Audacious Cheating

[Vahnavoi]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

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

[kyoryu]

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]

@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]

Don't bother talking about "fun".

Truly this is the SRSest of BSNS

[Talakeal]

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]

@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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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!!!

[Batcathat]

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).