Tuesday, February 26, 2013

The Fudging of Dice

In most roleplaying campaigns, every GM/DM comes to that time where fudging the roll is probably a better idea then letting them lay...thus why most GM's have a screen to hide behind.  But beware the fudging too much.  There is a time and a place and let's look at those.

1) Character creation.  My daughter, all of nine years, wanted to play a Pixie Fairy in Hackmaster, a system which is known for it's "let them lay" policy.  But this is a nine year old...how do you explain to a 9 year old that their pixie fairy has a Strength of 1 and about 10 hit points at 6th level?  So in this case, let your players roll up a few different sets of stats and let them pick the best set (not best scores).  Make sure, as a the GM, that you watch because some players like to roll and roll until they get a great set.

2) When your player missing would so mess up the mood.  Say the party has been having an epic battle and the player in question is about to make the final blow in spectacular fashion.  And they miss, technically, by 1 or so.  How unfair is that?  Let it land, what does it matter.  Obviously the main bad guy was about dead anyway, let the party have something awesome to talk about later.

3) When a player character is about to die.  Not something you should do every time.  Making them rez on occasion will keep them cautious.  But if we were once again in that epic battle, down to the last hit points of both character and bad guy and the bad guy lands a spectacular blow and would kill the player and thus end the campaign badly, let it be glancing, leaving the character at 1 or 2 hit points.  The alternative is to let both the bad guy and the character hit at the same time and let them die at the same instant.  Still really cool!

My best advice is to not fudge too often and think hard before doing it.  Don't let your players get away with everything but let them have fun!  That is the point, after all.

Happy Gaming.

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