Fudging The Game - RPG Philosophy
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.ค. 2024
- Is it cheating or curating? Gamers have a lot of opinions on GM fudging. These are mine. When to do it, when not to, how to, and how not to change the game behind the Game Master Screen.
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Song: Fight or Flight by Ethan Meixsell.
#ttrpg
00:00 Intro
01:15 Is It Cheating
02:54 How Often
04:47 Dice Fudging
08:15 Failing Forward
10:47 When Should I Fudge
13:52 If the Players Find Out
17:00 Requires Trust
19:31 Outro
I am shocked - SHOCKED, that there is fudging going on here! Is there no depth to which you will not sink? If Dweebles - a man who clearly holds your GMing in the highest esteem - watches this video, he'll be heartbroken...
\*Hands over an envelope * Your winnings, sir.
When you said you deleted the older video my first reaction was "Oh no, the skit." It is literally one of my favorite parts of the video, and I am glad you recycled it.
Thank you for attributing the music used in the montage sequence. I've wondered where to find this song for a while XD
Agreed on all counts. I'd hate to lose that epic battle with the evil paladin. :)
I had the same reaction; that Black Paladin sketch is epic.
It is a fantastic skit, and I'm glad it survived
Not only favourite part of the video, that's likely my favourite part of this channel.^^
Had to pause the video to say this skit is probably my favorite on your channel - you have many great ones, but this really takes the cake. From “Well, we followed the dice...” to that epic montage, solid all the way through ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
The BlackPalladin bit is so METAL....
Agreed, so glad Seth kept that part from his old video
I just imagined Kevin Hart in a black spiked armor getting crits with his Dwarven Waraxe. Because if Kevin Hart was in D&D he would obviously be either a Dwarf or a Hafling.
Hehe, palladium, hehe, metal
I like to roll the dice every now and then for no reason whatsoever, then just look at the result and go, "Huh." and keep playing like nothing happened. Keeps them on their toes for when you actually NEED to roll for something and you either don't want them to suspect or need it to be an actual secret roll.
When I started GMing I fudged to much and would often go sessions without PCs getting any damage (I was 11) because I was afraid they wouldn’t want to play it if they got hurt. In my experience the Players like to struggle. It’s dramatic and players will start know when you fudge if you do it too much.
I am the most forgiving Call of Cthulhu Keeper ever. I never kill players unless it would make for a really awesome death. I also fudge the sanity rules to the favor of narrative.
I'm the player who can feel a lack of tension in a game and will ask the GM to kill me off to get it cracked way up. The other players don't get it. My GM usually doesn't get it. But if done right this can help greatly
I feel like I should have fudged in an earlier game...because they got way too little damage because I miscalculated their strength (and the dice were in their favour). One of them even told me after the session that he found it a bit too easy and not really challenging enough :/
What about fudging to add damage?
@@darthsidious6380 This entirely depends. Some encounters look good on paper - but turn out to be painstakingly boring because - depending on the system you use, the enemies aren't able to hit the players at all, or do so little damage it doesn't really count.
In this cases you can and should taking the reigns of the encounter tighter and scaling up the damage.
There are a few videos out there about scaling up an encounter in the right way.
So instead of just adding a random number to the damage - you should weave it into your narrative.
The shaman behind the goblins might mumble unintelligible words, a soft green glow starts to surround his minions and you see how their muscles bulge and grow under their greyish green skin! Voila Double Damage - have fun.
Or let them drink a potion (increases their armor class and damge) and so on. As long as it is visible for the players why the enemy suddenly is harder than before - it's fine.
I like throwing Fudge at my GM
Will fudge dice rolls for fudge!
As a GM, I like fudge. You shall live.
I wish my players threw fudge at me
Delicious!
Your welcome any time at my game :)
I like failing forward for Library Use rolls in Call of Cthulhu. If they look for info, I like them to find it so if they fail a roll I just increase the time it takea to find info. Once a player pushed a Library Use and I had him fall asleep for about 2 game hours. He still found the info, but it made their time frame a lot more tense.
This is a good way to handle it, especially when failed die rolls either have no immediate consequence or failure ends up gating off part of the adventure. Example, in a Deadlands adventure, the players have to make a Streetwise roll to find the specific NPC they need to continue the adventure. A couple of ways to handle that is either don't roll at all, or failure eats up more time if they're under a time crunch (they aren't in the module), or it could trigger an encounter and they find the contact anyway.
Yes, depending on the time period and library they might get stuck on finding false information, reading something only partly related or once had a kid see some of the accult tome they brought with them whilst the player was asleep at a desk and have to deal with the guilt of a child being traumatised by their failure.
Specialy that you usually have a take 10, or take 20 for those kind of rolls, they just require time.
I'm not a fan of binary success/fail
@@jasonnewell7036 Same, binaries suck there's at least 4 other options, succeed and, succeed but, fail and, and fail but.
succeed: you find the book
succeed and: you find the right book along with some other useful information
succeed but: you found the book, but it's damaged or less useful
fail but: you didn't find the book, but you get a tidbit that may help you
fail: you didn't frind the book
fail and: you waste time thinking a fake is the right book.
"A dungeon master only rolls the dice for the noise they make" ~Gary Gygax
And yet somo grognards still on being "slave of the dice" for fear of "not writing a novel"
I'm the player that doesn't want the GM's (when highly experienced) to roll dice. I think the more feel they have for a narrative the more their dice can ruin it
Gygax was also a proponent of punishing players in game for things they had done outside the game, so maybe we don't take what he says as gospel.
Glad someone included this quote. And should that be taken as gospel? Well...he did co-invent the game, so the guy earned it in my opinion.
Aside from that, I agree mostly with Seth's take. Another thing I consider though is timing/pace. If the PCs are blowing through an encounter too quickly I'll fudge a little to stretch it out, or shorten it if we have a hard stop on game time.
I had a player filling in once who tried calling me out on fudging, and I straight up told him it was an option I had no problem using, then asked him if when he ran for his group he used open rolls, he said he did, and my reply was, "You have your players spend a lot of time rolling up new characters, do ya?" He didn't say anything.
OG RNG
I've been DMing a Pathfinder 2E game. After being accused of fudging rolls against the players after a tough encounter, I rolled publically the next encounter. I ended up critting every other roll and took out 3 of 4 players. Needless to say they relaxed a bit.
"You don't actually want to fight me at my full power..."😈
Digital (FGU) dice
Thankfully my players have played wargames with me and know of my uncanny luck with die (directly related with my massive bad luck with women) so they know that when I fudge, it is to their advantage. I've had problems with new groups, which is why I don't hide my rolls with strangers.
One way I fudge, if they search for traps more, suddenly there are more traps to find!
Yeah, I like to do that, too. Sometimes Spiders magically appear in the dungeon just because they were worried about meeting Spiders.
That's just rewarding players tbh. If they have a character who likes to look for traps it would be a shame if he never found any.
@@LordOdor There was an article for running a VSF game (Forgotten Futures, I think) that suggested doing exploration adventures that way. The GM was meant to start with a bare-bones concept ("primitive aliens living inside an asteroid, survivors of a broken up planet") and modify things on the fly based on the speculations of the PCs as to what they expected things to be like. It was meant to model the way characters in old VSF stories (Honeymoon In Space being a fine example) would engage in scientific theorizing about what the inhabitants of a planet would be like before encountering them, which generally proved to be prophetically accurate. Mechanically, it tended to make PCs that are expecting trouble to get it, and ones who were optimistic and hopeful to run into more peaceful encounters.
"Does the game master want the player to fall to their death?" Sometimes
I want them to make good decisions so they don't, but I roll my dice in the open in case they don't make good decisions, so they'll know they did this to themselves.
The Black Paladin bit is one of my favourites, thank you for keeping it!
England: is almost early morning
Seth:uploads
Me: Awoken
AHYAHYAHYAH
The reason I think Seth is a particularly good TH-camr because of how disciplined he is in organizing his humor. His lecturing is credible because he doesn't break character as a see serious lecturer. We all know that Setg is very funny, but he keeps his humor within the visuals and the skits so as to not undermine the knowledge he presents.
No joke, I used the Black Paladin bit in one of my exit exams for my Masters to explain in layman's terms how D&D works AND the conflict between the rules of the game and telling a good story. I'm one of those people who looks at D&D as a storytelling device with rules that are meant to encourage creativity, but this is one of those cases where the story supersedes the outcome of dice rolls.
What did you get your Masters in?
Did you pass?
@@jesternario yes
@@blandedgear9704 English Literature
5 Gamemaster Secrets is gone? Thats a shame. That was the first video I watched from this channel and I really liked it. Oh well, C'est La Vie.
I agree. I was so disappointed to find out that video is no longer available.
I miss that video already. Hopefully Seth will remake it.
In our circle of friends is very common for the players to "fudge" some checks with a "I choose to fail" because failing will make for a better storytelling at a certain point.
1) Game style. 2) System. 3) Player expectations. These are in my experience the three decisive criteria that should be consulted before answering this ever ongoing question for each individual game.
1) Have you ever asked yourself, how satisfying Star Wars would have felt, if Luke Skywalker would have been zapped to ashes by the first blaster shot of the first Stormtrooper that he encountered when entering the Death Star? Sure, we had all this prequel world building somewhere, and then Luke's backstory and motivation, and then the first steps of his Hero's Journey with mentor and allies and threshhold guardians and all. But though everybody knows that Stormtrooper can't hit the floor if jumping out of the window, well... this time they just roled high, right? What a great and fulfilling narrative. On the other hand, remembering that wonderful time at the pool hall, when your much better opponent randomly banged the 8 ball around the table for 30 minutes, so you could catch up, to have a "thrilling" end game instead of just letting you loose in dignity? Equally fulfilling, wasn't it? Why do I tell you this? Well, just make up your mind what you want to do with your time and then DO IT. There is no "right" way to do it. There is only not knowing what you want and then beeing disappointed when the waiter serves you what you ordered. It is a matter of taste - and these are poor basis for a discussions, right?
2) There are these wonderful d20 systems that dominate the market, that give us a hell of a time with there unpredictable, utterly mad dice results and make us laugh and joke around and what not, with 10% of every little sub-task our protagonists try resulting in either catastrophic failure or over-the-top success ('Lift from the back, Rogar!'). If you choose such a game, you choose it deliberately for that sake, right? You didn't just buy all that expensive hardcovers because Matt Mercer has them on TH-cam? If you are in for somewhat realistic and predictable results you would play GUPRS or another several-dice-game with more down-to-earth outcome. You are aware why the mathematicians call the Gaussian the "normal" distribution? Try to understand the games you could play, then make a deliberate and informed decision.
3) If your player hands you a written backstory including ten fully fleshed-out NPCs, a hand drawn and coloured picture of her/his character and wishlist for character arcs and personality development during the campaign, does she/he whants to play a game of chance or narrate a story? Likewise, if your player brings three premade characters from the basic rulebook to session zero, asks you, which one he/she should play and declares the others to be backup in case of character death, and opens a can of beer to be ready for the brawl, what is this player expecting?
I actually had a pretty heavy *rules* fudging incident in the last game I ran: The normal GM for our party is pretty forgiving of parties flying fast and loose with the due diligence of dungeon crawling, so when the party left the wizard alone while they were ritual casting identify on something, I had the wizard get jumped by a tiger. I planned this little ambush just for this scenario, and the full intent was to effectively knock the split-off character out in a single turn for the rest of the party to rescue them. "Don't split the party" and all that.
The trouble was that because I had been kinda busy that week I hadn't actually recorded the party's stats, so I had no idea that the wizard player wasn't the level they were supposed to be... coupled with a lucky crit and the first swing downed the character, leaving the tiger with one more attack and then a bonus damage pounce that would have killed the character outright... so I conveniently ignored those mechanics: The tiger already did it's job and outright killing the PC with a monster that they only learned about the presence of in the very turn that it knocked them out is just unsporting, even if I made several behind-the-screen perception rolls to see if anyone actually spotted the animal, which they did not. The party regrouped, the tiger decided it liked living and ran and everything was right with the world, as long as nobody bothers to actually look up what a tiger can do.
My first session running 5e I did something like this. I had a big party of level 1s and I sicced a Giant Scorpion at them because according to the math it should have been a "medium encounter". So, after I insta-killed the party monk, I rewound it slightly to just downed, allowing the party member to be brought back up and I didn't use the scorpion's multiattack the rest of the combat and it was still a decent fight. That was also when I learned not to trust the CR system.
The tiger doesn't necessarily have a reason to keep attacking an unconscious opponent and you aren't required to make every attack that you can, so this is just a minor DM fudge anyway. No reason to worry even if they do look up the stats.
@@ArawnNox There is a highlighted text in the DMG page 82 telling you about how you should be cautious with low level groups. It even states an example similar to yours.
That wasn't a fudge at all! It just so happened that this particular tiger didn't use its second attack because that paw had been wounded by a goblin's spear 3 days earlier and so it was trying not to strain it as it healed. Also this particular tiger had been raised in captivity so hadn't had another tiger around to teach it traditional hunting techniques like pouncing. Quite a sad story really : D
This is why I like the idea of a roguelike ttrpg. It could be brutal and educational.
I'm so glad you kept the Black Paladin segment. Fantastic work as always.
I remember watching the old video and I'm glad you kept the skit :) I'm also like that you're revisiting old topics.
This is the first time ever I'm this early on a video. And this is a very important matter to me, I've had lots of debate with friends over fudging!
12 angry men as the thumbnail. Instant respect
Actually it's just the 1 angry man...
Anyway, yeah, great movie.
That skit was worth saving! I am glad that it survived the cutting room floor, so to speak.
The original version of this was one of the first videos of yours I got recommended by TH-cam, and I am really glad that you kept the skit from the old version. A+ Top-Shelf material.
There is one thing you have to realize about randomness:
True randomness does not look random. For example, if you take a 100x100 grid and use a D100 to fill it with points, you will end up with clusters and empty spots; it is perfectly random, but it does not look random. If you want it to l o o k random, you have to fill in the grid by hand.
Failing to realize that leads to a lot of frustrations. Especially with XCOM players :P
I'm glad you kept the old skit - its one of your best!
Damn... I really thought Todd had that dastardly Black Paladin this time.
Me too!
Was a good fight though, and that's what is important
i said it before, and i said it again... it all depend on the table and playstyle ...
Each table should define the rol of the DM. In some they could decide that the DM is entrusted to change dices, and in others tables that could be outside their role.
Personally i don't EVER fudge dices. i just not roll them if there is a "force" result.
Great video and topic. As a player I really dislike the GM NOT rolling dice out in the open. Fudging ruins my fun whether I am playing or GMing. So fun for me means respecting the dice. Others may see their fun differently.
The worst is "plot immunity" - NPCs that can't die, items that can't be used by the players, and GMs blatantly railroading. I guess it's important to play with people who all have the same idea of what is, and is not, fun.
I like the last line in your post a lot, even if I disagree with everything else. I know I'd hate to end up in the company of dice goblins who treat the bones as prophesy is true. And I'm sure the goblins would hate me for bitching and moaning about how the party was mopped up in the first combat. What I like about your take is that you recognize that it's just your opinion, not the universal truth. Lots of comments here don't.
Social Contract theory is so important these days!!
Except the DM isn't role playing hired actors armed with rubber swords.
Great upload! I especially enjoyed the Big Ben analogy, just using fudging as means to keep the game running like clockwork. Great stuff, love the Black Paladin skit as well
That really was one of my favorite skits of yours, totally worth re-using.
Def your best skit. Love the series idea! Keep up the good work Seth!
These are all amazing pieces of advice (OG viewer here, I appreciate that you kept the old skit, it was always a good one). I keep many of your videos in the "Educational Videos" section of my RPG Discord, i very rarely come across anything you say that I don't agree with.
I am so happy you didn't adjust the audio or anything for the skit, it made me so happy. I just love that skit.
I was in a campaign, and first session, our party was attacked by a Ranger, a Cleric, and a Monk. Our Sorcerer cast Sleep and suddenly the enemies were down to a Ranger and a Cleric. There was no possible way our party could lose. My Yuan Ti Rouge started to move the unconscious Monk out of the fighting to make sure she didn't get hit by something and wake up. That was when the DM Fudged very well. Seeing the situation, the Ranger whistled. A lion bound into the room. It surveyed the battle and saw my character dragging away the one who gave it treats. My Yuan Ti looked at the lion, down to the Monk, back to the lion.... "Uh oh." Then got mauled. She had nearly nothing for hit points, so a single engagement with this cat nearly took her out of the fighting.
And it was glorious. That Lion wasn't planned. The Ranger didn't have it before then. And it made the game so much better.
Fudgeing should ALWAYS be in a DM's back pocket. It's like salt. Used in a pinch, and never at random.
"Used in a pinch and never at random." Never heard that before. I'm using it now. :D
I don't consider that 'fudging' more like improvisation
Ryan The Leach Eh. You’re not wrong. Still. Good Fudgeing can be in the same vein. It’s all about knowing when and how much.
You would fudge dice also when your party kills monsters way above their level with no preparation but ends up getting nearly killed by a couple of goblins they saw down the road.
Might want to try a different system too. Ignoring CR's and teaching players to choose their battles, while all battles are more dangerous. That could make it really cinematic.
Seth, firstly I'd like to say there are lots of other GMing/RPG channels out there, but I can honestly say that as good as many of them are, you are the only one that I have consistently watched without fail since I found it. So thanks for doing such a great job!
As someone who almost exclusively uses virtual tabletops where there isn't really a proper GM screen (and I find it naturally creates an expectation of open rolls), I do sometimes wish there was more opportunity to fudge like in an RL setting, for exactly the reasons you give. There are ways around it particularly in combat, but I find virtual tabletops more limited when you're trying to create good story over technical correctness
This is my favorite so far of the videos you've made, and that is really saying something. I love your videos.
I run a couple of west marches games, and last year, we had to let a dm go because he couldn't grasp the idea of allowing players to fail. it was heartbreaking because he was a friend and great storyteller, but when choices have no consequences, things quickly dissolve as the narrative tension is lost.
I love being nice to my players. I am known to be a sweetheart gm. I also roll 20s more than statistics say is possible (usually every third roll or so). So I fudge the dice a lot. I tell my players I do. And they know it is only ever in their favor. But they never go without feeling challenged. And the risk of consequence, even death, is always present.
I’m literally wearing that same shirt today, Seth. Good choice.
The battle with the Black Paladin is one of my favorite scenes ever.
Great video. I'm in 100% agreement. One of the reasons I love PBTA games is failing forward is baked into the system. Plus these types of games allow the GM a wide birth of interpretation no matter the role. In more traditional games a little tweaking can go a long way. When I run a game my #1 job is to entertain my players. They put enough trust in me that they give me a few precious hours every week. If nerfing the occasional role is needed to make someone feel awesome, so be it!
Thanks for saving that skit.
It's one of my favorites and an example I use regularly.
I did love that skit. :) You play the same way I do. I'd love to see what some of your games are like.
Boy am I glad I downloaded the original video. Seriously, sad to hear it's taken down since I love putting on your vids for background noise when trying to sleep and that video was one of my favorites :'(
Lucky you... I really liked that video as well. It's like when Puffin Forest took down and replaced the rules lawyer video. I understand each of their reasoning, but I really don't think taking down the original video is necessary.
It's like the discussion I think Nostalgia Critic had about George Lucas and the original cut of Star Wars. Yeah the new edited version may be more to the creator's taste and style, but seeing the original shows how they got where they are, and I think that's important.
Aaaah it makes me so happy to see that bit with the black paladin again!
Hey Seth, I have been watching your channel intensely for over a month now and having a lot of fun! I learned a lot and some things I knew I started to understand better. More importantly I grew to value my current gaming group I DM for even more.
Also ordered me some Traveller books under your influence 😁
Thank you so much for your work!
Happy to be of help. Hope you enjoy Traveller.
I have to say I really enjoy your content Seth, I feel like it has really helped me become a better GM. I also love the skits, very entertaining. Thanks for the content you make sir!
Great video. Also, your shirts are awesome!
And a top 5 best call of cthulhu scenarios I would love to see that!
I remember both the first video AND the skit. I also loved that skit. Thanks for keeping it mate. It really demonstrates the point of keeping the game interesting. EDIT: Also note. I feel like many of these points have been made in previous videos. But it''s still good to have it condensed
That was Awesome Seth, The Black Paladin bit was done well bud :D
Love that skit. Nostalgia's a nice whay to start the day.
To this day the "Black Paladin" skit is my favorite of yours, regularly come back just for it.
Failing Forward is an interesting idea that I want to try applying sometime.
But I wonder, can there be such a thing as Succeeding Backward? Like, you successfully bribe the guard, but some other NPC saw you do it. Or you kill the giant, but it falls on you, dealing a small amount of damage (since the fight was too easy).
You could do that, but I rather approach it differently. If the player is taking relatively long in bribing the guard, for example, I start rolling extra die for if a patrol comes around and catches them, and if they are spotted. I don't make the giant one because it is annoying to have won a fight just to get 5 or 6 d8 bludgeoing damage, it will make your players think you are being petty because you wanted to win and encourages DM vs Player mentality. At that point it isn't that different from "Rocks fall, evwrybody dies". Adding some returning raiding parties on the other hand shortly before the giant dies works pretty well.
Powered by the apocalypse is pretty close to this with partial successes, you can succeed, fail (fail forward in this system) or partial, where something goes wrong or you dont get the result you fully wanted, its a great time.
great video once again. that skit got me once again. please do an RPG review of Apocalypse World 2e some time, i'd love to see what you think about it.
Thanks for the enhanced version. Especially for keeping the skit in there. Too good for oblivion. :)
Failing forward is a nice idea and some systems even have rules built in for that, by allowing to fail but still get something out of it. But for any other system I think it's probably a good rule of thumb to only do that when the players fails by a small margin (let's say up to 2 points on a d20) or the effect of the failure would be instant death or otherwise severely harmful to the player's enjoyment.
A thing I personally fudge is disabling 1HK on bosses. No matter how much damage the party does, the boss will alsways drop to 1 HP instead of dying instantly, unless up to that hit the PCs been handed the short end of the stick, in which case it's fine to save their lives. Explanation? In my Dark Heresy game, the player of the assassin found out pretty quickly that if he just boosted is Ballistic Skill by beelining, even his starter weapon could onehit most bosses on a solid roll. So he did. And for obvious reasons that is boring for everyone involved, save for the really short burst of laughter when the boss drops like a wet towel in second one. (For the math-obsessed people here: with a good attack and damage roll, he does 32 points of damage on average, while even bosses in the current stage of the game have a total damage reduction of about 8 and up to 20 HP.) And for the same reason I usually try to keep my bosses alive until they had heast had one turn, as I have a habit of rolling bad for their initiative so they sometimes need a bit of life support to be anything else than a paper cutout.
Everything is rolled openly at my table, both PC and DM dice, so there's a lot of transparency. I've found this helps establish trust with my players. I apply DM fudging to modifiers and HP totals with my monsters and NPCs IF needed, depending on the ebb and flow of the encounter to keep it fun.
I'm so happy you kept the Black Paladin skit! 😁
i personally roll everything in the open, dice rolls land where they land and the main reason i do that is i hate feeling like i'm hiding behind a gamescreen and i find it actually blocks my field of vision as i like to leanback and relax alot when i'm dm'ing, which puts the dm screen between me and the centre of the table where the battle mat usually is. I tried using a dm screen when i frst started dm'ing and quickly just put it to the side as i didnt like how it obstructs my vision.
I've only had 2 "deaths" (well knock-outs) and in both of them, part of the issue for both was me catching a lot of arrows. Mind you, I am a fighter in Adimantine Full Plate armor and wielding a shield. On the plus side, got an item that lets me stabilize when knocked out or use twice the hit dice to heal myself in a second wind or short rest.
At least they ain't made any called shots to my knees - I already have a 0 modifier for dexterity and I don't want it to go back down.
I'm so glad that your favorite thing about the previous episode was also my favorite thing.
Mmmm fudge
Seriously though, it depends on the game. Some games will tell you the rules are only a guide.
Fun is key.
I don’t think it’s cheating to have fun for all
Always an enjoyable watch. I've given "thumbs up" to every video you've made. What I do in the case of the Black Knight crit is to make it a normal hit and then just up the knights HP, AC, or give him a special ability to make him a little harder to kill. In the case of the fumble pit roll, I do like you have suggested or allow for multiple attempts but it the follow rolls are bad, its fate. The difference is I will put the outcome of what happens on the player. I will have the player tell me if his/her character dies, is maimed, comes back later...
As usual, a good video, Seth. I've been at both extremes of the controversy, but I've been running mostly with some slight fudging.
Hey Seth! I love all your stuff and hope you make it up to OK for Soonercon 2021. Just wanted to let you know I'm making a ”Seven deadly Arbiter Sins” Necromunda vid and I just don't think it would be right without a skit similar to yours. So I promise it won't be direct plagiarism but your philosophy carries over to table top war games almost perfectly on how campaign runners (GMs) and players act. (nerds gonna be nerds no matter the game!?). Thank you for all your inspiring content!
I've just had a terrible idea. What I'm thinking is that the skill challenge to avoid instant death uses up your death saves were each failure is akin to a failed save. This way you still give the player an out to save themselves, but you keep the tone and sense of danger. What do you guys think?
Great video Seth love your insight.
On the note of combat taking too long, lately I've been pondering on what I as a GM can do to keep combat moving and moving quickly. I have some of my own ideas but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Keep up the good work Seth.
great vid as always Seth
Yes! I've been looking for the original video for days and sad I couldn't find it. Glad I watched this and enjoy the epic Black Paladin battle again!
I don’t fudge often but my favorite was this time when, mostly the dice were going against the party to the point that half of them was down and those who were up where low hp. The healer (who was at like 15hp) was being hit and I rolled a crit and 18 damage before the double. So I told them they got hit for 14 damage and then it was their turn and they were able to get some of the others up. With that one moment they were able to turn a unsatisfying tpk to a epic story of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Which is much more satisfying in my opinion. 😊
Hey Seth, using this to educate my fellow GM. You are a treasure trove of knowledge ;)
Love your videos!
Wish you’d make a playlist on your channel of videos you’ve taken down. I loved them even though you find them painful to watch. They gave me the courage to DM my first games.
Since you highlighted my comment does that mean you’ll make a playlist on your channel of your older videos you’ve taken down?!?!
I have been a long time watcher but I have only started dm'ing last month and because of the lockdown we have to do it over discord and other software programs and one thing that I hate is that I can't fudge my dice rolls because my players hate it. It is really limiting on how I can adjust combat difficulty on the fly and what I had hoped was a nail-biting set piece with lots of tension is either a faceroll because they get lucky and I am not or it becomes punishingly hard and not at the intended difficulty. I love your videos Seth and they were what inspired me in the first place to start my own campaign even if not everything is going as I would like.
Thanks for changing my mind about fudging rolls as a DM. I'm totally new to the game and I asked a seasoned DM about running games. He mentioned fudging dice rolls and I reacted in the opposite because I'm too honest for my own good too often. This video softened my viewpoint and I realize what he was trying to convey to me now.
I really hope you tell your players that you will fudge dice, unlike the advice from this video. Fudging is fine, if players are aware of and accepting of it being allowed.
I have a spoken agreement with my players about when and HOW I will fudge dice.
Basically, there are three important parts:
First, I promise to rescue your PC from Death due to bad dice rolls. This protection applies to character death only, so PCs can be captured, lose valuable gear, or suffer major injuries as a result - but I will spare their character.
Special note: this protection applies only to PCs, not other characters. Meaning, I will kill your animal companion or familiar if the dice roll that way.
Second, this protection does NOT apply on "Boss Fight Night." During major story confrontations, the protection is removed completely.
Third, and most important:
"Stupidity can always be fatal."
If you're doing something dumb because you think that I will swoop on to rescue you, I will enjoy every second when the dice inevitably betray you.
All of my players know this agreement, and it has worked really well for years!
I generally have the attitude of "I will do my best for the players enjoyment, but I will not save them when they do something stupid." Example: I had players start a firefight in the middle of an enemy stronghold because one of the players wasn't getting his way in the RP dialogue. Well, two of the party members died in that fight, but they had a blast doing it because it had several memorable moments, like blowing up powder kegs and wrestling with an enemy over a revolver. I used those deaths to egg the players on later when they found the crucified bodies of their former characters outside the BBEG's stronghold.
BBEG... Beautiful Bishi with Engaged Girlfriends? Nice!😁
I really like these How To or Guide videos
It's also a good option to make things flow with a lot of published adventures...far to many have massive piles built on a single skill check or the players being able to pull something off where there is a major chance for single point failure in the module.
I play online and use a Dice rolling program, no fudging at all, it's all hardcore! Also, playing Warhammer fantasy/Dark Heresy sorta helps with the mood of the game
also play in an online game currently, and it is indeed hardcore. Our pally died twice in the span of 10 minutes (ingame), we brought him back since we're high level but shit can escalate real fast when every roll is open.
I thjnk it depends on the mood of the adventure. I don't fudge at all in Warhammer either, or even Ravenloft, because you are supposed to have to roll characters all the time. I tried to fudge a minimum with ToA, so I told my players to minmax like crazy, and I still had 2 TPKs in that campaign.
@@TheBayzent While I admit some games are more deadly than others, I never understood the concept of 'scrap-characters' that you just make in droves and dies as quickly...I mean why bother, I'll just add a bar besides the name and keep playing with the same guy
I've been GMing for about 40 years, and I am pretty much in agreement with everything you said, *especially* about trust and communication.
Hahahah that montage with the black paladin. Hahahahhahahhahah ❤️❤️❤️
biggest fudge I made was the party wanted to go after a dragon, a mid range red, it rolled all 6's on it's initial breath attack, odds be damned, and unfortunately only the wizard made his save nobody had the hp to survive the hit, so I halved before the save making the damage survivable but still brutal, they managed to kill it before it got another breath weapon shot
I find it fun to keep a kind of tally of fudge saves for sessions depending on the type of session planned. Give each player an amount depending on how hard the fight or encounter is, and usually play it up as the character barely surviving a deadly blow or getting just enough damage to push that barely dead creature to death. They never have to know, and because it's a finite amount for each player it serves to save each person only so much before mistakes or brazen stupidity gets them killed.
Mmmm fudge...... I honestly really enjoyed your last video on this topic but glad you were able to give it a whole video. So glad you kept the black paladin bit!
So glad you kept the Black Paladin in this. Epic AF!
I've recently fudged recently. I'm running horror on the Orient Express (Call of Cthulu) and they were in Milan trying to get one of the mcmuffins that they learned was in an opera house. They had this great idea to use the ancient sewer system to sneak inside and steal the piece. There's no option for that but it was such a great idea that I made them roll library use and navigate rolls to find and successfully use the map. They completely bypassed the chase scene but one of the PCs nearly got caught by a stage hand and had to roll to hide among the props.
Really love your content Seth! Keep the good content coming! There's two questions i wanted to ask you: firstly is there any known Call of Cthulhu modules focusing on The Yellow King (a.k.a Hastur) and secondly would having an all-powerful entity as your BBEG, a bad thing? Just asking for a homebrew game i am planning on running and in need for some inspiration and advice :)
P.S: regarding fudging rolls, i as a DM, fudge rolls in order to provide action and awesome moments in my campaign.
There are several King in Yellow scenarios, but I haven't run any of them, so I can't say how good they are. Tell Me, Have You Seen The Yellow Sign? Ripples From Carcosa, Tatters of the King, and Tatterdemalion all use him. There's also a modern scenario called Poetry Night and Dockside Dogs.
@@SSkorkowsky Really appreciate your fast answer. I will immediately check them out! Waiting on your review on one of these scenarios 😊
I've developed physical & pyschological manipulative tactics in order to fudge a die when I potentially need to. It took me sometime before I realized I was using severa differentl tactics in a game session. I started to compare GMing to a magic show and I was the main attraction. My GM persona changed and my story telling style was enriched. I had to put myself out there a little bit more, I had to really get into characters, which are things you're supposed to do anyway but thinking of myself a magician I realized how important a tool it was to create the illusion and keep my players minds on the game/story. It's a big act man. I started to get out from behind the screen, making rolls out in the open when there was little consequences, building trust. Positioning myself at the table in a certain way or things in the room or even on things on the table to make seem like an inconvenience to roll out in the open. Roll out in the open all night with a lot of energy in my NPC's and when a potential dangerous challenge is coming up feign fatigue and go sit behind the screen. Show your players dead enemy's stats which you didn't fudge any rolls. Don't make like you are trying to show them the stats. When they search the body just pass em npc sheet and have them copy the treasure, when they do they might notice a stat relevant to any earlier roll and do the math quick realize you played it square. Talking to myself is tactic I use, as if GMing is equivalent to solving a series of physics equations and memorizing penal codes. Check you're notes for no reason at all on occasion, whilst you're playing. I keep extra dice on the table behind the screen to roll into, if for some reason my players want to see the roll I made behind the screen (it happens) I lift the screen and point to the dice which backs my claim whatever the case maybe, or if I don't have that option time to fumble something on the table, fall off my chair, what ever it takes. Slight of hand, misdirection, are your allies. Go all in. GM Poker face all game every game. What's fudged is fudged and never spoken. Never admit to fudging a roll, not even on your deathbed. The only problem is if you play with friends you see often your GM persona may slip into your relationship with that friend. Not that it's a bad thing it's just a thing.
It would have been funny to see thing from Jack's POV as the game universe spontaneous changed according to the DM changing details on the fly.
I personally always roll openly. I fudge by adjusting enemy hp, number of enemies, and other more abstract details. As dm I control the world so I use that to help create a better story and allow the dice to fall as they may.
I always roll my dice openly I may sometimes fudge initial hit points the NPC creatures have as that I do keep secret from my players.
Great video Seth ! I’m wondering, have you ever played Villains and Vigilantes? Or similar ? I played V&V back in the 80’s, and it was fun , but my playing group soon went back to AD&D for our sessions ...
4:55 Oooooooooooh I remember that one! I loved it!
Hi Seth,
I love your channel, is super informative and super entertaining. Keep going 👍
I have an of topic question:
My fingers and I are thinking to start a DnD 3.5 campaign, but I don't have time to come up with a self-made one. Is there any buy-campaign, that you would recommend for us?
Love the shirt!
Reminds me of a character who in combat rolled a nat 1 three times in a row the DM flicked the die and it landed a nat 1 so technically 4 in a row
That was funny. Great music in the battle scene. Great advice.