This article about fudging dice in D&D 5e contains affiliate links that add gold to our coffers. The featured image is our own.
D&D 5e discourse about fudging dice in recent years has taught me something: D&D players and DMs are far more accepting of dice fudging than I ever realized. This has prompted me to self-reflection as I aspire to never fudge.
I’ve been adamantly committed to my players to never fudge dice or make changes in secret. This isn’t because I’m an indentured servant; it’s because I think it’s important, my players appreciate it, and it’s how I want my DM to operate when I’m a player. It’s my social contract when I play or run a TTRPG. So, naturally, I was intrigued and perplexed to hear that many D&D players (probably more than half) do not expect the same social contract as I do.
My sample size of people I play with is over 100, so I don’t consider my point of view to be limited in scope. I’ve played a lot of D&D 5e since 2014. I’ve taught dozens of new players how to play, and I’ve played with strangers, friends, and family. I have enough experience with the game to know more-or-less what I’m doing (enough to not fudge).
I’ll offer context before I go into my core beliefs about dice fudging in D&D 5e (and most TTRPGs) and the exceptions I recognize.
What does “fudging dice” mean?
When someone refers to fudging dice, they could be talking merely about lying about the results of dice rolls. However, fudging dice often broadly refers to anytime a DM alters the game in secret (even if that’s not technically correct classifying). The term typically only refers to DMs, not players (people tend to call it “cheating” when players do it).
Altering a die roll or adjusting a monster’s hitpoints are common topics when someone talks about fudging. I’ve found through polls and comments that players are more accepting of DMs adjusting monster statblocks during the game than lying about dice results. I’ll talk more about that later.
I recommend clarifying if someone is speaking broadly about DM in-game alterations or narrowly about dice rolls when they refer to fudging dice. It helps to frame the discussion. I’ll try to differentiate between fudging and altering in this article, so you can assume I’m being specific/narrow with those terms.
Fudging is not synonymous with improvising. It’s fine and normal to improvise! Some players might enjoy the game less if the DM acts like everything is planned when it’s clearly improvised. Lack of preparation is not excused by improvisation, at least not for long. It’s healthy for DMs to signal when they think they’ll be heavily improvising something the characters have steered toward. The boss fight with the BBEG should be prepared, not blatantly improvised or fudged.
Why might DMs fudge dice and alter their games on the fly?
Newer DMs are most likely to fudge dice, and I understand that. For experienced DMs, I know what it’s like to perceive a situation that isn’t fun for the characters. In those situations, I try to differentiate between problems I caused because I explained a situation poorly and problems that the players’ choices have caused. The former is something I can communicate and fix to be fair and fun (a sentiment of DM fairness I share with the Web DM YouTube channel). The latter should be changed with great hesitance because doing so can remove players’ sense of choice. Be on the players’ side, not combative like a mean DM. Help your friends have fun, but be smart about it.
According to DMs and players
Here is what I’ve heard from others when they’ve commented on the topic (I’ve changed some words and grammar for clarity):
It’s fine if death is still a threat
“As both a DM and player, I understand that there are certain scenarios, in at least a few modules, that have overpowered monsters to scare off the PCs. And it’s also true for the opposite, where our group wipes the floor with another monster. As long as the fear of character death is still there, then I’m not too worried, and if there is also a way to escape, as well.”
Within reason in secret (x2)
“If I’m able to assume when the DM fudges dice and come to expect it in certain situations, then I’d lose interest; however, if they did it on the sly for things, like when a goblin crit-kills a PC in session three, I’d forgive and accept it. That being said, a good DM can think on the fly and find situations to bring fun into the game like eschewing death saves and having us fight to escape a goblin-ransom or some other silliness.”
“I’m a min/maxing tryhard, so I’d experience an identity crisis if I found out the game was actively being made easier for me. That said, I understand this is often done to achieve a more cinematic feel.”
It depends (x3)
“Depends on the context. Like if it’s to make the game a bit more even, then it’s fine to change hp and other stuff before the game starts. But I’d be against fudging dice because that’s the whole point of how the game runs in the first place.”
“To steal a quote from my professors in law school, “it depends.” If the DM is making the game harder with such tactics, unreasonably or maliciously (say against a particular class or a save or suck caster like the Enchanter Wizard) then it is bad. If the DM does it to help save the party because they decide that they made a combat too difficult/punishing and fudge rolls to give PC’s a chance to escape and not TPK, it can be acceptable. Also, depending on the playgroup and setting agreed to in session zero, the opposite could be true. We all want to tell the best group story that we can. Dice add randomness and realism, but the collective story-telling comes first. Honesty and mutual agreement is the best policy here.”
“As with all things… it depends. What sort of game are you playing, does your group value character story arcs over that threat of death at any time? Do you want to be able to choose cinematic moments or let fate decide? (etc.) Session 0 or any sort of preunderstanding of the expectations will decide that. There are numerous RPG systems that give ‘fate dice’ or ‘story overrides’ to allow a certain number of times the GM/player can disregard or reroll dice to create the story that person wants. My personal preference and experience are that if the GM has too much fiat over dice rolls, it leads to a game with little-to-no character threat and leads to railroading the story.”
Session Zero: discuss fudging and player expectations
I highly recommend speaking with your players about how they feel about their DM making adjustments to monsters in the middle of the game, altering dice rolls, and anything that they may trust the DM to not do. If your players expect a game where the DM has prepared scenarios that the player characters will need to overcome, they may not appreciate dishonesty. You might consider rolling in the open for such players so they don’t doubt that their successes and failures are based on their choices and the dice, not the DM’s discretion.
Now that I’ve gotten this advice covered, I’m going to address my views on fudging and why it’s harmful (particularly if you haven’t synced with your group about it at session zero or after).
I’ve found that my playstyle has more in common with other TTRPG enthusiasts who enjoy the OSR. That’s another consideration for you when analyzing playstyles.
I recommend telling your DM if you’re ok with character death. This takes the pressure off the DM to keep your character alive, and it’s proactive on your part since DMs probably won’t ask you about your preference.
Why do I believe fudging harms more than it helps?
It might seem like I’m a Sith dealing in absolutes, but I’ve devoted heaps of thought to this topic. I’ve also reflected on what has worked best for me over the years. My philosophy extends to DMs pulling punches in combat by having enemies make dumb decisions for no good reason or socially powerful people who don’t use their influence in realistic ways.
On an emotional level, I feel disenchanted when my DMs fudge rolls. I also notice it more than they realize (people aren’t as sly as they believe). Since I wouldn’t want to have my DMs fudge, I don’t do that when I DM. There would have to be an explicit request from players for me to fudge rolls and manipulate the results of the game before I’d consider it. That has never happened. I doubt it ever will.
New Dungeon Masters get a pass (kinda)
In my self-reflection, I’ve concluded that I’m ok with new DMs making whatever adjustments they believe are necessary. They’re learning, and they’ll continue learning mid-game. New DMs should feel free to get messy and make mistakes, but I generally advise the rules to be used as the glue for the game. Experienced DMs will understand better when they should depart from the rules. New DMs will probably fudge details here and there to make the game fun, but learning and running the rules should be a priority.
I don’t want new DMs to feel pressured to quickly develop instincts on what makes a fun encounter or how to communicate the stakes to their players. Here is what several DMs had to say about fudging when they were new DMs:
In over my head
“The first one-shot I ran, I was very much in over my head during combat. I had stat blocks prepared, but I definitely got confused about which bad guys were which at times, so I made up a lot of the encounter with rolls (to the best of my ability) and did NOT keep track of hit points. I just eventually decided when it was right for them to die.”
Pacing and fun
“I think if my players are detecting a bad hit point count on my monster, then I’ve gone off the rails elsewhere, like pacing or being sensitive to their interests. All those little details are there to support you when you need them, to give richness and structure to your story, not hold you back. If you can make players have fun without them, then great! But more experienced DMs might have better viewpoints.”
My 5 core reasons for never fudging dice
I identified five reasons why I never fudge dice. I’ll expound on these points in an effort to exhaust this nuanced topic. My intention is to not speak as if I have absolute knowledge of what would be best for your game, but I will be bold in my assertions for your consideration.
#1 – There is always a better way
I often hear DMs say they’ll adjust rolls to let players succeed when the rule of cool is invoked. There is a better way; don’t have the player roll at all. If it’s a big moment, describe how they’re set up for success, then let them fill in the blank.
Player: “I attack Zarlak the Lich, he who imprisoned the souls of my parents.”
DM: (knowing one more strike will end the fight, and the player character has personal stakes in the fight) “One more hit will do it, and it’s all yours. The lich falls backward, raising his hand to stop you. He begs you to show mercy as killing him will mean your parents’ souls will be lost!. What do you do?”
Player: “Your lies fall on deaf ears. Keep your forked tongue between your teeth, creature! And I run him through with my long sword wreathed in radiance.”
Do you see what I’m portraying in this example? The DM can seize a narrative moment without calling for a roll. The party has done the hard work already; the Lich is going to be destroyed, and the person with the most reason to enjoy the victory is given the spotlight. This is just an example, so there are many ways you can handle this type of situation.
If you feel the need to make adjustments to a monster mid-fight, you can openly communicate to the group that you think you prepared the monster to be too weak. Most DMs would do this without mentioning it, but this is how I’ve done it before:
“You’re making short work of this boss fight. You all saved your resources and executed your plan masterfully. Would you rather make short work of this boss to embarrass them, or do you want me to make it harder and take the risk in order to receive more of a reward if you succeed?”
This preserves player choice while giving them some agency to enjoy their earned victory or push for more. I understand that these opinions and suggestions are controversial, but communicating in this way will make your players trust that you’re not fudging at other times because they know that you would say something if you saw the need.
Additionally, I’ll paraphrase what Sly Flourish recently said (video link is timestamped) about habits he had broken. He said he learned that the DM should shift focus from making combat difficult to making combat show off the player characters. If a DM uses this focus, it’s easier to plan encounters without feeling pressure to make the combat difficult or deadly. Planning becomes easier!
#2 – Player Trust
You want your players to trust you. If fudging isn’t a concern for your players, you can preserve their trust in other ways. However, players who don’t want fudging will want to trust you as the DM to not fudge. They’ll want you to come prepared with either well-prepared scenarios or well-considered improvisation for the gaps in your preparation.
Fudging isn’t as subtle as many DMs think. Experienced players will, whether they mean to or not, perceive discrepancies in the results of dice rolls and other game aspects. It’s difficult to explain, but trust me, players aren’t as oblivious as many Redditors suggest. Even new players will raise an eyebrow once in a while.
Additionally, your players will need to trust you despite the attitudes of a given player in an encounter. If a player becomes upset because they think their character is going to die and they’re not ok with that (regardless if they’re right or not), other players will suspect that you might be pulling punches or fudging dice. After all, if enemies suddenly begin to make goofy, foolish decisions in combat, you might as well be fudging dice from the player’s perspective. You risk making your players feel like their choices don’t matter because you’ll make sure they succeed. Such a situation can feel more like being babysat than playing a game.
If players trust you to roll legitimately, they’ll try to do the same when they become DMs. If you fudged all your dice rolls to control the story, your players will compare themselves to you when you were DMing, but they’ll roll legitimately because they believe you didn’t fudge dice. You can set them up for failure and discouragement when they become DMs.
#3 – Illusion of Choice
I’m gonna shift gears for this point to focus on mid-game alterations.
A player wants to be a sniper. They naturally select the Sharpshooter feat. In combat, the player rolls well and deals a lot more damage than the DM realized was possible. Should the DM increase the monster’s hitpoints to offset the damage output of the player? I emphatically declare “NO!” That player might have spent a lot of time weighing options for feats to choose that would help the party. If you’re a DM who will counteract that choice, you’re doing your players a profound disservice.
This is why I say changing monster hitpoints on the fly is the same as fudging dice (controversial opinion). If a monster takes damage from a Fireball and fails its saving throw, it might take thirty fire damage. The DM might be tempted to pretend the monster passed its Dex saving throw to take half damage. Let’s say the DM decides not to fudge the dice, failing the Dex save. However, that same DM might feel warm and fuzzy about giving the monster fifteen more hitpoints. Either way, the Fireball’s damage was effectively halved because the DM decided to. Don’t negate player successes with your whims, DMs!
Negating Character Choices from Character Creation (Weird Meta Concept)
Character builds effectively don’t matter if you’re adjusting the game to counter-balance player choices. If you’re not familiar, there are influencers on YouTube who readily say a DM will adjust encounters to be able to challenge characters. This is a nuanced point of view, but I’ll try to break it down.
If a DM makes encounters more difficult due to player choices, it’s like the players made no choices. Players made choices that were negated. I believe some players will be aware of this, and they’ll be pleased with the harder nature of the game, but I generally don’t think a DM should count on that. To be fair, I believe balancing encounters is a fruitless use of time, so I typically don’t make my campaign plans harder or easier based on player optimization choices. I believe DMs can avoid negating strong character creation choices if they don’t sweat encounter balance. This is why I say I understand when newer DMs end up fudging dice and changing plans on the fly; experienced DMs have more of a feel for what they’re preparing. Having said that, I find it much more agreeable to have a DM throw powerful creatures at the player characters since the players chose to make powerful characters. Once the dice start rolling, let them roll.
There are exceptions to this. If a DM is running an adventure for six players, they’ll likely make combat more difficult than if there were only three players. I find this exception to be nuanced more than fudging dice, so I’ll leave it at that. DMs should prepare their sessions appropriately for their player count. I’ve run campaigns for eight players before, and that was from low levels to high levels over the course of about a year, so I know what it’s like! Interestingly, I assert that DMs should consider the skill level and experience of players more than the number of players alone. Three experienced players can often handle what six casual, novice players cannot. This means adding a new player doesn’t necessarily have to make encounter balancing more difficult (I’ve taught more than fifty people to play D&D 5e, so I’ve seen this a lot).
If players are confident that their choices matter and have meaning, I promise they’ll enjoy your D&D game more. The exception to this assertion would be if they’d be better served with a different TTRPG that focuses less on combat.
To create emergent storytelling (link is for a Bandit’s Keep YouTube video), let the players’ decisions and the dice fall where they may.
#4 – Help players who are done a disservice by internet discourse
I’ve conducted polls that suggest approximately 40% of players are bothered at least somewhat by DMs altering the game on the fly and fudging dice. Among those bothered players, nearly half of them described themselves as heavily bothered by DM dice fudging. Players who are heavily bothered by fudging may completely cease to have fun and even leave the game. These players likely prefer DMs who let the game unfold without railroading and hand-holding, among other things. They’re not all power gamers, either; some people (me included) like the “game” in TTRPG. If we didn’t want rules and chances, we’d play pretend like we did when we were children. There are other things we could be doing, so when our expectations for the game are violated, it makes us really think about how we’re spending our time.
Those players may start to enjoy the game less if they participate in online discourse that says DMs can and should fudge dice. They might consciously begin to wonder if their DMs are doctoring the game too much. Players who value the DM as an impartial referee may have cause to suspect their DMs are fudging, thus decreasing their enjoyment of the game. Players who value the DM as an impartial referee may have cause to suspect their DMs are fudging, thus decreasing their enjoyment of the game.
For those who don’t know, I’ve been an improv comedian for ten years for paying audiences. The “rules” of improv are similar to D&D in that they become guidelines when you master them. However, let me take you behind the curtain a bit. Some improv players will actually prepare bits, one-liners, and other ideas that they believe will make people laugh in a show. They will take their preparations and force them into the show. This is very annoying to other improvisers, but it can break the show for the audience. If the audience thinks you’re not actually improvising, the show rapidly loses its charm.
I bring up my improv experience because it has so much overlap with my D&D hobby. When players are treated as the audience, and the audience sniffs deception from the “show” they’re participating in, the magic goes *poof* and the fun stalls. Some audience members will enjoy the show no matter what the content is, but others came to see improvisation. If that’s not what they get, why didn’t they go to a play, musical, stand-up routine?
#5 – Consistency and Equality
As I mentioned before, when players fudge rolls, it’s called cheating. Why does the experienced DM get a pass? The most common excuse I see is that the DM is trying to tell a story, and the dice can get in the way of that. I completely reject this excuse. Players might want to succeed on rolls for the sake of the story, but they can’t make that decision or they’ll be called cheaters. I’m not advocating for cheating, but it’s a double standard with a fallacious justification.
If D&D is a “collaborative storytelling game” (as it’s commonly classified by players), why does the DM get to choose which collaborative efforts are worthy of ignoring rolls? I understand the unique role of the DM, but I believe the DM should be a facilitator of a potential story, and the players and dice dictate how it unfolds. If the DM has a result in mind, they shouldn’t roll at all.
On the subject of equality, some players might wonder why others seem to conveniently succeed all the time while their own characters are left to the dice. This is something I cautioned about in my article about Inspiration; you need to be careful about playing favorites (or even appearing to do so).
It’s easy for me to have this mindset because I don’t see the DM as the storyteller. I often hear people calling the DM the storyteller, but let me explain to you how the DM actually operates. Leaning on my improv experience, the DM is simultaneously the MC and the audience at an improv show. The MC facilitates each game by preparing prompts that pull useful suggestions from the audience. Players on stage then take those suggestions to create a scene. That’s my paradigm for how a DM operates. If you think the players are diminished storytellers compared to the DM, I invite you to reconsider. This may sound controversial, but it really shouldn’t. If the DM isn’t a primary storyteller, that takes the stress off them. We often talk about helping our DMs to avoid burnout, but one of the best ways to do that is to shift the paradigm to what the DM actually needs to do.
By the way, why are dice seen as the enemy when people talk about fudging dice to preserve the story? I see dice as part of the team! If everything proceeded exactly as expected, I’d hardly consider that to be a fun game. After all, it is a game. We often talk about TTRPGs like they’re just storytelling mediums, but they’re games first. Dice should be seen as part of the writing team! Embrace failures as much as successes and roll with the results (pun intended).
And one more thing: your instincts won’t always be correct. Sometimes you’ll be tempted to fudge rolls or alter monsters in the heat of the moment, but I recommend you try refraining to see how things go. Even narratively, don’t assume you know the best way for the story to proceed. Trust that your players are indeed collaborating with you; you’re not a storyteller, you’re a facilitator and a referee. I recommend not placing your will above the creativity of your players.
Lastly, if you ever think your preparations are unfair as a DM, don’t hesitate to do whatever you feel is right to realign. Fairness is paramount. When your players go stone-faced and you know that they believe they’re having something inflicted on their character that had nothing to do with their choices, you know you’ve probably made a mistake.
Conclusion
Every D&D/TTRPG group is different. Many players don’t mind fudging, but some players’ fun will diminish greatly if a DM is dishonest. I won’t tell you how to play the game, but I hope I’ve given you food for thought about what the risks are when fudging dice and manipulating narratives. The dice and players should be part of your collaborative storytelling.
Armed with a refreshed perspective, I hope you go forward to enjoy the game with your current group(s) and any people you’ve yet to play with. The more you play with people you don’t know, the more these sorts of considerations will serve you well. You’ll make many friends through this hobby if you’re a thoughtful DM who can tailor the experience to the players’ desires.
To paraphrase Brennan Lee Mulligan when he spoke about the Challenge Rating system, a master cook doesn’t need to look at measurements. Similarly, an experienced DM has a feel for challenges and encounters. May we all hone our skills enough to balance preparation with improvisation, and storytelling with dice.
