Dealing with Cheating Players

[Othesemo]

I suppose that it was inevitable, but one of my players has cheated for the first time. We play at my house, and I had to leave for about fifteen minutes, during which he agreed to look at D&D stuff on my computer (he doesn't have as many books as I do, so he does that a lot). The next day, I noticed that one of the messages in my spam folder (on Gmail) was marked 'read.' I checked, and it contained several D&D documents that were saved on my email, and was sent by 'me' to him about five minutes after I left the house. It's pretty obvious that he sent them, given the time frame and the content of the emails. It's also pretty obvious that he realized that he was cheating, given that he tried to cover his tracks by reporting it as spam.

So, I talked to him yesterday and he claims to have no idea how that email was sent. Thus, I am torn. On the one hand, nothing that he sent himself was overly important- a few homebrew spells that were intended as a surprise in a boss fight, and the equipment of one of the antagonists (which I can easily update). In addition, our group's already a bit small, and he's a friend of both myself and one of the other players, so kicking him out could be damaging both to the game and to personal relationships. On the other, I can't really have any guarantee that he won't try to cheat again, especially if I just ignore the incident and he gets away for free. And I really don't want to have to deal with anybody cheating.

So, does anybody have any advice with how to deal with him?

[The Reverend]

Give it all to him in game, make sure its all cursed.


Otherwise give the entire group the teacher style speech

•Im not naming any names, you know who u r and what you did
•we are all adults
•This is just a game
•Cheating in a pretend world with no stakes or payoff is especially sad
•Your punishment will be this 5 minute kazoo and harmonica song I have prepared. Proceed with playing kazoo and harmonica for 5 min 45 seconds
•Im very disappointed in you

[mrzomby]

1. change any information that he got from the email

A
2. make an adventure where he gets hit by some "dark uber soul magic" and the rest of the party have to save him, or something like that.

3. when he isn't there, discuss it with the rest of the group "X player cheated, what do we want to do about it? do you wanna stop playing with X, keep going? Punish him, or Ignore it?"

Alternatively,
B
2. get every player who isn't X to hang out with you 1 day, and discuss it like above.

[SamBurke]

•Cheating in a pretend world with no stakes or payoff is especially sad
•Your punishment will be this 5 minute kazoo and harmonica song I have prepared. Proceed with playing kazoo and harmonica for 5 min 45 seconds

This. Tell him that in game and out of game, whilst his character is debilitated (by the cheated magic items?), he must listen to X, where X is either: the My Little Pony theme song, "It's a Small World," Nyan Cat, or some other equally heinous piece of work. No MLP if he's a brony, though.

You should ask him why he cheated, or if he can offer proof that he didn't. Were there other players in the room? Did they look over his shoulder? Did you check browser history?

[Othesemo]

Here're the logistics of it- at the time the email was sent, he was one of two people at the house. The other was on her laptop, though, so she didn't see anything. Although I lack eyewitness evidence, I personally find it unlikely that somebody else hacked my account exactly as I left the house, and then sent an email to some random guy on my contact list, with two random attachments, and then reported it as spam.

I didn't actually check the browser history, but that's a good idea. I just did, and it basically went

3:20 PM Gmail - Inbox - [email protected]
3:19 PM Gmail - Sent Mail - [email protected]
3:19 PM Selniss' Spells - Google Docs
3:18 PM Gmail - Inbox - [email protected]
3:18 PM biochem project.docx - Google Docs
3:18 PM Untitled document - Google Docs
3:17 PM Untitled document - Google Docs
3:17 PM Untitled document - Google Docs
3:17 PM Eln'Mastak's Equipment
3:13 PM Selniss - Google Docs
3:12 PM Google Docs

So I think that I can say pretty definitely that yes, he cheated. It would also seem that he looked at a lot more stuff than he sent himself, so I'll probably have to change that too.

[SamBurke]

Well, then, you're going to have to bring that up, and ask him why he did it AND why he didn't tell you.

[Mystic Muse]

I'd say something like "I'm not naming names, but somebody here has been cheating. I'd like to remind you guys that the point of the game is to have fun guys, not to win. Especially since, if I find out, I can just change things around. So, by cheating, all you're doing is attempting to win at something you can't win at, and making it more work for me."

[Steward]

First thing you have to do is nail down your proof. Right now, you have a strong circumstantial case but it's not rock-solid yet. I recommend going home right now and bagging / tagging the keyboard in question until you can get it to the lab to dust for prints. Next, get a subpoena for his ISP -- ask for the recs for the time following the email but before your next game to make sure that he actually opened the email and downloaded the attachment ahead of time. And just to shore things up, interview everyone else who was in the house at the time; you don't want him to hurl around some half-baked accusations because you didn't do your homework.

•Your punishment will be this 5 minute kazoo and harmonica song I have prepared. Proceed with playing kazoo and harmonica for 5 min 45 seconds

Don't do this. If you hand out a 5-minute kazoo/harmonica punishment, stick to 5 minutes, not 5 minutes and 45 seconds.

[nedz]

You could just ignore it, after all he's spoiling his own fun.

Or you could set him up. You have a fair idea about what he knows, or might know. He doesn't know that you know this. So change something that he might use to his advantage, so that it is a major disadvantage. If you like, you can make sure that he knows later, but thats optional.

This sort of behaviour isn't inevitable BTW.

[Dr.Epic]

Punish him in game and have something bad happen to his character. Rust monster, ability score damage, spell book goes missing.

[RandomNPC]

Boil the player in oil. His character becomes a bad guy.

Tell him you know he was on the computer, you know what files he peeked at, and you know what he sent himself. Then explain how easy it is to change your game, and tell him he's kicked out for not fessing up to it.

[killem2]

Looking at files is one thing, access YOUR gmail is NOT cool.

[DrBurr]

Seeing as your worried about your player count and don't want to kick him out of your group for reading your emails and campaign notes I would suggest a couple of things

1) Don't punish his character in game, and by this i mean don't kill his character, change its alignment or penalize him with levels or gold. This is probably only cause more problems and get him angry at you and cause a fight, and when trying to solve a problem getting in a fight with a player isn't going to help
2) Don't give a giant speech about cheating to the group, he is still going to believe he didn't cheat or deny it and the group will be annoyed their game time has been cut short. Simply say at the beginning of your next session, someone has been reading your notes and inform the group how your going to have to rewrite some plot now
3) Ask the other player who was their at the time what happened, perhaps she has some info
4) Confront the player in question, tell them you know they did it and to cut the crap, then ask them why and hear what they have to say
5) If the player refuses to admit that they did it, never let them use your computer. Especially if you aren't there

[Mono Vertigo]

Most importantly, ask what they were trying to achieve by cheating... in a game with no real win/lose condition. And why it is so important for him to give himself an unfair advantage. Pay attention to his justifications or excuses, in case there's a bigger reason behind the problem than "I did it because I could and I thought I'd get away with it", but don't forgive him and act like nothing happened.

[Othesemo]

3) Ask the other player who was their at the time what happened, perhaps she has some info

Did that a few hours ago. She confirmed that he was on the computer for all of the time, but didn't look at what he was doing.

4) Confront the player in question, tell them you know they did it and to cut the crap, then ask them why and hear what they have to say

I'll probably do this. I'm a bit curious about why he'd do this, since it's basically a no-win scenario for him. Either I don't find out, in which case the rest of the campaign plot is ruined for him, or I do in which case he's completely screwed.

5) If the player refuses to admit that they did it, never let them use your computer. Especially if you aren't there

Yeah, I'll be doing that whether or not he admits it, seeing as I know he did it. Of course, if he doesn't admit it, then I may decide to kick him out anyways. It's an inconvenience, but it doesn't make him invulnerable. Besides, if he doesn't admit it even after I show him what proof I have, then my trust for him is just about shot. I'm not going to play with somebody I can't even trust to act in their own best interest.

[KillianHawkeye]

Looking at files is one thing, access YOUR gmail is NOT cool.

This. This is the reason computers come with a guest account. If you don't see one when you login to your OS, then you need to enable it. No stored passwords = no access to gmail and google docs. BAM.

You might also try to find a way to protect or obscure your gaming files themselves if you have anything offline like text files or the like.

[NikitaDarkstar]

Cheating is one thing. I mean if you had the files sitting on your desktop and then let the guy use your computer, yhea I could have said you should have seen it coming. But the guy went into YOUR email account, read YOUR mail and proceeded to forward some of it to himself? That's not cheating, that's violating your right to privacy. That's something that wouldn't just get you kicked out of a game with me, it would mean we wouldn't be talking again, ever. (Or at least until you have an extremely good explanation and excuse.)

Cheating, yhea it happens (I'm willing to bet most people have rerolled a nat 1 at least once when no one else was looking.. ). Violating the DM's privacy when he's kind enough to let you use his computer in his home? Unacceptable. Worse if he's a long-term friend.

As for punishment if you for some ungodly reason do want to keep this person around? Take away his character, make him re-roll, one or several levels under everyone else. (But really I wouldn't.)

[ILM]

I can't get over how pointless it is to look at a DM's notes for the coming sessions, nor how terminally stupid it is to mark the email you sent as spam to cover your tracks rather than just delete it. I don't say this as categorically often, but your friend's just dumb.

Personally, I'd let him have it. Tell the group that since he looked at your notes and sent some over to him by e-mail behind your back, you now have to redesigne the campaing from that point on. It's going to take a few weeks. Gaming suspended until you're done.

[DiBastet]

"Kick the player! There is no reason to keep him around! None at all! It does not matter that you gave your reasons! Kick it!!!"

Or

"Ditch the DM! There is no reason to keep playing! None at all! It does not matter that you gave your reasons! Ditch it!!!"


It's just me or even when the op says that he has reasons to not do any, these "advices" always come up?

Tell you the truth, op, once I had a player that ALWAYS cheated something on his character sheet. From week to week something was off, like +1 to a stat that there was'n there before, +2 ou +3 hit points, you know, the kind of stuff you can't really keep up. Skill points, feats, bonuses to attack and such you can keep up doing some check up ("hey man, your attack is too high, there are +2 hat doesn't exist"), but this, more hp than what he rolled and more stats are stealthier. Fortunately I had his original rolls with me. In one adventure I had all his stealthy gains removed, and I showed it all to the other players.

(it began it a +2 to his Cha, the dumpstat, then +4. Jus wanted to be pretty. Then +1 to Wis, other dumpstat. then he turned greedy, +2 to his Dex and Str, his main stats, then +4 to Dex)

They were pissed (it was the kind of "we are friends and a team, but we compete on damage and kills" kind of group), so it was enough, because he wasn't cheating "me", he was cheating on "their competition" they said.

Other time around the players always tried to peek at my notes when I was away. It was funny for that group, and we developed a more players vs dm attitude.


Short awser: It depends on the dynamics of your group. You said in the first post that you can't kick this player because he is a friend and a communal friend. In this case I would just put the "sorry, I can't trust you" mask and tell him you did put this mask. Treat him like always, as a friend, but when issue of trust comes, you tell "I like you, have no problem with you, but as I told before, I cannot trust you anymore".

In the end this sounds a little like "you took away your own freedom", and this usually works if he's not actively disruptive / passive-agressive...

[Knaight]

Cheating is one thing. I mean if you had the files sitting on your desktop and then let the guy use your computer, yhea I could have said you should have seen it coming. But the guy went into YOUR email account, read YOUR mail and proceeded to forward some of it to himself? That's not cheating, that's violating your right to privacy. That's something that wouldn't just get you kicked out of a game with me, it would mean we wouldn't be talking again, ever. (Or at least until you have an extremely good explanation and excuse.)

Cheating, yhea it happens (I'm willing to bet most people have rerolled a nat 1 at least once when no one else was looking.. ). Violating the DM's privacy when he's kind enough to let you use his computer in his home? Unacceptable. Worse if he's a long-term friend.

As for punishment if you for some ungodly reason do want to keep this person around? Take away his character, make him re-roll, one or several levels under everyone else. (But really I wouldn't.)

This. The cheating is largely irrelevant, the problem here is that the guy accessed your email without permission. Rifling through other people's physical mailboxes is a pretty serious crime in most places, and with good reason - it isn't as if doing the same to email is any better. Forget about the game, cut contact with this guy entirely. I wouldn't go so far as to report this to the police, but this is the sort of thing that should end a friendship.

Oh, and for that matter, you mentioned this in your history: "3:18 PM biochem project.docx - Google Docs". As such, you can probably assume that plagiarism is an issue as well, and if both you and he turn in the same papers, the both of you could get kicked out of school. This person isn't your friend - friends don't rifle through eachother's personal letters and get eachother kicked out of school.

[KillianHawkeye]

Violating the DM's privacy when he's kind enough to let you use his computer in his home? Unacceptable. Worse if he's a long-term friend.

The worst part is that this is entirely preventable if people would just do the utmost basics of computer security, such as setting up the guest account I mentioned earlier.

I know it's somebody that the OP trusted, but the point is that you shouldn't trust anybody with your sensitive computer informations when it's so easy to protect them.

I have an external hard drive with built-in password protection that automatically locks itself whenever I restart my computer or put it into sleep mode, and my Windows login also requires a seperate password. Without my passwords, the average person cannot access my private files or any of my stored Internet passwords for the various sites I visit (bank, school, student loan websites, giantitp forums, etc.).

[ILM]

The worst part is that this is entirely preventable if people would just do the utmost basics of computer security, such as setting up the guest account I mentioned earlier.

No, the worst part is that you would actually need that to ward off friends from snooping around. I don't know about you guys, but my friends simply don't pull that kind of crap. And if they did, they'd instantly go from 'friend' to 'get out of my home'.

[Knaight]

No, the worst part is that you would actually need that to ward off friends from snooping around. I don't know about you guys, but my friends simply don't pull that kind of crap. And if they did, they'd instantly go from 'friend' to 'get out of my home'.

Exactly. Friends are, by definition, people you trust. And while that doesn't necessarily mean giving out passwords willy nilly, (though it can very well include shared account passwords or similar), it really doesn't have to mean having high computer security at all times either. Giving your social security number or PIN out casually to friends is pretty dumb, but a full automated computer lock could well be described as paranoid, and with some substance to that claim.

[Jay R]

... I had to leave for about fifteen minutes, during which he agreed to look at D&D stuff on my computer (he doesn't have as many books as I do, so he does that a lot).

Interesting. Why not, "He doesn't have as many books as I do, so he looks at my books a lot"?

If somebody cheated like that in my game, and then admitted it when I called him on it, we could probably work something out. But he lied about it later. This isn't an isolated case of cheating, it's a pattern of dishonesty, including looking at your email and your biology project.

Therefore you need to consider how long he's been doing it, since he has accessed your computer in the past. Has he been solving puzzles or finding things more easily than you expected? Made really good guesses about which choice to make?

If somebody lied to me that way in my game, he would be out of the game, instantly, even if that meant the game had to end. If he was enough of a friend that I could overlook going through my private files, I would simply stop the game.

But I mostly play with adults, assumed to be completely responsible for their actions. How old is he? That could make a huge difference in what you do.

One possibility is to announce that somebody has looked at the files for this scenario, and therefore it cannot be completed. Another party has just completed the quest and gotten all the treasure and XP. Then either start working on another one, or let somebody else be the DM.

And whatever else you do, nobody should be allowed to use your computer again. He now has to buy his own books if he wants to consult them

[Othesemo]

Interesting. Why not, "He doesn't have as many books as I do, so he looks at my books a lot"?

Somebody stole my D&D books (I only had about ten in those days) a few years ago. Since then, I've scanned every hardcover book I've gotten to my computer so that they can't be stolen again. Paranoid, yes, but it works. It only takes a few hours per book, and it makes accessing them much easier in the future. By now, half of the hard copies are destroyed (dogs), but I can still access them. Three hours is worth not having to go out and buy replacements every month.

If somebody cheated like that in my game, and then admitted it when I called him on it, we could probably work something out. But he lied about it later. This isn't an isolated case of cheating, it's a pattern of dishonesty, including looking at your email and your biology project.

Funny. When I originally brought the matter up, he denied any knowledge of it. However, he admitted to looking at the files over email yesterday evening, and apologized both profusely and repeatedly. Of course, there are several issues. Apart from in being very unlike him to apologize so much, he claims to have been looking for a spell that the BBEG cast earlier in the game. He had no reason to suspect that it was homebrew, or that it would be in my google docs. When I asked him about it, he said that he went to my google docs first "because it seemed more private than your desktop." He admits looking at Eln'Mastak's equipment, as well as Selniss' spells, but he denies looking at any of the other documents which he obviously did. Finally, he denies sending the email to himself, which is obviously bull. My current assumption is that he's lying to get me to be lighter on him- he really wants to keep playing, I think.

Also, I'm not too worried about the biochem project. We have different teachers, though I do wonder why he decided to open it.

[The Mormegil]

Also, I'm not too worried about the biochem project. We have different teachers, though I do wonder why he decided to open it.

To check if you hid relevant info under a misleading name. Or misclick.

[UrsielHauke]

I'd say something like "I'm not naming names, but somebody here has been cheating. I'd like to remind you guys that the point of the game is to have fun guys, not to win. Especially since, if I find out, I can just change things around. So, by cheating, all you're doing is attempting to win at something you can't win at, and making it more work for me."

Especially considering that you can't really "win" D&D. When one of my players is cheating in a manner such as tipping die rolls or the like, I call them on it right then and there. An issue such as this, however, is a little bit more touchy. I know it's already been said, but again, I would suggest you talk to the rest of the people in your gaming group and reach an agreement about what should be done. Just my suggestion.

[Xyk]

Okay, here's what you do. Go to his place of residence in the middle of the night while he's sleeping. Sneak into his bedroom and stab him until he dies. That will teach him and anyone who hears about it not to cheat at your table. That kind of bad sportsmanship is just unacceptable.

[Premier]

Now, jokes aside:

This isn't a case of him accidentally peeking at the DM's map you've put on the table and failing to resist the temptation. This is a case of him lying to you to get to your computer, completely deliberately looking at your private notes for the game, emailing them to himself, then consciously trying to cover his tracks.

If he has committed this breach of trust, he'll also commit any other breach of trust that occurs to him. The only thing to do is kick him out of your group for good.

[Zeru the Dark]

Yeah, I'd kick him out of this game, and tell him that you are considering whether or not you will game with him in the future. If he decides to own up, once this current game is done, I'd consider letting him into any other games you run, but he can't have access to your computer again and needs to find his own books. If he doesn't own up, don't let him join up again, period. Regardless, he shouldn't be allowed to take part in this game; looking at a DM's information is a serious offense, and looking at another person's private information is worse.