PDA

View Full Version : Problem Player



Surfnerd
2013-02-11, 11:48 PM
Hello all on Giantitp! This is my first time posting, I've been directed here a lot when seeking answers about various RPG stuff. So I thought I would post this question up on the forums.

The problem is somewhat tricky. Not a new player to the group and not a personality issue or disruption issue during the game. This problem is I fear he/she may be cheating during character creation. Its such a difficult problem because one we lack proof and two how do you confront someone with that without creating long term problems.

I just feel their need to dominate combat situations propels fudging rolls during character creation to maximize their character. We rolled 4d6 for attributes. This player was not in attendance when they rolled their character and having rolled for attributes I was pretty amazed at what the rest of the group's scores looked like and what theirs ended up being, not too mention based off the equipment they said they had they would have had to roll almost max starting gold..... anyway it drives me crazy.

What to do?!?!

Matticussama
2013-02-11, 11:52 PM
This is generally why some sort of point-buy system is often recommended; players are always on the same footing regardless of lucky dice rolls. Even if you're going to have dice rolls for stats, in every game I've been involved with players must roll for stats in front of each other just so that there is no questionable results. If you are the DM I would suggest asking the player to roll their stats in front of you; just say it is a matter of policy that you want to see the results when players roll for their stats. If you aren't the DM, I'd heavily encourage your DM to ask the player to roll in front of them just like everyone else did.

Amaril
2013-02-12, 12:02 AM
The easiest way to avoid problems is to make an announcement to the entire group at once that any die rolls they make in character creation, and any hit dice they roll later, must be rolled at the table in the presence of the group. Problem solved, and if you tell this to the whole group at once, the one player who might be cheating won't feel alienated.

Also, welcome to the Playground :smallsmile:

NikitaDarkstar
2013-02-12, 12:06 AM
I agree with the others. If you roll for your stats you roll in front of each other. Otherwise use a points buy as that is much easier to control. In the same way use the "Wealth by level" to determine starting gold (or average starting gold. Or simply set an amount to make it fair).

Now the problem here is if you've already started to play and allow this player to play with this character. If the game has already started you'd pretty much have to force everyone to reroll since you have no proof that the person did cheat and he could simply have gotten lucky. Or you accept it as is for now and just make a note of it for the next game. Either way treat everyone equally until you have proof.

Also, welcome to the playground!

Slipperychicken
2013-02-12, 12:08 AM
Generally speaking, it's a good idea to have everyone roll ability scores where you can see them (and hopefully with fair dice, but die-weighting usually isn't an issue). There, you record the attributes yourself so you can give everyone a quick audit if you suspect anyone of manipulating ability scores. In this case, I would ask all your players (even non-cheaters) to reroll stats in front of you without naming names, just so you know their rolls are legit.

For starting wealth you can do the same. I prefer simply using the average results, so you don't get screwed by the dice (you already start with far too little gear as it is). Also, because checking the total value of someone's inventory is extremely tedious. For similar reasons, I support the use of Point-Buy for ability scores, although I do know the pleasure of rolling for it, which is a quite appropriate reason to roll for stats.

If you catch someone frequently cheating at die rolls (and you have hopefully talked to the players about it), you can let him know "Hey, if you don't stop cheating, I'm going to ask you to roll with a cup, like in Yahtzee". Obviously, if he proceeds to cheat anyway, just hand him a cheap plastic cup so he can roll in that.

Just going to hop on the bandwagon welcoming you to the playground :smallsmile:. You'll find you can get responses rather quickly over here, and we're glad to address any questions or concerns you may have (even if they feel stupid, chances are there are a thousand others who've had the same issues).

ArcturusV
2013-02-12, 12:21 AM
Well, this is why I roll for my players, stat wise. I LIKE random stats rather than Point Buys. I'm always leery of Point Buys because it leads towards Min-Maxing and just weird, illogical stuff in some game.

"Okay, your guy can fly a spaceship, control several batteries of weapons with pinpoint accuracy at the same time, and navigate interstellar distances... but you can't do basic math..."

... I kid you not I've seen stuff like that. A lot.

So I'll just roll up stats myself and tell a guy, "Hey, I rolled a 12, 13, 10, 7, 17, 15 for your stats, assign at will."

Works well enough. And since I as the DM rolled it, I know there were no shenanigans. Since I rolled everything no player can look at another and think they cheated (Heck, I'll know if they cheated and wrote down something else).

If the guy fudged stats, he's PROBABLY going to cheat on other rolls. Just how it tends to go. A guy doesn't cheat on one thing and leave the rest up to pure chance. I suppose you could use the cup thing. Though most times I see guys who are "Cheating" it's less about quick fingers to make the dice land a particular way, it's someone who I saw at the Hobby Store rolling dice for several hours until they found all the dice that seemed to naturally roll high (Or low if the game they play is like Dark Heresy and rewards Low).

So when I find people are getting a bit TOO lucky on the streaks and pushing the bounds of plausibility I institute a random inversion on rolls. I'll ask for dice rolls, let everyone roll. Then I'll flip a coin. Heads? Normal rolls. Tails? Inverted rolls, former good results are bad, former bad results are good.

Usually no one has a problem with that as I do the coin flip in the open. Except for the guy I think is cheating. He'll usually say something like it's not fair and I should show him if it gets inverted before he rolls so he can go fetch his die that always rolls low if he needs it.

Surfnerd
2013-02-12, 12:34 AM
Thanks for the greetings and the swift responses. I really just needed a sounding board to help work out coming to terms with it for now. I'm not the GM in this campaign, but we rotate in and out of the hotseat.

All great advice and from this point on we will be sure to have checks in place to maintain harmony during the game. For the duration we will have to deal with the bump in equipment and attributes until levels increase in game and things right themselves.

Truthfully it has little impact on my character but I already see it causing friction in the dynamic of the game. It bugs me because the players cheated bump takes away from the other characters in combat from having the potential to shine and makes the encounters a little easier, which the GM assures me he intends to fix to continue to challenge us.

I used the average for starting wealth for my character, but being somewhat of a wildman concept I didn't end up spending much on equipment. I totally agree with you on not chancing the dice with equipment.

Surfnerd
2013-02-12, 12:49 AM
@ArcturusV I hadn't even considered finding dice that have a statistical probability to roll higher or doing sleight of hand to affect outcomes of dice rolls.

I may pay attention to that, but I think this player relies on the padding of high stats coupled with equipment normally outside the reach of starting levels to make sure low rolls still squeeze by.

Attributes are the foundation of characters in most games and strengthening those with cheating goes a long way and seems the easiest to do when not being observed. In Pathfinder it takes up to 12th level to make up the difference between a score of 14 and 17. Which a character who fudged up to 17 will have a 20 in by that point thats a change of +2 between those two characters. That cheating went a long way.

Malak'ai
2013-02-12, 01:09 AM
I get my players to roll in front of me and I write the scores down as they're rolled.
I've done this from day one and will keep on doing it (unless I decide to use straight PB), as it's the way I've always played, right from my first GM.

There are situations where you'll get awesome rolls, and some where you look at the dice and just want to tear your hair out, but hey, that's the way the cookie crumbles.
I remember one game years ago when we rolled for stats in front of the DM and I almost had books thrown at my head because of my rolls (using a brand new set of dice, straight from a sealed plastic container that I had brought from the hobby store that day while the DM was there as well), I can't remember the exact order I rolled them in, but I got 18, 18, 17, 16, 16, 15. Next character I rolled up, I got nothing above a 14 (but not low enough for a re-roll).

To cut a long story short; roll in front of the DM to keep things above board and transparent and no-one has a right to complain about how someone might be fudging.

Thajocoth
2013-02-12, 01:13 AM
They could've gotten lucky. You can't know & can't prove anything. If you had required them to do it in front of you, or you rolled and sent them the scores, or you just used a point buy system to keep people even (which prevents many problems later), then you wouldn't be suspicious. At this point, there is really nothing you can do about it & it will be unfair throughout play that the characters are all not on even ground.

I remember a session that I rolled an 18 on the d20 about 8 times in one turn. I crit on a 17-20 because of my build. (Daggermaster; 4e Paragon path.) I dealt an incredible amount of damage to my target. That same die has not repeated that streak. I was just really lucky that turn. I'd usually crit 25% of my turns with that character, and when I do crit, only do so an average of 4 times the first time it happens and 2 each time in that fight afterwards (because of all the bonus powers I was able to throw on top of it to get more attacks & therefore more crit chances.) Statistically, this is still a little better than the average statistical expected, but certainly not in the realm of cheating.

That could just as easily happen for someone's character creation. They have the same chance of rolling {6,6,6,6} as they do of rolling {2,3,4,5}.

Altair_the_Vexed
2013-02-12, 04:34 AM
They could've gotten lucky. You can't know & can't prove anything. If you had required them to do it in front of you, or you rolled and sent them the scores, or you just used a point buy system to keep people even (which prevents many problems later), then you wouldn't be suspicious. At this point, there is really nothing you can do about it & it will be unfair throughout play that the characters are all not on even ground.

...
I partially second this - you can't go back and single out this guy, demanding that he re-roll the character in front of you without it being highly divisive. You might as well call him a cheat to his face... and without any proof to back it up, you'll just come off as a meany. :smallfrown:

But "unfair throughout play"? Not necessarily. At low level, it'll make a big difference. As characters improve, it tends to even out (I'm assuming a d20 based game, since the OP mentioned 4d6 for attributes).
As GM, you can even tweak the treasure to benefit the other players to bring them up to an even level. Hand out items sized for other characters. Curse items in the normal treasure hand out to make them unusable by his race, or class.
You'll need to decide whether you need to try to even out the party openly, or secretly.
If you keep it in the open, you can just say "Your character's scores are way better than everyone else's - which is probably going to make the rest of the players feel lame. I'm going to try to deal with that through treasure until the whole party is a little more even." This has the advantage of being honest, showing the player that you've noticed his awesome scores, and telling him that you're not going to let him have the advantage. The disadvantage is that it might cause a confrontation - he may resent preferential treatment.

In future, however, to stop this sort of thing happening again, I strongly recommend using a points buy system - or what I've done a couple of time: have the whole group roll one pool of dice, and pick their scores from those.

Surfnerd
2013-02-12, 09:02 AM
Agreeing with all who say you can't just throw the cheat accusation in the player's face. That is what brought me to posting as that would be to me the most obvious solution and also worst.

Personally if I was the GM in this campaign I would have just invited the player over early to roll up his character before the session and my heart would be at ease and if any players were to bring it up away from the sessions I could put their questions to rest.

As the player I usually have my wife verify any rolls to be used in games that I can't or am unable to make at the gaming table. As my wife couldn't be less concerned with what goes on in made up worlds I feel she is at least slightly impartial, but I'd also understand even with her as witness that if I rolled five 18s for stats that it would never fly within the group.

Any other player in the group and I could totally agree with all of you who suggest it was luck. Unfortunately over the years unwitnessed die rolls by said player have always been a bit dubious. So unless the player is ever caught I don't foresee it changing without some of the measures mentioned here being utilized.

I will suggest to our GM, magic item awards as a way to bring early on balance to the party.

I also like the idea of prerolling groups of stats and allowing the players to assign them, but I also understand the joy of rolling dice as a player.

nedz
2013-02-12, 09:37 AM
This sort of problem is irksome, it is also very hard to fix char gen issues after the fact.

The only solution is to take the character out of the game somehow and force a re-roll.

The DM can do this by a number of means, but the party could also do it at a pinch. You would have to find manufacture some IC reason why he must leave the party — PvP is the unsubtle method of last resort here.

The real problem may be OOC. If he is cheating: then there are no IC solutions for OOC issues such as these. There may be an OOC solution, but it's very hard for random people on the internet to help here.

Synovia
2013-02-12, 09:56 AM
Hello all on Giantitp! This is my first time posting, I've been directed here a lot when seeking answers about various RPG stuff. So I thought I would post this question up on the forums.

The problem is somewhat tricky. Not a new player to the group and not a personality issue or disruption issue during the game. This problem is I fear he/she may be cheating during character creation. Its such a difficult problem because one we lack proof and two how do you confront someone with that without creating long term problems.

I just feel their need to dominate combat situations propels fudging rolls during character creation to maximize their character. We rolled 4d6 for attributes. This player was not in attendance when they rolled their character and having rolled for attributes I was pretty amazed at what the rest of the group's scores looked like and what theirs ended up being, not too mention based off the equipment they said they had they would have had to roll almost max starting gold..... anyway it drives me crazy.

What to do?!?!

Did you say how many times a player can roll their 4d6? I had a player show up one day with fantastic stats, and a sheet with about 600 lines of stats that he'd gone through and rolled.

This is why rolling dice for something as important as character creation is a bit suboptimal.

Synovia
2013-02-12, 10:19 AM
As GM, you can even tweak the treasure to benefit the other players to bring them up to an even level. Hand out items sized for other characters. Curse items in the normal treasure hand out to make them unusable by his race, or class.

This is, IMO, the absolute worst possible way to handle this. You don't punish OOC issues IC. If you start doing this, you're going to have a player who is going to resent the DM, isn't going to have any fun, and will probably leave the game.

If you've got an OOC issue, you deal with it OOC.


That being said, OP, do you have any reason to believe he cheated other than that his rolls are high? 4d6b3 is going to produce an 18 about 2% of the rolls, which sounds low, but its really not.


My suggestion? Do nothing. Next set of characters, either use PB, or make people roll at the table.

Friv
2013-02-12, 10:36 AM
Yeah, this is pretty much why I hate the kind of random rolls that D&D produces. I understand why people like it, but the variance is just too high.

There are four options for how this happened, really, and only one of them implies cheating. Depending on the person, who I assume you know better than us, it could be any of:

1) An actual, really lucky roll. I've had that happen twice in games I ran, before I outlawed random generation. I particularly recall the elven wizard we once got who rolled an 18, two 16s, and three scores between 13 and 15. Totally luck.
2) The person is using a different generation method by mistake - there are, after all, quite a lot of them. This isn't very likely, but it's possible.
3) Cheating, as mentioned. But it's not the sort of thing you want to accuse someone of without proof.
4) They could just be bad at math, and have totalled a couple of rolls incorrectly, or accidentally overpurchased gear. I've done that once or twice.

Anyway, if it's not actually a game-ender you should probably just let it lie, and make changes in future games. I suggest a change where you use a less broad randomizer.

killem2
2013-02-12, 10:55 AM
I think if you are going to roll, and you think you might have players prone to cheating, you could have the dice rolled with everyone around, no need to look at them, but then have the rolls exchanged so everyone has a new set of rolls.

:smallbiggrin:

like

:smallredface: rolled, 15,13,18,17,12,11

(cheater) :smallfurious: rolled, 16,18,18,13,16,14

and

:smalleek: rolled, 11,10,15,12,15,16

Then tell them to exchange it all haha.

Altair_the_Vexed
2013-02-12, 11:42 AM
This is, IMO, the absolute worst possible way to handle this. You don't punish OOC issues IC. If you start doing this, you're going to have a player who is going to resent the DM, isn't going to have any fun, and will probably leave the game.

If you've got an OOC issue, you deal with it OOC.

...Yes.
So that's why I suggested it'd be good to explain that you're granting these bonuses to the rest of the party in order to establish balance.

Also, you're not punishing the guy. You're overcoming the other characters' shortcomings.

Lastly, doing nothing - i.e., letting someone think they got away with what everyone else believes to be cheating at D&D (the lamest form of cheating there is) - is only going to reinforce the behaviour.

Lord Torath
2013-02-12, 11:56 AM
That could just as easily happen for someone's character creation. They have the same chance of rolling {6,6,6,6} as they do of rolling {2,3,4,5}.
Just a probability nitpick: Yes, 6,6,6,6 has the same chance as 2,3,4,5. but when you're generating ability scores, 2,3,4,5 is the same a 5,4,3,2. Order doesn't matter. There are actually ten different ways of arranging those dice, so 2,3,4,5 is ten times more likely than 6,6,6,6.

And 2,3,4,5 is just one way of generating a "12" score. There are a whole slew of combinations that will give you a 12 result, and only a few that give you an 18 (21 out of 1,296 possible combinations)

Synovia
2013-02-12, 11:58 AM
Yes.
So that's why I suggested it'd be good to explain that you're granting these bonuses to the rest of the party in order to establish balance.

Also, you're not punishing the guy. You're overcoming the other characters' shortcomings.


Yes, you are punishing the guy. If you allow random generation of attributes you have to accept what people rolled. You have to accept the premise that some characters are just stronger than others.

You don't let a player do something, and then punish him for it. This just creates resentful players.Its just bad DMing.


Lastly, doing nothing - i.e., letting someone think they got away with what everyone else believes to be cheating at D&D (the lamest form of cheating there is) - is only going to reinforce the behaviour.
But there's no evidence that hes actually cheating. If hes not cheating, you're punishing him for nothing, and thats much worse than not punishing someone.

Altair_the_Vexed
2013-02-12, 12:24 PM
Yes, you are punishing the guy. If you allow random generation of attributes you have to accept what people rolled. You have to accept the premise that some characters are just stronger than others.

You don't let a player do something, and then punish him for it. This just creates resentful players.Its just bad DMing.
No, you are not punishing the alleged cheater. You are buffing the rest of the party to meet his enhanced ability scores. This is rewarding others, not punishing the accused.

Random generation of scores does not absolutely dictate the acceptance of rolled scores, even if they are publicly rolled. If that were the case, then you wouldn't be allowed to discard poor sets of rolls.

You don't have to accept that some characters are stronger than others - if you did, there would be no points buy systems.

It's questionable whether the accused players was "let" to roll their character away from the group - once he turned up with a complete character, fait acompli, it'd be embarrassing to demand that he rolls it all again. That amounts to saying that he cheated, which Surfnerd, the OP, says no-one wants to do.


But there's no evidence that hes actually cheating. If hes not cheating, you're punishing him for nothing, and thats much worse than not punishing someone.
For the purposes of discussion, I was assuming that cheating has taken place. There is certainly a perception that he has cheated. Surfnerd said "Unfortunately over the years unwitnessed die rolls by said player have always been a bit dubious" - so it appears there is a consensus at his table that the alleged cheater is a cheater.

Anyway, my suggestion was just that: a suggestion of what might be a solution.
There are other plans of course: grant the rest of the party the same set of numbers to distribute among their scores; kill the errant character; do nothing; rage quit; etc, etc.
The OP knows their group better than we do, and they can judge what would work best.

prufock
2013-02-12, 12:40 PM
No, you are not punishing the alleged cheater. You are buffing the rest of the party to meet his enhanced ability scores. This is rewarding others, not punishing the accused.

Seconded. If you're worried about balance, let the other players reroll, or just give everyone whatever stats the (alleged) cheater got.

Surfnerd
2013-02-12, 01:14 PM
To those that suggested taking his/her rolls and applying them to everyone's character. That's brilliant!!! It can be done under the guise of balance based on skewed die rolls without accusing anyone of cheating and actually turning his/her potential and unproven cheating into a boon for the rest of the group. Turning this one time attributes were rolled away from the table into a positive situation. Everyone walks away happy and for future non point buy char gen we know how to prevent hard feelings and suspicion. Thank you to all who took the time to help and post.

Synovia
2013-02-12, 01:16 PM
No, you are not punishing the alleged cheater. You are buffing the rest of the party to meet his enhanced ability scores. .

Buffing everyone but one person is punishing that person.

"Joe, Mike, and Jim, you get icecream. Billy, no icecream for you." - that works once or twice, but after that, Billy is going to be awfully pissed.

Blarmb
2013-02-12, 01:27 PM
I'm assuming this some variety of 3.Whatever D&D? If that's the case there are two possibilities:

1) They're a caster and need 1 good ability score, which they'd have gotten in almost any set of 6 4d6 rolls. The others are only so much frosting.
2) They're a non-caster and even straight 18s doesn't really represent an increase in their power ceiling, and only does a moderate job of raising some of the lower power floors. Even in a all non-caster party they'll hardly be grossly out of scale.

In either case the overall state of power balance in the game won't but swung enough by character generation dice rolls to be worth the social cost of making a cheating accusation or forcing a re-roll on the basis of nothing but "Your stat scores are somewhat above average".

Honestly, the fact the initial assumption is that someone with above average stats is cheating speaks rather poorly of the group dynamic as a whole. It might be more productive to just seek out a game with people you're willing to give at least a minimal level of trust.

Altair_the_Vexed
2013-02-12, 01:43 PM
Buffing everyone but one person is punishing that person.

"Joe, Mike, and Jim, you get icecream. Billy, no icecream for you." - that works once or twice, but after that, Billy is going to be awfully pissed.

Rebuttal: "Billy, you already have ice cream. Joe, Mike and Jim should have some too."

But of course, our OP believes he has his best fit solution, so let's stop debating.

Synovia
2013-02-12, 01:45 PM
Rebuttal: "Billy, you already have ice cream. Joe, Mike and Jim should have some too."

But of course, our OP believes he has his best fit solution, so let's stop debating.
There's a difference between character creation time attributes, and items given out during game. You're fixing in out-of-character issue in-character, and that always causes issue.

Do you really think Billy isn't going to throw a ****-fit when for about the 5th encounter he gets much less treasure than the other players? This sort of treatment is the sort of thing that ruins groups.

Either fix people's attribute scores, or ignore it.

Surfnerd
2013-02-12, 03:15 PM
@blarmb The last part of your post rings of truth and touches upon the more complicated matters I didn't include in the original post. We had actually moved on without said player because of entirely OOC issues and attendance issues but being a long time friend and player when she/he showed renewed interest and a resolution to fix attendance issues we(or rather I) allowed them to return. Which having missed the first session generated the current issue. They were not able to make the first session, all and all I did find that solution I think would fit but I'm not the GM. I still need to plead the case and "hey let us all use the potential fudged stats" isn't going to be a very easy argument to make. Feeling the need to go outside our group for the first time with an issue is rather telling that we as a group may need to reevaluate this players participation at all

Amphetryon
2013-02-12, 04:22 PM
Buffing everyone but one person is punishing that person.

"Joe, Mike, and Jim, you get icecream. Billy, no icecream for you." - that works once or twice, but after that, Billy is going to be awfully pissed.

Part of the issue the OP stated is that the Character presented apparently rolled max on starting wealth, as well as good stats. So, fixing this could be less a matter of "Billy, no ice cream for you" and more "Billy, since you already have ice cream, I'm going to serve everyone else some before coming back to you."

If you find this to be punishing a Player IC for an OOC issue, then we're going to have to agree to disagree.

Synovia
2013-02-12, 04:33 PM
Part of the issue the OP stated is that the Character presented apparently rolled max on starting wealth, as well as good stats. So, fixing this could be less a matter of "Billy, no ice cream for you" and more "Billy, since you already have ice cream, I'm going to serve everyone else some before coming back to you."

If you find this to be punishing a Player IC for an OOC issue, then we're going to have to agree to disagree.

If you think the DM favoring certain players with more treasure is a good idea for group dynamics, run with it. Good luck.

kyoryu
2013-02-12, 04:41 PM
I partially second this - you can't go back and single out this guy, demanding that he re-roll the character in front of you without it being highly divisive. You might as well call him a cheat to his face... and without any proof to back it up, you'll just come off as a meany. :smallfrown:

It may be divisive, but he already singled himself out by being the only one to not roll at the table.

Synovia
2013-02-12, 04:50 PM
It may be divisive, but he already singled himself out by being the only one to not roll at the table.
Because he missed a session. Sometimes life is more important than a D&D game.

Is it worth losing a player (because thats probably what is going to happen if you insinuate he's a cheater) to deal with a couple stat points?

Amphetryon
2013-02-12, 05:10 PM
If you think the DM favoring certain players with more treasure is a good idea for group dynamics, run with it. Good luck.

Who said the favoring of certain Players with more treasure was intended to be permanent? It's a possible remedy to a current imbalance in the party's wealth distribution that, once that imbalance is addressed, is no longer an issue.

If you think allowing certain Players to keep a disproportionately large amount of treasure over the course of an entire campaign is a good idea, then - again - we're going to have to agree to disagree.

Synovia
2013-02-12, 05:20 PM
Who said the favoring of certain Players with more treasure was intended to be permanent? It's a possible remedy to a current imbalance in the party's wealth distribution that, once that imbalance is addressed, is no longer an issue.

If you think allowing certain Players to keep a disproportionately large amount of treasure over the course of an entire campaign is a good idea, then - again - we're going to have to agree to disagree.

The wealth balance is pretty much irrelevant at the point where you're rolling for wealth. It'll sort itself out even without giving everyone else more stuff.

IE, there's no advantage to doing this. D&D wealth escalates so rapidly that having twice what you're supposed to, the advantage is gone in a couple sessions.

For example, a cleric starts with (I believe) 5d4*10 gold. Anywhere from 50-200. If you give one player 50, and the other 200, when they hit level 2, one has 950, the other as 1100. Its pretty much irrelevant already. Its definitely irrelevant at level 3.

There's no upside to trying to fix this, and a ton of downside.


Its the attributes I was talking about anyways. You can't start giving everyone a +2 weapon and only give him a +1, its obvious, silly, and again, has way more downside than upside.

kyoryu
2013-02-12, 06:53 PM
Because he missed a session. Sometimes life is more important than a D&D game.

Is it worth losing a player (because thats probably what is going to happen if you insinuate he's a cheater) to deal with a couple stat points?

If it's just a few stat points? Probably not. And people get lucky.

But the OP has suggested he has reason to believe this person cheats on a regular basis.

bbgenderless100
2013-02-12, 07:24 PM
Hello all on Giantitp! This is my first time posting, I've been directed here a lot when seeking answers about various RPG stuff. So I thought I would post this question up on the forums.

The problem is somewhat tricky. Not a new player to the group and not a personality issue or disruption issue during the game. This problem is I fear he/she may be cheating during character creation. Its such a difficult problem because one we lack proof and two how do you confront someone with that without creating long term problems.

I just feel their need to dominate combat situations propels fudging rolls during character creation to maximize their character. We rolled 4d6 for attributes. This player was not in attendance when they rolled their character and having rolled for attributes I was pretty amazed at what the rest of the group's scores looked like and what theirs ended up being, not too mention based off the equipment they said they had they would have had to roll almost max starting gold..... anyway it drives me crazy.

What to do?!?!

Go with whatever your gut or heart is saying.

Now if you'll excuse me.....


*runs off like the roadrunner*

Doxkid
2013-02-14, 03:29 PM
The simplest thing is to use flat things (32 point buy, 100 gold at level 1) before the game starts and visible die rolls after that.

Bam. Done forever.

holywhippet
2013-02-14, 06:57 PM
I'd only worry about it if the player turns out to be a mad powergamer or munchkin at the game table. If they turn out to be a team player and a good time is had by all then who cares if their dice roll may or may not have been fudged a bit.

Keep in mind that good dice rolls do happen at times. I know one person who, while witnessed by their DM, rolled 18 for every stat during character creation.

In the long run those few stat bonuses aren't going to be game breaking as a rule. What you could do though is decide that monsters regard that PC as being the most dangerous target due to their superior attributes and focus a bit more on them than anyone else.

Jay R
2013-02-14, 07:24 PM
I would put a very low level of karma into the game, over a long period of time. A magic item is given to the person with the lowest stats, each player is given a challenge equal to his abilities, etc.

In a games in which stats were rolled, I once gave them money based of a formula so that the highest stats had the least money.

It shouldn't overwhelm the game, but you need to make sure his stats don't overwhelm the game, either.

ReaderAt2046
2013-02-14, 07:36 PM
If you're worried that he's too much more powerful than the rest of the party, cause the enemies to notice that and the smarter ones to conclude that they should concentrate on him to weaken the party ASAP. This should easily counterbalance any unfair advantages he might gain.

scurv
2013-02-14, 07:48 PM
Call this round a learning experience, and be ready for the next time a char generation happens. A Mistake once is one thing, It is a special thing to be learned from. Just learn the lesson.
Now on the flip side, They may of just gotten lucky in generation, Or they may be use to different house rules. I had a player who would generate complete chars until he found one he liked.......ahem yea
But it is as just as important to keep things professional and civil until it is established that there is dishonesty. People tend to respond to hostilities with hostilities, regardless of who started it or why they think they had reasons. Some players also respond to trust and faith in their integrity by emulating those traits.

AttilaTheGeek
2013-02-15, 06:42 AM
See if he gets "lucky" again. However, I do have one player who I've seen with my own eyes be incredibly lucky. He has four ancestral d6s, handed down through generations in his family.

He showed up one day, having rolled 4d6b3 and his attributes were {18, 17, 17, 16, 14, 14}.

The DM thought those were ridiculous stats, so he asked him to reroll in front of him. {18, 18, 18, 17, 16, 13}.

He then asked him to put the dice in a cup and roll again. He was a little indignant, but he did. {18, 16, 16, 14, 14, 12}. The DM let him keep those.

ArcturusV
2013-02-15, 06:50 AM
Compare to my luck... Roll in front of the DM, get 12, 11, 11, 8, 8, 6. DM asks for a Reroll, I get 10, 9, 8, 8, 5, 5. Asks for another reroll, I get 9, 7, 5, 5, 4, 3. Finally had someone else roll for me. So I guess it's your friend and his Ancestor Blessed Dice which has stolen my Luck. :smallbiggrin:

Slipperychicken
2013-02-15, 08:58 AM
Compare to my luck... Roll in front of the DM, get 12, 11, 11, 8, 8, 6. DM asks for a Reroll, I get 10, 9, 8, 8, 5, 5. Asks for another reroll, I get 9, 7, 5, 5, 4, 3. Finally had someone else roll for me. So I guess it's your friend and his Ancestor Blessed Dice which has stolen my Luck. :smallbiggrin:

You're actually supposed to reroll if no scores are 13 or higher, and/or the combined ability modifiers are +3 or less.

Altair_the_Vexed
2013-02-15, 10:04 AM
See if he gets "lucky" again. However, I do have one player who I've seen with my own eyes be incredibly lucky. He has four ancestral d6s, handed down through generations in his family.

He showed up one day, having rolled 4d6b3 and his attributes were {18, 17, 17, 16, 14, 14}.

The DM thought those were ridiculous stats, so he asked him to reroll in front of him. {18, 18, 18, 17, 16, 13}.

He then asked him to put the dice in a cup and roll again. He was a little indignant, but he did. {18, 16, 16, 14, 14, 12}. The DM let him keep those.
Frankly, I'd ask him to stop using loaded dice.

Whether they're physically weighted, or mystically charged, I don't care. You don't get to use non-random dice at my table.