Saying the Quiet Part Loud

Previously: Fail States and the Two DMs Inside You

Previous entries in this series of posts argue against fudging, and in favor of embracing “undesirable” outcomes, like character death in games that prominently features fantastic combat and violent danger.

But in the interest of intellectual humility and embracing other views, I have tried to outline ways that fudge advocates could pursue their bliss as best as possible. My narrative intervention idea is one such suggestion for a way of altering a result that is superior to secretly fudging the dice. 

Let’s take it a step further. Say that it’s clear from the outset that your table absolutely wants to play a fantasy adventure game, but absolutely never wants a TPK. Most tables like this seem to rely on an unspoken, assumed rule that the DM subverts the normal operation of the game to prevent that undesired fail state. The DM will provide the illusion of challenging scenarios, but pulls the strings to ensure that the PCs never face a worst-case scenario.

But why dissemble like this? Just say the quiet part loud. Agree at session zero that there will be no TPKs. Or any other outcome the group agrees they don’t want, just as the table would do with content they don’t want to appear in-game.

Offer a pre-prepared mechanic that works as follows. If some condition is met – for example, a majority of the characters are unconscious or dying or incapacitated – combat ends. The scene is now resolved as a luck roll, or a skill challenge, or ask-the-fates, or some more open-ended series of actions and resolutions. The characters will likely face setbacks and complications. Some will be separated, captured, or perhaps even killed (with the possibility of resurrection). But a TPK is simply not among the possible outcomes.

I don’t know if I myself would run this kind of game. I would first encourage the table to try another game, with lower stakes and different fail states. Or encourage them to embrace the dramatic payoffs of a game with no guard rails. But I would still find "saying the quiet part loud" much preferable to traditional fudging.

Fail States and the Two DMs Inside You

Previously: Narrative Intervention Versus Fudging the Dice

Fail States Beyond Death

It’s common online DMing advice to create scenarios where the conditions of success and failure in an encounter go beyond “two sides try to reduce each other to 0 HP.” DMs will dutifully drop an occasional “defend the tower” or “capture the flag” mission into their standard combat scenarios, but they’ll be occasional exceptions to race-to-zero slugfests.

But I rarely see this tool suggested as a solution to fudging. Fundamentally changing the stakes of an encounter – and particularly the results of a fail state – is the easiest way to prevent fudging. If an antagonist is fighting purely to subdue or capture PCs, there’s no need to fudge to prevent a TPK, because one isn’t on the table – even if the encounter goes much worse for the PCs than the DM anticipates. 

Asking this question goes beyond just balancing encounters or session planning. It also forces the DM to interrogate the goals and strategies of factions and antagonists. “What does the monster consider a ‘win’ in this situation? What does it really want?” Answering that question establishes stakes that can preemptively avoid the desire to fudge.

There Are Two DMs Inside You

Suppose that you are a playtester for an upcoming published module in your favorite tabletop system. You GM sessions of the adventure, and then debrief with the designer after each session. You consistently find that the encounters in the draft adventure are much too difficult, and you have to fudge the dice (or otherwise intervene) to avoid a TPK that would prematurely end the session.

Surely this would feature prominently in your feedback to the designer. So why don’t fudging DMs look in the mirror and provide this feedback to the “other DM” inside of them? Why does the adjudicator DM not provide feedback to the game designer DM?

Almost all self-made, homebrew content is essentially in an untested, alpha state when it hits the table. It’s understandable that sometimes it will need to be patched in real time. It's the strongest defense of fudging.

This is an advantage to published adventures, which (ostensibly...) have been tested enough that fudge-inducing circumstances shouldn't come up often. It's also an argument for a very old-school style of play, where a DM would run various groups through their own personal dungeon many times. That iterative style of play would serve as a form of playtesting in practice, if not intent.

But I think DMs should continue to deploy self-made, homebrew content in their games. If they feel compelled to fudge, I will not condemn them. But I will ask them -- after the session ends -- to reflect and analyze what happened. What specifically went wrong? Where did the planning fail? What can be done next time to prevent the "need" to fudge?

If you must fudge, I won’t judge you. But I will judge your failure to interrogate that experience after the session ends – the failure to hold a conversation between the two DMs inside of you.

Next: Saying the Quiet Part Loud

Narrative Intervention Versus Fudging Dice

Previously: Think Before You Roll / Complex Systems

Consider this scenario. The players are in a fight, and thanks to mistakes during encounter planning, unlucky rolls, or some other reason, the battle is going south for the players. The DM, anticipating an undesirable outcome, decides to fudge.

But instead of changing any die rolls… they announce at the top of initiative that a stampeding herd of cattle thunders onto the battlefield, scattering some combatants, separating others, knocking still others prone. Or their opponents in the fight begin a tactical retreat, possibly with fallen characters hauled off as prisoners. Or a third faction appears on the scene, attacking the characters’ enemies based on an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” sort of reasoning.

Awfully convenient. And clearly not a planned part of a designed encounter, or randomly produced as part of emergent gameplay. The DM is altering the scenario to avoid an undesired result; they are fudging. But this narrative intervention is more honest than fudging dice rolls. It safeguards a promise inherent in any game that uses dice; when the dice are rolled, they adjudicate the action, not DM fiat.

It’s also important to distinguish this kind of “narrative fudge” from a deus ex machina. The ideal intervention should be a lateral change to the characters’ situations, a postponement of conflict, or an “out of the frying pan, into the fire” move. Environmental hazards, neutral beasts and monsters, and factions opposed to the characters’ antagonists (but not necessarily friends of the characters) all serve this purpose well.

Rather than doing the players a favor, the DM is offering a deal. Powered by the Apocalypse systems often have such choices built into the rules, where players are invited to pick a setback or harm from a list when they fail. But it’s implicitly an option in any game, where every choice the players make involves some kind of tradeoff, expenditure of resources, or risk of failure and complication.

Next: Fail States and the Two DMs Inside You

Fudging the Numbers

Think Before You Roll

Fudging in TTRPGs is changing or ignoring the result of dice (or any randomly determinative element of gameplay) to avoid or alter the outcome. It’s distinguished from cheating generally in that it is the DM changing the result, and in that they are doing it with some noble intent, typically to circumvent a random outcome that is perceived as undesirable.

So why does fudging happen? DMing involves a lot of System 1 thinking. A DM makes hundreds (possibly thousands) of decisions, calls, and interpretations in a session, and it’s easy for the brain to go on autopilot, and only realize something has gone wrong after the dice have landed. Fudging is an after-the-fact fix for when this automated process goes wrong.

Acknowledging that this happens, DMs can anticipate and modify the automatic process that produces fudging. When the game reaches a point where action or reaction needs to be resolved mechanically, the DM is already taking a split second to consider (1 if a roll of the dice is called for, and (2 what kind of roll should it be. This moment of consideration should be amended to include a third question, which is “what are the extreme outcomes of this situation? And can I accept those outcomes into the game – particularly on the end of that spectrum that goes against the players?”

The Hidden Costs of Complex Systems 

There is no particular level of complexity that is “best” in TTRPGs. It’s ultimately a matter of shared preference among the players. But frequent fudgery is a strong signal that the system you use is too complex for your table.

Highly complex systems also place a (usually unstated, often-underappreciated) responsibility on the shoulders of the DM alone, as the encounter designer, to manage “fairness” and “balance” (and encounters are typically designed in more complex systems, not emergent).

A simpler system offers more transparency and reduces the urge for a DM to perform emergency engine repair while the train is in motion. Old-school D&D is not only less fudgy than new-school D&D because the style of play assumes greater lethality, but also because a simpler system with lower damage thresholds and more tightly bounded outcomes is transparent, making it plain for all to see that a particular roll of the dice could have dire consequences.

For example, many fudging stories involve critical hits. A monster that scores several critical hits in successive rounds, particularly with a multiattack, has already broken the encounter math. Gary Gygax conspicuously omitted critical hits from the AD&D 1E DMG for player survivability reasons, and the reasoning behind that decision is clearer in a system with low HP thresholds.

Next: Narrative Intervention Versus Fudging Dice