Everybody Cheats?

Gary Alan Fine's early survey of role-playing games found that everybody cheated. But the definition of what cheating is when it applies to role-playing games differs from other uses of the term. Does everyone really cheat in RPGs? Yes, Everybody Gary Alan Fine's work, Shared Fantasy, came to the following conclusion: Perhaps surprisingly, cheating in fantasy role-playing games is...

Gary Alan Fine's early survey of role-playing games found that everybody cheated. But the definition of what cheating is when it applies to role-playing games differs from other uses of the term. Does everyone really cheat in RPGs?

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Yes, Everybody​

Gary Alan Fine's work, Shared Fantasy, came to the following conclusion:
Perhaps surprisingly, cheating in fantasy role-playing games is extremely common--almost everyone cheats and this dishonesty is implicitly condoned in most situation. The large majority of interviewees admitted to cheating, and in the games I played, I cheated as well.
Fine makes it a point of clarify that cheating doesn't carry quite the same implications in role-playing as it does in other games:
Since FRP players are not competing against each other, but are cooperating, cheating does not have the same effect on the game balance. For example, a player who cheats in claiming that he has rolled a high number while his character is fighting a dragon or alien spaceship not only helps himself, but also his party, since any member of the party might be killed. Thus the players have little incentive to prevent this cheating.
The interesting thing about cheating is that if everyone cheats, parity is maintained among the group. But when cheating is rampant, any player who adheres slavishly to die-roll results has "bad luck" with the dice. Cheating takes place in a variety of ways involving dice (the variable component PCs can't control), such as saying the dice is cocked, illegible, someone bumped the table, it rolled off a book or dice tray, etc.

Why Cheat?​

One of the challenges with early D&D is that co-creator Gary Gygax's design used rarity to make things difficult. This form of design reasoned that the odds against certain die rolls justified making powerful character builds rare, and it all began with character creation.

Character creation was originally 3d6 for each attribute, full stop. With the advent of computers, players could automate this rolling process by rapidly randomizing thousands of characters until they got the combination of numbers they wanted. These numbers dictated the PC's class (paladins, for example, required a very strict set of high attributes). Psionics too, in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, required a specific set of attributes that made it possible to spontaneously manifest psionic powers. Later forms of character generation introduced character choice: 4d6 assigned to certain attributes, a point buy system, etc. But in the early incarnations of the game, it was in the player's interest, if she wanted to play a paladin or to play a psionic, to roll a lot -- or just cheat (using the dice pictured above).

Game masters have a phrase for cheating known as "fudging" a roll; the concept of fudging means the game master may ignore a roll for or against PCs if it doesn't fit the kind of game he's trying to create. PCs can be given extra chances to reroll, or the roll could be interpreted differently. This "fudging" happens in an ebb and flow as the GM determines the difficulty and if the die rolls support the narrative.

GM screens were used as a reference tool with relevant charts and to prevent players from seeing maps and notes. But they also helped make it easier for GMs to fudge rolls. A poll on RPG.net shows that over 90% of GMs fudged rolls behind the screen.

Cheating Is the Rule​

One of Fifth Edition's innovations was adopting a common form of cheating -- the reroll -- by creating advantage. PCs now have rules encouraging them to roll the dice twice, something they've been doing for decades with the right excuse.

When it comes to cheating, it seems like we've all been doing it. But given that we're all working together to have a good time, is it really cheating?
 

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Michael Tresca

Michael Tresca


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Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus
Sorry Maxperson but this is just rubbish. "Solid strategies"? "players come up with a great plan"? Who are these mythical beasts of which you speak :) :confused:
I can definitely say that when we play, we check our brains in at the door. Some of the plans we've come up with over the years have been just truly, madly, deeply insane, but hugely funny :)

I did say "if!!!" I've also seen some plans that, let's just say failed to make the "solid strategies/great plan" plateau. :p

In a similar vein, if a player comes up with a great idea, something brilliantly spectacular or some wonderful dialogue/bull with an NPC, I won't even ask them to roll for it. I'll just tell them they succeed. Hell, I want it to happen, let alone the player!
Again, it's about making the game fun, not about slavishly following the rules and mechanics. It would be a terrible thing, as you say, to reward their ingenuity, sense of fun and attempts to be more creative by slapping them down.

Same here.
 

So ignoring dice, is the DM cheating when he changes the story, capabilities and action of the NPCs? ;)

This is an interesting question. Since the DM is the storyteller, I don't feel he's breaking any rules by making up some kind of ability for an npc on the spot, as long as it isn't too much of a stretch. But I feel there's a gray area where the DM can start to intrude on the game's mechanics. I'm not sure where that line is exactly.

In a recent battle, I had a situation where a shapeshifting Druid PC had a Frostwind Virago in a grapple, and there wasn't really much of a chance of her escaping that grapple. The fight already took up two sessions, and I felt something needed to be added to make the fight more interesting. So I came up with the idea that the fey could shift herself (and anyone touching her) into the fey realm, similar to the way Druids can in my campaign setting.
Now obviously the Frostwind Virago did not actually have this ability as per the rules, and I made it up while preparing the next session. But I felt it didn't stretch the imagination too much (since Druid's shifting into their own realm was already a thing), and in fact deepened the lore of fey in my campaign. It also didn't negate the player's grapple entirely, but instead set up an interesting choice. Do you let go, or hold on? And if the Virago dies, can you get back to your own world?

So, I'm not against a DM making up an ability on the spot for an npc. I did it very recently. But I do feel there are some limits, and that a DM should not abuse this too often.
 

Caliburn101

Explorer
I used to cheat as a kid, but saw how negative an impact it had on games after I matured. I know people who cheat really badly though even though they are in their 40's...

As a GM (which I most often am) four decades of trial and error have taught me to almost never fudge, and to make character death a real possibility, and if it happens, not to fudge to prevent it in nearly every case.

The only time I fudge is when a character death is so meaningless and trivial story-wise, that it takes the fun out of the game. Then I will fudge.

I never do this for NPCs and monsters though - if they are defeated easily by the party - great - heroes should feel like heroes yes? I don't build or run my NPCs or BBEGs without contingencies ready to go however - they want to WIN, so this rarely happens.
 


Bedrockgames

I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
Read the book that's on Google Books to find out? Again, your experience may vary, in part, because this book was published in 1983.

Lol. I am not going to read every book that comes up in a thread like this. I am not terribly interested in reading the book to be honest. I am just saying the claim sounds a bit suspect. My question about his methods still stands though if someone has an answer.
 
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Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
Lol. I am not going to read every book that comes up in a thread like this. I am not terribly interested in reading the book to be honest. I am just saying the claim sounds a bit suspect. My question about his methods still stands though if someone has an answer.

As I often say when somebody posits that their personal anecdote is more compelling than data, I can confirm from my experience of playing D&D for 30 years that no Americans play D&D.
 

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus
As I often say when somebody posits that their personal anecdote is more compelling than data, I can confirm from my experience of playing D&D for 30 years that no Americans play D&D.

Data that isn't available unless you spend money to purchase it and then read it isn't any better than anecdotal evidence. Most of the readers aren't going to know if it's true or not. It's on the person making a claim to prove the claim, not on the rest of us to prove it false. The author of this article is making a claim using data than isn't shown in the article and that the people reading the article can't see. Small wonder that those of us who haven't encountered this cheating issue are having doubts about it.
 

Aldarc

Legend
Lol. I am not going to read every book that comes up in a thread like this. I am not terribly interested in reading the book to be honest. I am just saying the claim sounds a bit suspect. My question about his methods still stands though if someone has an answer.
Okay. A big part of the initial claim in the article comes from this comment:
The large majority of interviewees admitted to cheating, and in the games I played, I cheated as well.
So now we need to know something about the methodology here. And so I did a search in the Google book document for "interview." I cannot see the full excerpt, but there is a small snippet that reads "In addition to participant observation, I conducted lengthy interviews (one to three hours) with two dozen gamers. Although the interview subjects are neither a random sampling nor systematic sampling of gamers..." and then it cuts off. So it's possible that the "large majority of interviewees" then reflects the "large majority" of the two dozen sampled. The whole "everybody cheats" comes directly from the words of one of the interviewees. And the nature of the cheating takes on numerous forms (e.g., character creation, reported rolls in play, metagaming, etc.). But the issue of cheating only receives a small sliver of attention in this book (pp. 99-102).

Mind you, even if one succesfully criticizes his methodology, this does not mean that the inverse results are therefore true: i.e., the majority of gamers don't cheat. (I do worry that some people will leap to that conclusion.) It means that the results are inaccurate for representing the gaming hobby, however we define those constituents.
 

jasper

Rotten DM
As I often say when somebody posits that their personal anecdote is more compelling than data, I can confirm from my experience of playing D&D for 30 years that no Americans play D&D.
And In all my years of gaming only one Brit plays D&D. And since you not him you must be a sock puppet or one of the voices in my head.
 

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