I’m a first time DM and I struggle with this a lot haha. There are times where I feel a roll is appropriate, so I do it, and whatever is supposed to happen fails, then I realize… “what the hell is supposed to happen if that doesn’t work?” so it just kinda happens anyways… IDK if my players have caught on…
You could just skip the roll, because if failure is unacceptable then it isn’t appropriate.
That’s where my problem comes from. I’m not experienced enough to know immediately where failure is acceptable or not; rather, I don’t always have backup plans or ideas for when things that should be able to fail, fail. So I roll, and it fails, and it should fail, but I’ve got no idea what happens when it does. So it doesn’t fail.
I think I’m getting better at improv-ing events and making backup plans. It’s still difficult for me to find the balance between the story I want to tell/ have prepared vs the story that my players wind up creating, but checking in with my party here and there tells me everyone’s having fun and only rarely does anyone feel gipped or abused by dice rolls.
Prior to rolling, think about what will happen if the roll fails or succeeds. If you are worried about failure at all, that is a good sign that failing is probably not an option. Basically, if you are able to make the decision to fudge it when it happens you had the same time frame to decide notnto risk that need to fudge in the first place.
Over time with more experience you will find ways to make failure a bump in the road to fun tims.
I learned in my first adventure that what I’ve prepared to happen might just be stupid and unrealistic, so I’m never too attached to it. If the dice say it doesn’t happen, they know better than me, so I just toss it. If I lie about the dice to make it happen anyway, I’m making a worse experience for everyone.
If a failure means a path is unavailable, see if you can open up a different path. If there are no other paths, just let them have this one for free.
Fudging removes the joy of surprises and working through failures, or is a band aid to poor planning if failure isn’t an option.
a band aid to poor planning
you think you can plan around your players’ actions?
I know that I can, based on experience. It is often an outline and can be revised, but having that as a starting point makes rolling with the unexpected easy enough.
Like having a route and planning on how to handle unexpected roadwork or changes in train schedules. It isn’t necessary to plan every detail or how it will pan out, just major things that need to be handled until the end of the session and there is time to hash out the details before the next.
Couple sessions ago we had a character almost perma die to random encounter. It really brings a level of stakes and intensity to the game you can’t get any other way.
If my players need plot armor, they can spend their hero points on it.
Depends heavily on what you and your players want out of the game. In all the campaigns I’ve been in the focus has been storytelling and character growth, so having a character die to some random happening would be counterproductive.
There have been situations within those campaigns where we’ve done things knowing that character death was a possibility, though, and in those cases we’ve carried through if the dice fell that way. The key is having buy-in from both player and DM on those particular moments of risk. Even a regular combat could turn into one of those if the player decides to press forward into danger.
