Fudging Dice Rolls

[ffilz]

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.

Yea, these asymmetric impacts of the mechanics on PCs and NPCs creates a divide. It would be more fair for randomly encountered spell casters to have some portion of their spell resource already be used up, though just how variable that can be may be dependent on the situation. For example, in Cold Iron, where people try real hard to rest after every encounter of any significance, then someone in their lair should be at full power unless the GM actually wants to entertain the possibility their lair just got attacked, or they just came back from a sortie. In this case, hit points should also be down...

As to crits, yep, they have a tendency to dis-proportionally affect PCs, at least for what's seen on screen. That doesn't make them bad, but it will lead to more cautious PCs (which should ALSO translate to more cautious NPCs and therefore more likelihood of NPC being closer to full power when encountered...).

Of course all of this thinking about how to power down NPCs is a lot of work...

 

[Tommy Brownell]

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 guess it depends on the NPC’s purpose in the setting (as opposed to your adventure). Are they there for that fight with the party? Do they have any plans that evening? Have they just been waiting around for two days for the PCs to come get them? Do they know the PCs are coming? Would they normally memorize Lightning Bolt instead of Speak With Plants? (Or whatever, I haven’t looked at a D&D spell lost in ages.)

 

[T. Foster]

I don't intentionally fudge die-rolls, but I also tend not to look things up and go with "close enough" which to some players is probably tantamount to fudging. If a monster or NPC rolls really well I'll usually just assume they succeeded (in their attack, or saving throw, or skill check or whatever) rather than checking the actual stat block numbers. Likewise, a lot of monsters are assumed to take 2 or 3 hits to drop rather than tracking their actual hp values (with a really bad damage roll maybe not counting, or a really good one counting double). In my personal game-running calculus the benefit of a faster-moving game outweighs exact mathematical fidelity to the rules. Which doesn't mean that the rules are bad or need to be re-written - that I need to develop a new system that measures hp differently for PCs and NPCs - it just means that I've got enough experience doing this stuff that I can retain the "feel" within about a 10% tolerance and keep things moving. Being able to do this is, IMO, a necessary step towards being a good GM.

 

[Lofgeornost]

In theory, I don't like fudging die rolls. I have done it before, and I'm sure I'll do it again.

I get the argument that 'if you need to fudge, then something has gone wrong'--that you set up the situation wrongly or that you are using a set of rules that do not give you the outcomes you actually want. If the latter, you should switch to another rules-set; God knows there are enough of them out there.

But, in practice, it may not be that simple. Gaming is a group activity; maybe your players prefer rule-set X with swingy damage and critical hits, even if they don't like the results. Or maybe that game provides a lot of other things you and your players do like, and you don't feel like doing the work to kitbash all of that into some new rules system.

I think of it like Charlie Alnutt, Humphrey Bogart's character in The African Queen. The engine of his boat has a flaw, which requires him to kick it from time to time to keep it from exploding. He could fix the problem, but it would be a lot of work to tear the engine down and put it back together. It's easier just to kick the thing when it starts acting up. Or to fudge the occasional roll.

 

[Tommy Brownell]

Yea, these asymmetric impacts of the mechanics on PCs and NPCs creates a divide. It would be more fair for randomly encountered spell casters to have some portion of their spell resource already be used up, though just how variable that can be may be dependent on the situation. For example, in Cold Iron, where people try real hard to rest after every encounter of any significance, then someone in their lair should be at full power unless the GM actually wants to entertain the possibility their lair just got attacked, or they just came back from a sortie. In this case, hit points should also be down...

As to crits, yep, they have a tendency to dis-proportionally affect PCs, at least for what's seen on screen. That doesn't make them bad, but it will lead to more cautious PCs (which should ALSO translate to more cautious NPCs and therefore more likelihood of NPC being closer to full power when encountered...).

Some of this depends on the game, obviously, but one bit of counterbalance I do with, say, 5e is that enemies generally don’t get the benefit of Death Saves, just like I rarely give enemies in Savage Worlds the benefit of Incapacitation rolls. The PCs get those mechanical stop gaps to keep from getting killed off from one lucky hit.

 

[ffilz]

In theory, I don't like fudging die rolls. I have done it before, and I'm sure I'll do it again.

I get the argument that 'if you need to fudge, then something has gone wrong'--that you set up the situation wrongly or that you are using a set of rules that do not give you the outcomes you actually want. If the latter, you should switch to another rules-set; God knows there are enough of them out there.

But, in practice, it may not be that simple. Gaming is a group activity; maybe your players prefer rule-set X with swingy damage and critical hits, even if they don't like the results. Or maybe that game provides a lot of other things you and your players do like, and you don't feel like doing the work to kitbash all of that into some new rules system.

I think of it like Charlie Alnutt, Humphrey Bogart's character in The African Queen. The engine of his boat has a flaw, which requires him to kick it from time to time to keep it from exploding. He could fix the problem, but it would be a lot of work to tear the engine down and put it back together. It's easier just to kick the thing when it starts acting up. Or to fudge the occasional roll.

I get that, but one could tune back encounters a bit or beef up the PCs a bit. For example, in D&D 3.x, if you use the CR/EL calculations but run a party of 5 or 6 PCs, you get down-tuned combats without much work. You can still use published modules and don't have to make any rule changes other than maybe experience awarded. If you're using an adventure path that assumes there's enough XP to level the party at appropriate times, divide the XP awards by 4 and hand out to the 5 or 6 PCs... You could remove the worst effects of the critical hit table (or fumble tables), maybe actually explicitly having separate tables for PCs and NPCs, or cannon fodder and significant characters (so the villains also benefit from the less extreme crits against them and fumble effects).

I.e. can you fix the problem with some minor tweaks and not have to fudge. Or not fudge as much?

Or can you do something like I'm planning with Cold Iron of moving the risk assessment properly to the players?

Early D&D dungeon exploration was very dangerous, but the players got to make a lot of risk assessment compared to later D&D where the GM is running a module that says it's for 4 5th level PCs.

 

[Vidgrip]

Good video. Hair Guy is right on the money. I have always been ready to fudge when it was appropriate. It might be fun to turn the question around. Why would you even use the actual die roll when you can fudge every roll to steer the story toward sustained, believable drama?

1) Fudging requires judgement and decision-making. That takes more mental energy than reading a number from the actual roll. Not fudging is easier than fudging. Easy wins.
2) If I fudged every roll, my players would figure that out pretty quickly and conclude that this was some sort of story game, rather than a dramatized simulation (which is what I aim for). I need to read the roll straight often enough that the players are not consciously wondering about whether I am fudging.
3) If I fudged every roll, I might know how the story would go. I am a gamer, not a novelist. I crave a bit of the unexpected. As a GM, I want most rolls to be random in order to enjoy myself.

I have no idea how often I fudge. Maybe one roll in 20? I have experimented with open die rolls and did not care for it. Players would lean forward to see what I rolled rather than listen to my description of what happened. Even if I didn't fudge, I'd roll behind a screen. Another interesting observation is that, as a player, I have played with GM's who fudge and those who don't. I've enjoyed those games pretty equally.

 

[Brock Savage]

I don't fudge dice and roll in the open.

When a battle is clearly won and there is absolutely zero point in continuing I will summarize with something like "With the battle won, you are easily able to destroy the remaining two zombies" or whatever. It is normally only a thing with mindless undead and the like as mortal, intelligent opponents typically flee or surrender long before that point is reached.

 

[ffilz]

Some of this depends on the game, obviously, but one bit of counterbalance I do with, say, 5e is that enemies generally don’t get the benefit of Death Saves, just like I rarely give enemies in Savage Worlds the benefit of Incapacitation rolls. The PCs get those mechanical stop gaps to keep from getting killed off from one lucky hit.

Yep, it's totally reasonable to limit these effects to PCs only, or significant characters only. When it's PC only, this is part of the privileged position PCs are in that I was talking about in the GMPC discussion. Some games are even explicit with cannon fodder rules.

 

[Lofgeornost]

Do vanilla critical hit rules actually affect NPCs and PCs asymmetrically? In any given combat round, all other things being equal, the two have the same chance of suffering such a hit. The argument seems to be that, since PCs go on and on, adventure after adventure and fight after fight, they are more likely to encounter a catastrophic critical hit than an N.P.C. who only shows up in one fight in one scenario. True, but is this the correct level of analysis? Since foe X, foe Y, and foe Z are only in the game for a brief period of time, wouldn't it make more sense to compare a PC's chance of suffering a devastating critical hit to the chance of all the X, Y, and Z foes he or she has faced in the course of a whole campaign? And wouldn't that chance be (all other thing being equal) the same as the P.C.'s probability of this?

 

[Caesar Slaad]

My general philosophy is:

If you don't want to accept the dice roll, why were you rolling in the first place?

I mean really, aren't you just wasting your time. If you don't want the thief to die from a poison needle trap, then why put one (at least one that kills) in your dungeon?

Now I do recognize that in more complex combat systems of trad games, you might not know when a game is about to go off the rails. And I'm going to be up front here, I may change NPC behavior or HP if something happens I did not intend. But I prefer having the system in place to handle those things without having to sidestep the system (e.g., Mutants & Masterminds awarding hero points for the GM complicating the situation). I prefer not to lie to myself about what the system is actually doing.

 

[ffilz]

Do vanilla critical hit rules actually affect NPCs and PCs asymmetrically? In any given combat round, all other things being equal, the two have the same chance of suffering such a hit. The argument seems to be that, since PCs go on and on, adventure after adventure and fight after fight, they are more likely to encounter a catastrophic critical hit than an N.P.C. who only shows up in one fight in one scenario. True, but is this the correct level of analysis? Since foe X, foe Y, and foe Z are only in the game for a brief period of time, wouldn't it make more sense to compare a PC's chance of suffering a devastating critical hit to the chance of all the X, Y, and Z foes he or she has faced in the course of a whole campaign? And wouldn't that chance be (all other thing being equal) the same as the P.C.'s probability of this?

You are right that the way the analysis is stated actually doesn't work quite right.

What's really the case is that because over time, PCs will have a high probability of suffering from criticals and fumbles, there is actually an impact on the long term campaign that may not balance with the excitement of taking down an NPC in one shot because of a lucky crit. The GM just shrugs off the crit and moves on to the next encounter. The player whose PC suffers such a crit is rolling up a new PC and starting over.

That's where the odds come into play in the way the analysis is done. The GM starts over NPCs all the time, players would prefer not to have to start over a PC.

 

[Stevethulhu]

I'd say two things.

First, a thing I already said:



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.

What if you see a problem, but I see an opportunity?

The idea that combat shouldn't be dangerous, potentially life changing and lethal. That's something I find incomprehensible. If theres no real danger, is it combat or is it something else?

I fall on the side of the something else.

I like games where getting in to a fight shouldn't be taken lightly. You call it lethality. I call it direct consequences.

Here's a thing. Fights are ugly and leave scars. Like a friend of mine got a chunk of his nose bitten off in a minor altercation and I've had a broken nose and other minor injuries from sparring in karate class. Which is as controlled a fight as you get.

Make that into a fight for your life.

The idea that RPG combat is some kind of participation sport is something I find quite dull and depressing.

And that means that sometimes, in the interest of the game, it becomes necessary to use the dice as guidelines rather than blindly being a servant to them.

So a critical can become a low damage hit. Or a high damage.roll can become a low one.

Because players often want to be John McLane. That's to say, battered and bloody, barely surviving and down to their last spell. But successful. An earned victory is orders of magnitude better than a gimme.

And sometimes, I feel that fate needs a gentle nudge to prevent an accidental disaster.

 

[ffilz]

On the flip side with crits, in some systems, there may be ways a PC gets to come back that are rarely applied to NPCs. How many NPCs get resurrected? How many NPCs get turned to stone and dragged back to town to be healed (Cold Iron, no resurrection but there's a good chance if you can turn your friend to stone and recover the body you can save them from all but a super extreme crit).

 

[Sommerjon]

My general philosophy is:

If you don't want to accept the dice roll, why were you rolling in the first place?

I mean really, aren't you just wasting your time. If you don't want the thief to die from a poison needle trap, then why put one (at least one that kills) in your dungeon?

Now I do recognize that in more complex combat systems of trad games, you might not know when a game is about to go off the rails. And I'm going to be up front here, I may change NPC behavior or HP if something happens I did not intend. But I prefer having the system in place to handle those things without having to sidestep the system (e.g., Mutants & Masterminds awarding hero points for the GM complicating the situation). I prefer not to lie to myself about what the system is actually doing.

You mean fudging.

I have a local player who has this massive, like get on a soapbox at every opportunity he can to rant, veracious hatred of fudging.
Yet has zero issues with:

• Changing the modifiers to the roll
• Changing HP
• Changing Levels of NPC
• Ignoring Crits

It is pure sophistry to the extremes when people rant about fudging a rolled die number, but are totally fine with fudging HP, Combat rounds, Level of NPCs, etc. You know the very things that modify every die roll.
There is zero difference from changing a die roll of 14 to a 13 to 'miss' than changing the modifier from a +3 to a +2 to 'miss'.

 

[EmperorNorton]

On the flip side with crits, in some systems, there may be ways a PC gets to come back that are rarely applied to NPCs. How many NPCs get resurrected? How many NPCs get turned to stone and dragged back to town to be healed (Cold Iron, no resurrection but there's a good chance if you can turn your friend to stone and recover the body you can save them from all but a super extreme crit).

Eh, I tend to remove resurrection from my games entirely to be honest. I kind of find the idea that death can be easily reversed boring.

 

[AsenRG]

Hell no, I'm not getting involved in this!
I don't like it, don't practice it, don't condone it, don't want it used on me and if you have fun with it, knock yourself out! I'm playing in another group anyway...

There, we're done, next thread!

You mean fudging.

I have a local player who has this massive, like get on a soapbox at every opportunity he can to rant, veracious hatred of fudging.
Yet has zero issues with:

• Changing the modifiers to the roll
• Changing HP
• Changing Levels of NPC
• Ignoring Crits

It is pure sophistry to the extremes when people rant about fudging a rolled die number, but are totally fine with fudging HP, Combat rounds, Level of NPCs, etc. You know the very things that modify every die roll.
There is zero difference from changing a die roll of 14 to a 13 to 'miss' than changing the modifier from a +3 to a +2 to 'miss'.

OK, just to let you know, I consider all of the above sub-types of fudging. And I want nothing to do with them, either.

 

[Tommy Brownell]

Eh, I tend to remove resurrection from my games entirely to be honest. I kind of find the idea that death can be easily reversed boring.

It’s not gone from my games, but it is really, really rare.

 

[AsenRG]

It’s not gone from my games, but it is really, really rare.

It's not gone from my games, either. But going to the kindom of Death and asking for a small favour is generally a long and involved process!

 

[ffilz]

You mean fudging.

I have a local player who has this massive, like get on a soapbox at every opportunity he can to rant, veracious hatred of fudging.
Yet has zero issues with:

• Changing the modifiers to the roll
• Changing HP
• Changing Levels of NPC
• Ignoring Crits

It is pure sophistry to the extremes when people rant about fudging a rolled die number, but are totally fine with fudging HP, Combat rounds, Level of NPCs, etc. You know the very things that modify every die roll.
There is zero difference from changing a die roll of 14 to a 13 to 'miss' than changing the modifier from a +3 to a +2 to 'miss'.

Sure, there's lots of ways to fudge.

Though I still agree that "fudging" to hasten a foregone conclusion is very different than fudging to save a character (PC or NPC). It's just the group agreeing (even if implicitly) to speed along something that might now be tedious.

But yea, the kinds of things you list are just as bad as changing or ignoring a die roll outside of the specific "speed up a forgone conclusion" (and of the things you listed, really ONLY changing the HP is a factor there, maybe also changing modifiers by actually giving the PCs a bit easier chance to hit). I would never decide "oh, the Orc is only 1st level" to hasten it's demise. Saying you killed it even though you missed by a couple hit points is different.

 

[Ladybird]

I guess it depends on the NPC’s purpose in the setting (as opposed to your adventure). Are they there for that fight with the party? Do they have any plans that evening? Have they just been waiting around for two days for the PCs to come get them? Do they know the PCs are coming? Would they normally memorize Lightning Bolt instead of Speak With Plants? (Or whatever, I haven’t looked at a D&D spell lost in ages.)

Oh yeah, fair. Sorry; I was explicitly thinking about NPC's who are likely to engage in fights and be an interesting opponent. It's obviously more complicated for others

 

[ffilz]

Eh, I tend to remove resurrection from my games entirely to be honest. I kind of find the idea that death can be easily reversed boring.

It's much less a part of my games these days. It's been a long time since I've run D&D where PCs remotely had the resources to consider resurrection. It does exist in RuneQuest but the time frame to perform it is pretty short and the resources high so the closest we have come is one PC had an amputated limb repaired and no resurrections. Heck, I actually forgot about divine intervention in most of the PC deaths... If I manage to get a Cold Iron campaign running, I will be a bit less generous in making it easy to get the requisite magic item for turning characters to stone that makes it easy to save a PC. And I won't be allowing a PC to be saved when the mechanics indicated it probably took most of the population of the town lining up to "give blood" to save the PC... Actually, I think since that instance I have set a limit on how far you can be brought back from.

 

[zarion]

You mean fudging.

I have a local player who has this massive, like get on a soapbox at every opportunity he can to rant, veracious hatred of fudging.
Yet has zero issues with:

• Changing the modifiers to the roll
• Changing HP
• Changing Levels of NPC
• Ignoring Crits

It is pure sophistry to the extremes when people rant about fudging a rolled die number, but are totally fine with fudging HP, Combat rounds, Level of NPCs, etc. You know the very things that modify every die roll.
There is zero difference from changing a die roll of 14 to a 13 to 'miss' than changing the modifier from a +3 to a +2 to 'miss'.

I agree that changing modifiers to a roll is the same as changing the result of a roll.

Changing HP, whether at the start of the fight, or during the fight, is not the same as modding a die roll. As GM I decide the stats of the NPCs the PCs face in combat. If I want the Goblins to be extra super hard to kill Goblins and double their HP, it will not change the outcome of any of the rolls in the combat that they participate in, it will make them twice as hard to kill, that's it. Same as modding HP during a fight, won't change the outcome of any of the die rolls, just the number of die rolls, maybe.

Fudging die rolls is not the same as changing statistics.

 

[Sommerjon]

Sure, there's lots of ways to fudge.

Though I still agree that "fudging" to hasten a foregone conclusion is very different than fudging to save a character (PC or NPC). It's just the group agreeing (even if implicitly) to speed along something that might now be tedious.

But yea, the kinds of things you list are just as bad as changing or ignoring a die roll outside of the specific "speed up a forgone conclusion" (and of the things you listed, really ONLY changing the HP is a factor there, maybe also changing modifiers by actually giving the PCs a bit easier chance to hit). I would never decide "oh, the Orc is only 1st level" to hasten it's demise. Saying you killed it even though you missed by a couple hit points is different.

You know all the times I fudge, it's rarely ever used to save a character.
Yet around here it seems to be what everyone assumes is the reasoning behind fudging. I have never found it to be and of the people I know who fudge it isn't for them either.

I find it odd when I here "rolled an encounter didn't like <insert reasons>" and that is okay for some reasons
Well Bub If you don't want to accept the dice roll, why were you rolling in the first place?


The absurdity of it all is delicious. here we are all adults most past 40 playing pretend with others. And yet some get all up in arms about changing the result of the die.

 

[ffilz]

Fudging die rolls is not the same as changing statistics.

Changing statistics in reaction to how the fight is going is fudging...

Well, except for my "statues" that got more and more attacks the faster they were being "killed"... It took many encounters for the players to come up with tactics to fight those statues (you also couldn't "attack" them with magic other than magic weapons and buffing the PCs...). There was also an epic GMPC moment with them... Maybe they aren't such a great example of things... Still, at least after the first fight, the changes in reaction to how the battle was going became PART of the definition of those things.

In reality, fudging to come to a forgone conclusion faster is still fudging. The trick is that it's almost always a fudge with no downside. You aren't really breaking the player's trust. Still, it's probably better to do it explicit and out in the open rather than glossing over it behind the screen.

 

[ffilz]

You know all the times I fudge, it's rarely ever used to save a character.
Yet around here it seems to be what everyone assumes is the reasoning behind fudging. I have never found it to be and of the people I know who fudge it isn't for them either.

I find it odd when I here "rolled an encounter didn't like <insert reasons>" and that is okay for some reasons
Well Bub If you don't want to accept the dice roll, why were you rolling in the first place?

The absurdity of it all is delicious. here we are all adults most past 40 playing pretend with others. And yet some get all up in arms about changing the result of the die.

I think there's a fine line with rolling for encounters and where the acceptable line is may be very different from campaign to campaign. I'm not quite willing to take periodic encounters, if they are something that is part of the game I'm running, and apply too much discretion. I'm not perfect there, but for my proposed West Marches campaign, my intent is to work up good encounter tables, and then hold to them, but the intent there is that the encounter table is part of the definition of a region. If I start fudging those, then I remove the ability of the players to assess risk and make their own risk calculations. If I decide, "I want an easier encounter" or "I want a harder encounter" then I will be breaking that assessment. If I decide "I'm bored with orcs, I'm going to re-roll until I get something more interesting" I'm breaking that this region is supposed to be primarily orcs and the players decided to go there because it is primarily orcs. Even if the replacement is theoretically the same difficulty, they prepared for an expedition into orc land not "what the GM feels like today land."

But in other campaigns, it may be perfectly reasonable to decide "hey, we're all getting tired of orcs, guess what, you're encountering blur wolves instead." Or to decide, you've had too many encounters on this journey already, let's skip encounter rolls and you get to the next town safely. And I might even run my RuneQuest campaign a bit that way.

 

[zarion]

Changing statistics in reaction to how the fight is going is fudging...

Except the OP was talking about fudging dice rolls specifically, not changing statistics.

As for the supposed fudging of statistics, well, as GM what am I supposed to do?

I guess I could show the players at the beginning of the fight what the opponents statistics are so they can be sure that I am not fudging them later. Or I could announce how many HP the enemies have so the players can track them to ensure I am not manipulating them.

Changing statistics is not the same as fudging a die roll.

 

[Brock Savage]

Eh, I tend to remove resurrection from my games entirely to be honest. I kind of find the idea that death can be easily reversed boring.

That goes for me as well. I may not remove resurrection entirely in every game but someone with the awesome powers of resurrection isn't collecting tithes and ministering to little old ladies on Sundays. A bag of gold might get you some sympathy from a church when your buddy dies but it is highly unlikely anyone there could resurrect even if they wanted to. At best a bag of gold will grant you an audience with a high ranking church official (master politician) who will accept a hefty payment in exchange for a letter of recommendation to the Living Saint who was last seen 3 months ago heading for the Plateau of Leng.

 

[TJS]

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.

There was a discussion on Enworld about how to handle a fight with high level pcs and '100 Orcs'. I just statted them up as a swarm with some special rules to reflect PCs holding a line or getting envelepoed. But there were a couple of posters who seemed to insist that they would roll for all 100 Orcs every round and that any kind of short cut of that was tantamount to cheating.

 

[Fenris-77]

Those people are silly. If I wanted to roll 100 goddamn dice I'd be playing 40K.

 

[under_score]

There was a discussion on Enworld about how to handle a fight with high level pcs and '100 Orcs'. I just statted them up as a swarm with some special rules to reflect PCs holding a line or getting envelepoed. But there were a couple of posters who seemed to insist that they would roll for all 100 Orcs every round and that any kind of short cut of that was tantamount to cheating.

Why do so many systems overlook mass combat rules? If your players the kind of troublemakers I'm used to seeing at the table, it's inevitable that eventually you'll be seeing armies march forth.

 

[EmperorNorton]

There was a discussion on Enworld about how to handle a fight with high level pcs and '100 Orcs'. I just statted them up as a swarm with some special rules to reflect PCs holding a line or getting envelepoed. But there were a couple of posters who seemed to insist that they would roll for all 100 Orcs every round and that any kind of short cut of that was tantamount to cheating.

If it was like D&D 5e, I'd just stat them up as 10 swarms of 10 orcs. Give each a size of Large or Huge. Give it an attack for "over half HP" and an attack for "under half HP" that is weaker. And boom be done with it. 10 enemies is a totally reasonable amount to handle. Maybe make some variations (one orc swarm is archers, another are ragers, etc).

(then I'd make sure to have morale stuff come into play)

 

[AsenRG]

Why do so many systems overlook mass combat rules? If your players the kind of troublemakers I'm used to seeing at the table, it's inevitable that eventually you'll be seeing armies march forth.

I'm the reason, obviously!

Seriously,that's because my PCs tend towards being spies more than soldiers. But then once the enemy army has lost its best commanders, their camp has suffered a couple arson attacks, messengers were intercepted and messages read, and there was something nasty in the water which means half the army is shitting instead of fighting, how much doubt is there to the outcome?

In short, I treat it like old-school games treat using the combat system: if you need to use it, you failed at strategy. And I gather I'm not unique. Maybe other designers had players like me!

BTW I played a spymaster in Scarik's Three Kingdoms PbP (over on The Big Purple) and my task was exactly as above.
At one point, our strategist swore on his life that we can take a fortified settlement in two weeks. So we did.
Wonder how comes that their food supply went up in flames!

Those people are silly. If I wanted to roll 100 goddamn dice I'd be playing 40K.

That's a weird way to spell "Shadowrun"!

 

[Thanks For The Memories]

Way back when, as a GM I would fudge rolls that came up exceptionally bad for my players. Like one time I would have flat out killed one of them in what was already an unfair fight (they had every opportunity to avoid it). Looking back I think it damaged the story.

Ever since then I roll in public. No screen, no secret rolls, just out in the open so everyone can see. If a GM is fudging rolls just to keep their story from being impacted then I get very disappointed. Skip the combat and just tell us what happens if there's no chance we'll lose, skip the lockpicking roll and just have the door be unlocked if it's that important, skip the search roll if missing that clue grinds the game to a halt.

Like others, I will adjust stats if I feel a combat becomes tedious. For example, in Fantasy AGE the goblins can be difficult to hit early on, needing a 14 or higher on 3d6+stat, so lowering their defense helps keep things moving. Their defense isn't the scariest thing about them anyway.

 

[TJS]

If it was like D&D 5e, I'd just stat them up as 10 swarms of 10 orcs. Give each a size of Large or Huge. Give it an attack for "over half HP" and an attack for "under half HP" that is weaker. And boom be done with it. 10 enemies is a totally reasonable amount to handle. Maybe make some variations (one orc swarm is archers, another are ragers, etc).

(then I'd make sure to have morale stuff come into play)

Well it was edition agnostic, but this was what I wrote

Goblin Swarm 200hp.
Containable: If PCs are able to hold a line, or block a passageway, then the swarm is considered contained. All pcs facing the swarm are attacked for 2d8 damage.
Rush: (Once per round) The Goblin war leader blows his horn and orders his followers forward. All pcs facing the contained goblin swarm make a Strength saving throw (or something similar). If more than half fail then the PCs are now enveloped.
Envelope: The Swarm attacks all PCs who are enveloped. It gains +2 to hit and does 4d8 damage. All movement is halved for enveloped PCs and they must make a strength save or have their speed reduced to 0.
Vulnerable: Area of effect attacks do double damage to the swarm.
Dispersable: If the Swarm is reduced to a below 100 hps, it must make an immediate morale save or disperse. From that point another morale save must be made for each 10hp threshold passed.
If dispersed the Swarm disappears and it replaced by 1d4 goblins for every 10hp remaining. Unless prevented these goblins immediately attempt to flee in all directions.
Rally (once per encounter - may only be used if the swarm has less than 100hp): The goblin war leader sounds his horn and attempts to rally the horde. Roll 4d10 and add this to the goblin swarm's hit points. All swarm attacks this round use d12s for damage rather than d8s.

 

[Stevethulhu]

There was a discussion on Enworld about how to handle a fight with high level pcs and '100 Orcs'. I just statted them up as a swarm with some special rules to reflect PCs holding a line or getting envelepoed. But there were a couple of posters who seemed to insist that they would roll for all 100 Orcs every round and that any kind of short cut of that was tantamount to cheating.

I wouldn't run a fight like that. First off, the PCs will just outright lose through sheer attrition. So it's just a question if how many orcs they take with them.

Second, there's a physical limit for how many orcs can gang up on a PC. It might vary by system, but 6 is a reasonable number. So rolling 100 attacks is pointless.

But any fight where it's 20 and on, one v the entire football team with substitutes is one you shouldn't be able to win.

 

[Fenris-77]

Not to pour gasoline on a fire here, but fighting 100 Orcs is stupid bloody idea for most parties in many campaigns anyway. in some games it fits, for sure, but in many cases when the party says "we charge the army of Orcs" the DM can pretty much fold up his screen and say "ok, new characters next week then?"

 

[Sommerjon]

Except the OP was talking about fudging dice rolls specifically, not changing statistics.

As for the supposed fudging of statistics, well, as GM what am I supposed to do?

I guess I could show the players at the beginning of the fight what the opponents statistics are so they can be sure that I am not fudging them later. Or I could announce how many HP the enemies have so the players can track them to ensure I am not manipulating them.

Changing statistics is not the same as fudging a die roll.

Why isn't changing the statistics the same as changing the die roll?
Both are a manipulation of what was in place "beforehand". Why is it wrong for one but not wrong for the other?

 

[TristramEvans]

Ive never heard of anyone changing character stats to deal with a bad die roll. That's so far past fudging, it just seems nonsensical.

 

[EmperorNorton]

I wouldn't run a fight like that. First off, the PCs will just outright lose through sheer attrition. So it's just a question if how many orcs they take with them.

Second, there's a physical limit for how many orcs can gang up on a PC. It might vary by system, but 6 is a reasonable number. So rolling 100 attacks is pointless.

But any fight where it's 20 and on, one v the entire football team with substitutes is one you shouldn't be able to win.

I mean, a group of 5 people taking out a armored flying hyperintelligent magical lizard so large it could dispense with each character in one bite that also breathes spouts of fire is also unrealistic in the extreme.