On Fudging Die Rolls and Meaningful Choices

Just a quick few words on fudging dice and stats in RPGs. This topic will probably come up more and more with the release of 5e D&D because the system is pretty loose and we won’t see a Monster Manual or DMG for a few months…

A PC died in my 2e D&D session a few weeks ago. As the DM I could have saved him. I could have fudged a table read (for potency of poison). I could have simply ruled the poison made him fatigued and given him mechanical penalties for a while. Instead, I had him roll on the potency table. He rolled a 20 – death within 6 rounds. The PC died.

Some would say it was a senseless, unnecessary death. The PC died after the party was attacked by venomous snakes. It WAS a random encounter that occurred while they were resting and on watch. Does it matter that they were warned about the potent venom before they went to the area? Should I have saved him by DM fiat? After all, if I had done so, the players would have never known – it would have been completely invisible to them.

The way that I run games I roll all attack and damage dice out in the open and I let them fall where they may. My players know that I don’t pull punches and if they choose to stay in a fight with a dangerous foe (rather than strategically retreat or flee) then they have the possibility of going down/dying/dropping (whatever your preferred term).

There is another type of fudging that is different from die roll changes – fudging in terms of encounter/creature strength. I have adjusted that on the fly occasionally in the past, though I don’t do so any longer. The games I run nowadays are easy enough to prep for, and I have been doing it long enough with the same group, that I don’t end up adjusting that stuff on the fly anymore.

I do also want to say that I am not strongly for or against ‘fudging’ as a strategy. If it is what a GM chooses and fits how they run their game, as long as the players are having fun, then that sounds good to me. It’s a strategy – some like it and some don’t like it. I am neutral. I know what I like, and I know how I run my table, but I don’t judge those who do it different than than I do.

Some people are morally opposed to fudging anything – they consider it the same as lying or cheating. I’m not so strongly opposed to it, but I would prefer to run/play a game that basically has no fudging (or very very little). 

My reasons for not liking fudging isn’t because I am morally opposed, but because I want the threat of death to be real (in the game) – that’s part of the excitement and wonder and danger of playing RPGs. If, every time my character gets down toward death, the GM suddenly decides that the creatures we are fighting have 75% less hit points or suddenly have very low armor class, then the GM just took away my threat of death. That is the part of fudging that I dislike in my RPG experience. 

I had a game where my PC should have died – it was a dark sun game a long time ago and I was in an arena match, fighting as a gladiator – my opponent struck the killing blow and as my PC went down, the DM decided that I would have one final spasm of activity and I slammed my sword into my foe, killing him. Not only that, but I suddenly was NOT in negative hit points anymore!

It sucked. I didn’t choose it, the DM did, and I would have rather my PC went down honestly, heroically fighting. 

It was a very unsatisfying session because it was the DM having us play out his story, NOT letting the randomness of the dice sometimes decide what was going to happen. If my character died, it would have destroyed the DM’s next planned campaign arc, and so he couldn’t let that happen. I consider it an all-too-common DM mistake. But if he had fudged a little earlier and had my PC take out the enemy with the last hit that I had landed, would I have known? After all, I didn’t know the stats of the creature I was fighting. 

In any case – it was shortly after that session that I decided that I would try my hardest to not fudge again. I try very hard to create interesting situations for the PCs to deal with and sometimes they will die. Sometimes the things they meet are too powerful for them to beat (at least right now) and they will have to retreat and come back later – usually (95% of the time) they have some clue that the thing is more powerful than they are and they have a choice to make. If they choose to stay and fight knowing that they could die, then so be it – I’ll not rob their characters of an heroic death. If, however, they choose to flee, then I appreciate that they made a decision that let them live to fight another day and the story goes on. Either way, their decision was meaningful. Then again – I run games where the PCs chance of death at low level are very high and the players all know that, so the system supports that style.

So… I don’t know how much fudging is appropriate for a game or a group. I have this idea that fudging runs along a continuum. Some people are 100% hard-core no fudge what-so-ever. Some are on the other extreme – having the opinion that it’s okay to fudge to mold the story as long as everyone is having fun and the story calls for it. Some are clearly in the middle and possibly conflicted about fudging, but seeing it as a GM strategy to facilitate fun for everyone at the table.

This post isn’t meant to tell you what is right or wrong, it’s meant as a conversation starter, to prompt a discussion about this topic among gamers. So, what say you? Let me know in the comments!

Until next time, I wish you good gaming.

~DMSamuel