DM advice for dealing with social issues

[SarmKahel]

I have been a DM for a long time and I've learned a lot of tricks for dealing with social issues (usually out of game and very straightforward) but recently I've come across a situation I'm not sure how to deal with.

I have a player who fudges some of his rolls, and my normal approach wont work here. Typically I would take a non confrontational approach to this problem. I've found that calling people out on this will hurt even the most humble players pride, and I can never be sure that I'm correct since I don't know the original value of the rolls. In all honesty, I would rather deal with the downsides of having one of my players cheating than risk wrongfully accusing him. Having said this, it has become an issue I can no longer ignore, as my tactics I typically use to mitigate this have become less effective.

By combining jack of all trades with a convenient tendency to never roll below an 18 on important skill checks, and also a set of very high base stats, this player can meet any reasonable skill check DC I set every time. This is a problem, because in order to continue to challenge this player, I must set check DC's the rest of the party cannot reasonably hit. Additionally, he is playing a Warlock, and has set him up as a utility lock. This brings in issues specifically with his dispel and greater dispel magic at will abilities. Since he can use them infinitely, and he always rolls well on caster level checks, all of my magical puzzles (of which I am terribly fond) and BBEG's with magical effects either have to be such high caster level they can't be effected, or they're countered on the first try.

Any suggestions with how to deal with this without upsetting my player?

[rexx1888]

talk to him out of game, not accusatory but just sorta "hey, your always rolling really high, i just wanted to make everyone roll on the table so no one thinks your cheating". Spin it as a favour to him. then put in a blanket rule to have all dice rolled on the table(which is a thing that should be done for players anyway to avoid this exact problem).

IF, by some chance, hes still rolling high, then you will have to assume hes just lucky. IF he kicks up a huge fuss, then you have him dead to rights. theres no reason anyone should have a problem with this rule, since its normal operating procedure elsewhere.

[The Trickster]

I never got why people cheat at this game. Failing can be part of the fun...

If you have talke to him about this already, there are a few options.

For the optimization part, just ask him to tone it down a bit, for the sake of everyone else playing. He may just not realize that his optimized guy is making the game difficult to play against (since the other players don't seem to be optimizing much).

As for the rolling fudging part;

Does he use his own dice? Does he roll behind a screen? Make the players roll out in the open, so no more number fudging. If his dice are hard to see, ask him to use easier-to-read dice instead.

I had a DM run a game where he made all the skill check rolls for the party. He made a copy of each player's character, and rolled skill checks when he deemed appropriate.

[jaydubs]

It's pretty standard to roll where everyone can see it. Though, chance being what it is, you should not draw conclusions based on if he suddenly starts rolling worse or the same. He could have been lucky before, and getting unlucky in the future. Or he could have been cheating in the past, and getting lucky now that he rolls in the open.

[Haggler]

I see two basic sulutions to you problem that you can work with and that would hopefully not hurt anyones pride.

1. You as a DM take upon yourself to roll all the important roll where a single check makes or breaks an entire situation. As many skillcheck tends to be.

2. You adopt a policy of openroll for greater excitment among the players where you all roll your dices in the cover of a box or simillar in the center of the gameing table so everyone can see the results as they come up all the time. Make sure to include your own rolls here as the main part of the idea and the sell to the players is that your DM rolls are open as well and they thay now are compleatly exposed to the cold hard mercilessness of the dicegods with now comfy DM buffert between then.

But on a sidenot I would comment if it is as much of a problem as you really think. In my experience most DM fudge the dice from time to time to make the story better and more interesting, why not give the same right to the players, nothing say they are worse as a group in determening what they enjoy storywise. This particular player might simply dislike getting stuck on purely mechanical obstacles and simply want to get on with the adventure.

[jaydubs]

But on a sidenot I would comment if it is as much of a problem as you really think. In my experience most DM fudge the dice from time to time to make the story better and more interesting, why not give the same right to the players, nothing say they are worse as a group in determening what they enjoy storywise. This particular player might simply dislike getting stuck on purely mechanical obstacles and simply want to get on with the adventure.

I would advise against this unless it was an open rule, discussed beforehand.

I'll just say that as a player, if I found out another player was cheating, I'd be very angry. And if I found out the DM was intentionally letting another player fudge their dice without telling anyone else, I would leave the campaign.

There are ways to reduce the influence of luck in a game. Make it narrative, or add something like Fate Points from Warhammer or Moxie from Eclipse Phase.

But I do not want to play with cheaters. And I have to believe a lot of other players feel the same way. :smallannoyed:

[NichG]

I see two basic sulutions to you problem that you can work with and that would hopefully not hurt anyones pride.

1. You as a DM take upon yourself to roll all the important roll where a single check makes or breaks an entire situation. As many skillcheck tends to be.

2. You adopt a policy of openroll for greater excitment among the players where you all roll your dices in the cover of a box or simillar in the center of the gameing table so everyone can see the results as they come up all the time. Make sure to include your own rolls here as the main part of the idea and the sell to the players is that your DM rolls are open as well and they thay now are compleatly exposed to the cold hard mercilessness of the dicegods with now comfy DM buffert between then.


I tend to think that #2 will go over better than #1 - for the first example, it creates the appearance that the DM wants to be able to fudge not only their own rolls, but is intending to fudge the players' rolls too. Even if its not true, it can create a bad atmosphere.

Open rolls are generally the way to go with something like this, but just be aware that it'll tend to slow things down. One idea would be to use a shared online dice roller rather than physical dice, even though its kind of silly. That'd allow players to type in their rolls and have them pop up for everyone though, so there's not a constant 'reach into the center of the table' situation or worse, having to roll every attack in an attack sequence out one at a time.

It also has the upside that it makes counting complex rolls very fast (15d6 damage and similar situations), for players who are slow at addition. It does kind of mean that everyone has to have a laptop though.



But on a sidenot I would comment if it is as much of a problem as you really think. In my experience most DM fudge the dice from time to time to make the story better and more interesting, why not give the same right to the players, nothing say they are worse as a group in determening what they enjoy storywise. This particular player might simply dislike getting stuck on purely mechanical obstacles and simply want to get on with the adventure.

Well there are certain places it can cause problems.

- PvP situations. This is unfair to the player who is not cheating.
- Spotlight-stealing. This is probably not a huge issue in D&D since spotlight-stealing is dominated by abilities that 'just work' rather than things that depend on a roll. It's a bigger problem in other systems where everything is based on a roll.

[Slipperychicken]

One idea is to use a "dice tower", which basically rolls your dice automatically, with very little chance to cheat it. Similarly, you can designate a box for rolling, and don't count rolls unless they're declared ahead of time and inside the box.

You could tell everyone that rolls don't count unless the following conditions are met:

The roll is in the middle of the table.
You can clearly see the roll's result.
Nobody touches the dice until you see the roll


If you believe he's somehow fudging die rolls by touching them, you can ask him to roll with a cup (like in Yahtzee). My brother once did this in a game where he was certain that someone was cheating.

Of course, if you feel like he weighted his dice (especially if he has one or two "lucky" dice), you can try rolling them yourself. Just ask him to see his dice and roll them a bunch of times to see if they're consistently high. My GM does this sometimes and nobody really minds.

[SarmKahel]

Thank you for the suggestions, I got a lot of good ideas from here, especially the open roll idea. I think i will set up something like this so at the very least, if he is fudging rolls I'll have a chance of seeing it happen and can pull him aside after the session is over without the fear that I'm wrong. At the very least, having everyone roll on the table will make any kind of roll fudging less likely/impossible and solve the problem by itself.

[jedipotter]

Any suggestions with how to deal with this without upsetting my player?

Don't tell DC's, just have the player roll. Don't say ''you need a 20 to do this''. Then, no matter the roll, you can just say they fail.

You can also add a 'cheat balance'. Just add ten or so to all DC's to balance the cheating.

[WbtE]

Don't tell DC's, just have the player roll. Don't say ''you need a 20 to do this''. Then, no matter the roll, you can just say they fail.

You can also add a 'cheat balance'. Just add ten or so to all DC's to balance the cheating.

The player may not be cheating. It's possible that they're lucky. Once you start assuming bad faith in games, it's all downhill.

[Slipperychicken]

Don't tell DC's, just have the player roll. Don't say ''you need a 20 to do this''. Then, no matter the roll, you can just say they fail.

You can also add a 'cheat balance'. Just add ten or so to all DC's to balance the cheating.

This is just GM-cheating. It's highly unfair, passive-aggressive, and it probably don't work. All it will do is rationalize his cheating. The general rule is that you need an OOC solution for OOC problems.


Also, if you're that certain the player is cheating (to the extent that you would be willing to penalize all his die rolls by 10 or auto-fail them), then I would just ask the other players about it, then confront the cheater.

[Sir Chuckles]

I have similar problems with one of my players, who never rolls less than 18 and often shows up with a character that he rolled before he showed up, and inexplicably has 18 in at least half his stats.
And uses a dice rolling app on his phone. Under the table. For nearly every roll.

Now, we're all guilty of fudging a dice roll here and there, and I sometimes reach over to a bad roll silently, and flip the dice over.

But the best way to combat dice fudging is to watch the dice rolls, or have another player watch the dice rolls. My players watch each other, often chanting to whatever deity they prefer at the moment for nat 20s, and sometimes nat 1s (yes, even against other players. Makes for hilarious situations). Nothing prevents fudging like someone watching.

Have them roll in the middle of the table, or at least not behind a book.
As for the high stats, I've recently begun using the point buy system to prevent it. None of my playes mind it, and there are online calculators (http://tools.digitalightbulb.com/pbcalc.html) you can use.

If your player(s) refuse to do open rolling, you likely have a bigger problem than what can be solved with speaking softly.

[hymer]

@ players rolling in the open: It's a great thing to do. Not only does it keep actual cheating down. It also makes rolling into a group thing. Anyone who care to can rejoice in the natural 20 rolled. And it removes suspicion, whether that suspicion is reasonable or not. Because sometimes players and DMs do get a lucky streak. If they get it in the open, the thought of cheating doesn't even enter into anyone's mind.

[j_spencer93]

He really could be lucky, last play session i had a player with all 3 16, 1 17, and 2 18's for stats. No joke. Oddly he died quick, slipped off the top of a tower for fudging a balance check.
Anyways if its being going on for numerous weeks, instate the table roll rule.

[lytokk]

My rules for rolling are basically on the table, for everyone but the DM that is. If the die falls off the table, re-roll. Everyone likes the system and it occasionally gives the player the opportunity to take out the bad guy literally with a roll of the die.

[Maginomicon]

Switch to Bell Curve Rolls (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/bellCurveRolls.htm). It's a lot harder to justify consistently getting high roll results and a lot easier to see the roll results from across the table (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1495Y-oa4SM).

[mashlagoo1982]

You could also roll a die of the same type yourself for determining the new high or low number. Make this a known rule for your party to hopefully dissuade would be cheaters. They can't successfully cheat their roll if they don't know what their target is.

[Angelalex242]

Plug a Smartphone or similar device into an outlet. Get a dicerolling app on it. Declare that all dice rolls (Even the DM's!) shall be rolled with the phone, before the group.

(I personally don't agree with DM dice fudging either. If the BBEG rolls a 1 on his saving throw and proves anticlimactic, so be it. If he confirms a critical that takes a PC to his grave in a single blow, so be it. I like a game where the only true god is mathematical probability and the RNG that is dice.)

[Sir Chuckles]

Plug a Smartphone or similar device into an outlet. Get a dicerolling app on it. Declare that all dice rolls (Even the DM's!) shall be rolled with the phone, before the group.

(I personally don't agree with DM dice fudging either. If the BBEG rolls a 1 on his saving throw and proves anticlimactic, so be it. If he confirms a critical that takes a PC to his grave in a single blow, so be it. I like a game where the only true god is mathematical probability and the RNG that is dice.)

DM fudging is sometimes necessary to preserve the fun of the game. That's not to say players can't die in one hit, but it isn't very fun to be told "I rolled a Nat 20. You're dead.", nor does it make a very memorable fight if you say "My BBEG rolled a nat 1 on his save vs. your first-round casting of Finger of Death."

As for the smartphone idea, it has to be well monitored, and your players need to agree to it.
I have a player who uses a dice rolling app, and multiple times I have called him out on "Dude, I can see your thumb moving. You rolled four times for that nat 20."

[Angelalex242]

I disagree there...I've always followed strict 'let the dice fall where they may.' If somebody dies because dice were unfudgeable, well, that's their problem. If the BBEG gets one shotted, well, that too is simply fair.

That is, let the dice dictate your story, rather then letting the story dictate your dice. If the dice indicate a party member gets cruelly ganked in the middle of the woods in a random encounter against something not meant to threaten the party at all, so be it. The story then becomes, "The overconfident fool PC1 strode fearlessly into battle against the humble Tucker's Kobolds and died for his folly..."

If the dice indicate a TPK, I am likewise fully willing to say, "And thus the campaign ended with your foolish and painfully wicked demises. Roll up characters for the next campaign."

[The Trickster]

DM fudging is sometimes necessary to preserve the fun of the game. That's not to say players can't die in one hit, but it isn't very fun to be told "I rolled a Nat 20. You're dead.", nor does it make a very memorable fight if you say "My BBEG rolled a nat 1 on his save vs. your first-round casting of Finger of Death."

As for the smartphone idea, it has to be well monitored, and your players need to agree to it.
I have a player who uses a dice rolling app, and multiple times I have called him out on "Dude, I can see your thumb moving. You rolled four times for that nat 20."

In all fairness, if you have a BBEG, there is a good possibility that he has immunity to instant death moves/mind control/whatever. I mean, he IS the big bad after all. :smalltongue:

[AMFV]

I disagree there...I've always followed strict 'let the dice fall where they may.' If somebody dies because dice were unfudgeable, well, that's their problem. If the BBEG gets one shotted, well, that too is simply fair.

That is, let the dice dictate your story, rather then letting the story dictate your dice. If the dice indicate a party member gets cruelly ganked in the middle of the woods in a random encounter against something not meant to threaten the party at all, so be it. The story then becomes, "The overconfident fool PC1 strode fearlessly into battle against the humble Tucker's Kobolds and died for his folly..."

If the dice indicate a TPK, I am likewise fully willing to say, "And thus the campaign ended with your foolish and painfully wicked demises. Roll up characters for the next campaign."

I find that fudging isn't usually a problem. Mostly because player death isn't fun, so having things fudge away from that can make things more fun to your players. Game tone is really important as well. It's possible to have players that are more focused on gritty realism (fudging isn't necessary here), but if you're wanting to tell an epic story, fudging to preserve that feel may help quite a bit. I've found that there are no hard and fast rules to make either style of play really better.


In all fairness, if you have a BBEG, there is a good possibility that he has immunity to instant death moves/mind control/whatever. I mean, he IS the big bad after all. :smalltongue:

And you can definitely work in contingencies or immunities after the fact, or have him fake his death, those kind of things will keep the players on their toes about his abilities and give him a greater campaign impact.

[Amphetryon]

While I'd advocate talking to the Player first - and advocate against keeping a Player who cheats - having the group pool resources for a dice tower that they all use for rolls might be a compromise for you.

[Piggy Knowles]

Another nice thing about a dice tower, if you don't want to come off as seeming accusatory, is that you can come to the session really excited about the new cool dice tower you have (and seriously, some of them are pretty friggin' cool), and suggest that everyone start using it. This way, you don't have to say that you want people to roll in the open because you don't trust them, but rather because it's more fun.

(And it IS more fun. Seriously, I hate random chance for the most part and I still get caught up in the suspense of it when everyone is rolling on the center of the table in a big, dramatic way.)

That said, really nice dice towers can be a little pricey, so if you can get the group to go in on you with them as Amphetryon suggested, that's probably not a bad idea. Or if you're crafty, you can build your own - you can make a pretty basic one for a few bucks worth of formboard and felt.

EDIT: Here are instructions for making a dice tower (http://www.instructables.com/id/Making-a-Formboard-Dice-Tower/), including a PDF of cut-outs you can use for cutting out your formboard.

[AMFV]

Also be aware that the player may just be really lucky, you may need some kind of backup plan for if that's the case, as sometimes that just happens, some people in this world are just crazy lucky.

[Sir Chuckles]

Also be aware that the player may just be really lucky, you may need some kind of backup plan for if that's the case, as sometimes that just happens, some people in this world are just crazy lucky.

It can be easily established as to when they're not just lucky.
A nat 20 in a doomed to fail situation is lucky. Convenient 18s and 19s on most attack rolls and skills check is suspicious.

My favorite player gets lucky like that. The dice smile evilly to all of us when he rolls. (This once happened: Nat 20 seduction check. Nat 1 "Endurance" check. Nat 100 Conception check.)

My least favorite player gets "lucky" like that. (Nat 20! *puts dice back in bag before anyone can see* 19! *Turns off phone app* "I rolled these stats at home! *18 in everything except Wisdom, which is 17*)

[AMFV]

It can be easily established as to when they're not just lucky.
A nat 20 in a doomed to fail situation is lucky. Convenient 18s and 19s on most attack rolls and skills check is suspicious.

My favorite player gets lucky like that. The dice smile evilly to all of us when he rolls. (This once happened: Nat 20 seduction check. Nat 1 "Endurance" check. Nat 100 Conception check.)

My least favorite player gets "lucky" like that. (Nat 20! *puts dice back in bag before anyone can see* 19! *Turns off phone app* "I rolled these stats at home! *18 in everything except Wisdom, which is 17*)

But there's some people who are just lucky. There are people who generally roll above 16 most times on a D20, luck is hard to explain. Some people are just lucky, and if the player isn't cheating then it's going to be hard for the DM to do anything to make him less lucky.

[Angelalex242]

Well, with the smartphone app, at least you know A:The dice aren't weighted, and B:He couldn't possibly be cheating because everyone's using the same app. All you've gotta watch out for is somebody rolling several times for a better result.

[AMFV]

Well, with the smartphone app, at least you know A:The dice aren't weighted, and B:He couldn't possibly be cheating because everyone's using the same app. All you've gotta watch out for is somebody rolling several times for a better result.

Smart phone apps are slightly different probabilistically then actual dice as well. I try to discourage them and don't like using them for that reason. As a player I really enjoy the tactile feeling of the dice, and would probably not be willing to use a smartphone app instead.

[Angelalex242]

Well, you're probably not a cheater either.

It's the equivalent of playing a game online. Those online dice rolls are usually rolled by computer generated dice then published for all to see. In that respect, online gaming is somewhat more 'fair.'

Then again, I like to think most people aren't cooking their dice either.

[Amphetryon]

Well, you're probably not a cheater either.

It's the equivalent of playing a game online. Those online dice rolls are usually rolled by computer generated dice then published for all to see. In that respect, online gaming is somewhat more 'fair.'

Then again, I like to think most people aren't cooking their dice either.

I've seen more than one discussion about how the online dice rollers aren't truly random, and have their number generation tied (in a complicated fashion) to when you roll.

[Angelalex242]

Now that is an algorithm I'd like to see...

"Let's see, if I remember to roll at 5:42 and 39 seconds every day, I'll get a natural 20 every time!"

[Gavran]

A computer program (nor a set of dice, nor arguably a person) cannot produce a 100% random number. Each follows a set of instructions to reach their result. A computer program frequently will "seed" their random result on the current time, but note that this isn't 3:47 PM or even 15:47:23.529875.

[AMFV]

A computer program (nor a set of dice, nor arguably a person) cannot produce a 100% random number. Each follows a set of instructions to reach their result. A computer program frequently will "seed" their random result on the current time, but note that this isn't 3:47 PM or even 15:47:23.529875.

I don't know about you, but I can produce truly random numbers. I've been stuck on a NI sequence of fours for a while though.

[TuggyNE]

I've seen more than one discussion about how the online dice rollers aren't truly random, and have their number generation tied (in a complicated fashion) to when you roll.

That is technically true, but for practical purposes irrelevant, since they also take into account previous random numbers generated and often other sources of entropy like network traffic statistics and so forth. Anyone criticizing PRNGs for being insufficiently random for die-rolling purposes without possessing a degree in a relevant field is almost certainly talking out of their hat.

[AMFV]

That is technically true, but for practical purposes irrelevant, since they also take into account previous random numbers generated and often other sources of entropy like network traffic statistics and so forth. Anyone criticizing PRNGs for being insufficiently random for die-rolling purposes without possessing a degree in a relevant field is almost certainly talking out of their hat.

I wouldn't criticize them as less random, or insufficiently random, but differently random, and not as fun (that's really the crux of the matter for me) I tend to be luckier with physical dice, which is anecdotal and not great, but it's how I feel and that makes the game more fun for me, dice superstitions are fun for me.

[NichG]

That is technically true, but for practical purposes irrelevant, since they also take into account previous random numbers generated and often other sources of entropy like network traffic statistics and so forth. Anyone criticizing PRNGs for being insufficiently random for die-rolling purposes without possessing a degree in a relevant field is almost certainly talking out of their hat.

I've got a degree in a relevant field, kinda!

Even fairly bad PRNGs are random enough to do things like approximate pi by generating points in a 2x2 square and asking whether or not they fall within x^2+y^2<=1 (the fraction of points that fall within this region will be approximately pi/4). You can use them for measuring critical exponents and critical temperatures in statistical models.

These days, Mersenne Twister is probably what you'd use if you wanted to be careful about the quality of your noise source. In practice, I don't think I've ever seen a case where the difference between rand() and Mersenne Twister mattered, though I have seen cases where keeping the high order bits from rand() has caused problems.

I've found a good rule of thumb is, don't try to generate more than about 6 decimal digits at a time with a single rand() call - e.g. a number between 0 and 10 million. From what I've read I should be able to push that to 7 or 8 if e.g. I reversed the order of the bits in the result or something.

For example, I had a noisy granular simulation that developed a systematic drift to the lower-left, which caused stuff to clump up there. When I trimmed down my rand()s so I was only getting 6 digits of precision per call, it went away.

At one point, I was curious just how bad recurrence could be for one of these models. I took a 2D Monte Carlo Ising model (something that has been solved exactly) and instead of feeding numbers from the rand() function, I loaded 1 million results of rand() into a table and then whenever my program would normally ask to generate a random number, I just took the next result from the table (looping when I got to the end).

The physical behavior of the system was totally different - visibly so, just looking at snapshots of the instantaneous system state. The values in this 'reduced randomness' simulation were way off from the exact values. The PRNG values were consistent with what I'd expect given finite sampling and statistical noise.

I don't think I've rolled a million dice over the entire course of my gaming career, so...