Quote from Vince_Snetterton >>

 Because he was about to cheat, again. Or do reinforce an incorrect use of game mechanics. Call it what you will. And keep in mind, the DM, and ANOTHER player, spoke up as well.

 That incident sounds much more like a mistake. He wanted to do something cool and got caught up in it, forgetting that he would need line of sight. I'm sure we've all done stuff like this, especially in theatre of the mind. It's not always easy to visualise or keep track of where everything is and what's going on. I suspect that if any other player did this, you would chalk it up as a mistake, and it's only because of your dislike for this player that you call it cheating. If I'm wrong there, and you would call it cheating from anyone.... Let's just say that would reinforce my relief that I don't play at a table with you.

Note that, as DM, I would only remind for a couple of times, probably along with a strong suggestion that he refreshes himself on basic casting rules. After that, I would expect at least a check whether line of sight was possible when there was any doubt, and if they failed to do so:

"You cast it where? Sorry, you don't have line of sight so your spell fails. Remember to mark off the spell slot."

Holly gorram frogmorton Forghorn MacLeghorn Scottish rooster mananahell, Vince.

The guy said he wanted to do a thing.  The DM, and other players, reminded him of a rule that said he couldn't do the thing.  Then he didn't do the thing.  Normal D&D interaction.  Players need minor course corrections from time to time, that's just part of playing.

I get that you hate this guy because he doesn't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the game and uses it to stick strictly to your specific interpretation of how the rules work.  At this point, forty-three percent of the human population of the Earth understands this fact.  News Flash: it is not your job to say him nay, to enforce the rules on him, or otherwise micromanage his play.  That is specifically and explicitly the DM's job, and you are not the DM here.

Let me repeat that, for emphasis: You are not the DM at this table.

Quit acting like a backseat DM.  Nobody likes backseat DMs.  If you can't take your DM hat off and let the actual DM for the game do his job without interference, then you can't play.  You can only DM.  Stop playing, start running.  Assemble your crack team of rules cultists, get yourself some video equipment, and stream your games, even!  If you're so all-fired convinced that everyone else in the entire world is playing D&D wrong, prove it.  Show people the 'right' way to play.  Get yourself a team of folks who know the rules better than Crawford himself does, sit them down around a virtual table, and play your hardcore brutal TPK-prone True Challenge Mode version of D&D for the masses.

Let's see it, Vince.  I will watch the first episode of Vince Snetterton's Table of Horrors.  You want to keep calling people out for being wrong, having BadWrongFun, and snarling on the forums day in and day out that people are Destroying D&D Forever? 

Demonstrate the correct way to play, then.

Vince, I'm going to be completely serious with you. As a DM, I'd rather have a player that's cheating and fix the situation than a player that records the cheating player so they can "prove" they're a liar and a cheat. If that player came to me with "evidence", that would be they're one-way ticket out of my table, whether the other player was cheating or not. I'd rather fix the situation than let another player record the cheater. Also, I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm trying to help you fix the problem. If you follow my advice, please stop your experiment.

Vince, your group is not a 66 billion dollar business like the MLB. It's supposed to be a group of more or less likeminded friends getting together to have some fun. If there's a problem, the priority isn't legal and financial justice. It should be to try and make things fun again for everyone, and your approach is not conducive to that.

Damn. I'm running out of popcorn. Can't wait to see what happens in the next episode of the Vince Snetterton Saga when I get back from the store. This season is really picking up steam.

Vince.

No one has ever said that cheating is not a problem.

Orange, and at least a dozen other people, have spent ten pages now (discounting a momentary interlude for a neat discussion on ability scores and boats) trying in vain to convince you that even if this guy is cheating, his cheating is not the only problem at your table.  There is also the problem of one player's enormous hostility towards another, and that one player's obsessive quest to try and gather enough "hard facts" to force the DM to eject the other player from the table.  

Or, because subtlety never seems to work in these threads: you are as much a "problem" at this table as the Cheater.

Your viciousness, your refusal to trust the DM, your backseat game mastering and constant attacks on this other player, are just as big an issue as the cheating.  In fact, arguably significantly more so - the cheater is not disrupting sessions or trying to blackmail the DM into doing what he wants, he's just playing D&D with, perchance, a poor grasp on the game math.  

Nobody at your table, currently, has a problem with the alleged cheater.  I'm assuming nobody has a problem with you.  I'm betting that if the table was shown both the proof that the Alleged Cheater is cheating, and also the two threads you've started in this forum attacking the other players, denigrating the game, and lambasting folks for daring to try and do D&D in their D&D game?  They'd have a much bigger problem with you being a vicious, ultrahostile critic behind their backs than they would with the guy fudging his rolls.

I know if I discovered someone at my table was doing to another of my players what you're doing to "THAT GUY", the subject of potential cheating would not be the first thing talked about.

Quote from pangurjan >>

Vince, your group is not a 66 billion dollar business like the MLB. It's supposed to be a group of more or less likeminded friends getting together to have some fun. If there's a problem, the priority isn't legal and financial justice. It should be to try and make things fun again for everyone, and your approach is not conducive to that.

Precisely. What you are doing would make most people feel like you had gone behind their back, and would leave them suspicious as to whether you were collecting data on them to get them kicked out of the group in future. What you are effectively saying is: "I've suspected this person of lying and cheating for several weeks now, but instead of coming to you all about it like a grown up, I have noted down all his dice rolls and run an in-depth statistical analysis to prove it. Your last 3 sessions are invalid because of this guy, who I hate anyway for having BadWrongFun. Now, who wants to boot him out carry on playing things the only good, right and true way?"

If you have a problem with something or someone, raise it nicely like an adult. If you are uncomfortable bringing it up in front of the whole group, discuss with the DM or any friends you have at the table first to try to find an appropriate way forward. Or else, find another way to bring the rolls to the attention of the group.

None of this is any attempt to legitimise cheating. But I honestly believe you are going about this the worst way possible. Given your obvious contempt for this player before there was evidence of cheating, I highly suspect you are only behaving this way because of your feelings towards them. If not and this is how you would behave with everyone.... Wow!

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Vince.

No one has ever said that cheating is not a problem.

Orange, and at least a dozen other people, have spent ten pages now (discounting a momentary interlude for a neat discussion on ability scores and boats) trying in vain to convince you that even if this guy is cheating, his cheating is not the only problem at your table.  There is also the problem of one player's enormous hostility towards another, and that one player's obsessive quest to try and gather enough "hard facts" to force the DM to eject the other player from the table.  

Or, because subtlety never seems to work in these threads: you are as much a "problem" at this table as the Cheater.

Your viciousness, your refusal to trust the DM, your backseat game mastering and constant attacks on this other player, are just as big an issue as the cheating.  In fact, arguably significantly more so - the cheater is not disrupting sessions or trying to blackmail the DM into doing what he wants, he's just playing D&D with, perchance, a poor grasp on the game math.  

Nobody at your table, currently, has a problem with the alleged cheater.  I'm assuming nobody has a problem with you.  I'm betting that if the table was shown both the proof that the Alleged Cheater is cheating, and also the two threads you've started in this forum attacking the other players, denigrating the game, and lambasting folks for daring to try and do D&D in their D&D game?  They'd have a much bigger problem with you being a vicious, ultrahostile critic behind their backs than they would with the guy fudging his rolls.

I know if I discovered someone at my table was doing to another of my players what you're doing to "THAT GUY", the subject of potential cheating would not be the first thing talked about.

Put a lot more directly and harshly than I ever would, but I could not honestly say that I disagreed with a single word.

Quote from Vince_Snetterton >>

Quote from Orange20 >>

Vince, I'm going to be completely serious with you. As a DM, I'd rather have a player that's cheating and fix the situation than a player that records the cheating player so they can "prove" they're a liar and a cheat. If that player came to me with "evidence", that would be they're one-way ticket out of my table, whether the other player was cheating or not. I'd rather fix the situation than let another player record the cheater. Also, I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm trying to help you fix the problem. If you follow my advice, please stop your experiment.

 Clearly, I see the world differently than you. If I was DM'ing and a player came to me with hard facts that make it a virtual certainty another player is cheating, I would be "oh damn, now I have a problem with a cheater", but not "I am going to toss the player that picked up on that."

I don't know if you follow baseball. The Houston Astro's won a WS by cheating. The people that outed them were not punished. They were thanked. Cheating is bad. Period. Full-stop. It ruins the game, any game, and endeavour, for everyone involved. I have no issues exposing cheaters. And yes, see my posts above. I am fully aware that I run the risk of alienating the DM, because of his personal relationship with that guy.

 D&D and baseball are different things. I meant everything I said. If your DM thanks you for recording that player's rolls without any permission and treating them like something to study to prove them as a liar and a cheat, tell me that. If you want to talk about your philosophy, would you want every roll of yours recorded so you can be proved as a liar and a cheat.

Quote from Orange20 >>

Quote from Vince_Snetterton >>

Quote from Orange20 >>

Vince, I'm going to be completely serious with you. As a DM, I'd rather have a player that's cheating and fix the situation than a player that records the cheating player so they can "prove" they're a liar and a cheat. If that player came to me with "evidence", that would be they're one-way ticket out of my table, whether the other player was cheating or not. I'd rather fix the situation than let another player record the cheater. Also, I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm trying to help you fix the problem. If you follow my advice, please stop your experiment.

 Clearly, I see the world differently than you. If I was DM'ing and a player came to me with hard facts that make it a virtual certainty another player is cheating, I would be "oh damn, now I have a problem with a cheater", but not "I am going to toss the player that picked up on that."

I don't know if you follow baseball. The Houston Astro's won a WS by cheating. The people that outed them were not punished. They were thanked. Cheating is bad. Period. Full-stop. It ruins the game, any game, and endeavour, for everyone involved. I have no issues exposing cheaters. And yes, see my posts above. I am fully aware that I run the risk of alienating the DM, because of his personal relationship with that guy.

 D&D and baseball are different things. I meant everything I said. If your DM thanks you for recording that player's rolls without any permission and treating them like something to study to prove them as a liar and a cheat, tell me that. If you want to talk about your philosophy, would you want every roll of yours recorded so you can be proved as a liar and a cheat.

 As a baseball fan, I should point out that even though the Astros were exposed, they didn't have their championship taken away, nor suffer any serious consequences. (Which is horrible, and points to the fact that the current commissioner runs the MLB like a business, was afraid of losing revenue, and has no respect for the integrity of the sport, but that's a different story.) I'm not trying to make a point here, although there are definitely some points to be made, but the Astros' cheating was basically hushed up by the league, to the point that if you're not a dedicated baseball fan, you'd never know. Imagine if that happened in the Super Bowl—it would be national, maybe international news. The MLB seriously mishandled the issue.

Idea: to celebrate how "Great" the campaign is going, buy everyone in the group a dice set from a company you trust, and pray that guy starts using them.

Simple idea, if you intend to take the data to the DM and NOT have it turn into a crapfest.  Log EVERYONE'S rolls for a time, to provide a sampling, and point out that as a numbers guy, you noticed it was AWFULLY imbalanced.  A sampling of 50-ish rolls of each person should show a huge gap in average, which is kind of hard to deny a cheat OR crappy dice are at play.  I truly believe if a DM is worth a pinch and was presented with the table's rolls and found on average ONE player was rolling 3-5 points average higher than anyone else...he or she would address it immediately.

So far as not giving a hoot if someone tracked your rolls?  I agree with you.  Since I don't cheat, I couldn't care less if you tracked my rolls.  In fact, I might appreciate it and change dice if I found they trended to crappy results.

Quote from Falwith >>

Simple idea, if you intend to take the data to the DM and NOT have it turn into a crapfest.  Log EVERYONE'S rolls for a time, to provide a sampling, and point out that as a numbers guy, you noticed it was AWFULLY imbalanced.  A sampling of 50-ish rolls of each person should show a huge gap in average, which is kind of hard to deny a cheat OR crappy dice are at play.  I truly believe if a DM is worth a pinch and was presented with the table's rolls and found on average ONE player was rolling 3-5 points average higher than anyone else...he or she would address it immediately.

So far as not giving a hoot if someone tracked your rolls?  I agree with you.  Since I don't cheat, I couldn't care less if you tracked my rolls.  In fact, I might appreciate it and change dice if I found they trended to crappy results.

I know you're giving this suggestion to try to find some middle ground . . . but I don't think that this is the way to do it. If you present the DM with rolls from everyone at the table, they're almost definitely going to ask "Okay, why were you doing this in the first place?", leading to you either having to lie about it (which you should not do) or telling them that you thought one player's rolls were suspiciously high, which would take us back to what the other posters in this thread were saying about not backseat DMing. 

I don't think this will make it better. This is hiding behind an excuse, which is even more of a bad thing to do than just keeping track of the die rolls in the first place. 

Quote from Vince_Snetterton >>

I would have zero issue with anyone tracking my dice rolls. Why would I? We all call them out in an open channel. This is not like I am hacking his computer.

Even if you are telling the truth about this, don't assume that everyone else is. It is not a sign of cheating if people are okay with you secretly keeping track of their die rolls, it's a sign that you don't trust them. I would be quite angry at a fellow player if they suspected that I was cheating so much that they chose to approach the DM about it with a log of all of my rolls to prove that I was rolling suspiciously high in order to get me kicked out of the campaign. I would hate that, not because I am cheating, but because it shows their lack of trust of me, and therefore them not being a friend to me or even trying to be a friend. D&D is a game that is founded on building and strengthening friendships. Someone not trusting me and going the extra step to try to get me kicked out because they think I'm cheating, whether or not I actually am (I don't), shows that the player doesn't know what D&D is about. 

D&D is about having fun with your friends. It's harder to have fun with people who aren't your friends, so if you do a campaign with people you aren't friends with, you're supposed to become friends with them through the fun you have at the table. You're likely not having fun if your playstyles are clashing, if you're trying to prove that the other person is cheating, or if you're trying to get someone else kicked out of the table, and if you do have fun doing that, that is objectively badwrongfun. 

You don't trust this player, you don't like this player, and it is currently making it so you aren't having fun at the table, and you are going about a route that will affect the fun of the rest of the table. Again, I have had similar experiences to this, where I tried to get another player kicked out of the game, and another experience with a cheating player that was resolved in a good way. This is not a good way to resolve any of those circumstances, and it's worse that you're trying to do both at once. 

The good thing to do would be to leave the table and find another better suited for your tastes, with people that you can actually trust and have fun with. That will be better for you and your table. I have been through similar experiences, and know that this would have been a better thing to do in hindsight. 

I would note that many people have die rolling methods that they think of as 'lucky' somehow, that are actually biased, they just don't think of them as biased.

To actually get decent randomness out of dice you need to either throw them with enough force to be annoying because they'll regularly fall off the table, or use a specialized rolling surface (there's a reason craps has rules about how far you have to throw). If you, say, like to arrange your die with a particular side face up, and then roll it so it tumbles once, it's going to be pretty consistently biased to come up close to whatever side you started the die facing. As such, it's actually a good idea to use a dice tower or similar mechanical randomizer even if no-one is trying to cheat.

Quote from Vince_Snetterton >>

Quote from Third_Sundering >>

Even if you are telling the truth by this, don't assume that everyone else is. It is not a sign of cheating if people are okay with you secretly keeping track of their die rolls, it's a sign that you don't trust them. I would be quite angry at a fellow player if they suspected that I was cheating so much that they chose to approach the DM about it with a log of all of my rolls to prove that I was rolling suspiciously high in order to get me kicked out of the campaign. I would hate that, not because I am cheating, but because it shows their lack of trust of me, and therefore them not being a friend to me or even trying to be a friend. D&D is a game that is founded on building and strengthening friendships. Someone not trusting me and going the extra step to try to get me kicked out because they think I'm cheating, whether or not I actually am (I don't), shows that the player doesn't know what D&D is about. 

D&D is about having fun with your friends. It's harder to have fun with people who aren't your friends, so if you do a campaign with people you aren't friends with, you're supposed to become friends with them through the fun you have at the table. You're likely not having fun if your playstyles are clashing, if you're trying to prove that the other person is cheating, or if you're trying to get someone else kicked out of the table, and if you do have fun doing that, that is objectively badwrongfun. 

You don't trust this player, you don't like this player, and it is currently making it so you aren't having fun at the table, and you are going about a route that will affect the fun of the rest of the table. Again, I have had similar experiences to this, where I tried to get another player kicked out of the game, and another experience with a cheating player that was resolved in a good way. This is not a good way to resolve any of those circumstances, and it's worse that you're trying to do both at once. 

The good thing to do would be to leave the table and find another better suited for your tastes, with people that you can actually trust and have fun with. That will be better for you and your table. I have been through similar experiences, and know that this would have been a better thing to do in hindsight. 

A few points:

If I do not track dice rolls, I cannot present evidence of cheating. And the logic that follows from that is that even if I "have a feeling" that this guy is cheating, I simply should accept that he is.

Why on earth would I ever go to the DM and say "something is amiss" if the numbers did not spell it out? I have tabulated 51 rolls. The numbers speak for themselves. If the numbers had regressed to the mean in the last session, I would simply shut my investigation down. But the numbers skewed away from the norm MORE last session.

For the umpteenth time, I have zero illusions about this guy getting kicked from the table. If anyone gets booted, it would be me. And frankly, though I don't like this guy's playstyle one bit, I have also stated many times that the game itself is really rounding into form. I could live with his playstyle, given all the positive factors in the game.  If it was just his playstyle, I would keep my mouth shut and enjoy the game as it is. But if this guy is cheating, no way Jose. That is one bridge too far.

 Vince, you have no proof about that person. Why did you make this thread?