When a DM wants to cheat

[Molochio]

Have you ever stopped to think about why a DM cheats? Is your DM cheating when you play the game? As a DM do YOU cheat?

Once, these are thoughts that were unknown to me.
Things I would never even have thought to consider but I came to find, over time, that one of my party's long standing DM's was a consummate cheater.

At first my comrade in arms and I thought nothing of it when the monsters made every save and I do mean EVERY save.

In fact, magic was so utterly ineffective that we drew the conclusion, spells, poisons, anything that says "make a save throw" simply didn't work and as a standard operating procedure began to play exclusively as fighters.

Why?

Because the great sword does not offer a save for half. It simply kills the monster. In fact, we got so perversely good at making killing machines out of melee classes that we didn't know the fighter was bad.

This was a strange time to be alive...

Coming back to the present and the knowledge that magic works, I think about why the DM would cheat. Why does he auto save for his monsters and turn back time a round if he makes a tactical error that would lead to the big bad villain's death?

In the end, I came to the conclusion that it was love. Love...
Some DMs become so deeply invested as to fall in love with their monsters and will actually cheat the players to keep them alive.

Has a thing such as this also happened to you?

[Blasted]

I've cheated in the past to prevent the death of players, where I've made an encounter too difficult, or a puzzle which is too obtuse.
I can see a reason for powering up the monsters if the players are finding it too easy (but it may be easier again just to throw a bunch of extra mooks in).
Turning back time is nasty though.

[Zinegata]

Oh, sure. I understand the feeling of wanting to keep Fluffy Destroyer of Worlds alive.

That's why you let your players turn him into a dog-sized house pet and let him tag along in their adventures.

[Maxus]

The worst-cheating DM I've ever had the displeasure to play under would craft situations with ONLY ONE SOLUTION.

And wasn't quick enough on his feet to adapt when the players inevitably were trying to go off the rails.

He'd also punish the characters of people he didn't like--such as one person voiced his dislike of the DM's Druid Princess character.

Then his character got Mind Controlled. No save.

[Molochio]

@Maxus: How did your play style evolve to compensate for severity of this DM's cheating? Did you simply accept this treatment?
Mind control, no save can have a very inspirational effect on character design.

[Molochio]

@Blasted: Your practices are not so unreasonable as they are geared towards helping the PCs in a fashion.
It is more along the lines of things such as: all monsters auto save, auto win skill checks, wind back time to live, gain double hit points mid battle without cause, mind control no save, and the like, which are so baffling coming from one's very own DM.

[Maxus]

@Maxus: How did your play style evolve to compensate for severity of this DM's cheating? Did you simply accept this treatment?
Mind control, no save can have a very inspirational effect on character design.

No, actually, we ended up quitting. Here's how it went down:

My friend was playing a Fire Elemental racial class. Said elemental called the DM PC a "Candle" in Ignan. He had a personal reason to dislike her vapidity.

DM has seven Alchemists show up (waaay before Pathfinder) when we're told the Alchemists (who are supposed to be Evil Treekilling Druid-haters) don't have a presence in the town before hand.

This is after the Fire Elemental (with some monk levels and a speed boost, meaning he had a 90-foot-per-round movement rate) got outran by "a common thief".

Then the alchemists somehow had a Censer of Fire-Elemental Controlling, and he justifed the no-save thing by saying "It doesn't mention a save" to which the counter was "You could have told me about this before you okayed the Fire Elemental"

Said moderately-optimized elemental was made to attack several characters (with the DM controlling him, not the player) then told to go quench himself in the river. Several players told the DM that Fire Elementals can't break the surface of water. They just can't. Water will not yield to let them in.

"Maybe in D&D 3.5, but we aren't playing 3.5"

Bear in mind, the DM was controlling the player's character and not letting the player do anything.

Oh, yeah, all seven Alchemists--you know, spindly types who work in labs a lot--also beat my high-dex character's initiative of 24 or so. A couple of us rightly asked for a re-roll out in the open, because that's just dickery. Oh, and he said "I don't have to justify myself to you"

So that's when at least three people quit the game, myself included.

Later, one of said three (not me, not the Elemental player) tried another game with the same DM

He was about to wreck the DM's precious railroad because he was playing a spiked-chain-tripper and this happened to be a fight he was suited for--small-sized sling-wielding humanoids.

The character had a magic item to let him expand. He does so, threatening most of them with his now-thirty-foot-reach. He'd worked out the critters had 13 strength.

All of a sudden, they have 18 str, and none of them were within 30 feet of each other.

Still, by a quick shift of position, he was about ready to roll the encounter, and then these sling-wielding humanoids pull out +1 longbows and shoot the character into negative HP.

That DM was a dickbag. He wasn't defensible. If he disliked a player, bad things happened to their character. And he didn't even try to hide his dickery. It was just that obvious. It broke immersion in the game, it made the game less fun, and his responses when challenged did nothing to redeem him.

[Molochio]

In the misery of your game experience, my own cheating DM pales in comparison. I don't believe that there is any amount of character optimization that would compensate for the degree of open fuckery.

You were right to quit that farce of an adventure.

[PhoneLobster]

I don't think cheating as a GM is particularly defensible.

1) It's too risky for your credibility, which you need to keep pretty high. Even the appearance of cheating (especially trying to hide it too) is too risky. Players won't trust you on ANYTHING anymore, every little mistake will be seen as a slight, every misfortune of the dice will be seen as you out to get someone, every entirely reasonable opponent seen as a dick waving screw you guys NPC, etc... You really shouldn't risk it.

2) If you actually need to fudge some result you can and should totally just run it by the players in the open and say "er... I think we had better fudge that result". They group will agree to have the "rocks fall we all die" result fortuitously get rerolled/redacted/whatever and so then the group can own the cheatyness together. Or they won't agree, in which case you probably didn't really NEED to fudge that result after all and were probably being a dick and trying to screw a player over to save your personal pet railroad.

3) You have all the control in the world you need stacking the odds in your favor with entirely legitimate means like setting DCs and designing opponents and encounters. If you need to cheat AS WELL then you probably have a obsessive control problem. (well a control problem in excess of being a GM)

So... have you seen my good GMing advice thread or my "our favorite edition is 2nd edition" thread. Because those have plenty to say about cheating GMs in them already.

[Starmaker]

When a DM wants to cheat, you need friends in the gaming group and knowledge of the rules on your side.
Classic example:
[suptg, hence NSFW] [4e]
One
Two
Three
Four
Five, mostly feeding the troll, though

The dwarves have become my unofficial bodyguards. They drink my expensive wine, eat my expensive foods, and attempt to convince me that a beard will make me a better spellcaster.

[RobbyPants]

Oh, yeah, all seven Alchemists--you know, spindly types who work in labs a lot--also beat my high-dex character's initiative of 24 or so. A couple of us rightly asked for a re-roll out in the open, because that's just dickery. Oh, and he said "I don't have to justify myself to you"

So that's when at least three people quit the game, myself included.

Good. That's about the best thing you could have done. The best repsonse is probably something along the lines of "Yes you do. We're here to play a game and we're not playing it."

This is why I've pretty much done away with any form of MC screen, other than for hiding maps. Any monsters attacks and saves are rolled out in the open.

[Midnight_v]

@ Marxus. . . overall you win.
I might have lost my temper there. I've had some bad shit happen but his attitude about it wow.

I got spanked when I first intro'd the tob. Details later.

[Maxus]

For the record, I'm okay with a little DM fiddling. I mean, sometimes they're trying something new, or trying to hit a sweet spot. Maybe a common monster is too tough or too weak, especially in themed campaigns.

That stuff is acceptable.

But deliberately attacking/being a dickwad to players because they did something you don't like? Because you can't be bothered to actually let their decisions make a difference in how the game goes?

[CatharzGodfoot]

Long long ago (seriously, more than a decade), I boosted monster HP when I realized an encounter was way too easy for the PCs. This was before I had any idea how to design encounters or really of game balance at all.

More recently I've occasionally had enemies use sub-optimal tactics when the PCs were having serious bad luck and in danger of dying, but I don't think that's actually cheating.

[Molochio]

@Midnight_v: I do recall the game you speak of, though I'm not sure anymore what it was you did which SO greatly displeased that DM, the round after your action he attempted to "punish" you for it via team monster.

After making a series of attack rolls behind his DM screen, he went on to proclaim. One was a critical. Oh, another critical just confirmed. And then, it critically struck you again.

Everyone at the table could clearly see, despite the DM screen, that this attack spread result was manufactured. Ironically, the PC did not go down and actually killed the monster.

This adds clarity to the understanding of DM cheating.
A DM will also cheat out of anger at the PC, inexperience in how to put together a proper encounter, and feelings of personal insecurity.

Understanding these motivations is a good thing.

[Surgo]

When a DM wants to cheat, you need friends in the gaming group and knowledge of the rules on your side.
Classic example:
[suptg, hence NSFW] [4e]
One
Two
Three
Four
Five, mostly feeding the troll, though

The dwarves have become my unofficial bodyguards. They drink my expensive wine, eat my expensive foods, and attempt to convince me that a beard will make me a better spellcaster.

This is the most epic roleplaying story I've ever read. This dude does some amazing roleplaying and has some AMAZING planning and foresight. Truly heroic.

Is there an ending? Thread five is from last year.

[Starmaker]

Is there an ending? Thread five is from last year.

None that I know of, sadly.

[RobbyPants]

This adds clarity to the understanding of DM cheating.
A DM will also cheat out of anger at the PC, inexperience in how to put together a proper encounter, and feelings of personal insecurity.

Understanding these motivations is a good thing.

That's sad, too. Basically, your two options are placate Mister Cavern or leave the game.

And I don't think the first option is that much fun. Deliberately sandbagging so you won't get thrice-critted is pretty sad.

[fectin]

I cheat like a cheating cheater, but I do it in ways that support the players and the story.
Following one group fir a couple examples: the first encounter was supposed to be enough kobold skeletons to be challenging for a third level tome party. It turns out that takes ~3x the CR-appropriate number of kobolds before anyone even notices. It being a ship based chase scene already, I didn't feel bad about dumping more kobolds on the following round. It supported the basic premise, which was "lots of kobolds".
Later, they stole plants from nagas. The first scout they ran into turned into a snake instead of dying, and the rest showed up later because of that. I guess that's also outside the rules, but it actually gave them a much better chance than if there were just watchtowers.
Even later, I had leveled down a purple worm for a desert planet, but messed up and mostly made it less durable, not less deadly. After a few rounds, both sides were fairly beat up and the fighter critted for not enough to drop it. So I fudged the HP down and that was that.
Even at the finalé, I flat out ignored rules. The players had wanted to turn an early pyramid dungeon into a spelljammer since they first saw it. That is way outside the weight limits of any helm. So, do you cheat about the wall composition, about weight limits, what? I just ignored the rules and said go for it. Why cripple something awesome?

[Bucket Head]

When I'm the DM, I'm a cheating bastard, but I'm pretty careful about it.

I enjoy writing out long, complicated challenges for the players, because I know my guys will come up with great plans to rise to the occasion. Sure, while some of them are crazy and far-fetched or just plain hairbrained, I feel that plans where the players worked very hard to strategize, come up with a good plan, and most importantly write it to make sure everyone gets a chance to own the spotlight while playing their characters to the hilt shouldn't all fall apart to a few simple, unlucky rolls. After all, it was the players that worked hard, it was their effort, and losing to a simple dice roll that they can't see would make it seem more like I actually was cheating! What I might do in that case would be to instead have an unforeseen complication pop up, but I would never try to torpedo their plan or force them to a retreat.

And sometimes, the players catch me off guard and find something I wasn't thinking about or didn't plan for. You know what? That's okay. I can always build a new villain, and build him better this time.

[Midnight_v]

When a DM wants to cheat, you need friends in the gaming group and knowledge of the rules on your side.
Classic example:
[suptg, hence NSFW] [4e]
One
Two
Three
Four
Five, mostly feeding the troll, though

The dwarves have become my unofficial bodyguards. They drink my expensive wine, eat my expensive foods, and attempt to convince me that a beard will make me a better spellcaster.

That... that shit was epic. A godawfulRoflstomp. . . my face is stuck like this

[Neurosis]

I cheat like a cheating cheater, but I do it in ways that support the players and the story.

Pretty much this. Making sure the PCs don't die (anti-climactically) when the dice say so, and the same goes for major NPCs. I've never had a player call me on it (99% of the time it's to keep the PCs alive anyway) so I guess I'm pretty subtle and/or they don't mind. Note that this doesn't mean "no one can die", actually, anyone can die. Just not when everyone at the table would agree it was stupid. (It's not like I'm holding a referendum, which would break suspension of disbelief and immersion, but it's easy enough to tell by context.)

Also, I do acknowledge "the dice really mean it" type effects. Like if I reroll something and it keeps coming up the same then whelp...this is not the time for cheating. It is ordained.

[icyshadowlord]

I usually cheat only when the game is turning too easy or too hard for the players. I was dumb enough to try out Pathfail once (Kingmaker) and let the players make uber-strong items for themselves, making every encounter they faced a cakewalk.

Then I decided to just amp up the damage of every troll that the Fighter walked up to, made them either automatically crit or grapple so the Fighter would know he isn't immortal in his +2 Adamantine Fullplate, and even allowed them to Rend the Barbarian a nice share of times.

Though my dickish behaviour stemmed partly from the fact that I could have played a completely homebrew campaign for my players, but they dismissed my well-made plans and told me to go by the Adventure Path books. I rolled with it, but I didn't roll with a smile on my face.

[Midnight_v]

I don't know I think you wouldn't have to cheat so much if you allowed that
A. The characters are supposed to be winning, like the avengers.
B. have a good working knowledge of what the char capabilities really are so you can provide them with a decend challenge.

I can understand when a dm doesn't let a pc die. I personally would rather accept my noble death that get my hand held. Though ... some things in Rpgs shuoldn't exist. Death no save... for example. Puzzle monsters shuold likely be limited in existance if to exist at all I think as well.

[tenuki]

Usually I don't mind my GM cheating. Our style of play is very story-centered (sometimes I don't make a single dice roll for a whole session), the PCs have lots and lots of autonomy for their decisions, and they each get a share of the limelight. When the GM occasionally decides that a particular NPC shouldn't be killed/captured yet and fudges the dice accordingly, that's fine with me.

However, I used to have a GM once who was deep into railroading. What he did wasn't so much cheating with the dice as loading the campaign with hyper-powerful NPCs whose lowliest minions were about on the same power level as the PCs.

These NPCs also seemed to constantly 'anticipate' every nefarious plan we cooked up. The GM simply refused (or was unable) to differentiate between his own information and that of his NPCs. Our choices were to either tag along with the GM-run protagonists and make the occasional dice roll or get the shit kicked out of us at every turn.

I quit the campaign after the fifth session or so, and the rest of the group followed suit. End of story.