It’s a Dungeon Master’s role to create and populate the many different strongholds, lairs, and other villainous locales that player characters delve within. This means when combat starts it’s also the DM who rolls for the dastardly villains that work against the players. This puts the DM in a rather powerful position as their role is hidden behind the screen.
They are also the one who determines the difficulty of any saving throws a player character must make. Given these factors, the DM has the power to control the flow of combat while never truly revealing their dice rolls to the players. This opens the door for the DM to fudge their rolls, lying about the true outcome in order to push the combat or story in a specific direction.
It’s important to know when best to fudge a number and when not to. The ability to extend an encounter by falsifying rolls is tempting, but there are more satisfying ways to accomplish this. Adding a twist to the end of an encounter is far more engaging for players than simply prolonging it by using fudged rolls. Both of these methods can be tricky to use so let’s look at the do’s and don'ts of each.
Full article link: Dice Fudging and Twist Endings
They are also the one who determines the difficulty of any saving throws a player character must make. Given these factors, the DM has the power to control the flow of combat while never truly revealing their dice rolls to the players. This opens the door for the DM to fudge their rolls, lying about the true outcome in order to push the combat or story in a specific direction.
It’s important to know when best to fudge a number and when not to. The ability to extend an encounter by falsifying rolls is tempting, but there are more satisfying ways to accomplish this. Adding a twist to the end of an encounter is far more engaging for players than simply prolonging it by using fudged rolls. Both of these methods can be tricky to use so let’s look at the do’s and don'ts of each.
Full article link: Dice Fudging and Twist Endings