Sylvan Scott |
This post is looking for advice of a more interpersonal nature.
The subject of this post is a gamer I have had in my games for several decades. He is currently a renter in my home and has been a friend for a long time. He is also very annoying, at times, and tends to make every game and conversation about himself. In the past, I caught him fudging dice rolls and he profusely apologized and said he would never do it again.
This past weekend, I may have caught him again.
I keep a Word Doc to use as a scratch sheet when I run combats. I have the character's names next to the players names, then an ellipsis, and finally the rolled initiative. On Saturday, I opened the file but my computer was going through a long, slow update of the OS in the background. The Word file, opened, but wouldn't let me scroll. Without thinking about it, I quickly did a word search and grabbed a name out of thin air: that of my problem player. My plan was to see if I could jump down to the bottom of the document and bypass the slow loading. (Dumb, I know: I was frustrated and trying anything.) Well, it didn't work, so I went to working in other files as I set-up for the game.
When I went back to the Word Doc, it had finally loaded ... along with all the searches that returned this player's name. It also displayed all of his initiative rolls in the current campaign. (I'd not deleted old combats in a while.) All of his initiative rolls appeared to be in the high-teens/low-20s. Thinking I was seeing things incorrectly, I asked to see his character sheet. Sure enough, his Initiative bonus was +3 (+5 in cities) ... as it should be.
I quickly tabulated and found the average of his initiative rolls. The die rolls averaged around "20". Statistically, with a properly-balanced die, I know they should be 13 or 15. I didn't bring it up (didn't want a screaming fit or public argument). I just reffed the game. In the solitary combat that came up during the run he, again, defied the odds.
He sits across the room and no one can see his die rolls. I don't normally think about this because all of us players sit apart in comfy chairs/couches. But now I really suspect him.
So, I have a few questions:
1. Is my math off? I admit I turned 50 this summer and, at times, find myself forgetting things or making mistakes in my assumptions. Should a character with a +3/+5 initiative bonus be averaging 13/15 on their rolls? Or am I just forgetting some basic statistics knowledge from my old High School days in the early 80s?
2. How would you talk to him about this? He is highly temperamental and defensive.
3. I have thought about suggesting to him that maybe his die is unbalanced and thus give him an out: to buy new d20s. Is this too transparent?
4. I mostly just want the behavior to stop. But, at the same time, how can I trust him going forward?
5. Does it really matter? It's only initiative. (Or is it? I don't have logs of every attack roll and saving throw he's made...)
Remember: I live with this person. He's been my friend for decades. He makes every argument about it being a personal attack on him as a person and a gamer. And, yes, he's cheated, before. But I had hoped we were past this ... the last time was a decade ago (to the best of my knowledge).
What are your thoughts, people?
Yours,
Sylvan
wraithstrike |
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Ideally they should be in that 13 to 15 range, but I have had a player who rolled extremely well, and I saw him roll. I even traded dice with him, and he still rolled well. I would say he averaged a 14 or better, and he has had several 20's in one session.
In every game I have been in we have rolled dice towards the middle of the table, never so that only we could see them.
There was also a time when I rolled really high for skill checks. Had people not seen me roll, it would be hard to believe.
With all that being said, he could still be cheating, but I don't know him.
Personally, I would have set things up so that we had to roll in so at least one other person could see the dice after the first time this came up. If he isn't cheating then it should not have been a problem. It would have allowed him to prove that he wasn't cheating
Claxon |
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Mu suggestion is alter the gaming space to have everyone sit more closely together and make sure you have plenty of space for dice rolling.
You could even directly state (to everyone) that you want everyone to roll on the table (or wherever) so you can see it clearly. Don't make it about your problem player, it probably wont get you anywhere but will cause problems with this individual.
If you care less about punishment and more just about getting him to follow the rules you can simply change the environment and get him to roll openly.
Bjørn Røyrvik |
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We've had problems with cheaters and the best thing you can do if you don't want to confront them with it is insist on open rolls where people can confirm the results. I've seen some pretty ridiculous rolls in my time, the kind that make you wonder if someone is cheating somehow even if they were done openly, and some of these have been from cheaters. Sometimes people just roll very well or very badly, sometimes they honestly get modifiers wrong or misread the dice, sometimes they cheat.
Open rolls solves a lot of things and if you phrase it so that no one person is obviously to blame for the change, it can help avoid an otherwise unpleasant situation.
The Beardinator |
Keep track of his rolls. If the math shows improbable luck, take notes. Don't confront him in a game session. Bring it up after a session when it's just the two of you or with one other player you trust as a witness/buffer. If he doesn't believe you, show him your numbers/math. I had a player that was fudging his numbers, so I took to looking over his shoulder when he rolled. He eventually got the message. If one player is cheating, it will eventually be noticed by the other players and a confrontation is inevitable. Best to take care of it right away.
Sylvan Scott |
Buy a dice tower and insist that everyone use? Pass it around as people need it.
Honestly I don't know how you can play without a table for everyone to sit at, but that's a separate issue that isn't your problem.
<chuckles> We have a very nice living room with plush couches and chairs. Everyone has a table-tray and their own dice-rolling tray.
We're all getting old: we LOVE plush furniture!
Yours,
Sylvan
Eaghen- |
you might consider putting the game into one of the online tools readily available such as Roll20 or D20Pro. They are easy to use with laptops/tablets, would make it easier for your players to be less physically proximate to each other but still have a clear easy to see battle board, and for you most importantly would make it impossible to fudge dice rolls. And since you're approaching it as a group thing, no need to single out your friend.
Steve Geddes |
I quickly tabulated and found the average of his initiative rolls. The die rolls averaged around "20". Statistically, with a properly-balanced die, I know they should be 13 or 15...
...So, I have a few questions:
1. Is my math off?
It's difficult to say without knowing how many rolls there were in your tabulating.
If he had rolled half a dozen times, it's not that surprising that his mean result didn't land near the average.
If you've counted up twenty or thirty rolls with each bonus and the average of all of them is outside of 10-19, there's very likely to be some factor skewing the result.
The more rolls he makes, the more likely it is that the average of all rolls will tend towards 14.5 (assuming he is rolling for initiative in a city just as often as when he is outside one). That doesn't preclude long strings above or below the average though.
Jhaeman |
Just announce you're keeping notes for a project to improve the game, and when you ask for rolls (Initiative, attack rolls, etc.) tell the players you want to hear the actual die roll and then the modified result. Keep notes for a few sessions. If it turns out one player is consistently rolling above average on the unmodified d20, tell that person they are either cheating or have a problem die.
Honestly, from your description, the dude is almost certainly cheating. The issue is whether or not you want to create a major interpersonal issue. I would because that sort of behavior is obnoxious and unfair to the other players, but it's your home and you have to make the decision.
outshyn |
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I don't think you're going to be able to fix this. Cheating is by definition deception and it's also an act of disrespect (or at least disregard) for your game and the other people there who are trying to play fairly. So that person is going to cover it up, gaslight you, and say "sorry I reformed, my mistake" and then keep doing it anyway. Or... well that is already happening. But you get my point: if someone is willing to cheat, then they're probably willing to keep cheating in order to maintain the advantage.
So expect to be placated, but he won't mean it (already happened), expect to be lied to or gaslighted ("I rolled it fair and square, you just missed it!"), and expect to have to go through multiple levels of BS. In other words, if you mandate that the dice must be visible, then the cheater will get hard to read dice. If you mandate easy to read dice, then the cheater will get weighted dice or spindown dice. If you test the dice in salt water, the cheater will get honest dice but then learn how to roll such that 20s come up a lot. If you even beat that, then expect stat inflation from the character sheet. If you even beat that, then expect that everything looks fair until you add everything up (so an individual skill will have the correct math, but if you look at ALL skills, there will be too many that are maxed out -- too many ranks spent, so to speak).
What I've found very often is that once a player uses a cheaty Mary Sue to outshine a table full of fair players, they've already made it clear that they don't care about the opinions of the other players. And at that point, confronting them is just an annoyance or embarrassment to them -- not a moment to reform or reflect. And they won't feel pressure to "be good" so as to maintain friendships (or at least stay in the campaign) because they already showed that they don't value that. They value themselves. So in my experience, when confronted and no longer able to find ways to cheat, these people say "screw your stupid game" and ragequit. The game is not important. The people there are... well... at least less important than their own egos. So, expect that they will not actually fix things.
My experience is that if you need to keep a cheater in the game, you'll need to compensate for their cheating instead of reforming them. Let them have the 23 max initiative, but put a monster at init 25. Let them have 3 natural 20s in a row, but apply only regular normal damage to the monster. Of course, this is very mean if the player is not cheating, but assuming you can actually see the rolls (or someone nearby can) and assuming you're sure they're cheating, this is a viable strategy. It keeps them in a honey pot while the rest of the players can have a legit encounter.
Gary Van Binsbergen |
Before the game starts I would have each player roll 20 sided several times in front of everyone. To save time you could have people pair up and write down their partners results. Then turn the results in to you and use them in the game. Using the rolls in order they were rolled for initiative, attack, skill, and saving throws.
Players are going to complain but you should only have to do this for a couple or few games before everyone gets the message that cheating is not acceptable.
We had a cheater once, a friend just like yours, and we decided to handle his unmarked dice and excessive high rolls and hand cupping the die, reading the result while it still rolled with mutual cheating towards him.
I had my DM screen up so I couldn't see his rolls, my brother could see them and when he cheated my brother would kick me every time the monsters needed to roll high against his character. I made it loud...natural 20, owe double damage. After one or two game sessions he got the message, quit all of his cheating techniques and there was no confrontation.
I didn't do this in a huge battle that threatened the other characters survivability. Its amazing when low level monsters kick the crap out of you and you get teased by the other players when your mid-level character gets beat up by an orc.
I don't advocate cheating, but did this to send a message and to reduce the chances of a confrontation. I didn't have to kill any characters, just make it equally as obvious that when he cheats, we knew it and there were consequences. ALL MY OTHER PLAYERS WERE IN ON THIS IN ORDER TO TEACH HIM NOT TO CHEAT. IF YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT I WOULD INCLUDE THEM IN ON IT. THEY WILL BE MORE SUPPORTIVE, UNDERSTANDING AND PATIENT.
Bill Dunn |
you might consider putting the game into one of the online tools readily available such as Roll20 or D20Pro. They are easy to use with laptops/tablets, would make it easier for your players to be less physically proximate to each other but still have a clear easy to see battle board, and for you most importantly would make it impossible to fudge dice rolls. And since you're approaching it as a group thing, no need to single out your friend.
Our 5e GM is doing something similar but not as extensive (and, importantly, not for the same reason). He's excited enough about some tools with HeroLab and an app on his iPad that he's using the app to manage encounter initiative. You might consider the same. That at least weeds out initiative as a sore spot.
You could probably also do the same for hidden rolls like sense motive and perception.W E Ray |
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I never really cared if one of the Players in my game fudged rolls. It just doesn't bother me. If a person is willing to cheat it seems more a symptom of low self-esteem: He or she uses the game vicariously for more self worth. So I don't take it personally when someone cheats. (Obviously when I DM for PFS I have to enforce following the rules, but that's different.)
In your situation, if dice-roll fudging bothers you and you want to confront the guy, I suggest being honest and open about it. Rather than tell the group you want to start keeping some data for game-improvement research (which is a great idea, Jhaeman) or making everyone roll Initiative prior to gameplay or any of the other good ideas, I'd flat out mention to the guy -- privately -- than when you were wrestling with your slow computer the other day you did a search and blah-blah-blah, found his avg initiative was 20. And, in fairness to everyone, you'd appreciate it if HE could come up with a way he can roll so someone sees him roll. I recommend not getting personal with the conversation and I advise you don't be condescending or upset or any other negative emotion -- just matter of fact -- 'Hey I happened to notice this and would appreciate if you could find a way to roll your dice so another Player can see the result.'
If it were me, though, well maybe I'd approach and suggest that he make High-Initiative PCs ONLY. Good Dex, always Impr. Init, always Reactionary, whatever.
Quark Blast |
So, I have a few questions:
1. Is my math off? I admit I turned 50 this summer and, at times, find myself forgetting things or making mistakes in my assumptions. Should a character with a +3/+5 initiative bonus be averaging 13/15 on their rolls? Or am I just forgetting some basic statistics knowledge from my old High School days in the early 80s?
2. How would you talk to him about this? He is highly temperamental and defensive.
3. I have thought about suggesting to him that maybe his die is unbalanced and thus give him an out: to buy new d20s. Is this too transparent?
4. I mostly just want the behavior to stop. But, at the same time, how can I trust him going forward?
5. Does it really matter? It's only initiative. (Or is it? I don't have logs of every attack roll and saving throw he's made...)
1. No, your math is not off.
You can think of this situation as rolling a 4-sided die. Getting the same number every time (say a 4) ten times in a row is about a 1-in-1024 chance. Doing that 15 times in a row is about a 1-in-1,073,741,824 chance.
So as Steve Gedds says, it's not the average that is the problem, it's the number of times he has beaten the odds. And as you can see even beating the odds a dozen times gets us into the "astronomical luck" category.
2. Is the game still fun for you and the others? The mechanics of 3.PF are, in general, biased towards the PCs so how much difference does it make to you and the rest of the group that he cheats? Maybe for Boss fights you could call for open rolls from everyone. Otherwise will it really matter? When was the last time a PC died in your game?
3. Depends on his opposed WIS roll to your CHA roll. See #2 above.
4. You can't trust him. Obviously. The question is whether it really matters to you to curb his cheating.
5. Only you can answer this one. Group dynamics could play a roll too. Really only you can facilitate an answer to these.
If it helps:
I had a player who would always "round up" dice rolls (except when he did really well - of course). I just buffed the bad guys he was up against for the sole reason that I didn't want him defeating his opponent early and "helping" the other PCs the following round. I could compensate his cheating on behalf of his self, not so much when he was aiming to cheat on behalf of everyone else.
I don't have a ton of gaming experience but I've watched a number of games and had extended discussions with three (or four?) grognards about running a game. From my observation it looks like the longest running campaigns are mostly friends who have been together since middle school or college and simply excuse each others quirks; cause we all have them.
TL/DR:
Gamers are kinda weird overall and one has to make allowances for all but the most obnoxious behavior or one will be playing solo.
Keep Calm and Carrion |
You don't have to be able to see everyone's rolls...just the untrustworthy player's. Sit as close to each other as possible, and ask him to use clearly visible dice. Tell him that it's because of COURSE you KNOW he's not cheating, but you just can't shake this silly suspicion in the back of your head, and it's ruining your fun.
The tougher question is what do you do when he cheats right under your nose, and you catch him? It sounds like you're unwilling to confront him, or enlist the other players in an intervention.
Wei Ji the Learner |
The other consideration is the meta properties involved.
This individual is a renter in your residence.
This indicates a level of trust beyond gaming, and if they are cheating on dice, what ELSE are they cheating on that could have long-term household health and safety issues?
Also, do all the computers in the house share a network? There are many reasons a computer could bog in such an arrangement, aside from OS updates.
Stepping back to a game context, though -- when does it seem 'off' and when does it seem 'legit'? Everyone has 'tells', and a good DM can start to get a decent read on their players based on how they react to rolls.
Lots of good team-building ideas in this thread so far, might take some of them and try them out myself...
Sylvan Scott |
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Good day, one and all,
Thank you, everyone, for your insight and suggestions. I eventually spoke to him, face-to-face. I don't entirely believe what he said, but he claimed he hadn't been cheating but admitted to fudging combat rolls and saving throws. He was a bit chipper about it and took full responsibility.
On the other hand, it's similar to what we all do as kids: deny the crime we got caught for and hope to evade punishment by copping to other crimes (not knowing how much the accuser knows and hoping that, by admitting it, you lessen any repercussions).
At least it didn't turn into an explosion.
My plan will be to introduce a shared dice rolling system of some sort.
I normally hook my laptop up to the HDTV in my friend's living room so I can share maps (I erase blacked-out sections in Photoshop) and player aids. What I think I'll try to do is see if I can find a shared log-in dice roller I can put onto the screen and have all the players log into it. I can do it under the rubric of "Hey: isn't this a cool widget" and still not call undue attention to my problem gamer.
The problem is, I don't mind a certain degree of fudging: I fudge die rolls all the time to keep my players alive. (In the last session, I actually rolled three criticals against one player so I fudged the last two and dealt damage normally.) My dilemma is that "once in a while" is okay. Statistically significant alteration of one's die rolls on a repeated basis is not.
My solution would put everyone out in the open.
Yes, I already use Hero Points (so they can save themselves) but I still end up feeling ... awkward about the solution.
I know I'm an old, greying geek who's been playing long into his years of bifocals and bad hearing, but I wouldn't mind perspectives from fellow gamers who may have an alternate approach.
Thank you, one and all, again.
Yours,
Sylvan
Sylvan Scott |
Sylvan Scott wrote:I don't entirely believe what he said, but he claimed he hadn't been cheating but admitted to fudging combat rolls and saving throws.How is that not cheating?
Matt,
Sorry: I should have been more clear.
He claimed he hadn't been cheating on his initiative rolls as I had thought he was. He just admitted to cheating on other rolls...
<sighs>
Sara Marie Customer Service Manager |