Handling Cheating

[Lwaxy]

If it just happens every now and then, I probably wouldn't care. I haven't noticed it in my players though since my son grew out of the teenage super hero wannabe stage.

 

[Elf Witch]

I find the GM cheating fascinating. I mostly agree with Water Bob: I would call the actions of the GM inappropriate, not cheating. Suppose a chess noob asks his friend who is good at chess to teach him how to play chess. The noob knows his friend can clean his clock anytime he wants to and he tels the teacher not to hold anything back. If he subsequently goes easy on the noob, he would accuse the teacher of going easy on him. But the noob shouldn't call him a cheater.

So, I have a question for the folks who say the GM CAN cheat: Suppose there's a game group where the GM/player contract is the GM will not fudge rolls to go easy on the group: all rolls in the open, etc. The players want a world where if they screw up, they die.

The party has been beat up a lot in a prior encounter and they open the next door and find out 6 skeletons rise up to attack. The adventure says there are 8 skeletons in the room, but he's dropped it to 6 to avoid a possible TPK. Did he cheat? Does your answer change if the module is his own home brew versus a real printed adventure?

Suppose the GM is just whinging it and he decides there are 6 skeletons in the next room on the spur of the moment. But based on the EL of the rest of the dungeon a proper encounter would have 8 skeletons. Did he cheat?

Usually when people say they don't want the DM to fudge they mean on dice rolls. If their character dies so be it. And if a DM agrees to that and then fudges dice rolls that is cheating.

Changing a written module to fit your game better is not cheating the same if you change your encounter on the fly to take out an extra mook because the party is not in the shape to handle it or adding one because the party is stronger then you think.

That is controlling the setting and being a DM. Changing dice rolls for some is not that they view it as cheating because they want the dice rolls to mean something not be on the whim of the DM.

I personally will fudge a dice roll in some special cases my players are okay with this and we don't have a social contract that says don't do it.

 

[jmucchiello]

Changing a written module to fit your game better is not cheating the same if you change your encounter on the fly to take out an extra mook because the party is not in the shape to handle it or adding one because the party is stronger then you think.

So when does it become cheating? Where's the line? The encounter was designed for 8 skeletons and the GM only puts out 6 minis/only describes there being 6 skeleton. You each seem to say that is not cheating. Do the skeletons have to be "on stage" for there to be cheating?

So how about if he describes the encounter and says there are 8 skeletons but two of the skeletons just never attack for various contrived reasons. Is that cheating?

How about this? The party is getting rocked by some unknown new monsters when the party wizard casts sleep in desperation. The GM knows they are 2HD monsters but he treats them as 1HD causing four of them to make saving throws because he didn't expect the encounter to be so brutal. If the players find out later they are normally 2HD can they say he cheated?

The point is cheating is generally a break in some social norm. But not all breaks in social norms is called cheating. The GM in all my examples is pull his punches when he said he would not and thus he acted inappropriately. But he did not cheat.

 

[Umbran]

The GM in all my examples is pull his punches when he said he would not and thus he acted inappropriately. But he did not cheat.

Context matters - put all of your examples in the context of tournament or organized play, and they become cheating.

Thus, the line is not in one immutable place for all RPG play, but depends upon the details (and the spirit) of the agreements in place.

 

[Cor Azer]

So when does it become cheating? Where's the line? The encounter was designed for 8 skeletons and the GM only puts out 6 minis/only describes there being 6 skeleton. You each seem to say that is not cheating. Do the skeletons have to be "on stage" for there to be cheating?

So how about if he describes the encounter and says there are 8 skeletons but two of the skeletons just never attack for various contrived reasons. Is that cheating?

How about this? The party is getting rocked by some unknown new monsters when the party wizard casts sleep in desperation. The GM knows they are 2HD monsters but he treats them as 1HD causing four of them to make saving throws because he didn't expect the encounter to be so brutal. If the players find out later they are normally 2HD can they say he cheated?

The point is cheating is generally a break in some social norm. But not all breaks in social norms is called cheating. The GM in all my examples is pull his punches when he said he would not and thus he acted inappropriately. But he did not cheat.

We've stayed this a few times - not everything a GM does is cheating.

But some things can be.

IE: GM rolls a natural 1 on a monster's attack roll, but claims to have hit. That would be cheating.

Could a justification be found? Possibly. That's not the point though, because it's just as possible that no justification is attempted. Hence, cheating.

 

[Elf Witch]

So when does it become cheating? Where's the line? The encounter was designed for 8 skeletons and the GM only puts out 6 minis/only describes there being 6 skeleton. You each seem to say that is not cheating. Do the skeletons have to be "on stage" for there to be cheating?

So how about if he describes the encounter and says there are 8 skeletons but two of the skeletons just never attack for various contrived reasons. Is that cheating?

How about this? The party is getting rocked by some unknown new monsters when the party wizard casts sleep in desperation. The GM knows they are 2HD monsters but he treats them as 1HD causing four of them to make saving throws because he didn't expect the encounter to be so brutal. If the players find out later they are normally 2HD can they say he cheated?

The point is cheating is generally a break in some social norm. But not all breaks in social norms is called cheating. The GM in all my examples is pull his punches when he said he would not and thus he acted inappropriately. But he did not cheat.

None of that is cheating. The DM is tailoring the encounter for his group. One of the jobs of A DM is to make the game fun and challenging. One of his tools to accomplish this is be able to adjust things on the fly.

Some people call him a referee but I don't because that implies his job is to mkae sure the rules are followed. In football a referee can't change the rules because one side is so outmatched by the other side.

Most groups who say they don't want their DM to fudge means they want the dice to fall as they fall. If they die they they don't want the DM saying no it only did 5 points of damage when it did seven but that amount would have killed the PC.

When players say don't pull punches I think they mean if the encounter is well balanced and the PCs are not out matched and the PCs lose they don't want the DM to change things so they win. And if the DM agrees to this and then changes his mind and fudges things and the players find out they might well call it cheating.

Now I am not sure most players who want the DM not to fudge or pull punches would have the same issue if the DM is adjusting things on the fly because he made a mistake and the encounter is not one where the party never stood a chance.

 

[The Red King]

The way I see it, GM's CANT cheat. They are effectively god for the entire game. What they say is reality. So how can he be cheating??

 

[Halivar]

The implied contract at our table is that the DM is not to be argued with in how he chooses to run the game. If the DM is poor, then his game dies and someone else runs a game. However, even the fudgiest DM knows that to openly fudge robs the players of tension and accomplishment. The only good fudge is the one the player is never aware of, and only enhances their enjoyment of the game.

 

[The Red King]

The implied contract at our table is that the DM is not to be argued with in how he chooses to run the game. If the DM is poor, then his game dies and someone else runs a game. However, even the fudgiest DM knows that to openly fudge robs the players of tension and accomplishment. The only good fudge is the one the player is never aware of, and only enhances their enjoyment of the game.

I agree! The players should never know you mad those monsters easier to kill, lesser in number or forget 1/2 of their spells. That just kills the idea of the game.

You might as well tell them "I let you win". In that case the DM is cheating. Not cheating at the game, but cheating everyone out of a solid and engaging session.

 

[S'mon]

Now I am not sure most players who want the DM not to fudge or pull punches would have the same issue if the DM is adjusting things on the fly because he made a mistake and the encounter is not one where the party never stood a chance.

IME it's a hard call which GM is the bigger Loser - the guy who inadvertently creates a TPK encounter thinking he's made a balanced encounter and lets it proceed to inevitable TPK, or the guy who inadvertently creates a TPK encounter thinking he's made a balanced encounter and fudges so the PCs win anyway.

IME though the latter (obvious fudging to turn TPK to victory) is seen as worse, by me and by most D&D players, and results in a total loss of respect for the GM and his game. Never again will the players see their victories as honestly earned, and IME when the GM does this the game soon dies. IME it's normally better just to play it out to the bitter end - maybe the PCs will escape (at least some of them), maybe they'll somehow achieve victory by their own efforts. Maybe they'll go down fighting heroically, in which case the GM should congratulate them and if possible make sure their deaths are meaningful. As GM I had a TPK in February 2011 and again last month, both times I was congratulated by the players on running a great battle! In the recent case it was the climax of the campaign, a 300-meets-Horatio doomed last stand on the bridge against the Necromancer and his thousand-ghoul army. Everyone died, but they gave the stonemasons time to collapse the bridge and for the citizenry to escape the town before it fell, saving two thousand lives.

However, there is a happy medium of the absolute minimal 'out' - if it would really be unfair to kill the PCs with no chance of survival, the GM puts the absolute lightest hand on the tiller in their favour, using something previously foreshadowed - part of the environment, a flaw in the villain's psyche, friendly NPCs, etc.

Eg: Fighter PC Conan has fought well against massive odds, but Rexxor the veteran High Priest of Doom has been over-statted - he's several levels higher, has massive DPR, and it's clear that it won't be Rexxor who runs out of hp first. So, a bit of divine intervention, IC and OOC - dead Rogue PC Valeria returns in a split-second vision that stuns Rexxor for a round, giving Conan just the chance he needs to turn the tide.

Or, more prosaically, in my own game recently, it was the first encounter for 3 brand new PCs. I turned what was scripted as a safe, illusionary encounter with 3 Pathfinder orcs, into a lethal ambush by 3 very real orcs, on the road just west of a country inn. Only I only had 3 players, not the 4 the module expects, plus Pathfinder orcs are heavily under-CR'd. The PCs fought well, but 2 were down, the last kept going only by his great AC. So I had travellers from the nearby inn hear the noise of battle and come out to assist the last PC - they only arrived in time to scare off the last orc, but it prevented a possible first-encounter TPK that would have been really unfair on the PCs. It was a perfectly plausible event to occur, but AIR I decided it by fiat rather than a probability check or pre-scripting. If that is fudging, to me it falls within acceptable parameters.