TheRPGSite

[video=youtube_share;_p_fhXgDCeQ]https://youtu.be/_p_fhXgDCeQ[/youtube]

I think its more that this "its ok to twerk rolls for the drama, or to save PCs" has been bouncing around a while now. Part of it is that some players realllly do not like losing a PC. Others want the PCs to be larger than life and practically invincible. And they impose that ideal onto DMs who then try to impart that to other DMs.

Others really do not want to play an RPG and just want to storytell. The dice are in the way of the story, or the "narrative" as some like to claim.

And a few simply do not understand how the real world works and especially how combat works and just how random things can get.

Recent example: A friend of mines co worker was checking trucks and found some robbers in one. One pulled out a gun and fired on him. Luckily he dodged and escaped. But there are some people who think that pointing a gun at someone is instant 100% every time death.

Oh. and you are uh-ing alot in this one at the start again.

Hell No!!!  Dice rolls Matter!!!  Don't roll the Dice, if you want to Auto Win every time.  Dice are RANDOM Number generators...

You've struck on one of my all-time pet peeves here man

It sets my teeth on edge every time I hear this "fudge" advice being given. Jesus if you don't want the dice to have a say then *don't fucking roll them*

Don't lie to your players, though! What's to be gained from that?!

Quote from: Azraele;1056960Jesus if you don't want the dice to have a say then *don't fucking roll them*

Another way to put it: Don't have a possible dice result you wouldn't want.
Man, there's got to be a snappy way to put it.

Point is, if you don't want a character to die, just say 0 HP is knocked out. If you don't want "save or die" traps or monsters in your game, don't use them.
Fudging is just a dumb idea to cover up bad game play.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1056964Another way to put it: Don't have a possible dice result you wouldn't want.
Man, there's got to be a snappy way to put it.

Point is, if you don't want a character to die, just say 0 HP is knocked out. If you don't want "save or die" traps or monsters in your game, don't use them.
Fudging is just a dumb idea to cover up bad game play.

I think they want the appearance of risk but not the actuality. It's a particular problem with linear railroad games - they present as a sequence of challenges to overcome, but the GM does not want to see failure that derails the game.

Quote from: S'mon;1056966I think they want the appearance of risk but not the actuality. It's a particular problem with linear railroad games - they present as a sequence of challenges to overcome, but the GM does not want to see failure that derails the game.

Except we know that it can't really derail the game even if it derails the plot the railroad tracks are set for unless the GM is being a tool.

Good video, I enjoyed it. I'd say 'never fudge a dice roll'* - if you really need/want to fudge things a bit, maybe for genre reasons, there are tons of things a GM can do without cheating on the dice - eg don't roll for reinforcements to turn up; roll or don't roll a monster Reaction check (2d6, where only 2 is 'attacks immediately'). Until monster stats actually enter play - eg PCs roll vs monster AC or significantly damage monster hp - they are correctable. I don't really think it's fudging (although not ideal) when I'm converting monster stats to 5e, or updating 4e stats to the post-MM3 standard, and realise after the fight has started that I need to make an edit.   Maybe I made damage twice what it should be, or hit points need halving or we'll be here all night - this occasional need to edit mid-fight only really comes up in 4e though because it is so fight-centric (and the listed stats are often so bad, especially in early products); with 5e if I realise the book stats suck (eg 5e gargoyles) I'll normally use them as-is that time, then use a new & improved version later (eg 5e gargoyles with 4 attacks instead of 2).

*I like to declare the target number before rolling, so I can't then fudge it. Also raises excitement when players know the stakes.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1056971Except we know that it can't really derail the game even if it derails the plot the railroad tracks are set for unless the GM is being a tool.

Well the typical Paizo AP for instance often doesn't address failure states at all, or the assumption is the game ends. I think it can be worked around but it needs an experienced GM who thinks ahead. If you try to run it as presented you definitely get problems without any malevolence intended.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1056964Another way to put it: Don't have a possible dice result you wouldn't want.
Man, there's got to be a snappy way to put it.

Point is, if you don't want a character to die, just say 0 HP is knocked out. If you don't want "save or die" traps or monsters in your game, don't use them.
Fudging is just a dumb idea to cover up bad game play.

I have the same issue with the "revolutionary" fail forward mechanics I see some going on about these days. If a roll has the potential to stop all forward progress in the game, then you should probably re-evaluate the need for the roll or the outcome of a failed roll. That isn't a new concept.

If failure isn't an option then why include it as a possibility?


Some of my most memorable gaming experiences are closely tied to outlandish die rolls resulting in both good and bad outcomes for the PCs.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1056975I have the same issue with the "revolutionary" fail forward mechanics I see some going on about these days. If a roll has the potential to stop all forward progress in the game, then you should probably re-evaluate the need for the roll or the outcome of a failed roll. That isn't a new concept.

Yep. Perhaps a better mechanic would be failure as setback instead of bottleneck.

QuoteIf failure isn't an option then why include it as a possibility?

Where were you 5 posts ago? :D

Quote from: Azraele;1056960Don't lie to your players, though! What's to be gained from that?!

Fun, what else?  It's about managing the expectations.  Sometimes having five 20s would ruin the tables day, so you settle for three.  It's not an all or nothing proposition, I wish people could realize that.

Boy do I hate this fail forward crap.  Coddling tomorrows snowflakes today!  Like trying to solve linear fighter quadratic wizard... Its not something you should be solving. You want quadratic fighter? Seriously?  What are we just handing GMPCs to players now?  Now we don't have a game unless every single member of the party is mary sue?

What are we playin here? Hunger games? The odds must forever be in your favor?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1056998Fun, what else?  It's about managing the expectations.  Sometimes having five 20s would ruin the tables day, so you -

So you let their day be ruined, and then you sit back and watch in surprise as they actually figure their way out of the shit they've got themselves in.

I've been running AD&D1e open game table on and off for several years now, and never fudge anything. Basically when I roll things up I have to set it as 2-4 levels higher than them just to see them properly challenged. They do amazingly well. If you - or the dice - challenge people, they will quite often rise to the occasion.

Both many DMs and most game designers vastly underestimate the brains and creativity of players when challenged. I think some DMs and game designers are like the over-protective parent who, deep down, is terrified of their kid not actually needing them to hold their hand.

Savage Worlds has a mechanic called "Bennies" which are rerolls and the GM gets one per player per session and every GM Wildcard has two.

I have learned the benefits of being able to "Fudge" dice, but I could have never brought myself to do it if it wasn't an actual mechanic.

Sometimes my boss needs to do a thing. Sometimes my boss needs to NOT roll 58 damage. Using bennies has been a great tool for me to nudge the odds (which a game as swingy as Savage Worlds needs a mechanic like that) and control pacing. But my players see my rolls and my stack of bennie poker chips, so they know what can happen and can take that into account.

Ad hoc fudging is just cheating though and for the life of me, I cannot understand why anyone would want to cheat at an RPG.

I run a No-Fudge game, always have, and like Kyle, play it to the max as if my NPCs were my PCs.  Every single time, with two exceptions, here's how it plays out...
1. New guy plays like he's Arnold Schwarzenegger
2. New guy gets smeared across the wall.
3. New guy has a reaction ranging from "Can I talk to you after the game?" to full-on screaming and chair-flipping (my table is too heavy to flip unless The Rock or Vin Diesel play).
4. Optional: New guy leaves the campaign.
5. New Guy (coming back if he left) says that the campaigns we run (there's another long-term player who also GMs) are the most challenging they've faced and they realize that means the most fun.

When success is guaranteed or too easily won, success is meaningless.

Fudging dice is a symptom of another problem:  The rules are wrong for the game you are trying to run, or you are having an off day, or you just made a mistake, or you weren't prepared as you'd like to be, or you simply don't have the ability (yet) to anticipate outcomes as well as you like.  For many GMs, all of those problems can be better handled some other way.  For a new GM or one bad at probability or a few other cases, maybe not.  But even in that case, fudging dice should be the last resort.

Fudging dice is a little like a spare tire.  Your intent and hope is to never use it.  You'll take pro-active steps to avoid it.  If for some reason you are forced into using it, you'll stop as soon as possible.    The main difference of course is that a GM, being in control of the world and reality, can ensure that flats don't happen, and thus never need it.  Some GMs never reach that stage, and I guess they need a spare tire (or more likely, it's more convenient to have the spare than to do what is necessary to not need it).  Still needs to be used sparingly (hah), and very much only as a last resort.

The habit of fudging is far worse than any individual die fudge.  I'm zero fudge now.  I wouldn't complain if a new GM fudged once or twice (though I might talk to them later about ways to avoid it).  I'd walk out of an otherwise great game immediately if I noticed the GM had picked up the habit.

On those rare occasions when I mess up enough that a much younger me would have tried to fudge my way out of the problem and none of the alternate techniques look promising, now I just tell the players:  "I messed up.  Here's the minimal reality shift we'll do to make it right.  Everyone happy with that?  OK, off we go."

I'm not a fan of fudging rolls. But let's not pretend it's something new that's being introduced by people who want to change the hobby. GMs have been funding rolls since forever. I'm sure if you look you'll find letters and editorials about it in Dragon magazines from the 80s.

Issue 99, July 1985  by David F Godwin's "history of a game that failed"... his very first tip is 'Feel free to fudge'

Me personally? No. No fudge for you.  Live by the dice. Die by the dice. That's why its a dice game.  Its why we use dice.

I have mixed reactions on the subject. On one hand nothing is more annoying than fialing a save and die the first half hour from a pit trap. On the other if your going to stupidly rush into every situation I don't fudge the dice. That being said if no fudging is allowed and my character dies expect to get the same character with a different name. If your one of those DMs that insists on a background and does not fudge dice I'm not writing a new one from scratch every time a character dies.

Farewell brave Rogdor... Brother Trogdor shall avenge you.  Pray we do not anger elder brother Strogdor or even worse sister Strogdora... Lo I see the line of my fathers before me back to the beggining... They call to me and they bid me join them in the halls of valhalla.

You know with all those family members you'd be much more effective if you all fought together as a group... Come to think of it as long as I've known you I've never seen two of you together at the same time...

We uh... We don't really get along.... <.<

In that case I see why every day in valhalla is feasting and fighting all day.  Like a tense Irish Thanksgiving each day... Forever!

I believe your irish catholic people's word for it is 'heaven'

I am the GM, that is an abbreviation for Game Master. That means that while the dice control the randomness of events, my judgement guides how those events unfold and the dice rolls are interpreted. This was not taught to me, but it has been what my experience has shown to be the best working style for my GMing.

Case in point: While just starting a d20 Traveller game, in the first session, when the Players jumped out of system, the die roll would have resulted in the ship being destroyed and the PCs killed. The game would have been a non-starter in the first session. So common sense dictated that while something detrimental happened, it did not kill all the PCs or destroy the ship. I had them misjump into another subsector and have to travel back to their original subsector to continue on with the original adventure.

Being a GM involves judgement calls and having a campaign end before it even has a chance to begin sucks ass for everybody.

Quote from: jeff37923;1057043I am the GM, that is an abbreviation for Game Master. That means that while the dice control the randomness of events, my judgement guides how those events unfold and the dice rolls are interpreted. This was not taught to me, but it has been what my experience has shown to be the best working style for my GMing.

Case in point: While just starting a d20 Traveller game, in the first session, when the Players jumped out of system, the die roll would have resulted in the ship being destroyed and the PCs killed. The game would have been a non-starter in the first session. So common sense dictated that while something detrimental happened, it did not kill all the PCs or destroy the ship. I had them misjump into another subsector and have to travel back to their original subsector to continue on with the original adventure.

Being a GM involves judgement calls and having a campaign end before it even has a chance to begin sucks ass for everybody.

I call that patching flaws in the game.

It's better GMing to just change the rules if certain outcomes are not allowed.

Every hour of play, I roll a d6, and if it comes up "6" or "1", I punch a player in the face.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057044I call that patching flaws in the game.

It's better GMing to just change the rules if certain outcomes are not allowed.

Yeah, I get this response every time I tell that story.

Thing is, the outcome is understandable and sensible according to the rules and the setting for Traveller, but the timing at that point in the game was shitty. After a few hours creating characters, to have on their first session, almost on their first action as a group, to have a TPK due to a bad dice roll is just a crappy way to run a game because it sucks the fun right out of it for the GM and the players.

Quote from: jeff37923;1057043I am the GM, that is an abbreviation for Game Master. That means that while the dice control the randomness of events, my judgement guides how those events unfold and the dice rolls are interpreted. This was not taught to me, but it has been what my experience has shown to be the best working style for my GMing.

Case in point: While just starting a d20 Traveller game, in the first session, when the Players jumped out of system, the die roll would have resulted in the ship being destroyed and the PCs killed. The game would have been a non-starter in the first session. So common sense dictated that while something detrimental happened, it did not kill all the PCs or destroy the ship. I had them misjump into another subsector and have to travel back to their original subsector to continue on with the original adventure.

Being a GM involves judgement calls and having a campaign end before it even has a chance to begin sucks ass for everybody.

I would have "handled" that situation as well. I think you've got a solid point there: brick walls aren't fun for anyone.

My tactic would have been to inform the character's player
1) That they knew it was suicide (if they did know or strongly suspect that)
2) That, OOC, it could end the game anticlimactically
If that didn't dissuade them, I'd have given the other players a chance to stop them or talk them out of it (again, this might not be possible depending on the exact circumstances)

That puts the onus of an anticlimax in the hands of the players, rather than necessitating a roll.

Now, it's not impossible that this circumstance you're describing is at right-angles to these proposed strategies (like, if it was one player taking a blind leap far away from anybody else in the control room, none of this applies). It sounds in that case like the circumstance was desperate enough that "the entire party is killed" was already on the table, though.

I'm comfortable with this more candid degree of behind-the-screen transparency; your tastes my reasonably vary. But if I have a "should" feeling about the game ("they should live now, or else the game won't be fun") I tend to treat that as a purely metagame concern; I feel it can permeate the membrane of the game's world in the same way a rule reference or die roll can.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1056984Yep. Perhaps a better mechanic would be failure as setback instead of bottleneck.

More simply, you could call it the "Avoid Bottlenecks" section of your rules... and to be fair, how much this is a problem depends a lot on the game you're running.

If a botched search check means the party missed the secret door leading to the Demon Cult's headquarters in an open-world sandbox then the GM says they found nothing of interest and the party probably says, "Oh well, I guess there's nothing more to find in this dungeon. Let's move on to the next hex and see what we find there."

But if you're running a more 'event' focused game (i.e. the game is about finding and stopping the Demon Cult) then the adventure should be designed so there's never even a need for the Search check to come up, or, include an event that makes a failed search check obvious so they know to keep trying different things until they figure it out (ex. they catch site of a Demon Cultist entering the cave as they arrive. When they reach the cave the cultist isn't there and there's no other obvious way out. No matter how badly the initial search check goes they'll keep searching until they find out how the Cultist disappeared).

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1057017Fudging dice is a symptom of another problem:  The rules are wrong for the game you are trying to run {snip}

This is probably the biggest trigger I've seen for dice fudging in my experience.

Most often its been the disconnect between trying to emulate "Big Damned Heroes" style characters using an edition of D&D other than 4E while the GM insists on starting everyone out at level 1 with straight 3d6 in order ability scores and rolled hit points at level 1 because that's what the rules say to do... instead of one or more of; start at level 4, roll 4d6 (drop lowest) and place in any order ability scores and you get max HP at level 1... any two or three of which which would put the characters at a point where one maxed out roll with an orc's greataxe probably won't result in instant death and no need to fudge the die rolls just to keep the party from being TPK'd in their first encounter.

There's nothing WRONG with starting at level 1 with 3d6 ability scores in order and rolled hit points in and of itself... but its not a starting point that lends itself to BDH-style PCs right out of the gate (if you're using a funnel you'll eventually get some BDH-style PCs, but only after a bunch of other PCs have been slaughtered around them, which doesn't exactly work for every campaign; ex. you want the game to be focused around an elite Order where the game begins with the PCs being inducted into its ranks... having two dozen dead inductees and four survivors on the initial mission really kills the "Elite" vibe of the Order).

Fudging seems to happen most often when the DM doesn't understand the expectations of the system when tailoring their campaign and then uses dice fudging to keep the PCs alive in situations where the rules expect a good percentage of the PCs to be killed off in a Darwinian funnel where only the strongest survive.

I think a lot of games could benefit from a little discussion about game expectations when using the basic rules and how changing those rules might yield different expectations. For example, "If you run rules as written, you will likely go through several starting PCs before one survives long enough to reach higher levels... if you want to run a game with more survivable characters, start them at level 4 or higher" makes it clear that early levels will probably be a meat-grinder so if your goal is BDH-style PCs you should take the advice and start them at level 4+.

Quote from: jeff37923;1057049Yeah, I get this response every time I tell that story.

Thing is, the outcome is understandable and sensible according to the rules and the setting for Traveller, but the timing at that point in the game was shitty. After a few hours creating characters, to have on their first session, almost on their first action as a group, to have a TPK due to a bad dice roll is just a crappy way to run a game because it sucks the fun right out of it for the GM and the players.

I've modified the Classic Traveller misjump rules for my campaign. As is, they would make running a Type A Free Trader essentially impossible. In some modest number of jumps it would end up either off the map (ok, that's a 50-50 shot of instant death) or in a known unoccupied hex. So I set up rules that do allow a misjump into empty space, but it's a lot more unlikely.

I roll combat out in the open.

I let PCs roll everything that I possibly can that a DM would normally roll - their random encounter checks, monster surprise rolls, etc.  The only stuff I roll is secret door checks, thief rolls where the player can't be sure of result, etc.  I also tell the players what the success/fail threshold is before the roll.

The players know there is no fudging.  They can see almost everything.  It does impact the way they play.  Heal spells are cast well before they're on the last few HP.

Quote from: jeff37923;1057043I am the GM, that is an abbreviation for Game Master. That means that while the dice control the randomness of events, my judgement guides how those events unfold and the dice rolls are interpreted. This was not taught to me, but it has been what my experience has shown to be the best working style for my GMing.

Case in point: While just starting a d20 Traveller game, in the first session, when the Players jumped out of system, the die roll would have resulted in the ship being destroyed and the PCs killed. The game would have been a non-starter in the first session. So common sense dictated that while something detrimental happened, it did not kill all the PCs or destroy the ship. I had them misjump into another subsector and have to travel back to their original subsector to continue on with the original adventure.

Being a GM involves judgement calls and having a campaign end before it even has a chance to begin sucks ass for everybody.

Traveller was notorious for the possibility of death during character generation. I never played in a Traveller game where the GM didn't use the optional rule of ending chargen and you ran the PC as it had been developed to that point rather than dead and start chargen over.

Personally I see a big difference between altering the stakes of failure and negating the failure (fudging the role). Rather than death they may have ended up in the wrong location, their navigation may have failed so they are unsure of their position, they jump into an asteroid field and the ship takes serious damage etc. Any of these could ultimately lead to a TPK, but not in a single roll.

Personally I'm not a fan of save vs death so will rarely intentionally use a roll where that is a possible outcome.  

 

Quote from: Chris24601;1057055More simply, you could call it the "Avoid Bottlenecks" section of your rules... and to be fair, how much this is a problem depends a lot on the game you're running.

If a botched search check means the party missed the secret door leading to the Demon Cult's headquarters in an open-world sandbox then the GM says they found nothing of interest and the party probably says, "Oh well, I guess there's nothing more to find in this dungeon. Let's move on to the next hex and see what we find there."

But if you're running a more 'event' focused game (i.e. the game is about finding and stopping the Demon Cult) then the adventure should be designed so there's never even a need for the Search check to come up, or, include an event that makes a failed search check obvious so they know to keep trying different things until they figure it out (ex. they catch site of a Demon Cultist entering the cave as they arrive. When they reach the cave the cultist isn't there and there's no other obvious way out. No matter how badly the initial search check goes they'll keep searching until they find out how the Cultist disappeared).


This is probably the biggest trigger I've seen for dice fudging in my experience.

This is what I was getting at earlier. It is great that there are games encouraging "fail forward" so you don't leave a campaign high and dry over a stupid missed observation roll. I believe before this recent epiphany it was called good GM'ing...  

You simply don't include something that will completely derail the game without planning an out. So the PCs miss the secret door, there must be some other way to find the secret temple. Research in town leads back to the area, follow a cultist to the temple or have another option for completing the mission without visiting the temple. Maybe they never find the temple, but they are able to thwart the cults plans another way, kill their leader etc which ultimately leads to defeat of the cult (or does it???? Maybe it revives and the PCs will have to deal with the restructured cult in the future).

I've been in far too many fun games that went in a completely different direction than planned due to a series of "bad" rolls to put much weight behind a game being ruined over a failed spot hidden roll.


If the game comes to a crashing halt because of a single failure, you are probably doing something wrong. I have never been involved with a TPK due to one roll, it was always due to a series of events. Some bad rolls, but more often poor decision making by the players. All the fudged rolls in the world won't help when the players do stupid things.

Traveller fatal misjump - this just seems a bit silly if it's a reasonably possible outcome of a regular Jump. If they Jump within one diameter of a star, or something crazy like that, sure.  Since the game posits an interstellar civilisation that routinely uses Jump drive, it shouldn't be suicidally dangerous (likewise with low berths/cold sleep).

I like Save vs Death but I like it when it's clearly a result of player decisions, like deciding to fight the ultimate BBEG. I Disintegrated my 8 year old son's 18th level Wizard (perma-dead) in a Mystara campaign, in the final battle over Ostland - he'd played that guy for four years, up from 4th level. It was tough, but (a) he knew the Heldannic Warbird's Blight Belcher could Disintegrate - it had already destroyed the Wizard's son's Drolem - and he chose to keep on fighting. He needed 4+ to save, made me roll - & I rolled a 2.

It made a good climactic session for the campaign.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1057007So you let their day be ruined, and then you sit back and watch in surprise as they actually figure their way out of the shit they've got themselves in.

And the campaign ends.  Congratulations, Mr. Hardcore, I hope you find another everyone wants to play.  Constant TPKs are not fun, it doesn't matter if it's random rolls, it kills a lot of enthusiasm for the game.  People are EMOTIONAL.  You need to manage the expectations of your table.

If your table loves to swing the e-peen by 'hard core' they are in the make believe, fine, but the 50+ I've been a part of?  All been different.

And yes, it IS coddling, because the point of Role Playing Games is FUN.  For the entire table, not some tryhard who thinks running a game is crushing the players constantly.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1057080And the campaign ends.  Congratulations, Mr. Hardcore, I hope you find another everyone wants to play.  Constant TPKs are not fun, it doesn't matter if it's random rolls, it kills a lot of enthusiasm for the game.  People are EMOTIONAL.  You need to manage the expectations of your table.

If your table loves to swing the e-peen by 'hard core' they are in the make believe, fine, but the 50+ I've been a part of?  All been different.

And yes, it IS coddling, because the point of Role Playing Games is FUN.  For the entire table, not some tryhard who thinks running a game is crushing the players constantly.

The game rules should be as such that players feel like they deserve defeats.

If a game requires fudging, it should just have rules for fudging like Savage Worlds (GM rerolls per session), then it is no longer fudging dice, it's just a game mechanic.

This is why you have to filter out people who are emotionally invested in their characters to the point of being crushed if those characters die.

I also don't want to play baseball with people who get upset if they strike out.  I want people who find it fun to test themselves against a good pitcher, base hit or strikeout, come what may.

Placing too much investment in games is not a positive personal feature, and a vulnerability to this doesn't create an obligation on people with more conventional priorities.

Quote from: S'mon;1057076Traveller fatal misjump - this just seems a bit silly if it's a reasonably possible outcome of a regular Jump. If they Jump within one diameter of a star, or something crazy like that, sure.  Since the game posits an interstellar civilisation that routinely uses Jump drive, it shouldn't be suicidally dangerous (likewise with low berths/cold sleep).

I like Save vs Death but I like it when it's clearly a result of player decisions, like deciding to fight the ultimate BBEG. I Disintegrated my 8 year old son's 18th level Wizard (perma-dead) in a Mystara campaign, in the final battle over Ostland - he'd played that guy for four years, up from 4th level. It was tough, but (a) he knew the Heldannic Warbird's Blight Belcher could Disintegrate - it had already destroyed the Wizard's son's Drolem - and he chose to keep on fighting. He needed 4+ to save, made me roll - & I rolled a 2.

It made a good climactic session for the campaign.

That's my rule of thumb. If I put in any kind of save or die mechanic (including any random possibility of character/party death) it's optional or clearly telegraphed, or preferably both. Plonking a basilisk in front of a character is not fun. Having a basilisk lair with petrified adventurers near the entrance is just fine.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1057080And yes, it IS coddling, because the point of Role Playing Games is FUN.  For the entire table, not some tryhard who thinks running a game is crushing the players constantly.

Fun is a poorly defined concept. People find Eve Online fun, and it's been described as spreadsheets in space.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1057089Fun is a poorly defined concept.

Some people find discussing approaches to gaming online to be fun, but most players don't.

Quote from: S'mon;1057076Traveller fatal misjump - this just seems a bit silly if it's a reasonably possible outcome of a regular Jump. If they Jump within one diameter of a star, or something crazy like that, sure.  Since the game posits an interstellar civilisation that routinely uses Jump drive, it shouldn't be suicidally dangerous (likewise with low berths/cold sleep).

I can understand this, but I'm OK with space travel not being safe. Space is a very harsh environment, that is why most people stay on worlds.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1057080And the campaign ends.  Congratulations, Mr. Hardcore, I hope you find another everyone wants to play.  Constant TPKs are not fun, it doesn't matter if it's random rolls, it kills a lot of enthusiasm for the game.  People are EMOTIONAL.  You need to manage the expectations of your table.

If your table loves to swing the e-peen by 'hard core' they are in the make believe, fine, but the 50+ I've been a part of?  All been different.

And yes, it IS coddling, because the point of Role Playing Games is FUN.  For the entire table, not some tryhard who thinks running a game is crushing the players constantly.

Then why have rules or failure at all? Just play pretend like children do.

Speaking for myself it's not the failures that are the issue. Continuous failures suck the fun out of a rpg. I don't always want to win. Neither do I want to play Misery porn the rpg. Not without getting paid.

Quote from: S'mon;1057076Traveller fatal misjump - this just seems a bit silly if it's a reasonably possible outcome of a regular Jump.

In Classic Traveller from 1977, it's not. You roll 2d6, and if it's 13+ there's a misjump, 16+ means the destruction of the ship, while 13-15 means the ship jumps 1d6-6d6 hexes in a random direction, taking 1d6 weeks to get through Jump vs the normal 168+/-10hr.

But again: 13+ on 2d6. The modifiers are,
+1 using unrefined fuel while not equipped to do so
+5 jumping within 10-100 diameters of a world
+10 jumping within 10 diameters

So if you stick to worlds with class A and B starports then you can always buy refined fuel, and if you cruise out to the right distance, you can always be 100+ diameters away (and this only takes at most 18 hours with the in-book 1G drive, even from a large gas giant, and it's just an hour or two from the typical Mars or Titan-sized world), and thus it's actually impossible to misjump. Now, if you take unrefined fuel (skimming gas giants, or being stuck with class C or less starports), then you have a 1 in 36 chance of misjump, but a zero chance of destruction of the ship.

If you enter Jump 10-100 diameters away while using refined fuel, then you have a 1 in 12 chance of destruction of your ship (rolling 11-12 with +5 gives 16-17) and a 1 in 3 chance of a misjump. This means a 21/36 or 58% chance of everything being fine. If you enter Jump inside 10 diameters, for example of the surface of the planet, there's 26/36 or 72% chance of death, a 9/36 or 25% chance of misjump, and a 1 in 36 or 3% chance that all will be fine.

The 1981 CT rules removed the possibility of instant destruction of the ship, leaving just the jump in a random direction for a random distance, but increasing the <10 diameter jump failure modifier to +15; they also added some other modifiers if the ship lacks the engineers it needs, and if it is past its annual overhaul, but these are just the chance for the drives or power plant to fail entirely, rather than blow you up or launch you somewhere random.

As for the random distance and direction misjump, bear in mind that the ship's crew can choose to carry extra fuel in lieu of cargo. So if they're going somewhere with poor starports, or where they might have to run away suddenly, they can plan for that, and buy and carry extra refined fuel.

The risks in CT (1977) are, as I've said before in many places about coldsleep vs steerage etc, on par with the risks to crew, passengers and ship in the age of sail while out on the frontiers of the Western world - it's not navies off their own coasts in 2018, it's more like the Royal Navy heading to India in 1750. I believe that was the intent of the authour.

In-game, these are all manageable and knowable risks which can be minimised by prudent play. And that's what you want in a roleplaying game, that there are elements of both chance and choice; the game of two-up is all chance, while chess is all choice, rpgs are in between. Prudent players will try to reduce the influence of chance on their fate, and plan ahead.

Like Ratman said, in general it's good to lay things out so they have some understanding of the risks they're taking. In fact, my most recent campaign was a CT (1977) one, and in their second last session while fleeing one of the many enemies they'd made themselves, they did a Jump at 10-100 diameters - and misjumped back to a world they'd been to before. They chose that risk over arrest and trial. And they had of course chosen the actions that led to the threatened arrest and trial. They created the situation leading to it all coming down to one dice roll.

As for you, Christopher, you quoted me saying,

QuoteSo you let their day be ruined, and then you sit back and watch in surprise as they actually figure their way out of the shit they've got themselves in.

and then replied,

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1057080And the campaign ends.  

Players are more intelligent and creative than they're often given credit for. Yes, they might all fall down the first time, but given a chance, they get up, dust themselves off, and figure things out.

It's almost as if you didn't actually read what you quoted. This seems to be a particularly American problem. I suggest a visit to another country to broaden your discursive experiences.

Quote from: sureshot;1057121Speaking for myself it's not the failures that are the issue. Continuous failures suck the fun out of a rpg. I don't always want to win. Neither do I want to play Misery porn the rpg. Not without getting paid.

Why not play a game without those?

Quote from: sureshot;1057121Speaking for myself it's not the failures that are the issue. Continuous failures suck the fun out of a rpg. I don't always want to win. Neither do I want to play Misery porn the rpg. Not without getting paid.

Sometimes you're a losing streak. Keep playing through it.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057124Why not play a game without those?

Because no one is paying me lots of money

I actually have a life outside of this hobby and I want my rpgs to be a mix of success and failures and again no one is paying me to play misery porn the rpg.

Seriously what the big issue. I never said no failures at the table while playing rpg.

Quote from: Lurtch;1057126Sometimes you're a losing streak. Keep playing through it.

Of course which I have. Sometimes the dice are terrible.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1056998Fun, what else?  It's about managing the expectations.  Sometimes having five 20s would ruin the tables day, so you settle for three.  It's not an all or nothing proposition, I wish people could realize that.

True this. but Id rather find workarounds rather than by-the-book TPK. So the enemy is rolling hot today. Then why not have them use those great rolls to disarm or otherwise subdue and take hostage the PCs. With those sorts of rolls the enemy has got to be feeling really confident.

and does this imposition of success apply to the PCS as well? If they are rolling too well should not they be docked as well? One can argue where is the fun in being overwhelming?

Other times its best to just let the rolls fall where they may if the situation dictates a no-holds-barred beat down. If you are getting into combat then you are accepting the risk of defeat and death for your PC.

And of course even death might not be the end. A friendly NPC might wander past and raise them. Their bodies have been looted but at least they are alive. and that NPC might have a job or two that will also help them get back up to speed.

All sorts of ways to handle it.

Quote from: Omega;1057130All sorts of ways to handle it.

This is a really great takeaway from this entire discussion.

I've said it before. It's your game, play it how you want. There is no wrong or right way to teach it, just options.

Quote from: Lurtch;1057120Then why have rules or failure at all? Just play pretend like children do.

There's nothing wrong with failure, but sometimes the dice END the game, if read as is.  So you need to keep it going, keep it fun.  Keep the players engaged.  There's nothing wrong with death or failure, but you need to have it mean something to the game, a motivation for the players to keep playing.  And sometimes, that requires a bit of fudging.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1057149There's nothing wrong with failure, but sometimes the dice END the game, if read as is.  So you need to keep it going, keep it fun.  Keep the players engaged.  There's nothing wrong with death or failure, but you need to have it mean something to the game, a motivation for the players to keep playing.  And sometimes, that requires a bit of fudging.

My feeling is that failure in the moment is usually disappointing, but that the possibility of failure is important to a good game. I find that it's much better to stack the odds in favour of the PCs than to stack odds against the PCs then fudge to prevent failure. The chance of failure can be almost arbitrarily small, but it needs to be real.

Quote from: sureshot;1057127Because no one is paying me lots of money

I actually have a life outside of this hobby and I want my rpgs to be a mix of success and failures and again no one is paying me to play misery porn the rpg.

Seriously what the big issue. I never said no failures at the table while playing rpg.

So why aren't you playing a game with a mix of success and failure that is also not misery porn?

If the randomizers lead to unacceptable results, then the randomizer could be improved. "Dice fudging" is just patching bad rules than playing better games / fixing the rules yourself.

Dice fudging goes back decades.  I remember it being recommended in GM advice sections in old Dragon magazines from the 90s.

These days I'll have none of it.  All rolls must be made in the open.  How else do you keep things from getting dysfunctional?  If the players know you fudge rolls they'll suspect they might be failing because they're being railroaded (even if they're not).  If a PC dies, it will be because you killed him (and not because he died).

Lately I've been running Symbaroum, a Swedish game, in which fudging is not possible because the GM never rolls dice at all.  I'm finding it very liberating.  Not only are the rolls in the open but the PCs always know before they roll their chance of success on every roll.

If the referee fudges his rolls why can't players do the same?

Don't like the probability of favor play a game where it isn't there. Sometimes you win the game and sometimes you lose. In any given session there should be plenty of opportunities to to succeed and fail by the dice alone.

Once again I chime in with Beyond the Wall.

Fortune Points: you get 3 per adventure and they give you a reroll.

In okay players almost never continue with 0 of these uber points. THey know that their luck is running out and they start heading for home.

Almost all PC death occurs when they push their luck and don't turn back at 1 FP.

What's cool is that when they die, they knew that they were to blame.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057216So why aren't you playing a game with a mix of success and failure that is also not misery porn?

If the randomizers lead to unacceptable results, then the randomizer could be improved. "Dice fudging" is just patching bad rules than playing better games / fixing the rules yourself.

Because you and everyone else is not paying me lots of money to do so.

Because your and others are making a huge issue out of something that is not that huge a issue for most tables.

How about getting your head out of your ass  with many others in this thread and accept and dare I say respect others don't play the exact same way that you do at your table.

Quote from: sureshot;1057221Because you and everyone else is not paying me lots of money to do so.

Because your and others are making a huge issue out of something that is not that huge a issue for most tables.

How about getting your head out of your ass  with many others in this thread and accept and dare I say respect others don't play the exact same way that you do at your table.

Idk why you need to be paid money to play RPGs that suit you better.

You didn't list any reason why you are playing RPGs that do not work you and you have to fudge dice just to enjoy them.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057223Idk why you need to be paid money to play RPGs that suit you better.

I enjoy most rpgs and I don't see the need to do something I don't want to do without get paid to do so. I can play the rpgs that you think suit me better I see no reason to do it for free. And why should if I does not give me advantage to do so. Yes I'm greedy SOB and if you and others want me to do play something pay up or shut up.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057223You didn't list any reason why you are playing RPGs that do not work you and you have to fudge dice just to enjoy them.

I play them because I like certain aspects of the world in a rpg. I play them for the mechanics even if I don't like some of the mechanics. I play to have fun with my buddies. Mainly I enjoy them. I don't have to like everything about an rpg. I can but again pay me to do.

Almost everyone at one time or another whether they will admit or not has probably fudged dice rolls at the table. Spare me the chorus of " I never did, we never did". as that is probably bullshit. I rarely if ever fudge dice yet if the difference between the last epic battle with the BBEG is a TPK or battle to the finish I choose the battle to the finish. If one prefers the first option go for it. It's not my preference yet I'm also no intolerant of other gamers ways of doing things a their table. Many of you are making a huge issue out of nothing really. Play the way you want. What is it with gamers needing to draw a line in the sand on every issue. No compromises " my way is the one true way". Let me tell you something most gamers don't care. We will just nod and back away and go back to playing rpgs.

Quote from: sureshot;1057224I enjoy most rpgs and I don't see the need to do something I don't want to do without get paid to do so. I can play the rpgs that you think suit me better I see no reason to do it for free. And why should if I does not give me advantage to do so. Yes I'm greedy SOB and if you and others want me to do play something pay up or shut up.



I play them because I like certain aspects of the world in a rpg. I play them for the mechanics even if I don't like some of the mechanics. I play to have fun with my buddies. Mainly I enjoy them. I don't have to like everything about an rpg. I can but again pay me to do.

Almost everyone at one time or another whether they will admit or not has probably fudged dice rolls at the table. Spare me the chorus of " I never did, we never did". as that is probably bullshit. I rarely if ever fudge dice yet if the difference between the last epic battle with the BBEG is a TPK or battle to the finish I choose the battle to the finish. If one prefers the first option go for it. It's not my preference yet I'm also no intolerant of other gamers ways of doing things a their table. Many of you are making a huge issue out of nothing really. Play the way you want. What is it with gamers needing to draw a line in the sand on every issue. No compromises " my way is the one true way". Let me tell you something most gamers don't care. We will just nod and back away and go back to playing rpgs.

Now you list actual sane reasons rather than ranting incoherently about needing to get paid to play a system you would like better and not have to fudge rolls.

I hope you admit that the need to fudge rolls is a mechanical flaw in the system.

Because a system could always just have rules for fudging, that then removes all the problems of dice fudging (most of the time) because it is now regulated by established rules.

There is no badfun and no wrongfun in fudging.:p

Unless you're playing DCC.

Then fudging is doubleplusbadwongfun. :mad:

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1057047Every hour of play, I roll a d6, and if it comes up "6" or "1", I punch a player in the face.

(https://media1.tenor.com/images/5848fe784f12495f15b6dbab245987dc/tenor.gif?itemid=4470090)

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057225Now you list actual sane reasons rather than ranting incoherently about needing to get paid to play a system you would like better and not have to fudge rolls.

Here we go. I don't like the reasons given so I will classify them as incoherent routine.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057225I hope you admit that the need to fudge rolls is a mechanical flaw in the system.

I will absolutely do nothing of the sort. I don't like fudging all the time. Nor do I particularly like rpg systems that have a rule for it. They exist I don't have to like them neither do I think they are flawed. I don't like the new Star Wars Rpg from FFG. Neither do I think it's a failure because if a failure is defined as being popular, selling like hotcakes and making the developers a profit I could use some of that failure. Again I refuse to draw lines in the sand. I'm told old for that childish, immature schoolyard bullshit.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1057227There is no badfun and no wrongfun in fudging.:p

Unless you're playing DCC.

Then fudging is doubleplusbadwongfun. :mad:



(https://media1.tenor.com/images/5848fe784f12495f15b6dbab245987dc/tenor.gif?itemid=4470090)

This guy actually gets it.

I would like to try DCC yet like FFG Star Wars I don't like the funky dice used in the rpg.

Quote from: sureshot;1057229Here we go. I don't like the reasons given so I will classify them as incoherent routine.

You first response to "why?" was "pay me". Yeah you made no sense. I balk more at that than you love affair with dice fudging.

Quote from: sureshot;1057229Here we go. I don't like the reasons given so I will classify them as incoherent routine.

Your response to "why?" was "Pay me". Yeah you make no sense. I balk more at that than your love affair with dice fudging.

But if the rules are only guidelines, then so are the dice rolls.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1057016I run a No-Fudge game, always have, and like Kyle, play it to the max as if my NPCs were my PCs.  Every single time, with two exceptions, here's how it plays out...

That's not a matter of results, but expectations.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1057017Fudging dice is a symptom of another problem:  The rules are wrong for the game you are trying to run, or you are having an off day, or you just made a mistake, or you weren't prepared as you'd like to be, or you simply don't have the ability (yet) to anticipate outcomes as well as you like.

Yes! But nobody ever listens to me.

Hopefully you'll have better luck.

Quote from: Chris24601;1057055Fudging seems to happen most often when the DM doesn't understand the expectations of the system when tailoring their campaign and then uses dice fudging to keep the PCs alive in situations where the rules expect a good percentage of the PCs to be killed off in a Darwinian funnel where only the strongest survive.

Yep.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057124Why not play a game without those?

Good question!

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057225I hope you admit that the need to fudge rolls is a mechanical flaw in the system.

Maybe it is because I just woke up and the coffee hasn't hit me yet, but I cannot follow the logic that leads to the conclusion that fudging dice rolls means that there is a mechanical flaw in the game system. Like in the example I posted, sometimes the "what" result of the dice roll is desired but the "when" it happens is not.

Quote from: jeff37923;1057240Maybe it is because I just woke up and the coffee hasn't hit me yet, but I cannot follow the logic that leads to the conclusion that fudging dice rolls means that there is a mechanical flaw in the game system. Like in the example I posted, sometimes the "what" result of the dice roll is desired but the "when" it happens is not.

Mechanics could reconcile that. You can maintain the "what" but not have it "when" it can't happen for your game to run well.

Sometimes that requires a ground up re-design of the whole system though, so people patch with fudging, but the flaw is still there.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057225I hope you admit that the need to fudge rolls is a mechanical flaw in the system.

It could instead be a flaw in the GM's understanding of the system's expectations. For example, starting the PCs in your AD&D game at level 4+ and using one of the more advantageous ability score generation methods if you wanna play a "big damned heroes" type game instead of starting them at level 1 with 3d6 in order ability scores (which leads to a very different opening experience).

AD&D works fine with no need for fudging dice rolls for BDH-style play IF you're aware that it considers 1st level PCs to be fragile and likely expendable pawns you're expected to burn through several of before one manages to survive past those initial levels.

4E dealt with this gap in expectation by making BDH PCs the default. 5e solved it by making it much more explicit in the text that BDH-style games should start at level 3-4. 5e's method/advice still existed in OD&D, AD&D, B/X and 3e as well, it was just more assumed and implied (ex. The title for a level 4 fighter being "hero") than stated outright.

Quote from: Chris24601;1057250It could instead be a flaw in the GM's understanding of the system's expectations. For example, starting the PCs in your AD&D game at level 4+ and using one of the more advantageous ability score generation methods if you wanna play a "big damned heroes" type game instead of starting them at level 1 with 3d6 in order ability scores (which leads to a very different opening experience).

AD&D works fine with no need for fudging dice rolls for BDH-style play IF you're aware that it considers 1st level PCs to be fragile and likely expendable pawns you're expected to burn through several of before one manages to survive past those initial levels.

4E dealt with this gap in expectation by making BDH PCs the default. 5e solved it by making it much more explicit in the text that BDH-style games should start at level 3-4. 5e's method/advice still existed in OD&D, AD&D, B/X and 3e as well, it was just more assumed and implied (ex. The title for a level 4 fighter being "hero") than stated outright.

I would also consider using the mechanics wrong to fall under, "mechanical flaw".

But yes that is a good point.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057231Your response to "why?" was "Pay me". Yeah you make no sense. I balk more at that than your love affair with dice fudging.

I may fudge the dice once and awhile. I by no.means have a love affair with them. Again get your head out of your ass and don't assume everyone runs the game you do. Are you trying to have a actual debate. Or just in this thread to tell those who don't do things your way are engaging in badwrongfun.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1057123In Classic Traveller from 1977, it's not. You roll 2d6, and if it's 13+ there's a misjump, 16+ means the destruction of the ship, while 13-15 means the ship jumps 1d6-6d6 hexes in a random direction, taking 1d6 weeks to get through Jump vs the normal 168+/-10hr.

But again: 13+ on 2d6. The modifiers are,
+1 using unrefined fuel while not equipped to do so
+5 jumping within 10-100 diameters of a world
+10 jumping within 10 diameters

You've got your versions wrong... That's 1981 (well, it's +15 for within 10 diameters

QuoteSo if you stick to worlds with class A and B starports then you can always buy refined fuel, and if you cruise out to the right distance, you can always be 100+ diameters away (and this only takes at most 18 hours with the in-book 1G drive, even from a large gas giant, and it's just an hour or two from the typical Mars or Titan-sized world), and thus it's actually impossible to misjump. Now, if you take unrefined fuel (skimming gas giants, or being stuck with class C or less starports), then you have a 1 in 36 chance of misjump, but a zero chance of destruction of the ship.

If you enter Jump 10-100 diameters away while using refined fuel, then you have a 1 in 12 chance of destruction of your ship (rolling 11-12 with +5 gives 16-17) and a 1 in 3 chance of a misjump. This means a 21/36 or 58% chance of everything being fine. If you enter Jump inside 10 diameters, for example of the surface of the planet, there's 26/36 or 72% chance of death, a 9/36 or 25% chance of misjump, and a 1 in 36 or 3% chance that all will be fine.

The 1981 CT rules removed the possibility of instant destruction of the ship, leaving just the jump in a random direction for a random distance, but increasing the <10 diameter jump failure modifier to +15; they also added some other modifiers if the ship lacks the engineers it needs, and if it is past its annual overhaul, but these are just the chance for the drives or power plant to fail entirely, rather than blow you up or launch you somewhere random.

Again, swap 1977 and 1981, so 1981 INTRODUCED the possibility of instant destruction.

QuoteAs for the random distance and direction misjump, bear in mind that the ship's crew can choose to carry extra fuel in lieu of cargo. So if they're going somewhere with poor starports, or where they might have to run away suddenly, they can plan for that, and buy and carry extra refined fuel.

Yea, I've pointed that out, though it's not necessarily clear from the 1977 rules that you can do so, though it's logical. Though note that in 1977 a J2 ship can't make two J1 on it's built in fuel...

1981 DID make it a lot safer to use unrefined fuel, misjump on 12+ with unrefined fuel vs 1977's 9+. Note also that 1977 military craft misjump on a 12+ when using unrefined fuel whereas in 1981 they are safe.

I've chosen to make things a bit safer while it still being preferable to use refined fuel. Here are the rules I'm using:

   I'm going to go with the 12+, +1 DM to the roll for each previous jump with unrefined fuel. Scout and military ships get a -1 DM to the roll (i.e. they can take one jump with no chance of misjump, a subsequent jump with unrefined fuel will result in a misjump on a 12). -1 DM to the roll for refined fuel.

For drive failure the same roll and DMs apply, with an additional +2 DM to the roll for missing annual maintenance. +1 DM for each engineer missing from the required crew. If failure occurs, check each component (power plant, jump, maneuver) for failure on 7+ (with a +2 DM for previous jury rigged  repair).

Flushing the tanks can be done at a Class A, B, or C starport (of course then only unrefined fuel is available at the Class C), or a Navy or Scout base at a cost of Cr 100 per ton of fuel capacity (free for Scouts at a Scout base). This is basically 83 cuft of helium gas (or 3.1 litre of liquid helium) per ton of fuel (pricing helium at 3x the price of oxygen).

This website lists liquid helium storage tanks: http://www.intlcryo.com/products/lhe_transport_storage_containers/index.html

This website provides a conversion calculator: http://www.airproducts.com/Products/Gases/gas-facts/conversion-formulas/weight-and-volume-equivalents/helium.aspx

Note that any ship with fuel capacity for greater than Jump-1 (whether it's just pure extra fuel storage or a Jump Drive capable of Jump-2 or better) will have its fuel tanks subdivided. Power plant fuel tankage must also be flushed but is also separate.

To determine where a misjump goes, throw 1D for distance, and 1D for direction. If there is a world at that distance in the general direction, the misjump will wind up there, if not, determine the next distance at which there is a world so long as the possible world is no more than 6 parsecs away. Throw 1D and if the throw is less than or equal that additional distance, then the ship emerges from jump space in the void at the original distance rolled. Jack-of-all-Trades skill may be added to that 1D roll.

BTW, my first roll for a misjump was before changing the rules (well, I did drop the roll 1D number of 1D for distance, and just made distance 1D). The players absolutely lucked out and actually mis-jumped to their intended destination...

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057243Mechanics could reconcile that. You can maintain the "what" but not have it "when" it can't happen for your game to run well.

Sometimes that requires a ground up re-design of the whole system though, so people patch with fudging, but the flaw is still there.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057251I would also consider using the mechanics wrong to fall under, "mechanical flaw".

Let me get this straight, you are saying that an untimely outcome is a mechanical flaw in the game rules and also that a misinterpretation of those rules is also a mechanical flaw in the rules. Is that correct?

Quote from: jeff37923;1057256Let me get this straight, you are saying that an untimely outcome is a mechanical flaw in the game rules and also that a misinterpretation of those rules is also a mechanical flaw in the rules. Is that correct?

Untimely outcomes that you won't allow at your table are mechanical flaws.

Those outcomes cropping up to be fudged out because you used the mechanics wrong is also a mechanical flaw of the rules at your table.

Quote from: sureshot;1057252I may fudge the dice once and awhile. I by no.means have a love affair with them.

If someone rarely kills people, they are still a serial killer. [Please take that as some sort of hyperbolic statement that fudging dice is as bad as murder rather than this being just a metaphor /s]

Fudging is one of those things you either never do or is just a part of your GMing "style". The frequency is rather irrelevant once the players find out about it.

Dice introduce randomness to a game. In most games, that randomness is welcome and fun. And sometimes that randomness generates anomalous results. Which are usually welcome and fun.

Sometimes, however, dice generate anomalous results that are not welcome and fun, but rather have catastrophic effects on the game. Which is why I sometimes, occasionally, fudge the dice.

For example, I recently ran the inaugural session of Shadow of the Demon Lord. It's a game where PC death is definitely on the table. And within the first hour or two of our first session, two of the four PCs in fact were taken down, disabled, and had to roll to avoid death. They made their survival rolls, but were no longer combat-effect. However, the party was in a siege situation, with no way to retreat or flee. It was do or die - that was the setup of the scenario. When the next wave of undead attacked, I rolled high for the numbers of zombies, and when one of the two still effective PCs was hit, I rolled a 6 on a d6, for 8 damage (1d6+2). I knew this would kill the PC, and likely result in a TPK. So I fudged the roll to a 3, for 5 damage. The PC was gravely wounded, but still standing. The PCs survived. They now knew SotDL was a deadly, gritty game. But the campaign wasn't completely aborted.

Everyone had a great time. If this offends the sensibilities of some nerds on the internet, tough shit.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057258Untimely outcomes that you won't allow at your table are mechanical flaws.

Those outcomes cropping up to be fudged out because you used the mechanics wrong is also a mechanical flaw of the rules at your table.

That makes no sense to me because it reads like it examines gaming from a purely theoretical viewpoint instead of examining how the flow of a game works in actual play. Obviously, I disagree with your view on fudging dice rolls.

Quote from: jeff37923;1057263That makes no sense to me because it reads like it examines gaming from a purely theoretical viewpoint instead of examining how the flow of a game works in actual play. Obviously, I disagree with your view on fudging dice rolls.

You are right, it is examining gaming from a theoretical point of view.

Fudging creates other problems though. I've seen GMs get mad when a player is criting too much (GM suspects fudging). I've seen players get mad when their spells do not work or they get crited to death (Player suspects fudging or they are wondering why the dice are not being fudged for them when other people get fudged dice)

Fudging undermines the trust more traditional rpgs are built on that the dice and mechanics are resolving situations not Player and GM feelings. It's why we have rules and why there is a "G" in RPG. Fudging is a dangerous thing to ever do because you are sacrificing trust for some momentary fun. I'd much rather keep the trust and try the fun again in the next session/campaign/system.

If you are doing one of those modern storyteller systems where the point of the game is the story you construct not the act of playing the game, then yeah Fudge away. Lot's of those systems stop being games so it doesn't matter.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057266Fudging creates other problems though. I've seen GMs get mad when a player is criting too much (GM suspects fudging). I've seen players get mad when their spells do not work or they get crited to death (Player suspects fudging or they are wondering why the dice are not being fudged for them when other people get fudged dice)

Fudging undermines the trust more traditional rpgs are built on that the dice and mechanics are resolving situations not Player and GM feelings. It's why we have rules and why there is a "G" in RPG. Fudging is a dangerous thing to ever do because you are sacrificing trust for some momentary fun. I'd much rather keep the trust and try the fun again in the next session/campaign/system.

Now you've touched upon a very important aspect of fudging dice rolls. When to do it. In the examples given, that suspicion of fudging being the reason the game is not going their way is not a problem with fudging per se, but a personal problem of trust between the players and GM. In both examples, they think that the other guy is out to get them because things aren't going how they want or expect. Sadly, in those cases, it wouldn't matter if dice rolls were fudged or not because there is no trust between the people involved.

In the example that I have given earlier on, the fudging was not to allow some momentary fun, but to allow there to be any fun at all.

As much as I loathe to suggest it, fudging of dice rolls in game is right at the core of the question, "Is GMing an art or a science?"

Quote from: jeff37923;1057273Sadly, in those cases, it wouldn't matter if dice rolls were fudged or not because there is no trust between the people involved.

Where I disagree is stating that Fudging creates that mistrust. Fudging undermines and damages trust. In the cases I mentioned, dice Fudging is the problem and the only reason the trust was called into question.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057276Where I disagree is stating that Fudging creates that mistrust. Fudging undermines and damages trust. In the cases I mentioned, dice Fudging is the problem and the only reason the trust was called into question.

There I also disagree. For the level of damaged trust in your examples, there would have to be more than just dice fudging going on. That is making dice fudging a social faux pas equivalent to greeting someone in public with a wedgie. The actions of the people involved in your examples support the aphorism, "Don't game with assholes." Occasional and judicious use of dice fudging does not an asshole make IMHO, there was more to this for those reactions to make sense.

Quote from: jeff37923;1057278There I also disagree. For the level of damaged trust in your examples, there would have to be more than just dice fudging going on. That is making dice fudging a social faux pas equivalent to greeting someone in public with a wedgie. The actions of the people involved in your examples support the aphorism, "Don't game with assholes." Occasional and judicious use of dice fudging does not an asshole make IMHO, there was more to this for those reactions to make sense.

Nope fudging is just that bad.

Fudging will make you less trusting of other people's dice rolls. If everyone understands that it is unacceptable then you can rule out the possibility.

If dice fudging are a bad thing, then why do we GM screens?  They don't hide much beyond dice and maybe a map, but even then, maps can be hidden in other ways that are more easy.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057286Nope fudging is just that bad.

Fudging will make you less trusting of other people's dice rolls. If everyone understands that it is unacceptable then you can rule out the possibility.

I'm definitely more to this end - the Purity of the Dice Rolls Is Sacred. Do Not Tamper With The Sacred Dice!

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1057301If dice fudging are a bad thing, then why do we GM screens?

So that GMs can cheat... ...Personally I don't think they should be sold. At least, the GM should roll in front of the screen.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1057301If dice fudging are a bad thing, then why do we GM screens?  They don't hide much beyond dice and maybe a map, but even then, maps can be hidden in other ways that are more easy.

There are a few reasons (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/38265/roleplaying-games/random-gm-tips-on-the-use-of-gm-screens)

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1057301If dice fudging are a bad thing, then why do we GM screens?  They don't hide much beyond dice and maybe a map, but even then, maps can be hidden in other ways that are more easy.

I only use a GM screen if it has tables I need.

Otherwise I tend to roll in the open and I tell the players if my rolls are suppose to be secret or not so they know when they should be looking.

Quote from: Azraele;1057304There are a few reasons (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/38265/roleplaying-games/random-gm-tips-on-the-use-of-gm-screens)

And as far as dice rolls, dice rolls for seeking hidden information being rolled out of sight may work better for some styles of game. For the same reason that blog talks about reducing the need for players to disengage by averting their eyes, asking players to work hard not to factor in the visible die roll to their reaction to information acquired using a roll will likely make for better play.

Whether the fudging is a result of a flaw in the system or flaw in the understanding/capabilities of the GM, that still isn't definitive on the answer of whether or not to do it, ever.  It's entirely possible to have a situation where something is a known flaw in process or user, but the cost of repairing the flaw is too high to justify the work, given the amount of times it happens.  If you've been running the same game for a year just fine, and then some oddball, very low probability thing happens that in retrospect you'd have rather not, then you have to decide what to do about it.  As mentioned earlier, I'd rather explicitly discuss with the players then do a reality shift instead of trying to fudge my way out of it, because I think it's less trouble overall.  But something that happens once a year isn't going to make that much difference no matter how you handle it.  That includes letting the thing spiral out of control and send the campaign out in puff of flame, by the way.  

Which is why I said fudging is a symptom of another problem.  Every time it happens, it would be a good idea to consider briefly a better way to handle the underlying problem.  If the same way keeps happening, then definitely so consider, and probably ought to do something about it.  But the rare one-off is subject to the same cost/benefit analysis as anything else.  Your nose drips a little--a symptom.  Sometimes you ignore it.  Sometimes you get out of the cold or take some medicine or otherwise take care of yourself.  Sometimes you go to the doctor and learn you have Mono.  The symptom by itself doesn't tell you a whole lot about the best way to handle it.

I'm zero fudge in part because there are no situations that arise in my normal gaming where I don't already have something that for me is a better answer.  I tend to run a handful of systems that I know very well for the same people over an extended period of time, in styles of play where fudge is extremely counter-productive.  If I ran a one-off in a system that I didn't know very well for a bunch of kids as their first game, I probably wouldn't fudge, but I can't categorically say that it would not happen.

Fudge is always a bad idea in the sense that it always has a potential negative effect.  It is sometimes the least bad idea on the list of things that you are willing to put forth the effort to do, all things considered.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1057301If dice fudging are a bad thing, then why do we GM screens?  They don't hide much beyond dice and maybe a map, but even then, maps can be hidden in other ways that are more easy.

As DM I have various information, that aren't die rolls, for my eyes only.  And that also includes some die rolls.  I make secret door checks behind the screen, and others.

Why would anyone see a DM screen and come to conclusion that obviously a screen means the DM is supposed to put their thumb on the scales?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1057301If dice fudging are a bad thing, then why do we GM screens?  They don't hide much beyond dice and maybe a map, but even then, maps can be hidden in other ways that are more easy.

I don't - hideous things!

I would say that either a) dying during character creation or b) dying instantly with a space travel die roll are perfect examples of flawed design.

Instant death is not fun or interesting. Jeff, you're handling of the situation was brilliant. I think what some are trying to say is that you could tweak the rules so you don't have to "judge" instant death to be something else. In many ways, what you did WAS fudging the results.

If you want that risk in the game, then you should keep the rules as is, advertise the risk so the players get it, have them make the rolls, and deal with what falls out. You could also have one set of rules for "heroes" and one set for "average joes" so the risk is implied in the setting but not the same impact to the main characters.

Quote from: Haffrung;1057262Sometimes, however, dice generate anomalous results that are not welcome and fun, but rather have catastrophic effects on the game. Which is why I sometimes, occasionally, fudge the dice.

That's why I used to fudge the dice. But the crazy results go both ways; if you have critical failures, you also have critical successes. Have you seen DM of the Rings (https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=612)? In that the party meets Saruman for the first time, tosses an arrow at him in his tower, and he dies horribly. I realised that if I as DM fudged away their great failures, I'd have to fudge away their great successes, too. Otherwise it'd have catastrophic effects on the game! They can't just kill Saruman the first time they meet him!

I did that for a while. I kept the story within one standard deviation of what seemed reasonable. Things got slow and boring. So I stopped fudging. I let both ends of the bell curve happen. Hey, maybe they do kill Saruman when they first meet him. On the other hand, maybe Gollum kicks Frodo in the nads, takes his ring, and pushes him into the fires of Mt Doom. Hey, it's not like Gollum seemed like a nice guy.

The railroad is built with fudge. if you're going to fudge, you may as well go all computer game and have cutscenes to make things go where you want to. If freedom means anything, it means the freedom to fuck up. There is no true player freedom without the possibility of a TPK - or the possibility of a TNPCK. Poor Saruman.

Quote from: trechriron;1057338I would say that either a) dying during character creation or b) dying instantly with a space travel die roll are perfect examples of flawed design.

Instant death is not fun or interesting. Jeff, you're handling of the situation was brilliant. I think what some are trying to say is that you could tweak the rules so you don't have to "judge" instant death to be something else. In many ways, what you did WAS fudging the results.

If you want that risk in the game, then you should keep the rules as is, advertise the risk so the players get it, have them make the rolls, and deal with what falls out. You could also have one set of rules for "heroes" and one set for "average joes" so the risk is implied in the setting but not the same impact to the main characters.

Oh no, I absolutely agree that I fudged the results because the roll was a statistical fluke. The misjump chance with a Ship Destroyed result was like a 1 in 800 at the PCs skill level with what they were doing, possible but very very unlikely and what I would consider acceptable odds during play. The dice hated the PCs right then and it happened. I just disagree that it represents a rules mechanics flaw that requires the rewriting of the rules when a die roll fudge can satisfactorily compensate for that game ending result at the wrong time.

Quote from: jeff37923;1057343and what I would consider acceptable odds during play.

Apparently not.

Holy shit, did this thread get hijacked by Traveller. AGAIN!

(https://i.imgflip.com/2igzno.jpg)

I like how Jeff handled this. It's not excessive dice fudging. It's making a judgement call and leaning towards fun.

I believe that the fudging advice is more often trying to reduce the footprint of shitty game design. Worse, the people who often advocate for frequent dice roll fudging are usually just frustrated authors desperate to inflict their story on unsuspecting players. If you're strongly focused on "seeing what falls out of play", the fudging feels twice as dirty (when you're choosing to do so out of selfish railroading/illusionism...). I don't believe Jeff's choice here even comes close to that. It's a good point. There's generally no black/white solutions. I believe it's your motivation that differentiates shitty dice roll fudging from pertinent dice roll fudging.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1057348Holy shit, did this thread get hijacked by Traveller. AGAIN!

Actually, in CT there is a 1 in 216 chance that on any particular trip, one of your passengers will try to hijack your ship.

While we're speaking of hijacking... :D

Both older editions of D&D and CT share in common a heavy reliance on dice. Which means the temptation to fudge things. I mean, nobody needs to fudge diceless games, it's built into the system, that's how they get all thespy. Now, later editions of the games... well, you don't need to put your thumb on the balance in favour of your players when you've already got your whole arse sitting on it.

I wish I could remember who said this first, but it comes down to: do the player-characters survive because they are the heroes, or are they the heroes because they survive? As in any game, how much is choice and how much is chance? As I said earlier, a game like rock-paper-scissors is all chance, one like chess is all choice, but roleplaying games as originally conceived have both choice and chance. The nature of them, though, is that if you remove enough chance you also remove choice. "You're going to win, you just get to choose HOW you'll win!" removing two-thirds the possible outcomes (not only losing, but no result) narrows things somewhat.

A long-time friend of mine was a disability care worker, she told me about taking a wheelchair-bound guy to a pub some time. He fancied a girl he saw, and asked my friend if he should ask her out. "I don't know!" she said, "if you want to, do it."
"But she might knock me back."
We discussed it, and she explained that her job as a care worker was not to protect him from failure, but to enable him to get into situations where he could make choices with uncertain outcomes. "It is a human right to fuck up," she said, "and fail miserably; he deserves the same chance to have his heart broken as an able-bodied person does."

And I agree with her. The great thing about rpgs is that we can do it without real consequences. I'm not that keen on risking my own life and limb for glory, but my character? Sure, why not.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1057345Apparently not.

That's my feeling, I can't see how a 1 in 800 insta death chance is ever going to be desirable.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1057345Apparently not.

Quote from: S'mon;1057366That's my feeling, I can't see how a 1 in 800 insta death chance is ever going to be desirable.

 If you don't want your characters to take risks, then they should stay home and not be adventurers.

Quote from: trechriron;1057350I like how Jeff handled this. It's not excessive dice fudging. It's making a judgement call and leaning towards fun.

Seconded and how I roll at the table depending on the situation.

Quote from: jeff37923;1057392If you don't want your characters to take risks, then they should stay home and not be adventurers.

A 1 in 800 (or 1 in 10, say) chance that a risky mission ends in death seems fine to me as player or GM. A 1 in 800 chance of death on any Jump might be acceptable to me as a player I guess, but as GM would be a deterrent from using that system. If it's 1 in 216 or 1 in 36 chance of death if you Jump with a damaged drive, or within a gravity well, ok. It's the pointlessness of it as a routine campaign-ending feature that makes it feel like a bad rule to me from GM POV.

Edit: But then I'm a no-fudge GM, so if I rolled death on the table then that's what I'd apply. I guess if I were a fudger and it were player-side-only fake danger it'd be different.

All combat dice in the open. #NoFudging. Ever. There are other, better, ways the GM can influence outcomes if they really feel they must.

Gameplay > Plot.

"OK, folks I have some good news and bad news. Bad news first - you all just died in a horrible jump accident. No one is going to even remember the name of your ship. The good news? For $100 cash I will completely ignore that roll and we can keep playing. Like it never happened. Seriously, I'm going to go to the bathroom and when I come back, it never happened. for $200 we won't even roll again. You'll just get there. In one piece."

(my new idea for incentivized professional GMing...)

It seems to me that roll in which the whole party is arbitrarily killed as a result of doing something that PCs would just normally do is one of the few instances in which I would "fudge" the dice.

Except I wouldn't see it as fudging, because I wouldn't actually hide the result and pretend something else.  I'd just say.  We rolled this - but it's stupid - I'm going to house rule it.

Quote from: TJS;1057441It seems to me that roll in which the whole party is arbitrarily killed as a result of doing something that PCs would just normally do is one of the few instances in which I would "fudge" the dice.

Except I wouldn't see it as fudging, because I wouldn't actually hide the result and pretend something else.  I'd just say.  We rolled this - but it's stupid - I'm going to house rule it.

I fully agree with this sentiment. Unless you actually wrote the system (and sometimes not even then, I have horror stories about the Arcanis RPG design process) no GM is going to be aware of every little quirk of the system they're using and, from my experience, very few are versed enough in actual probability to be able to judge things related to it with any accuracy. So if something comes up in the rules that you think is just damned stupid as a mechanic (in this case because it completely derails the campaign before it even starts) and, after seeing that unexpected result come up you, as the GM, want to change that rule permanently to prevent the stupid thing from ever possibly happening again in your campaign... I don't think that's fudging the dice role... that's just making a ruling.

The notion that the rules even allow something like that to occur when there are so many more useful and interesting options is one of those things as a GM that just make me shake my head at what the designers were possibly thinking when they designed that mechanic.

Then again I've known legit game designers who thought 2d10+1d6 had the exact same probably curve as 1d20+4 because the average was 14.5 for both (No, I am NOT actually kidding; they thought they could replace the d20 with 2d10 and static ability modifiers with dice rolls while keeping the exact same target numbers as 3e D&D used and that it would have NO effect on the probabilities in the game).

So it's entirely possible the person who designed the mechanic actually failed to consider that "instant TPK" was going to eventually come up at someone's table because to them something like a 1 in 216 chance would probably never even come up in any given campaign and almost certainly not on the very first jump, though the probably of it coming up and wrecking someone's campaign on the first jump reached 100% once you had enough tables playing the game.

Quote from: Chris24601;1057452I fully agree with this sentiment. Unless you actually wrote the system (and sometimes not even then, I have horror stories about the Arcanis RPG design process) no GM is going to be aware of every little quirk of the system they're using and, from my experience, very few are versed enough in actual probability to be able to judge things related to it with any accuracy. So if something comes up in the rules that you think is just damned stupid as a mechanic (in this case because it completely derails the campaign before it even starts) and, after seeing that unexpected result come up you, as the GM, want to change that rule permanently to prevent the stupid thing from ever possibly happening again in your campaign... I don't think that's fudging the dice role... that's just making a ruling.

Yes I agree. I think if I were GMing, had not noticed the stupid rule, and rolled the instant death result I would immediately edit the table to something less silly (probably a misjump + damage to the ship) and go on from there.

I think about the harshest result I would apply would be a misjump to interstellar space without enough fuel to reach an inhabited system, plus damage to the ship. Hopefully the crew have enough low berths for cold sleep as it will likely take decades to get back to civilisation... and that point would be a reasonable one to roll for death during cold sleep, unlike routine passenger transit. So I could imagine eventually killing off some PCs as a result, but probably not all of them. Or they might have a choice of heading for a nearby habitable but uncivilised world, vs risking a long sublight voyage back to a civilised system. That's the kind of hard choice space opera adventure is made of! :)

I very much enjoy procedural content generation vs dice rolls - the randomness creates adventure. Randomness that just ends the game is bad unless it's the result of appropriate player choice, such as PCs choosing to go for the long voyage in cold sleep, then rolling unlucky on survival check.

Quote from: S'mon;1057459Hopefully the crew have enough low berths for cold sleep as it will likely take decades to get back to civilisation...

You know what happens when you wake after decades in coldsleep? You did see that documentary about Ellen Ripley, yeah?

Quote from: S'mon;1057459Yes I agree. I think if I were GMing, had not noticed the stupid rule, and rolled the instant death result I would immediately edit the table to something less silly (probably a misjump + damage to the ship) and go on from there.

Funny thing is, i had noticed it, but thought that a 1 in 800 chance was pretty unlikely.

Quote from: S'mon;1057459I think about the harshest result I would apply would be a misjump to interstellar space without enough fuel to reach an inhabited system, plus damage to the ship. Hopefully the crew have enough low berths for cold sleep as it will likely take decades to get back to civilisation... and that point would be a reasonable one to roll for death during cold sleep, unlike routine passenger transit. So I could imagine eventually killing off some PCs as a result, but probably not all of them. Or they might have a choice of heading for a nearby habitable but uncivilised world, vs risking a long sublight voyage back to a civilised system. That's the kind of hard choice space opera adventure is made of! :)

What I did after fudging the roll was declare that this was the Mother Of All Directional Misjumps instead of a TPK. The original campaign idea was scrapped since the ship with the PCs was now over twenty parsecs into uncharted territory. They spent the next year of game time fixing their ship and jumping back to charted space while encountering pocket empires, wildcat colonies, and pirates.

Quote from: jeff37923;1057492Funny thing is, i had noticed it, but thought that a 1 in 800 chance was pretty unlikely.



What I did after fudging the roll was declare that this was the Mother Of All Directional Misjumps instead of a TPK. The original campaign idea was scrapped since the ship with the PCs was now over twenty parsecs into uncharted territory. They spent the next year of game time fixing their ship and jumping back to charted space while encountering pocket empires, wildcat colonies, and pirates.

It seems like you created the best possible outcome from your decision (that campaign sounds rad). I still fail to see, however, how "%chance to completely end campaign, irrevocably" is a worthwhile thing to include on a single die roll in the first place.

Rather than having so much conclusion from a single %chance roll, I'd much rather have it deposit the players in a terrible situation (like your ruling did). Same thing with ship travel in d&d: I'm theoretically fine with a small %chance that "ship sinks" occurs per journey, but I think that should just jump us to the point in the action where the ship is taking on water and the heroic PCs have to do something to save the crew from a watery grave.

I mean sure, that could still end a campaign, but it'd be more than a single roll between the campaign and its conclusion.

I roll everything in the open. If we as a group were to think a particular result too instantaneously odious, then I we'll change it in the open also. Player belief in the possibility of terrible outcome is absolutely essential to any sense of real danger for their characters. If a player ever catches -- or even suspects -- fudging behind the screen, that belief is shattered.

Conversely, a player who witnesses with their own eyes a disaster unfold on the dice, even if that result is redacted, is set all the more on edge as the game moves forward. It can happen any time, death is around the corner ... this is the feeling of an adventuring character, and when the players buy in immersion is well-served.

But worse for me, as the one who usually sits behind the screen, is that my own immersion is wrecked if I fudge the dice. I'm there to have fun too, and I want to believe in the characters' danger. I am as anxious for each die roll as my players are. And of course if my immersion is ruined, that's going to bleed over to others at the table.

Quote from: jeff37923;1057492What I did after fudging the roll was declare that this was the Mother Of All Directional Misjumps instead of a TPK. The original campaign idea was scrapped since the ship with the PCs was now over twenty parsecs into uncharted territory. They spent the next year of game time fixing their ship and jumping back to charted space while encountering pocket empires, wildcat colonies, and pirates.

You certainly did the right thing there!

Just edit that damn table. :D

Had an epic PC death in Stonehell Dungeon today as a result of no fudging - unfortunate elven princess PC is looking at old tapestries of the fall of King Magrathor the Sterling Potentate, when he reaches out from the tapestry and squeezes her heart...

22 damage - turned out she had exactly 22 hp.
5e rules so Death Saves.
Fails the first one.
Rolls the second save with Inspiration - rolls on d20 x2: '1' & '1'. :eek:
Arise, corpse-bride of dead king Magrathor... :D

Quote from: jeff37923;1057492Funny thing is, i had noticed it, but thought that a 1 in 800 chance was pretty unlikely.



What I did after fudging the roll was declare that this was the Mother Of All Directional Misjumps instead of a TPK. The original campaign idea was scrapped since the ship with the PCs was now over twenty parsecs into uncharted territory. They spent the next year of game time fixing their ship and jumping back to charted space while encountering pocket empires, wildcat colonies, and pirates.

Personally I consider altering the outcome of the result to something more acceptable than insta-death rather different from negating (fudging) the roll. The roll stood, you just changed it from death to a likely death that they can RP and potentially alter to just very inconvenient.  

Quote from: S'mon;1057528Had an epic PC death in Stonehell Dungeon today as a result of no fudging - unfortunate elven princess PC is looking at old tapestries of the fall of King Magrathor the Sterling Potentate, when he reaches out from the tapestry and squeezes her heart...

22 damage - turned out she had exactly 22 hp.
5e rules so Death Saves.
Fails the first one.
Rolls the second save with Inspiration - rolls on d20 x2: '1' & '1'. :eek:
Arise, corpse-bride of dead king Magrathor... :D

and this is the kind of epic game experience that can be lost if fudging becomes the norm for a GM.

Quote from: S'mon;1057527Just edit that damn table. :D

I honestly tend not to use that version of Traveller anymore except for fluff. Not because of possible instant death misjumps, but because it combines the most lengthy aspects of character creation from both Traveller and d20 System. Our average starting character level was 8 and it would take an entire session zero just to create them and then level them up through lifepath. Like a lot of d20 gaming, it just became too time consuming.

Quote from: Chris24601;1057452I fully agree with this sentiment. Unless you actually wrote the system (and sometimes not even then, I have horror stories about the Arcanis RPG design process) no GM is going to be aware of every little quirk of the system they're using and, from my experience, very few are versed enough in actual probability to be able to judge things related to it with any accuracy. So if something comes up in the rules that you think is just damned stupid as a mechanic (in this case because it completely derails the campaign before it even starts) and, after seeing that unexpected result come up you, as the GM, want to change that rule permanently to prevent the stupid thing from ever possibly happening again in your campaign... I don't think that's fudging the dice role... that's just making a ruling.

The notion that the rules even allow something like that to occur when there are so many more useful and interesting options is one of those things as a GM that just make me shake my head at what the designers were possibly thinking when they designed that mechanic.

Then again I've known legit game designers who thought 2d10+1d6 had the exact same probably curve as 1d20+4 because the average was 14.5 for both (No, I am NOT actually kidding; they thought they could replace the d20 with 2d10 and static ability modifiers with dice rolls while keeping the exact same target numbers as 3e D&D used and that it would have NO effect on the probabilities in the game).

So it's entirely possible the person who designed the mechanic actually failed to consider that "instant TPK" was going to eventually come up at someone's table because to them something like a 1 in 216 chance would probably never even come up in any given campaign and almost certainly not on the very first jump, though the probably of it coming up and wrecking someone's campaign on the first jump reached 100% once you had enough tables playing the game.

Changing or ignoring mechanics is different to changing dice rolls, though.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1057572Changing or ignoring mechanics is different to changing dice rolls, though.

Ignoring rules because the result is not what you want is not all that different.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1057580Ignoring rules because the result is not what you want is not all that different.

The edges get a little blurry but to my mind the lack of illusion is important.

If you think of it in computer game terms it's a bit like being able to restore from a saved game vs playing a game where you seem to keep just winning combats by the skin of your teeth but your avatar never actually dies no matter what happens.

In the first, the game is the game, and you either buy its premises or you don't, in the second the game is only fun until you reach the point where you see through the illusion.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1057572Changing or ignoring mechanics is different to changing dice rolls, though.

AGREED: changing rules conditionally, to suit your idea of what "should" happen, whenever you want to, without the knowledge and consent of the players, is fudging rolls.

You can change a bad rule and that's fine. There's no deception involved in repairing broken mechanics, or customizing the parts of the game that don't work for your table.

It's when you're ignoring everything behind the screen "for the good of the players!" that things go so hideously wrong.

I have to say, I've been guilty of fudging the the die in favor of the players... Not too often but I have done it to save a characters life. Not that I ever told any of the players.

I am in the no fudging camp but broken is broken.

And you can't always see it coming. GM's perogative. or if you're touchy feely "troup" perogavtive.

I mean, fuggit, it's your game, right?

Quote from: Azraele;1057593No, changing rules conditionally, to suit your idea of what "should" happen, whenever you want to, without the knowledge and consent of the players, is the same as fudging rolls.

You can change a bad rule and that's fine. There's no deception involved in repairing broken mechanics, or customizing the parts of the game that don't work for your table.

It's when you're ignoring everything behind the screen "for the good of the players!" that things go so hideously wrong.

This is the key in my book. Roll for misjump and sometimes take the result and sometimes not, fudging.

See the misjump rules allow results you don't want to play out so you change the table/rule up front is a good solution.

Rolling on the table and THEN realizing it can generate undesirable results so you change the table/rule is a decent solution and often pragmatic.

The key is recognize the rule doesn't work as written for you and your group and change the rule vs. leaving the table as is, and changing the outcome when it doesn't work and leaving it as is when it does work.

I'm glad 1977 Classic Traveller doesn't have the "ship blows up" misjump, but it still has a significant chance of sending the ship into oblivion (or so far off the map that I now need to generate a new setting of play, 36 parsecs is 3-4 sub-sectors away, possibly even into a different sector). I chose to modify the where do you go mechanism.

Fortunately my first actual misjump of the campaign was almost totally benign.

Frank

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1057340If freedom means anything, it means the freedom to fuck up. There is no true player freedom without the possibility of a TPK - or the possibility of a TNPCK. Poor Saruman.

I don't run railroad campaigns. Hundreds of PCs have died in games I run, and I've had many TPCs. But I still occasionally use my discretion to fudge.

As usual when it comes to RPG forums, people are taking didactic positions without any room for deviation or nuance.

Quote from: Azraele;1057593No, changing rules conditionally, to suit your idea of what "should" happen, whenever you want to, without the knowledge and consent of the players, is the same as fudging rolls.

Well, ultimately you consent by continuing to play at the same table, but I totally agree with you on the "without the knowledge" bit.

But if fudging dice rolls is teaching kids wrong, then so is ruling not rules. In fact, the latter implies the former is completely acceptable.

Quote from: jeff37923;1057273As much as I loathe to suggest it, fudging of dice rolls in game is right at the core of the question, "Is GMing an art or a science?"

Yes.

The Science is in knowing what works, and the Art is in implementing it.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1057276Fudging undermines and damages trust.

That's only if you've all agreed to abide by the dice results.

If not, then it's an issue of accountability, because if you can ignore any roll you don't like, then you're fully accountable for any results. And if you can stop bad things from happening to the characters, then it's fair to say you wanted those things to happen if you don't.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1057301If dice fudging are a bad thing, then why do we GM screens?

The pretense of mystery!

Seriously though, fudging does become more likely when you lower the opportunity cost through a GM screen.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1057312It's entirely possible to have a situation where something is a known flaw in process or user, but the cost of repairing the flaw is too high to justify the work, given the amount of times it happens.

Which is why good design matters.

Quote from: trechriron;1057338I would say that either a) dying during character creation or b) dying instantly with a space travel die roll are perfect examples of flawed design.

On the contrary, dying during character creation is typically a result of pushing your luck, which is always good game design.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1057351do the player-characters survive because they are the heroes, or are they the heroes because they survive?

You may have hit on the best way to differentiate Storygames and RPGs yet!

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1057351The great thing about rpgs is that we can do it without real consequences.

Come to think of it, the set of people who feel this is true or not runs surprisingly parallel.

Quote from: Chris24601;1057452Unless you actually wrote the system (and sometimes not even then, I have horror stories about the Arcanis RPG design process) no GM is going to be aware of every little quirk of the system they're using and, from my experience, very few are versed enough in actual probability to be able to judge things related to it with any accuracy.

If only the designer is capable of using the system they designed properly, then they have failed as a designer. And if the system has so many quirks that you cannot predict the kind of experience it will generate, then it has failed as a system. Sadly I know more designers and games like this than not, partly because the surrounding culture makes the same assumptions you do.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1057624If only the designer is capable of using the system they designed properly, then they have failed as a designer. And if the system has so many quirks that you cannot predict the kind of experience it will generate, then it has failed as a system. Sadly I know more designers and games like this than not, partly because the surrounding culture makes the same assumptions you do.

I didn't say people who aren't the designer can't use a system properly. I said unless you're the designer (and sometimes not even then) you're unlikely to be aware of every idiosyncrasy in the ruleset; particularly when it comes to probability. It's bad enough getting people to grok straight percentages and linear probabilities, much less bell curves and you can downright forget about the effect of repeated independent probabilities has on overall probability (1% chance doesn't mean it happens once in every 100 rolls, but that it has a 1% chance for each of those hundred rolls; there's actually only a 64.4% chance of the 01 result coming up in any given batch of 100 rolls (and some sets will likewise end up with more than one 01 result).

If you look at the above and go "Huh?" then you're among most players and GMs and a larger than you'd expect percentage of game designers than you'd hope. The net result is that most people's expectations of the odds are rarely what they think they are.

Frankly, "whole party dies from one failed check; campaign ends" is about the dumbest result a game designer could put into a game.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1057624...

On the contrary, dying during character creation is typically a result of pushing your luck, which is always good game design.

...

If the point of the game is to take chances? I always thought the point of an RPG was to roleplay. Also, why not just then keep rolling up a character till you get what you want?

This is poorly thought out game design. Unnecessary grit-wank, easily discarded anyways, that serves no purpose. You can go play poker and push your luck. RPGs should be about more than seeing what cool character you can roll up on your 12th attempt.

Quote from: trechriron;1057641If the point of the game is to take chances? I always thought the point of an RPG was to roleplay. Also, why not just then keep rolling up a character till you get what you want?

This is poorly thought out game design. Unnecessary grit-wank, easily discarded anyways, that serves no purpose. You can go play poker and push your luck. RPGs should be about more than seeing what cool character you can roll up on your 12th attempt.

Indeed, what exactly is the point of killing the character during creation if player just gets to start over and can eventually get lucky?

Now a system which increases the odds of getting more severe drawbacks ("oops, there goes your arm.") the character has to live with is one where pushing your luck has meaning, because if it goes poorly you've actually got to play that character warts and all.

Quote from: Chris24601;1057642Indeed, what exactly is the point of killing the character during creation if player just gets to start over and can eventually get lucky?

Now a system which increases the odds of getting more severe drawbacks ("oops, there goes your arm.") the character has to live with is one where pushing your luck has meaning, because if it goes poorly you've actually got to play that character warts and all.

The purpose is it creates a mini-game out of character generation. Each term, look at your character, are you satisfied with it? Do you want to try for one more term for another skill or two or chance at promotion? Sure, if your character dies, you get to try again, and this time you might get lucky. But your next character will likely be different.

Now in 1981, an option was offered that a failed survival roll just drummed the character out (I thought this was introduced before 1981, but I see no mention of it in Book 4 or 5, maybe it was mentioned in JTAS).

Personally, I like the death rule. It does make an incentive to cut and run early rather than push for the absolute maximum. On the other hand, if there's something you don't like about your character, keep pushing and hope he dies (and if he doesn't hey, maybe you got a really cool character out of the deal).

I've been enjoying "play what you get" old school roll up methods lately. Yea, sometimes your character is a bummer. For Traveller, I actually am fine with a player rolling up a few characters and picking their favorite. I can use the extras as NPCs, or they can save them and have them as a back up in case their first played character dies, or with a small playgroup, we might allow each player to play two characters.

I also have tweaked Paul Gorman's online character generator to allow using it to roll characters until you get certain things (a particular skill, a ship, a minimum number of terms). Part of why I did that was I sensed that players were rolling characters using the generator (it produces a single character about as fast as you can push refresh on your browser) until they got a "perfect" character. If you really want a Scout with a ship, I'd rather you take the first one you get (I also fixed it so that if this was your goal, you didn't almost automatically end up with a 7-term Scout).

Oh, and if we want to get really pedantic, character generation is over in 1977 Classic Traveller before you join a service:

"A newly generated character is singularly unequipped to deal with the adven-turing world, having neither the expertise nor the experience necessary for the ac-tive life. In order to acquire some experience, it is possible to enlist in a service."

Note is says "it is possible" not "the next step is"...

Frank

Quote from: ffilz;1057645The purpose is it creates a mini-game out of character generation. Each term, look at your character, are you satisfied with it? Do you want to try for one more term for another skill or two or chance at promotion? Sure, if your character dies, you get to try again, and this time you might get lucky. But your next character will likely be different.

Now in 1981, an option was offered that a failed survival roll just drummed the character out (I thought this was introduced before 1981, but I see no mention of it in Book 4 or 5, maybe it was mentioned in JTAS).

Personally, I like the death rule. It does make an incentive to cut and run early rather than push for the absolute maximum. On the other hand, if there's something you don't like about your character, keep pushing and hope he dies (and if he doesn't hey, maybe you got a really cool character out of the deal).

I've been enjoying "play what you get" old school roll up methods lately. Yea, sometimes your character is a bummer. For Traveller, I actually am fine with a player rolling up a few characters and picking their favorite. I can use the extras as NPCs, or they can save them and have them as a back up in case their first played character dies, or with a small playgroup, we might allow each player to play two characters.

I also have tweaked Paul Gorman's online character generator to allow using it to roll characters until you get certain things (a particular skill, a ship, a minimum number of terms). Part of why I did that was I sensed that players were rolling characters using the generator (it produces a single character about as fast as you can push refresh on your browser) until they got a "perfect" character. If you really want a Scout with a ship, I'd rather you take the first one you get (I also fixed it so that if this was your goal, you didn't almost automatically end up with a 7-term Scout).

Oh, and if we want to get really pedantic, character generation is over in 1977 Classic Traveller before you join a service:

"A newly generated character is singularly unequipped to deal with the adven-turing world, having neither the expertise nor the experience necessary for the ac-tive life. In order to acquire some experience, it is possible to enlist in a service."

Note is says "it is possible" not "the next step is"...

Frank

We had a discussion about Traveller character generation in a Group I Admin recently. Most people don't or have never used the Death In CharGen rule. If you generate a character that you don't like, or who doesn't survive - you start over and that half-finished character becomes an NPC. That is the most common response, but everyone plays how they like.

Quote from: trechriron;1057641If the point of the game is to take chances? I always thought the point of an RPG was to roleplay.

Most RPGs I know of (all probably) have to roll to see if you succeed in myriad of things, from convincing the guard to stabbing the guard. Rolling dice is taking a chance. Not sure why this would be unusual in an RPG.

Quote from: trechriron;1057641If the point of the game is to take chances? I always thought the point of an RPG was to roleplay. Also, why not just then keep rolling up a character till you get what you want?

This is poorly thought out game design. Unnecessary grit-wank, easily discarded anyways, that serves no purpose. You can go play poker and push your luck. RPGs should be about more than seeing what cool character you can roll up on your 12th attempt.

The point of RPGs is to make choices. Without choice, there is only narrative. Sometimes those choices are to take a chance.