One of my players uses his computer for everything, including dice rolls. I noticed he was constantly getting extremely high rolls of 18 (more often 20) and more. One game he sat next to me so i could almost see his screen so out of curiosity i started leaning to look at the screen whenever he rolled. Suddenly his rolls were much more average the rest of the night.
When we first started playing he offered to send me a log of his dice rolls for proof but I declined because I didn't think he'd cheat. Now if I call him out it's basically calling him a liar (I really hate confrontation, and would like to avoid this if possible).
One friend suggested seeing if i could get the other players (who have expressed their concern about the same issue) to say it's no as much fun when you can't see the dice roll, the computer takes away the anticipation. I have tried talking to him about how i feel the computer is less random than actual dice and made arguments to get him back on real dice, but he didn't budge.
Any suggestion on how to bring this up? He's the only one using a laptop so if i make it a blanket rule it'll be obvious that i'm targeting him.
I would make it out to be that the laptop to be distracting, and ask for them to not use it anymore for the good of the group. Lend them dice if they don't have it. If they think you're on to them, and they are cheating, they'll most likely accept this as an olive branch.
Talk to the rest of the group before hand and see bout getting them behind you to support the decision and turn on peer pressure. Any objection that person makes would likely be trying to get the group to say they don't have a problem, so at first to make sure they don't turn it into a confrontation and use your desire to avoid one against you.
It could be coincidence. It's almost mind-bogglingly improbable, but it could be.
I advise explaining what an unlikely, suspicious coincidence it is and that you've changed your mind about not wanting the logs. I advise not lying to him, primarily because you're upset because you think he's been lying to you.
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
When I was playing 3.5e and Pathfinder I had a character generator app on my iPad that tracked everything and when I clicked on the damage dice beside an attack it rolled the dice and added up all of the modifiers to the roll. It did the same thing for the hit rolls. It was great because I didn't have to remember the modifiers for anything, I just tapped the right place on the sheet. But, it was an iPad and other people were able to see it because it was only tilted up slightly so even if I'd wanted to fudge the rolls I couldn't.
It's hard to do, but approach him privately and tell him what you just posted. Don't do it with anyone else around, do it privately one on one and tell him that all of his dice rolls have to be visible to everyone. That was possible with my iPad by putting it flat, but it wasn't a laptop.
Gaming with a laptop puts a wall between you and the rest of the group anyway. I hate using a laptop during business meetings for that reason, it's hard to interact with people with the laptop screen forming a barrier between me and them. I prefer a tablet which is flat, even though it's harder to type up notes on it.
It could be coincidence. It's almost mind-bogglingly improbable, but it could be.
I advise explaining what an unlikely, suspicious coincidence it is and that you've changed your mind about not wanting the logs. I advise not lying to him, primarily because you're upset because you think he's been lying to you.
That is a very good point, I Don't want to lie to him. I just am hesitant to call him out on it and have a miffed attitude during play.
I know that two of the other three players agree with me and have been complaining about his improbably high rolls. This was my first thought as well. Have the group bring up how it's not as fun when one person is so separated by the laptop (which is absolutely true).
I know that two of the other three players agree with me and have been complaining about his improbably high rolls.
If that's the case I think it's an easy one. You don't have to accuse him of anything. Just point out that others in the group have also been noticing the high roles and that none of you trust his computer. Let him complain all he wants and just accept it, the fact, is you've all lost confidence in his tools... you don't have to make it personal about his integrity (although, sadly, it sounds like that's an issue). He might offer to use a different dice roller and that's where issue with laptop being a barrier can be raise. It needs to be a phone app (if you're happy with that) and dice.
My table uses a mixture of digital and paper character sheets, but we all use physical dice.
I know that two of the other three players agree with me and have been complaining about his improbably high rolls.
If that's the case I think it's an easy one. You don't have to accuse him of anything. Just point out that others in the group have also been noticing the high roles and that none of you trust his computer. Let him complain all he wants and just accept it, the fact, is you've all lost confidence in his tools... you don't have to make it personal about his integrity (although, sadly, it sounds like that's an issue). He might offer to use a different dice roller and that's where issue with laptop being a barrier can be raise. It needs to be a phone app (if you're happy with that) and dice.
My table uses a mixture of digital and paper character sheets, but we all use physical dice.
And i'm totally fine with digital character sheets (Even though I need to check his... no way a low level character should have an AC over 20), I have always liked the real dice. He even brings multiple sets of dice to the game but tends to claim he likes having the logs of his dice rolls....which makes no sense.
My own house rule is "Use easily read dice, and leave them on the table after rolling"... and I'm talking high-contrast, read-from-across-the-table type dice.
Not that I'm worried about anyone cheating, but if I can see the roll (especially if it's really high or low) I can often anticipate the result and start formulating the next step even before anyone does the math (which speeds gameplay...especially since some players can take a long time to add, and don't always add the right bonuses). Not everyone is perfect at math (or rules), so full transparency allows players to occasionally proof each other's work.
Indeed, I particularly love checking my best, most reliable players... just to learn from how they magnificently crafted their characters to obtain so many excellent bonuses.
I have a friend at the table who is notorious for trying to get away with Cheating the dice, he does it now out of fun trying to get away with it because all of us are typically watching his every move. But it is a game, and you as the DM are the referee so it's your job to make sure everyone at the table has the chance to feel equally important. That is hindered by him constantly succeeding while they are only succeeding 50% of the time on average. So just ask him to switch methods to eliminate the possibility and guesswork.
Cheaters can be a tricky thing to deal with. Not only do they stand a risk of upsetting the enjoyment of other players at the table, but they are also either cheating because they aren't having a good enough time or are risking their own enjoyment by cheating.
How I have deal with them in the past has varied, but one method in particular has given me preferable results in repeated cases. That method is to find out why the player is cheating and work to make whatever reason(s) the player feels they have for cheating no longer exist. Of course, I should mention that not every cheater has reasons that can be fixed - some of them just don't get how an RPG works and are cheating because they want to "win", and they think that means always getting good rolls. Those aren't players that can be helped (until they change their own mind and start looking for something besides this narrow-minded "win"), so I suggest removing any such player from the group as soon as it is clear they fit this description.
Other cheaters I have known have had reasons for cheating such as, but not limited to:
Not feeling like their character is "good enough"
Feeling the game difficulty is too high
Disliking a particular potential outcome and cheating to avoid it
Feeling like they've been having terrible rolls for far too long
All of those reasons can be repaired in a variety of ways once they are identified, though many of the solutions do require full-group buy-in to actually be improvements (i.e. you don't want to adjust the game difficulty unless everyone will be happy with the adjustment, and giving a character a boost to put them on-par with the rest of the party can feel unfair to the other players if they aren't given a chance to share their thoughts on how to do it, and so on). But the main similarity in all successful cases I've ever had of a player that was a cheater becoming a non-cheater, and sticking with that change, is that I always openly and honestly communicated with the players - doing my best to use a tone that conveyed my desire to keep them playing and get them having a good time without cheating, rather than a tone that makes the player in question feel like I'm calling them a jerk or treating them as the cause of a problem rather than as part of the group which are all experiencing the same problem.
Cheaters can be a tricky thing to deal with. Not only do they stand a risk of upsetting the enjoyment of other players at the table, but they are also either cheating because they aren't having a good enough time or are risking their own enjoyment by cheating.
How I have deal with them in the past has varied, but one method in particular has given me preferable results in repeated cases. That method is to find out why the player is cheating and work to make whatever reason(s) the player feels they have for cheating no longer exist. Of course, I should mention that not every cheater has reasons that can be fixed - some of them just don't get how an RPG works and are cheating because they want to "win", and they think that means always getting good rolls. Those aren't players that can be helped (until they change their own mind and start looking for something besides this narrow-minded "win"), so I suggest removing any such player from the group as soon as it is clear they fit this description.
Other cheaters I have known have had reasons for cheating such as, but not limited to:
Not feeling like their character is "good enough"
Feeling the game difficulty is too high
Disliking a particular potential outcome and cheating to avoid it
Feeling like they've been having terrible rolls for far too long
All of those reasons can be repaired in a variety of ways once they are identified, though many of the solutions do require full-group buy-in to actually be improvements (i.e. you don't want to adjust the game difficulty unless everyone will be happy with the adjustment, and giving a character a boost to put them on-par with the rest of the party can feel unfair to the other players if they aren't given a chance to share their thoughts on how to do it, and so on). But the main similarity in all successful cases I've ever had of a player that was a cheater becoming a non-cheater, and sticking with that change, is that I always openly and honestly communicated with the players - doing my best to use a tone that conveyed my desire to keep them playing and get them having a good time without cheating, rather than a tone that makes the player in question feel like I'm calling them a jerk or treating them as the cause of a problem rather than as part of the group which are all experiencing the same problem.
This is all extremely helpful! I have been wondering the 'why' behind it all. He DM's several groups on his own and when he runs the game all characters are INCREDIBLY overpowered. To the point of he replaces several of your stats with something higher and gives spells or feats completely unrelated to what you're supposed to get. And that's fine, he likes very very powerful characters. I have asked the group if the challenge was a good level, he is fastest to give me feedback and seems to like it. I tie this behavior in with his tendency to make the entire campaign about his character, always wanting the group to do things that go along with his backstory even if it's not going to be helpful to the group. As far as I can tell he jsut really likes attention and being the most bad ass. I don't want to feed his need for attention because A) that behavior irritates the crap out of me and B) it's incredibly unfair to the rest of the players who tend to get pushed to the sidelines. I also admit I have a slight dislike for power gamers which is probably why this is bothering me so much. The character was built to be OP from the beginning, there's no need to cheat the dice. Half the fun in DND is when everything goes horribly wrong.
And i'm totally fine with digital character sheets (Even though I need to check his... no way a low level character should have an AC over 20), I have always liked the real dice. He even brings multiple sets of dice to the game but tends to claim he likes having the logs of his dice rolls....which makes no sense.
Do you ask to see the character sheets? I do just so I can get a handle on backstories, quirks, etc. Also as a reasonably inexperienced DM who doesn't get to play a character often, I actually want to understand character builds!
Quote from Barbarulo>> Do you ask to see the character sheets? I do just so I can get a handle on backstories, quirks, etc. Also as a reasonably inexperienced DM who doesn't get to play a character often, I actually want to understand character builds!
I usually just ask them for the stats I'll need like AC, passive perception, etc. I give them a look over in general to see what's going on with the character but I have only DMed for one other group and the honor system was never a problem.
I'm a player and I don't DM, but I give my DM my character sheet so that he knows my character's back story and goals. If he knows my character's back story and goals he can tweak the story to make it more fun for me. I don't think he ever looks at the stats other than AC, passive perception, etc. but he has them too if he wants to.
One of my players uses his computer for everything, including dice rolls. I noticed he was constantly getting extremely high rolls of 18 (more often 20) and more. One game he sat next to me so i could almost see his screen so out of curiosity i started leaning to look at the screen whenever he rolled. Suddenly his rolls were much more average the rest of the night.
When we first started playing he offered to send me a log of his dice rolls for proof but I declined because I didn't think he'd cheat. Now if I call him out it's basically calling him a liar (I really hate confrontation, and would like to avoid this if possible).
One friend suggested seeing if i could get the other players (who have expressed their concern about the same issue) to say it's no as much fun when you can't see the dice roll, the computer takes away the anticipation. I have tried talking to him about how i feel the computer is less random than actual dice and made arguments to get him back on real dice, but he didn't budge.
Any suggestion on how to bring this up? He's the only one using a laptop so if i make it a blanket rule it'll be obvious that i'm targeting him.
I would make it out to be that the laptop to be distracting, and ask for them to not use it anymore for the good of the group. Lend them dice if they don't have it. If they think you're on to them, and they are cheating, they'll most likely accept this as an olive branch.
Talk to the rest of the group before hand and see bout getting them behind you to support the decision and turn on peer pressure. Any objection that person makes would likely be trying to get the group to say they don't have a problem, so at first to make sure they don't turn it into a confrontation and use your desire to avoid one against you.
It could be coincidence. It's almost mind-bogglingly improbable, but it could be.
I advise explaining what an unlikely, suspicious coincidence it is and that you've changed your mind about not wanting the logs. I advise not lying to him, primarily because you're upset because you think he's been lying to you.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
When I was playing 3.5e and Pathfinder I had a character generator app on my iPad that tracked everything and when I clicked on the damage dice beside an attack it rolled the dice and added up all of the modifiers to the roll. It did the same thing for the hit rolls. It was great because I didn't have to remember the modifiers for anything, I just tapped the right place on the sheet. But, it was an iPad and other people were able to see it because it was only tilted up slightly so even if I'd wanted to fudge the rolls I couldn't.
It's hard to do, but approach him privately and tell him what you just posted. Don't do it with anyone else around, do it privately one on one and tell him that all of his dice rolls have to be visible to everyone. That was possible with my iPad by putting it flat, but it wasn't a laptop.
Gaming with a laptop puts a wall between you and the rest of the group anyway. I hate using a laptop during business meetings for that reason, it's hard to interact with people with the laptop screen forming a barrier between me and them. I prefer a tablet which is flat, even though it's harder to type up notes on it.
Professional computer geek
It could be coincidence. It's almost mind-bogglingly improbable, but it could be.
I advise explaining what an unlikely, suspicious coincidence it is and that you've changed your mind about not wanting the logs. I advise not lying to him, primarily because you're upset because you think he's been lying to you.
That is a very good point, I Don't want to lie to him. I just am hesitant to call him out on it and have a miffed attitude during play.
I know that two of the other three players agree with me and have been complaining about his improbably high rolls. This was my first thought as well. Have the group bring up how it's not as fun when one person is so separated by the laptop (which is absolutely true).
My table uses a mixture of digital and paper character sheets, but we all use physical dice.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
ok ok ok . you're right. It CAN happen. but in this instance, for this particular build, it seems unlikely.
My own house rule is "Use easily read dice, and leave them on the table after rolling"... and I'm talking high-contrast, read-from-across-the-table type dice.
Not that I'm worried about anyone cheating, but if I can see the roll (especially if it's really high or low) I can often anticipate the result and start formulating the next step even before anyone does the math (which speeds gameplay...especially since some players can take a long time to add, and don't always add the right bonuses). Not everyone is perfect at math (or rules), so full transparency allows players to occasionally proof each other's work.
Indeed, I particularly love checking my best, most reliable players... just to learn from how they magnificently crafted their characters to obtain so many excellent bonuses.
I just give my DM my character sheet every 2-3 levels. That answers any questions he might have about me fudging anything.
Professional computer geek
I have a friend at the table who is notorious for trying to get away with Cheating the dice, he does it now out of fun trying to get away with it because all of us are typically watching his every move. But it is a game, and you as the DM are the referee so it's your job to make sure everyone at the table has the chance to feel equally important. That is hindered by him constantly succeeding while they are only succeeding 50% of the time on average. So just ask him to switch methods to eliminate the possibility and guesswork.
Cheaters can be a tricky thing to deal with. Not only do they stand a risk of upsetting the enjoyment of other players at the table, but they are also either cheating because they aren't having a good enough time or are risking their own enjoyment by cheating.
How I have deal with them in the past has varied, but one method in particular has given me preferable results in repeated cases. That method is to find out why the player is cheating and work to make whatever reason(s) the player feels they have for cheating no longer exist. Of course, I should mention that not every cheater has reasons that can be fixed - some of them just don't get how an RPG works and are cheating because they want to "win", and they think that means always getting good rolls. Those aren't players that can be helped (until they change their own mind and start looking for something besides this narrow-minded "win"), so I suggest removing any such player from the group as soon as it is clear they fit this description.
Other cheaters I have known have had reasons for cheating such as, but not limited to:
All of those reasons can be repaired in a variety of ways once they are identified, though many of the solutions do require full-group buy-in to actually be improvements (i.e. you don't want to adjust the game difficulty unless everyone will be happy with the adjustment, and giving a character a boost to put them on-par with the rest of the party can feel unfair to the other players if they aren't given a chance to share their thoughts on how to do it, and so on). But the main similarity in all successful cases I've ever had of a player that was a cheater becoming a non-cheater, and sticking with that change, is that I always openly and honestly communicated with the players - doing my best to use a tone that conveyed my desire to keep them playing and get them having a good time without cheating, rather than a tone that makes the player in question feel like I'm calling them a jerk or treating them as the cause of a problem rather than as part of the group which are all experiencing the same problem.
I'm a player and I don't DM, but I give my DM my character sheet so that he knows my character's back story and goals. If he knows my character's back story and goals he can tweak the story to make it more fun for me. I don't think he ever looks at the stats other than AC, passive perception, etc. but he has them too if he wants to.
Professional computer geek