Fudging dice rolls in tabletop RPGs

[Yosharian]

Lacrymas isn't advocating for unreasonable fudging, mate. Just because a DM decides not to punish a player for a streak of unlucky rolls within a level appropriate encounter for a fresh character doesn't mean that he's in favor of sanitizing the game as to indulge a player's power fantasy in opposition to both the system's rules and its established lore.

That's exactly what he's doing, the system is designed to be random and chaotic in nature, fudging dice rolls to make the system 'fairer' is fucking cancer

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Lacrymas isn't advocating for unreasonable fudging, mate. Just because a DM decides not to punish a player for a streak of unlucky rolls within a level appropriate encounter for a fresh character doesn't mean that he's in favor of sanitizing the game as to indulge a player's power fantasy in opposition to both the system's rules and its established lore.

That's exactly what he's doing, the system is designed to be random and chaotic in nature, fudging dice rolls to make the system 'fairer' is fucking cancer

maybe play a game less focused on the narrative then? you're the one arguing directly against the rules

 

[Yosharian]

Like Varnaan said, you are blowing it out of proportion. I'd say the vast, vast majority of DMs roll the dice and stick to the rules as much as possible. I certainly do that. That doesn't mean you don't fudge some rolls or play the monsters a bit dumber than you could. I'm willing to wager that the vast majority of groups won't be able to make it to the end of a campaign if the DM played the encounters as well as possible and didn't fudge rolls. In video games, the AI is often stupid yet iron manning an RPG still requires cheese and metagaming.

Might not make it to the end of the campaign?! Oh no! That would be terrible, we can't have that.

Jesus fucking christ

 

[Yosharian]

If you want to talk about narrative, let's look at the poor fuck who spent all that time building a coral golem to defend his dungeon.

"They'll never defeat my golem!" He thinks, after his colossal effort is rewarded with a fully functioning golem. It's tough, autonomous, loyal, and almost impervious to damage. The perfect caretaker for his dungeon. Even if intruding adventurers can't be damaged by it's claws, it will take them so long to whittle down it's tough armour that they would either give up and retreat, or die from exertion. Satisfied, he leaves the dungeon to go in search of the powerful magics he needs to put his next plan of action into being.

Upon returning to his dungeon, he finds his creation a mangled, non-functioning pile of coral, with a little note attached to its head. "Sorry bro, your monster was too boring so I got rid of it so my PCs could move onto more exciting shit."

Cool 'narrative' dude

 

[Lacrymas]

And contriving reasons to kill or dispose of the opposition is better? Trust me, when you play only at most once a week you don't want to kill off your players based on a roll. If this is what the group is about and you've talked about this, like "I'll be as brutal as possible, no mercy, you have a huge, huuuuge chance to die" and they are ok with that, then sure.

 

[NJClaw]

This is how it has always worked, fudging rolls as a DM comes very naturally and even first-time DMs in their first sessions realize it's needed and start doing it.

These might be the two worst arguments I've ever seen together in my entire life in any discussion ever. "This is how it has always worked" and "first-time DMs in their first sessions start doing it" don't work here exactly like they don't work in any discussion ever. If we stick to "this is how it has always worked", we would have dwarf and elf as classes and not races (I mean, giant incline, but I don't think you would agree to that). If we stick to "first-time DMs in their first sessions start doing it" we would have all kinds of abhorrent rules, like "you can cover yourself in shields to gain infinite AC" and "triple 20 is an instant killing blow without any chance of surviving".

At best, those two aren't arguments at all; at worst, they are arguments in favor of doing the opposite.

It's not only for a better story, it's also to prevent level 1s from dying in their first encounter, or to prevent the session from being bogged down in a single fight for an hour and a half. A friend of mine and I concocted a one-shot the other day for one of his groups, and they couldn't finish it in time because the players had terrible rolls (like a 1 and 2 on a roll with advantage) against a coral golem and it lasted like an hour and a half. That shouldn't really happen.

That should happen, and you should be able to make that fun. Players could retreat, regroup, and plan a new assault on the creature, or one of the characters could die, giving to the surviving heroes a new reason to defeat the villain responsible for the death of their companion.

I see mainly two problems in your approach:
- first, you take for granted that you know what's best for the players and the adventure. You are basically saying that you know better than the rest of the group how they should have fun with the game, but that's not necessarily true. You should ask the players how they would like to play: if they prefer a more narrative approach were they don't want to risk losing their character, then everyone could agree that the DM should fudge rolls in certain situations (even though there still are better solutions, like playing with "fate points" or finding ways to keep playing with bad rolls: for example, a bad roll might mean that you still get to hit your enemy, but killing him wasn't a good idea after all, because the soul of an ancient demon was bound to his life. "Failing forward" is almost always better than fudging rolls).
- you are playing just to see the players experience the story you concocted. That's not what the game is supposed to be, or, at least, that's not always the most fun way to play the game. The players have no way to actually influence the story with their successes or failures, because you always decides what's the outcome of their adventure. What's the point of rolling that Deception check if it was already decided that the guard had to believe my words? What's the point of rolling my attack roll if it was already decided that the bugbear had to die? You are just deceiving your players.

Fudging rolls to never have to come up with alternatives to the story you planned out is just plain lazy. Come up with creative solutions, create the story with your players instead of imposing your fantasies on them.

Spoiler

I've been trying to post this seven times now, and the gods keep messing with my internet connection. I think I might be meddling with powers I can't understand here.

 

[Yosharian]

And contriving reasons to kill or dispose of the opposition is better? Trust me, when you play only at most once a week you don't want to kill off your players based on a roll. If this is what the group is about and you've talked about this, like "I'll be as brutal as possible, no mercy, you have a huge, huuuuge chance to die" and they are ok with that, then sure.

I do, I live for the moment I get to annihilate one of my players.

I rarely get to do it though.

 

[Lacrymas]

This is how it has always worked, fudging rolls as a DM comes very naturally and even first-time DMs in their first sessions realize it's needed and start doing it.

These might be the two worst arguments I've ever seen together in my entire life in any discussion ever. "This is how it has always worked" and "first-time DMs in their first sessions start doing it" don't work here exactly like they don't work in any discussion ever. If we stick to "this is how it has always worked", we would have dwarf and elf as classes and not races (I mean, giant incline, but I don't think you would agree to that). If we stick to "first-time DMs in their first sessions start doing it" we would have all kinds of abhorrent rules, like "you can cover yourself in shields to gain infinite AC" and "triple 20 is an instant killing blow without any chance of surviving".

At best, those two aren't arguments at all; at worst, they are arguments in favor of doing the opposite.

It's not only for a better story, it's also to prevent level 1s from dying in their first encounter, or to prevent the session from being bogged down in a single fight for an hour and a half. A friend of mine and I concocted a one-shot the other day for one of his groups, and they couldn't finish it in time because the players had terrible rolls (like a 1 and 2 on a roll with advantage) against a coral golem and it lasted like an hour and a half. That shouldn't really happen.

That should happen, and you should be able to make that fun. Players could retreat, regroup, and plan a new assault on the creature, or one of the characters could die, giving to the surviving heroes a new reason to defeat the villain responsible for the death of their companion.

I see mainly two problems in your approach:
- first, you take for granted that you know what's best for the players and the adventure. You are basically saying that you know better than the rest of the group how they should have fun with the game, but that's not necessarily true. You should ask the players how they would like to play: if they prefer a more narrative approach were they don't want to risk losing their character, then everyone could agree that the DM should fudge rolls in certain situations (even though there still are better solutions, like playing with "fate points" or finding ways to keep playing with bad rolls: for example, a bad roll might mean that you still get to hit your enemy, but killing him wasn't a good idea after all, because the soul of an ancient demon was bound to his life. "Failing forward" is almost always better than fudging rolls).
- you are playing just to see the players experience the story you concocted. That's not what the game is supposed to be, or, at least, that's not always the most fun way to play the game. The players have no way to actually influence the story with their successes or failures, because you always decides what's the outcome of their adventure. What's the point of rolling that Deception check if it was already decided that the guard had to believe my words? What's the point of rolling my attack roll if it was already decided that the bugbear had to die? You are just deceiving your players.

Fudging rolls to never have to come up with alternatives to the story you planned out is just plain lazy. Come up with creative solutions, create the story with your players instead of imposing your fantasies on them.

Fudging rolls is when the players are already in combat and have failed in the alternatives. This is what happened to the coral golem dudes I'm talking about. I wasn't the DM or a player then, I just co-wrote the story. They had to free a dude from a native tribe and had like 5 ways to do it, but they somehow landed on killing the golem and got into that fight. This wasn't the first time he played that adventure (with different people). That fight actually had to be much deadlier, with a few crabs coming in at one point, but the DM underpowered the golem severely when he saw how shit the players' rolls actually were. I personally would've done something narratively to end it quicker, but that's neither here nor there.

 

[Gyor]

This is a very slippery slope.
There's difference between creating a "dramatic narrative" once in a while, and DM not requiring dice rolls at all, as he's only "representing flow of circumstances".

Overusing this approach would either develop a feeling of false invulnerability in players ("yeah, lets just charge the lich, DM won't let us die anyway!"), that's actually what we've seen in one of Sven's BG3 streams when a level 2-3 characters freshly rolfstomped by a bunch of goblins goes "I'll kill you, lol" to a fucking devil.

If DM is not bound by game rules 99% of the time, then there's no need for games mechanics in the first place, just sit there and jerk each others imaginative storytelling instead of playing a tabletop RPG.

Perhaps it will a sliding scale they introduce instead of a just extremes one way and the other.

 

[Nortar]

I guess what we have here is the difference betwnen LN, LG/NG and CG approaches to DMing, haha.

LN DM rolls openly all the time. Players live and die by the dices.
LG/NG rolls behind screen or openly and mostly sticks to the rules, but occasionally adjusts rolls or DCs slightly to emphasize dramatic elements.
CG disregards rolls just to create a better experience for players.

I'd like to consider myself a LG DM. %)

 

[rusty_shackleford]

LN DM rolls openly all the time. Players live and die by the dices.

LN would follow the rules that say the rules are only suggestions.

 

[Gyor]

I guess what we have here is the difference betwnen LN, LG/NG and CG approaches to DMing, haha.

LN DM rolls openly all the time. Players live and die by the dices.
LG/NG rolls behind screen or openly and mostly sticks to the rules, but occasionally adjusts rolls or DCs slightly to emphasize dramatic elements.
CG disregards rolls just to create a better experience for players.

I'd like to consider myself a LG DM. %)

And the NE DM fudges the rolls against the players because one of them forgot to bring the snacks.

 

[Ninjerk]

God damn, is this thread ever about Baldur's Gate 3 or only other Larian games and DnD 5E?

 

[Heroic Liberator]

God damn, is this thread ever about Baldur's Gate 3 or only other Larian games and DnD 5E?

Infinitron can only do so much.

 

[NJClaw]

Fudging rolls is when the players are already in combat and have failed in the alternatives. This is what happened to the coral golem dudes I'm talking about. I wasn't the DM or a player then, I just co-wrote the story. They had to free a dude from a native tribe and had like 5 ways to do it, but they somehow landed on killing the golem and got into that fight. This wasn't the first time he played that adventure (with different people). That fight actually had to be much deadlier, with a few crabs coming in at one point, but the DM underpowered the golem severely when he saw how shit the players' rolls actually were. I personally would've done something narratively to end it quicker, but that's neither here nor there.

"Two giant crabs are approaching, you realize that you are walking into a certain death if you decide to keep fighting."

Done. Solved. Everyone can move on to the next scene, knowing that the power to influence the narrative is still in their hands.

 

[Lacrymas]

I would never suggest to the players what their characters are thinking, though. I don't have any details about how they got into that situation because the DM called me just to tell me how the session went and had to go out quickly. They might have failed the alternatives and would've ended the adventure right there. Maybe he should've improvised a way to get the dude's knowledge without freeing him, but hindsight is 20/20. I'll definitely tell him of this discussion, though.

 

[Yosharian]

Alright let's just say that we agree on some of the finer points but disagree on some of the broad principles regarding how narratives should be formed. And then move on with our lives. Preferably without accusing each other of holding the opinions that they hold because they lack experience with the game.

 

[Shrimp]

God damn, is this thread ever about Baldur's Gate 3 or only other Larian games and DnD 5E?

Probably because most of the playable content available in the current version of the early access version already has been discussed.
Unless there's a new update or someone who's only begun playing it recently wants to add their two cents I just don't see what there is to talk about.

Besides, Larian's other games or 5E in general are still on-topic to some extend since both of them influence Larian's visions for what they want BG3 to be.

 

[NJClaw]

I would never suggest to the players what their characters are thinking, though. I don't have any details about how they got into that situation because the DM called me just to tell me how the session went and had to go out quickly. They might have failed the alternatives and would've ended the adventure right there. Maybe he should've improvised a way to get the dude's knowledge without freeing him, but hindsight is 20/20. I'll definitely tell him of this discussion, though.

That's not suggesting thoughts to your players, that's stating the fact that they are probably going to die if they keep fighting a losing battle. You have to find a way to convey danger to your players, and that has to be consistent, otherwise they have no way of knowing what challenges their characters can reasonably face and which ones are out of their league. Then everyone will decide how they want to act: if someone is playing the rightful paladin who will never retreat from a battle, he will make his last stand to give his companions a chance to escape; if someone is on the brink of death, he will surrender and be taken prisoner; someone else might decide to run away. The important thing being that the decision is up to the players, and not in the hands of a supposedly omniscient and benevolent DM.

Obviously, the only fundamental thing is that everyone should have fun. If I'm sperging so much about this it's only because I've had much more fun since I started to create stories according to the dice instead of ignoring them just to follow a predetermined sequence of events.

 

[Grunker]

I love how most people in this thread have *never* played tabletop, yet attempt to speak with such authority.

I've played since I was 10, still run and play in games every month, and fudging rolls is my pet peeve. I hate fudging, at least in 90% of games. Dramatic outcomes are only dramatic if I know they were the outcome of the actual rules we agree on to be the foundation of the experience. If the GM at any time can change the rules of the game, that's pretty much the deus ex machina of P&P.

I realize why GMs are drawn by it, I accept the lure of it and how it can seem necessary. But the truth is, once you stop doing it, you find out it wasn't needed at all.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Spoiler

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D&D encourages fudging because it's not a good RPG system, it's just popular.

 

[Lacrymas]

I would never suggest to the players what their characters are thinking, though. I don't have any details about how they got into that situation because the DM called me just to tell me how the session went and had to go out quickly. They might have failed the alternatives and would've ended the adventure right there. Maybe he should've improvised a way to get the dude's knowledge without freeing him, but hindsight is 20/20. I'll definitely tell him of this discussion, though.

That's not suggesting thoughts to your players, that's stating the fact that they are probably going to die if they keep fighting a losing battle. You have to find a way to convey danger to your players, and that has to be consistent, otherwise they have no way of knowing what challenges their characters can reasonably face and which ones are out of their league. Then everyone will decide how they want to act: if someone is playing the rightful paladin who will never retreat from a battle, he will make his last stand to give his companions a chance to escape; if someone is on the brink of death, he will surrender and be taken prisoner; someone else might decide to run away. The important thing being that the decision is up to the players, and not in the hands of a supposedly omniscient and benevolent DM.

Obviously, the only fundamental thing is that everyone should have fun. If I'm sperging so much about this it's only because I've had much more fun since I started to create stories according to the dice instead of ignoring them just to follow a predetermined sequence of events.

Fudging rolls is not to force the players into a predetermined story, it's to not end the story. I never fudge rolls outside of combat. And I sometimes fudge rolls to disadvantage the players in combat. It all depends on the situation. If you've (general you) never felt the need to do it when DM'ing, I have a hard time believing you've DM'd at all. Brutalizing your players by the will of the dice is something you've talked about before beginning a session. I have told them that I'll not allow them to be overpowered for example, because I hate that and they've agreed with me. Like one of my friends somehow always finds a way to play a furry, so last time he wanted to voluntarily get infected with rat lycantrophy in order to get the myriad bonuses. I allowed it but played it by the rules of him losing control of his character when he's in wererat form. So, yes, it's down to what you want as a group, but never fudging rolls is something difficult for me to imagine.

And what I mean by "it has always been like that" is not that it's a sacred tradition that must be maintained, but that it's a thing that comes up naturally and is even written in the DM's guide as an alternative. The rules are and have always been suggestions, just like in real life ;d If I were Sartre, I'd say we always have a choice and that goes double for tabletop role-playing.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

And I sometimes fudge rolls to disadvantage the players in combat.

Now with that I don't agree at all.

 

[Lacrymas]

And I sometimes fudge rolls to disadvantage the players in combat.

Now with that I don't agree at all.

Why not? It creates drama when such is needed, but you roll 1s and 2s constantly. I can't abide a shitty culmination.

 

[Shadenuat]

so we learned that Lacrymas is terrible DM.