What to do with players that fudge there dice rolls?

[Drake Farstrider]

Please help. I have a player that fudges his die rolls all the time. He did it at least 3 times during our most recent gamming session, and one of them was a fumble that he claimed was a crit.

In the past I have just done little things to try and stop him from doing this, like not letting players pick up their dice immedietly after they roll them, but this does not seem to work. I have also given monsters grudges against his characters. I am at a loss, right now. It irritated me so much that I had to kill his character last session.

Whats worse is that he is a powergaming munchkin that also happens to be a rules laywer.

Plus all the other players know that he does this as well.

 

[salun]

Know that problem
Sadly I can\'t say that we actually got it solwed in our group, as the player in question stopped comming, shortly after the rest of us got annoyed by his cheating, bu I have a few ideas of what to do...
First of, as you suggest youself, you could disallow ther players to pick up the dice right after the roll is made - for instance by having some sort of a tray or such where the players are to make their die-rolls
Next thing you could do is to talk with the player in question, and explain to him the situation - something about you wanting to see what people roll, instead of just hearing it.
It\'s perfectly okay for a GM to hmmm... tamper with his die-rolls, but that\'s only to the players advantage, and do in no way allow the player to tamper with theirs!

The part about you being so irritated by it that you feel like you have to consecutively kill his characters is not good!
So taking a talk with him, and propably the rest of the group too, might be a good idea, maybe at the start of the next game session, before you start playing, might be a really good idea.
Explain you problem about the die-rolls, and ask the group, including Player X(the fudger), for solution ideas - this might help him to realise the problem.

As for the powergaming, munchkining and rule lawyering, there are several ways to handle these problems as well.
Again talking to the whole group about the problem might be an idea, but a great way of muting rule lawyers is to explain to them, that the GM\'s word is law, and that he is, at all times, free to change the rules as he see fit - not knowing what system you play, I don\'t know if they have this exact policy, but as they say it in The Riddle of Steel: \"It\'s your game now. Do with it what you want\"(this might not be the 100% right wording, but as I don\'t have one of my books at hand - being at school right now - this is the best I can do atm. Still - it gives the meaning of what they say ). You should feel free to use this rule for all games .
As to the munchkining and powergaming, you just have to remember - there\'s always a way to deal with it. If you can\'t find it in a book, make something yourself
As I have a feeling that you are playing D&D 3.5 (or 3D&D maybe), you should look in you DMG. They actually give ideas as to how you should handle players that has run out of contol - \"there\'s always someone bigger/better\"

I hope this can help you

 

[Astorderire]

What about fudging your die rolls concerning the fate of his character in a very obvious way?
If every one has fun around the table and don\'t care about his constant fudging, maybe you should let him do as it suits him. The outcome of a scenario shouldn\'t be dictated by die rolls but be the result of the behaviours and choices of players, ie if they make stupid choices, they die stupidly. As a GM, you must act like a film director and construct interesting stories and die rolls are just there to help you inducing excitement in players.

 

[sniffles]

I just got through reading a whole forum thread about this topic over at ENworld. It got ugly.

My opinion kind of agrees with Astorderire. If it isn\'t ruining the fun for everyone, what does it matter? Roleplaying is not a win or lose scenario, and dice rolls don\'t decide XP or treasure distribution, so he\'s not really hurting anyone.

Now if he always succeeds at everything he does because he cheats and this allows his character to steamroll over all the other characters, this might be a problem. In which case you could start adding a bonus to any opposed rolls for monsters or NPCs - suddenly his opponent\'s AC becomes 5 points higher, or the DC for the skill check is tougher, or something similar depending on what system you\'re using.

 

[HatGirl]

Honesty Dice

My husband (who is our usual DM) has very large D20\'s that he calls \"honesty dice\" (about the size of a tennis ball). In situations where there is a VERY important roll being made he will insist on a player using these dice. This way everyone can read the die from their spot at the table. Also, the whole group is aware of this so no one is surprised when he asks us to use them.

Another idea is to get one of those dice tower things. This is a box that shakes your dice up as they fall through and catches the dice at the bottom for reading. The box is usually decorated to look like a tower or castle section with a \"court yard\" at the bottom. This will limit the chances of nicely painted figures getting hit by dice and allow you to see his die rolls. If your game uses painted figures you can potentially ask your players to use it with that excuse and not have to tell them that it is an anti-munchkin devise.

 

[Drake Farstrider]

Interesting ideas and points. I would not have such a problem if it was only occasionally, but he does this for everything. Spots, search\'s, initiatives, listen checks, damage, to-hits. Even His charcaters stats are always like 16,17,16,18,18,15.

Now as for the killing of his character, heres the stituation he was pounding on this one particular monster, I think he had 2 \"crits\" and 3 or 4 other big hits on it. So it turned its attention on him, whack, whack, 80 points of damage later and there is 1 squashed fighter head, his current \"favorite\" character was dead. Did it feel good yes it did to some extent.

I think I am going to have to reinforce the rolling of dice on the table and not allowing it on the the little fold out tables.

 

[leopardpixie]

Originally posted by Drake Farstrider
Even His charcaters stats are always like 16,17,16,18,18,15.

Wish i had stats like that. I did once.... i rolled stats like that... The dice were rolling HOT! .... But the DM didn\'t like that i had rolled so well..... So i had to reroll them ... to each his own...

 

[Braveheart712]

Sounds like this player just doesn\'t get it. Gaming is supposed to be fun, kind of an escape from the lying, cheating, backstabbing world we all live in. It was this type of uber gamers that actually drove me away from D&D when in college. No one likes rule NAZIs and no one likes a cheater. My thoughts are as follows:

1) I like the idea of a dice tower, each player having different color dice and dropping them down the tower when die roles are needed.

2) As for this players stats, it is next to impossible to come up with those numbers, at least he didn\'t have the nerve to show all 18\'s. What the GM\'s around me do is have the players all role their character creation roles in the GM\'s presence, then the player has a week or so to build his character with these witnessed numbers. Most GM allow rerolls of ones, or an extra throw away roll to help pump up the characters, but what he did is just plain wrong.

3) I agree with the bigger/badder theory. If he shows up with a character that is just too good, hopefully you can counter with a god or a deamon with a hard on for him. Cursed items also work wonders too, especially unique nasty items that are damn near impossible to remove and leave behind affects like permanent minus to his stats.

4) Lastly, have you tried just plain talking with him, not when gaming but as a friend. Obviously you must enjoy something about him, isnt that why you invite him back? Explain that he isnt fooling anyone and makes it unenjoyable when he cheats. Explain that win, lose or draw, everyone want to have fun, and this is best done when everyone plays fair. Yeah, he might get pissed, but he also might come correct if you explain it well enough. Good luck, hope it all works out.

 

[DM of Doom]

I too have battled this enemy on the field of make-believe combat...

It\'s sad when people are so pathetic as to feel the need to cheat their own imaginations, and yes I feel that they are the ones that lose out in the end.

One person in particular gave me this problem (over the course of a couple of game systems, actually). The whole group knew about it and hated it.

I have almost always had a \"no rolling and immediately snatching up the dice\" rule. But of course, funboy had dice that were of a color combination that was unreadable from a distance further than 2 feet.

I had another player speak with him. No good.

I spoke with him. No good.

Despine my moniker, I am not fond of killing PCs without (in-game) logical reason. Therefore, I had to be crafty...
My cheater was also a power-gaming type. Always went running to get to the treasure first, etc.

Of course, when the biggest, baddest looking weapon in the treasure pile is a cursed -2 backstabbing spear, stats don\'t matter as much. That his character thought that it was \"a weapon of such fine make\" that he would \"be a fool to use any other weapon\" was a part of it\'s curse (and the most fun for the rest of the group).

Not having learned his lesson, later that same adventure, they encountered 2 cloaks. Pity that the one he tried on dropped his INT to 3 and his STR to 3 as well, leaving him in a drooling heap on the floor unable to move in his heavy armor. The monsters that came in shortly after were easily dispatched by the rest of the party, but not before performing a coup de grace on our hapless cheater.

He got the point, but it lasted for only a month or two before he was fudging again.

The sad thing is, whenever I\'ve encountered this sort of thing, it seems like something you can\'t change. If you can cope with it, let him keep playing and you and your players will likely have to keep a hawk\'s eye on him. Or, as in my case, you show him the door.

 

[MarkusTay]

I, unfortunately, have also had to deal with similar cheaters.

You could try pulling out a .357 Magnum and pumping a few rounds into him, or spraying battery acid in his eyes, or the best one... re-enact a prison rape scene when you catch him. It might not stop him from doing it again, but at least the rest of you will have had fun.

lol

But seriously, I usually roll a lot of dice during game sessions. Sometimes there is a reason, sometimes I just like to make my players nervous. A lot of times I ask players to roll dice, also sometimes for no apparent reason. NEVER let players know what they are rolling for. When your cheater says he got a natural twenty, you say something like \"Damn! That lurker only lands on you on a 19 or 20!\" No matter what they say they rolled, you make it so their roll is bad, get it? :]

Rolling dice all the time for no reason can solve problems and also lead to some very fun situations. This one time, the characters went to turn a corner in a dungeon. I started to roll dice and they yelled \"WAIT wait wait! First we peak around the corner\" I smile evilly at the player saying this and say \"Oh reaaaally? And exactly which ones of you peak around the corner?\" Still smiling evilly I once again reach for the dice\' \"No no! Wait! We toss something around the corner first... \" Now I really smile \"What do you throw?\" I ask, \"and, oh, I need to see everyone\'s character sheet RIGHT NOW\". It took them almost an hour to go around the corner, and there was nothing there. After that they just strolled around the next three corners, not believing any of my hints or evil rolling. To bad they walked right into that 12\' troll...

The point is, most of the time players shouldn\'t even be aware of everything that\'s going on. This allows you to change what their die rolls mean and renders roll-fudgers powerless. Combat can be a problem, but some of the above ideas are good. You could set the guy up ahead of time, creating a \'special encounter\' just for him. When he rolls his second crit in a row you say \"Uh oh\" and just shake your head sadly. \"Damn! I can\'t believe you just broke the enchanment!\" Then you show him the \'monster\" sheet with the 21 lvl evil sorceror who was transformed by a rival years ago into a lowly orc, and he IS PISSED! The only way to have broken the evil spell was with a series of mighty blows to the head... like two crits in a row. Of course, you have the pre-written encounter to prove it...

 

[Drake Farstrider]

Its weird but I think I only keep the player around because I feel sorry for him and that he will always make it to the games. I have 2 other players that only make it to about half the sessions.

I really like the creating a baddie that has it for him. And I think I will start just making them role the dice more often.

I do agree that I should not just kill characters out right. I don\'t think I have ever killed a character without a in-game reason. IE: he picked on the wrong Badass, never checked for traps...

 

[MarkusTay]

Originally posted by Drake Farstrider
Its weird but I think I only keep the player around because I feel sorry for him and that he will always make it to the games. I have 2 other players that only make it to about half the sessions.

You know, now that I think about, the cheaters I have known have also always made it to the games. Maybe they look forward to each session because it\'s the thrill of getting away with something that gives them pleasure?

Or maybe their presence is making it less enjoyable for the others who don\'t always make it... ???

 

[Bobinator]

Nobody likes a cheat.

Hey, just talk to the guy, failing that take him to one side knock him on his ass and stamp on his head until he stops moving, if that dont work I\'m afraid you\'ll have to end him.

 

[Drake Farstrider]

I have got some idea\'s brewing. So I am going to try them out this Saturday and see if they work. I think I may have become a little lazy in some of my duties as DM. But not no more. No more freebies.

 

[Itchy]

i\'ve got a cheater in my group too. She\'s the one who always wants to play, but then cheats her butt off. i think she just wants to level up to level 20 as soon as possible. She might get to \"level 20\" but by the time she gets there her stats will only be around level 6 or so. Once she rolled the D20 and it ended up bouncing all the way over to me... it was a 3, but from all the way across the table she told me it was a 17. And when we play on the floor she\'s roll behind the person sitting next to her and snatch the dice before anyone could see. And she\'ll NEVER hand me her character sheet when i want to do a secret DM roll, so i had to write my own copy of it and ask her to borrow her sheet whenever she levels up. And when i do a planed secret DC check she tells the TRUETH... but that\'s the only time she does because she doesn\'t know which way to lie about her roll.

It\'s sad she\'d lie to try and improve her character, but she runs into enough \"bad luck\" to keep her level with the other members.

 

[Drake Farstrider]

I always make sure that my players leave there character sheets with me at the end of the session. That way there is no temptation to try and pad your character while the DM is away.

 

[Equus]

Fortunately, most of my gaming group is trustworthy. Two of them will actually not let the DM fudge rolls in their favor, since that\'s not really the game. That being said, we have one player that sometimes does cheat, but we mostly just roll our eyes at him. We all know he\'s doing it, and if that\'s what he thinks of as enjoyable...meh!

My favorite conversation between the DM (who is this player\'s older half-brother) and that particular character went like this:

DM: OK...describe your character.
Player: He\'s tall with long hair and a chiselled face. He wears play mail and wields two katana, one of mithril and one of adamantium.
DM: ...ok...is your character\'s hair white again?
Player: No...it\'s black.
DM: And his armor isn\'t black with some spidery silvery web like stuff etched in it.
Player: No...it wouldn\'t go with the katanas man!
DM: Ok...anything else about your character.
Player: Yeah...he has a hardened look on his face and wears an eye-patch over his right eye.
DM: Did he lose his eye in a cool fight?
Player: No...not really.

Funniest thing was the rest of us were trying not to laugh out loud the entire time.

 

[Mosch]

Ah yes. Cheating in role-playing games. How very very useful.

In our DSA-group (or \"Realms of Arcania\"-group, whatever you prefer) we have one player who powerplays his butt off. Well, he does the same in W40k and Confrontation, but this time it\'s not about that I don\'t want to say he cheats, but let\'s put it this way: we have been playing for several years now and he has never yet botched a roll - except once, when his elf couldn\'t stand the smell of a sewer, he botched his \"sharp senses\" roll - which was good for him.... however, he does have an incrediblw luck with his dice. He actually does announced critical hits in combat.
So he\'s been doing it for some years now, and while I have no real problem with him (although I am usually DM) he has nearly lost the respect the other players have for him. He keeps going.... now the question remains: \"What to do with him?\"

Weeeeeell..... give him a nice powerful toy of course! He has found a spear which basically makes him god of combat. After some fights, where he could not be touched at all and always killed in one blow, he put it away because he didn\'t have any fun anymore. He knew that when it was his turn, an enemy would die. And when an enemy died, it became his turn again: The nature of the spear he got is the following: As soon as it hits anything, reality gets rearranged so that this item or person has never existed at all. Which of course gives him no reason to throw his spear.... one enemy gone and his turn again. But ALWAYS play that OUT. Remove the model when he\'s not looking and ask him impatiently what he wants to do for his turn. Say he\'s wrong when he says he has already done something. Deny what he says. Make him do another turn. And another. And.... you get the picture.
It not only drives him mad when you do it, it also makes him VERY suspicous about the weapon - which is actually a good thing for him, because he is not actually throwing a spear. Muahaha I wonder if he ever finds out what he did

 

[tzor]

As I get older, waiting for my wisdom score to rise by a paultry amount, I have come to the realization that things like cheating and powergaming are really out of game problems and they can only be solved out of game. Any in game solution is just playing the cheater/powergamer\'s own game, and he/she is probably going to be better at it than you.

As for rules lawyers :flame: I much prefer a rules guru. If someone knows the rules, that\'s great, a helpful suggestion is always good as long as it is a suggestion and the guru realizes that it\'s the DM/GM who makes the call, and just like Baseball just because the call is wrong doesn\'t mean much after he\'s called it, because it\'s his or her call. In addition being a guru requires the assumption of the responsibility of impartiality. That is if the guru realizes that there is a rule that hurts the players he/she is just as honor bound to suggest it as if it helped the players.

People cheat for a reason. Find out what that reason is and try to remove that as a reason. I\'ll take a guess and suggest that boredom is the number one reason why people cheat, just as in power gaming, they simply feel their characters are not powerful enough.

And on occasion there is something to be said for a game of outright overkill.

 

[Drake Farstrider]

I don\'t mind the rules lawyers that much. They can be handy in a pinch. But then they can also be very annoying.

I do agree though sometimes you just got to let the PC\'s run ape shit over monsters.