D&D General If they thought they could get away with it...

[FrozenNorth]

I answered that I would respond below, because I can’t take the players as a monolith. Of my 15 regular players (across 3 campaigns), I am confident that 13 would neither cheat nor exploit. Of the remaining 2, they wouldn’t cheat, but would probably exploit (for a given value of exploit).

I take exploit to mean “argue for an interpretation of the rules even if the interpretation did not make sense in context”.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Was this something the player was expected to know in advance, even though the text doesn't say it?

I would say that 5e has a sufficient number of complicated rules interactions that it is unreasonable to expect a DM to know about all of them ahead of time, or even, necessarily address all of them in a Session Zero in advance, particularly interactions that seem to defy common sense.

That said, if a player was relying on a particular rules interaction and did not expect an adverse ruling, it is only fair to allow the character to modify their action, and even re-spec their character.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I would say that 5e has a sufficient number of complicated rules interactions that it is unreasonable to expect a DM to know about all of them ahead of time, or even, necessarily address all of them in a Session Zero in advance, particularly interactions that seem to defy common sense.

That said, if a player was relying on a particular rules interaction and did not expect an adverse ruling, it is only fair to allow the character to modify their action, and even re-spec their character.

More my concern is, the spell as written does not have the Concentration mechanic. That isn't some weird interpretive thing. It literally does not have that property written on it, and if it was meant to have that property, they've had eight and a half years to add it as errata and haven't. Hence, if I were the player casting this spell, I'd feel (I think pretty justifiably) frustrated that the DM decided, for "realism," that the spell now has a property it doesn't actually have as written in the text. It would require a relatively unusual situation for this to come up, I do recognize that, but like...adding concentration to spells because it "doesn't make sense" that they weren't written with it would be a major red flag for me.

 

[nevin]

Rate the accuracy of the following statement for games you have participated in (whether as player or DM/GM/etc.):

"If the players thought they could get away with it, they would cheat and/or exploit the rules."

Should you have participated in many games, consider it a sort of average across all the games you've played/run: in general, which rating would describe the groups you'd been in?

If you simply cannot choose just one answer, I've allowed up to 3, for example if you find that the answer is totally game and/or group dependent (e.g. players are more willing to do these things in D&D but less willing to do them in 13th Age, or whatever.)

Depends on the players. no one size fits all amswer

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Depends on the players. no one size fits all amswer

I mean, you literally don't have to pick one size fits all. You can pick three sizes this day.

 

[Clint_L]

More my concern is, the spell as written does not have the Concentration mechanic. That isn't some weird interpretive thing. It literally does not have that property written on it, and if it was meant to have that property, they've had eight and a half years to add it as errata and haven't. Hence, if I were the player casting this spell, I'd feel (I think pretty justifiably) frustrated that the DM decided, for "realism," that the spell now has a property it doesn't actually have as written in the text. It would require a relatively unusual situation for this to come up, I do recognize that, but like...adding concentration to spells because it "doesn't make sense" that they weren't written with it would be a major red flag for me.

I make all kinds of changes to RAW. My players have never complained. Is there an experienced DM who hasn’t modded the game?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I make all kinds of changes to RAW. My players have never complained. Is there an experienced DM who hadn’t modded the game?

There is a difference between, "these are my house rules which we will be playing under," and "every time something works a way I don't think makes sense, I'm going to rewrite it and you must abide by the rewritten rules." The former is exactly equivalent to agreeing to play a ruleset RAW, it just happens to be "5e with Clint_L characteristics" as the ruleset. The latter, there isn't even a ruleset one can agree to play. Very, very big difference. Much as there is a difference between interpreting law (which, often, is very literally called "making rulings"), and (re)writing law.

 

[Clint_L]

There is a difference between, "these are my house rules which we will be playing under," and "every time something works a way I don't think makes sense, I'm going to rewrite it and you must abide by the rewritten rules." The former is exactly equivalent to agreeing to play a ruleset RAW, it just happens to be "5e with Clint_L characteristics" as the ruleset. The latter, there isn't even a ruleset one can agree to play. Very, very big difference. Much as there is a difference between interpreting law (which, often, is very literally called "making rulings"), and (re)writing law.

I don’t know what to tell you. The player concerned is literally a lawyer and he had no issues. We strongly prioritize story logic. This works out in the player’s favour more often than not.

Edit: my usual rulings are “rules as written, no, but it seems awesome so I’ll allow it,” or “rules as written yes but it’s dumb in this situation so nah.” The former happens far, far more frequently, the latter in situations that are generally obvious. Never been an issue.

 

[nevin]

There is a difference between, "these are my house rules which we will be playing under," and "every time something works a way I don't think makes sense, I'm going to rewrite it and you must abide by the rewritten rules." The former is exactly equivalent to agreeing to play a ruleset RAW, it just happens to be "5e with Clint_L characteristics" as the ruleset. The latter, there isn't even a ruleset one can agree to play. Very, very big difference. Much as there is a difference between interpreting law (which, often, is very literally called "making rulings"), and (re)writing law.

that come's back down to a discussion of is the DM running a game or playing against the players. the first is fun the second probably requires psychiatric help to fix.

 

[DMZ2112]

My attitude about cheating in RPGs has always been that the cheater is really only hurting themself.

That being said, every cheater I've ever known has had a moderately strong defense in their ignorance of the rules. Players in my acquaintance just don't seem to cheat, at least not beyond the occasional failure to speak up when the dungeon master forgets about that ongoing acid damage.

Exploiters, on the other hand, I've been dealing with at a distressingly regular interval since the '90s. In my experience, many -- possibly even most -- players have a bit of the exploiter in them, just waiting to find the right unintentional synergy in the rules. The primary difference, as I see it, is that a cheater is embarrassed or apologetic when caught, while an exploiter can't wait to show off their "accomplishment." I take great pleasure in letting them finish their explanation before declaring that it doesn't work the way they think at my table.

It's gotten way worse since Reddit got it into its collective head that it could mandate to individual dungeon masters how to run their tables by sheer weight of idiocy.

So for me, my responses encompass the range between might and wouldn't cheat, and would and might exploit, which I didn't have quite enough choices to represent. Poll would have been much better if it were two polls, asking the questions independently, followed by an analysis comparing the results.

Everyone should have learned to stop posting polls her long ago. People suddenly turn into expert statistician professors with a directive to judge your polls as a master thesis when you post a poll here.

It doesn't take an expert statistician to identify a bad poll. It may take one to write a truly good poll, particularly a complex opinion poll, but that just reinforces @Ruin Explorer 's point.