D&D General "When I DM, I Try to Make Sure to Lay Eyes on Every Roll My Players Make to Confirm It" (a poll)

[Ralif Redhammer]

I'll admit, I got no small degree of schadenfreude from watching him have to finally take the dice rolls he got.

Ouch. Never feels good to hear someone tell you they're a cheat without telling you they're a cheat.

Dice rolls, almost exclusively. I eventually started recording the numbers he was giving me during session and realized that the only time he "rolled" below a 16 was on initiative rolls.

Back in 4e, I suspect he might have been deliberately getting the rules wrong to inflate his AC, but considering the quantity of options and how they interfaced, it could've just as easily been legitimate or a legit mistake.

How, just by dice rolls, or manipulating rules, other players or all 3?

 

[beancounter]

I will only do this if a player seems to be repeatedly lucky.

I also require everyone to give their dice a full roll. (I once had a player who would give the dice a very abbreviated roll (almost just dropping them). They weren't trick dice, but I suspect that that he positioned the dice in his hand just so, and was very practiced at how much force he used to "roll" the dice.

 

[Umbran]

I game with my players because they're my friends.

Why would I call them friends if I don't trust them?

One GM I know took that one step further. He said, "You are all my friends. I want my friends to be happy. If fudging an occasional die roll makes you happy, I am good with that. If you need to do it a lot to be happy, talk to me, and we'll see if we can find something else we can change to help you be happy."

He ran a pretty good game. Not deep on characterization, but fun.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Even on VTT I don't really pay attention to the rolls per se - if I've got another window open to look at a statblock I'll just ask them to say what they rolled.

So "false," though I suppose I reserve the right to check.

 

[Andvari]

I watch character generation and level up HP rolls like a hawk, though. I usually convince players to not use random generation, as I find that works better.

But I once had a player who insisted on rolling as he found it more fun. And while I completely get that, as soon as he rolled a low score (7 or 8 IIRC) he immediately tried to cheat by saying “that one didn’t count” and quickly rolled again.

 

[Yaarel]

We roll dice in play sight of each other. It is more fun that way. I trust my players. It is just out custom.

 

[Shiroiken]

I used to, but fortunately play with a good group that I no longer worry about cheating. Although, if I played a one-shot or convention something... I probably wouldn't care enough to check anyway. If I was to play with an untested group for a longer duration, I'd periodically watch, but not every time.

If I don't trust them to report their rolls accurately, why am I gaming with them?

Because sometimes they're your friends. I've played boardgames with one known cheater, and dealing with him just wasn't worth the effort. We'd just ignore whatever his score was and let him feel like king [bleep].

 

[prabe]

Because sometimes they're your friends. I've played boardgames with one known cheater, and dealing with him just wasn't worth the effort. We'd just ignore whatever his score was and let him feel like king [bleep].

Sounds as though you weren't monitoring his rolls, either. So ... either they're honest, and you don't need to; or they're your friend, and you don't care to. Gotta say, I'm more like at least one previous poster who wound up unable to remain friends with someone who cheated; there's no right-wrong judgment here, just different people being different.

 

[Seramus]

I don't watch. I trust my friends not to cheat, and in the rare case they might once in a while, then I accept they might have needed it to make their day brighter. I just let it go. It's only when the cheating becomes blatant that I start taking an interest.

I had a moon druid player once who never seemed to go down in combat. I trusted him for a long time, but eventually started keeping track out of curiosity. Sure enough, he was fudging his HP. After we talked about it OOCly, he also admitted to not picking his prepared spells every morning. He just used anything he wanted from the whole druid spell list.

 

[pogre]

Years ago I had a player in my long term WFRP campaign who would cheat occasionally. He was a good guy and fun to play with. I eventually noticed he usually was fudging dice when another PC was relying on him. When my brother asked if I knew the player was cheating - I said I did and if it made the game more fun for him, I was OK with that.