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Talakeal
2023-03-15, 01:17 PM
Well, Talakeal has a new gaming horror story for you all. And by new, I am mean one that I haven't really had to deal with before.

TLDR: How do you deal with a player who is blatantly lying about their dice rolls?


Longer Version:

My group is always pretty laid back and on your honor about dice. I trust my players to correctly report their own dice rolls. Occasionally this causes a problem; we have had new players join our group who are convinced everyone else is cheating*. Mostly these are people who are pretty paranoid to begin with and don't last long. I have also had a bit of a culture shock when playing at other tables and people suspect me of cheating by reporting my own dice rolls rather than rolling in the center of the table and waiting for everyone else to see it before picking it up.


We have a new player in our group for the past few months, and she is pretty obviously cheating on her rolls. It could, theoretically, just be a lucky streak, but each week she gets more blatant about it. She (almost) never fails a roll, and she crits more often than the rest of the party hits.

What she does is she constantly rolls the dice (she claims it's a nervous tick that she can't control) and then picks them up really quickly. If she isn't so quick about picking them up, she gets a really paranoid look on her face and quickly glances around the table to make sure nobody else saw the dice. Then whenever it's her turn, she proclaims she succeeded on her action. Even if there is some massive penalty she forgot about, she will then claim she still rolled well enough to pass (my system has exploding dice, so she will frequently claim results that are impossible on a single dice).

But further than that, she plays like she is cheating. She takes outrageous risks that are, statistically, foolish. For example, always going for fancy trick shots and such. To use a D&D example, she always does a maximum power attack because she knows she will always roll a natural 20. Each session, it gets more and more blatant.

We started a new campaign to weeks ago. This last session, I found out that she didn't even bother to take proficiency in her weapon. Now, this makes sense from the perspective of someone who knows that the numbers don't matter because they are cheating, but at this point it feels like she isn't even trying to hide it.

I have tried to be polite about it and several times asked her if she was sure she was counting right or if her dice might not be weighted improperly (to which she claimed she rolled them a thousand times and found they were perfectly balanced) and one of the other players flat out accused her of cheating once (to which she pouted for the rest of the session but then went right back to cheating the next time) but at this point I feel like something more drastic needs to be done.

I know the the obvious answer is to kick her out, but she seems otherwise passionate about the game and I just hate to turn a new player away like that. Anyone got any advice about how to handle this tactfully?


*:One particularly dramatic example. A player got up after his turn to use the bathroom. We continued playing, and a monster rolled a 20/19 on an attack roll and critically hit him. When the player returned from the table I told him about this, and he said that was impossible, the monsters needed a natural 18 to hit him, and I replied yes, it rolled a 20 followed by a 19 to confirm. He demanded I reroll, and the entire table vouched for me and said they saw the numbers. He then retorted "The odds of that are 1/200; the odds that you are all lying to make me look bad are a hell of a lot higher than that! No either reroll the attack where I can see it or I am leaving! Long story short, he made good on his threat and we never gamed with him again.

Rynjin
2023-03-15, 01:26 PM
Tell her to stop cheating or get the **** out. Don't phrase it as a question, or a suggestion. A simple ultimatum consisting of two parts: 1.) I know you're cheating 2.) you're gonna stop one way or another.

Once a decision has been made, perhaps the underlying issues (why would you be so insecure as to feel the need to cheat in a cooperative game?) can be sorted out, but the poor behavior needs to cease first before action can be taken to make the player feel better about the game.

Alternate suggestion: move to a new state or something, I'm not sure why you continue to game in Mos Eisley or wherever it is you live.

MoiMagnus
2023-03-15, 01:38 PM
I don't have a total answer, but there are a few points that come to my mind.

First, if her character is unplayable without cheating, or even just frustrating to play because it would fail at tasks it is supposed to succeed, it will clearly encourage her to continue cheating. Any resolution of the problem would including her rebuilding her character (or a new one in case of death).

Second, if you're ready to play therapist, you might want to understand why she cheats. Obviously "not having enough fairplay" is one of the reason, but there is likely more than one reason:
Is it because she can't accept failure?
Is it because the game is way under the low level she wishes and she get bored if she doesn't take part in actions that look absurdly dangerous?
Is it because she want to take all the spotlight?
Is it because past "trauma" making her convinced that everyone cheats? (Including potential parents having for moto "if you don't cheat, you're not really trying". Yes those peoples exists.)
Is it because she is very bad at building characters and playing the game, but is either ashamed of it or not wanting to walk the long path of failure to progress?

Mastikator
2023-03-15, 02:20 PM
As a GM/DM you can always introduce a rule that says every dice roll needs a witness or it doesn't count. It won't single her out as a rule, but it will force her to not cheat. If and when she comes up with excuses like "I can't see my dice if I don't pick them up" then offer her easily legible dice.

Or you can kick her out, that is actually a good option. By cheating she's disrespectful to the whole group, it's incredibly rude and mean to everyone at the table to cheat. These people are supposed to be her friends and she lies to their face about the pettiest thing. It doesn't speak well of someone that they cheat, in fact I'd venture forth and say if you cheat at TTRPG you are a bad person

Xervous
2023-03-15, 02:20 PM
She is 100% actively poisoning the table experience with her presence if other players are willing to call her out on it.

Without the rest of the players present, give her the “no cheating or no playing” ultimatum. If she can’t own up to it she goes.

With your table history I fully expect she’s going to keep lying to your face.

Cygnia
2023-03-15, 02:23 PM
Make everyone use Roll20?

BRC
2023-03-15, 02:34 PM
It's probably being far too generous, but I'd start by chipping away at one of the behaviors, this specifically:



What she does is she constantly rolls the dice (she claims it's a nervous tick that she can't control) and then picks them up really quickly. If she isn't so quick about picking them up, she gets a really paranoid look on her face and quickly glances around the table to make sure nobody else saw the dice. Then whenever it's her turn, she proclaims she succeeded on her action. Even if there is some massive penalty she forgot about, she will then claim she still rolled well enough to pass (my system has exploding dice, so she will frequently claim results that are impossible on a single dice).


Basically, as a point of rule do not accept this "oh, I already rolled the dice" approach. Cheating reasons aside, it makes no sense, since the situation won't be settled until your turn, you shouldn't be locking in on what your action is going to be until it's your turn anyway. If you don't want to go through the drama of calling on her to roll every die in the open where others can see and confirm the result, at the very least you can enforce "Dice rolls made when the DM doesn't request them don't count for anything", and insist she re-roll.

To get extra spicy, wait until AFTER she announces her "Pre-Rolled" result to say "Dice rolls only count when I ask for them. Please roll your check". Even if she's just flagrantly cheating, hopefully the sheer improbability of claiming she pre-rolled an 18 on 2d6 (or whatever), then claiming that her Actual roll was similarly massive will give her enough pause.

gbaji
2023-03-15, 03:33 PM
*:One particularly dramatic example. A player got up after his turn to use the bathroom. We continued playing, and a monster rolled a 20/19 on an attack roll and critically hit him. When the player returned from the table I told him about this, and he said that was impossible, the monsters needed a natural 18 to hit him, and I replied yes, it rolled a 20 followed by a 19 to confirm. He demanded I reroll, and the entire table vouched for me and said they saw the numbers. He then retorted "The odds of that are 1/200; the odds that you are all lying to make me look bad are a hell of a lot higher than that! No either reroll the attack where I can see it or I am leaving! Long story short, he made good on his threat and we never gamed with him again.

This is where you point out how many attack rolls you make for your monsters per session, then per adventure, and point out that a 1 in 200 chance is gong to happen, statistically, once out of every 200 attacks.

On the flip side, I think it's good table ettiquete to wait until a player is at the table before rolling attacks on their character though. Nothing more game whiplashy than taking a bathroom run, then coming back to "oh. While you were gone, <insert horrible thing that happened to your character here>". Even though there was nothing presumably the player could do about it, it's still feels better as the player if you are at least at the table when such things happen to your character.


Basically, as a point of rule do not accept this "oh, I already rolled the dice" approach. Cheating reasons aside, it makes no sense, since the situation won't be settled until your turn, you shouldn't be locking in on what your action is going to be until it's your turn anyway. If you don't want to go through the drama of calling on her to roll every die in the open where others can see and confirm the result, at the very least you can enforce "Dice rolls made when the DM doesn't request them don't count for anything", and insist she re-roll.

To get extra spicy, wait until AFTER she announces her "Pre-Rolled" result to say "Dice rolls only count when I ask for them. Please roll your check". Even if she's just flagrantly cheating, hopefully the sheer improbability of claiming she pre-rolled an 18 on 2d6 (or whatever), then claiming that her Actual roll was similarly massive will give her enough pause.


Yeah. I think that as a social mechanism, directly accusing someone of cheating just never ends well. The person will immediately put up defenses to that. No one will acknowledge that they cheated in the past, so that approach isn't going to work well. Adjusting the "rules for rolling dice at my table", as you suggest, is a much better approach. You can pass it off as just rules that apply to everyone, so you're not actually singling out this one player. And it sends a message to the entire table that "I don't want to throw players out, but I also don't want cheating at my table", so it should be better recieved.

And yeah. I also agree with the "no pre-rolling" bit. I've seen players who will just kinda habitually roll their dice, almost as a nervous thing in between actual actions. But then, sometimes, those same players, if the die just happens to roll well, will leave it up, and then claim that as "my roll" on the next roll. I've also seen players switch the order of the die rolls when resolution requires multiple rolls, and "just happen" to use the better die roll for the more difficult thing, and then roll again for the easier one. An example from my game system is that casting a spell requires a check to succeed in casting (usually pretty easy to make), followed by a check to see if your spell affected the target (often much more difficult). A player might roll really well on the die, and declare "I overcame the target with my spell", then "remember" that they also needed to roll to successfully cast, and then roll the second die attempt for that.

Appying table rules also avoids creating a bit of concern about such things. Some people do just get a lucky streak of dice rolls. Those players don't want to be worried that they might be accused of cheating as well, so just making die rolling more transparent will alleviate that concern.

Grod_The_Giant
2023-03-15, 04:10 PM
I don't have a total answer, but there are a few points that come to my mind.

First, if her character is unplayable without cheating, or even just frustrating to play because it would fail at tasks it is supposed to succeed, it will clearly encourage her to continue cheating. Any resolution of the problem would including her rebuilding her character (or a new one in case of death).

Second, if you're ready to play therapist, you might want to understand why she cheats. Obviously "not having enough fairplay" is one of the reason, but there is likely more than one reason:
Is it because she can't accept failure?
Is it because the game is way under the low level she wishes and she get bored if she doesn't take part in actions that look absurdly dangerous?
Is it because she want to take all the spotlight?
Is it because past "trauma" making her convinced that everyone cheats? (Including potential parents having for moto "if you don't cheat, you're not really trying". Yes those peoples exists.)
Is it because she is very bad at building characters and playing the game, but is either ashamed of it or not wanting to walk the long path of failure to progress?
I very much support this kind of approach. Assuming you're gaming with reasonable people*, your player isn't trying to ruin anyone's fun or "win D&D" (especially if she's enthusiastic otherwise). Behavior like this means that there's a mismatch between her vision of her character/the game and the rest of the table's, and a respectful private conversation between sessions will do more good than a thousand ultimatums.




*Which, given that this is in Talakeal's upside-down realm of madness, might be optimistic

KorvinStarmast
2023-03-15, 04:26 PM
Well, Talakeal has a new gaming horror story for you all. And by new, I am mean one that I haven't really had to deal with before.

TLDR: How do you deal with a player who is blatantly lying about their dice rolls?
1. You call them out on it. you can, if you are trying to be nice, call them out on it in private.
But your table may appreciate it if when you notice (for sure they will notice) you don't let it slide.
Have been through this situation a few times.
2. If the player will not mend their ways, you as a table need to decide if you'll put up with it or not.
Everyone at the table needs to chime in: how do we feel about cheating in a TTRPG?
Some tables care and some don't. Depends on your small group dynamics.

Rather than kvetching about this on GitP I will suggest that you discuss this with the entire group.
That's whose fun is impacted.

Anonymouswizard
2023-03-15, 05:13 PM
She is 100% actively poisoning the table experience with her presence if other players are willing to call her out on it.

I think this is the key thing. I've played in games with benign cheating before, nobody was taking it that seriously, the cheating wasn't that ridiculous, and the end result actually legitimately fit the game most players wanted. There's one player where I'd like to go back in time and tell them to switch out those d10s for another pair, but honestly nobody else in the group cared.

@Talakeal, if other players are speaking up it's definitely a problem, and one it sounds like you've tried to solve reasonably. If that's true it pretty much leaves you with three options if you wish to escalate, from most to least reasonable. Kick her out of the group. She's been called out on it, asked to change, and refused. The great thing about the honour system is that it tends to select for the honest.
Enforce a 'the die must be left on the table until your next roll' rule or similar. This is less reasonable than the former because you'll be punishing everybody else for her transgressions. If she complains about it interfering with her nervous tick or whatever the mature response is to offer her the choice of this or option 1, the immature response is to buy her a stimming aid (I miss my fidget cube).
Switch systems to one where her cheating is harder or outright impossible. This has all the issues of #2, but now everybody has to work out how Nobilis or whatever actually works.

Now I can only comment from outside, but it's ultimately your choice if you want to try to fix this problem or stop it. I don't think anybody will judge you if you don't want to spend your time playing therapist*, but at the same time you can make the call that you don't want to escalate and you just want to help her stop. It's your call, but honestly it might have been something you decided on before anybody outright accused her (which tends to make people more defensive).

And honestly some of it could have legitimate other reasons. Constantly rolling dice to calm yourself or stim isn't a problem, using it to try to cheat via pre-rolling checks is.

* With the exception of anybody actively employing you as a therapist.

icefractal
2023-03-15, 08:56 PM
I do often fiddle with dice, but it doesn't need to be the same ones you're actually rolling. Like in D&D, I might use d6s or d12s, but not d20s, so there's no confusion about the actual roll. So that may be a counter-point you can use if she brings up "I can't leave the dice on the table, I need to fiddle with them"

While normally forcing a dice-policy on the whole table because of one cheating player is kind of obnoxious to the other players, it sounds like the other players are already aware of her cheating and sick of it. So they may not mind a fairly strict one like "official rolls must be in this box and left lying there, else it doesn't count" as at least a temporary measure. You could moot this to the other players in advance - which is rude, yes, but egregious cheating is pretty damn rude too.

And given the extreme extent of the cheating, you probably wouldn't need to keep the measures for very long before the player either got pissed off and left, or changed her mind about needing to cheat.

Lord Torath
2023-03-16, 07:56 AM
I think starting the next session with an announcement of a new rule that "For a roll to count, you must declare what you're rolling for immediately prior to the roll, and all rolls must be witnessed by the DM or another player" will go a long way to fixing the problem without making the problem player feel called out. That way she can fiddle with her dice as much as she wants. You can also say if you as the DM didn't witness the roll, the player who did needs to say "Witnessed" or something.

You can also take her aside privately and ask her about it. But I'd only do that if the new table rule doesn't work.

I would highly recommend against challenging her publicly about her cheating!!! Assuming you want to keep her as a player, anyway. As gbaji said, publicly calling them out will never end well. They will get defensive and deny deny deny, and nothing gets solved.

Anonymouswizard
2023-03-16, 08:23 AM
I would highly recommend against challenging her publicly about her cheating!!! Assuming you want to keep her as a player, anyway. As gbaji said, publicly calling them out will never end well. They will get defensive and deny deny deny, and nothing gets solved.

Sadly that ship's apparently already sailed, thanks to another member of his group. Which is a shame, because any kind of witnessed rolls rule is now more likely to make her feel singled out.

I mean, assuming he wants to keep her as part of the group and curb her cheating his options are pretty much a witnessed rolls rule or moving to a system like Cortex Prime where pre rolling is nearly impossible.

It's possibly also worth Talakael meeting her partway by reducing the difficulty of checks to let her be moar awesome with legitimate rolls. It's not necessarily going to help, but it does sound like she wants Exalted levels when the rest are playing closer to GURPS.

Cygnia
2023-03-16, 09:01 AM
If you don't want to keep her, don't see her as a friend, then call her out publicly. The ship has sailed, lay down the hammer.

Slipjig
2023-03-16, 12:40 PM
If she's new to the hobby, maybe she just needs to see that a train wreck can be a GREAT session.

A lot of video games train us that we're always going for an S-rating, or whatever that game's equivalent is. Some players just don't realize until it happens that it can actually be a lot more fun when the plan falls apart right after initiative is rolled.

Jay R
2023-03-16, 12:52 PM
I have also had a bit of a culture shock when playing at other tables and people suspect me of cheating by reporting my own dice rolls rather than rolling in the center of the table and waiting for everyone else to see it before picking it up.

Yup. When playing with strangers, don't pick up your die until the action has been processed and accepted. The only purpose to picking up your die before that piece of table is needed for something else is to keep people from seeing what you rolled.

Most especially, when playing with strangers, and you get a high roll, make a point of getting somebody ese to see it. Don't say it defensively; do it as part of your excitement. "Ha! Look, Rob, I rolled a 20!"

The die laying on the table is your show of good faith that you are not cheating.


We have a new player in our group for the past few months, and she is pretty obviously cheating on her rolls. It could, theoretically, just be a lucky streak, but each week she gets more blatant about it. She (almost) never fails a roll, and she crits more often than the rest of the party hits.

What she does is she constantly rolls the dice (she claims it's a nervous tick that she can't control) and then picks them up really quickly. If she isn't so quick about picking them up, she gets a really paranoid look on her face and quickly glances around the table to make sure nobody else saw the dice. Then whenever it's her turn, she proclaims she succeeded on her action. Even if there is some massive penalty she forgot about, she will then claim she still rolled well enough to pass (my system has exploding dice, so she will frequently claim results that are impossible on a single dice).

A tic that she cannot control is not a problem. The problem is her choosing which roll matters, and then not showing it to anybody. At my table, I roll meaningless dice all the time. This is partially using it as a fidget toy and partially so I can make a secret DM die roll occasionally without revealing that I'm making it. But unless it's a secret die roll, I announce that this is the roll for the NPC's attack, or Spellcraft check, before I roll.

All my players announce what they're rolling for, too.

When I'm a player, I announce my die rolls in advance, always, and make sure somebody sees them. At one table, the DM actively encourages us to roll our attacks in advance of our initiative, to speed up the game. In that game, I point out my roll to the player beside me, and leave them on the table until after my turn.


I have tried to be polite about it and several times asked her if she was sure she was counting right or if her dice might not be weighted improperly (to which she claimed she rolled them a thousand times and found they were perfectly balanced) ...

They probably are. There are (at least) four ways to cheat on a die roll, and only one of them is having weighted dice. The other three are:
a. roll several times, and when you get a 20, claim it was the real one, or
b. announce a number you didn't roll, and don't let people see your dice,or
c mismarked dice. There's a die out there with 2 20s and 19s, and no 1 or 2, for instance.
By your description, she's doing one or both of the first two.

[By the way, that wouldn't have felt like being polite about it to her; that was still an accusation, even if a more subtle one. Being polite about it is solving it without any implied accusation. See below.]


... and one of the other players flat out accused her of cheating once (to which she pouted for the rest of the session but then went right back to cheating the next time) but at this point I feel like something more drastic needs to be done.

Yup. Accusations of cheating cause bad feelings and don't solve anything beyond that one session. You need to change the system. [See below.]


I know the the obvious answer is to kick her out, but she seems otherwise passionate about the game and I just hate to turn a new player away like that. Anyone got any advice about how to handle this tactfully?

My recommendation is to introduce a new rule, [I]without any accusation of cheating, and without it even being about her.

When a different player rolls a die without announcing what it's for, then you should say, "I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble following all the die rolls. From now on, I need each person to tell me what the roll is for before you roll, and then leave it on the table so I can see the result. I'm just not able to follow the action right now, and it's my job to know what happens. So that roll doesn't count. Please tell me what you're rolling for, and roll it again." [Depending on how your players think, you might choose the player and tell him or her in advance, so that player can make a point of accepting the new ruling.]

In the ideal setup, the player you're concerned about isn't the first or second to roll under the new rule, and you've already made at least one player re-roll and show you the new result before the first time the problem player rolls. The more people who have already accepted the rule by the time the one you're worried about rolls, the better.

Except for secret rolls, you have to follow the new rule too, and be obvious about doing so. In fact, once (on purpose), roll the die, then say, "Oops. I forgot to tell you what I was rolling for. That roll doesn't count. I'm rolling for this ogre attacking this PC." In a perfect world, you will be throwing out a successful attack roll for the ogre. This is part of applying the rule fairly and consistently.

This rule is not about cheating. This rule is about the DM knowing and having control over what's happening. But it also makes cheating that way impossible.

Note: this rule does not hurt any player who is rolling dice fairly. If somebody spends too much time complaining about the rule, you can be pretty sure you know why. But your defense of the rule cannot be about cheating. Over and over again, say that you are doing this so you can follow all the action. Never mention cheating when discussing this rule.

Hrugner
2023-03-16, 01:22 PM
We had a guy like this at our table years ago, complete with the dice fidgeting fake rolls, and we never really came up with anything to deal with it. We did pass around his character sheet to heckle his attempts to hide his math fudging, and openly joked about having him roll for our characters if we needed a win, but I'm pretty sure he didn't understand what was happening and eventually we figured it was kinder to ignore it and let him have whatever fun came from his winning at D&D. He's got issues, blatantly cheating like that shows an unusual lack of social awareness. He'd run games the same way, you could throw out impossible roll results and he'd say "so close, you just missed his AC is 120" without a hint of understanding. Eventually we simply stopped inviting him to game with us, he wasn't fun and it was embarrassing to watch him behave that way, but that's a bad way to leave things.

As someone with annoyingly good luck, using roll20 is nice since everything is above board and I don't have to worry about people thinking I'm cheating, if you give the player the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are honest and lucky, I'd expect them to be pleased at having a roll verification method. Just tell them it looks like they're cheating, but since there's no proof, you'd rather add a verification method so that you don't have to hear people complain about it anymore.

Segev
2023-03-16, 03:25 PM
The easiest way to be as non-confrontational as possible would be to require that no roll the DM doesn't see the dice numbers on counts. Provide a section of the table (or a tray for dice) where rolling is easy for you to see. If you can't read it before she picks it up, she re-rolls it. If she is rolling and re-rolling out of your sight or picking up too fast for you to read until she seems to get what she wants, tell her that she isn't allowed to pick them up until you see the results. But make this a blanket rule for everyone.

If you want to call her out on it, then just be prepared for the confrontation.

It is not kind nor friendly and can easily lead to hurt feelings and damaged relations, but one way human groups have controlled such behaviors throughout history has also been mockery. If there is an open voicing of the assumption that every good roll she gets is a result of cheating, her feelings will be hurt (either justly, if she isn't, or unjustly or through misplaced anger over being called out if she is), but she will likely resort to means to try to make it clear she isn't cheating. Such as rolling in the open. But for this ot work, the group has to be ready for her bad attitude in response; the initial response is likely to be her own social attack of acting like everyone's being unfairly mean to her if they call her out. But the end result will be either she finds a way to refute the accusation (e.g. by rolling openly and waiting for people to see), or she leaves in anger and / or grief. I'm not really recommending this option. Just pointing out that this is how groups often DO handle things, and it tends to be effective, but has lots of "toxicity" problems. In fact, avoiding this kind of thing is why people often try to resolve such interpersonal conflicts away from the table.

There is also the option of just letting her do it. Let her win the game with always-successful numbers. Is it interfering with others' fun? If not, this may be the way to go. (The fact another player called her out on it, though, is indicative that it probably is, and thus you need a different solution.)

A passive-aggressive approach would be to just narrate her successes as you see fit, never asking for nor even allowing her to roll.

Phhase
2023-03-16, 03:26 PM
If they keep going for absurd things, just....ask them what their total was before saying if they succeeded or failed? Are you making all the DCs public? That might be contributing to the problem if so. They ought to be taught, via high DC or otherwise, that big numbers don't solve every problem, and some things are just not possible without lateral thinking.

Outside of the lesson that failure is inevitable if you use a crutch, I do, as others, recommend a forthright and nonconfrontational private conversation into the nature of their tendencies.

KillianHawkeye
2023-03-16, 04:24 PM
Coming from the standpoint of someone's whose group just had to uninvite a problem player (who we honestly gave WAY too many chances to), the answer is that you have to treat unacceptable behavior as unacceptable by not accepting it.

What my group discussed was that the gaming table needs to be a safe space for everyone involved. Gaming is a leisure activity where we all want to be relaxed and have a good time. Pursuant to that goal, there needs to be an implicit trust between all the players and between the players and DM. Despite being an activity for fun, creating characters and running the game session takes a lot of work, and we can't have someone that ruins the game for everyone else or disrespects the large amount of everyone's free time that we all spend.

gbaji
2023-03-16, 06:39 PM
It is not kind nor friendly and can easily lead to hurt feelings and damaged relations, but one way human groups have controlled such behaviors throughout history has also been mockery. If there is an open voicing of the assumption that every good roll she gets is a result of cheating, her feelings will be hurt (either justly, if she isn't, or unjustly or through misplaced anger over being called out if she is), but she will likely resort to means to try to make it clear she isn't cheating. Such as rolling in the open. But for this ot work, the group has to be ready for her bad attitude in response; the initial response is likely to be her own social attack of acting like everyone's being unfairly mean to her if they call her out. But the end result will be either she finds a way to refute the accusation (e.g. by rolling openly and waiting for people to see), or she leaves in anger and / or grief. I'm not really recommending this option. Just pointing out that this is how groups often DO handle things, and it tends to be effective, but has lots of "toxicity" problems. In fact, avoiding this kind of thing is why people often try to resolve such interpersonal conflicts away from the table.

Yeah. Beyond being a somewhat confrontational and toxic method, it's also unlikely to actually work (well, anyway). There's a truism (ish) that I particularly like: "We see most in others that which we know to be in ourselves". Lots of life lessons and concepts encapsulated in that, and applies to a whole heck of a lot of social situations. But when it comes to players who cheat, they often assume that others are cheating as well. So the player will likely not get at all that you are singling her out due to her non-standard behavior (ie: cheating at die rolls), but rather that she is being unfairly singled out for some reason, and that by making her re-roll, and her roll in front of everyone, she's being handicapped, while everyone else (who, of course were cheating just as much as her, and in fact, she was only cheating herself to "keep up") will be able to continue to do so.

So yeah. Not a great approach. People are rarely actually consciously aware that whatever anti-social behavior they are engaged in is not actually "normal" and "everyone does it". So any approach that requires this self awareness is pretty much doomed to fail.

Jay R
2023-03-16, 08:44 PM
The easiest way to be as non-confrontational as possible would be to require that no roll the DM doesn't see the dice numbers on counts. Provide a section of the table (or a tray for dice) where rolling is easy for you to see. If you can't read it before she picks it up, she re-rolls it. If she is rolling and re-rolling out of your sight or picking up too fast for you to read until she seems to get what she wants, tell her that she isn't allowed to pick them up until you see the results. But make this a blanket rule for everyone.

Yes. But enforce this rule on somebody else before her. That way, she cannot argue that you are accusing her while the rule is being put in place. By the time she rolls, the rules should have affected two other people first, so it is established.

Segev
2023-03-17, 12:22 AM
Yeah. Beyond being a somewhat confrontational and toxic method, it's also unlikely to actually work (well, anyway). There's a truism (ish) that I particularly like: "We see most in others that which we know to be in ourselves". Lots of life lessons and concepts encapsulated in that, and applies to a whole heck of a lot of social situations. But when it comes to players who cheat, they often assume that others are cheating as well. So the player will likely not get at all that you are singling her out due to her non-standard behavior (ie: cheating at die rolls), but rather that she is being unfairly singled out for some reason, and that by making her re-roll, and her roll in front of everyone, she's being handicapped, while everyone else (who, of course were cheating just as much as her, and in fact, she was only cheating herself to "keep up") will be able to continue to do so.

So yeah. Not a great approach. People are rarely actually consciously aware that whatever anti-social behavior they are engaged in is not actually "normal" and "everyone does it". So any approach that requires this self awareness is pretty much doomed to fail.

While I don't recommend either method, you mistake the method I was discussing, which is for the whole group to simply call her out as cheating every time it is remotely suspicious. Not even so much as making her reroll. Just call the legitimacy of her accomplishments base on die roll into question. Let her have them. Just point it out. Again, not recommending it. It quickly turns into bullying. But it us something many human groups do naturally (i.e. not on purpose nor consciously): just letting the perpetrator know that they know and that it is lowering his or her social cachet within the group. One reason it happens less often in gamer groups is the tendency to have been the target of it by other social groups, for things gamers don't think are wrong even if they know they are socially awkward in other settings.

Thus isn't a reason to deliberately start doing it, but it is something to be aware of. And since many gaming groups do not use this social defense, it is all the bore important that they be firm and up front when somebody is violating the group's social contract.

Rynjin
2023-03-17, 07:46 AM
Or, instead of using armchair social engineering to perpetuate the stereotypes that nerds have zero idea how to interact with other people, you could just have a normal conversation as if you are interacting with another human being for once.

Person: *does bad thing*
You: "Hey stop"

It's not that complicated lmao.

Anonymouswizard
2023-03-17, 08:39 AM
Or, instead of using armchair social engineering to perpetuate the stereotypes that nerds have zero idea how to interact with other people, you could just have a normal conversation as if you are interacting with another human being for once.

Person: *does bad thing*
You: "Hey stop"

It's not that complicated lmao.

Person: *sulks for the rest of the session*

Now we don't know how the initial accusation was framed, but according to Talakael another player has already called her out and the result was a worse session (definitely for her, probably for the rest of the group as well). Now ideally we'd have a solution where everybody is happy, but treating her as a child who needs to be continually reprimanded. If a mature talk hasn't happened then it needs to, but I get the impression this has been attempted.

Mastikator
2023-03-17, 08:41 AM
Person: *sulks for the rest of the session*

Now we don't know how the initial accusation was framed, but according to Talakael another player has already called her out and the result was a worse session (definitely for her, probably for the rest of the group as well). Now ideally we'd have a solution where everybody is happy, but treating her as a child who needs to be continually reprimanded. If a mature talk hasn't happened then it needs to, but I get the impression this has been attempted.

If they can't act like an adult when confronted about betraying their friends, and can't have fun without it coming at the expense of everyone else, are they really worth keeping in the group? @Rynjin makes a solid point, just tell them to stop. Either they step it up, apologize and stop cheating, or they are not worth having around.

Keltest
2023-03-17, 08:42 AM
Person: *sulks for the rest of the session*

Now we don't know how the initial accusation was framed, but according to Talakael another player has already called her out and the result was a worse session (definitely for her, probably for the rest of the group as well). Now ideally we'd have a solution where everybody is happy, but treating her as a child who needs to be continually reprimanded. If a mature talk hasn't happened then it needs to, but I get the impression this has been attempted.

If a mature talk has happened and hasnt fixed the problem, then the next step is go to "Hey, stop or else."

Well, actually, the real solution is for Talakeal to stop playing with a bunch of toxic crazy people that dont respect him as a DM, player or human being. But since that seems unlikely to happen this time when it hasnt happened the past dozen times something intolerable has come up, this is the next best shot.

Rynjin
2023-03-17, 09:28 AM
Person: *sulks for the rest of the session*

Boy that sure does sound like a them problem they need to sort out themselves.

KorvinStarmast
2023-03-17, 09:57 AM
Coming from the standpoint of someone's whose group just had to uninvite a problem player (who we honestly gave WAY too many chances to), the answer is that you have to treat unacceptable behavior as unacceptable by not accepting it.

What my group discussed was that the gaming table needs to be a safe space for everyone involved. Gaming is a leisure activity where we all want to be relaxed and have a good time. Pursuant to that goal, there needs to be an implicit trust between all the players and between the players and DM. Despite being an activity for fun, creating characters and running the game session takes a lot of work, and we can't have someone that ruins the game for everyone else or disrespects the large amount of everyone's free time that we all spend.
A social contract well described. :smallsmile:

Or, instead of using armchair social engineering to perpetuate the stereotypes that nerds have zero idea how to interact with other people, you could just have a normal conversation as if you are interacting with another human being for once.

Person: *does bad thing*
You: "Hey stop"

It's not that complicated lmao. Indeed.

Boy that sure does sound like a them problem they need to sort out themselves. While true, the game session / gaming group does not exist in a vacuum. There is usually a social context beyond the game as a thing in itself. A particular group of people get together to do this activity together, and perhaps other activities. (Hence my observation in my initial response about local small group dynamics).

Since the OP has an infamously dysfunctional social group that he games with, as documented in these very pages, a variety of remedies or suggestions that make sense for a less dysfunctional group can be discarded and your direct, focused messaging suggestion stands out as a far better attempt at a remedy. And if they sulk, that would seem to fit how most of the OPs players seem to react to pretty much anything that doesn't go their way.
Same Day, Different Sulk.

kyoryu
2023-03-17, 10:05 AM
Person: *sulks for the rest of the session*

Now we don't know how the initial accusation was framed, but according to Talakael another player has already called her out and the result was a worse session (definitely for her, probably for the rest of the group as well). Now ideally we'd have a solution where everybody is happy, but treating her as a child who needs to be continually reprimanded. If a mature talk hasn't happened then it needs to, but I get the impression this has been attempted.

I'm really really not okay with "let me get away with everything or I'll make everyone miserable."

That said, the behavior kind of pushes the resolutions to the extremes, most of the time. It kinda creates a situation where your choices are to either tolerate the behavior, or kick them out. And once they've learned that throwing a tantrum will get people to back off....

But sometimes there's other reasons that make it worth putting up with, especially in games built from friend groups.

Cygnia
2023-03-17, 10:12 AM
Tak, do you even want to keep this player at your table?

Burley
2023-03-17, 10:20 AM
Honestly, I think lying about your dice rolls is something that does not need to be addressed.
The point of the gaming is to have fun. For most of us, the fun comes in the game of it; the risks of success and failure are why we show up.

For some, though, the fun may be only in the successes. For somebody who doesn't feel like she has control in the real world, maybe the escapism of gaming brings control and success into her life.

Honestly, I'd be more upset about the players who are calling her out at the table. My table is a fun and inclusive place, where pointing out a personality flaw that leads to pouting (which means hurt feelings, shame, embarrassment) is not acceptable behavior. (I mess up on this a lot, honestly. Its not intentional, but I'm a cynic and a comic and it happens. I don't realize I'm being mean until I've already done damage.)


If you truly need to change the player, don't talk to her about her "cheating." Talk to her about how failures create three-dimensional characters, how success feels more rewarding when there is a chance of failure.
Then, have a session where her rolls don't matter. If her character wants to leap over a river, she succeeds. If she wants to do a called-shot to throw a dagger into the orc's Achilles tendon, she succeeds. Don't ask for rolls, just as for intent and give results. It won't actually impact the game (because she's saying she succeeds, anyway), but without the stress of lying and trying to hide, maybe she'll realize how little fun it is for the other players, since she'll most likely not have fun, either.



To put a fine points on it: If nobody cared that she was "cheating," would she be doing anything wrong? Is she hurting anybody? Insulting anybody? Is she stealing or hitting? Does she pick fights with other players? Does she call out their personality flaws and make them feel uncomfortable? Has she ever done anything that caused another player to withdraw for the remainder of the session?
Your priorities are whack, is what I'm trying to imply.

Xervous
2023-03-17, 10:29 AM
Honestly, I think lying about your dice rolls is something that does not need to be addressed.
The point of the gaming is to have fun. For most of us, the fun comes in the game of it; the risks of success and failure are why we show up.

For some, though, the fun may be only in the successes. For somebody who doesn't feel like she has control in the real world, maybe the escapism of gaming brings control and success into her life.

Honestly, I'd be more upset about the players who are calling her out at the table. My table is a fun and inclusive place, where pointing out a personality flaw that leads to pouting (which means hurt feelings, shame, embarrassment) is not acceptable behavior. (I mess up on this a lot, honestly. Its not intentional, but I'm a cynic and a comic and it happens. I don't realize I'm being mean until I've already done damage.)


If you truly need to change the player, don't talk to her about her "cheating." Talk to her about how failures create three-dimensional characters, how success feels more rewarding when there is a chance of failure.
Then, have a session where her rolls don't matter. If her character wants to leap over a river, she succeeds. If she wants to do a called-shot to throw a dagger into the orc's Achilles tendon, she succeeds. Don't ask for rolls, just as for intent and give results. It won't actually impact the game (because she's saying she succeeds, anyway), but without the stress of lying and trying to hide, maybe she'll realize how little fun it is for the other players, since she'll most likely not have fun, either.

Other players have already stated it’s a problem, and Talakeal’s table tends to go nuclear over continuously perceived problems. Tolerating the cheater is going to be seen as defending the cheater, and will lead to another eruption.

Anonymouswizard
2023-03-17, 10:31 AM
If they can't act like an adult when confronted about betraying their friends, and can't have fun without it coming at the expense of everyone else, are they really worth keeping in the group? @Rynjin makes a solid point, just tell them to stop. Either they step it up, apologize and stop cheating, or they are not worth having around.

Honestly at this point what's telling them to stop going to do? The correct response is to have a mature talk as adults and then, if it persists, remove her from the group (or let the group vote on if they want to play with her).

ETA: also, there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to 'win D&D'. But if one player wants it and the rest of the group doesn't then problems begin to arise.

EggKookoo
2023-03-17, 10:51 AM
Dice towers are a great equalizer. Especially set up to spit the die out into the middle of the table where the roller can't casually snap it up again. It also tends to force one player to roll at a time. You set up a rule that only tower rolls are accepted and it doesn't single anyone out. A player can fiddle with their dice all day but none of it counts.

Burley
2023-03-17, 11:15 AM
Other players have already stated it’s a problem, and Talakeal’s table tends to go nuclear over continuously perceived problems. Tolerating the cheater is going to be seen as defending the cheater, and will lead to another eruption.

So... What's the real problem, then? Why is everybody handling this one player as a problem, when the rest of the table only has handles so they can fly off of them?


If they can't act like an adult when confronted about betraying their friends, and can't have fun without it coming at the expense of everyone else, are they really worth keeping in the group? @Rynjin makes a solid point, just tell them to stop. Either they step it up, apologize and stop cheating, or they are not worth having around.

"Betraying their friends?" "Expense of everyone else?"
The player isn't taking other people's dice and changing the result. Her actions, literally, only affect herself and the DM. The other players are affecting themselves, taking one player's actions as a personal affront. There is something sick about kicking people away from the table for the way they want to have fun, especially when they aren't doing anything insulting or harmful to the other players.

Based on this thread, I can surmise that Talakeal's table routinely kicks other players out for "toxic behavior." The real toxicity is the communal joy they share when shaming and excluding their friends.

Rynjin
2023-03-17, 11:47 AM
"Betraying their friends?" "Expense of everyone else?"
The player isn't taking other people's dice and changing the result. Her actions, literally, only affect herself and the DM. The other players are affecting themselves, taking one player's actions as a personal affront. There is something sick about kicking people away from the table for the way they want to have fun, especially when they aren't doing anything insulting or harmful to the other players.

Based on this thread, I can surmise that Talakeal's table routinely kicks other players out for "toxic behavior." The real toxicity is the communal joy they share when shaming and excluding their friends.

There's nothing sick about it. I'd tell a player to leave if they were cheating at Monopoly or Catan or whatever too. Cheating is arguably WORSE in the context of a cooperative game. It cheapens the accomplishments of everyone else and indicates very clearly you are not interested in playing, since you have zero interest in actually interacting with the game.

In a group activity every single thing you do affects the group. If you want a situation where you affect only yourself and nobody else, play by yourself. Feel free to meaninglessly roll dice and pick the result you want anyway without acting like you think everybody else at the table is an idiot, which is what you indicate by not just lying, but lying TRANSPARENTLY about something and still lacking the self-awareness to know you've been caught.

I have no interest in playing with somebody who thinks I'm dumber than them and takes every opportunity to draw attention to it, especially if they're not particularly smart to begin with. I have no interest in being friends with someone I cannot trust. I do not abide lying, cheating, stealing, backbiting, gossiping about friends not present, etc. among my friend group, at the table or not.

I have no idea why anyone would.

kyoryu
2023-03-17, 11:50 AM
Betrayal of trust impacts everyone, beyond any harm caused by the act itself.

If the table has indicated a particular action is unacceptable, you either agree, leave the table, or negotiate. Throwing a tantrum is not okay. Saying "okay" but continuing to do it is not okay. These are bigger issues than the behavior itself.

Burley
2023-03-17, 12:08 PM
There's nothing sick about it. I'd tell a player to leave if they were cheating at Monopoly or Catan or whatever too. Cheating is arguably WORSE in the context of a cooperative game. It cheapens the accomplishments of everyone else and indicates very clearly you are not interested in playing, since you have zero interest in actually interacting with the game.

In a group activity every single thing you do affects the group. If you want a situation where you affect only yourself and nobody else, play by yourself. Feel free to meaninglessly roll dice and pick the result you want anyway without acting like you think everybody else at the table is an idiot, which is what you indicate by not just lying, but lying TRANSPARENTLY about something and still lacking the self-awareness to know you've been caught.

I have no interest in playing with somebody who thinks I'm dumber than them and takes every opportunity to draw attention to it, especially if they're not particularly smart to begin with. I have no interest in being friends with someone I cannot trust. I do not abide lying, cheating, stealing, backbiting, gossiping about friends not present, etc. among my friend group, at the table or not.

I have no idea why anyone would.

So, somebody who fibs and fudges their dice roll, in your mind, thinks you're dumb and they're lying about their dice rolls to make you feel stupid? That's projection, my dude.
You're on the lookout for liars, cheaters, thieves and perfidious gossipers, even among your friends, even if they're not a part of your group? That's paranoia, my dude.

Not being able to understand another person? That's sociopathy, my dude.


But, I wouldn't kick you off my table. I'd try to find a way to work with you, even though your system of morals disturbs and frustrates me. Because nerds, as a stereotype, struggle with socializing and self-esteem. I know you're not trying to hurt anybody, especially not your friends, when you say and do these things that push others away.

EggKookoo
2023-03-17, 12:15 PM
To put a fine points on it: If nobody cared that she was "cheating," would she be doing anything wrong? Is she hurting anybody? Insulting anybody? Is she stealing or hitting? Does she pick fights with other players? Does she call out their personality flaws and make them feel uncomfortable? Has she ever done anything that caused another player to withdraw for the remainder of the session?
Your priorities are whack, is what I'm trying to imply.

Interesting take. Not an easy sell.

There's a South Park episode where the boys are play-acting that they're superheroes (or super ninjas, I think, by they have super powers). After Stan and Kyle describe their heroes and their powers, Cartman says he has all the same powers Kyle has, but just a little better. He doesn't take Kyle's powers away or anything. Kyle can do all the things he said he could. Cartman can just do the same exact things but be better at them. All during the show, when Kyle would attempt something, Cartman would almost immediately do the same action but claim to be more successful at it. The show doesn't spotlight it but it's pretty clear that Cartman is, in fact, taking something away from Kyle.

Cartman is basically the villain of the group, in case it's not clear.

Burley
2023-03-17, 12:18 PM
Interesting take. Not an easy sell.

There's a South Park episode where the boys are play-acting that they're superheroes (or super ninjas, I think, by they have super powers). After Stan and Kyle describe their heroes and their powers, Cartman says he has all the same powers Kyle has, but just a little better. He doesn't take Kyle's powers away or anything. Kyle can do all the things he said he could. Cartman can just do the same exact things but be better at them. All during the show, when Kyle would attempt something, Cartman would almost immediately do the same action but claim to be more successful at it. The show doesn't spotlight it but it's pretty clear that Cartman is, in fact, taking something away from Kyle.

Cartman is basically the villain of the group, in case it's not clear.

Those are children, though. The point of the whole bit you're describing is that both Kyle and Cartman are immature.

Rynjin
2023-03-17, 12:23 PM
So, somebody who fibs and fudges their dice roll, in your mind, thinks you're dumb and they're lying about their dice rolls to make you feel stupid? That's projection, my dude.

It's not projection, it's obvious. If they really think they're getting away with something that people are telling them they're not getting away with, they clearly think they're slick. They ain't.


You're on the lookout for liars, cheaters, thieves and perfidious gossipers, even among your friends, even if they're not a part of your group? That's paranoia, my dude.

Sometimes you extend your trust to the wrong people. I recently separated with a friend I've had for about 15 years over similar behavior. Constantly snapping at people at the table, talking about my other friends behind their backs to me...I warned him after the first time that it wouldn't fly with me, and he didn't listen.

The fact that you think your friends are perfect is...interesting, let's say.


Not being able to understand another person? That's sociopathy, my dude.

Lol. LMAO even. Misusing psychiatric terms to try and win an internet argument is very silly behavior.

Your recent Psych 101 class must have been very interesting to you, I'm sure, but try to get a little deeper into the coursework before you start trying to diagnose people over the web.

Burley
2023-03-17, 12:28 PM
~snipped out the ad homs~

I think I made my point just fine, so, feel free to belittle me. It's only strengthening my argument.

KillianHawkeye
2023-03-17, 12:30 PM
Not being able to understand another person? That's sociopathy, my dude.

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with Rynjin here. This is a ridiculous thing to say and it honestly weakens your other arguments by calling into question your whole perspective and thought processes.

Xervous
2023-03-17, 12:32 PM
So... What's the real problem, then? Why is everybody handling this one player as a problem, when the rest of the table only has handles so they can fly off of them?


The real problem is that a player is cheating, that they are violating the trust and the goodwill of the group in a comically childish fashion. Unlike prior conflicts at this table over imagined trespasses, this is a rather straightforward issue Talakeal can actually resolve.

Captain Cap
2023-03-17, 12:37 PM
Her actions, literally, only affect herself and the DM.
Wrong.


There is something sick about kicking people away from the table for the way they want to have fun, especially when they aren't doing anything insulting or harmful to the other players.
It is insulting.


Based on this thread, I can surmise that Talakeal's table routinely kicks other players out for "toxic behavior."
Nothing wrong with that.


The real toxicity is the communal joy they share when shaming and excluding their friends.
I see no communal joy, simply people that are tired of putting up with someone who's singlehandedly and egoistically compromising the fun for anyone else.


So, somebody who fibs and fudges their dice roll, in your mind, thinks you're dumb and they're lying about their dice rolls to make you feel stupid?
They obviously don't do it to make someone feel stupid, but they do it because they think anyone else is stupid.


That's projection, my dude.
No, it's merely common sense.


You're on the lookout for liars, cheaters, thieves and perfidious gossipers, even among your friends, even if they're not a part of your group? That's paranoia, my dude.
That's a leap without a shred of reason, dude.


Not being able to understand another person? That's sociopathy, my dude.
You have no idea what you're talking about, dude.


But, I wouldn't kick you off my table. I'd try to find a way to work with you, even though your system of moral disturbs and frustrates me.
Are you by any chance a pathological cheater who doesn't like being called out on it?


I think I made my point just fine, so, feel free to belittle me. It's only strengthening my argument.
No, it doesn't.

Talakeal
2023-03-17, 12:46 PM
Alternate suggestion: move to a new state or something, I'm not sure why you continue to game in Mos Eisley or wherever it is you live.

I have had gaming groups in four states at this point. In all four of them gamers seem to come be divided roughly fifty fifty between nice well adjusted people and problematic people with serious issues. I honestly have no idea how other people manage to avoid the latter, or can find a large enough pool of applicants that they can only pick the former.


So, somebody who fibs and fudges their dice roll, in your mind, thinks you're dumb and they're lying about their dice rolls to make you feel stupid? That's projection, my dude.

In my case I don't think she is doing it to make us feel stupid, but it does feel kind of insulting that she thinks we are all so dumb that we aren't aware of the issue despite how blatant she is about it. Or, on the flip side, knows we know but just doesn't care.



Based on this thread, I can surmise that Talakeal's table routinely kicks other players out for "toxic behavior." The real toxicity is the communal joy they share when shaming and excluding their friends.

Quite the opposite.

As anyone who has read my threads can attest, I put up with crap that would send most people running.

The only person who has been kicked out of my current group wasn't over a gaming issue, but because he kept making inappropriate advances at the lady who was hosting our sessions and she banned him from her house.


I am actually really hesitant to kick people out. It probably stems from my first D&D game in middle school when I told a new player they could join the group (the Warhammer guy I mention below in fact) and the entire rest of the group told me that they would walk if he joined and it was up to me to kick him. So I had to play the bad guy and revoke my invitation, and he cried and cried and was so upset by it that to this day I feel really bad.


I don't have a total answer, but there are a few points that come to my mind.

First, if her character is unplayable without cheating, or even just frustrating to play because it would fail at tasks it is supposed to succeed, it will clearly encourage her to continue cheating. Any resolution of the problem would including her rebuilding her character (or a new one in case of death).

Yeah, her character is a mess, and imo really problematic RP wise as well as mechanically. But she cheats so that it is still effective.

Its honestly like she simultaneously wants to be "the loony" and "the munchkin" going by old player personality types but can't decide which so she just cheats.


Second, if you're ready to play therapist, you might want to understand why she cheats. Obviously "not having enough fairplay" is one of the reason, but there is likely more than one reason:
Is it because she can't accept failure?
Is it because the game is way under the low level she wishes and she get bored if she doesn't take part in actions that look absurdly dangerous?
Is it because she want to take all the spotlight?
Is it because past "trauma" making her convinced that everyone cheats? (Including potential parents having for moto "if you don't cheat, you're not really trying". Yes those peoples exists.)
Is it because she is very bad at building characters and playing the game, but is either ashamed of it or not wanting to walk the long path of failure to progress?

The hard part about figuring out why someone is cheating is that they typically have an excuse, and often convince themselves it was true.

The only other player I have ever gamed with who was this blatant about cheating (and who made the same furtive glances around the table while doing it, its uncanny) was a guy we used to play Warhammer with back in middle school. He cheated like crazy all the time, and when called on it, he said that he only cheated because he deserved to win more, because he came from a poor family, and while our parents bought our models, he had to do chores to earn the money to buy models himself.

He used the exact same excuse a few years later when he got caught robbing our local game store.


Interesting take. Not an easy sell.

There's a South Park episode where the boys are play-acting that they're superheroes (or super ninjas, I think, by they have super powers). After Stan and Kyle describe their heroes and their powers, Cartman says he has all the same powers Kyle has, but just a little better. He doesn't take Kyle's powers away or anything. Kyle can do all the things he said he could. Cartman can just do the same exact things but be better at them. All during the show, when Kyle would attempt something, Cartman would almost immediately do the same action but claim to be more successful at it. The show doesn't spotlight it but it's pretty clear that Cartman is, in fact, taking something away from Kyle.

Cartman is basically the villain of the group, in case it's not clear.

I made a thread about this a few months ago.

In our last group I made a healer, and then two other players switched their characters to "the healer, but better than Talakeal" so I switched to a monk and then four other players switched their characters to "a monk, but better than Talakeal".

While it seemed like a jerk thing to do, the prevailing forum opinion seemed to be that I was the one who was being immature for caring.


They probably are. There are (at least) four ways to cheat on a die roll, and only one of them is having weighted dice. The other three are:
a. roll several times, and when you get a 20, claim it was the real one, or
b. announce a number you didn't roll, and don't let people see your dice,or
c mismarked dice. There's a die out there with 2 20s and 19s, and no 1 or 2, for instance.
By your description, she's doing one or both of the first two. [If she had a die that was really rolling all those 20s, she wouldn't pick it up quickly.]

[By the way, that wouldn't have felt like being polite about it to her; that was still an accusation, even if a more subtle one. Being polite about it is solving it without any implied accusation. See below.]

You have a lot more faith in dice manufacturers than I do.

Perfectly balanced dice are extremely rare, and it isn't uncommon to buy badly weighted dice on accident.

Of course, given her habit of lying about dice rolls, I strongly doubt she actually rolled a thousand dice, let alone that they came out perfectly balanced.


The idea was not to say she was intentionally using loaded dice, but to let her know that we knew that there was something weird going on with her rolls so that, hopefully, she would dial back on the cheating without even actually having to be called out on it. Of course, she has only gotten more blatant sice.

Burley
2023-03-17, 12:47 PM
Wrong.


It is insulting.


Nothing wrong with that.


I see no communal joy, simply people that are tired of putting up with someone who's singlehandedly and egoistically compromising the fun for anyone else.


They obviously don't do it to make someone feel stupid, but they do it because they think anyone else is stupid.


No, it's merely common sense.


That's a leap without a shred of reason, dude.


You have no idea what you're talking about, dude.


Are you by any chance a pathological cheater who doesn't like being called out on it?


No, it doesn't.

I see. That's what this thread it. Why would I be surprised?

Mastikator
2023-03-17, 12:49 PM
Honestly at this point what's telling them to stop going to do? The correct response is to have a mature talk as adults and then, if it persists, remove her from the group (or let the group vote on if they want to play with her).

ETA: also, there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to 'win D&D'. But if one player wants it and the rest of the group doesn't then problems begin to arise.
Wanting to win is fine and normal, I like winning too. Cheating is something else, it shows a total lack of respect for the other players. Every time someone cheats they are spitting in the faces of the other people who don't cheat.

EggKookoo
2023-03-17, 12:51 PM
Those are children, though. The point of the whole bit you're describing is that both Kyle and Cartman are immature.

Immature in the sense of youthfulness? Of course they are. Immature in the sense of inappropriate? No, that's just Cartman. Kyle is trying to have fun and play fair. Cartman is stepping all over his fun.

Regardless, it's a running element of the show that Cartman displays the "wrong" behavior, and this episode was no exception.

Cygnia
2023-03-17, 12:52 PM
OP, not that we have reason to doubt your stories, but the sheer number of problematic players you seem to uncover and troubles you never seem to fix despite new people/groups...

...

...

...well, the common denominator is you, isn't it?

Talakeal
2023-03-17, 12:55 PM
OP, not that we have reason to doubt your stories, but the sheer number of problematic players you seem to uncover and troubles you never seem to fix despite new people/groups...

...well, the common denominator is you, isn't it?

That's a very pithy insult, but it really doesn't make much sense in this situation.

Unless you are insinuating that I am either making up the entire thing or somehow went out of my way to find a player who was a known cheater and then intentionally recruited them for... some reason?

Captain Cap
2023-03-17, 01:02 PM
Why would I be surprised?
I mean, if you're the only one out of several people defending a certain position you should probably be a little surprised. Not that it means you're necessarily wrong, but it sure should give you something to think about.

Burley
2023-03-17, 01:04 PM
Immature in the sense of youthfulness? Of course they are. Immature in the sense of inappropriate? No, that's just Cartman. Kyle is trying to have fun and play fair. Cartman is stepping all over his fun.

Regardless, it's a running element of the show that Cartman displays the "wrong" behavior, and this episode was no exception.

The running element is that Cartman displays the "wrong" behavior and Kyle looks foolish for taking such a rigid moral stance.

Telonius
2023-03-17, 01:04 PM
That's a very pithy insult, but it really doesn't make much sense in this situation.

Unless you are insinuating that I am either making up the entire thing or somehow went out of my way to find a player who was a known cheater and then intentionally recruited them for... some reason?


Sometimes people just have a run of extremely bad luck with players. I've seen it happen to DMs who were otherwise nice, competent, and put-together. It's the DM equivalent of rolling like Wil Wheaton. Sometimes the gaming gods just hate you, and there's nothing you can do but get through it.

EggKookoo
2023-03-17, 01:12 PM
The running element is that Cartman displays the "wrong" behavior and Kyle looks foolish for taking such a rigid moral stance.

I haven't seen the show in a few years, but I did watch it for a long time. Kyle doesn't take rigid moral stances in any significant way. He just wants to have fun, like Stan. If anything, Stan's closer to a rigid moralist, but even then not really.

Cartman doesn't make Kyle look foolish, usually. He makes himself look cruel. He certainly wasn't making Kyle look foolish in the episode I mentioned. There's nothing foolish about wanting to play fair. Naive? Maybe. But no more so than wanting everyone to play fair in a cooperative RPG.

Burley
2023-03-17, 01:19 PM
I mean, if you're the only one out of several people defending a certain position you should probably be a little surprised. Not that it means you're necessarily wrong, but it sure should give you something to think about.

I don't have a problem being the only person who thinks this way. I don't need to be on a team to play the debate game.

What surprises me every time: People taking my posts one sentence at a time and saying



You're wrong.

This is common sense and you don't have that.

You don't even know what you're talking about.



Its really easy to tear apart an argument line by line while disregarding it holistically. It's easy and lazy. How would I argue back? By breaking down my detractor one word at a time?

It's not good-faith debate. There's no thought put into an argument. It's just rote denial and ad hominem.


~snip~
Quite the opposite.

As anyone who has read my threads can attest, I put up with crap that would send most people running.

The only person who has been kicked out of my current group wasn't over a gaming issue, but because he kept making inappropriate advances at the lady who was hosting our sessions and she banned him from her house.


I am actually really hesitant to kick people out. It probably stems from my first D&D game in middle school when I told a new player they could join the group (the Warhammer guy I mention below in fact) and the entire rest of the group told me that they would walk if he joined and it was up to me to kick him. So I had to play the bad guy and revoke my invitation, and he cried and cried and was so upset by it that to this day I feel really bad.


/~snip~


And, Takaleal, I didn't mean anything personal, but I totally did make an unfair assumption about your table based on the tone of posters in your thread. That wasn't cool. My bad.




I haven't seen the show in a few years, but I did watch it for a long time. Kyle doesn't take rigid moral stances in any significant way. He just wants to have fun, like Stan. If anything, Stan's closer to a rigid moralist, but even then not really.

Cartman doesn't make Kyle look foolish, usually. He makes himself look cruel. He certainly wasn't making Kyle look foolish in the episode I mentioned. There's nothing foolish about wanting to play fair. Naive? Maybe. But no more so than wanting everyone to play fair in a cooperative RPG.

Have you seen the episode with the Red Cow? And how Kyle takes the moral stance of eating Cartman's farts? Go back and watch a random episode with a different lens and I'll bet you'll see Kyle coming in hot (They're on HBOMax, if you've access). I mean, I'm not going to speak in absolutes, but Kyle often loses his temper or acts foolishly, thinking it will fix the Cartman problem.
And, this isn't to say that Cartman (or a dice-flubbing player) aren't a problem. Just that there are better ways to solve interpersonal conflict than getting angry, forcing ultimatums and exclusion.

Rynjin
2023-03-17, 01:29 PM
I don't have a problem being the only person who thinks this way. I don't need to be on a team to play the debate game.

What surprises me every time: People taking my posts one sentence at a time and saying





Its really easy to tear apart an argument line by line while disregarding it holistically. It's easy and lazy. How would I argue back? By breaking down my detractor one word at a time?

It's not good-faith debate. There's no thought put into an argument. It's just rote denial and ad hominem.


If the individual parts of your argument don't stand on their own, they don't stand together. Especially when, ironically, your arguments are the ones that have so far been purely ad hominem.

Saying "you misuse psychology terms" is not an ad hominem attack (...add that to the list of misused terms). Saying "You're projecting. You're paranoid. You're a sociopath." on the other hand, is.

One attacks an action (misuse of a word). One attacks a person; even if everything you said were 100% true and backed by fact...using it to dismiss someone's argument is what defines an ad hominem attack. You're not disregarding your opponent's argument based on any sort of logic, but based on some fundamental facet of their being.

Assume somebody in this discussion WERE a proven, diagnosed sociopath. They make a comment on the current social state of Talakeal's group and make a suggestion.

Rejecting the argument with "that's wrong, because you're a sociopath" is an ad hominem attack, period. It doesn't address anything about the actual argument being made.

kyoryu
2023-03-17, 01:33 PM
To put a fine points on it: If nobody cared that she was "cheating," would she be doing anything wrong?

No. If you are engaging in behavior that is acceptable to the group, then there's not a problem. If you are engaging in behavior that is unacceptable to your group, then that is a problem. That's how groups work.

"Objective" morality has nothing to do with it. If you do things that bother people, at some point they will stop associating with you. That's just how social dynamics work. They don't (generally) have an obligation to deal with you, and you don't have an obligation to deal with them.

If there was a table where "cheating" was considered standard and expected, and someone didn't, they'd be just as wrong.

It doesn't necessarily make someone morally bad, however it does make them a bad fit for the group.

KillianHawkeye
2023-03-17, 01:34 PM
It's not good-faith debate. There's no thought put into an argument. It's just rote denial and ad hominem.

Says the guy trying to psychoanalyze the posts of people disagreeing with him? :smallconfused:

Captain Cap
2023-03-17, 02:01 PM
Its really easy to tear apart an argument line by line while disregarding it holistically. It's easy and lazy. How would I argue back? By breaking down my detractor one word at a time?
You're literally defending cheating, of course it's easy tearing your argument apart. But let's assume for a second your position deserve more than one-line rebuttals and make it clear: the moment a group of players accept to play a game together and go over an optional session zero, said players accept a set of rules and social conduct to follow, rules and social conduct that lay out the expectations they will be entitled to throughout the game. If at that point player A accepts said rules and social conduct, but then consciously violates them during the game, they are also violating the expectations the other players have every right to base their fun on. By doing that, player A is showing dishonesty, self-centeredness and a lack of respect and consideration toward the other players and their time. And that is bad.


It's not good-faith debate.
You're the one throwing words like "sociopathic", "paranoid" etc. around and expect a good-faith debate?

Burley
2023-03-17, 02:03 PM
If the individual parts of your argument don't stand on their own, they don't stand together. Especially when, ironically, your arguments are the ones that have so far been purely ad hominem.

Saying "you misuse psychology terms" is not an ad hominem attack (...add that to the list of misused terms). Saying "You're projecting. You're paranoid. You're a sociopath." on the other hand, is.

One attacks an action (misuse of a word). One attacks a person; even if everything you said were 100% true and backed by fact...using it to dismiss someone's argument is what defines an ad hominem attack. You're not disregarding your opponent's argument based on any sort of logic, but based on some fundamental facet of their being.

Assume somebody in this discussion WERE a proven, diagnosed sociopath. They make a comment on the current social state of Talakeal's group and make a suggestion.

Rejecting the argument with "that's wrong, because you're a sociopath" is an ad hominem attack, period. It doesn't address anything about the actual argument being made.

So, it wasn't ad hominem when you implied that I'd only just taken Psych 101? "Try to get a little deeper into the coursework before you start trying to diagnose people over the web." I'm a grown person, by the way, with a BA and a career in education. So, the comment was absolutely meant to insult me as a person, and had nothing to do with my argument. That's an ad hom, straight up.

I was pointing out the hard line in the sand that you draw; you and several others here. You place lying about dice rolls tantamount to theft and backstabbing. They are not equal. There is a gray area and it is vast. I was pointing out the absurdity of your strong moral stance against somebody saying they rolled higher than they maybe did. I pointed out that you have a whole list of personality traits that you won't suffer to be in a room with. Your list doesn't seem to include people who lack compassion nor those who see the world as purely diametric. You don't list people who are obtuse or sadistic, either. Those people are on my list.

And, I never said you were projecting, or paranoid, or sociopathic. Paraphrases of your comments certainly were, though. I didn't say "You're wrong because you're a sociopath." I actually don't think I ever even said you were wrong. I implied that not being able to understand another person's position is sociopathy, which it is. Anybody can exhibit psychosis without being psychotic. The fact that you twisted my words to internalize them as an insult is, again, just proving my point. I was pointing to the absurdity of your statements. But, frankly, I'm okay with you being insulted now. Not my original intent, but sometimes, things just work out.



Says the guy trying to psychoanalyze the posts of people disagreeing with him? :smallconfused:

Yeah, yeah. I know. I see it, too. I never said I wasn't a hypocrite. For what it's worth, I'm not just saying "You're wrong," as a debate tactic. I'm, y'know, fashioning an argument.

Rynjin
2023-03-17, 02:10 PM
So, it wasn't ad hominem when you implied that I'd only just taken Psych 101? "Try to get a little deeper into the coursework before you start trying to diagnose people over the web." I'm a grown person, by the way, with a BA and a career in education. So, the comment was absolutely meant to insult me as a person, and had nothing to do with my argument. That's an ad hom, straight up.

Oh, it was absolutely meant to be a flippant rebuff, but the difference is I wasn't using it to refute your argument; just make light of your ignorance.

To be clear, even as a "diagnosis", your comments were simply...incorrect. "Not being able to understand another person's position" in no way implies sociopathy. It may imply issues with empathy, but there are a wide range of conditions that can result in that, and again using them to try and win an internet argument is very silly behavior.


I was pointing out the hard line in the sand that you draw; you and several others here. You place lying about dice rolls tantamount to theft and backstabbing. They are not equal. There is a gray area and it is vast. I was pointing out the absurdity of your strong moral stance against somebody saying they rolled higher than they maybe did. I pointed out that you have a whole list of personality traits that you won't suffer to be in a room with. Your list doesn't seem to include people who lack compassion nor those who see the world as purely diametric. You don't list people who are obtuse or sadistic, either. Those people are on my list.

Yes, I did not make a comprehensive list of the top 100 personality traits I dislike, ranked from least to most reviled, you are correct.

Do you have a point to make here, or is that all you wanted to point out?


And, I never said you were projecting, or paranoid, or sociopathic. Paraphrases of your comments certainly were, though. I didn't say "You're wrong because you're a sociopath." I actually don't think I ever even said you were wrong. I implied that not being able to understand another person's position is sociopathy, which it is. Anybody can exhibit psychosis without being psychotic. The fact that you twisted my words to internalize them as an insult is, again, just proving my point. I was pointing to the absurdity of your statements. But, frankly, I'm okay with you being insulted now. Not my original intent, but sometimes, things just work out.

Conversations exist in context. Taking a phrase said by a specific person and talking around with "well technically I didn't say *weasel weasel*" doesn't fly. I'm not your coworker, I don't have to put up with that just because you didn't explicitly violate any HR guidelines and I can't call you on it. I can simply take your words as they were meant.

Segev
2023-03-17, 02:12 PM
Possible reasons for cheating include, but are not limited to:

Hating "losing"/"failing."
Not wanting your character (or another character your action is crucial to saving) to die.
Wanting the loot that you will lose out on if you fail.
Wanting to win (or "win").
Having rolled nothing but failing results, seeing that "1" on your die, and declaring it to be a "20" out of sheer frustration and desire to actually succeed at something tonight, darn it. (I have a friend who has atrocious dice luck, and I am consistently amazed he doesn't do this. If he ever has, nobody's caught or called him on it.)
You're pretty sure the monster is one crit away from death and you're sick of the fight and just want it to be over (especially true if, looking around the table, everyone seems to be equally tired of this combat).

I should note that these are not justifications (to anybody but the cheater). Just some reasons motivating cheating.

kyoryu
2023-03-17, 02:18 PM
It's really, really, simple. You follow the standards of the group, or you get kicked out.

I swear like a sailor. If I'm in a group, and they ask me not to, I then don't swear. This isn't hard. If I don't, I expect that they'll disinvite me in one of many ways (literally ask me to leave, fail to invite me to future things, etc.)

Swearing isn't objectively morally bad. Nobody is harmed by it. But if they don't like it, I won't do it. And I find the restriction too onerous, I won't hang out with them either.

This is how groups work.

Captain Cap
2023-03-17, 02:20 PM
I was pointing out the hard line in the sand that you draw; you and several others here. You place lying about dice rolls tantamount to theft and backstabbing. They are not equal.
Holy moly strawman!


There is a gray area and it is vast. I was pointing out the absurdity of your strong moral stance against somebody saying they rolled higher than they maybe did.
Oh goodness, imagine disapproving of lying!


Your list doesn't seem to include people who lack compassion nor those who see the world as purely diametric. You don't list people who are obtuse or sadistic, either. Those people are on my list.
Of course he hasn't pointed out such personality traits, they're are beyond the scope of the debate, unless anyone here has accused the cheater of having such traits, which doesn't seem to be the case to me.

"Cheating is bad."
"Yeah, but what about sadism, eh? That's bad too, why aren't you saying it?"
"..."


And, I never said you were projecting, or paranoid, or sociopathic. Paraphrases of your comments certainly were, though. I didn't say "You're wrong because you're a sociopath." I actually don't think I ever even said you were wrong. I implied that not being able to understand another person's position is sociopathy, which it is. Anybody can exhibit psychosis without being psychotic. The fact that you twisted my words to internalize them as an insult is, again, just proving my point. I was pointing to the absurdity of your statements. But, frankly, I'm okay with you being insulted now. Not my original intent, but sometimes, things just work out.
It wasn't your original intent, yeah sure. And then you expect a good-faith debate. The hypocrisy oozes through my screen.

Burley
2023-03-17, 02:21 PM
Self scrubbed

I'm over it.

KorvinStarmast
2023-03-17, 02:22 PM
I think I made my point just fine, so, feel free to belittle me. It's only strengthening my argument. No, it wasn't. Not sure how you arrived at that conclusion.

Wanting to win is fine and normal, I like winning too. Cheating is something else, it shows a total lack of respect for the other players. Every time someone cheats they are spitting in the faces of the other people who don't cheat. Which gets us back to the 'social contract' between the people at the table, and the breeches thereof.

If you are engaging in behavior that is acceptable to the group, then there's not a problem. If you are engaging in behavior that is unacceptable to your group, then that is a problem. That's how groups work. He shoots, he scores!


"Objective" morality has nothing to do with it. If you do things that bother people, at some point they will stop associating with you. That's just how social dynamics work. They don't (generally) have an obligation to deal with you, and you don't have an obligation to deal with them. This takes us, as usual, to something like the infamous DBAD appeal (IIRC, that's been called Wheaton's Law).

Rynjin
2023-03-17, 02:24 PM
It's really, really, simple. You follow the standards of the group, or you get kicked out.

I swear like a sailor. If I'm in a group, and they ask me not to, I then don't swear. This isn't hard. If I don't, I expect that they'll disinvite me in one of many ways (literally ask me to leave, fail to invite me to future things, etc.)

Swearing isn't objectively morally bad. Nobody is harmed by it. But if they don't like it, I won't do it. And I find the restriction too onerous, I won't hang out with them either.

This is how groups work.

Pretty much, yeah. Conform, convince, or leave.

A willingness to talk about WHY you'd like to cheat is already much more socially acceptable than simply doing it and doubling down on lying when confronted.

I have a friend in my group who had been at first accidentally, and then intentionally cheating for a while on his spell slot preparations. This is in Pathfinder, and he'd essentially been playing his Witch with spells prepared as though he were a 5e Wizard (or a Pathfinder Arcanist).

It eventually led to a particularly confusing turn at the table and we asked straight up "Wait how many of this spell did you prepare?" and he came clean. He just kinda hated how spells are prepared by default and wanted to change it, so once he told he truth I kinda just...let him. It's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme to houserule that a Witch can prepare spells as an Arcanist.

Lying about rolls is a lot harder to resolve, but at least don't treat everyone else at the table like they're fools.

Captain Cap
2023-03-17, 02:26 PM
scrub
That actually sounds like a compliment all considered.


scrub
No, he cares about basic decency. A cheater doesn't show basic decency toward their "friends", why should they do in return, why should they enable toxic behavior, cater to a person who clearly doesn't respect them?


scrub
Friendship implies reciprocal respect, which automatically excludes serious cheaters.

icefractal
2023-03-17, 02:42 PM
The player isn't taking other people's dice and changing the result. Her actions, literally, only affect herself and the DM. The other players are affecting themselves, taking one player's actions as a personal affront. There is something sick about kicking people away from the table for the way they want to have fun, especially when they aren't doing anything insulting or harmful to the other players. From the OP though, it sounds like she's using the cheating to do some serious spotlight-hogging, and that does affect the other players. So even if you say nobody should care about the concept of fair play, there's still an issue.

Now maybe you're someone who only cares about seeing others happy. If your role is suddenly "the sidekick to Player X's awesome character" then you've got no problem with that? That's not most people though - in a game like D&D, they want to be on a relatively level playing field.

"But then they're being immature, placing their own wants above this player's psychological need for validation" - why do you assume the cheating player has needs and the other players only have wants? You're putting this assumption of "the poor innocent new player, bullied by the mean other players", but it could just as easily be framed the other way around.

And frankly, I'm not a therapist, especially for someone I've only known a short time. If someone's looking to solve their issues by cheating in my game, it's the wrong venue for that and they should see a real therapist.

gbaji
2023-03-17, 03:07 PM
I made a thread about this a few months ago.

In our last group I made a healer, and then two other players switched their characters to "the healer, but better than Talakeal" so I switched to a monk and then four other players switched their characters to "a monk, but better than Talakeal".

While it seemed like a jerk thing to do, the prevailing forum opinion seemed to be that I was the one who was being immature for caring.

To be fair though, in that case, you and everyone else used the exact same rules to build your characters. For every skill point someone else was better at doing something then you, you had a skill point in which you were better at something else (or feats/powers/whatever). That conversation was more about desired roles of characters in a party.

That's not the same as "cheating", where you are *not* better at something than someone else, *didn't* spend as many skillpoints/feats/slots/whatever on something, and *didn't* have to sacrifice some other capabilities in the game to have those things in the first place, but you just fudge the dice to be an effective as someone else who did. Cheating in a group game absolutely harms everyone else who is *not* cheating.


The idea was not to say she was intentionally using loaded dice, but to let her know that we knew that there was something weird going on with her rolls so that, hopefully, she would dial back on the cheating without even actually having to be called out on it. Of course, she has only gotten more blatant sice.

Not a terrible idea. Sadly, I've found that most often, people who do this sort of stuff don't get subtle hints like that. Well. They may get them, but it doens't tend to change the behavior.


Assume somebody in this discussion WERE a proven, diagnosed sociopath. They make a comment on the current social state of Talakeal's group and make a suggestion.

Rejecting the argument with "that's wrong, because you're a sociopath" is an ad hominem attack, period. It doesn't address anything about the actual argument being made.

Yup. Even crazy, stupid, <insert anything negative you want> people can still be correct about something. If you want to show that something that was said is wrong, focus on what was said and why it is wrong, not on who said it. It's a tough concept for many people to get, and even tougher to be dilligent at sticking to it, cause, frankly, it's just so much easier to attack the person than the position. I really do sometimes think that graduating from any sort of primary education should require passing a class on critical thinking, and one chapter of that class should be titled "argument vs debate".

Wishful thinking, I know.


I was pointing out the hard line in the sand that you draw; you and several others here. You place lying about dice rolls tantamount to theft and backstabbing. They are not equal. There is a gray area and it is vast. I was pointing out the absurdity of your strong moral stance against somebody saying they rolled higher than they maybe did. I pointed out that you have a whole list of personality traits that you won't suffer to be in a room with. Your list doesn't seem to include people who lack compassion nor those who see the world as purely diametric. You don't list people who are obtuse or sadistic, either. Those people are on my list.

We can have a thread about social dynamics in a group, and what attributes contribute to those dynamics. But this thread is about someone cheating on their die rolls.

I feel like we're going to get into another argument about whether cheating on die rolls is really actually "bad" in the first place.


Yeah, yeah. I know. I see it, too. I never said I wasn't a hypocrite. For what it's worth, I'm not just saying "You're wrong," as a debate tactic. I'm, y'know, fashioning an argument.

I'll give you props for recognizing that the two are different. But your argument was at best questionable, and at worst "chock full of fallacies".

The actual "argument" is very simple. Do the players agree to a set of rules when they sit down to play a game? Yes. Do those rules include using dice to determine outcomes? Yes. Do those rules also include abiding by the die rolls (ie: what constitutes a "roll", how we determine the number rolled, etc)? Yes.

So, at the very least, someone cheating in this situation is not playing the same game everyone else agreed to play. We could do some further examination as to why the players are playing the game in the first place, and to what degree everyone following the rules agreed upon contributes to their reason for playing (presumably "to have fun", but we can discuss that as well I suppose). And then follow up with an examination as to the degree to which one person not following those agreed upon rules damages the purpose of the game (which again, we can assume is "to have fun"). And then conclude that by cheating you are making the game "not fun" (or at least "not getting out of it what was expected") for the other players.

We *could* examine other things as well. But there's an infinite number of "other things" out there. Requiring that we do so before we are allowed to examine this one thing is a little bit unreasonable (and also a fallacious argument as it happens).

EggKookoo
2023-03-17, 03:12 PM
Have you seen the episode with the Red Cow? And how Kyle takes the moral stance of eating Cartman's farts? Go back and watch a random episode with a different lens and I'll bet you'll see Kyle coming in hot (They're on HBOMax, if you've access). I mean, I'm not going to speak in absolutes, but Kyle often loses his temper or acts foolishly, thinking it will fix the Cartman problem.

I don't recall one about a red cow, and I feel like "Cartman's farts" isn't the best filter. But that's all beside the point. If Kyle is behaving poorly, he's behaving poorly too. What does that have to do with it? Unless you're trying some moral-equivalency thing where the non-cheaters in the OP's situation are just as bad as the cheater because they're cramping his style? If not, why the whataboutism with Kyle?

kyoryu
2023-03-17, 03:46 PM
The funny part in this argument is that there's an assumed position, that's not being held for both sides.

"Why is not cheating sooooo important that you'd kick out a friend because of it?"

Okay, well, "why is cheating sooooo important that you'd be willing to anger all of your friends rather than stop doing it?"

False God
2023-03-17, 03:47 PM
Just kick her and be done with it. It's clearly bothering you and its clearly bothering the party. That's good enough in my books. The fact that it's cheating and not some other annoying behaviour is just the cherry on top.

Pauly
2023-03-17, 03:58 PM
The way I look at the OP, the situation is entirely the GM’s fault.

Allowing players to roll unobserved dice then self declare the outcome is an open invitation to cheating. So if a GM invites players to cheat then they cannot be surprised or disappointed when they find out that players cheat.

While the GM has noticed one player in particular cheating, I would be surprised if the other players haven’t been fudging a few rolls too. It is reasonable to believe that a new player coming to this table would think that occasional fudging of the dice is not just accepted, but the normal practice. The new player is just doing what she thinks everyone else is doing.

The solution is to apply what are the normal table rules in the all the groups I’ve played with, IE:-
rolls only count if
- they are made after they are called for.
- they are in the designated space on the table for dice rolling (floor dice don't count)
- the dice are flat (no cocked dice)
- the outcome is observed by at least one other person.
- (optional) no hard to read dice, so you can’t ‘mistake’ a 6 for a 9 or a 13 for an 18.
- (optional) some form of hard randomizer must be used eg a dice tower, the dice must hit the side of the box.

One solution is to buy a few dice towers so they are easily available and in reach of all players and declare that for dice rolls to count they have to be made via the dice towers.

Jay R
2023-03-17, 04:03 PM
You have a lot more faith in dice manufacturers than I do.

Perfectly balanced dice are extremely rare, and it isn't uncommon to buy badly weighted dice on accident.

No, I don't. I clearly stated that weighted dice exist.

But if she were actually rolling those numbers, she wouldn't be hiding those rolls from you. As I wrote, "If she had a die that was really rolling all those 20s, she wouldn't pick it up quickly."

There is no way to fairly turn that into "You have a lot more faith in dice manufacturers than I do." I'm saying that such dice exist, and she isn't using them.




Of course, given her habit of lying about dice rolls, I strongly doubt she actually rolled a thousand dice, let alone that they came out perfectly balanced.


The idea was not to say she was intentionally using loaded dice, but to let her know that we knew that there was something weird going on with her rolls so that, hopefully, she would dial back on the cheating without even actually having to be called out on it. Of course, she has only gotten more blatant sice.

And it failed to fix things. Maybe now you might consider my actual suggestion. As I also wrote:


My recommendation is to introduce a new rule, without any accusation of cheating, and without it even being about her.

When a different player rolls a die without announcing what it's for, then you should say, "I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble following all the die rolls. From now on, I need each person to tell me what the roll is for before you roll, and then leave it on the table so I can see the result. I'm just not able to follow the action right now, and it's my job to know what happens. So that roll doesn't count. Please tell me what you're rolling for, and roll it again." [Depending on how your players think, you might choose the player and tell him or her in advance, so that player can make a point of accepting the new ruling.]

In the ideal setup, the player you're concerned about isn't the first or second to roll under the new rule, and you've already made at least one player re-roll and show you the new result before the first time the problem player rolls. The more people who have already accepted the rule by the time the one you're worried about rolls, the better.

Except for secret rolls, you have to follow the new rule too, and be obvious about doing so. In fact, once (on purpose), roll the die, then say, "Oops. I forgot to tell you what I was rolling for. That roll doesn't count. I'm rolling for this ogre attacking this PC." In a perfect world, you will be throwing out a successful attack roll for the ogre. This is part of applying the rule fairly and consistently.

This rule is not about cheating. This rule is about the DM knowing and having control over what's happening. But it also makes cheating that way impossible.

Note: this rule does not hurt any player who is rolling dice fairly. If somebody spends too much time complaining about the rule, you can be pretty sure you know why. But your defense of the rule cannot be about cheating. Over and over again, say that you are doing this so you can follow all the action. Never mention cheating when discussing this rule.

Really -- try to fix the actual problem. You cannot convince her to be honest. You can make the game honest.

gbaji
2023-03-17, 04:15 PM
The funny part in this argument is that there's an assumed position, that's not being held for both sides.

"Why is not cheating sooooo important that you'd kick out a friend because of it?"

Okay, well, "why is cheating sooooo important that you'd be willing to anger all of your friends rather than stop doing it?"

I seem to recall several months ago, there was a massive thread about cheating on die rolls. I was quite suprised to find that a number of people apparently take the "they're not really hurting anyone, so why not just let them do it" position. So that is, at least, a "thing". I may not agree with that position, but it's clear that some percentage of people do, in fact, hold it. So it's not surprising that if you personally don't place much weight in the harm of cheating in a game, that you might consider the reactions of people to cheating to be the greater problem.

Again. I don't agree. But I can at least understand the chain of thought.

False God
2023-03-17, 04:17 PM
No, I don't. I clearly stated that weighted dice exist.

But if she were actually rolling those numbers, she wouldn't be hiding those rolls from you. As I wrote, "If she had a die that was really rolling all those 20s, she wouldn't pick it up quickly."

There is no way to fairly turn that into "You have a lot more faith in dice manufacturers than I do." I'm saying that such dice exist, and she isn't using them.

Having played with a friend who seems to be the favored child of the gods of RNG, people with "hot dice" will leave them where they lay, because it all that much more impressive that you didn't cheat, yet the stars always align for you.

Talakeal
2023-03-17, 04:24 PM
snip.

I am not saying that your other advice is bad or ignored. I absolutely read it and am considering it; I knew before I even created the thread that she wasn't taking our subtle (or not so subtle) hints.


I am just saying that I find the idea that she has perfectly balanced dice (and actually went to the trouble of confirming it) to be extremely unlikely, and was clarifying that I wasn't accusing her of using loaded dice, just suggesting the possibility that hers might be particularly poorly weighted in an attempt to "give her an out" by blaming her impossible rolls on a manufacturer's defect rather than intentional cheating.

kyoryu
2023-03-17, 04:50 PM
I seem to recall several months ago, there was a massive thread about cheating on die rolls. I was quite suprised to find that a number of people apparently take the "they're not really hurting anyone, so why not just let them do it" position. So that is, at least, a "thing". I may not agree with that position, but it's clear that some percentage of people do, in fact, hold it. So it's not surprising that if you personally don't place much weight in the harm of cheating in a game, that you might consider the reactions of people to cheating to be the greater problem.

Again. I don't agree. But I can at least understand the chain of thought.

For sure.

But the fundamental issue with that is that you have to respect the opinions of others. Period. Full stop. If something is a problem for someone, then it's a problem. You don't get to say that things aren't problems for people.

If you don't think cheating is a problem, awesome! If you're playing with people that do think it is, then you have to accept they don't like it. You can talk to them about why that is, and try to persuade them, and they can do the same. But at the end of the day, if playing without cheating is a deal-breaker for you, and playing with cheating is a deal-breaker for them, then you don't play together. Continuing to cheat while claiming you're not is not okay.

gbaji
2023-03-17, 06:33 PM
For sure.

But the fundamental issue with that is that you have to respect the opinions of others. Period. Full stop. If something is a problem for someone, then it's a problem. You don't get to say that things aren't problems for people.

Hah. Yeah. Although, where the problem actually lies is still a subject for examination and discovery sometimes.


If you don't think cheating is a problem, awesome! If you're playing with people that do think it is, then you have to accept they don't like it. You can talk to them about why that is, and try to persuade them, and they can do the same. But at the end of the day, if playing without cheating is a deal-breaker for you, and playing with cheating is a deal-breaker for them, then you don't play together. Continuing to cheat while claiming you're not is not okay.

If I were to pull out the therapist couch for a moment (ok. Imaginary couch, but whatever), I might surmise by the (apparently, and much to my surprise) huge gap between the number of people who "say that they are ok with others cheating at their gaming tables" versus "openly admit to others at their gaming tables that they cheat" that the folks who cheat at gaming tables know it's wrong, know that others don't like it, and don't want them to know (so they keep it hidden). Furthermore, I might surmise that most people (though perhaps not all, since I never disalow the potential for over the top altruism) who make the "I'm ok with other people cheating" claims are really just trying to rationalize away their own bad behavior. Like "If I show that I'm ok with others doing it, and can convince others to adopt the same philsophy on die cheating as well, then what I'm doing isn't really wrong".

It's kinda equivalent to someone saying "It doesn't really bother me if someone pees in the pool, and it really shouldn't bother you either". Um... What are you doing that you're not telling me? Right? I mean. Sure. This could just be someone who has knowledge of the chemical nature of urine, and its actual health risks/effects from exposure, the effect of chlorine in the water, analysis of risk factors, etc. But... uh... Yeah.

icefractal
2023-03-17, 07:58 PM
The way I look at the OP, the situation is entirely the GM’s fault.

Allowing players to roll unobserved dice then self declare the outcome is an open invitation to cheating. So if a GM invites players to cheat then they cannot be surprised or disappointed when they find out that players cheat. Very disagreed. Trusting players to handle their own rolls is something you can do when playing with reasonable people, and it makes for a better experience than needing to verify everything.

I mean, if someone held a potluck, would you say "Allowing people to bring whatever food they want and not testing it for poison is an open invitation to having them poison you?" If treating someone as a reasonable person fails, the problem is with them.

Anonymouswizard
2023-03-17, 07:59 PM
The way I look at the OP, the situation is entirely the GM’s fault.

Allowing players to roll unobserved dice then self declare the outcome is an open invitation to cheating. So if a GM invites players to cheat then they cannot be surprised or disappointed when they find out that players cheat.

Hi, I have pretty serious shortsightedness that can't be reliably corrected, and at the moment I don't even have even partially effective correction. How the **** do you expect me to read the results of players when I can't reliably read dice *I* roll?

The simple fact is that a basic knowledge of probability is all you need. Humans are both bad at being random and liable to make mistakes, you can catched a suspiciously lucky streak and ask the player to switch dice/roll in the center of the table for a bit with relative ease, and for most people the occasional miscalled number probably isn't intentional. What's even more useful is your players having a basic knowledge of probability, most will realise it isn't worth it.

Although players with better knowledge of probability are better cheaters when they want to be. They're the ones testing for bias or baking dice, whereas those with less knowledge are rolling all their d20s, rerolling any that show a 1, and keeping those that show a second 1 in a way that prevents them from rolling until required.

Talakeal
2023-03-17, 08:31 PM
Very disagreed. Trusting players to handle their own rolls is something you can do when playing with reasonable people, and it makes for a better experience than needing to verify everything.

I mean, if someone held a potluck, would you say "Allowing people to bring whatever food they want and not testing it for poison is an open invitation to having them poison you?" If treating someone as a reasonable person fails, the problem is with them.

I would also say it has a lot more to do with table culture than the GM.

Most groups rotate GM's, and there would be considerable pushback to one GM demanding everyone else boy to his or her whims when it comes to things like dice rolling etiquette.

Cluedrew
2023-03-17, 09:03 PM
Pretty much, yeah. Conform, convince, or leave.Not even conform, as someone who has been the odd one out, you don't even all have to be the same, you just have to not conflict with each other.


The way I look at the OP, the situation is entirely the GM’s fault.

Allowing players to roll unobserved dice then self declare the outcome is an open invitation to cheating. So if a GM invites players to cheat then they cannot be surprised or disappointed when they find out that players cheat.This is victim blaming, to use more legal terms: The ultimate responsibility of a crime always falls with the person who commit that crime, not with the people who did not stop it.

Now negligence is also a thing so you could argue that Talakeal bares some responsibility, but I would say it is strictly less than the responsibility of the one who is actually cheating.

Pauly
2023-03-17, 10:34 PM
Very disagreed. Trusting players to handle their own rolls is something you can do when playing with reasonable people, and it makes for a better experience than needing to verify everything.

I mean, if someone held a potluck, would you say "Allowing people to bring whatever food they want and not testing it for poison is an open invitation to having them poison you?" If treating someone as a reasonable person fails, the problem is with them.

On the potluck example, it is reasonable to assume home cooks don’t follow HACCP and there’s a pretty reasonable chance that food poisoning is on the cards. And that’s before you get into the realms of whether or not the dishes are even vaguely edible. Speaking as a professional chef, what I see at most pot lucks would get an insta shutdown notice from the health inspectors if they were served on a commercial premises. So yeah, a potluck is an open invitation for food poisoning.

The way to prevent food poisoning is the same as the way to prevent dice cheating. You follow simple easy to understand rules that are well known.

Getting back on point if I ever played at a table where secret dice rolls and self declared results were the norm I would assume dice fudging was accepted and going on at the table.
I’ve played competitive wargames and board games in tournaments for a long time. Self declared dice outcomes don’t fly. Unwitnessed dice rolls don’t fly. Rolling before declaring doesn’t fly. ‘Soft’ rolls where the dice aren’t properly randomized don’t fly.

Failure to follow the standard dice rolling protocols used in competitive games means that it is inevitable that sooner or later at least one player will be fudging the outcomes. Which is why it is entirely the fault of the GM who allows it to happen.



This is victim blaming, to use more legal terms: The ultimate responsibility of a crime always falls with the person who commit that crime, not with the people who did not stop it.

Now negligence is also a thing so you could argue that Talakeal bares some responsibility, but I would say it is strictly less than the responsibility of the one who is actually cheating.

Just because something bad happens doesn’t make someone a victim. To use another legal phrase Talakeal “is the author of his own misfortune”. What Talakeal did was the equivalent of leaving his car unlocked, with the keys in the ignition in the sketchiest part of town. He doesn’t bear some of the responsibility, he bears all of the respinsibility.

Laurentio III
2023-03-18, 03:38 AM
First post in the thread, replying to the OP.

Had been a master for ages. How you do manage the issue is based on the person you are working with, and the rest of party. Mostly, the second one.
I've always tried to make parties of people well assorted ("tried" is the key, but still). I know that in most of them, a cheating player would have been singled out by the majority of the other players before I had reason or opportunity to act.
Still.

If the party is not aware of the issue (not the case, but follow me), you speak to the player aside. No reason to make it a show. You give them the deal: either you stop, or I make you. Your reasons are not worth poisoning the game for others and for me. ('cause, remember, the GM is a player too and deserves their share of enterteinment). Play fair, or don't play.

If the issue is known to others or the first step went unsuccessful, do the "adult talk". Explain to the party, as a whole and not to the single one, that cheating is not admitted. Never. Cheating is ruining the experience to everyone, is unfair to the effort of the GM and reduce the utility of other characters. So, "Cheating stops here. No need to elaborate further."

Now, things go nasty. Everyone knows, and cheating persist.

Assuming all other players are honest, there is no need to issue a "dice on table" rule. If everyone use and enjoy a fast-paced system, it should not be distrupted because of a single player. All warning are already out, so no need to pull your punch.

"I rolled 34 on a d20! It's double critical and sudden death!"
"Sorry lad/chad, your rolls are not accepted on this table. I'll roll it for you. You get [public roll] a 12. Enough to hit, no critical. Now I'll roll your damage. It's a 7. Good one."

Make it costantly. Deny their rolls that are not witnessed.
But, count all the one are kosher, as seen by you or trusty players. Don't mention it, don't even discuss or point out. Just accept them as you'd do for other players.
If you are confronted about denying only their rolls, just reply "I do trust him and her, but you made yourself untrustable, at the moment.". Make it clear that you don't enjoy doing it, and would gladly stop having the need to do it.

The point is not to create an humiliating enviroment, but to teach a proper playing with example.

EggKookoo
2023-03-18, 06:55 AM
Just because something bad happens doesn’t make someone a victim. To use another legal phrase Talakeal “is the author of his own misfortune”. What Talakeal did was the equivalent of leaving his car unlocked, with the keys in the ignition in the sketchiest part of town. He doesn’t bear some of the responsibility, he bears all of the respinsibility.

What a bizarre philosophy...

Trafalgar
2023-03-18, 09:05 AM
Just because something bad happens doesn’t make someone a victim. To use another legal phrase Talakeal “is the author of his own misfortune”. What Talakeal did was the equivalent of leaving his car unlocked, with the keys in the ignition in the sketchiest part of town. He doesn’t bear some of the responsibility, he bears all of the respinsibility.

You seem to have a lot of legal knowledge and I am not a lawyer. But I am pretty sure it's still "Grand Theft Auto" whether or not the car is unlocked and the keys are in the ignition.

GloatingSwine
2023-03-18, 10:48 AM
You seem to have a lot of legal knowledge and I am not a lawyer. But I am pretty sure it's still "Grand Theft Auto" whether or not the car is unlocked and the keys are in the ignition.

Yeah, but your insurance company is still going to refuse to cover it.

The Glyphstone
2023-03-18, 10:55 AM
I think the only reason this group's existing players don't cheat is because they can whine and complain until getting the outcome they wanted anyways.

Trafalgar
2023-03-18, 11:10 AM
Yeah, but your insurance company is still going to refuse to cover it.

No, if your car insurance policy includes theft, it will cover this.

Talakeal
2023-03-18, 11:57 AM
Just because something bad happens doesn’t make someone a victim. To use another legal phrase Talakeal “is the author of his own misfortune”. What Talakeal did was the equivalent of leaving his car unlocked, with the keys in the ignition in the sketchiest part of town. He doesn’t bear some of the responsibility, he bears all of the responsibility.

Out of curiosity, are you saying you would see nothing morally wrong with me walking through the parking lot checking for unlocked cars and taking whatever valuables were left inside because the car's owners are the one's at fault?


To the actual point, this really comes down to table culture more than a single GM. I have been in a fair number of groups over the years, and some of them are more uptight about cheating than others, and this rarely has anything to do with who is in the GM's chair at the moment. I know our current player cheats equally audaciously regardless of whether it is Brian or I in the chair. I will also say that I have a much better time, both as a GM and a player, in a group that runs on the honor system than one where everyone is policing one another. I have played in many lax tables over the years, and I have never had a player who was blatant about cheating before (especially to the point where she would build a character around it!) and so I would tend to say that she, not I, is the odd man out here.


What a bizarre philosophy...

I know we just got done calling each other sociopaths, but this really does sound like the sort of philosophy a sociopathic conman would use to justify their crimes.

Jay R
2023-03-18, 12:05 PM
Several of you are making the same mistake Talakeal is making -- assuming that the goal is to assign blame.

It isn't. The goal is to fix the game so people can have fun.

Yesterday, a car ran into another car in front of me. My immediate goal wasn't to decide who was at fault; it was to slam on my brakes and not be part of it.

When I'm running a game, it's not my job to teach morality to my players.
It's not my job to point out moral flaws in my players.

It's my job to make the game run smoothly.

When I run a game, I have a hidden side table with minis for the next few encounters laid out. Once, when the PCs were 2nd level, I saw one player sneaking peeks at the side table. I never said anything. I just added a huge dragon to that table next game, in front of the other minis. There was nothing to be gained by saying I caught him. I just changed things so my surprises stayed surprises.

I recently saw one of my players read my DM notes when I accidentally left them on the table. I sympathize; I have the same weakness. If there are words in front of me, I read them without thinking. So I started using abbreviations in my notes. No problem.

My suggestion is to institute a new rule saying the players must announce the purpose of a roll, and then roll the die so everybody can see the result. This rule should also apply to the DM (except for secret rolls).

This should not be presented as a defense against cheating; it should be presented as a way for everybody to know what's going on. When somebody rolls a nat 20, we should all have the fun of seeing it.

I also think Talakeal should start enforcing it with somebody other than the player he's been talking about. Ideally, a couple of players and the DM have already rolled under the new rule before that player rolls, so that the rule is established separate from her.

But the focus should be "so everybody can see what's happening," rather than an accusation of cheating.

If you say it's about cheating, then a cheater can (and will) say, "I'm not cheating, so i shouldn't have to do this." But if you say it's about everybody seeing what's happening and it applies equally to everybody, then the idea of cheating doesn't even come up unless the cheater brings it up. [And if the cheater brings up that topic, the DM should immediately say, "This is not about cheating, and it applies to everyone. We all get to share in the fun of seeing each natural 20." Refuse to discuss cheating in regard to this rule.

An accusation of cheating led to her pouting for the rest of the session and no change at the next session. That didn't help anything.

Any discussion about cheating would merely lead to denials, arguments, and more pouting, and no change at the next session. That won't help anything.

Fix the game situation so that behavior doesn't work -- without any accusations, and without assigning blame.

If you are in a burning house, the goal is not to decide whose fault it was. The goal is to get everybody out of the house, and to put out the fire.

Pauly
2023-03-18, 03:50 PM
What a bizarre philosophy...

It’s called mitigation of risk. The entire OH&S industry is built off it.


You seem to have a lot of legal knowledge and I am not a lawyer. But I am pretty sure it's still "Grand Theft Auto" whether or not the car is unlocked and the keys are in the ignition.

I was a lawyer for an insurance company in a previous career. But everyone claims to be a lawyer on the internet, statutes vary from region to region and there are differences between civil law and criminal law. There are 2 different duties at play.
1) Who is responsible for taking care in the legal sense?
2) Who did the harm?
Because it is Talakeal’s game and he is administering it, he responds to question (1). From what I’ve read in this thread Talakeal did precisely zero with regards to question (1), and then continued to do nothing even after suspicions were raised and an outright accusation was made. If Talakeal had done anything, even just requiring dice rolls to be made in the middle of the table, then he has shown he has taken care to ensure the game is run fairly.
I don’t regard question (2) as important in this case because it was inevitable that someone at some time would start fudging their dice at Talakeal’s table. Further I would be very surprised if some degree of fudging wasn’t already occurring.

(2) is only important if you want to punish the perpetrator you happen to have caught. (1) is the important question if you want to stop dice fudging happening again.


No, if your car insurance policy includes theft, it will cover this.

Really? Which jurisdiction are you talking about? Failure to mitigate risk is generally a good way to void your insurance in common law countries..


Out of curiosity, are you saying you would see nothing morally wrong with me walking through the parking lot checking for unlocked cars and taking whatever valuables were left inside because the car's owners are the one's at fault?


No. I’m saying the owner of the car has the responsibility to make sure it is locked and secure because they know bad actors exist. And if the owner habitually leaves the car unlicked with the keys in the ignition they can’t claim to be surprised when their car is eventually stolen or ransacked.

EggKookoo
2023-03-18, 04:04 PM
No. I’m saying the owner of the car has the responsibility to make sure it is locked and secure because they know bad actors exist. And if the owner habitually leaves the car unlicked with the keys in the ignition they can’t claim to be surprised when their car is eventually stolen or ransacked.

You literally claimed they were 100% responsible for the crime itself, which is pure nonsense.

MonochromeTiger
2023-03-18, 04:27 PM
You literally claimed they were 100% responsible for the crime itself, which is pure nonsense.

Worth keeping in mind that "lawyer perspective" and "makes sense to literally anyone else" are very different things sadly, the tell for which is pretty clear from "the entire OH&S industry is built off it." It's a very corporate perspective aimed at making a business successful over giving personal justice. In the case of the car example I, also not a lawyer, could see the possibility for somebody arguing that ignoring or being overly ignorant of the risks for so long makes it more likely to be a case of trying to bait an accident to get the insurance payment off of instead of being a full victim.

That said I could only see that when trying to look at it from the perspective of the insurers who have a vested interest in finding any way they can not to pay out, after all that costs them money and they're a company so they're trying to make more money not spend it; never mind that the money they're making is specifically so they will cover something should an accident occur. So yes there's some victim blaming in trying to look at things legally, sadly not all that surprising.

Also worth noting that "lawyer for an insurance company" speaks to a clear bias in arguments and "in a past career" speaks to no longer being in practice for them, take that as you will. I suspect you might get a different perspective if the point of specialty or career had been different and focused more on individuals' damages.

Trafalgar
2023-03-18, 05:48 PM
I was a lawyer for an insurance company in a previous career. But everyone claims to be a lawyer on the internet, statutes vary from region to region and there are differences between civil law and criminal law. There are 2 different duties at play.

You are dodging the issue by throwing out comments about civil and criminal law. You used car theft as an example. Please tell me where in the world the intentional theft of a car is a civil matter only and not a criminal one. Please tell me where, by law, the car owner is considered to be at fault for the theft if they parked in a sketchy neighborhood and left the doors unlocked.


Really? Which jurisdiction are you talking about? Failure to mitigate risk is generally a good way to void your insurance in common law countries..


You are the one claiming to be an insurance lawyer on an internet forum, not me. Since you have expertise in this field, why don't you provide an example where an insurance company didn't pay out because someone left their car unlocked in a sketchy neighborhood . And please include a link.

I live in the United States and a very quick google search tells me you are covered in exactly this scenario as long as you have comprehensive auto insurance.

Cluedrew
2023-03-18, 07:25 PM
Just because something bad happens doesnÂ’t make someone a victim.Person A did a thing that hurt person B. In addition it was not a punishment nor ... a different exception that we could agree on if I could think of it. There are exceptions, but "could have taken action to better defend themselves" doesn't make them not a victim.

And I think the world has quite enough victim blaming. It is a classic tool used to justify mistreatment of woman, poor and disabled people and I don't like it.
But onto the problem the thread is about, I would generally just set some ground rules for clearly rolling dice in a way people cannot (easily?) cheat. I think in this situation you don't even have to bring up the cheating itself, just say something like "because of accusations of cheating, we are going to make all roles openly so that is not a concern" or whatever similar approach you think would work best for your group.

2BobHeroes
2023-03-18, 09:50 PM
If the party is not aware of the issue (not the case, but follow me), you speak to the player aside. No reason to make it a show. You give them the deal: either you stop, or I make you. Your reasons are not worth poisoning the game for others and for me. ('cause, remember, the GM is a player too and deserves their share of enterteinment). Play fair, or don't play.

If the issue is known to others or the first step went unsuccessful, do the "adult talk". Explain to the party, as a whole and not to the single one, that cheating is not admitted. Never. Cheating is ruining the experience to everyone, is unfair to the effort of the GM and reduce the utility of other characters. So, "Cheating stops here. No need to elaborate further."

[...]

Assuming all other players are honest, there is no need to issue a "dice on table" rule. If everyone use and enjoy a fast-paced system, it should not be distrupted because of a single player. All warning are already out, so no need to pull your punch.


This. When one of my kids had just started playing, that kid was cheating by rolling the dice until they got at least a 17 and saying it counted when they had to really roll. Everybody knew it.

I had an 'I know what you're doing' talk, and designated another player to roll for that kid for a while. Now, that kid can roll again, but has to do so in public. (When that kid gets ridiculously lucky rolls, everyone knows they're legit.)

The grace that this was accepted with may be influenced by the fact that I am a parent.

Segev
2023-03-18, 11:14 PM
Just because something bad happens doesn’t make someone a victim. To use another legal phrase Talakeal “is the author of his own misfortune”. What Talakeal did was the equivalent of leaving his car unlocked, with the keys in the ignition in the sketchiest part of town. He doesn’t bear some of the responsibility, he bears all of the respinsibility.
Funny; I think all thlse actions are perfectly legal, and that if nobody else does anything illegal, Talekeal would return to his car when he wanted to and drive off just fine.

It seems to me there has to be somebody actually breaking the law and taking something that doesn't belong to him to make Talekeal suffer negative impact by losing his car.

You can argue that failure to take precautions is foolish, but not that it absoes the actual malefactor of responsibility for his malefaction that took adantage of he lack of precautions.

Hrugner
2023-03-19, 12:56 AM
Several of you are making the same mistake Talakeal is making -- assuming that the goal is to assign blame.

It isn't. The goal is to fix the game so people can have fun.



Pretty much. Truth be told, I haven't had a cheater who was also smart, so it never really mattered that they cheated (Wow buddy, that's a great roll! But there's no saving throw against vampiric touch). Peeping at the DMs notes is awful though.

Another way to look at it is that if you solve problems on a person to person basis, then you have to solve the problem again every time it comes up. It's not very satisfying if you enjoy the drama, or want to serve as an "instrument of JUSTICE!", but it's easier to solve problems if you focus on solving the problem.

Talakeal
2023-03-19, 07:02 AM
So, we played again.

I did my damnedest to observe every roll. It is freaking exhausting, and its pretty tough to physically be in a position to see everyone's roll regardless of where they are at the table. Its also hard to change table culture, so many players are just used to rolling on their honor that they don't even bring it up.

As for the one particular player, well, she didn't survive the session. I watched her closely, and although there were a couple of times she told me the wrong number for her modifier (not sure if it was deliberate or a mistake) I am pretty sure all of their dice rolls were legit, and by the end of the session she was complaining about how bad her luck was, and she started rolling up a new character mid session when it was obvious the current one wasn't actually built to function with fair dice rolls.

Next week we are going back to our A game and Brian is GMing. I think one of us is going to have to have an open talk about changing table culture and witnessing dice rolls when we do.

Vahnavoi
2023-03-19, 07:47 AM
You literally claimed they were 100% responsible for the crime itself, which is pure nonsense.

There are several different levels of "blame" in law, and you are implicitly conflating several of them, while your opponent is trying to explain what the distinction is.

Or, in other words: one can be 100% responsible for covering damages caused by their mistake, while at the same time being 0% culpable of any crime exploiting said mistake. It's also possible for two people to be 100% of the same crime, because modern law isn't purely accusative and so showing one person is in the wrong does not mean you are in the right.

The mundane application for games is that as a referee figure (a game master) for his games, Talakeal is responsible for prevention and punishment of any cheating, and under the perception that Talakeal has done pretty much nothing on either front, he is just as much at fault as the actual cheater. In some other contexts, he'd actually be more at fault and would have his referee card revoked for being this inept.

To restate how a referee ought to handle cheating:

1) call the cheating player out.
2) give them a warning.
3) if they do not heed warnings, kick them out of the game.

Alternative punishments and ways of prevention include:

A) call for rolls to be made openly.
B) take dice away from the offending player and make somebody roll in their stead.
C) everybody rolls for someone else.
D) referee rolls for everyone.

Talakeal
2023-03-19, 07:53 AM
There are several different levels of "blame" in law, and you are implicitly conflating several of them, while your opponent is trying to explain what the distinction is.

Or, in other words: one can be 100% responsible for covering damages caused by their mistake, while at the same time being 0% culpable of any crime exploiting said mistake. It's also possible for two people to be 100% of the same crime, because modern law isn't purely accusative and so showing one person is in the wrong does not mean you are in the right.

The mundane application for games is that as a referee figure (a game master) for his games, Talakeal is responsible for prevention and punishment of any cheating, and under the perception that Talakeal has done pretty much nothing on either front, he is just as much at fault as the actual cheater. In some other contexts, he'd actually be more at fault and would have his referee card revoked for being this inept.

To restate how a referee ought to handle cheating:

1) call the cheating player out.
2) give them a warning.
3) if they do not heed warnings, kick them out of the game.

Alternative punishments and ways of prevention include:

A) call for rolls to be made openly.
B) take dice away from the offending player and make somebody roll in their stead.
C) everybody rolls for someone else.
D) referee rolls for everyone.

This is true, but I am just not a disciplinarian.

I am super lax about discipline and authority, I GM to be a friend and express myself creatively, I have zero interest in policing other people or putting myself in a position of authority over them. That just isn't who I am, I am a hippy-anarchist at heart.

I would much prefer an honor system arrangement where people were free to make their own decisions about whether or not they really needed to cheat; an occasional fudged dice is, to me, preferable from living in a high stress environment where we are constantly watching one another and calling it out.

Of course, this new player is so audacious about it that this is no longer the case.


Several of you are making the same mistake Talakeal is making -- assuming that the goal is to assign blame.

For the record, I actually agree with you here.

I care very little for the blame game, and that was not my intent for creating the thread.

However, I do tend to be fairly obsessive and defensive, and it is very easy for me to get drawn into a discussion of blame, so I can see how you would come away with that reading.

EggKookoo
2023-03-19, 07:57 AM
There are several different levels of "blame" in law, and you are implicitly conflating several of them, while your opponent is trying to explain what the distinction is.

If a person claims that someone bears "all" of the responsibility for something, that person is the one doing the conflating.

Trafalgar
2023-03-19, 09:27 AM
There are several different levels of "blame" in law, and you are implicitly conflating several of them, while your opponent is trying to explain what the distinction is.

Or, in other words: one can be 100% responsible for covering damages caused by their mistake, while at the same time being 0% culpable of any crime exploiting said mistake. It's also possible for two people to be 100% of the same crime, because modern law isn't purely accusative and so showing one person is in the wrong does not mean you are in the right.


Please read above. Pauly gave us a very specific example: If you leave your car unlocked with the keys in the ignition in a sketchy neighborhood, you are 100% to blame when the car is stolen.

He claims to be a lawyer but he's wrong. You can argue that the owner bears some of the blame but the majority of the blame goes to the person who intentionally stole the car. It's a criminal act and you can sue the thief for damages. And, in the United States at least, the insurance company should payout if you have comprehensive coverage.

This is probably a bad example to use when discussing Talakeal's dilemma. Because the player hasn't stolen anything from Talakeal. A better example would be if you are in business with someone and you suspect them of cooking the books for their own profit.

Going back to the original problem, Talakeal can only be held responsible for his own actions, he cannot control the actions of the player. The only thing he can do is make it harder to cheat but he can't make it impossible to cheat. Critical Role had this exact same problem back in Season One with Tiberius. Tiberius ended up being kicked off the show reportedly for this and a bunch of other reasons. On Dungeon Craft, ProfessorDM used Tiberius as an example of "Main Character Syndrome". (https://youtu.be/HdapT1el8EI) I think Talakeal will see some similarities with his dilemma.

Segev
2023-03-19, 10:50 AM
So, we played again.

I did my damnedest to observe every roll. It is freaking exhausting, and its pretty tough to physically be in a position to see everyone's roll regardless of where they are at the table. Its also hard to change table culture, so many players are just used to rolling on their honor that they don't even bring it up.

As for the one particular player, well, she didn't survive the session. I watched her closely, and although there were a couple of times she told me the wrong number for her modifier (not sure if it was deliberate or a mistake) I am pretty sure all of their dice rolls were legit, and by the end of the session she was complaining about how bad her luck was, and she started rolling up a new character mid session when it was obvious the current one wasn't actually built to function with fair dice rolls.

Next week we are going back to our A game and Brian is GMing. I think one of us is going to have to have an open talk about changing table culture and witnessing dice rolls when we do.

Well, I think you have your confirmation that she was definitely cheating. Hopefully, enforcing open table rolling will encourage her to be a better player, including learning how to build PCs who sra good at specific things rather than leaning on 'lucky' dice to do it for her.

Cygnia
2023-03-19, 11:50 AM
Why did you allow her to stay at the table?

kyoryu
2023-03-19, 01:58 PM
The level of victim-blaming in this thread is absolutely horrifying.

Hrugner
2023-03-19, 01:59 PM
Her rerolling to make a character that will function is a better result than I expected. I half expect her to come back with some power build she found online, but if she started building the character mid game she's probably not doing that.

You could use a dice tower so that there's a target location for all dice rolling to happen. And they seem pretty fun, though I've never had the opportunity to use one myself.

Vahnavoi
2023-03-19, 03:14 PM
If a person claims that someone bears "all" of the responsibility for something, that person is the one doing the conflating.


Please read above. Pauly gave us a very specific example: If you leave your car unlocked with the keys in the ignition in a sketchy neighborhood, you are 100% to blame when the car is stolen.

I don't care of the analogy; if all you're interested is criticism of the analogy, fair, I can grant you the analogy sucks. But I can see the point even in a flawed analogy, so the analogy doesn't need to hold up for me to agree with Pauly & co in saying that yes, Talakeal is fully responsible for their own misery.

Talakeal
2023-03-19, 03:33 PM
I don't care of the analogy; if all you're interested is criticism of the analogy, fair, I can grant you the analogy sucks. But I can see the point even in a flawed analogy, so the analogy doesn't need to hold up for me to agree with Pauly & co in saying that yes, Talakeal is fully responsible for their own misery.

You can say it, but it isn't a good look if you want to be taken seriously.

I am still curious about how, even if you are committed to the victim blaming, you can lay the blame 100% on a single person when it is an issue of table culture that has evolved over decades with multiple rotating GMs.

Does each GM fully accept 100% of the responsibility while they are in the chair, and then pass 100% of the blame along to the next person like a hot potato? So if this thread is still going this weekend when its Brian's turn to GM we can then turn around and give him 100% of the blame and I am free and clear?

Captain Cap
2023-03-19, 03:55 PM
I got the feeling you're all arguing about semantics at this point.

Could Talakeal have prevented cheating with a less lax etiquette regarding dice rolls? Sure.
Was the cheater responsible for her own misconduct? Sure.

I mean, I don't think we need to bring up legalese here, since I'm pretty sure no crime has been committed and no one is getting sued over this.

Talakeal
2023-03-19, 04:07 PM
I got the feeling you're all arguing about semantics at this point.

Could Talakeal have prevented cheating with a less lax etiquette regarding dice rolls? Sure.
Was the cheater responsible for her own misconduct? Sure.

I mean, I don't think we need to bring up legalese here, since I'm pretty sure no crime has been committed and no one is getting sued over this.

Agreed.

Although that frames it more of a choice than a matter of fault; I would much rather be part of a group (on either side of the screen) where the GM treats the players like adults and let's them self report than having to constantly watch and double check everyone. A group with trust.

On the other hand, trust is a two-way street, and I wouldn't want a blatant cheater at the table either.

If given the choice between the two... that's a tougher one.

Keltest
2023-03-19, 08:50 PM
Agreed.

Although that frames it more of a choice than a matter of fault; I would much rather be part of a group (on either side of the screen) where the GM treats the players like adults and let's them self report than having to constantly watch and double check everyone. A group with trust.

On the other hand, trust is a two-way street, and I wouldn't want a blatant cheater at the table either.

If given the choice between the two... that's a tougher one.

The DM isn't just the guy who moves the enemy tokens around, he's the referee. It's his responsibility to resolve disputes between players and yes, enforce the rules when applicable. It's all well and good among a self contained friend group, but this is clearly not that, and you are responsible for moderating this behavior here. By not doing that, you make a choice and are partly responsible for the outcome.

Talakeal
2023-03-20, 06:22 AM
The DM isn't just the guy who moves the enemy tokens around, he's the referee. It's his responsibility to resolve disputes between players and yes, enforce the rules when applicable. It's all well and good among a self contained friend group, but this is clearly not that, and you are responsible for moderating this behavior here. By not doing that, you make a choice and are partly responsible for the outcome.

Agreed 100%.

I said it was a choice in the post you quoted.

Its only when you get into the spiral of "We need to assign blame... One person is 100% to blame... Clearly its the victim for failing to defend themselves!" that the line of thought becomes a joke. Kind of reminds me of that meme of the guy putting on clown makeup actually.

gbaji
2023-03-20, 06:27 PM
The simple fact is that a basic knowledge of probability is all you need. Humans are both bad at being random and liable to make mistakes, you can catched a suspiciously lucky streak and ask the player to switch dice/roll in the center of the table for a bit with relative ease, and for most people the occasional miscalled number probably isn't intentional. What's even more useful is your players having a basic knowledge of probability, most will realise it isn't worth it.

Although players with better knowledge of probability are better cheaters when they want to be. They're the ones testing for bias or baking dice, whereas those with less knowledge are rolling all their d20s, rerolling any that show a 1, and keeping those that show a second 1 in a way that prevents them from rolling until required.

I'd be really careful making that assumption though. You are correct that humans are "bad at being random". But that goes both for the cheater trying to pretend to roll dice, and observers trying to detect when die rolls are not "sufficiently/correctly random". I particularly question the assumption that you can "catch a suspiciously lucky streak...".

A classic example statistics lab is to hand the class a sheet of paper and ask them to write down what they think is a reasonable random distribution of coin flips. Like 50 heads or tails results, written on a piece of paper, but without actually flipping a coin. Meanwhile, the professor has one of his TAs hand one of the students a coin and ask that one student to actually flip the coin 50 times and write the results down. The professor can almost always figure out which student his TA handed the coin to and pull out that one paper after the exercise. It'll be the one with "steaks" of 5 or 6 heads or tails written on it.

What we humans "think" is a normal random distribution, and what actually *is* a normal random distribution tends to vary wildly. Streaks are statistically normal. It's actually incredibly unlikely to have a distribution of numbers and *not* have them. So yeah. I'd be really careful about just assuming "I can tell when someone is cheating". Lucky streaks do happen. You have to actually look for other signs (like hiding dice immediately after rolling), or something that is not remotely "streak like" (like literally every single important roll being well made, or every single one being a high success level, or something else). You have to observe this behavior for a pretty long period of time to be able to tell with some certainty that this player must be cheating on their rolls, and even then it can be tricky to be absolutely certain.

Which is why I recommend *not* directly confronting them. That's pretty much guaranteed to not give you the results you are hoping for. And yeah, while it may be an inconvenience to the rest of your (hopefully honest) players, creating some sort of broad table rules for die rolls so as to make cheating harder, is probably the better way to go.


This is victim blaming, to use more legal terms: The ultimate responsibility of a crime always falls with the person who commit that crime, not with the people who did not stop it.

Well, there's no actual legal term called "victim blaming". That's a pure social construct. If we're being pedantic anyway. I also think you (not you alone though) are conflating "responsiblity" and "fault". If I leave a burner on my stove, and one of my house guests sets a towel on it and burns the kitchen down, that other person is "at fault" for the fire. But I'm also "responsible", since it was my burner, and I left it on. Doubly so if I'm serving my guests shots or something at a party, where it's somewhat expected that maybe they wont be terribly careful with their actions.

The "responsibility" to secure potentially dangerous things in my house prior to having a bunch of people over for drinks lies squarely with me. Similarly, the responsibility to create table rules to prevent cheating lies on the GM. Yes, it's the "fault" of the person who cheats when they actually cheat. But there is absolutely some responsibility for the GM to recognize that if they make their rules easy to cheat, some players may choose to do so, and that the GM maybe should anticipate this and make it harder to do so.


Now negligence is also a thing so you could argue that Talakeal bares some responsibility, but I would say it is strictly less than the responsibility of the one who is actually cheating.

Yeah. Again. There's who's doing the specific harmful action, but unless you are assuming we have the ability to control other people's choices, that's really out of our hands. But by hosting a game session, you are taking "responsiblity" for providing a fun and fair gaming experirence for the group. So yeah, that includes dealing with potential cheating by some players.


Out of curiosity, are you saying you would see nothing morally wrong with me walking through the parking lot checking for unlocked cars and taking whatever valuables were left inside because the car's owners are the one's at fault?

That's not at all the point. Let us assume that there is a non-zero number of criminals in the world, who will take the opportunity to steal a car if presented with one. We don't need to know who that may be. And we're not examining their own morality here. The question is: Knowing this is the case, and knowing that there exists a high probiability that if you leave your car unlocked with the keys in the ignition in an area of town with a high amount of criminal activity that the car will be stolen, how much responsibility do you bear for the outcome?

There's a difference between "this thing happening" (in general), and "this specific interation of this thing happening" (the details of the thing). It's quite possible for the person who leaves their car in this state to be "100% responsible" for their car being stolen by someone, while also leaving the specific person who happened to be the one who stole the car being 100% "at fault/to blame" for that single instance of "stealing a car".

I mean, you're free to walk through life never taking any steps to protect yourself or others from the potential mal-intent of others, but that's reallly silly. You don't need to be the one taking the malicious action to be aware that malicious intent does exist in the world and to take reasonable precautions against it.

This is not an either/or situation. Both can be true. The criminal is wrong for committing the crime. But you are also wrong for having done something to make it so easy to have that crime committed against you. Wrong in different ways. But still both wrong. You also cannot reasonably expect the criminal to be "responsible" for your property. They are "to blame/at fault" for stealing it, but you are "responable" for preventing it from being stolen. I'm hoping you can see the difference between those two concepts.



Funny; I think all thlse actions are perfectly legal, and that if nobody else does anything illegal, Talekeal would return to his car when he wanted to and drive off just fine.

It seems to me there has to be somebody actually breaking the law and taking something that doesn't belong to him to make Talekeal suffer negative impact by losing his car.

You can argue that failure to take precautions is foolish, but not that it absoes the actual malefactor of responsibility for his malefaction that took adantage of he lack of precautions.

Again. It's not either/or. It is *both* wrong for the other person to steal the car, and *wrong* to leave it in a condition where it can be so easily stolen.

Eh. It's not a perfect analogy either, since we're dealing with someone's own property. If we were to change the scenario slightly it might make more sense:

Let's say you lend your car to a friend. And that friend parks it in a sketchy neighborhood, and leaves the doors unlocked with the keys in the ignition, and your car gets stolen. Who are you more likely to hold responsible for your car being stolen? The thief? Or your friend?

The thief is absolutely "to blame" here, but if it hadn't been that thief, it likely would have been some other thief, or some other, etc. But "your friend" is the one who took such poor care of your property as to almost guarantee it would be stolen, right? That's the person you would actually be upset at. No point in being upset at the thief. That person is a thief. You didn't entrust them with your property, and you had no expecation that they (or someone else) *wouldn't* steal your car if given half a chance.

Same deal with a GM at a table. They are responsible for manging the fun/fairness at the table. You have effectively "entrusted them" with the car, and are assuming that they aren't going to do something that makes it easy to be stolen (to follow the analogy). So yeah, if the GM does nothing about cheating, the players are going to tend to blame the GM over time. Cheaters will cheat. It's as unreasonble to expect them not to cheat as to expect thieves not to steal your car. The GM is expected to prevent this from happening, so that's the person we place the "responsibility" on.


This is probably a bad example to use when discussing Talakeal's dilemma. Because the player hasn't stolen anything from Talakeal. A better example would be if you are in business with someone and you suspect them of cooking the books for their own profit.

Except you are placing that person in the role of "thief" here, so it's not a good analogy. The better analogy would be going into business with someone, and that person "invests" the money into obvious scams instead of the things you both agreed on. Sure, technically the scam artists are "to blame" for the loss of money, but there's no end of people willing to separate a fool and their money, right? You "hold responsible" the person who you entrusted with the money and failed to follow through on that trust. That's the peson you expected to be "responsible" with the money, and they failed.


Going back to the original problem, Talakeal can only be held responsible for his own actions, he cannot control the actions of the player. The only thing he can do is make it harder to cheat but he can't make it impossible to cheat.

Except that as the GM, he is responsible for managing this. And sure, even if there's no way to 100% prevent cheating, it does fall on him to do what he can to minimize it. Like, at the risk of bringing up the car analogy, *not* leaving the car unlocked with the keys in the ignition. Allowing a player to roll while hiding the dice is just like that. You are completely trusting that no player will ever cheat, just like you are trusting that no random person in the area will be a car thief. And if you are wrong... that's on you.

It would be wonderful to live in a world where we could make those assumptions and have them bear true. Sadly, we don't. Some players do cheat. Some people do steal. And if you have evidence that this is present in the environment, you have to take precautions against it. The equivalent of locking the doors, and keeping the keys safe, so to speak.

Vahnavoi
2023-03-20, 06:43 PM
You can say it, but it isn't a good look if you want to be taken seriously.

I am still curious about how, even if you are committed to the victim blaming, you can lay the blame 100% on a single person when it is an issue of table culture that has evolved over decades with multiple rotating GMs.

Reread what I actually wrote, you even managed to quote it once already. The point of the legal analogy was to outline there is a framework where you are fully responsible for your own misery regardless of how many other people are involved. Because the relevant "blame" isn't a slice of cake that gets smaller and smaller the more people there are to share it.


Does each GM fully accept 100% of the responsibility while they are in the chair, and then pass 100% of the blame along to the next person like a hot potato? So if this thread is still going this weekend when its Brian's turn to GM we can then turn around and give him 100% of the blame and I am free and clear?

Yes and no. Yes, duties and responsibilities of being a referee do get passed along like the proverbial hot potato, or at least that's how it usually works when you switch a game and referee. So it will be Brian's responsibility to keep you all from cheating and he'll be fully responsible for all the cheating you do if he neglects his duties.

No, in the sense that you'll still be a dirty cheater if you do cheat. Brian sucking won't make you suck less. You won't only suck 50% because there's two of you. You'll both suck 100%. Because it isn't a slice of cake that gets smaller and smaller the more people there are to share it.

There are two different games going on here, and in the other, you aren't passing on a hot potato. You're passing on a flu virus, and at the end of day, you will all be equally infected.

---


I got the feeling you're all arguing about semantics at this point.

Could Talakeal have prevented cheating with a less lax etiquette regarding dice rolls? Sure.
Was the cheater responsible for her own misconduct? Sure.

I mean, I don't think we need to bring up legalese here, since I'm pretty sure no crime has been committed and no one is getting sued over this.

No crime needs to be committed for there to be an adult conversation about responsibility. The legal standard gets brought up because it's an example of a more developed way of thinking of the subject than most people readily engage in. Again, if you want to argue the specific analogy sucks, I'll grant you that. But if you understand what concepts are being referred to, the fact that no-one will get sued over this is irrelevant.

EggKookoo
2023-03-20, 07:37 PM
Again. It's not either/or. It is *both* wrong for the other person to steal the car, and *wrong* to leave it in a condition where it can be so easily stolen.

To say nothing of how short that car's skirt was!

Trafalgar
2023-03-20, 09:30 PM
Except that as the GM, he is responsible for managing this. And sure, even if there's no way to 100% prevent cheating, it does fall on him to do what he can to minimize it. Like, at the risk of bringing up the car analogy, *not* leaving the car unlocked with the keys in the ignition. Allowing a player to roll while hiding the dice is just like that. You are completely trusting that no player will ever cheat, just like you are trusting that no random person in the area will be a car thief. And if you are wrong... that's on you.

I hate to restate this but since you brought up the car analogy again, the fault lies with the car thief. At least in the United States. I mean, lets do a little reductio ad absurdum with this argument. You locked the doors but your car doesn't have a car alarm? Its your fault the car got stolen. You don't have Lo Jack? It's your fault. You drive an expensive car? It's your fault. You didn't pay $10 an hour for a gated parking lot with security? It's your fault.

The weakness of TTRPGs as a whole is that is that the DM/GM/Judge/whatever essentially has an unpaid part time job. But in what rule set does it say the DM is also supposed to be the dice police for the table? With everything else that the DM is supposed to do and keep track of? Look at Talakeal as an example, he found it exhausting to have to watch everyone's rolls. And, let's not forget, the DM is supposed to have fun too.

The cheater's actions took away from everyone at the table, not just the DM. Why should any of the other players change their behavior because of one bad actor? That's why the best solution is to just kick the cheater out.

Keltest
2023-03-20, 09:40 PM
I hate to restate this but since you brought up the car analogy again, the fault lies with the car thief. At least in the United States. I mean, lets do a little reductio ad absurdum with this argument. You locked the doors but your car doesn't have a car alarm? Its your fault the car got stolen. You don't have Lo Jack? It's your fault. You drive an expensive car? It's your fault. You didn't pay $10 an hour for a gated parking lot with security? It's your fault.

The weakness of TTRPGs as a whole is that is that the DM/GM/Judge/whatever essentially has an unpaid part time job. But in what rule set does it say the DM is also supposed to be the dice police for the table? With everything else that the DM is supposed to do and keep track of? Look at Talakeal as an example, he found it exhausting to have to watch everyone's rolls. And, let's not forget, the DM is supposed to have fun too.

The cheater's actions took away from everyone at the table, not just the DM. Why should any of the other players change their behavior because of one bad actor? That's why the best solution is to just kick the cheater out.

If we must use the car analogy, the correct analogy would be a cop sitting in an area where thieves are known to prowl and just... not reacting when he sees somebody breaking into a car.

Captain Cap
2023-03-20, 10:33 PM
No crime needs to be committed for there to be an adult conversation about responsibility. The legal standard gets brought up because it's an example of a more developed way of thinking of the subject than most people readily engage in. Again, if you want to argue the specific analogy sucks, I'll grant you that. But if you understand what concepts are being referred to, the fact that no-one will get sued over this is irrelevant.
Conceding that the DM has a certain degree of responsibility, what's the point of arguing if they are 100% responsible, or 80%, or 89.9999999% etc.? The fraction may easily change depending on how one views the meaning of "responsible" in the context (which seems to be the case here), since there's an inherent ambiguity in language, even more so in a casual setting not bound by a precise etiquette or corpus of laws.
In fact, practically speaking, what does that number change? What does it determine? Does one even need to argue beyond a binary "they have/haven't responsibility"?

Fiery Diamond
2023-03-20, 11:46 PM
To say nothing of how short that car's skirt was!

Exactly. This is why I agree that it's totally victim blaming.

kyoryu
2023-03-21, 06:51 AM
Personally, I don't want to play dice cop. I'm playing a game with friends, and there are certain expectations that I have.

This isn't a business where someone has to write checks, and so I need to have safeguards in place to avoid massive financial fraud. This is a friendly game among friendly people.

I generally use procedures that sit in the "keep honest people honest" category. IOW, prevent holes that let people fudge a bit without "cheating".... specifically, you roll when I ask, not before. You roll in a visible place, and non-flat rolls don't count.

I don't want to go past that. Someone that can't abide by the "don't cheat" rules will be removed from the game, because I don't need to play with people like that. I am 100% unwilling to get into an arms race with cheaters where I have to come up with more and more convoluted anti-cheat prevention systems because in some bizarro world it's my responsibility if a player cheats.

Vahnavoi
2023-03-21, 08:17 AM
@Captain Cap:

The point of emphasizing someone's full responsibility is that they need to change what they're doing if they want things to change; that it isn't sufficient to pass the blame around to solve the problem.

You are correct that numbers aren't necessary; they simply exist to illustrate and emphasize the point.

---



The weakness of TTRPGs as a whole is that is that the DM/GM/Judge/whatever essentially has an unpaid part time job. But in what rule set does it say the DM is also supposed to be the dice police for the table? With everything else that the DM is supposed to do and keep track of? Look at Talakeal as an example, he found it exhausting to have to watch everyone's rolls.

And, let's not forget, the DM is supposed to have fun too. The cheater's actions took away from everyone at the table, not just the DM. Why should any of the other players change their behavior because of one bad actor? That's why the best solution is to just kick the cheater out.

Oh ha ha. In tabletop game, asking people to roll where you can see them is trivial - as would be asking they use dice given by you. It is equally trivial to tell them that you'll roll all the dice if you catch them cheating. These are not big asks of a game master. For majority of casual games, these simple measures are enough to make cheating too much of a hassle, with too little pay-off, for anyone to bother. It's a game master's job to enforce such rules, because a game master in the role of a referee enforces all other rules as well. But these kind of rules don't even need a game master. Plenty of tabletop games include them and expect players to follow them out of the simple idea that this is how you know a game is fair.

Don't bother talking about "fun". Normal people do things that are a little bit unfun, like actually enforcing rules of a game they're holding, so that they can have more fun later. People who try to avoid doing the little unfun things often end up in a situation that is a lot more unfun - as is the case here. It's better to call people out early and often, giving them warnings and small punishments first, before kicking them out - instead of staying silent and waiting for a situation to get bad enough that you have to kick them out. Talakeal's and his group's unwillingness to follow the former model is why they can't have nice things.

Rynjin
2023-03-21, 09:54 AM
Don't bother talking about "fun".

Truly this is the SRSest of BSNS

Talakeal
2023-03-21, 10:19 AM
No, in the sense that you'll still be a dirty cheater if you do cheat. Brian sucking won't make you suck less. You won't only suck 50% because there's two of you. You'll both suck 100%. Because it isn't a slice of cake that gets smaller and smaller the more people there are to share it.

There are two different games going on here, and in the other, you aren't passing on a hot potato. You're passing on a flu virus, and at the end of day, you will all be equally infected.


Why use percentages at all then?

You don't say people with a flu virus are infected 100%, they are either positive or not. I suppose you could say they are infected with 100% certainty, but that is a very different statement.

Looking up the "author of your own misfortune" laws that were quoted earlier, it is absolutely a cake that gets smaller the more its divided, it is literally used to determine what percentage of a settlement someone is entitled to based on the percentage at which they were to blame.


Well, there's no actual legal term called "victim blaming". That's a pure social construct. If we're being pedantic anyway. I also think you (not you alone though) are conflating "responsiblity" and "fault". If I leave a burner on my stove, and one of my house guests sets a towel on it and burns the kitchen down, that other person is "at fault" for the fire. But I'm also "responsible", since it was my burner, and I left it on. Doubly so if I'm serving my guests shots or something at a party, where it's somewhat expected that maybe they wont be terribly careful with their actions.

The "responsibility" to secure potentially dangerous things in my house prior to having a bunch of people over for drinks lies squarely with me. Similarly, the responsibility to create table rules to prevent cheating lies on the GM. Yes, it's the "fault" of the person who cheats when they actually cheat. But there is absolutely some responsibility for the GM to recognize that if they make their rules easy to cheat, some players may choose to do so, and that the GM maybe should anticipate this and make it harder to do so.



Yeah. Again. There's who's doing the specific harmful action, but unless you are assuming we have the ability to control other people's choices, that's really out of our hands. But by hosting a game session, you are taking "responsiblity" for providing a fun and fair gaming experirence for the group. So yeah, that includes dealing with potential cheating by some players.

That's not at all the point. Let us assume that there is a non-zero number of criminals in the world, who will take the opportunity to steal a car if presented with one. We don't need to know who that may be. And we're not examining their own morality here. The question is: Knowing this is the case, and knowing that there exists a high probiability that if you leave your car unlocked with the keys in the ignition in an area of town with a high amount of criminal activity that the car will be stolen, how much responsibility do you bear for the outcome?

There's a difference between "this thing happening" (in general), and "this specific interation of this thing happening" (the details of the thing). It's quite possible for the person who leaves their car in this state to be "100% responsible" for their car being stolen by someone, while also leaving the specific person who happened to be the one who stole the car being 100% "at fault/to blame" for that single instance of "stealing a car".

I mean, you're free to walk through life never taking any steps to protect yourself or others from the potential mal-intent of others, but that's really silly. You don't need to be the one taking the malicious action to be aware that malicious intent does exist in the world and to take reasonable precautions against it.

This is not an either/or situation. Both can be true. The criminal is wrong for committing the crime. But you are also wrong for having done something to make it so easy to have that crime committed against you. Wrong in different ways. But still both wrong. You also cannot reasonably expect the criminal to be "responsible" for your property. They are "to blame/at fault" for stealing it, but you are "responable" for preventing it from being stolen. I'm hoping you can see the difference between those two concepts.

That's literally not how percentages work.

Someone can only be "100% to blame" if they are the only one who has any control over the situation.

Even if I leave my car unlocked with the keys in the ignition in the worst part of town with a sign that says "please steal me!" I cannot guarantee it will be stolen, if the thief doesn't want to steal it, it won't be stolen, thus I cannot be 100% to blame.

Bringing percentages into this is dumb, doubly so when said percentages don't actually function like percentages.

Saying "you bear some of the responsibility here" is a true statement, saying "one person is 100% to blame" is objectively false.

Now, you could say "they are both equally to blame," or "the victim is more to blame than the perpetrator" which, imo, display a sociopathic world view, but they are atleast subjective statements that can be debated.


Oh ha ha. In tabletop game, asking people to roll where you can see them is trivial - as would be asking they use dice given by you. It is equally trivial to tell them that you'll roll all the dice if you catch them cheating. These are not big asks of a game master. For majority of casual games, these simple measures are enough to make cheating too much of a hassle, with too little pay-off, for anyone to bother. It's a game master's job to enforce such rules, because a game master in the role of a referee enforces all other rules as well. But these kind of rules don't even need a game master. Plenty of tabletop games include them and expect players to follow them out of the simple idea that this is how you know a game is fair.

Its not trivial. I tried it last session, it was a lot more work than I anticipated.

First, we slow the game down and require everyone to roll one at a time. Group rolls like initiative or saving throws against area attacks become a much trickier proposition.

Second, we play at a long table with me at one end. I physically have to get up and walk down to the other end to see the dice of players who aren't next to me. Unless they actually roll all the way down, which means that they can't see their own dice, I have to toss their dice back to them afterward, and there is a noticeable risk of the dice missing and going off the table.

In the past, I have been part of a lot of gaming groups, mostly White Wolf, where we played in a living room with people spread around the room on various couches and recliners. If there was even a table in the room, it was not within easy reach of everyone, and most people used dice cups in their laps. In situations like this, it would actually be a really big ask to roll all of your dice where the DM can see them.

Vahnavoi
2023-03-21, 10:19 AM
@Rynjin: Well duh. If you don't take cheating even remotely seriously, you won't keep people from cheating. Did you think it works any other way?

---

EDIT:


Why use percentages at all then?

You don't say people with a flu virus are infected 100%, they are either positive or not. I suppose you could say they are infected with 100% certainty, but that is a very different statement.

A binary truth value, such as positive/negative, or true/false, expressed in percentages is 100% versus 0%. I 100% didn't need to phrase my point in this exact manner, I just did. Stop being confused by a common figure of speech.


Looking up the "author of your own misfortune" laws that were quoted earlier, it is absolutely a cake that gets smaller the more its divided, it is literally used to determine what percentage of a settlement someone is entitled to based on the percentage at which they were to blame.

Not for you, because you aren't a theft victim, you are a game referee.


Its not trivial. I tried it last session, it was a lot more work than I anticipated.

Trivial doesn't mean no effort. It means so litte effort that any healthy human can reasonable be expected to do it. Walking around a table to actually see the rolls? Trivial. Taking a bit of time to roll dice in sequence instead of at once? Trivial. I do both myself, but I don't complain about it, because I don't see them as a problem. They're close to minimum cost for minimal certainty of fairness.

There are only two types of arguments you could do to convince me otherwise. The first type is that there's simply unmanageable amouny of dice to oversee. Fair. But who picked a game system with stupid amount of rolling? Who designed it? In your case I have a hunch the answer is "you", making it another self-created problem. Same goes for questions such as "who decided to play at a long table?"

The second type is that you have an actual handicap making you less able than a healthy human. Fair. That could genuinely make the matter non-trivial and require a special solution just for you. In absence of such handicap? You are just doing what you often accuse your players of: whining.


In the past, I have been part of a lot of gaming groups, mostly White Wolf, where we played in a living room with people spread around the room on various couches and recliners. If there was even a table in the room, it was not within easy reach of everyone, and most people used dice cups in their laps. In situations like this, it would actually be a really big ask to roll all of your dice where the DM can see them.

I don't consider it a big ask of my players to stop being couch potatoes for the ten seconds it takes to walk to the damn table to roll dice where I can see them. I consider it trivial.

Lord Torath
2023-03-21, 11:38 AM
Second, we play at a long table with me at one end. I physically have to get up and walk down to the other end to see the dice of players who aren't next to me. Unless they actually roll all the way down, which means that they can't see their own dice, I have to toss their dice back to them afterward, and there is a noticeable risk of the dice missing and going off the table.Then have the person on the roller's right (or left, I don't care) report the result, instead of you personally verifying it. It should work just as well, and you only need to personally verify a single person's roll, the person on your left (or right, depending on which direction you choose).

Edit: This does tend to imply that the reason you're doing this is to enforce honesty instead of just keeping track of what's going on, though. Another option would be to have them roll their dice toward you, and instead of tossing them back, have the players between you and the roller pass them down, like a commoner railgun. I realize some people have hang-ups about other people touching their dice. Encourage those people to sit close enough to you that they can reach their dice themselves (or get up, walk around the table and reclaim them) so no one else needs to touch their dice. Or tell them to get over it. Though that last option will probably go over about as well as a lead balloon.

Talakeal
2023-03-21, 12:42 PM
A binary truth value, such as positive/negative, or true/false, expressed in percentages is 100% versus 0%. I 100% didn't need to phrase my point in this exact manner, I just did. Stop being confused by a common figure of speech.

As a common figure of speech, telling someone they are 100% to blame means that they alone are solely responsible and nobody else is too blame. That is what the figure of speech means.

As the person who used the figure of speech imprecisely, you are 100% to blame for the misunderstanding :P.


Trivial doesn't mean no effort. It means so litte effort that any healthy human can reasonable be expected to do it. Walking around a table to actually see the rolls? Trivial. Taking a bit of time to roll dice in sequence instead of at once? Trivial. I do both myself, but I don't complain about it, because I don't see them as a problem. They're close to minimum cost for minimal certainty of fairness.

For any given dice roll I agree, totally trivial. But for hundreds of rolls over the course of an eight hour session, that adds up to a lot of time and energy. Especially in the room we play in which is too narrow to simply walk freely around the table and requires people to skootch in the chairs or move side tables out of the way.



There are only two types of arguments you could do to convince me otherwise. The first type is that there's simply unmanageable amount of dice to oversee. Fair. But who picked a game system with stupid amount of rolling? Who designed it? In your case I have a hunch the answer is "you", making it another self-created problem. Same goes for questions such as "who decided to play at a long table?"

I know you prefer rules light systems, but again, that is a choice rather than a binary right / wrong way to play.

I am currently running an old school dungeon crawl. My system isn't noticeably crunchier than OD&D, and even that requires a group initiative check at the start of combat, an attack and damage roll from each player on their turn, and on occasional saving throw on the monsters turn. With 4 players, each combat lasting 5-10 rounds, and 15 combats a session, that comes out to about five hundred rolls a session on combat alone.

That's quite a bit of time and energy to demand each of those rolls be announced up front, rolled individually, and witnessed by a DM who has to walk into position to see it.


Likewise, tables are expensive, gaming spaces are limited, and people take up space. I don't have the $10k+ required to build a dream gaming room with a perfect table (and what that would even mean would fluctuate based on the game and group size) or the capability to shuttle all of my players to said room on game days.


I don't consider it a big ask of my players to stop being couch potatoes for the ten seconds it takes to walk to the damn table to roll dice where I can see them. I consider it trivial.

As above.

But more so, there is a lot to be said about the more casual environment; not only physically but also mentally and socially.

A friendly game where everyone is free to sit where they like and to police their own dice rolls and everyone trusts each other not to cheat is much more relaxing and is a better time for everyone involved. Especially when you do have people with physical disabilities, people with vastly different tolerances for temperature, and are holding / nursing babies, which have been fairly common in my gaming groups.

But again, this goes out the window when you have a flagrant cheater in the group.

If given the choice between a fun casual game with a small amount of cheating, or an uptight game with no cheating, I will choose the former.
In a group with someone like our current player, the choice is a seemingly casual frustrated group with a lot of cheating and mistrust vs. a more strict uptight group with no cheating, and that's a much easier choice.

Of course, the big choice is whether to switch to a more uptight style, or to kick the cheating player out and go back to the more relaxed style that has been working for us for decades.

Captain Cap
2023-03-21, 04:15 PM
Second, we play at a long table with me at one end. I physically have to get up and walk down to the other end to see the dice of players who aren't next to me. Unless they actually roll all the way down, which means that they can't see their own dice, I have to toss their dice back to them afterward, and there is a noticeable risk of the dice missing and going off the table.
Wait, how many players do you have if two of you can sit far enough that they don't see each other rolls?

OldTrees1
2023-03-21, 04:43 PM
As a common figure of speech, telling someone they are 100% to blame means that they alone are solely responsible and nobody else is too blame. That is what the figure of speech means.

As the person who used the figure of speech imprecisely, you are 100% to blame for the misunderstanding :P.


As a common figure of speech, telling someone they are 100% to blame and another person is also 100% to blame means that blame is not conserved. Multiple people can be 100% to blame. Despite its point being about how multiple people can bear total responsibility, it uses the percentages language to reference the blame shifting it is refuting.

For example I could say "In this case both Vahnavoi and Talakeal are 100% to blame for the misunderstanding they encountered in their conversation.". If/since I did say that, then my usage of percentages is providing parallelism with Talakeal's blue text (mentioning one person is 100% to blame) that is being amended by pointing out blame is not conserved and both parties are fully to blame.

animorte
2023-03-21, 04:51 PM
Wait, how many players do you have if two of you can sit far enough that they don't see each other rolls?
It could depend on what kind of table. A rectangular table (more common than circular) would make it more difficult for those on opposing ends.

Batcathat
2023-03-21, 05:04 PM
Saying that more than person is individually fully (or 100 percent) to blame just seems like an unnecessarily confusing way to phrase it, that's not really adding anything to just saying "both of them are to blame" or "both of them are equally to blame".

In this particular case I also think it's inaccurate. Whether or not the person enabling the cheating (or the car theft) deserves part of the blame (there are decent arguments both for and against it), saying that they're equally to blame as the person who's actually cheating (or stealing) seems very odd to me.

gbaji
2023-03-21, 05:37 PM
I hate to restate this but since you brought up the car analogy again, the fault lies with the car thief. At least in the United States. I mean, lets do a little reductio ad absurdum with this argument. You locked the doors but your car doesn't have a car alarm? Its your fault the car got stolen. You don't have Lo Jack? It's your fault. You drive an expensive car? It's your fault. You didn't pay $10 an hour for a gated parking lot with security? It's your fault.

But it's still "100% your responsibility" to do what ever you can to secure your own property. I think this is where people are missing the point here.

You can only make decisions for yourself. The thief/cheater makes their own decisions. You are responsible for your decisions and actions. The thief/cheater is responsible for their own decisions and actions. Get it?

Back to the car analogy. If your car gets stolen after you left it with the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition, which are you more likely to think: "OMG! I can't believe someone else I don't know and can't control decided to steal my car!", or "Man. That was stupid of me to leave my car unlocked and the keys in the ignition". The latter, right? And if you do lock your car and take the keys and it's stolen anyway, you might actually think "Darn it. I really should have installed that alarm system". Or, if you have an alarm, and it's stolen anyway, you'll think "Sheesh! I should have paid a bit of money for that lo-jack, cause then I'd be able to find my car". And if you have those things, and it still got stolen, you might even think "Well maybe I should have sprung for the extra cost to pay for the gated lot with security".

Yes. The thief is ultimately the person who actually stole your car. But you can't control the actions of the thief. You can only control your own. So a "responsible" person will take actions to minimize the likellihood that they suffer "bad things", rather than roaming around though life utterly depending on no one ever deciding to do something "bad" to them. Like ever. That's... dumb.


The cheater's actions took away from everyone at the table, not just the DM. Why should any of the other players change their behavior because of one bad actor? That's why the best solution is to just kick the cheater out.

Sure. That's certainly a "final option". But it's the GMs responsibility, as the one running the game, and setting the table rules, to take action. Whatever that action is.

Again. Being responsible for something isn't the same as being "at fault". Mature people take responsibillty for things that aren't their fault all the time. Heck. Go watch Dirty Dancing for an example of this in action.


Personally, I don't want to play dice cop. I'm playing a game with friends, and there are certain expectations that I have.

I generally use procedures that sit in the "keep honest people honest" category. IOW, prevent holes that let people fudge a bit without "cheating".... specifically, you roll when I ask, not before. You roll in a visible place, and non-flat rolls don't count.

I don't want to go past that. Someone that can't abide by the "don't cheat" rules will be removed from the game, because I don't need to play with people like that. I am 100% unwilling to get into an arms race with cheaters where I have to come up with more and more convoluted anti-cheat prevention systems because in some bizarro world it's my responsibility if a player cheats.

Not disagreeing with you here, but... um... isn't everything you described essentially what a cop (or "dice cop") does? I get that you're leaning more in the "I'm not going to stand over every person rolling every die each time", but still...


That's literally not how percentages work.

You are still focused on the number instead of the words. Responsibility isn't blame.


Someone can only be "100% to blame" if they are the only one who has any control over the situation.

Again. You are changing the words that were used. But even within that misuse, you raise the valid point: You are only in control of your own actions and decisions. You can't actually control what other people do.

The GM is "100% responsible" for the rules set at the table and the enforcement of those rules. Period. Because that is what he is empowered by the players to do. The GM has no magical ability to mind control a potential dice roll cheater's actions though. The cheater is also 100% responsible for their own actions. As has been stated earlier, this isn't a cake to be sliced up. We are each the sole determinant of our own actions and choices. No one else.

If your lack of setting firm rules to prevent cheating is allowing someone else to cheat, then you are 100% responsible for that condition (making it easy to cheat). The fact that this "easy to cheat" condition only causes a problem when someone else makes the decision to cheat is irrelevant. It's still on you (your responsibility) to do something about it to prevent that person from cheating.

If you leave the door open and your dog runs out, you can certainly blame the dog for running off. But you are "responsible" for leaving the door open, right? And "leaving the door open" + "dog that wants to run off" = "dog running off". If you know that your dog will run off if you leave the door open, then leaving the door open resulted in the dog running off. Similarly, if you know you have a player who will cheat if you don't enforce rules to prevent it, then your failure to enforce those rules resulted in the cheater being able to cheat. That's the logic we're trying to get across here. You don't have to intentionally desire or take action to make something happen to still be "responsible" for it happening.


Even if I leave my car unlocked with the keys in the ignition in the worst part of town with a sign that says "please steal me!" I cannot guarantee it will be stolen, if the thief doesn't want to steal it, it won't be stolen, thus I cannot be 100% to blame.

Again. You are changing the word from "responsible" to "blame". Please stop changing the words and responding to that instead of the orginal word used. If those were actual perfect synonyms, you (and several other people) wouldn't feel the need to keep changing them.

Being responsible means acknowledging the choices and actions you make. Period. You are always 100% responsible for those things. And if those things allow for something negative to happen (like having your car stolen, or someone cheating at your table), you are still responsible for that occurance.

You cannot ever make choices that will 100% eliminate the chance of something bad happening, but a resonsible person takes actions to minimize those things to the best degree that they can. Simply trusting that no one will be a bad actor ever, and being utterly dependent on that, is a terribly naive and foolish way to go through life. That's all we're trying to get across here. Don't get caught up on the percentages. That's not really the relevant part here.


Saying "you bear some of the responsibility here" is a true statement, saying "one person is 100% to blame" is objectively false.

Which, again, is not what was actually said. The word "blame" wasn't used, and "one person" was not used either. You have rephrased this to suggest the intent was to say that the cheater is not at fault or to blame at all. That was not (as far as I can tell) the original intent at all.


Now, you could say "they are both equally to blame," or "the victim is more to blame than the perpetrator" which, imo, display a sociopathic world view, but they are atleast subjective statements that can be debated.

And, again, the only people who used the word "blame" were the ones disagreeing with the original statement, which used the word "responsbile". Those are actually two different words, with two different meanings. It's possible for one person to be 100% responsible for the conditions that allowed something bad to happen, with another person 100% to blame for taking the bad action itself. These are two different concepts.

You blame the thief for the actual theft. But you hold yourself responsible for leaving something out where it could be easily stolen in the first place. This is not a difficult concept.

Wintermoot
2023-03-21, 05:39 PM
As a common figure of speech, telling someone they are 100% to blame and another person is also 100% to blame means that blame is not conserved. Multiple people can be 100% to blame. Despite its point being about how multiple people can bear total responsibility, it uses the percentages language to reference the blame shifting it is refuting.

For example I could say "In this case both Vahnavoi and Talakeal are 100% to blame for the misunderstanding they encountered in their conversation.". If/since I did say that, then my usage of percentages is providing parallelism with Talakeal's blue text (mentioning one person is 100% to blame) that is being amended by pointing out blame is not conserved and both parties are fully to blame.

I really don't think that -is- a common figure of speech. At least I've never heard it.

If I hear "person X is 100% to blame" it means, they are the sole person who carries the blame.
The alternate figure of speech is "both parties are to blame" or "the blame is shared" or something similar. But "100% to blame" has only ever been one party inclusive in my experience.

I would find someone saying "You are both 100% to blame" to be a very odd thing to hear someone say. Odd enough to make me interrupt whatever meaningful discourse was going on with an irrelevant interjection about the oddness.

Kind of like this post.

Of course, I would also ultimately understand what they were trying to get at. That the blame was shared. So my interjection would ultimately be pointless toward whatever the true discussion was about.

Kind of like this post.

gbaji
2023-03-21, 06:02 PM
Huh. And full disclosure, I went back and read, and Pauly did initially use the phrase "at fault". Someone else said something about being responsible. He then responded using the word responsible, that went back and forth a few times, which in turn spun off into the car analogy, and went from there.

My entrance into the discussion was specifically about whether and when someone is "responsible" for something. So I'll hold at that point. What happened prior to that ponit in the conversation... I'm taking no responsibility for (see what I did there?).

Segev
2023-03-21, 06:34 PM
Maybe use roll20 or a discord server with a dicebot for the dice rolls, so everyone can see everyone's results without having to get up? I know it's less fun than rolling dice, but it does solve the difficulty of having to get up and walk around as people roll one by one.

Pauly
2023-03-21, 11:12 PM
Huh. And full disclosure, I went back and read, and Pauly did initially use the phrase "at fault". Someone else said something about being responsible. He then responded using the word responsible, that went back and forth a few times, which in turn spun off into the car analogy, and went from there.

My entrance into the discussion was specifically about whether and when someone is "responsible" for something. So I'll hold at that point. What happened prior to that ponit in the conversation... I'm taking no responsibility for (see what I did there?).

Thank you.

I should have been clearer on the blame/responsibility distinction in my initial posting. I meant “at fault” to mean “failed in their responsibility”.

icefractal
2023-03-22, 12:14 AM
So what course of action do you recommend then? Always watch every roll the players make, just in general, even if it requires inconvenience for both you and them? That doing otherwise practically ensures cheating?

Because I'd disagree with that take. Most players don't need that, and it's worth addressing the behavior rather than hedging against it in most cases - and "new player, others also bothered by the cheating" is definitely one of those cases.

Pauly
2023-03-22, 01:09 AM
So what course of action do you recommend then? Always watch every roll the players make, just in general, even if it requires inconvenience for both you and them? That doing otherwise practically ensures cheating?

Because I'd disagree with that take. Most players don't need that, and it's worth addressing the behavior rather than hedging against it in most cases - and "new player, others also bothered by the cheating" is definitely one of those cases.

Minimum standard is
- Dice rolled after they are called for.
- Must be rolled in the designated dice rolling area
- only flat dice that stay in the designated area count
- Must be witnessed by at least one other person at the table. [NB edit for for clarity I’m not saying another person must actually read the dice, but that if they wanted to they could do so]
- Dice are not picked up until after the action is adjudicated and finished.
This is what happens in every other game that uses dice. It is no inconvenience.

Talakeal
2023-03-22, 06:16 AM
Huh. And full disclosure, I went back and read, and Pauly did initially use the phrase "at fault". Someone else said something about being responsible. He then responded using the word responsible, that went back and forth a few times, which in turn spun off into the car analogy, and went from there.

My entrance into the discussion was specifically about whether and when someone is "responsible" for something. So I'll hold at that point. What happened prior to that ponit in the conversation... I'm taking no responsibility for (see what I did there?).

To be fair, blame, responsibility, and fault all have distinct meanings and I have been using them more or less interchangeably.

Vahnavoi
2023-03-22, 07:20 AM
As a common figure of speech, telling someone they are 100% to blame means that they alone are solely responsible and nobody else is too blame. That is what the figure of speech means.

As the person who used the figure of speech imprecisely, you are 100% to blame for the misunderstanding :P.

And that would be entirely fair, no sarcasm required, if you hadn't literally quoted me explaining the principle of how it's possible to be fully responsible without being the sole person responsible. That's the context. OldTrees1, above, explains the same thing.

As already said to you and Captain Cap, I didn't need to use these exact terms. I could've phrased it differently, and we wouldn't be here.


I know you prefer rules light systems, but again, that is a choice rather than a binary right / wrong way to play.

That's the thing, it's not simply about what's right or wrong way to play. It's about who is responsible for the way you play. Any time you make something that could be trivial non-trivial by your own choices, the responsibility for the consequence falls on you. Even if you manage to justify your choices and prove you are, in a sense, right, you are still fully responsibility for the situation.


But more so, there is a lot to be said about the more casual environment; not only physically but also mentally and socially.

The degree of anti-cheating measures advocated for would not be out of place for a casual game of Monopoly. You have exaggerated ideas of what leads to an uptight atmosphere because you have, by your own admission, exaggerated problems with authority, and so does your group.


Of course, the big choice is whether to switch to a more uptight style, or to kick the cheating player out and go back to the more relaxed style that has been working for us for decades.

I've read your threads, I'm not convinced what you've done has worked for you ever. Put differently, your reasoning reads like that of a person who thinks it was okay to not wear a seatbelt because they didn't get into any car crashes before - when what they should've done was always wear the belt, because it can only keep worse things from happening if it's already in place when a situation comes along.

Again: calling people out early and often, giving minor warnings and punishments before kicking someone out, is better than staying silent until you have to kick someone out.

---


Saying that more than person is individually fully (or 100 percent) to blame just seems like an unnecessarily confusing way to phrase it, that's not really adding anything to just saying "both of them are to blame" or "both of them are equally to blame".

In this particular case I also think it's inaccurate. Whether or not the person enabling the cheating (or the car theft) deserves part of the blame (there are decent arguments both for and against it), saying that they're equally to blame as the person who's actually cheating (or stealing) seems very odd to me.

If you go back and read my posts, you'll find I use both kinds of phrasings. The point of saying someone is both equally and fully responsible is to emphasize they have to change their behaviour too, regardless how many other people were involved. Got into a car crash without your seatbelt on? You are fully responsible for all injuries you could've avoided by putting it on and you need to put your belt on in the future, regardless of what the other guy did or will do. Simply blaming or punishing the other guy does not solve your problem.

Is this confusing? Yes. That is why we're talking about it. Like I said to Captain Cap, that is why the legal standard gets brought up: it's an example of a more developed way of thinking of the subject than most people readily engage in. The sad thing about that is that there are ready-made resources, made by actual lawyers, that could explain the whole thing, but they cannot be linked to on these forums. However, responsibility itself is a mundane concept that applies to non-legal matters just as well. No crime has been committed and no-one will get sued, there may not be any relevant law about this, but the principles can still be applied to a game master, because of game rules establishing their role as a referee.

So, why does it feel odd? Because people naturally think of "blame" in an accusative way, where if you're wrong, then I'm right. They see it as a game of hot potato where, if they can pass the potato to another person, they don't have to change the way they act. Except, as already said, that's not a sufficient solution. The actual solution relies on people understanding there is something they could have, and maybe should have, done before anyone else did anything.

This relates to the above point about how being "fully responsible" ought to mean being the sole person in control of an event. That's intuitively appealing. It also a bad way of thinking about it. Why? Because in reality, nobody is the sole person in control of anything. Trying to follow this kind of logic to its end leads to responsibility being diffused to an absurd degree - people get less and less compelled to change their behaviour, because they think their slice of the cake is getting smaller and smaller, until you get people who feel they are excused doing anything, because they feel they are not in control.

This is where we get back to percentages. Suppose you get in that car crash without your seatbelt on. There is at least one another person involved, so does it make sense to say you're only 50% responsible? How would even interprete that statement? Would it solve your problem to start wearing a seatbelt 50% of the time?

So, if "being sole person in control" is a bad standard for "full responsibility", what would be a better one? That's where things get complex. Theoretically, it would be contrasting what you did (or didn't) with what you could've done. But, in practice, divining exact capabilities of a given human is almost as unfeasible as proving someone is the sole being in control. So what we get are abstractions. In law, this would be the hypothetical reasonable person, in my explanation of triviality, above, it's "what any healthy human can be reasonably expected to do".

So, in the car crash, the question changes from "what did the other guy do to cause this?" to "what could've any healthy human reasonably done to prevent this?". And the same applies to being a game referee.

This where we get back to something I already briefly mentioned, but which deserves more attention. Talakeal says he wants to play in a high trust environment. But how do you build trust? This minor inconvenience of getting to a table to roll a die where other people can see it is a way a player visibly shows to every other player their commitment to and co-operation with game rules. It's the minimal effort for minimum guarantee of fairness. There are other things that work to the same effect, like promising to show up at a given time and then actually showing up.

Are there ways to screw this up, by, say, a game referee asking too much for too little in return? Yes. But, as noted above, Talakeal has exaggerated idea of where that line is. We are not asking him to sink all dice brought to the table in water to measure their balance or to check dice and tables for magnets. What Pauly, above, suggests would be appropriate for any casual tabletop game.

As a final notes, there's a reason I put "blame" in quotes and primarily talk of responsibility. As gbaji notes, these are distinct concepts. Or, as I would put it, what people naively lump under "blame" can be split into several different considerations. In law, these would be called causality, liability, culpability, etc.. "You caused this", "you are responsible for this" and "you are at fault for this" are often used interchangeably in common speech, but refer to distinct things in more developed frameworks.

Cygnia
2023-03-22, 07:27 AM
She got caught cheating and got called out on it.
She got huffy.
OP watched her rolling last time out.
She got even more huffy and whined about her bad rolls the entire time.

If you're just gonna punt this over to the next GM and make him deal with it, you're not doing the group any favors. Why keep this player?

Talakeal
2023-03-22, 08:02 AM
She got caught cheating and got called out on it.
She got huffy.
OP watched her rolling last time out.
She got even more huffy and whined about her bad rolls the entire time.

If you're just gonna punt this over to the next GM and make him deal with it, you're not doing the group any favors. Why keep this player?

Wouldn't booting her out also just be punting the problem to the next GM?

You know, she joined our group because she got kicked out of her last group. She said it was because the GM's wife was paranoid about him hanging out with other women, but I have to wonder if the truth didn't have more to do with her cheating.


I've read your threads, I'm not convinced what you've done has worked for you ever. Put differently, your reasoning reads like that of a person who thinks it was okay to not wear a seatbelt because they didn't get into any car crashes before - when what they should've done was always wear the belt, because it can only keep worse things from happening if it's already in place when a situation comes along.

I have been in a lot of games over the years, some bad, some good. I can say that almost without exception, the more relaxed and trusting the environment the better the game.




If you go back and read my posts, you'll find I use both kinds of phrasings. The point of saying someone is both equally and fully responsible is to emphasize they have to change their behaviour too, regardless how many other people were involved. Got into a car crash without your seatbelt on? You are fully responsible for all injuries you could've avoided by putting it on and you need to put your belt on in the future, regardless of what the other guy did or will do. Simply blaming or punishing the other guy does not solve your problem.


Up thread someone (you?) mentioned the "author of your own misfortune" legal doctrine. I looked it up, and the examples were explicitly about injuries suffered in an accident when not wearing seat belts or other PPE, and then assigning percentages of settlements based on the amount of blame each party bore. So, legally at least, this is absolutely not how it works.

False God
2023-03-22, 08:24 AM
Wouldn't booting her out also just be punting the problem to the next GM?
It's not your job to worry about the next DMs potential problems.


You know, she joined our group because she got kicked out of her last group. She said it was because the GM's wife was paranoid about him hanging out with other women, but I have to wonder if the truth didn't have more to do with her cheating.
Maybe it was both! Cheating and cheating! Drama!!! :biggrin:

Batcathat
2023-03-22, 08:27 AM
This relates to the above point about how being "fully responsible" ought to mean being the sole person in control of an event. That's intuitively appealing. It also a bad way of thinking about it. Why? Because in reality, nobody is the sole person in control of anything. Trying to follow this kind of logic to its end leads to responsibility being diffused to an absurd degree - people get less and less compelled to change their behaviour, because they think their slice of the cake is getting smaller and smaller, until you get people who feel they are excused doing anything, because they feel they are not in control.

That's possible. But saying someone is "fully responsible" when there's more than one people responsible for it, especially if some people might be considered more at fault, could also lead to the person you're talking about shrugging it off, since it doesn't match their definition of being fully responsible for something. Is saying "you and the other person are both responsible for what happened" really that much less likely to get them to change their behavior? (Of course, they could still deflect, saying it was all the other person's fault, but that's true regardless of how you phrase it).

Segev
2023-03-22, 09:03 AM
Maybe it was both! Cheating and cheating! Drama!!! :biggrin:

Doubtful; the claim was that the DM's wife was paranoid, not that she had reason to be. And if the prior DM had been the sort to validate the wife's alleged paranoia, I'm sure the player in question would be adding in how she felt creeped out by said DM perving at/hitting on her. Conversely, if the wife's alleged paranoia was justified due to the player-in-question's own behavior re: flirting with DMs, I suspect Talakeal would find himself being flirted with, what with that (i.e. "flirting with the GM") being a tactic a player could theoretically use to also gain advantage in the game.



As to Talakeal's problem, I think you could tone back the "get up and walk around, checking everyone's dice" thing to instead ask that the dice be rolled in the middle of the table (where "middle" just means "out beyond your own little play area, where your neighbors can see the result") and ask everyone to confirm each other's dice out loud. No picking up the dice until the DM acknowledges he has the relevant numbers recorded.

Frankly, my group of friends will, if they get a number they feel is good, call for confirmation from the other players or the DM, because while we have such a high trust game that our one remote player rolls real dice without a camera on him and we take his word for it, we like showing off our good rolls and also preserving that high trust as much as possible.

I might toss dice around in my personal play area, but when it's time to actually roll something the DM has called for (and thus will count for something), I roll out into the middle of the table and leave the dice there for people to see. I might move them to get them arranged more easily, but I've also just asked the people across the table from me what they said in my eagerness to know before they could pass them to me.

I think, Talakeal, encouraging an environment and table culture of being excited for everyone to see everyone's rolls as much as possible will do a lot to engender high trust. It makes it about the excitement of seeing the good results (and the shared groaning at bad ones), rather than about "not trusting" each other, and it still promotes trust because calling out fraudulent results is a lot harder when many people see the dice. Importantly, this also reduces the need for "everyone" or even the DM to see the dice; the point is that enough people see them that no lone cheater can claim people are being mean for questioning his reported numbers.

Vahnavoi
2023-03-22, 11:08 AM
I have been in a lot of games over the years, some bad, some good. I can say that almost without exception, the more relaxed and trusting the environment the better the game.

And I have been on a lot of car trips and can say that usually not wearing a seatbelt is more comfortable than wearing it - which is why people don't wear seatbelts, leading to avoidable damages.


Up thread someone (you?) mentioned the "author of your own misfortune" legal doctrine. I looked it up, and the examples were explicitly about injuries suffered in an accident when not wearing seat belts or other PPE, and then assigning percentages of settlements based on the amount of blame each party bore. So, legally at least, this is absolutely not how it works.

Being author of your own misfortune is also common saying meaning, well, things like not wearing a seatbelt because you don't find it comfortable. There is also a high chance you're looking at the wrong place. Because, as noted, responsibility and blame are not the same thing.

The first thing you should look up is whether you are subject to a fine for not wearing a seatbelt, even if nothing has happened. The second thing you should look up is insurance terms.

Because there is a good chance not wearing a seatbelt is punishable as a strict liability crime, as in, it's punishable simply as a matter of being irresponsible and undesired behaviour, and voids any insurance. Meaning, whatever percentage of blame you get saddled with and no matter what fraction of settlements you have to pay, you are fully responsible for paying your whole settlement, with no help from your insurance.

This isn't universal, strict liability is not even a thing in all jurisdictions, as in, merely being irresponsible is not usually a crime. You might not be guilty of anything despite being irresponsible.

You still have to change the way you act if you want things to change. Having to pay 50% of a settlement does not mean you should only put on your seatbelt 50% of the time. It does not mean it was 50% responsible decision to not wear a seatbelt. It was 100% irresponsible even before anything happened.

Segev
2023-03-22, 11:42 AM
And I have been on a lot of car trips and can say that usually not wearing a seatbelt is more comfortable than wearing it - which is why people don't wear seatbelts, leading to avoidable damages.

What, really? I don't even notice I'm wearing a seatbelt most of the time when driving.

Talakeal
2023-03-22, 11:53 AM
And I have been on a lot of car trips and can say that usually not wearing a seatbelt is more comfortable than wearing it - which is why people don't wear seatbelts, leading to avoidable damages.

Correct. But driving is a utilitarian activity with lethal consequences. Gaming is a recreational activity with only minor social consequences.

Also, I am probably not the most receptive audience for this analogy as I almost always choose comfort over safety.

Batcathat
2023-03-22, 12:02 PM
Maybe this has already been asked and answered without me noticing, but... assuming you find a way to completely stop this kind of cheating consistently without becoming impractical or upsetting the group in any way, do you want to keep the player in question?

Because it seems to me that someone who'd consistently cheat like this would probably just find another way to do so and even if they can't or won't, other people might still enjoy the game less being paranoid about what she might do.

Talakeal
2023-03-22, 12:07 PM
Maybe this has already been asked and answered without me noticing, but... assuming you find a way to completely stop this kind of cheating consistently without becoming impractical or upsetting the group in any way, do you want to keep the player in question?

Because it seems to me that someone who'd consistently cheat like this would probably just find another way to do so and even if they can't or won't, other people might still enjoy the game less being paranoid about what she might do.

On the fence.

She is really enthusiastic about the game; she always shows up and never cancels, she pays attention, she reads the rules and setting materials, etc. Its very refreshing.

On the other hand, she is a cheater, and makes wacky attention seeking characters.

Cygnia
2023-03-22, 12:10 PM
Have you asked the rest of the group if they want her around?

Talakeal
2023-03-22, 12:13 PM
Have you asked the rest of the group if they want her around?

Yes. Their response is pretty much "Cheating bugs them, but they can tune it out. They will abide by my decision either way, but won't actually do anything to back me up or talk to her about it".

KorvinStarmast
2023-03-22, 12:42 PM
I know it's less fun than rolling dice, but it does solve the difficulty of having to get up and walk around as people roll one by one. I side with Vanahvoi as regards "get up and roll them where I can see them" isn't a big ask. It's trivial.

Minimum standard is
- Dice rolled after they are called for.
- Must be rolled in the designated dice rolling area
- only flat dice that stay in the designated area count
- Must be witnessed by at least one other person at the table. [NB edit for for clarity I’m not saying another person must actually read the dice, but that if they wanted to they could do so]
- Dice are not picked up until after the action is adjudicated and finished.
This is what happens in every other game that uses dice. It is no inconvenience. That is my experience also.

Any time you make something that could be trivial non-trivial by your own choices, the responsibility for the consequence falls on you. Even if you manage to justify your choices and prove you are, in a sense, right, you are still fully responsibility for the situation. We get to the heart of the matter. Now hold that thought...

Talakeal says he wants to play in a high trust environment. But how do you build trust? This minor inconvenience of getting to a table to roll a die where other people can see it is a way a player visibly shows to every other player their commitment to and co-operation with game rules. It's the minimal effort for minimum guarantee of fairness It's a two way street. Everyone at the table has a stake in a fair game.

Wouldn't booting her out also just be punting the problem to the next GM?

You know, she joined our group because she got kicked out of her last group. She said it was because the GM's wife was paranoid about him hanging out with other women, but I have to wonder if the truth didn't have more to do with her cheating. Let's see, she got thrown out of another group and you all took the plunge, eyes open, and let her into yours. OK, each group has its own risk assessments. Good for you all, as a table, to give her another chance.

Maybe it was both! Cheating and cheating! Drama!!! :biggrin: Laughed I did. :smallbiggrin:

Also, I am probably not the most receptive audience for this analogy as I almost always choose comfort over safety. And I won't forget to put roses on your grave. (Two quataloos for whomever gets that lyric reference without looking it up).

She is really enthusiastic about the game; she always shows up and never cancels, she pays attention, she reads the rules and setting materials, etc. Its very refreshing.

On the other hand, she is a cheater, and makes wacky attention seeking characters. OK, there's a "weighing in the balance" issue here, so how about the rest of your group? (As I asked you in my initial response, pages ago before percentages of blame side tracked the conversation ...)

Their response is pretty much "Cheating bugs them, but they can tune it out. They will abide by my decision either way, but won't actually do anything to back me up or talk to her about it". You have just answered your own question.
You haven't booted her yet, and the rest of the group can put up with it.

My recommendation to you is this: quit complaining and go play.

Batcathat
2023-03-22, 01:07 PM
You have just answered your own question.
You haven't booted her yet, and the rest of the group can put up with it.

My recommendation to you is this: quit complaining and go play.

People can put up with quite a lot if they feel like they have to, that doesn't mean that allowing it is the best idea. I'm not sure what should be done, but I'd recommend that it's something other than having everyone else put up with something that bugs them.

False God
2023-03-22, 02:25 PM
Doubtful; the claim was that the DM's wife was paranoid, not that she had reason to be. And if the prior DM had been the sort to validate the wife's alleged paranoia, I'm sure the player in question would be adding in how she felt creeped out by said DM perving at/hitting on her. Conversely, if the wife's alleged paranoia was justified due to the player-in-question's own behavior re: flirting with DMs, I suspect Talakeal would find himself being flirted with, what with that (i.e. "flirting with the GM") being a tactic a player could theoretically use to also gain advantage in the game.

I really think you're missing that my comment was supposed to be taken humorously. :smalltongue:
Although I'm not sure the forum has a color capable of conveying that...

gbaji
2023-03-22, 03:02 PM
To be fair, blame, responsibility, and fault all have distinct meanings and I have been using them more or less interchangeably.

Yeah. And I tend to use them interchangeably as well (heck. Had a hard time not doing so when writing some of the previous posts). I do find that a good rule of thumb is that when someone says something that you think is totally wrong, absurd, ofensive, whatever, instead of assuming the intended meaning is what you interpreted it to be, ask the person what they actually meant. There are lots of common words and phrases that we use that can have varying meanings, which may change things quite a bit. The person writing may have had one meaning in mind, but you read it with a different meaning. Then disagreement sparks.

Asking "when you said <quote>, did you mean <longer definition/description> or <different long definition/description> or <maybe more>? Get clarification. I've found that a really high percentage of disagreements (especially online) actually revolve around different interpretations of the words being used, and not so much differnces in actual opinion on something. Just think of how many times you've seen folks argue back and forth only for the resolution to be "oh. I thought you meant X, when you said Y, and not Z", and then they find some middle ground. Happens a lot (although that does not discount actual differences of opinion on things, of course)

And sometimes, like in this case, it's a matter of perspective and how you actually apply different concepts in "real life". Again, I don't think a single person meant to imply that a person who cheats on their dice is not to blame for their cheating. But we got there anyway, right? And yeah, sometimes it's just a different way of looking at a concept like "responsiblity". Some may thing "this one person is responsible". But others may view it as "we are all responsible, just for differnt specific things".

On of my current guilty pleasures on TV is a show called Air Disasters. Basically, they examine various air related accidents including a lot of investigation as to what exactly happened (which I find fascinating). One of the common themes that is brought up in this show is that accidents never have just one cause. It's always a series of actions/events, often taken by or involving different people, that lead to a disaster. And simply trying to point the finger of "blame" at one person/thing isn't terribly useful or helpful. The better solution is to find out how to change the way each of those involved components/people behave so as to prevent the same thing happening again.

Placing blame is rarely actually a useful thing. Finding each and every "contributing factor", and making changes.... is. And I find the same sort of approach may work well for this cheating situation as well. Confronting the one player and accusing her of cheating isn't going to accomplish much (in the same way that finding and blaming one maintenance guy for failing to do their job correctly and causing a plane crash isn't). But changing the proceedures being used from ones in which cheating is easy to one where cheating is hard will tend to work well at preventing the same thing from happening in the future.

Talakeal
2023-03-22, 04:51 PM
Asking "when you said <quote>, did you mean <longer definition/description> or <different long definition/description> or <maybe more>? Get clarification. I've found that a really high percentage of disagreements (especially online) actually revolve around different interpretations of the words being used, and not so much differnces in actual opinion on something. Just think of how many times you've seen folks argue back and forth only for the resolution to be "oh. I thought you meant X, when you said Y, and not Z", and then they find some middle ground. Happens a lot (although that does not discount actual differences of opinion on things, of course)

In my experience asking someone what they meant to say is usually just taken as an attempt to strawman their position.


And sometimes, like in this case, it's a matter of perspective and how you actually apply different concepts in "real life". Again, I don't think a single person meant to imply that a person who cheats on their dice is not to blame for their cheating. But we got there anyway, right? And yeah, sometimes it's just a different way of looking at a concept like "responsiblity". Some may thing "this one person is responsible". But others may view it as "we are all responsible, just for different specific things".

I have talked and heard interviews with to a fair number of con-artists who say what they are doing isn't morally wrong because it's the victim's fault for falling for it. I imagine a lot of dice cheaters justify it the same way. Real life is full of victim blaming, so I don't think it's that off base an assumption.

Segev
2023-03-22, 05:23 PM
In my experience asking someone what they meant to say is usually just taken as an attempt to strawman their position.

Which is always confusing; if I wanted to strawman them, I'd just assume they said what I wanted them to, rather than asking them if I understand what they're saying correctly.

animorte
2023-03-22, 05:33 PM
Which is always confusing; if I wanted to strawman them, I'd just assume they said what I wanted them to, rather than asking them if I understand what they're saying correctly.
Segev has a quote in my signature for a reason, always attempting to maintain the quality of accurate communication.

The Glyphstone
2023-03-22, 06:03 PM
Yes. Their response is pretty much "Cheating bugs them, but they can tune it out. They will abide by my decision either way, but won't actually do anything to back me up or talk to her about it".

And I'm sure if you don't do anything about it they will find a way to blame you anyways.

Kish
2023-03-22, 06:08 PM
So... What's the real problem, then? Why is everybody handling this one player as a problem, when the rest of the table only has handles so they can fly off of them?
Yes, this.

At any other table I'd say "confront her or somehow make her stop." At Talakeal's table, I'm inclined to suggest ignoring her and telling any other player who asks about it, "Her cheating is [nth] on my list of problems," where n equals your total number of players. Pointedly.

Pauly
2023-03-22, 07:45 PM
To be fair, blame, responsibility, and fault all have distinct meanings and I have been using them more or less interchangeably.

Not just that but also jargon means some people will use a word in a tightly defined way and others use it in its more broad meaning. That also can lead to confusion as to what each person actually meant.

gbaji
2023-03-22, 07:51 PM
Which is always confusing; if I wanted to strawman them, I'd just assume they said what I wanted them to, rather than asking them if I understand what they're saying correctly.

Yeah. I don't get that either.

If I say "I like horse", the strawman response would be "OMG! How could you? What kind of monster likes the taste of horse meat? That's disgusting. Those poor innocent animals...", followed up by ignoring any attempt to clarify on my part, and insisting that I must defend my position on eating horses or admit to being "wrong" somehow.

The non strawman response (assuming you legitimately think the person is saying they like horses "to eat"), is to ask "Um... did you mean you like horses like as living animals, as a pet, or to ride maybe? Or did you mean you like the taste of horse meat?". Then, you allow the other person to clarify what they meant. And then you have a conversation about that actual meaning instead of a potential misunderstanding. You might realize that they just left off the "s" at the end, and that made the meaning seem very different than intended.

So yeah. I'm not seeing how that process can increase the likelihood of a strawman being employed. Now it can force people to stop and think about their own positions, express them clearly, and subject them to "real" counters. But that's not a strawman process. That's just legitimate argument/conversation.

KorvinStarmast
2023-03-22, 10:01 PM
People can put up with quite a lot if they feel like they have to, that doesn't mean that allowing it is the best idea. I'm not sure what should be done, but I'd recommend that it's something other than having everyone else put up with something that bugs them. If it bugs the GM that much, then the alternate recommendation is

"quit complaining and ask the players who is GMing the next game since you are fed up with having to put up with their issues"

but I do not see this GM doing that.

And here's the thing: I have seen a couple of DM/GMs do just that.

"I don't need to put up with this {insert issue/issues here} in my free time. This game/campaign is done, who is the next DM and what is the next game/campaign?"

The reason it worked is that they stuck to their guns and took a break from the GM/DM role.

Batcathat
2023-03-23, 01:06 AM
If it bugs the GM that much, then the alternate recommendation is

"quit complaining and ask the players who is GMing the next game since you are fed up with having to put up with their issues"

but I do not see this GM doing that.

And here's the thing: I have seen a couple of DM/GMs do just that.

"I don't need to put up with this {insert issue/issues here} in my free time. This game/campaign is done, who is the next DM and what is the next game/campaign?"

The reason it worked is that they stuck to their guns and took a break from the GM/DM role.

Sure, that's a solid option in both this case and other issues Talakeal has had. But my point was that in this case it's not even the wants of the players versus the wants of the GM, it's the wants of a single player versus the wants of the GM and all the other players. So doing nothing means the experience will be worse for everyone but the player who's breaking the rules, which seems like a poor outcome.

Cygnia
2023-03-23, 07:47 AM
So doing nothing means the experience will be worse for everyone but the player who's breaking the rules, which seems like a poor outcome.

Pretty much. Everyone else in this group seems so intent in not making waves or being the 'bad guy' in enforcing Actions Have Consequences that they'll do nothing but seethe on the sidelines rather than actually confront the problem in a meaningful way.

Geek Social Fallacy (https://plausiblydeniable.com/five-geek-social-fallacies/) #1 all over again...

EggKookoo
2023-03-23, 07:56 AM
Pretty much. Everyone else in this group seems so intent in not making waves or being the 'bad guy' in enforcing Actions Have Consequences that they'll do nothing but seethe on the sidelines rather than actually confront the problem in a meaningful way.

Geek Social Fallacy (https://plausiblydeniable.com/five-geek-social-fallacies/) #1 all over again...

Maybe. Don't mistake gradual escalation for a desire to avoid escalation entirely. If I suspect a player is cheating, I might decide to go with a less-confrontational solution first (e.g. insisting everyone use dice towers), before bringing down the hammer.

In general, if you can get a person to self-correct, that correction will last longer. At least IME.

Batcathat
2023-03-23, 11:38 AM
Pretty much. Everyone else in this group seems so intent in not making waves or being the 'bad guy' in enforcing Actions Have Consequences that they'll do nothing but seethe on the sidelines rather than actually confront the problem in a meaningful way.

Geek Social Fallacy (https://plausiblydeniable.com/five-geek-social-fallacies/) #1 all over again...

Which is kind of odd, considering Talakeal's problems are usually about players having complete meltdowns every fifteen minutes and accusing someone as soon as anything doesn't go their way.

So... progress? Maybe? :smallconfused:

Wintermoot
2023-03-23, 12:31 PM
Which is kind of odd, considering Talakeal's problems are usually about players having complete meltdowns every fifteen minutes and accusing someone as soon as anything doesn't go their way.

So... progress? Maybe? :smallconfused:

Maybe because it's a girl and girls are scary?

Durzan
2023-03-23, 01:57 PM
If you truly need to change the player, don't talk to her about her "cheating." Talk to her about how failures create three-dimensional characters, how success feels more rewarding when there is a chance of failure.

Then, have a session where her rolls don't matter. If her character wants to leap over a river, she succeeds. If she wants to do a called-shot to throw a dagger into the orc's Achilles tendon, she succeeds. Don't ask for rolls, just as for intent and give results. It won't actually impact the game (because she's saying she succeeds, anyway), but without the stress of lying and trying to hide, maybe she'll realize how little fun it is for the other players, since she'll most likely not have fun, either.


Burley's post from back on page two really got me thinking, but I think this part provides an interesting possible solution. Has anyone tried something similar? Was it effective?

Xervous
2023-03-24, 01:00 PM
Burley's post from back on page two really got me thinking, but I think this part provides an interesting possible solution. Has anyone tried something similar? Was it effective?

Biggest flaw I see in it is the assumptions of universal feelings and opinions. It presents some concepts as universal Goods and then seeks to work towards those concepts. It never stops to ask about desires and expectations. It’s not a conversation, it’s an infantilizing trip to the principal’s office for re-education.

gbaji
2023-03-24, 04:40 PM
Biggest flaw I see in it is the assumptions of universal feelings and opinions. It presents some concepts as universal Goods and then seeks to work towards those concepts. It never stops to ask about desires and expectations. It’s not a conversation, it’s an infantilizing trip to the principal’s office for re-education.

And it also falls into the "singling one player out and accusing them" category. Which I find rarely actually works out well, or accomplishes anything other than creating more conflict.

You either accept that some players will cheat in your game, and some players may even cheat "a lot" in your game, and just move on. Or you change the die rolling proceedures for the entire table, so as to reduce/eliminate cheating. I really doubt that anythinng else (short of tossing the one player) will work.

AvatarVecna
2023-04-12, 01:15 AM
Gotta be honest, I assume most players cheat at least a little, but I don't tend to mind. DMing is about delivering an experience IMO - if I feel the players are rolling too poorly or too well, I tend to adjust the experience a bit anyway, which would be "cheating" if I wasn't DM and therefore a higher authority than the books. Slightly more HP here, maybe a change in tactics to avoid killing an unlucky PC, pretending I didn't roll that crit behind the screen, pretending they've got an ability to counter a common tactic that would shut down the whole encounter I should've thought of but didn't because I'm an idiot...little things to make the encounters more fun and less of a stomp one way or the other, unless a stomp is what I'm going for. If players are fudging their rolls a bit, maybe hitting a bit more often than expected, I don't feel the strongest urge to call them out on it. What matters is that the players compare to the monsters as they should, and compare to each other as they should.

But if a player is being blatant about cheating? I got bad news buddy boy: I'm afraid of direct confrontation and am waaaaaaaaay more toxic than you are. Ohhhhhhh I'm so sorry, this enemy is actually blessed by the god of fair play and his AC is 10 points higher against extremely lucky people, how unfortunate.

Lord Torath
2023-04-12, 08:31 AM
Talakeal, care to give us an update on the cheating situation? It's not really any of my business, but I am curious how things worked out.

Talakeal
2023-04-12, 10:27 AM
Talakeal, care to give us an update on the cheating situation? It's not really any of my business, but I am curious how things worked out.

No real progress yet. I am not sure what the last update I gave was, but last time we played I was watching her really closely and didn't give her the chance, and in the end she suicided her character and made a new one because her build doesn't function without cheating.

We haven't played since. Next game on Sunday.

This weekend I plan on having a talk with everyone about table etiquette, including not rolling in secret, talking things out, and minding your own business. I will tell you how it goes.

gatorized
2023-06-28, 06:16 PM
No real progress yet. I am not sure what the last update I gave was, but last time we played I was watching her really closely and didn't give her the chance, and in the end she suicided her character and made a new one because her build doesn't function without cheating.

We haven't played since. Next game on Sunday.

This weekend I plan on having a talk with everyone about table etiquette, including not rolling in secret, talking things out, and minding your own business. I will tell you how it goes.

If the GM didn't call for a roll, it automatically fails.

Roll in the open or leave the table.

Khedrac
2023-06-29, 02:20 AM
She is really enthusiastic about the game; she always shows up and never cancels, she pays attention, she reads the rules and setting materials, etc. Its very refreshing.

I admit I haven't read the entire thread, but I do think it worth saying that you probably need to tell the player this. If you just concentrate on trying to stop their cheating they may think you want to get rid of them but are too polite to kick them out. If you stress that they are a great player cheating aside (particularly for doing the background reading) they may feel a lot more confident in their presence and less need to cheat.

truemane
2023-06-29, 07:37 AM
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