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Abendago
2020-07-05, 08:46 PM
First let me say I'm expecting a bunch of hate for this post. I cheat at D&D and it's a better experience, I know that's terrible sounding but hear me out.

I use an advantage d20 that replaces the 1, 2 and 3 with an extra 18, 19, 20. Which means the lowest I can roll is 4 and I have a 65% chance of rolling above 10, with a 10% chance of a natural 20 instead of 5%.

More than that, I don't always keep track of my spell slots on purpose. I usually squeeze out a few extra spells.

Why do this? Am I trying to "Win" D&D? No, not at all. But let's all be honest, it sucks to play a session where your character does nothing because of bad rolls. It sucks to run out of fun spells to use. It sucks to waste a spell slot on a missed Spell. It sucks to fail a concentration check. It sucks to fail a saving throw and have to sit out a combat for a few rounds.

These small changes have gone unnoticed in countless games, I still roll a 6 when I desperately need above a 10, I still miss, I still fail saves, and I still roll Nat 1's when I use other dice (I swap between what dice I roll so it's not obvious).

Why am I telling you all this? Because this is a community where discussion is King and am using it as an outlet to start a conversation I think many are afraid to start. I think cheating is okay if I'm doing it in a way where I have more fun and it's unnoticeable to those around me. (I've been doing this for 2 years now). If my cheating really were a problem I think other players would have noticed by now.

There. I said it. *Winces in anticipation of punishment and backlash*

Bartmanhomer
2020-07-05, 08:54 PM
First let me say I'm expecting a bunch of hate for this post. I cheat at D&D and it's a better experience, I know that's terrible sounding but hear me out.

I use an advantage d20 that replaces the 1, 2 and 3 with an extra 18, 19, 20. Which means the lowest I can roll is 4 and I have a 65% chance of rolling above 10, with a 10% chance of a natural 20 instead of 5%.

More than that, I don't always keep track of my spell slots on purpose. I usually squeeze out a few extra spells.

Why do this? Am I trying to "Win" D&D? No, not at all. But let's all be honest, it sucks to play a session where your character does nothing because of bad rolls. It sucks to run out of fun spells to use. It sucks to waste a spell slot on a missed Spell. It sucks to fail a concentration check. It sucks to fail a saving throw and have to sit out a combat for a few rounds.

These small changes have gone unnoticed in countless games, I still roll a 6 when I desperately need above a 10, I still miss, I still fail saves, and I still roll Nat 1's when I use other dice (I swap between what dice I roll so it's not obvious).

Why am I telling you all this? Because this is a community where discussion is King and am using it as an outlet to start a conversation I think many are afraid to start. I think cheating is okay if I'm doing it in a way where I have more fun and it's unnoticeable to those around me. (I've been doing this for 2 years now). If my cheating really were a problem I think other players would have noticed by now.

There. I said it. *Winces in anticipation of punishment and backlash*

Wow! You actually cheated?! Way a go, man. Keep up the good work. :biggrin:

Rynjin
2020-07-05, 08:57 PM
If you feel the need to hide something you're doing, you already subconsciously know it's wrong, simple as.

Abendago
2020-07-05, 09:03 PM
If you feel the need to hide something you're doing, you already subconsciously know it's wrong, simple as.

Like my love of power puff girls? We hide many things that are not wrong but heavily misunderstood.

Tvtyrant
2020-07-05, 09:11 PM
First let me say I'm expecting a bunch of hate for this post. I cheat at D&D and it's a better experience, I know that's terrible sounding but hear me out.

I use an advantage d20 that replaces the 1, 2 and 3 with an extra 18, 19, 20. Which means the lowest I can roll is 4 and I have a 65% chance of rolling above 10, with a 10% chance of a natural 20 instead of 5%.

More than that, I don't always keep track of my spell slots on purpose. I usually squeeze out a few extra spells.

Why do this? Am I trying to "Win" D&D? No, not at all. But let's all be honest, it sucks to play a session where your character does nothing because of bad rolls. It sucks to run out of fun spells to use. It sucks to waste a spell slot on a missed Spell. It sucks to fail a concentration check. It sucks to fail a saving throw and have to sit out a combat for a few rounds.

These small changes have gone unnoticed in countless games, I still roll a 6 when I desperately need above a 10, I still miss, I still fail saves, and I still roll Nat 1's when I use other dice (I swap between what dice I roll so it's not obvious).

Why am I telling you all this? Because this is a community where discussion is King and am using it as an outlet to start a conversation I think many are afraid to start. I think cheating is okay if I'm doing it in a way where I have more fun and it's unnoticeable to those around me. (I've been doing this for 2 years now). If my cheating really were a problem I think other players would have noticed by now.

There. I said it. *Winces in anticipation of punishment and backlash*
If the other players wouldn't mind why are you secretly doing it? If they would mind why do you think lying to them is ok?

You can't cheat a game, the rules don't care. You can only cheat people.

No brains
2020-07-05, 09:11 PM
In theory you're not hurting anyone, so really you do you.

I've heard stories of people who throw poker games to friends they know are cheaters because those people don't mind losing nearly as much as their friends love to win. If this is how your group rolls, then I just hope it makes everyone's experience more fulfilling.

Just beware if your friends aren't into this. You're playing with a wound-up mousetrap. Hopefully you all have a good laugh when it snaps on somebody.

I also have to caution you that things going terribly, terribly wrong and still leading to a success (or just survival) is what makes TTRPGS uniquely great. A flawless victory is a rush anywhere, but nothing is going to top my memories of the times when I rolled 1s when everything was on the line and I still managed to scrape by with ingenuity and teamwork. Managing to hide from someone on a nat 1 and having my ambush turned around on me with a modified intelligence roll of 0 are some of my favorite memories.

Also if you're cheating and you're the DM. That's what you're supposed to do!:smalltongue:

Also oldschool PPG is legit. Samurai Jack and Primal didn't come from nowhere.

Rynjin
2020-07-05, 09:12 PM
Like my love of power puff girls? We hide many things that are not wrong but heavily misunderstood.

If you did not believe it to be somehow "wrong", you wouldn't hide it, unless you had some other ulterior motive for doing so; you believe you would be actively harmed by it. If you value you reputation, and believe that revealing a love for a cartoon would somehow tarnish that, you would hide it. Which really feeds back into the main point that if you did not think it was wrong (or at least believe others would think it was wrong, and harm you for it), you wouldn't hide it.

Basically, it's not a matter of something objectively BEING wrong, it's your own belief that holds you back.

In this case, you clearly believe that telling your group this fact would cause an issue. You know they would not like it. You are keeping it a secret because of this. If your logic held true that this "isn't a problem" you would not be keeping it a secret.

By extension, that means this is a problem. You are doing wrong to your group, and know you are doing wrong to your group. So you seek validation from people outside your friend circle, who you can easily take that validation from. Just as easily you can discard any people who disagree with your actions and point them out as wrong, because they "don't know you" or the full context, or whatever other illusions you might want to cover the fact that you understand that what you are doing is wrong, and now feel bad about it and want someone else to make you feel better about it, either via direct validation or stark vitriol against you that you can use to get angry and defensive and set yourself even deeper into he false mindset that what you are doing is somehow not wrong.

If you truly, deeply, and completely felt there was no issue, this thread would not exist. You would be openly cheating and admitting it to your group. As-is, the only reason it's "not a problem" is because of the lie.

Merellis
2020-07-05, 09:24 PM
I say let the other players in on the secret by getting them other dice just like that, and telling them to track all their spell slots wrong on purpose. This way, none of them can rat you out ever.

Don't tell the DM so only they have to deal with natural 1's and go to town beating all the encounters.

With that, everyone's having the same amount of fun. :smallbiggrin:

icefractal
2020-07-05, 09:34 PM
First off, would you be fine with all the other players doing this? With the GM fudging in favor of the NPCs in the same way? If the answer to either of these is no, then I'd say your stance is inconsistent in a probably-selfish way.

But let's say you are fine with both of those, is there an issue? Maybe.
* The cheat with the biggest likelyhood of being an issue is ignoring spells per day. Because if the rest of the party is abiding by it, you're taking a larger share of the spotlight by always having the spells for the job and always being able to nova if you want to.
* Second biggest is the extra chance of rolling crits, for the same reason.
* While being less likely to fail and/or die isn't fair, I don't think it's as much an issue as the others in practice. I've never felt overshadowed by someone else being able to survive things, anyway.


And in the spirit of the OP, I will confess to the one thing I fudge as a player - costs for useless divinations.
Like when you use a divination/info-gathering ability and effectively get blocked (too vague to have any use, for example, or the same info you already had restated) not because of an in-setting reason, but because revealing the desired info would skip all the content the GM has ready and they don't want to fly by the seat of their pants.

In those cases, I'm not going to complain unless it happens a lot - GMing's not easy, and given that full improv isn't something I can successfully do in most games, it would be hypocritical to expect it of someone else. However, I also won't spend any resources for that non-result.

Bartmanhomer
2020-07-05, 09:39 PM
Speaking of cheating, I read a new Marvel comic book by a new superhero called Cheater-Man! His superpowers is cheating and he also cheats on his wife with another woman. :biggrin:

Composer99
2020-07-05, 09:44 PM
One of my favourite D&D stories to tell is a game we played using the late-AD&D 2e Player's Option character building rules. I built a dwarf fighter who was all but immune to poison, who died as a result of... you guessed it, poison. I can't even really remember the dungeon we were exploring or what monster killed me, but I think it was from a Dungeon magazine or a collection of mini-dungeons? The important part was the delicious irony of the manner of his death.

One of my other favourite D&D moments was playing Sunless Citadel in a game with a bunch of my cousins. We were fighting the goblins and one of the players had recklessly exposed us to the various goblin bosses. We were down several PCs, and I had to run my cleric into reach of the goblin warboss to try to deliver a cure light wounds spell to get someone back on their feet. He missed his attack of opportunity by thiiiiis much, and we erupted in celebratory cheers.

Since I do a lot of DMing, the times that I or my players roll low, especially in clutch situations, often seems just as dramatic and interesting as the times we roll high.

On the whole, since D&D isn't a competitive game, I don't find bad rolls anything like as irritating as when I'm playing a competitive game such as World in Flames or Blood Bowl, even if it means sitting out a fight for a round or even dying. And the taste of victory is all the sweeter knowing that it could have been the gall of defeat.

Obviously, you feel differently. That's fine, as far as it goes.

If you are playing at a table where your proclivities are both openly known of and approved of, well and good. If not, then the problem isn't really that you're using a rigged die or being intentionally sloppy with spell slots, it's that you're misleading your fellow players (including the DM/GM). If the table culture or social contract expects you to be straight about such things, it just doesn't seem right.

ImNotTrevor
2020-07-05, 10:26 PM
I think others have successfully identified the problem with cheating, but I'll try to simplify it a bit:

The act of using improper dice is innocuous if it is a known quantity and everyone knows and partakes. Hell, a campaign run with only those d20s might be interesting. Magnify the rocket tag a bit.

But it wouldn't be cheating.

If you played a game where spell slots weren't tracked for anyone, that could be pretty fun.

And wouldn't be cheating.


You see, it's because you don't know what cheating actually, fundamentally is.
It isn't using loaded dice.
It isn't fudging spell slots.

Neither of these are cheating if done honestly and openly. There is an extra step needed to require them to become cheating: You have to lie.

Cheating is Lying. They are the same thing. The only difference is that the former is used in the specific context of games. (Other contexts being here acknowledged and deemed irrelevant.)

And in the context of just having a fun time with friends? Lying to get ahead seems...
Well, on top of wrong, it's certainly extremely pathetic.

False God
2020-07-05, 11:40 PM
Well, you are trying to "win" at D&D. What you're trying to "win" is a good experience, which is represented by succeeding at goals, completing quests, saving the princess, and so on.

Other games have come up with better ways to do this. Dice pools even out the often radical variance of the d20, try for example, rolling 2d10, 3d6, or 5d4 instead using "snakeyes" as the lowest possible roll. Replace "numbers" with representative symbols that are interpreted by the player or the DM into grades of success, failure and numerous other creative outcomes.

I don't think the rest of the party cares if they win a lot thanks to your cheater ways. Maybe some feel deprived of a "earned loss", but I doubt there are few who are truly happy when the RNG gods hand them a string of failures in tasks they should be good at for no other reason than a 1 is just as likely as any other number to appear on the die.

Of course it's a better experience (for many) when you win more often, when your party/players have a good time, when you have fun, creative adventures where you get to keep adventuring. But I think cheating is an unfair way to go about this endgoal.

Agree with your group to keep "permadeath" off the table. Find DMs who prefer to knock-out rather than kill. Find groups that play this sort of heroic adventure against impossible odds that always seems to come out on top, and "losing" isn't "reroll". Use a variant way to roll dice to produce more middle-ground results, or play a system that doesn't grade success and failure in black and white.

el minster
2020-07-05, 11:57 PM
Speaking of cheating, I read a new Marvel comic book by a new superhero called Cheater-Man! His superpowers is cheating and he also cheats on his wife with another woman. :biggrin:

Thats just ridiculous

Tangleweed
2020-07-06, 03:01 AM
It seems people enjoy the game for different reasons and try to achieve different things. Personally I play rpgs pretty much like an improv session and try to get the best “story”. I also enjoy intense situations. And I love loosing. A couple of sessions ago the party was out of resources after a day of being heroes when we where attacked by assassins sent by our enemies. What ensued was a hectic panic flight where we tried to save our skins. And we got away by the skin of you teeth. I love that stuff. If we knew we could just auto-crit every fight and have infinite spells I don’t think it would have been nearly as intense.

I also like the game as a way to bond with friends and tell stories together.

I have a friend, who in this same game, who is in my opinion a cheater and in his own mind a very skilled gamer. He rolled stats and he has some superb stats. Now I know from the DM that he started by rolling 18 and put that in dex and was super happy but then proceeded to roll a 5 that he insisted was unreasonable and argued to an 8 and then put in his dump stat. The characters backstory makes shire they are pretty much awesome at everything. He loves to have fun and having fun means winning. We let him do this because we don’t really care to much about the rules and he loves winning. But it gets a bit boring at times because there is no reason to interact with his character. No need help him out with buff spells because he always roll high when needed. He has this wired d20 where the numbers are really hard to read. But he has gotten really good at it and just calls out a number and picks it up before anyone else can read it. He also always finds a way to find ways to get advantage and sneak stack, so no need for faerie fire or similar, and is always able to hide somewhere. So whenever we do something mechanical heavy I just sit back and let him handle it as there is no real need for me, or anyone law, to chip in. We split the party a lot and I try not to be in that group. Actually, we send this character on their own way on scouting or flanking missions a lot.

MoiMagnus
2020-07-06, 04:28 AM
If my cheating really were a problem I think other players would have noticed by now.

That's wrong.

They could be silently thinking they are being overshadowed by your character, but blaming game mechanics ("spellcasters are OP anyways in D&D"), blaming their luck, or blaming their own capacity ("I must really be bad at resource management or stupid if I manage to run out of resources before Abendago who appears to always use some when he wants to but never runs out when needed"), or even blaming the GM for somehow secretly having you as a favourite.

The bonus you gave to yourself are subtle, so the effect they have are subtle enough to be blamed onto other things or peoples. But that does not mean there is no effect at all. Moreover, even if they noticed, accusing someone of cheating is not something peoples do casually.

(Oh, and obviously, you're making a breach in the implicit social contract with your fellow players by actively and repeatedly "lying" about you applying faithfully the game mechanics. But that point is discussed enough by the other posters.)

Lacco
2020-07-06, 05:04 AM
I cheat at D&D and it's a better experience, I know that's terrible sounding but hear me out.

If this were actually a widespread thing, I'd ask if the failure is in the ruleset - but based on reading the answers, it seems that it's more or less mismatch of player expectations vs. game rules.

You expect to play a heroic-type of character, that seldom (if ever) fails. The rules support traditional heroic characters that overcome the bad events.


Why am I telling you all this? Because this is a community where discussion is King and am using it as an outlet to start a conversation I think many are afraid to start.

What specifically is the conversation that many are afraid to start which you'ld like to kickstart here?

That rules - as they exist - are not providing the kind of play you enjoy and should be changed?

Or that cheating is OK and should be allowed provided the rules of cheating are observed?

Please specify if possible.

Quertus
2020-07-06, 09:18 AM
Lots of good responses; just to pick a few…


Like my love of power puff girls? We hide many things that are not wrong but heavily misunderstood.


I've heard stories of people who throw poker games to friends they know are cheaters because those people don't mind losing nearly as much as their friends love to win. If this is how your group rolls, then I just hope it makes everyone's experience more fulfilling.

Just beware if your friends aren't into this. You're playing with a wound-up mousetrap. Hopefully you all have a good laugh when it snaps on somebody.

Nailed it.

When I first started playing RPGs, I hated cheaters. Then, eventually, it hit me: why should I care? If that's what makes the game fun for them, unless it somehow makes the game unfun for me, who cares?

Further, for some, is the actual act of cheating itself that some find fun. Crazy, right? It's like getting visceral pleasure out of holding physical dice over just using a die roller, or enjoying distracting people with "mood music", or wanting "rules" instead of just letting people do cool stuff.

Balance to the table. If their cheating makes them into (or is caused by their desire to be) a spotlight hog, then I'll address that. If it pushes their character outside the balance range of the group, then I'll address that. But I'm happy playing as a Sentient Potted Plant alongside not!Thor - I'm comfortable with a pretty wide balance range. Gaming alongside a statistical anomaly is pretty "meh" by comparison.


I also have to caution you that things going terribly, terribly wrong and still leading to a success (or just survival) is what makes TTRPGS uniquely great. A flawless victory is a rush anywhere, but nothing is going to top my memories of the times when I rolled 1s when everything was on the line and I still managed to scrape by with ingenuity and teamwork. Managing to hide from someone on a nat 1 and having my ambush turned around on me with a modified intelligence roll of 0 are some of my favorite memories.

Heartily agree.

Will the OP some day enjoy this? Will a certain 8-year-old some day enjoy flavors other than SWEET? Who knows. I encourage everyone to learn to love as diverse an array of things as they can.

Personally, I love success and failure in a game, but only so long as I come by them honest. IRL? I could go for this world's GM cheating to give me some more successes :smallbiggrin:


Also if you're cheating and you're the DM. That's what you're supposed to do!:smalltongue:


First off, would you be fine with all the other players doing this? With the GM fudging in favor of the NPCs in the same way? If the answer to either of these is no, then I'd say your stance is inconsistent in a probably-selfish way.

Gaming alongside a statistical anomaly is fine - myself, my brother, and several of my friends all do that without cheating (and not necessarily in a good way). However, when the GM cheats, when 99.99+% of the world doesn't feel the need to obey the rules that the rest of us are following? Yeah, no. At that point, I'll just ignore the rules, and start narrating what my character does, because why bother with rules at that point?

So I don't think "I can cheat, but the GM can't" (or my "other players cheating is fine, but the GM cheating is not") is inherently inconsistent.

-----

In the spirit of the thread, I enjoy "cheating" in terms of finding cool rules interactions that clearly aren't RAI, but work by RAW.

JNAProductions
2020-07-06, 11:16 AM
I think others have successfully identified the problem with cheating, but I'll try to simplify it a bit:

The act of using improper dice is innocuous if it is a known quantity and everyone knows and partakes. Hell, a campaign run with only those d20s might be interesting. Magnify the rocket tag a bit.

But it wouldn't be cheating.

If you played a game where spell slots weren't tracked for anyone, that could be pretty fun.

And wouldn't be cheating.


You see, it's because you don't know what cheating actually, fundamentally is.
It isn't using loaded dice.
It isn't fudging spell slots.

Neither of these are cheating if done honestly and openly. There is an extra step needed to require them to become cheating: You have to lie.

Cheating is Lying. They are the same thing. The only difference is that the former is used in the specific context of games. (Other contexts being here acknowledged and deemed irrelevant.)

And in the context of just having a fun time with friends? Lying to get ahead seems...
Well, on top of wrong, it's certainly extremely pathetic.

Yeah, I'll echo this.

If you feel you're not powerful enough, talk to the DM and other players. But don't lie to them. Open and honest communication is important for playing TTRPGs, because EVERYONE should be having fun-not just you.

Anonymouswizard
2020-07-06, 12:00 PM
I'll echo the sentiment of 'the problem is not the cheating itself, but the hiding it'.

You'll notice that in some ways more obvious mores of cheating get a better rep. I've previously used openly biased dice in a game, because the bias was upfront and was relatively minor (rolled a four about 1/5 of the time, as well as a 6 about 1/5 of the time), conversely the reveal that one person had cheated their skill points in the same game was a lot more derisive when it was founf out (mainly because they were 20-30XP ahead of everybody else).

If such a die was admitted upfront I wouldn't mind too much (I'd be happier if it wasn't quite so weighted, but that's personal preference), but I'd personally be a bit more annoyed by the spell slot manipulation (then again, mitigating that is why I mainly switched to systems with a small number of spell points that refresh relatively quickly, there's less of an urge to cheat them if they'll be back in an in-game hour). Mainly because you're sidestepping a cost, and my view is that if you don't want your character to have drawbacks and limitations, don't pick a class/build with drawbacks and limitations.

That said, I want to bring up the idea of tracking ammunition to explain it. Very few people I've met track ammunition for ranged weapons, in science fiction or modern day games they might track the number of shots until reload, but very rarely will players I've met track the absolute number of bullets or clips in their inventory. This is fine if everybody is doing it, but becomes a problem if three people are marking off arrows with every shot but one player doesn't, because eventually it'll become obvious that one player is still firing their bow six combat after everybody else ran out.

The exact same thing happens with encumbrance: most tables I've played at don't track it, and the one table I played at that did track it I ran several items past the GM to see if they were encumbrance-free. The problem comes when everybody else is tracking encumbrance, and then Belkar picks up 100,000 copper pieces without a problem.

Tvtyrant
2020-07-06, 12:02 PM
In my experience Encumbrance just makes D&D look more like a caravan than a small squad of hitmen. First the party buys pack mules, then people to hold the mules, pretty soon they are going town to town with a murder posse.

Anonymouswizard
2020-07-06, 12:12 PM
In my experience Encumbrance just makes D&D look more like a caravan than a small squad of hitmen. First the party buys pack mules, then people to hold the mules, pretty soon they are going town to town with a murder posse.

Sure, and there's no problem with not tracking it. The problem is when most people are tracking and somebody isn't. Although in my experience, if you're not dungeon delving, it does make players travel lighter, but they'll very much vary from group to group. I once spent fifteen minutes trimming my kit to avoid encumbrance penalties, because I knew we'd have a chance to drop off anything we'd pick up before moving tot he next location (it was a city-based adventure, and if push came to shove a houserule was you could drop your pack as a free action).

Vinyadan
2020-07-06, 01:04 PM
Wow, you registered a new user for this? But this could be a great copypasta. It's in the style of the Terminator Morning Routine.


First let me say I'm expecting a bunch of hate for this post. I cheat at imaginary chess and it's a better experience, I know that's terrible sounding but hear me out.

In my set I replace pawns 1, 2 and 3 with an extra king, tower, and queen. Which means the slowest I can win is 40 turns and I have a 65% chance of a victory below 10, with a 10% chance of checkmate in the first 5.

More than that, I don't always keep track of my pieces on purpose. I usually squeeze out a few extra knights.


First let me say I'm expecting a bunch of hate for this post. I eat at Domino's and it's a better experience, I know that's terrible sounding but hear me out.

They have a menu that replaces the 1, 2 and 3 with an extra 18, 19, 20. Which means the lowest I can spare is 4$ and I have a 65% chance of sparing above 10$, with a 10% chance of getting 32 fries instead of just 24.

More than that, I don't always keep track of my beverages on purpose. I usually squeeze out a few extra cokes.

Why do this? Am I trying to "Win" at lunch? No, not at all. But let's all be honest, it sucks to pay for lunch and get almost nothing because of small doses. It sucks to run out of coke. It sucks to waste a dollar on a ketchup packet. It sucks to forget little things because you are still hungry. And it sucks to go into the red for a few rounds.

The one thing I feel like saying is that cheating in a collaborative game is different from cheating in a competitive game. In practice, you are making the team perform better. It also means different difficulty levels for different players. From a personal enjoyment point of view, consider that Paladins were explicitly modified in 4th because their abilities failed too often (iirc). Failing is a letdown. It means not interacting with the world for that turn, trying to play and being cut out instead. Over time, this is a source of frustration. So removing flat failure and substituting it with low results that still do something looks like a gain to me. In the Goose Game, your throw always has an effect.

But these are game mechanics, which can be implemented by talking. A special die you can use once in a while isn't too different from a cheat deliberately added to a videogame to let players skip or win a tediously difficult level. It's totally legitimate. Not discussing it, however, isn't.

Spellweaver
2020-07-06, 01:10 PM
Well, of course cheating is just about always wrong. And it's sure wrong in this case as your hiding it. Just tell your DM and other players that you are cheating and see what their reactions are....

Would you be ok if everyone in the game cheated?

And if you say yes, consider the slippery slope: So you cheat on your d20 rolls in a way you can still fail sometimes and you justify that as being ''good" cheating or at least cheating the way you approve of. So the DM will also cheat, and her way is "all 1 to 10's rolled on a d20 are always 10", so she will only get results of 10-20. Is that "good" cheating you approve of, or does that go to far and is too much? How about a player that counts any even number as a twenty?

So...see the problem?

If everyone just cheats at a game, you will have a mess of a game or maybe not even a game anymore. For things to work, you need some type of structure on what and how to cheat. Or, really, cheating rules.

And when you get down to making cheating rules....really, in effect, you are making house rules and your not even "cheating" any more.

ExLibrisMortis
2020-07-06, 01:50 PM
[...]

You see, it's because you don't know what cheating actually, fundamentally is.
It isn't using loaded dice.
It isn't fudging spell slots.

Neither of these are cheating if done honestly and openly. There is an extra step needed to require them to become cheating: You have to lie.

Cheating is Lying. They are the same thing. [...]
I agree with this definition. I also disapprove of lying, especially when you're lying to your friends over a shared leisure activity. And don't kid yourself: you are deceiving your friends for personal gain. The assumption of the game is that you use a normal d20, and you use your die as if it is a normal d20. By using that die at all, you've broken your friends' trust.

What makes this even worse--and it's already pretty bad--is that there's no need to cheat. You could easily mitigate the effect of bad rolls within the game rules--if your game is 3.5, anyway. (Likewise for resource management, but I'll focus on the dice here.)

D&D is a rules-heavy game. Even 5th edition isn't super light-weight. Part of the fun of a rules-heavy game is working with the mechanics as they are*, evoking the character you want to portray. You play the game and you play the character. And while bad decisions and bad die rolls will, on occasion, force you to play your character differently than you imagined, that too is part of the game. How does your character deal with danger and setbacks? It matters, as a question of roleplaying and as a question of optimization. It doesn't sound like you want the question to be asked at all.

Being rules-heavy, there are mechanics in D&D that let you mitigate bad die rolls. Some are variant rules, intended to be used throughout the campaign, like action points. A common homebrew mechanic is to offer rerolls as quest rewards or for good role-playing. Have you asked your group to use those mechanics, because it makes the game more fun for you? I guess you haven't, but perhaps you have, and you can't rely on those things. No matter: there are many ways to make individual characters tolerant of bad die rolls. You can build a character that doesn't have to roll often, like a dragonfire adept with lots of immunities. You can build a character that can reroll many times a day, like a [luck] specialist. You can even build a character that rolls 2d20 on everything, with Persistent choose destiny. You can use so many other tools--I'm just mentioning the Pride domain, surge of fortune, Craft Contingent Spell, unfettered heroism, and Aura of Perfect Order--that die rolls need never bother you, if you play the game well. I bet you haven't used any of these tricks. It doesn't sound like you are playing the game well.

You're apparently not playing a character that can take bad die rolls as well as you'd like. Instead of optimizing your character, you're resorting to cheating. That suggests that you're either unable to build such a character, or uninterested in doing so. You're taking a shortcut to "success" that bypasses most of the game, and you're lying about it to your friends. That makes me ask: why are you still playing D&D? If you don't want to put in a lot of effort to play a character that can take the punches as they come, there are games out there that do this better than D&D. Why cheat your friends in a game you can't or won't play well, instead of playing a game that gives you what you want, and play it well? I can't imagine that cheating the wrong game feels as satisfying as "beating" the right game.


tl;dr If you prefer cheating to playing, find a different game.


*Subject to homebrew and houserule, naturally, but as-is once tableside.

Tvtyrant
2020-07-06, 01:56 PM
Again, the group isn't obligated to follow the rules and the rules don't have to be identical. I have given players free reroll dice and other homebrew effects to help them because they are poor at strategy or optimization, but the group needs to agree on that.

Also in a lot of games there are no-roll builds or classes, you might look at those. Dragonfire Adepts are almost roll independent in 3.5, Lazy Lords in 4E, I'm not sure if 5E has one but I imagine they exist.

Lacco
2020-07-06, 02:12 PM
As someone who rolls terribly most of the time (yeah, last game I played I ended up succeeding exactly in 3 rolls... during whole evening...), I can understand the wish to have some way to overcome the bad luck. I know the temptation to fudge a roll, to reverse the misfortune by one single great roll. You know, bouncing back as heroes of 90's movies taught us.

It is never a good idea. It's better to earn your victories.


But these are game mechanics, which can be implemented by talking. A special die you can use once in a while isn't too different from a cheat deliberately added to a videogame to let players skip or win a tediously difficult level. It's totally legitimate. Not discussing it, however, isn't.

Also: rerolls based on certain metagame currency? Actually a thing in few games. You just made it to this milestone? Here, have a reroll token. You made the whole group laugh on IC joke? Great, here, have another reroll token. You just defeated your father who killed your evil brother? Here. Have two reroll tokens.

I think one of the D&D editions tried implementing something similar (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

Tvtyrant
2020-07-06, 02:14 PM
Action Points work like that, two editions had them. Not sure why 5E dropped them except the desire to purge 4E from existence.

DeTess
2020-07-06, 02:18 PM
I think one of the D&D editions tried implementing something similar (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

5e has inspiration, which isn't really something you can hoard (you either have it or you don't), which can be used to get a reroll.

edit: Regarding the OP, I'll add my voice the chorus. There's nothing wrong with changing the rules so everyone succeeds more, but it's wrong to unilaterally decide that you, and only you, get to do better. What would you think if the GM, at the start of the game had told one player that they had unlimited spell slots and could reroll all rolls below a 4, while enforcing the rules as written on everyone else?

Lacco
2020-07-06, 02:23 PM
Action Points work like that, two editions had them. Not sure why 5E dropped them except the desire to purge 4E from existence.


5e has inspiration, which isn't really something you can hoard (you either have it or you don't), which can be used to get a reroll.

See? No need to cheat.

Just persuade your GM to use these and maybe houserule that hoarding inspiration is a thing. Then it becomes another resource, like a spell slot, to be used at correct time.

EDIT:

edit: Regarding the OP, I'll add my voice the chorus. There's nothing wrong with changing the rules so everyone succeeds more, but it's wrong to unilaterally decide that you, and only you, get to do better. What would you think if the GM, at the start of the game had told one player that they had unlimited spell slots and could reroll all rolls below a 4, while enforcing the rules as written on everyone else?

It would either make me dislike the GM, the player, or both. I do not often agree with Quertus, but I will give him credit where it's due: his "balance to the table" rule actually works well.

If the other players knew what OP was doing, maybe they'd applaud - we do not know and can not know (we can make educated guesses, but even those can be wrong: a table with killer GM could love a player who 'sticks it to the man'). But speaking for myself: had a player like that. Had to have the unpleasant talk. Wasn't pretty.

It worked out, but they had to stop. And we switched the system.

Rynjin
2020-07-06, 02:38 PM
Pretty much any RPG is improved by the implementation of an Action/Hero/Victory/Benny points system.

Pelle
2020-07-07, 03:52 AM
Sounds like the OP may prefer playing a storygame instead, where the players have more narrative control than in D&D.

Altheus
2020-07-08, 12:48 AM
You cheating bar steward. If I caught you with that dodgy advantage dice I'd call it out aloud and give you one opportunity to use different dice and leave that one at home in future, if I caught you using it again you would leave my table never to return.

If for some reason I didn't call it out I would start applying the same to all of my dice rolls too, except more so.....I hate missing as a gm, all of the opposition are rolling with 1-9 replaced by 11-19. If you're playing silly buggers then I will too, but I'm better at it.

Likewise with spell slots, if you're going to do it so am I, anything with abilities that are limited in number aren't any more. Part of the game is having limited resources and having to allocate them appropriately.

As you can tell I have no tolerance for this kind of thing, I know its annoying to roll a 1 at an inconvenient moment, it happens to me sometimes too, but you take your lumps lick your wounds and move on, you don't fiddle it so the worst results become the best.

Now, some more food for thought. All of your victories won with the advantage die are hollow because you cheated to get them, they don't mean anything, its like stealing a sporting trophy and claiming the achievement as your own.

Do yourself a favour, chuck the advantage die in the nearest body of water, get yourself some nice legit dice, something fancy, a bit of gaming bling and play with the same risks and rewards as anyone else, also, start tracking your spell slots properly and stop being a cheating bar steward.

Lacco
2020-07-08, 01:34 AM
Do yourself a favour, chuck the advantage die in the nearest body of water, get yourself some nice legit dice, something fancy, a bit of gaming bling and play with the same risks and rewards as anyone else, also, start tracking your spell slots properly and stop being a cheating bar steward.

Why not give it to the GM and ask him to use it against you? :smallamused:

icefractal
2020-07-08, 01:45 AM
Likewise with spell slots, if you're going to do it so am I, anything with abilities that are limited in number aren't any more. Part of the game is having limited resources and having to allocate them appropriately.TBF, limited resources are hardly ever an issue for the GM. When's the last time you (generic) had a foe start with half their spells slots expended? Or had the BBEG only able to afford three golems for his "Octo-Golem room" because they're quite expensive?

The issue with ignoring resource costs is purely fairness with the other PCs I'd say - the GM is already using a different system in that regard.

NichG
2020-07-08, 05:51 AM
I guess as a player or DM I don't really care so much if someone at the table is cheating as a matter of principle. I might actually be bothered more if they announced whenever they did it. So I don't really see the outrage here.

That said, if I were DMing and a player was bothered by someone else cheating, I would feel obligated to mediate that, and that tends to be an awkward thing - any sort of state of throwing around accusations isn't really a healthy condition for a game table to be in. So I'd say, if someone can cheat in ways that don't make other people upset (because it's not noticeable, or because they read the table mood well and they cheat when it improves things for everyone and not just themselves), then at least in my games, feel free - that is, in some sense cheating 'with' the table. But cheating 'against' the rest of the table, accompanying it with bragging, posturing, or other obnoxious behaviors, or using it in competition with other players or in PvP scenarios is no-go.

Also the stuff that really matters as far as I'm concerned as a DM is quite hard to cheat at. For the most part, combats are structured in such a way that if the players aren't supposed to win, the campaign is going to be pretty short. So cheating doesn't really change the broad outcome there. But decisions - what to do, which options to take, what choice to make in a dilemma, what should the world be like, etc - don't involve dice and can't really be fudged.

Altheus
2020-07-08, 06:12 AM
I guess as a player or DM I don't really care so much if someone at the table is cheating as a matter of principle. I might actually be bothered more if they announced whenever they did it. So I don't really see the outrage here.

Trust, basically. I'm running a game and I expect people to be following the rules of the game, not trying to give themselves an unfair edge over other players or the situations they're in.

If you're willing to cheat on something as basic as rolling a 20 sided die and honestly report on the result (using an advantage die the deception is built in) in a game with no stakes whatsoever, what else are you willing to bend, dodge or fiddle? I find the behaviour contemptible and won't tolerate it at my table.

Jay R
2020-07-08, 08:16 AM
First let me say I'm expecting a bunch of hate for this post.

No hate. I don't do hate. But I do have some disagreement to offer.

First of all, of course cheating and being dishonest with your friends is "a better experience" if you don't ever get caught.

Cheating on tests at school is a better experience if you never get caught. Cheating on your income tax is a better experience if you never get caught. Being dishonest with your boss is a better experience if you don't get caught.

The worse experience comes if your friends find out that you are dishonest and never trust you again, if the school catches you and you flunk out, if the IRS catches you and you go to jail, if your boss finds out and you get fired.

That's the purely practical argument against it. Cheating at D&D is an additional small amount of fun, with the risk of being caught and losing something precious to you -- the trust of your friends. Cheating and dishonesty at anything is an additional immediate advantage with the risk of losing something precious to you -- graduation, freedom, your job.

But my primary point isn't about practicality. It's about something more. You are giving up something important, long-term, and hard to get, in order to have something more immediately fun and easy.

By cheating at D&D, you will never have the satisfaction of barely succeeding at cleverly conserving your spells to use at the right time, overcoming your bad die rolls, and getting better at managing the difficulties of the game.

Similarly, it may be a "better experience" to play football against a bunch of children younger and smaller and weaker than you, but that way you don't ever get the long-term satisfaction of beating a really good team at your level.

I've been fencing for a long time. The bouts that give me the most joy, that I remember years later, aren't the easy victories. They are the hard ones, where the odds were against me and I won anyway. And even a few where I gave my best and lost, because my opponent was really better than me.


Why do this? Am I trying to "Win" D&D? No, not at all. But let's all be honest, it sucks to play a session where your character does nothing because of bad rolls. It sucks to run out of fun spells to use. It sucks to waste a spell slot on a missed Spell. It sucks to fail a concentration check. It sucks to fail a saving throw and have to sit out a combat for a few rounds.

"Sucks" is an undefined term. Those are setbacks in a game, just like striking out in baseball, or missing a parry in fencing. But the game is composed of both successes and setbacks. You aren't really playing the game; you're only pretending to.

And if you're willing to do that, why do you need a table, a DM, and other players? Just imagine your character facing ogres, and every spell works, and every sword blow hits. You are the greatest adventurer in the world, and all your enemies fail.

If you don't want to do that, ask yourself why not? Because the difference between what you are doing and that is only the difference between cheating sometimes and all the time.


I think cheating is okay if I'm doing it in a way where I have more fun and it's unnoticeable to those around me. (I've been doing this for 2 years now). If my cheating really were a problem I think other players would have noticed by now.

This is a very seductive argument, but it's bad logic. The measure of how OK something is has nothing to do with whether or not you get caught. So the fact that it hasn't been noticed yet cannot make it OK. Your friends are trusting you and not checking on you, so they haven't noticed. That makes being dishonest to them worse, not better.

Turn it around. Suppose they finally do catch you at it. Does that mean that it was OK for two years and suddenly became not OK? Obviously not. It was never OK; you just got away with it for the first two years.

I hope you don't wind up losing your friends to this. I hope you don't lose the ability to enjoy playing hard games with real difficulties. I hope it doesn't lead you to become dishonest with more people and in more situations that can hurt your life in the future.

And no, I don't hate you. I worry that you don't realize yet what you are giving away, and that after giving away your honesty for a long time, you may find it hard or impossible to get it back.

NichG
2020-07-08, 08:36 AM
Trust, basically. I'm running a game and I expect people to be following the rules of the game, not trying to give themselves an unfair edge over other players or the situations they're in.

If you're willing to cheat on something as basic as rolling a 20 sided die and honestly report on the result (using an advantage die the deception is built in) in a game with no stakes whatsoever, what else are you willing to bend, dodge or fiddle? I find the behaviour contemptible and won't tolerate it at my table.

For me, I don't see this as a matter of trust. I'd be more bothered by someone using legitimate rules-legal optimization to overshadow another player at the table, than I would by someone who for example refuses to fail saves versus death or who refuses to miss an enemy more than twice in a row. If someone is operating in a mindset of trying to get an edge over another player that is itself a problem, but its missing the point for me to put the focus on whether or not they're playing by the rules.

As a GM, I see the rules as primarily a method of offloading responsibilities and privileges for resolving the world to others at the table. They're a promise that a certain thing is up to the player to evaluate. In that sense, they're really about communication and confidence - the existence of a rule says 'if you do this, you can determine the outcome'. The reason for me to not break a rule as a GM is then to allow players confidence in their reasoning about the game world without second-guessing everything - not because its a rule, but because that rule is serving an end.

If a player is cheating to give themselves an advantage against NPCs, they're not violating the ability of other players at the table to be confident about what things they can rely on since that player cheating isn't breaking my word about how the world is going to work. At worst, maybe someone wastes a healing ability or some other resources because they believe the character is in more danger than they actually are, but that player cheating isn't going to make the abilities of other players' characters stop working. It is an issue if they cheat while in an antagonistic posture to another player, but again I'd have a problem with that antagonistic posture in the first place, cheating or no.

Anonymouswizard
2020-07-08, 09:32 AM
For me, I don't see this as a matter of trust. I'd be more bothered by someone using legitimate rules-legal optimization to overshadow another player at the table, than I would by someone who for example refuses to fail saves versus death or who refuses to miss an enemy more than twice in a row. If someone is operating in a mindset of trying to get an edge over another player that is itself a problem, but its missing the point for me to put the focus on whether or not they're playing by the rules.

Eh, rules shmules. The question is not 'are they playing by the rules' but 'are they playing by the same rules as everybody else'.

To me the player who plays a Spell to Power Erudite after the Wizard is banned and the player who uses an 'advantage' die without telling everybody are exactly the same. They're scum, because they've decided that they don't have to pay by the same rules as everybody else.

Now if this is all discussed with and agreed with the table as a whole it's all done. You might not be playing by the same rules anymore, but everybody's agreed to it and the same ability to decide that they want to play by these rules.

The problem is not 'they didn't play by the game rules', they didn't play by the social rules that say we'll all abide by eBay the die shows.

NichG
2020-07-08, 10:11 AM
Eh, rules shmules. The question is not 'are they playing by the rules' but 'are they playing by the same rules as everybody else'.

To me the player who plays a Spell to Power Erudite after the Wizard is banned and the player who uses an 'advantage' die without telling everybody are exactly the same. They're scum, because they've decided that they don't have to pay by the same rules as everybody else.

Now if this is all discussed with and agreed with the table as a whole it's all done. You might not be playing by the same rules anymore, but everybody's agreed to it and the same ability to decide that they want to play by these rules.

The problem is not 'they didn't play by the game rules', they didn't play by the social rules that say we'll all abide by eBay the die shows.

I suppose then what I'm saying is that abiding by game rules or dice rolls is not a 'social rule' that applies at my table. I think that following the form of things is being elevated to something sacred, where a transgression against it is inherently a violation without regards to what it actually means, and I disagree that elevating those things in such a way is helpful or necessary.

Lets take the example of what I posted on this thread. I literally said 'if you want to cheat, as long as you aren't doing it against the other players its fine at my table'. Can you still claim that ignoring what the dice say must be a violation of social rules at my table? If so, why, when the stated rule is 'cheat if you want'?

Contrast
2020-07-08, 10:35 AM
Firstly, I will say the same thing I say to DMs who fudge rolls - it's rarely as well hidden as you think it is. Even if no-one is willing to challenge you on it, oftentimes someone will have their suspicions - particularly when there are patterns of behaviour. People notice things and they're not stupid. Particularly with fudging numbers of spell slots which are relatively easy to keep a broad track of if you're remotely rules savvy.


I have a recent experience which I feel is relevant so I thought I'd share.

With the onset of Covid, our game moved online. Some people are trying to play by phone or whatever and aren't very tech savvy and the DM has known us all for years so rather than using some sort of online rolling thing we just roll and say what we get.

Suddenly one of our players starts rolling well. Really well. Consistently. Oh sure they would still occasionally roll a particularly dramatic failure but otherwise, all things being even, they succeeded at everything they tried to do. Hints were dropped but the player has either purposefully ignored them or still thinks they're getting away with it. We're all playing to have fun and no-one is really that bothered so we mostly just left it at that. Except I'm no longer impressed when they do cool things and the DM doesn't really bother hyping up their actions because...well they're just going to succeed.


tl;dr Sometimes to get the highs you need the lows. And there's a good chance someone at your tables knows/suspects you're fudging but doesn't want the drama of trying to challenge you on it.

ImNotTrevor
2020-07-08, 11:12 AM
I suppose then what I'm saying is that abiding by game rules or dice rolls is not a 'social rule' that applies at my table. I think that following the form of things is being elevated to something sacred, where a transgression against it is inherently a violation without regards to what it actually means, and I disagree that elevating those things in such a way is helpful or necessary.

Lets take the example of what I posted on this thread. I literally said 'if you want to cheat, as long as you aren't doing it against the other players its fine at my table'. Can you still claim that ignoring what the dice say must be a violation of social rules at my table? If so, why, when the stated rule is 'cheat if you want'?

I don't think you understood his point.

The problem is even distribution and understanding of what's kosher at the table, and then running counter to those expectations and keeping it hidden.

Given that Cheating is lying in the context of a game, by having a rule that says "cheating is OK", then it means that, paradoxically, they can't cheat. Nothing they could do would be contrary to established expectations, and they wouldn't need to lie about it. Every single roll they could just say they maxed out and not even bother rolling or hiding their cheating. It's explicitly allowed.

"I rolled a twenty"

"But it was a 6."

"I'm cheating, though, so it's a 20."

Since this is OK at your table, it's not cheating anymore. They've not done anything wrong, so long as it isn't PvP.

Hence, the concerns being named have nothing to do with it.

NichG
2020-07-08, 01:10 PM
I don't think you understood his point.

The problem is even distribution and understanding of what's kosher at the table, and then running counter to those expectations and keeping it hidden.

Given that Cheating is lying in the context of a game, by having a rule that says "cheating is OK", then it means that, paradoxically, they can't cheat. Nothing they could do would be contrary to established expectations, and they wouldn't need to lie about it. Every single roll they could just say they maxed out and not even bother rolling or hiding their cheating. It's explicitly allowed.


I think there's a difference between what you're saying here, which is basically like having an open rule saying 'just tell me what you want your dice result to be', versus having a social contract that basically says 'do what you need to do in order to have fun as long as it doesn't interfere with other people'. So for example it makes complete sense to me that you'd have a table operating under the latter rule where fudging a die roll is fine, but actually saying aloud 'I fudged this die roll' might not be wanted. Or even more extreme, that saying 'I fudged this die roll' might not be okay even if fudging it is.

I'm basing this on fairly limited experiences, granted, but I've had two players I'm aware of who have cheated in my games. I know of a third player who is going to be my reference level for where this is coming from, but as far as I'm aware of didn't cheat.

The first player really liked getting extreme rolls and doing big things and bragging about it (and we were playing games with exploding dice, so we're talking 1 in 10000 type occurrences every other week). At that time, I found it mildly annoying, but the main reason I found it annoying was because he'd make a big deal about it, not because his rolls were causing any actual problems. In fact, the rolls became something convenient for me as a GM since I could place something there as a lure by associating it with an impossible TN (target number) and then use that to inject plot hooks and things ('no, normally you can't hear things on a coterminous plane, but okay lets make that an epic check with a TN of 150 and we'll see what happens, since you say your perception is so good'). In the end, I was able to find a productive use for that bit of irritation and we got some good stories out of it.

The second player was also a GM for a game in our group of players, and was pretty much the top player I've had in terms of being concerned for the fun of other players. At one point we were talking about players in his games who would cheat, and how he sort of came to understand that, and he told me that, having learned that, there would be times where as a player he would cheat if he saw situations where for example the group was going to break down or get pissed off IRL if things went one way or another - like if after 3 hours going at something it was going to be ruined by something stupid and returned to status quo. After thinking about it a bit, I found it reasonable - part of my job as GM would be to make it unnecessary, but since I could fail at that, this was a reasonable backup for players to be able to safeguard and ensure their own fun. Since I can't read people's minds and moods, it makes sense to extend them the trust to manage their experience of the game if they feel it necessary. But at the same time, I really would not want him or another player to outright announce what they were doing. It would make it a futile gesture, maybe even be a kind of bragging like 'I can get away with doing this, look at me'.

So lets call those my positive experiences that made me, if not actively calling for people to cheat, not really willing to care much whether people cheat or not. Even if I were at a table where there wasn't some explicit permission to cheat, I'd find it hard to get upset if someone else did just on the basis of 'they lied to me' or 'they broke the social contract' or something like that. Unless I were looking for a reason to get offended, it wouldn't do it.

So now that third player. This is someone who, as far as I can tell played strictly by the rules and got offended whenever anyone gained any advantage from deviating from them at all. He wanted his 'work' that he put in to find loopholes and exploit the system to be rewarded by demonstrable superiority over the other players at the table. And as one might predict, the GM for that game (thankfully not me) burned out after 4 months of dealing with him, other players got pissed off, there was behind-the-scenes gossip and backstabbing, all sorts of bad stuff. That sort of mindset is what I'd describe as the real underlying thing I was noticing and reacting negatively to in terms of thinking about a player cheating (for example, the first player bragging about their rolls).

But as a contrasting example, it really makes it clear to me that the cheating, or having unfair advantage, or things like that don't matter to me at all. Those things don't inherently hold weight in their own right, so talking about broken trust and things like that seems like a non sequitur. I never really put any value in whether someone else at the table is following the same rules, I put value in how they treat me - same rules or not. What does hold weight to me is not being a jerk. But I think they're totally separate things.

ImNotTrevor
2020-07-08, 03:59 PM
I think there's a difference between what you're saying here, which is basically like having an open rule saying 'just tell me what you want your dice result to be', versus having a social contract that basically says 'do what you need to do in order to have fun as long as it doesn't interfere with other people'. So for example it makes complete sense to me that you'd have a table operating under the latter rule where fudging a die roll is fine, but actually saying aloud 'I fudged this die roll' might not be wanted. Or even more extreme, that saying 'I fudged this die roll' might not be okay even if fudging it is.

I'm basing this on fairly limited experiences, granted, but I've had two players I'm aware of who have cheated in my games. I know of a third player who is going to be my reference level for where this is coming from, but as far as I'm aware of didn't cheat.

The first player really liked getting extreme rolls and doing big things and bragging about it (and we were playing games with exploding dice, so we're talking 1 in 10000 type occurrences every other week). At that time, I found it mildly annoying, but the main reason I found it annoying was because he'd make a big deal about it, not because his rolls were causing any actual problems. In fact, the rolls became something convenient for me as a GM since I could place something there as a lure by associating it with an impossible TN (target number) and then use that to inject plot hooks and things ('no, normally you can't hear things on a coterminous plane, but okay lets make that an epic check with a TN of 150 and we'll see what happens, since you say your perception is so good'). In the end, I was able to find a productive use for that bit of irritation and we got some good stories out of it.

The second player was also a GM for a game in our group of players, and was pretty much the top player I've had in terms of being concerned for the fun of other players. At one point we were talking about players in his games who would cheat, and how he sort of came to understand that, and he told me that, having learned that, there would be times where as a player he would cheat if he saw situations where for example the group was going to break down or get pissed off IRL if things went one way or another - like if after 3 hours going at something it was going to be ruined by something stupid and returned to status quo. After thinking about it a bit, I found it reasonable - part of my job as GM would be to make it unnecessary, but since I could fail at that, this was a reasonable backup for players to be able to safeguard and ensure their own fun. Since I can't read people's minds and moods, it makes sense to extend them the trust to manage their experience of the game if they feel it necessary. But at the same time, I really would not want him or another player to outright announce what they were doing. It would make it a futile gesture, maybe even be a kind of bragging like 'I can get away with doing this, look at me'.

So lets call those my positive experiences that made me, if not actively calling for people to cheat, not really willing to care much whether people cheat or not. Even if I were at a table where there wasn't some explicit permission to cheat, I'd find it hard to get upset if someone else did just on the basis of 'they lied to me' or 'they broke the social contract' or something like that. Unless I were looking for a reason to get offended, it wouldn't do it.

So now that third player. This is someone who, as far as I can tell played strictly by the rules and got offended whenever anyone gained any advantage from deviating from them at all. He wanted his 'work' that he put in to find loopholes and exploit the system to be rewarded by demonstrable superiority over the other players at the table. And as one might predict, the GM for that game (thankfully not me) burned out after 4 months of dealing with him, other players got pissed off, there was behind-the-scenes gossip and backstabbing, all sorts of bad stuff. That sort of mindset is what I'd describe as the real underlying thing I was noticing and reacting negatively to in terms of thinking about a player cheating (for example, the first player bragging about their rolls).

But as a contrasting example, it really makes it clear to me that the cheating, or having unfair advantage, or things like that don't matter to me at all. Those things don't inherently hold weight in their own right, so talking about broken trust and things like that seems like a non sequitur. I never really put any value in whether someone else at the table is following the same rules, I put value in how they treat me - same rules or not. What does hold weight to me is not being a jerk. But I think they're totally separate things.

The issue is that there is no practical difference between silently fudging and openly fudging. The end result is identical. And if everyone is given blanket permission to do so, then it is still the case that no one CAN cheat.

Even in the situation you describe where cheating is ok so long as you don't say it's happening doesn't change the fact that no lying is taking place. It's simply accepted as probable that any given roll is falsified.

They still can't CHEAT, because there's nothing legitimately preventing it.

As I stated before, fudging a roll isn't cheating if fudging is allowed. Using loaded dice isn't cheating if it's allowed. If you have to lie and pretend that is isn't happening to avoid punishment, THAT is cheating.

Cheating isn't loaded dice and fudged rolls. Cheating is lying, in the context of a game, to gain an *unfair* advantage. If everyone is allowed to fudge rolls and use loaded dice, then it's not unfair to use them... everyone is allowed to use them at their leisure.

Quertus
2020-07-08, 07:43 PM
@NichG, @JayR, just wanted to say "Kudos!". Those were some excellent posts.

To try to paraphrase and sum up,

"It's not the cheating itself that bothers me", coupled with the concept of "don't violate the promises you've made to your players" is a stance I can really get behind.

However, the call to "look at what you've lost, and what you stand to lose, next to what you've gained" was something that really needed to be said - and it was said expertly.

So, again, kudos! You two have definitely exceeded my expectations for this thread with your most excellent posts.

Altheus
2020-07-09, 03:01 AM
I realise now that I am an ardent worshipper of Nuffle, the six faced god who showers you with glory or pain on a random basis. The commandment is "Let the dice fall where they may."

Woe unto the heretic who interferes with that process.

I comprehend all of the arguments in favour of cheating, however, my visceral reaction to it is still "Hell, no!".

I'll go with the visceral reaction.

CharonsHelper
2020-07-10, 05:04 PM
Yeah sorry, if you were at my table doing that I would respond one of two ways.

1. If I don't know you well, I would refuse to ever sit at the gaming table with you again.

2. If you were my friend, I would take your fake die and break it with a hammer and then tell you that I expected better of you. I would also watch you like a hawk going forward.

You are lying to everyone at your table, and I can't stand liars.

ngilop
2020-07-10, 06:26 PM
The OP reminds me of the kid at the park when playing cops and robbers that would always be immune to bullets or have instant teleportation at managed to instantly teleport away and back right before the bullet hit.

I only say that because the OP has stated that anything negative effecting his character 'sucks', and therefore only things that allow his character to triumph are what makes the game fun for him.


to each their own, though, I cannot understand how people can get satisfaction from something they never earned.

But, then again, I am from a different era.

King of Nowhere
2020-07-11, 06:00 AM
The OP reminds me of the kid at the park when playing cops and robbers that would always be immune to bullets or have instant teleportation at managed to instantly teleport away and back right before the bullet hit.

I only say that because the OP has stated that anything negative effecting his character 'sucks', and therefore only things that allow his character to triumph are what makes the game fun for him.


yep.
the question is, what is gained by cheating? this is not a game where anything is at stake. you don't even have victory or defeat! the party is going to succeed, we all know it. if there are dire circumstances, then the DM would intervene and give the party a way out.
no, the stated reason for cheating is that failing at something "sucks".

this feels extremely childish to me. and with a good heap of insecurity. someone who must always succeed and can't process insuccess.

furthermore, to those claiming he's not taking anything out of the party, he actually is, if not much: whenever one of his fellow party members fails because he rolls a 1, this guy will still get the spotlight, so he is getting more of his share of attention than the other players.
but i agree that those people using rules-legal tricks to achieve the very same effect are equally reprehensible.

dangelo
2020-07-11, 10:03 AM
Ask your dm to grant you successes with a cost rather than straight up failures.
Damn, why does it have to be so hard.
Also maybe you should switch to freeform roleplay. A lot of people prefer it. Since you feel injusticed by the randomness of the G part of RPG, just let go of rules as a whole and you'll be happier.

Talakeal
2020-07-11, 12:02 PM
When your friends find out, they will be very upset. There will be a lot of fighting, and you may be kicked from the group. That's the short term, tangible cost.

In the long term, you are hurting all of your friends trust. In my gaming table, I trust everyone to roll their own dice and manage their own resources and calculate their own numbers. This makes the game more fun and easier for everyone.

I have played with people who have trust issues, and they spend all of their time policing everyone else, and it is more tedious and more stressful for everyone involved.

Don't turn your friends into people with trust issues.




Also, its kind of refreshing to here this sort of rhetoric from a player; GM's always try and justify fudging dice and other things that would be "cheating" if a player did them.

Bahamut7
2020-08-06, 12:54 PM
Look, I have known players who cheat at the other games. Whether you want to admit it or not, you are trying to win the game. You are too afraid of loss, even though in this type of game there is no winning or losing. Hiding it, means that you know it's wrong. All of this has been said and it is still true. When you use a die that is rigged in your favor like you are, or are adding spell slots, you will never learn how to be a better player. What happens when the group finds out you have been cheating and you lose them as friends? Was it worth it? No. I won't lie, one of the people that I know who cheats at games, I don't like playing with, because I have to watch him constantly. Takes away from my fun.

However.

The one person you are truly cheating...is yourself. Yes, we get **** rolls sometimes. We run out of spell slots or other resources. Part of the fun and challenge of table top is adapting and overcoming challenges. It is far more satisfying, to pull a win out of your ass through a combination of potions, scrolls, skill checks, or other ingenuity. I played an Artificer that survived a TPK through this, otherwise he would have died as well. I have also had characters die to crap rolls on my side and great rolls on the DM side. This happens. The character dies, you make a new one and move on. You also can use encounters where things didn't go well to improve your character.

Great example. I never went easy on my siblings in video games. My sister loved Tony Hawk 3. She always wanted to use the cheat codes to do better. I let her, but she still never beat me because I was more skilled and then would also benefit from the cheat codes. She asked how I was getting so many points and I told her I got good at the game and didn't use cheats. Guess what happened? She stopped using cheat codes and focused on getting better. When she went to play with some friends at a party she kicked their ass and they were shocked at how good she was.

The only person who can truly make you play better and not need the crutch that is cheating, is you.

Man_Over_Game
2020-08-07, 03:20 PM
The problem is even distribution and understanding of what's kosher at the table, and then running counter to those expectations and keeping it hidden.

The game doesn't work if everyone is trying to play a different game. You don't need the rulebook for everyone to play the same game, you just need everyone to be on the same page. Even if you lie, cheat, and steal from the other players, that can be perfectly acceptable as long as everyone else is playing the same game.

The only wrong way to play a game is to ignore that fact. You can have sex, gore, PvP, cheating, whatever in your tabletop games, it really only becomes a problem when one person has decided the rest of the table has to play his game.

Is it as impactful as something that would more directly impact their gameplay? No. But wherever it falls on the Evil Scale of 1-100, it's still on the scale.

Darth Credence
2020-08-07, 04:40 PM
I think I am with the general consensus that if you're hiding it, it's lying, and lying to friends trying to have a good time is wrong. I know that some of my players would be incredibly upset if they found this out, and the game would collapse. I know exactly who at my table would be most likely to cheat, and who would walk away if they found out.


TBF, limited resources are hardly ever an issue for the GM. When's the last time you (generic) had a foe start with half their spells slots expended? Or had the BBEG only able to afford three golems for his "Octo-Golem room" because they're quite expensive?

The issue with ignoring resource costs is purely fairness with the other PCs I'd say - the GM is already using a different system in that regard.

I had that happen in the last session I played. There was a hunt going on on an island, and a couple of other hunting parties were there. Based on where they went, by the time they got to the cave system I had planned out, another group had already been there. That group was all dead, and I reasoned that based on how I would play the choldrith they would fight, it would have certainly used two first level and one second level spell slot. This ended up mattering, as it couldn't cast a third heal spell, and ended up running away.
But for the most part, it isn't something I would worry about, because I don't picture monsters as being likely to have already been in an encounter since the last time they slept. Adventurers do it all the time, but a monster hanging out in a lair is not likely to have people lining up to fight it like in my example.

Rynael
2020-08-07, 05:45 PM
If I were at the table with you, and I found out that you were cheating... I wouldn't care. At all. I've thrown games and fudged die rolls down to avoid overshadowing other players when they, and even the DM, all grew angry and suspicious of my run of genuine good luck in a game where everyone else was rolling poorly (it had helped, in this example, that I'd unwittingly made a build we'd all later learn was notoriously powerful). I care more about avoiding serious drama than the sanctity of the game, or even the intrinsic morality of "white lies" (and no, I'm not saying whether that's okay or not, I'm saying I'm not interested in arguing it).

But other people, including most here, feel differently. And, given the proportions involved, at least one other such person is probably at your table. And that brings us back to the subject of "drama." I've seen entire campaigns crash and burn over this kind of situation alone, involving only one of the players, and out of game friendships temporarily grow strained over something that I, myself, would've considered no big deal at all.

Basically, what I'm saying is that you're playing with fire. You may never get burned, just like many people never get in a car crash in their lives. If so, good for you. If not, well....

Bartmanhomer
2020-08-07, 07:41 PM
If you were playing solo you can cheat all the time but with a group of real people not so much.

Saintheart
2020-08-07, 09:55 PM
First let me say I'm expecting a bunch of hate for this post. I cheat at D&D and it's a better experience, I know that's terrible sounding but hear me out.

I use an advantage d20 that replaces the 1, 2 and 3 with an extra 18, 19, 20. Which means the lowest I can roll is 4 and I have a 65% chance of rolling above 10, with a 10% chance of a natural 20 instead of 5%.

More than that, I don't always keep track of my spell slots on purpose. I usually squeeze out a few extra spells.

Why do this? Am I trying to "Win" D&D? No, not at all. But let's all be honest, it sucks to play a session where your character does nothing because of bad rolls. It sucks to run out of fun spells to use. It sucks to waste a spell slot on a missed Spell. It sucks to fail a concentration check. It sucks to fail a saving throw and have to sit out a combat for a few rounds.

These small changes have gone unnoticed in countless games, I still roll a 6 when I desperately need above a 10, I still miss, I still fail saves, and I still roll Nat 1's when I use other dice (I swap between what dice I roll so it's not obvious).

Why am I telling you all this? Because this is a community where discussion is King and am using it as an outlet to start a conversation I think many are afraid to start. I think cheating is okay if I'm doing it in a way where I have more fun and it's unnoticeable to those around me. (I've been doing this for 2 years now). If my cheating really were a problem I think other players would have noticed by now.

There. I said it. *Winces in anticipation of punishment and backlash*

Different take:

You are oversensitive to loss aversion. This is one of the primal human features, basic in neuroscience, and therefore the easiest way to manipulate people. Many industries, from auctions to advertising to "trial" offers for Gold memberships/subscriptions/etc, depend on this human failing and indeed exist largely because of it. Read Dan Ariely's book Predictably Irrational for the long version.

Suggested cure both for yourself and your fellow players:

Join a losing sports team for a season.

Alternatively, learn to build a mechanically powerful character, one that's not heavily constrained by the roll of dice for the outcome of a game.

Also, tangentially:

Insofar as we play games to somehow help us cope with real life - and there are plenty of people who delude themselves that they play games to escape real life - dice rolls are meant to represent that random chance will mess you up or reward you for no reason. Sometimes the wind is not blowing in the right direction. Sometimes you have to blink at the wrong moment. Sometimes asteroids do hit the Earth. Sometimes you make a guaranteed hit (natural 20) and sometimes you always miss (natural 1). The reason why we have modifiers to rolls, the positive ones anyway, is to represent our belief/delusion/certainty that something innate in us can influence the outcome, that whilst the world is very much random and complex and opaque and not really that understandable when you get right down to it, that we can have some chance in some cases to influence that uncertainty.

One tampers with that basic tension at one's peril. This is the inherent risk with Action Points, Luck Feats, and rerolls: they make us think at some level that we have more control over the real world than we really do. Cheating does the same thing, just in secret rather than an exploitable part of the system.

ebarde
2020-08-08, 10:36 AM
Here's the thing though, if you think it sucks to play a session where your character does nothing, why wouldn't you extend that sentiment to your party members? They still will most likely be pretty useless from time to time due to no fault of their own. But maybe they bear with it cause they think it's amusing, they don't like the rules but decide to go with it cause other people seem to be doing fine or think is ok cause hey, everybody will get a bad streak eventually, so it balances itself out.

But when you keep it to yourself, it stops being about you not wanting your character to suck due to bad luck, but you wanting your character to suck less than your party members. This is not to mention that the DM is totally unaware of this, and is having to deal with lucky crits as it were way more frequently, which leads to their own dramatic encounters sucking due to factors beyond their control. And sure that's already partially the case with dice and randomness, but the DM on top of that has no way to account for fudged rolls.

So if you think it sucks so much to not do anything cause of dice, why would you create a scenario where everyone else on the game would have the odds stacked even more against them? It's also important to note that one of the major reasons that no one in your party has noticed what you're pulling yet, is cause players generally believe in one another. Even if they notice you have more slots than you should have, they'll most likely shrug it off as them miscalculating cause that seems a more likely scenario than someone consistently fudging rolls.

I'm sure every DM thinks it sucks when your big bad dies cause of a lucky crit, now you need to scramble to find some sort of way to keep the session going for a while more so your players still feel any sense of getting something done. Same way every player dislikes running out of spell slots and just standing there while your party does all of the work, or just generally feeling they always impact whatever fight they're on less than other players. So fudging so you don't experience those things, sorta ignores that this is something that everyone experiences, and stacking the die even more will just make it worse for everyone else.

Kaptin Keen
2020-08-08, 12:06 PM
These small changes have gone unnoticed in countless games

I doubt that.

I've played with plenty of people who cheat - and everyone always knows. No one ever says anything, they just consider it pathetic and move along. And if I'm the GM in case, I simply edit results to be more fair. As in, the guy who cheats only does half damage on all attacks, or the like.

So that's my take: Likely everyone around you knows, and feel sort of sad that you feel you need to - but are too nice to call you out on it.

On the question of whether it's ok to cheat - no, obviously it isn't. But when it comes down to it, whenever a fight is going the wrong way, I've observed a tendency towards statistically unlikely good rolls. I think there's a grey area where most of us sort of accept a 17 when an 18 was needed to hit, and most of just don't say it or outright deny it.

Wizard_Lizard
2020-08-08, 03:20 PM
I think, if bad rolls are a problem and ruining your experience, play a halfling with the lucky feat. Boom. No bad rolls. No need to cheat!

Segev
2020-08-08, 11:24 PM
You are oversensitive to loss aversion. I know I am. I hate my own incompetence more than almost any other petty annoyance in the world. I refuse to play most video games because the constant steam of failure only makes me angry and miserable and makes me then make poor choices in life around me. It’s not worth it, especially since a victory after that much defeat feels hollow and worthless, and I’m still less happy than I was before I started playing the cursed game.


Suggested cure both for yourself and your fellow players:

Join a losing sports team for a season.

I confess that I have no idea how this would help with the issue, since I know from experience that losing at sports repeatedly only convinced me to swear them off entirely. I hate sports because they combine my hatred of losing with my hatred of exercise and how miserable I feel after engaging in it. (I exercise 3-4 times a week quite deliberately for health reasons and I have never once felt the so-called endorphin rush that is supposed to come from it. All I feel is relief it’s done and maybe guilt that I don’t push just a little harder despite being very glad I finished it and viewing the notion of more exercise with - and I mildly exaggerate here - sick dread.)

I don’t even like watching sports. They bore me, at best.


Alternatively, learn to build a mechanically powerful character, one that's not heavily constrained by the roll of dice for the outcome of a game. This is generally my solution. I build the best characters I can to succeed at what I view as valuable for my character to be good at to fit my vision of them.

ebarde
2020-08-09, 12:13 AM
Yeah, I'm extremely competitive and it can be fairly hard to deal with. Mostly I've been sorta I guess adopting alternate win conditions? Like, if I fail miserably I try to get a crack out of the table with some silly comment, and I consider that a win in it's own right I guess. Although I still have a really hard time on boring game states, like when everyone really doesn't have much reason to particularly try to do anything cool in an encounter as to not waste resources, and the enemy just keeps tanking hit after hit leading to a boring endurance match.

King of Nowhere
2020-08-09, 08:13 AM
I know I am. I hate my own incompetence more than almost any other petty annoyance in the world. I refuse to play most video games because the constant steam of failure only makes me angry and miserable and makes me then make poor choices in life around me. It’s not worth it, especially since a victory after that much defeat feels hollow and worthless, and I’m still less happy than I was before I started playing the cursed game.


are you aware that everything in life is laced with failure? the media only shows the success, but to reach success you have to try and improve many times. for every feat of skill, the champion has tried it dozens of times before getting it right, and hundreds before getting it right consistently. for every new scientific or technologic breakthrough, there are dozens of failed attempts before they figured out how to do it properly.
failing is just a necessary part of the learning process. the only people who never failed are the ones who never tried to accomplish anything.
perhaps it could help you to look at defeat this way?

NorthernPhoenix
2020-08-09, 10:40 AM
You are oversensitive to loss aversion.

I have to thank you for putting into simple terms the type of player (and person more generally) i absolutely despise. Trying to "win at DND" is just a symptom of someone being "oversensitive to loss aversion.". I'm gonna remember that for future reference.

Finding ways to encourage players to be OK with failing without it being me dropping the rocks is one of the most important things a game can do. To me, making the players fail is boring. Having them choose to fail to further the shared narrative is everything to me.

Cygnia
2020-08-09, 11:19 AM
Y'know, it's telling that the OP posted once and apparently never came back...

Bartmanhomer
2020-08-09, 12:16 PM
Y'know, it's telling that the OP posted once and apparently never came back...

Yes. I notice that as well.

Segev
2020-08-09, 04:45 PM
are you aware that everything in life is laced with failure? the media only shows the success, but to reach success you have to try and improve many times. for every feat of skill, the champion has tried it dozens of times before getting it right, and hundreds before getting it right consistently. for every new scientific or technologic breakthrough, there are dozens of failed attempts before they figured out how to do it properly.
failing is just a necessary part of the learning process. the only people who never failed are the ones who never tried to accomplish anything.
perhaps it could help you to look at defeat this way?

Not really. Mainly because I tend to have an extremely slow learning curve and rarely find defeat instructive. (When I do, it’s less frustrating.) Unfortunately, losing 90% of the time just dispirits me. Which is why even eventual victories just feel like a lot of wasted time with no vindication. Because what good, in the end? Is a pointless victory in a game when I could have done something actually enjoyable with the time? I generally only push through such things out of sheer angry stubbornness, which is why I’m still just angry and tired when I finally succeed. So it’s just not worth it.

Anonymouswizard
2020-08-09, 06:37 PM
Y'know, it's telling that the OP posted once and apparently never came back...

Twice actually (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?615303-I-cheat-at-D-amp-D-and-it-s-a-better-experience&p=24597932#post24597932). Point still stands.


Anyway, my actual advice to everybody who wants to cheat at D&D is to play a different game. Something lighter either designed as a more freeform storytelling experience or to encourage the view of failure as a chance to try again (or alternatively play with a GM who'll fudge to stop you from failing). There's nothing objectively wrong with a no-failure game, all the problems come from the tendency to try to force this via cheating instead of openly discussing it with the group.

Malkavia
2020-08-10, 07:11 AM
I guess I’ll be the first one to not completely disagree with the OP. I don’t cheat, but I can certainly understand it. I’m an adult in my 30s who rarely has time to play D&D. Our group plays so infrequently that someone is always forgetting some rule or another. As a result, combat is even slower than D&D combat usually is. There’s nothing more frustrating than finally getting my turn only to miss, wait X minutes for my next turn, and then miss again.

To fix this, I’ve dabbled in no-roll builds, elven accuracy abuse, etc. When DMing, I never use spells that completely remove a player from action (think sleep, hold person,etc.). It’s akin to saying “hey man, I know you’ve waited X weeks/months, but I’m going to have to ask you to sit back and watch us play for the next 10-30 minutes.

The real problem I’m actually trying to solve as a player and a DM is I think D&D is too swingy, combat is to slow, and it doesn’t match the type of fantasy I’m interested in, which is that of mostly competent hero’s. Unfortunately, D&D’s combined popularity with my lack of free time to play keeps me stuck with D&D. I’d love to try other systems that better suits my needs.

Anonymouswizard
2020-08-10, 07:47 AM
I guess I’ll be the first one to not completely disagree with the OP. I don’t cheat, but I can certainly understand it. I’m an adult in my 30s who rarely has time to play D&D. Our group plays so infrequently that someone is always forgetting some rule or another. As a result, combat is even slower than D&D combat usually is. There’s nothing more frustrating than finally getting my turn only to miss, wait X minutes for my next turn, and then miss again.

To be fair, there's a lot against hiding it instead of being against the actual techniques. If everything was on the level then a lot of us wouldn't have a problem.

Honestly a lot of people would probably be happier with The Fantasy Trip than D&D. It's a much simpler system, designed to be less swingy (beginning characters will probably have a 10 or 11 in DX, which means they hit over half the time with 3d6 roll under), and magic isn't as certain to succeed (it's a DX roll just like swinging a weapon), and it's facing, flanking, and grappling rules make melee combat a lot more fun to me than in D&D. But it's also lower power than D&D, due to it's attempts at realism, and so combat sans armour can be deadly.

icefractal
2020-08-10, 03:11 PM
I'm not pro-cheating, but some of these comments are getting into "An expert at games is an expert at life!" territory.

Like, first off, rolling well is not a skill (unless you're cheating :smalltongue:). So at the point where you're actually rolling a saving throw, there's no "player skill" involved either way. Failure at checks can lead to opportunities for player skill and outside-the-box thinking, but so can success at checks.

Secondly, trying a module (or level) many times until you succeed involves some dedication, but so does watching a movie repeatedly until you memorize all the lines. Nothing wrong with doing so, but it isn't like a rite of passage into maturity.

So no, don't cheat, mainly because the other players would likely feel betrayed if you did. But it isn't like you're missing out on the true meaning of life that can only be discovered by playing old-school games on hard mode.

kyoryu
2020-08-10, 03:28 PM
Play something besides D&D.

As an example, in Fate, you have Fate Points. Usually spending a Fate Point or two is enough to turn most failures into victories. This means that in pretty much all cases, you choose to fail. Not in the "I want to fail here" way, but in the "well, I could still succeed here, but is it worth my Fate Points?" way.

Similarly, losing conflicts (combats) is most often a choice, and is sweetened by throwing more Fate Points your way.

Bartmanhomer
2020-08-10, 03:39 PM
I'm pretty sure everyone agrees that cheating isn't ok. Seriously like when has cheating ever been acceptable in games? :confused:

DataNinja
2020-08-11, 12:09 PM
I'm pretty sure everyone agrees that cheating isn't ok. Seriously like when has cheating ever been acceptable in games? :confused:
In Paranoia. You're told not to read the rules (past a certain point), but everyone knows everyone will, but it's fine as long as you don't let on that you know the rules, especially not when the GM changes them. :smallwink:

Bartmanhomer
2020-08-11, 12:24 PM
In Paranoia. You're told not to read the rules (past a certain point), but everyone knows everyone will, but it's fine as long as you don't let on that you know the rules, especially not when the GM changes them. :smallwink:

Ok. I guess that one exception.

kyoryu
2020-08-11, 01:20 PM
Also Munchkin.

But both of those games are fairly explicitly mocking games as a form of parody.

Zombimode
2020-08-11, 01:30 PM
And you will still find people being both suprised and angry if they find other people cheating at Munchkin.

Sometimes I'm just lost for words.

Segev
2020-08-11, 04:19 PM
And you will still find people being both suprised and angry if they find other people cheating at Munchkin.

Sometimes I'm just lost for words.

I mostly get angry when they’re bad sports about it. Blatant cheating and refusing to admit it when caught is obnoxious, at best. I know players like that, though. They usually plague convention games of Munchkin.

icefractal
2020-08-11, 05:32 PM
The thing about cheating in Munchkin (and Illuminati, which similarly says you can cheat if you don't get caught, IIRC) is that allowing it slows the game down and requires more effort from the other players.

For example, Munchkin without cheating:
"The monster is level 15, my total with bonuses is 27, and the bad stuff is losing a level. Anyone want to interfere?"
*other players quickly decide it isn't worth spending 12 points of modifiers for this*
"Ok, defeated." *takes three treasures as indicated without anyone closely watching him*

Munchkin with cheating:
"The monster is level 15, my total with bonuses is 27, and the bad stuff is losing a level. Anyone want to interfere?"
(other player) "Maybe! First I need to calculate your total myself to confirm, and read the monster card myself." *reads the monster card, notices that it's 'die' rather than 'lose a level', but doesn't say anything because he wouldn't benefit from the former player dying*
(third player) "I'd better confirm it myself too ... aha! It actually kills you, so I am interfering!"
*but the first player wins anyway, he had some modifiers too*
"Ok, defeated." *other players all watch to make sure he draws the right number of cards*

This is particularly annoying in Illuminati because collecting income is tediously slow if you can't trust people to prepare it correctly in advance.

For that reason, I typically house-rule those games to "no cheating".

Mordante
2020-08-12, 06:23 AM
In the group I occasionally DM we use luck counters. Each time player is on time on game night she gets one luck counter. This can be used to for a reroll.

Anonymouswizard
2020-08-12, 06:30 PM
In the group I occasionally DM we use luck counters. Each time player is on time on game night she gets one luck counter. This can be used to for a reroll.

Having played in many games with metagame currency, it's a very nice thing. I tend to throw reroll counters into any game, players get two or three at the start, you get one whenever a scene goes poorly, and anybody who provides for the game* gets an extra. It sucks to fail an important roll or not provide to a combat due to a string of bad luck, and keeping one on you might help a character who's dying.

This doesn't count if a game has a dedicated Edge/Karma/Fate/Bennies system, but you'll still get an extra token for bringing munchies.

* This is mainly to encourage bringing drinks or snacks, but provided minis count if you've customised or painted them.

Mutazoia
2020-08-12, 08:58 PM
"I cheat at D&D and it's a better experience (for me)."


IMHO, if you have to cheat to have fun playing D&D, then maybe RPGs are not the game for you. Stop by your local used bookstore and see if you can find a stack of the old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. You'll have a much better time. It's really hard to "lose" at those.

Just because nobody else in your group has said anything yet, doesn't mean they haven't noticed, and are going to continue to remain silent. Let me explain. No, there's not enough time, let me sum up.

A few years back, I was in a gaming group with a guy we'll call Bob. Bob hated to lose.

When we played board games and he started falling behind, he would get surly and start making random decisions that would lead to putting himself further behind, until he would rage-quit the game. It got to the point where there were only a handful of board games that he would be willing to play...the ones that were fairly easy for him to figure out the mechanics. And even then he would hem and haw during his turn until one or more of the better players would end up helping him just to move the game along. He even went full Karen during one game, throwing his drink across the room and storming out while shouting at max volume. I should note that board game nights were held in a public venue. Yeah.

When we played RPGs, he would fudge rolls. He would not track his spells. He would use skills for things that the skills didn't cover, or use skills to "detect" what someone was doing behind his character, during combat, while they were concealed. He would throw a tantrum if one of his (to him) meticulously planned schemes didn't work the way he thought they should (usually due to some glaring hole that everyone but him noticed).

Eventually, we tried to talk with him about this. His response was "I hate to lose." So, one day, after putting up with Bob for a few months longer, we decided as a group (sans Bob) to reschedule our normal game day. We told Bob that we were going to take a break from gaming for a few weeks, as a couple of our players had real-life things that needed to be taken care of. And then we went right on gaming. Without Bob.

I still hear about Bob at the local game store from time to time. He joins a game with a random group of strangers and is removed (or quits noisily) rather quickly for cheating. I don't think Bob has managed to stay in a gaming group for more than a month at a time.

So herein lies the deal. Just because you don't think the others in your group have noticed your cheating, doesn't mean they haven't. I'm fairly certain that they have and eventually will call you out on it. TTRPGs are supposed to be about having fun as a group, not Abendago lets a few other people tag along on his Mary Sue ego-stroking sessions.

kyoryu
2020-08-13, 11:41 AM
"I cheat at D&D and it's a better experience (for me)."


IMHO, if you have to cheat to have fun playing D&D, then maybe RPGs are not the game for you.

D&D for sure. RPGs.... maybe. But a game with a fairly wide use of some kind of reroll/etc. token, and one where some of the "worst" direct consequences are normally off the table, may work well.

Lacco
2020-08-14, 05:33 AM
So herein lies the deal. Just because you don't think the others in your group have noticed your cheating, doesn't mean they haven't. I'm fairly certain that they have and eventually will call you out on it.

Also, if they are your friends - they maybe noticed. And hate it. But stay silent for the sake of your friendship.

Silence will not last forever. Neither will the friendship in this case.



On rerolls/metagame currency:
I usually give ones to those who had the most unlucky & most lucky roll in the game. I hand out quite few for good roleplaying, ideas - anything I wish to support.

And I am willing to go into "reroll debt" if a player has none. But it will cost him something - always.