When I was running a game people probably cheated on their roles during character creation (which is why I think a lot of people have simply transitioned to a point buy). But I just told them to build the character they wanted, the people who really wanted to role play will embrace the characters weak points and flaws as well as their strengths. Players that are going to min/max are going to remove themselves from a game I run and find another game anyway.
The last game I played that had a cheater (it was obvious) the DM just adjusted the xp awards - he made it clear when we began play that there was going to be a roleplay bonus each session and this guy never got one.
I personally am of the opinion that because of the dynamic of the game (at least the ones I have played in - which are mostly with adults) that cheating only hurts the cheater. Others in the group will interact less with that player, that character, and the DM will find ways to adjust.
The real issue is when there is someone at the table who is really distracting - we had one (same cheater actually) and eventually the DM asked him to leave - I give the DM (Zach) a lot of credit it takes a lot of composure to fire a player in a tactful way and he did.
In 20+ years of D&D I've never seen the issue tackled or even dealt with (steps back waiting to be corrected).
It's regularly addressed in Online RPG gaming but is never mentioned in pen & paper RPG's. D&D relies on the honour system, well that's open to abuse right?
What DM's have experiences with it, is it a widespread issue or does it even happen? Is it a taboo subject, a dirty secret or something that could undermine the game as whole?
This is an interesting question to me too. I have to admit that I have never actually caught a player outright cheating during a game. Here and there I have seen several very liberal interperitations of the "It's a cocked die" rule, but never a player who has rolled one thing and told me another.
I would at the same time point out that, to me, "Powergaming" is just another form of cheating. Players who go out and purchase every book produced by TSR/WotC and expect me to let them paste and match when their characters would have no motivation to pursue the junk they have pulled from the books really steams me sometimes.
This was one of the reasons I got turned off to 2nd edition D&D. I was constantly showing up to gaming sessions where players had bought the latest "oneupsmanship" manual and now wanted the DM to allow thier character to have (usually for free because acording to this new book they were supposed to have it all along) the superpowerlike abilities in its pages.
(wipes foam from the corner of mouth)
Has anyone out there actually caught someone deliberatly cheating? Many times I have found that a spell/ability the player has written on his sheet is a case of the reader "seeing what they wanted to see" on the page.
Example: I just had a player a few weeks ago bring me a new backup character. A dwarven cleric that used a massive warmace from the Races of Stone book (i think) that he had chossen because he thought having the War domain gave him the ability to use it without having to spend an Exotic Weapon Feat for it.
After reading the books entries for myself I corrected him and he made the changes. Now, in my mind, what he did was not cheating, just a case of seeing what he wanted. Does anyone feel it was? Please let me know.
Everyone at our table rolls in the open (even the DM), and character sheets are available for public view. So there's not really an opportunity for cheating.
Once we had a guy cheat by deliberately mis-adding his equipment cost so that he could start with more equipment. When the DM caught him he just said, "Dude, don't do that again or you'll have to find a new group." And he didn't. But we moved soon afterwards, so he might be back at his old tricks, who knows?
As a general thing I play with good people, so cheating's never been a big issue.
-Amber S.
We have a guy in our group who always uses his ancient "high impact" dice that he bought in 1978. They have 0-9 on it twice and he's colored in the side that is supposed to be the 11-20...the color is very hard to see and he likes to pick up his dice almost immediately after he has thrown them.
We've never caught him outright cheating, but he tends to always make critical rolls at the right time....although he has lost two characters in the last year due to failed saves.
So....I don't know??
Why people would cheat in a game of make-believe is beyond me. I mean, really, what have you won?
Even so, I've seen my share of it.
Although it's hard to catagorize, I'd say the cheaters I've encountered tend to be insecure folks, who are not comfortable with themselves or with interacting with others.
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Hey Farewell2kings...I think we have a player in common. There is a guy that I use to game with that has a d20 just as you describe and he loves to use that trick....quickly throw down that d20 and just as quickly scoop it back up..and when the DM say hey what was that he quickly says which ever is more advantagous to him...and the little rat bastage plays a lie stealing from the group bardic gnome...argh! lol. The DM has even asked him not to use the die but he conviently 'forgets' and uses it. or says oh its the only one he brought....luckly this player had to move away so but so did I.
Tallknight
Part of it is my fault by being lazy and telling the players straight up what they need to roll. Now, whenever they ask me what the DC or AC is, I tell them--just roll the dice and I'll tell you whether you hit or not or whether you made your save.
I've had a couple of players who cheated. One of them, I suspected (but never caught) because he'd roll his dice, scoop them up real quick, and then stare at the ceiling for calculating before blurting out some super-high result. He eventually just drifte away from the rest of us so he doen't play with us anymore.
The other player I had to eject from our gaming circle. I volunteered to be the bad guy and tell him he couldn't play any more. He would routinely rearrage his skills points between sessions, sometimes his hit points would increase by a few points, items would find their way onto his character sheet that he "had been forgetting this whole time"...We used to joke that he had a d21 because he'd give results that could never be achieved with a normal d20. It got to the point where I'd collect everyone's character sheets at the end of the session to prevent any mysterious number movement. Finally when he was taking a turn as DM and were were playing the first part of the Shackled City path, we had our fill of him when the number of guards, weapons being used by the guards, and level of the guards instantly changed in the middle of a battle because our party was winning. I could go on and on about him on the thread about bad-dm experiences.
He was a real drag on our group because he was good friends with a few of them but we all knew he was cheating. After that SCAP debacle, though, the rest of us decided to kick him out. Not my most pleasant gaming memory, but still one that gets told at the table sometimes.
Though I and my players both roll out in the open, I've had multiple players cheat in my games (though fewer than 10%).
One was simply insecure (as mentioned above), inexperienced, and wanted to do well. Another simply had an insane starting character, which is why all character creation & hp rolling is in front of me. He was okay other than that. Another had to just be kicked out, though he ended up leaving on his own. The funny thing is, he left because I caught him with a "lower" stat than he'd rolled. Not sure why he did that, but it let him know that I had indeed memorized what his stats were and he quickly left the group.
Mind you, in each instance the other players had deduced what was going on and informed me. They'd raise an eyebrow here and there such as when a few too many cures came out of the 2nd level Cleric or upon thinking about his for 2 or 3 rounds he realized he'd miscalculated his damage. (Oh, brother.)
That last one was named Rob and my players used to kid w/ me when they made a natural mistake that could be construed as cheating (usually one they caught themselves). They'd say "I wouldn't Rob you." which would bring a smile and shaking head.
I agree that cheaters usually end up ostracizing themselves (or bring ostracization upon themselves) through their actions and it all comes out for the good in the end.
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I guess I must be in the minority from what it sounds like. In our group we have never had any one be cought cheeting. We have found our share of mistakes on dice rolls from wrong addition or one too many spells for a level. When that happens we have an open admission of error and we remove the extra spell (this has only happened once or twice as we have newer players). For character creation I got some index cards and I rolled and put scores on the card and had each player pick a card and cam arrange them any way they would like. I guess I must have either a realy honest group or I am completly in the dark.
ugh.. I DM for a group with these two guys, father and son. The son is in his late 30's and slightly brain damaged. He was actually caught doing dice tricks (hiding rolls, picking up quick, miscalculating sums). My friend caught him, and discreetly fixed it by sitting next to him and calling out his die rolls and adding them up.
His dad was more difficult. My schedule limits my prep time and I use a lot of pre-gens, including Dungeon. I suspected him while running City of the Spider Queen. The first time was randomly throwing rocks where there happened to be an illusory wall. #2 He ran right to a hidden treasure. I drew the line when he (the rogue) would only check for traps where there were traps. At first I just moved the traps and secrets around. If he wanted to ruin plot developments for himself, ok. Then they came to a ghost that would only be freed if a drow was killed in its chamber. He never took prisoners until that drow. (grumble, grumble)
After that I tried to talk to him about it, but he claimed not to be cheating. It was frustrating, but he's a good friend so I didn't want to kick him out. I was just a lot more mindful of the adjustments I made to pregens. It hurt the game though, and especially our friendship. Now when he has a good idea in game, I wonder if he's cheating or what.
Most recently one of my players brought the game to a halt when I purposely caused a spell to fail in order to prevent them from exposing too much of a future adventure. Later in retrospect, I realized that she was metagaming, using my generously distributed player version of the map to gain info her character had no way of knowing.
Incidently I usually sidestep a lot of disputes by appointing the most or second-most knowledgeable player at the table as game ombudsman, in order to properly word arguments in favor or against a ruling. But the metagaming in the above case was subtle and flew past both of us.
Cheating and Metagaming - A worthy article for Dragon
It has be a minor problem with the folks I´m gaming with, luckily. One player who played with us in a shadowrun game just added equipment to his character if convenient (in the middle of a tough battle, he suddenly had a heavy armor on him), and he used dice (handful d6s, for those who don´t know shadowrun) so small that he "misread" them quite often. And he was an awful roleplayer as well.
We solved the problem by not inviting him to our games anymore, which was a bit tricky because his wife is a much better player we loved to keep. But now, we play with her only and leave him out. (He can be an a#%~##* in other ways, too. He is one of those guys thinking that his wife is there only to serve him, and she is too insecure to get rid of him. Or it has to be true love, at least on her part... )
Stefan
Oops ! I ran into the language cleaner the first time. My apologies if anyone is offended by my rude language...
Stefan
He can be an a*&*&&& in other ways, too. He is one of those guys thinking that his wife is there only to serve him, and she is too insecure to get rid of him. Or it has to be true love, at least on her part...
Ick. True Love doesn't involve any one side lording/ladying it over the other. True Love should be an Equal Opportunity Experience. :-D
Back to the topic at hand, I've never had a problem with cheating in any game I've GM'ed. I'm sure that there have been a few fudged die rolls (I've done them myself) but I usually observe the player that I'm not sure about and adjust accordingly.
The most common shtick I see is the guy who rolls dice when it's not his turn (or through out his turn), stops when he gets a good number, and then tries to use that result.
Yeah, I hate this. I was playing in a group recently where we had a guy that would do this. I started keeping track of his rolls over a few sessions. Not just his attack rolls (he was a fighter type), but all of his rolls: init, spot, search, knowledge. He never got anything less than a 16. Of course, his lowest stat on any of his characters was usually a 13.
Where is the fun if failure is not a possibility? Why even roll the dice?
We had a guy in our group who was cheating. For the longest time, he would come up with these insanely-high skill check results, every time, and when I looked at his character sheet, he'd spent too many skill points. He conveniently forgot - two or three times - that he didn't get bonus skill points from Int-boosting items. He'd always roll his dice on a side table where no one could see them, and pick them up real fast, and he never rolled anything under a 15 (actual roll) based on the results he'd give.
I was running the Freeport trilogy of modules, and he was playing this cowardly rogue character who would always keep the party between him and danger. He seemed to be guessing very well when to check for traps and when to expect ambushes, but that could have just been clever tactical thinking. Then one evening, he left his bookbag open, and my husband saw the three adventures I WAS RUNNING in his open bookbag.
We were actually pretty near the end of the third adventure (about to enter the Lighthouse, for those familiar with this trilogy). Before the next session, I completely rearranged and replaced encounters in the lighthouse. Sure enough, his rogue "cleverly" came up with an idea to climb the outside to the second level, took off on his own, and ended up all by hmself facing a big nasty grappling octopus-thing I'd placed there (in the original, there were no monsters on that level).
A week or two later, he threw a temper tantrum over something trivial that one of the other players said, and we invited him either to apologize for his over-the-top outburst or to leave the group. He left.
I told this story to the group I'm running now, complete with descriptions of a couple of the really scary critters I added to the lighthouse, and they're very clear on the concept that cheating is unacceptable. :)
I don't cheat when I play - other than that I'm an honest guy, you're only cheating yourself in the end. Winning doesn't mean anything unless you do it within the rules.
Sometimes though, people make honest mistakes. Players might forget to apply a penalty, or accidentally add a bonus that shouldn't apply. They misread books, forget to check off items they've used or lost, and give themselves more skill points than they were meant to. These things happen, so I usually give players the benefit of the doubt.
Players sometimes really do cheat, because it's quite easy to do, especially if you're good at lying or nobody questions it. It's especially tempting when the risk to gain ratio is in your favour - perhaps you know nobody would notice if you wrote down 500 gp instead of 400, or perhaps you really don't want to lose your long-time character by admitting you failed the save. Most players probably don't like their DM scrutinizing every dice roll they make, though, so generally you owe your players a certain amount of trust.
There's other ways to cheat besides fudging dice rolls.
For example - adding items to one's character sheet (like
extra healing potions) - or "forgetting" to cross them off once they've been used.
Or reading the module your planning to run (this is easy if you play games out of Dungeon, and your players have a subscription!)
*sigh*
...
Or reading the module your planning to run ...
Check this out, about 10 years ago in college I had a standing rule about reading the actual module or source material the group knew I was using before we played. It was do not do it (on the honor system,) plus I ran a heavily home-brewed universe and liked to change things anyway.
Well, one guy was so obsessed with knowing what was going to happen a head of time that we actually caught him climbing up the tree outside the window of my dorm room, climbing in, and reading that weekends adventure a head of time.
I still wonder at his core motivation. I was happy to be creating such a fantastic world that he just had to know, but it made me wonder if he was mentally stable.
As a group we shrugged it off but subtly ostracized him. Later, I killed his character in an ambush where he was caught out in the open by a force of archers. No other players were willing to risk their character to help him.
Update: this guy is now in prison for armed something or other, he was going to a gay bar and kidnapping drunk patrons as they left, and forced them to give him money from an ATM.
I havent had much problem with cheating; but then my group has some rules to allieviate such problems as we have seen in the past. Had one guy like to roll his dice and snatch them up real quick and shout out his number; so now we all have the roll it on the table and leave it there rule; if it falls on the floor; it doesnt count. We have a general rule that everyone verifies everyones elses die roles except the gm. I take it on faith the number they shout out is right and they do their math right and the other players cultural peer pressure and sometime verification is right; I wouldnt let something like this distrupt the flow of the game. I have been victim, as gm, of some pretty funny dice fenagaling over the years, but is no big deal; I just adjust the game a bit and powergamers and such dont really affect the story much; if they feel they need a clutch roll bad enough to make up a number; well, heroes get lucky sometimes so I let it roll, but then mobs get lucky too sometimes :) I am one of those people who just happen to roll better than average almost everytime I gm or play warhammer 40k so as gm I have to tone down a lot of my rolls, abandon crits, increase misses and such. I have players who commonly roll between 16 and 23 on 10 d6; after a successful save, mobs take very little. You gotta feel for players this unlucky when it happens over and over; ever had a night where you players cannot roll a d20 over an 8 and you roll a lot of 17+; we have them a lot so if someone needs a 20 once in a while I overlook it if the player peers do. As far as I can tell most players are very honest; some scrupulously so.
oh; by the way what I mean by not the gm is i dont check pc rolls and they dont check me; player prefer it cause if we used my rolls verbatim they would all be dead many many times over. The only real cheat thing that I sometimes see is people who bring really small dice, they know I dont see very well, and roll them and shout out a number; my player culture really checks that stuff though so they will scrupulously check anyones rolls that bring such an obvious attempt at number concealment. That sort of thing really only happens once and we all laugh about how lame the attempt was. I always have a current copy of everyones character posted inside my screen so I know what hps and bonuses the player has so that is never a problem.
LOl; I dont think powergaming is cheating; I let players play any race, class, whatever, that they want; I am more concerned that a person plays a character that he/she likes and will invest time in developing; I will just adjust my scenarios to account for it; no biggie.
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I have realized before, during an adventure or 2, that I had "been there before". I had either read the module online, in Dungeon, owned it, or ran it before. When this happens, I try not think about the details of the adventure and act like everything is new to me, but I also inform the DM at the end of the night that I do have a memory of this module but will not be studying up or trying to recall parts of it to use Out of Character. I hate it when I recall a room's specifics and go crazy trying not to use the knowledge I may have.
I don't want to cheat and won't cheat because it sucks the fun right out of the campaign if I do.
Unfortunately I am voracious when it comes to D&D material and I DM as well as play so I have read most of the stuff out there. I've run Sunless Citadel 2 times been through it once and would jump at the chance to do it again. Each time was a total different experience.
My point, even if the player knows the adventure, he might not be cheating. He may just be trying to forget the knowledge of that adventure so he/she can play through again with some buddies.
FH
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I have realized before, during an adventure or 2, that I had "been there before". I had either read the module online, in Dungeon, owned it, or ran it before.
I have just this issue coming up for me. My group wants to start playing the AoW campaign, which I have been collecting in Dungeon, and I'm not the DM. I can still remember some of the basic facts, but luckily I don't remember all the details. I'll probably collect all those issues and hand them over to the DM for the time being, so that their is no question of honesty. Either way, I wouldn't look at them again as it would spoil all the fun.
For dice rolls, we have an Official Dice rolling area. All dice rolls must be made with it, and must be verified by more that one person. We have several rules that have been voted on and amended over time concerning leaning dice, on the floor rolls, etc.
Btw, our Official Dice Rolling area is a clear plastic contraption someone made in highschool shop class. It is a tower, think bong which I personally believe it was intended to be originally before the teacher saw it, with a tray at the bottom to catch the dice. Inside is a maze work of floors and spokes, so it is kinda fun to watch the dice fall and clatter through it before being deposited in the tray.
Why people would cheat in a game of make-believe is beyond me. I mean, really, what have you won?
Last month I lost a game of Candyland to a friend's five year old son. I was on alert because his parent's said he never loses. This is a game where your fate is decided by the cards as shuffled before the game and thusly, there is no skill to ply. Multiple games should yield random results. I noticed he quite often moved to the wrong spaces--if a double blue card was picked he'd move to the third blue space, and so I asked for a second game where I caught him stacking the card deck.
He didn't deny cheating. I told him that when I was a kid I used to cheat until the day some people noticed and locked me in a basement for a day. Not true, but oh so effective.
lol; Candyland, like life, is all about landing on the right square at the right time, taking legal shortcuts, and hoping to avoid setbacks that send you backwared; a great parity for life and yes, kids can learn to intensionally count wrong or get the color wrong as winning becomes an imperative. I would like to hear from some peeps about cheating techniques and why they do it, but that is doubtful to happen unless we discuss one of my favorite games: illuminati, in which cheating is ok, accepted and expected. I have some good meathods in that game :)
I'd always get annoyed with kids who, when playing board games, would count the square they were on as "one" and progress stepping on each square and counting as they went. I always suspected they were doing it deliberately to land on the wrong squares and avoid hazards. In retrospect, if they kept shilling themself out of one square a turn they can't have been clever enough to do that.
lol; Candyland, like life, is all about landing on the right square at the right time, taking legal shortcuts, and hoping to avoid setbacks that send you backwared; a great parity for life and yes, kids can learn to intensionally count wrong or get the color wrong as winning becomes an imperative. I would like to hear from some peeps about cheating techniques and why they do it, but that is doubtful to happen unless we discuss one of my favorite games: illuminati, in which cheating is ok, accepted and expected. I have some good meathods in that game :)
If your last sentence isn't the most provocative sell line for a game, I don't know what is. I must learn how to play. Legal cheating, eh? Go figger.
I'd always get annoyed with kids who, when playing board games, would count the square they were on as "one" and progress stepping on each square and counting as they went. I always suspected they were doing it deliberately to land on the wrong squares and avoid hazards. In retrospect, if they kept shilling themself out of one square a turn they can't have been clever enough to do that.
I think we're coming to the concensus that these children need to have cheat-cams installed atop their heads so that a distant eavestation might monitor their game playing 24/7 and give them a harmless but bladder relieving shock whenever they 'miscount' or hide a play piece beneath their legs.
Or is that just me?
My only incidents of cheating were when players would roll a die far out of my view (keeping a dozen players' rolls on the table itself can be challenging) and call it a hit/miss/save/success/etc. without actually telling me what the roll was; fortunately, most of my other players are good sports and would report incidents of that occurring.
Short term solutions:
- The "Bonus HP" effect: I would have my monster/NPC/opponent refuse to die for an extra round or two to keep up the dramatic tension until the time seemed more appropriate for the opponent to die, or a more deserving player got to deal the death blow, depriving the cheater of bragging rights over the kill.
- DM override: Simply ignore the die roll and adjudicate the result to maintain the game flow with minimum disruption.
Long term solution: Ask the offenders to leave; fortunately, I didn't have to - they left on their own.
M
I LOVE CANDYLAND!
So simple, so pure .. so cheatable? At 5 years old? Yikes!
Nothing like cheaters that are starting young.
My only incidents of cheating were when players would roll a die far out of my view (keeping a dozen players' rolls on the table itself can be challenging) ...
I absolutely believe in an official dice rolling area.
Worst case scenario, use the lid of a shoe box or something. Also, have agreed upon rules for when re-rolls are allowed and what do when a roll lands on the floor, etc...
Write them on paper. Have a Judges Gravel drawn, so when you make a decision you can hammer the table, or skulls, for effect !
I've almost done it myself. Not because i'm mean or a cheat, but because all the bonuses and negatives effecting such and such modifier can easily be messed up by a new player. Remembering all your attack and AC modifiers, not to mention synergies with skills, takes some getting used to. I'm still trying to keep it all straight if I bravely attempt creating a monstrous humanoid as a PC.
But no, never seen it done.
Me, Im in the DM camp of fudging a bit to keep the story moving (mostly because my PCs have a habit of being overly suspicious of the strange new person they meet who wants to hang out with them, even if they know out of game its the player's new PC).
Here's a fun note though: as a player, I have only cheated to lower my die rolls. Occasionally I like calling out a natural 1 that didn't actually happen. Sometimes I do it on reflex saves, to put my gear at risk, and I "remind" the DM "Crap, now my gear might get blown up!".
I don't really know why I do it. Usually I fudge it when it would make for a bad but not lethal screw up that would add a new wrinkle to the character's personality. My dark elf bard is still afraid of chipmunks after I fudged a 1 on a sense motive when someone jokingly said that they were indeed scary swarming creatures that could jam insane amounts of flesh into their bulbous cheek pouches (I had no knowledge nature, and was fresh to the surface. Who knew camping in the woods was so much fun! If a creature that small is willing to approach you, underdark logic says it must be terrifyingly powerful!)