Paul Farquhar
Legend
Well, we caught one player googling the answer to a riddle on their phone. But that's only one player, it doesn't tell us anything about players in general.
Generally speaking, when you take a large group of people and give them a label, like "players", and then assume a negative characteristic about them, like cheating, you need to rethink your approach. Even if you just ask whether the group is something negative.
Players are different. Period. Each one brings a different set of characteristics to the game, and part of the fun as a DM is to recognize what makes them different and adjust for it accordingly. That applies to any tendency to 'bend the rules' as much as it does to their style of play.
Hence why I asked about groups you have actually participated in, whether as DM or as player. I am not talking about whether you think the entire abstract collection of "all players of all TTRPGs ever" would do any given thing. I'm asking about where the ones you have actually done TTRPGing with would fall, in your estimation.Generally speaking, when you take a large group of people and give them a label, like "players", and then assume a negative characteristic about them, like cheating, you need to rethink your approach. Even if you just ask whether the group is something negative.
Players are different. Period. Each one brings a different set of characteristics to the game, and part of the fun as a DM is to recognize what makes them different and adjust for it accordingly. That applies to any tendency to 'bend the rules' as much as it does to their style of play.
And then aggregating our responses as a representative sample, which makes the distinction meaningless.Hence why I asked about groups you have actually participated in, whether as DM or as player. I am not talking about whether you think the entire abstract collection of "all players of all TTRPGs ever" would do any given thing. I'm asking about where the ones you have actually done TTRPGing with would fall, in your estimation.
Which is my point as well. I've played with people that cheated and exploited loopholes. I've played with people who would never cheat or ever consider an exploit and even ignore obvious exploits because they feel too cheesy. I'd say that probably 90-95% of the people I've played with over the past decade never use extreme exploits or cheat, I don't believe anyone in my current home group have.And then aggregating our responses as a representative sample, which makes the distinction meaningless.
Ever heard of the coffee-lock?How are you defining "exploiting the rules"?
Yes, but do you regard that as an actual exploit or just playing by what the rules say? I suspect most people draw that line in different places.Ever heard of the coffee-lock?