Fudging Dice Rolls

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TristramEvans

TristramEvans

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I was going to bring this topic up in the bad GMing thread, but figured that might be dooming it from the outset.

Anyways, here's an interesting video on fudging dice rolls by a man who obviously owns a blowdryer...

 
Personally, I've never thought much about "fudging". I don't really see the point in rolling the dice if I already know the result
(unless it's just done to freak out the players)
 
I used to in the way back when times, mostly to save my dumb friends from getting their dumb PCs killed for no reason other than they didn't know how to back down from a fight.

Now, never. I game with peeps who are the smart, so it's nary a problem any longer.
 
I used to be a fudger... Now I avoid it (though re-rolling on random tables for setup of an adventure or to flesh something out is different). We also used to play dice bowling, if you were rolling multiple dice, and you didn't like what the first die rolled, you would roll the 2nd die and try and knock the 1st... Usually used with percentiles or damage.
 
Here's my controversial rule of thumb:

The more you fudge, the shittier you are as a GM -- either because you ARE fudging or because you NEED to.

If you're not just fudging to be an asshole and screw over the players, then you're ultimately fudging to fix something that has gone wrong:

- You adjudicated the resolution poorly.
- You designed the scenario badly.
- You screwed something up and need to correct it.
- You're using a set of rules which creates results you and/or your players aren't happy with.

This is not to say you should never fudge. Mistakes happen and we don't need to live with those mistakes in the pursuit of some unrealistic ideal. But every time you DO fudge, you should view that as a failure and try to figure out how you can fix the underlying problem instead of just continuing to suck in perpetuity:

- Don't roll the dice if you can't live with the outcome. (And, ideally, learn how to still have meaningful stakes.)
- Design robust scenarios that don't break while you're running them.
- Create house rules to permanently fix mechanics that are creating undesired results. (Or switch to a different game entirely.)

(From GM Don't List #9: Fudging.)

But also: The Fudging Corollary: Not All Dice Rolls Are Mechanics
 
I never fudge. I’m occasionally tempted to kill monsters early, but that’s the only time I even consider it.

I never use a GM screen so I’m not even sure how I could.

Why are you using a Randomiser if you don’t want random?
 
First impression: that man's hair is immaculate. :shock:

Second impression:

facepalms.gif


Response: I enjoy rolling the dice and accepting the results more than I enjoy picking an outcome or having one chosen for me. :dice:
 
As a GM I had train myself to hold back any dice rolls until I have a clear idea what the different outcomes from said roll actually mean. Even now I find myself telling player who reach out for the dice to "Stop" whille I am still processing its significance because I am only human and it takes me a bit of time to think things through but I rather upfront about my shortcomings than attempt to slyly fix, fudge or gloss over an awkward dice result post-facto.

Sometimes a openly discuss the possible outcomes with the players, making sure we all on the same page even at the cost of sharing ooc information (the gaming jargon I think is "setting stakes"). Sometimes I do it privately.

In any event I tend to roll dice openly or tend to favour games where the GM never rolls the dice, so it fudging dice rolls isn't even a consideration.
 
I had a GM fudge the dice to keep my character alive once in an L5R game. I had a chat after the session and told him not to do that for me in future as I thought that character death would improve the game for everybody and I didn't mind rolling up a new character. I wouldn't have a problem with him fudging a roll for other players to change a death into a serious wound though.
 
PolarBlues said:
As a GM I had train myself to hold back any dice rolls until I have a clear idea what the different outcomes from said roll actually mean. Even now I find myself telling player who reach out for the dice to "Stop" whille I am still processing its significance because I am only human and it takes me a bit of time to think things through but I rather upfront about my shortcomings than attempt to slyly fix, fudge or gloss over an awkward dice result post-facto.

Sometimes a openly discuss the possible outcomes with the players, making sure we all on the same page even at the cost of sharing ooc information (the gaming jargon I think is "setting stakes"). Sometimes I do it privately.

In any event I tend to roll dice openly or tend to favour games where the GM never rolls the dice, so it fudging dice rolls isn't even a consideration.
Click to expand...
I have a player who had a bad habit for a while of announing "I'm going to do X" and then rolling the dice. It took a while to train him out of it. "No, I don't care that you rolled a 1. It's a tree, you can climb it without problems. There's no need for a roll."
 
If I ever don't want to do what the dice say, then I just roll them and blatantly don't look. But other than that... if I've rolled the dice, then I want to know a result from them, so I can't see the point in fudging.

The last few games I've ran have also been online, using a dice roller bot, so fudging simply wasn't an option. I did feel really bad for the players when a minor speedbump encounter almost wiped them out, but that's the game, so those are the risks.
 
Justin Alexander said:
Here's my controversial rule of thumb:

The more you fudge, the shittier you are as a GM -- either because you ARE fudging or because you NEED to.

If you're not just fudging to be an asshole and screw over the players, then you're ultimately fudging to fix something that has gone wrong:

- You adjudicated the resolution poorly.
- You designed the scenario badly.
- You screwed something up and need to correct it.
- You're using a set of rules which creates results you and/or your players aren't happy with.

This is not to say you should never fudge. Mistakes happen and we don't need to live with those mistakes in the pursuit of some unrealistic ideal. But every time you DO fudge, you should view that as a failure and try to figure out how you can fix the underlying problem instead of just continuing to suck in perpetuity:

- Don't roll the dice if you can't live with the outcome. (And, ideally, learn how to still have meaningful stakes.)
- Design robust scenarios that don't break while you're running them.
- Create house rules to permanently fix mechanics that are creating undesired results. (Or switch to a different game entirely.)

(From GM Don't List #9: Fudging.)

But also: The Fudging Corollary: Not All Dice Rolls Are Mechanics
Click to expand...
So how do you handle a run of rolls that would wipe out the party?

Playing Cyberpunk, there was a regular issue where I'd roll high to hit, then low for location. One time it happened half a dozen times in a row. Out of seven players, one PC survived.

In Legend of the Five Rings, I'd regularly roll multiple exploding dice on damage. In GURPS, critical hits would come up with surprising regularity.

And yes, I get that this is all down to the vagaries of dice. And this lick only seems to happen when I GM. As a player, I fail rolls in quite spectacular streaks of bad luck. And I do t see how that squares with your saying only a shit GM fudges.

Ot seems to me that a No True Scotsman argument is being put in play here.

See, to me, the flip side of fudging is, always cheat in favour of the players. It's one of those rare bits of solid gold advice from John Wick.

Especially useful when a run of GM good luck can stop a campaign in its tracks.
 
Stevethulhu said:
So how do you handle a run of rolls that would wipe out the party?

Playing Cyberpunk, there was a regular issue where I'd roll high to hit, then low for location. One time it happened half a dozen times in a row. Out of seven players, one PC survived.

In Legend of the Five Rings, I'd regularly roll multiple exploding dice on damage. In GURPS, critical hits would come up with surprising regularity.

And yes, I get that this is all down to the vagaries of dice. And this lick only seems to happen when I GM. As a player, I fail rolls in quite spectacular streaks of bad luck. And I do t see how that squares with your saying only a shit GM fudges.

Ot seems to me that a No True Scotsman argument is being put in play here.

See, to me, the flip side of fudging is, always cheat in favour of the players. It's one of those rare bits of solid gold advice from John Wick.

Especially useful when a run of GM good luck can stop a campaign in its tracks.
Click to expand...
I'm not terribly familiar with these particular games, but do the players not have a chance to respond in between rolls within this run of rolls? If fortune is not favoring today, they should adjust tactics rather than sticking with the same strategy and hope to get different results or for the GM to override the outcome.
 
Nope, no fudgy fudgy. I prefer games that put most of the rolling in the players hands anyway. I do love rolling pointless dice to make players nervous though. Thats great fun.
 
Actually, Justin Alexander Justin Alexander already covered handling the bad run of rolls that wipes out the whole party:
Justin Alexander said:
- You designed the scenario badly.
- You're using a set of rules which creates results you and/or your players aren't happy with.
Click to expand...

The answer, as always, is to "get gud".

Seriously though, I rather enjoy sessions where everything is going sideways, luck is against us, and we're all wondering just how the hell we're going to get out of this. Never would I want the how to be "the GM saves us".
 
Since we started gaming online, all my dice rolls are in the complete open now (unless I need a result that they just cannot/really should not know about just yet, like from an NPC sneaking up on them or the like).
 
Stevethulhu said:
So how do you handle a run of rolls that would wipe out the party?
Click to expand...

I'd rather address something like this at the source. In the heat of the moment, especially running a new system, any GM can get caught off-guard by hole in the rules or a freak set of circumstances. In those circumstances you do what you have to do, to hell with best practices. Personally I rather be open and honest with the players about the screw up but that won't work for everyone.

By addressing this a the source I mean looking back at the rules and deciding if (1) possibility of a random party wipe out is a feature is something I want (2) if not do I like the rest of the system or setting to houserule it or (3) is there another system that suits my needs better.
 
Stevethulhu said:
So how do you handle a run of rolls that would wipe out the party?
Click to expand...

For my part, any "cheating" done is something that makes sense in the setting.

Spoilers for Curse of Strahd below.

One of our PCs was killed in a big battle with these druids and tree dudes. The party had to cut and run, leaving him behind. He was brought back to life by Rudolph Van Richten, who the party had saved from a mob earlier in the campaign. This was because a) Van Richten was written as having a scroll (I believe) of resurrection on him and b) not only had the party gone out of their way to save him, but the dead PC in particular had...so it seemed fitting to me that, as a positive result of their actions, this avenue was open to them when things went south in this battle.

And lest my players ever think I'm making things too easy or too hard, I'm always willing to "pull back the curtain" after the session and explain how and why events unfolded the way they did.
 
I have no problem with freak sets of circumstance or a run of rolls that might wipe out the party. I'm a big fan of exploding dice, and while you can bake the probability into the design of a game, from time to time they just take on a life of their own. That's part of the fun. I find the dice take the game places where it otherwise might not go.
 
TJS said:
I never fudge. I’m occasionally tempted to kill monsters early, but that’s the only time I even consider it.
Click to expand...

I do this sometimes. If it is clear the combat is over, I'll either have the enemies "fail" their morale roll even if they didn't or (in the case of like undead or something) just have them go down a bit faster than they should. (Oh you rolled 10 damage, wow, it had 9 HP left (it actually had 13 but why drag the fight out any longer)).
 
EmperorNorton said:
I do this sometimes. If it is clear the combat is over, I'll either have the enemies "fail" their morale roll even if they didn't or (in the case of like undead or something) just have them go down a bit faster than they should. (Oh you rolled 10 damage, wow, it had 9 HP left (it actually had 13 but why drag the fight out any longer)).
Click to expand...
These are times when rolling to defeat a beaten enemy is as tedious as rolling to climb a gently sloping hill. In these cases, I don't roll and then fudge the results, I just declare them beaten and ask the players if they kill or capture them.
 
Yea, so the big question on the run of bad luck is what opportunities do the players have to change course? If there really is nothing that will change the course, I wonder why the system takes so many rolls to resolve something. Ideally, other than to hit followed by hit location roll (if random hit location is part of the system) followed by damage roll should be about the only type of sequence of rolls that doesn't allow for a chance of the players making a new choice that changes direction.

Now it may be that the players got in over their heads or put themselves in a bad spot and there really isn't any way out.

So this is one reason I'm excited about a West Marches style setting with "leveled" regions for Cold Iron. I used to have a horrible time estimating encounter difficulty in Cold Iron or for other reasons tossing too hard an encounter at the PCs, and then ending up fudging to get them out of it because I felt bad (see Justin Alexander's "you designed the encounter badly" comment...). So I get out of this with West Marches by trying to be consistent within regions, and try to make some easy regions that are easy to find. Now it's up to the players to assess and choose risk. And it would be wise of the players to go into a new region prepared to have no idea if any difficulty signalling has been correctly read. And also to be prepared that encounter difficulty is variable within a region. It becomes an interesting puzzle for the players to solve rather than the GM desperately trying to properly balance encounters. Now to improve the design, the experience system should really discourage picking only really easy fights unless that's what everyone wants.
 
under_score said:
These are times when rolling to defeat a beaten enemy is as tedious as rolling to climb a gently sloping hill. In these cases, I don't roll and then fudge the results, I just declare them beaten and ask the players if they kill or capture them.
Click to expand...

I mean, 6 of one half a dozen of another, just two different ways to get to the same result.
 
under_score said:
These are times when rolling to defeat a beaten enemy is as tedious as rolling to climb a gently sloping hill. In these cases, I don't roll and then fudge the results, I just declare them beaten and ask the players if they kill or capture them.
Click to expand...
Yea, I think accelerating a forgone conclusion is good GMing. And actually that can go against the players also. I had a case in college where a PC wanted to charge down a 10' wide corridor against a machine gun (AD&D gonzo dungeon with the DMG rules on modern weapons...). Any examination of the odds said there was zero chance the PC would survive. I think I offered that he could roll a d20 and if it came up 20 he would survive (much better odds than the actual odds). The player insisted that I roll out all the to hit rolls and damage, so we wasted like 30 minutes, result was still a dead PC and a pouting player...

Oh, and this reminds me of a computer game a friend introduced me to. I don't remember the title, but it had an option of letting the computer resolve a combat instead of round by round playing it out on a grid. The computer resolution was almost instant but tended to leave you with more damage. But it was a great way to quickly resolve "easy" encounters.
 
ffilz said:
Oh, and this reminds me of a computer game a friend introduced me to. I don't remember the title, but it had an option of letting the computer resolve a combat instead of round by round playing it out on a grid. The computer resolution was almost instant but tended to leave you with more damage. But it was a great way to quickly resolve "easy" encounters.
Click to expand...
If you play any of the Total War games, the autoresolve is pretty handy when you're steamrolling through a country with a deathstack cleaning up small resistance. It'd be tedious as hell to load up and fight out every one of those battles.
 
ffilz said:
Oh, and this reminds me of a computer game a friend introduced me to. I don't remember the title, but it had an option of letting the computer resolve a combat instead of round by round playing it out on a grid. The computer resolution was almost instant but tended to leave you with more damage. But it was a great way to quickly resolve "easy" encounters.
Click to expand...

I know the Total War series did this.

Edit: NINJAED
 
One thing I've done in forgone conclusion combats where there should still be some chance of damage to the PCs is to make some kind of random roll to see if anyone took damage. Maybe 1d6 per PC, on a 6 they take 1d6 damage or something (tailored at least somewhat to the game system). Players are usually willing to do that as long as the offer doesn't feel like too much damage risk.
 
I have zero issues with Fudging
I fudge whenever I feel like it is worth it.


Much like the Great Book says
1e DMG said:
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
Click to expand...
The dice are not the arbiter of the game.
They are not sacrosanct.
 
Savage Worlds Adventure Edition added Quick Combat which does a nice job of letting you still systematically play through an encounter (and potentially get weakened, with no chance of actual death), while saving full combat for bigger fights/encounters.

And, if that’s not your thing, it’s still just a tool in your toolbox you can use or not as you see fit.
 
Stevethulhu said:
So how do you handle a run of rolls that would wipe out the party?
Click to expand...

I'd say two things.

First, a thing I already said:

Justin Alexander said:
This is not to say you should never fudge. Mistakes happen and we don't need to live with those mistakes in the pursuit of some unrealistic ideal.
Click to expand...

You're allowed to say, "Whoops! That's not right!"

Second: You seem to be using systems that default to lethality as the only possible outcome of combat and with crit or crit-like systems that create large swings in damage, but you don't actually like what happens as a result of those mechanics.

Can you house rule the system so that hitting 0 hp (or the local equivalent) isn't automatically lethal?

It's pretty well established that crit and crit-like mechanics are more punishing to the PCs than NPCs (because any given PC is the target of vastly more attacks than any given NPC over the course of the game), so should your crit or crit-like mechanics be tweaked to better match the types of outcomes you find acceptable?

Should you be building your encounters around the risk of those damage spikes rather than average damage?

Is there some other solution that would stop this from happening, as you say, regularly?

And maybe not. But if you're regularly saying, "Whoops! That's not right!" that strongly suggests that something is out of whack. My point is that you should try to identify and fix the underlying problem.
 
Justin Alexander said:
It's pretty well established that crit and crit-like mechanics are more punishing to the PCs than NPCs (because any given PC is the target of vastly more attacks than any given NPC over the course of the game), so should your crit or crit-like mechanics be tweaked to better match the types of outcomes you find acceptable?
Click to expand...

See, I think this is something a lot of people don't understand: How different mechanics affect NPCs and PCs differently. Like crit/crit fails for instance.

Another example of this is the whole D&D thing of giving NPCs full spellcaster slots of a caster of a certain level as well: NPC spellcasters don't have to consider saving slots for further encounters, and unless the GM just marks some slots off, they don't have other encounters earlier to siphon slots away from them.

I think one of the problems with both designers and GMs, is a lack of understanding of math and probability.
 
I usually just give NPC casters a handful of spells and a number of times they can use them per combat. I can decide on the fly if that particular caster has something goofy like speak with plants.
 
Fenris-77 said:
I usually just give NPC casters a handful of spells and a number of times they can use them per combat. I can decide on the fly if that particular caster has something goofy like speak with plants.
Click to expand...

I do something similar. Or if I'm using an NPC or Monster out of a book that has spellcasting levels (I grabbed the stats for Lord of Blades recently and refluffed it as something else), I just mark off some spell slots to say they already used them. (Man, it is weird that I don't actually LIKE D&D much but somehow I end up running it so often...)
 
I also tend to give more spells/uses to major villains. Low hanging fruit.
 
An NPC only really needs a handful of spells; an opener (A big nuke, team buff, or control spell), a Plan A each round, and a Plan B and when to use it. They're unlikely to survive long enough for their spell slots to matter, and that probably doesn't matter anyway because unlike PC's they're probably not needing to plan for further encounters; they can fairly assume that this is it for them.
 
I agree with the idea that if fudging is "needed" then it's a sign that something else went wrong. I wouldn't say I'd never fudge a roll (the examples above of fudging to wrap up a too long combat seem reasonable, for example) but generally speaking I don't. Instead, I try to figure out why fudging seemed necessary, and try and correct that issue.

Then there are games I play where the GM rolls no dice. In those instances, fudging isn't an option....so I think that kind of points to some design flaw or GM judgment error.
 
Generally speaking, I would rather just declare than roll the dice when I know theres a result im going to want to change. Sometimes its unexpected of course, and those edge cases are always an individual choice. I would certainly ignore a roll if the result was something I should have anticipated. At that point I'll own up, make a call, and move on.
 
I'm in the don't fudge the dice camp, cause, why roll if you don't want the dice to decide the outcome?

However, I am also in the "kill monster early" camp cause I don't see that as fudging a die roll. Generally speaking the die roll is an active component, someone asking if they win or lose. Shaving a few HP off so the monster drops dead to avoid a tedious combat is not, it's just what it is. I would be much more likely to make said monster flee or surrender thought.

I am also definitely in the "fudging means you not good GM" camp. If you need to fudge die rolls, then you are using the wrong system. If you need to fudge die rolls to avoid a TPK, you are using the wrong system. If you need to fudge die rolls to "make sure the story works" then you need to stop calling for randomness when you don't want that. It's okay as a GM to just decided what happens in the narrative, that's essentially your role as the GM.
 
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