For me, it was: “If it’s going to help your players have more fun, cheat. Fudge a die roll. Make shit up. The dice don’t tell you what needs to happen, your players’ reactions do.”
Obviously, many people will disagree with this, but I’ve always appreciated this advice, and I believe it has made me a better GM.
I dislike the oft repeated fudge advice. Why not just do a collaborative writing exercise if you don’t want to actually use the rules of the game you’re playing?
As a player, I would be crushed to find out the GM was fudging. It would make all of my decisions pointless.
As a GM, if you fudge, you are effectively removing the players’ agency. You are becoming the sole arbiter of the story to be told, and they are just along for the ride.
If your spectators want that, cool. But I’d much rather be an active player.
I believe you’re blowing the idea of the fudged roll out of proportion, friend. No one is suggesting doing this on a continual basis - ie, fudging every single dice roll in the game. As a GM, my first responsibility is to ensure (as much as possible) that my players have a good time. I don’t get my rocks off watching my players die or have anxiety attacks at the table (though there are plenty of GMs who do). If the roleplaying would be best served by me overlooking a shitty dice roll from time to time, I have absolutely no qualms with that. At all. Of course, if my players make idiotic decisions and ignore every subtle warning I can throw at them to NOT do what they’re doing, then I let the dice fall how they will.
My opinion is not based on continuous fudging.
Perhaps I can reword my opinion to be better understood. You don’t need to agree with it, but this is my opinion.
The GM fudging is removing the agency of the players, by deciding that the rules of the game (Eg, the dice result) do not at an arbitrary time serve the story that the GM thinks is best.
Challenge: would you be okay with a player lying (fudging) a dice result to facilitate a result that they found more fun?
iamthetot > would you be okay with a player lying (fudging) a dice result to facilitate a result that they found more fun?
Thank you. No GM is going to accept their players declaring a bad roll to be a good one, instead. Cheating players is one of the more common GM complaints. I’m not sure why GMs seem to think that’s a one-way street.
That’s an ad hominem argument, I’m afraid. The player isn’t responsible for running the game - at least not in the same capacity. The GM is the one who either selects the adventure to run or writes it themselves. The players (at least not in any game that I’ve ever participated in over the last 30+ years) do not. As the one who is doing all of the legwork in creating, hosting and running the game to maximize the enjoyment of the group, overlooking a few terrible dice rolls here and there isn’t going to make me lose any sleep. In fact, in just about every TTRPG rulebook you will find an entry that states, in one form or another, that the GM is the final arbiter of the rules - up to and including overriding them as they see fit. Do things differently at your table, if you like. You don’t have to agree with me, either. Different strokes and all that.
I did not attack your character.
mr_noxx@lemmy.ml Honestly, I agree with the others. I don’t know why we’re playing dice games if we don’t want to adhere to the dice. The dice create the uncertainty and variation that the play at the table responds to.
The more honest and transparent solution to players being at risk of dying is roleplay or narrative transition. Enemies don’t need to be doing coup de graces, and going down in combat can mean capture rather than death. But if it’s only fun for everyone if they’re winning, then why not play something else where losing is never an option?
Is that the case though? When I have DM’d there’s often a difference between the intended difficulty of an encounter I create versus how it actually works out in play. Chalk that down to inexperience I guess, but a nudge in the direction of what the intended experience was I’ve found helpful, especially when the focus on the campaign is narrative. It can mitigate frustration that arises in situations that aren’t supposed to be difficult, and prevent boss encounters from being underwhelming when your players do a lot more damage than you anticipate.
> When I have DM’d there’s often a difference between the intended difficulty of an encounter I create versus how it actually works out in play.
Players are allowed to flee. Enemies are allowed to mock them and walk away.
I’m not sure why basically ever single discussion I ever see about GMing seems to live in this world where the only options in combat is “PCs die or NPCs die”, and the only workaround is to pick and choose when you’re playing a probability game.
Change or fudge enough rules and you’re basically playing a different game.
No time constraints? Now the GM has less levers to pull on to make choices feel meaningful.
Not tracking rations? Then there’s nothing stopping the players from travelling back to town to rest after every encounter.
Lots of game rules feel “less fun” in the moment but the alternative is constantly playing rocket tag because now fights don’t feel consequential unless player death is on the line - and that’s an easy line to accidentally cross. And then you end up fudging rolls to balance encounters.
But you wouldn’t need to make individual encounters so hard in the first place if pc death isn’t the only negative consequence on the table.