Hard disagree about fudging dice. IMO you don't fudge dice unless you're okay with players fudging their dice rolls too and just telling you results they didn't actually roll.
IMO if you are fudging dice you don't need to be playing a game. If you're not going to accept the outcomes of the dice for good or bad, then just stop rolling them and go around the table describing what each character does.
It's why I don't use things like GM screens, I roll my dice in my tower where my players can see them if they want.
Yeah let me TPW this party of lvl 1s playing DnD first time ever because they failed a perception check, that sounds fun and like it will encourage them to play again after we just took an hour to get them each a character...
@DevoutlyApathetic and @Elvenshae already covered how silly this post is, but yeah, maybe don't make the party's first encounter so deadly that failing a perception check to not get surprised is going to result in them instantly getting wiped.
The reason I'm able to actually build combats and trust the dice is because I play systems where what you describe is just not a possibility unless I decide to make the fight absurdly difficult, which I would never do to a brand new party.
Hard disagree about fudging dice. IMO you don't fudge dice unless you're okay with players fudging their dice rolls too and just telling you results they didn't actually roll.
IMO if you are fudging dice you don't need to be playing a game. If you're not going to accept the outcomes of the dice for good or bad, then just stop rolling them and go around the table describing what each character does.
It's why I don't use things like GM screens, I roll my dice in my tower where my players can see them if they want.
Yeah let me TPW this party of lvl 1s playing DnD first time ever because they failed a perception check, that sounds fun and like it will encourage them to play again after we just took an hour to get them each a character...
You could run an adventure that doesn't wipe the party because of a single failed check.
That's an amazingly absurd strawman even by internet standards.
You say "amazingly absurd strawman" I say "fairly early on, Hoard of the Dragon Queen makes the entire party pass a DC 5 stealth check to advance the plot or die".
And it doesn't sound unreasonable, unless maybe some kind of character in heavy armor with a low Dex bonus steps up to try, but it's still an option, and this is a published adventure.
The great thing about PbtA systems too is that while the GM has a list of moves they must obey, they can make moves as soft or hard as they want. You can make a whole bunch of super narratively interesting moves against players when they fail rolls in say Dungeon World that don't have to be about dealing damage to the PC and KOing them, if dealing damage isn't the move you want to make in that instance.
Well, yeah, but I'm just saying. When you follow along with the GM advice and be a fan of the players, sometimes you wind up being a homer, and then when everybody's on the rocks and somebody gets an amazing idea to turn the tide, you're like "sweet, let's see how awesome the dice say that is" and they roll snake eyes. And then you've got to grab your brain's handbrake and do a bootlegger turn and try to come up with how things just got worse. Or... better?
HotDQ is a terribly designed module that was written before 5E's rules were even finalized. It's a joke, and not an example I'd use. In fact, despite everything I've said in this thread, if you are going to run that piece of trash module, I'd say you are going to HAVE to change the monster math because otherwise you're just going to TPK your party over and over because of the author's bad work. I would just learn the system and change things ahead of time to not be bad, I wouldn't cheat at my dice rolls in the middle of a fight or whatever.
As for PbtA, be a fan of the PCs means celebrate their successes, and lament their failures. It doesn't mean don't let them fail. Not even a little tiny bit. If they roll a 6- on their big awesome idea, then things just went even more sideways and interesting, and now they better figure out something new.
Yeah fudging dice is the sign of a good DM that understands their job is to be more than a computer that spits out all the rules in the book.
Noooooooooooooo. Cheating at the game to decide what you the GM thinks makes for a more interesting story is not a sign of a good GM. It's the sign of somebody who wants to run PCs through the story they wish they could write as a novel, making sure everything happens exactly the way the GM thinks it should instead of playing to find out what happens.
Here, I can do it too: "A good GM is one who understands how to create interesting stakes and tension and then let the dice determine the outcomes so the players are not being cheated."
I keep waiting for somebody to answer this simple question: If you're the type of GM who thinks fudging dice to hit a PC you didn't hit, miss a PC you didn't miss, make the PCs win even when they fail their dice rolls, make the fight harder mid-fight because the PCs did more damage than you expected, etc.
Why are you playing a game where dice determine outcomes? You should absolutely just put the dice down and tell a collaborative story if that's what you want out of your game. If you are ignoring the dice because you just want to tell what you think the best story is, then the dice don't need to be in use at all.
If your answer is that you think it's okay to trick the PCs into thinking the dice matter but they don't because you think that's just a right the GM is supposed to get, then that's your opinion, but it couldn't be more opposite of mine. And I hope that your PCs realize it and just start cheating on their own dice rolls so at least they can join in on having the dice be pointless clacking on the table and just decide on a whim what makes the most interesting outcome from each roll.
Noooooooooooooo. Cheating at the game to decide what you the GM thinks makes for a more interesting story is not a sign of a good GM. It's the sign of somebody who wants to run PCs through the story they wish they could write as a novel, making sure everything happens exactly the way the GM thinks it should instead of playing to find out what happens.
You're very quickly losing the plot with statements like this.
Fudging the dice is not about being unwilling to accept success or failure as a consequence of a given action. It has much more to do with pacing than it does with the actual narrative itself, in my experience.
Also can we make that the first and last time we use the word cheating to describe fudging die rolls? Because I think we can at least all agree that's a pretty shitty thing to say. You cheat to win, and you do it at other peoples' expense.
And, for the record:
Why are you playing a game where dice determine outcomes? You should absolutely just put the dice down and tell a collaborative story if that's what you want out of your game. If you are ignoring the dice because you just want to tell what you think the best story is, then the dice don't need to be in use at all.
There's a difference between changing one roll in many and dropping the dice and eschewing randomness as a mechanic entirely.
Hard disagree about fudging dice. IMO you don't fudge dice unless you're okay with players fudging their dice rolls too and just telling you results they didn't actually roll.
IMO if you are fudging dice you don't need to be playing a game. If you're not going to accept the outcomes of the dice for good or bad, then just stop rolling them and go around the table describing what each character does.
It's why I don't use things like GM screens, I roll my dice in my tower where my players can see them if they want.
Yeah let me TPW this party of lvl 1s playing DnD first time ever because they failed a perception check, that sounds fun and like it will encourage them to play again after we just took an hour to get them each a character...
DevoutlyApathetic and Elvenshae already covered how silly this post is, but yeah, maybe don't make the party's first encounter so deadly that failing a perception check to not get surprised is going to result in them instantly getting wiped.
The reason I'm able to actually build combats and trust the dice is because I play systems where what you describe is just not a possibility unless I decide to make the fight absurdly difficult, which I would never do to a brand new party.
Did you see my other post? About the adventure that literally comes with the game?
Hard disagree about fudging dice. IMO you don't fudge dice unless you're okay with players fudging their dice rolls too and just telling you results they didn't actually roll.
IMO if you are fudging dice you don't need to be playing a game. If you're not going to accept the outcomes of the dice for good or bad, then just stop rolling them and go around the table describing what each character does.
It's why I don't use things like GM screens, I roll my dice in my tower where my players can see them if they want.
Yeah let me TPW this party of lvl 1s playing DnD first time ever because they failed a perception check, that sounds fun and like it will encourage them to play again after we just took an hour to get them each a character...
@ DevoutlyApathetic and @ Elvenshae already covered how silly this post is, but yeah, maybe don't make the party's first encounter so deadly that failing a perception check to not get surprised is going to result in them instantly getting wiped.
The reason I'm able to actually build combats and trust the dice is because I play systems where what you describe is just not a possibility unless I decide to make the fight absurdly difficult, which I would never do to a brand new party.
Did you see my other post? About the adventure that literally comes with the game?
Break @'s if you're going to quote them.
Also literally Joshmvii's next post addresses your question.
Yeah fudging dice is the sign of a good DM that understands their job is to be more than a computer that spits out all the rules in the book.
Noooooooooooooo. Cheating at the game to decide what you the GM thinks makes for a more interesting story is not a sign of a good GM. It's the sign of somebody who wants to run PCs through the story they wish they could write as a novel, making sure everything happens exactly the way the GM thinks it should instead of playing to find out what happens.
Here, I can do it too: "A good GM is one who understands how to create interesting stakes and tension and then let the dice determine the outcomes so the players are not being cheated."
I keep waiting for somebody to answer this simple question: If you're the type of GM who thinks fudging dice to hit a PC you didn't hit, miss a PC you didn't miss, make the PCs win even when they fail their dice rolls, make the fight harder mid-fight because the PCs did more damage than you expected, etc.
Why are you playing a game where dice determine outcomes? You should absolutely just put the dice down and tell a collaborative story if that's what you want out of your game. If you are ignoring the dice because you just want to tell what you think the best story is, then the dice don't need to be in use at all.
If your answer is that you think it's okay to trick the PCs into thinking the dice matter but they don't because you think that's just a right the GM is supposed to get, then that's your opinion, but it couldn't be more opposite of mine. And I hope that your PCs realize it and just start cheating on their own dice rolls so at least they can join in on having the dice be pointless clacking on the table and just decide on a whim what makes the most interesting outcome from each roll.
I don't agree there's a "correct" way to DM (whether following strict dice or constant fudging), but I feel like your question is built on a false premise where fudging the dice is completely different from anything else you're doing as DM. The game is controlled entirely by the DM. I feel that if you do -anything- different in a fight than what you planned to do before the game started, you're just fudging the dice in a different way. Have one less enemy because the PCs had a series of unfortunate rolls earlier? Fudging the dice. Add an extra enemy because the PCs completely trivialized something that was supposed to happen earlier? Fudging the dice. Have the enemy fail to use something available to them when it would be the best option? Fudging the dice. Where's the line here between "fudging the dice" and "providing an enjoyable experience"? Why don't more enemies just piss off as soon as a fight turns south and deny their death (and loot, and experience) to the party?
If an NPC acts in any way outside of their intelligence/wisdom/mental scores, that's basically just fudging the dice. Is there any reason an enemy with high mental stats couldn't organize a situation that guarantees death to the party? Some kind of pre-built kill room? I doubt there is. But we don't do that (very often) because that's lame as hell.
We all provide and enjoy different experiences, that's what makes PnP games great. I don't think it's right to look down your nose at a different style of play. Not when Arthil did it, and not when you do it either.
Look at me. Look at me. Look at how large the monster inside me has become. Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
As a side note, does PbtA stand for "Powered by the Apocalypse"? I've never heard of it and tried to google it. From the things you've said about it, it sounds interesting.
Look at me. Look at me. Look at how large the monster inside me has become. Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
Noooooooooooooo. Cheating at the game to decide what you the GM thinks makes for a more interesting story is not a sign of a good GM. It's the sign of somebody who wants to run PCs through the story they wish they could write as a novel, making sure everything happens exactly the way the GM thinks it should instead of playing to find out what happens.
You're very quickly losing the plot with statements like this.
Fudging the dice is not about being unwilling to accept success or failure as a consequence of a given action. It has much more to do with pacing than it does with the actual narrative itself, in my experience.
You said yourself that you will not accept your players decisively winning a "boss fight". You will pretend that the boss hits them even if he misses them. You're deciding the story of the fight needs to be that they take damage, whether or not the dice say so. So you don't need the dice in that case.
Also can we make that the first and last time we use the word cheating to describe fudging die rolls? Because I think we can at least all agree that's a pretty shitty thing to say. You cheat to win, and you do it at other peoples' expense.
And, for the record:
Why are you playing a game where dice determine outcomes? You should absolutely just put the dice down and tell a collaborative story if that's what you want out of your game. If you are ignoring the dice because you just want to tell what you think the best story is, then the dice don't need to be in use at all.
There's a difference between changing one roll in many and dropping the dice and eschewing randomness as a mechanic entirely.
I call it cheating because I think calling it fudging makes it sounds like something different than I think it is. Would you call it fudging if your PCs decided to ignore the results of their rolls and just tell you that the result was what they want it to be? I'm tired of missing, so this next attack I'm going to say I rolled a nat 20 and crit instead of a 2. I call that cheating, and I call it the same thing when the GM does it. Once I've designed a combat encounter, I trust the encounter math(this is why I play 13th Age instead of D&D 5, because it's much easier to trust the math) and that is that. I roll in the open, and I tell my players the AC/PD/MD they're trying to hit, so there is simply no way it's not going to go the way the dice say it goes.
For the record, I think that making enemies that miss hit, etc. IS cheating at the expense of the players. I think you're robbing them of playing the game they think they're playing to instead just determine outcomes unilaterally while pretending that the dice matter. It's exactly the same as you just saying "I don't like that the enemy hasn't done damage to you yet, so he hits you for 20 damage this turn." It's actually worse to me, because by rolling the die and ignoring the result you're tricking the players into thinking you're playing the game fairly.
I'm not trying to criticize people who fudge. Hell, some players like it when GMs fudge to trick them into thinking there's tension that wasn't really there, a victory was more hard fought than it really was, etc. It's just a position I cannot understand at all, because I choose to play a game with dice so that the dice in conjunction with the choices I make inform the outcomes.
Honestly, I think the best thing for GMs who like to do this stuff is to play games that have bennies, destiny points, whatever method of allowing the GM to spend tokens to make things more difficult on the fly or reroll attacks, etc. That to me is the fair "part of the game" version of this stuff.
As a side note, does PbtA stand for "Powered by the Apocalypse"? I've never heard of it and tried to google it. From the things you've said about it, it sounds interesting.
Yes. Dungeon World is the most D&D equivalent version but it is really just a simple framework for making any sort genre game you'd want. The Dungeon World has an SRD up and @TheRoadVirus and @Oats are running a big drop in streaming forum game thing of it as well:
Yeah fudging dice is the sign of a good DM that understands their job is to be more than a computer that spits out all the rules in the book.
Noooooooooooooo. Cheating at the game to decide what you the GM thinks makes for a more interesting story is not a sign of a good GM. It's the sign of somebody who wants to run PCs through the story they wish they could write as a novel, making sure everything happens exactly the way the GM thinks it should instead of playing to find out what happens.
Here, I can do it too: "A good GM is one who understands how to create interesting stakes and tension and then let the dice determine the outcomes so the players are not being cheated."
I keep waiting for somebody to answer this simple question: If you're the type of GM who thinks fudging dice to hit a PC you didn't hit, miss a PC you didn't miss, make the PCs win even when they fail their dice rolls, make the fight harder mid-fight because the PCs did more damage than you expected, etc.
Why are you playing a game where dice determine outcomes? You should absolutely just put the dice down and tell a collaborative story if that's what you want out of your game. If you are ignoring the dice because you just want to tell what you think the best story is, then the dice don't need to be in use at all.
If your answer is that you think it's okay to trick the PCs into thinking the dice matter but they don't because you think that's just a right the GM is supposed to get, then that's your opinion, but it couldn't be more opposite of mine. And I hope that your PCs realize it and just start cheating on their own dice rolls so at least they can join in on having the dice be pointless clacking on the table and just decide on a whim what makes the most interesting outcome from each roll.
I don't agree there's a "correct" way to DM (whether following strict dice or constant fudging), but I feel like your question is built on a false premise where fudging the dice is completely different from anything else you're doing as DM. The game is controlled entirely by the DM. I feel that if you do -anything- different in a fight than what you planned to do before the game started, you're just fudging the dice in a different way. Have one less enemy because the PCs had a series of unfortunate rolls earlier? Fudging the dice. Add an extra enemy because the PCs completely trivialized something that was supposed to happen earlier? Fudging the dice. Have the enemy fail to use something available to them when it would be the best option? Fudging the dice. Where's the line here between "fudging the dice" and "providing an enjoyable experience"? Why don't more enemies just piss off as soon as a fight turns south and deny their death (and loot, and experience) to the party?
If an NPC acts in any way outside of their intelligence/wisdom/mental scores, that's basically just fudging the dice. Is there any reason an enemy with high mental stats couldn't organize a situation that guarantees death to the party? Some kind of pre-built kill room? I doubt there is. But we don't do that (very often) because that's lame as hell.
We all provide and enjoy different experiences, that's what makes PnP games great. I don't think it's right to look down your nose at a different style of play. Not when Arthil did it, and not when you do it either.
You're broadening the definition of "fudging the dice" beyond what I ever said. If you're beating your PCs down in a dungeon and you thought there was going to be another fight in the next room and you decide that fight isn't there any more, that has nothing to do with dice.
All that other stuff, adding enemies mid fight, having enemies not use their best abilities, etc. I do not do. I trust my prep, and if the PCs trivialize a fight by rolling a bunch of crits that's awesome for them. Though there are games that have token mechanics where adding more enemies to a fight makes sense. Flip a destiny point and more stormtroopers join the fight in Star Wars? Sure.
In my 13A game, I had a combat that should've been pretty tough, and 4 out of 5 PCs rolled nat 20s in the first round and wiped out a ton of enemies instantly. They felt awesome about it because their rolls meant a much harder fight just got easier. In the exact same fight, the last enemy standing was an Owlbear and I hampered our party's monk with an attack then the next turn rolled a crit, and the Owlbear in 13A tears off limbs when that happens, so I tore his arm off and almost did enough damage with the crit to outright kill him.
I didn't need to fudge to make their crits mean less, and I didn't need to fudge to make my own crit mean more. In the end, it was a way easier fight than it could've been, but with a PC getting his arm ripped off. It was fun and interesting even with the swinginess. Honestly, more because of the swinginess.
Noooooooooooooo. Cheating at the game to decide what you the GM thinks makes for a more interesting story is not a sign of a good GM. It's the sign of somebody who wants to run PCs through the story they wish they could write as a novel, making sure everything happens exactly the way the GM thinks it should instead of playing to find out what happens.
You're very quickly losing the plot with statements like this.
Fudging the dice is not about being unwilling to accept success or failure as a consequence of a given action. It has much more to do with pacing than it does with the actual narrative itself, in my experience.
You said yourself that you will not accept your players decisively winning a "boss fight". You will pretend that the boss hits them even if he misses them. You're deciding the story of the fight needs to be that they take damage, whether or not the dice say so. So you don't need the dice in that case.
Also can we make that the first and last time we use the word cheating to describe fudging die rolls? Because I think we can at least all agree that's a pretty shitty thing to say. You cheat to win, and you do it at other peoples' expense.
And, for the record:
Why are you playing a game where dice determine outcomes? You should absolutely just put the dice down and tell a collaborative story if that's what you want out of your game. If you are ignoring the dice because you just want to tell what you think the best story is, then the dice don't need to be in use at all.
There's a difference between changing one roll in many and dropping the dice and eschewing randomness as a mechanic entirely.
I call it cheating because I think calling it fudging makes it sounds like something different than I think it is. Would you call it fudging if your PCs decided to ignore the results of their rolls and just tell you that the result was what they want it to be? I'm tired of missing, so this next attack I'm going to say I rolled a nat 20 and crit instead of a 2. I call that cheating, and I call it the same thing when the GM does it. Once I've designed a combat encounter, I trust the encounter math(this is why I play 13th Age instead of D&D 5, because it's much easier to trust the math) and that is that. I roll in the open, and I tell my players the AC/PD/MD they're trying to hit, so there is simply no way it's not going to go the way the dice say it goes.
For the record, I think that making enemies that miss hit, etc. IS cheating at the expense of the players. I think you're robbing them of playing the game they think they're playing to instead just determine outcomes unilaterally while pretending that the dice matter. It's exactly the same as you just saying "I don't like that the enemy hasn't done damage to you yet, so he hits you for 20 damage this turn." It's actually worse to me, because by rolling the die and ignoring the result you're tricking the players into thinking you're playing the game fairly.
I'm not trying to criticize people who fudge. Hell, some players like it when GMs fudge to trick them into thinking there's tension that wasn't really there, a victory was more hard fought than it really was, etc. It's just a position I cannot understand at all, because I choose to play a game with dice so that the dice in conjunction with the choices I make inform the outcomes.
Honestly, I think the best thing for GMs who like to do this stuff is to play games that have bennies, destiny points, whatever method of allowing the GM to spend tokens to make things more difficult on the fly or reroll attacks, etc. That to me is the fair "part of the game" version of this stuff.
I don't think we're going to find a happy medium on the cheating vs not-cheating area. You seem to consider the game to be "GM vs Players", which isn't exactly how I approach the game. But I do think there's an easy solution - you said it yourself. You're playing a different system that's designed a different way, with inherently different consequences. Death seems considerably less probable in your game than D&D 5e. Therefore, what may be cheating in your game may not be cheating in another system.
Look at me. Look at me. Look at how large the monster inside me has become. Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
As a side note, does PbtA stand for "Powered by the Apocalypse"? I've never heard of it and tried to google it. From the things you've said about it, it sounds interesting.
Yeah, Apocalypse World created the foundation, now there are TONs of very good games built upon it for different genres. Dungeon World is the big one for fantasy gaming. The games are built on an asymmetric framework where the GM doesn't roll dice, low GM prep, playing to find out what happens, and a resolution mechanic that is roll 2d6+stat, 10+ is a succes, 7-9 is a partial success, 6- is a miss, and the GM makes soft and hard moves when you roll misses, etc.
By far my favorite things about the games is that they teach GMs that they too must operate within a framework of rules, and that you don't decide outcomes ahead of time. Hell, all this fudging talk is actually impossible in PbtA, the closest thing to it is "helping" the PCs by making softer moves against them instead of harder ones.
For the record, I think that making enemies that miss hit, etc. IS cheating at the expense of the players...
...I'm not trying to criticize people who fudge.
You're coming off as extremely condescending about this. Between referring to fudging die rolls with the same word you use to unfairly win at card games, speaking as if your opinion is the only logical point of view, saying things like "it's a sign you want to run your PCs through a novel you wrote," and directly contradicting yourself a within a paragraph's breadth, your posts are not really overflowing with "agree to disagree."
So if you actually feel that way, then take it back a few steps and speak as if you actually respect the other point of view.
I get that you can't really understand why you'd roll a die just to ignore the result, and I totally get why. I used to play like that too. I didn't change because I think ignoring my own die rolls is a better way to GM (I think they're roughly equivalent tbh), I changed because I found that at my table, when I'm running it, I personally run it better when I can focus on the players' actions, and whether THEY succeed or fail, instead of focusing on the external factors and whether NPCs succeed or fail.
Noooooooooooooo. Cheating at the game to decide what you the GM thinks makes for a more interesting story is not a sign of a good GM. It's the sign of somebody who wants to run PCs through the story they wish they could write as a novel, making sure everything happens exactly the way the GM thinks it should instead of playing to find out what happens.
You're very quickly losing the plot with statements like this.
Fudging the dice is not about being unwilling to accept success or failure as a consequence of a given action. It has much more to do with pacing than it does with the actual narrative itself, in my experience.
You said yourself that you will not accept your players decisively winning a "boss fight". You will pretend that the boss hits them even if he misses them. You're deciding the story of the fight needs to be that they take damage, whether or not the dice say so. So you don't need the dice in that case.
Also can we make that the first and last time we use the word cheating to describe fudging die rolls? Because I think we can at least all agree that's a pretty shitty thing to say. You cheat to win, and you do it at other peoples' expense.
And, for the record:
Why are you playing a game where dice determine outcomes? You should absolutely just put the dice down and tell a collaborative story if that's what you want out of your game. If you are ignoring the dice because you just want to tell what you think the best story is, then the dice don't need to be in use at all.
There's a difference between changing one roll in many and dropping the dice and eschewing randomness as a mechanic entirely.
I call it cheating because I think calling it fudging makes it sounds like something different than I think it is. Would you call it fudging if your PCs decided to ignore the results of their rolls and just tell you that the result was what they want it to be? I'm tired of missing, so this next attack I'm going to say I rolled a nat 20 and crit instead of a 2. I call that cheating, and I call it the same thing when the GM does it. Once I've designed a combat encounter, I trust the encounter math(this is why I play 13th Age instead of D&D 5, because it's much easier to trust the math) and that is that. I roll in the open, and I tell my players the AC/PD/MD they're trying to hit, so there is simply no way it's not going to go the way the dice say it goes.
For the record, I think that making enemies that miss hit, etc. IS cheating at the expense of the players. I think you're robbing them of playing the game they think they're playing to instead just determine outcomes unilaterally while pretending that the dice matter. It's exactly the same as you just saying "I don't like that the enemy hasn't done damage to you yet, so he hits you for 20 damage this turn." It's actually worse to me, because by rolling the die and ignoring the result you're tricking the players into thinking you're playing the game fairly.
I'm not trying to criticize people who fudge. Hell, some players like it when GMs fudge to trick them into thinking there's tension that wasn't really there, a victory was more hard fought than it really was, etc. It's just a position I cannot understand at all, because I choose to play a game with dice so that the dice in conjunction with the choices I make inform the outcomes.
Honestly, I think the best thing for GMs who like to do this stuff is to play games that have bennies, destiny points, whatever method of allowing the GM to spend tokens to make things more difficult on the fly or reroll attacks, etc. That to me is the fair "part of the game" version of this stuff.
I don't think we're going to find a happy medium on the cheating vs not-cheating area. You seem to consider the game to be "GM vs Players", which isn't exactly how I approach the game. But I do think there's an easy solution - you said it yourself. You're playing a different system that's designed a different way, with inherently different consequences. Death seems considerably less probable in your game than D&D 5e. Therefore, what may be cheating in your game may not be cheating in another system.
Oh hell no. I'm the furthest thing from a GM who plays antagonistic towards players, GM vs. Players, etc.
I just understand that the principle of "Be a fan of the PCs" doesn't mean don't let them fail. It means celebrate their successes alongside them, lament their failures alongside them. It's not GM vs. Players to design fights and then let the dice actually determine the outcome. It's just playing the game.
You're right that 13th Age has better mechanics for self-preservation though. Players are free to flee at any time even if PCs are unconscious, it just comes with story consequences. I also allow PCs to save other PCs from death by spending icon tokens and taking hard bargains to live when they would die. Beyond that, it's actually easier to die in 13A because you only get to go to half negative max HP. In D&D 5, once you get past the early levels, it's actually nearly impossible to die unless the GM chooses to spike you while you're unconscious. The monsters don't hit hard enough and you get the buffer of going all the way to negative max HP before death.
For the record, I think that making enemies that miss hit, etc. IS cheating at the expense of the players...
...I'm not trying to criticize people who fudge.
You're coming off as extremely condescending about this. Between referring to fudging die rolls with the same word you use to unfairly win at card games, speaking as if your opinion is the only logical point of view, saying things like "it's a sign you want to run your PCs through a novel you wrote," and directly contradicting yourself a within a paragraph's breadth, your posts are not really overflowing with "agree to disagree."
So if you actually feel that way, then take it back a few steps and speak as if you actually respect the other point of view.
I get that you can't really understand why you'd roll a die just to ignore the result, and I totally get why. I used to play like that too. I didn't change because I think ignoring my own die rolls is a better way to GM (I think they're roughly equivalent tbh), I changed because I found that at my table, when I'm running it, I personally run it better when I can focus on the players' actions, and whether THEY succeed or fail, instead of focusing on the external factors and whether NPCs succeed or fail.
I apologize for coming off like a dick about it. I really do mean to just describe why I enthusiastically feel the way I do about the issue, without suggesting that I am saying somebody else is doing a thing wrong. Everybody has to play games the way they want to. Honestly, the real position I have is that I think you owe it to players to make it clear that you ignore the results of dice to fudge when you feel like doing it. Because then the players can decide if that's the game they want to play in. Otherwise I do feel like the GM is tricking the players into thinking the game is a thing it isn't.
I often write posts from the perspective of how I'd feel were I a player in a game with the GM doing things I consider robbing me of what I've earned. I have a high AC and the enemy misses me, but the GM decides it hits me and pretends they rolled. To me that's exactly the same thing as if I just decided I was tired of missing and I just told the GM I hit even when I know I rolled a miss. I don't see the GM as a person at the table with the right to do that in the game.
But that's just me. And honestly, your last sentence just sounds like a guy who should be playing PbtA games, which are for the most part my favorite games too. You don't have to worry about NPCs succeeding or failing, because all dice rolls ARE the players succeeding or failing.
This whole dice fudging thing is getting out of control. Some DMs choose to fudge dice while others play them where they lie. Each DM is different and thats fine.
But I think fudging a dice roll is fine. That is my stance on this whole thing.
Also, this is just a game at the end of the day. This isn't like your trying to get world peace (spoiler: world peace won't exist due to me existing). Have fun and play the game you want to!
But that's just me. And honestly, your last sentence just sounds like a guy who should be playing PbtA games, which are for the most part my favorite games too. You don't have to worry about NPCs succeeding or failing, because all dice rolls ARE the players succeeding or failing.
I'm playing dnd5 right now because a friend's wife at a party said "I would be willing to try dungeons and dragons." This is a person who has basically thought of roleplaying as nerdier than her for a million years. This is the sort of person who probably knows the name of exactly one roleplaying game, and that's the one we played because there was a fair chance that if I'd been like "okay yeah we're gonna play dungeon world" there would have been some discouragement. Instead of being shown this thing she'd heard of forever as her husband and a lot of her friends were talking about it, it was this other thing she'd never heard of, and neither had her husband or most of her friends.
So we are playing dnd, because the character sheets have Dungeons and Dragons written at the top, and because the books have Dungeons and Dragons written at the top, and because in the email correspondence with the party we can refer to it as DnD. And then she can roll d20's and get nat 20's and the table can yell and she can cast magic missile and do all the great dnd shit that got us all in our awesome hobby back when we were small, and she can share in those experiences with her husband and the rest of her friends who did the same thing ten, fifteen, maybe twenty years ago.
And I am bending the system to a style that is more natural for me (because you are correct, dungeon world is a game with a more natural fit, that's why I talk about dungeon world and blades in the dark so often, they're my favorites right now). And once we finish the finale of this campaign, tomorrow, we're going to switch to either blades or dungeon world, because I think we're ready for that. But, all this to answer your question: Sometimes, when you choose a game, you compromise some definition of optimal for another. There are reasons I play a game with d20's in it, but d20's are not that reason.
For the record, the lady in question spent a day a couple weeks ago reading the 5e players handbook at lunch at work, and went home to paint her miniature of her bard she made custom from heroforge while binge watching critical role. Mission accomplished, boys, we got her.
But that's just me. And honestly, your last sentence just sounds like a guy who should be playing PbtA games, which are for the most part my favorite games too. You don't have to worry about NPCs succeeding or failing, because all dice rolls ARE the players succeeding or failing.
I'm playing dnd5 right now because a friend's wife at a party said "I would be willing to try dungeons and dragons." This is a person who has basically thought of roleplaying as nerdier than her for a million years. This is the sort of person who probably knows the name of exactly one roleplaying game, and that's the one we played because there was a fair chance that if I'd been like "okay yeah we're gonna play dungeon world" there would have been some discouragement. Instead of being shown this thing she'd heard of forever as her husband and a lot of her friends were talking about it, it was this other thing she'd never heard of, and neither had her husband or most of her friends.
So we are playing dnd, because the character sheets have Dungeons and Dragons written at the top, and because the books have Dungeons and Dragons written at the top, and because in the email correspondence with the party we can refer to it as DnD. And then she can roll d20's and get nat 20's and the table can yell and she can cast magic missile and do all the great dnd shit that got us all in our awesome hobby back when we were small, and she can share in those experiences with her husband and the rest of her friends who did the same thing ten, fifteen, maybe twenty years ago.
And I am bending the system to a style that is more natural for me (because you are correct, dungeon world is a game with a more natural fit, that's why I talk about dungeon world and blades in the dark so often, they're my favorites right now). And once we finish the finale of this campaign, tomorrow, we're going to switch to either blades or dungeon world, because I think we're ready for that. But, all this to answer your question: Sometimes, when you choose a game, you compromise some definition of optimal for another. There are reasons I play a game with d20's in it, but d20's are not that reason.
For the record, the lady in question spent a day a couple weeks ago reading the 5e players handbook at lunch at work, and went home to paint her miniature of her bard she made custom from heroforge while binge watching critical role. Mission accomplished, boys, we got her.
Your right. The game is more about having fun and funny moments. We grieve when a character dies, and we are joyous when we save the day. We laugh at moments of hard failures and we get scared of times when we are supposed to fear the big baddy.
Dice are there for a piece of the game, but they arent the ENTIRE game. Thats why I play: for moments to remember.
But that's just me. And honestly, your last sentence just sounds like a guy who should be playing PbtA games, which are for the most part my favorite games too. You don't have to worry about NPCs succeeding or failing, because all dice rolls ARE the players succeeding or failing.
I'm playing dnd5 right now because a friend's wife at a party said "I would be willing to try dungeons and dragons." This is a person who has basically thought of roleplaying as nerdier than her for a million years. This is the sort of person who probably knows the name of exactly one roleplaying game, and that's the one we played because there was a fair chance that if I'd been like "okay yeah we're gonna play dungeon world" there would have been some discouragement. Instead of being shown this thing she'd heard of forever as her husband and a lot of her friends were talking about it, it was this other thing she'd never heard of, and neither had her husband or most of her friends.
So we are playing dnd, because the character sheets have Dungeons and Dragons written at the top, and because the books have Dungeons and Dragons written at the top, and because in the email correspondence with the party we can refer to it as DnD. And then she can roll d20's and get nat 20's and the table can yell and she can cast magic missile and do all the great dnd shit that got us all in our awesome hobby back when we were small, and she can share in those experiences with her husband and the rest of her friends who did the same thing ten, fifteen, maybe twenty years ago.
And I am bending the system to a style that is more natural for me (because you are correct, dungeon world is a game with a more natural fit, that's why I talk about dungeon world and blades in the dark so often, they're my favorites right now). And once we finish the finale of this campaign, tomorrow, we're going to switch to either blades or dungeon world, because I think we're ready for that. But, all this to answer your question: Sometimes, when you choose a game, you compromise some definition of optimal for another. There are reasons I play a game with d20's in it, but d20's are not that reason.
For the record, the lady in question spent a day a couple weeks ago reading the 5e players handbook at lunch at work, and went home to paint her miniature of her bard she made custom from heroforge while binge watching critical role. Mission accomplished, boys, we got her.
You better kill her character off asap because a smart enemy would target the party bard and that's what you should be doing as GM.
/sarcasm
0
Options
Erin The RedThe Name's Erin! Woman, Podcaster, Dungeon Master, IT nerd, Parent, Trans. AMABaton Rouge, LARegistered Userregular
I'd tell you but I haven't decided what my initiative roll was yet.
Tonights players are:
"I can't find my pencil" @DevoutlyApathetic
"This has a +7 to damage" @Gaddez
"Failed 2 death saves" @Destrokk9
And "I forgot to bring snacks" Ryan Stiles!
I'd tell you but I haven't decided what my initiative roll was yet.
Tonights players are:
"I can't find my pencil" @DevoutlyApathetic
"This has a +7 to damage" @Gaddez
"Failed 2 death saves" @Destrokk9
And "I forgot to bring snacks" Ryan Stiles!
I do it at least a couple of times a game, usually so that the situation can either be resolved in a timely manor and not drag on forever, or to heigten the drama of the situation.
I do this because as a GM I have the right to rule zero situations to make the situation better for all involved and i understand that the mechanics of any given game are not a perfect engine that flawlessly runs itself.
Frankly, if this offends you then I really don't know what to say.
But that's just me. And honestly, your last sentence just sounds like a guy who should be playing PbtA games, which are for the most part my favorite games too. You don't have to worry about NPCs succeeding or failing, because all dice rolls ARE the players succeeding or failing.
I'm playing dnd5 right now because a friend's wife at a party said "I would be willing to try dungeons and dragons." This is a person who has basically thought of roleplaying as nerdier than her for a million years. This is the sort of person who probably knows the name of exactly one roleplaying game, and that's the one we played because there was a fair chance that if I'd been like "okay yeah we're gonna play dungeon world" there would have been some discouragement. Instead of being shown this thing she'd heard of forever as her husband and a lot of her friends were talking about it, it was this other thing she'd never heard of, and neither had her husband or most of her friends.
So we are playing dnd, because the character sheets have Dungeons and Dragons written at the top, and because the books have Dungeons and Dragons written at the top, and because in the email correspondence with the party we can refer to it as DnD. And then she can roll d20's and get nat 20's and the table can yell and she can cast magic missile and do all the great dnd shit that got us all in our awesome hobby back when we were small, and she can share in those experiences with her husband and the rest of her friends who did the same thing ten, fifteen, maybe twenty years ago.
And I am bending the system to a style that is more natural for me (because you are correct, dungeon world is a game with a more natural fit, that's why I talk about dungeon world and blades in the dark so often, they're my favorites right now). And once we finish the finale of this campaign, tomorrow, we're going to switch to either blades or dungeon world, because I think we're ready for that. But, all this to answer your question: Sometimes, when you choose a game, you compromise some definition of optimal for another. There are reasons I play a game with d20's in it, but d20's are not that reason.
For the record, the lady in question spent a day a couple weeks ago reading the 5e players handbook at lunch at work, and went home to paint her miniature of her bard she made custom from heroforge while binge watching critical role. Mission accomplished, boys, we got her.
That's a great story, and congrats on hooking somebody.
Since I know that Dungeon World is a million times easier entry point for new roleplayers than an f20 game, I would've just said "Yeah we're playing D&D" and then introduced her to Dungeon World, lmao.
I assume people like that think D&D = RPGs the same way like my mom used to call every video game "playing nintendo" regardless of the system.
But it sounds like you made the right choice for your table because maybe she needed the nat 20s and all that.
I come from a place where when I'm GMing, I know that everybody else at the table has not done the same research I have, so they're basically just expecting me to know what the best game to use is for whatever type of game we want to play. And I've never been in that position you're in, trying to attract a new person to the hobby where you might need to choose the game based on that. But you did awesome obviously, because you added a new enthusiastic sounding player to the best hobby.
I do it at least a couple of times a game, usually so that the situation can either be resolved in a timely manor and not drag on forever, or to heigten the drama of the situation.
I do this because as a GM I have the right to rule zero situations to make the situation better for all involved and i understand that the mechanics of any given game are not a perfect engine that flawlessly runs itself.
Frankly, if this offends you then I really don't know what to say.
It's just different perspectives on the same thing. I play using certain principles that don't ever offer the chance to fudge dice rolls. Say yes or roll the dice being the biggest one. If there are no stakes to a situation, or I know I don't want failure to be a possibility, then the dice simply will not be rolled. If a player wants to do something and I want them to succeed, or failure wouldn't offer any interesting developments, or I think the tension of a scene would die if I said "roll X" and the result was a failure, then I just wouldn't ask for the dice roll, I'd just let the thing happen.
I also don't believe rule zero means the GM of a game should lie to the players to do what they think is best. If you were playing with me and my table, you'd actually be making the situation worse for all involved(except you) if you were ignoring the dice rolls to do what you thought was best for the scene, so that's not rule zero at all.
Honestly, this whole thing boils down to whether you are guided by the principles like "Play to find out what happens," or something like "Tell the most interesting story possible and preserve tension at all costs(as decided by the GM)"
I respect that this is the D&D thread, and in my experience D&D has nearly always been a game about the GM telling stories and players just interacting with it, which absolutely encourages things like desired outcomes that the GM would want to make happen even if it means lying to the players(or telling them that you will be fudging so they know that the GM's dice are as Gygax once said "Only there for the noise they make.")
You see hardline "the dice fall as they will" as the only way to "play to find out what happens" but there's a fundamental disagreement about that. Fudging die rolls can compromise that, but does not inherently compromise it. It depends on how you do so. Your insistence on following the dice do not make you the only one playing to find out what happens, that's simply how you choose to adhere to that principle.
Play to find out what happens is more about the GM not pre-determining where the story will go, not about dice. I'm just rolling the dice into it because they go together to me personally.
I wholeheartedly believe that fudging the dice to achieve outcomes you as the GM want is not playing to find out what happens though. It's deciding what you want to happen and just making it happen. You didn't need the dice. It's "The GM tells you what happens."
Which is fine if it's what suits the style of game you're playing best and the players are into that. It's just not for me.
If the players want to achieve something, and you don't make them roll, that's cool. But once you bring the dice into it, to me you're accepting and agreeing that the results of the dice will determine the success or failure of that action.
That's just me and what I want out of games. There's no one way to play games. Only the way that your table agrees upon and enjoys.
Joshmvii on
+2
Options
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited March 2017
There has been some great conversation on this, and I feel like game mechanics can really promote fudging. Like we've talked about 4th ed, 13th age, dungeon world and a host of other systems that give you systems or rules that let you do things on a miss, grant extra actions, etc etc... versus if one side or the other (or god forbid both) get a string of bad rolls and it is just a bunch of (I miss, I miss, the Monsters miss, etc...)
If all the game gives is a dice roll, well sometimes dice suck, and suck repeatedly. Give both sides tools to help mitigate that. Not all the time, but occasionally. That's why I really love 13th ages escalation die system. As long as the PCs are actively trying to kick ass they slowly build up momentum in the battle that is translated as an increasing bonus to hit each round. I love it. Also, high level monsters also get to use it, or have abilities that reduce it, which is also awesome.
I wish 5th ed gave more abilities that granted advantage/disadvantage. I really like the system but in our Strahd campaign it seems like it comes on so rarely. My fighter has an ability where he can grant advantage with his superiority dice and that is nice, but I wish there was more baked in stuff. Hell I wish there was flanking in 5th ed.
Oh man I was just thinking how in 13th age how cool would it be for someone like a Barbarian to gain like "roll extra d4 damage dice equivalent to the number on the escalation die while raging while also reducing your AC by the equivalent number on the die face". That could be a pretty cool way to show a Raging Barbarian throwing themselves into the combat and taking more and more risks as the tension mounts.
You make a great point about games that make mechanical effort into not devolving into a lack of fun when misses happen. Hell, a lot of 13th Age monsters do a sizeable amount of damage even when they miss, or missing triggers other actions, etc. There are certainly things the game can do to offset some of the issues that have been discussed in this thread.
As for 5E, the DMG has an optional variant for flanking = advantage, but it's absolutely trash because one of the balancing factors for older editions offering bonuses for flanking was that any more than a 5 foot step while in threat range was an OA, but in 5E that doesn't exist so flanking is trivially easy to get. Plus advantage for flanking IMO is too large a benefit.
The best ways to generate advantage, depending on your level in 5E are things like:
- Rogues using their bonus action to hide(for ranged weapons, or melee if you're a halfling)
- Shield master feat to knock enemies prone with a bonus action by the "tank."
- Putting Faerie Fire on enemies
- Greater invis spells are great to put on your best melee attacker, and play protect the caster's concentration to keep it going.
- Familiars with flyby attack like owls are great for giving yourself help to generate advantage
And of course just class features like the vengeance Paladin, Barbarian reckless attack, etc.
I actually dig the 13th Age's barbarian rage, because it gives them a crazy good crit chance while active, but is also not available every fight because of the recharge roll. And if they take the whirlwind talent, they get that awesome ability to hit a bunch of targets with AOE but get -4 AC and PD until the start of their next turn.
I do like your idea, if I had a Barb in my game I might give them a magic weapon that had a frenzy ability that offered something like that. More damage and lower defenses based on the ED.
Play to find out what happens is more about the GM not pre-determining where the story will go, not about dice. I'm just rolling the dice into it because they go together to me personally.
Yes, I agree with this. So when I tell you that when I fudge dice it's more about pacing than narrative, and that I don't use it as a tool to alter the story in any nontrivial way, and that when I do choose to use dice to decide major story branches I roll in the open, you must agree that I am still following this principle!
Play to find out what happens is more about the GM not pre-determining where the story will go, not about dice. I'm just rolling the dice into it because they go together to me personally.
Yes, I agree with this. So when I tell you that when I fudge dice it's more about pacing than narrative, and that I don't use it as a tool to alter the story in any nontrivial way, and that when I do choose to use dice to decide major story branches I roll in the open, you must agree that I am still following this principle!
You gave a really cool example of how you used the dice in a high stakes moment in the open. The only thing you mention that I don't agree with is the "I'll make the bad guy hit even when he misses if I think the party hasn't been scraped up enough." But there's nothing wrong with that either if it's what you and your table wants. I come at these things from the perspective of a guy who makes combats like that hard enough that there are so many enemies/threats in the fight that it's already going to be hard enough for my PCs to win a fair fight, that the idea that I would make an enemy hit on a miss is crazy to me. That's the difference. Like, when I miss a PC with an attack in a "hard" combat, I breathe a sigh of relief on their behalf because they need that sometimes. And sometimes they crit a bunch and cast 2 wizard daily spells and what could've been a hard fight wasn't so hard. And then the next fight they don't have those resources and the tension cranks up again. Etc.
It's just different playstyles.
But yeah, nothing you've said suggests that you're just railroading your players into whatever you want for them based on secret nefarious GM dice rolls. I've interacted enough with you around these parts to know you're not that guy, and I respect you, so again I apologize for being tone-deaf with some of my posts.
Posts
@DevoutlyApathetic and @Elvenshae already covered how silly this post is, but yeah, maybe don't make the party's first encounter so deadly that failing a perception check to not get surprised is going to result in them instantly getting wiped.
The reason I'm able to actually build combats and trust the dice is because I play systems where what you describe is just not a possibility unless I decide to make the fight absurdly difficult, which I would never do to a brand new party.
HotDQ is a terribly designed module that was written before 5E's rules were even finalized. It's a joke, and not an example I'd use. In fact, despite everything I've said in this thread, if you are going to run that piece of trash module, I'd say you are going to HAVE to change the monster math because otherwise you're just going to TPK your party over and over because of the author's bad work. I would just learn the system and change things ahead of time to not be bad, I wouldn't cheat at my dice rolls in the middle of a fight or whatever.
As for PbtA, be a fan of the PCs means celebrate their successes, and lament their failures. It doesn't mean don't let them fail. Not even a little tiny bit. If they roll a 6- on their big awesome idea, then things just went even more sideways and interesting, and now they better figure out something new.
Noooooooooooooo. Cheating at the game to decide what you the GM thinks makes for a more interesting story is not a sign of a good GM. It's the sign of somebody who wants to run PCs through the story they wish they could write as a novel, making sure everything happens exactly the way the GM thinks it should instead of playing to find out what happens.
Here, I can do it too: "A good GM is one who understands how to create interesting stakes and tension and then let the dice determine the outcomes so the players are not being cheated."
I keep waiting for somebody to answer this simple question: If you're the type of GM who thinks fudging dice to hit a PC you didn't hit, miss a PC you didn't miss, make the PCs win even when they fail their dice rolls, make the fight harder mid-fight because the PCs did more damage than you expected, etc.
Why are you playing a game where dice determine outcomes? You should absolutely just put the dice down and tell a collaborative story if that's what you want out of your game. If you are ignoring the dice because you just want to tell what you think the best story is, then the dice don't need to be in use at all.
If your answer is that you think it's okay to trick the PCs into thinking the dice matter but they don't because you think that's just a right the GM is supposed to get, then that's your opinion, but it couldn't be more opposite of mine. And I hope that your PCs realize it and just start cheating on their own dice rolls so at least they can join in on having the dice be pointless clacking on the table and just decide on a whim what makes the most interesting outcome from each roll.
You're very quickly losing the plot with statements like this.
Fudging the dice is not about being unwilling to accept success or failure as a consequence of a given action. It has much more to do with pacing than it does with the actual narrative itself, in my experience.
And, for the record:
There's a difference between changing one roll in many and dropping the dice and eschewing randomness as a mechanic entirely.
Did you see my other post? About the adventure that literally comes with the game?
Break @'s if you're going to quote them.
Also literally Joshmvii's next post addresses your question.
I don't agree there's a "correct" way to DM (whether following strict dice or constant fudging), but I feel like your question is built on a false premise where fudging the dice is completely different from anything else you're doing as DM. The game is controlled entirely by the DM. I feel that if you do -anything- different in a fight than what you planned to do before the game started, you're just fudging the dice in a different way. Have one less enemy because the PCs had a series of unfortunate rolls earlier? Fudging the dice. Add an extra enemy because the PCs completely trivialized something that was supposed to happen earlier? Fudging the dice. Have the enemy fail to use something available to them when it would be the best option? Fudging the dice. Where's the line here between "fudging the dice" and "providing an enjoyable experience"? Why don't more enemies just piss off as soon as a fight turns south and deny their death (and loot, and experience) to the party?
If an NPC acts in any way outside of their intelligence/wisdom/mental scores, that's basically just fudging the dice. Is there any reason an enemy with high mental stats couldn't organize a situation that guarantees death to the party? Some kind of pre-built kill room? I doubt there is. But we don't do that (very often) because that's lame as hell.
We all provide and enjoy different experiences, that's what makes PnP games great. I don't think it's right to look down your nose at a different style of play. Not when Arthil did it, and not when you do it either.
Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
You said yourself that you will not accept your players decisively winning a "boss fight". You will pretend that the boss hits them even if he misses them. You're deciding the story of the fight needs to be that they take damage, whether or not the dice say so. So you don't need the dice in that case.
I call it cheating because I think calling it fudging makes it sounds like something different than I think it is. Would you call it fudging if your PCs decided to ignore the results of their rolls and just tell you that the result was what they want it to be? I'm tired of missing, so this next attack I'm going to say I rolled a nat 20 and crit instead of a 2. I call that cheating, and I call it the same thing when the GM does it. Once I've designed a combat encounter, I trust the encounter math(this is why I play 13th Age instead of D&D 5, because it's much easier to trust the math) and that is that. I roll in the open, and I tell my players the AC/PD/MD they're trying to hit, so there is simply no way it's not going to go the way the dice say it goes.
For the record, I think that making enemies that miss hit, etc. IS cheating at the expense of the players. I think you're robbing them of playing the game they think they're playing to instead just determine outcomes unilaterally while pretending that the dice matter. It's exactly the same as you just saying "I don't like that the enemy hasn't done damage to you yet, so he hits you for 20 damage this turn." It's actually worse to me, because by rolling the die and ignoring the result you're tricking the players into thinking you're playing the game fairly.
I'm not trying to criticize people who fudge. Hell, some players like it when GMs fudge to trick them into thinking there's tension that wasn't really there, a victory was more hard fought than it really was, etc. It's just a position I cannot understand at all, because I choose to play a game with dice so that the dice in conjunction with the choices I make inform the outcomes.
Honestly, I think the best thing for GMs who like to do this stuff is to play games that have bennies, destiny points, whatever method of allowing the GM to spend tokens to make things more difficult on the fly or reroll attacks, etc. That to me is the fair "part of the game" version of this stuff.
Yes. Dungeon World is the most D&D equivalent version but it is really just a simple framework for making any sort genre game you'd want. The Dungeon World has an SRD up and @TheRoadVirus and @Oats are running a big drop in streaming forum game thing of it as well:
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/209894/open-recruitment-dungeon-world-seeking-delvers-of-the-menank#latest
You're broadening the definition of "fudging the dice" beyond what I ever said. If you're beating your PCs down in a dungeon and you thought there was going to be another fight in the next room and you decide that fight isn't there any more, that has nothing to do with dice.
All that other stuff, adding enemies mid fight, having enemies not use their best abilities, etc. I do not do. I trust my prep, and if the PCs trivialize a fight by rolling a bunch of crits that's awesome for them. Though there are games that have token mechanics where adding more enemies to a fight makes sense. Flip a destiny point and more stormtroopers join the fight in Star Wars? Sure.
In my 13A game, I had a combat that should've been pretty tough, and 4 out of 5 PCs rolled nat 20s in the first round and wiped out a ton of enemies instantly. They felt awesome about it because their rolls meant a much harder fight just got easier. In the exact same fight, the last enemy standing was an Owlbear and I hampered our party's monk with an attack then the next turn rolled a crit, and the Owlbear in 13A tears off limbs when that happens, so I tore his arm off and almost did enough damage with the crit to outright kill him.
I didn't need to fudge to make their crits mean less, and I didn't need to fudge to make my own crit mean more. In the end, it was a way easier fight than it could've been, but with a PC getting his arm ripped off. It was fun and interesting even with the swinginess. Honestly, more because of the swinginess.
I don't think we're going to find a happy medium on the cheating vs not-cheating area. You seem to consider the game to be "GM vs Players", which isn't exactly how I approach the game. But I do think there's an easy solution - you said it yourself. You're playing a different system that's designed a different way, with inherently different consequences. Death seems considerably less probable in your game than D&D 5e. Therefore, what may be cheating in your game may not be cheating in another system.
Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
Yeah, Apocalypse World created the foundation, now there are TONs of very good games built upon it for different genres. Dungeon World is the big one for fantasy gaming. The games are built on an asymmetric framework where the GM doesn't roll dice, low GM prep, playing to find out what happens, and a resolution mechanic that is roll 2d6+stat, 10+ is a succes, 7-9 is a partial success, 6- is a miss, and the GM makes soft and hard moves when you roll misses, etc.
By far my favorite things about the games is that they teach GMs that they too must operate within a framework of rules, and that you don't decide outcomes ahead of time. Hell, all this fudging talk is actually impossible in PbtA, the closest thing to it is "helping" the PCs by making softer moves against them instead of harder ones.
You're coming off as extremely condescending about this. Between referring to fudging die rolls with the same word you use to unfairly win at card games, speaking as if your opinion is the only logical point of view, saying things like "it's a sign you want to run your PCs through a novel you wrote," and directly contradicting yourself a within a paragraph's breadth, your posts are not really overflowing with "agree to disagree."
So if you actually feel that way, then take it back a few steps and speak as if you actually respect the other point of view.
I get that you can't really understand why you'd roll a die just to ignore the result, and I totally get why. I used to play like that too. I didn't change because I think ignoring my own die rolls is a better way to GM (I think they're roughly equivalent tbh), I changed because I found that at my table, when I'm running it, I personally run it better when I can focus on the players' actions, and whether THEY succeed or fail, instead of focusing on the external factors and whether NPCs succeed or fail.
Oh hell no. I'm the furthest thing from a GM who plays antagonistic towards players, GM vs. Players, etc.
I just understand that the principle of "Be a fan of the PCs" doesn't mean don't let them fail. It means celebrate their successes alongside them, lament their failures alongside them. It's not GM vs. Players to design fights and then let the dice actually determine the outcome. It's just playing the game.
You're right that 13th Age has better mechanics for self-preservation though. Players are free to flee at any time even if PCs are unconscious, it just comes with story consequences. I also allow PCs to save other PCs from death by spending icon tokens and taking hard bargains to live when they would die. Beyond that, it's actually easier to die in 13A because you only get to go to half negative max HP. In D&D 5, once you get past the early levels, it's actually nearly impossible to die unless the GM chooses to spike you while you're unconscious. The monsters don't hit hard enough and you get the buffer of going all the way to negative max HP before death.
I apologize for coming off like a dick about it. I really do mean to just describe why I enthusiastically feel the way I do about the issue, without suggesting that I am saying somebody else is doing a thing wrong. Everybody has to play games the way they want to. Honestly, the real position I have is that I think you owe it to players to make it clear that you ignore the results of dice to fudge when you feel like doing it. Because then the players can decide if that's the game they want to play in. Otherwise I do feel like the GM is tricking the players into thinking the game is a thing it isn't.
I often write posts from the perspective of how I'd feel were I a player in a game with the GM doing things I consider robbing me of what I've earned. I have a high AC and the enemy misses me, but the GM decides it hits me and pretends they rolled. To me that's exactly the same thing as if I just decided I was tired of missing and I just told the GM I hit even when I know I rolled a miss. I don't see the GM as a person at the table with the right to do that in the game.
But that's just me. And honestly, your last sentence just sounds like a guy who should be playing PbtA games, which are for the most part my favorite games too. You don't have to worry about NPCs succeeding or failing, because all dice rolls ARE the players succeeding or failing.
But I think fudging a dice roll is fine. That is my stance on this whole thing.
Also, this is just a game at the end of the day. This isn't like your trying to get world peace (spoiler: world peace won't exist due to me existing). Have fun and play the game you want to!
I'm playing dnd5 right now because a friend's wife at a party said "I would be willing to try dungeons and dragons." This is a person who has basically thought of roleplaying as nerdier than her for a million years. This is the sort of person who probably knows the name of exactly one roleplaying game, and that's the one we played because there was a fair chance that if I'd been like "okay yeah we're gonna play dungeon world" there would have been some discouragement. Instead of being shown this thing she'd heard of forever as her husband and a lot of her friends were talking about it, it was this other thing she'd never heard of, and neither had her husband or most of her friends.
So we are playing dnd, because the character sheets have Dungeons and Dragons written at the top, and because the books have Dungeons and Dragons written at the top, and because in the email correspondence with the party we can refer to it as DnD. And then she can roll d20's and get nat 20's and the table can yell and she can cast magic missile and do all the great dnd shit that got us all in our awesome hobby back when we were small, and she can share in those experiences with her husband and the rest of her friends who did the same thing ten, fifteen, maybe twenty years ago.
And I am bending the system to a style that is more natural for me (because you are correct, dungeon world is a game with a more natural fit, that's why I talk about dungeon world and blades in the dark so often, they're my favorites right now). And once we finish the finale of this campaign, tomorrow, we're going to switch to either blades or dungeon world, because I think we're ready for that. But, all this to answer your question: Sometimes, when you choose a game, you compromise some definition of optimal for another. There are reasons I play a game with d20's in it, but d20's are not that reason.
Your right. The game is more about having fun and funny moments. We grieve when a character dies, and we are joyous when we save the day. We laugh at moments of hard failures and we get scared of times when we are supposed to fear the big baddy.
Dice are there for a piece of the game, but they arent the ENTIRE game. Thats why I play: for moments to remember.
You better kill her character off asap because a smart enemy would target the party bard and that's what you should be doing as GM.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Every time I wake up to see a billion posts in the 5E thread I'm like "Ooh looks like it's time for a new thread title!"
It is one of life's small joys.
There will always be things I disagree with, but overall it's pretty neat.
Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
"Welcome to Who's Turn is it Anyway?"
I'd tell you but I haven't decided what my initiative roll was yet.
Tonights players are:
"I can't find my pencil" @DevoutlyApathetic
"This has a +7 to damage" @Gaddez
"Failed 2 death saves" @Destrokk9
And "I forgot to bring snacks" Ryan Stiles!
I'm your host @Denada ! Lets make stuff up!
You forgot the multi-attack :P
I do it at least a couple of times a game, usually so that the situation can either be resolved in a timely manor and not drag on forever, or to heigten the drama of the situation.
I do this because as a GM I have the right to rule zero situations to make the situation better for all involved and i understand that the mechanics of any given game are not a perfect engine that flawlessly runs itself.
Frankly, if this offends you then I really don't know what to say.
That's a great story, and congrats on hooking somebody.
Since I know that Dungeon World is a million times easier entry point for new roleplayers than an f20 game, I would've just said "Yeah we're playing D&D" and then introduced her to Dungeon World, lmao.
I assume people like that think D&D = RPGs the same way like my mom used to call every video game "playing nintendo" regardless of the system.
But it sounds like you made the right choice for your table because maybe she needed the nat 20s and all that.
I come from a place where when I'm GMing, I know that everybody else at the table has not done the same research I have, so they're basically just expecting me to know what the best game to use is for whatever type of game we want to play. And I've never been in that position you're in, trying to attract a new person to the hobby where you might need to choose the game based on that. But you did awesome obviously, because you added a new enthusiastic sounding player to the best hobby.
It's just different perspectives on the same thing. I play using certain principles that don't ever offer the chance to fudge dice rolls. Say yes or roll the dice being the biggest one. If there are no stakes to a situation, or I know I don't want failure to be a possibility, then the dice simply will not be rolled. If a player wants to do something and I want them to succeed, or failure wouldn't offer any interesting developments, or I think the tension of a scene would die if I said "roll X" and the result was a failure, then I just wouldn't ask for the dice roll, I'd just let the thing happen.
I also don't believe rule zero means the GM of a game should lie to the players to do what they think is best. If you were playing with me and my table, you'd actually be making the situation worse for all involved(except you) if you were ignoring the dice rolls to do what you thought was best for the scene, so that's not rule zero at all.
Honestly, this whole thing boils down to whether you are guided by the principles like "Play to find out what happens," or something like "Tell the most interesting story possible and preserve tension at all costs(as decided by the GM)"
I respect that this is the D&D thread, and in my experience D&D has nearly always been a game about the GM telling stories and players just interacting with it, which absolutely encourages things like desired outcomes that the GM would want to make happen even if it means lying to the players(or telling them that you will be fudging so they know that the GM's dice are as Gygax once said "Only there for the noise they make.")
I wholeheartedly believe that fudging the dice to achieve outcomes you as the GM want is not playing to find out what happens though. It's deciding what you want to happen and just making it happen. You didn't need the dice. It's "The GM tells you what happens."
Which is fine if it's what suits the style of game you're playing best and the players are into that. It's just not for me.
If the players want to achieve something, and you don't make them roll, that's cool. But once you bring the dice into it, to me you're accepting and agreeing that the results of the dice will determine the success or failure of that action.
That's just me and what I want out of games. There's no one way to play games. Only the way that your table agrees upon and enjoys.
If all the game gives is a dice roll, well sometimes dice suck, and suck repeatedly. Give both sides tools to help mitigate that. Not all the time, but occasionally. That's why I really love 13th ages escalation die system. As long as the PCs are actively trying to kick ass they slowly build up momentum in the battle that is translated as an increasing bonus to hit each round. I love it. Also, high level monsters also get to use it, or have abilities that reduce it, which is also awesome.
I wish 5th ed gave more abilities that granted advantage/disadvantage. I really like the system but in our Strahd campaign it seems like it comes on so rarely. My fighter has an ability where he can grant advantage with his superiority dice and that is nice, but I wish there was more baked in stuff. Hell I wish there was flanking in 5th ed.
Oh man I was just thinking how in 13th age how cool would it be for someone like a Barbarian to gain like "roll extra d4 damage dice equivalent to the number on the escalation die while raging while also reducing your AC by the equivalent number on the die face". That could be a pretty cool way to show a Raging Barbarian throwing themselves into the combat and taking more and more risks as the tension mounts.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
As for 5E, the DMG has an optional variant for flanking = advantage, but it's absolutely trash because one of the balancing factors for older editions offering bonuses for flanking was that any more than a 5 foot step while in threat range was an OA, but in 5E that doesn't exist so flanking is trivially easy to get. Plus advantage for flanking IMO is too large a benefit.
The best ways to generate advantage, depending on your level in 5E are things like:
- Rogues using their bonus action to hide(for ranged weapons, or melee if you're a halfling)
- Shield master feat to knock enemies prone with a bonus action by the "tank."
- Putting Faerie Fire on enemies
- Greater invis spells are great to put on your best melee attacker, and play protect the caster's concentration to keep it going.
- Familiars with flyby attack like owls are great for giving yourself help to generate advantage
And of course just class features like the vengeance Paladin, Barbarian reckless attack, etc.
I actually dig the 13th Age's barbarian rage, because it gives them a crazy good crit chance while active, but is also not available every fight because of the recharge roll. And if they take the whirlwind talent, they get that awesome ability to hit a bunch of targets with AOE but get -4 AC and PD until the start of their next turn.
I do like your idea, if I had a Barb in my game I might give them a magic weapon that had a frenzy ability that offered something like that. More damage and lower defenses based on the ED.
Yes, I agree with this. So when I tell you that when I fudge dice it's more about pacing than narrative, and that I don't use it as a tool to alter the story in any nontrivial way, and that when I do choose to use dice to decide major story branches I roll in the open, you must agree that I am still following this principle!
As a side note, did I overlook something? Can Shield Master knock prone? I thought it was only forced movement.
Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
You gave a really cool example of how you used the dice in a high stakes moment in the open. The only thing you mention that I don't agree with is the "I'll make the bad guy hit even when he misses if I think the party hasn't been scraped up enough." But there's nothing wrong with that either if it's what you and your table wants. I come at these things from the perspective of a guy who makes combats like that hard enough that there are so many enemies/threats in the fight that it's already going to be hard enough for my PCs to win a fair fight, that the idea that I would make an enemy hit on a miss is crazy to me. That's the difference. Like, when I miss a PC with an attack in a "hard" combat, I breathe a sigh of relief on their behalf because they need that sometimes. And sometimes they crit a bunch and cast 2 wizard daily spells and what could've been a hard fight wasn't so hard. And then the next fight they don't have those resources and the tension cranks up again. Etc.
It's just different playstyles.
But yeah, nothing you've said suggests that you're just railroading your players into whatever you want for them based on secret nefarious GM dice rolls. I've interacted enough with you around these parts to know you're not that guy, and I respect you, so again I apologize for being tone-deaf with some of my posts.