Cheating at the Game Table

[Severson]

One thing I really like are action point mechanics, so in those times you feel the pressure of ', I really need luck here' you have an approved mechanic to do so.

Funnily enough, this mechanic has completely erased my "itch" to cheat on the close rolls because now I can legally do it! I love what Action Points bring to the game. The person that I used as an example of cheating is a class that makes a lot of skill rolls so he can't use that many AP's.

The PCs who cheat are making it less likely for genuine player heroics and less necessary for there to be creative risky thinking when the usual strategies don't work.

This is a very good point. More appropriate if you are with a DM that is open to such risky strategies, such as Grease spells...

Well, let me amend: I try not to. I try to have complex arithmatic done ahead of time, like attack rolls in light of Combat Reflexes or Power Attack. But sometimes, I make a mistake. I'll own up to it and the DM can backtrack if he wishes.

...and then there are those who seemingly use the addition of many numbers to come up with a hit no matter what!

Reveille, when I was in grade school, I shaved down the "high side" numbers on a d20 so that it would be more likely to land on a good number facing up but it was never proven that it worked.

In terms of a general consensus, it seems that folks are more likely to cheat when they are young players or as GMs when they need to spice things up or elongate encounters. Nobody really expressed outrage or claimed that they would immediately confront the one suspected, and some of you thought that the bigger point was a good time had by all. In the game I mentioned, I think that not much harm is done by this Skill Rollin' Mastah and I completely trust that the DM would treat the issue fairly if he discovered it.

I am considering actively asking the person how they come up with some of their high 20s, low 30s consistently.

Thanks for all your input.

 

[jmucchiello]

I wouldn't want to play with a player that cheated on die rolls. I think it's wrong and it's pretty lame.

That's too bad. If someone is cheating there must be a reason. Probably some important ego issues that makes the person cheat at "let's pretend". If someone needs to bolster their self-esteem by being badder than their character sheet would normally allow, I say let them.

In fact, I have. And in the end it worked itself out. I am sure one of the players I played with was cheating, calling high teens far too often, doing the roll and grab the die quick thing. Most of the rest of us knew he was doing it. Someone wanted to call him out on it and I stopped them. I pointed out this player was going through a rough patch in real life. Let him hog a little glory in out D&D game. It doesn't really matter to you who strikes the winning blow does it? Your ego is sufficient that you can step aside and let others shine. So what difference is it if the shining is spread out among all 4 of you or centered on the one guy who needs it?

And as his life returned to normal, so too did his die rolling. Haven't noticed him cheating in months. Now perhaps this is just anecdotal and other cheaters never stop. Again, does it really, really matter who strikes the killing blow? Enjoy the story. Enjoy the company you keep. And if someone is needs to give himself a little boost, try to figure out why it's important to him that he finds it necessary to cheat. Cheating is a message. Don't kill the messenger.

 

[Herzog]

I wanted to step in and say I never cheated, but then I remembered, I did!

Not during the game, not even as a DM.
As a player, I like making up new characters, and the possibilities that come with it.
As a DM, I like letting the dice speak for themselves. If the party really needs a break, I make sure they can retreat, regroup, flee, or whatever, to avoid a TPK.
That makes the game interesting to me.

However, I remember several instances when I 'cheated' during character creation or levelling....
I have re-rolled hp once or twice, and I have definately discarded one or two sets of rolled ability scores that just didn't cut it for me.

Both away from the table, so no-one to catch me in the act.

Herzog

 

[Severson]

That's too bad. If someone is cheating there must be a reason. Probably some important ego issues that makes the person cheat at "let's pretend". If someone needs to bolster their self-esteem by being badder than their character sheet would normally allow, I say let them.

Yeah, I'm mostly with you here. All 3 of people that I can remember blatantly cheating did not go through a phase of it, as you describe in your story, but did it throughout the campaign. However, it basically had no consequences besides mild annoyance on the part of other players.

Making the issue public would have perhaps driven them from the game and I think we would have rather had them in the room than not there at all. There is a pressure within D&D for heroics. Heroics are expected. And if you must roll to prove every action, then there is a lot of pressure to fudge some of them and boost yourself within the group.

 

[roguerouge]

It's interesting how people keep talking about how the game needs heroics, yet the players who are cheating rampantly and consistently drain it from the game. Heroics requires accepting great risks. These players don't accept their characters running big risks to their characters.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

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.

That is a case of a strategy that works fine until it does not.

Some people do not have a problem with it themselves, either when they cheat or when someone else cheats. They will look the other way or decide they do not care. But the threshold for pissing someone off with cheating differs from one gamer to the next. Similarly, the definition of what is Fun in D&D can very quite a bit from one gamer to the next, even within the same gaming group.

You only have to misjudge the situation once to cause a massive problem with someone.

The real gray area to me involves cheating with respect to actions that are plot critical. DM's that have a plot critical NPC they need to have alive later are likely to give extra HP or AC as needed. Some players do not care as long as they are having fun, but other players do not like being told that a roll failed when they know it should have succeeded.

As a player, I cheat so rarely I honestly cannot remember the last time I tried to do so. Since I am the DM most often, I can say that I do not cheat on anything that requires a dice roll. If I need to fudge in the players favor, I will 'share the love' and spread the beating around rather than drop someone, or use suboptimal tactics, such as eating a few AoO's. If I want to fudge against the players, the closest it comes is a spur of the moment adjustment to a villains preparations, but only if I can justify doing so as something I would have done if I had thought of it earlier. I do not adjust a villains stats on the fly though, so no phantom HP, or retroactive buffs. I might hand him a few potions mid fight that he did not have until a moment before, but he still has to drink them.

In general, I will not cheat to have a players action fail if the action is allowed to happen within the rules. At worst, the game will grind to a halt for a minute as I try to figure out if there are any situational bonuses or effects in play that I am forgetting about that could affect the roll.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Will]

The reason I see action points as a 'solution' is because I think the underlying problem is a disconnect between the game people are imagining playing, and the game as written.

In an 'epic adventure,' heroes take apparent risks, but what losses do they suffer? Only big, dramatic, IMPORTANT losses.

Now not everyone runs games for that, and that's fine, but for those with some lingering desire to play out a story, having some burgeoning hero die on page 2 due to a housecat breaks them out of the vibe they are looking for. So they feel an urge to cheat, to 'correct' things.

Many games have recognized this and introduced hero points/karma points/action points/possibilities/etc., so that the basic system of randomness, which creates tension, is carefully limited from results that are esthetically poor.

(gets off his soap box)

 

[DestroyYouAlot]

It's interesting how people keep talking about how the game needs heroics, yet the players who are cheating rampantly and consistently drain it from the game. Heroics requires accepting great risks. These players don't accept their characters running big risks to their characters.

Sums it up pretty well. I don't game for wish-fulfillment, and I don't lack the ability to have a good time when things aren't necessarily going my way. Nor do I game with folks I suspect suffer from those flaws. I'm quite honestly appalled at the number of folks who can justify cheating, their own or someone else's, because somehow they might not have a good time if they didn't win at everything. Because something bad might happen. Ugh.



I used to fudge some rolls as a GM here and there; always in the players' favor, but I still did it. I'll admit to that. And, from a certain point of view, I can accept that as a valid GM tool in some games - all in all, you make the rules, so it's your call if you want to decide a blow hits or doesn't hit. But I went cold-turkey when I switched to HackMaster, and never looked back (no matter what system I run, now).

See, I'm a big softy. Really, I am - if I have to decide to kill a PC, it's never gonna happen - not unless they're real dumb, and force my hand. So, if I justify fudging one roll to save a PC's bacon - even if they got a "raw deal," or a monster got a freak high roll streak (Oh, the whining from RPGnet folks in the "PCs as Precious Snowflakes" thread over how unfair it is for a character to die "from the random luck of the dice" - what game are we playing, again? Candyland?), then I can justify another, and another. And the players get a raw deal - they're given unrealistic expectations about their capabilities (as well as those of their foes). If one ogre couldn't manage to hit them for five rounds (because they were low level, and one hit would've splattered one of them), then why would they expect the next one to be any better? At that point, if I let a PC die, I really did kill them - I set up a game where PCs can't die, other than by downright suicidal actions, and then changed my mind and pulled the switch on them.

Not anymore. Now, I let the dice fall where they may. I've even started rolling out in the open as often as not (although some things are still behind the screen, to preserve precious player ignorance). And my players know two things: a) That I'll stick to the results the dice give me, and nothing will save them short of playing hard and smart, and b) that when they succeed? They actually earned it. I'd never take that knowledge away from them again; my guys don't deserve anything less.

And this has freed me like I can't even tell you. I'm FAR from a killer GM - quite the opposite, I plan my games with the sure knowledge that my PCs' fate is in my hands, and that if I pit them against foes they simply can't beat, with no way to escape the encounter, if I don't make sure that the players have adequate information to avoid an otherwise deadly threat, or if I place them in a situation that is absolutely unwinnable IMC, than I dropped the ball - they deserve better than that. It's my responsibility to walk that fine line between challenge and deathtrap, and I take that seriously. Because once we're playing, the gloves are off - once I've determined what I have to work with, I'm coming at them with everything I have. And the dice determine whether I (in one of my many guises as the PCs' mortal foes, legion as they are) can pull it off - once it gets to that point, you're damn straight I'm out to kill a PC. Maybe two, maybe I score a TPK (and a new sticker for my screen). And I'm rooting for the players the whole time. No conflict there, none whatsoever - I set'em up, I trust them to knock'em down. Without the spectre of dice fudging hanging over me, I'm free to sit back and be amazed by my players' skill and ingenuity. No fretting over whether I should pull my punches, no bad feelings about playing too rough - if I kill one of them, I mourn right along with the player, even as I gloat about it - and no bad feelings on either side, because they know they got a fair shake. If they steamroll my carefully-planned killer ambush, I'm damn proud of them, even as I try to figure out what went wrong. It's a beautiful dichotomy. Nothing beats the feeling when they pull it out of the fire once again, even after I was sure I had them on the ropes - so damn proud I could burst.

Long story short, being straight with the dice lets me be a player, too - I don't sit behind the screen to tell bedtime stories. I'm there to game. Wouldn't have it any other way.





(Before someone chimes in with, "Well that's fine for YOU, but not EVERYBODY likes to play that way, you big dumb jerk," I'll tack a "YMMV" here on the end. Because I wouldn't want to insinuate that my way is somehow better than yours, right? )

 

[roguerouge]

And another thing: is this cheater fudging roles that another party member could be making? If so, that doubly stinks as that player is deliberately stealing the limelight from another player.

 

[delericho]

As a player, I don't cheat on any roll except hit points on levelling up. I will cheat on that roll, though, unless the DM allows fixed hp per level. The alleged novelty of rolling a 1 for hit points wore off a long time ago, and I have yet to beat that score in the 3e era when rolling legitimately.

As a DM I occasionally fudge rolls. However, I do try to avoid doing this, as I find the game plays better when the dice are allowed to fall freely.