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?

 

[Maxperson]

Any argument or counterargument that appeals to the buzzwords "by your logic" is a red flag that tells where the argumentative fallacy where to land. There are much better ways of arguing and debating than falling back on "by your logic" points that attempt to rudely misconstrue the reasoning of others. So remember that every time you say "by your logic," your inane reasoning kill an innocent kitten.

This is an Argument from Fallacy. Rather than accuse someone of a fallacy and leave it at that. How about you address the argument? You have argued that for one rule to alter another is to cheat, as there is no functional difference between using the rules to alter a die roll, and using the rules to alter a human's inability to fly.

 

[Aldarc]

This is an Argument from Fallacy. Rather than accuse someone of a fallacy and leave it at that. How about you address the argument? You have argued that for one rule to alter another is to cheat, as there is no functional difference between using the rules to alter a die roll, and using the rules to alter a human's inability to fly.

Wrong. I have not done that, and that is why I didn't bother addressing your "argument"; it spoke from false premises so its substance was irrelevant.

 

[Maxperson]

Wrong. I have not done that, and that is why I didn't bother addressing your "argument"; it spoke from false premises so its substance was irrelevant.

You may not have intended it, but that is in fact where you argument goes when you take it to it's logical conclusion. Again, there is no functional difference between a DM using the rules to alter a die roll, and a player using the rules to alter a human's inability to fly. You can attempt to counter my argument, or continue to Argue from Fallacy. Your avoidance doesn't change the fact that your argument can be functionally applied to any other rule that also alters other rules. If it's cheating to use the rules to alter the rule about die rolling, then it is also cheating to use the rules to alter the rule about human's not having the ability to fly.

 

[Aldarc]

You may not have intended it, but that is in fact where you argument goes when you take it to it's logical conclusion.

You were wrong about my argument and then persist in falsely construing it as my argument or its logical conclusion? There is little point engaging this further.

 

[Maxperson]

You were wrong about my argument and then persist in falsely construing it as my argument or its logical conclusion? There is little point engaging this further.

When you fight so hard to avoid responding to an argument, it becomes pretty clear to those looking that you really have no way to refute it. So we can not engage further if you want, but...

 

[Kobold Boots]

Show me the rule that states humans can’t fly.

If we want to play silly buggers pedantic games.

And again, what post hoc change is being made by casting fly? How is casting fly fudging?

If it were legal for characters to fly without a rules modification, then there would be no need for a fly spell to allow it. The fly spell is a legal rules modification dependent on a character's class and following the rules and conditions to learn or obtain the spell.

If it were legal for characters to do anything that required a feat to accomplish, then there would be no need to purchase the feat. The feat is a rules modification dependent on a character's class and following the rules and conditions to learn or obtain the feat.

Whether or not you call certain rules post-hoc changes is based on your preferred language and context for describing how rules work. Most games work this way, even checkers (you can't move backwards and forwards without obtaining a king, you need to get a checker to the back rank to have it become a king)

Note: At the point where a conversation devolves to the point where people are debating the English language, someone is standing on a hill with a big target waiting to die on it.

I've made the decision that like you. This is why I'm trying to explain it.

Thanks
KB

 

[Aldarc]

When you fight so hard to avoid responding to an argument, it becomes pretty clear to those looking that you really have no way to refute it. So we can not engage further if you want, but...

I am asking that you respect what I wrote and what I have argued. I don't know why you feel obligated to be obtuse about showing a modicum of human decency and common courtesy here. So how about this? How about you come back with an argument that actually engages and respects what I am arguing as opposed to what you imagine I am arguing, and then I will engage that? Adopting that approach going forward does seem more in line with the board's rules and etiquette.

Note: At the point where a conversation devolves to the point where people are debating the English language, someone is standing on a hill with a big target waiting to die on it.

It seems like that point has already passed long into days of yore when people argued that by definition GMs can't cheat.

 

[Tony Vargas]

But if the focus of play is character and/or story, then 30% success rates and hard failures lead to total fiasco, as story fails to develop, characters are not heroes we might admire but hopeless bumblers, etc.

One mode of mitigation is to change the success rates, Another is to eliminate hard failures, Another is just to punt it all to the GM, who manipulates outcomes and consequences as necessary to generate story...

Sure.

The notion of "the privileged role of GM", and also of "the GM saving the game from itself" because "the rules fail", are symptomatic (in my view) of a certain approach to D&D, and especially AD&D, that - whenver it first began (I would guess in the mid-through-late 70s) - had become mainstream, perhaps predominant, by the early 80s.

I would go with "mid-70s," prettymuch the moment 0D&D was published, if not during the playtest & development process. You could play D&D as a wargame, but the glimpses we have of the pre-publication games point to EGG already assuming that privileged take on the DM role, in contrast to the wargaming role of judge.

The privileged role of GM in a dungeoneering, "skilled play" wargame of the sort set out (incompletely) in the original D&D books, and then set out and advocated for by Gygax in the AD&D books, is in establishing the fiction, adjudicating the fiction and - if necessary - establishing the die roll needed for success where the rules themselves provide no obvious or applicable answer

Maybe establishing a die roll, maybe just ruling what happened when the rules didn't explicitly cover - and, in that period, there was /plenty/ the rules didn't begin to cover (let alone cover unambiguously, so, really, whenever he wanted).

But when the focus turns to story/character, this extent control over the fiction fairly naturally bleeds into a control over scene-framing, over outcomes (you can't pre-plan scene framing if you don't control outcomes to some extent), etc. That leads to a "golden rule"-style imperative to fudge.

I think the impetus to override the system is already there in the above, it's just to a slightly different end.

At the same time, there is a reasonable expectation that in a character-focused game characters won't die too often. But the wargame rules produce quite a bit of PC death, especially at low levels. So we get the need to "save the game from itself" - again, we see a "golden rule"-style imperative to fudge.

Yep.

The commonality isn't in the imperative to 'fudge,' it's in the need to do so, because the system has failed.

None of this is part of any "natural" theory of the role of the GM. I think it's the result of a widespread, perhaps predominant mode of play within the context of the dominant ruleset.

There is a lot of that in the hobby, sure. But, if the assumption is the GM chooses the system, that implies modding the system, which implies doing so on the fly to fix problems as they occur.
The exception would be if the assumption were that choosing the system were mutual - that a group first agrees to game together, then builds a consensus on what system to use, how to mod it, & deals with system failure in play by consensus, as well - then the GM position (if it existed) would not be privileged in that sense.

 

[Kobold Boots]

It seems like that point has already passed long into days of yore when people argued that by definition GMs can't cheat.

I hear what you're saying there and to some extent agree.

However, the key difference is that I'm actually supported by RAW and arguing a point because those who aren't supported by anything other than personal opinion continue to die on the hill.

Be well
KB

 

[prosfilaes]

It seems like that point has already passed long into days of yore when people argued that by definition GMs can't cheat.

I'm not sure that's the end point of the argument. Getting the definitions straight should be the first part of the argument. Then actual discussion can happen, instead of absurd claims like "it is a fact that this is cheating". A dictionary definition of cheating is "To violate rules in order to gain advantage from a situation."; under that definition, someone not violating the rules can't be cheating, and someone using that definition and making the claim that someone not violating the rules is not cheating is being entirely factual. Arguing about the definition of cheating is pointless, and if its emotional power is too strong to use, then any semantic arguments should be makeable using another word. When [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] argues that using fudging instead of cheating is doublethink, that's a sign that there's no logical discussion to be had, he just wants to use the word with the emotional weight he wants.

It is a principle in mathematics given by David Hilbert that "One must be able to say at all times--instead of points, straight lines, and planes--tables, chairs, and beer mugs" and the theorems still follow from the axioms. That's a hard line to take in general argument, but if one can't rephrase your argument without using the word "cheat", it's not a meaningful discussion.