TableTop Discussion - When is it Okay for a DM to Fudge a Dice Roll?

There is often talk amongst Table Top players about when it is and isn't acceptable to fudge the rolls of the game in order to help or hinder the players, and there are a few ways to look at this. I want to make it clear that, like most things, it really will depend on the group you are running with. Some groups and players will, under no circumstance, anything should be judged by the DM. The stories I am going to be talking about we were playing Pathfinder.

I can understand that view, because once you are shown to be fudging something once it can come across as if you will do it many times over. It can be a bit immersion breaking if you feel the fate of the game is no longer in your hands as a player, but the whim of the DM. That being said, I do feel fudging things has a time and place.

For example, let's say you, as the DM, are using a DM screen and for some reason just have a really hot hand that night, and maybe the player's luck is a bit on the shit side. The fate of the game is already out of their hand, and the last thing you want as the DM is a party wipe that is entirely out of anyone’s hands. That is just no good for anyone, so there are some extreme instances that a DM should probably fudge a few enemy dice rolls to ensure the party isn't screwed out of a win.

That said, don't' just do this anytime the players are losing. Sometimes the players just make bad choices and poor plays and end up suffering for it. I had a player, for example, set up a wind wall as a wizard, which was actually really helpful in this situation. The problem was he wasn't paying to much attention to his own positioning, and as a result one of the archers was able to move just enough to shoot him without interference from the Wind Wall. Because he didn't pay attention, I ended up killing the wizard in that fight due to a couple of high rolls. In this case, one bad play turned deadly due to an unlucky roll, but this situation happened because he put himself there. In the end, that is the nature of the game, sometimes things go wrong.

Or sometimes the unexpected happens, sometimes you make bad choices that you couldn't have foreseen would be bad choices. Same game, but earlier in the campaign, I had this one player who was really damn clever and kept me on my toes as a DM with how smart he played. That was until he tried bluffing his way into a thieves hideout. The problem was the things he said to get in worked at the front, but when he got in he tried bluffing his way in. It's not that he rolled bad, but he didn't realize who these people were and made claims that they knew for a fact were false, which incurred some pretty hefty penalties to his roll. My Sorcerer/Rogue is now unconscious and being held hostage.

Furthermore, the characters got into the bottom floor by breaking through the windows to get the jump on the enemies and rescue the sorcerer, who had gotten a message spell off to them before he went down. So many windows are already broken. The bottom floor is clear, and they are yelling up at the captures trying to negotiate/threaten them to get the guy back. What happens is one of the enemies scales down the side of the building, out of their view, and sneaks around. Seeing there is a broken out window, he gets a clear shot at my summoner. And it's a critical with a Longbow, followed by a crossbow shot from the guy at the top of the stairs. My Summoner is out now as well.

Here is where there is a bit of a dilemma, did I do this the right way? Since there is no way The sorcerer would have known that those guards knew he was lying in advance, should I have fudged things a bit in the player's favor? Or do I go with the inevitable consequence of my player's actions regardless? The death of the Summoner was due to a bit of a high roll on my part, we were playing Pathfinder and Longbow Crits are a scary thing, but at the same time, this position was one created by their own actions, and can't just be ruled as a slew of dumb luck. I did opt to keep the Sorcerer alive as a hostage, in order to give my players a chance to get him back, so I'm not a total monster, but that's something that was a reasonable course of action for them to take. And even then it's a fight that almost killed multiple party members (Only the summoner died) because they messed up going in.

Some may say I was a bit harsh, but as far as my group went that game continued on for a long time after that, so clearly my way of handling things was right by them at least. I feel the best way to handle the fudging of die rolls or other mechanics is to let them fall as they do outside of some excessively good rolling on the part of the GM, something the players just don't have a way around. Had I opted to go easy on them when the Sorcerer got caught, I would have missed out on a fantastic encounter that really helped to put the fear of the campaign I was running into them. When dealing with their enemies, if they weren't careful there were going to be some pretty dire consequences, and this wasn't even that bad of an encounter. I wrote it up to be a relatively easy one, but my players were being a lot more careful going forward.

It's something you should take time to think about, and something I think you should be honest with your players about. I don't tell them what I'm going to fudge, but I do let them know my general mindset in regard to the DM messing with rolls. So long as you and the players are on the same page, and you keep to doing things the way you say you do them, you should be good to proceed with the game and enjoy yourselves.