I noticed someone mentioning fudging rolls in another thread, prompting a response that if you fudge too often your players will hate you.
So, my question to the board at large is how do you handle fudging rolls? How often is it appropriate, which encounters is it appropriate in, which is it not appropriate in?
I look at it like this: for every roll I fudge in the enemies favor, I should then, at some point preferably in the same session, fudge one in the parties favor. I also REFUSE to fudge a roll against the players for a big first in their advancement, meaning that, no matter what the encounter, the first time someone in a campaign hits for massive damage, the dice are falling where they may, and it could be that my BBEG is going down to a vital strike round 1. I try not to fudge rolls too often, either, and NEVER to counter a well laid plan by the party. But, by the same token, the drama of a game is ruined if, as in one of my campaigns, no one can hit the tank except on a 20, so maybe for a few encounters a few guys get really lucky, and "roll" a few well placed 20's. However, even in those situations, you can be sure that there are going to be a few "failed" saves coming up, or that the nat 20 one of the bad guys rolls while hitting the wizard is going to have a confirm roll of "nat 1" regardless of what the dice show me.
Anyway, that's my basic philosophy, interested in seeing some others.
I noticed someone mentioning fudging rolls in another thread, prompting a response that if you fudge too often your players will hate you.
So, my question to the board at large is how do you handle fudging rolls? How often is it appropriate, which encounters is it appropriate in, which is it not appropriate in?
Well; there are some times where "fudging rolls" are appropriate, though I find it is important in accordance to a storyline or key event within the battle.
For example, if the Party were actually capable of defeating the Evil Wizard of Doom and Sadness (though I didn't want them to defeat the Wizard, as I wanted him to become a recurring villain), I would fudge a roll as the storyline I want to happen as a DM (for the campaign, that is) should occur, and if the PC's destroy the entire point of the event (which is to obtain the Artifact of Hope, not defeat some punk Wizard for lewtz), it becomes stupid.
I wouldn't fudge rolls if the campaign can still be completed with (or without) that specific event ending in a certain manner.
However, I do believe that a DM fudging rolls to avoid outright killing a character is a little ridiculous. If they're new, giving them a second chance to not be dumb isn't such a big deal, but a character must face the fact that at some battle at some point in time, they may very well die for being stupid, so a line needs to be drawn. I find that my DM's insane (I think it's hacked) D20 would have killed me multiple times over at certain points, leading me to believe he fudges some rolls on a few of us, but it also questions my certainty when he has killed PC's before in previous campaigns (heck, this campaign he inadvertantly killed our Ranger, though he lowered the severity by only giving him a single negative level, and saying the only loot we could salvage as "profit" from that fight was a Ring of Protection +2).
A line needs to be drawn; for me, it should be due to campaign purposes (such as a certain event needing to end in a specific manner, a key component of the fight being hinted at for the PC's to identify, etc.), and maybe for newbies who are just getting used to the game. But just to satisfy some whiny player, or to torture a specific player for whatever stupid reason isn't exactly fair or entertaining as a GM.
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I roll everything in the open, and the dice fall where they may. So there's no fudging at all :)
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As a DM, i think you should never fudge a roll to give yourself an advantage. You have absolute command of time and space, why do you need to fudge? Because you players surprised you with good tactics, a strong build, or plain luck?
You should be rewarding them, not cheating them out of their achievement. You only fudge if you make a mistake and make an encounter too difficult for your players. You fudge in their favor, not your own.
Evil Wizard of Doom and Sadness...maybe I'm just tired, but that sounds like a great MLP villain.
If you fudge that means you go for the 'easy route' of solving a problem you have. I prefer to go with the roll and find a cool creative way out of the problem.
Not all party defeats are kills.
Sometimes the good guys defeat the BBEG easily... they think.
Sometimes they ruin their reputation.
Sometimes they skip a chunk of the prepared stuff.
So be it. Rolling with it is good.
I fudge as much as necessary, as little as possible.
For now, I've decided just don't do it.
All my rolls are behind a screen. I do fudge rolls occasionally, in service to the plot as a whole or to increase the amount of drama and tension in a given encounter.
Sometimes, if the balance of the campaign rests on the success/failure of a single die roll, I'll roll it and tell the players what happened.
Often, if a roll is close to a success/failure, I won't do all the math and just say whether or not it works, as would be most dramatic.
And the rolls I fudge most often are damage rolls-- and those are pretty much always in the PCs' favor.
Basically-- I don't like to kill PCs if they haven't done anything wrong.
E.g. The PC barbarian is fighting a mook armed with a scythe. The mook happens to roll a 20, and confirms the crit: x4 damage; then I roll max damage. Damage dice indicate instant death, even though the player didn't do anything wrong. I'll probably fudge it so that the PC is at -8 hp and dying instead.
If they're being stupid, though, then the dice fall where they may. (e.g. GM: "The dragon fixes you with an amused gaze and asks what you think you're doing here." Player: "Attack!!!")
I prefer a sound policy of "never fudge, for any reason".
The reason is this:
I'm playing D&D. I'm not reading a story. I'm playing a game where the actions of my PC need to matter. Not some story, not some plot- but what each character does.
If I (myself personally, or someone in the group) one shots a bad guy.. then we one shotted the bad guy. If we kill someone who is supposed to escape, then we killed someone who is supposed to escape.
I am absolutely NOT a fan of "fudging dice" when it really means preventing my character from doing something he was going to do.
And yanno what? sometimes fudging a die would save a character. And I'm 100% against that too. If I die, I die. and I've died twice now in the current AP. one wasn't the least bit memorable, the other was- as a group- the most memorable thing about the AP. (TPK cept one guy managed to run away with 1 round left on a vanish spell)
I'm playing a game where the dice rolls are supposed to matter.
If they won't matter because the dice are being fudged, what are we really doing?
If the DM is going to just fudge the die then lets put them away and have DM story teller hour, where we tell what we want to do and he just tells us what happens. That sounds harsh- but its really the same thing. "oops, that can't be a crit" "oops, he had more HD" "oops, that die needs to be fudged for the story".
I dislike it *extremely* to the point that I'd have a very, very hard time gaming under a DM who engaged in the practice.
My rolls are in the open, his rolls are in the open, everyone's dice rolls are in the open and the numbers lay as they are.
Everyone has their preferred way of gaming.. and that way definately isn't mine.
-S