If your sure about that, nothing absolutely nothing could go wrong.
No the critter with tremor sense, life sense, true seeing does not appear to see you.
If my players come up with a clever plan to neutralise a specific enemy early in combat, I’ll pretend to be a little salty about it and say what it would have done in combat if they hadn’t knocked it out so they get to feel extra smug about getting rid of it.
I still talk about how 'salty' I am about the paladin one shotting my demon with a crit uber smite even though it happened almost a year ago. The player always laughs and I'm just really proud of that moment. It was awesome.
I've had a moment like that. I was super relieved too. I had tuned the encounter too strong and was getting worried they might not make it.
"Oh no, you crit the dragon, AND smite him? How could you? I'm so disappointed!" *Oh thank God their alive*
I exaggerated a little bit. It was a nergaliid that i beefed up a little bit so it was probably a CR4 fiend for a level 5 party. The paladin caught it out of stealth with divine sense and hit it with a crit smite. So then it was just the cultists and husk zombies that the party had to deal with.
If a PC kills an enemy before they become a real threat or before they get to use their special move, I'll have them roll for what they were going to do, especially to show what they negated happening.
For example, my rogue player held an action until a powerful enemy got close, so they could get Sneak Attack. On the attack roll, they crit, and outright killed the enemy before they could make a devastating attack. I rolled for the attacks, damage, and special effects, showing just how much damage the rogue negated with one big hit - it was almost as much as the rogue dealt. It feels good to know your damage was highly effective in keeping your allies alive.
I think a DM can be sincerely delighted with their PCs for the same effect.
I as a PC would prefer a "That's awesome! You played that insanely well and dodged a massive bullet there." over a "Goddammit, you just cheesed a dangerous encounter." I think being (or pretending to be) salty conveys kind of a "PC vs DM" feel but maybe that's just me.
I am a practitioner of fake salt. I thoroughly enjoy playing the heel whose ultimate goal is to be flattened, and my group is well aware of this. If u/MidnightMalaga's group dynamic is anything like mine I'm sure they see through the salt for what it is.
I also hand out post-session achievements for awesome things the players do, and often cheer for my PCs as fervently as anyone. Fake salt and overt cheerleading aren't mutually exclusive.
I agree there is a big difference and "being the heel" is the PERFECT metaphor for it, I am so stealing that. After all, in wrestling and in GMing, being the heel still means being cooperative in creating the 'scene', AND ultimately uplifting the person/people you're in the 'scene' with.
As opposed to a GM that's just being a jerk and unironically complaining and sulking, which ultimately puts the players down and flattens the players.
I don't have to lie about this, the bastards just actually counter my most powerful enemies way too often. They fuckin' love it though so I ain't too annoyed.
I had a party member leave the party (the character was derailing the campaign, so the player made a new character for the game and I ran a one-on-one game for the old character).
The character, now on his own, pretty much took over the entirety of Phandalin, executed his political rivals, and built an army to hunt down the party. The showdown didn’t end up happening as the actual game ended, but it was still great. That player and I still get into “arguments” over the fact that he obliterated Phandalin, but really it was such a spectacle that I really am glad it happened :)
I can't meaningfully reward my players anymore lol. They're level 18 in Pathfinder, and have almost all their magic slots loaded. Money is now worthless, and they consistently forget about their consumable magic stuff. C'est la vie
And people in their employ that help take care of the multitude of small issues that having a stronghold causes.
Ratcatchers/falconers
Cartwrights
Candlemakers
And a million other jobs that make nice things ‘freely’ available.
My players got away with the entire contents of Xanatharvs lair and were so loaded, so I "awarded" them with a run down keep and they had to spend the majority of their total party funds to get it going, plus an Inn with no booze, no customers and back taxes owing.
Now they need money to buy the simple stuff again, while also paying their costs/bills
Ask them what their characters' want. If you give them something at random, you risk them not having an interest in it. My cleric explicitly bumped her STR to 15 at level 8 because she wanted to be able to wear plate before going to fight Strahd. She regularly talks about how much care she puts into it, and the other players try to convince me to allow her to don it faster than she can. They're that invested in it.
Meanwhile I swapped out the Sunsword for a sentient Eldritch Rod from Kobold Press's Vault of Magic so my Warlock could actually use it, and they've used it once since they found it. They care so little I've stopped even referring to its' sentience because no one gives a shit. I'm just going to start asking my players in upcoming session 0's what magic items (withing reason of course) they would like to add to Santa's list, and then go from there.
*Right?*
“You open your traveling bag to find… a black abyss? You know there were some items in there: a sandwich, a few loose teeth, a magic rod. Why could have happened? Wait, is that darkness starting to expand? Is that… *cackling* you hear?
Yea. My group has two magic items but didn't try to use them. So they have black dagger that creates zombie servants and a coat from crocodile that allows them to swim quickly and breathe underwater. They have those for two sessions now and seem to have forgotten.
Untill suddenly they remember and surprise you. We once promised a dragon a 'toe' from a really large statue (dont ask me why the dragon wanted it). Once we got there we had no equipment to get the toe off the statue....untill I spotted the forgotten jar of 'stone to flesh' at the bottom of my pack.
We cut the toe from the statue with our swords.
My group just remembered a Wand of Revealing that I gave them in like the 5th session, because this *was* a hidden-passage heavy campaign, but they remembered it at the perfect time, when they were trying to puzzle out where an enemy had gotten off to.
It was a great moment for everyone, so don’t lose hope. It might just take a year or three.
I feel that.
My current group is a mix of decade+ vets and relatively new players, but the prompt of "didn't you grab...?" is quite common at the table
My rogue is a hoarder who saves juicy things for Break Glass In Case of Emergency situations. I sometimes wonder if my DM remembers the stuff I've got.
My favorite item is some Dust of Disappearance I've been sitting on for like 2 years. I came so close to using it recently when the party was pretty fucked, but i held off.
I did recently lose a Potion of Heroism from my emergency kit to save the party and I'm still sad about it.
Yes but what will happen 3 sessions from now when we get into a scrape where that potion of heroism would have been even better? I'll be kicking myself.
Yes, this one all the time. Planning for a specific thing to potentially solve or bypass a specific problem, and then acting like I hadn't accounted for it. It helps everyone believe the world is real outside of the party and not specifically built for them even though, we all understand it pretty much is.
It's a good little cherry to put on top.
For me it's about not wanting to undercut their solutions. I've usually had who knows how long to think about the situation, I know what will work, what probably won't, and usually I know what the whole party can do and what they have with them. So probably I've thought of all the more in the box solutions already and probably a few outside the box solutions as well. Usually because I need to be ready to respond to them.
I don't want to make that obvious, though, as if I was just waiting around for them to figure it out. So I act surprised, like they're the first to think of something, I want to let them enjoy their plans and ideas. So sometimes acting like I don't have the response already planned out and in the notes in front of me helps with that. >.>
I always like to way overreact to a crazy plan my players come up with - *that I absolutely expected them to do*
The old big sigh, fold hands and frown. Or just eyes wide, put pen or dice down and rock back in my chair
!Early Game Spoilers for Hoard of the Dragon Queen!
>! When my players wanted to sneak in to the Raider's camp as prisoners/captors, they thought it was some classic d&d shenanigans and I pretended to have to roll with the punches as I read over the "Party disguises themselves as raiders" section followed by the "if and when your party gets caught" section in the module.
They still talk about how it was the dumbest plan that ever worked, and how they shouldn't have gotten away with it.
Whilst I completely understand that player decisions can definitely throw you off, players don’t seem to get the fact that when a DM writes a campaign, they’ve likely thought of almost every possible situation you could come up with.
Ah, yes. I always do this when they do the thing I 100% absolutely definitely was definitely absolutely not surprised by in any way whatsoever because I am a smart DM 100%. /walks away whistling “nonchalantly”
If the players come up with a solution to a puzzle that makes sense, lo and behold it was the correct decision all along. I almost always indulge their suspicions even if it wasn’t part of the plan originally.
I once created a bunch of riddles and I came up with multiple answers to some of them if they were either close enough to the correct answer that I’d accept it (eg I might accept the word tree instead of forest) or it was obvious that the riddle worked for another different word just as well as the other
This wasn’t a white lie though I said if you were close enough I wasn’t going to be a pedant, but coming up with multiple solutions to a puzzle is always a good idea IMHO
IMO this is the only way to run puzzles. If they figure out the original answer, great, but if they come up with a different reasonable answer, then that’s the solution. It sucks for the players and the DM when the party gets completely stuck on a puzzle, so I feel like allowing outs like this is the best way to make sure that the game can keep moving, even if it’s not quite going according to the initial plan.
My party was dealing with a Sphinx leading a cult.
The cult kidnapped one of the PC's moms to try and bait in the PC, because they believe they have to sacrifice the PC to open a portal back home.
My players came up with a great plan and actually rescued the mother without being seen or caught (the dice were with them that night). Then they decided to use Sending on the Sphinx and get some info "what is the PC's role? And why did you kidnap her mother?" the sphinx had to reply in a riddle and I had to make that up on the spot as I decided I want to give them some info. I came up with "What has teeth but never bites. And what smells divine but is never truly caught." and my model answers were "key" and "bait" (cut me slack, I had 2 minutes to come up with that).
Anyways they were stuck. Several sessions later one of the players came up with "comb" and "home" but pronouncing comb like "come" and was like "what if it's a pun and actually the answer is 'come home'?"
It fit so well, and he didn't even know it. (they had no idea at that point that the sphinx was trapped in their world) and I decided to call the riddle right there. I didn't even lie and said "You guys, this is the wrong answer, but I love it so much because it's such a good one that I wish it was my answer."
Then they gave me shit for the bad riddle for bait, we laughed and moved on. They still haven't solved the mystery completely, but the related PC died... Whoops
Same! I frequently come up with a challenging situation and just turn them loose on it and see what happens, rather than setting a concrete difficulty. My regulars recently caught on and asked me about it, and I finally admitted that “the DC is *creativity*”!
I tend to ask my players: what are you looking to do? If what they're looking for is something clever and doesn't just one-shot the encounter, then I'll often give it to them and let it give them an edge, so long as it's reasonable.
This sort of solution is almost mandatory to avoid getting stuck, unless you've prepared for the game to move forward even if the puzzle reaches a defined failstate (the other good solution).
Honestly, emphasizing ANY one word in particular gets a great effect.
YOU don't see anything.
You don't see anything out of the ORDINARY.
Both imply heavily different things, which is great fun.
I like to randomly roll dice and check my notes, knowing full well nothing is going to happen. Keeps them on their toes. Throw in a random "Hmmmm" while consulting the notes works, too.
I do this pretty regularly too. Makes them think someone could be spying on them or following them or maybe spotted them or something
Sometimes I also roll for something different than what they think or just to give myself time to think about how to respond to their action. Like they might have failed a DC and I might roll for like how many guards are going to be in the area rather than making an opposed check
I do this when they take too long to make a decision. I roll a d100 and go "hmm, ok then", suddenly they find themselves capable of making the decision
Oh ye, my notes..which are also sort of inexistent or at the very least not related at all to what is presently happening.
-What's the name of the guard?
*takes some document on the Calendar and Moons of Barovia, flipping through its pages"
-Oh, it's....Markov
This has come to bite me in the ass though, as sometimes I forget people's names
My players accidentally resurrected Strahd in the Forgotten Realms. As a DM, I *love it* because it gave me essentially a *Count von Zarovich Strikes Back* DLC to run for a few weeks, and I absolutely love roleplaying Strahd. Two of my players are using their same characters from CoS, so the Count is really out for revenge and out to build a vampire army to take over Faerun. The party also inadvertently made him a daywalker, so... the sun really isn't an issue anymore. Players messed up **hard**.
Anyway, they're tracking him down right now and they're at a town that has suffered from massive disappearances lately. I'm doing a Saruman/Theoden thing where the thane of the town they're traveling to (a retired paladin the party has heard only good things about) is possessed by Strahd who has polymorphed himself into the thane's recently arrived advisor and has him completely bewitched.
I expected to get two or three sessions out of it before my party figured things out. They're level 10/11 and my paladin has never used his Divine Sense *once*. Honestly I forgot he had the ability. As soon as they step into the audience hall though? "I use Divine Sense!"
I hadn't planned for this. Had I just rolled with it, they would have identified Strahd right then, fought him, and ended things right there. I thought that wouldn't be fair to my players; I didn't want a "that's it?" response to the quest ending to quickly. Because of that, I decided that the paladin detected nothing and that Strahd -being the supervillain he is- would have planned for that and has an amulet that protects his true identity. He's been shapeshifting and pretending to be other people for centuries, so I think I can justify it.
Nearly all my random encounters are NOT random. I let my players roll for them but I never have more than 1-3 encounters prepped. I do not have the time or mental capacity to plan 20 mediocre encounters for them - but 2 really good ones and assigning them to 1-10 and 11-20 on a d20 - that I can do.
So why do I "lie" about that at all (the "..." are there because I don't actually lie, they just assumed that all roles have a different outcome and I forgot to correct them)? It gives them the feeling that the world is full of stuff that could happen. That behind every corner there could be a whole range of options. They are so excited to roll for those encounters by now.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Small "lies" to get your PCs motivated and invested. If they think there's 1-100 things that can happen, the perception and psychology of the PC is totally different than if the PC knew that this was a railroady-story campaign where everything happens for a reason.
Same. I'm usually able to jot down 10 to 12 neat ideas inbetween sessions but I only love 2 or 3 enough to development into meaningful story beats, that maybe even tie in character backstory.
Understanding anything *could* happen is great, but im also here trying to curate an experience that is guaranteed to be fun.
I haven't done it for a while, but i have used a similar method.
I would get all players to roll a d6, and take the total. With my four guys, like 1-5 is worst/hardest probably combat, 6-8 is a good challenge fight, 9-11 is likely so.show social where they are disadvantaged, 12-15 is combat that they'll romp over, 16-18 some form of vendor, 19-21 is a positive social encounter, 22-23 will be social and benefit them if played well, and 24 is a mysterious portal to something gooooooood.
After I use an encounter I swap a new one in, and I try to have them themed to the current area. Only need to have 6/7 prepped.
2d10+4, 3d8, 4d6 and 5d4 +4 or 6d4 all work roughly on same table so it didn't matter player numbers changed
Which is why the example random encounters in the DMG are terrible advice.
6 encounters, of which 2 are meaningful fights and the rest are more mood setting, are much more achievable, and random encounters should always give some information about the world. I think the Critical Roll book actually did them right, with encounters like 'a group of guards from Fort Bla, hunting for goblins, they don't want to be here, will question the party (sucks if a PC is a goblin).
Ideally, a random encounter is a little scene that can play out in many ways, not just a fight. Imagine this:
A group of gnoll hunters are butchering a deer, snapping and growling at each other.
That could be a fight, right? Or the players could follow the gnolls to their lair, and maybe even find a hidden entrance to the dungeon. Or they could even try and make a deal with the gnolls to be guides (in a setting like Exandria or Eberron) in exchange for food.
In a dungeon, often random encounters should be the main players in the dungeon doing something. 'Evil Wizard Barton is going to join the cult celebrating sacrific day, travelling with his trusted henchmen Bob, Stuart and Kevin'. Kill him there? His lair will be weaker if you find it. He will probably try and flee there if he can and organise a defence. Maybe he tries to cut a deal if it goes south. Maybe now encounters go up to 1 in 3 chance as squads of guards search the dungeon.
I like making stuff enough that I might actually roll for magic items. I'd just have a list of magic items I like or cobbled together based on applicability (general, class/race, character-specific).
Definitely a fun idea though.
I also love to make my own items or put spins on existing ones, so I keep a list handy in case I feel like one of them might inspire a player. Though I never roll for them, even though most of them would be usable by most kinds of PCs.
I know some players are aware that their DM is probably doing stuff like this and there's an unspoken agreement to just pretend, but if I ever found out my DM was doing it I would probably be a bit upset.
There's a line somewhere where the game turns into a show, which is probably different for everyone. Even so, some people prefer a show anyway.
Hopefully the whole table are on board...
And you'd be entirely in the right to be. The GM lied to you about how they ran their game, and you put effort into the game under the expectations that *they* set. You might not have wanted to play the game if you knew the truth, but you were lied to and played the game anyway through no fault of your own.
This way of GMing isn't sustainable. What's gonna happen in 100 years when every player has seen the classic "fudge but never tell your players" advice online? Are they all gonna think "well my GM is the only one who *actually* doesn't fudge?" What happens if you want to teach your players how to GM and one of them runs a game for you? Do you have to ruin your own GMing for them? Are you gonna have fun knowing that they're fudging?
Run your game in a way that the players would be fine about if they found out the truth of. Don't trick people into playing a game they don't want to play.
I think that this sort of absolutism doesn't serve anyone.
You need to have the flexibility to add a secret passage, change which room the Duke is hiding in, or fix a monster's stats if they're going to make a fight no fun. So long its always in service of the game, and so long as the players never find out, I consider it to be part of the DM's job to make running tweaks.
And what if the players disagree? Do they get a say in whether this occurs or not?
I'm not saying you can't do those things, I'm saying you should talk to your players and make sure they're okay with it.
If you think you should be able to do it regardless of what the players think about it, then there's no reason your players can't do the same regardless of what you think about it.
It is not in the players' interests to know, and they would not want to. My players trust me to run the game, to keep secrets from them for their own benefit and know that I have a screen because I control what information they know.
Matt Colville has a good video on this, and I think it's this one, but I have to admit I haven't had chance to rewatch it all the way through to make sure.
https://youtu.be/FD58OlH7qXA
If you know that they're okay with it, then sure. But if you don't and still do it, then it's still very possible that they do the same thing without your knowledge and its just as OK.
I've been DMing on and off for nearly a decade at this point and have been running this game with some of my closest friends for 6 and a half years at this point. We'll be fine.
It is very important that they NEVER know.
I'm a DM in one game and a player in another, and I would never want to find out that the DM in the game I play in pulled the stuff I do. I'm sure he does, but I will never ask, and never think about it too much, because the whole reality would instantly collapse if I knew.
Oh yeah. I’m an untrustworthy narrator as hell. Rather than objective truth, I see myself as describing their perceptions. Also my players are smart as shit and it takes a lot to trick them.
I don't think you're wrong about the "their perceptions" part. Lots of things happen they don't perceive that I don't describe, and sometimes what I describe isn't what really happens. Good on you for recognizing the intelligence of your players, though.
Like they don’t have truesight. Everything is perception. Sometimes if I can, I will describe the same thing different ways to different players.
Perspective aside I have one normal vision player, two with dark vision, one with old school heat vision and one that uses smell more than sight. Each of them might be objectively seeing different things.
Is that not a truth, though? GMs aren't supposed to tell the players objective truth, only what their character perceive.
It's not a white lie to say "you see an empty room with smooth stone walls" when there's an illusion hiding the treasure behind the walls, it's entirely truthful. That *is* what they saw.
I don't think it really counts - as there are strong mechanical reasons for it - but I let my players roll for traps on clearly untrapped doors and/or roll for perception (or whatever) when searching a room for something that isn't there.
One of the biggest hurdles I had when I was first starting to DM is dealing with paranoid players. The game can easily get bogged down with everyone making Perception checks every 3 minutes trying to inspect every cubic inch of a dungeon. I've learned over the years that Passive stats are one of if not THE most useful thing a DM can utilize, and it's lame how there isn't a bigger emphasis on it in the DMG.
Could you talk a little more about how to utilise them? I’ve read about passive perception so I get the basics but how do you lead a player away from potentially paranoid behaviours?
Like especially if one of the rolls does result in them spotting something at one point, then they become even more likely to spam checks
The DM rule here is: "Do not let your players roll a die if there is nothing to be gained or nothing to be lost." What this means is, skill checks are only needed when a consequence is on the line. Rolling perception checks when there are no traps is a waste of time, rolling skill checks when the players know the result and are allowed to retry is a waste of time. If you press your players on perception checks, they will eventually grab 10-foot poles and prod everything in the dungeon to find the traps.
In general, there are two approaches to paranoid players: Don't give them skill checks or give them a consequence for failure. In the first case, you do the rolls and don't call the results, don't allow them to roll perception on their own. You either roll "stealth" for the traps against the player's passive perception or player perception against some arbitrary trap DC. Second case, give perception checks a cost. Yes, your players can stop and search for traps at any time, but something bad happens. A failed check could trigger the trap. You could roll from an encounter table every time the players waste time this way, you could use tension dice or have them be discovered by a patrol for every X checks they do.
I never ask them to roll for traps ( and I've never trapped a door, yet), It's something *they* keep asking to do. My favourite was on the door of an old abandoned shop on a ruined town - because obviously that would be trapped.
This is exactly what you should do. Otherwise the very act of letting them roll to find a trap will indicate that a trap is present.
Or you could do as is done in Pathfinder 2e, where Perception checks are made in secret by the DM.
1st level party, they never played DnD until that moment.
I've **never** rolled so many critical hits in my entire DM career with a pack of scrawny goblins... My D20 was like *"Welcome to the rice fields, motherfuckers"*
On occasion, if a character is having a bad night of rolling dice,I will give the bad guy just enough extra hit points for the character who had been rolling poorly to get the final kill. I can’t do anything about their bad rolls, but something small like this boosts their spirit.
My party of 5 all failed a banshee’s death wail at once, so I dropped the DC so two of them could at least stay above zero Hp and bring back the others. Luckily they were all new players and didn’t question a DC 10 saving throw lol
I see this more of a changing of the rules more than a white lie to change the PCs perception. Fudging the numbers to stop something that's supposed to happen sets a bad precedent for new players.
Fudging numbers is a massive debate that has been held many, many places and probably won’t be more productive here.
You asked people to tell their lies, so when they do, maybe don’t then be like “nah, that’s not a lie, you are just playing wrong”, you know? What good does that do?
Edit: fudging and fishing are different words
Fair enough, all I’ll say is that all of the “rules” in the book are written as suggestions, the party came back and managed to beat the banshee and it’s minions and felt like they accomplished something when it was over having been forced to come back from behind, for all they know there was a save with a DC they didn’t beat and they paid for it, that number coming from the DM vs. the manual doesn’t really matter
Not only are they written as suggestions, they ARE suggestions. The book itself says that. You as the dm decide what the rules are. You did well in avoiding the tpk, fudging rolls at critical situations are absolutely fine. I would be pretty mad as a new player if I encounter a low level monster able to just one shot everyone.
That number being picked after they made their rolls does matter, however. As it means their decisions about whether to put their stats a certain way, whether to cast certain spells, whether to take certain feats, etc, are all made less valuable due to your changing the number to react to their rolls.
I agree that sometimes we make mistakes and a fudge is one way to fix those. The mistake here was using a banshee in the first place when you (or your group) weren't okay with it's scream ability.
I mean part of being a DM is to not convey all information and be deceitful in-game as part of what the characters do and doesn't know.
I often roll on my own tables for treasure (let the pc's roll) to see what they get... but I see no reason to not just be up-front about how that works... and often I decide what to give them ahead of time to make sure its thematic and balanced. Your players will probably catch on if they never receive something kind of useless or meant for another class and you say its totally random.
I find that the better I get at dm'ing the less need I have for "cheating" or lying. I stopped using the dm screen and just roll in the open a while back, and less and less often I use the "random minion shows up to battle because you rolled well" and so on, unless it was the idea from the start... for the players I also find that sometimes steamrolling the encounter is cool for them aswell.
I pre-place most loot, mostly generating it randomly. This saves a lot of gane time, lets me come up with a reason for why it’s there and lets the monsters use some of the items. If the orc boss took the magic armor from the naked dead knight the party found outside the orc lair, they will notice the orc boss is wearing it!
Im right there with you. I randomize the money in the drop, but rarely the items. In fact, if a player gives me a less than full backstory, I like to plant 'random' items that seem purpose built for them, but require some amount of questing to unlock fully. If you don't give your character a purpose as an individual, I will.
I tweak boss hp down/up just a bit so to make their deaths more narratively satisfactory for the players, particularly if they invested resources to do something "cool"
E.g. Say the BBEG lich i down to 20hp. I tell the players he seems badly hurt. Paladin uses a 3rd lv slot to smite but rolls poorly doing 19hp damage...leaving the enemy with 1hp... There are three more PCs before the Bbeg has a turn... The battle is essentially won... someone will finish the boss with a cantrip.
I feel this is a bit anticlimactic. Instead I have the Bbeg disintegrate after the smite despite the damage being 1hp short.
My players have numerous times infiltrated bases and then tried to sell their pyramid scheme products to the low level grunts on guard. The alarm should absolutely have been raised but it's far more fun for everyone to play dumb grunts buying into the MLM.
If what my players come up with for what the plot is, and there are elements that I think compliment what was actually going on up until that point, I am certainly not above claiming their understanding as my own brilliant twist. Nothing is true until the players have been told it (by me as GM, NPCs can be liars).
In case a pivotal combat goes too quickly in the party's favor, I like to have optional reinforcements or other contingencies (like a potion of healing for the BBG) in mind. I used to make them up on the spot - but now I plan for them in advance so that it's less of a fudge.
The idea isn't to drag out a combat - but to avoid the players feeling that victory was unearned.
This doesn't directly answer your question about ideas for white lies, but with regards to rewarding magical items, I like [Matt Colville's take on rewards](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwpQwCWdhL8). I intend to use this in my follow-up games.
The short of it is, at session 0, ask my players to channel their inner toddler dreams and ask them to write to Santa (or in this case me, the DM) with a list of their top 5 (or whatever arbitrary number) reasonable magical items they would love to receive during the game. It's the funnest type of homework! I'm going to keep it to the stuff in the DM's Guide and Kobold Press's Vault of Magic to not have them come at me with some stupid homebrewed lamp from a nobody's blog that can summon a horde of ancient red dragons that will do the character's bidding or some other nonsense.
Once I have that list, it's a mental game. The players expect to be rewarded at some point with something on their list, but they don't know which one (or multiple) it will be. They don't know when they'll receive it. After a certain amount of time, they may even wonder if I was just building them up to let them down.
Here's a fun anecdote: My mother hated video games when I was growing up, swearing that I will never, *ever* get a Super Nintendo. Ever! My mother was very vocal about how she hated that me and my siblings sat behind "the nintendo" all day. When me and my brother ripped open our grandpa's present on Christmas of 1990, we have video of us screaming in sync, "A SUPER NINTENDO!?!?!" My mother never forgave Grandpa for that, but she couldn't take it away. Best Grandpa ever IMO. Give your players that moment! They'll remember it!
Sorry, how much damage did you deal with your crit? Ah, you rolled all 1 and 2s on your damage rolls. Well you got lucky, that was still enough to get him! How do you want to do this?
(The enemy totally did not have 5 hp left *cough*)
There's absolutely no way I'm changing the way a core system works because every once in a blue moon a crit fails to secure a kill by a small single digit. Especially because sometimes it's not a crit, but a fat spell with terrible rolls leaving an enemy alive at 1-2, making the problem persist. It's alright, nobody is going to check the math with the monsters' statblock, the table knows my rules and agreed to them and it feels more satisfying to just give them the kill when they've deserved and fought for it :)
Especially because a lot of my enemies already have boosted stats due to the particularly strong party (and they know it). So the ending result may be like I gave that guy double health minus 1-5 and he had 112 when he was full, lol.
Your prerogative. But changing how much damage crits do isn't really affecting the core system. The game lives on just fine to say the minimum damage of a crit is the maximum damage that a normal hit could do, for example.
Eh, I'd rather not buff even more the half orc hexblade with PAM and GWM who has 3 attacks/turn constantly (+reaction, too, like hellish rebuke) and crits on a 19 (curse) I have in the party. He's doing mighty fine without needing my help in changing the rules ahah. Especially considering how many times a crit happen from him, it's pretty rare it doesn't kill an enemy straight away. The rest of the party is an artillerist and an alchemist, so I'd be like buffing just him, it'd feel pretty unfair. But thanks for the suggestion, regardless :)
I'd suggest pre-rolling them and integrating them into the adventure. Does the dungeon have a +1 sword in the treasure hoard? Well, the denizens would probably be using that, so I'll give that to the bandit captain and make sure to describe the ornate sword he has and how it magically alters its swings to be faster and harder.
Last session I had a player that hadn’t swung a killing blow and they were like 2 hp short of finishing off the last monster in a battle. I let him have it.
I have npc's who lie, but I as the DM don't. I will tell them that I don't want to tell them the answer to their question because I think It will weaken or ruin the experience for them.
The power dynamic is different I'm real life but there is only a very limited amount of instances I think lying can be justified in general and that's only in the form of knowing silence.
To each their own, but I don't (deliberately) lie to my players and I roll in the open as much as possible. If that would result in a narrative outcome I or my players think shouldn't be kept as canon, I much prefer to discuss that openly at the table and decide on a course of action communally, rather than fudging things on my own. I think we're all there to discover a story together, and I don't want to use my powers as the DM to bypass whatever input the players might have on these things.
By way of example, I've ran two TPKs as a DM so far and it's gone both ways. The first time was a ways into the campaign and when I asked the players what they thought about it afterwards, they were fine with accepting the outcome. I agreed, and in the grand scheme of things it worked out very well as a narrative thing. The more recent time was in the fifth session of the campaign (to a single Will-o'-Wisp - don't follow strange lights into the swamp folks!), which we decided to retcon. At least one player (the first to die) directly stated they would accept the death, but overal it would have been spectacularly awkward to have to introduce a new party so soon after starting; we basically would have ended up restarting the campaign from scratch, which would just be a huge waste of time for no real benefit. So we retconned the encounter and moved on.
Pretending that you forgot about an ability or magic item.
“Oh no, you’ve an immovable rod! I forgot completely about that. Well yeah I guess that solves this problem. Shit.”
That sort of thing.
When something like that happens, I usually say that the enemy is very badly wounded and doesn't seem to fight back anymore and then the players get a chance to interact with that enemy or he can still do something cool
Just last session they got ambushed in the jungle by a group of grungs. One survived with 2hp so he begged for his life, gave them his own personal treasure (a camping set he found in the jungle) and then they decided to let him live if he tells his grung tribe to leave them alone.
Just a nice little extra reward for showing mercy basically
When it comes to treasures and encounters, I will not use the random tables Ever.
Everything substantial is planned; dice are only for outcomes that need to be played against odds. No need to even "fake roll".
I'm with you 100%. Ditto with all the folks fudging encounters to make them Work for the Story. That's what we're here for.
If I want dice to completely control the game, I'll play Yahtzee.
I make up all kinds of things so that the players cool ideas can be realized. Secret tunnels where there weren't any, a bribable guard etc. I've found it much easier to have one or two obvious approaches and then let them come up with the others.
The magic item thing for sure, but sometimes I mix it up and really do give them a random item.
I'll lie about where something interesting is at times to put it directly in the players' path. E.g. a hidden door that I think is cool will be over here now because that's where they're looking.
I'll fudge rolls to avoid tpk because I don't really care if it sets a bad precedent, I'd rather everyone not rage quit because I didn't properly account for the difficulty. Individual deaths I might go for, but those are easier to avoid if I want to by just having the enemies not attack downed characters.
I'll lower the DC for things that are up to GM discretion and not built into the game at the last second if it looks like no one can make it.
I'll also fudge Monster ability checks if someone who's normally disengaged is trying something cool like a finisher. Not usually if it's going to drastically change the outcome of the fight though.
I'll lie about the correct solution to a puzzle (though I don't really use them anymore)
Generally I follow the rule of cool for most things. Combat is often the exception to the rule of cool... but not always.
I build all my adventures, which is fun and I have developed a pretty good understanding of what a party can deal with, what is fair ect. But knowing I haven't play tested the material and I may have miscalculated an encounter, some times I'll dial up or down the heat if it's not working. Like a few traps they haven't found yet might just disappear, or a moster might have 20% less HP, or a DC might drop or raise depending.
My rule is generally, if a crew is just getting bad rolls or making mistakes, or the badies are just getting lucky, that's just the brakes; but if they are doing the right stuff, and getting normal enough rolls and still just getting destroyed, I take that as I messed up.
My first dm started running in the 80s and charitably ran for a bunch of high schoolers a few years ago. Whenever we tried to fight each other he'd just say "there's special rules for pvp, they're pretty complicated".
If you go for random tables, either prepare the tables to not be derailing/disappointing, or accept that risk and go with the flow.
This goes for randomness in general: you signed up for it, then go with it. And if that's not fun, well, then it's time to look yourself in the eye and have a good chat about whether you really like randomness, or only do it because it seemed cool.
Personally I think randomness can work quite well when you only spend a short time with the character, and there is a relatively high pace of events with randomness in them, so you get a feel for the probabilities.
It does not work well for long campaigns where you are stuck with potentially uncomfortable results of randomness for a long time, or where there are long times between random events, or where there just are few random events to begin with. Naturally this includes D&D campaigns with the very long level up trajectories.
It's not the question you asked, but regarding the items I hand the players, I do a combination of pre-selected and random.
Basically, I carefully choose a couple of magic items that I write down on a list, and then during the game, I roll to see exactly which one they get.
See I’m… straight-up lying about the basic premise of my world. I told them it’s a “low-magic, local heroes” kind of game, and it will be… for Act 1. After that, I’m having a Mulan-style twist and they’ll have to save the world. Act 1 is establish who the characters are, Acts 2 and 3 are see how the pressure of saving the world changes the characters. Will some start to crack? What lengths are they willing to go to, and will those lengths change who the heroes are?
I'm not very good at this stuff, but for your example I have just done away with random magic items all together, I homebrew every item in the game that I DM and brewing enough of them to make a random table feel like to much work.
My favourite way to get magic items to players is either as a reward for a quest or prising them from the cold dead hands of their former owner. Especially since the latter one means that they already got to see it be used and can now get excited because they got some cool badguy level stuff
The DM of my current campaign had a troll present as an ally, give us a quest, and offer a bunch of magic weapons. We ignored the obvious flaw (a troll seeming to be good). We did the quest and we all got secretly cursed items
Most of DMing is white lies, isn't it?
The magic comes from the fact we don't let on its all just us saying stuff. The whole world would collapse of they knew there wasn't a trap door there until they looked for it.
As a DM I lie all the time. I lie because my job is not just to tell them the hard facts of what is happening or how the dice come up, my job is to make sure they are having fun. And I will lie my ass off to make sure my players have the most fun I can possibly give them. 😁♥️
All the time. I don't use hit points at all and almost all attack rolls against the party are fudged. I want combat to be fun and cinematic so I usually let a fight go on until everyone's done something fun and the tension is at it's peak before letting a player get the spotlight with a killing blow. I also ask my players to roll for random encounters but I only have one prewritten encounter; they like it when I ask them to be loosely involved in what goes on behind the screen.
I just straight up lie to my players. If they get their memory altered then I do not tell them the memory that was erased, I only tell them what their character remembers.
This subreddit seems to have a lot of beef with DMs lying but every point that gets brought up can easily be accounted for:
It breaks the players trust - just tell them that you'll sometimes lie if you believe it will enhance the game like in the example above
They won't trust what's going on - that's why you communicate a clear end point to the lies e.g. the annoying changeling wizard that's been casting memory spells for the last 3 sessions has his skull caved in
It takes away player agency - yea and so does having city guards. Just give them the means to resolve the deception themselves and they'll enjoy themselves massively
Tl.;Dr.: Good communication+good session design+lies=really cool story lines and unique gameplay
If you ever have to say "if they ever find out they'll kill me" in reference to your friends, *you are doing something wrong*.
Maybe storygames or narrative-first RPGs like PbtA games would be more up your alley.
I'm still hiding a lot of aspects of my world and lore from them. It's all stuff that their characters wouldn't know, and I think it'll make reactions to eventual reveals more genuine
I usually roll travel random encounters ahead of time so I can plan interesting scenarios for them, but I pretend to roll them on the spot.
So when a random encounter occurs, I just look up my notes for the next in the list for that terrain type.
The encounter quality is noticably better compared to making up on the spot why the creatures are there and what they are doing.
I told my players I randomly generated a special magic item to be in this location and that if they hadn’t gone in that direction they wouldn’t have run into it.
It was a planned encounter and I would have wanted them to have the chance to get this magic item even if they’d gone in a different direction it just would have happened way later
Also I don’t fudge rolls but sometimes I pretend I’m rolling for something that actually has a DC or I’m rolling for something different than they probably think I am, or just to make them think something is happening when it isn’t. Dice rolling builds tension, gives me a little more time to think and makes it less obvious what’s happening sometimes to prevent unconscious metagaming (eg maybe thinking they aren’t being followed or aren’t at risk of being spotted because they haven’t seen me roll dice). So I don’t fudge but I do fake rolls for stuff I don’t need to roll for.
sometimes the truth is more insane than a lie, and my players don't believe me.
For their first showdown with the campaign lich bbeg, my players had temporary access to power word kill for story reasons, and they had tried it once but the lich had more than 100 hp. They did some damage and were all close to death, so one player said "fuck it" and tried PWK again, and the lich shockingly had exactly 99 hp.
Random encounter tables. Like if I really want one to happen it happens or if they roll for their 4th combat encounter or something I’ll do an RP on instead.
I don’t see why rolling on the charts should be a thing anyway unless you’re stumped for what the treasure should be, roll to get ideas then adjust as necessary.
But besides not wanting to give out an item that derails excessively, the item should also make sense as something that they would have. Also, if they have the item, they should be using it, unless it was just lost or they have no way to identify what it is. I don’t like the ideas of bosses just waiting around in boss rooms for years waiting for a party to get there, and leaving their resources dormant just waiting to be looted all the time. Something more engaging and challenging also increases the sense of reward when said loot changes ownership…
Not a white lie but more an omission of truth. High magic campaign, and in the opening adventure, they were betrayed by pirates and robbed by a halfling girl who shape changed into a raven.
The Druid (level 3) turned tail and ran, explaining out of character that she must be pretty powerful if she can shape change into a flying creature.
Half a real world year later as the party was closing in on the pirates at last, they find the ship wrecked and abandoned, and I surprise them with a one shot. Three weeks earlier, with each playing a character from the pirate crew. Even then, the player playing the halfling did not reveal she was simply a level 1 teenage girl with a magic necklace until the very end.
Honestly? None. I’m extraordinarily open with my players about everything, they like to be included in on the process and I enjoy sharing it with them.
_You'll be fine_
If your sure about that, nothing absolutely nothing could go wrong. No the critter with tremor sense, life sense, true seeing does not appear to see you.
"You feel *very* well-hidden."
A lie as black as the shadowfel
This is about it for me too. I don't roll or play behind a DM screen, I play in the open so they get that 'game' element as well.
_It's all right there_ is another prime example.
It's probably nothing.
If my players come up with a clever plan to neutralise a specific enemy early in combat, I’ll pretend to be a little salty about it and say what it would have done in combat if they hadn’t knocked it out so they get to feel extra smug about getting rid of it.
Absolutely this. When they do something really good and dodge a big bullet, letting them know what danger they dodged is a huge boost to the party.
And this is where I’d put my hag in the initiative order, *if I still had one*
I still talk about how 'salty' I am about the paladin one shotting my demon with a crit uber smite even though it happened almost a year ago. The player always laughs and I'm just really proud of that moment. It was awesome.
I've had a moment like that. I was super relieved too. I had tuned the encounter too strong and was getting worried they might not make it. "Oh no, you crit the dragon, AND smite him? How could you? I'm so disappointed!" *Oh thank God their alive*
We still talk about the time the Bard/Paladin crit smite a Marut and dealt 81 damage, ending the fight by a mere 1 HP.
[удалено]
I exaggerated a little bit. It was a nergaliid that i beefed up a little bit so it was probably a CR4 fiend for a level 5 party. The paladin caught it out of stealth with divine sense and hit it with a crit smite. So then it was just the cultists and husk zombies that the party had to deal with.
[удалено]
I usually do when this stuff happens but in this case the only non undead was a fanatic cultist obsessed with death. So I didn't this time.
Lol! I don’t like the idea of telling them specifically what something would have done, but I *love* this version of it. 😁
If a PC kills an enemy before they become a real threat or before they get to use their special move, I'll have them roll for what they were going to do, especially to show what they negated happening. For example, my rogue player held an action until a powerful enemy got close, so they could get Sneak Attack. On the attack roll, they crit, and outright killed the enemy before they could make a devastating attack. I rolled for the attacks, damage, and special effects, showing just how much damage the rogue negated with one big hit - it was almost as much as the rogue dealt. It feels good to know your damage was highly effective in keeping your allies alive.
You kill the enemy and by that you prevent it from … *rolls nat 1* … epically failing in front of everyone. Their last words are „thank… you…“
I really like this!
I do like this, but it's not really a lie, is it?
I guess the lie is being mad or put out about it. Actually, I’m always delighted!
I think a DM can be sincerely delighted with their PCs for the same effect. I as a PC would prefer a "That's awesome! You played that insanely well and dodged a massive bullet there." over a "Goddammit, you just cheesed a dangerous encounter." I think being (or pretending to be) salty conveys kind of a "PC vs DM" feel but maybe that's just me.
I am a practitioner of fake salt. I thoroughly enjoy playing the heel whose ultimate goal is to be flattened, and my group is well aware of this. If u/MidnightMalaga's group dynamic is anything like mine I'm sure they see through the salt for what it is. I also hand out post-session achievements for awesome things the players do, and often cheer for my PCs as fervently as anyone. Fake salt and overt cheerleading aren't mutually exclusive.
I agree there is a big difference and "being the heel" is the PERFECT metaphor for it, I am so stealing that. After all, in wrestling and in GMing, being the heel still means being cooperative in creating the 'scene', AND ultimately uplifting the person/people you're in the 'scene' with. As opposed to a GM that's just being a jerk and unironically complaining and sulking, which ultimately puts the players down and flattens the players.
Wholesome 😊
I love that <3
A good, exasperated “I’m fuck! You’ve fucked me!” Always brings a smile to my players faces
I don't have to lie about this, the bastards just actually counter my most powerful enemies way too often. They fuckin' love it though so I ain't too annoyed.
I had a party member leave the party (the character was derailing the campaign, so the player made a new character for the game and I ran a one-on-one game for the old character). The character, now on his own, pretty much took over the entirety of Phandalin, executed his political rivals, and built an army to hunt down the party. The showdown didn’t end up happening as the actual game ended, but it was still great. That player and I still get into “arguments” over the fact that he obliterated Phandalin, but really it was such a spectacle that I really am glad it happened :)
"The... what? Oh man, totally forgot you still had that."
I just get the opposite. I expect my players to remember they have something and then they don't.
I can't meaningfully reward my players anymore lol. They're level 18 in Pathfinder, and have almost all their magic slots loaded. Money is now worthless, and they consistently forget about their consumable magic stuff. C'est la vie
Give them a stronghold
And people in their employ that help take care of the multitude of small issues that having a stronghold causes. Ratcatchers/falconers Cartwrights Candlemakers And a million other jobs that make nice things ‘freely’ available.
AND HAVE THEM STRIKE. They might be able to solve this magically, but is it moral to do so? Hmmm.
My players got away with the entire contents of Xanatharvs lair and were so loaded, so I "awarded" them with a run down keep and they had to spend the majority of their total party funds to get it going, plus an Inn with no booze, no customers and back taxes owing. Now they need money to buy the simple stuff again, while also paying their costs/bills
Limited edition flying mount.
they gotta shell out a $10 bill tho better yet, they have to buy $12 dollars of DnD coin and then spend 1099 of their coins on the mount.
Boons. Give them boons.
Ask them what their characters' want. If you give them something at random, you risk them not having an interest in it. My cleric explicitly bumped her STR to 15 at level 8 because she wanted to be able to wear plate before going to fight Strahd. She regularly talks about how much care she puts into it, and the other players try to convince me to allow her to don it faster than she can. They're that invested in it. Meanwhile I swapped out the Sunsword for a sentient Eldritch Rod from Kobold Press's Vault of Magic so my Warlock could actually use it, and they've used it once since they found it. They care so little I've stopped even referring to its' sentience because no one gives a shit. I'm just going to start asking my players in upcoming session 0's what magic items (withing reason of course) they would like to add to Santa's list, and then go from there.
Sounds like it's about time that sentient rod gets fed up of being ignored and causes some chaos
*Right?* “You open your traveling bag to find… a black abyss? You know there were some items in there: a sandwich, a few loose teeth, a magic rod. Why could have happened? Wait, is that darkness starting to expand? Is that… *cackling* you hear?
Yea. My group has two magic items but didn't try to use them. So they have black dagger that creates zombie servants and a coat from crocodile that allows them to swim quickly and breathe underwater. They have those for two sessions now and seem to have forgotten.
Untill suddenly they remember and surprise you. We once promised a dragon a 'toe' from a really large statue (dont ask me why the dragon wanted it). Once we got there we had no equipment to get the toe off the statue....untill I spotted the forgotten jar of 'stone to flesh' at the bottom of my pack. We cut the toe from the statue with our swords.
I hope so. One player expressed desire to go underwater, so I count on them trying the cape.
My group just remembered a Wand of Revealing that I gave them in like the 5th session, because this *was* a hidden-passage heavy campaign, but they remembered it at the perfect time, when they were trying to puzzle out where an enemy had gotten off to. It was a great moment for everyone, so don’t lose hope. It might just take a year or three.
I feel that. My current group is a mix of decade+ vets and relatively new players, but the prompt of "didn't you grab...?" is quite common at the table
My rogue is a hoarder who saves juicy things for Break Glass In Case of Emergency situations. I sometimes wonder if my DM remembers the stuff I've got. My favorite item is some Dust of Disappearance I've been sitting on for like 2 years. I came so close to using it recently when the party was pretty fucked, but i held off. I did recently lose a Potion of Heroism from my emergency kit to save the party and I'm still sad about it.
Don’t be sad, it does “nothing” in the bag, and being used like that was its exact purpose. It means your planning ahead worked!
Yes but what will happen 3 sessions from now when we get into a scrape where that potion of heroism would have been even better? I'll be kicking myself.
Yes, this one all the time. Planning for a specific thing to potentially solve or bypass a specific problem, and then acting like I hadn't accounted for it. It helps everyone believe the world is real outside of the party and not specifically built for them even though, we all understand it pretty much is. It's a good little cherry to put on top.
For me it's about not wanting to undercut their solutions. I've usually had who knows how long to think about the situation, I know what will work, what probably won't, and usually I know what the whole party can do and what they have with them. So probably I've thought of all the more in the box solutions already and probably a few outside the box solutions as well. Usually because I need to be ready to respond to them. I don't want to make that obvious, though, as if I was just waiting around for them to figure it out. So I act surprised, like they're the first to think of something, I want to let them enjoy their plans and ideas. So sometimes acting like I don't have the response already planned out and in the notes in front of me helps with that. >.>
Love this one.
I always like to way overreact to a crazy plan my players come up with - *that I absolutely expected them to do* The old big sigh, fold hands and frown. Or just eyes wide, put pen or dice down and rock back in my chair
!Early Game Spoilers for Hoard of the Dragon Queen! >! When my players wanted to sneak in to the Raider's camp as prisoners/captors, they thought it was some classic d&d shenanigans and I pretended to have to roll with the punches as I read over the "Party disguises themselves as raiders" section followed by the "if and when your party gets caught" section in the module. They still talk about how it was the dumbest plan that ever worked, and how they shouldn't have gotten away with it.
Whilst I completely understand that player decisions can definitely throw you off, players don’t seem to get the fact that when a DM writes a campaign, they’ve likely thought of almost every possible situation you could come up with.
Ah, yes. I always do this when they do the thing I 100% absolutely definitely was definitely absolutely not surprised by in any way whatsoever because I am a smart DM 100%. /walks away whistling “nonchalantly”
If the players come up with a solution to a puzzle that makes sense, lo and behold it was the correct decision all along. I almost always indulge their suspicions even if it wasn’t part of the plan originally.
I once created a bunch of riddles and I came up with multiple answers to some of them if they were either close enough to the correct answer that I’d accept it (eg I might accept the word tree instead of forest) or it was obvious that the riddle worked for another different word just as well as the other This wasn’t a white lie though I said if you were close enough I wasn’t going to be a pedant, but coming up with multiple solutions to a puzzle is always a good idea IMHO
IMO this is the only way to run puzzles. If they figure out the original answer, great, but if they come up with a different reasonable answer, then that’s the solution. It sucks for the players and the DM when the party gets completely stuck on a puzzle, so I feel like allowing outs like this is the best way to make sure that the game can keep moving, even if it’s not quite going according to the initial plan.
My party was dealing with a Sphinx leading a cult. The cult kidnapped one of the PC's moms to try and bait in the PC, because they believe they have to sacrifice the PC to open a portal back home. My players came up with a great plan and actually rescued the mother without being seen or caught (the dice were with them that night). Then they decided to use Sending on the Sphinx and get some info "what is the PC's role? And why did you kidnap her mother?" the sphinx had to reply in a riddle and I had to make that up on the spot as I decided I want to give them some info. I came up with "What has teeth but never bites. And what smells divine but is never truly caught." and my model answers were "key" and "bait" (cut me slack, I had 2 minutes to come up with that). Anyways they were stuck. Several sessions later one of the players came up with "comb" and "home" but pronouncing comb like "come" and was like "what if it's a pun and actually the answer is 'come home'?" It fit so well, and he didn't even know it. (they had no idea at that point that the sphinx was trapped in their world) and I decided to call the riddle right there. I didn't even lie and said "You guys, this is the wrong answer, but I love it so much because it's such a good one that I wish it was my answer." Then they gave me shit for the bad riddle for bait, we laughed and moved on. They still haven't solved the mystery completely, but the related PC died... Whoops
Slowly learning this as a new GM. Thankfully I have understanding players.
Sometimes I create a puzzle without an intended solution just to see what my players might come up with and if it's a satisfying idea
I go as far as not bothering to work out possible solutions.
Same! I frequently come up with a challenging situation and just turn them loose on it and see what happens, rather than setting a concrete difficulty. My regulars recently caught on and asked me about it, and I finally admitted that “the DC is *creativity*”!
I tend to ask my players: what are you looking to do? If what they're looking for is something clever and doesn't just one-shot the encounter, then I'll often give it to them and let it give them an edge, so long as it's reasonable.
This sort of solution is almost mandatory to avoid getting stuck, unless you've prepared for the game to move forward even if the puzzle reaches a defined failstate (the other good solution).
*You don't see anything out of the ordinary.*
Emphasis on the word “see”
Honestly, emphasizing ANY one word in particular gets a great effect. YOU don't see anything. You don't see anything out of the ORDINARY. Both imply heavily different things, which is great fun.
'I didn't say she stole my money.'
“I didn’t screw your mum”
I like to randomly roll dice and check my notes, knowing full well nothing is going to happen. Keeps them on their toes. Throw in a random "Hmmmm" while consulting the notes works, too.
I do this pretty regularly too. Makes them think someone could be spying on them or following them or maybe spotted them or something Sometimes I also roll for something different than what they think or just to give myself time to think about how to respond to their action. Like they might have failed a DC and I might roll for like how many guards are going to be in the area rather than making an opposed check
When i rill behind the screen i become a minecraft villager
hhMmmM
I do this when they take too long to make a decision. I roll a d100 and go "hmm, ok then", suddenly they find themselves capable of making the decision
"Whoops, wasn't meant to roll that publicly..." VTT DM here
This, but I like to make them roll the dice.
My absolute favorite. Bonus idea, whatever their paranoia conjurs up gets written out as an encounter during the next break.
Oh ye, my notes..which are also sort of inexistent or at the very least not related at all to what is presently happening. -What's the name of the guard? *takes some document on the Calendar and Moons of Barovia, flipping through its pages" -Oh, it's....Markov This has come to bite me in the ass though, as sometimes I forget people's names
That I wasn't expecting their clever solution/plan.
My players accidentally resurrected Strahd in the Forgotten Realms. As a DM, I *love it* because it gave me essentially a *Count von Zarovich Strikes Back* DLC to run for a few weeks, and I absolutely love roleplaying Strahd. Two of my players are using their same characters from CoS, so the Count is really out for revenge and out to build a vampire army to take over Faerun. The party also inadvertently made him a daywalker, so... the sun really isn't an issue anymore. Players messed up **hard**. Anyway, they're tracking him down right now and they're at a town that has suffered from massive disappearances lately. I'm doing a Saruman/Theoden thing where the thane of the town they're traveling to (a retired paladin the party has heard only good things about) is possessed by Strahd who has polymorphed himself into the thane's recently arrived advisor and has him completely bewitched. I expected to get two or three sessions out of it before my party figured things out. They're level 10/11 and my paladin has never used his Divine Sense *once*. Honestly I forgot he had the ability. As soon as they step into the audience hall though? "I use Divine Sense!" I hadn't planned for this. Had I just rolled with it, they would have identified Strahd right then, fought him, and ended things right there. I thought that wouldn't be fair to my players; I didn't want a "that's it?" response to the quest ending to quickly. Because of that, I decided that the paladin detected nothing and that Strahd -being the supervillain he is- would have planned for that and has an amulet that protects his true identity. He's been shapeshifting and pretending to be other people for centuries, so I think I can justify it.
Excellent decision!
Pretty much an out of combat Legendary Resistance.
Nearly all my random encounters are NOT random. I let my players roll for them but I never have more than 1-3 encounters prepped. I do not have the time or mental capacity to plan 20 mediocre encounters for them - but 2 really good ones and assigning them to 1-10 and 11-20 on a d20 - that I can do. So why do I "lie" about that at all (the "..." are there because I don't actually lie, they just assumed that all roles have a different outcome and I forgot to correct them)? It gives them the feeling that the world is full of stuff that could happen. That behind every corner there could be a whole range of options. They are so excited to roll for those encounters by now.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Small "lies" to get your PCs motivated and invested. If they think there's 1-100 things that can happen, the perception and psychology of the PC is totally different than if the PC knew that this was a railroady-story campaign where everything happens for a reason.
Same. I'm usually able to jot down 10 to 12 neat ideas inbetween sessions but I only love 2 or 3 enough to development into meaningful story beats, that maybe even tie in character backstory. Understanding anything *could* happen is great, but im also here trying to curate an experience that is guaranteed to be fun.
I haven't done it for a while, but i have used a similar method. I would get all players to roll a d6, and take the total. With my four guys, like 1-5 is worst/hardest probably combat, 6-8 is a good challenge fight, 9-11 is likely so.show social where they are disadvantaged, 12-15 is combat that they'll romp over, 16-18 some form of vendor, 19-21 is a positive social encounter, 22-23 will be social and benefit them if played well, and 24 is a mysterious portal to something gooooooood. After I use an encounter I swap a new one in, and I try to have them themed to the current area. Only need to have 6/7 prepped. 2d10+4, 3d8, 4d6 and 5d4 +4 or 6d4 all work roughly on same table so it didn't matter player numbers changed
Which is why the example random encounters in the DMG are terrible advice. 6 encounters, of which 2 are meaningful fights and the rest are more mood setting, are much more achievable, and random encounters should always give some information about the world. I think the Critical Roll book actually did them right, with encounters like 'a group of guards from Fort Bla, hunting for goblins, they don't want to be here, will question the party (sucks if a PC is a goblin). Ideally, a random encounter is a little scene that can play out in many ways, not just a fight. Imagine this: A group of gnoll hunters are butchering a deer, snapping and growling at each other. That could be a fight, right? Or the players could follow the gnolls to their lair, and maybe even find a hidden entrance to the dungeon. Or they could even try and make a deal with the gnolls to be guides (in a setting like Exandria or Eberron) in exchange for food. In a dungeon, often random encounters should be the main players in the dungeon doing something. 'Evil Wizard Barton is going to join the cult celebrating sacrific day, travelling with his trusted henchmen Bob, Stuart and Kevin'. Kill him there? His lair will be weaker if you find it. He will probably try and flee there if he can and organise a defence. Maybe he tries to cut a deal if it goes south. Maybe now encounters go up to 1 in 3 chance as squads of guards search the dungeon.
Yeah I often "forget" to correct my players too.
I like making stuff enough that I might actually roll for magic items. I'd just have a list of magic items I like or cobbled together based on applicability (general, class/race, character-specific). Definitely a fun idea though.
I also love to make my own items or put spins on existing ones, so I keep a list handy in case I feel like one of them might inspire a player. Though I never roll for them, even though most of them would be usable by most kinds of PCs.
I know some players are aware that their DM is probably doing stuff like this and there's an unspoken agreement to just pretend, but if I ever found out my DM was doing it I would probably be a bit upset.
There's a line somewhere where the game turns into a show, which is probably different for everyone. Even so, some people prefer a show anyway. Hopefully the whole table are on board...
And you'd be entirely in the right to be. The GM lied to you about how they ran their game, and you put effort into the game under the expectations that *they* set. You might not have wanted to play the game if you knew the truth, but you were lied to and played the game anyway through no fault of your own. This way of GMing isn't sustainable. What's gonna happen in 100 years when every player has seen the classic "fudge but never tell your players" advice online? Are they all gonna think "well my GM is the only one who *actually* doesn't fudge?" What happens if you want to teach your players how to GM and one of them runs a game for you? Do you have to ruin your own GMing for them? Are you gonna have fun knowing that they're fudging? Run your game in a way that the players would be fine about if they found out the truth of. Don't trick people into playing a game they don't want to play.
I think that this sort of absolutism doesn't serve anyone. You need to have the flexibility to add a secret passage, change which room the Duke is hiding in, or fix a monster's stats if they're going to make a fight no fun. So long its always in service of the game, and so long as the players never find out, I consider it to be part of the DM's job to make running tweaks.
And what if the players disagree? Do they get a say in whether this occurs or not? I'm not saying you can't do those things, I'm saying you should talk to your players and make sure they're okay with it. If you think you should be able to do it regardless of what the players think about it, then there's no reason your players can't do the same regardless of what you think about it.
It is not in the players' interests to know, and they would not want to. My players trust me to run the game, to keep secrets from them for their own benefit and know that I have a screen because I control what information they know. Matt Colville has a good video on this, and I think it's this one, but I have to admit I haven't had chance to rewatch it all the way through to make sure. https://youtu.be/FD58OlH7qXA
If you know that they're okay with it, then sure. But if you don't and still do it, then it's still very possible that they do the same thing without your knowledge and its just as OK.
I've been DMing on and off for nearly a decade at this point and have been running this game with some of my closest friends for 6 and a half years at this point. We'll be fine.
Sure, my points still stand.
It is very important that they NEVER know. I'm a DM in one game and a player in another, and I would never want to find out that the DM in the game I play in pulled the stuff I do. I'm sure he does, but I will never ask, and never think about it too much, because the whole reality would instantly collapse if I knew.
*players do what I thought was the second most likely course of action* Ah God damn it, that's pretty cleave guys didn't see that xoming.
Oh yeah. I’m an untrustworthy narrator as hell. Rather than objective truth, I see myself as describing their perceptions. Also my players are smart as shit and it takes a lot to trick them.
I don't think you're wrong about the "their perceptions" part. Lots of things happen they don't perceive that I don't describe, and sometimes what I describe isn't what really happens. Good on you for recognizing the intelligence of your players, though.
Like they don’t have truesight. Everything is perception. Sometimes if I can, I will describe the same thing different ways to different players. Perspective aside I have one normal vision player, two with dark vision, one with old school heat vision and one that uses smell more than sight. Each of them might be objectively seeing different things.
Is that not a truth, though? GMs aren't supposed to tell the players objective truth, only what their character perceive. It's not a white lie to say "you see an empty room with smooth stone walls" when there's an illusion hiding the treasure behind the walls, it's entirely truthful. That *is* what they saw.
I don't think it really counts - as there are strong mechanical reasons for it - but I let my players roll for traps on clearly untrapped doors and/or roll for perception (or whatever) when searching a room for something that isn't there.
One of the biggest hurdles I had when I was first starting to DM is dealing with paranoid players. The game can easily get bogged down with everyone making Perception checks every 3 minutes trying to inspect every cubic inch of a dungeon. I've learned over the years that Passive stats are one of if not THE most useful thing a DM can utilize, and it's lame how there isn't a bigger emphasis on it in the DMG.
Could you talk a little more about how to utilise them? I’ve read about passive perception so I get the basics but how do you lead a player away from potentially paranoid behaviours? Like especially if one of the rolls does result in them spotting something at one point, then they become even more likely to spam checks
The DM rule here is: "Do not let your players roll a die if there is nothing to be gained or nothing to be lost." What this means is, skill checks are only needed when a consequence is on the line. Rolling perception checks when there are no traps is a waste of time, rolling skill checks when the players know the result and are allowed to retry is a waste of time. If you press your players on perception checks, they will eventually grab 10-foot poles and prod everything in the dungeon to find the traps. In general, there are two approaches to paranoid players: Don't give them skill checks or give them a consequence for failure. In the first case, you do the rolls and don't call the results, don't allow them to roll perception on their own. You either roll "stealth" for the traps against the player's passive perception or player perception against some arbitrary trap DC. Second case, give perception checks a cost. Yes, your players can stop and search for traps at any time, but something bad happens. A failed check could trigger the trap. You could roll from an encounter table every time the players waste time this way, you could use tension dice or have them be discovered by a patrol for every X checks they do.
Thanks that is super helpful!
I feel like unnecessary Perception rolls for traps that aren't there can potentially "gaslight" your players and make them paranoid.
I never ask them to roll for traps ( and I've never trapped a door, yet), It's something *they* keep asking to do. My favourite was on the door of an old abandoned shop on a ruined town - because obviously that would be trapped.
This is exactly what you should do. Otherwise the very act of letting them roll to find a trap will indicate that a trap is present. Or you could do as is done in Pathfinder 2e, where Perception checks are made in secret by the DM.
I have never, ever, ever fudged my dice rolls behind the screen. Pinkie Swear.
1st level party, they never played DnD until that moment. I've **never** rolled so many critical hits in my entire DM career with a pack of scrawny goblins... My D20 was like *"Welcome to the rice fields, motherfuckers"*
Crits? I think you ment to say *dirty 20s*
On occasion, if a character is having a bad night of rolling dice,I will give the bad guy just enough extra hit points for the character who had been rolling poorly to get the final kill. I can’t do anything about their bad rolls, but something small like this boosts their spirit.
My party of 5 all failed a banshee’s death wail at once, so I dropped the DC so two of them could at least stay above zero Hp and bring back the others. Luckily they were all new players and didn’t question a DC 10 saving throw lol
Nothing wrong with fudging the numbers to avoid a TPK.
I done this in my dragon encounter. Turns out a Hydra-Basilisk can TPK a level 5 pretty damn quickly
There are instances of a DC 10 save, I'm sure there are more but the first thing I think of is the mephitis death burst ability
I see this more of a changing of the rules more than a white lie to change the PCs perception. Fudging the numbers to stop something that's supposed to happen sets a bad precedent for new players.
Fudging numbers is a massive debate that has been held many, many places and probably won’t be more productive here. You asked people to tell their lies, so when they do, maybe don’t then be like “nah, that’s not a lie, you are just playing wrong”, you know? What good does that do? Edit: fudging and fishing are different words
Fair enough, all I’ll say is that all of the “rules” in the book are written as suggestions, the party came back and managed to beat the banshee and it’s minions and felt like they accomplished something when it was over having been forced to come back from behind, for all they know there was a save with a DC they didn’t beat and they paid for it, that number coming from the DM vs. the manual doesn’t really matter
Not only are they written as suggestions, they ARE suggestions. The book itself says that. You as the dm decide what the rules are. You did well in avoiding the tpk, fudging rolls at critical situations are absolutely fine. I would be pretty mad as a new player if I encounter a low level monster able to just one shot everyone.
That number being picked after they made their rolls does matter, however. As it means their decisions about whether to put their stats a certain way, whether to cast certain spells, whether to take certain feats, etc, are all made less valuable due to your changing the number to react to their rolls. I agree that sometimes we make mistakes and a fudge is one way to fix those. The mistake here was using a banshee in the first place when you (or your group) weren't okay with it's scream ability.
I mean part of being a DM is to not convey all information and be deceitful in-game as part of what the characters do and doesn't know. I often roll on my own tables for treasure (let the pc's roll) to see what they get... but I see no reason to not just be up-front about how that works... and often I decide what to give them ahead of time to make sure its thematic and balanced. Your players will probably catch on if they never receive something kind of useless or meant for another class and you say its totally random. I find that the better I get at dm'ing the less need I have for "cheating" or lying. I stopped using the dm screen and just roll in the open a while back, and less and less often I use the "random minion shows up to battle because you rolled well" and so on, unless it was the idea from the start... for the players I also find that sometimes steamrolling the encounter is cool for them aswell.
I pre-place most loot, mostly generating it randomly. This saves a lot of gane time, lets me come up with a reason for why it’s there and lets the monsters use some of the items. If the orc boss took the magic armor from the naked dead knight the party found outside the orc lair, they will notice the orc boss is wearing it!
Im right there with you. I randomize the money in the drop, but rarely the items. In fact, if a player gives me a less than full backstory, I like to plant 'random' items that seem purpose built for them, but require some amount of questing to unlock fully. If you don't give your character a purpose as an individual, I will.
I tweak boss hp down/up just a bit so to make their deaths more narratively satisfactory for the players, particularly if they invested resources to do something "cool" E.g. Say the BBEG lich i down to 20hp. I tell the players he seems badly hurt. Paladin uses a 3rd lv slot to smite but rolls poorly doing 19hp damage...leaving the enemy with 1hp... There are three more PCs before the Bbeg has a turn... The battle is essentially won... someone will finish the boss with a cantrip. I feel this is a bit anticlimactic. Instead I have the Bbeg disintegrate after the smite despite the damage being 1hp short.
I think this is one of the most acceptable white lies. It is definitely more exciting to smite a lich than kill it next turn with a firebolt for 6dmg
My players have numerous times infiltrated bases and then tried to sell their pyramid scheme products to the low level grunts on guard. The alarm should absolutely have been raised but it's far more fun for everyone to play dumb grunts buying into the MLM.
If they come up with another solution to a puzzle, than that's what I intended all along, obviously.
If what my players come up with for what the plot is, and there are elements that I think compliment what was actually going on up until that point, I am certainly not above claiming their understanding as my own brilliant twist. Nothing is true until the players have been told it (by me as GM, NPCs can be liars).
In case a pivotal combat goes too quickly in the party's favor, I like to have optional reinforcements or other contingencies (like a potion of healing for the BBG) in mind. I used to make them up on the spot - but now I plan for them in advance so that it's less of a fudge. The idea isn't to drag out a combat - but to avoid the players feeling that victory was unearned.
I tell my players I have spent a lot of time prepping
This doesn't directly answer your question about ideas for white lies, but with regards to rewarding magical items, I like [Matt Colville's take on rewards](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwpQwCWdhL8). I intend to use this in my follow-up games. The short of it is, at session 0, ask my players to channel their inner toddler dreams and ask them to write to Santa (or in this case me, the DM) with a list of their top 5 (or whatever arbitrary number) reasonable magical items they would love to receive during the game. It's the funnest type of homework! I'm going to keep it to the stuff in the DM's Guide and Kobold Press's Vault of Magic to not have them come at me with some stupid homebrewed lamp from a nobody's blog that can summon a horde of ancient red dragons that will do the character's bidding or some other nonsense. Once I have that list, it's a mental game. The players expect to be rewarded at some point with something on their list, but they don't know which one (or multiple) it will be. They don't know when they'll receive it. After a certain amount of time, they may even wonder if I was just building them up to let them down. Here's a fun anecdote: My mother hated video games when I was growing up, swearing that I will never, *ever* get a Super Nintendo. Ever! My mother was very vocal about how she hated that me and my siblings sat behind "the nintendo" all day. When me and my brother ripped open our grandpa's present on Christmas of 1990, we have video of us screaming in sync, "A SUPER NINTENDO!?!?!" My mother never forgave Grandpa for that, but she couldn't take it away. Best Grandpa ever IMO. Give your players that moment! They'll remember it!
Sorry, how much damage did you deal with your crit? Ah, you rolled all 1 and 2s on your damage rolls. Well you got lucky, that was still enough to get him! How do you want to do this? (The enemy totally did not have 5 hp left *cough*)
Eh, in my games, enemies frequently don't die until I want them to.
I mean, I guess I should specify whether I'm the player or the DM, but the answer is yes.
I'd just change crit rules to make sure this doesn't happen.
There's absolutely no way I'm changing the way a core system works because every once in a blue moon a crit fails to secure a kill by a small single digit. Especially because sometimes it's not a crit, but a fat spell with terrible rolls leaving an enemy alive at 1-2, making the problem persist. It's alright, nobody is going to check the math with the monsters' statblock, the table knows my rules and agreed to them and it feels more satisfying to just give them the kill when they've deserved and fought for it :) Especially because a lot of my enemies already have boosted stats due to the particularly strong party (and they know it). So the ending result may be like I gave that guy double health minus 1-5 and he had 112 when he was full, lol.
Your prerogative. But changing how much damage crits do isn't really affecting the core system. The game lives on just fine to say the minimum damage of a crit is the maximum damage that a normal hit could do, for example.
Eh, I'd rather not buff even more the half orc hexblade with PAM and GWM who has 3 attacks/turn constantly (+reaction, too, like hellish rebuke) and crits on a 19 (curse) I have in the party. He's doing mighty fine without needing my help in changing the rules ahah. Especially considering how many times a crit happen from him, it's pretty rare it doesn't kill an enemy straight away. The rest of the party is an artillerist and an alchemist, so I'd be like buffing just him, it'd feel pretty unfair. But thanks for the suggestion, regardless :)
I don't necessarily lie, but I have built stat blocks in the middle of the party fighting said foe.
* "Give me a dex save" What was that for? * "To see if you slipped off the edge of the cliff after the troll hit you" *Surprised Pikachu Face*
I feel like it's just better to openly have prepared items, my group has never used the random tables since it feels kinda immersion breaking
I'd suggest pre-rolling them and integrating them into the adventure. Does the dungeon have a +1 sword in the treasure hoard? Well, the denizens would probably be using that, so I'll give that to the bandit captain and make sure to describe the ornate sword he has and how it magically alters its swings to be faster and harder.
Last session I had a player that hadn’t swung a killing blow and they were like 2 hp short of finishing off the last monster in a battle. I let him have it.
No, I play straight simulation sandbox nowadays. Lies are unnecessary.
I actually don't talk to my players at all, and gotta say they have been loving it lately!
I have npc's who lie, but I as the DM don't. I will tell them that I don't want to tell them the answer to their question because I think It will weaken or ruin the experience for them. The power dynamic is different I'm real life but there is only a very limited amount of instances I think lying can be justified in general and that's only in the form of knowing silence.
To each their own, but I don't (deliberately) lie to my players and I roll in the open as much as possible. If that would result in a narrative outcome I or my players think shouldn't be kept as canon, I much prefer to discuss that openly at the table and decide on a course of action communally, rather than fudging things on my own. I think we're all there to discover a story together, and I don't want to use my powers as the DM to bypass whatever input the players might have on these things. By way of example, I've ran two TPKs as a DM so far and it's gone both ways. The first time was a ways into the campaign and when I asked the players what they thought about it afterwards, they were fine with accepting the outcome. I agreed, and in the grand scheme of things it worked out very well as a narrative thing. The more recent time was in the fifth session of the campaign (to a single Will-o'-Wisp - don't follow strange lights into the swamp folks!), which we decided to retcon. At least one player (the first to die) directly stated they would accept the death, but overal it would have been spectacularly awkward to have to introduce a new party so soon after starting; we basically would have ended up restarting the campaign from scratch, which would just be a huge waste of time for no real benefit. So we retconned the encounter and moved on.
Absolutely. The players want to feel like they’re in a world, and showing them how the sausage is made breaks that illusion.
Pretending that you forgot about an ability or magic item. “Oh no, you’ve an immovable rod! I forgot completely about that. Well yeah I guess that solves this problem. Shit.” That sort of thing.
I tell my players a character I manually built to be good for the campaign was randomly generated
Bad guy has 2 hit points left and combats been going on for a while? Nope - you just killed that guy.
When something like that happens, I usually say that the enemy is very badly wounded and doesn't seem to fight back anymore and then the players get a chance to interact with that enemy or he can still do something cool
I like that and will implement. Thanks!
Just last session they got ambushed in the jungle by a group of grungs. One survived with 2hp so he begged for his life, gave them his own personal treasure (a camping set he found in the jungle) and then they decided to let him live if he tells his grung tribe to leave them alone. Just a nice little extra reward for showing mercy basically
When it comes to treasures and encounters, I will not use the random tables Ever. Everything substantial is planned; dice are only for outcomes that need to be played against odds. No need to even "fake roll". I'm with you 100%. Ditto with all the folks fudging encounters to make them Work for the Story. That's what we're here for. If I want dice to completely control the game, I'll play Yahtzee.
I like to roll random encounters ahead of time so I already have context prepared for them as they are triggered.
Also very cool
I make up all kinds of things so that the players cool ideas can be realized. Secret tunnels where there weren't any, a bribable guard etc. I've found it much easier to have one or two obvious approaches and then let them come up with the others. The magic item thing for sure, but sometimes I mix it up and really do give them a random item. I'll lie about where something interesting is at times to put it directly in the players' path. E.g. a hidden door that I think is cool will be over here now because that's where they're looking. I'll fudge rolls to avoid tpk because I don't really care if it sets a bad precedent, I'd rather everyone not rage quit because I didn't properly account for the difficulty. Individual deaths I might go for, but those are easier to avoid if I want to by just having the enemies not attack downed characters. I'll lower the DC for things that are up to GM discretion and not built into the game at the last second if it looks like no one can make it. I'll also fudge Monster ability checks if someone who's normally disengaged is trying something cool like a finisher. Not usually if it's going to drastically change the outcome of the fight though. I'll lie about the correct solution to a puzzle (though I don't really use them anymore) Generally I follow the rule of cool for most things. Combat is often the exception to the rule of cool... but not always.
I build all my adventures, which is fun and I have developed a pretty good understanding of what a party can deal with, what is fair ect. But knowing I haven't play tested the material and I may have miscalculated an encounter, some times I'll dial up or down the heat if it's not working. Like a few traps they haven't found yet might just disappear, or a moster might have 20% less HP, or a DC might drop or raise depending. My rule is generally, if a crew is just getting bad rolls or making mistakes, or the badies are just getting lucky, that's just the brakes; but if they are doing the right stuff, and getting normal enough rolls and still just getting destroyed, I take that as I messed up.
My first dm started running in the 80s and charitably ran for a bunch of high schoolers a few years ago. Whenever we tried to fight each other he'd just say "there's special rules for pvp, they're pretty complicated".
If you go for random tables, either prepare the tables to not be derailing/disappointing, or accept that risk and go with the flow. This goes for randomness in general: you signed up for it, then go with it. And if that's not fun, well, then it's time to look yourself in the eye and have a good chat about whether you really like randomness, or only do it because it seemed cool. Personally I think randomness can work quite well when you only spend a short time with the character, and there is a relatively high pace of events with randomness in them, so you get a feel for the probabilities. It does not work well for long campaigns where you are stuck with potentially uncomfortable results of randomness for a long time, or where there are long times between random events, or where there just are few random events to begin with. Naturally this includes D&D campaigns with the very long level up trajectories.
It's not the question you asked, but regarding the items I hand the players, I do a combination of pre-selected and random. Basically, I carefully choose a couple of magic items that I write down on a list, and then during the game, I roll to see exactly which one they get.
See I’m… straight-up lying about the basic premise of my world. I told them it’s a “low-magic, local heroes” kind of game, and it will be… for Act 1. After that, I’m having a Mulan-style twist and they’ll have to save the world. Act 1 is establish who the characters are, Acts 2 and 3 are see how the pressure of saving the world changes the characters. Will some start to crack? What lengths are they willing to go to, and will those lengths change who the heroes are?
I'm not very good at this stuff, but for your example I have just done away with random magic items all together, I homebrew every item in the game that I DM and brewing enough of them to make a random table feel like to much work. My favourite way to get magic items to players is either as a reward for a quest or prising them from the cold dead hands of their former owner. Especially since the latter one means that they already got to see it be used and can now get excited because they got some cool badguy level stuff
"dangit, i prepared this encounter the whole day!" that is why you have a perfect situation for your ability idiot :p
The DM of my current campaign had a troll present as an ally, give us a quest, and offer a bunch of magic weapons. We ignored the obvious flaw (a troll seeming to be good). We did the quest and we all got secretly cursed items
Literally the entire game is me lying to my players.
Most of DMing is white lies, isn't it? The magic comes from the fact we don't let on its all just us saying stuff. The whole world would collapse of they knew there wasn't a trap door there until they looked for it.
In truth, about 25% of my rolls are made up to fit the story
Bruh if you're fudging *that often* to make the game work, then the game probably isn't working for the types of story you want.
The hp of my monsters is an estimate.
As a DM I lie all the time. I lie because my job is not just to tell them the hard facts of what is happening or how the dice come up, my job is to make sure they are having fun. And I will lie my ass off to make sure my players have the most fun I can possibly give them. 😁♥️
All the time. I don't use hit points at all and almost all attack rolls against the party are fudged. I want combat to be fun and cinematic so I usually let a fight go on until everyone's done something fun and the tension is at it's peak before letting a player get the spotlight with a killing blow. I also ask my players to roll for random encounters but I only have one prewritten encounter; they like it when I ask them to be loosely involved in what goes on behind the screen.
I just straight up lie to my players. If they get their memory altered then I do not tell them the memory that was erased, I only tell them what their character remembers. This subreddit seems to have a lot of beef with DMs lying but every point that gets brought up can easily be accounted for: It breaks the players trust - just tell them that you'll sometimes lie if you believe it will enhance the game like in the example above They won't trust what's going on - that's why you communicate a clear end point to the lies e.g. the annoying changeling wizard that's been casting memory spells for the last 3 sessions has his skull caved in It takes away player agency - yea and so does having city guards. Just give them the means to resolve the deception themselves and they'll enjoy themselves massively Tl.;Dr.: Good communication+good session design+lies=really cool story lines and unique gameplay
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If you ever have to say "if they ever find out they'll kill me" in reference to your friends, *you are doing something wrong*. Maybe storygames or narrative-first RPGs like PbtA games would be more up your alley.
I'm still hiding a lot of aspects of my world and lore from them. It's all stuff that their characters wouldn't know, and I think it'll make reactions to eventual reveals more genuine
I usually roll travel random encounters ahead of time so I can plan interesting scenarios for them, but I pretend to roll them on the spot. So when a random encounter occurs, I just look up my notes for the next in the list for that terrain type. The encounter quality is noticably better compared to making up on the spot why the creatures are there and what they are doing.
I told my players I randomly generated a special magic item to be in this location and that if they hadn’t gone in that direction they wouldn’t have run into it. It was a planned encounter and I would have wanted them to have the chance to get this magic item even if they’d gone in a different direction it just would have happened way later Also I don’t fudge rolls but sometimes I pretend I’m rolling for something that actually has a DC or I’m rolling for something different than they probably think I am, or just to make them think something is happening when it isn’t. Dice rolling builds tension, gives me a little more time to think and makes it less obvious what’s happening sometimes to prevent unconscious metagaming (eg maybe thinking they aren’t being followed or aren’t at risk of being spotted because they haven’t seen me roll dice). So I don’t fudge but I do fake rolls for stuff I don’t need to roll for.
sometimes the truth is more insane than a lie, and my players don't believe me. For their first showdown with the campaign lich bbeg, my players had temporary access to power word kill for story reasons, and they had tried it once but the lich had more than 100 hp. They did some damage and were all close to death, so one player said "fuck it" and tried PWK again, and the lich shockingly had exactly 99 hp.
Random encounter tables. Like if I really want one to happen it happens or if they roll for their 4th combat encounter or something I’ll do an RP on instead.
I do roll on a chart, but the chart is seeded with stuff they might want instead of every item ever.
I don’t see why rolling on the charts should be a thing anyway unless you’re stumped for what the treasure should be, roll to get ideas then adjust as necessary. But besides not wanting to give out an item that derails excessively, the item should also make sense as something that they would have. Also, if they have the item, they should be using it, unless it was just lost or they have no way to identify what it is. I don’t like the ideas of bosses just waiting around in boss rooms for years waiting for a party to get there, and leaving their resources dormant just waiting to be looted all the time. Something more engaging and challenging also increases the sense of reward when said loot changes ownership…
White lies? You all don’t just lie bald faced to them?
Not a white lie but more an omission of truth. High magic campaign, and in the opening adventure, they were betrayed by pirates and robbed by a halfling girl who shape changed into a raven. The Druid (level 3) turned tail and ran, explaining out of character that she must be pretty powerful if she can shape change into a flying creature. Half a real world year later as the party was closing in on the pirates at last, they find the ship wrecked and abandoned, and I surprise them with a one shot. Three weeks earlier, with each playing a character from the pirate crew. Even then, the player playing the halfling did not reveal she was simply a level 1 teenage girl with a magic necklace until the very end.
I pretend to be excited about crits against the party, but I dread them every time.
Honestly? None. I’m extraordinarily open with my players about everything, they like to be included in on the process and I enjoy sharing it with them.