Great summary of Prussian Kriegsspiel's connection to D&D. One thing I might add: when you correctly talk about how die rolls impart to players a sense of fairness, they also give the referee a way to decide events impartially when they can't trust themselves, even. Back when referees were adjudicating between competing parties (and in early D&D, they still were, sometimes) rather than "playing the world" against a collaborating party, referees needed a way not to show favor, even unconsciously, to one competing party over another. "Impartial" is even built in to the German word they used for "referee." It's no coincidence that dice got attached to wargames at the same historical moment that referees gained the power to decide events in those games without the supervision of players: dice play an important part in hedging against the risk of unintended bias. This principle had a lot of interesting interactions with early RPG play, and is perhaps the root cause for tensions RPG designers are still trying to resolve today.

"I leave the tavern." "Roll for Intelligence." "2." "You stay in the tavern and drink until you have alcohol poisoning."

Matt, this is getting very annoying. In your video's you sometimes make a statement that I disagree with. And then you explain yourself. And then I realise you're right.

Rolling dice just for sound effects since 1812.

I want a one hour version of Matt rolling dice and going "Hm."

The "hmm" after the rolls have me dying lol

That ending lol

"This video, this studio, my life..." made me tear up a bit. I'm so happy I could help contribute to your and your crew's happiness.

I badly misinterpreted this topic. I'm going to have to call the chocolate factory.

Two things I'll never know: 1. The numbers Matt rolled this video 2. The Krabby Patty formula

"I can show them to you right-" Cooooooolvillleeeeeeee!!!!!

So early that my DM thinks I fudged my Dex save.

I love that every time Matt picks up a die it's a different one than the one he just rolled/had in his hand!

I like to a little of both extremes, sometimes a fudged die is needed - sometimes I let a boss do a devastating attack to the party by rolling a special die on the table for them all to see. They think I'm CRAZY - and I like that.

Hey Matt! I ran a full campaign fudging the dice basically with the same idea, I wanted the cool and dramatic stuff. But what happen was, as we progressed, my table started to become predictable. It felt more like a show where the dramatic stuff is always assured, which is hard to relate because that’s not what life is. It was only when I stopped doing that in the next campaign, and stuff like a level 2 character being killed by a random gnoll started to happen, that my players started to really immerse. That felt like life, like something that was real. Without the DM tension corrective, my players felt like their actions could make the difference in any given time. Drama in this kind of context was in another level of awesomeness, but of course, not as frequent and controllable as before. So I don’t know man, I’m not a great actor/liar and perspicacious to make my fudging feel like reality. And I definitely don’t want my table to be a predictable cliche Hollywood show. Can you tell us more about how you fudge? Something like this has ever happened to you? Thank you!

I used to fudge dice rolls a lot, and my players hated me for it. I was a bad judge of what the most dramatic option was, and ended up railroading my players to do things they didn't want. For me, (and this is only my experience, so not applicable to everyone) rolling openly and being honest with my players forced me to be a better DM. I learned to let the players succeed and fail even if I wasn't prepared for it. I may eventually fudge rolls again, but for now I'll avoid it because it wasn't good for me.

I like the rule that you only fudge rolls to fix your own mistakes. Because that's always the biggest contention for players, they feel like the DM is taking away their agency by curating the rolls. But you as the DM could make literally anything happen, at any time a meteor could come down and split the planet in half at precisely the same second that the Sun went supernova. The fact that you are giving them a fight against some kobolds means you are already heavily curating the experience. In the grand scheme of things the players have very little agency, so it seems cruel to take even that away from them to force your conclusion. So if they are in a bad situation due to their own actions, let the dice fall as they may. But if they are in a bad situation because you simply misjudged the difficulty, then fudging the dice is an acceptable extension of the world building you were doing anyways.

The party's future was at stake. The Paladin had the Chain Devil's chain around his throat, and the end of this epic arena battle (and the party's lives) was only a couple hit points away. The Devil raised his weapon for the killing blow ... and I rolled a 14. That's a hit, the Paladin dies, the game is over for these characters. I deftly turned the die to a 1 as I lifted the DM screen to prove that FATE had saved his life. The Paladin took advantage of this opportunity and struck ... with a natural 20. The chain devil's head rolled off of his shoulders, wide eyed in shock. The room ERUPTED. It was f*$%ing heroic. And there's no way I'd ever let them know. I didn't CHEAT, I gave him one last chance to be a hero, and it was incredible. THAT is not cheating; that's being a good DM. Side note: my brother, which whom I've been playing since I was 11, was sitting beside me and saw me flip the d20. To his credit, he never said a word.

I've only fudged one roll in hundreds of hours of GMing. A group of brand new players between 12&14 years old were playing Lost Mine of Phandelver. The first fight. Two goblin archers had surprise and both rolled 20's. It would have killed the PC. The goblins wound up just taking most of the hit points.

Waiting with great anticipa-

I fudge dice rolls but have a two rules 1) the players can not know 2) Only if it is not the players fault (I will still give players outs of most situations but they have to work them out or invent one I like)

"The job of the DM is to curate the game experience." YES! This is something I've always believed. I don't always fudge dice rolls, but when I do, it's to make the game experience better for the players.

What is so great about this (And I know this is obvious and it's the purpose of the video but I applaud it anyway because it is brilliant) is that just like at 10:49 when Matthew rolls for the purpose of the "for instance," because we as viewers don't know what the roll is, and he says "Like that" we maybe assume that it is a certain roll. Maybe it was a 1 and that was the reason he smiled and the same goes for a 20, but what if that roll was a 6 or a 15? It doesn't matter. Matthew is the story teller in this instance and he gets to decide the outcome for HIS story -in this case- the video we are watching. I personally LOVE the idea of fudging rolls for the purpose of story-telling. At the very end you say that you had a camera taping the rolls.... I don't care if that's true or not, I don't want to know what those rolls were because I like DM's fudging rolls for a purpose and in this case the purpose was this video and the example. Matthew, you are brilliant. :D

I know everyone has their own way. I fudge absolutely 0 die rolls, and have never tpk'd. I don't use a dm screen, rolling every die roll in front of my players. They have come close to a tpk a ton, but I trust them enough to make smart choices. The most powerful moment of last session was when I rolled a 20 on an attack roll against one of the pc's childhood friends. My blood went ice cold when it happened, but that feeling that everyone felt is what made that moment memorable. I think that being open with the rolls makes everything feel "real" for my players.

I can tell those Gamescience Dice from anywhere.

I roll openly, I had negative experiences with players thinking I was fudging dice rolls in their favour, though I've never fudged, so i started rolling openly and it's added some great drama to the game. Sort of like watching a circus show without a safety net. I've never had a TPK, I am also fairly liberal with combat information though, I feel like it makes sense for characters to figure things out in combat, and a lot of the party enemies will flee at certain HP percentages effectively lowering their CR. I think there are other tools for guiding the narrative away from DM mistakes than fudging individual dice rolls, but I definitely understand why some tables use it as a tool, it's just not for me.

Fudging a dice roll feels like a cinematic or cutscene in a video game to me. Sometimes the heroes deserve their moment, same thing with the villians. It's great for drama and powerful moments but always be sure to hand the reins back over when you're done.

I almost never fudge my rolls, not because I believe the Dice should have some unbreakable integrity but because it makes Fudging rolls easier. If you tell your players 199 true die rolls they wont notice that the 200th roll was a lie, the roll that really matters.

It's always a good day when Matt Colville releases a video!

Senpai... wtf. I thought I knew what I was going to get when you talked about this video last time, but the Kreig Speil intro was off the CHAIN. I await an Adam Kobel rebuttal. I am so pumped to have at least a new video per week. Big ups for Willow clip.

Matt silently humblebragging how large and extensive his dice collection is. Don't ever change

One of the best videos I've seen in a while. Thanks! Aaaaand brilliant ending! ;)

LOL... terrific video, Matt! I especially loved the ending, showing the rolls.

I love how every time Matt pulls up a die it's always a different color XD

Great ending, and the info about the origin of war games was absolutely fascinating! Thank you!

Love that ending and all the different dice for each roll awesome stuff as always !

I want a t-shirt with a D20 and "The Unknown Future" below it.

Was just watching some Jim Murphy videos. Pleasant surprise.

Bravo sir. Bravo. Best video ever. The history, the argument, exemplary.

Thanks for yet another great video Matt, I have been watching since shortly after you started posting the "running the game" series, and before watching these, I was always pretty sure that I would not be able to run a game, but now, I believe you have given me the confidence in my own abilities to do so. Also, I believe watching other DM's in the past made me think, "wow, they put so much time into every single detail, I could never do that." But now I realize that, yes, while there is a lot of work put into DMing, most of the 'work' is improvised, and after a while, very little preparation is needed to run a fun and fulfilling game for everyone at the table. Speaking of improvising, I have been improvising some of the tools used at our table, so I don't need to spend a lot of money on battle-mats, minis or props. Most of the items I use are hand-made, like 1-inch grid 16"x16" tiles made from gluing wrapping paper, that has the grid-lines on the back, to pieces of cardboard, then covering the whole thing in packing tape to be able to use dry-erase markers. the 16x16 size is arbitrary, it's just what I decided on, but I can combine them in any way I need. I've also taken to creating minis out of perler beads, I believe I posted them on reddit a while back. I even crafted a dice tower from perler beads, and can easily be found by googling "perler dice tower". I also work in a place that uses a lot of styrofoam, so my next experiment will be in creating things from carving styrofoam pieces, my goal is to create a Tavern from them.

Matt, I'm probably gonna kill a PC this Saturday, so if you could find a way to break the rules of time and get that video out to me before this weekend, I would greatly appreciate it.

Matt! Matt! Matt! Matt! Whats your contact info? You have got to see this 26 page Power Point slide I made on what your doing wrong in your videos! Matt! Matt!

Matt, thank so much for this video and all of your work. That last part at the end was great! I think I laughed literally a sold 2- 5 minutes. Not sure why it was so funny, maybe due my slight inebriation, but it was and I enjoy your sense of humor. Thanks, it was something I needed.

I just really want to thank you, Matt. Your videos are amazing and incredibly useful. I’m about to run my second game soon with my friends and I’m really excited about it thanks to you. (the first one was my accustomed version of the dungeon from your first video and I didn’t know anything about creating characters so I kinda screw it up and it was far too easy for the players?) Your videos are a great source of inspiration and I’m so happy you’re doing this. Once again, thank you for everything, Matt. I can’t wait for more :) Keep it up!

This is definitely one of my favourite videos on this channel so far, I agree with almost all of the points and it is thought provoking in terms of how we see "fate". I am interested to learn more about what you mean when you say that D&D is not a storytelling game, however. I hope to see a video about that in the near future.

Hmmm this is one of those times I will have to disagree with Matthew Colville as I prefer not fudging dice rolls. Especially in the style of D&D and roleplaying games I play where retreat is often an option and combat is not something that is sprung on players four or five times a session but something that carries more weight. I think one thing that is very telling about this is that many DMs that do this including Matt would not want their players to know how much they fudge/lie about dice rolls as they would trust them less or be upset by that. I also think there are far more interesting ways to make combat encounter that is going badly less deadly than just roll in secret then lie. I prefer to roll out in the open and do not have a screen at all for this reason as well as a belief that a DM is basically a player with a different role to play. So a DM lying about Dice and a player lying are more similar in my eyes as the DM does not have this mythical all knowing status that protects them from having to play by the same rules.

Very wise and thoughtful perspective sir. I salute you.

That cut at the end, was hilarious. Thanks so much for that. I laughed harddddd.

As a DM I consider the dice as a guide for what happens, not a hard and fast rule. I'll cheat for the players (reducing damage done to them, or secretly lowering the DC, etc) if they need some help (especially when it is not their tactics that are flawed, just their dice) and I will cheat for the monsters if my dice go too cold (which deflates the sense of danger in an encounter really fast). I do have a personal rule that I abide by though: if I ever cheat during an encounter for the monsters, I will NOT kill a PC that encounter. It just doesn't seem right to me that I may have influenced the encounter in the name of tension but changed the outcome to one that eliminates a PC.

I have been fudging dice rolls since day one of DMing. Sometimes it's adjusting damage up or down a couple points for drama, or to avoid some ridiculous result on a table (usually something homebrewed) from happening and breaking immersion. I have also done things the other way, with no screen and no fudged rolls. This was at the request of my players, who thought I was going easy on them. (Spoiler: I wasn't, really.) Turns out, the players that complained about the DM screen meaning I could hide dice and fudge stuff were the ones most uncomfortable with me rolling in the open. Like they knew that 'this roll is really, really, really gonna count' and it upped the stress level a lot. I eventually brought the screen back, just because they were stressing too much to have fun. They were still having about the same success rate as before, but somehow rolls being behind the screen somehow put them at ease. Personally, I found the whole thing amusing.

Always love your stuff, and what a great ending =P

Love the video, and I especially love seeing The Colville having fun! :)

Funny how many DMs seem to encourage fudging as if the natural state was to always respect the rolls. I used to fudge a lot as a new DM, because I was kinda scared of where it might take me. One roll can force you to forget your planned adventure and go a totally different direction. And a character death seemed like a disaster to me. For me, not fudging is a sign of my confidence as a DM. And the less prepared I am, the more I fudge. I'm more confident about what will happen if they fail or succed this risky sleight of hand on the king (you're doing WHAT ? er, ok, make the roll. I'll make the perception one open for the fun). I know my investigation can still be fun if they fail all their perception rolls - because planning. I make sure they have enough options in general, even when it comes to combat. And I feel confident enough about my stories that a character death won't totally ruin the enjoyment for the player (on the long term, of course he'll be unhappy on the spot). And I came to really like that uncertainty. Dice are also here to reward player's creativity, as they're trying so hard to tip the scales on their favor, and that can be amazing. But yeah, I still fudge sometimes, because I had a nice dramatic idea. I just had to learn to accept the rolls as much as possible.

I remember my group was trying to sneak past these guards to get into some Tombs. So, I was like “Hey I got this” and excitedly rolled. I looked down and saw it....a 1. However, the guards were cool and we played cards with them.

That ending was fantastic! Thanks for the breakdown Matt.

I think perhaps One of the strongest arguments for fudging, is the fact that video games "fudge the dice" all the time. Like ALL the time. Basically no video game uses true random chance when it comes to doing things like hit roles or amounts of damage etc. They all do tons of play testing and then fudge the randomness to curate the experience for the players in edge cases and critical moments. Even if it's only very very rare. Because true randomness, is antithetical to a designed experience.

"Sometimes you won't roll above a 7 all night..." Had a night like that last week, where I'm not even sure I rolled as high as a 7 after the first round of combat. As a player it was one of the MOST frustrating moments in a D&D session, and unfortunately wasn't something easily solved by fudging (playing online seems to make fudging difficult in general).I will always prefer a DM find a way (through fudging rolls or otherwise engineering the fight) to help a player constantly rolling poorly. I'd rather my character die in a heated back-and-forth than survive but be completely ineffectual, the latter barely even counts as playing the game. 2, 12, 17, 8, 17, 14, 7, 20, 9, 14, 6, 4 clearly, those are what you rolled.

Thank you for this extremely good video, I have fudged die rolls before to make things dramatic, and I have always felt guilty about it. You have absolved that guilt from me. Thank you Matt :D

brother, your cut away scenes from movies are legendary, it always makes me laugh.

love you and your videos, just ordered my copy of Strongholds and Followers, keep up the good work

"The dice don't care about drama": true! "But you do": no, I don't. "As a Dungeon Master it is your job to create drama": no, it isn't. My D&D is not a drama game. Thank you for highlighting this key difference of approach in such a clear way.

As usual, MC's on point with this one. The dice are like the rules of grammar. You start by following them and learning how to masterfully work within their constraints, then you learn to fudge (or even ignore) them when it's appropriate to do so. The first step is fundamentals. The second step is expertise.

This guy's poker face when rolling is mastery level. It shows you've been playing and running the game for years. Awesommeeee

Excellent summation at the end.

If we as DMs fudge roles to curate the fun, why don't we let players do it too? Whenever the subject of fudging roles comes up I think of Apocalypse World or Blades in the Dark. In those games the GM doesn't role dice, only the players do, and those games are just as fun as D&D. Still a great video tho. I strongly disagree with most of it but I agree that if fudging works for your game, then you do you.

I think while it's good to do it sometimes, it can still be fun to get 20 natural 20s within the first 5 minutes, and then get 2s and 4s for the rest of the session. Good times.

That was a GREAT way to end the video. And its great to hear that the PDF is coming "Soon". So excited.

Thank you so much for this series! I'm first time DM-ing for some first time players and this really helps! On the topic of this video: We're running Rime of the Frostmaiden and the starting quest is a very simple go kill this criminal style quest. They planned it super well - prevented back up, got him alone, worked out an ability...and the guy would have killed them. It might be balanced for more party members, but I was rolling stupidly well and it sucked. Because they hadn't done anything wrong! They'd worked hard and strategised and I could tell they were really into it and I didn't want to punish them because I didn't know enough to balance the encounter properly beyond the stat block given. So some of the multi-attacks missed, and some of the damage was lower than it was. With the liberal use of every healing spell they could assess, 2 of the 3 party members finished the fight with the criminal dead at their feet, as requested, with like 1-2HP remaining with the third completely tapped. They were so thrilled they managed to survive! I watched this one particularly today to get some insight because I've seen exactly that contention since, that fudging the rolls is cheating, and I was feeling kinda weird about that decision that seemed great until I started reading opinions, but I think I agree with this view more. Sure, later in more challenging encounters when they are supposed to be deadly or the players have made relatively "foolish" decisions (for whatever reason, like ignoring all warnings/hints/putting aside important info) it makes more sense, and is explainable, that there are heavier consequences. But this was the starting quest! For a bunch of brand new players! It was supposed to be, well, not easy but it shouldn't have been a TPK!! And everyone had fun and thought it went great and talked about how close/hard that was! I think that story/experience is better and maybe I'll try to fudge less and less as we advance (as I get better at knowing how to adjust the encounters for the party, and my players on spellcasters realise they needed to pick their spells themselves, they don't get given to you leading to a 10min period of us speed picking spells in the middle of combat...) but I think in the end these guys are playing it for that story and honestly so am I - and sometimes that requires setting aside randomness a bit or "adjusting" the randomness based on choices.

Plot twist, every time he rolls a die and then cuts the scene, he's swearing profusely because of "another G****** nat 1"

Oh, Willow. The greatest and most perfect adventure movie ever made. One of my favorites of all time.

Loved the history lesson, love your videos, and your hair looks fantastic.

For the record, I've never been bothered by an occasional sound issue, or a more casual less edited video, I love all of your content. HOWEVER, these new studio videos have been getting better and better, and I really appreciate the standards to which you hold yourself. Amazing video!

Rude Matt Colville, RUDE! But that ending was funny

Noooooooo!!!!!!! but the die rollllllllls!!!!

Another good video. The new camera makes some amazing videos; your hair looks luxurious. Keep up the good work, can't wait for the book!

Totally on board with this video. And the pauses for you to roll the dice, had me leaning in to hope for an answer of what you rolled.

5:48 That's quite the leap. Using their experience to change the charts to be more in-line with how they believe such events would play out is fudging a roll? Sounds more like they're making their own house rules and using their experience to compliment their ability to explain the context of events. For example, if you made a sand bear sting itself you'd normally think it'd weaken it since it poisoned itself. However, since this is a manifestation of your fears and nightmares it instead grows more powerful. (Hey Puffin fans) No where near the same thing as complete reversal of events due to a roll not mattering in the first place. Particularly since that game is a player versus player scenario, no matter the referee they'd use the same chart for both sides - official chart or not.

My biggest disagreement is with the notion that the DM is responsible for the story, and for the "fun" of the group. As far as the story goes, for me that is a negotiation between the players, the DM, and the rules. The social contract I have with my players is built on that premise. No one person has any more say as to what occurs than the other players. You mentioned it in the video, and I agree with the statement of "If you are going to fudge, why roll?" As an example lets take a basic encounter that isnt intended to wipe the players out. From my point of view, if I as the DM have already decided in my head that the players as supposed to win this fight, I no longer have investment in that encounter and dont see any point in rolling, or even having the encounter to begin with. If an encounter has no stakes, why is it in the game? Kind of like the Chekovs Gun of DMing. "If this encounter doesnt move events along in a meaningful way, it has no business being in the game." And as a result, any encounter that has stakes, should carry the possibility of failure. Including a TPK. This is what makes RPGs worth playing for me. As always though, loved the video and I think you articulated your thoughts very clearly. Nice work.

A couple weeks ago, through strange coincidence, my party met and teamed up with a party from a D&D series I watch and enjoy on youtube, the cast of Trapped in the Birdcage. I had no clue what this party's actual stats were and was forced to basically fudge every dice roll they made to further the plot. My group of very high level players didn't even question when this party was able to outwit or fail to be intimidated because the story and interaction was just fun. In my games fun always trumps numbers. And I think that is the long and short of what you are saying here. This campaign (my first as a DM) has now concluded and the same group is practically begging me to start the next, which I am working on at the moment. Matt, you have been a huge influence for me on my style and very much reinforced my own ideas on what a DM should be, and I can't thank you enough!

Awesome video and lol such a great ending.

mmmm fudge

Tried my hand at DMing one time, I think I fudged 70% of the rolls. I also dramatically overestimated my players' ability to roll above a 10 so the encounters wound up feeling FAR more intense than they should have. I was also rolling uncharacteristically well. There was no choice, I didn't want a TPK at level 1.

I never fudged die rolls until I started running a second campaign that ran parallel to my main game a year ago, when the party nearly got TPK'd be an encounter that I had planned to be a minor foil to weaken them before their untimely fight with the Big Bad. The thing they were fighting had a multiattack and every attack but one was a nat 20, resulting in the Druid and the Barbarian going down, the Bard nearly dying, and the Rogue near half health. They took a short rest, got as close to full as they could, and went on with the dungeon, eventually meeting up with the Big Bad for their "this is how powerful I am" battle that I had intended as a steamroll for the big bad. As it turned out, every attack I made except for like 2 were nat 1's, the other 2 were both below 4s. They thought the Big Bad was a pushover. After that I started fudging die rolls, not all the time, but just to keep the narrative in check. A CR 4 bandit shouldn't be able to nearly TPK a party of level 16s and a CR25 lich shouldn't be a punching bag.

A topic I was hoping you would do a video on! Love your work Matt, looking forward to the campaign and my copy of Strongholds and Followers too, keep it up :D

Yeah i still do not fudge. I roll everything in the open. No tpks yet!

This really speaks to the problem with the D20 system for how much randomness it interjects. A highly skilled character may have a +10 to a skill, but that's only 1/3rd of the possibilities. The other 2/3rds is randomness. Your skill means half as much as fate, and that's horrible. If you're a highly skilled locksmith, you shouldn't have a 25% possibility of failing a moderate (15) difficulty skill check. If you extrapolate out difficulties and average skill levels to common tasks in the everyday world of your setting, blacksmiths should be throwing away or having to start over on about half of their work. Bakers should be burning 25% of all their breads and pastries. I suppose you can say, "Well just assume they 'Take 10' or 'Take 20' because they're not stressed or in combat," but then characters should be doing that in ALL non-combat situations too.

I thought i knew where this was going to go but then BAM Colville comes out of no where with Prussian war games and the best gm roll a dice and go hmmm. This made my night thank you Matt.

Best ending of any of your videos that you've ever made. 😂😂😂

I refer to this as "smoke and mirrors" and while it's a valid form of DMing, you must absolutely ensure your players don't find out, or they'll be very unsatisfied. Pre-rolling behind the screen is clever, but I personally find it reprehensible as I dislike lying/being lied to. Still if it works for you, more power to you.

I personally dislike fudging as I like not knowing how things will turn out, and I like the idea that even mighty heroes can be caught out by an unfortunate turn of events. I do sometimes "fudge reality", for example if the party is really struggling versus something trivial and it would be a total anti-climax, just before the killing blow I might have an ally burst onto the scene to save them, or a much greater foe appear and frighten off the original attackers, allowing the party a chance to escape, or something even simpler, like giving the party full cover when I would normally give half. This has issues with feeling "natural", but I find I like the fact that it drives the story forward. The other thing I tend to do is allow people to deal a killing blow if they land a massive amount of damage and leave something on a few hitpoints, that's just common sense DMing, allowing the characters to shine, that sort of thing.

This was so well explained!

Incredibly excited for the next video. . . Also, you are a sick man for how you ended this one.

LOL - Absolutely LOVE how you cut the video at the end to punctuate your point: THE JOB OF THE DM IS TO CREATE DRAMA. Well played, Matt. Well played.

While I am unopposed to fudging die rolls for dramatic effect, my dice tend to give me dramatically appropriate rolls most of the time. When I do fudge it, it's usually to ignore an errant crit or lower a damage roll. Sometimes rolling all 6s on a fireball isn't what you want to do to the party.

I’ve watched the video three times now and the ending still gets me.............!

I totally see your points and love your argument!! This was another well produced video that brought up very good ideas! However, I still must say that I am sticking with the idea of dice representing fate. Not for any rational reason, more for the fun of it. I love how I, the DM, and my players get to build a story together where anything can happen. While I will know more about the overall situation of course, just thinking of the dice as a doorway to the infinite possibilities that can come from an encounter is much more entertaining than seeing them as ways to generate outcomes. The belief that each roll is fated, and the question ofwhether or not you want to see what lies beyond the door makes every choice feel weighted for me.

I disagree with the "routine encounter going bad" being a GM mistake. If the player KNOW that they will win against those weak enemies then why even have them in the game? If the dice go bad, that weak enemy should in my opinion pose a real threat - if the gm fudges the dice to save their players from facing challenge, then it's a GM mistake in my opinion.

Pffft, die rolls? Hell, everything in the world is my creation. I fudge it all: DC's, AC, HP, damage, advantages & disadvantages, bonuses & penalties all over the place (several times, back and forth if necessary), when a group runs away or if they fight to the death, whether they regroup and try to sneak-attack or to get reinforcements. As long as it's dramatically appropriate, if it seems plausible to me based on what's happening I'll run with it. Especially in a d20 system with absolutely no bell curve where an extreme result, 1 or 20, is just as likely as an average result, 10; doubly so in a game with half-hazard or non-existent information on a huge variety of situations; and doubled again in an epic fantasy setting where magic and monsters and gods are common. If you want plausible reliability based purely on number crunching, you better get a really good computer and some decent machine learning algorithms going, otherwise it's much more fun to use the dice more as RNG guidelines than as absolute rules

just started getting into D&D -- but i really like your videos and content!!

I love the ending! Perfect!