Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: Socinus Oct 10 2010, 12:17 AM

I'm currently playing a D&D game with a group of friends. One person in particular has been having anomalously good rolls ALL THE TIME and has NEVER rolled a 1, ever.

Last session, I kept an eye on him and I saw him actively cheating. He'd arrange the dice he needed to roll so the numbers would be high, then roll some other random dice and read off the results from the first set. He did this several times.

The problem is this guy IS a friend, even if he's cheating, and the amount of static it would cause to bring it up would be pretty epic. . I've consulted the GM and she's NOT happy.

I'm looking for input and suggestions as to how to deal with a player who is cheating AND a friend. I want to bust him, but that will create A LOT of static within the group.

Posted by: Pollux710 Oct 10 2010, 01:41 AM

Talk to him man, on the side, dont make it public that'll just raise the bar on the epic explosion. Seriously though, talk to the guy, or he'll cheat and cheat and cheat and eventually the fun factor will wear down on all involved.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 10 2010, 03:36 AM

Not that it really matters. You're just playing against the plot; if no one ever noticed, they wouldn't care.

Posted by: KarmaInferno Oct 10 2010, 05:01 AM

Well, a fast way of stopping it without pointing fingers is to have all rolls be made in a central rolling area, where everyone can see the die results clearly. Have the GM state that she's not going to name anyone but she has some concerns. Make it clear that someone might have been cheating, but this is an attempt to let whoever it is save face without the public embarrassment.

If the guy keeps trying to pull crap after that, the GM should immediately speak to him privately to cut it out.

Third strike really should be kicking the guy out. At that point it's just clear disrespect for the rest of the group. If he were really a friend he wouldn't be putting ya'll in that situation, and any resulting fallout from this is HIS own fault, not yours.




-k

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 10 2010, 05:07 AM

Well, definitely don't do the kindergarten 'maybe someone unnamed was cheating' thing. If you're going to confront the issue, confront it. The normal response to this is throwing cheese doodles, but whatever fits your group. OP said it's a group of friends, not a convention game or something.

Posted by: KarmaInferno Oct 10 2010, 05:12 AM

I have been accused of being overly diplomatic on occasion.




-k

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 10 2010, 05:19 AM

Hehe, maybe, but that's not what I meant. It's not that it's too lenient, it's that it's insulting and passive-aggressive. Obviously, someone was cheating, or they wouldn't say anything; and now everyone will be curious and/or upset (if they're whiners). It'll only make the situation worse.

Posted by: Socinus Oct 10 2010, 06:05 AM

The problem is he uses these loaded rolls to do things that break the plot and he does things that get the rest of the group in trouble.

Normally, the problem would take care of itself. But he's starting to fracture the plot and our GM is having to work harder and harder to keep things in order

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 10 2010, 06:27 AM

Okay, yes, if he's messing with the plot. Absolutely. Although, he could always do those anyway; sounds like a basic Wheaton's Law violator, cheater or not.

Posted by: Voran Oct 10 2010, 11:27 AM

Understandably a player feels a connection to their character, and wants them to survive/succeed. Most of us have probably 'misread' a die roll or two in our days, but when it becomes chronic, it does become a problem. That being said, tabletop gaming is also about community and trust, generally GMs will allow stuff like players rolling their own dice over on their own side of the table because the idea is that everyone is being more or less honest. In order to crack down on such behavior, countermeasures can be put into place, but serve to annoy EVERYONE cause they slow stuff down.

For example:

A. Congrats, now you get to use a cup when you roll your dice (dice or die in cup, cover, shake, roll) in a central location where everyone can see.
-why's it a pain? Especially stuff like 4th ed dnd almost requires a tabletop map with counters and icons and crap, usually there isn't much room in the middle anymore, so finding a location can be rough.

B. Player now has assigned seating right next to GM where the gm can directly see dice results.
-why's it a pain? Unless you're an idiot you're going to notice the change, and sitting directly next to the gm this way is kinda like having the 'slow child' seat right next to the teacher.

Simply talking to the player may have the desired effect, but not a certainty.

It does sorta sound like the player has attention-ho issues. He isn't playing chaotic-douchebag...i mean chaotic-neutral...is he?

The long term problem is as you mentioned, when combined with outrageous actions and convenient success rolls, it does become possible to force outcomes that are highly unlikely, the comedy of errors that would allow some homeless dude wearing 10 meter Body Odor emitting clothing, off the street to hop the White House fence, bypass all the security measures and sit in the Presidents oval office chair. Cause he rolled 15 rolls of 18 or higher. 12 of which were natural 20s.

On the other hand, such blatant behavior can lead to GM's becoming rather vicious, spoofing their own rolls with bias against said player.

One way over the years I've noticed that sometimes works to keep the 'high rollers' on their toes, is to randomly ask them to roll a die (d20, whatever) but not tell them what its for. Then the guy has to wonder, "Am I rolling for something hitting me?" Am I rolling for something I'm supposed to be percieving? etc etc. So they don't know if a high roll is better than a low roll. Also works if the GM keeps their own side note, writing down the 'random' roll for later, "Oh yeah, all those high rolls you gave me? Those are the attack rolls for the surprise round against you guys"

Posted by: Dumori Oct 10 2010, 11:59 AM

I think the closest I've got to that was mixing my d12s and d20s up. Only noticed when I rolled over 12 when I shouldn't have been able to. It explained my dismal roles that month too. Felt soooo stupid after that.

Posted by: Nychuus Oct 10 2010, 02:15 PM

I say: roll for the dude and don't let any dice near his area.

Posted by: Karoline Oct 10 2010, 02:31 PM

Hehe, I had a similar thing. I have a d10 that looks like a d20, and have used it a few times by mistake.

My favorite was one time in D&D my GM didn't believe that my mage had such high HP (High con and decent rolls on the d4), and so asked me to reroll my 6+ levels hp dice in front of him. I proceeded to roll almost strait 4s with a single 3. My hp jumped up by several points after that I always roll well with d4s for some reason.

As for the OP, I suggest the GM taking the person aside and flat out telling them "I've noticed you cheating, if you don't cut it out, I'm going to drop the bomb on you." Or if the GM wants to be a bit more diplomatic "I've noticed something that looked like you might be cheating, could you roll your dice more openly so that I can be sure of the results?"

It generally isn't a fun conversation, because the person will inevitably be offended that whoever is accusing them of cheating, regardless of if they actually are or not, but it is generally the best way. In the past, my group relied on a combination of the honor system, and the fact that the people on either side of you looked at your dice and would call you on it if you cheated. If you're sitting next to the person, be sure to watch their die rolls carefully, and when they pull that, simply call them on it. Perhaps try and pass it off as a mistake the first time "No dude, you rolled that die over there, not this one here." so they can save face and stop.

And the 'group change' thing may seem a bit kindergarten, it is also very effective. "I strongly believe someone has been cheating, and a player has confirmed my suspicions. I'm not going to say who, in case they really weren't, but to prevent it, we're going to (roll our dice openly/keep all non-rolling dice off the table/keep all non-rolling dice in a pile so as to be easily separated/whatever other solution/have someone else confirm the roll)" That way the cheater can save face, and the person who confirmed it isn't on bad terms with the cheater. Of course the GM could leave out the player confirmed part, but it is nice to have that extra 'It isn't just me being mean' factor.

Posted by: Mr. Mage Oct 10 2010, 08:23 PM

I was playing a game of DnD and one of my friends sitting next to me was constantly cheating by pretending anything under a 5 on his d20 was a 20. As I said...I was sitting next to him... so I smacked him upside the head and he spit crackers all over the table. I do not suggest this being the way you handle the situation. It's just an anecdote.

That being said, I have rarely had much trouble with cheating but when I have (and its usually the same person) I tend to confront them right then and there. I make sure they actually cheated though, because if they weren't then I'm made to be the bad guy. But if I catch them and confront them right there, I tend to find that the embarrassment of being caught makes them stop doing it. For a while at least. I don't know you're friends will react to this, but my group tends to forget such infractions after a few games and just continue playing.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 10 2010, 08:26 PM

I vote for cracker-spitting in a game of friends.

Posted by: crash2029 Oct 10 2010, 10:39 PM

I used to cheat when playing D&D. I learned to play it with my father who had no idea of scale. I still remember the time two 5th level characters ran into a purple worm. Or the time my first level character ran into a vampire. Cheating in his game became a matter of survival. In one campaign he ran, even though I cheated, even with repeated raise dead/reincarnation spells, I still lost three different characters. When I started playing other games with other gamemasters it took me awhile to get used to playing normally. But I did. And now when I have a character perform an action I sometimes ask the GM to raise the threshold or add penalties to make the action cooler. And when I make it it's awesome. And when I fail I get The Looks from the other players. But I haven't cheated in a long time.

Posted by: capt.pantsless Oct 11 2010, 02:44 AM

Whatever you do, defer to the GM's preference. If its her game, she calls the shots.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 11 2010, 03:01 AM

Well… not necessarily. If the GM wants to ignore the cheating and you *don't*, then it's not her call.

Posted by: toturi Oct 11 2010, 04:23 AM

Why is she not happy?

Is she not happy about the person cheating? Is she not happy that you found out about the person cheating and she did not notice? Is she not happy because she was ignoring it but you found out and so she has to show that she isn't happy about something?

Posted by: Karoline Oct 11 2010, 04:26 AM

From the overall post, I gathered 'not happy that the person is cheating'.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 11 2010, 04:29 AM

Um, the plot thickens?

Posted by: Nychuus Oct 11 2010, 08:09 AM

You could always adopt the "If I didn't see the result of that roll, it never happened" rule.

Posted by: Sesix Oct 11 2010, 05:24 PM

Well if he is a really good friend I opt for the smack upside the head thing, if not then at least talk to him

When I read this I thought man, I loved it when I failed rolls in DnD. It made things more interesting, and the story more memorable. "Hey remember that time you tried to bluff the guards about all that jewelry you stole and was wearing while dopleganered as the wrong guy to be wearing said jewelry?" Yeah my rogue could steal anything, just couldn't talk his way out of a paper bag.

Posted by: Doc Chase Oct 11 2010, 05:30 PM

Throw 'em in a gladiator pit to be the headliner after his consistent successes make him stand out amongst the crowd.

He bleeds for the rest of the party's freedom. Moral? Sometimes the only way to win is to lose.

Posted by: Voran Oct 12 2010, 06:54 AM

I had a memorable failure in one of my 4th ed games. Luckily non-combat, but hilarious at the table.

I was playing a warlock, with a rather insane Charisma rating for 7th level, easily fitting the role of the party's face. I was making a persuasion check vs a npc we needed info from, I had supporting documents for my inquiry, and for giggles I did the rare thing and actually rp'd out what I was going to say.

Then I rolled a 1.

Shock across the table. We came to the decision that somehow, despite all my efforts, good nature, high charisma and such, in some ways the word LIAR flashed across my forehead or something while I was talking to the npc. Maybe cause I was a tiefling.

Posted by: Doc Chase Oct 12 2010, 01:12 PM

Gork the Ogre: You too good speaker for dis. You must be liar. *whomp*

Posted by: crimson ronin Oct 12 2010, 01:48 PM

first off its cool you got a female running sr especially if shes a good gm but i degress you say the problem is that someone who is a friend of yours is cheating? he is not
your friend because who a persons friends are speaks to his character it is your job to let him know he needs to stop if he wont he isnt your friend also it takes away from the fun for the rest of the adventure for all

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Oct 12 2010, 02:19 PM

The only solution is the Thunderdome. Two men enter, one man leaves.

Posted by: Doc Chase Oct 12 2010, 02:36 PM

Seconded.

Posted by: sabs Oct 12 2010, 02:54 PM

before every game night, drive over to his house, and let all the air out of his tires.

Problem fixed.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Oct 12 2010, 03:30 PM

Cheating in a RPG is the weakest and most pathetic behavior imaginable in a recreational social setting. It's like being that punk ass kid who always denies you hit him during cowboys and indians. The manly thing is to act out a dramatic gunshot wound, die, and create a new character.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Oct 12 2010, 10:23 PM

That just gave me the most amazing mental image ever. Seriously.

Now, I'm sure we've all fudged the dice before, heck, I do it both ways. Some times I'll knock a die with my hand and change the result, if it looked like a 2 to me before I interfered... I'll call it at that. If I feel I knocked it to a lower number, I'll take that.

I will say though that this character should be treated like the children who play at my table. They are honest but will try and pick up the dice before we can read them, regardless of the roll. When that happens and nobody else saw the result clearly, they re-roll. We have an open roll policy anyway though. You roll on the table in front of everyone. Albeit as much for ease as risk of cheaters. Some of us (mostly me) are just quick at the math and already know what the DC was and what their modifiers are.

Posted by: Karoline Oct 13 2010, 02:12 AM

Someone's been reading OOTS lately.

Posted by: toturi Oct 14 2010, 06:26 AM

But the cool and manly thing is to act out like Neo in the first Matrix, dodge all the bullets and then allow one bullet to graze. Or he could just cheat and stop all the bullets.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 14 2010, 02:18 PM

Dying at an inappropriate moment is lame. It's often the GMs fault if such a thing happens, unless it's explicitly a 'non-dramatic' game. It depends on player expectations.

Posted by: Jhaiisiin Oct 19 2010, 06:41 PM

We've got a player in my group that does similar things to this. He'll pick up dice quickly, count 3's and 4's as successes, ignore 1's, etc. We've resolved it by putting myself or my best friend next to him where we can peek at his rolls. When we see him overcounting the number of hits, we call him on it. He gets annoyed every time, but won't stop the habit.

However, the player is of the mentality that if he isn't controlling the Penultimate Badass ™ that can beat the piss out of Lofwyr, Harlequin and 4 Horrors before breakfast, then he isn't playing the right character. He loathes losing, or any perceived losing.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 19 2010, 06:44 PM

Heh. Why are you even letting him roll?

Posted by: Jhaiisiin Oct 19 2010, 06:53 PM

Lots of reasons. The main ones being that he is relatively easily offended, and we want to keep him in the group because he does positively contribute most of the time.

Posted by: Doc Chase Oct 19 2010, 06:56 PM

Is he buying the pizza and beer every week? Otherwise, I'm having a hard time imagining how his actions are making a positive contribution.

Posted by: Jhaiisiin Oct 19 2010, 06:59 PM

Despite his powergamer/munchkin attitude, he provides good ideas, amusing trivia and is the GM for one of our other gaming systems (Paladium, so suitably over the top for him).

In the end, we're choosing to keep him because we want to. Didn't figure we needed a better reason.

Posted by: Doc Chase Oct 19 2010, 07:14 PM

To each their own.

Posted by: sabs Oct 19 2010, 07:35 PM

I think Cinnibar is the only game I've played that was more munchkin than Paladium..

Posted by: Doc Chase Oct 19 2010, 07:35 PM

Is that the one where you're running a bakery?

Posted by: sabs Oct 19 2010, 07:45 PM

No, The World of Synnibarr I misspelled it.

Think D&D+Gamma World except that everything has been multiplied by 100.

Your Ranger has 1d8x100 hp/level.
Weapons do 1d8x100 damage

You get the idea.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 19 2010, 07:53 PM

Oh, god. 'Easily offended'.

Posted by: Doc Chase Oct 19 2010, 07:55 PM

I prefer the World of Cinnabon, to be honest.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Oct 19 2010, 08:31 PM

Who hates losing.

If you derail his character progression does he murder you in your sleep?

Vindictive flaw IRL.

Posted by: sabs Oct 19 2010, 08:50 PM

Sounds like my son.

Course, he's 8, and autistic so there are mitigating circumstances.

Posted by: Jhaiisiin Oct 21 2010, 03:39 AM

LOL Synnibarr is sitting on my bookshelf. And yes, it's absurd. Creatures have *billions* of hp, abilities can do millions, etc etc etc. It's major levels of MDC without actually being MDC.

Posted by: deek Oct 21 2010, 01:26 PM

I'm not sure I understand how anyone lets player cheat on their rolls. When I was running games in high school, I had one player that would always roll his dice behind a large yellow pencil box. He spent a lot of time rolling back there and he would regularly announce he rolled a 20 and then ask if he could use it for his next attack. I always said no and I eventually got to a point where I told him no roll counts unless I ask him to roll and see it. Not a big deal, because the rest of my players were bothered by it anyways, so even if the cheating player didn't like the rule, everyone else did, so there was no issue.

Nowadays, the groups I run and play with have a large 8' x 8' playing area and there is a ton of space. Everyone just rolls their dice in front of them and there are normally at least two other players looking at the results of the roll. We are all pretty honest, so if someone rolls a 10 and says they hit a 52, we all call him out and have him justify his results.

I'd say the GM just needs to get everyone rolling openly and players need to be somewhat aware of everyone's character so if they are getting bullshit results, they are called out. If it ends up being too much for this one player and he quits, well, that is his choice. It might hurt a bit for him in the first couple sessions he is needing to roll openly, but after that, its likely not a big deal.

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Oct 21 2010, 06:54 PM

I truely sympathize with someone who has a cheater in their group that they don't want to part with. Usually when I have a problem with cheating behavior the players are doing a variety of other stuff that's managing to piss off the rest of the group.

Recently we had a guy who

1) Fudged his dicerolls, "accidentally" counting hits that wern't there.
2) Kept wanting to play his amazing character with no log sheets (this is a living campaign).
3) Was prone to outbursts and sulking when things didn't got his way, especially if the situation called for something his "do everything" character couldn't do. Additionally he would actively try and disuade people from playing something that would be better then his character in any one of like 4-5 areas.
4) Wanted to leave the table and not take a log sheet after his own choices got his character killed/forced to hand of god.
5) Was prone to general rude behavior and no people skills.

So in short, when i did ask him to leave and not return after number 4 my only regret was I hadn't done so sooner.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Oct 21 2010, 07:37 PM

What I don't understand is why people act like that in the first place.

Posted by: Doc Chase Oct 21 2010, 07:46 PM

The point of a game is to win to some folks.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 21 2010, 07:55 PM

Nothing wrong with that, per se. The real problems we're looking at are immaturity and deceit. So, it's 'win at all costs' that's the problem, I guess. What's really sad is that they could direct all those urges into a *character* who is immature and deceitful instead.

Posted by: Doc Chase Oct 21 2010, 08:59 PM

I may have to give that a try.

Posted by: Backgammon Oct 24 2010, 01:17 AM

Might be worth taking a second to think about WHY he cheats. People play roleplaying games for different reasons. Some people enjoy the hard-earned reward of a victory. Others don't. Throughh years of okaying, it's be cone very clear to me some people play just to be something stronger than they are in real life. They want to be a badass that wins all the time and is feared. I'm guessing this guy is that. He wants to WIN. That doesn't mean he's a loser in real life or anything, but part of e enjoyment of playing a shadow runner for him is being a badass no one can stop.

So, where does that leave you? Perhaps he'd prefer being GM? Perhaps he'd prefer everything stay the way it is? In anyway.I don't know. Odds are neither does he. He'll probably get very upset if you call him on his cheating though. You have to weight the cost of calling him out versus the gain.

Posted by: deek Oct 25 2010, 06:15 PM

You could also try implementing metagame rewards for in-character performance. Stuff like a free re-roll once per session awarded for players that role-play their character extremely well. Bonus to hit, auto-reduction of damage...stuff like that can do a couple things. One, it can reinforce that we are all here playing a game and often times, someone that cheats, may have a delusion that they are doing more. Two...well, I forgot what I was going to say.

But, going with the metagame rewards, maybe the guy that takes the most damage in the session, gets a card next session to reduce a single hit by half... Or, anytime a character rolls a 1 or glitches or whatever, the next session he gets a chance to avoid a new glitch. I'm just taking stabs in the dark here, but if you can somehow reward players for some of the bad rolls that are bound to happen, then everyone has more reason to just roll the dice and say what's rolled instead of trying to cheat on every roll.

I think this could work well for the OP's table.

I don't have this problem at my table, but I do have issues with my players updating their character sheets each week, so I give out rewards for timely sheet updates. Again, its all the same idea, give out rewards for actions you want to see occur at your table. Just because its not in the core game rules doesn't mean you can't use it.

Posted by: Voran Oct 29 2010, 09:02 AM

I've always felt it leads back to attachment. Sure its natural to feel attachment to a character, and it makes sense the more attached to it you become, the less likely it will be you'll willingly burn said character by admitting to a bad roll. There are some warning signs, the guy who spends just a littttttle too much time coming up with backstory, and has more narrative for viewing 'pleasure' between new sessions, the guy who has sketches of said character, not just some doodles, but hero pose sketches in multiple flavors. The guy who also likes to add little quotations by said character on the bottom of each of those sketches.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Oct 29 2010, 06:17 PM

Maybe the reason that it's so hard for me to understand is that I like to let the dice fall as they may. It's kind of the polar opposite of cheating so you can be like Chuck Norris.