Everybody Cheats?

Gary Alan Fine's early survey of role-playing games found that everybody cheated. But the definition of what cheating is when it applies to role-playing games differs from other uses of the term. Does everyone really cheat in RPGs?

Yes, Everybody​

Gary Alan Fine's work, Shared Fantasy, came to the following conclusion:

Perhaps surprisingly, cheating in fantasy role-playing games is extremely common--almost everyone cheats and this dishonesty is implicitly condoned in most situation. The large majority of interviewees admitted to cheating, and in the games I played, I cheated as well.

Fine makes it a point of clarify that cheating doesn't carry quite the same implications in role-playing as it does in other games:

Since FRP players are not competing against each other, but are cooperating, cheating does not have the same effect on the game balance. For example, a player who cheats in claiming that he has rolled a high number while his character is fighting a dragon or alien spaceship not only helps himself, but also his party, since any member of the party might be killed. Thus the players have little incentive to prevent this cheating.

The interesting thing about cheating is that if everyone cheats, parity is maintained among the group. But when cheating is rampant, any player who adheres slavishly to die-roll results has "bad luck" with the dice. Cheating takes place in a variety of ways involving dice (the variable component PCs can't control), such as saying the dice is cocked, illegible, someone bumped the table, it rolled off a book or dice tray, etc.

Why Cheat?​

One of the challenges with early D&D is that co-creator Gary Gygax's design used rarity to make things difficult. This form of design reasoned that the odds against certain die rolls justified making powerful character builds rare, and it all began with character creation.

Character creation was originally 3d6 for each attribute, full stop. With the advent of computers, players could automate this rolling process by rapidly randomizing thousands of characters until they got the combination of numbers they wanted. These numbers dictated the PC's class (paladins, for example, required a very strict set of high attributes). Psionics too, in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, required a specific set of attributes that made it possible to spontaneously manifest psionic powers. Later forms of character generation introduced character choice: 4d6 assigned to certain attributes, a point buy system, etc. But in the early incarnations of the game, it was in the player's interest, if she wanted to play a paladin or to play a psionic, to roll a lot -- or just cheat (using the dice pictured above).

Game masters have a phrase for cheating known as "fudging" a roll; the concept of fudging means the game master may ignore a roll for or against PCs if it doesn't fit the kind of game he's trying to create. PCs can be given extra chances to reroll, or the roll could be interpreted differently. This "fudging" happens in an ebb and flow as the GM determines the difficulty and if the die rolls support the narrative.

GM screens were used as a reference tool with relevant charts and to prevent players from seeing maps and notes. But they also helped make it easier for GMs to fudge rolls. A poll on RPG.net shows that over 90% of GMs fudged rolls behind the screen.

Cheating Is the Rule​

One of Fifth Edition's innovations was adopting a common form of cheating -- the reroll -- by creating advantage. PCs now have rules encouraging them to roll the dice twice, something they've been doing for decades with the right excuse.

When it comes to cheating, it seems like we've all been doing it. But given that we're all working together to have a good time, is it really cheating?

 

[Tony Vargas]

And this is something potentially worth considering. If the primary justification GMs make for fudging is for the sake of the players' jollies - to prevent an untimely death, unhappy string of bad luck rolls, etc - why can't some of this "fudging power" become apportioned to players instead such that they can decide when it serves their own jollies when it pertains to their character?

Of course, there are plenty of mechanics in games, especially RPGs, to allow just that. Re-rolls, for instance. Or limited-use bonuses you can apply after a roll. They're like 'fudging power,' but part of the rules, and limited in how much you can do them.

They don't serve quite the same purpose as fudging, nor have the same foundation in the privileged role of GM. They do let the player override a result in the name of fun (where fun is equated to success, anyway), but they do so within the rules. Fudging is the GM saving the game from itself. When the rules fail, the GM prevails.

I also think it’s a decent example of the sort of thing we’re talking about. There’s what I’ll call a soft “cheat” or fudge, in that it’s allowed, but alters the play experience, and the hard “Cheat” which is somebody breaking the rules for their benefit in a way that’s not allowed in the rules, and is in bad faith.

I think a lot of the bristling over "cheat" is that it connotes bad faith. You can 'break' the rules of the game, especially in the role of GM, in good faith, to make it a better game. You can follow the rules of the game to the letter, to gain an unfair benefit for yourself, in bad faith, too, especially from the player side.

 

[Lanefan]

Sure, but this is not a problem that I would likely encounter given that I generally use milestones anyway. Nor have I ever encountered the timid playstyle from milestones that you fearfully predict that this engenders.

I've seen it from certain players even in an xp-based system, and it annoys me to no end particularly when my character is the one who ends up dying because of it.

Milestones or auto-levelling would only make it worse.

But there are ways to create character and campaign-specific milestones and milestone rewards.

Dungeon World for examples rewards XP via the Bond/Alignment System. Does your character achieve what they are wanting to achieve or embrace a particular aspect of their character?

The achieve-your-goal bit sounds good. The embrace-your-character-aspect bit worries me in that it comes down to DM judgement, much like 1e's (rather awful) business where the DM has to determine how well you played your character through each level. Wide open to favouritism and argument. Bad design.

Players in Fate have an array of milestone rewards: short-term (~end of a session), medium-term (~end of a scenario/plot event), and long-term (~end of a campaign arc). And they can "advance" their character in different ways depending upon the milestone (e.g., rewritting their aspects, getting a new Fate point/stunt, etc.).

Not quite sure how this works. Does the character who gets involved in every combat get more of these milestone rewards than the character who stays back and does little or nothing (all other things being equal)? If yes, then fine. If no, still has problems.

Meanwhile, the Cypher System (primarily Numenera) attaches XP to discovery (e.g., ancient relics, creatures, community-building, etc.) and accepting GM Intrusions. It would be odd for XP to reflect your personal contribution in such a framework.

Interesting. The xp could still be varied, though, based on who contributed what toward making each discovery - though this might come down to DM judgement again, depending how it was implemented.

As an aside to the entire discussion, I increasingly find it peculiar - though it makes sense as a relic of XP = gold - that XP charts use such high number values. Why couldn't or doesn't D&D just deflate the values, even if just one decimal place? Both in terms of what is required and what monsters selflessly sacrifice for player advancement. For example, why does a baboon (challenge rating 0) need be worth 10 XP? Why not make that 1 XP?

One word answer for that: granularity. One baboon might be worth 10 xp but the next one, a bit weaker, might only be worth 8. A particularly tough one might be worth 23.

Oftentimes, granularity is good and - within reason - more granularity is better. A fine example: many things in 1e that used d% to resolve were put to a d20 in 3e - nowhere near as granular and thus impossible to fine-tune to the extent that 1e allowed.

Where you really need the granularity in xp is at the very low levels. At later levels, whether a Hill Giant is worth 2350 xp or 2400 xp - who really cares. But at 1st level, whether an Orc is worth 22 xp or 26 xp can, in not too long, add up to a significant difference.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

It's not a default assumption in Moldvay basic that a character will progress through levels. Many, perhaps most, PCs will die young; and even for those that don't die, there's the possibility of not finding much treasure (through bad luck or bad play) and hence not levelling.

In Moldvay Basic, levels have to be earned (in the sense that a player has to play well to earn the XP to level his/her PC). That's not the case in 4e. Levels aren't something you earn, any more than turning up to a session is something that is earned.

So in each case the default assumption is that they will try to progress through the levels; with the major difference being likelihood of success.

All I can do is repeat - not all RPGing is wargaming.

Starting with the last sentence - in some RPGs PC death is a possibility, but only if the player deliberately stakes it. In those systems there is no generic risk of death, and hence the only way the player might risk not being able to play the same character is if s/he choose to put that on the table.

I do my best to ignore the existence of systems like that, and 4e as written is not such a system. I don't believe in plot-protection or system-protection of PCs - if the PCs can kill the monsters then the monsters have to have a chance of killing the PCs, otherwise a bunch of things - immersion, realism, believability to name a few - go right out the window.

And then turning to the main thesis: it's simply not true that, in 4e, you as a PC are trying to survive the various risks and challenges posed by the game. It's not a wargame. It's not a survival game. It's a game about impacting the (imagined) world.

The way you play it, maybe; but that's only your own house and your own style. As written it is a survival game. In every published module there's monsters and traps and big set-piece encounters that are, in the end, trying to kill off the PCs; and that 4e maybe gives the PCs an overall better chance of surviving each of these doesn't mean survival isn't a goal.

If you don't play your PC, there is no payoff. If someone wants to turn up week-on-week and just sit in the corner I'm not going to begrudge them the oxygen. If they want to write on a bit of paper that they're a 20th level oxygen-breather, well they can be my guest in respect of that also.

Fair enough. I'm more talking about the player who is just as engaged in the game as everyone else but who actively plays their character out of harm's way at every opportunity, leaving others to take the heat.

4e does not reward playing your PC cautiously, any more than it rewards sitting on the couch watching TV.

You know all those people who complained that they don't like 4e because it incentivises gonzo action of over-the-top heroics? I don't share their aesthetic preferences, but they're right about what the game incentivises.

From the 4e modules etc. I've run I don't see it as specifically incentivizing the gonzo but more as providing lots of excellent opportunities for it to happen - one of 4e's better notions.

My point is that if four players at the table want to embrace the gonzo while one player keeps their character back, and yet all get the same xp or milestones all the time, the cautious player's PC will in the end survive longer, become wealthier, and - if the DM allows such - become higher level than everyone else; simply because attrition has caught up with the others.

This is mere assertion, and false at that.

Alll levelling is in changing the numbers on your sheet, and changing the content of the story that is being told about your PC. Is that a reward? Yes, if it's hard to get and people you hang out with value the skill of getting it - which is how it seems to have worked at Gygax's table. No, if the number on your sheet is just a proxy for the number of sessions you've attended, and if it's part of the plan from the get-go that the story will change in those sorts of ways.

Instead of trying to fit all RPGs into some procrustean framework, look at how they actually work. Instead of insisting that something that is not a reward is one, why not ask what the actual reward is, what the payoff is, for playing 4e?

Because if I ask, you'll 99% likely tell me the payoff and reward is in effect simply getting to play - which in theory is true for all RPGs if not all games in general.

However, the mechanical system of many (most?) RPGs - and a boatload of online RPGs and RPG-like games - also builds in xp and-or levelling as a reward; a measure of advancement or improvement. It's how this reward is allocated and what it's given for that I'm talking about here.

Lanefan

 

[Hussar]

/snip

But that's for my game, I'm the DM and as an extension of the rules which as written is my right, I'm not cheating so long as my players are happy.

So, as long as you keep it a secret from the players, and the players are happy, then it's not cheating?

I don't really buy that.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

I also think it’s a decent example of the sort of thing we’re talking about. There’s what I’ll call a soft “cheat” or fudge, in that it’s allowed, but alters the play experience, and the hard “Cheat” which is somebody breaking the rules for their benefit in a way that’s not allowed in the rules, and is in bad faith.

If we’re saying that the “common” terminology must rule, even when I believe that it is improper usage of the dictionary defined term, than so be it. I think it’s both insulting and actually makes disgusting the merit of various “legal cheat” rules more difficult to use the term in that manner.

I will say that I have no doubt that you, and [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] don’t mean it an insulting way, but that doesn’t change the fact that use of the term in that manner will offend some.

See, you keep saying that you understand my point and then completely miss it. Makes me think that you do not actually understand what I'm saying. Why would I have a problem with confirmation dice or extended skill challenges? At what point are you changing any results after the fact? Yes, you rolled a 20. Cool, you hit. Until you roll that second die, you haven't critted. If you hit with that second die, then you deal additional damage. Ok. No problem.

In what way is that altering any die rolls? In what way is that altering any results? Heck, even your house rule isn't cheating in any way. You aren't altering any results. Simply changing the nature of the die roll itself is fine.

In what way, though, is it somehow not cheating to hide what your doing from your players and alter the dice after the fact? I don't really care that it's become part of the rules or not. All that did is make it, as you say, less offensive to some people.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

See, you keep saying that you understand my point and then completely miss it. Makes me think that you do not actually understand what I'm saying. Why would I have a problem with confirmation dice or extended skill challenges? At what point are you changing any results after the fact? Yes, you rolled a 20. Cool, you hit. Until you roll that second die, you haven't critted. If you hit with that second die, then you deal additional damage. Ok. No problem.

In what way is that altering any die rolls? In what way is that altering any results? Heck, even your house rule isn't cheating in any way. You aren't altering any results. Simply changing the nature of the die roll itself is fine.

In what way, though, is it somehow not cheating to hide what your doing from your players and alter the dice after the fact? I don't really care that it's become part of the rules or not. All that did is make it, as you say, less offensive to some people.

Because you’ve said that an Inspiration die is cheating. Which is the exact same mechanic as confirming a critical.

It’s a critical, wait, not it’s not.

It’s a hit, wait no it’s not.

Am I missing something?

 

[Aldarc]

Because you’ve said that an Inspiration die is cheating. Which is the exact same mechanic as confirming a critical.

It’s a critical, wait, not it’s not.

It’s a hit, wait no it’s not.

Am I missing something?

Doesn't Inspiration confer Advantage? As in, you roll 2d20 at the same time and take the higher of the two results?

That seems like a different dice mechanic from rolling a 20 on a d20 and then getting the option for a critical hit if you make a second successful roll.

 

[Kobold Boots]

So, as long as you keep it a secret from the players, and the players are happy, then it's not cheating?

I don't really buy that.

So two answers to this.

The RAW answer: DMs can't cheat. It doesn't matter what you buy in that case.
My opinion: If my players come back to the table, enjoy their time enough to bring others and I enjoy them, then it can't be cheating.

Your answers are different. If you can say the same about your players and I can't effect your game such that you don't enjoy yourself, then your answers are right too.

KB

 

[Tony Vargas]

So, as long as you keep it a secret from the players, and the players are happy, then it's not cheating?
I don't really buy that.

If you have ever been in a really successful D&D game with a really good DM behind the screen, you probably have bought it.

It's like magicians and their tricksillusions.

 

[Maxperson]

I would call it a system of institutionalized cheating but one more conducive to my own play preferences as it creates a mechanical delineation that places a cap or check on the GM's autocratic powers. It also forces the GM to make their own choices as to what times and occasions warrant their expenditure of a "cheat point," a "GM intrusion," or a "mulligan." I also think that this is more psychologically acceptable for players, as this preserves their sense of accomplishments. The only issue that I could see arising is if players get upset that the cheat point was not used to preserve their character. I also think that this is a mechanic that would benefit GMs and players.

Rules, even rules that break other rules, are not cheating. By the logic you and @Hussar are using, a human wizard who casts fly on himself has a cheater for a player. The rules are that humans can't fly, and according to you guys, engaging rules that break other rules is cheating. So is a fighter using power attack or great weapon master. The rules are that you do weapon damage plus strength bonus as your damage. Breaking that rule by lowering your to hit and raising your damage is cheating.

The two of you have rendered cheating meaningless with the logic you are using.