How do you handle campaign cheaters?

[the Jester]

Here's what I think I would do.

Next session, start off by telling the group you know what happened. Explain to them that you feel hurt and betrayed.

I would not keep this player in my group, personally. Your game will only improve for having given him the boot. If this were impossible for some reason (he hosts the game, f'rinstance), I would make the players all start over with 1st-level pcs and a new campaign. No WLD for them, sorry. I know this penalizes the group for the actions of one player, but one of the best ways to encourage good gaming behavior is through peer pressure, and if the other players know they'll take the hit for dumbhead's bad behavior, they will prolly try to help mitigate that behavior in the first place. Especially if they knew about his bad behavior. I would also discuss this philosophy of collective pressure with them. If they object, see if they can help arrange it so you can give dumbhead the boot.

This is the kind of behavior that kills good games.

I hope he's reading this, and I'd like to know what he was thinking. If you're out there, cheating guy, wtf???

 

[reveal]

I've always found this mentality odd. I used to have a friend who would go through an entire FPS game, like Quake, cheating. And not after they had beaten it once, but the very first time. I never undestood that because, to me, it takes away all the fun in playing and discovering new things; not knowing what's behind the door and what not.

If it were me, I'd kick him out for 2 reasons:

1) It's a huge breach of trust. A vast majority of DMs use publicly available material in their campaigns. In the future, how can you trust him not to look through things you are going to run? Now you've got to hide everything from the group for fear of them buying the [insert any accesory here] or flipping through it in a gaming store.

2) You spent at least $100 on the danged thing and now you have to toss it aside because the whole thing is pointless. If they know to go from point A to point B to point D, making sure to bypass point C, there is no fun, no mystery, no... nothing.

 

[derelictjay]

I've known before hand about an adventure my DM was using (either because I read it or DMed it), but I never used that knowledge in a game. Only once I was caught smiling about something stupid the party was about to do and I knew better, the DM asked me why I was smiling and I fessed up, but I told him I wasn't going to use the info to ruin the fun for my fellow players or for him, plus my character didn't know. And one time I did go back and reread the adventure we were in, just to figure out how I would have ran it differently, but like I said the info never made it into the game.

Kick the guy out, maybe not, as players are sometimes hard to come by. But make sure he understands that he's walking a tightrope and the next time you won't be so lienient. And keep him in the dog house for his actions, and make sure he understands why, he'll probably quit if he doesn't understand or thinks its unfair, but if he doesn't he'll probably be a much better player.

 

[painandgreed]

Rough call. Too many times I've had other GMs say "we're using this source book so nobody can read or buy it". My respose is something like "I bought it two months ago and am already using it im my Thursday night group as the DM". With using pre-made resources, there's always going to be people who have the same stuff if just to read it for entertainment value. You just have to deal or modify it in such cases. even though it may be hard to change a huge campaign resource.

In the case of somebody actually cheating and doing so only because they are in a game using the resorce, then I'd get nasty. I make it clear that anythign the players are capable of doing, so are the monsters. If they start cheating, then I would tkae up the opportunity to cheat back so that they are at a net loss for their cheating. It sounds like it is limited to one person, depending on how bad the cheating is, I'd resort to making him a likely target for various monsters to changing encounters so that if they are treated with knowledge from the orignal source, it would be disastorous. The mosnters start getting their own information on the PCs and perhaps working a bit more organized than usual would probalby do it. Change allies in the resource to enemies and enemies to allies. The device they were supposed to break, is now the thing they need to keep, ect.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

If you're not going to boot him (which you should, because this patten will just repeat itself), then change stuff. Change the good stuff. Major KEWL PHAT L00T can just be a tub o' copper pieces. There's no reason you have to stick to the exact treasure in the mod. Even if you need to keep some of it for plot reasons, a lot of it can still be different.

 

[kitsune9]

Cheating

I personally cannot stand cheaters. It's just extremely offensive. If someone wants to "win" all the time, what's the point in playing D&D? I need my battles harrowing and down to the wire. I hate cakewalks. I need the unknown. That's why most of us play rpgs--the sense of wonder is there (and we get to kick butt too).

If I was the DM, I would first kick out the cheating player (curt email of goodbye), put away WLD (because the other players now have knowledge of the mod), and run something else. If they throw a fit, go find another group. I've personally walked out of one gaming group who constantly cheated (they would roll the dice and grab them before anyone who see the results and claim it's a "20", "mysterious modifiers", purposely use confusing character sheets of their creation, so one cannot audit them effectively, etc).

Another gaming group, the DM could never stamp out their cheating and always ran his own homebrew-modules as opposed to buying any, because every attempt he tried to run a published mod, he'd see or know that ALL his players had copies of it. It's bad enough our regular lives have to deal with politics, lying bosses, and a myriad of other situations that are often beyond our control, but our hobbies should be time where we can get together and have a good time. Cheaters destroy that, plain and simple.

 

[BlackSilver]

Thank you for your response

One of my players read this thread and called me at work.

Seems that there is a movement within our group to right this wrong- thou I am not certain how they will, but they are smart and with all that has taken place with regards to this Player- well I expect more then a slap on his wrist.

FWIW- I would rather not see him disappear from the group, he's a good player and aside from two incidents a good person (see this thread and another thread about insulting behavior some months back).

Almost forgot- a lot of what he learned was from here on ENWorld. Reading the threads about the WLD, I guess there are more spoilers on EN then I realized. So remember that while you’re talking about campaigns others are trying to run them, and Players are reading them.

Again thank you for your response and your help, it was very good of you all.

 

[El Ravager]

I have heard the chorus of 'kick the dude out' and I gotta ask, who the heck do you people play with?

I DM a game and my players are made up of my two roommates, a friend I have known for 9 years, and two friends I have known for 5. Its pretty rare that I have DM'd for someone who wasn't a friend. I don't think I have ever been in a DnD game where the majority, if not all, involved were not close friends. Kickin them out would have reprocussions way beyond the game.

A sticky situation to be sure, and maybe you don't necessarilly game with folks you know well. But it surprises me how many people's first answer was 'boot the dude'.

I would definately bring up the subject at the next game and talk it over. Find out the reasons why, and state that it is not acceptable. I would also point out that WLD was a pretty hefty investment. It ain't a cheap book thus having it ruined is all the worse.

=============
El Rav

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

I have heard the chorus of 'kick the dude out' and I gotta ask, who the heck do you people play with?

Same here. My group is a core of my wife, my two sons, and close friends from outside gaming. I wouldn't game with anyone I didn't trust to house sit for me.

As for the solution, heck. Next Mirror of Opposition solves everything. It flips them into the Mirror Universe, because they were summoned as the dupes by the mirror world party. Then, reverse everything. Maps, treasure, alignments, etc. Mechanically, an identical dungeon.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

If it's truly pathological -- actively sneaking around to learn secrets about the adventure to "win" the game -- it's boot time.

If it's just things picked up here and there -- make enough changes so that a little out of game knowledge will get him into trouble, or embarrass him (that neat magic item he secretly discovered the hiding place to? It's cursed. The solution to the riddle? It's changed. Major encounter? New monster. etc.)

I'm running City of the Spider Queen for my group right now. At least two of my six players own it and/or have read it, one or two others have started it but never played the whole thing. Does it bother me? No, for two reasons. First, I've got a great group, who keep out of game knowledge out of game -- so no impact. Second, I've changed, tweaked, added, and subtracted enough that they can't really count on anything printed other than the general outline. Sure, I use things as printed -- they just don't know which things.