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

[Arnwyn]

As others have mentioned already, yes it is cheating. By definition. Whether you and the other group members are okay with that is another issue entirely.

I mean, the game us DMs run is *for the players*

No, it isn't. Just FYI.

 

[ruleslawyer]

A GM with a pet NPC who is always better than the PCs because the rolls are fudged is cheating as much as any player.

I'll submit that the problem here isn't the "cheating," but the DM's poor attitude and failure to run a game to the enjoyment and satisfaction of all concerned (i.e., bad DM-ing).

My plot device NPCs (including, since I run an FR campaign, Elminster) aren't protected by DM fudging; I just ignore the die rolls. Why my PCs would ever want to attack Elminster is beyond me (he's provided invaluable advice and assistance to them on a number of occasions), but if they did, I'd just ignore the dice. After all, they're hardly likely to win in combat against a CR 39 opponent anyway...

 

[Trickstergod]

OTOH, some GM's accept that some NPC's are allowed to be walking plot devices, a la Elminster.

Maybe I'm mistaken in this, but wasn't a major part of Elminster's point that he represented to the players that, no matter how big their PC's got, there was always going to be someone bigger and better then them?

I've always considered Elminster to be possibly the worst offenders when it comes to pet NPC's, for the simple fact that most pet NPC's are confined to individual campaigns, whereas Elminster is widely published. He seems the prime example of what a bad NPC represents, in my opinion.

Not that I think that walking plot devices are bad things. I will say, though, that if PC goals begin having a conflict of interests with a plot device in some way, the PC's come first. I've seen my share of plot device characters that just seemed to railroad PC's or overshadow them or offer the DM a PC (and typically a superior one at that).

 

[Patlin]

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.

In my opinion, victory is cheapened when fudging is accepted. I don't like it at all, and I don't do it as a player *or* as a GM. Very rarely, we've had a total party (actually, I think two of us ran away, but it was a disaster) kill and at the end of it decided to do the last battle over, and in my opinion that is greatly preferable... you know when it's happened, so you know when it hasn't.

That said, the only incident of player cheating I can recall was a lot worse than fudging dice rolls. I had created a list of all the nobles in my homebrew world's major kingdon, with all sorts of notes on personality, motivation, heraldic symbols, battlecries, and other stuff. Naturally, I used a computer to do this.

One of my players came to me and informed me that another player had stolen a copy of the list. The printer had misfed, and an almost perfect copy had gone into the trash. The guilty player had taken it to the other players in the campaign, trying to figure out how to use the stolen information to his advantage. Fortunately, probably realizing how much work I had put into that silly list, the other players did not think that stealing the DM's notes was cool. I was pretty p*ss*d.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I have hero points to allow for some legal cheating. Spend a hero point to guarantee success on a roll.

That said, we have one player who is sloppy with his character stats, and his rolls seem to be remarkably successful more often than not. (I have to say that I haven't caught him directly, intentionally cheating -- but there's sufficient sloppiness and enough of a trend toward success that I'm a bit suspicious.)

 

[DragonLancer]

Cheating is cheating. Its ok if your sitting at home and cheat on a PC or playstation game, thats different. You don't cheat (as a player) in a RPG.

If I found a player cheating (and I have in the past) then we have a quiet word. if he still cheats, he's out of the group and on his way home.

Nuff said.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Maybe I'm mistaken in this, but wasn't a major part of Elminster's point that he represented to the players that, no matter how big their PC's got, there was always going to be someone bigger and better then them?

Yeah; no offense, but I do think you're mistaken here, TG. This is in fact the great misapprehension that has caused so much Elminster-hatred.

From Ed in a recent issue of Silven Trumpeter:

Elminster is probably the single most recognized NPC from the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. How did you create such a living personality?

I needed someone too powerful for lazy role-players to have their characters casually slay to shut him up (hence the ”has powerful magic” part,) and who could be an unreliable and cantankerous source of advice (add the ”old wise sage with major attitude” part). This gave me someone PC adventurers needed but couldn’t push around or always go running to (because he might be off saving the world somewhere else, so couldn’t they handle their scraped knees themselves for once, hmmm?).This gave me how he had to be... Mostly I wanted an old fart that could bluntly tell the emperor that he had no clothes and always get away with doing so. The guy who causes utter silence at a wild party by saying what everyone suspects but no one dares to say out loud.From that needed role, the rest of him developed, step-by-step. So he’s not a Merlin clone (though that’s the role he’s mostly playing), a Gandalf rip-off, or a Belgarath parody, and he’s not my alter ego. He’s the guy so powerful that he can take your best shot, yawn, and then stand there without retaliating, and calmly say, ”Ye seem more hostile than most adventurers who come here seeking to slay me. Why, may I ask? Is thy codpiece too tight? Crown on crooked, this morning? Bored with slaying helpless children? Or just seeking glory and too stupid to think there might be a reason for my reputation? Hmmm?”

Did you expect Elminster to become so legendary?

No, I expected Elminster to be the ‘Old Storyteller’ narrator of the Realms who introduced us to other characters and their unfolding stories, and then faded away off the pageas the harp strings thrummed, and the reader plunged into those stories. I expected him to be the old guy people went to consult (like the oracle at Delphi, whom the reader never directly sees in the old tales), rather than onstage much. However, the books people at TSR thought differently, so I ended up writing a series of Elminster books. His tale isn’t quite done yet, but the Old Mage’s legendary status is a perfect illustration of the way commercial writing works; it’s not about what you the writer want to say, it’s about what your audience wants to hear. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle grew to hate Sherlock Holmes and killed him off—and his readers demanded his return and didn’t want to buy anything else by Doyle.

So no, he's not supposed to be someone who shows the players that their PCs will never be the biggest fish in the ocean; he belongs to the hallowed tradition of MacGuffin, narrator- and plot-driver-type characters in fantasy fiction and D&D itself, whether Merlin, Belgarath, Fizban, Falx, Radoc, Canoness Y'dey, Zagig, or whoever else.

 

[Fingol]

Just wanted to say:

If a DM fudges its just as bad as when a player does. A players fudging make him more important to the story relative to the rest of those also turning up. When a DM fudges it is impossible to give everyone the same break thus roughly having the same effect.

For example: If the DM starts pulling his punches when half the team is down he is giving more importance to those left standing. He's then calling favourites. As soon as he does that he's a pretty flaky DM. Say the team survives but there are a few dead. Even if the 'story' doesn't favour those that actually brought the bad guys down; those that are dead often end up 'beholden' to the survivors in some way. What with the cost of raise etc...and to top it off they come back less 'powerful'. Thus reducing their survivability in the next encounter; waiting for another fudge session with them being the most likely to be the first down again.

If the DM wants to run a tough world then let him have the conviction to carry it through; TPK them! Else play with bigger safety margins.

If a DM is fudging everything then he might as well chuck all the dice away and read me a story. I'll listen if its a good one.

Any DM fudging can not complain about players doing the same. They might just be reacting to a bad situation.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

oddly i find players who are gonna cheat on rolls are gonna cheat on other things too. like keeping track of how many action/hero points they have left or used.

when you don't play on a regular basis it is even more of a downer. when you know last session Player Cheat used up all his Action/Hero points and this session he has 3 more.

Hmmm, more of a 'keep honest players honest' thing. The outright cheats will cheat regardless. The person tempted to cheat by a string of bad rolls is more likely to knuckle on to the action points. (And I suspect that one of the thing the outright cheats will cheat on is the number of action points they have...)

But I suspect that having the action points makes it less likely they will start cheating rather than keep cheaters honest.

The Auld Grump

 

[Shining Dragon]

I don't understand cheating. Part of the fun playing is not knowing whether the dice roll will succeed, bring much glory, or fail, bringing blood and woe.

Cheating would just remove that thrill from the game. "Oh look, I succeeded again...Ho Hum." And there isn't much left after that.