Can the GM cheat?

I recently learned that two people whom I thought were my friends decided not to game with me because they felt I was fudging dice and "cheating" as the GM. They didn't tell me this, I had to find this out from a third person. Personally, I find that cowardly, but that's not the discussion at hand.

Did I fudge dice and alter numbers on the fly? Absolutely. The campaign was such that the player characters were grossly imbalanced (as I allowed the players the freedom to play whatever type of character they wanted to play) and I often made things more difficult on the player characters who were the most powerful. It was also such that the story was far more important than numbers. We weren't playing an incredibly well-balanced system. During role-play situations, things were fine as I could give everyone their chance to shine through role-playing interactions. But when combats arose, I had to do things to make certain characters feel relevant, especially when the players themselves (particularly those with the least powerful characters) were at a loss of what to do to feel effective. Incidentally, the two players who left the game had characters who were leagues ahead of the other characters. Think about the difference between a 20th-level character and a 3rd-level character in D&D. That's how far apart the power-level was. But as I said, this game was not about power or balanced combat. In fact, combat was a side-story, usually limited to climactic, cinematic-style encounters. I never felt beholden to dice in such a game. And I never once killed a player character or forced a player character to suffer negative consequences as a result of my fudging. But did I cheat? No, I feel I did not. The GM cannot cheat.

I am not sure what to make of these players, as the situation might be related to something else (especially since I had to hear this from a third person perspective). But I have to honestly ask, is it possible for a GM to cheat? If you are a player, do you care if a GM changes rules behind the screen? My opinion is that the story trumps rules (and dice) all the time unless the campaign is specifically designed as a tournament-style challenge.

Rule 0. The GM cannot cheat.*

That's not to say that the GM cannot be unfair or unreasonable. Or that specific groups may have different social expectations which transcend the game rules. Always best to be clear with those you game with.

*To clarify, I mean "is unable to cheat" because if the GM does it, it is legal. But it still might be dumb or unfair. Fudging the occasional die roll is well within the scope of acceptability, as is creating encounters on the fly, designing NPCs, creating worlds, and a million other things that a GM is empowered to do but could easily do unfairly.

I look at a DM as a benevolent dictator. Do you have infinite power, including the power to fudge outcomes? Yes. Could you abuse that power? Yes.

That said, this sort of example doesn't jump out at me as being abusive.

The DM cannot cheat.

However if the social contract at your table is "no fudging" then you shouldn't fudge. This is a good reason to talk to your players and get a consensus on their expectations of how the game will run.

Morrus said:

Rule 0. The GM cannot cheat.

Click to expand...

Then Rule 0.1 is "Never admit fudging."

I usually look on fudging as a failure to design encounters properly.

If you claim not to fudge, and you do fudge, you're cheating.

If you never make that claim, it's less clear but I tend towards "let the dice fall where they may". If you know what outcome you want, don't roll for it.
If the party's imbalanced, find a way to deal with that that doesn't involve you having to decide who gets to succeed and who fails.

Because if you're fudging very often, then you're basically controlling the outcome, and the dice rolls are just a lie.

The GM might not be able to cheat, but that's no excuse to lie.

At times it the DM duty to cheat.

If the players are playing their hearts out and everything going well Do I let some cannon fodder bad guy knock off a player just because I rolled that 1 in in 1000 crit? Or if you suddenly find the encounter is going bad or too easy to stay the course?

Some players prefer not to have the dice or encounters altered. Those players generally consider such activity by DMs to be cheating.

The GM can cheat only insofar as he can break the rules of the social contract under which everyone agreed to play.

If the players agreed to Rule 0, well, then he really cannot cheat at the game rules (he can cheat in other, social ways, perhaps, but not by fudging dice).

If the players specifically rejected Rule 0, and the GM goes forth under that agreement, well, then fudging is cheating.

If you didn't discuss this, and you and the players had different ideas of what rules were in force, well, that's a grey area. A common grey area.

airwalkrr said:

I recently learned that two people whom I thought were my friends decided not to game with me because they felt I was fudging dice and "cheating" as the GM. They didn't tell me this, I had to find this out from a third person.

Click to expand...

I think the salient point is that they *felt* you were fudging dice rolls. The key to successful DM fudging is that it has to be invisible to the players.

In most games, the practical fudging questions are "how much should the DM fudge?" and "how should the DM conceal his/her fudging?". If things got on to a point where your players felt their best move was to make up an excuse to stop playing in your games, then these are the questions I suggest you examine.

Course, their problem could be a fundamental misunderstanding about the game's social contract; but IME these sorts of situations are more rare.