Can a GM cheat?

[Thornir Alekeg]

I think the DM should "cheat" in some circumstances. Lets face it, the DM is already metagaming just be creating (or choosing) an adventure and planning encounters. A good DM will try and balance the majority of encounters for his party. It fun to sometimes have encounters where the party mows right through the opponents or where the party should run away becasue they are obvioulsy outclassed, but not all the time. It is not always easy to balance an encounter, and when I find that I screwed up and what was supposed to be a climactic battle suddenly looks like its going to be a cakewalk, or when it apparent that I underestimated the challenge and the party is going to get its butt handed to them, I "cheat". I may increase the HP of the foe, I may provide "reinforcements" to one side or the other, I may suddenly contrive an escape route for the party that I had not prepared beforehand (its up to them whether they use it). I do not consider myself to be cheating in these circumstances, I consider myself to be the storyteller doing a quick rewrite to make the game more fun and interesting.

 

[billd91]

As far as I'm concerned, a DM cannot cheat by definition. The DM is the final and ultimate arbiter of everything in the game as it's rolling along. As such, it's impossible for any of the DM's decisions to be cheating.

A DM can or cannot be fair and impartial and run a fun game, but he cannot cheat.

 

[Thanee]

Do tell! (perhaps in a separate thread though?)

Heh. Yeah. That could be some fun. No names, of course!

Bye
Thanee

 

[diaglo]

Heh. Yeah. That could be some fun. No names, of course!

Bye
Thanee

done.

 

[leporidae]

GM fudging perhaps

I hated to kill player characters and would fudge die rolls in their favor when things got tight. My solution was to make combat rolls on the table - which made it more fun for everyone, and if someone got killed by a run of criticals they knew it was bad luck and not just me being petty. (Also changed the rules so that death occured at -2 X Con, but that's for a different thread.)

Another fudge was to give powerful adversaries a certain number of 'wild cards', reflecting that (wealthy, powerful, paranoid, divine-favored, ancient, magic-using) entities would have more tricks up their sleeves than I had time to enumerate beforehand. (Especially if they were in their lair, familiar with the party, and expecting them.) During play these could turn into automatic saves, secret escape routes, stashed healing potions... In general, things that would require the party to make a determined and creative assault to defeat them.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

A DM can or cannot be fair and impartial and run a fun game, but he cannot cheat.

I think you meant "may or may not"; Otherwise, I agree.

 

[Mercule]

Is it really cheating if the GM alters the saves, hitpoints, BAB of the opponets? I mean the GM made them up to begin with, how is it cheating if they alter it in mid game instead of between sessions?

Let's apply that same train of thought to another game. You're sitting down with the creator of Monopoly, and playing along nicely. Thirty minutes into the game, you're doing quite well and have almost three times as much cash as him. He rolls and lands on Free Parking and says, "Hey, I get $500 for that."

Looking in the rulebook (which he wrote), it specifically says that there is no benefit for landing on Free Parking. When you bring this up, he says, "Eh, I'm the game designer. What difference does it make if I set a rule before the game or in the middle?"


Another application (maybe even better) would be if you found out he'd been taking $300 everytime he passed 'Go'. When pointed out, he says, "Oh, you're going to win, anyway. I just wanted you to feel like you were actually accomplishing something, rather than scoring an easy win."

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Let's apply that same train of thought to another game. You're sitting down with the creator of Monopoly, and playing along nicely. Thirty minutes into the game, you're doing quite well and have almost three times as much cash as him. He rolls and lands on Free Parking and says, "Hey, I get $500 for that."

Question: Do you see the GM as someone you play against (like another player in Monopoly) or do you see him as the Referee/Abjucator/Storyteller that the DMG describes?

 

[Mr. Kaze]

Pretty much depends on how you define "cheat," which very likely relies on what kind of DM you are.

Me, I'm a high story and drama DM. I'm not big on the neat-and-pat logical rules because I'm very much interested in the feel of the story. So I've got all manner of bizarre stuff running about that other DMs might gawk at and say I'm cheating because it doesn't fit well into the rules. (For the record, though, I'm opposed to Vampire Gibbering Mouthers -- but that's mostly just because I think they're silly.) But my players seem to be enjoying the game and I'm trying to add things -- like action dice -- to help them balance me out as we're getting into high-level combats.

::Kaze (plays strictly within the rules when his NPCs are actually trying to kill PCs -- when the PCs are trying to kill NPCs, it's their own lookout to know what they're getting themselves into.)