Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 31 - Should You Cheat as a GM

Episode Date: July 26, 2020

Are Game Masters beholden to the same rules that players are?  If it would result in a dramatic story beat or important campaign moment, is it okay for GMs to change prewritten adventures, change monster hit points and abilities in the middle of the battle, or even change the dice rolled behind the screen?

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning into the Taking20 Podcast, Episode 31, Should You Cheat as a GM? I'd like to thank this week's sponsor, Misbehavior's Family Dog Training. New classes are starting September 31st of this year. Should you cheat as a GM? Let's define cheating. Cheating has multiple definitions after all. Cheating can mean to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage, especially in a game or an examination. Cheating can mean to avoid something undesirable by luck

or skill, such as cheating death. Cheating also can mean sexually unfaithful. Why did I go this far on the definitions? This has nothing to do with RPGs. I don't need to be reading this. That's not the purpose of this podcast. Although if somehow tabletop RPGs allows you to be sexually unfaithful, maybe you should find a new hobby. So cheating, acting dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage. Since the GM is the arbiter and interpreter of the rules, is it cheating when a GM doesn't follow the rules as written in the handbook? Say a GM gives a monster fewer hit points, lower armor class, lower damage than what's listed in the stat block of the adventure. Is that cheating? Some fights are a slog, toe-to-toe, back-and-forth, hit-and-damage, swing-and-miss, and sometimes combat can reach the point where the players are eventually going to

win, but combat's just dragging out. They're going to win due to action economy. They're going to win due to simply having more combatants on the battlefield than the opponent does. The combat's just lengthened due to abnormally bad die rolls by the players, maybe some lucky saving throws by the baddie, but the players are going to win eventually. Since this fight is against henchmen number 27 and 28, and we're already in round 11 of the combat, you decide to shorten the fight by reducing their hit points so the session can just move on. Players are getting bored. Maybe moving on is the better choice, but if you have to fudge numbers to do it, is that a bad thing? Combat shouldn't become a tedium. Characters should feel like their lives are on the line, not that they're in the line of the DMV. I mean, if the focus of your campaign is ROLE playing rather than combat,

because that's what your players want, shorten every combat to get back to the roleplay they want. There was a long battle with a huge monster in an adventure I GM'd years ago. The baddie was named Iniyaka and had been an antagonist for the first half of the adventure, and of what they were out of. Healing channels, most of their abilities, items with uses per day, and most of their spells. You could smell the desperation and it smelled vaguely of underwear beginning to soil. I looked at the table and said, Marion, you're up. Marion the Cleric was out of spells above zero level. She looked at the other players on the table and said, I draw my flail and charge in

Iyaka, screaming the whole time. If you could hear my grin, it would have sounded something like... Yeah, that. The players all had the same oh shit look. There was a fierce discussion trying to talk her out of it. He'll get an attack of opportunity. How many hit points do you even have, anyway? Great, this is how the cleric dies. This normally quiet player said, it's all I have left and this is happening. It's better to flame out than fade out. Her character charged in, she rolled to hit, natural 20. She threatened a critical hit. She then confirmed the critical hit and did 16 points of damage. I looked down at my notes on the monster sheet and it had 18 hit points left before she hit it.

I looked up, smiled, and said, The flail catches the minotaur in the ribcage, and you hear a loud crunch. Inuyaka drops to one knee, a wet wheezing coming from her wide-open mouth before falling over dead. Players cheered. They high-fived. They let out multiple sighs of relief. A major antagonist had been slain by the party's healer in a desperate moment where the party was on its last legs. By the strict rules of the game, though, as written, the monster had two hit points left. By those rules, the fight could have continued on. It was Eniaka's turn next who probably would have ripped the cleric's head off and used it as a cereal bowl or a bedpan. There was no way on this earth I was going to rob the cleric of that

moment. The party was desperate. They had nothing left. They were pushed to the brink and beyond, and the cleric charges headlong into a minotaur general wielding a greataxe, and it worked? That's the stuff of legends. I actually emailed her before this episode. She didn't have a gaming group and would love to get back into it now that her daughter's old enough to play, so I might be DMing another group before too long. She still remembers that moment, and I bet the others in the party remember it too.

But here's my question. Was it cheating? Did I as the DM cheat in that moment? In rules as written, the Minotaur General should still have been alive. Players didn't know that. There's no hit point scoreboard above my head. that moment. In rules as written, the Minotaur General should still have been alive. Players didn't know that. There's no hit point scoreboard above my head. The players have no clue how many hit points the baddie has left. Was it cheating? Here's my counter question. What's my rule number

one of the GM? What is your job? To make sure everybody has fun. Fun is more important than the story that you've written, and it's more important than the rules of the game. Having the monster die in that moment was an epic moment for that group. It made for a great story beat. It made for a great character moment, because she even said she was going to take the monster's horns and wanted to have a magic item fashioned out of them. So what if I had to bend the rules and Inuyaka had to die with two hit points left?

So I say no. Tweaking hit points, armor class, etc. behind the screen is not cheating. You are giving your players a good time. Then you may be asking, why don't I do that every single combat or every time we have fall damage? Well, most of the time it's not necessary. This was a major antagonist. It was a hard combat and it was wholly unexpected that the cleric actually pulled it off. It made for a major, character-shaping story beat, and the players had fun doing it.

Was I correct to fudge the numbers? Well, that's what we're here to talk about. But what about the opposite? Giving an NPC more hit points, make her harder to hit, make the damage higher than what's listed in the pre-built adventure. Give it extra feats, class levels, abilities. Maybe make some of its abilities legendary or swift actions. Give it more spells and higher DCs. Is that cheating? Well, here's the thing.

Part of fun is sometimes you give the party a challenge. And you may have to do these things in order to provide any sort of challenge to the party. Maybe you've got more than four people in your party. Maybe you're DMing for a group of six. Maybe multiple members of the party are min-maxed, so they are really built for combat. Maybe you have experienced players who know the rulebook, and now you've got to fiddle with the numbers a little bit so they don't quite know what to expect. Or maybe just this particular fight, you need it to be memorable and tougher. I don't think it's cheating if the DM does this, and I will admit this is a hill I will die on. Now here's the thing. If you want to do this, if you want to make adjustments behind the screen,

you have to be smart about it. Once you've announced a value, set an armor class, decided on a damage range, and the players know it, do not change it. Okay, I rolled and I hit AC 24. Miss. Didn't AC 23 hit last round? He has dodge up now. So that way, once it's been announced, make sure you remember it and you don't change it.

And that way you don't have to scramble. Players don't see hit points. They don't see some abilities. you don't change it, and that way you don't have to scramble. Players don't see hit points. They don't see some abilities. They don't see effect durations. Those are safe to change as long as they haven't been announced, but once they are, now it is the value and don't change it. So let's go another type of cheating, quote unquote. What about DMs fudging a dice roll? Adjusting the number rolled to hit or the damage done or the saving throw made? Well, I think we're getting closer to cheating territory, but I still don't think we're there. Should a GM claim he or she rolled a different number than he or she actually did? Well, somewhere someone is saying that's cheating. That is definitely

cheating. And again, my question to fellow DMs is what's important in your game? Rules and randomness that never change a die roll. What the numbers say happens, happens. The end. Full stop. The dice help decide the narrative. If story beats and heroic moments are more important to you, then absolutely, occasionally, change a dice roll.

In my campaigns, I will occasionally fudge numbers. In a recent campaign that I'm actually still in the middle of running, there was a witch who kept sleeping monsters to end fights over and over and over again. And sorry, Elfie, if you're listening to this, I love you so much. You are one of my favorite players, but you're probably not going to like what you're about to hear. Something like four combats in a row ended. First round, she'd just hex the creature to sleep and they'd coup de grace over and over and over and over. During the fifth combat, she tried to sleep a giant.

I rolled the die and came up with a 13 on the die for a total of 17. I knew about what her DC was, so I fudged it higher so I could say, No, sorry, looks like a 21. Oh, giant made it save? Okay, sorry, that didn't work. What's your move action? In another example, a party that was new to role-playing games was murder hoboing their way through a homemade campaign. They were low levels and this wasn't a bad thing. They're having a good time. They're

getting introduced to the hobby. I wanted them to talk to at least one person. So as I talked about in the murder hobo episode, I let consequences catch up to them. A corrupt bandit leader called in favors from mercenaries and the party was ambushed while they camped. Most not in armor awoken at two in the morning by arrows out of the dark landing in the dwindling campfire. They scrambled and were eventually backed up to a 200-foot drop into a plunge basin, the lake at the base of a waterfall. After being offered a chance to talk to the masked bandit leader, which I had planned, by the way, this was going to be a big reveal that the bandit leader was also a major player in the government and there was going to be political stakes and intrigue to follow,

the cleric said, I turn around and jump off the cliff. I couldn't help myself. I said, you what? I throw myself off the cliff. The players looked at each other around the table and said they all would do the same thing. Now, per the game rules, it's a 200- 200 foot drop which should have been 20 d6 falling damage but because they were landing in water it reduced it to 16 d6 lethal and since the water was deep enough 2 d6 non-lethal damage. Players hadn't fully healed and I was doing quick math that was going to average about 56 lethal and 7 non-lethal damage give or take. I rolled the damage for the cleric that was first

off the cliff behind the screen and it was north of 60 points of lethal and some amount of non-lethal damage, give or take. I rolled the damage for the cleric that was first off the cliff behind the screen, and it was north of 60 points of lethal and some amount of non-lethal on top of that. Rules as written, cleric's dead, and I need to re-roll damage for every player separately. This probably would have been a total party kill, TPK. These were new players, so... I lied. I fudged the numbers down to a level where the characters would survive the fall. Two of the six were unconscious after they hit the water. So in the first instance, I fudged a saving throw to keep a fight going. In the second instance, I fudged falling damage down to keep the players alive. Were these the right things to do in those circumstances? I think so.

In the first example, I wanted other characters to get a chance to shine. Elfie had single-handedly ended a number of fights. I wanted to give others the chance to land that killing blow and be the big damn hero. I peppered in some more creatures going forward that were immune to sleep in the pre-made adventure, so I tweaked the pre-made adventure to give more people the opportunity to be the hero. Her character was and still is a great build, but the other players I thought were getting bored. So I fudged the die roll to give the sorcerer, the druid, the ranger the chance to feel like that they were contributing to the party. It wasn't just the Elfie show. In the second example, it was a party of very new players that honestly

made a bad decision. So I fudged the roles. I told them how lucky they were to have survived the fall, that the water was deeper than it looked, and they had to revive their two allies and find a place to hide for the night. That's how they met Sylvara, a silvery elf who was more than she seemed to be. Both groups had a good time, so yeah, I think it was the right thing to do. But what about another type of cheating? Taking encounters out of or adding encounters to pre-made adventures? You're modifying the adventure as written, and some consider that a form of cheating. I don't. We as DMs should strive to make sure our players are having fun and our characters are challenged.

In that order. We aren't there to be cruel and show how smart we are or how dumb the players are. In preparing for this episode, I actually looked at my history as a DM and started thinking about, through the years, the things that I've changed and where I've fudged the most. And I can tell you, where I've fudged the most are random encounters. Sometimes a pre-made adventurer will say, roll random encounters three times per day or twice in a night.

Some of the encounters on the table can be nasty. I remember reading one where the party was average character level 3, and a couple of the random encounters were for parties at average level 6. I don't want to risk a TPK on a random monster walking by. Most random encounters exist in campaigns to make sure party resources are expended and make the world feel occupied, lived in, like there's danger at every turn. Non-plot random encounters do slow the game down a bit. By the way, I'm going to stop here because I want to do a whole episode on random

encounters in the future, so much more to come on this topic. Just know that I tend to scale back or even ignore random encounters in a lot of the pre-made adventures. If you do want to make changes to adventures, to dice rolls, to whatever, the one thing you have to keep in mind is the purpose behind the changes you are making. If you are making changes to punish characters, massage your ego, or make sure you show them how smart you are, that's wrong. You're in the wrong here. DMs and players are playing together, not against each other. And if you're not rooting for your player characters to succeed, then you're coming out being a DM from the wrong place. RPGs are cooperative storytelling at their heart, and you should be rooting for them to succeed and working to make sure they feel challenged along the way. At this point, I want to say that if you DM and you limit yourself to

the same rules as the party, you never fudge die rolls, you never change pre-made adventures, and everybody's having fun, then have a great time doing it. Some GMs believe the die rolls should be a major contributor to the story. Rolls are sacrosanct. The monsters as presented in the adventure are holy writ. Rules as written above all. If you feel that way, I'm not going to yuck your yum. Keep DMing that way. If your players enjoy it, go to town. But I will say if you stick to that method of DMing, you're robbing yourself of a potentially useful tool in your arsenal. And it may be one of those things you're just not comfortable behind the screen. And as you become more so, more familiar with story beats, you might feel comfortable incorporating story structure and drama into the game, so you'll begin to recognize the important moments

that are just over the horizon. Sometimes nudging a number one way or another to provide a powerful, memorable moment can make a difference between a ho-hum gaming session and one that's still remembered 10 years later. However, despite what I did in this episode, which is to reveal to multiple parties I've DM'd for that I've fudged some numbers for dramatic moments, you shouldn't do that. After this episode airs, I'm going to be reaching out to the players in the campaigns that I run so we can discuss any concerns they may have after this. DM rule number two, communication is key. For all of you out there, never let the party know you fudged the numbers for their dramatic

moment. It would take the wind out of their sails so much let the party know you fudged the numbers for their dramatic moment. It would take the wind out of their sails so much after the cleric defeated the minotaur general and they're all high-fiving and congratulating. If I had said, by the way, that was a gift. You still had two points left, so I just ended the fight there. No, all you've done is deflate their magic moment. Don't do that. If the party learns that you're cheating, even if it's for their benefit, it can rob them of their trust in you as a DM. It'll always be in the back of their mind. Was that ghost really dead as written or did he fudge the numbers? Should I have survived that hit that knocked me down to four hit points?

They'll always wonder and it will erode their confidence in you. It may take away from their fun as well. So in summary, as the GM, remember what your role is. Yes, rules adjudicator, but more than that, storyteller. More than that, making sure everyone has fun. There's no scoreboard over your head. There's nothing wrong with slight changes here and there to give your players their dramatic moments.

They don't have to know that the dice said something different. Do you disagree with me? Do you agree with me? Do you want to provide feedback about the podcast? Please send me an email to feedback at taking20podcast.com and that 20 is two zero. I would love to hear from you. I would love to incorporate your feedback and make future episodes even better. I once again want to thank our sponsor, Misbehavior's Family Dog Training. Ask about our good dog and bad pussy discounts. This has been Taking 20, Episode 31, Should You Cheat as a GM? And I hope that your next game is your best game.