Fudge Factor

[tippy2k2]

I'm really glad these articles are back, they are among few of the really great stuff on Escapist, I become GM literary because of them. I used to play a little table-top not just DnD but various stuff, but after reading few of these I took up some GMing, first with just running some scripts for games, and later I begun creating my own games, in no small thanks to you. I discovered that GMing is as much fun as playing, maybe even more (we don't won't that to pass around because soon it won't be any more players )

I try to follow what you have written, and tend to adjust you instruction to the type of games I run and experience I want to achieve.

You literary made me GM. Thanks.

Did he leave for a while? I was so depressed when Check For Traps didn't show up on the main page for such a long time.

Anyway, I love these articles. I started DMing early last year and your articles have really helped me adjust my own games.

 

[Kaisharga]

This isn't necessarily related inherently to randomness, but more to the last point in the article about remedying wrongs and the general point about consistency. In running a game of Legend of the Five Rings--a system where the level of success of an action is dependent on player decision before the roll on how awesome they're trying to be, rather than watching the die and waiting for a 20--I ruled in the first session that a player character had essentially a critical success due to an absurdly high roll result. So awesome that we basically got him an Ally advantage to follow with the nature of the success I described. Normally, advantages can't be bought after character creation, but hey, it was the first session, and he had the experience unspent to devote to it anyway, no big deal.

And then I remembered the part about the height of a roll not determining level of success. Oops.

Thus was instantiated the Max Advantage, a one-shot bonus named after the aforementioned player, which every character in the game received at the beginning of the next session. Anytime someone happens to roll super-high and didn't declare an attempt for an outstanding result, they can blow their Max Advantage to get a spectacular success and the chance to purchase a character-sheet advantage of my selection based on the situation.

So far we've had two other players pop their Max Advantage, one gaining a bloodline Advantage for the Fortune of Thunder, since his spectacular success was on a spellcasting roll the first time he cast Fury of Osano-Wo, a flashy lightning spell. Another one used his Max Advantage to cleanly cut off a demon's arm (and bathe one of its allies in its corrupted blood, knocking him prone), and he bought the Sacred Weapon advantage to receive a way better katana next time he was in front of his lord.

Way better than simply setting things right, this oh-no moment early in the game has made things significantly more fun in the long run, and has given me something long-term to express a sense of longevity in the campaign. And it's also given me an out for other times I screw up with the system--we have a Travis advantage, too, though it's much less interesting for the purposes of this discussion.


Otherwise on the topic, I shall just note that I also GM in a system where the book advocates that you should fudge the rolls any time (and every time!) that it makes the result more fun.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

That's probably what I do most often, though I must admit to a bit of fudging to prevent new players from dying very early on to stop them from being discouraged.

 

[Dastardly]

Check for Traps: Fudge Factor

When to play it straight, and when not to!

Read Full Article

I think another very occasionally important moment is the one in which you (in a sense) allow the player to fudge a bit. This may involve the player using some special trinket they received from the GM to alter the results of a near miss... or just a perceptive GM realizing how disappointing a random result really was.

It's important to let the dice stir up unpredictability, and to simulate risk. Both of these must include the possibility of failure. However, we've got to remember that failure itself is almost never "fun."

Perhaps a player is near death, and the dice say "Here comes the death blow." The player was giving his/her best effort, playing the story very well... and it just wouldn't do the players much good for that player's character to die. You could fudge the result to allow the character to survive... or throw an NPC party member in the path of the deathblow--the party still suffers a major loss, but the player has the opportunity to continue. And "survivor's guilt" is a more effective character development tool than "death" in most cases...

The most important principle, of which I constantly remind myself, is that dice are impartial. This is their greatest strength and greatest weakness. It means they are objective, but also that they are apathetic. They do not care if your game goes badly, or if the story suffers, or if the players are miserable. They have no personal investment in the success of the session or the story.

The players do. Sometimes they need to be given the feeling that their expectations for the story carry just a little more weight than a few plastic polyhedrons. Sometimes, we've got to fudge things in their favor. And sometimes, just once in awhile, let your players fudge, too.

 

[Panayjon]

Thank you for the article, fudging dice is something I've always made my own judgement calls on without a real frame of reference. Now I have one!

Though, I find the second example a hilariously silly idea. Really, you're going to drop down a dragon because you decided to have a random encounter and that was what you rolled? Be willing to think outside the box people! The module should be used as a guide, not a damned bible!

You obviously haven't read the rest of my columns, but that's ok. Suffice to say that, yes, I absolutely do allow random encounters to occur based on what the dice roll, and I recommend that other GMs do the same. The links in my article above explain why in considerable detail.

I have read some of your other articles and they have all been very interesting reads. Those that I haven't read are usually due to the title not grabbing me as something I ever care about, like alignment. I'm also not opposed to random encounters using dice, I'm just not a big fan of "by the book" inflexible games.

Granted I have unusual tabletop origins. I started by creating homebrew systems with my friends that were rules-lite and relatively simple. So, many of the games were half beta tests and half actual sessions. Nowadays I'm playing with a group of traditionalists with their DM screens and figs and chessix mats; its kinda nice to have a fixed structure and not spend an hour hammering out the kinks or laughing at how absurdly broken X or Y mechanic turned out. However, I feel like the a lot of the imagination and creativity gets lost when everything is spelled out; might as well not have a DM and just collectively read the module.

 

[CplDustov]

i've only once played and Table Top RPG and it was fun but I left the country.. read continent before much rapport could build up with the fellow gamers. I think it was 2 sessions. But reading this makes me want to find a group here or start something up

 

[Delete Me]

Did you used to write for the Mirage Arcana team? I read this same article over there months ago. I think it's had a rewrite but the main points and the examples are the same.

Mirage Arcana seems to have shut down now which is a shame as they had some good stuff.

Anyway, still a great article, many good points raised.