Okay, so I've managed to get a gaming group together. We're planning things through Skype. I rolled abilities for three of the players--none of them are experienced with the game--and the fourth rolled himself. He then claimed to have gotten:
18, 18, 17, 16, 14, 15
I private messaged him and told him that I didn't believe those rolls were legitimate. I apologized, but asked that he reroll (this time rolling 2d6+6, to 'sweeten the deal').
He insisted the rolls were fine, but agreed to reroll. He came out with some more believable rolls--or at least more acceptable ones.
There are two reasons I demanded the reroll.
The guy seems okay with it, and I always have players roll their dice on the table during sessions, so it probably won't be a problem in the future. I want to know--was I in the wrong? Did I jump to conclusions? Was there a better way to handle it?
At a RL game we all watched, one guy roll (4D6 drop the lowest) 3 18's 2 16's and a 14 this was first ed... The guy was playing a fighter and he rolled 91 for strength.
The DM said can I take a look at your sheet (The GM was watching the rolls as well). The DM took out an eraser and before we could protest the scores were changed 18/91 STR 17 CON 16 DEX 15 CHA 14 INT and 14 WIS.
We all thought it was a dick move.... but we had to live with it.
EDIT: There is an online dice roller that allows you to view the rolls - Dice tower I think.
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There's also "Evil GM" which rolls the dice and sends the results to whoever you ask them to.
I've never seen stats quite that good rolled and I've also known players who habitually cheated, particularly at character creation. I think your instinct was probably correct. A more diplomatic way of handling might have been to say "well, I'd love to see a character that impressive, but it's going to be just too much better than the other players, can you re-roll until you get something that's on a par with them". But if the guy didn't mind you've probably got away with it. I think giving him 2d6+6 was over generous...
Much as I dislike point-buy stats I'm gradually being converted because it prevents the reasonably high chance that there will be one character in a group whose stats are substantially better than anyone else's.
I partially gave him 2d6+6 because everybody else had rolled quite well (one player had two 17s, another got an 18 and no negatives). I was worried I'd made a bad call, and didn't want to make his character weaker than everyone else.
I think next time I'll just roll everyone's abilities or use point buy--it feels a lot safer to me. Or I'll try the Evil GM thing, that sounds pretty useful. :)
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I actually believe those rolls are real. Mostly because the player didn't complain when you asked that he reroll. If he had cheated the rolls, he'd likely also have made a fuss about not being allowed to keep them.
Incidentally, I have rolled stats nearly that good before. That's the main reason I prefer point-buy methods of ability generation; it keeps everyone at about the same power level.
Actually, I feel like not complaining was more a sign of a guilty conscience. I guess we might be over-analyzing.
I actually believe those rolls are real. Mostly because the player didn't complain when you asked that he reroll. If he had cheated the rolls, he'd likely also have made a fuss about not being allowed to keep them.
I believe it was The Usual Suspects wherein a character said something like, "You know how you spot a guilty criminal? You put three guys in the same cell on the same charges, and in the morning the one who's sleeping is the one who did it. See, the guys who didn't do it are freaked out that they're going to get charged for nothing, but the guy who did it, he figures he's caught, so he gets some rest."
In other words, your psychology is backward. Statistically speaking, people who have done nothing wrong and who are accused or charged with something make the biggest stink. They protest because, a) they are now the victims of a perceived lie against them, and b) they have more to lose if charged. I learned that from more than one source, including the FBI cousin of a close friend. I know I'm that way. When I've been caught at something, I have nothing to say about it. But when I was unfairly accused, I went postal.
The guy who really did it plays it calm. He's running a scam in the first place, so only stands to lose if he gives it up by blowing his cool. Like my old buddy Jay, who is full of it 23 hours out of 24. One cool cucumber.
I think most psychologists would agree the player was probably cheating - IF we only based this off of his reaction, which is simply not enough information. But I also think most of us have seen crazy characters before. I've many times watched players roll incredible stats over the past 31 years. It does happen.
On the other hand, this reminds me of a player who became notorious for cheating in our games. On one occasion, his character died, and he decided to sit out the rest of the session. Being nice, I later instructed him over the phone to go ahead and re-roll another using the old roll 7 stats and keep the best 6. To this day, I think he still believes I never saw the reams and reams of paper upon which he had scratched out about fifty characters before settling on the ridiculously powerful character he ended up with. Worse, his live-in girlfriend, also in the game, must have been sitting there watching him do it the whole time, and never stopped him or mentioned a word.
These people consider themselves my friends, but I knew even then that they simply are very mercenary people. He used the fact that I did not specify a maximum number of attempts at rolling, to roll as many as he liked. However, he also knew that was a technicality that I would not be happy with, so he kept it from me. There are a lot of mercenary gamers in the hobby, so I just don't see why it would be so hard to believe this guy is one of them.
Use Maptools - there be no cheating there and its free. http://rptools.net/
I'm an advocate for rolling stats, but in a situation where you can't observe the rolls, I'd definitely go with Point-Buy.
I like rolling stats, but to prevent this precise thing I make sure its always done in the presense of the group or at least the dm. First of all, I think it's exciting, I like rolling for stats, and none of the other dms in my group roll anymore, so i have to get my kick vicariously in my own game. Second I dont want to have reason to doubt them. The whole point of rolling is the risk reward. There is a risk of low stats, but I dont want to take away the potential of really high stats by leaving room for doubt that they were legitimately rolled.
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I mostly don't like rolling stats because they're so important to character usefullness in pathfinder, and player power disparities can get very bad if they're not handled.
One suggestion I've heard for rolling stats is that everyone rolls a set of stats - and then each can choose any set of stats from among those rolled by all the players.
If one person rolls very well, everyone will grab that set. Maybe one set has one amazing stat, but another has two or three very good stats. YOu might see the paladin grab the one with more good stats, while the wizard grabs the one with an 18.
It at least ameliorates my concern about intra party power disparities.
Agreed with most of the others. It sounds LIKELY that the player cheated, but you really can't tell. Why, because it is possible to get those and he may have realized that it is unreasonable to be that much more powerful than the others.
This is why I don't like to roll stats. The group I am currently with, prefers to roll stats. But every time it seems like 1 out 5 has stats that are just an order better than everyone elses'. And another 1 out of 5 has stats that are pretty low compared to every elses'. They all agree if someone's rolls are ridiculously bad he gets to re-roll. But we always seem to have one guys skating through everything and one that can't hardly accomplish anything.
I personally much prefer to use point buy. The power level is then at least fairly even (assuming everyone can do a decent job on their build).
Well, not that this disputes your points, but stats ended up fairly balanced once stats were actually rolled. The only character with inferior stats is the unimportant NPC who'll be tagging along. ;)
So things should work out alright.
I believe it was The Usual Suspects wherein a character said something like, "You know how you spot a guilty criminal? You put three guys in the same cell on the same charges, and in the morning the one who's sleeping is the one who did it. See, the guys who didn't do it are freaked out that they're going to get charged for nothing, but the guy who did it, he figures he's caught, so he gets some rest."
In other words, your psychology is backward. Statistically speaking, people who have done nothing wrong and who are accused or charged with something make the biggest stink. They protest because, a) they are now the victims of a perceived lie against them, and b) they have more to lose if charged. I learned that from more than one source, including the FBI cousin of a close friend. I know I'm that way.
Getting my opinion from years of experience teaching morally-challenged remedial students (as opposed to quoting popular movies), I'm forced to disagree. Kids who would cheat on tests would ALWAYS deny it most loudly, and would even bring in patently ridiculous arguments to support their supposed "innocence." They would do just about anything to avoid having to re-take the test, which they knew they'd fail. Kids who didn't cheat who were asked if they did would volunteer to re-take a test -- they passed it the first time; given the same (or equivalent) test again, they couldn't fail to improve their grade!
Kirth, not sure that metaphor quite applies--like you said, retaking a test gives you a shot at better results, but rerolling isn't like that. It's luck.
Kirth, not sure that metaphor quite applies--like you said, retaking a test gives you a shot at better results, but rerolling isn't like that. It's luck.
True enough. Still, the point stands that there are in my experience a very large number people who, caught red-handed at something, will raise an incredible stink as a smoke-screen -- everything from outright denial in the face of evidence to trying to claim discrimination and/or personal vendetta. It's pathetic, but quite common.
I have rolled ridiculous stats like that before. We used to roll two columns of 4d6, re-roll 1's, drop the lowest. The DM also allowed us to sub one of the columns for a d20 column. I rolled THREE 20's!!! for my pirate. It ended up being 20, 20, 20, 14, 16, 11. He sat there an watched me! So it can happen.
We also had another guy who pretty much forced the DM to start rolling everyone's dice for them. He would constantly bump the dice to get those criticals in.
I guess my point is there's no way to know for sure if he was cheating or not, but in the end it's just a game. Is it really hurting anyone to re-roll some stats?
One option would have been for him to keep one of the 18's and maybe the 15, then have him re-roll the rest.
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Actually, I feel like not complaining was more a sign of a guilty conscience. I guess we might be over-analyzing.
OR it could be that its not a big deal with him and he rerolled. You could be very well over analyzing it.
To me, no protesting is a bigger sign that its probably not cheating. cheaters usually protest alot more.
Kirth, not sure that metaphor quite applies--like you said, retaking a test gives you a shot at better results, but rerolling isn't like that. It's luck.
Agreed. Since dice rolling is a matter of luck, anyone who got above average results the first time is going to balk at having to reroll the dice in front of the GM, regardless of whether or not he cheated on the original rolls.
But you really have two issues in this case:
1) Balance among players -- Even if the dice rolls were legitimate, random chance can make some PCs much more powerful than others. That is the inherent problem with rolling for stats.
2) Honesty during game play -- There will be dice rolls later on to resolve combat and other adventuring situations. If players are already cheating before play, what makes you think you will be able to trust them later on during play?
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Actually, I feel like not complaining was more a sign of a guilty conscience. I guess we might be over-analyzing.OR it could be that its not a big deal with him and he rerolled. You could be very well over analyzing it.
To me, no protesting is a bigger sign that its probably not cheating. cheaters usually protest alot more.
It has been pointed out that not protesting can indicate either that he was cheating or he was not. Therefore, it's not really very good evidence, and we're over-analyzing it. That was my point.
The best rolled character I have ever had started with Str 16, Dex 17, Con 16, Int 14, Wis 16 and Cha 14 and when i mentioned that i was promptly accused of cheating.
And no I didn't it was just by that point i was used to having at least one ability score below 10 that I couldn't suppress my surprise.
That was drop the lowest die from 4d6 and assigned to which attribute in case you were wondering.
One time expecting a high character death i allowed the players in a game I ran to make use of another player's sheath of spare characters... needless to say his was far worse than that mentioned in the opening message of this thread!
Had them run into view of one of a set of magical mirrors so that a duplicate of their character appeared in front of the other with all their abilities except magical items, the player above did this several times and ended up running around the dungeon level trying to evade them whilst the one True Neutral character got on fine with his double!
I think they were called Mirror of Opposition or something like that?
Perfectly valid tool for a dm and I one day I am going to regret typing that!!!