Cheating and D&D

[Quasqueton]

As DM: I explain up front and before the campaign starts that I absolutely do not abide cheating. If I caught a Player cheating, I'd dismiss them from the game. End of story.

As a Player: If I suspected someone of cheating, I'd tell the DM. If I knew someone was cheating, I'd tell everyone, including the cheater. If the cheating did not stop, I'd leave the group.

Cheating is an insult to the DM and other Players.

Quasqueton

 

[Pseudonym]

As a DM, I'll kick out anyone cheating in my game.

As a player, I'll if I catch someone cheating I'll call them on it right at the table in front of everyone.

 

[EricNoah]

Honestly ... as DM, I don't look too hard at anyone's die rolls, and I hide mine. As long as it's not obvious, and as long as everyone's having fun, I don't care to know.

 

[Acid_crash]

As a DM, I'll kick out anyone cheating in my game.

As a player, I'll if I catch someone cheating I'll call them on it right at the table in front of everyone.

Same here. I can't stand cheaters. I don't cheat. I give the DM the respect he deserves. If I see a player cheating, I call him/her on it right then and there. Either the DM does something about it, or not. And if Not, then I leave.

If I am DM, and I catch someone cheating, he/she is gone. End of story.

 

[kolikeos]

nowadays neither i nor my players cheat (well, maybe sometimes, but only forgivably)
but a few years ago when i just started playing dnd i did cheat, both as player and dm.
as a player i would cast as a sorcerer even though i'm a wizard (or the like)
as dm i would fudge die rolls to keep either the players or the enemy alive long enough to escape.
i new i was cheating, and i was pretty bad at it too, my players always knew who was supposed to die when (espacialy if it was the bad guys)

 

[Li Shenron]

As a DM I have been fudging some rolls in my early DMing, almost always in the PCs' favor (and a couple of times in my favor, to make up for previous over-fudging in their favor). I did it because I was sincerely afraid that the characters were too weak: it was our first 2-3 adventures in 3ed, my first time as DM, plus some of the players had never played any RPG at all. Anyway, I learned that it is much more fair not to fudge rolls at all, and any serious player would not like to be given this sort of help in the game.

As a player I have never ever cheated, as I think it would have been pathetic.

I don't know what I would do if I caught one of my players cheating. I suppose I would simply call for more maturity, or maybe I'd try to make a joke out of it instead of being "angry" and repressive. But if they persisted, I'd become more serious.

If I catch someone else cheating when I'm not the DM, I'm surely not going to say it to the others, but definitely my esteem for the player in question would decrease.

 

[Bront]

As long as it's not constant, and as long as everyone's having fun, it's not a problem.

I've seen a few cheaters in my time, some more blatent than others. My favorite had to be one SW D6 guy who threw way too many little dice so only he could read them, and would mysteriously claim to be using a force point if anyone asked. It was a problem only because it prevented other people from doing things because he managed to actualy do it all. I've seen others do it as well, and while it didn't initialy detract from the fun, it wore on everyone eventualy (Particularly the DM, who was trying to chalenge the PC, and failed because he fudged a series of rolls, at least it appeared he did.)

Have I fudged a die role occasionaly? Sure. But I try to be honest, and there have been times I've fudged a roll the other way (Fudge a 19, then roll a 19, I'll fudge it down.) I do it more often from the DM side, because I hate having lucky rolls kill players, but I've done it as a player too. I'm sure other players I play with will on occasion too. But I'm the kind of DM who will tell a player to reroll if the dice are killing them that night (I've seen someone fail their best save roll 7 times in one night, it wasn't pretty).

That's part of why I like Action Points and things like that. Why cheat, when there is a legal way to fix my bad roll in a critical situation. When the Dice take the fun out of the game, what's the point?

Worried about honestly? Ask people to use normal or larger sized dice that are marked in such a way that they can be read at a distance of farther than 5 inches. Personaly, uber-mini dice or unmarked dice realy bug me, because it seems like they're used explicetly for cheating.

 

[James Heard]

I think it's dependant on my expectations really. Most games when I don't know all the people at the table all that well? I expect human beings to be rotten, vicious, self-centered little gits - cheating? As long as they're not spitting on my shoes I count myself lucky.

It bothers me a little more when it's my friends and people I thought I knew better, but hey - they've got that same DNA working on them too. As a GM I generally solev it by demanding everything be "done in the box" - Big dice, big box, in the middle of the table and everyone sees every roll. I dunno though, cheating at roleplaying games just isn't even in my top ten of character flaws. Even when I try to address it with the dice box it mostly to keep the players from crying to me about it as if I should care more. It's a game.

 

[Thundering_Dragon]

Cheating is a pointless and selfish action taken by people not willing to play the game by any rules but their own. Claims of doing it "for the game" are ludicrous. Cheating ruins the legitimacy and challenge of the game. What's the point of playing if you know you can always cheat your way out of any situation? Aside, of course, from DM railroads or arbitrary decisions, which have their own way of destroying games.

 

[Heathen72]

I'm with Morrus and Eric on this one, but I don't think my players cheat much, if at all. Too much pride etc. So, if they do , it's not very often, and as long as I don't know, I'm pretty happy. Anyway, I do the occasional bit of fudging, so why shouldn't they?

If it was endemic there might be a problem I guess, but there isn't. We're all working together to make the game a good one. Obviously a player that cheats too much wouldn't be too welcome in our games, but, well, that is because that is what 'too much' means.