A) Be careful, sometimes people just read their dice wrong. I catch myself doing this when I'm running and playing, I'll roll a 4 and think 14, or I'll roll a 12 and see 15. I try not to, and usually if I catch myself doing it, I'll 'fudge' a roll the other way later to make up for it. I'm sure I do it the other way around, but I never notice those. :)
B) If they are cheating, just flat out talk to them. If you can't talk to them, then you're just going to have to live with it.
C) If they don't stop, stop running the game, and tell everyone why. Say it's no fun for you to GM when people are fudging rolls so blatently. More than likely, these two will claim they are not cheating, and you can say 'Ok, then use a big easily read d20 from now on or I stop running'.
I had a similar issue, my wife and every other player in the game used to watch and give me a nod when, let's call him Nod, would cheat. I'd just ignore his contribution to the fight when he cheated. Finally got tired after several years, and quit GMing for 6 months. When I started back up, I didn't invite him to the game. When he asked why, I told him I was tired of him cheating. He claimed he wasn't, and I said every single other player complained about him cheating, and I was tired of it. After a year, he begged back into the game, and rolled all his rolls in visible.
I had this guy (in general not your player) at my table as well literally never failed needed rolls botched harmless ones. One day I'm looking through his books low and behold an entire book dedicated to to power gaming and dice "fudging" it called. Things such as
The roll and snatch: Let the die come to a stop for a mere moment then snatch it up and declare the number you want.
The free reroll: Have a cat or small dog who loves to get on the table. Allow it up whenever your dice come up bad. Must be done quickly.
The full protonic reversal: roll 2d10 instead of percentile declare one's and tens's place as needed.
... Also @Kydeem, you've got a major cheater there. You probably should talk to your GM about a rule specifying which die equates to which roll.
Well it is a group that doesn't meet all that often anymore, that person is the best friend of the GM for that group, and it just hasn't seemed worth the argument
But really the biggest reason is he has some 'emotion issues' (I really don't know for sure how severe) and this is one of his few social contact activities. I don't want to make it harder on him for a realitively minor annoyance.The really wierd thing is he doesn't need to do it. He spends a lot of time online and reading the books so his characters are already way more optimized than any of the rest of us. So in the fights (which is all he seems concerned with) he already usually shines brighter. Plus he tends to roll pretty lucky anyway when I have actually kept track.
It has been my experience that most "cheating" at the table is done by intentionally mis-calculating dice modifiers, not by rolling the die and announcing a different number.
In many cases the "cheating" is entirely unintentional. Many players I've played with really just don't know the rules for how to total up dice modifiers for iterative attacks, and everyone seems to err towards bigger numbers.
I have only had one player I can recall where I had to actually sit down with them and explain that they were only cheating themselves when they cheated. It was an awkward, but not painful, conversation where I explained that by always "winning" they never had the thrill of actually overcoming the potential to "lose".
The player finally understood my point and became probably the most rigorously accurate dice roller I've played with.
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I've come away from WoD games with the notion that in a well-designed game system, it can be fun to run the risk of occasional failure. Rolling the check to see if your vampire enters blood rage because someone's been pushing him too far can be fun; if you make it you're fine, if you go wild then you get to have some fun slaughtering everything in sight and you can say "the dice said it was meant to be". It's kind of like carnival: a time in the year when you get to be silly.
Part of this is that the penalty for failure should be there, but not be so severe that you can't afford failure at all. It's good to succeed, but it's permissible to fail now and then. oWoD Vampire has a problem with that because the roll to resist blood frenzy has a chance of critical failure, and if that happens your self-control stat permanently decreases. That's such a big penalty that people automatically reach for the oWoD equivalent of Hero Points to guarantee success.
Once you houserule away the permanent penalty for failure, people can "afford" to take the risk more often. It's still pretty nasty to go berserk and kill someone important or someone awkward. But it's no longer like if you roll a '1' to hit the dragon you get a permanent negative level.
So I think an environment where being really successful is absolutely necessary, promotes cheating; like a GM who often uses too-high CR monsters. The opposite doesn't automatically hold though; people often need to LEARN that suffering a setback (through bad rolls) isn't the end of the story or even all that awful, and that the thrill of real risk makes the game more fun.
Don't judge the cheaters too harshly but talk to them and make a joke about it, keep it light just knowing people are catching on is often enough already to make people think about it twice.
You might consider to move to the middle of the table for GM'ing so you are not that far away and keep the table relatively unobstructed, make clear dice are rolled in the open and might rule out clear or otherwise hard to read dice. Hero points might also give back some control to players without cheating.
Finally, be fair as a GM, give decent rewards accept your bad rolls and have their actions matter, players often respond to real or perceived unfairness by pushing or trying to bend rules a bit.
I've always done open rolls so a lot of this doesn't happen but I've had two cheaters in my time as a GM. The first had copied a piece of the map when I left the module at his house by accident. I caught him covertly lifting a sheet of paper up everytime the party was deciding on a direction and just handed him the map from the module and said if he wanted to cheat he might as well do it openly. He stopped then.
The second one deliberately mis-calculated his bonuses. I got all the PCs to hand in their sheets so I could check them over. I advised him of his errors and he accepted them. But in the next session he boosted his bonuses again. His character died shortly afterwards and the player wasn't invited to reroll.
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Every roll on the table, even for the fair players, should be able to verified by someone else at the table. If not, you're in your rights to tell them to reroll so that it can be verified.
Tell the whole table that in advance and let the game begin.
If they pull that fast-pickup garbage after your message, then ask them to reroll and have whoever's next to them verify it.
Some people like to ...test boundaries, don't they?
Solution: Be assertive. Show your players that you're in-control, and they'll respect you for it. Be accusatory can be abrasive, and cause people to react badly. Announcing "I'm having trouble SEEING dice rolls, and so to keep honest people honest, we're going to roll in the middle of the table, and your roll doesn't count unless I see it. *smile*", is assertive, and assertive is good.
Besides, you never know if other players at the table have already spotted the cheating, and are waiting for you to do something about it or not.
We've been rolling out in the open for years simply because it makes it much more enjoyable. The tension is greater, and so is the excitement.
I have a very competitive player, and he tries to pull some cheese like keeping rolls that are cracked or fall off the table. I put the kibosh on that. I also asked him to state which color goes first when he rolls multiple attack dice - but its nothing different than what I ask of everyone else.
I don't monitor their HP loss - if they aren't taking the damage they should, I can't do anything about it, and I frankly don't care. I have fun.
It seems like a sad thing, to cheat at a board game, but for some people its important. I'd make the changes everyone has suggested (open rolling, color coding attacks) and leave it at that.
I would give them flashing d20's as a gift and ask that they use them for important rolls. They're nice and big, easy to read, and flash red when someone rolls a 20.
Definitely get the 'roll out in the open' thing going if you suspect cheating. Either they'll start rolling in the open, thus ending the cheating, or they'll balk, and you can lay down the law; either roll here, or take a hike.
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There's always the story about the new player who had a d20 with digits '1' through '0' on it twice... wondering why he could never hit anything....
Back when I was alive there was no such thing as a d10.
There was a 20-sided die numbered 0-9 twice, with one set of 0-9 coloured in and the other not. It was a d10, d% or a d20 (add 10 if you rolled one of the coloured numbers) as needed.
I don't like computer dice. Real ones are more tactile, and at least if I roll nat ones three times in a row at least I believe it! If it were a computer result I'd think that the computer had gone wrong. What are the chances of three ones! The computer must be broken!
Of course, with a real d20 I'd believe a 1-in-8000 chance nine times out of ten.
I remember the first time I got to roll 5d6 for my warlock's Eldritch Blast: five! Yes, five ones! 'Yahtzee' indeed!
just guilt him by saying he is basically cheating at pretend....
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I have no problem with rolling three dice at once for iterative attacks, but you damn well better declare the order by color before you roll.I've never had the cheater problem and play with longtime friends. But we all have the declared dice rule, it helps speed up turns when martials have to roll anywhere from 3-7 d20s at a time.
Three dice guy I would be insisting on knowing the order and would be repeating it back to him frequently.I would kick him out of the game or baby him. If he cant "remember" which color is for the first attack I would write it down and tape it to the table in front of him. I am just trying to "help".
edit:I forgot about the battle map..Well I guess I could ask for the die in a certain order to help him..:)
My solution to forgetting the order of iterative dice: rainbow-coloured dice. The red one is the first roll, the orange is the second, the yellow the third, etc. Easy to remember, and transparent to other players.
I haven't read the whole thread, so i hope i am not repeating something someone else said.
Blame the dice, tell the suspected cheating players that you really suspect that their dice are bad and should get new ones because you have observed that they get an alarming high rate of good dice rolls.
Make them roll a normal d20 in a transparent plastic cup, have them roll with the cup down on the table. Don't let them touch the dice after opening the cup. I roll my dice that way, love it and gives me good luck.
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Get the players involved - don't take it on just by yourself. Players are a little bit in competition with each other so inter-player challenges might be more acceptable than GM vs player.
And look out for the "getting the maths wrong" cheat as well.
In my experience, habitual cheating is symptomatic of some other personality disorder, so it might turn out to be the least of your problems round the gaming table.
Richard
I play with friends and family and this subject has come up a few times especially with my oldest son. He cheats. Otherwise he is a great player but he can't just roll and let the die fall.
Just have every roll not count unless you can see it. Don't (have a talk),Don't alter your rolls,Don't argue or debate or any of that mess.
Just make every roll count only if you can see it. PERIOD. Be heartless about it. If they roll a nat 20 across the table and THEN try and pick up the book so the die doesn't move to show you simply say"Too bad you didn't roll it where I could see it in the first place,roll again.
Trust me it will not take long before all rolls are done within easy sight of the DM and all cheating on rolls are gone from your worry.
If you want to be very diplomatic about it go out and buy one of those $20 wooden rolling things and insist all rolls must be done in that and slap it on the table.
Cheating ruins the game and shouldn't be tolerated but at the same time people tend to play with people they love or at least like a whole heck of a lot so learning to deal with this issue is something most DM's will have to deal with sooner or later.
My advice is don't be confrontational,don't be angry,just insist that all rolls are done in front of you or they don't count.
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On a related issue - how do you deal with more minor cheats (IMO anyway) such as always seeming to have the right weapon ready, having your shield equipped when you get jumped but miraculously not when you fall into a lake, or the slightly more cheaty three-ring trick (just happen to have the ring of evasion on instead of the ring of protection on *this* fireball occasion)?
Richard
On a related issue - how do you deal with more minor cheats (IMO anyway) such as always seeming to have the right weapon ready, having your shield equipped when you get jumped but miraculously not when you fall into a lake, or the slightly more cheaty three-ring trick (just happen to have the ring of evasion on instead of the ring of protection on *this* fireball occasion)?
Except the ring trick, I usually just ignore it because I don't think its that big of a deal. As for rings, I usually don't have three in a game but a player has what he has equipped until he tells me otherwise. I need to know about magic items, but mundane items are pretty meh. If I catch it I gently remind them what they had, but I usually don't care.
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One good piece of advice that no one has given yet - put the other players to work on it. In this case, make a game out of it, like...
From now on anyone who wants to can call out another player for fudging. If they’re right, they get 'x', every time they're right.
X can be XPs, bennies, or whatever else works at your table.
You can mod as needed, too. Like auto success if they don't let them see. If the call outs are too frequent, give X to the player who shows he wasn't fudging.
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One good piece of advice that no one has given yet - put the other players to work on it. In this case, make a game out of it, like...
From now on anyone who wants to can call out another player for fudging. If they’re right, they get 'x', every time they're right.
X can be XPs, bennies, or whatever else works at your table.
I don't like this at all. Many groups struggle to work together. Throwing in a watchdog element would only make it more difficult.
Countercheat!
Roll your own dice behind your DM's screen, and add +4 when targetting a cheater...
Being passive-agressive about it probably won't help
a player might be a cheater if they never take any of the Iron Will, Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflex, Defiant Luck, Luck Domain or any or all of the reroll abilities....just saying
Fighters will take Iron Will and Improved Iron Will, Barbs have Superstitious and Eater of Magic which they tend to take. Cleric Luck Domain is quite good. Gnomes have eternal hope. If you have failed vital saves these sort of feats or appropriate spells will appear
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So nobody should watch? Or just the GM?
What I am saying is that trying to entice your players to 'snitch' on the others for profit will probably lead to player conflicts and bad feelings.
The GM runs the game, he adjudicates the rules, and tells the story...so I do feel that watching for cheating is also part of his job. It is not a task I enjoy, but it is necessary. As a GM, I NEED to trust my players. If I don't feel that trust, the game looses a lot of enjoyment.
My opinion is that the best way to handle cheating is to be proactive at the start of the game by laying down a set of reasonable expectations for the players to agree to: no using hard-to-read dice, players must roll in plain view, provide the GM with a character sheet once a month, all cocked dice are rerolled, and/or whatever else you feel is needed, and lastly...how do we all feel about cheating and what punishments are appropriate.
Fighters will take Iron Will and Improved Iron Will, Barbs have Superstitious and Eater of Magic which they tend to take. Cleric Luck Domain is quite good. Gnomes have eternal hope. If you have failed vital saves these sort of feats or appropriate spells will appearYou have 1 race and 3 classes there.
Out of 22 classes and at least 7 races.
Do you really want someone to go through every class and race and comparing their merits with ironwill and its kin' in a thread about cheating?
Hmmm I believe the original comment was "might be", whether this implies a high potential for cheaters or is an allusion to "you might be a redneck" is debatable but since the premise is out there... I think that if you never need a reroll ability on classes that benefit from them{fighters and Will , wizards and Fort, others??} then as a GM you would have reason to be suspicious. Saving feats for other purposes would be useful benefit for a player already committed to cheating.
SO the implication here would be that characters who you are already suspicious of cheating, may have signs in their character sheets to support your suspicions. A net is cast but certainly a MUCH finer net then Thomas Long 175 is saying I am casting!
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I do want to be clear, discussing it like people is always your first choice. I would recommend other action only when that doesn't work, like when met with denial, etc.
As for the PvP aspect of my suggestion, particularly with in-game reward, that's a key ingredient of the concept. See, such a player is likely cheating to 'rise above' the others. When a cheater realizes how their behavior is actually elevating the others instead, it's a double message.
If it becomes a table game in and of itself, you have bigger problems than just the cheating.
If someone really wants to cheat, they will find a way. I frankly have more important things to do with my time as a GM than babysit the players to ensure that nobody is cheating.
When I suspect something like that is going on I have a talk with the player and do my best to bring them around to the understanding that they are just cheating themselves. I use golf analogies a lot to explain what I mean.
So far it's always worked. But then again, I have a pretty solid maturity filter in place for selecting players, so I haven't had much problem with playing with immature players in the first place.
To the O.p.
The first thing I would do is be sure the suspected players are in fact cheating. Then I would take them aside one at a time and speak to them about it. If you ignore this issue it will not resolve itself. If your two suspects are fudging dice rolls and you have seen it with your own eyes then you don't need to involve the other players at your table. Call them on it and tell the entire table later that the new rule for dice rolling is that all players dice rolls must be in open sight, and remain on the table until the close of the round. I call it the "play as it lays" rule. If I and the rest of the table cannot see your dice rolls you simply lose your turn this round. If you are making a roll and shield the dice from view or snatch them up you fail your roll and we move on. That will put the brakes on the diceing issues and quick.