We had a guy completely new to gaming at our table for a long while, playing D&D 3.5.

A few of us were often wondering if he was cheating, but we were either probably wrong or actually wrong every time we asked 'uh, how did you get that result?'

90% of the time, he'd painfully slowly go through his chickenscratch character sheet and list out what he had. All of it checked. Sometimes he was off by one or two, but...

10% of the time, he was off by 3-5, because he didn't realize you only add Str once, you don't multiply energy damage on a crit, or some of his bonuses are situational.

He was a 10th level barbarian-fighter/occult slayer gestalt, so the issue was the numbers just sound utterly bullshit. But aren't.

So here's a question to resolve the cheater issue... Do I bring it up with the player? Do I even bother with it? Do I set a table rule of keeping everyone in check?

It's just annoying the crap out of me. I make my rolls in the open as a GM, why does this player think he doesn't have to for some reason?

At what point do you say, "Alright, it was nice, but I don't think it's fair to the other players that you fudge your dice rolls to suit your preferences... Don't bother coming back..."

Quote from: Nihilistic Mind;240514So here's a question to resolve the cheater issue... Do I bring it up with the player? Do I even bother with it? Do I set a table rule of keeping everyone in check?

It's just annoying the crap out of me. I make my rolls in the open as a GM, why does this player think he doesn't have to for some reason?

At what point do you say, "Alright, it was nice, but I don't think it's fair to the other players that you fudge your dice rolls to suit your preferences... Don't bother coming back..."

At first you say "geee, stop cheating/snatching the dice/using dice without contrast already -its annoying".
If the player is an average adult he will be ashamed, mumble an apology and shape up.
If not, kick him.

Funny thing is if the cheater rolls the dice out in the open you very very occassionally find they weren't cheating, my brother is an example of this but as he does roll his dice in the open we can see he finds it almost impossible to roll badly!

Most extreme case was a AD&D game many years ago where I as GM misjudged an encounter, turns out 3 Carrion Crawlers was a bit much for a party of second level adventurers. After the first round the only unparalysed character was my brothers, several rounds later he finished off the last Crawler to stunned applause and then his character sat down to wait for the others to recover. All rolled openly on the table in front of us all, I don't think he ever rolled under a 16 for anything, in one round alone he made over a dozen saved versus paralysis, even his damage rolls were damn near maximum.

I've seen people accuse him of cheating a the couple of cons he attended only for the remainder of the people sat round the table to back him up that his rolls were all legit.

Doesn't matter which dice he uses, always the same results.

So always check the rolls before you accuse someone cheating, just in case you're playing with my brother


Vadrus

Quote from: Nihilistic Mind;240514So here's a question to resolve the cheater issue... Do I bring it up with the player? Do I even bother with it? Do I set a table rule of keeping everyone in check?

Does it interfere with your fun? If yes, then definitely don't be afraid to start talking with the group. "Look guys this really bugs me so I need to talk about it. I'm not pointing the finger at anyone person, but I've seen [this]. It bugs me, how can we resolve this?"

I'd try putting the ball in their court. If they fumble, then you have some decisions to make. If they agree that it's a significant issue, then perhaps making everyone roll in the open, or some other solution is the best route. Obviously it all comes down to knowing your people, their limits and needs.

I'd make sure that they understand this issue affects your fun.

We were playing SW saga edition last Saturday and we had visting player.  He was someone who part of the group a long time before I joined.  He was sitting beside me and at one point during the game and I happened to glance over as he was rolling his die. The die rolled a 3 he lifted it then turned the die and read another number off.

This sort tipped me off. We are all 2nd lvl characters and he was supposed to be a 2nd lvl noble.  He had least two skill level focuses  (I am almost certain there was more) as well as the feats force trained and force sensitivity.  He also had 4 stats at 18 and 16 in the rest.

I am currently hosting and emailed the group and let them know he was no longer welcome at my apartment.

Seems like most of these issues would be resolved if all rolls where done in the open and dice weren't removed untill the GM was able to tally the roll.

My one rule regarding dice is that you don't roll them until called to roll them. Period.

Yet you would not BELIEVE the trouble I have getting players to follow that one simple rule, even in the face of punative results.  If someone has a bad habit on dice that leads to easier cheating, PARTICULARLY if they use it to cheat from time to time, they won't change easily just because you say so.

Cheating would be, for me, lying about dice rolls or underhandedly trying to gain an advantage over the other players or the "system."

Seanchai

This is a great topic and I always love reading about it when it comes up. I've mentioned my experiences with cheating on other threads before. Suffice to say my view has changed a lot. I have a player who cheats, fairly blatantly. She really is primarily interested in hanging out with the group, not in overcoming obstacles or solving mysteries or any of that stuff. A list of things she would rather do on a Saturday afternoon would go, in order from best to worst:

1 - Game, and her character doesn't really have any significant setbacks or problems
2 - Watch TV
3 - Game, and her character does have significant setbacks or problems

This was a big issue for me and I was dreading trying to address it. How could I be fair to the rest of the group, who did enjoy setbacks and problems? Then I realized I was being an idiot. Of course the rest of the group already knew the player was cheating. It was blatantly obvious. What was equally obvious was that nobody cared.  Everyone was enjoying the game, enjoying their setbacks and problems and they didn't see any issue with the fact that her character had none. Ever since I worked that out, I let her cheat. It makes the whole group happy and relaxed.

For the first time (that I know of) in the past 10 years, I have a cheater at my table right now.

She's pretty bad about it.  I don't enjoy making accusations without hard evidence when she's sitting across the table, so I'm trying to get my players to help out.  Thing is, she sits right next to her friend most of the time.

Her big one is the roll, pick up & pretend to look at it thing.  Or check to see if anyone noticed her first roll, and roll again.

-O

Obryn, that is sad. I even feel sorry for JDCorley's player, I can't help but wonder if she's being eaten away by guilt.

Maybe I don't pay attention closely enough but I've never noticed any cheating in games I've played. One friend in college told me that another friend cheated, and in later campaigns, the "cheater" wasn't invited, but I'm sure that was a minor issue compared to personality clashes.

I'm pretty sure that I've played with GMs who fudged in one way or another. In one case that always stands out in my mind, it was basically a matter of making a dice roll against (IIRC) a Streetwise skill, not being told of any modifiers beforehand, and then the GM eyeballed it and said I'd succeeded even though I was over the percentage. Essentially this was a homebrew (in the mid-80's) where, in my opinion, some of the math hadn't really been thought out very well. It was a bit irksome but over time informal understandings developed.

If I were running a longterm campaign, I'd look for a system that would more transparently represent player expectations about the abilities of their characters. I'd also be willing to use some kind of hero point system or whatever to give rerolls or bonuses to important rolls, but I'd try to maintain some degree of consistency to ensure that the mechanics really were meaningful.

Oh, yeah. I can't think of any "normal" reason for players to make rolls in secret. There are GM rolls that I think are best done in secret, and I don't object to GMs keeping the target numbers hidden either, e.g. for NPC/monster attacks, although it's also reasonable to expect the GM to give some rough indication of how "well" an enemy is fighting.

One area that I think players ought to be allowed or even encouraged to keep things secret would be mechanics like image/illusion/summon spells in TFT. Each of those spells will "look" exactly the same to an enemy, but they behave differently in terms of how much they cost the caster, whether they can do damage, and how they can be countered. So I'd rather GM the game with people I can trust, and let them surprise me with those things.

Quote from: Serious Paul;240316Have any funny cheating stories to relate?

We had a guy in college who cheated.  When playing in a percentile system, he'd never really specify which die was his ten's die and it would always magically be the lowest one.  It was almost worth it to see his reaction when he rolled a double zero because he'd see that first zero and get a big smile think it would give him a sub-10 roll so he'd go "Oh!' with anticipation on the first one and then he'd see the second zero and go "Ohhhhhhhh" with a horrified look on his face.  It was like the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, one right after the other.  It's still a joke quote in my group even though we haven't role-played with him for years.

I think a lot of these problems might be solved by bringing along a shoe box or something, and designating it as the "Roll Zone" you roll in the box- nothing rolled out of the box counts. I think this has some things going for it - it will focus everyone's attention on every roll- which will almost certainly stop the cheating, and as an added bonus all the extra attention will ramp up the dice rolling drama. you can even use the added drama and focus as an excuse for using it in the first place- if'n you want to give the cheater a chance at amnesty, that is. Otherwise you can say, "From now on you roll in here, or you roll on out the door, tool."

Quote from: Aos;240951I think a lot of these problems might be solved by bringing along a shoe box or something, and designating it as the "Roll Zone" you roll in the box- nothing rolled out of the box counts. I think this has some things going for it - it will focus everyone's attention on every roll- which will almost certainly stop the cheating, and as an added bonus all the extra attention will ramp up the dice rolling drama. you can even use the added drama and focus as an excuse for using it in the first place- if'n you want to give the cheater a chance at amnesty, that is. Otherwise you can say, "From now on you roll in here, or you roll on out the door, tool."

Yeah, I could always do that - but honestly, it bothers me less than I thought it would, originally.

The other players and I laugh about it before she shows up, and I've made a few general comments about how cheating in D&D is as pitiful as cheating at solitaire.

I think an easier solution is to make sure she sits next to me, and I think I should be able to arrange that.

She's otherwise a generally decent player, and I wouldn't want to potentially lose 2 players in order to solve a minor problem with 1 (since she and her friend show up together).

-O