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PolloMark
2013-06-27, 12:42 PM
so in my campaigns, we have a couple of players who cheat all the time. lying about rolls, fudging their character sheets, and more. how have you handled players who try to cut corners?

Barsoom
2013-06-27, 12:48 PM
The best way to deal with cheaters is preemptive. Just show all your players that you're well aware of their stats and powers. Take the time to learn how their class features work. Take the time to learn the rules relevant to whatever they usually do. I'm not talking just the cheaters, I'm talking about all the players. Next time a player tries something not-quite-by-the-rules, even if unintentionally, you can immediately go "eh, it's doesn't work like that, what you intended is probably ..."

If fudging charsheets is a problem, demand the DM has a copy of the charsheet. Not just of the cheaters, of all the players. Just for reference, you know... :smallwink:

And about dice rolls - all dice rolled in full view of the DM, no exceptions. It also helps if you seat the cheaters in a way that both are flanked by two known honest players. This way the honest players can help you keep tabs on them.

1337 b4k4
2013-06-27, 01:05 PM
"Shape up or ship out"

I've never understood why in the RPG community we have such a hard time dealing with cheaters. If people got together once a week to play poker and someone always had aces up their sleeve, if they got together once a week to play baseball and someone didn't play by the rules, or heck if they got together to play monopoly and one player kept fudging their die rolls and pulling more money out of the bank, people wouldn't hop on forums asking "how should I deal with this cheater" they would simply tell the cheater to stop or go home. So should it be with your RPG game. You're under no obligation to continue to play with players who won't play by the rules you've all agreed on. Tell them to shape up, or ship out.

Water_Bear
2013-06-27, 01:06 PM
If you don't like the person, let them know it's a Zero Tolerance policy and be prepared to kick them out the first time you think they're cheating.
If the cheater is a friend of yours, give them a warning (I like the "Yellow Card" "Red Card" thing myself) and watch their rolls more carefully.

Thrawn4
2013-06-27, 01:32 PM
Tell them that the point of the system is to add excitement which is defeated by cheating. Effectively they are ruining their fun. If they just want to succeed, there is no point in having a system and you can focus on storytelling instead of rolling dice. Challenges can be much more fun than just winning everything by default.
If they don't understand that, you should tell them that you have apparently different ideas and that they should stop out of consideration for you or just focus on storytelling.
If that doesn't work either, you have very different ideas on playing a RPG and you should find another group. You want to have fun while playing, not watch their every move.

Slipperychicken
2013-06-27, 04:16 PM
Scan copies of peoples character sheets to pre-empt attribute fudging. Or just record the attribute results somewhere.

If someone's fudging rolls, make him roll in a cup, like in Yahtzee. No roll is valid unless you see the result, clearly, with your own eyes.

Let cheaters know that if you catch them cheating again, you will ask them to stop playing in your game. They might be great people, but if they want to cheat, they'll have to do it in someone else's game.

BWR
2013-06-27, 05:12 PM
First of all, be sure they are intentionally cheating. I have plenty of experience, myself included, of people who simply misread or misunderstood rules, misremember them, and fail at simple mental math.

Then you have people in games that somehow end up with twice as much xp than the rest of the group, or conveniently forget or outright ignores rule they doesn't like. With every ****ing character, every ****ing system.
In that case say straight up that you know they are cheating. If they are friends and you want to let them have a chance to shape up, tell them you will be watching them closely. Any suspicion of cheating later will result in their immediate expulsion from the game and probably bar them from any later games.
If you aren't that keen on giving them a second chance, cast them out immediately. People should know that the rules are there for a reason, and if they are to be ignored, it is the GM's call in every case.

Kaun
2013-06-27, 05:26 PM
I have/had a compulsive cheater in one of my games, i don't persecute him to heavily because he loves the game and he cheats because he really wants to do well.

The two tricks i used were as follows. (i should note we were playing 4eDND at this time)

the Dice Box: The dice box is a big cardboard box lid that sits in the middle of our gaming area. All rolls must finish inside the box for them to be counted. Any dice that bounce outside the box must be re-rolled.
This stopped most of the roll fudging. All the other players could see the dice land so it made it hard for him to turn a 6 into a 16 and it also did away with the old "it landed on an edge so i need to roll again."

Secondly...Reverse engineering their characters: I would take a copy of their characters when they were originally made then every few sessions i would get another copy of there update character. i would then spend half an hour looking over the characters making sure all the numbers married up correctly.

Between these things i stamped out pretty much all the cheating at my table.

GoddessSune
2013-06-27, 11:42 PM
so in my campaigns, we have a couple of players who cheat all the time. lying about rolls, fudging their character sheets, and more. how have you handled players who try to cut corners?

Well, my way is to just 'cheat' back...but worse.


But, of course, my game is far from standard anyway. It is impossible to do a lot of cheating as much of the crunch in my games is hidden anyway.

Slipperychicken
2013-06-27, 11:51 PM
the Dice Box: The dice box is a big cardboard box lid that sits in the middle of our gaming area. All rolls must finish inside the box for them to be counted. Any dice that bounce outside the box must be re-rolled.

Have the "walls" to this box ever been an issue for fishing dice out of there? Does its placement interfere with the battle-map?

I ask because I was toying with this idea before, but had a few minor concerns.

Kornaki
2013-06-28, 12:25 AM
Someone on this forum had a system where every time a player rolled a dice, after declaring the number on the die the DM would flip a coin. If the original number was x and the coin landed on heads then the die roll counted as x. If the coin landed on tails then the die roll counted as 21-x instead.

It should prevent any dice roll cheating as the players cannot know whether they want to bump the number up or down

Flickerdart
2013-06-28, 12:43 AM
Someone on this forum had a system where every time a player rolled a dice, after declaring the number on the die the DM would flip a coin. If the original number was x and the coin landed on heads then the die roll counted as x. If the coin landed on tails then the die roll counted as 21-x instead.

It should prevent any dice roll cheating as the players cannot know whether they want to bump the number up or down
Unless they have a high Sleight of Hand skill IRL and some trick coins...:smallwink:

Trekkin
2013-06-28, 01:24 AM
Doesn't that just make it a good idea to cheat into numbers closer to 10 then? At least they're more dependable.

I don't know if I like that system anyway, just for the time it takes. Then again, I deal with cheaters by flat-out admitting that I don't care if people mess up their math sometimes or add a miscellaneous +1 bonus to something every so often; I don't like policing people and the rules are crazy and sort of arbitrary anyway, so if there's more fun to be found by bending them slightly, so be it. If people want to cheat beyond that point, it usually cuts into other people's fun (including mine), and then it falls under the normal means of talking to problem players.

Kaun
2013-06-28, 07:27 AM
Have the "walls" to this box ever been an issue for fishing dice out of there?

Nah the box is about 30x30cm and 10cm deep. My players still manage to miss it our bounce dice out at least a dozen times per session.


Does its placement interfere with the battle-map?

I ask because I was toying with this idea before, but had a few minor concerns.

I usually shift it to suit around the battle map. As long as people aren't moving it over to themselves when they go to roll.

TheDarkSaint
2013-06-28, 09:01 AM
Cheating in rpgs usually, in my experience, comes from people with extremely low self esteem. Those type of people need to feel important, powerful and in control as in life, they probably feel rather insignificant. They may feel that high numbers make them more important. There is something missing internally that would let them feel this on their own.

I run a sci fi club at my school for middle schoolers and I see this type of person come in every once in a while. The other middle schoolers, usually shy geeky kids, don't usually have enough confidence to call them on their cheating. So, I came up with a system that not only gets rid of the cheating so everyone has fun, but that teaches the low self esteem kids that 'losing' can be just as fun.

I start by watching a couple of regular games. I then let the kids know that I suspect some cheating. They glance at each other, fearful that I'm going to kick someone out. I then tell them this.

"Winning all the time is boring. I'm going to prove it to you"

I take the dice away. I have them describe what they want to do and then I let them win. Constantly. They never miss on a swing, they never fail on a check. Most of them get this pretty quickly and things get outlandish very, very fast. They become like little mini-gods and I indulge their every whim.

But, like a child who eat too much ice cream, they tire of it. There is no excitement knowing that everything you do, you will be successful at. At the point when they get bored (this may actually take a few sessions), we have a talk. I ask them what they thought of is, how exciting it was and how quickly it got boring.

At that point, I bring the dice back in. I have one set we all use, even the DM. We have the standard box that we roll in and everything is on the up and up. We then go fight some dire rats. I have the CR high enough for it to be dangerous.

The cheaters usually never do it again. This may or may not work with your group, but I think we need to build understanding with our players on WHY they are doing something. Just kicking them out doesn't solve a problem and may hurt a friendship that existed outside the game.

Good luck.

Barsoom
2013-06-28, 11:05 AM
But, like a child who eat too much ice cream, they tire of it. There is no excitement knowing that everything you do, you will be successful at. At the point when they get bored (this may actually take a few sessions) ...What happens if players A and B tire of it after the first session, but players C and D are still craving their proverbial ice cream, and only have 'too much' after three sessions? Do A and B have to pointlessly wait for two sessions for the lesson to kick in?

TheDarkSaint
2013-06-28, 11:15 AM
Players A and B are instrumental in changing the other two's minds. Peer pressure at that age is a very powerful force and for people with low self esteem, being part of the group is VERY important. I count on kids getting tired of it quickly and trying to convince the others that this is 'boring'. Being 'bored' is hip with the 12 year olds.

Deepbluediver
2013-06-28, 11:18 AM
Unless they have a high Sleight of Hand skill IRL and some trick coins...:smallwink:

You don't even need trick coins, really, so long as you are the one who flips it. With a little practice, I got good enough so that I could feel the coin as I caught it and slap it down on a chosen side roughly 2/3 of time, without anyone noticing.

Not a perfect score, by a long shot, but easily enough to give someone a definite edge. If you really practiced alot you could probably get even better.

I never really used it to cheat at anything; mostly was just curiosity to see if it could be done. Of course, now seeing how easy it was, I don't trust anyone else to do coin-flips, but such is the price of paranoia. :smallamused:

Gwazi Magnum
2013-06-28, 11:27 AM
There's really nothing I can suggest that's hasn't already been mentioned.

But I should note, d&d is a game.
If you can't trust people not cheat and ruin the fun is the game even still worth playing?


First of all, be sure they are intentionally cheating. I have plenty of experience, myself included, of people who simply misread or misunderstood rules, misremember them, and fail at simple mental math.

Then you have people in games that somehow end up with twice as much xp than the rest of the group, or conveniently forget or outright ignores rule they doesn't like. With every ****ing character, every ****ing system.
In that case say straight up that you know they are cheating. If they are friends and you want to let them have a chance to shape up, tell them you will be watching them closely. Any suspicion of cheating later will result in their immediate expulsion from the game and probably bar them from any later games.
If you aren't that keen on giving them a second chance, cast them out immediately. People should know that the rules are there for a reason, and if they are to be ignored, it is the GM's call in every case.

It should be noted, something issues like the double XP can be a result of a DM slip up.

For example, in one session I had my DM meant to say "You get 2000 experience" but accidently said "You get 20,000 experience" which ramped me up a lot. Only to learn after my shock that he meant 2,000. But in this case the DM never liked to admit he's wrong so he blamed me for mis-hearing (like he does every single time he miss-says something or makes a mistake).

So it's important as the DM to be conscious of if the 'cheating' was accidentally caused by something they did or not.

The only other XP cheat I can imagine is retaliation of favouritism.
Same DM mention above did some ridiculous **** like 'Pay 400 gold or be locked in a cramped room filled with **** (literally) and be unallowed to RP for over an hour', and those who would rather not lose gold to DM fiat get locked in there and when EXP comes around the DM gives them significantly less exp for 'not roleplaying' even though it's the DMs fault.

In these cases players can end up cheating to correct the DM's mistakes, like when this happened to be I gave myself the extra xp to keep myself only slightly behind the other players. Now, I'm not saying the OP here is a bad DM like this, but DMs should also try to be aware of if they're doing something that is completely unfair/unreasonable that might encourage players to go against the rules a few times.

Gwazi Magnum
2013-06-28, 11:30 AM
Players A and B are instrumental in changing the other two's minds. Peer pressure at that age is a very powerful force and for people with low self esteem, being part of the group is VERY important. I count on kids getting tired of it quickly and trying to convince the others that this is 'boring'. Being 'bored' is hip with the 12 year olds.

From the way you're describing this I'm assuming you are far older than these children. That is probably why your strategy works so well on them, because your an older authority figure the children are expected to obey and respect.

For a normal DM who is DM'ing their friends and not children far younger than them they do not hold the same level of authority. Just the honorary respect a DM is expected to have which is also easily loss if the DM get's too out of line.

So for most DM's I can imagine them trying this and only being met back with group annoyance and anger at the DM for not being fun anymore and for thinking he needs to teach the rest of the group who are probably about the same age a lesson.

Barsoom
2013-06-28, 12:06 PM
Yeah, I can't imagine pulling a stunt like that with my peers.

BWR
2013-06-28, 01:41 PM
It should be noted, something issues like the double XP can be a result of a DM slip up.

Certainly, but when it happens with every single character, every campaign, then it's cheating. Especially when everyone else manages to get it right.

navar100
2013-06-28, 01:52 PM
Cheating in rpgs usually, in my experience, comes from people with extremely low self esteem. Those type of people need to feel important, powerful and in control as in life, they probably feel rather insignificant. They may feel that high numbers make them more important. There is something missing internally that would let them feel this on their own.

I run a sci fi club at my school for middle schoolers and I see this type of person come in every once in a while. The other middle schoolers, usually shy geeky kids, don't usually have enough confidence to call them on their cheating. So, I came up with a system that not only gets rid of the cheating so everyone has fun, but that teaches the low self esteem kids that 'losing' can be just as fun.

I start by watching a couple of regular games. I then let the kids know that I suspect some cheating. They glance at each other, fearful that I'm going to kick someone out. I then tell them this.

"Winning all the time is boring. I'm going to prove it to you"

I take the dice away. I have them describe what they want to do and then I let them win. Constantly. They never miss on a swing, they never fail on a check. Most of them get this pretty quickly and things get outlandish very, very fast. They become like little mini-gods and I indulge their every whim.

But, like a child who eat too much ice cream, they tire of it. There is no excitement knowing that everything you do, you will be successful at. At the point when they get bored (this may actually take a few sessions), we have a talk. I ask them what they thought of is, how exciting it was and how quickly it got boring.

At that point, I bring the dice back in. I have one set we all use, even the DM. We have the standard box that we roll in and everything is on the up and up. We then go fight some dire rats. I have the CR high enough for it to be dangerous.

The cheaters usually never do it again. This may or may not work with your group, but I think we need to build understanding with our players on WHY they are doing something. Just kicking them out doesn't solve a problem and may hurt a friendship that existed outside the game.

Good luck.

Reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode where a gambling crook dies and ends up in a casino. He always wins no matter what game he plays. At first he enjoys it but then the lack of thrill of the risk loses luster. He complains to the manager asking what kind of Heaven this is. The manager answers, paraphrasing, "Who said this is Heaven?".

Traab
2013-06-29, 02:26 PM
A lot of these suggestions just seem overcomplicated. The dm gets a copy of everyones char sheet, and rolls are done in the open. This stops pretty much all the casual cheating (after all, the temptation to claim you rolled JUST A BIT HIGHER can be heavy at times) and leaves us with only the most determined to cheat types like buying weighted dice or something. Also, this way noone gets called out for cheating causing issues in the future.

JadedDM
2013-06-29, 02:38 PM
so in my campaigns, we have a couple of players who cheat all the time. lying about rolls, fudging their character sheets, and more. how have you handled players who try to cut corners?

I suppose it would depend on what kind of game we're discussing here. Face to face? Play-by-post? Chatroom-based?

The Grue
2013-06-29, 03:29 PM
A lot of these suggestions just seem overcomplicated. The dm gets a copy of everyones char sheet, and rolls are done in the open. This stops pretty much all the casual cheating (after all, the temptation to claim you rolled JUST A BIT HIGHER can be heavy at times) and leaves us with only the most determined to cheat types like buying weighted dice or something. Also, this way noone gets called out for cheating causing issues in the future.

Heck, even this is overcomplicated. You know your players are cheating? Say to them, "Hey, I know you're cheating, I'm not an idiot. Stop or get out." What's so hard about that?

Gwazi Magnum
2013-06-30, 03:44 AM
Certainly, but when it happens with every single character, every campaign, then it's cheating. Especially when everyone else manages to get it right.

Agreed, that just wouldn't happen if it was just DM slip up.

Mr Beer
2013-06-30, 05:47 AM
Heck, even this is overcomplicated. You know your players are cheating? Say to them, "Hey, I know you're cheating, I'm not an idiot. Stop or get out." What's so hard about that?

If I saw blatant cheating, I would use this approach.

Failure to comply results in adverse GM decisions.

Traab
2013-06-30, 09:40 AM
Heck, even this is overcomplicated. You know your players are cheating? Say to them, "Hey, I know you're cheating, I'm not an idiot. Stop or get out." What's so hard about that?

Meh, I suggested that for stopping the cheaters in a way that doesnt chase them off. Not everyone can find replacement players easily. Its not even that big of a deal, shouldnt a dm have this information anyways to help create a good campaign?

The Grue
2013-06-30, 04:09 PM
Meh, I suggested that for stopping the cheaters in a way that doesnt chase them off. Not everyone can find replacement players easily. Its not even that big of a deal, shouldnt a dm have this information anyways to help create a good campaign?

Well if you'd rather play with dishonest people than not play at all, I suppose. Though that doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me.

JusticeZero
2013-06-30, 04:16 PM
No randomness in character generation, sheets publicly available on the cloud, all rolls out in the open.

Traab
2013-06-30, 05:23 PM
Well if you'd rather play with dishonest people than not play at all, I suppose. Though that doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me.

I agree, if they continue to find new and interesting ways to cheat then you would need to reevaluate playing with them. If they take the hint and stop trying to pull stuff, problem solved. No drama, no fuss, and your group stays together.