaladin is the BBEG for a campaign. You have been hyping the final fight against this dispicable opponent for months. The players get through to face him and roll initiative. The first round of combat occurs, the enchanter PC casts Dominate Person, Bob rolls a 1 and the enchanter gets him to jump in a lava pool.

In less than a round that would be the end of the campaign and would make the final boss fight an appalling anticlimax.

Let me translate what you have described.

DM: You finally come face to face with the opponent you have been after. Roll initiative.
*bunch of rolls later*
DM: Ok what does Gled the enchanter do?
Gled: I cast Dominate Person on him and tell him to leap into the lava.
DM: *rolls dice, thinks for a second* You lose your turn.
Gled: Wait, what, how do I lose my turn?
DM: You cast something that would make the encounter lame. You lose your turn.

FallofCamelot wrote:
Fudging is NOT cheating folks...
If a player had done what you described here ("You fail your save." "Nah, uh!"), we would all agree that was cheating. I fail to see how it is any different when the DM does it, except for the lame claim of "DMs can't cheat, by definition."

Because a Player does it to gain benefit for himself and a GM does it to present a fun and exciting game.

That's the difference. A player's task is to play his character fairly so as to be fair to the other players. A GM's task is to create an exciting game. Therefore a GM is not cheating because anything he does to make the game more exciting is acceptable by definition.

If you treat a game as Players vs GM then sure it's cheating. But that is not what roleplaying is about. As a GM my role is to create the world that the players inhabit and populate it with a fun adventure. If that means I have to move the deckchairs about on the fly then I will damn well do it. My job is to entertain, not compete.

Your translation is also erroneous. I would never tell my players that I had fudged (and bear in mind I do it very rarely). What the players do not know will not hurt them.


pres man wrote:

DM: Ok what does Gled the enchanter do?

Gled: I cast Dominate Person on him and tell him to leap into the lava.
DM: *rolls dice, thinks for a second* You lose your turn.
Gled: Wait, what, how do I lose my turn?
DM: You cast something that would make the encounter lame. You lose your turn.

I like you.

Now someone mentioned changing encounters.

Say you're running an adventure path, and the BBEG is a poorly built level 11 character. Maybe he's a finesse fighter with bad Con, whichever.

You realize as you're preparing the campaign this guy cannot punch in his weight class. Not even close. So you fix him to be Strength based, be able to take a hit and live, and generally perform at par.

So when the party encounters them, they never were a walking pile of free experience and treasure.

This is not fudging.

If you also realize, before the party ever encounters this guy that a BBEG needs to have more than one level on the party to be a meaningful threat, and you make him level 14 so that every encounter the party has with this guy is vs level 14 him.

This is also not fudging.

But if it takes you until the battle starts to realize this guy will go down in a quarter of a round to anyone and then you start adding numbers, that's fudging. You should have realized your BBEG was a minion in disguise beforehand.


FallofCamelot wrote:

Bob the antipaladin is the BBEG for a campaign. You have been hyping the final fight against this dispicable opponent for months. The players get through to face him and roll initiative. The first round of combat occurs, the enchanter PC casts Dominate Person, Bob rolls a 1 and the enchanter gets him to jump in a lava pool.

In less than a round that would be the end of the campaign and would make the final boss fight an appalling anticlimax.

And that's your fault, entirely, for throwing Bob against an enchanter without giving Bob something so simple as a 1st level protection from good spell or the Iron Will feat. I mean, honestly, come on. You've been planning this for months and it never once occurred to you during that time that one of the PCs is an enchanter? Mid-fight is too late for you to be asking for more prep time, which is in essence what you're trying to make up for by fudging.

Now, if the PCs had been studying Bob, and knew he had those defenses, and the PC spent his last two feats on Spell Focus and the party dispelled Bob's protection immediately, then it can actually be quite exciting when Bob goes down in one round -- because the anticipation is in seeing if their preparations were enough.

Every fight with a BBEG does not need to be dragged out to last 16 rounds for the game to be fun. In fact, after a couple of those fights, it gets to be boring. "Oh, we've just found the bad guy? Okay, I cast scorching ray every round until I run out of slots. See you in a couple of hours -- I'm gonna go get my oil changed."

Scarab Sages

I've been watching this thread, and going back and forth on whether or not to comment. When I first started running my own game back in 2nd edition (pre Skills and Powers), I fudged all the time, for "story" purposes.

Just after 3.0 came out, I was fortunate enough to play with a great GM. It was a pick up game, totally unplanned, and the GM was a friend of a friend. He made all his rolls in the open, in front of us, and it was the most enjoyable game I've ever played.

2 PCs died, and we kept gaming, well until 4 AM. Since that moment I have tried to make rolls in the open, in front of the players. If an encounter as written in a module seems too weak for my players, I buff the encounter statically, not dynamically.

I also periodically review my PC's character sheets and wealth levels to make sure there are appropriate CR ratings for their encounters, but that's a whole different story altogether...


Mistah Green wrote:

A man who builds a bridge is a bridge builder.

A man who builds a thousand bridges is a bridge builder.
A man who builds a thousand bridges, and kills one man is a murderer.

Sometimes introducing the bad outweighs any and all good. And when you introduce that precedent, people start to expect it.

It's easy so say that when murder is the act.... but since fudging won't make you a felon forevermore, let's rephrase the act into a lie?

Are all parents who tell their children that presents were placed under the tree by Santa Claus liars? They are lying aren't they? - spreading blatant falsehoods... Run them out of town, right?

Or is it that they're adding to the "fun" of the moment... perpetuating a myth for the "Awwwwww" factor, the seeing their children's eyes bulge at the sight of their first bicycle - the indelible memories or magic kids feel on Christmas morning. And what about the parents who feel the reward of seeing their kids taken away by the joy of the moment... ignoring the fact that they simply and mundanely opened up their checkbooks and bought a trunkload of toys from their local Wal*Mart.... and stayed up until 2am in the morning slaving away with tape and wrapping paper.

So, this information is often kept from the kids...

Yet, I see a lot of energy in this thread being spent trying to convince others that "Well, if you are making an attempt to keep the fact that you're fudging from your players, then it's inherently wrong!!!"

So in the Santa scenario it's inherently wrong because you're keeping this information from the kids - yet it's done year after year, across innumerable households.

Why?

Because something else comes of it that can be rewarding... even though, when you look at it in black and white terms, it's a "lie" and that makes the parents liars, and keeping truths away from their children.

And even years later, when the children grow up and come to realize that Santa was just an elaborate myth, they do not forever turn their backs on their parents as liars or cheats. They might understand that the myth was perpetuated in order to achieve that "something else" that can't be achieved by raw, brutal, honest, uninspired "reality."

---

Do not read more into the whole parent/child - GM/players paradigm, that isn't the point.... the point is that GMing is more than simply rolling dice, consulting a chart, and dispassionately announcing off the results. Their mandate is far more complex and gray and the GM has to have his finger on the pulse of the game. Sometimes to tweak, sometimes you "fudge", sometimes you let the dice decide - or all of the above - or none of the above in order to achieve a result not simply attainable by following a formula. No tools should be abandoned wholesale in the pursuit of an exciting or memorable game.


FallofCamelot wrote:

I think people are assuming that fudging means that you are somehow protecting your players from nasty things. Or picking on players for some reason.

I fudge rolls on occassion (only as a GM mind). I do it to make the story more interesting NOT to mollycoddle the players or to undermine them.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

Bob the antipaladin is the BBEG for a campaign. You have been hyping the final fight against this dispicable opponent for months. The players get through to face him and roll initiative. The first round of combat occurs, the enchanter PC casts Dominate Person, Bob rolls a 1 and the enchanter gets him to jump in a lava pool.

In less than a round that would be the end of the campaign and would make the final boss fight an appalling anticlimax.

How lame would Buffy the Vampire Slayer have been if they had built up the BBEG only to have Buffy punch the bad guy once to kill him.

LAME!!!!!!

In that instance I would have him pass that save because it's good for the story. Players want a challenge they don't want a curb stomp battle.

Second example.

The players are up against 3 Umber Hulks and everybody has failed their confusion saves. This was not meant to be a TPK encounter but through bad dice rolling the PC's are getting minced.

You know that the wizard has an item that can remove the confusion effect and you feel that a TPK in a random encounter is not the way for the heroic party to go. So you pretend that the wizard rolled "act normally" on the confusion test to give the players a chance to survive.

There are 3 rules of fudging

1) Don't retcon something that has already happened.
2) Don't let the players know what you are doing.
3) Prevention is better than cure.

By the last one what I mean is that you should anticipate problems before they arise wherever possible. In example 1 it would have been better to give Bob a ring of spell turning to avoid this. In example 2 it may have been better to add Trolls rather than Umber Hulks.

This evening...

Out of curiosity

question about pathetic BBEG:
What imitation of a BBEG has 39HP at level 10. If you don't mind telling me the source I am hoping that there is a type or something that makes this reasonable. Feel free to spoiler the reply

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
pres man wrote:

Let me translate what you have described.

DM: You finally come face to face with the opponent you have been after. Roll initiative.
*bunch of rolls later*
DM: Ok what does Gled the enchanter do?
Gled: I cast Dominate Person on him and tell him to leap into the lava.
DM: *rolls dice, thinks for a second* You lose your turn.
Gled: Wait, what, how do I lose my turn?
DM: You cast something that would make the encounter lame. You lose your turn.

If a player had done what you described here ("You fail your save." "Nah, uh!"), we would all agree that was cheating. I fail to see how it is any different when the DM does it, except for the lame claim of "DMs can't cheat, by definition."

Your translation (an extreme example IMO) has helped me understand your position. I would call that cheating for the same reasons Kirth outlined as well.

I disagree that it is always bad. I think it has to be an open houserule that the players agree to. Some players are okay with rampant tampering, some want strictly by the fall of the dice.

Neither is bad unless the player does not agree to it.


pres man wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:
Quote:
Either (1) the DM fudged to kill your character which would indicate he had something "against" you or your character, or (2) the DM intentionally did not fudge to save your character which would indicate he had something "against" you or your character.
Why is there no option where the DM doesn't have something against a character? A DM who only occasionally fudges must always have something against a character who dies in his game?

Because the DM has set up a system where they get to decide who really matters and who is just along for the ride. If the DM decides to fudge to save Bob's character, but two sessions later doesn't do so to save Mary's character, isn't that making some kind of judgement on the value of Bob's and Mary's characters? That is the problem with fudging, you either have to treat everyone the same or it is favoritism.

We can argue that Bob's character has a fuller background and is intimately tied to the overall campaign story, thus losing his character would be more harmful than losing Mary's character that has no background and just showed up two sessions before. And thus it is more "rational" for the DM to save Bob's character than it is for the DM to intervene to save Mary's, but again we are making judgments of the value of the different characters and that is hardly being impartial.

If a DM is playing favorites then fudging is the least of your worries.

Silver Crusade

Kirth Gersen wrote:
FallofCamelot wrote:

Bob the antipaladin is the BBEG for a campaign. You have been hyping the final fight against this dispicable opponent for months. The players get through to face him and roll initiative. The first round of combat occurs, the enchanter PC casts Dominate Person, Bob rolls a 1 and the enchanter gets him to jump in a lava pool.

In less than a round that would be the end of the campaign and would make the final boss fight an appalling anticlimax.

And that's your fault, entirely, for throwing Bob against an enchanter without giving Bob something so simple as a 1st level protection from good spell or the Iron Will feat. I mean, honestly, come on. You've been planning this for months and it never once occurred to you during that time that one of the PCs is an enchanter? Mid-fight is too late for you to be asking for more prep time, which is in essence what you're trying to make up for by fudging.

Now, if the PCs had been studying Bob, and knew he had those defenses, and the PC spent his last two feats on Spell Focus and the party dispelled Bob's protection immediately, then it can actually be quite exciting when Bob goes down in one round -- because the anticipation is in seeing if their preparations were enough.

Every fight with a BBEG does not need to be dragged out to last 16 rounds for the game to be fun. In fact, after a couple of those fights, it gets to be boring. "Oh, we've just found the bad guy? Okay, I cast scorching ray every round until I run out of slots. See you in a couple of hours -- I'm gonna go get my oil changed."

Well that was a bit snarky! Can we keep it civil please?

Players are unpredictable that was my point. If I want to change/add/alter things on the fly to make the game fun then I will do that. I personally think it makes for a better experience and my players tend to agree.

We could be at this all day. Suffice to say if the PC's are clever/dispel his protections/come up with a good idea then fair enough they should be rewarded for cleverness. But if the ending is lame because of a dice roll I will change that and I see no problem with it.

Attack my standpoint all you want. I have 6 players turning up tonight so I must be doing something right.


FallofCamelot wrote:
I have 6 players turning up tonight so I must be doing something right.

You can be the greatest DM on the planet in every way except one, and still have room to improve in that one area. Obviosuly, to keep 6 players interested you run an exciting, interesting game. That's to your credit, and nothing I said takes away from that in any way. However, your example made it clear that you still have a glaring weak spot when it comes to taking the PCs' capabilities into account when planning encounters. You can work on that -- or just declare yourself to be infallible.

That isn't snark; it's constructive criticism.


I_Use_Ref_Discretion wrote:

Nitpicking about the example of bad acts outweighing good ones.

Talk of treating players like five year old children.

And it did not occur to you at any point in which you were discussing treating your presumably adult players as if they were very young children that could not think for themselves that you were not being extremely condescending and disrespectful towards them? Even if you do game with minors, chances are those minors are a lot older than 5.

And even the five year olds only play along with the whole Santa Claus thing because it gets them more presents. It's not hard for even them to see through.

The difference is your players get nothing out of tolerating a disrespectful DM.


It's all about the game and the fun, folks. Forget all this BS about you're doing it right or not if you fudge or don't fudge. It all comes down to this. Is your group having fun? If the answer is yes, then you're doing it right. If the answer is no, then you're doing it wrong, and should maybe reconsider what you are doing. If opinions are mixed at the table, you need some more discussion about what it is people want, hopefully ending in happy consensus and compromise.

Flat out statements that DMs who fudge rolls occasionally (or more than occasionally) are bad DMs are ludicrous. As long as their group, which may and probably does differ dramatically from your group, is having fun, then all is cool.

Similarly, flat out statements that DMs who roll everything in the open and let the dice fall where they will are bad DMs are just as ludicrous. Their game may be different from yours, but if they are having fun, rock on.

All that said, I do fudge die rolls occasionally and always have. My players know this, because I have told them, and they are cool with it. They occasionally, after the game, try to guess if I fudged a particular roll, but they are rarely correct. Doesn't seem to have effected their enjoyment of the game or pride in their successes one bit. They also know, because I have promised them so, that I will never fudge a roll in a way that will get a PC killed or cause a significant adverse effect for a PC. I make all rolls behind the screen. My two fellow DMs in the group have never admitted it publicly, but I am dead certain that they also occasionally fudge rolls. Why do we do it? To keep utter randomness from turning an epic story into something considerably less so. To give the players stories they will remember and retell for years. To prevent the death of awesome characters through mind-numbingly improbable bad luck as opposed to poor decisions by the player or just being beaten by a tough opponent or the challenge. Any or all of the above are sufficient for me and my group.

I am tempted to say that some of the argument here is based on generational differences, as newer/younger players seem to fall more in the "let the dice fall where they may" camp than the grognards, but I think it is really about play style. I know some young'uns who definitely prefer the old school DM is god way, and I know some geezers who always hated that way of playing and definitely prefer the more rules-bound approach.

Whatever your play style, remember that it is just that, and that none of us, even us beer-swilling satyrs, hold the key to all wisdom, so we need to respect each other's opinions and just enjoy the fact that the game/hobby is big enough to accomodate all of us.


Brian Bachman wrote:
A lot of good stuff.

Very well said. The right way to play is the way that results in everybody at the table having a good time. For some groups that involves occasional fudging and for some groups it doesn't. Neither is right or wrong, it's just different strokes for different folks.


FallofCamelot wrote:
Your translation is also erroneous. I would never tell my players that I had fudged (and bear in mind I do it very rarely). What the players do not know will not hurt them.

It was erroneous because you wouldn't tell the player he had lost his turn, you'd just make him lose his turn anyway, is that what you are claiming? So it would be more like:

DM: Ok what does Gled the enchanter do?
Gled: I cast Dominate Person on him and tell him to leap into the lava.
DM: *rolls dice, thinks for a second* *mumbles to himself, "You lose your turn, sucker."*
Gled: Huh? What was that I couldn't hear you.
DM: *clears throat* I said, he made his save, your dominate doesn't work.

Look. If you want to make it not work because it would be lame, then just tell the player when he goes to cast it. "Sorry, I'm not going to allow that to happen, because it would make this epic encounter lame. Why don't you do something else with your turn instead?" This way you don't rob the player of their turn and you still get to keep your epic encounter epic. But to just waste a player's turn like that is ... shameful, IMO of course.

EDIT: Just to point out, this being honest approach works for my group. We still play 3.5. We have pretty much made dispel magic a no-go for most encounters. Just because at the level the party is at, there are so many magic items and effects going on, that to try and dispel them means taking up several minutes tracking down the caster levels, then rolling to see what gets dispeled/surpressed and then having to redo the entire stat blocks. So both me and the players agree to not do dispel magic most of the time. On the other hand, we haven't entirely forbid it either and extreme cases we will allow it to be used as a tide turner.

So if you don't want to use some tactic/spell for an encounter, tell the players. Treat them like adults and let them know that this is for the good of the group. If you can't trust them to act like adults, maybe you have other issues at play.

Liberty's Edge

pres man wrote:


Let me translate what you have described.

DM: You finally come face to face with the opponent you have been after. Roll initiative.
*bunch of rolls later*
DM: Ok what does Gled the enchanter do?
Gled: I cast Dominate Person on him and tell him to leap into the lava.
DM: *rolls dice, thinks for a second* You lose your turn.
Gled: Wait, what, how do I lose my turn?
DM: You cast something that would make the encounter lame. You lose your turn.

+1

If a DM can't handle their guy losing to a save-or-die effect, then make it clear that he wears something that protects him from that before the PCs memorize spells, or for that matter even walk on in. If a damned enchantress can't enchant, then what the hell is wrong with you? Why is she in your game then? To dominate person on useless enemies, and that's it? Are there enemies too cool to be hit with a sword too?

If you set the dude up to roll a save, and rolled a one- guess what, you rolled a damned one. That's why that f**king one is on the die. You don't need to assume you'll roll a one or a twenty, but likewise you should never assume it is *impossible*.

I've had PCs walk in and casually disintegrate or x4 crit a "boss" into nothing round 1. I think it's hilarious. If it's routine, your encounter design needs work. If something is supposed to be climatic that's a reason to give him well known and feared immunities or resistances.

The Exchange

Hi, this is the OP. Some VERY GOOD comments coming very several people. I never imagined that this thread would attract this much attention (naive, I know), but I am glad it did because people were able to share their experience in a positive manner. But please be civil! We are from all walks of life and have different approaches to gaming. As I stated in my first post, this is NOT a RIGHT or WRONG discussion, but more of an exploration behind fudging.

It only takes a snarky comment to ruin a conversation. Let's not do that!


Brian Bachman wrote:
I am tempted to say that some of the argument here is based on generational differences, as newer/younger players seem to fall more in the "let the dice fall where they may" camp than the grognards, but I think it is really about play style.

Especially since the 1e grognards like Derek and myself play the game with the expectation that most characters will die at low levels, and almost all of them before reaching 10th or so. This concept that each character is an irreplacable, precious life that must be constantly preserved by any means necessary -- DM fudging whenever death seems imminent -- seems very "newfangled" (read: "2nd ed. or later") to us. Given that your impression is 180 degrees opposite, I'd guess it's a style, rather than a generational, thing.


'Sorry, I'm not going to allow this because it would make this epic encounter lame"!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now that's a way to make an epic encounter lame - and make the DM look like a real doofus. Actually, in such a situation, I would probably just let the mage have her victory, why not let them win an easy one once in a while?

But, let's see who are the real fudgers --

Goes back to 1st edition -

Random monster charts had nothing like CR ratings - what you got was what you got.

So - lawful good party (there were more of them in the old days) - meets an ancient gold dragon - probably a 99 or 00 on the chart.

BUT - you also rolled reaction rolls at random as well - again 00 - enemy - attack on sight. (would have been modified down some by similar alignments, but not enough to get it away from the attack on sight result).

"Sorry guys - the dragon's in a bad mood, but what can I do? That's what the dice said. After you save vs. breath weapon, you all still take 60 points apiece, let's start rolling up new characters."

If you are ruled by the dice, such a thing not only could happen, eventually it would happen. If not, then you too fudge results (in favor of sensible encounters).

God does not play dice with the universe - Einstein

Not only does God play dice with the universe, sometimes he rolls them where they can't be seen - Stephen Hawking.


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Brian Bachman wrote:
I am tempted to say that some of the argument here is based on generational differences, as newer/younger players seem to fall more in the "let the dice fall where they may" camp than the grognards, but I think it is really about play style. I know some young'uns who definitely prefer the old school DM is god way, and I know some geezers who always hated that way of playing and definitely prefer the more rules-bound approach.

Not age. If it were age based, if anything it would work the opposite way, with younger people preferring to play Mother May I, and the older players preferring the actual rules. Referees are intended to be impartial and tend to get yelled at when they aren't.


Mistah Green wrote:

And it did not occur to you at any point in which you were discussing treating your presumably adult players as if they were very young children that could not think for themselves that you were not being extremely condescending and disrespectful towards them? Even if you do game with minors, chances are those minors are a lot older than 5.

And even the five year olds only play along with the whole Santa Claus thing because it gets them more presents. It's not hard for even them to see through.

Looks like someone has, in fact, the reading comprehension of a 5 year old. :)

In any case, I've chimed in before on this thread a few times - with more substantive examples of when I think fudging is appropriate and when it's not. You can go back and read those if you care to speak from a position of knowledge and civility or you can simply continue to stand here and make sad attempts to stuff words not said into people's mouths.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Kirth Gersen wrote:
Especially since the 1e grognards like Derek and myself play the game with the expectation that most characters will die at low levels, and almost all of them before reaching 10th or so. This concept that each character is an irreplacable, precious life that must be constantly preserved by any means necessary -- DM fudging whenever death seems imminent -- seems very "newfangled" (read: "2nd ed. or later") to us. Given that your impression is 180 degrees opposite, I'd guess it's a style, rather than a generational, thing.

Can't wait to meatgrinder you guys through Shackled City then. :)


Major__Tom wrote:
If you are ruled by the dice, such a thing not only could happen, eventually it would happen. If not, then you too fudge results (in favor of sensible encounters).

No -- all the DMs I used to play with just told us to stop crying and roll up a new character. "Adventuring is dangerous -- otherwise everyone would do it. Instead, they're all level zero and you're not. You gotta take the risks to get the rewards."


TriOmegaZero wrote:
Can't wait to meatgrinder you guys through Shackled City then. :)

My tricked-out Pathfinder tripping monk lasted a total of two (2) sessions with Silverhair DMing the Last Baron modules. I'd hoped the rest of the party would at least finish the 2nd adventure, but they were all eaten by mimics about 15 minutes later. It was the most fun I'd had in years.

We resurrected the mimic food for the next session (my turn to DM), and at the end of the adventure, out of 4 PCs one was serving life in prison, the two dangerous ones (rogues) were dead again, and the fourth (the inoffensive halfling) was castrated, lobotomized, and working as an organ-grinder's monkey.


Kirth Gersen wrote:

And that's your fault, entirely, for throwing Bob against an enchanter without giving Bob something so simple as a 1st level protection from good spell or the Iron Will feat. I mean, honestly, come on. You've been planning this for months and it never once occurred to you during that time that one of the PCs is an enchanter? Mid-fight is too late for you to be asking for more prep time, which is in essence what you're trying to make up for by fudging.

Now, if the PCs had been studying Bob, and knew he had those defenses, and the PC spent his last two feats on Spell Focus and the party dispelled Bob's protection immediately, then it can actually be quite exciting when Bob goes down in one round -- because the anticipation is in seeing if their preparations were enough.

Every fight with a BBEG does not need to be dragged out to last 16 rounds for the game to be fun. In fact, after a couple of those fights, it gets to be boring. "Oh, we've just found the bad guy? Okay, I cast scorching ray every round until I run out of slots. See you in a couple of hours -- I'm gonna go get my oil changed."

I think you're being a little unfair in how you're framing this. Camelot's original example involved the BBEG rolling a 1. Protection from good aside, that means that the BBEG is jumping into lava whether he's got Iron Will or not. Hell, even mind blank doesn't guard against a natural 1 in PF. Either he's got an effect that grants him blanket immunity to compulsions, he's got Improved Iron Will to allow him a RAW reroll (which still doesn't preclude 1-in-400 odds of two 1s in a row), or the climactic encounter to which this game has been building for months just became stupid.

Furthermore, we're not necessarily talking about a situation in which the PCs spent time and energy concocting the perfect plan (which I agree should sometimes be allowed to go off without a hitch, to reward the players for their effort and creativity). We're talking about a fluke auto-fail vs. a save or die effect in the first round of combat. Sometimes, these things happen, especially at moments when they really shouldn't.

So as a DM, I have a judgment call to make. If I let the roll stand, I've been fair and impartial. If I'm playing in Society play, this is certainly the correct call, in the interests of fairness. On the other hand, that call may rob my players of the sense of drama, danger, and ultimate accomplishment that comes with such a confrontation.

Alternately, I fudge it, and let the villain save against the effect to preserve the encounter. Personally, I'd fudge it in those precise circumstances, but only after checking the situation against my personal DM's fudging checklist.

1. The fudge may only be employed to prevent something that would actively detract from the enjoyment of the majority of players at the table.

2. The fudge may only move the dice in the direction of the most likely outcome of a given action. The action needs to have had a 70% or greater chance of turning out the way I'm calling it.

3. The fudge cannot negate the effect of a PC's heroic awesomeness. By heroic awesomeness, I do not mean the PC doing something that his build allows him to do trivially. But if the PC(s) are going above and beyond the call to try something clever or desperate, then the dice stand.

4. An encounter that's gone on for 3-4 rounds has gone on long enough (the villain has likely already done the coolest thing he/she is going to do). No fudging to extend its duration beyond that point.

5. If a player has seen the die roll already, you can't fudge it.

6. Only fudge on the PCs behalf to prevent a TPK, when all above conditions have also been met.

7. When in doubt, let the dice stand. The fudge is only for an extreme corner case scenario.

You may disagree with my approach, but I think it's a mistake to call this an objective flaw in the way I run my games or to accuse me of shoddy preparation.


Fudging Die Rolls to make a combat more "epic" might work for you, but, honestly, it really does cut into the emergent part of RPG storytelling. I'm on the side of the phase spider example here. Bob the archvillian would be plenty memorable if I'd spent all sorts of time extolling his bad-ossity and setting up his scene, complete with "villian speech" - only to be dispatched with a spell and a quip from the enchanter, and a handy pool of lava(!rule of cool indeed!). This is actually something my players would consider GREAT and, after a bit of pouting, I'd enjoy it, too. It would enter the great cannon of game-session lore - that which entices us back to the table each week, to see what happens next.

Obviously, it's however you and your players want to play, but I think the loss of that genuine sense of wonder (and having to account for it as DM and STILL make the game 'epic', which is the most fun I have at the job) is sad.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
Brian Bachman wrote:
I am tempted to say that some of the argument here is based on generational differences, as newer/younger players seem to fall more in the "let the dice fall where they may" camp than the grognards, but I think it is really about play style.
Especially since the 1e grognards like Derek and myself play the game with the expectation that most characters will die at low levels, and almost all of them before reaching 10th or so. This concept that each character is an irreplacable, precious life that must be constantly preserved by any means necessary -- DM fudging whenever death seems imminent -- seems very "newfangled" (read: "2nd ed. or later") to us. Given that your impression is 180 degrees opposite, I'd guess it's a style, rather than a generational, thing.

I need to save this and haul it out whenever my players (especially my wife and daughters) accuse me of being a "killer DM". No matter what edition I've played, there has never been the expectation that most characters will die at low levels. Admittedly most players never made it past 10th level, but that was just because it took so long then to gain levels that the campaign usually petered out before then. So playstyle indeed.

And when the beloved distaff members of my family next complain about what a mean DM I am, I'll just threaten to send them over to play with Kirth and TOZ. :)

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Oh yeah. I'll be your huckleberry. >:)


So let's consider.

Big epic battle. Player casts spell that would if successful end the encounter in round 1. You, the DM roll the save, and it fails. You decide to fudge and say the BBEG made his save. A round or two later, the BBEG drops a PC. Do you now attempt to fudge that outcome, which wouldn't have happened if you hadn't fudged the initial BBEG save? Or is the player out of luck because he doesn't have the fudge power? Or are you one of those DMs that either keeps track of everyone's hps for them or you before you tell them the damage asks, "How many hps you got right now? 42? Well he does fif...ty... I mean he does 41 points of damage."


Brian Bachman wrote:
And when the beloved distaff members of my family next complain about what a mean DM I am, I'll just threaten to send them over to play with Kirth and TOZ. :)

Do! I even make characters roll 1e style "resurrect survival" checks -- so death is not only frequent, but often permanent.


Mistah Green wrote:
Brian Bachman wrote:
I am tempted to say that some of the argument here is based on generational differences, as newer/younger players seem to fall more in the "let the dice fall where they may" camp than the grognards, but I think it is really about play style. I know some young'uns who definitely prefer the old school DM is god way, and I know some geezers who always hated that way of playing and definitely prefer the more rules-bound approach.
Not age. If it were age based, if anything it would work the opposite way, with younger people preferring to play Mother May I, and the older players preferring the actual rules. Referees are intended to be impartial and tend to get yelled at when they aren't.

To clarify for both you and Kirth, my general observation is that younger/newer players who have their formative experiences in the more rules-intensive environment of 3.X/PF tend to be less deferential and trusting toward their DM, in my opinion, than those who grew up with 1st and 2nd edition, when, let's face it, the lack of explicit rules practically demanded the DM had to wing it a lot and the players had to trust him/her or be very unhappy. Die fudging seems to fit in the "how much do yout trust/defer to" your DM category. As I said, however, I really think it is more of a preferred play style than age/experience thing, though.

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