How often do you cheat?

[Thurbane]

I used to fudge a bit when I was DM (usually in favour of the players), but in my current game we have all agreed that we are taking a "let the dice fall where they may" approach, and if anyone is unlucky enough to go down to an unlikely critical from a kobold mook with a scythe, they'll just have to wear it...

 

[was]

every once in a while i find that i've made an encounter a little too difficult, so i fudge a little to give them at least a 50/50 shot of surviving

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I roll dice in the open...and *never* cheat.....


after all, it is not cheating if I happen to forget a modifier or a hp total is it

I fudge for two things:
- I miscalculated the CR of the encounter and need to scale it up or down
- A PC that is normally sidelined has the opportunity to shine if only they had a +1 on a roll....

 

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

Not usually, but after not receiving anything from my group for GMs Day, I have a feeling the monsters are gonna be rolling a LOT of crits this Friday night...

 

[Olaf the Stout]

A lot less now than I used to. Maybe it's because the players aren't in the really low levels anymore so I don't have to worry about one random critical killing anyone anymore. Either that or the players aren't as challenged by the fights as they used to be.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Not usually, but after not receiving anything from my group for GMs Day, I have a feeling the monsters are gonna be rolling a LOT of crits this Friday night...

Funnily enough, the session I had last night was the first one since GM's day. I rolled 4 confirmed crits and few unconfirmed crits with Longbows (only crit on a 20, do x3 damage). It would have to be the most crits I have confirmed in 1 session (we only play for about 4 1/2 hours each session).

Olaf the Stout

 

[hong]

I never cheat. I engage in contingent risk mitigation behaviours so as to facilitate positive outcomes for all participants in the shared enterprise.


Hong "trust me, I work in insurance" Ooi

 

[Li Shenron]

How often do you roll behind the screen, see a crit that would kill a player, and say "miss"?

Or roll for the reoccuring BBEG's save vs disintegrate, see a 1 and say "he saves"?

It's been a very long time since I've done it, so I voted "never", but I'm not 100% sure I won't ever do it again, in some very special circumstance.

How often do you roll behind the screen?

Currently quite often actually. I roll almost everything that the monsters do, and I roll some PC's checks whenever I feel like it would be better that they don't see the result.

How often do you tell players what the monster's to-hit is? Or their saves? Or their hit points? Do you ever do this?

I never tell them.

edit: actually sometimes I do tell them, but only after the battle

 

[kensanata]

I save the day by keeping a few friendly NPC character sheets at hand for the dire times when the ranger is approaching -9, rogue is at -6, and the fighter down to 3 hit points. Foolish party of level 2, 3, and 4 on a scouting mission deciding to assault a Cleric 5 with a dozen skeletons and zombies. So I had a fox shapechanger (kitsune) NPC appear they befriended a few sessions ago. It more or less made sense because he's supposed to be the guardian of the area, but unfortunately it did look a bit like the DM's saving the party. I'll have to figure out what to do next time.

As for the dice, the last few sessions I must have rolled an average of 15 or higher, where as one of my players (the ranger at -9) must have rolled an average of 3 or 4 on a d20. It was amazing. At one time, he does his two weapon fighting thing and rolls... 3 and 3! And then the zombies rolled something like 15, 17, 19, 19, 16. It was all out in the open and terrible to behold.

 

[Hussar]

Put me in the always rolling in the open. While I may not tell them how many hp's a critter has, they track the damage on the targets so, they know how much they pumped in. It gets a bit obvious if you start pumping in too many hp's. I haven't done so in a very long time.