If a DM can't cheat, can a player cheat?

Now if you know for certain he is cheating then I vote for punishing this behavior in game and out in the open. Have his opponents run up to him and just die on the his first swing, whether he hits or not. Have him find fabolous treasure and wonderful magic items. Women fall in love with him at the slightest flirtation. Kings sing his praises and enemies simply give up when they know he is coming or recognize him. In short, take away his ability to cheat but taking the fun out of it for him.

Make sure this is alright with the other players though. The trick is to make the game normal for everyone else but pave the road with gold for him. Either he'll get the hint and out grow his behavior or you will.
 

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I saw a great quote related to this a while back: "If a DM breaks the rules, it's improvising. If a player breaks the rules, it's cheating."

Since I consider it hypocritical for a DM to scold players for fudging rolls when he himself does it on occasion, there's no fudging rolls whatsoever in my campaign, no matter which side of the DM's screen you are on.
 
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I have a simple rule in my games for cheating. If I catch you cheating, your character dies. If you cheat repeatedly, you don't come back. :)

My players are in favor of this rule. :)

As a sidenote, as a DM, I do not fudge. I don't do open roles, because I prefer the ambiance of the screen, but whatever the die says, goes. I think it leads to more intersting (and less predictable) games.
 

If I'm DMing and I suspect someone or someones of cheating with dice rolls, then I put out a new table rule.

"If I didn't call for a dice roll then see the dice roll, then it wasn't rolled."

If a player was cheating repeatedly (although enforcing the first step would make this difficult), then I would talk to him outside of the game. I would inform him that his behavior is unacceptable and if he is not willing to control himself then he can't game at my table.

If, after the talking he cheated, I would disinvite him from the game.

I would not change the game as a response. I would not make it harder or easier for him. I would not take digs at him. "Subtle hints" don't work in my experience. The player can't tell if it's part of the game or if you are targeting them. And sometimes they don't know that their behavior is affecting you. Only direct communication will do to convey your displeasure and their expected change in behavior.
 

Why all the machinations?

Tell him you know he still fudges dice rolls. Ask him why he does it. Tell him it isn't in the spirit of the game and isn't fair to the other players. Tell him what you'll do next time you catch him in the act, and make sure you do it the next time you catch him in the act.

I don't know why people have to make such a big deal out of things like this. "I would be really sly about it, in such-and-such a way..." That just breeds enmity at the table, something which I think should be avoided at all costs.
 

dead said:
I have a player who occasionally fudges a dice roll. I've caught him in the act on occasion and have scolded him for it.

There are probably two main reasons as a player to do this: (a) plot immunity, (b) heroics. As an example of (a), maybe I want my character to die an honorable fighting death, not some ignoble death outside combat due to a failed save on a trap. As an example of (b), rolling a critical to take down that big bad guy.

It's worth finding out why the player is cheating. If players want plot immunity, discuss it beforehand, and arrange things so that the storyline fits reasonably well. Another example for plot immunity would be to request that one's character is never tortured or raped; or maybe someone has a phobia about cockroaches ... in either case, playing nice and having fun is about not stepping on people's sore points.

For heroism type stuff ... I'd recommend using a fate point/karma point/hero point type system. Characters get x points per session, per level, or whatever. You want to do something heroic? Go ahead, spend the point, and do something funky. But don't do it by fudging a die roll - that's not fair on the other players.

In my DM's campaign, we get one fate point per level. Currently, we have about 3 fate points each. Enough to hopefully avoid ignominious deaths. I used one to prevent my character's Sunblade being disintegrated (courtesy of another PC who was a worshipper of the deity of undead, after my PC killed a vampire - my PC has a bit of a phobia of vampires :) ). Despite this mechanic, there are times when I might let my character die and not spend a fate point. I have recently set up a Clone, and expect that my character may well die as he's probably walking into trouble ... that's ok, it suits the storyline, and I have a nice DM-approved contingency for that.

Just my thoughts ...
 

I read a lot of posts in this thread and cringe. Players need to be honest so the game is the same for everyone. In table top games I last played a character about 15 years ago, I am always DM/GM (depending on system :) )

To me, the die are just a prop, I will use them for what I deem appropriate but freely ignore them if I feel that is what is needed for the players to enjoy the game (arbitarily killing off players just because the dice says so is pointless and hardly fun for anyone!) On the other hand I expect the players to trust that what I have got planned, to play their characters and be honest. From fudging dice rolls to what next? Casting a spell an extra time ("Oops, forgot I had already cast that.") or spending more money than they have etc. None of it is allowed and I will cry foul if players try. An xp penalty for the offending player is fair (he lowered the CR of the encounter for himself, but not for others), just be very sure when you do it, if not you may find yourself with a player that is actually trying to be honest and now is pissed off.
 

Cheating is a serious problem with some groups. My baseline is always to assume a group opposes cheating, but to also give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

One of the reasons its a problem is "spotlight" time. everyone has good days and bad days with die luck. On your good days, you get to resist the powerful spell, make the difficult skill check, then kill the major bad guy with an amazing critical.

On the bad days, you're taken out of the fight with a failed save on the first round.

These balance out, over time. Everyone suffers the lows and gets to enjoy the highs. Someone who cheats gets too many highs, and is thus stealing the spotlight of attention from other players. He's taking more than his fair share of fun.

Sometimes, someone appears to have an amazing run of good luck. When that's the case, it's not unreasonable (in my opinion) to ask him to make sure he uses a big, well-marked, obvious die that everyone can see when rolling. Explain this is not to prevent cheating, but to make sure everyone knows, up front, that future good rolls are just expanded luck. Even if the guy wasn't cheating, this will prevent possible resentment later on. If he was cheating, and this stops it, the problem is still solved. In any case, in my experience if this is handled diplomatically and without accusation, it goes pretty well.

If you know for sure someone is cheating, make sure to tell them it's unacceptable. Then, go to the rolling the big die. And once you institute this rule, it's a good idea to make sure everyone (with the exception og the GM, who needs to keep information secret) is required to roll well-marked and visible dice, to prevent other resentment.

If a player seems to just be cheating to prevent a character from being killed, you might consider institutiong drama points or action dice or some other limited script-immunity mechanism that everyone can use. One reroll per game, even. Then, well-marked dice and no more player fudging tolerated.

If someone still cheats, give one warning, and explain future cheating will result in being disinvited from playing. Stck to that warning.

Spotlight time and player resentment can be serious issues, and often players don't feel it's their job to complain about such problems, leaving it to the GM to regulate them. After gaming for 23 years, I just this week had for the very first time a gamer tell me he didn't want to game with me anymore. My only recourse was to ask him to leave the game, or leave myself. As he ran one game on that night, and is roommate to two of the four other players for the other game, there was no realistic way to ask him to leave. As no one else in the group suggested I stay, I left.

The reason he gave for not wanting to game with me was that my valid, legal, toned-down from their maximum possible effectiveness characters were too powerful. As a GM, he felt he couldn't challenge my PC. As a player, my higher level of effectiveness and success made the game less fun for him. Though no one supported his claims or agreed they didn't want to play with me, two other players did say my characters were "a bit much."

Now, I would have thought that two years of gaming as a group was plenty of time to mention such problems before they rose to the "don't want to play with you" level, but apparently no one wanted to say anything. This case may have been badly handled, but the basic problem remained. Players can get very frustrated if they feel they're not getting their share of heroic action, and cheaters unfairly grab more of it.

Take steps now, to prevent a slow boil of jealousy and resentment.

Play Well!
Owen K.C. Stephens
 
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I definitely cheat when I DM. I have fudged rolls to ensure party survival multiple times. I do try to limit myself, however, and if the PCs are blatantly outclassed (which usually happens only if they pick a stupid fight or do something else puts them in a bad situation) they will almost certainly die anyway - I am not willing to fudge that much. I also never fudge crits or fumbles. Once, and once only I 'allowed' my players to cheat. I had miscalculated on the power level of an encounter and they were therefore doing really badly, though suddenly all the luck seemed to be with them. I knew that they must be cheating from elementary knowledge of statistics, but I said nothing and pretended not to notice - the encounter was so deadly because of my mistake anyway. Some months later they admitted to having cheated in that encounter and I told them that I knew already and also the reason why I allowed it, as well as telling them not to do it again. :)

The only time I cheated as a player was when I was joining a new group and rolling up a new character on my own, as was standard policy in the group. I rolled so incredibly well that it would almost certainly be unbelievable to the DM and the players who did not know me yet that I decided to cheat and make the character more average...
 

Roman said:
The only time I cheated as a player was when I was joining a new group and rolling up a new character on my own, as was standard policy in the group. I rolled so incredibly well that it would almost certainly be unbelievable to the DM and the players who did not know me yet that I decided to cheat and make the character more average...

Heh, I know the feeling. But in my case it was a character on this board rolled up on Krischinko. The stats were God awfully high, but the Dm didn;t seem to mind :)

The worst I had was rolling a character (using 4d6, drop the lowest), which had four 18s, a 16 and a disspointing 13 in the last stat. I refused to play it (and it was rolled in front of the group!)
 

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