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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5868866" data-attributes="member: 4937">Players can develop an 'us against them' mentality where they assume that the other players approve of the cheating because it helps them 'beat the DM'.  The worst cheater I've encountered I know came from a background where the DM had DM PC's, pet villains, and himself wildly cheated in order to railroad the players and obtain the results that he wanted.  So, in that context, he probably felt cheating was the only way he could be empowered.  Then again, I wasn't involved with the group at that point, so it could be that all the players were cheating, and the DM's wild fudging was in fact something he adopted in defense.  I can't really know.This gets to be a particularly hard problem to track when the players reach high level.  With my low level groups, I can generally mentally track how many turns, spells, or resources a player has used in a game day.  By the mid to high levels, this is really no longer possible and you are as a DM pretty much forced to rely on trust.This player needs to realize that the DM is a player to - not a wish fulfillment machine.   I get really frustrated by players that don't seem to realize that I'm trying to have fun as well, and that further more how they play impacts how and whether other people have fun.  The problem solver in the group who gains no satisfaction unless he enjoys the process of winning is getting his fun stolen by the ego gamer that enjoys only the fruits of winning (and so enjoys cheating).Yeah, those are my 'ego gamers'.  Oddly, they aren't always people whose self worth comes solely from the game.  Sometimes they are people who are used to winning in other aspects of their life, who are frustrated by the fact that they aren't always in a dominant position at the table as well.  It's just as likely in my experience to be the 30 year old CEO who made his first million at 27, who thinks that his IRL success ought to translate to fantasy domination as well.This is the biggest problem with cheating IMO, and it can wreck a group or campaign.  If one player starts cheating and you don't call them on it soon, you can be pretty certain that the disease will spread to the whole group quickly.  I've been in a group where they might as well not have used dice - everyone including the DM was basically rolling 20's on every throw (or at least, if not rolling a 20, then always rolling a success). For me as a DM, this is probably the biggest temptation I have, either to fudge when the NPC has had a run of really bad luck, or fudge against an NPC when a player has had a run of really bad luck.  I usually regret it, because often just after I do it, the luck turns around and suddenly the players can't succeed at anything or the NPC can't fail (or both).  Sometimes I still do it though, and try to justify that I'm making the game more fun.  I presume most players experience the same temptation.  As long as this doesn't turn into, "I'm never allowed to fail when it matters.", it's probably not a big deal.While I totally agree, I've found it very useful over the years to dramatically roll in the open whenever something important is at stake. Over the years I've found playing fast and lose with the number of hit points themselves to be an even bigger problem.</blockquote>

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