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 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?

 

[Maxperson]

The very first sentence of the OP is, "Gary Alan Fine's early survey of role-playing games found that everybody cheated. " It then goes on to discuss and take some quotes from Fine's work, Shared Fantasy.

Yes, you have to actually go get the book (300 pages of it) to see the details. Fine did research on the early days of RPGs, the first to look at the people who play as a community.

So, if Fine came to the conclusion that cheating is common - how do you wish to counter his statement? Or do you wish to say, "I haven't read the book, so I will take my own personal experience over these research results."? Or what?

I don't know anything other than the article made a claim of research, which I will take at face value. However, I do not know what sort of methods were used, or the demographic(s) involved in the research. Without knowing those things(and the numbers), I really can't give the research a whole lot of weight.

 

[Gibili]

As a DM I fudge rolls all the time. It isn't cheating as my job is to make play fun and exciting. I fudge rolls to both help and hinder the players as necessary, depending on the needs of the situation. If my dice are hell bent on a total party kill then unless that really, really suits the story line, there's no way I'm going with those rolls. If combat it totally going the players' way when it should be close and tense, e.g. against a key enemy as opposed to a random encounter situation, then I fudge a few rolls the other way to up the ante.
Similarly I DM Cheat by fudging the rules too! To my mind DMs cannot cheat, i.e. what they do for the sake of fun is not cheating. That having been said, I think that if you are basically ignoring the random element all the time then your probably pushing, or rather forcing, the game in the direction you want it to go in which can be aparent to the players and restricts their freedom of choice. It's not about you, it's about your players.

Players can cheat and a very rare fudging of the dice roll on occasion isn't going to have a negative effect on the game, especially if you have been incapable of rolling over 6 (D20) the entire game. On that point though, I usually find abject failure is a greater source of fun and laughter than huge success. You just have to go with it and roleplay it. Why is your character so crap today? Make something up that helps explain it. It gives you, the DM and perhaps the whole party something to work with and it can become something that the party them have to work to help. Do they, in addition to fighting the bad guys, trekking across the desert, also need to get you to a hospital whilst in enemy territory? That's just me and they way my group tends to play though.
If your game is very combat focused then I can see that a player might feel hugely frustrated and feel that they are not contributing. There are also times when you are in that heroic situation that you just want to pull that rabbit out of the hat. As a DM I wouldn't mind if a player fudged their roll, because again, it is contributing to the story. It does however have to be very rare and under special circumstances. Cheating in all things just spoils it for everyone including yourself. What's the point in playing a game with a large random element if you are just going to cheat all the time?
Cheating on creating a character are definite no-nos to my mind. As a DM I let players re-roll characters if they are clearly terrible, especially if the system means that certain classes are not then open to them. I want my players to come up with fun character concepts of their design, with backgrounds etc, not be forced down a particular route by the dice. That's one reason I quite like character point pools rather than random. I have one frankly over-powered character in a campaign but I work hard as a player not dominate. My character is aloof, does what he has to do and doesn't step in all the time. I'd just end running roughshod over all the other players otherwise. Simiarly I have characters who aren'y that great, and that it great fun to work with too. To overcome that ball and chain can be very funny and rewarding.

 

[Imaculata]

As a DM I fudge rolls all the time. It isn't cheating as my job is to make play fun and exciting. I fudge rolls to both help and hinder the players as necessary, depending on the needs of the situation.

Does that mean that you'll let a monster hit a player, when he actually missed?

Does that mean that you'll turn a normal attack into a crit, and vice versa?

Does that mean that if a player succeeds at a save or check, you'll change it so they fail?

Does that mean that if a player fails at a save or check, you'll change it so they succeed?

 

[pemerton]

Dogs in the Vineyard, for example - I have played one session, and watched several others. Not a one of the "worked" in any meaningful sense. The players took so much time with dice and bidding that one conversation took 3 hours to resolve. I know some folks swear by the game, but I know others swear at it. And that's really the point I'm making here.

I don't understand your point. I don't really enjoy poker. Does that mean the rules for poker don't work? And it needs a "referee" to fudge the game so I will enjoy it? Or does that just mean I should't play poker?

In the RPG sphere, as I've often posted I'm not very good at classic D&D, and don't really enjoy it that much (either as player or referee). My solution: use different RPG systems that I do enjoy! It seems weird to me to say the solution is to keep using Gygax's rules (for some value of "use"), but fudge/nudge/ignore them so it's more fun.

 

[bluesguy]

One of the reasons I prefer to play using Hero Games is that I can create the character I want within the boundaries of a set of points. The GM has to approve the character build. I also prefer it as a GM.

When it comes to the actual play and dice rolling I believe a good story (which generally means everyone is having more fun) is more important than dice rolls.

 

[Gibili]

Does that mean that you'll let a monster hit a player, when he actually missed?

Yes, if it helps the fun of the game to have the monster hit when the dice say that it missed, then I say the monster hit. If the monster is missing all the time and so is no threat to the players, then I might well ignore the dice and say that it hit. If one small hit on the player will say, knock him into the cauldron of hair remover, then yeah, I might well bias the outcome Let's face it, the rest of the players will be braying for it anyway.

Does that mean that you'll turn a normal attack into a crit, and vice versa?

I very, very rarely convert an ordinary DM dice roll into a crit. Sometimes it can be done to great effect though. If you actually tell the players that your NPC has crited then it usually gets a sharp intake of breath from the players, which is great. Use this with suitable care I would say. Less is more effective. If you fudge a crit, and then roll a real one on the next turn, make a judgement about whether to convert back the other way. Maybe two crits in a row would be very effective. It might mean a sudden and exciting shift of power in the encounter for example.
If a crit on the part of the NPC and the subsequent damage or effect is going to have a detrimental effect on the play, then I might well back it down to an ordinary hit.
If a fumble on the part of the NPC would be funny, appropriate, help the story, then I might well make that happen.
If a fumble on the part of the NPC would spoil a tense situation or be contrary to the nature or skill of the NPC, then I might well ignore it.

With all these things, using it sparingly is the key. The randomness of dice rolling on NPCs can be just as much fun and throw up new and unexpected situations as it can for the player characters.

Does that mean that if a player succeeds at a save or check, you'll change it so they fail?
Does that mean that if a player fails at a save or check, you'll change it so they succeed?

No, never, ever! What the players do and roll is entirely up to them. As the DM you are there to create a fun environment for your players to mess around and have adventures in. You should never be a film director working to your own script and storyboards and forcing your players to adhere to them or changing what they do or roll to suit your own preconceptions about how things should go. That is absolute death for a fun game.
As a DM though you do have some influence on events before you get to the player's dice roll, so you don't have to back your players into a corner, and similarly, if you want them to go a certain direction in the story, there are subtle ways you can do it. Carrot is always better than stick!
If the game system has it, you can always make the DC (target difficulty of the action) a little less or more. If you think the players roll is close enough, then go with it, either as a success on their part or as a failure on their part. Players of course have a pretty good feel for what makes sense though so don't push it.

 

[Les Moore]

One thing I've observed, during my time on this rock, is that statisticians and survey takers are some of the worst cheaters of all.
They create statistics or take surveys only to the point where it will prop up a stance, supposition, or opinion.

Sunseeker, I wholly agree, a DM who changes their position on rulings or parameters, 180 degrees, would be difficult to work with. But DMs aren't always going to
resolve a given problem in a manner with which you completely agree, and that isn't necessarily cheating, un-uniform, or in any way wrong.

But let's look at that fighter trying to climb that hill, again. The Rogue succeeds, but on a equal roll, generally the fighter should fail. He succeeds.
And when he does, maybe patience is the key, and it needs to be discussed out of game. Perhaps the DM is taking into account 5 other attempts
where the fighter missed out by a whisker, and the percentages are in his favor, for success, on this attempt. Or maybe there is a reason he
came out on top, which will come to light, shortly down the road.

 

[Morrus]

One thing I've observed, during my time on this rock, is that statisticians and survey takers are some of the worst cheaters of all.
They create statistics or take surveys only to the point where it will prop up a stance, supposition, or opinion.

What percentage of them make up statistics based on your informal survey?

 

[Sunseeker]

I think a lot of people are misunderstanding what cheating fundamentally is.

There's "feeling cheated" which happens when cheating may or may not have occurred. Perhaps you just rolled low on something that should have been simple, or at the worst possible moment. This can make a player, regardless of the "fairness" of the situation, feel cheated. It's one of the faults of a random dice-based system, which is why, as DM, I often "cheat" on my side of the screen to smooth over the flow of events. IMO, it's terribly unfair and unfun to leave too much up to a die roll.

Then there's "cheating", which is breaking some established rule in order to, usually, gain advantage. The thing about this kind of cheating is that it may not leave anyone feel cheated. You may not even know it happened. It may actually improve the overall perception of play, depending on how the cheating plays out for everyone at the table. Perhaps the cheater killed the bad-guy about to kill the downed player. How does the DM feel about this? How do the other players feel about this? Do they feel cheated, in the sense above?

Cheating is, and always has been, party about actual rules violations and partly about perception. You can't do much about the perception of cheating, as this thread clearly demonstrates that some people have much stronger views on cheating than others.

Personally, the perception is the only thing that matters to me. If the players feel cheated, I'm going to avoid doing things that make them feel cheated, even things that aren't cheating! If the players don't feel cheated, I'm going to keep doing things that may even include cheating! Because "fun" is not defined by adherence to the rules, "fun" is defined by a positive collective experience. If the players have that, who cares?

 

[Maxperson]

What percentage of them make up statistics based on your informal survey?

There are lots of good statistics quotes.

98% of all statistics are made up. ~Author Unknown

Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. ~Aaron Levenstein (I like this one)

Statistics can be made to prove anything - even the truth. ~Author Unknown

Do not put your faith in what statistics say until you have carefully considered what they do not say. ~William W. Watt