You should get out a little more. Maybe try and understand another perspective by doing some research - postulate less, learn more. The Rpgsite forums aren't a bad place to start.

There has been loads of discussion on such topics as fudging, illusionism, hamfisted-GMing - on these very forums no less! - over many years. Do some searches; read some threads; learn some things. Think outside your box.

Quote from: VengerSatanis;957726For what's being discussed, all that you've described counts as "fudging."

Hmmm, in that case I fudge, albeit accidentally.

You have an erroneous understanding of what Rule Zero says.

Quote from: AsenRG;957633And now let me elaborate (apart from the mandatory "pretending it doesn't exist is beyond the pale") why that is so.

Fudging, quantum ogres and the like do one thing and one thing only: it helps the events on the table go closer to what the GM envisions (because of Reasons...that I don't care about).
That, to me, is strictly a bad thing! Why?
Because we're there to play and find out what happens...

We're not there to play and find out what the GM wants to happen

So if I'm understanding correctly, "closer to what the GM envisions" is bad. Bad because you play to find out what happens. Finding out what happens is different (even the antithesis) of finding out what the GM wants to happen. All perfectly reasonable.

So dumb question time. Is "what the GM envisions" really the same or equivalent to "what the GM wants to happen"?

"Here is my story. Hope you enjoy the ride." and "Here is how my world works. Do with it what you will." are both examples of "what the GM envisions." I can see how the former clearly robs you of why you play. The latter, not so much.

I'll even question a step further...

QuoteAs stated above, if you need to do fudging, or related practices, find a better system or learn to be a better Referee. Because fudging is a sign at least one of these sucks:D!

Now if I've understood you correctly, the ideal here is that between the system designer and the GM, that they've make sure all the rules are juuuust right, before play ever even begins, such that they produce reasonable and appropriate results without fail and without resorting to fudging.

It sounds like that requires an awful lot of anticipating in advance. And if a game really were to go off without a hitch like that, I'd have to question whether the players were ever empowered to toss out any system-breaking curve balls at all.

I mean, a rule as simple as "when in doubt, flip a coin" would be effective as a catch-all, so the system would be able to technically handle anything and everything you throw at it. But would so simple a probability really fit the "reasonable and appropriate" standard every time it's invoked? Seems unlikely. To shoehorn player input cleanly into the system seems to be just a more subtle form of saying, "No. You have to pick something that's on the menu. But that's okay. I'll pick something for you."

So I'm not convinced that your ideal is a good match for what you want out of the game. I agree that each would be nice. I'm just not sure they're 100% compatible. Sure, I think a good system and good GM, sans fudging, are helpful up to a point. But if those things are the means and the experience of finding out what happens is the end, then IF they ever do come into conflict, the proper course is to jettison the no-fudge standard. If they never do come into conflict, then great. But IF they do, it's important to be clear about the pecking order.



A couple of other incidentals...

-Insofar as I wish to create a world and let players do what they like with it, I want this to actually be a world. Not a mathematical model. We don't even have all the rules and equations governing our own world. If I wish my fantasy world to be as nuanced as our own, it really doesn't seem like "must have teh rulez spelt out, no fudging" is the least bit reasonable a standard.

-I've noticed something sneaky about games Gary Gygax wrote. He tended to shy away from dice notation in favor of giving number ranges. A dagger does 1-4 damage. Not 1d4 damage. Technically, the rules aren't dictating how to generate dagger damage. As long as the number is between 1 and 4, the GM hasn't broken any rules. I know, I know. You might say back when he wrote AD&D, those were caveman days when we didn't have the technology to print 'd' in between two numbers, and even if we could people were too stupid to ever think to do that. But he did the same thing with the Lejendary Adventure system, in a time and place where d notation had been established for decades. I straight up asked him about it. He confirmed that's how he interprets that as well, of course most of the time he does defer to the obvious dice that fit the range.

Quote from: VengerSatanis;958168Speaking of which, where was this call of "Bullshit" when people were reading and reviewing my book How to Game Master like a Fucking Boss?

1) That is a good book full of cool chunks of good advice.

2) Fudging - as you've currently explained it - isn't good advice.

Maybe I am just not seeing it.

Give us 3 actual play examples of where "fudging" dice resulted in a positive for your game and your players.

Quote from: Lunamancer;958474So if I'm understanding correctly, "closer to what the GM envisions" is bad. Bad because you play to find out what happens. Finding out what happens is different (even the antithesis) of finding out what the GM wants to happen. All perfectly reasonable.

So dumb question time. Is "what the GM envisions" really the same or equivalent to "what the GM wants to happen"?

That's an... interesting... question.  Can you think of any situations where they might not be equivalent, in the context of an instance of the GM fudging, etc.?

Have you ever seen a GM say "the die roll says you hit, and I want you to hit, so I'm going to fudge the result and make it a miss"?

Have you ever seen a GM say "I want you to meet the quantum ogre behind the second door, so I'll have it appear behind the first one"?

I can't reasonably imagine any situation in which someone would fudge, etc. to actively produce a result they don't want - if they didn't ultimately want that result, then why are they bothering to bend the rules and/or the game world to produce it?  Similarly, you're not going to bend the rules/world to produce something that you haven't envisioned, even if only in the moment prior to the bending.  Unless you can provide a solid counterexample, I'm comfortable with the assertion that fudging, quantum ogres, etc. are only used to produce results which the GM (or whoever is using these techniques) has both envisioned and wants to happen.

Quote from: Lunamancer;958474-Insofar as I wish to create a world and let players do what they like with it, I want this to actually be a world. Not a mathematical model. We don't even have all the rules and equations governing our own world. If I wish my fantasy world to be as nuanced as our own, it really doesn't seem like "must have teh rulez spelt out, no fudging" is the least bit reasonable a standard.

I think here you're getting into the definition of "fudging", which, as we've seen upthread, some people define pretty broadly.

As I define the term, "fudging" specifically means rolling a die and then treating it as if the die had rolled a different number than actually resulted.  I believe this to be the most common usage, but I could be mistaken.

Under my definition, you don't need the system to provide a perfect mathematical model of every detail of the world.  It provides all the room for GM fiat and interpretation you could ever need to provide the richest, most nuanced world imaginable.  The only thing that I'm ruling out when I say "no fudging" is that, if you turn a decision over to the dice, then you're not allowed to retroactively invalidate their decision.

In your dagger damage example, for instance, I'd be OK with the GM saying "Your dagger does 3 damage." without rolling, but would not be happy with "Roll a d4 for damage.  A 2?  No, you did 3 instead."  If you're just going to ignore the die, then don't pretend to care what it says.

Quote from: Lunamancer;958474"Here is my story. Hope you enjoy the ride." and "Here is how my world works. Do with it what you will." are both examples of "what the GM envisions." I can see how the former clearly robs you of why you play. The latter, not so much.

Yes, that's an excellent point!  Here is how my world works; do with it as you will.  I believe that's the essence of a Game Master's philosophy.  And knowing how the world works, if only in a vague form of generalizations and stereotypes, is one of the Game Master's primary duties.  

Many times when crafting a scenario, writing a short story, imagining what's going to happen next in a movie, TV show, or book, I won't know the outcome, but I know when a false note sounds.  That tells me something is breaking, there's a disconnect, and the immersion is lost momentarily.  When I'm Game Mastering, I can roll a die and perhaps 1 out of 10 or 20 times I will hear the internal consistency snap.  And in that millisecond, I have the power to either make a correction or let things stand... slavishly adhering to what the dice have decided.

If one is to know and be honest with the world one has created, he can either not roll the dice at all or roll the dice and course correct when results strain the credibility and, indeed, realism of the Game Master's world.  While the former may be alright for some, I love dice and randomness too much to forgo rolling, so I opt for the latter.

Quote from: Lunamancer;958474Now if I've understood you correctly, the ideal here is that between the system designer and the GM, that they've make sure all the rules are juuuust right, before play ever even begins, such that they produce reasonable and appropriate results without fail and without resorting to fudging.  

To me, it sounds like the system designer is one of those fudging GMs that most people in this thread are up in arms about, except he's one earlier than the GM.

Quote from: Lunamancer;958474-Insofar as I wish to create a world and let players do what they like with it, I want this to actually be a world. Not a mathematical model. We don't even have all the rules and equations governing our own world. If I wish my fantasy world to be as nuanced as our own, it really doesn't seem like "must have teh rulez spelt out, no fudging" is the least bit reasonable a standard.  

This is where we leave theory behind and actually Game Master a session or even campaign.  Game worlds are not mathematical models, though they're usually written that way.  The GM has to translate those mechanics into reality.  As I've said previously, the mechanics or mathematical model is not running the game, that's the GM's job.  As an interpreter, should he not be bound to the spirit rather than the letter of those rules, those results based upon pre-game theorizing that no system designer could wholly anticipate before the GM has even sat down behind his screen?

Quote from: Lunamancer;958474-I've noticed something sneaky about games Gary Gygax wrote. He tended to shy away from dice notation in favor of giving number ranges. A dagger does 1-4 damage. Not 1d4 damage. Technically, the rules aren't dictating how to generate dagger damage. As long as the number is between 1 and 4, the GM hasn't broken any rules. I know, I know. You might say back when he wrote AD&D, those were caveman days when we didn't have the technology to print 'd' in between two numbers, and even if we could people were too stupid to ever think to do that. But he did the same thing with the Lejendary Adventure system, in a time and place where d notation had been established for decades. I straight up asked him about it. He confirmed that's how he interprets that as well, of course most of the time he does defer to the obvious dice that fit the range.

That's very interesting, I had no idea.  Makes sense, though.

VS

Quote from: Spinachcat;9584861) That is a good book full of cool chunks of good advice.

2) Fudging - as you've currently explained it - isn't good advice.

Maybe I am just not seeing it.

Give us 3 actual play examples of where "fudging" dice resulted in a positive for your game and your players.

Sure...

1.  I randomly rolled on the d100 color table - that's in How to Game Master like a Fucking Boss, incidentally - for a newly acquired magic sword, and got what I considered a far less than ideal hue.  So, I glanced at some nearby results and chose one that seemed to suit the situation, world, player, character, etc.

2.  There was an epic battle towards the end of a session, a battle that the PCs had been building up to for quite awhile.  Not only were the PCs' tactics good, but they also rolled well, and I was rolling poorly.  If I had let the dice fall where they may, the combat would have been over in about 3 rounds.  Even though the PCs would have been glad for a quick victory, they also would have felt cheated and the anti-climactic feeling would have put a damper on an otherwise awesome session.  Beefing up the antagonist's hit points didn't affect the battle's outcome - it merely extended combat and gave the impression that this fight and opponent were both significant.

3.  This was a long time ago, but I was DMing a session of D&D and there were one or two new players who I was longtime friends with but hadn't gamed with in awhile.  Though, when I had gamed with one of them in particular, he came just about as close to cheating as you could without actually crossing the line.  Although, in his mind, he always felt perfectly justified.  Anyway, I didn't memorize his character sheet, but looked it over and noticed the high AC.  Well, we were halfway through the session and a really powerful black knight type dude was attacking the party.  He rolled a natural "18," and I said, "Ok, he hit you for X amount of damage."  The player balked and asked what his Attack Bonus was.  I told him how high it was (it was pretty high) and the player responded with, "That wouldn't hit my guy."  And I came back with, "Well, he's one of best melee fighters in the realm and he rolled a natural 18, so I don't care what your character sheet says, he hits you."  The player didn't like that and I don't think we played again after that session - which worked out great for me because he was a huge munchkin pain in the ass.

Now, you can point out deficiencies in my examples, things I could have done differently, things you might have done better, but those were the calls I made at the time and I stand behind them... and I'd make them again.  If you're this unconvinced, I have no illusions about convincing you.  Just as I'm certain you won't convince me that I'm wrong or misguided.  But you asked for examples, so now you've got them.

As for the cool chunks of good advice, the book is suffused with the way I see things as a GM.  That includes my two recent blog posts.  I don't think I could divorce them, even if I wanted to.


VS

Quote from: AsenRG;958286You have an erroneous understanding of what Rule Zero says.

Please, enlighten us!

VS

Quote from: VengerSatanis;9586892.  There was an epic battle towards the end of a session, a battle that the PCs had been building up to for quite awhile.  Not only were the PCs' tactics good, but they also rolled well, and I was rolling poorly.  If I had let the dice fall where they may, the combat would have been over in about 3 rounds.  Even though the PCs would have been glad for a quick victory, they also would have felt cheated and the anti-climactic feeling would have put a damper on an otherwise awesome session.  Beefing up the antagonist's hit points didn't affect the battle's outcome - it merely extended combat and gave the impression that this fight and opponent were both significant.

That's one of the most common cases I see cited as "a time when the GM should fudge" (the other, of course, being its inverse: to avert a TPK or other unthinkably-severe loss by the PCs) but, in my experience, that doesn't hold up.  I have never seen a player disappointed, or feel cheated, or say that it ruined a session, or call it anti-climactic when a Big Bad went down too easily.  If they roll in and one-shot the dragon before it even sees them coming, they're cheering and high-fiving each other over how awesome they are to have been able to pull that off.  After a few minutes, the triumph does wear off and they start questioning whether it was "too easy", but always in a way that gives me a "paranoid" vibe, not "disappointed".

Now, there's almost certainly no overlap between your players and mine, and you surely know your table better than I do, so perhaps preventing "anti-climactic", "too-easy" victories is important to your players, but I've never seen any evidence of that being an issue for anyone I've ever played with.  The only person I've ever seen disappointed by that sort of thing was the GM.

Quote from: AsenRG;958286You have an erroneous understanding of what Rule Zero says.

I can never remember what Rule Zero is, please remind us.

Am I the only one who finds it ironical that the OP wrote a book on How to GM yet can't manage what to do if the dice don't go the way he planned?

Seems like GM 101, Day One of the syllabus would cover that.

Rule Zero I believe is to have fun or if you're having fun you're doing it right, I believe.

I was trying to recall what Gygax wrote about this question in the DMG which I just re-read recently. Went an checked and found it on pg. 110.

He suggests that if the dice go against the character through not fault of their own that you can knock them unconscious, make them lose a limb or eye, etc rather than lose a beloved character through no fault of their own. He says 'in the long run' you should let them die because they will kill an enemy with a freak roll sometime in the future, etc and the character can probably be resurected and so on but overall his advice here is fairly nuanced and reasonable, contrary to his reputation as a taskmaster and Killer DM.

Quote from: VengerSatanis;958689So, I glanced at some nearby results and chose one that seemed to suit the situation, world, player, character, etc.

That's set dressing. I don't see that as fudging. It doesn't affect player choices.

Quote from: VengerSatanis;958689Even though the PCs would have been glad for a quick victory, they also would have felt cheated and the anti-climactic feeling would have put a damper on an otherwise awesome session.

Are you sure your players would have been disappointed?

Mine would have been thankful.

I see the "easy boss battle" as karma for the "WTF goblin massacre" that happens when the DM rolls high and the players' dice are worthless.

Quote from: VengerSatanis;958689He rolled a natural "18," and I said, "Ok, he hit you for X amount of damage."  The player balked and asked what his Attack Bonus was.  I told him how high it was (it was pretty high) and the player responded with, "That wouldn't hit my guy."

So the min/maxer cheated and you cheated vs the min/maxer?

I effectively capped AC at 20 in my OD&D game because of exactly this nonsense by using +1/-1 stat mods and making +2 items are rare in my game (more likely to find +1 items with a cool power).

Quote from: nDervish;958742That's one of the most common cases I see cited as "a time when the GM should fudge" (the other, of course, being its inverse: to avert a TPK or other unthinkably-severe loss by the PCs) but, in my experience, that doesn't hold up.  I have never seen a player disappointed, or feel cheated, or say that it ruined a session, or call it anti-climactic when a Big Bad went down too easily.  If they roll in and one-shot the dragon before it even sees them coming, they're cheering and high-fiving each other over how awesome they are to have been able to pull that off.  After a few minutes, the triumph does wear off and they start questioning whether it was "too easy", but always in a way that gives me a "paranoid" vibe, not "disappointed".

Now, there's almost certainly no overlap between your players and mine, and you surely know your table better than I do, so perhaps preventing "anti-climactic", "too-easy" victories is important to your players, but I've never seen any evidence of that being an issue for anyone I've ever played with.  The only person I've ever seen disappointed by that sort of thing was the GM.

It's not just the players - I am also annoyed and disappointing with an anti-climactic, too easy victory.  Obviously, not every battle will be lengthy (I'm old school, so 20 minutes is plenty long for me) and challenging, but at least one battle per session.  I feel that's nearly mandatory.

I thought of another reason to "fudge," too.  4)  When a player has had disappointing luck the entire game and the monster is almost dead.  The night's champion (PC) just scored enough damage to kill the thing, but of course the players don't know that.  At least once, I've given the creature a few extra HP so that the unlucky PC could bring him down a minute later.

Perhaps I'm overly sensitive to my players wants, needs, desires, etc. but that's the kind of GM I am.

VS