Cavegirl discusses fudging in a recent post. This is a topic about which I used to have very strong opinions (see here and here). As is often the case, though, age has somewhat mellowed me. I stand by my earlier position, which can roughly be summarised as:
- If you are going to consistently fudge dice, why not just play a diceless game?
- Fudging is usually a bad idea, because the players will notice and lose faith in the game, unless you are a really good actor (and even then they will probably notice if it means they always miraculously survive, or the DM's best mate gets oddly good outcomes all the time)
But I would now add the additional layer:
- If the dice roll does not pertain to something happening within the fiction, but is determinative of the structure of the fiction, fudging is permissible where it is done to avoid repetitive or absurd results
To expand, a dice roll is within the fiction if it involves some action actually taking place within the game world itself - something a PC or NPC/monster is doing or having done to them. Combat rolls, saving throws, ability checks, and so on should never be fudged.
A dice roll which is structural is one which determines the overall frame within which things happen: random encounter results, random treasure rolls, and the type of dice rolling you would do during campaign setup if using e.g. Yoon-Suin or similar. There, a little fudging is probably harmless, particularly if done to avoid yet another encounter with goblins, random treasure horde containing only jewellery, and so on.
It is important to make clear that random encounter checks are to be distinguished here from random encounter results. Whether a random encounter occurs (that is, the check itself) should never in my view be fudged - it is something happening within the fiction. The result you roll on the table (that is, the monster which appears) is something which I think it can sometimes be reasonable to fudge to avoid repetition or boredom, or a weird situation that will just take too much of your mental bandwidth to process in the heat of the moment.
Put a different way, there are certain rolls which I think of as player facing (and hence not fudgible) and some which are non-player facing. Player-facing rolls are always done in the open and include:
- Rolls to hit and damage
- Saving throws for monsters and NPCs
- Surprise rolls for monsters
- Random encounter checks (I often forget to do these openly in practice, but I should remember)
- Reaction dice
- Initiative rolls for monsters and NPCs
Non-player facing dice rolls are primarily those done away from the table between sessions, but do include:
- Random encounter results
- Random treasure generation
- Number of monsters encountered
Rolling dice in the open and committing to not fudging can be very harsh, but through long experience I've just arrived at the position that it is more fun for me that way; actions need to have consequences or it all just feels too much like, well, a bunch of grown-ups playing make-believe.
"...it all just feels too much like, well, a bunch of grown-ups playing make-believe."
ReplyDeleteWait, it's not like that for you?
My thoughts exactly. What is it then if not this?
DeleteA game.
DeleteIs it? Are you trying to win? Do you score more points as a GM for killing PCs? Completing modules? What started as a Game is now something different and something more for many participants.
DeleteNo, but it’s a game which has rules, and they include dice rolls. If you don’t like that, play a different game with different rules.
DeleteThose things aren't mutually exclusive.
DeleteWell said. The delineation between player facing and non-player facing rolls is something I was trying to articulate, and failed to do. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteRight. Nobody wants giant wandering rats four times in a row just because the dice came up that way.
ReplyDeleteBut, but that's what the dice - sorry, The Dice say. Who are we to go against them?
DeleteI never fudged dice until 5e (and I've played since 1979). I've found that 5e is very swingy and hard to judge encounters and character strengths. I've fudged both on the player's favor and on the monster's side.
ReplyDeleteGood distinction. I agree with your approach.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that rolling my dice in front of the players has upped the tension and drama in my game.
ReplyDeleteI have not-very-kind thoughts on this subject, but in the end they can be distilled down to this:
ReplyDeleteIf you don't intend to accept the result of a random die roll, don't roll the dice.
Cavegirl's post is all sorts of "ugh" for me.
Hmm. I am intrigued. I must read it!
DeleteWrote a post about it. Bile-rific.
DeleteI basically agree, but I think with things like random encounters and treasure tables there is a sweet spot where the element of luck introduced by dice is important, but sometimes the results are boring - and no real harm is done in re-rolling.
DeleteI feel like if the game would be fine if the GM pre-prepared every roll result ahead of time, and everyone know they were doing that, then fudging that roll is also ok.
ReplyDeleteSo in your examples, fudging a dice roll is really equivalent to suddenly saying "actually, this is a prepped part, I'm choosing this".
Taking that further, you could imagine every prepped adventure as existing on a table, or every random table existing within a larger table its been selected from; why did we stop with these outcomes? At some point it was human choice, and we accept that, so long as that choice is done according to some principles of fairness or of a satisfactory mix of variation and consistency, and still leaves player choices about what comes next.
There are probably times where a random encounter table is supposed to reflect a kind of risk/reward situation, where the choices aren't equal, and the probability of different outcomes matters (minor encounters on the table acting as a kind of implicit adjustment of the encounter roll - roll once for whether there's an encounter, then roll for if it's a serious one) but in that case, I'd say personally that so long as the GM sticks to the same rules of proportion as the table implies, and does it ahead of time rather than specifically responding to the players, nothing is really lost.
My random encounters are 2d6 tables, with rarer results at the tails, so I probably shouldn't re-roll on that basis. But I have to admit to doing it sometimes when it's yet another '7' result. I am aware this is corrupting and hypocritical.
DeleteI like those lists. I agree - why roll if you don't want to follow the results? For the non-facing rolls I use random tables for inspiration as much as anything so that makes a lot of sense. I roll almost everything in open in play. For player facing I normally don't roll random encounter checks in the open (I think it's generally better for the players to not really know for sure what is planned and what is random) but would follow the outcome. Rolls that have outcomes that are not clear to players unless there is a positive result (finding traps, secret doors etc) I also keep secret. I used to do reaction rolls in secret but in the open the players can really see their charisma in action.
ReplyDeleteThis is a pretty solid set of distinctions.
ReplyDeleteSome thoughts I have though:
Reaction rolls: these of course should be ignored if a reaction is obvious based on the action in play and who is reacting to who, on the other hand, you could still make the reaction roll to fine tune the "obvious" response. But don't read "hostile, attack immediately" literally when a good reaction is obvious, instead use the hostile response to nuance that good reaction.
On what is encountered, that's a bit tricky, but it may be reasonable to turn aside yet another 7 if there have been a bunch of them on the basis that there really aren't that many goblins in this small area. On the other hand, I have inserted lairs based on repeated same monster encounters, so that can be a fun way of dealing with it.
Another way to make the distinction is to classify rolls as "G< inspiration" or "simulation". Fudging GM inspiration rolls is fine, you were only rolling to inspire or keep from falling into a rut, or keep from being too random and variable (how come we never encounter goblins in goblin country... that's why you put them in the 7 slot, to make sure they show up - of course, yea, if they show up too often, change - the 7 slot has already served its purpose, get a less frequent encounter out there, you put them on so there would be things other than goblins in goblin country).