The Prestige of Character Classes

I played in a few D&D 3.5 games back before I had developed any kind of distinct preferences about complexity and game feel within the TTRPG space. D&D 3.5 was simply the game other people I knew played; I was years away from learning about the then-nascent PBTA, OSR, and sundry indie movements.

Knowing games like I know them now – knowing my own preferences – I have little interest in playing, running, or designing for 3.5 or its descendants. But aspects of its design do stick with me, interest me, and provoke thoughts about our games.

Remember prestige classes? These were classes in 3.5 (and its offshoots, like Pathfinder) that PCs could access through multiclassing. They were different from ordinary classes in a number of ways, principally that they required various prerequisites (skill ranks, feats, and so forth) before the players could take them. Because of the prerequisites, prestige classes weren’t available from level one; but through careful planning, players could steer their characters toward a prestige class that would deliver a particularly specific character concept. 

Prestige classes were emblematic of 3.5’s emphasis on mechanically complex characters. Much of the online discussion of 3.5 was consumed with character builds and optimization guides, where prestige classes figured prominently. More power to players who enjoyed (and still enjoy) this style of play, but the mechanical implementation of these prestige classes was not for me. It required too much planning ahead, and it felt too removed from the in-game events that might organically shape a character.

But the fiction of many of those prestige classes was still evocative. Many characters in fiction are defined more by drastic changes in their abilities – transforming or changing into something different – rather than just becoming incrementally better at each level, as where a 13th level fighter becomes marginally more effective at, well, fighting when they hit level 14. Is there some way to capture that energy, without the heavy-duty mechanical implementation?

Back to the Backgrounds

Backgrounds are one of 5E’s best (and least-appreciated) features. They’re flexible but flavorful, and can make a character three-dimensional in a way that ancestry-plus-class can’t do by itself.

But they’re often forgotten in 5E games. A few proficiencies, languages, and a narrow-use-case special ability fade into the background (sorry) as characters gain flashier class powers. How could we put more focus on those backgrounds?

Let’s start our characters at level zero. A level zero character simply uses the commoner stat block from the Monster Manual, plus a single background of their choice. These people are ordinary; we’re talking about an adventuring party that starts out with 10s across the board for ability scores. (This doesn’t mean their ability scores suddenly and mysteriously jump up when they hit first level; they simply have not yet been able to leverage or express their natural abilities just yet.)

After an introductory adventure or two – a funnel, if possible, so the players aren’t too precious with these fragile characters – they can qualify for classes. D&D 5E assumes no particular link between backgrounds and classes, which certainly has its merits; less-obvious background/class combinations like “criminal paladin” or “entertainer monk” certainly can make for interesting character concepts. But for this exercise – drawing from prestige class ideas – we’ll constrain ourselves to binary choices.

Acolyte. You grew up in or around a religious institution; one day, you had to make a choice. When you reach first level, choose devotee (cleric) or heretic (warlock).

Charlatan. You could never fit in with the rules and structure of a “normal” life. When you reach first level, choose trickster (rogue) or wanderer (bard).

Criminal. You have always lived outside the law. When you reach first level, choose deceiver (rogue) or thug (fighter).

Entertainer. You’re most at home in the spotlight. When you reach first level, choose musician (bard) or magician (sorcerer).

Folk Hero. You stood up for the little guy. When you reach first level, choose pugilist (monk) or paragon (paladin).

Guild Artisan. You were a craftsperson before your training took you in an unusual direction. When you reach first level, choose journeyman (wizard) or fortune-seeker (rogue).

Hermit. You were always on your own, until you joined an adventuring party. When you reach first level, choose loner (ranger) or ascetic (druid).

Noble. You were part of the aristocracy. When you reach first level, choose knight (fighter) or priest (cleric).

Outlander. You were most at home in wild places that would test even the bravest. When you reach first level, choose warden (ranger) or nomad (barbarian).

Sage. Your search for knowledge was what led you to a life of adventure. When you reach first level, choose savant (wizard) or bedlamite (warlock).

Sailor. Even sailing the seas wasn’t excitement enough for you. When you reach first level, choose pirate (rogue) or explorer (ranger). 

Soldier. You fought in wars before you delved into dungeons. When you reach first level, choose veteran (fighter) or scout (ranger).

Urchin. You grew up in the streets with no one to look out for you but yourself. When you reach first level, choose mendicant (rogue) or scrapper (fighter).

And there we have it! Yes, this is quite unbalanced; some classes appear many times, while others appear only once. But that could be a feature, not a bug. In this example, fighters, rogues, and rangers would make up half of the class options, implying a considerably less-magical world. 

With a few changes to the choices above, it would be easy enough to create an entirely different menu of options. What prestigious choices would characters make in your game?

Defacing the Party Face

Skill-based games struggle with resolving action organically when PCs are hyper-aware of which character is best at what. A player will outline an entire elaborate plan for solving a problem; the DM will call for a roll; and the player will immediately switch gears and start proposing reasons why another PC (who was silent throughout the aforementioned process) should execute the action (because their character has a 5-10% better chance of succeeding).

Some games solve this through various mechanical details or table rules. But can we help the ones that don’t?

Everyone Has Something to Say

While watching the last Guardians of the Galaxy movie, I was struck by how frequently the members of the titular adventuring party undermined their own plans because one or more of them couldn’t keep their mouths shut. Sure, social interaction is easy when the bard does the talking, and everyone else stands mutely behind them. It’s a little more challenging if the barbarian feels the need to interject with unhelpful or overly revealing commentary.

What if there was a game rule that the scene doesn’t end until every character speaks? Or, for larger adventuring parties, at least two characters (besides the charismatic “face”) speak?

The goal is to get some friction into the dialogue. Some PCs will be tempted to just say “yeah, what he said.” PBTA systems and other games that provide a mechanical payoff for the player failing, acting suboptimally to advance the narrative, or otherwise indulging a flaw can do this most easily. But it can work in any kind of game where the players buy into the idea and trust the DM to encourage them to cause interesting problems without responding punitively. 

Actions Speak Louder Than Words 

Let’s take another page from fiction. Movies, TV shows, and books are good at moving the spotlight from one character to another to make sure the story gives each of them something to do. Many of the same tricks work in a TTRPG.

How to move the spotlight after the face makes their case? It’s easy:

• The chieftain respects strength and strength alone; an arm-wrestling contest with the warrior would bring him around.
• The security system is unmoved by guile; it wants the cyborg to explain why you need to get in, using reason and logic.
• The fence agrees to find the missing artifact, but only if another member of the brotherhood of scoundrels (like, say, the party criminal) personally vouches for the deal.
• The elemental only speaks primordial, the language the dwarf PC got at level one and promptly forgot about. The elemental can’t make sense of the nattering, flighty language of man; say it  again, in words of stone and fire.

No More Talk

Implicit in some of the examples above is that a good rule for handling social situations is to know when and how to end the dialogue.

In listening to some actual play podcasts recently, I’ve been driven up the wall by GMs who will let players cajole, wheedle, beg, hector, and berate NPCs long after the interesting part of the conversation has ended. This is doubly bad in a podcast, where the session has to be entertainment for an audience, in addition to the players. But it should still be avoided in games where the players themselves are the only audience.

A terribly underrated tool is to simply say “they don’t buy your arguments and are no longer listening to you. It looks like you’ll have to explore some other way to get what you want, or come back to them after the situation has changed in some way and there’s a new argument to make.” Phrase it as narration  rather than in-voice dialogue, so it’s clear that you’re moving on to something else. This can be a little frustrating in the short term to players who want to “win” every interaction and scene they participate in, but it pays dividends in the medium to long term, with tighter, more interesting sessions.

Revenge of the Rejects

Players love to roll up new characters. The randomness and uncertainty is thrilling, and the process encourages players to discover their characters through creation rather than fulfilling a pre-decided ideal. But since the early days of the RPG hobby, people have debated the best way to do this. 

Today, I settle this debate. I have detailed below the best system for D&D-style 3-to-18 base statistics (OK, I have not tested this yet, so it may not in fact be the best system).

Players roll their character’s abilities straight down the line. No point buy, no standard array, no 4d6 drop-the-lowest. Maybe allow a single swap of any two stats (ala Knave 1.0), but that’s it. We want very quick, straightforward characters.

Here’s the trick: Players can reroll any number of times. What, you might reasonably ask, is preventing them from simply rerolling endlessly, until they get a character with exclusively good-to-great stats?

Option 1: They’re Going to Hold This Against You

The answer is simple. The DM keeps each character that the players reject. Each of those rejected characters becomes an NPC in the game. Each rejected character is an antagonist or rival to the group as a whole, or -- better yet -- to the player who passed on them. 

The intensity of their enmity goes up incrementally the more characters a player rejects. The first one they turn down might be a schoolyard rival or nosey neighbor. The tenth one is going to be a major world power or potential campaign antagonist.

Option 2: Group Draft

Each player rolls the first of six stats, writes it down, and then decides to either hold onto the sheet or pass it clockwise. Players opting to pass circulate their sheets amongst the other passing players. A player who passes their sheet and doesn't accept someone else's can start a new sheet. If all players reject a particular sheet, the DM gets that character sheet. This process continues until all players settle on a completed character sheet.

The DM keeps all the sheets that weren't claimed and uses them to collectively build an antagonist, villain, or organization integral to the scenario. This person or organization's strength in the world is proportional to the number of sheets the DM received (for example, the number of sheets could equal HD for a monster, or number of hexes controlled by an enemy army). If the DM chooses to make them an NPC or monster, the DM can pick and choose the best statistics from among the sheets they received. If they choose to make them an organization, faction, or something more abstract, the numbers can still inform how the resulting antagonistic force works.

Feels Within Wheels: NPC Reactions

In June, the Goblin's Henchman blog posted a cool idea for visualizing NPCs.

I’m often struck by how we try to help people by stuffing them full of words, when what they really need is a simple, elegant diagram (as someone who writes first and foremost, this was a tough thing to learn; but an important lesson all the same).

I really like this idea, but I knew that I would need something a little different for my own use. I need a tool that more specifically implies movement or development from one state to another. So my idea is something like this.

Spinning the Wheel of Values

I used an “emotion wheel” as a simple frame for what values might drive NPCs (a quick search will turn up many other examples of varying complexity). I don’t remember where I first saw these, but if you spend enough time thinking about RPGs, everything you encounter in the wild starts to look like a game mechanic or adjudication system. In addition to the Goblin’s Henchman post, this idea probably owes something to this old Sorcerer’s Skull post that I have cited before. 

Remember that NPCs should not (generally) attempt to simulate the complexity of real people. They are game mechanisms meant to create interesting interactions with the PCs. Just a few emotions are enough to create an actionable character; more details just bog down action at the table.

For example, rolling to choose values randomly, I populate an NPC with Love (the innermost level); Affectionate and Longing (at the intermediate level); and Sentimental and Romantic (outermost level). With just those five ideas, I can already visualize this character. Affection and longing suggest they’re separated from what they love. They’re also romantic, so we’ll say this is a non-platonic kind of love. But they’re also sentimental, which suggests to me nostalgia; I interpret this as someone longing for a love they have lost; perhaps they were widowed.

Social interaction with this character happens like this. Love is the surface level. On a cursory interaction, this person is warm and caring. But if the interaction goes beyond the superficial – because the PCs need something from this NPC, for example – the NPC comes across either as affectionate or longing. Viewing the NPC as a game tool reactive to PC action, we might say that empathy, persuasion, and gift-giving pushes the NPC toward their affectionate mode, while coercion, logic, or appeals to authority are more likely to push this NPC into melancholic longing.

If the PCs deepen the interaction and succeed again in going "deeper" (more on “success” below) the interaction can advance to the outermost level. If the PCs had followed the longing path, it develops to sentimental (the widow tells their story, perhaps gaining some closure in the process). If the PCs’ actions had pushed the NPC more toward affection, further development moves into romance (whether directly, because a PC flirted with the widow; or indirectly, by reminding them of the virtue of loving again, perhaps by relating a similar experience in their own life).

Adversity and Variety

If the PCs fail – they badly misread the NPC, or otherwise act in a way that really pushes against the NPC’s core values – the wheel also suggests a response with the entries on the opposite side of the wheel. So a failure might reset the players back to the innermost circle, and push them to the opposite wedge. Imagine an NPC interaction that begins with Surprise, then develops to Stunned. At this point, the PCs mess up. They’re pitched back into the innermost circle, and now the NPC is dominated by Fear! The PCs will have to ameliorate the situation before they can return the NPC to their “natural” track.

The descending relationships implied by the wheel are helpful for restricting choices to a manageable range. But we’re not bound by the wheel’s structure. Let’s create a character that draws from the entire wheel. This character will probably be a bit more dramatic and unpredictable than our affectionate and sentimental widow.

Rolling randomly, I get Surprise (innermost circle); Despair and Proud (intermediate circle); and Contempt and Dismayed (Outermost Circle). Surprise suggests they’re in a state of turmoil and disruption when the PCs encounter them. Despair and pride are their two reactions to this turmoil; the PCs can push them toward one or the other. We can pair the outermost terms with whatever intermediate terms we like; let’s match despair with dismay, and pride with contempt. Encouraging PCs could push their feelings of despair into mere dismay; that’s a relative improvement! This person may be inherently pessimistic, but the PCs can at least cheer them up and get them from hopelessness to… modest hopes. Pride pairs well with contempt; no matter how their fortunes have fallen, this person considers themselves better than others. By stroking their ego, perhaps pitting them against a group they look down on, clever PCs convince them to do what they want.

Success in Any Social System

This approach is system-neutral by design, so “success” and “failure” can vary depending on the system. In a storytelling or FKR game, it can simply be GM judgment (or group consensus in a GM-less game). In a crunchier system, the appropriate ability check or equivalent test does the work of moving from state to state.

Obviously not everything the PCs do will slot neatly into the binary forks this system suggests. That’s fine. The GM can choose the option that is marginally closer, or just whichever seems to make sense in context. Remember, the purpose of the tool is not to provide a “right” or “correct” answer; it is to create a choice that moves the GM quickly toward the next step in the process and avoids analysis paralysis. It’s a shortcut for the GM to get to what they think is right, not a way of telling the GM what the correct answer is.

Dungeon 23: The Art of Stopping

I stuck a fork in my Dungeon 23 project earlier this year. Through the spring, personal commitments, work, and my home games devoured all of the time I had set aside for Dungeon 23, and by the time the smoke cleared, it was obvious it would require a major increase in work just to catch up, much less get back into fighting form. So it goes.

But… I don’t feel bad about it.

Certainly we’re all familiar with lapsed resolutions and “year-long” projects that die miserable deaths by St. Patrick’s Day. Our instinct is to slink away from them in shame because they “failed.” 

I think it’s instead more helpful to think of ways we can extract value from a “failed” project. Many nominally wasted experiences are valuable if we just make the effort to learn things from them.

Doing Double Duty 

In my initial post, I decided to make my Dungeon 23 project from scratch, and not tie it to either a game I was running or something I would publish for others to run.

This was a mistake.

I think the theory in that post was fine, but in practice, it doomed the enterprise, because when time got tight, everything else took precedence over Dungeon 23. The hierarchy was something like this: 

• Family and friends
• Home games (an extension of the above)
• Work 
• Blogging and creating stuff for others
• Dungeon 23

Looking at it that way, of course Dungeon 23 fell by the wayside. If it had been, from the beginning, something I was going to share with others, it would have been much easier to prioritize that Dungeon 23 work. As a private project, it lost out to everything else.

Salvaging the Wreckage

In my original Dungeon 23 post, I wrote the following:

All misfit toys are welcome. No failed campaign notes, unused session prep, or aborted Itch.io publication is ever wasted so long as it could still rise again, animated by dark necromancy, to become part of a new project. One or more of my past projects will surely be absorbed into this process.

Well, the same is true for Dungeon 23 itself. All the work I did early this year is still ripe for reuse in other games and projects. I still use the generator that appeared in my original post, and it will probably be my go-to dungeon-population tool in the future. I don’t think I’ll ever finish my Dungeon 23 dungeon; but I’d be even more surprised if no element of it ever made it out into the world all the same.

More Knave-ified 5E Spells

I posted last year about going through the spells from the 2014 5E Player’s Handbook and reimagining them as one-sentence, level-less Knave spells. Readers enjoyed that post, so let’s pick up where we left off, halfway through the letter A, and go through the end of the letter B. 

Bolded text is my revised version of the spell; where not specifically stated otherwise, characteristics like duration and range are left to DM discretion, common sense, or an appropriate roll of the dice. These spells use advantage and disadvantage, assuming both PCs and NPCs/monsters roll for themselves; but could easily be adjusted for a game using player rolls only. L stands for level, but could be replaced by INT under Knave 2E's draft rules, which aren't yet finalized. Non-bolded text represents some thoughts on the design philosophy that underpins 5E spells, and how Knave and other rules-light systems differ from it.

Arcane Eye. You can see through an invisible floating eye that you control for L rounds; it can pass through small openings but not solid barriers.

Arcane Gate. You create linked misty portals connecting two points you can see for L turns.

D&D 5E has a suite of spells and abilities – Misty Step, Dimension Door, Arcane Gate, and others – doing similar things with varying power and duration. Beyond the scope of this exercise, it might make sense to either condense them into one spell with variable power (scaling with L), or sharpen the distinctions between them.

Arcane Lock. A closed door, aperture, or container is magically locked for anyone besides you and your allies, and can only be temporarily unlocked by the Knock spell.

Armor of Agathys. A freezing aura grants you armor as chain for L turns; creatures that touch you take L damage.

I complained about temporary hit points before, and here they show up again, in a spell that eponymously implies AC improvement. This is another recurring 5E problem, where the flavor of a spell or ability gestures at something different from the mechanical effect (Chill Touch neither dealing cold damage nor serving as a touch-range spell is the most famous example). I’ve attempted to push this spell closer to its flavor... but are two different “L effects” too finicky for Knave?

Arms of Hadar. Creatures within reach must make a Strength saving throw or be pushed far enough away from you that they can no longer reach you.

Astral Projection. You and your allies enter a state of suspended animation while traveling to another plane of existence; you arrive unerringly at your intended destination, but your bodies are vulnerable while you travel.

Astral Projection is a holdover from the early days of D&D, when a lot of ‘70s esotericism, science fiction, and pseudoscience was baked directly into the game. This spell has little practical applicability in 5E, where characters will use Plane Shift as a simpler option available at a lower level. I’ll solve this by making Astral Projection a reliable way to travel the planes, and (if I ever reach the letter “P”) make Plane Shift more like Teleport (which is to say, unreliable).

Augury. You ask an otherworldly entity about a course of action you may undertake, and it advises if the outcome will be weal, woe, mixed, or uncertain/unclear.

Except for some needlessly crunchy mechanical details, this one is fiction-forward and mostly fine as-is in 5E. The cumulative chance of false readings is nominally interesting, but I think most players would simply never cast the spell more than once in a day, so I’m just cutting that detail and leaving any penalty for overuse to DM adjudication.

Aura of Life. You and your allies gain advantage on saves related to the undead for L turns.

Aura of Purity. You and your allies gain advantage on saves related to poison, disease, or similar afflictions for L turns.

Various 5E spells interact with damage types and status conditions at a level of detail beyond what we’re really interested in here. We’ll just condense these down to their underlying ideas and leave the specifics to DM adjudication.

Aura of Vitality. L nearby creatures in danger heal L damage.

Healing spells are boring. While running Knave, I’ve enjoyed how seriously players view damage; they can’t just shrug it off the way 5E characters usually can. We’ll see how many 5E healing spells we can get through before we run out of creative ways to steer them away from the game's damage-sponge arms race.

Bane. Your enemies have disadvantage on attack rolls as long as you loudly chant and point at them.

Last time we did this exercise, I trashed Aid because it just changes numbers without changing the fiction in an interesting way. Bane is even worse, because it’s useful enough in the math of combat to be a correct tactical choice, but only gradually affects the battle in a way that feels very numbers-oriented. Our “fixed” version makes it stronger, but with a risk, putting a target on the caster’s head for as long as they persist.

Banishing Smite. The next time you hit a creature with half HP or less with an attack, banish it to its native plane, or a random location L miles away if it is already on its native plane.

Banishment. Banish a creature to its native plane, or a random location L miles away if it is already on its native plane.

A player once told me they felt bad about using Banishment as a get-out-of-jail-free card, ending a potential combat before it really began by sending an enemy off to another plane of existence. While I have issues with some of 5E’s save-or-suck spells, because they invite players to optimize the fun out of the game, I told the player I actually rather like how Banishment just kicks the can down the road. A banished enemy may show up later with a score to settle – and they’ll be better prepared for the PCs’ tricks the second time around.

Barkskin. You gain armor as brigandine for L turns, and can easily conceal yourself among trees while motionless.

I couldn’t resist adding a little flavor with the second clause; it feels like an idea one of my players would propose, and I would gladly allow.

Beacon of Hope. Name something dangerous you have seen recently; you and your allies gain advantage on saving throws while confronting it.

I recognize that I may be leaning too heavily on advantage and disadvantage to generalize out from 5E’s highly crunchy 5E spell descriptions. Advantage is a great tool, but it yields diminishing results when too many effects grant it. Any serious adaptation of the 5E spellbook to Knave would require condensing the total list of spells, or at least carefully controlling how many spells acquired by the party rely on it for their effect. An alternative approach for Beacon of Hope would be to apply it to henchman and hireling morale.

Beast Sense. After touching a beast, you can sense what it senses for L hours.

Bestow Curse. Choose one of the five senses; as long as you point at a creature while muttering curses, that creature has disadvantage on any saving throws related to that sense.

Bestow Curse in 5E is flavorful, but the actual effects are kinda crunchy and, like Bane, feel like more of an ongoing nuisance for enemies rather than something that immediately changes the situation in an interesting way. 

Bigby’s Hand. For L rounds, you control a giant glowing hand that can punch, shove, and grab with the strength of a dozen people.

Blade Barrier. You conjure a wall of spinning blades, either as a ring around you or a long wall; creatures attempting to pass through the barrier must make a Dexterity saving throw or take Ld6 damage.

Blade Ward. Weapon attacks against you have disadvantage for L rounds.

Bless. Your allies have advantage on attack rolls as long as you are in as much or more danger than them.

As with Bane, we need to attach some kind of condition, although I fear these are getting a little too vague. I do like the idea of the spellcaster leading from the front and hoisting a metaphorical battle standard to inspire the group, which is easier in a classless game like Knave.

Blight. Drain all moisture from non-magical plants roughly equal to L people in size, reducing them to dust; a plantlike creature takes Ld10 damage instead.

Blinding Smite. The next creature you strike is blinded until the next time it takes damage.

Blindness/Deafness. All nearby creatures are blinded or deafened (your choice).

Blink. You become shadowy and immaterial on the round you cast the spell – and every other round afterward – unable to be harmed by solid things, but also unable to harm them in return.

Blur. Attacks against you have disadvantage.

Branding Smite. The next creature you strike glows with tell-tale light that they cannot extinguish for L turns. 

Burning Hands. A cone of fire either deals Ld6 damage to one creature, or ignites all flammable objects in the vicinity.

Closing Thoughts

The "D&D Next" process that led to 2014's D&D 5E seems to suggest that there was some appetite for removing needless complexity from the game, and... I think that included a desire to condense the byzantine spell list. They removed many of the “greater” and “mass” variations on spells. The option to upcast spells provided a model for varying the streamlining effects like simple damage and healing spells.

But the design feels compromised. A lot of cruft obviously stayed in. The designers didn't use those tools nearly as much as they could have, or should have. I don’t know that 5E would really work with the truly level-less/balance-agnostic magic of Knave; but I do believe 5E could have gone much further than it did, and would have played that much better if it had.

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.