Cheating - who cares?

[iwatt]

He might claim to be cheating for beneficial reasons, but everyone knows he does it just to "win" at the game and be the best.

But then it's not the cheating that is really the issue, it's this guy's need to be the "best". I've played with competitive players who do everything by the rules and never cheat. They can still make the game unenjoyable. Moreso than the player who fudges his results without stealing the spotlight.

 

[swrushing]

BTW as it has been brought up at least twice now, I will state the obvious.

the strawman of "he says he cheats for others benefits but all his cheating is making his character more powerful" is not an example of what I and perhaps others have been discussing when we talk about cheating for others, cheating for the group, cheating for the better game etc.

So, definitely, continue banging that drum as long as you want, but don't get confused into thinking of it as a counter point.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

A game is a social contract, by playing the game you are agreeing to 'play by the rules'.

Cheating, in my opinion, damages that contract. Risk of failure is a part of the game, a part that makes the game more challenging and, again in my opion, more entertaining.

Part of the contract is to allow everyone their 'chance to shine', to do something that is against the odds, risky yet rewarding, or just plain neat. A cheater is stealing those chances from other people, making his character shine more than those around him. If I catch a player cheating then I talk to him about it after the game, if he does it again then I call it to the attention of the group (sometimes the player quits at this point since I am 'humiliating him'). Third time is the boot. I have kicked players out of the game for repeated cheating, and if the occassion arises again then I will do so again.

A few times I have used the idea of Karma Dice from the 7th Sea Gamemaster's Guide - having a pool of dice that the players can use to boost someone else's roll (they are also required to give a description of what happened to boost the roll). These are 'Good Karma' dice. When I have caught a player cheating then I throw a 'Bad Karma' die into the pot. At some point in the future, when a player, not necessarily the one who was caught cheating, gets an extraordinary roll, I pull out the 'Bad Karma' die and say either 'you miss' or 'you fail'. It is amazing how seldom people use Good Karma dice to boost the rolls of the person who gained them the Bad Karma. (Bad Karma does not come along just for cheating, it can be used to curb a good deal of disruptive behavior. If I feel that I have been disruptive myself as GM (talking out of game while the game is on for example) then I will add a Good Karma die to the pot.) This has also worked.

The Auld Grump

 

[swrushing]

Part of the contract is to allow everyone their 'chance to shine', to do something that is against the odds, risky yet rewarding, or just plain neat. A cheater is stealing those chances from other people, making his character shine more than those around him.

So, out of curiousity, when *i* cheated by having my PC Defender's successful roll to hit be called a "miss" so that the PC ranger character next in line got the kill on the dragon, which seemed more dramatically appropriate, how exactly was i stealing the "moment to shine" from someone else?

How would "hey, my defender killed the dragon" (ire not cheating, following the rules, obeying the dice) be considered giving others their share of the limelight, exactly?

How would "hey, i have one healing potion left" when i didn't and pouring that potion down an "about to be dead, really dead" PC's throat be robbing him of his chance to shine? Sure, I am robbing him of his chance to be dead, to be gone, to be "end of story" and the player of his to need to dig up a replacement character when next the opportunity to meet up with one comes up. But, thats not what I generally refer to as his "chance to shine". its more the exact opposite, in fact, the "anti-shine" moment.

 

[woodelf]

A game is a social contract, by playing the game you are agreeing to 'play by the rules'.

Cheating, in my opinion, damages that contract. Risk of failure is a part of the game, a part that makes the game more challenging and, again in my opion, more entertaining.

Sure, that's a reasonable point, and one i generally agree with. How is that a counter-argument to cheating in such a way that it makes the game more challenging for the cheater, or causes failure for the cheater where abiding by the rules would've resulted in success?

Part of the contract is to allow everyone their 'chance to shine', to do something that is against the odds, risky yet rewarding, or just plain neat. A cheater is stealing those chances from other people, making his character shine more than those around him.

Again, you're reading more into the question than is there. You've just redefined "cheating" as "cheating in a way that is taking glory/limelight/capability away from other players". Now, it may well be that that the vast majority of cheating that occurs in RPGs is of this type. That doesn't mean that it's part of the definition of cheating. In fact, personally, i read "minor cheating" as explicitly excluding this sort of behavior. That is, if it does any of those things, it's not "minor". My reflexive definition of "minor" in this context is "causes no negative repercussions for the other players, is not noticable (i.e., does not produce results that can't be explained without cheating or are obviously anomolous), does not gain benefit for the cheater, and doesn't step on any one else's toes".

Now, a couple people have said that the very act of cheating, even if they don't know about it, violates the "no negative repercussions" standard. I'm not convinced; but, i can certainly accept that they are working from a compatible definition of 'minor', they just have a different assesssment of the criteria, not a disagreement about what those criteria are. So, do any of the "anti-cheaters" in this thread see my definition of what constitutes minor cheating, above, reasonable? And, given that definition (IOW, it is not spoiling anyone's fun, and it is undetectable except by constant oversight), would you still object to minor cheating?

 

[Aus_Snow]

Setting aside morals and ethics (because I think everyone knows how that has gone, how it goes, and how it will go by now), I'm really quite intrigued by the claims that cheating is (more?) acceptable in RPGs if it "supports the story".

How does that work? I mean, to what extent does it work? Where is the line beyond which an amount and/or a type of cheating becomes unacceptable, or at least distasteful? How important is the existence of the rules in the first place, if they are going to be ignored when it suits the whims or wishes of any given player? Would it be 'better' to have no rules at all, if they are seen as this much of a hindrance to "the story"?

And how much of that whole argument applies to situations where others (than those cheating) are unaware of the rules being broken in that way?

 

[Mort]

So, out of curiousity, when *i* cheated by having my PC Defender's successful roll to hit be called a "miss" so that the PC ranger character next in line got the kill on the dragon, which seemed more dramatically appropriate, how exactly was i stealing the "moment to shine" from someone else?

How would "hey, my defender killed the dragon" (ire not cheating, following the rules, obeying the dice) be considered giving others their share of the limelight, exactly?

The reason you're not getting much of a response here, is because most people don't consider it cheating. In my group for example, you can always take the number you rolled or worse (if for some reason you want to). More appropriately, the die you rolled had nothing to do with the result you got - most DM's allow you to voluntarily miss- therefore you keep calling this cheating, but by most people's definition and view it isn't.

Now had you felt it was more appropriate for you to hit, you rolled a miss and, without discussing it with the group, you announce a hit - that's more in line with this discussion.

How would "hey, i have one healing potion left" when i didn't and pouring that potion down an "about to be dead, really dead" PC's throat be robbing him of his chance to shine? Sure, I am robbing him of his chance to be dead, to be gone, to be "end of story" and the player of his to need to dig up a replacement character when next the opportunity to meet up with one comes up. But, thats not what I generally refer to as his "chance to shine". its more the exact opposite, in fact, the "anti-shine" moment

Now this is a different situtation. A character is alive, but for your healing potion that you don't really have. Frankly, If I were the player of the character and I knew what you did, I wouldn't feel very good about it. Now if you told the DM "hey, I technically used my last healing potion, but this is a stupid death - why don't we have a minor fate intervention, I dig around my pack and find another potion." and the DM agrees, then it's dramatic license.

On a different note:
I think the big problem with this thread is that there are many degrees of cheating and the word "cheating" does not differentiate between them - people need to recognize that tollerance of the different degrees is going to vary - and not get quite so heated about it.

 

[Frozen DM]

Now, a couple people have said that the very act of cheating, even if they don't know about it, violates the "no negative repercussions" standard. I'm not convinced; but, i can certainly accept that they are working from a compatible definition of 'minor', they just have a different assesssment of the criteria, not a disagreement about what those criteria are. So, do any of the "anti-cheaters" in this thread see my definition of what constitutes minor cheating, above, reasonable? And, given that definition (IOW, it is not spoiling anyone's fun, and it is undetectable except by constant oversight), would you still object to minor cheating?

Yes I think your definition of minor cheating is reasonable, and I would say I share the same definition.

And I would still object to it for reasons that have been given time and time again. It is the very act, not the motivations or the repercussions that I object to. Motivations and repercussions can make something bad worse, but it doesn't change that it was bad in the first place.

 

[prosfilaes]

Setting aside morals and ethics (because I think everyone knows how that has gone, how it goes, and how it will go by now), I'm really quite intrigued by the claims that cheating is (more?) acceptable in RPGs if it "supports the story".[...]Would it be 'better' to have no rules at all, if they are seen as this much of a hindrance to "the story"?

At the heart of RPGs is people sitting around telling stories, and I know roleplayers of my acquantance who played in extensive ruleless games. You can be a storytelling type of player without going ruleless; you just put more demand on the story than winning or roleplaying your character.

In the case of the person who scrubbed a roll to let his friend get the kill, a full-on storyteller could have just refused the shot, but the character actor in him apparently forced him do it in some out-of-character fashion. A storytelling group might have let him take the shot in character but let the player openly flub it.

 

[Infiniti2000]

My reflexive definition of "minor" in this context is "causes no negative repercussions for the other players, is not noticable (i.e., does not produce results that can't be explained without cheating or are obviously anomolous), does not gain benefit for the cheater, and doesn't step on any one else's toes".

So, do any of the "anti-cheaters" in this thread see my definition of what constitutes minor cheating, above, reasonable?

No, it's not reasonable because it's completely useless. There are no effects based on that definition.

So, you actually roll a 5 and miss but you state that you roll a 6, and still miss. You cheated, but it's inconsequential. The cheating must have a noticeable consequence, otherwise a discussion on it is meaningless. And, as Mort (and probably others) points out, most people will consider cheating to be negative action and not a positive one. So, if you don't use it for gain or for some negative effect, it's not cheating. If you want to say that you cheat in someone else's favor for no benefit of your own, try to use a different word or start a different thread because those are definitely not the same concepts. Unfortunately, your definition explicitly removes all negative factors and changes the thread topic.

I would say that an example of minor cheating would be to claim a critical threat instead of a mere hit. Or, perhaps to save vs. the flesh to stone instead of fail.