jgsugden
Legend
Rate the accuracy of the following statement for games you have participated in (whether as player or DM/GM/etc.):
"If the players thought they could get away with it, they would cheat and/or exploit the rules."
Should you have participated in many games, consider it a sort of average across all the games you've played/run: in general, which rating would describe the groups you'd been in?
If you simply cannot choose just one answer, I've allowed up to 3, for example if you find that the answer is totally game and/or group dependent (e.g. players are more willing to do these things in D&D but less willing to do them in 13th Age, or whatever.)
Generally speaking, when you take a large group of people and give them a label, like "players", and then assume a negative characteristic about them, like cheating, you need to rethink your approach. Even if you just ask whether the group is something negative...
You're asking people to gather all their perspectives on players and apply characteristics to that hypothetical synthesized player. This is like gathering all of their perceptions of people of a specific ethnicity and then asking them what they think about that type of person. I don't think that was the intent, but that is what I am seeing.Hence why I asked about groups you have actually participated in, whether as DM or as player. I am not talking about whether you think the entire abstract collection of "all players of all TTRPGs ever" would do any given thing. I'm asking about where the ones you have actually done TTRPGing with would fall, in your estimation.
A better approach (from my persepctive) would be to ask what percentage of players you've played with might have been caught cheating. That focuses on direct experiences rather than than speculating about what players in general would do - which is what you're doing regardless of asking people to amalgamate their experinces as a basis for generalizing players.