D&D 5E Dealing with a Cheater At An Open Table
- Thread starter Ralif Redhammer
- Start date
Kichwas
Half-breed
On feeling guilt over calling out a cheater - I don't have much to say there... once you've hit that stage you just have to deal with it and the consequences and then move on... hoping everyone can stay comfortable.
As to stopping cheating before that point...
Over the years I've seen this quite a lot and even felt the inclination to do it myself.
I think the 'desire to cheat' can up itself if the game feels too high stakes for the player. If the character's have become too important and the chances of them surviving are too low or the importance of their success is too high.
As a DM you can tweak the risks and tweak the importance of 'winning' - but the players and Dm combined have to tweak the importance of character success. If the game is about telling your character's story then the desire to cheat will be much higher than if the game is about telling a wider story. As in... is this 'Conan the Barbarian' or 'Game of Thrones.'.
If you want a high risk game but to nip the desire to cheap in the bud, structure more like Game of Thrones and make the players feel less like the actors playing their characters and more like the casting agents hiring a stream of actors. If you're a casting agent... you're getting paid by the number of actors you can throw at the director... and if one stays around too long you might not need to stay hired... But as a player in this mentality... you're there to tell a grand story... and part of that might be in finding dramatic ways to have a character fail...
- That's how I addressed my own desire to cheat. I started making 'fail guys' - characters I would look for an opportunity to sabotage. If I could entertain my group by messing up... there was my fun.
And I went through my old dice collection and put aside all the 'special cool' dice, and started bringing the funkiest ugly beat up dice from the late 70s that I could find... I built a set of mismatched ugly dice of inconsistent sizes... and brought those.
But this is a gimmick not all players are going to go for... I'm told I'm pretty rare in that my dreams often are me watching a set of characters who are not me go through a story that I can adjust as I'm dreaming - I am able to detach myself from a protagonist and only recently realized this was unusual.
That said I got the trick from other players. Back when d20 came out - I joined 3 different groups at the same time (to be young and full of time again...), and in two of them we had guys that would have half a dozen characters die before the first few sessions were over. I learned one of them was the childhood best friend of the DM we were with... and I kinda guessed this was just his thing, but it also coached the rest of us to "not take it so seriously"...
- It was in his game that I started my trick to not desire to cheat anymore... He showed me that I could have a blast while watching the characters and the adventure fail fantastically... Before that I'd always thought I would have to have my character win for me to win... now I realized my win could be in making my character lose with flare or with comedy or both...
...You could sit an 'inside man' down at your table to purposefully play a series of fails... to lighten up the tension... and help the other players feel like it 'doesn't matter if your character messes up, as long as you had a good time when it happened'...
If you're a player reading this and want to know how to make yourself able to play 'fail guys'... Keep these basics in mind:
1. Don't write a backstory. Instead have a back-zinger. A one sentence 'angle' or phrase to make you get to the laugh-track the moment you step on stage... easy RP, low detail and go for the 'gut'. Basically start out playing 'Kramer' ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinfeld ). Back-stories make a character too important... Learn instead to 'develop in play' As in:
DM: You guys meet a thief in the alley who...
You: Oh hey Bob, how's it been going since that time in Marches? You still sore about me taking the stuff...?
DM: (sidelong glance at you)...
(Some DMs can roll with this, others can't. Find out which you have)
2. Watch something like Dr. Who and look at all the people that show up for one episode, have amazing acting, and then die heroically. You are playing "that guy". Don't play a red-shirt from Star Trek (they are faceless)... Dr. Who knows how to make good disposable characters. Game of Thrones does too, but I don't watch that so I am lacking references. One difference though is that Game of Thrones makes it 'hurt' too much for the viewer, but Dr. Who makes a disposable character death into a moment to cheer on heroism.
3. Bring at least 3 characters to every game session and place them down in front of you in a stack... you are now in the mindset that if one goes, you're back in the game as soon as the DM lets Seinfeld get the doorbell...
4. Intentionally kill off a character every so often. Jump off the ledge, reach into that black void mouth in module S1, use the Barbarian disarm-traps skill (jump on it), etc... Make it funny... Comedy is great for reliving tension - so until you're a pro at this... do it through comedy.
5. Don't give them complex names or pictures or gear or anything... Start with cardboard 'archetypes' you can slip into easily, and expand as you get good at it.
6. Let your DM in on the plan... so there isn't a 'WTF is wrong, you just lost character #7 in one night?' moment...
7. Roll your dice in the open, loud and proud, and cheer on the 1s. Ugly dice help if you have a dice fetish... (I handle my 'minor OCD' by intentionally making things like pictures 'slightly crooked' around my house... organized chaos.) Have someone else read your dice for you (if you have too... roll them across the table so you have the excuse to ask 'that guy over there' to read them...
As to stopping cheating before that point...
Over the years I've seen this quite a lot and even felt the inclination to do it myself.
I think the 'desire to cheat' can up itself if the game feels too high stakes for the player. If the character's have become too important and the chances of them surviving are too low or the importance of their success is too high.
As a DM you can tweak the risks and tweak the importance of 'winning' - but the players and Dm combined have to tweak the importance of character success. If the game is about telling your character's story then the desire to cheat will be much higher than if the game is about telling a wider story. As in... is this 'Conan the Barbarian' or 'Game of Thrones.'.
If you want a high risk game but to nip the desire to cheap in the bud, structure more like Game of Thrones and make the players feel less like the actors playing their characters and more like the casting agents hiring a stream of actors. If you're a casting agent... you're getting paid by the number of actors you can throw at the director... and if one stays around too long you might not need to stay hired... But as a player in this mentality... you're there to tell a grand story... and part of that might be in finding dramatic ways to have a character fail...
- That's how I addressed my own desire to cheat. I started making 'fail guys' - characters I would look for an opportunity to sabotage. If I could entertain my group by messing up... there was my fun.
And I went through my old dice collection and put aside all the 'special cool' dice, and started bringing the funkiest ugly beat up dice from the late 70s that I could find... I built a set of mismatched ugly dice of inconsistent sizes... and brought those.
But this is a gimmick not all players are going to go for... I'm told I'm pretty rare in that my dreams often are me watching a set of characters who are not me go through a story that I can adjust as I'm dreaming - I am able to detach myself from a protagonist and only recently realized this was unusual.
That said I got the trick from other players. Back when d20 came out - I joined 3 different groups at the same time (to be young and full of time again...), and in two of them we had guys that would have half a dozen characters die before the first few sessions were over. I learned one of them was the childhood best friend of the DM we were with... and I kinda guessed this was just his thing, but it also coached the rest of us to "not take it so seriously"...
- It was in his game that I started my trick to not desire to cheat anymore... He showed me that I could have a blast while watching the characters and the adventure fail fantastically... Before that I'd always thought I would have to have my character win for me to win... now I realized my win could be in making my character lose with flare or with comedy or both...
...You could sit an 'inside man' down at your table to purposefully play a series of fails... to lighten up the tension... and help the other players feel like it 'doesn't matter if your character messes up, as long as you had a good time when it happened'...
If you're a player reading this and want to know how to make yourself able to play 'fail guys'... Keep these basics in mind:
1. Don't write a backstory. Instead have a back-zinger. A one sentence 'angle' or phrase to make you get to the laugh-track the moment you step on stage... easy RP, low detail and go for the 'gut'. Basically start out playing 'Kramer' ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinfeld ). Back-stories make a character too important... Learn instead to 'develop in play' As in:
DM: You guys meet a thief in the alley who...
You: Oh hey Bob, how's it been going since that time in Marches? You still sore about me taking the stuff...?
DM: (sidelong glance at you)...
(Some DMs can roll with this, others can't. Find out which you have)
2. Watch something like Dr. Who and look at all the people that show up for one episode, have amazing acting, and then die heroically. You are playing "that guy". Don't play a red-shirt from Star Trek (they are faceless)... Dr. Who knows how to make good disposable characters. Game of Thrones does too, but I don't watch that so I am lacking references. One difference though is that Game of Thrones makes it 'hurt' too much for the viewer, but Dr. Who makes a disposable character death into a moment to cheer on heroism.
3. Bring at least 3 characters to every game session and place them down in front of you in a stack... you are now in the mindset that if one goes, you're back in the game as soon as the DM lets Seinfeld get the doorbell...
4. Intentionally kill off a character every so often. Jump off the ledge, reach into that black void mouth in module S1, use the Barbarian disarm-traps skill (jump on it), etc... Make it funny... Comedy is great for reliving tension - so until you're a pro at this... do it through comedy.
5. Don't give them complex names or pictures or gear or anything... Start with cardboard 'archetypes' you can slip into easily, and expand as you get good at it.
6. Let your DM in on the plan... so there isn't a 'WTF is wrong, you just lost character #7 in one night?' moment...
7. Roll your dice in the open, loud and proud, and cheer on the 1s. Ugly dice help if you have a dice fetish... (I handle my 'minor OCD' by intentionally making things like pictures 'slightly crooked' around my house... organized chaos.) Have someone else read your dice for you (if you have too... roll them across the table so you have the excuse to ask 'that guy over there' to read them...
Last edited:
abirdcall
(she/her)
Sounds like you handled it well.
You didn't sign up for that emotional labour.
His difficulties are not your responsibility. I've worked with people with mental health and/or cognitive issues. My job was to help them as part of their therapy.
The difference is that you aren't paid to do that and you're there to have fun. Even though I cared for the patients I wouldn't want any of them at my home table because that is "me time".
In other words: Take on as much emotional labour as you feel like, and don't feel guilty about drawing a line anywhere you like.
You didn't sign up for that emotional labour.
His difficulties are not your responsibility. I've worked with people with mental health and/or cognitive issues. My job was to help them as part of their therapy.
The difference is that you aren't paid to do that and you're there to have fun. Even though I cared for the patients I wouldn't want any of them at my home table because that is "me time".
In other words: Take on as much emotional labour as you feel like, and don't feel guilty about drawing a line anywhere you like.
My only helpful suggestion would be to discuss sensitive matters like this privately. When somebody is called out in front of others and loses face for it they tend to be more confrontational about it, deny it, justify it, or just quit due to the shame of it. If discussed privately you can tell them how suspicious their behavior seems to you and others, allow them a chance to express there side of thing (even if it is just a lie to save face), and offer suggestions for moving forward (such as rolling more openly and letting others read the die for them). This way they have a chance to redeem themself and continue with the group.
Warmaster Horus
Explorer
I don't put up with cheating when I run an AL game. First time I notice something fishy I'll playfully ask, "What was that roll?" Just so the person knows I'm paying attention and it matters. If the behavior continues I'll tell them my expectation is that they roll in the clear like everyone else. I've never really had to go beyond that once my standards are understood.
