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

Gibili

Explorer
I can confirm from my experience of playing D&D for 30 years that no Americans play D&D.

Yeah, and that's because you chose a useless sampling method Morrus. I can confirm that I know of one American who does play D&D. She lives around the corner from me here in the UK. Thus with my extensive research, I can confidently state that your frankly unhelpful and misleading statement should have read
"I can confirm from my experience of playing D&D for 30 years that no Americans play D&D, within the bounds of the United States."

Try and check your facts before posting :)
 

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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.

So... you think the claim and methods behind it are suspect but even after someone pointed you to the source, you're not interested and want someone else to figure it out for you?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I guess that might have to stay one of life's mysteries for ya then! Sometimes if you want to know something, you have to do your own homework. ;)
 

Bedrockgames

I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
So... you think the claim and methods behind it are suspect but even after someone pointed you to the source, you're not interested and want someone else to figure it out for you?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I guess that might have to stay one of life's mysteries for ya then! Sometimes if you want to know something, you have to do your own homework. ;)


Not every discussion where someone raises a point you disagree with has to result in you reading an entire book. I do not have the time, interest or energy to read it simply because it came up in a thread. I thought the claim sounded dubious, and was inviting more information about the study. Based on the follow-up, it seems being skeptical about the claim is warranted.
 

Hussar

Legend
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.

But, as I recall in this thread, you talk about booting players for cheating. So, you must have encountered it at least once in your gaming experience.

And, let's not forget, there is a very fine line between "fudging" and "cheating". It's a pretty rare DM who has never, ever, fudged anything in any game at any time.
 

Kobold Boots

Banned
Banned
But, as I recall in this thread, you talk about booting players for cheating. So, you must have encountered it at least once in your gaming experience.

And, let's not forget, there is a very fine line between "fudging" and "cheating". It's a pretty rare DM who has never, ever, fudged anything in any game at any time.

1. With Rule 0 in play it is impossible for a DM to "cheat".
2. While it is possible for players to "cheat" if the DM allows it and Rule 0 is in play, the players are not "cheating".

This thread is a logic bomb.

KB
 

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus
But, as I recall in this thread, you talk about booting players for cheating. So, you must have encountered it at least once in your gaming experience.
I've encountered a few, yes. The large majority of them have been trustworthy. What does that have to do with the author of this thread's article who claims numbers that he doesn't produce, and which, given this quote by @Aldarc "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..."" shows that the survey in being used is highly questionable. It's not a proper sample size and was gathered under questionable methods. Further, since I remember seeing someone earlier say that the survey was from 1983, I'd bet that most of those two dozen gamer were 25 or younger. The young cheat more. http://articles.latimes.com/2009/oct/29/local/me-dishonest29.

And, let's not forget, there is a very fine line between "fudging" and "cheating". It's a pretty rare DM who has never, ever, fudged anything in any game at any time.
The line may be fine(and I don't agree that it is), but it is there. Fudging is not cheating. ;)
 

Hussar

Legend
1. With Rule 0 in play it is impossible for a DM to "cheat".
2. While it is possible for players to "cheat" if the DM allows it and Rule 0 is in play, the players are not "cheating".

This thread is a logic bomb.

KB

That's convenient. We'll add in a rule to allow a specific person at the table to change the rules at will. So, we're not "cheating", we're using "rule 0". Note, that Rule 0 has changed a LOT over the years. Rule 0 in AD&D was never "Change the rules whenever you feel like it". It was "Whenever there is a conflict between interpretations of the rules, the DM's interpretation wins". The whole "you can ignore the rules" thing is something that has been added in along the way to salve people's egos.

/snip

The line may be fine(and I don't agree that it is), but it is there. Fudging is not cheating. ;)

A rose by any other name. In any other game, this would be called cheating. But, because we deliberately change the definition of cheating in RPG's, then it's suddenly not cheating. It's the ultimate form of rules lawyering.
 

Sadras

Legend
Yeah, this survey is horse manure. I mean people object to using Enworlders' opinions as a base because of the small population size of gamers, yet this guy gets away with using two dozen interviews.:erm:
 

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus
A rose by any other name. In any other game, this would be called cheating. But, because we deliberately change the definition of cheating in RPG's, then it's suddenly not cheating. It's the ultimate form of rules lawyering.

You keep saying that phrase, but it simply does not apply. First, there is no rose involved with fudging. Cheating is cheating, and fudging absolutely, 100% is not. Second, you don't know whether the first person to call it fudging did so because he thought it was cheating, or whether he just loved fudge. He may have even altered a roll that landed IN some fudge.
 

You keep saying that phrase, but it simply does not apply. First, there is no rose involved with fudging. Cheating is cheating, and fudging absolutely, 100% is not. Second, you don't know whether the first person to call it fudging did so because he thought it was cheating, or whether he just loved fudge. He may have even altered a roll that landed IN some fudge.

What do you think is the difference between cheating and fudging then?
 

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