When does a DM Cheat?

[Skade]

My non-gamer roommate sat through the last few minutes of my session tonight, and posed a question to me. Do I ever cheat? He had just witnessed a discussion between a player and I about rolls, which revolved around his rolling a d20 to determine whether he passed his spell failure roll. Being 10% rolling anything above a 2 would be mathmatecally correct, but I explained I would prefer he roll at least a d10, if not the pair. This was only a matter of preference, both are accurate. Since I prefer to see my players rolls, and I roll behind a screen, my roommate wondered if the ability to cheat was a priveldge of the DM, and if so should it be. So now, I post the question to you.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I cheat to protect the lives of the characters. As a DM, I occasionally throw an encounter at them that they can't handle, at which time its really my fault and not the fault of the PC's. In those cases I usually find a way to keep them alive, even when their opponents should have slaughtered them, ground them up, and served PC burgers to all their evil friends. I will also cheat for the opposite reason. If they've just killed my arch villain after 2 rounds of combat, I'm going to do something to keep the encounter interesting. He might teleport away at the last second to a location where he can heal up. He might just have more hit points than he really should have, or I might equip him with a magic item to ballance things out a bit more.

When I don't cheat is when the party members get themselves killed through their own foolishness. I had a 2nd edition game where the character was 8th level, down to 16 HP, and decided to go mess with 3 neo-orogs by herself. She didn't know that they weren't ordinary orcs, and she was so certain that she could take them herself that I didn't pull any punches when the completely oblitterated her.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I've occasionally pulled a punch to avoid a TPK.

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Example : Some suped-up zombies with DR. Three of six characters unconscious, including the cleric. The fighter with the only magic weapon is still up, but low on hit points... and then I roll a critical.

The crit would have killed the fighter, the zombies would have walked all over the other two characters... but the roll was behind the screen, so I ignored the crit and called a low damage.

The fighter managed to beat off the remaining zombies, the party survived - and were left with an encounter that almost killed them, but they managed to just pull through victorious. They loved it.

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Example : The dragon is hovering, with four claw attacks and a bite attack, and has two characters in reach. All the attack rolls were successful - it would have been bite, claw, claw - death - cleave, claw, claw - death.

By ignoring the bite attack, it became claw, claw, claw - unconscious - cleave, claw - unconscious.

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I have no problem ignoring the occasional roll if it keeps an entire party being wiped out. A PC death - not such a big deal. There's always Raise Dead. But a TPK is less cool if it can be avoided.

-Hyp.

 

[Kal Skid]

Only when the situation requires it. And no, I don't mean a PC dying--I mean whenever plot hooks come unhinged and can't be repair by normal means.

"Actually, the Drow staggers back to his feet and activates a teleportation device," instead of "Your mighty warhammer shatters the skull of the almighty plot hook, ruining this campaign and foiling hours of prep. Thanks!"

 

[S'mon]

Personally, I never cheat - I do all rolls in the open and the dice fall where they may. I wouldn't describe GMing cheating to keep PCs alive as an 'abuse of trust' though. Cheating to preserve a favoured NPC or plotline, maybe. Even then, if the players have been informed that the GM will 'alter rolls to fit his vision', or whatever, and they're ok with it, I really don't see a problem. The only real abuse would be if the GM lied to his players by telling them he never fudged rolls, but did so in secret.

 

[S'mon]

I remember one game I played in where our party, around 3rd-4th level I think, were attacked by about 30 or so Yuan-Ti awakened from stasis-sleep (don't think they were using most of their magic powers, so they were about CR3 each), the Yuan-Ti enemy leader was CR 8 or so. The inexperienced DM had totally screwed up in terms of what makes a survivable encounter - although to be fair, the reason they were all awakened like that was due to a traitorous PC in our party, who then buggered off and left us all to die.
We were trapped in the dungeon with Yuan-Ti on all sides. We fought incredibly hard and well ("like Warrior-Poets", to quote a certain film) but there was no way on earth we were going to win, until the DM reduced the Yuan-Ti leader's hp by 20 from 67 to 47, which meant we _just_ killed it and survived the hardest fight I've ever seen. In that case, I can forgive the DM for 'cheating', and I kinda wish he hadn't told us afterwards about reducing the leader's hp.

 

[Hypersmurf]

In that case, I can forgive the DM for 'cheating', and I kinda wish he hadn't told us afterwards about reducing the leader's hp.

That's certainly key.

You never tell them you fudged a roll to keep them alive

-Hyp.

 

[Berandor]

I voted "at whim", but only because I cheat, but not to protect my plot.

As a DM, I must be prepared for my plots to dissolve into meaningless sidetreks early on, as well as for my players not solving the opening riddle.
I also must be prepared to let my NPCs die, even early in the campaign.

But I cheat to save PCs, and to strengthen the drama. If I see that my players are making toast of the big bad, I'd perhaps give him a one-shot healing contingency (or the like) in order to make the combat harder, but let the NPC then fight to the death (he'd be death now, anyway). The players fight a giant stone golem, and he's at 2 hp, and two players are still unscathed? What if the golem suddenly heals 50 hp?
Two more rounds of hoping ensue.

On the other hand, if sheer bad luck leads to the end of a character, I might prevent it by changing the result or the like.
A character tries to save his dying comrade, but is shot by a crossbow, fallls below 0 hp, and therefore falls down 30ft as their grown wings (alter self) don't suppport them anymore? Perhaps the falling damage will be 3d6 = 1, 2, 2 = 5 points of damage, reducing him to -8 instead of instant stupid death.

Berandor

 

[dren]

Bow to the Will of the Dice..........

Fudge dice rolls - nah - I don't use dice roll, I just determine the number at a my whim, which includes things like monster stats, damage done, wandering monsters, etc

Oh yeah, I really don't use rules either. they can change at any time depending upon how I feel about the player. If they bring me chocolate or cash in small unmarked bills, they usually do fine.

<End Sarcasm, here>

No, wait a second. I'm sorry, that only happens in my dream games, because players usually care if you don't jerk them around. Being honest with them is better in the long run. As a DM you can bend game reality, which should enable you to get around anything without fudging dice rolls or cheating.

If something went horribly wrong, say to the players, ooops, I MADE A MISTAKE. Hit the re-wind button, and re-play the scenario. Have a celestial raise them. Let them awake from a dream. It was all foreshadowing events. A high level cleric casts reverse time. Etc...

It's taken me 10+ years to be a reasonably "fair" (I won't say good) DM, 90% of the time if there's a problem, it's mine because I misplanned the thing. But whatever the dice say, they rule the game.

A DM is another kind of player, the dice are the only god the game has ever needed. The more I play, the more I learn to trust the game completely to the dice. Whatever happens, guess what, it's still only a game!

 

[Kriskrafts]

I cheat to protect the lives of the characters.

I've only done this once. The dice roll had the player's character being decapitated by a vorpal blade. In real life a very close relative of that player had died that week, and the player had come to the game as a distraction from the family grief. I therefore decided that his long-term playing character dying then would not be a good thing, so just had the sword do a lot of damage instead.