I generally roll in the open, and forgo GM shields.  I used to use a shield, but I just found that they got in the way - when I was sitting down during a game, it made it hard to see things on the table, and when I'm standing up and moving around and waving my arms, then the screen isn't very helpful either.  Besides, with the new d20 rules, there's not a lot of charts to look up - it's all compare dieroll + bonuses vs difficulty.

I don't mind my players picking up on how powerful a monster is by how I roll.  If I announce that the monster got a 25 on a blow, and one of the players notices I only rolled a 7, then that's the same as in character the warriors noticing that the monster's weak blows are landing like hammers, and produces the same effect - the players treat the encounter more seriously, knowing that they're against a powerful foe that could kill them.

Quote from: StuartPundit, don't you feel that fudging dice rolls is advancing your vision of the narrative over what the players choices and luck is creating?  To me, fudging dice rolls just seems like another type of railroading... and railroading is the mark of the swine.

Resist the temptation.

When I "fudge" die rolls, its almost always to save the PCs from death or some other unfortunate result that wouldn't really add anything to the game at the time of said roll.  I believe its the GM's prerogative to do this.

RPGPundit

Quote from: UmaSamaI agree, but, what happens if they do choose their battles wisely, and fight with outmost heroism, and resolve the plot marvelously, and yet they die.
Wouldn't you consider to give them a "second" chance, but only ONE second chance.

No, not because that isn't a bad outcome, it plainly is.  But because I see the overall benefit to our games of open rolling and letting the dice fall where they may as greater than the occasional benefit of intervening to make something work out right.

In other words, that outcome sucks, but overall having the occasional sucky outcome makes for generally better gaming because of the possibility of real failure existing.  It makes things matter.

So for me, the occasional total party kill or total party clusterfuck is a price worth paying to make the players' choices really matter, because they know that generally their choices will really determine how things turn out.

Quote from: BalbinusSo for me, the occasional total party kill or total party clusterfuck is a price worth paying to make the players' choices really matter, because they know that generally their choices will really determine how things turn out.

Also, that knowledge makes players react differently to some in-game events (i.e., violence), that can be quite helpful to emulate some moods.

In my best MERP campaign ever, half of the party was wiped out in a fight with an evil mage in the Herûbar Gûlar in the first two combat rounds (the castle of the intro module on the corebook). They didn't nothing wrong. They were careful and tried to plan the attack to their best. They were not stupid. But fights are dangerous, impossible to predict and well, fucking dangerous. My players didn't complain, or felt aggravated. They didn't feel less heroic, on the contrary. They said "Man, we're fighting a really evil badass here!" Their final triumph was even more cherished to them.

A lot of people have mentioned that GM fudging may be a result of the system failing and though I was against this idea when I first heard it way back I'm coming round to it as the last two systems I've played, WFRP and Cinematic Unisystem, have reduced fudging to practically nothing* due to the addition of stuff like Drama/Fate points and interesting nonlethal injuries.

*I say 'practically' nothing because I'm sure I must have fudged at some point but I'm buggered if I can remember when.

Quote from: Garry GA lot of people have mentioned that GM fudging may be a result of the system failing and though I was against this idea when I first heard it way back I'm coming round to it as the last two systems I've played, WFRP and Cinematic Unisystem, have reduced fudging to practically nothing* due to the addition of stuff like Drama/Fate points and interesting nonlethal injuries.

*I say 'practically' nothing because I'm sure I must have fudged at some point but I'm buggered if I can remember when.

Yeah, it was Cinematic UNisystem that got this idea in my head.  It puts the job of fudging in the player's hands, and really frees the GM.  No, I'm not going to pretend that die roll was something else.  That's *your* job.  I'm just going to play my villians the best I can.

Interestingly, I was talking with one of my players who commented that she felt much more vulnerable in Buffy than in a game like D&D.  Though you technically can't die in Buffy, it's a lot easier to get taken out.  D&D tends to be built so that characters go through protracted fights - a single blow from an axe or sword can drop a white hat, and a good hit with one can take down a hero.  Not to mention nasty possibilities like beheading or getting vamped.

This confirms my belief that character death is not at all required for the sense of danger, only the realistic threat of defeat.