Smells Like Team Spirit
Did Sam fudge? I’ve never met a GM who hasn’t fudged at least once in some small way, as it seems to come with the territory. I’ll be honest here, I am very much a “let the dice fall” kind of GM. I do not like to kill player characters but I will. That said, I have fudged and I imagine I will fudge again in the future.
Brett’s douchebaggery is well documented across the archives of this series but he DOES have a short list of gamer commandments he follows. It’s a very short list but he does have one. If you are unclear on exactly what Brett is on about, I’ll direct your attention to the beginning of the Evil Sam arc.
I am very happy to announce that Project Ninja Panda Taco is now available for purchase from Jennisodes! Jenn did a fantastic job creating a quick, fun, and very new-player friendly game (for kids and adults alike). I did ALL of the illustration work for PNPT. This is the second game I’ve had the pleasure of illustrating (School Daze *cough*) and while it is a lot of work, I absolutely LOVE it. I highly recommend checking it out.
A new contest launches this week as well. You can check out the details right here and help me kill Bob the Fighter.
COMMENTERS: Did Sam fudge the damage and what is YOUR stance on fudging?
Oh fuck…that face in panel 5. I SEE IT IN MY NIGHTMARES, BRIAN!
I have sometimes wished that I wasn’t such a follower of letting the Dice Lie. As many characters, some of whom I haven’t wanted to kill have died due to it.
Heck my DM once offered to fudge it but I refused because it’s more important to play the dice as they lie.
I commend you on your devotion to fair play and to the spirit of the game. With great reward comes great risk. I don’t think I could do that..as a DM I mean.
That is bold, Frazer and I commend you on letting them fall where they may. I’m a 95% let them fall kind of guy. I reserve 5% for what will be memorable moments or freak dice accidents.
I think Sam did fudge, and with the look on his face it looks like by a lot. As a DM I have fudged, either giving a monster some extra Hp to have the fight lost longer or making a monster do minimum damage to as to not have a total party kill. As a player I have had a DM fudge to make sure I was only mostly dead.
My bet is yes, he fudged that one. Fudging the dice for the betterment of the story is part of the fun of being a GM. Sometimes it falls the player’s way and sometimes it doesn’t. It balances out.
Call it vindictive, but it depends on the player. Brett, taking a hit like that for the good of the party, I’d definitely fudge it. If Brett was still playing like he did earlier in the campaign (say, https://d20monkey.com/2013/03/06/the-formula/), I’d probably enjoy watching him get his knickers in a twist.
Now, the wince doesn’t get me. It’s the apologetic chuckle that turns my blood to ice.
Yeah, it’s a fudge. And it doesn’t matter: if the DM wants the game to move a certain way, there are other deus ex machina the DM can bring out to “fix” a broken story. A fudged die roll is much more subtle than an omnipotent wizard walking by and accidentally dropping a healing potion, or the Specter of Death offering a rare game of chance to live again. The whole point of the screen is to control fate. (I roll in the open like my players because I like to kill their characters. That’s why I encourage alts.)
Yeah, he fudged it, but like a lot of the other comments have said, it was worthy of being fudged. I will very rarely kill off a character for a selfless act. For a stupid act, on the other hand…
When DMing the very first game I got my girlfriend (now wife) to try out, I had her and some friends in a final showdown against a four-armed flesh golem. As soon as she stepped into range, that golem hit four crits in a row on one turn, no fudging but damn she thought I was. Eight rolls of 19-20 in a row. Still no idea how I did it. Brought her from roughly 15hp down to -40 something, and she never played again.
Fudging may have been a good idea there.
The face he made says he totally fudged that. And while I have to roll relatively in the open (due to a lack of a screen available to me) if I’ve ever had to fudge to keep the fight and whatnot from going horribly awry I totally did it w/o freaking out. So long as the other dm in the house provides the same courtesy in some of the more serious situations, i will continue to do so.
If I’m not mistaken, isn’t Brett still alive with 1 HP? If so, he’s still good. Minions do it with 1 hit point, so why can’t I!?
Right? Brett can do more with 1 HP than most can do at full.
He will do it with 1 HP. LIKE A BAWS.
I think did fudge it, but he fudged it DOWN from 20 to 19, to leave Brett 1HP and give him the opportunity for an awesome “million to one shot” chance to cheat death and make for an even more epic story 🙂
I this Sam’s face in panel 5 says “Oh shit that’s a lot of damage.” or “Ouch, that was close”
I’ve fudged, for the good of the story. Will do it again if I feel it’s called for.
Waiit… No one else has acted yet… Was that a Minor Action attack?!
(and yes, that was fudgier than a box of creamy Devon fudges who’s playing with a new group and accidentally left in an encounter 5 levels too hard. I approve)
Oh no, Qesh’Nax is finished with his turn. At my table speaking/monologuing is always a free action. 🙂
In AD&D, contrary to many above, and because of the size of my games, I give no mercy to characters acting in self-sacrifice, usually triggering “unsteady” if they actually state that they tackle someone out of the way (No miss except fumble, double damage, crit is death), though, on the other hand, if they do take it, the action is always successful in function (Cleric shielded). I like party tension, though, and run most of my games around it (7-10 player games). Most of my groups are powergamers, so it winds up being munchkin-ish at times, and it’s great fun. The idea is that I don’t want people to meta the “save the cleric” bonus: If you’re going to throw yourself in front of that fireball you better either be beast enough to take it on the chin, or dedicated enough to the action to re-roll. To be fair, the guys I run my AD&D campaign for are powergamers, and while I am very unforgiving because of such, the whole thing is player-driven (I am a firm believer in the “Create the world, be the world” mentality), and my players love it about me.
I have and do fudge, but it’s usually against the players, not for them.
The only exception to this is Stormbringer, and that’s because most of that group is purists (and I’m not the usual DM, so I respect his rules, even if I think he’s a bit of a railroading dick, he makes for some epic stories, so…).
Sam didn’t fudge the dice.
He applied a circumstance penalty to the damage to reflect both the change in target, and as a reward for excellent play.
He fudged it. Frankly, Sam’s DMing style is the kind of thing I hate (The homebrew thing+fudging), and Brett’s video game mentality is a pain.
If you think about it, Sam just completely removed that CHOICE, the choice of Brett to give up his character for the group. Brargh! 🙂
Excellent wordsmithery!
“Bring it monkey boy.”
Just wanted to point out that this is the closest thing we have had to a title-callout I can think of anywhere in the comic. xD
GUISE, Sam /IS/ the D20monkey! And the overall story of the comic is his Hero’s Journey. ;p
Bingo. On all fronts.
I believe he did it. And I would, too. I got reasons.
My usual campaign focus on storytelling. I focus more on the relationship between the characters than the actual “hit monster to gain XP” routine (I even changed the XP rewards for all that matter). Even if a character’s death can be great for the story to advance, we need to build up this character to the point we give an actual sh__ about him dying. If the character dies too soon, the only thing it does is a player who spend the next half-hour trying to think about a new character, and reset all that was done in the “character relationship with others” category. So I fudges at a couple places. On the other hand, I only give one last chance. If a player willingly puts himself on mortal danger more than once and doesn’t learn of his previous mistakes, I feel no regret on ending his life.
…
The character’s life, not the player’s.
Oh that was SUCH a total fudge. Though to be frank it’s the DM’s job TO fudge the dice if it would help the game. Fact is unless your DM is a total doucher, it’s his job to (eventually) let you win. Oh you have to earn your victories for certain, and I make damn sure all my players earn every exp they get with blood and sweat. But at the end of it all, you want them to win. You want all their hard work to feel vindicated.
I don’t. Of course, I don’t do the whole “this is your plot thread, we shall pursue it” thing so much as a world, factions and forces that want things, and the players. If players mess with forces, forces push back. I’ve had player characters flee their homes because, really, “they had made too many enemies”. Too many enemies means hit men, getting jumped, and (sometimes) player death.
So, yeah. According to your definition, I’m a total doucher. You know what? I’m proud of it.
I’m certainly not saying you shouldn’t lay down the hammer if the PC’s get uppity. You should. With the wrath of angry god. I’m saying that this glorious world you’ve spent untold hours creating is wasted if the PC’s are not around to enjoy it. That without the players, these factions and forces have no meaning. We (the DM’s) give the world structure, form and substance. The players give it the spark of life.
But to that end, life and death are two sides of a coin. The ability to die in a meaningful way could very much be part of the character (Oh, a great many paladin have I slain, and a great many more to follow. I *love* lawful characters).
I have players who’ve won, but I certainly didn’t let them, they merely conquered the world of their own volition.
Being a DM, I understand why Sam fudged the roll but I would have been pissed as a player. While he is a bit of an ass, Brett knew that was a move that could have killed his character and he took that chance. What’s the point of playing like that if the DM just negates it?
Preach it, my friend!
Because it looks so much cooler if your character has one last shot, one dangling, frayed thread of hope. if Brett’s dwarf was killed just now, would his next character have the same emotional investment in it? How would you introduce this new character? Why would this new guy care about this quest? Trust me when I say re-rolling a new character and introducing him into a game already underway is a pain in the ass.
But when you make it so the character lives, you’ve cheapened the sacrifice. I’ve had players get upset. They made that choice, they were willing to live with the results.
Ah but think about the affect it has on the character and the player to have to learn to play around the crippling disability that Brett’s gonna have to deal with now. Speaking as someone who has had one character lose his sword arm and another turned into a woman because the demi-deity that ressed me decided to be a dick (obviously the woman thing wasn’t that big of an adjust but still) its actually more fun when there’s a life or death moment, the dm fudges in your favor but then still leaves you with some sort of disability. Seriously, Brett’ll love it. Why else would he say that his character would look awesome if he survived?
Fudging is important for a DM. Sure its a game and tradgedy happens or it doesnt but its the DMs job to drive the story, make compelling challenges, and leave everyone entertained with stories to remember in the end. So if youve gotta fudge to keep a PC alive, do it. Tho death serves its purpose too. And if youre rolling crap on a monster thats suppose to give the PCs a challenge fudging it to make them more effective is also important. Players like the occasional shut out as it were. But if every encounter is easy then victory is hollow. Fudge away Sam, youre growing into a great DM.
My favorite quote about Roleplaying, by Gary Gygax himself;
“The only reason a GM roles dice is for the sound they make.”
GMs that roll – GMs who are still on the mechanics rather than the adventure.
Yeah, that was a total fudge, but that’s in most GM rules. The GM’s that let the dice fall where they may have been playing as a non-GM for too long, and don’t generally have an longview story or chronicle going. If you treat every role-playing session as if you were trying to use the game to write novels or comics, you would have a heck of a lot more dice fudging. Because a story just gets too convoluted if you keep killing off main characters.
On the other hand, if you are playing a game like Paranoia… Well, they have a six-pack of clones for a REASON…
shit, i stopped even USING dice as a GM ages ago. i simply call stuff on the fly. new players learn the GM is God at my table. no matter what silly over the top power build you bring, my monsters can, will, and do hit you, and kill you.
it’s faster, smoother, more fluid and more dramatic. and it erases all second-guessing from my` players, who might suspect me of fudging a roll.
So much for playing a game. I hope your party has fun stroking your ego.
i’m one of those freaks who never rolls low. it’s actually MORE fair to not pick up the dice as the GM(it’s also the reason i was made GM of the regular group, because everyone got tired of me either blowing up encounters or encounters being scaled aggressively harder to negate my luck).
it makes for smoother and faster encounters and the enemies seem way smarter. it lets me run far more involved and dangerous combat than most people play.
and if any player thinks something i call is unfair, i roll it, in front of everyone to see.
my group trusts me, and i don’t betray them.
Sometimes characters will die it’s unavoidable. That said as long as the DM fudges about 50/50 in either direction it’s fine. There may strictly be a need story wise to let a character get hurt, or have the whole party black out.
Heck I had a character that by level 4 had a knowledge of 20 before my dice roll. He also had that Master of Lore so I could take 1 in any knowledge rank and my base started at 13(counting bonus and mod). There was nothing I couldn’t actually know, but for the sake of the story sometimes I had to fail a knowledge roll, even though the roll said I succeed.
So fudging is fine as long as it’s not to alwayse hurt the players, or alwayse help them. If it serves the game and makes it better that’s fine.
I used to fudge rolls, but then my players killed the god of death.
Now dying really doesn’t mean anything anymore, and there’s no reason to fudge rolls.
i had a player group that wanted to go forth and kill a god.
yeah that did not end well. even as mighty as they were, the fact that they went to the home turf of a GOD was a tremendous mistake.
the mistake most D&D players(in front of and behind the screen) make is assuming gods are even remotely so weak as to be within the longest odds the mightiest group of players could ever dream of.
they are GODS. players, despite all their power, feats, tricks, twinks, and plans, are NOT.
but with that said, your table, your rules, my table, my rules.
Oh believe me, I didn’t think he’d actually win. Actually, I didn’t think he’d even try to fight the god.
But…
This party was something ridiculous, and I was simply unaware that the psion/monk could deal 500 damage in a single round.
and Gods are immortal. allowing them to actually WIN was on you, bro.
When I GM I Fudge the numbers sometimes, both ways. I usually run “Homebrew” Style games though and leave the straight DnD to my buddies to DM. My Old game was an economic RTS style game in which the players owned a region and got to build it up, my new one is similar but with more combat (RTS, Economic War Campaign where they take the land by force and build it up) In my games I also ask the players what they think is fair, ie how much units of wood does on tree give, how many units does the standard house consume.
I’ve seen that face once. It was when a DM failed a saving throw vs magic on one of his big bad beasties. That was nigh on 20 years ago, and I remember that sweet disintegrating victory to this day.
He fudged; I know that face. I’ve MADE that face.
That said, fudging can be thematically warranted. Which is more interesting, that Brett’s character is killed or maimed? That said, you have to be careful when handing out story armor like that; I usually do it early, maybe once if at all, then take the gloves off after a couple of levels.
Confession time: In three modules I’ve GMed since I started, I’ve fudged every single time. I REALLY didn’t want to let the characters go.
Of course, now I’m running Call of Cthulhu so it’s only a matter of time…
I slay when it’s earned and I fudge when it’s earned, but I’m a much better actor… 33 years practice.!
I don’t tend to fudge dice, since I have a rule where you die at negative hitpoints depending on the character. But if they die, I make a new character for them, and work it into the plot. But I WILL fudge if it is good for the story.
Yeah, it sure looks like he fudged. And Brett didn’t sound too thrilled about it either. Not that I blame him in the slightest; the whole point of using dice is to introduce risk – if you aren’t going to respect the dice, why are you even using them? You’d be better off with a diceless system if you don’t want the risk.
So no, no to fudging. Sure it will mean PCs getting killed, but “Anyone Can Die” is a trope for a reason. Nothing saps tension quicker than plot armour. And it cuts both ways too; sometimes the Big Bad will go down like a bitch even if the DM wanted him to escape. Just roll with it, be creative. It’s good to be able to adapt to the unexpected. If the outcome is predetermined, you might as well just write a fucking book.
You don’t have to fudge dice, but sometimes it’s absolutely worth fudging it.
I actually keep a tally, it’s one of my home-brew rules, and I inform the players about it before hand. I also have a great poker face, so they aren’t ever really sure if I fudge or not.
It’s basically like fate/destiny/reroll points. I start each session with five. For every point I have, I can subtract ‘1’ from any result I get, to a maximum of five for a single roll.
I can do this at any time, but only when it would actually be fitting for the scene/beneficial for the players and ongoing story.
I’ve never used it during combat, it’s usually to help them get out of traps when the dice isn’t being very favorable. TPK’s are -not- fun.