From the "open dice rolling" thread, a theme worth exploring in its own thread has come up.

Its my position that the GM has the prerogative to choose to not kill or otherwise fuck up a PC when straightforward dice rolls would indicate it, if he feels that it would be detrimental to the overall health of the game and the group; he likewise has the option of letting any single bad roll stand if he thinks it will not be harmful to the game, or that the possibilities it generates outweigh the harm it might cause, or if he just plain felt that the Player had it coming.

Opinions? Do you agree or disagree?

RPGPundit

In these times of Swinery, I´d hold the extremist position of "No Fudging!".

But truth to be told this is also a DM decision. So basically, even being fair and honest all the time isn´t taking away the penultimate power of the DM. The DM is fair, because he chooses to.

I feel perfectly comfortable slanting things towards the PCs from time to time.  Since I'm not into things like "balanced encounters" sometimes the PCs are in deep shit and it's all my fault.

But I never, ever give one of my beasties or NPCs a break.  If once again the PCs murderlize my Ultimate Badass Monster in just one round, well next time I need to use more badass.

I've actually come to the opinion that the problem with a great number of RPG's is that they are determined to tell you when characters should die... leading to unavoidably fatal encounters when there is absolutely no reason for them to be fatal...

Of course, the games that I've seen that use 'non-lethal' damage mechanics seem unbarably silly... even, if I may co-opt a term... Swinish.



I know what I'm looking for now: Combat that is painful. Combat that hurts. Combat that leads to incapacitation and unconciousness as often, or moreso, than outright death... and makes Death a specific, chosen outcome, rather than a random roll.

Damn it all, now I need to figure out how to do it!

I absolutely agree.  

One of the things that I like about Spycraft 2.0, along with Mutants & Masterminds and other games that I play less frequently, is that the GM has a pool of action dice / villain points / whatever that he uses to activate critical hits against or critical fumbles by the players.  If he chooses not to activate the critical, the hit still occurs or the check is still failed but the PC suffers only the normal consequences.

Quote from: jrientsI feel perfectly comfortable slanting things towards the PCs from time to time.  Since I'm not into things like "balanced encounters" sometimes the PCs are in deep shit and it's all my fault.

But I never, ever give one of my beasties or NPCs a break.  If once again the PCs murderlize my Ultimate Badass Monster in just one round, well next time I need to use more badass.

I concur wholeheartedly dude.  

I think the biggest core to what you say here too, is never punish the players, for the DM's mistake.

Spike: I like the method S. John Ross uses in Risus.  When you run out of hit points you're not necessarily dead, but you've lost and are at the mercy of the winner.

Quote from: SettembriniIn these times of Swinery, I´d hold the extremist position of "No Fudging!".

But truth to be told this is also a DM decision. So basically, even being fair and honest all the time isn´t taking away the penultimate power of the DM. The DM is fair, because he chooses to.

This is exactly my personal position. A GM has the perogative to fudge or not, and I choose not to.

-clash

QuoteIts my position that the GM has the prerogative to choose to not kill or otherwise fuck up a PC when straightforward dice rolls would indicate it, if he feels that it would be detrimental to the overall health of the game and the group; he likewise has the option of letting any single bad roll stand if he thinks it will not be harmful to the game, or that the possibilities it generates outweigh the harm it might cause, or if he just plain felt that the Player had it coming.

Opinions? Do you agree or disagree?

I think that fudging dice-rolls is basically "cheating" and puts "storytelling" before "gameplay".  Even if it's helping the players out, it's still bad.

I do agree that it's far too easy in some RPGs (including D&D) to have an encounter suddenly go sour due to some bad luck with dice rolls, or a small tactical error that snowballs out of control.

Rather than fudge dice-rolls, I think things like Karma, Hero Points, or a combat system that leads to unconciousness and injury rather than death are all better ideas.

If you DO fudge a dice roll... don't be sneaky about it.  Tell the player:  "Well, that's a natural 20... so your character would be dead.  You lose one of your 9 lives and we'll say it's a miss, ok?"

I agree with Settembrini.  "Be Just and Fear Not"

Quote from: RPGPunditIts my position that the GM has the prerogative to choose to not kill or otherwise fuck up a PC when straightforward dice rolls would indicate it, if he feels that it would be detrimental to the overall health of the game and the group

I think that if your game and groups "overall health" is vulnerable to something as comparatively minor as straight-forward dice luck then you've got a problem.

Either you need players and a game that can survive the death of a character or else you need game mechanics that don't let that happen at the whim of the dice.  Fudging has always struck me as somewhat like sticking a band-aid on scurvy.  It's not that it won't help, but it'd be smarter to address the problem rather than mop up the symptoms.

edited out

Quote from: TonyLBI think that if your game and groups "overall health" is vulnerable to something as comparatively minor as straight-forward dice luck then you've got a problem.

Either you need players and a game that can survive the death of a character or else you need game mechanics that don't let that happen at the whim of the dice.  Fudging has always struck me as somewhat like sticking a band-aid on scurvy.  It's not that it won't help, but it'd be smarter to address the problem rather than mop up the symptoms.

Agreed.

-clash

Somewhere I've downloaded Risus, and I've picked up a few smaller games too. I'm thinking we need a more mainstream RPG 'sea-change' away from 'lost all health always = death'.  Thats fine and dandy for a lot of games, zombie games for example.

But for more cinematic or heroic fare its a bit... anticlimactic all to often.

Quote from: TonyLBI think that if your game and groups "overall health" is vulnerable to something as comparatively minor as straight-forward dice luck then you've got a problem.

Either you need players and a game that can survive the death of a character or else you need game mechanics that don't let that happen at the whim of the dice.  Fudging has always struck me as somewhat like sticking a band-aid on scurvy.  It's not that it won't help, but it'd be smarter to address the problem rather than mop up the symptoms.

Here's a big "what he said."

If we (my group and I) want to a game where fudging to survive is an option we'll put that option in the players' hands rather than the GMs. So far we've only ever done it for Rolemaster, because it's a really deadly system, and Shadowrun because the game rules already include it.

Real men don't fudge dice.