I agree with Pundit and others who said similar things earlier on in the thread.
Just make sure they know the odds and consequences, both IC and OOC, of what they're doing.

There really is no need for fudgery, unless perhaps you're running a game for particularly young kids, but a) I personally don't think I'd actually enjoy doing that and b) shouldn't they learn to deal with "losing" a game ASAP anyway?

I totally cut new players slack, especially in more complicated systems like 4e.

The point of a game is to have fun, if the player's first session gives the impression of "I'm always going to get screwed over unless I know the itty bitty rules", there probably won't be a second session, particularly in a game with rules in multiple hardback books.

I'll take some time to explain options, cause and effect, and the like; but otherwise I throw them to the lions the same as my experienced players.

Why give them a false first impression?

I don't fudge, last time this happened I TPK'd them and said "Better luck next time".  The 4 players were all flushed with excitement and eager for more.

That said, in principle I'm happy to run less challenging adventures for less experienced players. In the case of the TPK I was running the 'Barrow of the Ogre King' adventure from the 4e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, and I had not fully appreciated how deadly it was, even with me halving all monster hp.

Quote from: Benoist;477347Play normally. Fudging to soften the blows actually is a very bad idea.

It's like admitting you suck as a DM and tell your players they suck more than you do so you have to cheat to make them win all rolled into one. Instead, prepare the newbies entry point into the campaign carefully so you don't have to resort to this kind of capitulation on the game's part. If they fail from there, they fail. Period. There's a lesson for them to learn, and if they aren't pussies, they will, eventually.

I think that's good advice.

Quote from: jibbajibba;477369As for fudging dice it depends. With kids I do it for sure, making a 6 year old girl cry becuase you just killed the fairy princess she has been playing for 10 sessions is not going to make the game more fun for anyone. For an adult it depends on the timing. Getting the Newbie's PC killed after 15 minutes in the first fight cos of an exploding dice, or a super lucky critical max damage, which then condemns them to sitting out the next 2 hours until you can introduce another PC is not a good idea.

When DMing for my 4 year old son I'll run it free-kriegspiel and just set appropriate target numbers on a d6, heavily slanted in his favour, so eg I might give the BBEG dragon boss a chance to kill him of '6' on a d6, whereas he kills it on a 3+.  I tell him the numbers and don't fudge though, so there is still a real risk of defeat as well as a good chance of victory.

Quote from: Daniel;477326Many GMs have some players who are less experienced, maybe in the system, maybe in roleplaying, or maybe even gaming at all.Those players tend to do things "badly" sometimes, and some DMs (including myself) would lower the consequences of their actions as the players get used to the game (Example:Fudging dice of a trap s damage so it doesn t kill the rogue player but still do some damage to him in what was planed to be a devastating trap, or have NPCs be overall more willingly to pass some error for a time or two instead of going straight to their faces and punching them, etc...)
Daniel.

The key thing for me is inexperienced players are usually desperate for advice and instruction, so give it to them. In my experience the chief barriers to entry for a new player are game mechanical issues -- when the other players are talking fluent Munchkin about min-maxing, cross-classing and optimal combinations of prestige classes and feats, and a newcomer is having to ask -- wait, what, what's a feat? What's a class? then there's problems. Seriously, don't geek out when you have fresh company at the table.

Actual roleplaying mistakes are less of an issue. The newbie typically doesn't want or need fudged dice, just the occassional hint, the rules explained in a simple manner, and to be able to figure out which of the numerous different gaming cultures they've dropped into (hack and slash, munchkins, True Roleplayers, etc.)