Fudging dice rolls in tabletop RPGs

[Yosharian]

The DM screen is not for rolling dice in secret, good DMs roll their dice in front of the players

 

[Yosharian]

What do you mean 'no'

 

[Lacrymas]

The role of the DM is to represent the flow of circumstances. In essence, there are no dice rolls.

 

[Yosharian]

What. So you just magically decide when monster crits happen?

 

[Lacrymas]

You decide based on the context. The rolls of the DM are gentle suggestions, not irrefutable law.

 

[Yosharian]

Lmao

 

[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.

 

[Efe]

how can one be person be so wrong so consistently?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The DM screen is not for rolling dice in secret, good DMs roll their dice in front of the players

What do you mean 'no'

As a wise man once said, "Never let the dice get in the way of a good narrative"

 

[Lacrymas]

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

 

[rusty_shackleford]

how can one be person be so wrong so consistently?

He's right though. cRPGs are much closer to simulating the wargame aspect of tabletop than the RP aspect ergo fudging rolls is considered verboten to people who play cRPGs. The DMG flat out tells you to fudge the rolls if it would make for a better story.

 

[Lacrymas]

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.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

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.

They should have just played a nice game of Rolemaster instead

 

[Nortar]

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.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

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 less 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.

(A)D&D might have been based in wargaming, but it has moved away from its roots with every edition since.
I just acknowledge that modern D&D is not for me, there are other games that have more strict (and much better thought out) rulesets.

 

[Lacrymas]

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.

This is one of the things separating a good DM and a bad DM. You have to create a balance between danger and safety in order to move the story along without feeling like you will allow the players to do anything. It might get contrived at one point of course. In the Dragon of Icespire Peak module, the DM has to roll a D20 whenever the party is leaving or arriving at a location in order to determine whether Cryovain the dragon is in that area. If the party is very unlucky (like what happened to me when I DM'd it), they are going to have to deal with the dragon a lot of times. At that point, you have to be very careful as a DM in order to not totally destroy the menace of the dragon by constantly granting serendipity to the players. It's much easier to fudge the roll and not get them constantly in a fight with a dragon they can't win. They managed to be creative enough and escape the dragon on their own most of the time (not without some material casualties), I had to figure something out only once, but still.

 

[Nortar]

I just acknowledge that modern D&D is not for me, there are other games that have more strict (and much better thought out) rulesets.

Game mechanics is just a tool, how it's used depends on the people.
No matter how complex and detailed the rules are, if DM would just ignore them at personal convenience, their value would be amount to shit.
So I agree, that a good DM knows when to fudge dice rolls just a bit (I remember +2 circumstantial bonuses DMs can use in 3E), to make story/encounter especially memorable.
But if you're doing to do it all the time for whatever reasons, why would you bother with having rules at all?

 

[Efe]

read a CYOA book if you want "no dice rolls".
also there is nothing wrong with rolling the dice in plain sight. you arent announcing DC openly anyway. you can still mess with outcome however you want.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I just acknowledge that modern D&D is not for me, there are other games that have more strict (and much better thought out) rulesets.

Game mechanics is just a tool, how it's used depends on the people.
No matter how complex and detailed the rules are, if DM would just ignore them at personal convenience, their value would be amount to shit.
So I agree, that a good DM knows when to fudge dice rolls just a bit (I remember +2 circumstantial bonuses DMs can use in 3E), to make story/encounter especially memorable.
But if you're doing to do it all the time for whatever reasons, why would you bother with having rules at all?

D&D DMG has (nearly?) always stated the rules are just a suggestion
B/X foreword:

In a sense, the D&D game has no rules, only rule suggestions. No rule is inviolate, particularly if a new or altered rule will encourage creativity and imagination.

 

[Yosharian]

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

Um. I have hundreds of hours of DM experience so that's a bit obnoxious.

I personally think players enjoy enjoy a more genuine experience where there is an actual chance of dying to crits etc, as opposed to a kid gloves experience where the DM fudges the rolls so that nothing brutal ever happens.

Or doesn't roll at all? That just baffles me.

There's also MY enjoyment as a DM, I love rolling dice too and I don't see why I shouldn't be able to enjoy getting the occasional crit now and then.

 

[Yosharian]

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.

There is so much wrong with this. First of all, players dying at level one should be a real threat and fudging the dice so that nobody dies at that time is just denying the players that authentic DND experience. Players should be afraid of dying. At any time. Including level one. You're sanitising the game.

Yes, you can die in the first round your character takes part in, yes that's part of the game, no you shouldn't fudge that crit.

If your fight is taking too long when the players are having shitty luck then your monsters clearly are underpowered (I'm sensing a pattern here) because they should KILL THE PLAYERS, not just be static blobs of HP that simply wait to die.

YOU (or whoever the DM was) chose to set up a fight against a monster that has tons of damage reduction, YOU should have known that there was a possibility the fight might take longer than might be desirable, therefore YOU the DM should plan in advance ways of solving that issue.

For example, that golem could have sensed a larger threat somewhere else, concluded that the players were of lesser threat (since clearly they weren't damaging it sufficiently) and then marched off. The players would be confused, maybe even curious, they might follow it to see it battling a dragon or some other powerful creature that intruded into the dungeon, boom you have all kinds of storytelling that could come from that.

Or you could have had the golem destroy a supporting beam by accident and get crushed by rubble, rendering it dead or alternatively just trapped and unable to move. Maybe any characters nearby also get temporarily trapped if they fail a reflex save.

Instead you fudged the dice and just said 'well that golem is dead now'? Fuck off, that is shitty DMing.

 

[Yosharian]

The DM screen is not for rolling dice in secret, good DMs roll their dice in front of the players

What do you mean 'no'

As a wise man once said, "Never let the dice get in the way of a good narrative"

Dice create good narratives because they add danger to fights and other situations.

A good narrative that's fudged into existence by the DM is a hollow, fake experience.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

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.

 

[Lacrymas]

Um. I have hundreds of hours of DM experience so that's a bit obnoxious.

I personally think players enjoy enjoy a more genuine experience where there is an actual chance of dying to crits etc, as opposed to a kid gloves experience where the DM fudges the rolls so that nothing brutal ever happens.

Or doesn't roll at all? That just baffles me.

There's also MY enjoyment as a DM, I love rolling dice too and I don't see why I shouldn't be able to enjoy getting the occasional crit now and then.

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.

 

[Yosharian]

Game mechanics is just a tool, how it's used depends on the people.
No matter how complex and detailed the rules are, if DM would just ignore them at personal convenience, their value would be amount to shit.
So I agree, that a good DM knows when to fudge dice rolls just a bit (I remember +2 circumstantial bonuses DMs can use in 3E), to make story/encounter especially memorable.
But if you're doing to do it all the time for whatever reasons, why would you bother with having rules at all?

I already said earlier that I do sometimes add bonuses, or reduce them, for a monster if I've made a mistake with the creature's power relative to the players. But that's not the same as fudging crits etc.