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How often do you cheat?

On average as a DM, how often do you fudge dice rolls or change stats mid-encounter?

  • Multiple Times During Every Combat

    Votes: 10 4.6%
  • About Once per Combat

    Votes: 14 6.4%
  • Once Every Few Combats

    Votes: 73 33.5%
  • Very Rarely or Only in Deep Immersion Campaigns

    Votes: 71 32.6%
  • Never - Let the Dice Fall Where They May

    Votes: 50 22.9%

EvilGM

Explorer
DMs can't cheat, but anyhow... every once in awhile I'll fudge something or change something on the fly.
Not with rolls, however, the players roll attacks against themselves and damage for the monsters.
 

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kolikeos

First Post
takasi said:
Hopefully this question only applies to DMs...

How often do you roll behind the screen, see a crit that would kill a player, and say "miss"?

Or roll for the reoccuring BBEG's save vs disintegrate, see a 1 and say "he saves"?

How often do you roll behind the screen?

How often do you tell players what the monster's to-hit is? Or their saves? Or their hit points? Do you ever do this?
When a DM does it, it is not cheating. When a player does it, it is.
Both of your examples apply to me.
Regretfully, i do tell the players about the monster's AC, HP etc. but I'm trying to stop.
 

Lordgrae

First Post
Its pretty rare, and when I do fudge the rolls, it usually in the favor of the players. Last game my BBEG and her pet were floored in the first round or two by Color Spray from a wand. (DC 11, rolled a 3, and a 4.)
 

Lord Ipplepop

First Post
I "cheat" so rarely, that on the occasions I do, the players never know. I roll all of my combat and save rolls for the encounters out in the open so the players can see I am not cheating them, in case they die.
I do, on occasion, change the encounter stats on the fly.
Example:
I am running an after school program for the local Middle School one day a week where the kids play 2ed D&D. The faculty advisor had them roll up 3rd level characters to give them a better chance of survival. I threw a nightmare at them, only to find out that the faculty advisor gave them no magical weapons. As they had NO clue what they were facing, I immediately dropped the creature's AC to 0 to give them a chance to hit it (albeit a small one). Unfortunately, the class learned the most heartbreaking rule of all as I took 3 characters from them in that encounter.
 

delericho

Legend
As DM, I almost always roll out in the open, and almost never cheat. I do set up the house rules for the campaign to reduce lethality somewhat (mostly in the form of fixed hit points at 75% of max these days), but that's it.

As a player, I will only cheat on hit point rolls. Since 3rd edition was released, I have never rolled higher than a 1 for hit points per level with any character I have played (not that there have been too many of those). So, if the DM is going to insist on rolling hit points, and isn't going to institute some sort of reroll mechanism, then I'll cheat and have done. The alternative has long since ceased to be any fun.
 

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