As A DM I Fudge Dice Rolls But I Use A DM Screen Because I Use Minatures, But One Of My Players Caught Me Fudging Dice Rolls And Now The Party Feels Like The Didńt Deserve Their Wins, How Can I Fix This, Also Is Dice Roll Fudging Okay?

Many DMs fudge, many don’t. Heck, I’ve fudged in some games but not in others. Fudging is okay, but not if the players specifically ask you not to. So the best way to “fix it” is to apologize, tell them you only fudged a few rolls (which hopefully is the case), and just not do it going forward. Like many things, it’s all about the players.

I feel like fudging dice rolls is the whole point of a DM screen in the first place! When I do it, its usually to either save time, or increase tension. For example, my sessions all start around 6 PM, if it starts getting to late and we're in the middle of combat and I've noticed they're going to win and its just a matter of time, I'll fudge rolls to speed things up. 
I have also had fights with ancient dragons where their breath weapon NEVER recharges so I fudged it and said it did because a dragon fight with no risk is boring for everyone involved. 

I've also had days where I got ridiculously lucky and rolled like 6 nat20's in a single combat and had to start miscalling them on purpose because it didn't feel right and the party was getting annoyed. 

I would just tell them that its an occasional thing that is ONLY done to ensure the table is having fun. 

A lot of the time, fudging a roll isn't a sign of a DM pitying a bad player, but an accidentally unbalanced encounter that the DM has to adjust for

Quote from LeBattery >>

 

A lot of the time, fudging a roll isn't a sign of a DM pitying a bad player, but an accidentally unbalanced encounter that the DM has to adjust for

 Pretty much this. Fudging is fine, as long as there's an appropriate reason for it. Don't do it to make it easy for the PCs or to save one (or all) of them, but if it becomes clear to you the encounter they're in was unwinnable from the start by mistake or your luck with the dice is getting unfair make some adjustments on the fly - possibly including fudging your dice rolls a bit.

The truth is that once you have been caught, they will think you did it more often than you admit and the only way to make them think that you won't do it again is to say "sorry" and keep rolling in the open.

When I first started playing D&D I used a DM screen and would occasionally fudge rolls to prevent "really bad things" (tm) from happening. Usually, this was related to situations that would involve a significant risk of character deaths. However, this reduced level of overall risk lead to some of the characters taking larger risks either consciously or not. They might attempt really risky maneuvers or act rashly without considering consequences because "that is what their character would do" and because I had not imposed appropriate consequences for earlier similar actions. It eventually got a bit out of hand and I was faced with the difficult situation of either continuing to fudge things to sustain essentially unsustainable character decisions or suddenly not fudge with a high risk of the character dying.

This experience lead me towards ..

1) Making die rolls in the open

2) There is always some risk and characters may die if they make bad decisions.

3) Try to balance scenarios by having the creatures make reasonable decisions (they might choose to flee for example) but also have logical dynamic elements to the encounter so that enemy reinforcements might show up or not, allies might show up or not or other events might happen to influence the situation and achieve balance through plot devices rather than die roll fudging.

So although I think it is ok to fudge die rolls, in the longer term I think it is better to let the dice fall where they may and balance encounters via other mechanisms.

I usually fudge by methods other than dice rolls (a friend called it "Shroedinger's Villain" -- the additional enemies that might or might not be present, abilities monsters might or might not have, etc).

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

I usually fudge by methods other than dice rolls (a friend called it "Shroedinger's Villain" -- the additional enemies that might or might not be present, abilities monsters might or might not have, etc).

That is a perfect name for it, love it.

Yes, it's OK to fudge. It's your call on what you fudge -- die rolls, monster stats, however you want to do it.

The problem is, you don't want the players to know you did it. It's not that players don't realize GMs can, and probably do, fudge things. But you don't want them to know that in this particular instance, at this moment, this specific roll was fudged.

Unfortunately there is no going back from this except to do one thing: open rolls from now on. If you do that you can't fudge the dice, and then they will start believing in the world again. Then you can switch your fudging to just giving the monster less hp on the fly, or not using one of its abilities, or what have you.

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

I usually fudge by methods other than dice rolls (a friend called it "Shroedinger's Villain" -- the additional enemies that might or might not be present, abilities monsters might or might not have, etc).

 
This! One of my players nailed it when he said it’s okay for DMs to change the monster’s hit points or abilities on the fly to make the encounter easier or harder, but it needs to be consistent. He says it’s okay if I “fudge” the stat block and encounter sometimes, but never the actual dice.

it depends on the group, DM, and campaign, like basically everything in dnd.

generally, you don't want to fudge every time a player would die, there is no tension, and a lot less fun of there is no risk, but if they are being really lucky, or in the middle of the encounter you realize that you planned a too hard encounter, or one of your characters has died in every. single. encounter. but the other player are not dying, maybe fudge a roll or 2 to save that character once.

if the player ask you to stop, then stop.

I would roll in the open except that my game is done online, and I paid a lot of money for some skullsplitter metal dice and a high-end Wyrmwood cherry die rolling tray, and heck if I'm not going to use the darn things.

I have rolled in the open a couple of times when the battle was desperate, and they were trying to do things like hold person on the bad guy, and I wanted them to see that I wasn't just letting him save because I didn't want him to get "one shotted."

He freaking rolled high teens every single time. If I'd been rolling the metal dice I'm not sure I wouldn't have fudged the 4th one in a row just on the basis that I wouldn't have thought they'd have believed I wasn't fudging to keep him alive and draw out the battle. Ironically, it would have occurred to me to fudge the dice so they wouldn't think I was fudging the dice, LOL.... But as it turned out they saw those in the open every time. 

At this point again if it weren't for my pretty shiny metal dice and leather-lined cherry wood tray, I'd probably just roll in the VTT, and would just roll in the open most of the time, unless I was trying to keep something secret from them (like not letting them know that the bad guy succeeded his deception check, because that would defeat the purpose of it)... we are 17 sessions into the campaign, and so far no PC deaths have happened, so if one happens now, although yes, I am sure it would suck for that player, they surely know that I am trying to keep the adventures interesting and challenging but fair.

Quote from BioWizard >>

 

At this point again if it weren't for my pretty shiny metal dice and leather-lined cherry wood tray, I'd probably just roll in the VTT, and would just roll in the open most of the time, unless I was trying to keep something secret from them (like not letting them know that the bad guy succeeded his deception check, because that would defeat the purpose of it)... we are 17 sessions into the campaign, and so far no PC deaths have happened, so if one happens now, although yes, I am sure it would suck for that player, they surely know that I am trying to keep the adventures interesting and challenging but fair.

 I occasionally make completely unnecessary die rolls to keep the players on their toes, and those wouldn't always make sense if the players could see them, and sometimes rolls shouldn't be in the open because the players shouldn't know the result. If a player rolls Perception to try and figure out of there are enemies around, he shouldn't know what I rolled for Stealth (because if that beats his Perception roll he'll expect there to be an enemy, just one that he couldn't detect) or whether it was a pointless roll (if he rolled low, he'll still be suspicious if I rolled higher; but if I roll even lower he'll know there's nobody around). I have nothing against rolling in the open in general, in fact I think it can often make for a more intense experience, but sometimes it's just better if the players don't get to see your result. I think rolling in the open for combat only might be an easy compromise if the players are thinking you fudge regularly (regardless of them being correct about that or not).

I agree... I never would do anything that caused spoilers, and the stuff you are describing is basically spoilers.

I never fudge rolls and have always rolled in the open.

In the beginning it was because I was a poor kid and couldn't afford a screen. But over the years of playing, with GMs who did use screens, I felt that sometimes they would fudge on rolls. I didn't like feeling that way as a player so always rolled open as a GM.

Yeah, I have crit the party multiple times and have also rolled repeated 1s. It was entertaining every time and the players know the deal because they see the dice.

I do fudge dice rolls sometimes because I’m not perfect at balancing encounters. When I create an encounter that’s so unbalanced that I’ll have a TPK in the second round it’s no fun for anyone if I don’t fudge the rolls to make the encounter hard enough that a couple of the PCs are at 0 HP and the rest are close before they win. The same with random encounters when the party is out of resources and everyone is down to only a couple of HP. It’s not fun for anyone, including me, if I throw a troll at the party as a random encounter, but having an encounter with deer or a friendly traveling merchant adds flavor and something non-threatening for a change. 

Most of the time I fudge damage rolls by either removing the bonus from the dice or doubling it, for example instead of 1d6+2 I’ll either scale the encounter down by rolling 1d6 or scale it up by rolling 1d6+4. Doing that has been pretty effective at balancing unbalanced encounters on the fly so far and it’s quick and easy to do too. 

Sometimes I fudge rolls, but not often.  Usually, I just do it if there's too much stuff going one way other the other.  I don't want a climactic encounter to be a total cakewalk because the villain can't roll above a three on an attack, and I also don't want the party getting ripped to shreds because a foe rolls too many crits.

I used to when I was a newer dm mostly, in favour of the players. Nowadays I roll all my dice on the table where everyone can see it and whatever happens happens.