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)

[Richards]

We roll in the open so everybody can see the results, but I never go out of the way to check what everyone rolled - I trust them not to lie (or to get caught by the other players if they do). But like some other posters ahead of me, I do have one player that we all try to watch when she rolls, because she'll occasionally try to make an attack roll with a d12 if we don't catch her.

Johnathan

 

[Warpiglet-7]

This one is pretty straightforward. . .

True or False: "When I DM, I Try to Make Sure I Lay Eyes on Every Roll My Players Make to Confirm It"

I play with friends of 40 years: we were little when we met.

The asshats fell by the wayside. These guys? Our KIDS are friends. They have sleepovers. We are family.

I would rather not play than cheat them. They are stand up guys too. It’s not fun if you cheat! We are striving for a “real” win.

Cheating is dumb! When I get hot my pal jokes and says “let me see that roll!” Followed by ribbing and my not uncommon slump!

Don’t play with people you don’t trust. Life is too short.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I had a few players that obviously cheated and some that were imcredibly lucky.
In those cases I tried to look at the roll from time to time.

But otherwise, I really don't want to look at every roll. Right now we are playing online and some of us are rolling with physical dice. There hasn't been a single issue of cheating.

 

[Maxperson]

Q. "How do you know the player is lying?"

A. "Their lips are moving."

Olive juice.

 

[BrokenTwin]

I do, but only because my players are notoriously bad at math and usually report their own rolls as worse than they actually are.

 

[Argyle King]

True, but it's not an issue because my group does all rolls in the open.

Also, I take into consideration margin of success.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm not a stickler, but it's generally regarded as a faux pas at my tables to hide your rolls. So if I'm not the one seeing it, at least a few of the players are.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

For the VERY same reason that the players don't get to see all of my rolls as DM, I do not typically enforce what is otherwise my right as DM to see absolutely every one of theirs. They need to trust me. I need to trust them. Do players abuse that trust? Absolutely. It really annoys me that they don't trust me enough, or that they somehow act as if they have some right to consistent success. Do I abuse their trust? I do everything I can to be fair, and consistent, and still provide an entertaining game for all of them to participate in. I have even created/altered house rules in their favor to attempt to reinforce their trust in my DMing when I saw that for various reasons that trust had been undermined.

Sometimes players cheat just because random circumstances get them down. They've done nothing inherently wrong, nor are they being jerks - but D&D is a game based on RANDOM chance and sometimes those random rolls conspire to treat them VERY badly when they DO NOT have it coming. That can drive players to cheat. I know this because I've BEEN there as a player and just get tired of cursed dice. As a DM I try to be aware of this sort of thing happening to players and do what I can without just "cheating" myself to lessen that blow. At some point, however, THAT'S D&D. Players also need to guard against falling into the trap of confirmation bias. Dice results WILL balance out in the end but there's still mechanics underlying the odds and the differences between characters and their abilities will dictate differing chances and degrees of success/failure. Players willing and able to take their lumps will ultimately be happier with their successes than players who can't bear to see their characters EVER fail or be ineffective. Players who have to cheat repeatedly in order to succeed ultimately only cheat themselves out of satisfaction with the game overall.

 

[Agametorememberbooks]

I’ve only got one player at my table who’s what I call “a dice snatcher” wherein he’ll roll and snatch up the die before anyone would have a chance to see what he rolled. But it is well lit and we all roll out in the open, even myself.

 

[R_J_K75]

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



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.

I love when my players roll a Nat 1. And they always laugh, tell me then hilarity ensues. We played this Tuesday and the PCs were travelling down a river with Tiggly the Gnome on a flat bottom boat, So a Wereshark jumps out of the water in sharkform. lands on the deck in human form, He then commences to drink a hand keg of Old Swift Water 89 with the PCs. So the Paladin decides to attack him. H rolls "really naughty word". Even with the bad roll I ruled that he hit him with Brody the wereshark just blowing it off. he says "With the lake choppy waters I see how your sword could accidently cut me.