When your DM fudges things...

Just curious how you all respond to/approach times when you think your DM/GM may have skewed the dice or encounter a certain way. I have 2 examples... Game 1 Bad Skew: Session 1 we fight our way through the first level of the dark caverns, destroying the undead, ended beaten and bruised but alive and triumphant! Next week the undead are replaced with hordes of spellcasting orcs and what not, beating us mercilessly and killing 2 party members. DM is having a miraculous "good" roll night. Game 2 Beneficial Skew: We have tracked the bad guy through swamps and forests, cities and dungeons and finally have her and her army cornered in their keep. We find a way in, and make it to the final encounter. We use all of our resources, but emerge victorious! However, we missed a sizable force that comes at us when we are down... people get hurt, but miraculously the DM rolls go bad and we survive. By all rights and logic we should have died. What is the reaction you would have in each of the scenarios? I'll share mine once we have a few responses. :) as always, thanks for reading and responding!

I assume the DM's dice rolls are hidden?

As a DM I always roll dice openly. If your DM isn't, then I'd worry a bit. But I must say - some nights the dice just hate you. Others...well, in my case the dice always hate me.

Chance happens. It's no issue, and I have complete trust in others' rolls. Being suspicious of someone because of random rolls is silly. The rules give the game form and tension, without them action scenes would be boring. If you wanted to fudge dice to get a result that you want, rules are arbitrary and you might as well not use rolls at all. There's better ways to have fun, anyways. If you are GMing and realise you made an encounter far too difficult, forget to use a few abilities or don't bring in those reinforcements you wanted to. Not a great idea to do it the other way around; adding creatures to an encounter because the PCs are winning it might result in the rolls going your way AND more goons. Can't make them disappear once you get them out there.

As a DM, I don't fudge. I don't create encounters or call for rolls if I need a certain result on the roll for the story to advance. If the PCs need to find a hidden door to continue advancing the story, there's no point in saying "okay, roll perception... hmmmm, a 1? Uhhhhhhhh... you find the hidden door anyways." I think this is where a lot of fudging comes from. DM's all too often plan out plots in advance and need certain results for the story to continue, and feel that they have to simulate everything along the way by calling for rolls to do stuff even though they need a specific outcome to continue the story. Well, first off, are you sure that the DM is fudging in these situations? I've had encounters and whole sessions where we had an easy or hard time because the DM's dice were hot or cold. That's just part of randomness... If you play long enough, sometimes you'll see long lucky streaks, and sometimes you see long unlucky streaks. If I have suspicions and am concerned, I'd talk to the DM out of game after the session. It's the only way to address the problem. If it's so bad that it makes the game unenjoyable, I'd consider backing out.

Random dice rolls give good and bad runs more often than most people think. Ask a person who doesn't know statistics to make up data for "randomly" tossing a coin 100 times and then actually toss 100 times and compare the data. You might be shocked by the results. You will usually get several runs of heads or tails in the actual random data, but the data a person thinks is "random" won't have them. With regard to the question I would record the DM's dice rolls and perform hypothesis testing to determine the likelihood that the DM is cheating and then confront the DM about it depending on the results.

As a GM, I do almost all dice rolls out in the open. I only do hidden rolls for things like a Thief checking for traps. Because he never knows for sure if there really is a trap or not. Also things like reaction rolls, I do those hidden, because the PCs never know for sure what an NPC is really thinking.

Hidden rolls are a way to hide the actual "power" of the monster from the player. It can serve you greatly if you want something to seem more powerful than it actually is, or the opposite... because, let's be honest, by rolling everything from HP to attacks out in the open any player will get a really good idea of exactly how strong the monster is bar its special attacks. Fucking with a roll is bad GM-ing. We roll dices to add randomness and by that virtue realism to our story, a good GM should be able to handle whatever dices he rolls and his players roll and develop the story around that. If a DM is intentionally fucking dice rolls in favor of the NPC's he is just a bad GM because he could have easily added more powerful or numerous NPC's, if a GM is intentionally rolling the dice in favor of the player he is destroying any sense of danger his game might have. In my honest opinion, if you don't trust a GM with his dice rolls in an RPG campaign, you shouldn't be playing with that GM in the first place or the GM shouldn't be playing with that party. The GM is judge, jury and executioner, if you don't trust him the only thing you can do is not play with him.

(Big wall of text incoming..but since tabletop is about rolls and outcomes being a big part of it, its a long post, and just how I do it not a guideline of how it should be done) I do the same here on my rolls, if its something they have to roll in the open for, I do the same. For combat rolls, attacks, etc. anything the players will see the outcome of, I roll out in the open. This way when they get into a bad situation of combat, and things go bad they know its not me fudging rolls to make the creatures 'win'. Or if they totally stomp a set of creatures they thought they had no chance on, they actually feel rewarded vs assuming I 'let them win'. As a GM I see my job as creating a world and its details and life, and setting the laws and rules of nature in it, and enforcing them as the story plays out for good or bad. Not bending them to my whim as I see fit. But I do do blind rolls for situations they don't know if it succeeded. but I respect and uphold the result of it regardless of what it is. Such as them trying to prowl, They assume they are hidden until something proves to them they aren't. It seems to help with them roleplaying if they are of the mindset "I think I'm being quiet to the best of my knowledge". Or them searching for a door, or passing a perception check on some small detail. I roll secretly and if they pass I let them know, otherwise they can walk right past it without a clue it even was there. I myself try not to fudge rolls. if its a roll, I'm rolling to give chance and unpredictability..If I was the type to know the outcome I wanted, and want to force it..why would I roll just to ignore the roll result, other than so the players hear it roll, and I lie to the players that the die gave that result? And not to judge the GM. but if(it could be just dumb luck) hes fudging combat rolls because the combat isn't ending how he likes, hes just railroading the party into the outcome he wants. Why not just skip the whole fight then, and he describe how it played out instead? No reason to make players roll in vain to attempt something, when he can swat down the attempts and pick the rolls he wants to counter it. It sounds like its turned into a case of the players seeing the game as "GM vs us" by the GMs actions. Or the GM is not liking the players messing up his 'script'. like the players are passengers on the storyline, and less like the people driving it. (maybe Im reading too much into it). I personally think it comes down to GM styles, I myself don't think a GM should ever hide rolls for things the PC's know is being rolled, and see the outcomes of directly. (IE combat rolls, damage rolls, attacks, initiatives etc). To roll them blind, AND fudge them is abuse of the trust the players have in you as a GM to be fair and honest with the power you have of doing blind rolls. A decent GM can always work with roll results to keep the story going by using improv for situations differently than planned, while still sticking to the rules of the game and results of the dice. If it must happen I rather have a GM that just tells me the result he decided on without rolling for sake of the game, than him roll so I hear the dice, and lie to me about what the roll was to make me think it was random luck on his part.

I used to make all my rolls hidden when I first started DMing, but I don't bother now unless I really don't want to give out meta-information. If a creature has god-like stats and is only missing due to bad luck, I'd rather the players be aware of that than mistakenly think the creature is a push over. Getting killed because you didn't know how much damage a monster was capable of doing is a little unfair in my books, especially in settings where there are no clues to give it away (like in DnD where a normal human NPC might be able to murder you with their barehands if they are high-enough level, but the PCs don't know their level).

It kinda depends on what you want to do and how much of a lawyer / how serious you are. Does it make for a better story if the party died 30 minutes into the game, in their first encounter and everyone has to reroll and spend another 2 hours on their characters, just because the 5 kobolds rolled 5 natural 20ies? Or does it make for a better story if the party got severely battered, having underestimated the kobold and 3 of them are gravely wounded and they have to figure out how to traverse the hostile teritory to make it back to somewhere where they can recover and plan new steps? Personally I might occasionally help the players out a little bit. If they're being really smart about their plans and stuff like that I do not feel the dice should supersede all of that. It's a bit of a fine line to toe and I feel it should not be overused. Players can and will die, but there's a middle ground between having your campaign be a meat grinder and lollypop land where nobody ever dies. I realise that it's really easy and convenient to paint this as black and white and be like "this should never be done ever!" but I respectfully disagree with that. Sometimes I think helping the players out a little is definetly okay. And not always does that have to involve dice. One of my most frustrating role playing experiences involves a riddle (to which we knew the correct answer) but the DM had altered the answer to something that made no sense. "Alive without breath, cold as death, never thirsty, ever drinking, all in mail yet never clinking, who am I?" and his answer was "An undead cow" or something like that. Not being able to solve this riddle "correctly" COMPLETELY roadblocked our party. We were literally locked in a room until we solved it. A little "fudging" here would have gone a long way to keep the game going. If you feel it's necessary to have all dice rolls the DM makes be open, you're operating on a level distrust that I'd not see a point in playing in the first place. Plus, as has been said, it shows the strength of the monster too readily. That should be done via in game descriptions, imho, not by letting people see the stats. On the flipside, I would not ever alter dice rolls to kill players. That's just being a dick.

See I sort of stand in the middle, an untimely PC death is never good or fun for anyone. But a unfortunate roll can still be kept, and story/situation made to adjust to it, without having to change the roll itself. like the NPC switches targets once PC is unconscious from a bad blow, as hes no longer a threat to it, giving the party time to get the hurt PC to safety while making a retreat to regroup if they so decide so. I don't advocate outright killing a party member that isn't doing something obviously stupid. And bad rolls happen, but you work with it, not around it. Where is the sudden random chance and unexpected turns..for both the PC and the GM, if undesirable rolls are though of as optional, instead of thinking "OK after that what are our options". Always give them an out to choose, or an obvious 'plan B' (or they themselves usually should have one already) they can all try to work towards if things go south(which itself may go south and they need a new plan). But work with the rolls you have to play it out, don't just change the rolls so it plays out how you expected. Players are expected to work with the unexpected, unknown, and new situations they are presented as part of the game, a GM should be also :) I personally think playing with fudging dice on bad rolls, is like reading a "choose your own adventure book" with you finger bookmarking the choice page incase you don't like what you picked :P

If it's truly in service to the story/plotline, then I don't see anything wrong with the DM secretly "fudging" results, whether to the party's benefit or detriment. However, it should never be done for petty reasons (i.e. just because "the party is beating up my favorite monster!"). If you storyboard your adventures, there very well may be certain points in the campaign were a particular thing may have to happen regardless of what the characters do, just to advance the plot. It's best to use such things sparingly, though; ideally, you should always try to have different story arcs envisioned depending on what the characters do.

Paul S. said: As a DM I always roll dice openly. If your DM isn't, then I'd worry a bit. But I must say - some nights the dice just hate you. Others...well, in my case the dice always hate me. This. Personally, I hate the GM screwing with the dice. Usually means they screwed up or didn't know what they were doing and now are having to try and fix it on the fly. Make the encounter fair (appropriate CR), and you won't have to fudge the dice, the party will be ok. Sometimes the dice go bad, sometimes they go great, that is part of gaming.

I'll find another another DM if I catch one fudging. I can't stand it and it is why I roll openly for most things.

In the first circumstance I am not sure he was using the dice roller at all. It sounded like there were dice being rolled in the background, but maybe that was the 3d dice roller. I don't use it and don't remember if it makes sounds. My concern is not really with hidden rolls. I think they do have a place. I think it is the gm vs player debate. The issue was that it felt like the initial encounters were not as challenging as he had wanted, so we ended up with more challenging encounters. This is natural, but the comments about trying to kill players, being upset at an enemy missing etc., while mainly in jest (I think) didn't go over well with everyone. so, when someone died we lost him as a player, and then from there things dissolved as a group. Personally I like to be challenged, as long as it is 'fair'. I also like to feel powerful. It's like in an MMO where you get forced into zones of red names above your level instead of being able stay and beat on the gorillas that had given you so much trouble to feel more powerful. In the second case it was a tabletop game with friends. We had a player die a couple weeks ago, and she had just gotten back to 8. We all really like our characters, so I don't think he's keen on killing us... not that we want him to, When we were attacked I, as the cleric at level 5 (ecl 8) in 3.5 was down to a Cure Light and Cure Moderate spell. Our wizard had 2 scorching rays left (level 8), and our sole remaining cure light wand had 3 charges left. We were attacked by a level 8+ wizard, 4 lizardman bodyguards, some kobolds and a big werewolf. The wolf just happened to fumble away it's attacks that would have killed the ranger, the wizard did 35 damage with cone of cold (38 would have killed the wizard and incapped the rogue), killing the now wounded werewolf and a lizardman guard... basically when everything should have gone against us it all magically worked out. No pun intended. Anyway, I totally understand as a GM why you would do that, but personally I did feel just a bit cheated. It was a perfectly fair encounter, and really it was our own fault for not making sure our path was clear or back was guarded. Neither situation is enough for me to not play in the game, but if the patterns continue I would definitely say something. i think it's very similar to a "problem player" where discussing things is better than harboring resentment or just kicking/quitting.

I roll secretly but very rarely fudge anything in favor of either party. The reason I roll secretly is there are some circumstances where the players should not even know anything is being rolled for. As far as whether it's okay to fudge or not, I come down in the middle of the pack, although I did recently re-read the 1e DMG, and there's an interesting quote from EGG in there regarding fudged rolls. His contention was that although a DM could fudge dice, the one roll that was sacrosanct was the system shock/resurrection survival roll that determined whether or not a character could come back, since without that check there is no sense of finality to a character's story. If there's a roll to avoid dismemberment, death, etc., I have the player make the roll.

When I first started GMing, I was rolling in secret and i fudged a lot and a lot of roll, the reason was I did not really knew how hard or how easy my encounter were. I never did it however in life threatening situation, I only did it to give a great encounter to my party. Now that I am a little bit more experienced, I roll in open, and it feel great for me to show my player that I made a great encounter and did not needed to cheat to make it good. They still call me a hacker because for some reason, I roll better in open than in secret ahah!

Regarding "meta-information"... First off, I believe meta-gaming is good. But I realize I'm in the minority here, so I'll explain a bit further. I used to use a screen and do all my rolls in secret (including fudging). I've since then stopped using a screen, and just have a page of notes out in the open. I've come to realize that I've yet to come across a good explanation of what exactly is wrong with giving out meta-information about a monster. And what is to be gained by concealing it? What is so horrible about the players knowing a monster's AC or to-hit roll that we have to hide that kind of info behind a screen? What do we gain by concealing that information? Even if you argue that it's not realistic or whatever for PCs to know that, surely any competent adventurer would be able to size up their foe and get a feeling for if he's a total badass (in game terms, lots of HP, high defenses, lots of damage) or a mook. Interestingly, I had the following situation happen at a convention where I was DMing for a group. Player 1 (brand new to D&D): "Okay, so how many HP does this thing (points to main enemy) have?" Player 2 (experienced with D&D and many other RPGs): "You're not supposed to know that. The DM is supposed to keep all that kind of stuff secret. The only time you'll know is when you bloody it, which is when it gets down to half health. Me (DM): "242" Heck, I'd probably show my players the monster's stat block if they really wanted to see it. It might even speed things up a bit if they know that a 25 hits the monster's Reflex defense without having to ask every single turn. Regarding rolls that "have to be" secret... I don't know. I've tried avoiding "roll to know" checks whenever possible, if only because "you don't know anything, and hopefully you don't even know I made the roll" isn't an interesting outcome. And it could wind up bogging the game down. I prefer "roll-to-do" checks where something interesting happens on a failure and the game keeps moving forwards. So, instead of rolling in secret to determine whether a player notices a trap or not and having the failure condition be "they don't notice... and hopefully they didn't see me rolling" it would be "the trap activates! Stuff happens! And here come the monsters!" In this case, there's no point in rolling in secret, because either way, something interesting happens immediately.

crimsyn said: Heck, I'd probably show my players the monster's stat block if they really wanted to see it. It might even speed things up a bit if they know that a 25 hits the monster's Reflex defense without having to ask every single turn. Particularly relevant to D&D 4e and Roll20, any player with a DDI subscription could potentially have the compendium open in another tab and look up the monster as soon as it's identified (that's what, a 15 on a Monster Knowledge check, or simply already knowing what the monster is?) Of course, the GM could reskin a monster, adjust a higher or lower level monster's stats to fit the party level, or create a new monster. A new monster would be obvious, as it wouldn't be in the Compendium, an adjusted monster should be obvious as the level will be off, and a reskinned monster will be obvious as soon as it does pretty much anything but glare at you angrily. Also, when it comes to a monster's bars (HP especially), Roll20 could let a player do something like this: /w Brian HP is: @{target|bar1} While things like target attributes and a Compendium lookup can get the player information instantly, that's just speeding up the process. Any savvy player that cares to do so could keep track of how much damage is dealt to a target before it becomes bloodied (or how much the bar nudges for an amount of damage if bars are being used in R20), and it should only take a turn cycle or two to figure out a monster's defense stats. On the flip side, there are some games where things are different. For example, in Unknown Armies, the book explicitly says that the GM keeps track of the players' health, not the players themselves. Players don't even get to know their own HP, much less that of the enemy. (It's trivial for them to figure out their max HP at character creation, since it's equal to their Body attribute, but the GM is under no compulsion to inform the player about permanent wounds or partially-healed injuries outside of descriptions of the damage to their body.)

If the GM is fudging, then your actions don't matter. The GM will just fudge things for what he feels is "right". Go play XBox and once the GM has determined the outcome he wants, he can tell you what happened. If the GM is worried about his judgement messing things up (too hard, too easy, etc.) - then that is best handled in the open - "TPK? Guys, I think I screwed up. Redo." - not by fudging. And needing to keep some things hidden is not fudging.

I wouldn't show my players monster stats. That takes immersion out of the game for most of them. I rather describe what happens in detail, and they can judge by that how much HP MIGHT be left. And my monsters vary in HP, too, and tend to have classes. So knowing the official stats doesn't help players. Do I fudge? Yeah when there is a group agreement about circumstances when it is ok. But that also means the group does not want to know so it needs to be believable. I also fudged when everyone in the group had a super bad day and then picked that day to run into a TPK. They want the game to be fun and it doesn't help fun if I add a TPK to a bad day. It might have killed the campaign, too. Do I roll in the open? Offline, most of the time, except when I roll for what the enemy might do next.Online I prefer to use my dice on the table still instead of using an in-build script. Easier and more fun for me most of the time as I have some vision troubles. I've never fudged just to get the story to where I planned. Replacement PCs happen. Replacement stories happen. And there is always magic... If I find I miscalculated an encounter (or the adventure I'm running did) I rather adapt the encounter on the fly or call for a short monster adaption break.

I prefer hidden rolls myself, if only because I haven't figured out how to split all the dice into a second text box and in a lot of situations, it's easier to orientate yourself if you seperate the text descriptions of what's happening from the numbers. As a DM, of course, I don't have that luxury, but as a player, I like to see as little dice as possible. That said, fudging dice is something I don't want for my characters. I don't care if you do it with other players, but for me, personally, it's an expression of consequence-avoidance and something I've seen far too much on MMOs such as SWOTOR or NWN that cheapens the experience drastically.

Agnes O. said: I wouldn't show my players monster stats. That takes immersion out of the game for most of them. I rather describe what happens in detail, and they can judge by that how much HP MIGHT be left. And my monsters vary in HP, too, and tend to have classes. So knowing the official stats doesn't help players. What if they ask "How much AC does this guy have left?" I don't necessarily make a point of showing them, but I don't hide them either and if they ask I'll tell them. If they want to know - either by asking me or finding some less scrupulous way to figure it out (such as sneaking a glance at my notes) - then I don't see anything wrong with letting them know. If they ask, then clearly either they don't think it will ruin their "immersion" or don't care if their "immersion" is ruined.

I don't remember anyone asking. It's more like "how wounded does he look?" There were players of course caring more for the wargame aspect, but with those I kept to standard monster stats as that was part of the game for them - and they knew those anyway.

Depends on the game. Some systems you SHOULD be fudging; it's why NPCs can have/spend/burn "Fate Chips"- just like players. If players want to fudge, deal with them(Again, fate chips help). Taking out eyes/fingers is a "fair" tradeoff for less lethality; add the relevant flaw. Hell, in 40k, it might be an excuse to get the organ replaced. I've "openly" fudged to avoid catastrophically boring results. I.e.: players dying off out-of-game due to failed attempts at healing. But the system was much much much more brutal; wounds can take months to heal, and add horrifying penalties. As well, I've fudged to avoid the posse getting wiped in the first session; their experiences with other systems led to sub-par decision making. Bullets can be hilariously fatal in deadlands, as can the effects of seeing your friends getting butchered.

Brad M. said: I've "openly" fudged to avoid catastrophically boring results. I.e.: players dying off out-of-game due to failed attempts at healing. But the system was much much much more brutal; wounds can take months to heal, and add horrifying penalties. I suppose if I were to die out of game, in the absence of an afterlife, I would consider that to be "catastrophically boring"

I find myself providing stats at certain points depending on how the encounter is going. If a party is hovering around a monsters ac or what not usually I find it easier to say "your target number is X" rather than just continue with the pretense that they haven't figured it out. I don't consider this fudging things or breaking immersion so much as streamlining. I used to believe that a DM should always go with the rolls. I thought it was part of consistency and staying true to the game, keeping integrity.Now I find it much more important to keep the players happy and alive, though I do roll in the open, Where I fidge things is when the monster can do Attack A to kill someone they might do Attack B instead and just maim them horribly. :)

I very much prefer an approach of rolling in the open and interpreting the results. I gravitate to games and systems that support that model, but I guess if the system is hard and fast you expect to have some players die of sheer bad luck and poor planning. In the OP examples I'd have hoped I knew what game I was getting into long before that point was reach Any GM who openly seems to oppose players or gets frustrated when they win is a red flag for me. It's not competitive.

I think the issue here is an issue of immersion. Yes, most rolls should be made in the open, but if your playing an immersive game then there are some things the players should not know. I find it's much better to run a game with as little rolling as possible. What we're really striving for is a co-operative storytelling experience. A GM should look at his players stats and determine things they should be able to know without rolls. Say you've got a rogue with a lot of intelligence and streetwise. He should be able to know that the party has been being followed for the past five minutes. For things the players wouldn't normally know, a roll should be made. For things there is no way they'd ever know, don't even bother rolling. There's too much of the opinion that it's GM vs players. It's not a competition, it's a shared experience. If a player has been doing really awesome, and has made the whole session more enjoyable for everyone there's nothing wrong with letting something slide. There was a bard in a group I GMed for a while ago. The group made it to old Dwarf ruins that had been taken over by orcs and goblins. This bard decided he was going to do stupid things with no thought given to his own mortality. He pretty much single-handedly murdered entire rooms of goblins, decapitated an orc barbarian, and intimidated the war chief so badly he wet himself. All of these rolls were done in the open. Then a goblin triple crits him with a bow. By the rules he should have died, but you know what I let him live. It's that kind of co-operation between GM and players that make the best games. That's how you get players to love your games. That bard died a few sessions later, but he deserved that little bit of extra time. He earned it.

I roll openly and fudge nothing. It's their story, not mine.

why would you role the dice if you fudge it anyway? If you will change the outcome no matter what you role, dont role.

Sometimes as a DM you create an encounter for the average output of the PC's. In a session where they roll 1's like they are a prize and your 8th level wizard is rolling in the teens for damage on her fireball while the monsters are all rolling crits then it is time to shift some of your monsters damage so as to keep things "fair". My issue is not really with this once in a while, I think on a regular basis it gets to the point of really making you question the legitimacy (not the word I am looking for) of the game. As an example of bad fudging I was playing in an Iron Kingdoms d20 game. As first and second level pc's we came against a warjack (a mech type thing). It did like 2d8+x damage per hit with a +10 or so to hit and a dr somewhere about 10. Basically we couldn't fight it. Our cleric uses "Create Water" and creates it in the things firebox, which somehow short circuited it... the DM allowed it because otherwise we were dead. I think this is a bad alteration to the general mechanics because: A. It should not have worked. I see WHY it happened, but I question it.The mechanics of warjacks and the spell say to me that the result we got was impossible. B. The encounter was flawed to begin with as we did not have the tools to survive, conquer or vanquish. C. The cleric now wants that to work every time we face a mechanical creature. I think in this case making a judgement call to keep us alive was needed, but the way it happened seemed too forced. I don't blame the DM for that (the encounter, well maybe) as in the heat of the moment sometimes we make decisions that are not going to be optimal, reasonable or believable.

Regarding the two examples in the OP: It's true, sometimes dice rolls do skew one way or the other. People who don't understand probability often don't understand that random, by definition, WILL have long chains of lucky rolls, or unlucky rolls. So the results described could have happened, purely by the dice. However, when you play with a GM for a long time, you get skilled at picking up nonverbal cues. Often when players see the luck change, and suspect something fishy is going on, it's because they are also noticing the change in demeanor of the GM, the little non-verbal signals the GM doesn't realise they are giving off. GMs might not like to face this fact, but players can often - if not usually - tell when they fudge dice rolls. Not each individual roll, but if a GM has a habit of fudging multiple dice rolls, especially when things go too well or too badly, many players will be able to spot it happening. They just don't say anything because it's part of GMing tradition: so many rulebooks say the GM is allowed to fudge rolls, that it's awkward for players to call them out on it. (And the GM is usually a friend,that makes it harder too.) Once players start to suspect the GM is cheating to keep them alive, or to make things harder (which accidentally kills players off from time to time), it can be very damaging to the campaign., and every campaign that GM runs afterwards Rolling dice out in the open helps foster a sense of trust. I prefer to roll dice in the open because of this. However, all that said, this focus on whether the GM rolls dice in the open or not is kind of missing the point. If the GM is going to fudge things, altering dice rolls is only one of many tools they have available. For instance, the GM is usually responsible for deciding the strength of the enemies the players face. If the players are having an easy time of it, the GM might spring a follow up encounter with twice as many enemies, and the players have no way of knowing if that encounter was planned to happen or the GM just created it on the fly. A GM is capable of screwing players over in all sorts of ways, while always rolling dice out in the open. Likewise, another GM might be scrupulously honest about the prep they've done, and stick exactly to it, and never alter a dice roll, while rolling dice behind the scenes. So don't just focus on whether the dice are rolled out in the open or not when deciding if a GM is fair or trustworthy.

Prons P. said: I roll openly and fudge nothing. It's their story, not mine. This is my kind of GM