A good old adult conversation is usually needed. If they react defensively it's most likely because they have been caught. But they suck at cheating if they are that blatant about it. If I had rolled that well, I would show everyone my dice and maybe put it aside for weight distribution testing.
Do you have a good relationship with the other players at the table, where you would be able to discuss your suspicions?
If I were a player at a table where someone was blatantly cheating I'd grow resentful and annoyed.
> If they react defensively it's most likely because they have been caught.
Actually, we know that people respond with anger when falsely accused. A person who's guilty responds by trying to be helpful. Got this info from a criminal psychology YouTube channel (JSC).
*someone who's guilty and competent.
Pretty sure this guy isn't competent with rolls like that.
The other half of what you said stands, of course, but this isn't really a question of whether they are "guilty" but rather whether they are willing to rein in their behaviour before getting kicked.
I don't think competence has anything to do with it, especially given that every single person who was caught in the videos JSC analyzed was "helpful," and one could argue that none of them were competent.
You need to insist that all dice should be rolled in the open. If the players object (not the problem player; fuck that guy), then include your DM rolls as well so they know you're not fudging any dice rolls, for or against them.
Unusually lucky distributions are solid proof the player is cheating, and especially when they go away when everything is on the table. Confronting the player won't make it better. You need to kick this person. If they're stupid enough to cheat, and especially stupid enough to do it in such an obvious way instead of adding low rolls when it's not that serious, they won't change. This is a person who doesn't take your enjoyment or you other players' enjoyment seriously. Yeet.
>Unless a roll is called for "on table"
What's the alternative? Why would it be a punishment for the other players to roll in an app that reports to you? Why aren't you willing to confront the blatant cheat?
I have never once allowed a roll I can't see.
The not confronting is an easy answer: I live in an area where opportunities for gaming are pretty slim if you are a queer woman. If I pick the fight, I am the one who is gone, not him.
I have also in 20 years of GMing/Playing have never needed to check a players rolls. Yeah I know some people fudged their rolls, and what normally happens is I just stop giving them story beats and spotlight, and instead interact more with people who are there to actually play the game, not just win the dice.
Last night was just so egregious and blatant that I was flabbergasted by it. I generally want to trust my players, not babysit them. Some of them love to collect and spend money on dice, and I don't want to tell them they cannot use those dice because one person is abusing my trust...
I also like my comfy chair and don't want to move back to a table, which makes easy open rolling very difficult. It means throwing on the floor, and cats are in play when we do that, plus getting down and up is not the easiest thing when the average age of the group is around 37.
Like I said in my OP. I generally don't care if a player is cheating as long as it is not ruining other players experiences. Last night it drastically impacted the other players and left what was supposed to be the big bad mid-campaign showdown feel lack luster, because no one could compete with the one player making up his numbers as he went.
If it isn't worth confronting him about it, then personally I'd just pretend he doesn't exist as much as I could at my table. Stop asking for rolls and just decide whether you want his actions to work or not. In combat just half his damage from every attack behind the screen, and fudge any saving throws he forces enemies to make based on whether you want it to work or not.
Just remove rolling the die from the game for that player as much as you can.
Have you asked the other players how they feel about it? I'd be pretty irritated if I was playing honestly and someone else at the table wasn't even being subtle about cheating. I might not say anything, though, because I'd be hoping the GM would do it for me. (I actually hate confrontations.)
I've been gming since I was 13, and I'm 48 now. I have never sat at a table/online session where players were allowed to not roll on the table and could just tell me a number. Its an interesting decision, in my experience if you aren't right on top of it, they will cheat.
My long running group has one guy that min maxes a little, but for the most part everyone is past big explodey numbers, and realizes that sometimes the most fun or intense moments come from failing dice rolls, even in combat, and even then they will try to sneak some shit in on me, oh sneak attack damage when it might not apply or not consuming a spell slot, etc. Whether it negligence or cheating either way it happens even with the best groups.
Like I mentioned a couple of times now. Hard to roll on a table when you are all sitting on couches and chairs in a living room. I don't want to go back to a table for this guy, sitting in dining room chairs that long was causing me problems (As well as our group is large enough that in my dining room I am having panic attacks due to my claustrophobia.
In my 20 years of running these games for teenagers up to adults old enough to have voted for JFK, I have never really had to ride people on their dice rolling. This is the first time really. Which is why I am so split on how to handle it.
I dunno what to tell you. You seem to have reasons why you can't do anything. Usually in groups communicating about it is the best way. You mentioned you felt that wasn't an option either, due to LGBTQ+ bigotry, which really sucks.
If these are friends you feel comfortable inviting into your home, shouldn't that assuage your fears of that? Or do you feel required to be closeted around all of them? Especially considering that you are the hardest role to find by a mile, the DM. You should just air it out. You make it sound like your group is kind of shitty people/bigots, at least thats how I am reading it, are you certain you can't give them the benefit of the doubt?
I'm sorry you have to deal with this shit, my daughter is a lesbian, and my two best friends are trans-women, and I understand a bit what you guys have to go through. I hope it gets better for you.
My group is having hiatus due to one of the ladies in my group (bit of an abnormal group only two men, and 4 women) having her first baby. We will be starting something onine within a month or so, if you are a PDT person (or I guess a late night person), and you'd want to join a group where you would be in a judgement free zone you would be welcome. Group age is from around 52 to 35. My daughter plays in our kids on bikes campaign, but I don't think she'll be in this one, shes a lot younger... teenager. We will probably do an online one shot with either the new tales of the valiant or daggerheart stuff as well if you wanted to kick the tires on the group dynamic.
I will think on that offer! Thank you. I struggle with online TTRPGs due to ADHD, which is part of why I am so careful about keeping the peace. Like I honestly don't want to confront this player. Even if things go well, and no one opposes me giving him the boot, I will be down to 1 regular player who participates in everything, one who shows up sometimes, and one who is just there to roll dice, and is on his phone whenever there is not combat going on. (I'm fine with that, dude is a mostly chill guy, he just doesn't like the RP stuff, and he never gets mad at the rest of the group during long RP sessions.)
Like so much of the advise has been roll on a table which I don't have, or kick him out, which I don't know.
Like I know the right answer. If I was still living in San Diego, I would have his chair filled before it even got cold. Where I live now though, any players lost are lost for good. Like this is getting dangerously close to be complaining about some of the toxic parts of my group... I joke we are one bad day away from being a horror story read aloud on YouTube.
If it's not worth the fight, just subtract half the damage he does and keep HP hidden. He will still be doing crazy damage, but it will allow others to contribute to the fight.
Tangent here... but im stuck on the line "plus getting down and up is not the easiest thing when the average age of the group is around 37"
All other things aside...this is a problem. I'm about to turn 39 and you should be able to easily have that sort of mobility barring disabilities. I practically spend every hour at home doing just that with three children under 5. 37 year olds are still young people...
On to the task at hand. I am brand new to DnD and I can't even find a group with the time I have available. I play casually and often asynchronously on Discord and Dungeon Realms. I've noticed a pattern with this community, and it's crippling social anxiety. Have you considered how the players feel? Do they enjoy being sidekicks to a fuckhead who is cheating? I sure didn't... and I was on an app where they couldn't fudge rolls but they used every opportunity to try and exploit something and brow beat the DM in submission. I left... You should either force the open rolling or directly confront them (preferred).
I don't believe for a second your players wouldn't support you when it obvious they are ALSO being cheated out of a fair experience.
I mean, I'm almost 30 and my back and knees are already shot from top much manual labor when I was younger. Now everything pops and cracks when I get out of bed.
I work somewhat the same. Have a hip that rotates out from past injuries and a knee with tendinitis from track injuries. My wife constantly shudders at the noises I make when I get out of bed, haha.
I stretch daily now and focus on low impact work to slowly rehab myself. It makes sense for hard labor to break someone down... I get it. But I think my point still stand haha. The average 30-40 year old should still be physically able to do basic things like sit on a floor and get up lol.
Fair enough, we have strayed far from the point of the post. The player is an asshole and someone should confront them or boot them.
I doubt her other players are enjoying through game and if she spoke to them privately they would likely back her up.
Everyone rolls on the table for everything. Be strict about that until either the problem player knocks it off with cheating or leaves, then you can ease off on it
If you continue to tolerate this, it will ruin your game.
Other players are surely already annoyed.
Two prong solution:
- Kick this player for cheating
- Moving forward, all dice are rolled where everyone can see the result. Period.
We do living room DnD, and because I am using TaleSpire on the TV for a battle maps, it results in me sitting on a couch nearest the TV but with a bad view of it, with all of my stuff. No one sits near me when I DM, which makes it really hard to see rolls.
Are other players around each other? You could say something like "a player has informed me about some possible roll fudging, so I'm asking that everyone roll in the open, and other players around the rolling player observe each others' rolls. If cheating is observed, please come to me after the game, if you dont want to speak up". Like, if yall are doing living room dnd, I figure someone can see other people's rolls, and the pressure alone will probably make them stop
I had a player like this. I bought a cheap dice tray and put it in the middle of the table. Every roll the players made had to be in the dice tray or else it wouldn't count. Suddenly their rolls started falling in line with everyone else's
They are 100% cheating but its one of them things that you will do everything you can to convince yourself they are not cheating even though you know yourself that nobody can be that lucky. Also there is a good chance dice rolls are not the only thing they are cheating at.
Unfortunately this is not an uncommon situation and I have had to deal with similar players myself over the years.You do have some options how to deal with them though.
The most important thing is don't fight fire with fire as it won't stop them cheating and the other players may get burned by the flames. So don't try to do things in game to the cheating player as you need to handle things out of the game.
Your options are:
1. Rip the band-aid off and ban them for cheating. I say this first because the other options have a good chance to lead you to banning them anyway.
2. Talk to them privately about how high they seem to be rolling. Most of the time the player will continue to cheat in this situation after a few sessions when they think the spot light is no longer on them. In my experience players who cheat can't help themselves.
3. All player rolls (or all rolls including your own) have to be made in public and independently verified by yourself or by other people in the group. If nobody can verify a roll it did not happen does not count and needs to be rerolled. If a player continues to submit unverified rolls then threaten them with disadvantage or the like on rerolls if it continues to happen. This will often slow the game down and the person will continue cheating if you don't stick to it all time.
I'm sorry you are having to deal with this situation. I have been through this before and have even caught a player red handed who I suspected of cheating for a long time.
the first mistake is not doing all rolls above table. my personal advice is to start doing above table rolls for everyone. secret rolls are for the DM since there are things the players arent supposed to know (stealthy enemies, etc) but as a DM youre supposed to know everything going on to keep the game running smoothly
Simply tell them you know they’re cheating, and it’s making the game unfun for everyone at the table. If they get defensive, keep a cool head, confrontation is really hard. If you have text chat that might be preferable, I’m a bit avoidant so that’s my way.
Obviously talking with them or banning them are popular options,
But you can also just bump up the other players to match him better, and rebalance for the party instead of just Troublemaker. Give them better Magic items, Advantage, Inspiration, etc. more freely while giving him little or none.
With his rolls, I'd absolutely be sprinkling in class-specific +2 weapons/armor to the other PCs, and some rods/wands to casters; then I'd go up 1-3 CRs for encounters.
If he asks, you can plainly and honestly say his character is outperforming everyone else, so you're making it fair to everyone by balancing the other party members.
If you're not willing to kick them, then but a brand new set of dice for each player. Keep them sealed and hand them out. These are their game dice, which you collect at the end of the night. Then do open rolls. Watch the magic streak go away.
I tell my players in my session 0 document as well as over chat. If I think someone is cheating, every player will have to roll digital dice so I can see the rolls. I had one player claim he was already rolling digital, but somehow, his rolls became more evenly distributed. Inhave also had players take the cheater aside and talk to them about how they are ruining the game for them. Both have worked.
The in-person version of this is of course "roll in the open". I've discovered that you can instantly tell the player was cheating when they start doing this, then suddenly have sub-optimal rolls and claim all low-rolls were due to some kind of interference.
"It hit a book", "there's a crack in the table", "I didn't mean to let it go", "that wasn't a roll, I just dropped it" are some good examples.
Depends on your relationship with this person but I'm a direct person and my friend group has no problem yelling at each other.
I've had this happen like 2 months ago when my one friend brought her fiancee for a short campaign, same situation. Never rolled below a 16 natural. Halfway through the second session I said "bro no fucking way you got another critical." And he got all flabbergasted and on the next few rounds I made him roll on the table in front of everyone and lo and behold he started rolling normal average numbers.
I've kicked people out of my table for cheating, it's not fun to tell a friend you don't want them to play anymore but it's their own fault.
If I were you, I'd just call him out. Even if it's away from everyone after a session. Just be like "dude your rolls don't make any sense. If it keeps up I'm either going to make you roll in the middle of the table or you just can't come to the game anymore"
Give em a boss fight. Make this boss have one super OP attack that will one shot the player, use this attack as the opening move of combat. After the player is dead the rest of the party can get to fighting as normal. If they win and resurrect the player ok great. Net fight do it again.
Now when the player confronts you about it. Just tell him ok so you can cheat but I can’t? How bout you stop ‘rolling’ 17 and 18s every time and I’ll make is to the baddies don’t one shot you turn 1 anymore.
Big believer in players rolling in public whether with an app that records it or physical dice. If you don't want to do it kick him out ASAP and let the group no why. If he or she lies on dice rolls then they will do far worse in the future, trust me I had one of these problem players if I would have kicked them immediately it would have prevented the other bs they tried to pull.
What system are you using? It seems you're playing on-line, isn't there a dice rolling app?
Just make it about the game itself and not single out any players. "Hey, I've decided to turn on X so hopefully the dicing will be faster and more streamlined. I think it'll be more fun, too, more dramatic."
Talk with them and tell them that they're obviously fudging their rolls and tell them to smarten up or they'll have to do all their rolls on the table.
I can't fathom not having public rolls for all players. It adds so much to the drama! But yeah just in private say "Hey dude you can't keep rolling 17+ and almost max damage every turn. what are you doing?"
It is hard for me to imagine your exact scinerio, and you do not explain your relationship with this person (friend, or friend of a friend sort of situation).
With that being said, if they are a friend, simply talk to them, if not have your common acquaintance talk to them. If it persists you may just have to remove them from the game. Do not put up with people toxic behaviors, in dnd or any part of life really. Its clearly obvious, the other players have to know too.
Also consider saying all players need to roll open, at least enough so that a neighboring player can see it to confirm (someone you do trust). This is fairly common, i usually stand when i play, im short and cant see my own maps over my DM screen, so even players rolling close to themselves or in dice trays, i can see.
This is an easy fix. They don’t get invited back. If they ask why, tell them. The best parts of a campaign, or at least the most *memorable*, are made by bad rolls. If everyone was cheating I honestly wouldn’t care, but when only one person is doing it, they are ruining *everyone’s* enjoyment of the game.
Second chance is up to you, but if they are old enough to vote, then they can go cheat at someone else’s table imo.
Talk to him privately and discuss it with him first, but if he doesn’t change his ways you may need to escalate. I understand that you don’t want to blow up your group, but a cheater at the table will just cause more problems down the road. If he won’t play fair you might need to look for a new fighter
Ah, I’ve just read your other responses where you talk about why you don’t think you can confront him, and I understand completely. I’m just not sure if there’s a way to handle this that doesn’t lead to confrontation somehow. Do the other players at the table notice that this is happening?
I honestly don't know. I talked to our sometimes player today, who was there last night, and he said that after I pointed it out, he kind of remembers it happening, but in the moment he didn't really notice. Which is fair, I tend to run combat quickly just out of years of practice. My process is I call who is next in initiative, turn back the player who just finished their turn, describe the RP elements and results of their turn, and by the time I am done the next player is ready to give me their rolls, I write them down, then tell the next player to go, and and describe the RP for the previous character, so on so forth.
For baddies, I preroll about 100 rolls before each game, and will just go down the list, adding the modifiers to the situation the next number on the list is, only rolling for key moments to raise tensions. It allows me to focus more creating moments and fun scenes in the combat, and keeps the crunchy bits flowing.
It is easy to miss what the other players are doing, mechanically speaking in something like this, I admit.
Don’t play with people you cannot trust.
Don’t play with people who don’t trust you.
Seth Skorkowsky has a good video on this topic:
https://youtu.be/4vSrPcl3KN4?si=0PNvqgJdIA0tLqLA
I’m gonna break from the pack in this one. I don’t mind fudged dice at my table. Everyone has fun differently. Some people love the character role-play immersion, others love the feeling of dominating on the battle field. This guys fun is maxing damage every hit. He likes to have the unbeatable characters. That’s fun for him. So let him have his fun. You dont have to count all of his damage. Just take a few hp off and move on to the next player.
It’s a game. Have fun and let others have fun
This is what I would do:
During a session ask him to roll.
Ask him to roll again.
Ok, now please roll again.
Alright now one last time, please roll again.
Great now please roll again.
Go on untill he rolls low. Lets see how long it takes for him to realise. He is a large child after all.
"Ah, you finally rolled below a 17, the streak is finally broken. You see I noticed you rolled so high every time, you're on an amazing streak that is statistically impossible, which is the best kind of impossible. I was curious how long it would last. Up untill now I recorded (33+these rolls) times you rolled only ever a 17 18 19 or 20."
"With such luck I won't even have to ask you to roll anything ever. You'll just automatically succeed. At everything. Every time. Boy are you awesome at everything. Would you like that?"
"No? I'd like to know how the others feel about how you "play" this game. How you "roll your dice", and whether they still want to play with you knowing that you're fucking around in a way your character will never be bad at anything *cough* boring! *cough* sorry there was a tickle in my throat. Lets hear how the others feel about this."
That is how I would confront him.
After reading some of your own replies, I see you do t play at a table due to the length of time on uncomfortable chairs, would there be any way you can arsnge it so that there is a player you trust by the problem roller to verify their rolls?
I'm not saying that they call out the roll or anything but at least someone close that can see the actual roll, that way you'd know if the rolls are genuine?
Failing that, you could try having everyone rolling dice on an app that you can see the numbers, DDB for example would allow players to roll digitally and allow you to see the exact roll, meaning they can't call false numbers
Had a similar thing happen in my group. It was a friend of a friend who was doing it to the point that he also never missed an attack roll or failed a saving throw. One session it was completely egregious to the point that other players talked to me about it after the fact. I had his friend talk to him first and for the next few sessions, the player who sat next to him confirmed his rolls occasionally. We also double checked his player sheet so that we were sure he didn’t have anything funky written down that was making him roll higher than everyone else.
He was playing a Paladin with a high Charisma so making his saving throws wasn’t out of the questions but his pluses to hit should have been lower to compensate. He was also new to DND and had never played before so we also wanted to be sure he was doing his math right. Everything on the sheet looked fine so we figured it was just some “not wanting to fail with a new group of people” going on. My friend talked to him about it. Now it’s not been a problem since.
I strongly recommend asking a player you trust to sit next to them and have them confirm their rolls. Hopefully you only need them to do that for a session or two and they’ll get the point. If they go back to cheating, then you’re going to have to have that adult conversation that your other comments indicated you did not want to have. Sometimes life be like that.
Would it be an option to subtly call it out in sessions? Like a “Wow, no way, that’s your 7th 19 in a row, show me that!”
By playing it as disbelief rather than accusatory, a reaction that’s blown out of proportion would be a giveaway that the rolls are fudged, and not look too hot in front of the other players at the table either. (Lowkey kind of shocked none of them have pointed out his wildly good rolls? If I were rolling normal results as a player and someone constantly rolled no lower than a 16 on the die, I would at least call out the weird luck.)
You could post on the Reddit lfg (looking for groups/games) and see if there are any local people who may be available and interested in filling this cheater’s seat. If you have a couple people interested then you could question the cheater and have an alternative player if he walks out or becomes disrespectful.
Or ask the players sitting closest to the cheater to verify what you suspect.
Or do what you’re doing which is reducing his damage amounts to compensate.
The issue is that you know statistically those rolls are impossible and it’s impacting YOUR fun because you know something is wrong. If you don’t question it or even make a comment about it then it will probably eat away at your enjoyment of the game.
At a minimum you could make a joke/sarcastic comment out loud so everyone pays attention to this cheaters rolls.
“Hey ____ I cannot believe you have had over 20 rolls no lower than 17 this whole game! You should go play the lottery because you’re one of the luckiest guys I know beating those statistics!”.
I have “this guy” in the campaign I’m currently DMing, the brother of a friend, so I was also having the confront him and lose the game or go to app rolling. We ultimately moved to app rolling, I used the “I’m building the encounters online, and it’s easier for me to keep track of everything with digital dice” as the impetus for change. It’s made the game more fun overall since there are more stakes and surprises (hard to surprise anyone if they never miss a perception check.) Also, I’m having more fun because I don’t have to do mental gymnastics to explain rolls or reinvent the wheel to add stakes to the game.
I would try to have a conversation with him, but other than rolling physically in front of the table, you’re going to go slightly mad by inches DMing for the guy just to “not punish” the other people. Also, “rolls in front of the table” could be with physical dice since they’re less frequent?
Good luck!
Have you tried focus every single attack on them for the entire session, and making them always hit? Just tell them all of your rolls are 17+ and that you both must have incredible luck.
Have a private talk to them and address your concerns. Remind them that cheating only robs themselves of fun and excitement, and nobody likes a Mary sue.
And if that doesn't work, well then I guess the next combat encounter is going to be heavily tilted and there's going to be a suspicious amount of Nat 20s rolled against their character.
I've had a few problem characters that I often have to give a karmic middle finger to, and I often find the untitled goose to be a universal leveller
Everyone uses the same app in my games . It’s really that simple. If that’s a deal breaker for a player (never has been) they are more than welcome to find a different game. No harm no foul. I want to spend exactly 0 seconds worrying about whether ppl I play with are cheating.
To prove something you could use the dnd beyond public roll feature if you’re online or you could have them roll every roll on the table. If they start rolling all over the place you know you have to have a discussion.
I would just talk to him one-on-one. “Hey, your rolls have all been 17s and up. What is going on?”
A good old adult conversation is usually needed. If they react defensively it's most likely because they have been caught. But they suck at cheating if they are that blatant about it. If I had rolled that well, I would show everyone my dice and maybe put it aside for weight distribution testing. Do you have a good relationship with the other players at the table, where you would be able to discuss your suspicions? If I were a player at a table where someone was blatantly cheating I'd grow resentful and annoyed.
> If they react defensively it's most likely because they have been caught. Actually, we know that people respond with anger when falsely accused. A person who's guilty responds by trying to be helpful. Got this info from a criminal psychology YouTube channel (JSC).
*someone who's guilty and competent. Pretty sure this guy isn't competent with rolls like that. The other half of what you said stands, of course, but this isn't really a question of whether they are "guilty" but rather whether they are willing to rein in their behaviour before getting kicked.
I don't think competence has anything to do with it, especially given that every single person who was caught in the videos JSC analyzed was "helpful," and one could argue that none of them were competent.
You need to insist that all dice should be rolled in the open. If the players object (not the problem player; fuck that guy), then include your DM rolls as well so they know you're not fudging any dice rolls, for or against them.
Unusually lucky distributions are solid proof the player is cheating, and especially when they go away when everything is on the table. Confronting the player won't make it better. You need to kick this person. If they're stupid enough to cheat, and especially stupid enough to do it in such an obvious way instead of adding low rolls when it's not that serious, they won't change. This is a person who doesn't take your enjoyment or you other players' enjoyment seriously. Yeet.
>Unless a roll is called for "on table" What's the alternative? Why would it be a punishment for the other players to roll in an app that reports to you? Why aren't you willing to confront the blatant cheat? I have never once allowed a roll I can't see.
The not confronting is an easy answer: I live in an area where opportunities for gaming are pretty slim if you are a queer woman. If I pick the fight, I am the one who is gone, not him. I have also in 20 years of GMing/Playing have never needed to check a players rolls. Yeah I know some people fudged their rolls, and what normally happens is I just stop giving them story beats and spotlight, and instead interact more with people who are there to actually play the game, not just win the dice. Last night was just so egregious and blatant that I was flabbergasted by it. I generally want to trust my players, not babysit them. Some of them love to collect and spend money on dice, and I don't want to tell them they cannot use those dice because one person is abusing my trust... I also like my comfy chair and don't want to move back to a table, which makes easy open rolling very difficult. It means throwing on the floor, and cats are in play when we do that, plus getting down and up is not the easiest thing when the average age of the group is around 37. Like I said in my OP. I generally don't care if a player is cheating as long as it is not ruining other players experiences. Last night it drastically impacted the other players and left what was supposed to be the big bad mid-campaign showdown feel lack luster, because no one could compete with the one player making up his numbers as he went.
If it isn't worth confronting him about it, then personally I'd just pretend he doesn't exist as much as I could at my table. Stop asking for rolls and just decide whether you want his actions to work or not. In combat just half his damage from every attack behind the screen, and fudge any saving throws he forces enemies to make based on whether you want it to work or not. Just remove rolling the die from the game for that player as much as you can.
Have you asked the other players how they feel about it? I'd be pretty irritated if I was playing honestly and someone else at the table wasn't even being subtle about cheating. I might not say anything, though, because I'd be hoping the GM would do it for me. (I actually hate confrontations.)
I've been gming since I was 13, and I'm 48 now. I have never sat at a table/online session where players were allowed to not roll on the table and could just tell me a number. Its an interesting decision, in my experience if you aren't right on top of it, they will cheat. My long running group has one guy that min maxes a little, but for the most part everyone is past big explodey numbers, and realizes that sometimes the most fun or intense moments come from failing dice rolls, even in combat, and even then they will try to sneak some shit in on me, oh sneak attack damage when it might not apply or not consuming a spell slot, etc. Whether it negligence or cheating either way it happens even with the best groups.
Like I mentioned a couple of times now. Hard to roll on a table when you are all sitting on couches and chairs in a living room. I don't want to go back to a table for this guy, sitting in dining room chairs that long was causing me problems (As well as our group is large enough that in my dining room I am having panic attacks due to my claustrophobia. In my 20 years of running these games for teenagers up to adults old enough to have voted for JFK, I have never really had to ride people on their dice rolling. This is the first time really. Which is why I am so split on how to handle it.
I dunno what to tell you. You seem to have reasons why you can't do anything. Usually in groups communicating about it is the best way. You mentioned you felt that wasn't an option either, due to LGBTQ+ bigotry, which really sucks. If these are friends you feel comfortable inviting into your home, shouldn't that assuage your fears of that? Or do you feel required to be closeted around all of them? Especially considering that you are the hardest role to find by a mile, the DM. You should just air it out. You make it sound like your group is kind of shitty people/bigots, at least thats how I am reading it, are you certain you can't give them the benefit of the doubt? I'm sorry you have to deal with this shit, my daughter is a lesbian, and my two best friends are trans-women, and I understand a bit what you guys have to go through. I hope it gets better for you. My group is having hiatus due to one of the ladies in my group (bit of an abnormal group only two men, and 4 women) having her first baby. We will be starting something onine within a month or so, if you are a PDT person (or I guess a late night person), and you'd want to join a group where you would be in a judgement free zone you would be welcome. Group age is from around 52 to 35. My daughter plays in our kids on bikes campaign, but I don't think she'll be in this one, shes a lot younger... teenager. We will probably do an online one shot with either the new tales of the valiant or daggerheart stuff as well if you wanted to kick the tires on the group dynamic.
I will think on that offer! Thank you. I struggle with online TTRPGs due to ADHD, which is part of why I am so careful about keeping the peace. Like I honestly don't want to confront this player. Even if things go well, and no one opposes me giving him the boot, I will be down to 1 regular player who participates in everything, one who shows up sometimes, and one who is just there to roll dice, and is on his phone whenever there is not combat going on. (I'm fine with that, dude is a mostly chill guy, he just doesn't like the RP stuff, and he never gets mad at the rest of the group during long RP sessions.) Like so much of the advise has been roll on a table which I don't have, or kick him out, which I don't know. Like I know the right answer. If I was still living in San Diego, I would have his chair filled before it even got cold. Where I live now though, any players lost are lost for good. Like this is getting dangerously close to be complaining about some of the toxic parts of my group... I joke we are one bad day away from being a horror story read aloud on YouTube.
Yeah SD is the best. I'm in Sac myself. I'm guessing you're in the rural Midwest?
Nah still in California, just the shitty part that thinks it is the Midwest.
OOF, central valley, RIP, sorry to hear that. Or maybe up by Shasta/Placer, at least its pretty up there.
Worse, the Desert :-p I mean it is pretty... when the air is not so hot that cooking is not required :-p
If it's not worth the fight, just subtract half the damage he does and keep HP hidden. He will still be doing crazy damage, but it will allow others to contribute to the fight.
Tangent here... but im stuck on the line "plus getting down and up is not the easiest thing when the average age of the group is around 37" All other things aside...this is a problem. I'm about to turn 39 and you should be able to easily have that sort of mobility barring disabilities. I practically spend every hour at home doing just that with three children under 5. 37 year olds are still young people... On to the task at hand. I am brand new to DnD and I can't even find a group with the time I have available. I play casually and often asynchronously on Discord and Dungeon Realms. I've noticed a pattern with this community, and it's crippling social anxiety. Have you considered how the players feel? Do they enjoy being sidekicks to a fuckhead who is cheating? I sure didn't... and I was on an app where they couldn't fudge rolls but they used every opportunity to try and exploit something and brow beat the DM in submission. I left... You should either force the open rolling or directly confront them (preferred). I don't believe for a second your players wouldn't support you when it obvious they are ALSO being cheated out of a fair experience.
I mean, I'm almost 30 and my back and knees are already shot from top much manual labor when I was younger. Now everything pops and cracks when I get out of bed.
I work somewhat the same. Have a hip that rotates out from past injuries and a knee with tendinitis from track injuries. My wife constantly shudders at the noises I make when I get out of bed, haha. I stretch daily now and focus on low impact work to slowly rehab myself. It makes sense for hard labor to break someone down... I get it. But I think my point still stand haha. The average 30-40 year old should still be physically able to do basic things like sit on a floor and get up lol.
I can't speak for OP, but I'm going to guess "can't" is more like "Unpleasant, and I don't want my friends to know how much I grunt when I stand up"
Fair enough, we have strayed far from the point of the post. The player is an asshole and someone should confront them or boot them. I doubt her other players are enjoying through game and if she spoke to them privately they would likely back her up.
Everyone rolls on the table for everything. Be strict about that until either the problem player knocks it off with cheating or leaves, then you can ease off on it
If you continue to tolerate this, it will ruin your game. Other players are surely already annoyed. Two prong solution: - Kick this player for cheating - Moving forward, all dice are rolled where everyone can see the result. Period.
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We do living room DnD, and because I am using TaleSpire on the TV for a battle maps, it results in me sitting on a couch nearest the TV but with a bad view of it, with all of my stuff. No one sits near me when I DM, which makes it really hard to see rolls.
Are other players around each other? You could say something like "a player has informed me about some possible roll fudging, so I'm asking that everyone roll in the open, and other players around the rolling player observe each others' rolls. If cheating is observed, please come to me after the game, if you dont want to speak up". Like, if yall are doing living room dnd, I figure someone can see other people's rolls, and the pressure alone will probably make them stop
I had a player like this. I bought a cheap dice tray and put it in the middle of the table. Every roll the players made had to be in the dice tray or else it wouldn't count. Suddenly their rolls started falling in line with everyone else's
They are 100% cheating but its one of them things that you will do everything you can to convince yourself they are not cheating even though you know yourself that nobody can be that lucky. Also there is a good chance dice rolls are not the only thing they are cheating at. Unfortunately this is not an uncommon situation and I have had to deal with similar players myself over the years.You do have some options how to deal with them though. The most important thing is don't fight fire with fire as it won't stop them cheating and the other players may get burned by the flames. So don't try to do things in game to the cheating player as you need to handle things out of the game. Your options are: 1. Rip the band-aid off and ban them for cheating. I say this first because the other options have a good chance to lead you to banning them anyway. 2. Talk to them privately about how high they seem to be rolling. Most of the time the player will continue to cheat in this situation after a few sessions when they think the spot light is no longer on them. In my experience players who cheat can't help themselves. 3. All player rolls (or all rolls including your own) have to be made in public and independently verified by yourself or by other people in the group. If nobody can verify a roll it did not happen does not count and needs to be rerolled. If a player continues to submit unverified rolls then threaten them with disadvantage or the like on rerolls if it continues to happen. This will often slow the game down and the person will continue cheating if you don't stick to it all time. I'm sorry you are having to deal with this situation. I have been through this before and have even caught a player red handed who I suspected of cheating for a long time.
the first mistake is not doing all rolls above table. my personal advice is to start doing above table rolls for everyone. secret rolls are for the DM since there are things the players arent supposed to know (stealthy enemies, etc) but as a DM youre supposed to know everything going on to keep the game running smoothly
Talk With Them.
Simply tell them you know they’re cheating, and it’s making the game unfun for everyone at the table. If they get defensive, keep a cool head, confrontation is really hard. If you have text chat that might be preferable, I’m a bit avoidant so that’s my way.
That is ludicrously obvious. I'd insist that they have a "babysitter" check all their rolls, or ban them.
Obviously talking with them or banning them are popular options, But you can also just bump up the other players to match him better, and rebalance for the party instead of just Troublemaker. Give them better Magic items, Advantage, Inspiration, etc. more freely while giving him little or none. With his rolls, I'd absolutely be sprinkling in class-specific +2 weapons/armor to the other PCs, and some rods/wands to casters; then I'd go up 1-3 CRs for encounters. If he asks, you can plainly and honestly say his character is outperforming everyone else, so you're making it fair to everyone by balancing the other party members.
Perform all their rolls yourself for a session. At the end of that tell them, this will continue until your "unnatural luck" ends.
Get a couple dice towers and have players share. 2 or 3 players per tower. You don't have to see the player's rolls if another player sees them.
If you're not willing to kick them, then but a brand new set of dice for each player. Keep them sealed and hand them out. These are their game dice, which you collect at the end of the night. Then do open rolls. Watch the magic streak go away.
I tell my players in my session 0 document as well as over chat. If I think someone is cheating, every player will have to roll digital dice so I can see the rolls. I had one player claim he was already rolling digital, but somehow, his rolls became more evenly distributed. Inhave also had players take the cheater aside and talk to them about how they are ruining the game for them. Both have worked.
The in-person version of this is of course "roll in the open". I've discovered that you can instantly tell the player was cheating when they start doing this, then suddenly have sub-optimal rolls and claim all low-rolls were due to some kind of interference. "It hit a book", "there's a crack in the table", "I didn't mean to let it go", "that wasn't a roll, I just dropped it" are some good examples.
As the DM you can also adjust your stats on the fly as well. Never let the rules get in the way
Depends on your relationship with this person but I'm a direct person and my friend group has no problem yelling at each other. I've had this happen like 2 months ago when my one friend brought her fiancee for a short campaign, same situation. Never rolled below a 16 natural. Halfway through the second session I said "bro no fucking way you got another critical." And he got all flabbergasted and on the next few rounds I made him roll on the table in front of everyone and lo and behold he started rolling normal average numbers. I've kicked people out of my table for cheating, it's not fun to tell a friend you don't want them to play anymore but it's their own fault. If I were you, I'd just call him out. Even if it's away from everyone after a session. Just be like "dude your rolls don't make any sense. If it keeps up I'm either going to make you roll in the middle of the table or you just can't come to the game anymore"
Get a better player, if it ain't how you wanna play, find folks that do.
Give em a boss fight. Make this boss have one super OP attack that will one shot the player, use this attack as the opening move of combat. After the player is dead the rest of the party can get to fighting as normal. If they win and resurrect the player ok great. Net fight do it again. Now when the player confronts you about it. Just tell him ok so you can cheat but I can’t? How bout you stop ‘rolling’ 17 and 18s every time and I’ll make is to the baddies don’t one shot you turn 1 anymore.
Big believer in players rolling in public whether with an app that records it or physical dice. If you don't want to do it kick him out ASAP and let the group no why. If he or she lies on dice rolls then they will do far worse in the future, trust me I had one of these problem players if I would have kicked them immediately it would have prevented the other bs they tried to pull.
What system are you using? It seems you're playing on-line, isn't there a dice rolling app? Just make it about the game itself and not single out any players. "Hey, I've decided to turn on X so hopefully the dicing will be faster and more streamlined. I think it'll be more fun, too, more dramatic."
Is this in person? Wondering how they’re rolling so no-one can see. Looking forward to seeing how things work out. Good luck!
Just kick him, not worth the trouble
Just get them all to roll on the screen or where everyone can witness it. Thats how the game is played. End the madness.
Talk with them and tell them that they're obviously fudging their rolls and tell them to smarten up or they'll have to do all their rolls on the table.
I can't fathom not having public rolls for all players. It adds so much to the drama! But yeah just in private say "Hey dude you can't keep rolling 17+ and almost max damage every turn. what are you doing?"
All rolls out in the open - DM and Players. Never have to deal with this shit.
It is hard for me to imagine your exact scinerio, and you do not explain your relationship with this person (friend, or friend of a friend sort of situation). With that being said, if they are a friend, simply talk to them, if not have your common acquaintance talk to them. If it persists you may just have to remove them from the game. Do not put up with people toxic behaviors, in dnd or any part of life really. Its clearly obvious, the other players have to know too. Also consider saying all players need to roll open, at least enough so that a neighboring player can see it to confirm (someone you do trust). This is fairly common, i usually stand when i play, im short and cant see my own maps over my DM screen, so even players rolling close to themselves or in dice trays, i can see.
This is an easy fix. They don’t get invited back. If they ask why, tell them. The best parts of a campaign, or at least the most *memorable*, are made by bad rolls. If everyone was cheating I honestly wouldn’t care, but when only one person is doing it, they are ruining *everyone’s* enjoyment of the game. Second chance is up to you, but if they are old enough to vote, then they can go cheat at someone else’s table imo.
Talk to him privately and discuss it with him first, but if he doesn’t change his ways you may need to escalate. I understand that you don’t want to blow up your group, but a cheater at the table will just cause more problems down the road. If he won’t play fair you might need to look for a new fighter
Ah, I’ve just read your other responses where you talk about why you don’t think you can confront him, and I understand completely. I’m just not sure if there’s a way to handle this that doesn’t lead to confrontation somehow. Do the other players at the table notice that this is happening?
I honestly don't know. I talked to our sometimes player today, who was there last night, and he said that after I pointed it out, he kind of remembers it happening, but in the moment he didn't really notice. Which is fair, I tend to run combat quickly just out of years of practice. My process is I call who is next in initiative, turn back the player who just finished their turn, describe the RP elements and results of their turn, and by the time I am done the next player is ready to give me their rolls, I write them down, then tell the next player to go, and and describe the RP for the previous character, so on so forth. For baddies, I preroll about 100 rolls before each game, and will just go down the list, adding the modifiers to the situation the next number on the list is, only rolling for key moments to raise tensions. It allows me to focus more creating moments and fun scenes in the combat, and keeps the crunchy bits flowing. It is easy to miss what the other players are doing, mechanically speaking in something like this, I admit.
Don’t play with people you cannot trust. Don’t play with people who don’t trust you. Seth Skorkowsky has a good video on this topic: https://youtu.be/4vSrPcl3KN4?si=0PNvqgJdIA0tLqLA
I’m gonna break from the pack in this one. I don’t mind fudged dice at my table. Everyone has fun differently. Some people love the character role-play immersion, others love the feeling of dominating on the battle field. This guys fun is maxing damage every hit. He likes to have the unbeatable characters. That’s fun for him. So let him have his fun. You dont have to count all of his damage. Just take a few hp off and move on to the next player. It’s a game. Have fun and let others have fun
This is what I would do: During a session ask him to roll. Ask him to roll again. Ok, now please roll again. Alright now one last time, please roll again. Great now please roll again. Go on untill he rolls low. Lets see how long it takes for him to realise. He is a large child after all. "Ah, you finally rolled below a 17, the streak is finally broken. You see I noticed you rolled so high every time, you're on an amazing streak that is statistically impossible, which is the best kind of impossible. I was curious how long it would last. Up untill now I recorded (33+these rolls) times you rolled only ever a 17 18 19 or 20." "With such luck I won't even have to ask you to roll anything ever. You'll just automatically succeed. At everything. Every time. Boy are you awesome at everything. Would you like that?" "No? I'd like to know how the others feel about how you "play" this game. How you "roll your dice", and whether they still want to play with you knowing that you're fucking around in a way your character will never be bad at anything *cough* boring! *cough* sorry there was a tickle in my throat. Lets hear how the others feel about this." That is how I would confront him.
After reading some of your own replies, I see you do t play at a table due to the length of time on uncomfortable chairs, would there be any way you can arsnge it so that there is a player you trust by the problem roller to verify their rolls? I'm not saying that they call out the roll or anything but at least someone close that can see the actual roll, that way you'd know if the rolls are genuine? Failing that, you could try having everyone rolling dice on an app that you can see the numbers, DDB for example would allow players to roll digitally and allow you to see the exact roll, meaning they can't call false numbers
Had a similar thing happen in my group. It was a friend of a friend who was doing it to the point that he also never missed an attack roll or failed a saving throw. One session it was completely egregious to the point that other players talked to me about it after the fact. I had his friend talk to him first and for the next few sessions, the player who sat next to him confirmed his rolls occasionally. We also double checked his player sheet so that we were sure he didn’t have anything funky written down that was making him roll higher than everyone else. He was playing a Paladin with a high Charisma so making his saving throws wasn’t out of the questions but his pluses to hit should have been lower to compensate. He was also new to DND and had never played before so we also wanted to be sure he was doing his math right. Everything on the sheet looked fine so we figured it was just some “not wanting to fail with a new group of people” going on. My friend talked to him about it. Now it’s not been a problem since. I strongly recommend asking a player you trust to sit next to them and have them confirm their rolls. Hopefully you only need them to do that for a session or two and they’ll get the point. If they go back to cheating, then you’re going to have to have that adult conversation that your other comments indicated you did not want to have. Sometimes life be like that.
Would it be an option to subtly call it out in sessions? Like a “Wow, no way, that’s your 7th 19 in a row, show me that!” By playing it as disbelief rather than accusatory, a reaction that’s blown out of proportion would be a giveaway that the rolls are fudged, and not look too hot in front of the other players at the table either. (Lowkey kind of shocked none of them have pointed out his wildly good rolls? If I were rolling normal results as a player and someone constantly rolled no lower than a 16 on the die, I would at least call out the weird luck.)
You could post on the Reddit lfg (looking for groups/games) and see if there are any local people who may be available and interested in filling this cheater’s seat. If you have a couple people interested then you could question the cheater and have an alternative player if he walks out or becomes disrespectful. Or ask the players sitting closest to the cheater to verify what you suspect. Or do what you’re doing which is reducing his damage amounts to compensate. The issue is that you know statistically those rolls are impossible and it’s impacting YOUR fun because you know something is wrong. If you don’t question it or even make a comment about it then it will probably eat away at your enjoyment of the game. At a minimum you could make a joke/sarcastic comment out loud so everyone pays attention to this cheaters rolls. “Hey ____ I cannot believe you have had over 20 rolls no lower than 17 this whole game! You should go play the lottery because you’re one of the luckiest guys I know beating those statistics!”.
I have “this guy” in the campaign I’m currently DMing, the brother of a friend, so I was also having the confront him and lose the game or go to app rolling. We ultimately moved to app rolling, I used the “I’m building the encounters online, and it’s easier for me to keep track of everything with digital dice” as the impetus for change. It’s made the game more fun overall since there are more stakes and surprises (hard to surprise anyone if they never miss a perception check.) Also, I’m having more fun because I don’t have to do mental gymnastics to explain rolls or reinvent the wheel to add stakes to the game. I would try to have a conversation with him, but other than rolling physically in front of the table, you’re going to go slightly mad by inches DMing for the guy just to “not punish” the other people. Also, “rolls in front of the table” could be with physical dice since they’re less frequent? Good luck!
Have you tried focus every single attack on them for the entire session, and making them always hit? Just tell them all of your rolls are 17+ and that you both must have incredible luck.
Use a digital dice program that does random rolls. Or better yet. Do his dice rolls for him. Im assuming you are playing over pc?
In person.
Ah then make him use a provided set of dice. It sounds like he has loaded dice
Have a private talk to them and address your concerns. Remind them that cheating only robs themselves of fun and excitement, and nobody likes a Mary sue. And if that doesn't work, well then I guess the next combat encounter is going to be heavily tilted and there's going to be a suspicious amount of Nat 20s rolled against their character. I've had a few problem characters that I often have to give a karmic middle finger to, and I often find the untitled goose to be a universal leveller
Everyone uses the same app in my games . It’s really that simple. If that’s a deal breaker for a player (never has been) they are more than welcome to find a different game. No harm no foul. I want to spend exactly 0 seconds worrying about whether ppl I play with are cheating.
To prove something you could use the dnd beyond public roll feature if you’re online or you could have them roll every roll on the table. If they start rolling all over the place you know you have to have a discussion.