Sometimes I can tell when my current DM fudges a roll to miss an attack or reduce damage. He has a tell in the specific way he pauses and breathes before announcing the roll, then tries to hurry to the next turn, which only seems to happen when someone is in a life-or-death scenario, but “luckily” survives.
Should I let him know he has a tell? Will it be less fun (or more stressful) for him if he knows I know?
The point is to tell an exciting story - there’s no right or wrong definition of what that means for you.
The dice’s purpose is to take you down paths you might not have chosen deliberately but the goal is still to have an exciting story. If the DM wants to be like “I recognize the dice have made a decision but given that it’s a stupid ass decision, I’ve elected to ignore it” then he has my full support.
Maybe a cleaner way would be to decide up front: which outcomes am I ok with? and simply cap the roll at that. You know the paladin only has 17 HP left and you don’t want the paladin to go down so the maximum roll you want is 16. So if you have roll 4d6 damage. You do: roll 3 roll 8 roll 12 roll
1816.As a DM, I ask my players at session zero, do you want me to fudge rolls to make the game more fun/interesting, or let the dice fall how they may? I’ve never had a table ask me to not fudge the dice.
Wait, so every table you’ve had has been fine with you fudging dice? That’s honestly wild to me.
In 22 years and close to probably 100 games that I have ran, not once have I been aske not to fudge. But also, I’ve not been asked to reveal when I do. Which is actually pretty rare. I’ve probably only fudged maybe a dozen rolls in that time.
That’s seriously crazy to me! Wow. It’s one of the things I would definitely say ‘do not do’ if a GM asked me that. Obviously I know everyone doesn’t feel as I do, I’m just surprised that in so long, no one has really cared.
Shouldn’t be downvoted just for liking things differently.
I hate to say it, I think you might be in the minority here.
My take has always been that D&D isn’t an adversarial game - the DM isn’t trying to ‘win’, they’re just trying to keep things entertaining for the players.
The trouble with random is that it doesn’t always follow story beats, and doesn’t always feel fun.
A big boss not getting any hits in due to bad rolls deminishes the perceived threat, and the ultimate value of the victory. Stupid zombies that just won’t stay down despite the fact that everyone is now bored with them can easily be kept down.
As long as you know when to do it, it can be super useful for everyone.
