Fudging dice rolls in tabletop RPGs

[Heroic Liberator]

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.

Can work if the players are unaware of it, but otherwise it just ruins one's sense of agency as a roleplayer. I can understand fudging some negative rolls at the start of the campaign since it only serves to keep the players invested in it (and makes for a much stronger payoff if they die later on), but I don't think that a DM should extend his railroading to the combat encounters themselves later on. You plan the difficulty level of possible encounters based on the sort of story which you'd like to push, but then you should let the party earn its own victories and suffer its own defeats. Otherwise you might as well just be playing a narrated tabletop CYOA.

And of course this also depends on each DM's personal style and preferences, but I think that the sort of emergent storytelling which results from honest combat can keep things entertaining not only for the players, but for the DM as well.

 

[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.

Can work if the players are unaware of it, but otherwise it just ruins one's sense of agency as a roleplayer. I can understand fudging some negative rolls at the start of the campaign since it only serves to keep the players invested in it (and makes for a much stronger payoff if they die later on), but I don't think that a DM should extend his railroading to the combat encounters themselves later on. You plan the difficulty level of possible encounters based on the sort of story which you'd like to push, but then you should let the party earn its own victories and suffer its own defeats. Otherwise you might as well just be playing a narrated tabletop CYOA.

And of course this also depends on each DM's personal style and preferences, but I think that the sort of emergent storytelling which results from honest combat can keep things entertaining not only for the players, but for the DM as well.

The payoff is going to be shittier if I pump up this menacing dragon, only for it to never hit and go down like a bitch. Or the encounter against Strahd going like that.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

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.

Can work if the players are unaware of it, but otherwise it just ruins one's sense of agency as a roleplayer. I can understand fudging some negative rolls at the start of the campaign since it only serves to keep the players invested in it (and makes for a much stronger payoff if they die later on), but I don't think that a DM should extend his railroading to the combat encounters themselves later on. You plan the difficulty level of possible encounters based on the sort of story which you'd like to push, but then you should let the party earn its own victories and suffer its own defeats. Otherwise you might as well just be playing a narrated tabletop CYOA.

And of course this also depends on each DM's personal style and preferences, but I think that the sort of emergent storytelling which results from honest combat can keep things entertaining not only for the players, but for the DM as well.

The payoff is going to be shittier if I pump up this menacing dragon, only for it to never hit and go down like a bitch. Or the encounter against Strahd going like that.

I understand your perspective, I just don't find it personally appealing. To each their own and all that.

 

[NJClaw]

Fudging rolls is not to force the players into a predetermined story, it's to not end the story.

Why would the story end? It's almost 10 years that I no longer fudge rolls, and I've never had to "end a story" following a series of bad rolls. More than 10 campaigns, probably more than 1.000 sessions, exactly 0 fudged rolls and 0 "ended" stories. You just have to be able (and willing) to decide with your players how to keep it going.

Make them understand that they are going to die if they keep fighting, and then it's their choice. If they want to end their character's story, they have the right to do so.

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.

I've (specific I) felt the need to do it during the first half of my "D&D career". I've fudged rolls for more than 10 years, then I stopped and I've had much more fun since that decision. I'm sure you will see the light sooner or later.

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.

I think your positions come from a good place, but that's a suggestion that at best might help inexperienced players while they move their first steps. It is no coincidence that RPG design has always slowly but steadily moved further and further away from the idea of the omnipotent DM that should singlehandedly bring the "fun" to the table (we got shittier systems as a result, but that's just the general decline of the world).

 

[Lacrymas]

Fudging rolls is not to force the players into a predetermined story, it's to not end the story.

Why would the story end? It's almost 10 years that I no longer fudge rolls, and I've never had to "end a story" following a series of bad rolls. More than 10 campaigns, probably more than 1.000 sessions, exactly 0 fudged rolls and 0 "ended" stories. You just have to be able (and willing) to decide with your players how to keep it going.

If you constantly announce the deadliness of the encounters to the players like "hehehe, you are gonna die now, hehehe", then maybe you haven't ended a story with the players dying. My players would and do die constantly if I don't make something up. They die fighting, they die by falling off cliffs without using a rope, they die from getting into sex scenes they really shouldn't, they die by ingesting strange liquids, they die by getting trapped in a burning house, they drown, etc.

 

[NJClaw]

Fudging rolls is not to force the players into a predetermined story, it's to not end the story.

Why would the story end? It's almost 10 years that I no longer fudge rolls, and I've never had to "end a story" following a series of bad rolls. More than 10 campaigns, probably more than 1.000 sessions, exactly 0 fudged rolls and 0 "ended" stories. You just have to be able (and willing) to decide with your players how to keep it going.

If you constantly announce the deadliness of the encounters to the players like "hehehe, you are gonna die now, hehehe", then maybe you haven't ended a story with the players dying. My players would and do die constantly if I don't make something up. They die fighting, they die by falling off cliffs without using a rope, they die from getting into sex scenes they really shouldn't, they die by ingesting strange liquids, they die by getting trapped in a burning house, they drown, etc.

You are exaggerating my words and taking them out of context. Characters die, and the story can progress with or without them. Boromir might have been an NPC, or he might have been the PC of a player who was fine with how his adventure ended.

I'm currently playing two campaigns, and a character died to bad rolls during the last session in both of them (one to an unlucky crit of a giant crocodile skeleton, the other to two very unlycky crits of a rogue). Both players wanted to keep the same character, so we found a way to make that happen:
- the first one died in an ancient ruined temple of a forgotten deity of beasts, so the remaining spirit of this deity perceived the character's strength and, assuming the aspect of a thundering bear, struck a deal with him, bringing him back to life but linking himself to his soul. Now he has resistance to electricity, but the forgotten god slightly modified his personality (making him prone to the desire of conquest and destruction) and will try to influence him further in the future;
- the group of the second character needed his help, so they asked for help in the local temple and were directed to a high priest of Lathander who lives in a secluded lodge in the wilds. The priest was already dead, but they "avenged" him concluding his sacred mission, and Lathander blessed them, bringing the character back to life in the process.

Both characters died, both players got to keep their character. Following the dice didn't end the story, but instead added new inputs and plot hooks that we may decide to develop in the future. A simple "oh, the giant crocodile skeleton doesn't hit you" and "how lucky, the rogue misses you with both attacks" would have been the easier, more boring route.

 

[NJClaw]

The payoff is going to be shittier if I pump up this menacing dragon, only for it to never hit and go down like a bitch. Or the encounter against Strahd going like that.

I disagree with this so fucking much.

"Remember that time we took down that menacing dragon with an incredible stroke of luck? Yeah, what a bitch!"

and

"Remember that time we defeated Strahd without him even realizing what happened?"

are much cooler than

"Remember that time everything went exactly like it should have?"

Strahd has two hundred million options at his disposal, him not being able to provide a challenge should be a one in a thousand chances thing. Why would you take that away from your players? You already have the BBEG that turns out to be the real challenge everyone expected during every single campaign, why do you want to take the very rare occurrence of that not being the case for once away from your players? It's not like that happens every single time, it's a very rare thing.

So, again, this seems to me something that a group might want to do while they move their first steps in this game, because they don't want to ruin their experience. But after years and years and years, following the dice always create new situations, the best of which are the unexpected ones.

 

[Lacrymas]

Fudging rolls is not to force the players into a predetermined story, it's to not end the story.

Why would the story end? It's almost 10 years that I no longer fudge rolls, and I've never had to "end a story" following a series of bad rolls. More than 10 campaigns, probably more than 1.000 sessions, exactly 0 fudged rolls and 0 "ended" stories. You just have to be able (and willing) to decide with your players how to keep it going.

If you constantly announce the deadliness of the encounters to the players like "hehehe, you are gonna die now, hehehe", then maybe you haven't ended a story with the players dying. My players would and do die constantly if I don't make something up. They die fighting, they die by falling off cliffs without using a rope, they die from getting into sex scenes they really shouldn't, they die by ingesting strange liquids, they die by getting trapped in a burning house, they drown, etc.

You are exaggerating my words and taking them out of context. Characters die, and the story can progress with or without them. Boromir might have been an NPC, or he might have been the PC of a player who was fine with how his adventure ended.

I'm currently playing two campaigns, and a character died to bad rolls during the last session in both of them (one to an unlucky crit of a giant crocodile skeleton, the other to two very unlycky crits of a rogue). Both players wanted to keep the same character, so we found a way to make that happen:
- the first one died in an ancient ruined temple of a forgotten deity of beasts, so the remaining spirit of this deity perceived the character's strength and, assuming the aspect of a thundering bear, struck a deal with him, bringing him back to life but linking himself to his soul. Now he has resistance to electricity, but the forgotten god slightly modified his personality (making him prone to the desire of conquest and destruction) and will try to influence him further in the future;
- the group of the second character needed his help, so they asked for help in the local temple and were directed to a high priest of Lathander who lives in a secluded lodge in the wilds. The priest was already dead, but they "avenged" him concluding his sacred mission, and Lathander blessed them, bringing the character back to life in the process.

Both characters died, both players got to keep their character. Following the dice didn't end the story, but instead added new inputs and plot hooks that we may decide to develop in the future. A simple "oh, the giant crocodile skeleton doesn't hit you" and "how lucky, the rogue misses you with both attacks" would have been the easier, more boring route.

Oh, I don't do resurrections, so yeah. I also normally don't allow new characters appearing with all the experience collected thus far, so they'd have to begin at lvl 1. I don't know if that will be super fun for them, but it's an option.

About the other part, we rarely replay the same campaign with the same people, so chances are the first time you see it it will be the last. Strahd being a little bitch at the end doesn't sound very exciting in that context. A tabletop campaign has to be a well written story on top of everything else, deescalating the culmination because the dice says so goes against that idea. You can see that in video games, a lame last boss is disappointing if it has been hyped up as this super menacing thing. Yeah, you can twist it at the end and shockingly reveal it was a ploy and the last boss is actually two babies in a trenchcoat, but that's a narrative twist, not a game play one. Strahd turning out to be two babies in a trenchcoat while fighting him is lame. Maybe if you are super experienced in the standard adventure mould, then doing something completely different and bowing before the dice is a good alternative, but we rarely play with such people.

 

[NJClaw]

Maybe if you are super experienced in the standard adventure mould, then doing something completely different and bowing before the dice is a good alternative, but we rarely play with such people.

Ah, I see, so you were the inexperienced one all along. Well, well, well, how the turntables...

Jokes aside, one of my groups of players remembers situations failed thanks to bad dice rolls almost more fondly than those where everything went just as expected. During a 3.5 campaign, a very high-level Cleric/Crusader gestalt faced a boss on his own, because other characters had no chance of surviving his spells. He survived 4 Maw of Chaos (a spell that deals 1d6 untyped damage per caster level without any save) one on top of each other only thanks to his Mettle class feature; he went through 3 Prismatic Wall, using his Zealous Surge and domain power to reroll failed saves; he dispatched a series of minions with his maneuvers; and this went on for something like 15 rounds, because he could only move a single step each round. He basically showcased every single option, skill, spell, item, and power of his character, any other possible character wouldn't have been able to survive. When he finally reached the boss, he got critted for 290 damage and died on the spot. It was the epitome of anti-climactic endings, and we still laugh about it after 5 years.

If I had fudged the rolls that day, now I would only be able to tell the story of that time that a character epically killed a boss thanks to my cheating.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, once the same party faced Dispater and on the first round he failed a save against a domination power. It was the most anti-climactic shit I had ever seen, but then they used him to annihilate every other archdevil in existence, and in the process we discovered that with his abilities Dispater could easily have conquered the entire nine hells, even Asmodeus could do nothing against his touch.

If I had fudged the rolls that day, now I would only be able to tell the story of that time that the party had a good fight against Dispater.

 

[Lacrymas]

You don't tell players you fudged rolls. ;d

 

[NJClaw]

You don't tell players you fudged rolls. ;d

Sorry, but I never lie. I don't want to burn in hell forever.

And that's beside the point. Sticking to the rolls gave us far more interesting stories.

 

[mondblut]

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

If a narrative gets in the way of dice, fuck the narrative.

 

[Moonrise]

I prefer the worst of both worlds. To roll openly during combat, so the players believe you when the marilith turns a beloved character into sushi. And to roll secretly during exploration and social encounters, to increase tension precisely when they feel safest.

 

[Gregz]

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

This is false. A good DM makes sure their players are having fun.

The DM screen, and dice fudging, are useful tools in the right hands.

 

[NJClaw]

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

This is false. A good DM makes sure their players are having fun.

The DM screen, and dice fudging, are useful tools in the right hands.

The DM doesn't always know what the most fun outcome will be. They fudge rolls to adapt the game to THEIR idea of fun.

In the "right hands", as you say, "failing forward" and reacting to unexpected situations is much more fun than dice fudging.

 

[Gregz]

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

This is false. A good DM makes sure their players are having fun.

The DM screen, and dice fudging, are useful tools in the right hands.

The DM doesn't always know what the most fun outcome will be. They fudge rolls to adapt the game to THEIR idea of fun.

In the "right hands", as you say, "failing forward" and reacting to unexpected situations is much more fun than dice fudging.

Any fool can be a DM, I was referring to those who are good at it. Also, I never excluded the scenario you are describing.

 

[mondblut]

And to roll secretly during exploration and social encounters, to increase tension precisely when they feel safest.

Just roll secretly whenever you feel like it. Make them wonder wtf is going on and what have they just missed or miraculously survived.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

And to roll secretly during exploration and social encounters, to increase tension precisely when they feel safest.

Just roll secretly whenever you feel like it. Make them wonder wtf is going on and what have they just missed or miraculously survived.

The AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide explicitly suggested doing so:

"In many situations it is correct and fun to have the players dice such things as melee hits or saving throws. However, it is your right to control the dice at any time and to roll dice for the players. You might wish to do this to keep them from knowing some specific fact. You also might wish to give them an edge in finding a particular clue, e.g. a secret door that leads to a complex of monsters and treasures that will be especially entertaining. You do have every right to overrule the dice at any time if there is a particular course of events that you would like to have occur. In making such a decision you should never seriously harm the party or a non-player character with your actions. "ALWAYS GIVE A MONSTER AN EVEN BREAK!"

Examples of dice rolls which should always be made secretly are: listening, hiding in shadows, detecting traps, moving silently, finding secret doors, monster saving throws, and attacks made upon the party without their possible knowledge."

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I assume this must've been a thread split since the OP's weird as shit, but I'm in the "DM can fudge rolls" camp. It's a fine line to tread since you shouldn't fudge enough to remove any sort of bite from adventure, but I'm all for fudging when that goblin rolls a crit and beans your player's new character with a rock and kills him in the first combat encounter. Sure, you deny the player the story of "YEAH I MADE A DUDE AND THEN HE WAS INSTANTLY KILLED BY A GOBLIN", but the flip side is everyone's gathered to play the game after hour(s) of character creation and it'd suck to have things go sideways that fast. Also possible to over or undertune encounters so some fudging is decent if you realize you fucked up the balance on an encounter, though this sort of fudging is more minimal because D&D's open enough that players should be able to weasel out of a lot of shit anyway.

Best sort of fudging is the DM fudging the rolls necessary for something. Player saying "I use bluff to bullshit our way past the guard" is a flat generic check but I wouldn't throw a fit if he doesn't want to talk it out. Player saying he uses bluff to bullshit the guard and then roleplays his character's line of bullshit, make the check a bit easier. I'm also a fan of randomly chucking dice for nonsense just to determine shit behind the scenes, like rolling to see the guard's mood and then adjusting both the difficulty and how he acts accordingly.

Players fudging dice are the devil, though. If anyone uses un-inked clear dice you know there's some bullshit coming.

 

[mondblut]

And to roll secretly during exploration and social encounters, to increase tension precisely when they feel safest.

Just roll secretly whenever you feel like it. Make them wonder wtf is going on and what have they just missed or miraculously survived.

The AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide explicitly suggested doing so:

Heh, no. I meant rolling secretly for no actual reason at all.

Make them think that something happens or might have happened, for shits and giggles.

 

[Alex]

Annoying, and sometimes downright autist as it may be, Burning Wheel gets a lot of stuff right. And one thing they do get right is that there is no point in rolling if you are not going to accept the result of the die. I personally like the game to be open to any result that should logically follow from an action, but if you simply can't accept that the PCs might die due to this dice roll, or that the clue you placed might be missed, or that the villain might escape or might not escape, then don't make that a possible outcome of the roll. Either be clear about what are the possible outcomes from the roll, or simply don't roll the dice anyway and say what happens. I hate when stuff happens in "cut-scene" mode, but I hate it even more when the GM tries to disguise the cut-scene with fake rolls. GM illusionism is bullshit and this is one of the few valid points of the old forge website.

All this said, there is nothing wrong with rolling dice behind the screen when the PCs are not supposed to know how well they did, or when you are rolling for NPCs, or for whatever reason it is a secret roll. But the GM should be honest about it just as he should be honest about his preparation and not tweak dungeon monsters on the fly because the PCs are too weak or too strong.

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

I don't fudge. People die, people live. At best, if I don't remember something, I'll fudge the odds. But once it's there, it's there. Although, ruling not rules.

 

[Moonrise]

But the GM should be honest about it just as he should be honest about his preparation and not tweak dungeon monsters on the fly because the PCs are too weak or too strong.

Manticore reinforcements are swooping in whether you like them or not.

 

[Alex]

But the GM should be honest about it just as he should be honest about his preparation and not tweak dungeon monsters on the fly because the PCs are too weak or too strong.

Manticore reinforcements are swooping in whether you like them or not.

Fine by me, as long as they were coming whether we wiped the floor with the enemies or were used to wipe the floor by them.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

And to roll secretly during exploration and social encounters, to increase tension precisely when they feel safest.

Just roll secretly whenever you feel like it. Make them wonder wtf is going on and what have they just missed or miraculously survived.

The AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide explicitly suggested doing so:

Heh, no. I meant rolling secretly for no actual reason at all.

Make them think that something happens or might have happened, for shits and giggles.

"The old "dice rolling and evil chuckle" trick is particularly useful if the game has slowed down due to idle chatter among the players. Of course, excessive talking is likely to bring wandering monsters to the area to investigate, so make some of the rolls bring actual monsters. This will keep the players on their toes in the future, especially if the DM wiped out half the party the last time they were not paying attention."
- DMGR1 Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide, 1990, written by Paul Jaquays and William W. Connors