Should the GM "cheat"?

[Hubert]

Hello everyone. I'd like to have your opinion on this topic: should the GM "cheat"? And if so, in which situations?

To explain, let's take an example. You, as a GM, decide to throw an encounter to your players. You think that this encounter is appropriated for their level, but for some reasons the party is wiped out. Maybe you were exceptionally lucky, or the players were exceptionally unlucky, or they made bad tactical decisions,... Let's say that their very survival will depend on one dice throw. You roll the dice and it appears that all the players should be dead. Assuming that your dice rolls were secret, would you follow strictly the rules (and hand to your player new character sheets), or bend the rules (so that your awesome campaign is not ruined at its very beginning)?

[dsmiles]

Depends on the situation. If the players are all "into" the campaign, I'd probably fudge the dice and let them live. If they weren't, they get the "DECEASED" stamp all around (which I normally reserve for Darwinian demises, and, yes, I do have a 4" wide stamp that prints DECEASED in large, red, capital letters).

EDIT: Ultimately, it comes down to, "Are the players having fun with these characters?"

[Kylarra]

Personally I believe that the GM should "cheat", as it is defined for the purposes of this thread, in moderation. My basic rule of thumb is player agency, if a TPK is falling from something that they had no control over, say random encounter or somesuch, then sure I'll "cheat" because for my group it would be dumb to TPK when they had no chance to stop it. They're utterly aware that I know the rules better than they do and if I wanted them dead without trying it can happen, so there's no point in demonstrating that in an apparently arbitrary manner. Much better for the enjoyment of all if it just leaves them battered and bruised. If the players themselves are being dumb, well, I do always ask "are you sure?", so let those dice fall where they may.

[Frog Dragon]

I personally, would nudge the dice a bit. Rule of fun and all that. It's not much fun to die to the first gnoll you encounter.

[Esser-Z]

Personally I believe that the GM should "cheat", as it is defined for the purposes of this thread, in moderation. My basic rule of thumb is player agency, if a TPK is falling from something that they had no control over, say random encounter or somesuch, then sure I'll "cheat" because for my group it would be dumb to TPK when they had no chance to stop it. They're utterly aware that I know the rules better than they do and if I wanted them dead without trying it can happen, so there's no point in demonstrating that in an apparently arbitrary manner. Much better for the enjoyment of all if it just leaves them battered and bruised. If the players themselves are being dumb, well, I do always ask "are you sure?", so let those dice fall where they may.

This. Just... this!

[Ormagoden]

Yes, but not to win.

[Ignition]

I think it's inevitable that most GMs run by fiat far more than they care to admit - though some I've met make no bones about it, and I love them dearly for it . I don't think that, per se, is cheating, though, since that's such a loaded word. It's playing by Rule 0 - defined by Urban Dictionary as "The unwritten rule of tabletop Role Playing Games: The Game/Dungeon Master has the right to veto anything any player says, he has the right to change any rule or make up his own, he need not explain why he choses to do these things. If players complain the GM may choose any of the following to do to the player; slap, call a (Censored), restrict snackage privileges and/or threaten injury to ingame character(be it through loss of xp, health, items or gold) ". To me, by playing Rule 0, you are never cheating, from a certain point of view

Rules are, for the most part, intended to be an arbiter of fairness in games, of balance and of equality between players and GMs. All of that is very important to helping promote an atmosphere of fun, and really, this is a game, it should be fun, right? However, to make something unequal is to make it interesting, to make it challenging, and I don't know about you but I get more enjoyment out of interesting challenges than I do from "no-win" scenarios, even if they are "fair". Naturally there are extremes to both ends, where a GM can Rule 0 so much the game loses all definition, or you play so close to the rules that you can't do anything without a say-so from someone else. If the point of "balance" in games is to make them fun, then the rules themselves have to be balanced between encouraging fairness and encouraging challenges.

Let's be honest, though: most rule systems have loose ends and gaps meant for GM interpretation. There are only so many pages to fit so many rules - and, for that matter, only so much attention span you can fill before you start missing the point of the game, which is to have fun. It's a careful balancing act, and there's no real right answer for everyone; that's why you and your GM have to really work together, rather than against one another, to make Rule 0 work to its fullest extent.

So, TL;DR - It's not cheating to use GM Fiat, since GM Fiat is written into the rules of most systems to one degree or another. Just have fun and promote fun wherever you go in a game

[valadil]

Depends on the game and the players. I used to fudge dice all the time. But I stopped doing it in my current game. One session I just didn't want to bother with the screen so I rolled dice in the open. I really liked the results, so I stuck with it.

Playing by the dice allows for weirder results. Sometimes the dice do strange things. If you've established that you're fudging, players will think you're cheating unless normalcy happens. When I roll in the open, my NPCs can crit 5 times in a row. Or my AoE attack can hit 4 PCs and 0 NPCs. I see this as an opening up of possibilities.

It's also easy to fudge too much. I don't mind when a GM fudges. I do mind when I notice. I get that they're trying to improve the combat. But if I see them fudging, the combat becomes worthless to me.

I'm coming across as more anti-fudge than intended. In previous games I fudged constantly. I think the difference was the system. When I ran 3.5, it was really easy to make an encounter too weak or too powerful. 4th ed's XP budget guidelines do a better job of making balanced encounters than 3.5's CR system ever did. I used to fudge because I had to. Either fights ended in one round or the PCs died. Fudging was necessary, unless I wanted to run trial combats (I didn't) and tweak things until the fight became fair. With a system that gives you better balance in encounters, fudging to correct your own mistakes becomes obsolete.

Oh and I'd also like to add that you can still fudge combats without changing die rolls. Until the MM3 damage update, I was making bigger fights than the DMG recommended. When that update hit I did not adjust the fights accordingly and had to do some fudging to keep my previous adjustments (250 XP of extra enemies) from killing the PCs. Instead of changing die rolls I made the monsters forget their action points and take a little extra damage. I don't expect enemies to play optimally all the time anyway.

I'll admit to one other bit of fudging I've been doing in 4e. I cheat on initiative. Well, as of last session I've been cheating initiative. We'll see how it works out. Basically I roll all my initiative dice at once and give the highest roll to the fastest monster, lowest roll to the slowest monster, etc. I like this because it encourages a more staggered initiative order, but still offers the chance for there to be 3 monsters in a row followed by 4 PCs. What I don't like about it is that it almost guarantees that an NPC will go first in every combat. That part feels like cheating, but I haven't decided if I'll do something about it. Maybe throw in another 1 or 2 dice and remove the highest?

[Xefas]

I'd like to have your opinion on this topic: should the GM "cheat"? And if so, in which situations?

I guess just ask yourself "Would I tolerate being bored and having no fun at all for hours on end, if I knew that at least the GM isn't cheating utilizing a system we all agreed upon such that we would have the maximum amount of fun possible, that also explicitly states that he should cheat if it makes things more fun or interesting?"

If no, then you've set the precedent for there being at least some situation in which cheating should be done (i.e. when everyone is miserable while following the rules).

I guess the degree of situation is up to each individual person to decide their preference.

Me? I'd play freeform, given the chance. Most rules are generally nothing more than obstacles to me, and 'cheating' at any of them is 100% okay in my book, so long as it adds to the enjoyment of everyone at the table. That goes for players too. I know that's a weird idea, but, yeah, if you can do something incredibly awesome that improves everyone's night unambiguously, do it! ****in' cheat!.

Obviously this requires a group of people that are friendly, like-minded, and know each other's expectations beforehand, as not to offend.

[Satyr]

I don't like to cheat as a gamemaster, neither to make the game harder nor to grow soft on the players.

It is certainly debatable, but I think that changing the results of dice to soften up a threat cheats the player of their triumphs. Without a significant risk, the overcoming of the threat is significantly lessened. I prefer to make the players work for their victories, because they become much sweeter by it.
And when one suffers a tragedy, this is fate as well and adds to the verisimilitude of the game.

[JaxGaret]

Playing by the dice allows for weirder results. Sometimes the dice do strange things. If you've established that you're fudging, players will think you're cheating unless normalcy happens. When I roll in the open, my NPCs can crit 5 times in a row. Or my AoE attack can hit 4 PCs and 0 NPCs. I see this as an opening up of possibilities.

It's also easy to fudge too much. I don't mind when a GM fudges. I do mind when I notice. I get that they're trying to improve the combat. But if I see them fudging, the combat becomes worthless to me.

This is basically my stance as well. Fudging is sometimes necessary, but for the most part it should be completely avoided, especially when the plot is on the line. Let the story tell itself. Let the combat resolve itself, and adjust the story accordingly.

Of course, this takes more work as the DM - you have to incorporate random elements into your campaign on the fly. But that's what it takes to run a good campaign.

I'll admit to one other bit of fudging I've been doing in 4e. I cheat on initiative. Well, as of last session I've been cheating initiative. We'll see how it works out. Basically I roll all my initiative dice at once and give the highest roll to the fastest monster, lowest roll to the slowest monster, etc. I like this because it encourages a more staggered initiative order, but still offers the chance for there to be 3 monsters in a row followed by 4 PCs. What I don't like about it is that it almost guarantees that an NPC will go first in every combat. That part feels like cheating, but I haven't decided if I'll do something about it. Maybe throw in another 1 or 2 dice and remove the highest?

This change makes combat slightly more difficult for PCs, due to the fact that in general, the higher XP monsters will likely have higher Init bonuses. You should give the PCs a small XP bonus accordingly.

[valadil]

This change makes combat slightly more difficult for PCs, due to the fact that in general, the higher XP monsters will likely have higher Init bonuses. You should give the PCs a small XP bonus accordingly.

So far I've only used it on a large group of lower level enemies. It worked out fine there. Against a single high level enemy, well the enemy only gets one die so it's not so bad. I think that where I'll have to be careful is with one big enemy and a lot of mooks. In those cases I'll probably just drop this rule instead of trying to figure out how much XP its worth.

[ericgrau]

Some say yes, but IMO no. It cheapens successes when you're on the brink of death for the 11th time, and makes the game less dependent on player ingenuity so they're less likely to stay alert and on their toes. Instead I might lower the CR but warn players I never pull punches. Someone may still die, but TPK is unlikely that way.

[Snake-Aes]

GMs, as the assigned authority on what happens with the world, don't cheat. Their will is what happens.

That said, bypassing rules is something that should be very, very subtle and preferably scarce, lest the players will get the feeling they can't rely on what they know of the world.

[Person_Man]

I allow my players to roll almost all of the dice in the game. If an enemy attacks them, they roll it. They roll the monster's saving throws, opposed checks, etc. If an enemy makes a check that the players can't know (like a Hide, Spot, or Bluff check) then the enemy Takes 10. I've found that the extra fun value of rolling all the dice far outweighs the un-fun down side of occasional death. And the PCs always feel that I'm being fair, because they know that they had a chance to avoid being killed if only they had rolled differently.

Also, virtually all of my encounters can be resolved in multiple ways. For example, instead of tracking the Ogre down to his cave and killing him in combat, the PCs can try to sneak poison into his food or lure him into a trap. If ambushed, they're often given a chance to surrender. If captured by a monster, they're brought back to the cave to be eaten later. Mooks can often be convinced or bribed into abandoning their BBEG. The denizens of dungeons have "day jobs" and/or routines (they leave to find food, sleep, go out in raiding parties, etc). And so on. If PCs are in over their heads in an encounter, it's usually their own fault for attacking a more powerful enemy head on.

[Lord Loss]

Only if it makes for a more enjoyable game. In your case, I would fudge in fsvor of the PCs. In others, you can fudge for the monsters, making them seem scarier (horror games) or so that tehy don't one shot tour BBEG because of poor rolls. It should be used sparsely, but the objective of the game is to create a tale that's fun for everyone. Or at least that's my take on it.

[Mushroom Ninja]

If, as GM, you are certain that the game will be improved by your fudging something, then go ahead. However, if there is any doubt at all, I suggest erring on the side of not cheating.

[Ruinix]

Hello everyone. I'd like to have your opinion on this topic: should the GM "cheat"? And if so, in which situations?

To explain, let's take an example. You, as a GM, decide to throw an encounter to your players. You think that this encounter is appropriated for their level, but for some reasons the party is wiped out. Maybe you were exceptionally lucky, or the players were exceptionally unlucky, or they made bad tactical decisions,... Let's say that their very survival will depend on one dice throw. You roll the dice and it appears that all the players should be dead. Assuming that your dice rolls were secret, would you follow strictly the rules (and hand to your player new character sheets), or bend the rules (so that your awesome campaign is not ruined at its very beginning)?

we alredy discuss this.

the DM should not cheat ever.

that its. if the all thing depend on 1 throw, and u WANT or NEED or what ever a succeful or a failure, then dont throw, just say what happend.

if the players screw it with a bad tactic so be it. if the players had bad luck, **** happend. if u have too much luck, **** happend.

the game have a narrator and rules for something. cheat or fudge a rol is the easy mindless way out the situation.

be creative and fullfil ur rol as narrator.

[The Big Dice]

I'm a firm believr that a GM should cheat outrageously. A Gm should completely ignore the rules when required. Don't just fudge the dice, roll them for the noise they make and then pick the result you wanted. Change encounters and NPCs not just on the fly, but while they are in progress and generally don't follow the same proceures and processes as the players.

But only to make the game better for the players, never for self aggrandisement or personal ego massage or other selfish reasons.

I mean, it's not like your NPCs have to be rolled up in the same way as the players made their characters. You cherry pick every aspect of an NPC, so why not apply the same thought process to every aspect of your game? Including the actual process of playing it.

I've seen some people claim that they never "cheat" and that they roll all their dice right there in front of the players. And that's fine as long as you accept that you're guaranteeing that one day you're going to have a run of fluke rolls that ends with a TPK. I call that style of play "Iron Man" and that's how I run Cyberpunk. If the dice say your number is up, your character dies.

But it doesn't have to be like that. You can hide your dice rolls and have an NPC fail a save that they passed, or roll much lower damage than they really did without ever breaking the illusion that the characters are in real danger of death. Which is useful in high lethality games like Legend of the Five Rings or GURPS. Or low level D&D (other than 4th ed), come to think of it.

You can also mix it up with encounters and combats. It's still cheating if you go off the flight plan your notes give you.

Suppose the BBEG dies in a massive anticlimax in the first round of combat, having been set up as a huge threat. You could double his hit points, or alter them so that he had one more than the damage he took and then have hordes of minions storm the chamber the battle is in.

Yes, you cheated. But you did it in such a way that the players don't think of it, and it keeps the exitement levels up in your game session. And that's what it's all about at the end of the day.

[Tharck]

The DMG goes over cheating or not towards the beginning of the book. I find cheating intolerable. I think as a beginning DM it might be needed to curve some of your mess ups, but it should never be used to make an encounter more challenging. So the PCs had an easy time, whatever.

Cheating generally brings into question things like: I dont want to kill PC-A because they are new, love their char, are enjoying the game, have had bad luck, are my girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife/PersonIWantToGetWith. But when PC-B who knows a good deal of the game is on the brink of death its easier to kill them. The root of cheating is favoritism and there should be none at the table.

Cheating is never fair.

And denying a person the kill on the BBEG because he rolled a 1 on his save and got one shot is about the lamest thing, imho, that a DM can ever do.

Can my PC decide not to die?

[Drakevarg]

I never fudge dice. I WILL, however, allow an entire scene to be retconned out if something bad happens due to an honest mistake of my own. For example, in my campaign's last session, I accidently caused a TPK by fiddling around with variant zombies from Libris Mortis. Deciding it was bad judgement on my part to pit first level characters (with no cleric) against zombies that had Fast Healing 5 AND DR 5/Slashing, I removed the variants and simply stated "that didn't happen."

[Tyndmyr]

Hello everyone. I'd like to have your opinion on this topic: should the GM "cheat"? And if so, in which situations?

To explain, let's take an example. You, as a GM, decide to throw an encounter to your players. You think that this encounter is appropriated for their level, but for some reasons the party is wiped out. Maybe you were exceptionally lucky, or the players were exceptionally unlucky, or they made bad tactical decisions,... Let's say that their very survival will depend on one dice throw. You roll the dice and it appears that all the players should be dead. Assuming that your dice rolls were secret, would you follow strictly the rules (and hand to your player new character sheets), or bend the rules (so that your awesome campaign is not ruined at its very beginning)?

Well, first off, I roll my dice in the open. So, cheating is very likely not a possibility without it being overt, and doing so overtly would frankly spoil the game.

However, it's never come up. Why? First off, appropriate encounters are fairly easy to design. Luck plays a factor, but in any battle, lots of attacks are made, and dice rolled. It takes a rather large swing to go from normal fight to TPK.

More importantly, most fights I design are not "you must kill all of X or die". Sometimes the party can surrender. Frequently, they have the ability to run away. Occasionally, they have powerful resources available(scrolls, etc) that they can use to survive, but that they'll conserve unless they really have to use them. Plenty of fights can also be circumvented, or approached in a strategic manner to reduce risk. On some occasions, death is not the end, as ressurection of some sort might be possible, or even use of ghosts, etc.

Now, if the party ignores all strategy, charges in to something stupidly strong, and fights to the death, well...such is life. Hopefully their next characters will be wiser.

Note: The only time I've *ever* had to TPK an entire party was in tomb of horrors, when they all held hands and walked into the demon's mouth.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Ah, a perennial favorite.

IMHO, a DM should only cheat when he has been unfair to his players. If he has mis-CR'd an encounter, or made a disasterous rules decision, he needs to "cheat" until the books are balanced. If the PCs are dying because of their own mistakes or misfortune, the dice must fall as the may.

A DM must never cheat to thwart PC actions. Don't inflate the HP of baddies, don't cause their attacks to miss whent hey should hit, and under no circumstances say "it just doesn't work, OK!"

EDIT: Oh yeah, and make sure nobody sees you cheat. When the PCs suspect that you are cheating - even in their favor - everything goes to hell.

[dsmiles]

Note: The only time I've *ever* had to TPK an entire party was in tomb of horrors, when they all held hands and walked into the demon's mouth.

Don't you mean 'skipped merrily into the demon's mouth?' I've played ToH (the original), and there ain't no comin' back. We tried to run away, and we still lost. (Of course, 1e AD&D was more lethal than any other edition I've played, and I'm trying to bring back that feeling in 4e.)

[Volos]

First of all, the DM can never cheat at a tabletop roleplaying game anymore then a computer can cheat at a video game. When you are the first, only, and final ruling of what is and isn't possible, much less what does and doesn't happen; how can you cheat?

But on a more serious note, why is this a topic that is constantly brought up? Either players who feel that they have been cheated out of a fun time by an overly controlling DM or DMs who feel they have no power to do anything to their overly cheesy players end up asking this question over and over again. "Can the DM cheat?" Either way the answer is still no, as there isn't anything the DM can do to cheat. And neither can the players. If the DM decides that everyone dies, no save. It happens. If the players decide that they have +infinity Base Attack Bonus, they aren't cheating, because the DM can just say "No." Anything the DM allows is automatically rules legit. Anything he doesn't allow is illegal and you won't be doing it.

Why can't people just learn to play the game and let the little things go?

[Esser-Z]

First of all, the DM can never cheat at a tabletop roleplaying game anymore then a computer can cheat at a video game. When you are the first, only, and final ruling of what is and isn't possible, much less what does and doesn't happen; how can you cheat?

About that computer...

[Yukitsu]

I think they can if they want to, but I think as well that failure is always an option.

Or more to the style of 3.5, raise dead is always an option.

If the players get killed, that's really OK at most levels. Just get the raise dead and carry on. Cheating for drama and character continuation is should be used more often however, for games that have perma death or limit resurrection magic.

[Tengu_temp]

I sometimes fudge rolls when it makes the story better, more interesting - sometimes to the players' advantage, sometimes to their disadvantage, though in the latter case I always try to make it up for them in some other way. "Fudging the rolls to keep PCs from dying takes all the challenge out of the game" is a very gamist viewpoint, one that I do not share - for me RPGs are, first and foremost, about telling interesting stories, not about providing the PCs with carefully balanced encounters where the DM doesn't intervene in order to stay fair, nor about running a gritty world where even the hero of the story can die easily when he gets unlucky. These approaches work for some people, they don't work for me.

[The Big Dice]

Well, first off, I roll my dice in the open. So, cheating is very likely not a possibility without it being overt, and doing so overtly would frankly spoil the game.

However, it's never come up. Why? First off, appropriate encounters are fairly easy to design. Luck plays a factor, but in any battle, lots of attacks are made, and dice rolled. It takes a rather large swing to go from normal fight to TPK.

This begs a question. Do NPCs want to live, or are they there simply to die?

The answer to that question is absolutely critical. An NPC that doesn't want to live isn't a threat. Therefore the character was never in danger and therefore there's little to no risk, barring fluke rolls.

As for how long it takes a fight to go south and end with a TPK, tht does vary based on the size of your gaming group. but I find if a half of the characters present in the scene go down within a round or two of each other, the chances of a TPK just went up exponentially.

Also it depends on the relative lethality of the system you're playing. One lucky hit from a peasant can kill a high rank L5R character, a single head hit from an assault rifle will probably kill a Cyberpunk character and three crits in a row from a CR appropriate enemy will more than likely kill a D&D 3.5 character.

Ah, a perennial favorite.

IMHO, a DM should only cheat when he has been unfair to his players. If he has mis-CR'd an encounter, or made a disasterous rules decision, he needs to "cheat" until the books are balanced. If the PCs are dying because of their own mistakes or misfortune, the dice must fall as the may.

A DM must never cheat to thwart PC actions. Don't inflate the HP of baddies, don't cause their attacks to miss whent hey should hit, and under no circumstances say "it just doesn't work, OK!"

How do you define "been unfair to the players" without including the idea that an encounter that they had been anticipating was unsatisfyingly easy? Surely that's the very definition of being ufair: building their hopes up and then dashing them down with an anticlimax.

It's like telling them Santa doesn't exist and there's no Easter Bunny.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and make sure nobody sees you cheat. When the PCs suspect that you are cheating - even in their favor - everything goes to hell.

My players know I cheat, I make no bones about it. What they don't know is when I'm cheating. Especially as there's times when I'll life the GM screen and show them a particularly good or bad roll.

That's the thing, I cheat both ways: for the players and against the NPCs.

[Mr.Moron]

I wouldn't fudge a TPK. However I would do something like an adventure in the afterlife where the party earns their return to mortal realm by doing favors for some entity capable of reviving them.