Quote from: Justin Alexander;592510Action resolution during actual play, though? No fudging. There are far too many examples from my personal experience in which the traditional tenets of "fudge to make the game more fun" would have negated some of the most memorable and entertaining moments from my gaming.

This is pretty important imo. People often equate fun with the party's desired outcome, but its often when things go to hell (particularly when no one saw it coming) hat things really get exciting. I think a lot of the game being fun comes from the sense that there is something underneath (the mechanics) that dont give either the players or gm complete control. As a GM, i love surprises.

As a general rule, I'm against fudging dice rolls.  But I've done it in the past.  Back when I was a kid I was DMing KotBL and my brother was playing the lone survivor of the module, got back to the keep, and did something to end up in combat with the Castellan.  I can't recall exactly what it was, but I don't think it was entirely his fault.

During the combat round, I rolled 3 20s in a row for the Castellan.  I didn't want my brother to die like that, so I fudged the rolls.

It's a table thing, and my players are firmly in the "Let the dice fall where they may" camp.  All GM die rolls are in the open, unless the rolls are stuff that players aren't aware of.

Player dies.  Yeah it sucks, but that makes the success of the survivors mean something.

TPK. Campaign might end there, or a totally new group now has to get along in a world where whatever the other party was doing not getting done floating in the back of the player's minds, which can make things more interesting for everyone.

I've never run a game for a group of players who expected me to fudge stuff.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;592519This is pretty important imo. People often equate fun with the party's desired outcome, but its often when things go to hell (particularly when no one saw it coming) hat things really get exciting. I think a lot of the game being fun comes from the sense that there is something underneath (the mechanics) that dont give either the players or gm complete control. As a GM, i love surprises.

I actually love surprises, too.  But sometimes it just doesn't make sense, and in most games character investment and generation means a tangible loss, so I try and use my judgement.

That said, I'll also fudge damage rolls when it suits me, though almost always down and usually by a point or two.  Leaving someone standing with one point is usually more interesting than killing them outright, because of the 'oh shit' moment that it creates.

IMO

Quote from: Benoist;592478Should he be allowed to do this at all? When?

In which circumstances do you think a GM should be allowed to modify, ignore, fudge the dice results he gets behind his screen?

Examples would be helpful for the conversation.

I never tell another GM how to run their game.  So my viepoint is expressly based on my philosophy and my table.  And the two do go together.

The dice represent probablity and the affect of random chance in a game.  In another thread here recently, i mentioned that one of my besty players lost a great character to a critical one-shot by a monster.  So be it.  The players live and die by it.  I may try to give a hint or make an action easier through description or hint, but once the dice start hitting, that is the way the game goes.  I am not against others fudging a roll or two, but it just does not happen behind the screen at my table.  The GM and the players are not at odds, we play together to create a great game and a great epic story, and sometimes this means loss and difficulty.  When the aforementioned character died, I was unhappy about it as well.  But we live and die by the dice in my game.

Quote from: mcbobbo;592523I actually love surprises, too.  But sometimes it just doesn't make sense, and in most games character investment and generation means a tangible loss, so I try and use my judgement.

That said, I'll also fudge damage rolls when it suits me, though almost always down and usually by a point or two.  Leaving someone standing with one point is usually more interesting than killing them outright, because of the 'oh shit' moment that it creates.

IMO

I think this is totally reasonable if it worksfor you and your group, but i absolutely would prefer the gm kill me (or rather my character) in these circumstances. When the GM keeps standing like that, it drives me  a bit nuts.

Long answer: Never.

Quote from: Skywalker;592498When it results in more fun to do so for everyone at the table.

I would agree with this, and I'd say the most obvious example is when the dice, due to their randomness, call forth a result that doesn't make sense for the situation or punish a player who has done everything right. If a dramatic climax is at hand, and a player is in position to make the perfect kick ass finishing move, he's going to get to make that move, regardless of what the dice say.

Cool story bro time: So a friend is running a game, and her party has a massive, and massively difficult encounter to deal with. I'm not going to get into all the details, as that'd take way too long, but what happened is the party started off strong, but the tactical failures on their part started piling up and cascading, initially without their knowledge and the end result?

5/7 dead, the other two flying away from a metric fuckton of enemies... something that only worked at all because they could fly, and most of the enemies could not, meaning they were much faster and could move in more dimensions - providing a rare exception to the "Can't run" rule.

During this mega epic fight, there were at least a half dozen separate instances where the entire party would have died if they made the wrong move, or just got unlucky. There were many more where it could have gone much worse. Everyone went into negatives... multiple times. If not for Delay Death they would have all died. Around 10 high level healing spells were cast... from an item that only had 12 charges. Some of these were actually cast by the enemy, because they disarmed that shit and then used it themselves.

Not a single dice roll was altered for any reason.

I think that entire gaming table would have been extremely annoyed if it had been. If it had been, the feeling of barely having escaped a truly insane situation and having taken most of the first group of enemies down with you would have been replaced with "Meh, only survived because of DM pity... wait, why the fuck were there so many powerful enemies there anyways?"

Quote from: TaoJeannes;592536I would agree with this, and I'd say the most obvious example is when the dice, due to their randomness, call forth a result that doesn't make sense for the situation or punish a player who has done everything right. If a dramatic climax is at hand, and a player is in position to make the perfect kick ass finishing move, he's going to get to make that move, regardless of what the dice say.

In that case, you're dealing with a symptom of failed game design.  In a game with rules that make sense, you wouldn't be presented with a die roll that punishes a player for "doing everything right".

Also, a dramatic climax is probably the worse time to arbitrarily allow automatic success, as it invalidates the entire purpose of playing a game.  That is, to succeed as much as possible in accordance with a set of rules.

Definition of "Game":    
A form of play or sport, esp. a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.

What it comes down to is: Dice are randomizers. (Yeah, I know you knew that.)

But if there's an in-game event for which rolling the dice might yield a random result the GM considers unacceptable for some reason, then it's probably a bad idea to roll those dice to begin with. It might be better just to make a ruling and skip the dice roll.

Never.

However, there was a poster on another site who mentioned that she onced fudged the dice in favor of a player who was about to go blind (and thus be unable to continue playing). She wanted her player to enjoy her final session. I think that might be my one exception (or its equivalence). Luckily, I have never been in such a situation.

Quote from: TaoJeannes;592536I would agree with this, and I'd say the most obvious example is when the dice, due to their randomness, call forth a result that doesn't make sense for the situation or punish a player who has done everything right. If a dramatic climax is at hand, and a player is in position to make the perfect kick ass finishing move, he's going to get to make that move, regardless of what the dice say.

Why use them at all?

Quote from: Internet Death;592541Definition of "Game":    
A form of play or sport, esp. a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.

That one definition of "game", but it is not the only one that could apply to RPGs. A second definition (even listed first in some dictionaries) is an "activity engaged in for diversion or amusement". I strongly prefer this second definition for RPGs as it leaves out any stress on competition or using the RAW -- two things I have little interest in seeing in those RPG sessions I'm involved in.

As for fudging rolls, as GM I reserve the right to do so when/if I feel it is for the long term good of my campaign, just as I reserve the right to ignore or change rules. I am a strong believer in Rule Zero. That said, I seldom find it necessary to fudge die rolls during play -- at least not those directly involving characters.

Quote from: RandallS;592564As for fudging rolls, as GM I reserve the right to do so when/if I feel it is for the long term good of my campaign

Shouldn't the long-term good of your campaign depend first on it's legitimacy and integrity?

Deciding on house rules isn't even remotely the same as overriding what just happened because you don't like it.