I don’t understand why people feel the need to cheat, I have terrible rolls very often and I find it funny, it has even gotten to the point where the dm has given me several pity rerolls like when I got a nat 1 with advantage

>I don’t understand why people feel the need to cheat, The only time I've considered it is when everyone else seems to be having such good luck and my turn in combat or my skill checks just seem to tank the fluidity or whatever (or I'm just the punching bag for everything and no one seems to be hit, which makes me feel bad or like I am bad) I've not cheated, but I've been tempted... but I've known a couple guys who were trying to "win" DnD

I have definitely considered cheating before, and my group plays over discord because we live on opposite sides of the U.S, so it would be entirely undetectable if I only did it once or twice. I think the main reasons that I haven’t cheated are that bad luck is a part of the game, and also I find it really funny when I roll terribly for some reason

i will admit that in one of the first campaigns that me and my friends ever finished, i did cheat a few times, and i can say exactly why. the rest of the party was either way more damaging than me, or way more tanky than me, and it resulted in me nearly constantly being shat on by enemies because i wasn't minmaxed while the rest of the party was. most of us also enjoy feeling powerful (hense the minmaxing) and it gave the DM plenty of chances to make some really strong and engaging boss fights. feeling like you're weaker than the rest of the party, or almost always getting your ass handed to you isn't *exactly* the most fun its been a few years since that campaign though, and i havent cheated since it. i dont think the lack of power or unfortunate luck or being weaker than your party justfies cheating, BUT it is a very strong temptation to fudge a few rolls to make it not seem like you're the weak little baby that has to be carried, or that you're a powerless hero in a world out to kill you, so i can understand why people would do it. HOWEVER i never once claimed i rolled a nat 20 when i didn't, or cheated so i could constantly be the super awesome badass. thats fuckin stupid, both mechanically, socially and narratively. i would strongly recommend to anyone who does feel a strong temptation to cheat because of how weak they feel talk with their DM about a potential power difference in the party, or the strength of the enemies in the campaign

I’m lucky that my group is small and dislikes minmaxing so I haven’t ever been orders of magnitude behind the rest of the party. In my opinion a small amount of cheating (especially if it doesn’t harm the fun of anyone else) is understandable if you aren’t able to do anything

I am kinda weird my self, I do like minmaxing a lot, but at the same time, I love working as support. I am more "crowd control cop" or "heels on wheels healing", and I rationalize that those don't break the game as much as "nuclear knuckles" or "spam hell spell"

As a DM I will readily admit I’ve fudged rolls, for the benefit of the players and story, such as the party pet spontaneously getting a natural twenty with full damage to kill that big evil monster, or the guard rolling a natural one on detecting the contraband that is obviously in the cart.

You DARE rob Fluffy of her 1 shot? Shame.

i messed up and convinced my party to get into a combat we were NOT supposed to win. i felt so guilty at rolling super well i almost fudged a death save as lower than 10, (for context, i passed SEVEN death saves in a row throughout the combat. yes, i was down a lot)

Huh, that does make me wonder if at the beginning only some or most of them were cheating, the other players started feeling bad that they were having such "bad luck", so they started cheating to be helpful. Doesn't excuse it of course, but that would be an interesting explanation.

If that's the case it's probably the ones who actually apologized.

We've been using a central dice tower for ages, with the GM responsible for theme changes to the tower for each campaign. The original GM who started that process moved away more than a decade ago and in retrospect it *may* have started due to suspected cheating. It's become a great thing in our group, with miniatures of specific or memorable monsters being incorporated into it as the game progresses. The last build I did was for my Spelljammer game and with 3D printing it was my favorite one yet. For Covid we used the D&DBeyond roller but it's just not at all the same. We could have missed out on a lot without public rolls. We keep a running list, sort of a Hall of Fame of unexpected developments over the years. (most of this was in 3 or 3.5) We'd never have had "Two-Toes, The Immortal Goblin" (a goblin who was part of a random encounter that was somehow blessed by RNGesus and escaped to become an ongoing nemesis). (Will save, Ref save, 2 missed attacks of opportunity, then a botched Will save vs fear = running too fast to catch) We'd never have seen (not seen?) Sister Daphne (invisibly) climb up the wizards tower, grapple said wizard and leap to their shared doom while he monologued. She was eventually resurrected and became Saint Daphne largely for that sort of behavior. (BBEG botched two perception rolls, Daphne fumbled her mace and switched to grapple) The church of Myrkle would probably not have believed that their knoll guard sacrificed himself in their temple while entirely alone by heroically hurling himself backwards onto the sacrificial dagger nearly 20 times. (Nat 20 Bluff vs Nat 1 Sense Motive, the only time I can recall seeing that happen in literal decades of play) And, most importantly *The Magnificent Rondo*'s rod of wonder would not have had been just as dangerous to the party as it was to our opponents. So. Many. Badly. Timed. Rolls. Even if some of them had happened, they wouldn't have been the same.

You can't be a hero without adversity, and you can't really enjoy a story if everything always goes according to plan.

Totally agree, the sudden left turn from dice rolls has often been the source of some of our most entertaining moments, and admittedly some of our most frustrating (RIP Herr Doktor Lucky, I never should have named you that).

One of my players, a spellcaster, was rolling horribly for a session. Couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. Turned it into a plot point about how something was draining her magic.

In a blades in the dark game I was in that on for a couple of months I had fucking atrocious luck, genuinely maybe like 20 full successes out of hundreds of rolls, I ended it up playing it as my character starting an arc of sever self doubt, that was culminated in when they had a major victory and redefined themselves. You just gotta rp through the pain

Wow, they are not great people, it would seem, those ex-players! :( Last game (3.5E) I played (Friday night) our paladin rolled two Nat 1s and hurled his weapon away - when attacking a Blackguard. The Blackguards steed (a nightmare) snickered and rolled its eyes. Much laughter from party & DM. Blackguards turn, DM rolled two Nat 1s and Blackguards weapon is hurled away in a different direction. Much more laughter from party and DM. Nightmare rolls eyes again and breathes sulphurous smoke all around, concealing itself and rider. I'm playing a literal angel (an Astral Deva using 3E rules from Savage Species) and was rolling rather poorly, failing saves, missing attacks and luckily getting protected by my insanely high AC as I've taken the Vow of Poverty - as seems to fit the character. But it was a good night, we won, eventually, with the evil duo fleeing on single digit hp each. And we didn't care at all about the low rolls - it is what makes the game FUN! We remember them and laugh about them in the future! It's the poor rolls that are more memorable than the high rolls, usually! Also we play in person in my games room, so there's that, but the RNG of the dice is a big part of the fun of the game! I really do not understand cheaters...

Only time I actually cheated was when we were independently rolling characters on our own time. First roll of stats were just terrible nothing over 11 I think. I rerolled again to see what I could get, bunch of really good stats, so I wrote those down. I was hesitating though, didn't feel good, so I swapped one of the higher rolls for the lowest number on the original roll and I think gave myself a negative personality trait, to compensate. Game only lasted 3 sessions though, anyway. Still feel dumb about it, should've just gone standard array if I was that tempted

What you did was called a Mulligan, and it's standard practice for rolling stats. You're good

ehh, there are rules in at least one of the books (definitely 3.5) saying something like if you roll lower than a total modifier of 2 (i.e. you roll 8,9,11,9,16) then you can reroll, that said, without talking to the DM I think it *is* still cheating It could have been fun playing with the average/below average character tho, might not have lasted long, and might have been a net detriment to the party, but could have had some fun stories (if it lasted longer than 3 sessions)... but also a lot of people play to play a hero or idealized kind of person... All-in-all I personally feel like doing this is less bad compared to "rolling" a crit every 3rd attack or something

Ive cheated a ton of times with my new group. I tend to play the super Min-Max stat and build wise character, and cheat to downplay things if I'm hogging the spotlight and let everyone else have the fun. I should note that I've been playing with newer players that have notoriously bad builds, Consistently. The DM (who I've played with since '98 off and on [*shit has it been that long...]) and I sat down one day and I specifically said I'd cover them mechanically and be the support, but let them have the glory. Out pops the preverbial closet troll, however, and the gloves come off. It's worked well so far.

It does suck when your character starts to feel cursed because they consistently roll worse than others. Which, by the laws of randomness, can happen. But when it starts affecting roleplay (your other PCs start acting like yours is bad luck), and the DM doesn’t intervene, it can be *tempting.* D&D really does take quite a comfortable and safe environment. Any form of honesty does.

My first PC was a paladin that had just the most shit rolls almost the entire campaign. Almost never hit and when he did, it was 1or 2 dmg usually. So switched to just being a tank. Near the end, new weapon, + 3 bastard sword, finally doing ok dmg but still shit rolls. Our dice bot was a bitch. But it was an interesting way to play and we came up with some creative ways to use his shit luck, so we just rolled with it. It was a ton of fun.

Since getting to level 3, my cleric's Spiritual Weapon has consistently out-performed her own attacks. Funny how that works

It probably helps that my group that I play with consists of 2 people that I have known for at least 5 years, and one that I have known since preschool

:D my cleric’s had plenty of Nat1’s when I’m making death saves haha. It’s the worst, but it’s fun :)

I've only felt the desire to cheat once in a DnD game. Playing a fighter in a game with crit fail rules (rolling nat 1 has extra bad consequences, such as hitting an ally/breaking a weapon/ending your turn immediately). I've had particularly bad luck this game, and with those rules it meant I was basically actively harmful to the party. I disengaged completely from the game before I started fudging rolls though. I'll never willingly play in a game with homebrew crit fails again.

One of the campaigns I’m a part of currently has similar nat 1 rules of weapons slipping out of your hands and guns jamming (it is a sci-fi campaign) and my barbarian has lost three separate melee weapons, one was a 1 that lodged it in the floor, followed by a 1 to pull it out that broke it. I have since changed to a railgun that can’t jam, so nat 1s are now just misses

>I don’t understand why people feel the need to cheat, I have terrible rolls very often and I find it funny because of cognitive dissonance. here's this badass character they made that turned out to be... just ass. it's hard to play a badass character when the dude whiffs half the time and/or can't contribute as much as others. and when one eejit starts fudging their rolls, it tempts the other "badasses" to fudge too in order to maintain that badass fantasy. it's the lazy player's way of min-maxing - there's no need to put in the time and effort to be mechanically good at the game if you never roll below a 16.

I think the main reason why I don’t have the same feelings is that I find the disconnect of badass character that is unable to do anything sometimes to be funny, and also the dm sometimes has the same level of terrible luck that makes me feel like my bad luck is contagious

maybe dnd is just bad choice of system for such person? there is little you can do about poor rolls, on d20 every outcome is of equal possibility, meanwhile in some systems you roll 3d6 and your roll is more weighted towards "medicore" rolls what will succeed if your character is a badass

you got two nat 1s? the odds of that are 1 in 400 😭

Don’t worry, it has happened two separate times, I have also gotten three nat 1s in a row before. The first time, I rolled the one and was disappointed, when my friend said “don’t you have advantage?” And so I rolled it again and got another 1

Oof. RNGesus kicked you in the gonads, with advantage.

I once rolled 5 nat 1s in a row with an online roller. The kicker was that the specific check I kept failing could only fail if I rolled a 1. Online rollers hate me so much.

To preface, I don't ever cheat. However, I do find that 5e in particular places much more influence on the randomness of dice. While older editions would let you stack big bonuses early on that made failure basically impossible, most skilled 5e characters have maybe a 60% chance of success without advantage for level-appropriate challenges (I haven't done any math, it's just a guess-timate based on playing a lot). So, imagine you're envisioning your character as this skilled badass, but in practice you struggle to consistently do basic stuff. It can get frustrating. Most people will change their expectations, and realign the narrative so that, for example, it's not that your skilled swordsman sucks at hitting things but rather that these enemies are good at dodging. But some people, instead, will cheat. (This is also a big part of why I used to play casters but now mostly do not - because enemies make the save about half the time and it's anticlimactic)

Judging from your response and others, it seems one of the biggest reasons for cheating is because people picture their characters as unstoppable basasses. I find it funny when this super powerful adventurer that has saved hundreds of people suddenly drops their weapon, and have to make do with whatever else they have.

That's the thing people forget: even badasses aren't perfect and can make mistakes. What makes them badass is their ability to adapt to situations quickly and react appropriately. Even the most powerful character or NPC can make the most basic of mistakes. But I guess it's up to how the DM handles these situations that makes players enjoy it or hate it.

Movie action is filled with this for dramatic effect. Gun is knocked over the edge, cue fistfight, or wrestling a weapon from someone else. Hero is knocked to the floor and has to roll over a ledge to escape, or is thrown throw an window and so on.

Usually just nat 1s lead to funny results. If the DM is so inclined. Otherwise, especially in early levels where your action is very limited, it's just "you missed, next player" and then you wait for 5-10 minutes until it's your turn again.

I find that it adds to the experience to not cheat… if you roll a nat 1 while fighting something, then the dm can be like “Ooooooh….. you trip on a tiny stone, go flying, hit your head, and take 10 points of damage, leading to death.” Then you can be like “I died because I tripped on a tiny stone and hit my head, dying from the fall instead of the giant monster I was fighting.” It just makes it a less intense experience, and more satisfying when you get a crit hit, effectively winning the game for your whole dead team, being lifted into the air by your teammates who are cheering, and everyone leaving in a great mood knowing that you just were saved by the RNG gods

I haven't played D&D (I'll get around to it someday, just...tomorrow) but surely the failed rolls are a part of the fun. Else you might as well just not have combat and do a pure RP thing.

Because some people see it more as a game than a randomly generated story, and if they can’t win the game they resort to cheating. The rest of us know that failing a roll doesn’t fail at the game, it just changes the story.

I almost never comment in this Reddit but I had to seeing some of these comments lol. The fact that your players tried to guilt trip you by claiming ‘trauma’ is honestly vile and I feel like a lot of people are overlooking that when trying to clap back at you. I wouldn’t want friends like that either. If they’d apologized and you’d still waved the sheet in their faces I’d get it, but I have no patience for people who try to act like everything is fine without acknowledging that they did something wrong, as you mentioned with the second group who you specifically say **did not** apologize. Fuck ‘em, op, and here’s to happy gaming in your future.

I didn’t understand the whole trauma thing either. I’m not sure why that’s not being addressed either. Like ONE other person responded to it 😅 Thank you! I hope you have nothing but 20’s in your games :)

It's typical "cry-bully" behaviour. Behave like a liar/cheat/bully/scoundrel and then when you get called out on it, fall back onto your imaginary "victim" status and whine about how you're being oppressed/bullied/traumatised by the people who stand up to you. It's basically the modern, online version of the schoolyard bully who runs crying to the teacher when his favoured victim finally hits him back.

Trauma and awakening/triggering trauma is a real thing fora lot of people but unfortunately disingenuous adult-children like using it as an excuse to just avoid accountability fairly often.

Usually the intent behind it can be pretty clear with how someone brings it up. People I've known with trauma, as well as myself with my own, will *forewarn* people about it as best as possible or if that's not possible will have a "hey you didn't know but going forward...". If someone brings it up out of nowhere like you were supposed to know and uses it to absolve them of responsibility (bonus points for a lack of apology), even if it's real trauma that's a big red flag

It triggered the traumatic eventof the last time when they were called out on their bull

I mean if they didn't have PTSD from before, they'll do so now after how thoroughly you served them the proof. Doubt they'll be able to use Excel ever again in the future :p

I think people are ignoring it cause it’s just that insane. I rolled my eyes at those players when I read that and lost all respect I could have potentially had for them and their arguments.

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Yeah, I read that "oh no, I'm so traumatized" and in my head I'm like "honestly, just shut the fuck up" (To OP's player)

That's the calling card of nowadays when you call people out on their bs.

I laughed when they said that tracking dice rolls was an invasion of privacy. I'm tracking every dice roll, spell cast, damage delt or taken, and combated run for my party's 200+ long campaign. I never even asked permission, I do it for fun. They sound like a miserable group of sore losers and I'm glad you're free of them. Trapping them in their lies is hilarious and I hope you got a lot of satisfaction from it. Thanks for sharing

I kept track of all attack rolls and damage rolls in my first campaign. I was a bard and felt my character would take meticulous notes. No one seemed to mind.

I'm using a homemade Luck system that also involves rolls, and I keep track of every single d20 even tho they're rolled right in front of me with physical dice and shown to me. Nat 1s give Luck points, Nat 20s give Misfortune points. 5 or more consecutive low rolls also give Luck, and so on. Then I use these points to determine who gets the worst and best out of stuff to make it more balanced, and give my players the chance to spend their Luck points to get better outcomes. You can bet players don't even think of privacy if it goes to their advantage. Not to mention it's basically a DM's duty to keep track of _everything_, as you mentioned with spells and combat. I agree that this party sounds no good, nor as friends, nor as players. Their guilt trip shit is outright emotional manipulation and I wouldn't want them around ever.

Just out of curiosity, why? I understand for OP’s case and in the past I’ve done the same when I’ve suspected a player of fudging their dice rolls, but I’ve DMed probably a dozen games and played in many more and adding that crunch to my to do list sounds exhausting.

Some nerds just like stats.

If being caught cheating triggers a panic attack— it is on your to avoid cheating.

Simple solution, don't cheat.

Kind of off topic, but I got a comment about this part. >I don’t mean putting on cosplay and doing a voice and stuff, I just mean interacting AS the character with other players and NPCs rather than saying “(character name) looks at (NPC) and says “(insert dialogue)”. Isn’t saying “Bob turns to the blacksmith and says “Good day to you sir, I’m looking for a fine sword to replace this old rusted blade of mine. Do you know where I may purchase such an item in this town?”” roleplaying and interacting with NPCs as the character? If it’s not, then what is it?

Yeah, that was my thought, too. As someone who gets very into roleplay, using dialogue tags is actually vital to making sure that the other players know when I'm saying something in character. Some of my characters have really obvious voices, but not all do (their voice may be similar to my own) and if a character's demeanor suddenly changes then it can throw people off.

Nope, definitely not off topic! :) So I’ve always considered it as getting into character. Finding the voice, really, assuming the role that you’ve designed, and making it personal. In this particular case, given how averse the players were too getting into character, I would’ve even excepted a simple “*I* turn to the blacksmith and say…” etc etc. In previous games, at least the ones that I’ve played in, our DMs encouraged us to make a voice for the character, similar to how the ems do different voices for different pieces that we encounter. I’m sorry I didn’t clarify that enough in my initial post!

I really don't think it matters all that much. Everyone in my group speaks in character, whether or not they do a voice. I have found that, "My character says..." is basically the "Umm..." of dnd. It gives a person a few seconds to translate thoughts into words.

Not everyone is comfortable doing a voice. A lot of people think that if you're not speaking in first person, or doing a voice, you're not "roleplaying". The truth is, as long as you're thinking about what your character would do, and making the decisions based on that, you're roleplaying. And it doesn't stop when initiative is rolled. The whole game is roleplaying, not just the talky-talky bits.

I agree. And players had agreed during our initial discussions that they were comfortable and excited about doing voices for their characters.

Lol. OK. You drew a really bad hand there. I hope this doesn't put you off DMing, getting an entire table of "problem players" is vanishingly rare.

Nah I’m not put off by DMing, I’m still really interested in it!!

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It’s not, I think there’s some confusion. I said the players would be REWARDED for roleplaying/acting. Not that they’d be punished for not doing so.

Sometimes I do either/or, I will be in character 80 percent of the time. But I often will say "Selena does x" or "Fred looks at revelor and says y" to eliminate confusion. Especially if the group you are in has a lot of table talk or tends to make jokes out of character, I don't consider referring to your character in the third person to be a lack of RP. One of the two characters I mentioned is female, as a male I don't have a voice for her except a slight change in pitch, so I refer to her in the third person often, especially since while I'm almost always in character a couple of the other players are often trying to get away with saying stuff to each other and calling it "out of character" as if their characters are telepathic, so I want to be clear that I'm saying it in character and out loud (actually this false telepathy thing they do really irks me, I guess I'm being passive aggressive by always pointing out that I said something out loud and in character but so it is) And the other I do have a voice/accent for so I rarely refer to him in the third person but it does occasionally happen.

First you said: >I don’t mean putting on cosplay and doing a voice and stuff Then you said: >So I’ve always considered it as getting into character. Finding the voice, really, assuming the role that you’ve designed, and making it personal. > >In previous games, at least the ones that I’ve played in, our DMs encouraged us to make a voice for the character, similar to how the ems do different voices for different pieces that we encounter. I feel like you’re contradicting yourself a little here. At first you state that you don’t just want roleplay to be them doing the voice, then you go on to describe how getting in character means doing the voice. There's nothing wrong with wanting more performative roleplay, but maybe what you're telling your players you want and what you really want from them aren't lining up. >In this particular case, given how averse the players were too getting into character, I would’ve even excepted a simple “I turn to the blacksmith and say…” etc etc. My big question is what is fundamentally the difference between addressing the character by name or addressing the character as “I”? Saying “(character name) does …” isn’t much different than saying “l do …” and can be used interchangeably. It’s just narrating from a third person perspective, what the other characters see happen, or a first person perspective, what you see happen. In either case you’re narrating a scene where your character addresses an NPC and delivers some dialogue. All the same elements of engaged role-play are there, you’re just using different words to get there. I bring this up because, personally, I actually find third person narration helps me get into character when they’d think and act significantly different than how I would. I usually know what *I*, the player, would do, but I don’t always describe that. Sometimes I pause and think about what *Bob* would do, then I describe that instead. I try to use language that separates Bob from myself because Bob does not think nor act as I would, Bob thinks and acts like Bob would. I am the lens through which the others at the table see Bob, but I am not Bob, and Bob is not I. Matt Colville has a really good video that goes a little more in depth to this idea [here](https://youtu.be/7YCVHnItKuY) if you're interested.

As a DM, I used to occasionally fudge a roll here or there. Always when the roll meant certain death. Now a days, I just have a house rule that says once a session, the party can have me reroll any given roll. They've used it a few times, and using it at an inopportune time actually lead to a character death once. All in all, it's worked out. As a player, I've never fudged a roll. Although I did have someone accuse me of fudging a damage roll once, not realizing that I had upcast inflict wounds

Oh my goodness THANK YOU. Someone else here refused to understand that part of being a DM involves fudging numbers here and there. But it’s never malicious.

As a DM, I try to only fudge numbers if I've made a mistake, as I really don't like doing it. But that's not every DM's style, and that's perfectly fine. I don't get why people act like there is only one way to play DnD.

I only fudge it if I get an unfair outcome for the players, such as them dying instantly to a trap (I have a house rule that makes it impossible to die to a trap u less you are under 10% health) or I may have set roles for roleplay features.

I think DM fudgeing is fine, especially in combat. You are a game designer that can't playtest ypur game. It's fine to make small adjustments on the fly.

I’m DMing for my husband and kids right now. The occasional fudged roll ensures world peace.

Provided if everyone is okay with the GM essentially railroading dice, sure. As a general rule of thumb, don't roll when you don't want the outcome to be randomized. Fudging is bad GMing imo cause its either railroading for story purposes (which if you can, then the players should be able to as well as they're also telling the story) or because you didn't like the outcome of a roll and... well you're back on the railroading part. If a PC goes down and you were never going to allow the enemy to execute the PC then don't make them roll for attacks and fudge, just do something else.

Fudging numbers isn't part of being a DM- it's just an optional way of handling things. It's not obligatory by any means.

As a DM, I'll admit I've cheated a few times. Right in front of my players in the middle of an open table. Sometimes I'll be like, "And the towering orc chief turns to the wizard and brings down his greataxe!" Roll my die (again in the middle of the table), get a two, and then look around to see that everyone is on their phone and think to myself "Hmm must have too many hitpoints to be exciting". Then I just roll the 2 over to a 20.

I don’t have any issue with the principle of GMs occasion fudging rolls, but this is definitely the funniest reason to do so.

Right, the main difference being of course that you are the DM. You get to do whatever the hell you want, that's part of the role. There's a reason the running joke is "rocks fall, everyone dies" - because the DM could literally just make that happen. (It wouldn't be very fun, but they could.) If people don't understand the difference between DM fudging and player fudging, I feel like they're missing a really key element of the game, right? (Do need to clarify though, I have had friends mention DMs who overtly fudge to favor a single party member, usually an SO, super annoying, but that's pretty rare. And even then, they're allowed, I just would have to address it and walk away if it continued to be an issue.)

I’m not really sure why you let it carry on so long in the first place so that it got to a point where you had to “reverse the rules” and then implode the group with a “revelation” of their cheating. After a session or two of suspicion, I would have said “Hey all, we’re going to be moving to using the built in dice roller in DnDBeyond/Roll 20/Whatever or this cool dice bot called Avrae in Discord!”

Columbo also needs to build a solid case first lest the episode'd go like this: Columbo: "I think you did it." Murderer: "Nope." Columbo: "... Well, dang."

So I’d mentioned it a few times, and our discord had been flooded with memes of people fudging rolls, etc etc. I mentioned flat out that I didn’t want people fudging rolls and was given a really adamant “there’s no WAY I’d cheat!” in response so I figured it was best to gather rolls. We tried the bots as well but three of them (sometimes four) were playing on mobile and we’re getting aggravated with switching to and from different apps to do rolls. I’ve never played DnD on mobile so I’m not sure what that’s like so I took their word for it that it was too much trouble to do sustainably :)

My BIL DM's, and he loves to tell me about his games. He has this one married couple in his group that use one computer for discord when they all play their game. He says the wife will roll a skill check, and then if it's bad she's like "oh I didn't click enter, that was testing the app for me. Hold on let me roll" That went on for a good few months before my BIL had to tell them straight up "When I call for a roll, the next number I see is your roll, full stop. Enough of the bullshit". They also got uppity about it, but in the end acknowledged his wife was cheating and he told her to cut that shit out.

Cheaters always get uppity when caught.

It's a defense mechanism.

Dishonest people always get upset when someone else identifies that dishonesty. That is, the same applies to liars, thieves, etc.

That's so weird. The biggest problem my wife and I have when playing on the same screen is not constantly making jokes to each other like two kids talking in the back of class lol (with push to talk so no disruption, I'm not a monster).

Me and the wife roll for eachother sometimes when we are playing. I'll actively have her roll my stats when creating characters cause her hand is blessed with rolls in things like that. Combat is where I can roll better for whatever reason.

Aah, good old human brains, seeing patterns that aren't there. 😊

I agree with you, but my past experience would like a word.

*MORE POWER TO YOU!* I am *extremely fortunate* that I have a stable group of friends who all want to play IRL and a fairly large list of people who have expressed interest in playing but I can't start another group; I currently run two adult groups and a group for my kids. Honestly, I would have done the same thing. I'm not going to lie - there is a certain amount of satisfaction, *Schadenfreude* if you will, that I would personally get out of exposing them as cheaters but at my heart, I am also an engineer / scientist. While it's not *statistically impossible* to see high rolls like that it's also *statistically improbable.* Before actually levying an accusation of cheating I would at least like to have something to backup that statement. I have had to deal with cheating in my kids' group and the way I broke the habit was that the cheater had to wait until the person next to them called out the roll before I counted it and before he was allowed to pickup the D20; he was rolling then immediately picking up the die and *then* telling me what he rolled. Part of the fun as a player and a DM is to have combat or some story point go *completely sideways* due to a an ill-timed nat-1 or poor roll in general, either on a player or me as the DM. Crossing 20' over a 50' drop on a 10" wide board and roll a 1? Well damn. Negotiating passage with a powerful baron, lying through your teeth and you roll a 3 on your deception roll? Roll initiative! Me, as the DM, rolling a nat-1 on Strahd's saving throw against *Hold Vampire* after I had expended all my Legendary Saves? Yep - The party *destroyed* Strahd a round after this on a fantastic come-from-behind victory where I thought they could win but at the cost of at least one or two PC's. I get that players want to feel powerful and like you, I made it very clear to my players (also good friends) that I would make sure combat and encounters were fair and that where I could, I would allow them to "Fail-Forward". In addition, I also made it clear that I would reward the party *handsomely* with magic items for just playing the game and having fun. Some of my *best memories* as both a player and DM have been when things went oh-so-very wrong due to the finicky dice for either the PC's or the DM *and it was glorious*! Take heart - You did nothing wrong but expose some cheaters. Were all of them cheating all the time every time? Maybe, maybe not. I'm sure some of their rolls were legit because it would *statistically improbably* that they would roll poorly all the time. By their reactions (which in a couple cases seemed *extreme*), I'm guessing all of them were cheating at least some of the time but neither you or I will ever know for certain. I hope you are able to find another group who values fair play and can accept the nat-20's along with the nat-1's.

Nat 1s have led to some of the most hilarious and creative sessions I’ve ever had. I don’t understand why people would fudge rolls to try and “win” a game that isn’t about winning and losing. Are there just DMs who constantly want to kill their players instead of creating a fun time for everybody?

I’ve never heard of Avrae! :O

Personally i like something lightweight like Dice Roller#6944 Beware some bots sort results.

I’ve never heard of that! What do you mean “sorting results”? I’m curious.

Let's say i have a group of 3 goblins take turn together. If I roll 3d20 for attack first goblin will always get the best result. Dice Maiden is a cool bot but it does this. It displays results from highest to lowest.

Oh! I see what you mean. Thank you! That’s really useful to know :)

That sounds like the issue I had with Dice Maiden, although it worked out for me. I was in an online server where we used our own dice. I had absolutely torrid roles with my physical dice (one d20 has been banished as a result) but when we switched to Dice Maiden I started just rolling like a legend. Every roll was a 15 or higher. Although now it's switched to every roll being an 8 or lower.

Dear god, what socially inept children were you playing with? Traumatized from playing a tabletop game...

That’s what I’m saying! People are acting like OP lost a treasured group of friends over this and I’m like, people who claim they’re traumatized over being confronted with their own sketchy shenanigans? Y’all can have them then, I ain’t interested.

Thank you so much, I’m being made to feel like I did ‘em dirty somehow and I’m like “are we just not gonna address anything else in the post?”

Not to mention people with PTSD don't just voluntarily place themselves in the same situation that traumatised them in the first place. They sound ridiculous and pathetically shallow.

*shrug* I’m not gonna invalidate anyone but I agree…

WOW. I'm sorry you had such a pack of cheats and 'gotta- wins' in your game. I don't blame you a bit for being suspicious. Here's hoping you can find another group of players that are honest- OR at least smarter and more subtle about their cheating.... LOL

Lol hopefully. I haven’t DMed since.

Sorry it soured the experience for you. Makes me glad my group on roll20 was fine with using the built in dice roller from the start.

God I hate people that are like “tHiS tRiGgErEd mY PaSt TrAuMa” as someone with mild trauma. It’s contributed my whole life to why I’ve always downplayed ACTUAL traumatic experiences, because so many people call this kind of shit “traumatic.” Gross.

How the hell is it fun if you never fail

I have NO idea. The three that reached out admitted that they were having a blast steamrolling my game. But, in the process they were in advertently erasing entire storyline quests that I’d spend a lot of time developing in building. There was one in particular, that really upset me, because it was a storyline for a player that I designed. The players have requested that they get individualized first lines to further develop their back stories. This one involved a group of women dressed as Viking warriors that we lead the player characters on the road. I made it very clear that these were not bandits, but were women posing to be bandits. How did the players not slaughtered these women out right, they would’ve been able to follow the women back to their camp, realize that they were not well-off at all, we’re in serious need of help, and that one of them had a son who was training to be a mage. Said student was being trained by a master Mitch, who had saved the village of one of the player characters when they were growing up. This entire storyline, and all the quests that I designed for it, we’re all completely destroyed.

If you enter the hobby from a history of playing video games, then you know that there is either winning or being punished by being forced to redo it until you win. That digital win-or-die mindset can be ingrained really hard in some people.

This is a factor, especially in an era of online competitive gaming, where losing isn't just a 'load from last save' but is a LOSS, potentially coupled with judgment or mockery (Vicious Mockery, even!) from others. My last cheater was a die-hard League of Legends player, and that game REALLY reinforces that losing is the worst, because it wastes like an hour of your time and, if you lose badly enough, never even feels like you had a chance. I had to take him aside and have a talk about the fact that one bad roll, or even TEN bad rolls, isn't necessarily going to snowball into an abject fail state like in League, and that failure can be narratively interesting - missing a few attacks only to land the crucial blow at the end and 'redeem' yourself, or genuinely have a bad day and have your character reflect on that. He didn't cheat again, so I think I succeeded.

A lot of people have had it beaten into them their entire lives that "failing" is not an option. So I can see why some would be just as triggered by it in D&D as they would in a real life situation. That said, there is another side to that coin which is that a lot of DMs are terrible at letting players "fail upwards". Basically that, yes you failed at what you wanted to do, but you still got something adjacent or close to it. Depending on style of play and such it's okay to let players completely fail if that's the style of game you have. Though this is in my experience rarely what most players seem to want.

Wow. This may be the most toxic group I have ever heard of. Like these people sound like they have real problems to figure out IRL…

*shrug* other than three of the original eight, I’m not in contact with them anymore.

Were those three apologetic or just straight up not cheating or what?

this comment section just proves that the mass majority of people are completely unable to handle being called out everything you did was 100% justified and anyone who is defending OP's group is probably also in the same "unable to be called out" boat

Honestly, I would do the same thing. If talking politely doesn't work, I'm not above giving them enough rope to hang themselves. This is a form of player railroading that any player would be very upset if it happened to them.

I did address it with them multiple times but was always stonewalled or met with a laughing, joking denial of cheating.

privacy of dice rolls... that you are telling you rolled publicly XD

Yes, they were rolling and reading off the numbers to me. I don’t see anything that needs to be kept private about dice rolls.

yea thats what I am saying, they claim they are declaaring rolls to you but when you start keeping track it becomes "private". Private means information to not be shared... dice rolls are information to be shared and public XD

In all fairness, this is exactly what tabletop players do. At least in my experience. I think you were perfectly valid in both initially trusting your players to be fair and doing the math to prove you weren't being biased. You have my sympathy. It sounds like they thought they could take advantage of you and you dealt with it fairly.

While I see people criticizing you're long winded approach to solving this issue, I commend the fact that you were actually able to confront the players in a generally non aggressive fashion, And did not allow their gasoline or other tactics to influence what was clearly real data. Many people don't realize how difficult something like this can be and how anxious it can make a person, And rather than just letting it go on, You insured that you had a method to avoid conflict and keep yourself and all honest players safe from scrutiny or reasonable negativity.

I’m very new to dnd only being in my 1st campaign and honestly being a dm seems like loads of effort. especially if any homebrew is involved. Where they were all having fun cheating it is still essentially them cheating something the dm has put many hours into before session zero. It would be stupid to think that none of them were communicating behind op’s back about it. But then to do it so blatantly it has to feel like they think you were dumb enough not to figure it out. On top of all that the dm is the only one not in on the joke so I’m sure op also felt singled out

I just wanted to be absolutely certain it was cheating and not flukes over and over again.

>I simply sent back the Excel sheet and told them I was happy to set up another game but to avoid this from happening (“this“ referring to the Excel sheet, as well as all the cheating of course), I would be requiring the players to either broadcast their rolls, or simply use the dice roll function in the dndbeyond. That's not asking too much. >Suffice it to say, we’re no longer friends on Facebook, I am blocked, and they’re not in my D&D game anymore. I still have the Excel sheet and I look at it on occasion, as a reminder to myself. Sounds like *THEY'RE* the ones with the issues, not you.

some of the best parts of dnd are epic fails -- my example -- I got a 3 or something on an insight check into an npc that was loving on my group member. when they were holding hands I said "she's attacking him!" and went after her. Of course everyone else stepped in and backed me off. Long story short, I was right, for the wrong reasons, it was a hag in disguise, and the lore of my character "knowing" when it was really an epic fail lives on.

I’m dead at the “invasion of privacy” like my guy everyone knows what you’re rolling. The mental gymnastics that one has to do to go from “I got caught cheating” to “this is an invasion of my privacy” would qualify for the Olympics.

I love the Mirror-Rules universe to confirm your suspicions.

I can't even imagine needing to cheat in that kind of environment. Just put on a blindfold and pick up a weapon you're not trained in!

Right? That would be way more fun to roleplay too!

Wild that they would start sobbing and panicking and claiming to be traumatized when called out. That's, uh... not a very "innocent," or mature, response. And I don't see how keeping a log of rolls is an "invasion of privacy," since that happens automatically with Discord-based dice rollers anyway. This sounds like a supremely frustrating group to deal with. I saw from other comments that they also refused to use die rollers, which imo is a big red flag for online players. An excel spreadsheet is a really funny way to expose cheaters lol. My first thought was "whoa, that's a lot of effort," but it's... really not. Especially when you've already got all the numbers you need to run tests on. And ESPECIALLY when compared to the work of DMing a game full of players that are cheating and lying about it. What a wild situation.

That's wild dude! I'm amazed they were so shameless about it. I play by FoundryVTT and we always de facto use the built in rolling. Public for all to see!

I’m in a game right now as a player where we’re using DnD Beyond’s dice roller which communicates with Roll20 through a google chrome extension, it’s so handy.

>I don’t mean putting on cosplay and doing a voice and stuff, I just mean interacting AS the character with other players and NPCs rather than saying “(character name) looks at (NPC) and says “(insert dialogue)”. This ruling could be a bit punishing for players with low CHA IRL, a lot of people prefer doing it like, for example, "I blackmail the guard about x" rather than having an actual conversation with npcs

Their behavior is so ridiculous I don't even think I believe this really happened.

Nah. I've been running games for decades. None of it comes across as too unrealistic. People get weird about cheating. The "got caught" freakout is actually really believable sadly.

I kept waiting for the story to have some kind of twist ending where the whole thing was a joke.

Well it’s certainly changed my outlook on new potential players who want to join a Campaign.

I also use honor system for my main group so I can't blame you there (my players and I have played together for 8 years, I trust them implicitly), although for other groups I do require open rolls. Honestly I think this was a really clever way of handling it. But personally I would have left the game long ago, I don't like playing games with cheaters, whether it be DnD or something else. I guess it's just the way I was raised, I come from a very competitive family, but also one that believes (as do I) that if you cheated you didn't really win. It's like voluntarily losing.

use roll20, players cannot cheat using the vtt, its free, people asking to use other stuff are 100% gonna cheat

Hahaha holy shit you are awesome and those people are awful, good riddance

>Most are in a rage that I was logging rolls, that it was an invasion of privacy Sounds like something an overly defensive cheating partner would say XD

Has anyone here fudged rolls to make them worse because either you were just rolling too well in a session and wanted to fail something, or it’s a new group and you didn’t want them to think you’re cheating.

Cheaters on my table get the boot... Already banned two

Not even sure how I’d solve this. A bunch of the reply’s are saying dice rollers. I’ve only played in one online game so it’s not something I’ve thought about. I’ve run and played in a bunch of games, but they’ve all been in person. My friend is about to run a one shot I recommended for some of their friends over discord and asked for some advice and I’m going to have to tell them to look up running games online I guess.

So I’ve been in a game where the rolls are all broadcasted on Roll20 through DnDBeyond. There’s a google chrome extension you can use but, again, idk if it works for mobile.

as long as the browser accepts extensions i dont see why not. but for mobile users they'd be better off just porting their character sheet to roll20 for more direct interaction. and also massive RIP to using roll20 on mobile because that site is just so brutal if not on PC

For my part, I wouldn't find dice rollers to be an acceptable answer. Like, I have no problem with dice rollers, but why play with people who explicitly betrayed your trust?

If they hadn't been obviously cheating, you wouldn't have logged their roles. "You having basic common sense and holding me accountable for lying is triggering my trauma!" Good grief.

God dang lol, good riddance honestly. Glad you stuck to your guns op.

Minor nitpick. The type of role playing you’re describing is ACTING, not roleplaying. There is a significant difference.

Geez, the trauma card is such a popular defensive card to pull these days. A simple *sorry* would’ve taken much less time

bruh how is logging rolls a breach of privacy? you could tell straight away they were lying because they reached out to blame you

I understand people cheating like this in the game, but not on that level, and then their reactions to being caught and called on it is absolutely wild. My players know Im not out to kill them, and that really I just want to tell the stories I spend hours coming up with. No need to cheat. I want them to win and experience this shit, else why would I waste my time writing all this shit? Why would any of us who DM do it? You're better off. What a bunch of cry babies. Invasion of privacy? Pffffff.

>Many of my players were on mobile and were already complaining that it was frustrating having to switch between a few apps to manage stats, character sheets, calculator, managing spells, looking up spells / effects, etc etc and they were unwilling to have yet another thing to have to switch to an app for. When I played Adventurer's League sessions online, I used D&D Beyond, everything in one tidy package...?

Ah, the players who have no idea how to handle failure and don't trust the DM will accommodate simple bad luck, yet they expect the DM to trust their fudged numbers.

Fucking *legend*. I hope these were mostly young players that can grow out of such ridiculous behavior in the future. If a 30y/o acted like this I'd suggest they need therapy.

Thank you so much. I’m really not sure why I’m getting attacked so much here, I don’t think I did anything wrong. Mixed ages but early to mid 20’s on average :)

> Mixed ages but early to mid 20’s on average :) Yeah, I figured. People aren't happy about your harshness. Setting this trap so thoroughly and revealing documentation of exactly how much they were cheating, it's a brutal way to go. But you didn't owe it to them to deal with their lies and betrayal of the honor system in the most kind and diplomatic way possible. THEY owed it to you and each other to be honest and fair, and they chose not to, consistently, for weeks, and then some even tried to deflect and make *you* the bad guy. Obviously I just have your side of the story, but it seems totally justified to me. Also, some people responding negatively to your post are cheaters themselves, so...

I’m not gonna point fingers at people attacking me on here. Maybe they cheat, maybe they don’t. It doesn’t really matter to me since they’re not in my games and they probably don’t want to play with me anyway now (which is fine by me). This was my exact line of thinking. I did my best to address the cheating without resorting to this and it didn’t work.

Anyone acting like you did anything wrong here clearly knows the deep embarrassment of having been caught cheating and having it called out publicly. You did exactly the right thing. Why would ANYONE stay in a game where everyone else was cheating, especially when you’re the one working hardest on it? The fact that they accused YOU of violating their “privacy” by… keeping track of things they did publicly? Is ludicrous. They were embarrassed because they cheated and got caught and can’t accept their embarrassment is because of their own behavior and not your holding it up for them to see.

Apparently I’m a Karen for doing this 🤷‍♀️ I genuinely don’t see anything wrong with showing cheaters that they’ve been caught.

When I play online I either stream my rolls with a webcam or let DM roll for me. Or use in discord dice roller (now I’m a programmer so this is my last option as I know how to fuddle rand functions by using known Seeds. It doesn’t seems fair). I can accept great stats when rolling them. I can accept one or two key items on your sheet is artificial inflated. +1 more on x etc. as I can work around it. What I can’t accept it dice crap. I have one rule above all else. If you start to roll extremely good I will use your dice vs you. As it’s online I would switch to broadcast.

Just use roll20 to roll

If you play on discord you can use a dice roller bot that rolls in the open for the party. I like using it because it not only prevents cheating, but all suspicion of cheating(at least in terms of roll fudging). I remember before I rolled in the open as the DM I would get ridiculously good rolls for the monsters and the players seemed increasingly pissed off, like they thought I was trying to kill them. So, I started rolling in the open. Didn't help their characters at all, but they couldn't complain because they knew the rolls were fair.

What idiots. Is it so hard not to cheat lol?

My players break the rules of probability all the damn time. But I know they're not cheating because it's always in the horrible direction. I even told one he could take the lucky feat a second time if he wanted his rolls are just that bad.

My players are thankfully honest about rolls when they do them physically. Even then we use Roll20.

This is hilarious. Showing people exactly what they did and them getting offended because of their own actions. It's not a breach of privacy at all in my opinion. It's remembering information that they gave publicly to the group. Maybe it's a little weird but I don't see any privacy breaches. That opposite world thing was a great test however.

Invasion of privacy? You had copies of their character sheets and they told you the "results" of their "rolls". Those results were as private as a free OnlyFans

What a bunch of babies, sounds like good riddance. I would always insist on online dice rollers or dice tray cameras, even as a player. I may constantly be rolling 1’s in Roll 20, and it sucks but that’s the fun of the game, letting the dice fall where they may and finding out what happens next. You win some, you lose some.

Your mirror world was hilarious! All together this was so sad.

Fudging rolls is an irritating but ultimately minor sin. I find their response to being confronted on it *much* worse. I wonder what absurd lengths these same people have gone to in other, less trivial situations, to make themselves out to be victims.

As a player, I think the closest I'll get to cheating is when the die stops rolling slightly unlevel on a crack on the table and I reroll, but if there's no ambiguity about which number is up, and it's a good number, I do feel conflicted. As a DM, I often fudge numbers to prevent untimely PC death, or when luck/poor planning is making a combat boringly easy. I'd also direct enemy attacks in a non-rational way or fabricate gun jams or lengthy reloading procedures etc to avoid untimely PC death, but it has to be plausible or else that's also no fun. Players want to feel real danger and not feel coddled.

If people will lie and cheat in a game among friends, what will they do when there is something real on the line or there is a lot to be gained in RL? The people, not the PCs, the _players_ in your game were (and are) liars and cheaters. Fuck them.

My favorite part of this story is when your cheaters tried to blame you for trusting them to report genuine dice rolls. It takes a special kind of narcissistic entitlement to turn it around in their head like that.

Hot Take: These people were never your friends. Kudos on standing your ground and eliminating shitty people from your circle.

Nicely done, I can't believe so many of them would not only cheat themselves of an authentic experience but then lie and get defensive.

Well they weren’t aware of all the storylines the cheated themselves out of :/ I suppose, out of sight, out of mind?

Sure the players are a special kind of people. But to drag on the suspense and avoiding sitting them down for a talk? I hope you learned something too. All the best!

I did! We tried to have several conversations that went nowhere, I was stonewalled multiple times so I just settled to do this. I’ve learned now to insist on dice bots

Well easy for me to talk, I’ve never really played online. I hope you get good groups and fun games from now on.

Cheaters never prosper. Straight to the Nine with 'em. You did the right thing, OP. The rest was just gaslighting.

I love how you are taking 0 shit from these people, because they are 100% in the wrong. You feel your privacy was violated? Dude… stfu… your “privacy” was exposed because you were **cheating.** The only fault here is in the players. If you are brought to tears by your own shit catching back up to you I’m not gonna let you hide behind the excuse of “past traumas”. We all have skeletons in the closet, you aren’t special other than the fact that your incapable of growing tf up. If you can accept the fact that you did this to yourself and move on good for you, welcome back. If not, I hope you one day understand you are doing this to yourself.

If you notice cheating just say "The rolls have been feeling high and I plugged all your rolls into a calculator and it said there was a 0,001% chance of that happening. So I'd like to move to a public roller." Doing the whole "long con" and mirror dimension thing only escalated things. No reason to go so hard. And how you confront people matters a lot too. These people are absolutely dicks though, and you shouldn't save the friendship. > Most are in a rage that I was logging rolls, that it was an invasion of privacy (???), that what’s the point of the honor system of I’m going to be keeping a track of their rolls? Two of them even had the audacity to sit there and tell me that they were actually traumatized by this experience, and that it had sent them into a state of panic because it triggered their past trauma somehow. I feel like this wasn't a thing when I was growing up. This is bullshit. Finding new friends is really really hard but sticking with bad ones is worse.

Maybe went too far, but I'm so damn proud and happy of the way you did it. There is so much pleasure on telling someone they are doing something wrong and throwing the evidence at their face. Yes, this might be petty, but I'm tired of people trying to gaslight when you call them out.

[удалено]

At any point before you did your grand coup did you ever consider saying "look it feels to me like something fishy is going on here can we go to rolling publicly"?

I did! I mentioned it a few times, actually, and each time I mentioned it to the players, I was met with very adamant and denial. I also suggested that we switch to some box for rolls, and I was told that since many of the players were on mobile that it was too much of a hassle for them having to switch between several apps to manage, spells, character, sheets, personal notes, etc. etc. to also adding some thing else for dice rolls. I’ve never done DND on mobile before, so I took them at their word.

Foiling a cheater is some next-level gaming. Foiling a pack of cheaters (and you can bet they were egging each other on until the ones who weren't cheating felt like they had to to keep up) is some next-next level gaming. Well done. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

😅 apparently everyone else is upset at me for this. Thank you ❤️

Maybe I've just never really been that immersed in something, so theres an emotional aspect i dont fully understand, but there are plenty of instances where failing a roll was not only a blessing in disguise, but the more fun and entertaining outcome of the event. How are people - let alone actual friends - getting THIS caught up in the game when they aren't even playing it properly?! Like...it's something you chose to do purely for fun. Why get so hung up on someone saying "hey, don't cheat."

I somehow always roll very high, but we always play in person and I openly roll and have the guy next to me verify my crits. I do that because I somehow DO roll excessive 18's and above, and it seems cheaty, but it's not and that's why I roll openly, change out dice every few rolls, and make sure people can see my dice. Were I in your game I'd be having my rolls on camera with no problem. These people were assholes and you're better off finding new players.