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Morgarion
2013-09-24, 01:11 PM
We all love a good bad player/GM thread, but I don't often see stories about people whose behavior crosses the line between ignorance or bad taste and unethical. To my knowledge, there aren't more than a couple of ways to cheat at most role-playing games, so this might get repetitive quickly, but there might some real innovators amongst the dastardly deviants we discuss, whose tricks should be made known to the community at large, lest they try pulling them in the next county over without fear of proper repercussions.

I've only ever met one serious gaming cheater. If you'd known him, you'd know his behavior in this area was really just an extension of some serious personality problems. He'd lie compulsively about all sorts of stuff, usually things that didn't matter. It was a lot of one-upsmanship, fibs and tall tales, probably for attention. We all knew it was BS, but we put up with it for some reason. I guess we just didn't consider cutting him off.

He was never very interested in playing D&D, but if there wasn't a video game console or someone to play with, he'd kind of go along with it. He did a lot of shifty stuff with his rolls, like rolling so the die would go off the table or land somewhere no one else could see and pre-rolling. He rolled his characters ahead of time and always got crazy stats, like four 18s.

He also cheated at M:tG. He had this way of 'shuffling' his deck where he divided it into a couple dozen piles or so and then stacked them and restacked them. I don't know how he did it or how long it took to figure out, but he had a system for making sure he always got the three or four cards he absolutely needed in his first hand. It was a white deck that focused on cheap extra life points. And we all knew he wasn't just that lucky, so one time when he already had shuffled his deck but play hadn't started yet, he had to get up and use the restroom. So, one of my friends gets up and goes over to his deck and actually shuffles it. I don't remember if he checked to see what the first hand would have been, but we could tell by the look on his face that he had been expecting something else. The best part was that he couldn't say anything to us about it, because if he did we'd know he knew.

lytokk
2013-09-24, 01:47 PM
Hmm... one person I've played with always insisted on rolling their dice in one of the boxes, the ones that keep the dice from rolling off the table. After the whole campaign was over, the DM was insisting they cheated, since no one ever rolls that well. Later I realized it was the DM just angry they got through his plan by pure luck.

Another would constantly change the description of spells, for example a psionic spell that delt xd6 of missile damage. One time he used it insisting it was a multitude of missiles, another time it was just 1 large missile.

I've fudged a few die rolls in my time, both as a DM and as a player. All of those fudges have been to prevent character deaths, due to a miscalculation on the part of the DM.

Other than that, we've never had any problems with cheaters in any of the games I've played. There's been the annoyance, the loudmouth, and on occasion the "I guess I read that ability wrong, guess it was kind of stupid to use" but never out in out cheating.

AKA_Bait
2013-09-24, 02:17 PM
I hesitate to use the word "cheating" as I'm very much of the school of thought that says fun>rules. That said, here are a few instances that I think are pretty common examples of players not playing to the letter:

1. Shroedinger's Spellbooks: This is where a player who is playing a game with a prepared spell casting class neglects to select what spells they have prepared for the day until they actually need to cast it. In other words, they become spontaneous casters with the entire universe of spells available to them by forgetting to list what they have prepared.

2. Spell Costs/Times: Many players "forget" that certain spells have casting time in minutes or expensive material or xp components.

3. Bonus Stacking: This is a D&D problem mostly, but not all bonuses stack with each other. Many players forget this, or simply are not all that familiar with the rules.

Ghost Nappa
2013-09-24, 03:00 PM
I will re-interpret mediocre rolls when success is more important or I'm using a skill I'm already really poor at.

If I don't just tack on a +10 to my roll, I wind up doing something like this:
1 -> 1
2- > 2
3 -> 3
4 -> 8
5-> 8
6 -> 9
7 -> 9
8 -> 10
9 -> 10
10 -> 10
11 -> 11
12 -> 12
13 -> 13
14 -> 14
15 -> 15
16 -> 16
17 -> 17
18 -> 18
19 -> 20
20 -> 20

Sith_Happens
2013-09-24, 04:59 PM
He also cheated at M:tG. [Snip]

And that is why you cut people's decks.

The_Werebear
2013-09-24, 05:05 PM
We had someone in our group who had improbably good luck at rolling. His average d20 roll seemed to be a 15 or so. After conferring about it, we politely requested that he roll his dice more towards the center of the table and leave them until everyone could read them (he had an elven script set that was very flowery and hard to read at a glance).

It was awkward and painful for us to ask a friend (even subtly) if he was cheating, and I'm sure tough for him to confront, but he complied with our requests. It was better to bring it out than to let it fester. Fortunately for all involved, it turned out that he simply did have very good luck. He continues to this day to roll very well (in the open) with any set of dice we hand him.

Mr Beer
2013-09-24, 05:50 PM
The way I run games automatically circumvents a lot of cheating.

Characters are generated on a points buy system (GURPS), so no rolling.

I keep character sheet soft copies, update them myself and print them off pre-game, so anything that should be on your character isn't and I know what's there anyway.

I haven't noticed any egregious dice roll cheating but I guess I'd occasionally ask to view a roll if I thought it was going on.

Really though, the best defence against cheating is not to play with 12 year olds or people who haven't emotionally aged past that point.

Winds
2013-09-24, 06:23 PM
Another would constantly change the description of spells, for example a psionic spell that delt xd6 of missile damage. One time he used it insisting it was a multitude of missiles, another time it was just 1 large missile.

That sounds...pretty cool, actually. I wouldn't allow without discussing some kind of trade-off, but I like the idea of a caster being able to do things like this. Particularly spontaneous/psionic casters who, fluff-wise, really ought to be able to. Might be too complicated, though...

jedipotter
2013-09-24, 08:57 PM
I've only ever met one serious gaming cheater.

Well, I've sure met dozens.

1.Hiding things from the GM. This happens most often with people who think the GM is ''just another player''. And if you can hide things from a player, you can hide things from a GM who is just a player. Then the player can just pull anything out of a pocket or whatever or just say they are immune to something.

2.Lying. Simple enough. They add a bit to damage. They remove a bit from damage. They change numbers. Even if the GM has the character sheet, they are simply hoping that during the game, the GM won't notice.

3.Ignoring things. Again, it is simple. They just don't take down effects or anything bad. And they hope the GM is too busy to notice.

4.Moving things around. The classic is to move the miniature when they think they won't get caught. But for more complex, they will often try and say stuff like ''my character moves around to get a good spot''.

5.Twisting, changing and interpreting the rules. The fun one. A lot of rules have some balance and common sense built in. But the cheating player just throws all that out the window. A great example here is the D&D assassin, when the player will say something like ''Oh I study everyone the second I see them so I can assassinate them''.

valadil
2013-09-24, 10:21 PM
Shroedinger's Spellbooks: This is where a player who is playing a game with a prepared spell casting class neglects to select what spells they have prepared for the day until they actually need to cast it. In other words, they become spontaneous casters with the entire universe of spells available to them by forgetting to list what they have prepared.


I've seen that, but for all of a character's abilities. He'll have stats and classes, but fill in spells, skills, feats, and gear as needed. Then it starts over the next week on a freshly printed character sheet. I hadn't seen the term Schroedinger's Spellbook though, and I quite like it. Knew what you meant right away.

I haven't seen dice manipulation but my friends have. One player only used tiny dice so he could lie about them easily. Another rolled dice near his hand, so he could keep nudging them until they rolled right. Another rolled and immediately picked up the dice so nobody could call him on it. I haven't played with these people since they never got invited back.

I've also seen a fair bit of GM manipulation, where the player asks about an ability the GM has never heard of, describes it innocently, then once it's approved, busts out the RAW definition which is easily abused. Then brags to everyone about how he tricked the GM. I'm not going to call that cheating, but it's the kind of play that gets you uninvited from my tables.

The most obnoxious I've seen was the player who hated rolls below 5. Any time he got a 1-4 on his d20, he'd call out "that's BS!" and do a reroll. The GM ruled that this was an instant failure. The ironic part was that the player did succeed on 3s and 4s, but hated them so much that he'd rather take the reroll and fail the check.


And that is why you cut people's decks.

I misread the vowel in your last word. I knew MtG was serious business, but that seemed excessive.

Mr Beer
2013-09-24, 11:45 PM
I've also seen a fair bit of GM manipulation, where the player asks about an ability the GM has never heard of, describes it innocently, then once it's approved, busts out the RAW definition which is easily abused. Then brags to everyone about how he tricked the GM. I'm not going to call that cheating, but it's the kind of play that gets you uninvited from my tables.

LOL, bragging about tricking me would have adverse consequences, to say the least.

Morgarion
2013-09-25, 10:18 AM
I keep character sheet soft copies, update them myself and print them off pre-game, so anything that should be on your character isn't and I know what's there anyway.

Oh, yeah. At one point I instituted a rule where I kept everyone's character sheet because of this guy. He rolled up a character at the table and the next time we played all his stats had changed. He hadn't even bothered to erase the first set completely and he added arbitrary points to his BAB and took more skill points than he could have - as if we, being more serious gamers, didn't know the rules better than he did.

Khosan
2013-09-25, 11:05 AM
I cheated a bit in my last couple campaigns, usually only after long strings of poor rolls though. I didn't have (and still don't have) good dice, I have like 12 d20s and only one of them averages higher than 10. I had to borrow dice from my DM once for character generation since the combined modifier had to be more than 4 and after something like 20 rerolls, I hadn't managed it once. I'm actually pretty sure my DM knew I would cheat occasionally since he knew how completely awful my dice were.

If I do cheat, I usually do it by fudging a roll to one of the neighboring numbers.

PersonMan
2013-09-25, 12:44 PM
And that is why you cut people's decks.

My favorite way of doing this is to whip out a pocket knife or similar, gesture to their (preferably expensive) deck and saying "ok, let me cut your deck".

As far as cheating is concerned, I've never really come across outright cheating.

Slipperychicken
2013-09-25, 01:50 PM
PC had been pretty badly injured, then took sufficient Constitution damage to die. The GM ruled that Con damage wouldn't cost hit points, and stuck with that, explicitly because that would have killed the PC...

I stopped taking him seriously after that, and still consider him a cheater.


Vampire Swordsage announces he hadn't been hit once in the campaign because his AC was really high. GM secretly rolls 5 critical hits in a row.

Forrestfire
2013-09-25, 02:50 PM
Reading this thread makes me thankful I've never had a run-in with anyone but MtG cheaters... Eep. :smalleek:

Amaril
2013-09-25, 04:07 PM
Reading this thread makes me thankful I've never had a run-in with anyone but MtG cheaters... Eep. :smalleek:

I had a rival once who had a multicolored deck with one, and exactly one, Student of Warfare in it, which was the card all his winning combos were based around. I played him fairly often, as did most of my friends, and because of his BS method of shuffling his deck, he managed to get that one card in his opening hand in pretty much every single game he played, which meant he was pretty much unbeatable until we all started calling him on it and demanding that we be allowed to shuffle his deck for him before every game. This guy also stole some of my more valuable cards from the school locker we were forced to share at one point, until I found them missing and demanded he return them, which he did almost immediately (though in such a grudging way that I'm almost certain he seriously meant to keep them, rather than just doing it as a joke).

I was the one who originally taught him to play Magic, and gave him most of his starting cards. Needless to say, I've been much more careful when selecting my apprentices in the years since.

togapika
2013-09-25, 04:51 PM
That's why you just play MTG in tournaments, where it is both legal and expected to cut or shuffle an opponents deck. If they refuse, you call a judge over and have them do it instead of you.

Emmerask
2013-09-25, 04:52 PM
PC had been pretty badly injured, then took sufficient Constitution damage to die. The GM ruled that Con damage wouldn't cost hit points, and stuck with that, explicitly because that would have killed the PC...

I stopped taking him seriously after that, and still consider him a cheater.


This can be a reasonable move by a dm depending on circumstances.
Problem is that if a character dies during an inopportune time the player might as well go home, which would ruin this guys enjoyment...
that would be completely against the most important task a dm has, to make sure everyone has fun.




Vampire Swordsage announces he hadn't been hit once in the campaign because his AC was really high. GM secretly rolls 5 critical hits in a row.

This on the other hand is not really reasonable ^^

Ansem
2013-09-25, 05:00 PM
I hesitate to use the word "cheating" as I'm very much of the school of thought that says fun>rules. That said, here are a few instances that I think are pretty common examples of players not playing to the letter:

1. Shroedinger's Spellbooks: This is where a player who is playing a game with a prepared spell casting class neglects to select what spells they have prepared for the day until they actually need to cast it. In other words, they become spontaneous casters with the entire universe of spells available to them by forgetting to list what they have prepared.

2. Spell Costs/Times: Many players "forget" that certain spells have casting time in minutes or expensive material or xp components.

3. Bonus Stacking: This is a D&D problem mostly, but not all bonuses stack with each other. Many players forget this, or simply are not all that familiar with the rules.

Our DM has a simple rule for that.... if you forgot to prepare spells, so did your character and you're stuck with your previous list (depending if he's in a good mood) or just have none at all for that day. I mean....you get reminded constantly so you either prepare one when the session has just started at most.

jedipotter
2013-09-29, 08:10 AM
Vampire Swordsage announces he hadn't been hit once in the campaign because his AC was really high. GM secretly rolls 5 critical hits in a row.

I do this often for players that are problems. I won't slow down or disrupt the game, just target the character with 'amazing bad luck'. And if you do it right, the player does not even know...and it stops thier cheating cold.

Black Jester
2013-09-29, 12:21 PM
Non-essential backstory:
I usually have a very lax policy when it comes to character design at my table. Nominally, character abilities are rolled and we use some sort of lifepath system when available, but I am perfectly happy if everybody just picks his ability score based on personal taste or preferences and that's it. In our main system, which is point-based, players can basically determine rather freely with how many character points they want to start, as long as the character story makes sense and the character stays within a certain, non-silly framework.
Likewise, my preferred version of granting XP is basically granting everybody a rough framework and let everybody choose how many XP they think are acceptable for themselves, plus granting everybody the opportunity to grant other players bonus XP for good ideas and so on.

So, by default, this is a very trustful approach, where there is little reason to cheat in this regard, and the most important control mechanism is peer pressure. And in most cases, this works perfectly fine, the players are much more aware of their responsibility and more self-critical (and are usually more outspoken in their critique of themselves than I as the GM could ever be without being mean or hurtful).

This usually works very well, new players sometimes need a bit of time to adjust where this new freedom of unchained POWA is exploited, before that gets dull and they get more self-critical and modest. Narcissism is nice and all, but most players learn that being part of an interesting story and a good team is more important than sheer character power (especially when more powerful characters just means that they often just have to face larger numbers of foes and the GM doesn't need to hold back as much.

As I said, *most* players. We had one case where this didn't work, at all. Mind you, the core of my group plays in this version on an almost weekly base for four years now. We had two players leave, and four players join the group (myself included), so it is a bit crowded now. One of the new players however was a problem. As usual, we expect characters of new players to be more powerful than average in the games we play, that is sometimes necessary to survive and that a new player who learns our rules to go all out and tries to build the most powerful character he can think of or come up with, or something like that. He did so - and his character built was horribly contrived, literally just slapping everything that grants high bonuses or powers together to build his super powerful Ice-Elf Fire-Elementalist Mage / Bounty Hunter. Of course he never provided more backstory than "and then he decided to become a bounty hunter"). Then, he minmaxed that character to a ridiculous degree (one reason why we play as we do is to minimize the need for minmaxing and establish more well-rounded and less one sided and one-dimensional characters) and when we actually played he not only trespassed constantly on other players' scenes (even the completely fluffy ones these players played apart from the actual plot for character development). Not that he contributed much, he just felt the need to interrupt people a lot and to get bored when he wasn't the centre of attention for more than 10 minutes. However, he kind of sucked at actual roleplaying and was constantly overextended by not being dragged along by the GM and requiring a proactive decision from time to time.

But whenever we played a fixed adventure module, he almost always came up with the solution rather quickly. Normally, I wouldn't have guessed what actually happened, because there are players who are really good at solving riddles or something like that, right? Sometimes people have hunches, especially when many pre-made adventures follow a known or even standardized pattern or structure. If you played long enough, guessing what is going on isn't that difficult, similarly to watching movies where you can also figure out the plot sometimes.
However, one of the adventures we used was changed by the then GM (I didn't run it) to make it fit into the overall campaign, delegating the original bad guy to a more ambivalent role and using a different guy the PCs already run across before instead and also slightly changed the outcome of the whole plot. But for our super player the outcome was soo clear: he basically charged the wrong bad guy (as in the guy who would officially been the adventure's antagonist), and when the adventure didn't include its original surprising twist he almost physically assaulted the GM and screamed at him he would cheat because he had changed the adventure. What we basically learned was that whenever we played a pre-made adventure, he would download a copy (illegally, of course) and read it beforehand so that he knew what would happen and thus could act on his "hunches" and could feel smart when he knew what would happen beforehand or what kind of weaknesses the opponents would have. And then he had the nerves to attack the GM when he didn't follow the exact same path of the adventure.

On the plus side, "and then he became a Bounty Hunter" became one of the major running gags of that group, which has utterly destroyed any credibility bounty hunting possibly ever had in our group.

Emmerask
2013-09-29, 12:35 PM
Wow, I hope you kicked the guy after that tirade!
Cheating on a roll or how many goldpieces are in the characters pockets... I can forgive.
Cheating by reading the adventure beforehand... I cant even fathom why anyone would do this to himself, the group and the dm...

jedipotter
2013-09-29, 01:14 PM
Cheating by reading the adventure beforehand... I cant even fathom why anyone would do this to himself, the group and the dm...

Seems normal for most players around here. They always run out and buy published adventures, as well as every other book.

'Course, I'm the type of DM that changes everything. And it's always fun to watch that player attempting to use his reading of the book and failing. (Cheating player: "I walk over and only open the chest in the middle and ignore the other two". DM:"A shadow snake leaps out of the chest and attack you!". Cheating player:"Wait, what? But the middle chest had the treasure...er.."

Emmerask
2013-09-29, 02:10 PM
Well there is kind of a difference to read an adventure to maybe run it at some point as a dm or reading it because you like to read adventures (somewhat similar to a book)... or to read it because it will be the next adventure the dm has chosen to do ^^

If any of my players would do such a thing (ie the last of the reasons given), I would kick them instantly.

Slipperychicken
2013-09-29, 02:21 PM
Well there is kind of a difference to read an adventure to maybe run it at some point as a dm or reading it because you like to read adventures (somewhat similar to a book)... or to read it because it will be the next adventure the dm has chosen to do ^^


Since, I'm a player who doesn't plan on DMing, I actively avoid reading modules. One of my favorite parts of RPGs is problem-solving, and that would be like looking up all the answers beforehand. Also, if the DM spent money on the module, then you're wasting that too.

It just seems like a huge ****-move all around.

nedz
2013-09-29, 02:38 PM
I've never encountered this problem, but then I never really run pre-published adventures. Half the fun of DMing is writing material anyway.

Mr Beer
2013-09-29, 05:55 PM
and when the adventure didn't include its original surprising twist he almost physically assaulted the GM and screamed at him he would cheat because he had changed the adventure.

Ugh, what a scumbag, I would tell him to GTFO and never come back.

Alex12
2013-09-29, 07:14 PM
In my group, we have some simple anti-cheating measures: players roll dice openly so everyone can see, DM has to prove it if the roll was an auto-success or critical threat/confirmation (if he's rolling behind the screen), and both DMs of the group freely alter modules and don't tell people beforehand what we're running. If you read the module, that's fine. It'll probably be different anyway.
For the prepared spells, I make all prepared casters come up with a "standard loadout" (that they can change anytime) of spells that they are assumed to prepare each day if they don't specify otherwise.

As the DM, I occasionally bump a roll or DC up or down by 1 or 2 to make things interesting, which is kinda cheating. I won't do it at the extreme end (18 won't become 19 or 20, 3 won't become 1 or 2) but turning a 9 into a 10 if it makes it more interesting? Yeah.

We do have a couple players who say that their class features and skills work a certain way, when they actually do not (typically the result of an obscure PrC or something), but the DM doesn't have time to check.

Deophaun
2013-09-29, 07:32 PM
I once played in a game where the DM was running a module I had already played before. I let him know, he was OK with it because he, of course, changed things around. The problem was, the things he changed weren't for the better (often an injection of poorly conceived homebrew: save, save again, save until you fail type stuff), and when the other players made any kind of grumbling about his alterations, he always claimed "it's in the module."

holywhippet
2013-09-29, 08:59 PM
I have let slide the occasional incident when a player or DM misremembers a rule and it helps the players out a bit. Nothing too huge though, like when a player toss a thunderstone and claimed it could stun the goblins he threw it at. I didn't check the book but I was pretty certain at the time that he was wrong. The DM seemed ok with it so I didn't argue.

nedz
2013-09-29, 09:16 PM
We all make mistakes occasionally, that is not the same as cheating however.

Knaight
2013-09-29, 09:30 PM
Seems normal for most players around here. They always run out and buy published adventures, as well as every other book.

That makes sense though. Published adventures tell you a fair amount about the game, and how it should actually work in practice - which is something just about every system is terrible at conveying directly. If they aren't trying to cut the adventure out from under a GM, it's not a problem.

Lord Torath
2013-09-29, 09:43 PM
I once played in a game where the DM was running a module I had already played before. I let him know, he was OK with it because he, of course, changed things around.I always tell a DM if I've either played or read the module before. This lets him change it, and keeps me on my toes. I know he knows I know, ya know?

Slipperychicken
2013-09-29, 10:00 PM
Shouldn't the thread title be "Liars, cheaters, pumpkin-eaters"? Or is it a pun I'm not getting?

Krazzman
2013-09-30, 03:41 AM
So far this hasn't come up but I read some modules to get ideas for my PF game.

As such IF one of our other Players wants to DM and implement this then I will tell him beforehand... luckily I forget almost everything about modules if I don't write down at least a bit or are really interested in running it/thinking about how to tweak it to fit the players.

(Currently hooking them up with Into the Forzen North after they finally defeat the Vampire they are hunting right now.)

Morgarion
2013-09-30, 09:49 AM
Shouldn't the thread title be "Liars, cheaters, pumpkin-eaters"? Or is it a pun I'm not getting?

Yeah, probably. I wanted to use 'cheat' instead of 'cheater', because I think someone who is a cheat is more devious and essentially unethical than someone who is a cheater. It's a fine distinction but it made 'pumpkin-eater' sound weird.

Sith_Happens
2013-09-30, 09:50 AM
I have let slide the occasional incident when a player or DM misremembers a rule and it helps the players out a bit. Nothing too huge though, like when a player toss a thunderstone and claimed it could stun the goblins he threw it at. I didn't check the book but I was pretty certain at the time that he was wrong. The DM seemed ok with it so I didn't argue.

I've been extremely guilty of this, but that same campaign uses fumbles so it's only fair.:smalltongue:

Black Jester
2013-09-30, 10:45 AM
Wow, I hope you kicked the guy after that tirade!
Cheating on a roll or how many goldpieces are in the characters pockets... I can forgive.
Cheating by reading the adventure beforehand... I cant even fathom why anyone would do this to himself, the group and the dm...

Actually, we didn't need to kick him out; he just didn't answer any mails anymore and basically disappeared from all contacts (which was bad, because he still had at least two books of mine).
I met him again a few months later, and he was kind of remorseful and actually seemed to have grown a a person, but that was basically a one evening conversation. I never played again with him


I personally am not strongly against reading adventures. Especially if you play with completionist collectors who buy anything of their chosen system (hamster players, as we call them with a mixture of reverence and ridicule), this is not that uncommon, especially for older adventures or those with a reputation for being good. It happens. But I don't think it is expecting too much to be open about that and tell the GM beforehand, because that sometimes allows for an interesting cooperation between the player in question for the purpose of the adventure. And specifically reading adventures for the sole purpose of "winning" is pretty much cheating.
Then again, the amount of coffee I consume while gaming probably counts as doping, as well.

Mr Beer
2013-09-30, 05:26 PM
he just didn't answer any mails anymore and basically disappeared from all contacts (which was bad, because he still had at least two books of mine).
I met him again a few months later, and he was kind of remorseful and actually seemed to have grown a a person

Remorseful and grown-up enough to get your property back to you?

Eldest
2013-10-01, 07:27 AM
Another would constantly change the description of spells, for example a psionic spell that delt xd6 of missile damage. One time he used it insisting it was a multitude of missiles, another time it was just 1 large missile.

I believe that is just called Energy Missile (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/energyMissile.htm).

lytokk
2013-10-02, 07:38 AM
Yup, that's the one. The reason he was changing its description was something to do with some sort of energy resistance or protection from missiles spell. I can't remember the exact specifics of the encounters.

Kurald Galain
2013-10-02, 08:28 AM
The most obvious cheat I've known was a guy who would balance a die on the edge of his hand and then drop it so it fell vertically, leaving the same number up. This only works with d6's though, and we quickly told him to cut it out because of how blatant it was.

Then there was this girl who would use spells from an obscure splatbook, then conveniently forget to bring that book with her, and conveniently forget about any drawbacks the spell might have.

I had this guy in my group who misrepresented his hit point total during a tense scene, meaning his character stayed conscious when he actually should have dropped (and have gotten caught). He did confess afterwards that he made an error, although given the player's personality it's unlikely that he simply miscounted.

And, of course, I know several players who will build a character based on an ambiguous (or clearly wrong) interpretation of the rules, without checking whether the DM agrees with that. Both 3E and 4E contain plenty of dodgy or overpowered tricks that are "technically RAW".

ElenionAncalima
2013-10-04, 10:23 AM
We have player who is incredibly quiet and doesn't roleplay or describe her characters actions very much. This wouldn't be a problem, but she has an annoying tendancy to make her character randomly pop up whenever there is a roll. For instance, if a couple characters declare they are going off to talk to someone and others declare they are going to the market to shop, she won't say anything unless she is asked. If the group starts rolling sense motive, you can be she will be rolling...but if the DM first asks the other group to roll appraise to see if they are being ripped off, you can bet that she was actually with them the entire time.

I suppose that one may be more of a nuisance that heinous cheating, but it really takes us out of the scene. Often we will be having really strong roleplaying moments, then all of a sudden a character no one thought was there, pops up with a knowledge check...then goes back to not contributing.

The only other annoying one was with our DM. For us he has a very strict, if it is not on the table it doesn't count policy. However, when he rolls off the table...if he likes the number it counts. One time he even caught the dice as it was rolling off the table and called it a 20.

skyth
2013-10-04, 12:46 PM
The only other annoying one was with our DM. For us he has a very strict, if it is not on the table it doesn't count policy. However, when he rolls off the table...if he likes the number it counts. One time he even caught the dice as it was rolling off the table and called it a 20.

That's the DM's perogative. In the game I run, the players roll using maptools for everyone to see. I roll actual dice. I've even told them that I do that so I can modify rolls if I feel the need. They're fine with it, but granted, they trust me too :)

Segev
2013-10-04, 01:12 PM
Regarding the OP's acquaintance with the stacked M:tG deck...

If he was dividing his hand 12-ish ways, he very likely had one of the piles be specifically the opening hand he wanted. There are a number of ways to arrange this. The easiest, with his method, is to actually have those cards pre-sorted into their own pile, and the deck he makes a show of shuffling doesn't initially include them. Separate them out, and then add the pre-sorted pile as one of the stacks. This can either be done in a moment of distraction when nobody is paying close attention to his shuffling, or can be done literally as he gathers up the piles, placing his opening-hand-pile on top of the first pile he picks up. Then he sweeps the other piles under it.

Simply cutting his deck would put his super-combo somewhere in the middle of his pile. Given the sensitivity to amount of mana on the field that things can have, this can render it nearly useless. At the least, it delays it. Actually shuffling obviously has a good chance of mixing up his carefully-selected cards.

Eldest
2013-10-04, 01:22 PM
That's the DM's perogative. In the game I run, the players roll using maptools for everyone to see. I roll actual dice. I've even told them that I do that so I can modify rolls if I feel the need. They're fine with it, but granted, they trust me too :)

There's a difference between saying that *all* DM rolls are taken as they fall and *all* PC rolls are on the table or reroll. However, that at least implied that the DM will reroll the dice if it fell off the table and he disliked the number, but would keep the number if it was a good one.

skyth
2013-10-04, 02:30 PM
There's a difference between saying that *all* DM rolls are taken as they fall and *all* PC rolls are on the table or reroll. However, that at least implied that the DM will reroll the dice if it fell off the table and he disliked the number, but would keep the number if it was a good one.

Still DM's perogative. DM always has the power to choose a result and/or re-roll the result as he wishes. Now, if DM's girlfriend is allowed to choose whether to keep or not any off-table roll, but other players aren't, then there's an issue (That's favortism, and another issue entirely). But really, any way the DM chooses to roll (and not being consistant counts as a choice) is perfectly fine. By definition, the DM can never cheat at rolling dice :)

LWDLiz
2013-10-04, 02:49 PM
I learned the importance of playing it straight at the gaming table from my dad who would tell me the story of his most infamous cheater from his games. He would fudge hit points, but he was also completely lying about his rolls. My dad thought he was doing it but had no proof, so he confronted him \and told him to knock it off. The player feigned ignorance and said he wasn't cheating. Another player caught him at it one time, told my dad (the GM) and the next day in a dungeon a stone trap door was "triggered" and crushed the guys' PC. He never played in the group again.

Knaight
2013-10-04, 03:25 PM
Still DM's perogative. DM always has the power to choose a result and/or re-roll the result as he wishes. Now, if DM's girlfriend is allowed to choose whether to keep or not any off-table roll, but other players aren't, then there's an issue (That's favortism, and another issue entirely). But really, any way the DM chooses to roll (and not being consistant counts as a choice) is perfectly fine. By definition, the DM can never cheat at rolling dice :)

This is game dependent. Personally, I'd have just as much of an issue - if not more of one - with the GM cheat rolling as with their boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband/whatever getting to roll in such a dubious way. At least when the S.O does it, it only throws off the rolls for one characters, as opposed to almost all of them.

skyth
2013-10-04, 04:56 PM
Depends on how much you trust the DM.

The DM has the right to modify any die roll they want. The players also have the right not to play :) As long as the DM modifies the die rolls to make things more fun, then all is well.

Mr Beer
2013-10-04, 08:18 PM
I learned the importance of playing it straight at the gaming table from my dad who would tell me the story of his most infamous cheater from his games. He would fudge hit points, but he was also completely lying about his rolls. My dad thought he was doing it but had no proof, so he confronted him \and told him to knock it off. The player feigned ignorance and said he wasn't cheating. Another player caught him at it one time, told my dad (the GM) and the next day in a dungeon a stone trap door was "triggered" and crushed the guys' PC. He never played in the group again.

The way to really make the point is say "The trap is triggered, roll a save" and then while the dice is still rolling, look them in the eye and say "You fail and die".

GoblinArchmage
2013-10-04, 08:20 PM
When I roll for my character's abilities, if I'm planning on being a spellcaster, I always give myself an 18, often at the expense of lowering some other rolls, because I'm insecure and I have to make my character really good at what (s)he does so I can pretend to actually be competent at something.

Mr Beer
2013-10-04, 08:22 PM
When I roll for my character's abilities, if I'm planning on being a spellcaster, I always give myself an 18, often at the expense of lowering some other rolls, because I'm insecure and I have to make my character really good at what (s)he does so I can pretend to actually be competent at something.

I'd ask the GM to generate via points buy going forward, I think you'd be happier with it.

Lorsa
2013-10-05, 04:40 AM
When I roll for my character's abilities, if I'm planning on being a spellcaster, I always give myself an 18, often at the expense of lowering some other rolls, because I'm insecure and I have to make my character really good at what (s)he does so I can pretend to actually be competent at something.

How would this work different compared to any other class? Spellcasters tend to be the most powerful anyway.