Player Blatantly Fudges Results

[Ignatius]

I am looking for suggestions on how to resolve issues like this (which are very frequent by one specific player at our table each and every gaming session)

Player 1: [Rolls a 5] That will be 29 to hit.

Player 2: Wow, +24 to hit on a level 6 character. That's awesome. How do you manage that.

Player 1: Oh, its complicated. I have a lot of bonuses going at the moment.

DM: [Looks at 4E Power Card] But this says +12 to attack, where is the other + 12 coming from?

Player 1: [Shuffles papers] Umm... Ahh... Well that will only be 17 to hit then.

What are your suggestions to this. Obviously the player is cheating and the player must surely know that the rest of us know that he is cheating. So what do you do?

One of the players messaged me and suggested I roll up a halfling barbarian character for him to play with low INT, CHA and WIS so that he has to just hit things with a stick and not get a chance to do anything else?!

[gbprime]

Not much you can do. Require everyone at the table to roll dice out in the open where other players can see them so that peer pressure works FOR you. And if they're still that much of a problem, suggest that they can play fair or not play. (That may or may not be an option depending on your group dynamic, but it bears mention.)

[CodeRed]

DM gets a copy of his character sheet so that he knows all of the players bonuses on rolls. If the player is going to blatantly cheat like that then he gets babysit until he grows up.

[arguskos]

Kick him the hell out? If it's been made clear such behavior is unacceptable and he continues to do it, he has no place at the table. Tell him to get the hell out or cut that behavior out.

[KillianHawkeye]

How about any time he blatantly lies, his action automatically fails. If the poor behavior persists, start applying horrific results instead of just vanilla failure. (You accidently chop your arm off! Take 25 damage. )

[Psyren]

DM gets a copy of his character sheet so that he knows all of the players bonuses on rolls. If the player is going to blatantly cheat like that then he gets babysit until he grows up.

A winner is you

To add some content to this post: I think kicking him out is a last resort, there's still plenty of chances for him to straighten up and fly right. Besides, he might be a perfectly fun guy to be around other than the fudging for all we know.

[Safety Sword]

Rocks fall. Only cheaters get hit by them.

[JaronK]

Maybe he's really bad at math? Confirmation bias would cause him to regularly estimate up instead of down.

JaronK

[Ignatius]

DM gets a copy of his character sheet so that he knows all of the players bonuses on rolls. If the player is going to blatantly cheat like that then he gets babysit until he grows up.

I am the DM and I make sure I have everyone's character sheets everytime there is a level up.

A few sessions ago I was watching him print his character sheet from the offline character builder and noticed that he had ticked 'inherrint bonuses' as well as using the magical items he has been getting for loot and he started to argue his case until all the other players chimed in that none of them have had that on.

So this session I arranged it so that he would be sitting right next to me to see what he would do, and he still fudged his rolls.

I will be interested to see if he does it again next session now it is clear that everyone is 100% sure that he is doing it, but I wanted to have something good to use if he does so that the other players dont feel cheated.

[Katana_Geldar]

DM gets a copy of his character sheet so that he knows all of the players bonuses on rolls. If the player is going to blatantly cheat like that then he gets babysit until he grows up.

This, I have a copy of all my players sheets anyway just in case they lose theirs.

[Kaun]

I had the same issue at one time, Even calling him out on his "Maths fails" as he would call them when he miss added the outcome wasn't enough.

So i would keep upping his target number and nobody elses, i could see by the look on his face he new that his tn was higher then the other players but he never had the balls to call me on it.

[Balain]

I like the idea that he has higher Target Numbers than the rest of the party.

[DukeofDellot]

I have players that I have to do all the arithmetic for... I have other players who have asked me what arithmetic was... not fun times. But the habit has invalidated a few fudging moments...

[turkishproverb]

Start demanding he construct his characters in front of you, without character builder. Make sure he knows what he can and cannot do. Then if he tries anything, nail him to a wall. Literally.

[valadil]

I knew a guy who did similar. He'd roll a d20 and if the result was below 5, he'd declare "that's BS" and reroll it.

I attempted to diffuse the situation with humor. I told him we were playing the d20 system, not the d16+4 system. It went right over his head.

The GM handled the situation correctly. Any time the player did this he automatically failed, even if the original roll was a success.

I vote for something similar in this case. Your GM should check this guy's rolls for him. Your GM won't even need to take a ton of notes. Get his highest attack bonus and note that. It doesn't matter if he accidentally uses his dex on a charisma attack or something - that's insignificant compared to random +12s. Deal with the big offenses first. Also note his trained skills and maybe his HP. That should be enough and you won't have to keep a second copy of his character sheet around.

[Strife Warzeal]

I knew a guy who did similar. He'd roll a d20 and if the result was below 5, he'd declare "that's BS" and reroll it.

I attempted to diffuse the situation with humor. I told him we were playing the d20 system, not the d16+4 system. It went right over his head.

The joke kinda went over my head too... Mind explaining it?

[arguskos]

The joke kinda went over my head too... Mind explaining it?

You can't roll under 5 in a d16+4 style. The joke is that he was acting as though the lowest possible number was 5, instead of 1, as it is in reality on a d20.

[WarKitty]

The joke kinda went over my head too... Mind explaining it?

If he's only accepting results of 5 or greater, he might as well roll a 16-sided die and add four to his result.

Edit: Ninja's!

[Strife Warzeal]

Thank you for answering the question.
Though with bonuses and all that, depending on the action, couldn't those 'bad' rolls still succeed.

Honestly I would probably stop playing with that player because its part of the game to not succeed sometimes, as my friend put it "I take my lumps as I get them."

[valadil]

Thank you for answering the question.
Though with bonuses and all that, depending on the action, couldn't those 'bad' rolls still succeed.

That was the ironic part. There were times when he'd roll a four, then GM would tell him it was good enough, and then he'd go for a reroll. We never quite figured out what he actually wanted out of the game.

He didn't mind failing, he just didn't like it due to crappy luck. D&D was never his system of choice though. He preferred games that rolled against a curve instead of D&D's flat results. Maybe we should have gotten him to add 2d10 instead of 1d20.

[WarKitty]

That was the ironic part. There were times when he'd roll a four, then GM would tell him it was good enough, and then he'd go for a reroll. We never quite figured out what he actually wanted out of the game.

He didn't mind failing, he just didn't like it due to crappy luck. D&D was never his system of choice though. He preferred games that rolled against a curve instead of D&D's flat results. Maybe we should have gotten him to add 2d10 instead of 1d20.

I believe this is what the 3d6 system is for.

[valadil]

I believe this is what the 3d6 system is for.

Yeah, that would have worked too. I don't play with that player any more though so it's a moot point.

[Fitz10019]

Have him declare his bonus first, wait for your OK, detail the bonus if it sounds wrong, and only THEN may he roll. Make him use a die that is easy for everyone to read.

[Mr.Smashy]

Have him declare his bonus first, wait for your OK, detail the bonus if it sounds wrong, and only THEN may he roll. Make him use a die that is easy for everyone to read.

There are fist sized D20's out there. My group calls them cheaters dice, because they are so damn big you can't cheat with them.

On a tangent, we have a guy that does what we call the "Drop & Scoop."

drops the die and scoops it before anyone can see it, then fakes counting on his fingers... 3 on the die...counts five fingers... does 29 hit?

[Amphetryon]

Riffing on JaronK's comment about the possibility he's just 'bad at math':

DM should have a copy of his character sheet, or at a bare minimum, a complete listing of combat stats and mods. Let the player roll in the open, with one of the other players - or the DM - calling the number rolled. DM then does the math for the player. After all, it's a ROLE playing game, so the player shouldn't complain if you just take away doing all the math from him, right?

[Leon]

The beatings will continue until the fudging stops.

[Tengu_temp]

How about any time he blatantly lies, his action automatically fails.

I second this. Don't bother with giving him any extra punishment, though - just the action automatically fails, no discussion, skip to the next player. That way his punishment is getting minimum attention, and that's one of the worst things that can happen to you in an RPG.

[big teej]

I am looking for suggestions on how to resolve issues like this (which are very frequent by one specific player at our table each and every gaming session)

What are your suggestions to this. Obviously the player is cheating and the player must surely know that the rest of us know that he is cheating. So what do you do?

One of the players messaged me and suggested I roll up a halfling barbarian character for him to play with low INT, CHA and WIS so that he has to just hit things with a stick and not get a chance to do anything else?!

for my groups. (we're 4 college students and 3 teachers) I made it very clear up front "hey, we're in college, I expect you all to be mature enough to play the game right." thats all I said about cheating, on a frequent basis however, I still ask someone where all their numbers are coming from. because 1) I am a forgetful person. 2) I suck at math. 3) it double checks their math, just to be safe.

my players know I trust them, they also know I'm going to ask them to spell out their numbers every so often anyways. (typically when I see they rolled a 5 and they tell me the total is 20 something)


now that said, occaisionally we do add something wrong, or forget a modifier, or whatever, no harm no foul, we're human. so we correct it and continue.

if I discovered a player was actually out and out cheating (for purposes of the discussion, if it matters, certain forms of rules lawyering is cheating) I would be up front with the person "if you're not mature enough to play the game, you can stop showing up" and I would say this to ANY one of my players (even the teachers)

because it's not something I put up with, says alot about someone's character IMHO that they feel the need to cheat at dungeons and dragons (the game you *can't* win)

Maybe he's really bad at math? Confirmation bias would cause him to regularly estimate up instead of down.

JaronK

I second this in the same spirit as I mentioned above

I suck at math, I have (by an honest mistake) added an extra +2-4* to hit a few times, and I've also under added (forgot times and a half for 2 handed weapon for example)

so in cases such as this, I simply ask the player to mark down his + to hit (or to skill or whatever) under the most common circumstances
for instance, lets say I'm playing a barbarian, and I keep slowing down the game adding up my to hit, I'd sit down and do the math as following
to hit roll: bab + str + feats + whatever else
to hit roll (raging) bab + str + feats + etc

*in my defense, the character had so many plus 1s it WAS hard to keep track...



/rambling 2 cents...