Cheating at the Game Table

[IamTheTest]

The cardinal rule for my gaming is: If everybody had fun, the game was a success. If somebody cheats it is only a problem if it ruins the fun...if the fun isnt ruined, the game is successful.

 

[Engilbrand]

To the best of my knowledge, I've never cheated. If I DM, there's no screen. It's right out on the table. When I play, the dice go towards the DM so that anyone who cares can see them. There have been a few times where I've known that a skill check or something was dreadfully important. I missed. Hell, it happened recently. Using the New World of Darkness system, I rolled a chance die to grapple a boss. The roll looked like a 10, exactly what I needed, until I looked closer and realized that it wasn't. Bummer, but that's how things go.
The DM and players are in charge of their characters and what they do. The dice are used to represent chance and luck. If you cheat, what's the point of rolling dice? I don't cheat. I've even stopped cheating at video games. I don't want to play with liars.

 

[darthkilmor]

I don't believe someone when they say that they've never cheated on a single roll in any role-playing game. It does not mean that they cheat regularly or cheat any more, but If they have played in more than 5 sessions, they have cheated at LEAST once.

As a DM I have fudged damage done so that a player might not die once or twice. And thats it.
I've never cheated as a player, and am a bit surprised at how common cheating seems to be from all the posts so far.

 

[Atavar]

As a DM I have fudged damage done so that a player might not die once or twice. And thats it.
I've never cheated as a player, and am a bit surprised at how common cheating seems to be from all the posts so far.

For some reason, your Kender picture and quote made me smile after reading your post....

 

[Jeysie]

I would also love to hear from someone who can honestly say they have NEVER done it and why they have not done it!

For one, I couldn't cheat even if I wanted to. I do all my roleplaying online in IRC chat. Our player character sheets are all online (so no cheating there), and we have an in-channel dice macro and an "all dice rolls in the open" policy (so no cheating there either).

For two, it's simply pointless and dishonest. If I'm not going to accept the dice falling where they may, then I might as well go play freeform where I have control over what I do and don't succeed at. Part of the fun of D&D is the uncertainty of it all... as well as having enough ingenuity to plan a strategy to try to mitigate said uncertainty where it's really crucial.

In fact, I'm actually currently playing in a campaign where all of the PCs have special Chaotic abilities based entirely on random dice rolls. So far it's been extremely entertaining to marvel at how completely serendipitous/synchronous our results are sometimes... and to snicker at how completely incongruous they are sometimes.

 

[Wolfwood2]

A few times. Almost never when playing D&D 3.x, since D&D is a very mechanistic game where it feels silly to cheat. (What's the point in going through all the effort to stack the modifiers if I'm not going to live with the roll?)

But once in a great while, there will be a game situation where failing would be tiresome. We've got a lot of plot to get to, and while we could recover from failure, it would consume an annoying amount of game time.

I haven't felt like that very often, though.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

The cardinal rule for my gaming is: If everybody had fun, the game was a success. If somebody cheats it is only a problem if it ruins the fun...if the fun isnt ruined, the game is successful.

Yep, those are my sentiments exactly. Had a guy in one of 'my' groups who cheated all the time. Everyone knew, nobody much cared. The GM of the moment would fudge rolls against him occasionally to sorta even things up, but that was about it. Everyone still had fun, so no problem.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

As a DM, I don't care if they occasionally cheat. I would rather not know, however!

Actually, I'll echo this. I confess that I've cheated once or twice or... well, you know there are just those occasions when it gets frustrating to be the guy with rebellious dice when everyone else is hitting with everything and wading through storms of spells unscathed. But when it comes down to it there just isn't any point to cheating at D&D because it is NOT a competition, there is nothing to win in the long run except to enjoy yourself. So if someone rerolls a die on occasion without drawing attention to themselves I'm not gonna berate them about it. I understand that kind of motivation and can willingly turn a blind eye. But chronic cheating is something that really gets me irate. I'd really rather not even know about it, but if it comes to my attention the consequences for failure to get back in line would escalate rapidly.

I've never personally had to deal with it but I could not tolerate it as a player or DM and the offender would either knock it off, get kicked out, or I'd walk.

 

[Dioltach]

As a player, I don't cheat. Neither does anyone I play with, I think, judging by the number of poor rolls and the amazement that greets a high roll just when you need it (and the proud showing of the die as proof).

As a DM, I occasionally fudge roles to make a fight more interesting/exciting/challenging. I see it as my job to provide an interesting and exciting game, and whether I do that during preparation or during actual play doesn't really matter much. I won't cheat the players out of a well-earned victory, though, or fudge rolls to spite anyone.

 

[S'mon]

I've never cheated, nor fudged rolls as a GM. As GM, if I want to 'fudge' I do it in deciding on NPC/monster motivation and tactics, not on the results of the dice rolls - eg victorious monster doesn't pursue fleeing PCs. I don't see any need to cheat, and it wouldn't sit well with me.