Whaqt about cheating by making another player look bad ...

[drakhe]

After reading the thread with tips on catching cheating and posting my own poll on how DM's deal with cheating, I started thinking and came up with this:

In the days (long past) I played MTG there was a whole category of cheating that actualy focused on the other player.

Example: in MTG (as in many if not all card games) a game starts by shuffling the decks. In tournaments, the opponent gets one last shuffle after the player has randomized his deck. One trick was to drop one card, return the deck to the opponent and call for a deck check, offcourse volunteering your own deck first. The other players deeck is short one card and gets a loss-game or will be kicked out of the tournament.

What I was wondering: of those among you who have come accross cheating, has there ever been an occasion where one player made it so another player was supposedly cheating?

To me that's the most evil kind of cheating, because if the cheater pulls it off, he can remain clean and decent, while getting an advantage by making another player look bad. I assume this kind of cheating is very INFREQUENT in RPG's because of the nature of the game (cooperation being paramount)

 

[Mark]

D&D is a game that so focuses on teamwork that I doubt that happens much. Still, I can see how that sort of strategy would become viable in a game that fostered more direct player on player competition. Truly despicable...

 

[drakhe]

[not realy about cheating] direct player to player competition may spell bad news

D&D is a game that so focuses on teamwork that I doubt that happens much. Still, I can see how that sort of strategy would become viable in a game that fostered more direct player on player competition. Truly despicable...

To avoid direct player to player competition, I'll allways start a campaign with the group already established. One of the DM's I play under generaly starts a campaign with all characters unaware of the other characters. His moto: "the players must find each other and then forge a party themselves". I found that a couple of times this practice leads to impossible parties. Once the party was divided in 3 "factions". The core of the party was okay (my celtic barbarian/ranger together with 2 novice players and another player playing a Cormyrean [spelling?] warwizard) one other faction (characters being brother and sister, children to a rich and established merchant in neverwinter) ignored the group for a long time, fishing for plots in their own family and the third faction were two street urchins who found a thievesguild and started training as cutpurses.

We put a stop to that campaign pretty fast, but from the way things were evolving, I'm pretty shure the two rogues would have gotten the partie in a whole lot of trouble. They were already putting the party in danger to save themselves (hiding in shadows the moment an encounter starts to emerge again when the fighting was over, their characters never got a scratch)

 

[Darkness]

I've ran lots of rather confrontational games (more in Vampire than in D&D, but still). But none of my players ever did something like that.

 

[Sanackranib]

as a player

whenever I have been in a game where I as a player thought other players were cheating I always have assumed the Highlander mantality -In the end there can be only one. and I start smoking the other pc's (this generally occurs when people are playing evil characters) so far my record is 5 out of 13 players. a few suspected that it was me but only the partys mage/rogue was sure. and that was because he had the same idea and I just beat him to it. the trick is to never let them find the bodies or any stuff that they can recognize. in the case of the rogue, "he said I know its you but I can't prove it. you are going after them all arn't you? (I said . . . Yes) so he said ok then we are in agreement, we will see who gets them first. just promise me that I'm the last one and we can duel. surprisingly enough my Yuan Ti cleric/assassin was ok with that. the cheating and stupid antics stopped ater #3 turned up missing. and so the aura of paranoia setteled in, the campaign ended shortly there after. and I havn't gamed with any of those players except for the mage/rogue since.