Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 erk_ Jan 30, 2009 12:06:30	I've read plenty of debates among GMs about how much they think rules should be fudged, so I am not asking about that. I am curious about the perspective of players: in essence, 1) Do you expect your GM to play every roll straight, fudging nothing for or against you in any situation? 2) Do you keep track of enemy HP and stats to backcheck that your GM is running consistently? 3) Do you care if the GM occasionally chucks out a rule for cinematic effect (eg. "Don't bother rolling bluff, your RP was fine. He's convinced.")? I'm not talking about extreme cases here, though everyone loves to hear GM horror stories so feel free to vent. I generally mean "assuming the game is going reasonably well otherwise".
#2 Zherog Jan 30, 2009 12:46:11	I spend way more time DMing than playing. So many of my answers are probably skewed from that point of view. But here's my opinions anyway. 1) Do you expect your GM to play every roll straight, fudging nothing for or against you in any situation? In my opinion, the absolute biggest sin in roleplaying games is dice fudging. I once had a player who was a fun roleplayer, made interesting characters, contributed to the game -- but cheated on the dice rolls. From that moment on, I've always made my rolls out in the open and I encourage (but don't require) my players to do the same. (although for the remainder of that campaign, I did require all rolls out in the open.) 2) Do you keep track of enemy HP and stats to backcheck that your GM is running consistently? Nope. I have enough to keep track of on my own character sheet. Now, that said... I do attempt to "reverse engineer" the enemies' stats, trying to figure out things such as armor class and such based on various rolls made by myself and other players. That's more for self-curiosity though. I've never, for example, questioned why my 23 attack roll missed while Bob's 23 attack roll hit. I trust my DM to have a reason, even if I don't know what it is. 3) Do you care if the GM occasionally chucks out a rule for cinematic effect (eg. "Don't bother rolling bluff, your RP was fine. He's convinced.")? I'm not talking about extreme cases here, though everyone loves to hear GM horror stories so feel free to vent. I generally mean "assuming the game is going reasonably well otherwise". Generally speaking, no - this doesn't bother me. At least, when it's done once in a while. I know I've done it in the past as DM. For example, I once had a player who wanted to charge a BBEG that had been tormenting them for some time. The problem was that there was a huge bonfire between the player and the BBEG. I allowed him to jump over/through the fire and get to the BBEG, inflicting a bit of fire damage on the way. By the rules, that's simply not permitted. But I loved the way the player described it, and I loved his motivations for doing so. He didn't want the BBEG to get away, again, and so was willing to go to all sorts of lengths to make sure the battle happened. So I allowed it.
#3 erk_ Jan 30, 2009 13:38:56	I spend way more time DMing than playing. So many of my answers are probably skewed from that point of view. But here's my opinions anyway. In my opinion, the absolute biggest sin in roleplaying games is dice fudging. I once had a player who was a fun roleplayer, made interesting characters, contributed to the game -- but cheated on the dice rolls. From that moment on, I've always made my rolls out in the open and I encourage (but don't require) my players to do the same. (although for the remainder of that campaign, I did require all rolls out in the open.) See, I've heard this opinion from plenty of GMs, but I've never heard it from a player. That is why I'm curious. I fudge rolls, very occasionally to raise a fight's challenge level and more frequently to allow a player with crap luck to catch a break once in a while. We play for fun and story, we're not playing a dice game. However, I know different GMs have different thoughts on this... I wonder how the non-GMs around feel. Generally speaking, no - this doesn't bother me. At least, when it's done once in a while. I know I've done it in the past as DM. For example, I once had a player who wanted to charge a BBEG that had been tormenting them for some time. The problem was that there was a huge bonfire between the player and the BBEG. I allowed him to jump over/through the fire and get to the BBEG, inflicting a bit of fire damage on the way. By the rules, that's simply not permitted. But I loved the way the player described it, and I loved his motivations for doing so. He didn't want the BBEG to get away, again, and so was willing to go to all sorts of lengths to make sure the battle happened. So I allowed it. A good example. I agree: cool, inventive ideas or effective roleplaying should trump dice rolls and rules once in a while.
#4 sblaxman Jan 30, 2009 13:48:29	1) Do you expect your GM to play every roll straight, fudging nothing for or against you in any situation? 100%... I'd be very annoyed if I found a DM was fudging 2) Do you keep track of enemy HP and stats to backcheck that your GM is running consistently? Never. First, how am I supposed to know how much HP the enemies have? Second, it's to metagamey. Third, I wouldn't play with a DM I didn't trust anyway. 3) Do you care if the GM occasionally chucks out a rule for cinematic effect (eg. "Don't bother rolling bluff, your RP was fine. He's convinced.")? That is fine by me. The rules are a guideline, not set it stone. The dice should always be played as they lie, but a slight rule tweak in a situation is ok. A really well thought out plan by the players can be ruled as a success (or in your example, good RP can trump a roll).
#5 Zherog Jan 30, 2009 14:14:56	See, I've heard this opinion from plenty of GMs, but I've never heard it from a player. That is why I'm curious. I fudge rolls, very occasionally to raise a fight's challenge level and more frequently to allow a player with crap luck to catch a break once in a while. We play for fun and story, we're not playing a dice game. However, I know different GMs have different thoughts on this... I wonder how the non-GMs around feel. As a player, I don't want the DM to fudge, either. Failure is part of the game; I don't want a DM to remove it. If I didn't want the dice to have an affect on the game, I'd play a diceless system such as amber.
#6 Nyarlathotep Jan 30, 2009 14:41:23	I don't like fudging dice, either as a DM or a player. I am a "Let the Dice Fall Where They May" kinda guy. I enjoy the 'game' part of 'role-playing game' as much as the 'role-playing' part. And cheating on dice really screws up that half of the equation, IMO. In fact, when I DM, I don't even bother with a screen, though I have it nearby as a source of charts and tables. I only hide rolls if it is something like a perception check, where the PC shouldn't know if he failed or there was just nothing to find. Now sometimes, as a DM, I will wing it when I realize I have made things too tough or too easy on my PCS, but usually I will handle it with in-game events rather than fudging dice rolls. Is my party headed for a sure-fire TPK because I badly over-estimated them? Well, HOORAY, The cavalry just arrived! Is my big bad too weak to stand up to the PCs? Well, either he was just a puppet of a more powerful evil or a bunch of his lackeys show up. But even that I only do rarely and only if it is due to an honest mistake on my part (not realizing how powerful something is, for example). If the players are failing or suceeding beyond expectations because of their OWN wits (or lack thereof) I let it stand. I find that a much more satisfactory method of fixing problems than fudging dice rolls, and I prefer it that way as a player too.
#7 jimprofit Jan 30, 2009 15:00:54	I've read plenty of debates among GMs about how much they think rules should be fudged, so I am not asking about that. I am curious about the perspective of players: in essence, 1) Do you expect your GM to play every roll straight, fudging nothing for or against you in any situation? 2) Do you keep track of enemy HP and stats to backcheck that your GM is running consistently? 3) Do you care if the GM occasionally chucks out a rule for cinematic effect (eg. "Don't bother rolling bluff, your RP was fine. He's convinced.")? 1) No, but ussually it'd be nice if we let the dice decide. That's what they're there for. We don't want to end up like those fruity larpers! 2) No, I trust my DM to have them die. Also I don't know how much HP/stat blocks the monsters have. When I DM orcs come in all different shapes and sizes. You could have a king kong size orc who the other orcs worship, a really fat orc with higher strength but lower speed. There is no predictable stat block. 3) Yep, especially when it makes me look favorably. I'm always the teacher's pet.
#8 navar100 Jan 30, 2009 15:02:01	I don't mind fudging, but I find I don't want to know it happened.
#9 mellored Jan 30, 2009 15:15:53	1) I've fudged, when i rolled two crit's in a row from some thieves that would of out right killed a character, from full health to beyond negative bloodied. They where lvl 1 and didn't have any way to bring him back to life, so i "forgot" to add in the second sneak attack damage and just left him down. The dice where in the open, and i let him know he was only alive by the grace of the DM. I could understand fudging for some extreme cases like that, but there's not much point in rolling dice if your just going to fudge it. 2) As for double checking, i've often had players keep track of HP or initiative, particularly when i'm running a big battle. It speeds things up having a helper. 3) I like to encourage RP, so i give the players a bonus (usually +2) for good RPing, though i still make them roll the dice. Also the DMG say's your supposed to let the players do things that arn't in the rules, "say YES" and such.
#10 CCS Jan 30, 2009 15:34:20	1) Do you expect your GM to play every roll straight, fudging nothing for or against you in any situation? Yes. Although I don't presume to know what additional modifiers he's using. Well, ok, I'll see the #s/effects quick enough - but as to their cause??? You know, it's entirely possible that there's circumstances in effect that I & my character are not aware of. Maybe I'll be able discover what those are throughout play. Maybe I'll never know. Doesn't matter though. So all I ask is that the DM not just be doing it arbitrarily.... 2) Do you keep track of enemy HP and stats to backcheck that your GM is running consistently? No. Doing so is a waste of my time and a direct insult to the DM. .Because the DM is always right. .Because you can't win an argument vrs someone who's not wrong. .Because, even though something might not add up from my side of the screen, that doesn't mean it's wrong on their side. Refer back to my comment about circumstances/effects of wich I'm unaware. I do not presume I'm entitled to an explanation. 3) Do you care if the GM occasionally chucks out a rule for cinematic effect (eg. "Don't bother rolling bluff, your RP was fine. He's convinced.")? No.
#11 sblaxman Jan 30, 2009 15:51:12	Although I don't presume to know what additional modifiers he's using. Well, ok, I'll see the #s/effects quick enough - but as to their cause??? You know, it's entirely possible that there's circumstances in effect that I & my character are not aware of. Maybe I'll be able discover what those are throughout play. Maybe I'll never know. Doesn't matter though. So all I ask is that the DM not just be doing it arbitrarily.... A good point as well... I fully expect the DM to be using multiple modifiers based on situation, unknown effects, ability scores, etc, which I as a player am unaware of. Now, the DM may roll a 16, but with modifiers it becomes a 20. It is impossible to know (as a player) if he was simply adding 4 for the heck of it, or if he knew ahead of the roll that is was +4. The view from a players perspective is the same though: I fully expect him to be honest. He should know, before the roll, what the +/- is, and add it no matter what the roll. I don't want him tacking on a -2 to a roll what would have killed me, just because it would have killed me.
#12 Reg06 Jan 30, 2009 16:18:09	1) I don't ever want to see a roll fudged. Once the dice are rolled, what happens happens. If the DM fudges the rolls the game loses its threat, and success is based upon the whim of the DM rather than fate and/or skill. This goes for fudges that work for me as well- I don't want the DM turning crits into misses that don't kill my character. 2) Not really. I always attempt to figure out the monsters' stats (and those of other players), but I consider this just a mini-game. It's fun, and I just do it for the challenge, but I don't actually care what the stats are. 3) I am completely fine with it. I would hate to see the DM turn a 19 into a 20, but I'd be fine if the DM says "the encounter is just about over, you can't lose, let's not waste time- you finish off the last hobgoblin", or something similar for non-combat encounters. This ties into #1 for me- the dice results are set in stone (I have some very old school, or stereotypical gamery views about dice), but the DM should be telling a good story, and the rules should not get in the way of that.
#13 tequila_sunrise Jan 30, 2009 17:51:23	Assuming we're not talking about horror situations... 1) Do you expect your GM to play every roll straight, fudging nothing for or against you in any situation? No. I think the game suffers if the GM doesn't occasionally fudge a roll. 2) Do you keep track of enemy HP and stats to backcheck that your GM is running consistently? No, and I would consider it rude, **** and disruptive if another player called the GM out for not running monsters by the book. I don't care if others like to reverse engineer monsters though. 3) Do you care if the GM occasionally chucks out a rule for cinematic effect (eg. "Don't bother rolling bluff, your RP was fine. He's convinced.")? No. Sometimes rolls just aren't necessary and sometimes rules just get in the way of fun. TS
#14 dirtyfrank Jan 30, 2009 18:07:58	I spend more time DMing so my answers may have some DM bias to them. 1) Do you expect your GM to play every roll straight, fudging nothing for or against you in any situation? I don't mind as long as it is done to keep things interesting. It shouldn't be used that often and only to keep things interesting rather than being to tough to manage or to weak for entertainment. 2) Do you keep track of enemy HP and stats to backcheck that your GM is running consistently? Only if I am fighting a boss like monster. It usually isn't just me but rather done as a group effort. Hp is not tracked for normal monsters. 3) Do you care if the GM occasionally chucks out a rule for cinematic effect (eg. "Don't bother rolling bluff, your RP was fine. He's convinced.")? If it makes the game more exciting and such then I'm OK with it. If it can get everyone at the table immersed into the game then by all means do so, and this is coming from someone that has been called a rules lawyer before. Now if it seems as if the DM is just doing so to protect something such as the BBEG, other NPC, story, and anything else then it can be quite annoying. It can be equally annoying if the DM uses the rules, and every loop hole, to do such. If the DM does it to be fun then it's good. If the DM does it to protect things that they spent time developing then it's bad.
#15 ferol_debtor_of_torm Jan 30, 2009 19:15:54	I've read plenty of debates among GMs about how much they think rules should be fudged, so I am not asking about that. I am curious about the perspective of players: in essence, 1) Do you expect your GM to play every roll straight, fudging nothing for or against you in any situation? 2) Do you keep track of enemy HP and stats to backcheck that your GM is running consistently? 3) Do you care if the GM occasionally chucks out a rule for cinematic effect (eg. "Don't bother rolling bluff, your RP was fine. He's convinced.")? I'm not talking about extreme cases here, though everyone loves to hear GM horror stories so feel free to vent. I generally mean "assuming the game is going reasonably well otherwise". I haven't read the whole thread but here are my opinions on the subject. 1. Yes. Fudging rolls sucks. It ruins the integrity of the game and creates mistrust between the players and DM. If your encounters are too easy build tougher encounters. If an encounter is too hard don't be afraid of a total party wipeout. Find a way to work it into the story. Maybe the heroes are captured and they have to find a way to escape. Perhaps you can use the situation to give everyone a chance to try new characters as a rescue party. 2. I don't track the DM's math unless I know he has a tendency to cheat. If the problem is too bad I will just not play with him/her. 3. Chucking out a rule in the name of fun sounds cool but in my experience it just sucks. Your speech might have been good but allowing a character to auto-pass a bluff check invalidates the character who actually invested in it. It also sets a precedent. Why should anyone train bluff when you can just "roleplay" your way out of the problem. What about characters who need to train bluff as a prerequisite for a paragon path or a feat? Aren't they getting screwed since their investment is essentially useless? You have to think twice about changing things in the name of "fun".
#16 lormador Jan 30, 2009 19:19:14	1) Do you expect your GM to play every roll straight, fudging nothing for or against you in any situation? I find this somewhat of a confusing question. While it seems straightforwardly enough to reference a situation in which the DM pretends that a result of a die roll is 3 rather than 17, I think we're forgetting the role that the DM already played in setting up the encounter in the first place. Let's take wilderness random encounters, for instance. There are tables for encounter frequency and content. Whether these are even used is a DM decision, and the decision not to use them could be interpreted as a kind of 'fudging' though I don't see it that way. Assuming the DM does use random wilderness encounters, he might make his own tables or use published ones, but in principle there is no difference here, because the DM will use some criterion of selection to place creatures on the table with a greater or lesser frequency, typically on the basis of the environment entry in the monster description. Many products include such encounter tables, such as the DM screens, Shining South, Underdark, etc. They constitute a tradition stretching back to 1st edition. And almost inevitably, these encounter tables include a range of encounter difficulties up to and including fairly old dragons, etc. So my objection is simply this. We would question the sanity of a DM who, upon the beginning of a shallow and brief Underdark journey for our party of four hard-won 5th level characters, dutifully consulted the encounter table, rolled up five mind flayers with thralls, and locked us into a hopeless encounter. We would be hurt, angry, and the DM's defense of "the dice told me to do it" would ring rather hollow. Regarding Bluff checks, we usually make the die roll first and then RP according to the result. It's more of a challenge.
#17 shadow_viper Jan 30, 2009 19:54:52	With a bluff check, I would award a +2 favorable condition adjustment for a well roleplayed speech, pharse, etc.
#18 sblaxman Jan 30, 2009 20:09:40	So my objection is simply this. We would question the sanity of a DM who, upon the beginning of a shallow and brief Underdark journey for our party of four hard-won 5th level characters, dutifully consulted the encounter table, rolled up five mind flayers with thralls, and locked us into a hopeless encounter. We would be hurt, angry, and the DM's defense of "the dice told me to do it" would ring rather hollow. If the DM rolled up 5 mind flayers, I'd expect him to play out 5 mind flayers and wipe the floor with us. Different strokes
#19 Fedosu Jan 31, 2009 0:17:19	Four words. The Dice Are Law
#20 Krusk Jan 31, 2009 1:56:23	1- The only fudging I would let go would be fudging on loot tables when something dumb is randomly rolled. 2- No thats anoying to me and the DM. I will reverse engineer which defense is lowest, and target that by my own use of attack rolls. And I will speak up if "an 18 hit last round, did something change?" But also accept "yes" as an answer. 3- Not unless it hurts the PCs.If it is, you will win the fight easily anyway, we skip it. Thats fine.
#21 kouk Jan 31, 2009 4:36:39	Speaking for myself and my usual players (who also DM sometimes) I think we generally are there to have fun, and not compete with the dice or the monsters. I think the DM is more of a "game master" than the "referee." First of all, Fudging is not just dice rolls, it's any time the DM makes an "executive decision" that has weak rules, no rules, or ambiguous rules. Just what the heck kind of action is it to "sink" in the ooze and how far would he go? How much damage does that tree branch do? Could the character learn anything about this situation with History? Whichever way the DM ends up ruling on those issues, it is pretty much is 1; in the players' favor or 2; not in the players' favor. More broadly it could be interpreted as being 1; to the players' enjoyment or 2; to the players' disappointment. I personally don't expect the DM to fudge constantly so he controls everything by whim, or just to save a character from dying, or just to make an NPC seem baddass. 99.4% or more d20 rolls should be legit. I leave it up to the DM's discretion on whether it would be best to have something happen a little differently than the dice say. Certainly DMs aren't spot on all the time with their judgment, but usually. Maybe the last monster gets a few HP shaved off of it. Maybe the fight is dragging on and the players are bored, so the monster "fails" his saving throw for ongoing damage. Maybe the Rogue has been itching to sneak around but failed 4 times the session already with 1's and 2's, and finally hits only a DC 14 Stealth, and it would be cooler if the guard only "rolls" 12 or 13 Perception this time. Certainly it doesn't work if you fudge frequently so that players never fail. They should fail a fair amount so that successes still mean something. But I don't think the DM should consider himself a slave to the dice, as either a player or DM. However with most games I think you know in advance what you are getting into, and know if a guy is brutally going to go by the dice. It is sort of like, "No I don't like when the DM fudges, but I want him to reserve the right to." Summary: I think most players generally like outcomes where they 1: Win by their wits 2: Win by the dice 3: Lose by their wits But they don't like it when they 4: Lose by the dice (with really great wits). If they TPK based on their poor strategy or the enemies' brilliant showing, they may not be thrilled with the outcome but they will still be able to say "That was an awesome/memorable fight." If they TPK because nobody could roll above 10 in seven rounds while the enemies couldn't roll less than a 19, they will only be able to say, "Wow that sucked." As for #2 and #3, I personally don't try to bookkeep for the DM because like I said he's controlling the pacing and our enjoyment. I do try to figure out monsters' defenses and estimate their HP as a matter of being a player who's paying attention though. It's pretty much expected I think. I don't care for "throwing out rules" though I'm OK with "making up rules for situations not covered." Once we start fighting, if the bad guy needs to escape he better spend his darn actions appropriately the same way a player would be forced to. If I never noticed he broke a "rule" though, I wouldn't mind too much. The main problem is when it seems something is "obviously" ruled purely in the favor of an NPC that the players feel cheated.
#22 myou Jan 31, 2009 13:12:58	1) Fudging against a player and getting them killed wouldn't be acceptable, but if a party has had a run of bad luck and will be TPK'ed otherwise, then fudging a key roll or two can keep the campaign alive. No-one in my groups wants a TPK. But we wouldn't want to know if the DM did it or not, in any case, it should be a very rare exception if he does do it. 2) No, we don't have time and it's rude to check up on the DM all the time. 3) A long as it's for storytelling effect and doesn't hamper or help either side too much, it would be fine if he did it occasionally. But not all the time.
#23 MrCustomer Feb 01, 2009 0:15:34	Also mostly a DM myself, but I will give my perspectrive from both sides. 1) Do you expect your GM to play every roll straight, fudging nothing for or against you in any situation? For the most part, yes i do. However from my expereince at DMing I have learned that the DM is not omnipotent, nor can he predict every single possible combination of events and may be forced to fudge a roll or two because he overestimated the situation. I say this because I have made mistakes as the DM and I view such "fudging" as correcting. For example I recently made a scenerio with a liche wizard flanked by some tough minions. But was careless and didn't realize that the encounter was far too difficult and would be a TPK, and didn't realize it until midway through. I made several corrections. What I do expect from the DM, is that if and when he does fudge something, that he is fair about it, has a good reason, and adjusts the rewards accordingly. generally it should only be done to correct an error or oversight on the DM's part. Another reason a DM has that is sort of ligit for fudging, is sometimes they wish for a certain effect to occur, but to make that happen they need to have the statistics made to favour that effect, and that is often risky and they end up having to adjust or fudge the roll in the end. For example, I want to hit the fighter really, really hard with a trap, I want it to be dramatic and do alot of damage, problem is I need to make it do that damage I need to have it statistically likely to happen, thus a very, very high damage roll is called for. ie if I want to do 90 hp damage then statistically 30d6 damage is required to be rolled, which has a potential to do 180 hp damage, killing the 120 hp fighter. Dm realizing this was a mistake to do, fudges the roll when he gets that 180hp and says it does the 90 he had originally planned. This isn't cheating, it's correcting a mistake, he should have used 15d6, maximized (90 damage) in the first place. 2) Do you keep track of enemy HP and stats to backcheck that your GM is running consistently? No, not to keep tabs on the DM. I do keep notes to determine the difficulty of the situation, or to gain hints about what to do next. Backchecking your DM is in a way rude. Yes he may of doubled the hp of the group of goblins you were fighting, butu accept it as he is trying to make an encounter with goblins be a certain level of chalenge to the players. I myself often give monsters PC classes, or other effects not mentioned in the monster manual, such as the goblins being aided with a stock of potions (improving their statistics considerably) that they have drunken before ambushing the party, combined with the goblin leader having a few fighter levels, would result in the goblins having more AC, HP, Attack etc then they do in the monster manual. I would only really complain if the DM didn't also adjust the rewards (XP and Treasure) accordingly to how he adjusts the encounter. Tougher goblins with potions should have substantially better treasure, and give more XP. 3) Do you care if the GM occasionally chucks out a rule for cinematic effect (eg. "Don't bother rolling bluff, your RP was fine. He's convinced.")? This should be something that, when used correctly and fairly, improves the game. While there are many skill checks, simply rolling a skill should never be as good as having a good idea or good rping. Ussually these just apply modifiers to your roll (such as giving a present might give a bonus to your diplomacy check) but occasionally they are good enough that rolling is made moot and you are and should be given a success. Simply put, many of the skills are there to arbitrate aspects of the character that the player himself does not possess. The player may not be an eliquent speaker, or as clever as the PC that he is playing, and thus the rolls represent these aspects instead. As a player, I find that there is little worse then coming up with a briliant idea, put the effort out on making it all happen, only to have it fail based entirely on a heartless dice roll.
#24 Cohen95 Feb 01, 2009 1:20:57	1) Do you expect your GM to play every roll straight, fudging nothing for or against you in any situation? Generally speaking, openly rolled dice should be played as they fall. I find 4e has more than enough contingency options that you don't have to worry about it. As for behind the screen fudge, I assume the DMs playing it straight. I've only ever known a DM fudged a roll once, and that's because I was sitting next to him and saw it. He changed the result for dramatic effect. He didn't want that character's death to be so random and pointless. That's fair, to me. EDIT: To me, the most overlooked rule in 4e is the "knockout" rule. If you, as a DM, find yourself in an encounter that looks to be guaranteed TPK, don't kill them, knock them out. Accidentally going to one-shot the squishy? Knock him out, and have that monster drag the character out of the combat, or use him as a hostage. Keep it interesting. This is one of the "contingencies" I was referring to. Fudging a roll is never a good solution, and should be a last ditch effort, and never done more than once in a blue moon. As a DM (since '00) I've fudged three rolls, all 3.X 2) Do you keep track of enemy HP and stats to backcheck that your GM is running consistently? As others have said, I occasionally will "reverse-engineer" a monster, more as a hobby or a little something to keep my mind engaged on other players' turns. Generally, the way we play is we roll our attack and state the modified result and which defense is targeted, so about halfway through the BBEG fight it's pretty easy to guess who hit and who didn't, which turns into, "Crap, 23 vs Armor." or "Yes! 29 vs Will!" We always have to declare the result and defense, though, no matter what. 3) Do you care if the GM occasionally chucks out a rule for cinematic effect (eg. "Don't bother rolling bluff, your RP was fine. He's convinced.")? Absolutely. It's tricky, though. If the player is roleplaying a skill that the character doesn't have, I get a little peeved, but only because it's bad roleplaying, to me. Other than that, though, and especially if it's a trained skill, from a character with a high charisma, our groups have always preferred that route.
#25 ethelion Feb 01, 2009 5:59:20	1.) No, he has some creativity allowed. For cinematic important rolls, he rolls in the open often, but we take the word for it often than not. It's a trust situation, if he wants to stop a game breaking 'accident' by lashing out with a crit on someone he can, I don't care unless he's out to get a player for no reason. 2.) Once again no. My DM makes his material, bases it off other references. He writes down enemy HP taken on the board and gives a bloody status update so we have an approximate enemy full HP range. 3.) Rule of Cool applies. You do something awesome RP wise, you can get away with it. A roll can accompany something, with penalities or bonuses on DM discretion. However if it just makes awesome sense straight out he can give it away. Fudging/Altercations are fine as long as it doesn't happen too often, or break the game too much.
#26 etarnon Feb 02, 2009 0:51:57	1) Do you expect your GM to play every roll straight, fudging nothing for or against you in any situation? I say play it as it lays. It adds challenge to the game. If it's battletech, and we got to hit the untarnished enemy, and we miss then we fall back oir use cover. One of our allies might fall, but if we get the enemy we get him. Fair and square. Ditto for d20 modern, or D&D whatever. It's all HP and AC and assessments of our skills and endurance. If someone is low on HP fade to the back and heal. Or use a bow. Sometimes we as PCs get ambushed, we do what we can and deal, sometimes PCs die. Moreso in modern style games, a lot of pcs die... but we press on. If a guy fudges a die roll to save my PC, that I know is a clean death by bad guys, I'll not show up for the next session, and depart the game, because that DM has just blown my suspension of disbelief. Dragon breathes on my PC = typically dead. If he somehow only takes 10 HP? Come on. I call shenanigans. The noted encounter with 5 mind flayers. Bring it on. We die, we do, it's a tough life being an adventurer. If we beat them, we are the hreos that totally wiped out the mindflayer squad from hell. I have PCs in my games that, when confronted by such rose to the challenge. A party of 10 heroes once had to run through the dark forest of the spiderwode in my game. only the ranger in the lead knew the way. They made it past literally 10 encounters each of 5-10 goblins riding spiders. My prediction was that only three of the 10 would make it out alive. But they made it, and used all of their potions, arriving exhausted at the Keep of the Ranger Lord. Bonus XP to all for that one. Players are smart, don't fluff the game for them. If it's tough, it is. If it's impossible, knowing all is fair otherwise we can say no we ain't doing it. people that get the idea to sneak into the red drake's lair sleeping, it's all about risk vs/ reward. If they make it in and out through stealth, they are wildly rich. If not, they get toasted, and no resurrection. Choose. As a low Level PC, I ain't going. 2) Do you keep track of enemy HP and stats to backcheck that your GM is running consistently? No, it's metagaming. If I don't trust the DM, i'm not staying in the game as a player. I'd rather stay in a fair game thst is not as well written storyline, as in a great storyline with a fluff DM where we can never face any difficulty. If we get up against some say typical 6 HP goblins, and these we are hitting are taking 15 to kill, I'm not *****ing at the DM. I'm saying to myself and others in the party, "These are the toughest buggers I've met in goblindom!", and play on. 3) Do you care if the GM occasionally chucks out a rule for cinematic effect I'd rather they not. I feel i've invested in skills and feats and whatnot. I'd like to see every skill used. The key is the DM choosing target numbers / DCs appropriately.
#27 nowiwantmydmg Feb 02, 2009 15:33:29	1) I don't mind DM fudging as long as it's against me. The caveat is that it should only be for dramatic effect and that it should cost something. If he misses repeatedly with his BBEG due to poor rolls and wants to spend a resource (whether an action point or power or some HP) to ensure a hit next time than I'm all for it. Absolutely against fudging in my favour, but then I've always thought that death was one of the more enjoyable aspects of Roleplaying(in that it puts the endcap on a character's story: I'm not a weirdo). 2) Not really, but I'm an accountant by training and good at math by nature so I tend to have a good idea of the damage tally on most foes 95%+ of the time anyway. If I do make a comment about it, it will be an RP comment and not a meta-gaming one though. 3) Go for it, Imagination and Fun are for more important and enjoyable for our group than strict adherence to the rules, but then we've never really liked the whole "die rolls for social skills" thing anyway.