Tips for DM's. Spotting cheating players.

[Zappo]

In my group, a dice is cockeyed if you can't put another dice of the same type and size on top of it without it falling. Cuts down on the bitching.

 

[Eben]

Guidelines we use to keep discussions to a minimum:

only roll if and when the DM tells you,
always roll where everyone can see your die,
DM has final rule as to a die being cockeyed or not,
write down what you're taking along as equipment.

And since we're not playing for money, there really is no point in cheating.

 

[Hygric]

One I have noticed in the past is someone sitting a little bit away from everyone else and using fancy dice that are virtually impossible to read from more than 3 feet away. It was amazing how well he could roll under those circumstances.

And Bagpuss, I can second you when you say "-12, I'm dead" to that sort of DM. We had one who would blatantly fudge for the first half of a fight against the PC's, and then realise he had gone to far and balatantly fudge in the favour of the PC's for the rest of the fight. Not much fun. I even cheated by loosing 15 hit points so that a character of mine would die with that DM. Odd.

 

[Adlon]

Two things come to mind...

Gem Dice: those that come with the numbers needing to be crayoned in. Even the one rolling the dice needs to squint to read them.....

And the player who is rolling his d20 'in the background' while the DM is dealing with another player, as if he's testing a d20 for how well it rolls. Suddenly, he 'just' rolled an 18 on his Spot check, which the DM did NOT call for.

Rather than make a copy of a characer sheet, I update my index cards, which have all the pertinent stats/info on them.
For tracking things like XP's, and items/trinkets, I use my journal, which I update after every game session. The journals make good reading many months into a game, too.

 

[Mark]

Let's not forget players who always forget to choose their spells until they know what they are encountering.

 

[Squire James]

I haven't run into any players who cheated over my 10 or so years of DM-ing. Players with unholy luck with dice, yes, cheaters no (I've seen this guy's rolls, and I've seen him passing the same dice over to other players who get less results from them). I've seen this guy roll a 20 in a situation where he needed one to succeed in his current action on more than one occasion. It's gotten so my encounters are designed to take his good rolling into account... and a Total Party Kill almost happened (and that particular player's character DID die) when he when he actually started rolling normal values for a few rounds!

I make it a point to make sure everyone understands that D&D is generally a cooperative game, not a competitive one, and that I am GLAD when players defeat my diabolical schemes! If one of my players start getting evasive with dice rolls, I would simply gather my stuff and go home, and let peer pressure settle the rest.

 

[Drawmack]

I only ever cheated once. In one game I was in the general rule was wait for the DM to call for intiative then roll it. I discussed it with the DM and since I sat right in front of him I got permission to roll initiative while he was doing the description. He said he could see me cause of where I sat. After a couple of months I realized he was reading from the cards and not looking at anything. Sure he heard a roll but he didn't know who. One time I rerolled init for a better roll. I was the only one to go before the monster which got a crit when it attacked me and killed me. Last time I ever cheated.

Anyway as far as my campaign. I personally do not care if the players cheat. The player rolls are where EVERYONE can see them. All rolls for skills/combat are announced or asked for before they are rolled. (I don't have to ask for all rolls the player can say I'm going to sense motive and roll it) I let the players decide. Everyone starts rolling awsome they'll come up against stuff with harder DCs. I had one of my current players attempt to cheat and I thought he was going to get lynched by the other players. I don't have to watch for cheaters, the other players do it. BTW: On the cocked die. I let the player decide but once they decide it is permanent for the rest of the game. In our first session a player rolled a 1 will save and called cocked die cause it was on papers and table. His reroll was a 20 again on paper and table. I made him reroll because he considers that cocked. To this day he clears a nice spot to roll his dice.

 

[Dark Dragon]

I trust my players (and their dices). They roll always open so everybody can see the result.
Should they cheat (and should I know about it later), I'll cheat too

Funny thing: in critical situations all rolls were either very bad (rolled a 1 on a save) or the best (rolled a 20 to hit the rope of a hung and suffocating PC, success on stabilize check at -9 with a 09, dismarming the villain with a nat. 20...)

 

[Sixchan]

I have found that keeping the current hp of the players hidden from them tones down the hit point cheating that sometimes goes on. I'm also keeping their xp total from them, which prevents the all-so-common (at least IMC) "All I need is an orc to level up...let's go xp huntin'!" Most of these measures are in place to keep the player from cheating overmuch...

That's Cheating?
Jeez, if my players are just short of levelling up, I by all means let them go XP hunting. It's usually a nice change from the very plot-heavy adventures I have them doing. I've never been against a little XP hunting between adventures (it's only ever enough to bring them up a level if they're more than 3/4 of the way there, though). Sometimes, we have XP hunting sessions while I still need to prepare the next adventure...

My players are very nice about not cheating. Sure, they joke about "That was a practice" and stuff, but they're really good about it. And they HATE it when I cheat. I joked once that my dice were weighted...they went through every single dice rolling it a few times to make sure I wasn't cheating.

 

[Squire James]

My old D&D group from many moons ago called that activity "hunting Chaotic squirrels".

In my new D&D group, when someone's within 100 XP of going up they are teleported to some warped version of "Orc and a Pie", then pretty much gain the required XP automatically. Though the last time this happened, I felt like taking half the charges from the Wand of Knock that was responsible for this shortfall!