Cheating, Action Points, and Second Wind

[marune]

The DM's role is to provide adversity and challenge, not become that adversary. Understanding this is detrimental to being a DM. It is not the DM against the party. If it were, then no DM should provide things like treasure, and technically, the every sessions should end in a tpk. Now, the DM can provide adversaries without being the adversary.

No, that would be cheating. The DM must set up appropriate challanges and gives rewards (treasures and XP) according to the rules of the game.

PCs think in real time, they have full control over what their characters do. DMS control NPCS with predetermined personalities and in most combat cases tactics. DMs can control a character without being the adversary themselves. When I control the red dragon, the red dragon's strategy in the combat is determined by a tactical pattern that is predetermined.

The DM can ajust NPCs behavior in real time too, that is irrelevant.

example: The party's rogue steals a green gem of life that the dragon wants. During the combat, the dragon fights the party. The Dragon knows the party has the gem and because he's smart he is going to take out the wizards and fighters first, partly because he doesn't know which one the rogue is nor that the rogue has the gem. The dm knows this. The dm sees this the whole time. Heck the rogue told the dm he was doing this. So if the dm were the true adversary, then the red dragon would immediately attack the rogue and take the gem back and not risk his life on the wizards and warriors.

Again, that's a cheating DM not an adversarial one.

 

[buzz]

When I control the red dragon, the red dragon's strategy in the combat is determined by a tactical pattern that is predetermined.

No; round to round, the red dragon's strategy is determined by you. That you may be following guidelines is immaterial.

The only conscious actors involved in a D&D game are the people sitting at the table. Anything else is dice and paper. Regardless of the overall goal being "fun," the DM is still the one acting in opposition to the other people at the table, and vice versa.

There's no doubt that the DM isn't doing solely this, but that's part of the somewhat contradictory setup you see in D&D and most other popular RPGs. I.e., the player (i.e., GM) with the most authority, by a WIDE margin, is also the player that provides all of the opposition. I think that this, combined with decades of abusive DMs, causes people to have a hard time accepting the "adversary" terminology.

Nonetheless, as a DM in D&D, an adversary is what you are.

 

[marune]

There's no doubt that the DM isn't doing solely this, but that's part of the somewhat contradictory setup you see in D&D and most other popular RPGs. I.e., the player (i.e., GM) with the most authority, by a WIDE margin, is also the player that provides all of the opposition. I think that this, combined with decades of abusive DMs, causes people to have a hard time accepting the "adversary" terminology.

QFT.

 

[LostSoul]

I agree with buzz.

The DM's role is to provide adversity and challenge, not become that adversary.

I think we agree, we're just using different language. The DM has to walk a tightrope, because he needs to challenge the players, but he can't challenge them too much, and he can't use everything at his disposal to challenge them or else there would be no game. (Just as you say.)

Burning Empires (which I am scheduled to play tonight after too long a layoff!) strictly limits the resources the GM has - the number of scenes I can set up and even the number of rolls I can make. It's a different take on things, and it fits me well.

But I'm the type of DM who, when running a module, will only use the resources the NPCs have within the module. I Limit my authority so I can take off the gloves.

 

[buzz]

Burning Empires (which I am scheduled to play tonight after too long a layoff!) strictly limits the resources the GM has - the number of scenes I can set up and even the number of rolls I can make. It's a different take on things, and it fits me well.

You lucky dog!

Anyway, I think that the CR system (and its successor in 4e) are steps in this sort of direction. The DM is allowed to, within limits, push hard, knowing they won't just plain decimate the PCs unfairly, and the players have some sort of gauge as to whether the challenge being thrown at them is within reasonable parameters.

 

[LostSoul]

You lucky dog!

It was a good game, I'll write it up over on the Burning Wheel forums (Burning Boldaq).

Oh, and on Circvs Maximvs too.

 

[DonTadow]

No, that would be cheating. The DM must set up appropriate challanges and gives rewards (treasures and XP) according to the rules of the game.



The DM can ajust NPCs behavior in real time too, that is irrelevant.



Again, that's a cheating DM not an adversarial one.

The DM has to give rewards according to the chart, but he can easily have every treasure be 10000 gp worth of hair brushes and design towns that don't accept them. The DM could, well within the rules, make things as dificult on the PCs as he wishes without stepping outside of the rules nor using rule 0.

In the dragon example, the DM could easily have placed any type of legal devices, minions or what not that would have predetermined which party member had the gem. All within the legal bounds and no rule 0. The DM would make every encounter near lethal and avoid the adventure build that is currently prevalent.

The DM could nix helpful npcs and useful treasure. This is what an adversary would do if he were truly opposing the party. But I"ve never encountered a dm who does this, because DMs know that their roll is control of the adveraries, the comrades and the world. If you settle into one role you're bound to foster negative relationships.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

I cheat, hands down. I am however the DM of my group and if I so chose to cheat, its my desision.
Also, I've caught most of my players cheating at one point or another, and have at some occasions, did somthing about it, and at others let it pass.

In my mind its all about whats fun at the table. If the Players think I'm being so unfair in monster choises, de-buffs, or whatever that they need to cheat to have fun, I let it go. Then again, when I feel a player is getting way to liberal in their cheatery, I godspank their character.

Cheats I've used:
Roll 'n say : Roll the dice, say whatever number you want
Roll 'n Snatch : rolling the dice and grabbing it before others see it
Knocking : tipping a Die to a better number
Stat modding : changing a stat mid-game to tip the odds
No save : Arbitrarily deciding the player will fail a saving throw regardless of the roll result
Not-a-1 : Hitting people on a D20 roll of anything but 1

Cheats i've caught my players using:
Roll 'n say
Roll 'n Snatch
Knocking
Number fudging : changing static numbers that they "forgot" to write on their sheet
Spell swapping : Casting spells when that spell isn't memorised
Bribery : Giving me food and/or money to better thier character
Anti-bribery : Giving me food and/or Money to screw another character (my players are visious)
Begging/whining : complaining or asking somthing repeatedly until I give them what they want to shut them up.

None of these methods work all the time, and with my personal cheatery, I go both ways. I cheat up to slow game progression, and I cheat down to keep the game fun.

Bribery and begging were jokes, I don't actually accept anything less than money as bribes.

 

[Professor Phobos]

No, that would be cheating. The DM must set up appropriate challanges and gives rewards (treasures and XP) according to the rules of the game.

According to the demands of the storyline and logic of the world, surely? I'm not going to give out a magic item just because some chart says I have to- I'm going to give out a magic item if a bad guy had a magic item and the players kill him for it.

And, of course, in any level-based system they level up when I damn well say they do. But that's more of a house rule.

The DM has to give rewards according to the chart

I thought the charts were guidelines, suggestions, optional? How else is a GM going to build a world to taste if he's got to follow the inane demographics of the DMG?

 

[Kwalish Kid]

I thought the charts were guidelines, suggestions, optional? How else is a GM going to build a world to taste if he's got to follow the inane demographics of the DMG?

This is the aspect of the problem of DM fiat that I discussed in the original post. Sure, everything in the rules is a guideline for the DM. However, DMs run the risk of player revolt if they do too much change against the expectations of the other players. These expectations will be formulated in part based on the communication between players before the game, on the rules as written, and by communication between the players and players in other groups.

In some ways, the D&D table is a perfect example of Hobbes' state. There is no game unless the players as a group submit much of the control of the game to the will of one player. That one player can do pretty much what he or she wants, up to a point. The DM can make no game, or any other game, better than the current game, so the players as a group leave the game.

There is, of course, incentive to cheat such a system as there is in almost every system. The question is what do players cheat in order to obtain? This is a good measure of the real desires of these players. I think that action points (and second wind) address the things that players cheat to obtain most of the time that they cheat. This helps make the overall system, as written, best meet player desires, even though those desires as the game is played may differ from those (stated) desires before the game is played. (I'm not saying that players who cheat set out to cheat. They intend to play the game as written, but circumstances change or override that desire during play. Or, as Fine nods towards, the concept of cheating is done but never acknowledged; few people at the table truly mind some forms of cheating so it's already a tacit rule.)