Player fudging in RPG's.

Celebrim · Oct 2, 2002

Pretty much everyone is going to find this subject as distasteful as I do, but I'm now courious about the observations of players and DM's regarding the subject of player's cheating.

Cheating can take a lot of forms. Most commonly, players report low results as high ones especially when multiple dice are clattering (initiative seems to be a popular choice both because it is powerful to go first regardless of edition and I'm less likely to be looking). Alternately, they will fail to record damage, potion expenditure, gold expenditure, or the consumption of some other resource or will fail to keep track of the resource at all.

How prevalent is this in your experience? I'm especially interested in the observations of gamers who like me have played with numerous groups (10 or more).

Bagpuss · Oct 2, 2002

I don't find the topic distasteful. As a GM I don't have a problem with players cheating on occasion so long as it doesn't disrupt the game.

Crothian · Oct 2, 2002

Is cheating distasteful? Well, it really depends on the reason. I've seen players cheat to keep from dieing when things go really bad. I've also seen players cheat to gete things moving in a duldrum of a game.

However, the best reason to cheat is to make things more difficult for the party. Say you missed, when you hit. Make things tougher then they should be. Too many wimpy DM's out there afraid of challenging their players. So, it's sometimes up to a player to make it challenging.*

*Disclaimer: This is in no way a reflection of my current group. Eva, Shawn (my DM's) I think both of you are doing a good job in challenging the party and in no way should you feel you need to make it harder.

jmucchiello · Oct 2, 2002

I suppose my post on that other thread inspired this?

Bagpuss said:
I don't find the topic distasteful. As a GM I don't have a problem with players cheating on occasion so long as it doesn't disrupt the game.

I agree with this. But as a player it irks me sometimes. And the solution for me is to not let it irk me. As I've been saying in the other threads: It's just a game.

Shard O'Glase · Oct 2, 2002

Crothian said:
However, the best reason to cheat is to make things more difficult for the party. Say you missed, when you hit. Make things tougher then they should be. Too many wimpy DM's out there afraid of challenging their players. So, it's sometimes up to a player to make it challenging.*

That's how I've cheated. I got sick of our virtual imortality because the DM fudged to many dice rolls. Heck once I had my character run through the center of an orc camp, dragging a flaming tent, while screaming at the top of my lungs. When I bumped into the shaman I promtly tackled him, and beat him up. And I was a 3rd level necromancer. In games like these yeah i cheat to make things more difficult because victory and living through the day shouldn't be virtually assured.

Deedlit · Oct 2, 2002

This doesn't happen, because usually in my games, the DM rolls all the dice.

ForceUser · Oct 2, 2002

We're in this to have a good time. Part of that is creating consistency so we know 1+1 always = 2 within the structure of the rules. The people I game with never intentionally fudge die rolls, fail to record consumption of potions, or any of that other nonsense. However, these things sometimes happen due to confusion between the players and DM, or (more often) a player simply uses something and forgets to cross it off on his sheet. Several times I have gone to use something on my character sheet and realized I consumed it last session, or even several sessions ago. Whoops! Cross it off, move on.

So we don't deliberately cheat, but it's been known to happen inadvertantly. Thus, I didn't vote, but felt the need to comment since your poll is rather one-sided. In my experience, most gamers don't cheat. Among my friends, we recognize that this defeats the purpose of playing.

Pyske · Oct 2, 2002

Just to offer the other end of the spectruim from ForceUser, I didn't vote in the poll because I'm not sure if what my group does qualifies as cheating. You see, I fudge die rolls as the DM, on the assumption that doing so is an attempt to improve the story. My players get the same benefit of the doubt... so in my game, player fudging isn't really against the rules.

. . . . . . . -- Eric

nopantsyet · Oct 3, 2002

Crothian said:
However, the best reason to cheat is to make things more difficult for the party. Say you missed, when you hit. Make things tougher then they should be. Too many wimpy DM's out there afraid of challenging their players. So, it's sometimes up to a player to make it challenging.

Heh heh! I'm with you on that. But I don't think that's cheating. And frankly, if a player did cheat, I'd just cheat back and negate their cheating, so I say if it doesn't disrupt the game, I'm not going to think much about it.

Destil · Oct 3, 2002

I've cheeted once intentionly, when my PC had fallen into a moat I used a dagger I had thrown and been unable to retreive to cut my armor straps off. I realised that I didn't have the dagger any more right after I announced my action, but kept quiet, since my elf cleric would most liklely have drownened otherswise. No one else caught it.

On more than one occacion I've cheeted by adding incorrectly when in a hurry with the dice, I'm sure...