The Steelman Argument for Fudge

Last week: The Argument for Fudge-Free D&D

Obviously, I am anti-fudge. I am against fudging rolls of the dice, and equally against fudging other aspects of the game via Mike’s “dials.” But for any strongly held belief, it’s worthwhile to take some time and try to find the strongest arguments against one’s own position. A “steelman argument” is the opposite of a strawman argument – attempting to look at an opponent’s argument in the strongest possible light. Below are my attempts to steelman the fudge.

It's worth acknowledging that many home games are built around untested alpha content. Many DMs don’t have the luxury of running scenarios multiple times. If they are running published content, it has (hopefully…) been tested, but who knows how extensively. If the DM is homebrewing their game content, that content is reaching the table in a purely untested form. Most of the content I have run in long-running games was like this. And as such, it was untested, and I (as the adjudicating DM) had to address instances where I (as the planning DM) had made mistakes or failed to anticipate how the content would actually work in practice.

My solution to this was usually to use diegetic solutions and flexible adjudication tools rather than fudging the dice or the dials. But I understand why many DMs find that so challenging, and it can sometimes be really difficult to find a diegetic solution to a particular game situation (whereas fudging avoids the need for a diegetic explanation).   

It’s possible I’m underestimating the DM's capacity to make the game “more fun” in the moment. Perhaps some DMs can make these adjustments in a way that reliably does push the game in more interesting or fun directions. Perhaps I have a below-average sense of these adjustments when adjudicating the game, and it's easier to do without risking player engagement than I think. I’m skeptical, but I could be wrong.

It could be that a game has more tolerance for fudge than I believe it does, as long as the players trust the DM. Mike includes some caveats in the article suggesting that frequent or arbitrary fudging is bad. I would obviously go much further than he does. But a steelman argument for fudge would suggest that fudging has to be very frequent or severe to really harm a game. In this view, the degree of fudging Mike suggests won’t be nearly as apparent as I suspect it will be.

A Player Transparency Compromise

Acknowledging that one, two, or all three of the above steelman positions could be true, I would offer one final position of compromise between my position and the pro-fudge DMs out there. I believe the DM who wants to fudge in this manner should clearly state their intent to do so during session zero, or an equivalent communication before the game begins. (It’s possible Mike does in fact do this in his games; the article in question doesn’t specify either way.)

Fudge as a session zero topic can sit right alongside the discussion of the desired level of lethality and challenge in the game. The DM who intends to do this should simply say “I’ll sometimes fudge monster HP in the interest of making the game more fun.” If I were a prospective player, this would at least alert me that this wasn’t the game for me. And other players could build their expectations for the game around this expectation.

I believe this compromise position doesn’t contradict either Mike’s points in his article, or the steelman positions I outlined above. I would challenge fudge DMs – are you transparent with your players about what you’re doing? If you are not, I’d be interested to know why.