Topic: Can a GM Cheat?

[arakish]

Can a GM Cheat?

Ultimately, the answer is:

NO!

Thought I'd post this as another response to this thread:
To cheat as a GM or not to cheat as a GM, thats the question.

Here are some chosen excerpts from some of the posts.  Any emphasis is mine.

For my gaming pleasure, the story line should not be destroyed by an odd dice roll.  The fun of the gaming session should not be how great a roll of the dice was, but rather how great the roleplaying was.

Amen.

I've used 2 different solutions. The obvious one is that the GM does not tell the players that they have fate points and handle them in secret.

The Burning Heavens game at Real Role Playing is the very first game I have ever played in which there are Fate Points.  Even when my character has been in some very dire straits, I never used a Fate Point because I had completely forgotten about them until reminded.  Also, I have never GMed where I gave out Fate Points.  From one viewpoint, one could consider my fudging of die rolls as being Fate Points.

This is a very interesting method for handling Fate Points.  Can I steal this idea?  Of course I can.  I am a GM.  GM is Always Right.  Thus, a GM cannot steal.

My alternative is to cap criticals as 80 for minor combats, 90 for important combats and uncapped for a climatic combat. Of course my players don't know this.

This means that it's unlikely (but not impossible) to die in a combat thrown into break up the story, but more important combats have a reasonable chance of claiming a victim, but rarely wipe out a party. Climatic combats now become the life or death situations they should be as there are no fate points to protect the players.

This, also, is a very nice alternative.  I just may give it a try in my upcoming Onaviu campaign.

There is not a GM alive that has not fudged rolls and omitted or changed rules that did not fit their style of play.

And any GM who says differently is either lying or has never GMed.


Now for my answer and other thoughts.

As a GM and player of almost 40 years (38 to be exact), I have learned a set of unmutable rules when it comes to role playing.  In no particular order or ranking of importance, my main unmutable rules for role playing are listed below.

• It is meant for a group of people to come together and have fun.
• It is meant for a group of people to come together and have an enjoyable time.
• It is called ROLE playing for a reason.
• Notice it is not called ROLL playing.
• Rules are guidelines in order for you to define your world.
• If a rule does not fit your world, then discard or change as necessary.
• If it interferes with the story, then change as necessary.
• If it interferes with ROLE playing, then change as necessary.

In my humble opinion, I do not think a GM can ever cheat.  S/He is simply following the above rules.  Most experienced players I have played with who are also GMs feel the same way.  And like most experienced GMs, I really despise having players create new characters before they can even develop their character.  For me, there is a difference between creating a character and developing a character.  Spending DevPnts at each level is creating, role playing is developing.  Although both go hand-in-hand, they are different.

Marc R made an interesting point:

There are players, we all know, who's response to almost any encounter is "Full OB!"

RM weeds them out, or at least has them sitting at the end of the table rolling up characters while everyone else role plays.

Yes, RM does a very good job of weeding out those battle-monger players.  Although RM could be played as a Hack-And-Slash, and thus becomes a ROLL playing game, I chose RM because of its complexity and completeness that actually makes it a better ROLE playing game.  What other RPG gives you the amount of skills that can be used in ROLE playing?

One point I have always made is also mentioned in Gamemaster's Law.  It is not the fact that there are too many rules that can get in the way of role playing, but the inapropriate usage of those rules that interferes with role playing.  In fact, once a GM has achieved a very good grasp of how the game mechanics are used and trust is established on how the GM makes judgements using those game mechanics, then it is often necessary to let usage of many of the game mechanics go away.  Most experienced GMs are like this.  It is not that they ignore the rules, s/he just does not stop every time to consult the rules and apply the game system mechanics.

Example: Suppose a character wants to remember a bit of information.  Role playing has been very good and strong up to this point.  Instead of stopping the game so the GM can consult die rolls, charts, tables, modifiers, and perhaps to hunt for that elusive calculator, the GM decides to give the PC the information, either wholly or partially, so the role playing can continue.  This is not cheating/fudging.  This is just good GMing and ROLE playing.

Now for the most important question of GM cheating/fudging.  Suppose a GM has made an epic campaign, similar to something like J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.  Suppose the GM has decided that one of the player characters is to be the main character in this epic campaign, similar to Frodo Baggins.  Now suppose, as in the incident when Frodo and Sam are descending the Emyn Muil, that the player fumbles his die roll for his rappelling skill.  The character falls to his death.  Oops.

Of course, the GM could simply stick with this and allow his epic campaign to now change to another main character (and possibly a whole new group of characters) to now become a story of the search for the One Ring after it is assumed that Frodo Baggins is dead and never reached Mordor.  This could be desirable.  This could allow the players to make new characters, or to change the direction of their current characters.

What if the GM does not want to totally change his story in this manner?  What would be wrong with the GM changing the result to indicate that instead of death, Frodo Baggins ends up badly injured with a broken leg, broken arm, and a bad concussion?  This would slow the story down, but not totally change it.

Like most GMs, I hate killing characters.  Especially ones that have been in development for many gaming sessions and for much game world time.

However, I have had some players who wanted a death scene.  The player of a much beloved character wanted to have the character die in a heart wrenching death scene.  The player spoke with me in private about the story line for this.  The character is killed.  But since the character is beloved by all the other characters, they will probably seek a way to bring her back.  They did, making their appeal directly to the Ruler of the Gods after a very long and arduous journey (think Eärendil in The Silmarillion).  He had compassion for their appeal and agreed to allow character to be returned.  However, he told them she could not be returned in her previous form.  He did allow her to return as an eagle.  This was the player's idea.  And it was fun, and funny, with both of us keeping this secret from the other players.

As it says in the RM books:

"Like any good craftsman, simply go to your tool set and select the tools that will best suit the job at hand and use those tools."

...and...

"Once you, the Gamemaster, understand what is included within the scope of Rolemaster, you should feel free to customize the rules to fit your world.  The Rolemaster system has been designed to allow this kind of customization without affecting the basic system balance."

...and...

"Every GM should examine and understand what is included within the scope of Rolemaster.  And then, he should throw out the things that do not fit his concept of his world.  The Rolemaster system has been designed to allow this kind of customization without affecting the basic system balance.

"This is your system.  You have taken the plunge.  Now make it truly yours!  Customize the set of rules until they fit your concept of what your game should be!"

Taking that to heart, I have written a customized rule that states: "As a GM, if a die roll goes against your desired affect with a diametric result, then you may apply a modifier as seen fit to moderate the diametric result."  This can be seen as a combination of these three rules from above:

• If a rule does not fit your world, then discard or change as necessary.
• If it interferes with the story, then change as necessary.
• If it interferes with ROLE playing, then change as necessary.

In other words, die roll fudging.  Or in another word, cheating.  Instead of killing a character, you cripple him/her.  And it is NOT cheating.  It is a customization of the set of rules.

One good example is one that happened recently.  A player's Bard character decided to sing some songs to hopefully get some tip money from a crowded tavern.  The Bard had a total +86 bonus on singing.  He rolled a 03, followed by a 78.  His total roll was a +11 (86 + 3 - 78).  I ROLE played this as the Bard did not sing badly, but the last song he sang was a song disliked by the crowd.  Thus, no tips.

If I were to follow the rules absolutely, the above roll would have meant the Bard's singing sucked.  However, with my fudging, it was a bad song instead of bad singing.

Thus, in summation, a GM cannot cheat.

rmfr

[Witchking20k]

he he he

some players might disagree

[Marc R]

Only in the context of:

Can players Quit?

[DangerMan]

I agree with most of what the initial poster said. The GM should be allowed to keep both hands on the steering wheel, but there is a line somewhere one should not cross.

When / if players start to feel they are puppets subject to what ever whim the GM is having the fun goes out of the game. The dice are there for a reason. We do need an element of chanse in our games.

I Frodo fumbles his climbing manuever and he is out of faith points, I would not change his die roll. The player knows he has fumbled and should take the fall, IMO. Then I'd rather have Galadriel fly in on an eagle with a life giving spell, thus changing the environment / NPC actions, not changing or bypassing the game mechanics.

The GM taking shortcuts I am all in favour of in RM. E.g. no need to consult the movement and manuever table at every juncture. If, and only if, the GM knows and understands the rules, he may (and should IMO) decide how far an NPC get to move in a ordinary combat situation. (Of course, if we are talking about Gollum going for the ring inside Mount Doom (epic moment), one should use the rules.)

However, if a player knows the rules as well or even better than the GM, you might get in trouble.

[rdanhenry]

If it becomes clear that the only way to die is to do something stupid, I will start playing stupid and see how long I can survive that way, because the game has been taking out of playing intelligently.

[RandalThor]

Overall I agree. The only caveat being that the only rules he (or anyone else, for that matter) are the ones dictated by the "social contract" at the table. The stuff that everyone there agrees to, and usually without even speaking them. (Like: no favoritism, etc...)

I tend to go by the 7th Sea Gamemaster Guide "rules":

1. There are no rules.
2. Cheat anyway.

I Frodo fumbles his climbing manuever and he is out of faith points, I would not change his die roll. The player knows he has fumbled and should take the fall, IMO. Then I'd rather have Galadriel fly in on an eagle with a life giving spell, thus changing the environment / NPC actions, not changing or bypassing the game mechanics.

I think this is even bigger GM fiat than just fudging the results of a roll. Better would be to have Frodo fall, Samwise head down to find his body, and grab the ring in order to finish the quest, only to find Frodo all wrapped up in webbing. As Samwise frees him - Frodo is not unhurt btw - this is when his big fight with Shelob occurs. Bam! Back on track. When/if they get through, Frodo is operating under some nasty injury penalties. Just the way I might have handled it. (I am in the camp that Frodo should have walked up to Gandalf at the end and punched him in the sack! "Eagles! Frakking* Eagles! Where were the Eagles when I had to get to Mordor?!?!?")

Everyone's complaint about fudging is what Maeglin said:

When / if players start to feel they are puppets subject to what ever whim the GM is having the fun goes out of the game. The dice are there for a reason. We do need an element of chanse in our games.

This is like most complaints about something we (whoever the "we" are in whatever is being discussed ) don't like: an over dramatization. We go to the worst possible, & least likely, scenario and use it as prime example. This is not what the OP is talking about. In fact, what he is talking about the majority of his players may know it occurs, but they probably couldn't point to any definitive roll as being fudged.

The modern games, in an effort to sate the "you don't control my character, I do! crowd," have brought in the Drama/Fate/Luck/Etc Die. They are to represent the luck of the gods (or whatever) that intervenes in your characters favor. It puts that control in the players hand. The problem I have is that in the average game session (or multiple if they don't "refresh" every session) can consist of dozens of rolls, many of which are important. (Otherwise you wouldn't be rolling, right?!?) So, having a handful of "lucky breaks" in your pocket does not change the odds in your favor by much at all. The odds in RPGs are seriously stacked against a character if you look at the sheer number of rolls they have to do. I feel/believe that the GM should be a mitigating factor against the whims of chance.


*Frodo was a big fan of the new BSG, don't you know.

[Marc R]

Hence my comment above, about players quitting.

"Cheating" implies an unfair bias to the odds in a game of chance, the GM already has all the unfair advantage they could ever possibly need without resorting to chance.

The game world and what happens are mostly at the whim of the GM, regardless of how we might pretend otherwise. . .even the GM with the lightest hand is still the omnipotent entity of the game world.

Plus, the golden rule says the GM can ignore or enforce anything they want, including die rolls (or even feeling like one needs to be made).

So, in that sense, it's not only impossible for the GM to cheat, it's unnecessary.

OTOH, in the other meaning of the word "cheat" as in to take undue advantage of someone.

It's entirely possible for the GM to exercise too heavy a hand in play, it's harder for a GM to learn NOT to be heavy handed. Learning when not to meddle is one of the hardest lessons of most social enterprises.

If the players ever feel cheated by the GM, it's going to be a problem, and odds are the game is doomed.

So I guess my answer is in line with many others, while it's impossible for the GM to cheat, it's possible for the players to feel cheated, and if they do, the game is going to suffer for it, or die.

That line, and when it's crossed, will differ with every group of players/GM, and what one group would consider casual plot development, another group would call blatant railroading. . .there's no hard and fixed point where "GM's Prerogative" becomes "Excessive Railroading"

[GrumpyOldFart]

So, having a handful of "lucky breaks" in your pocket does not change the odds in your favor by much at all.

Not really, no. But if it makes the players feel like they're more in control, it certainly doesn't do any harm. In a practical sense they're ways for the player to have more say in how the story goes at a given moment, as opposed to random chance or the GM's imagination. The more you trust your GM's judgment, the less you need them.

The odds in RPGs are seriously stacked against a character if you look at the sheer number of rolls they have to do.

It's as easy to roll really well as to roll really badly. In some systems the mechanics actually slightly favor good results over bad, not merely by the obvious things like skill mods, but like ICE's open ended rolls. 01-04 bad, 96-00 good, right? So that's a 5% chance the dice will "explode" in a good way, but only a 4% chance they will "explode" in a bad way.

I feel/believe that the GM should be a mitigating factor against the whims of chance.

I think the core of the "Evil GM ethic" if you will is to remind players that if dying is the worst you can think of happening to you, you have a poor imagination. Pay attention to the dice, sure... but remember that they are only a tool to help you build the narrative. My usual example of this is something drawn from an RM1 session way back in the day. Party in a fight with giants, who are living in an old mine tunnel. The party came in the back door, that is, up a shaft from below at the back of the tunnel. The rogue is on point, and stumbles into a fight with the giants while everyone else is still on the ladder at the top of the shaft.

3 giants, all to himself. Doesn't he feel special. 

So while everyone else is trying to get off the ladder, he's trying to "just hold them off for a round or two". Nope, not happening, he gets an Unbalancing crit and gets skated across the floor to the head of the shaft.

Roll a maneuver to keep from falling in the hole.

I don't remember what the number was, but it was bad. Really bad.

Is he dead? Did he fall down the hole? The dice say he did. No, he didn't. The guy at the top of the ladder made a maneuver and managed to scramble away, the next guy got kicked in the head and needs to make a maneuver to hang on. The rogue? He was going over, into the hole... when his leg slipped into the gap between the ladder and the shaft wall.

Okay, so the fighter is up on top with the 3 giants, and everyone else is still on the ladder.... including the rogue, who is hanging upside down by a broken leg.

 

[GrumpyOldFart]

Is that "cheating"? I suppose it could be argued that it is. Is that meaner to the rogue than merely killing him? Opinions differ, but I can personally guarantee that was its intent.

 

But I got no complaints about unfairness or acting out of whim from any of my players, including the guy who played the rogue.

[frnchqrtr]

Changing the outcome of a die roll is not "customizing rules"; it's cheating.

House rules are created prior to a game or a situation, or they're created on the fly when something unusual occurs during play that's not covered by the rules.  Changing a die roll after the fact is not "house ruling", it's changing an already agreed upon action.  You agreed upon on action, then changed your mind after the action occurred.  You know, it's a do over.   

Why does there need to be a "story"?  Why not just build an interesting environment, and then allow any "story" to emerge as a natural consequence of the history of adventures?  In other words, both the players and the GM enter the game with zero expectation of what "should" happen.  As a player in an RPG, few things irk me more than the frustrated-writer GM.  I'd rather drive an off-road vehicle than engineer a train on rails.  What's nearly as irksome is the GM that takes extraordinary measures to save my character when, by rights, the character should have died.  I enjoy immersed play, but my characters are hardly Blackleaf.  "Nooooo!!! Blackleaf!!!"  Characters die; get over it.   Remember, there are an infinite number or characters that may be created.   

If a die roll is fudged after it's rolled, then yes, that's cheating.  You can dress it up in any fancy language you like, but if you agree to roll a die for an outcome, then disagree with the die, then why not just adjudicate the outcome w/o rolling a die?  You've already decided what is an acceptable outcome, so why roll?

Cheater cheater!   

[GrumpyOldFart]

I guess whether or not it's cheating depends on how you interpret "Fall, break leg" when you're at the top of a 130' shaft. The maneuver table result didn't pre-suppose the mineshaft when the flavor text was written.

In other words, there was wiggle room, and I used it. And I thereby made his day even worse than if I'd just killed him, but since it wasn't nearly so boring as killing him would have been he was good with it.

[Cory Magel]

GM's can cheat.  If you don't want to call it that we can say that some don't play in a fair manner.  I've seen GM's that run for their own satisfaction only and really didn't care much if the players were having all that much fun.  That's the type of GM that I would say will "cheat".  Fortunately our main GM's over the years have generally been very good.

I used to get annoyed by a GM what would do things like put standard human combatants against us with no magical items and tell us their DB's were like 75 in heavy armor.  I really disliked this as there was no real in-game way to justify it.  During the fight I was thinking "Damn! We're gonna get some nice loot!" but at the end of the fight there wasn't a single magic item between the lot of them.  He wasn't a fan of my questioning him on it and took the "cause the GM says so" stance, but I think that's lame to be blunt (he was not a bad GM by any means, I just disagreed with the legitimacy of our opponents DB's - not even a High Elf with multiple Qu and DB talents and a shield could obtain the DB's we were up against).

While you are not going to build every foe/NPC from scratch, in my opinion, the same basic rules need to apply across the board, so they should at least be within the realm of possibilities of a standard PC build.  If I toss a foe up against you with a suspicious DB I should be able to honestly tell you there is an in-game reason for it... not just cause I wanted you to have a harder time fighting it.

[Ecthelion]

Can a GM Cheat?

YES he can

...

• Rules are guidelines in order for you to define your world.
• If a rule does not fit your world, then discard or change as necessary.

...
In my humble opinion, I do not think a GM can ever cheat.  S/He is simply following the above rules.

If you refer a very strict definition of cheating, in the sense that only breaking rules is cheating, while re-defining them is not, then the answer might be no. But IMO this definition is too narrow. At least for me re-defining rules on demand is close enough to cheating to be called just that. Of course you are free to disagree.

Just my 2 cents

[Marc R]

I think that shows how "cheating" is more a breaking of the "deal" between the players and the GM than any specific example, since for each example, some people would shrug it off, and some people would storm out of the game never to return. . .since we all seem to agree there's a point where the GM is crossing the line, but apparently can't agree on a specific example as "That's blatantly cheating".

Shrug, lots of playing/running styles, and when you get a conflict in how a player plays vs how a GM runs, you have a problem.

[intothatdarkness]

I was involved in a game once where you were guaranteed to die as soon as you hit fifth level. The party would start running into dragons, giants, hordes of orcs...anything that would kill the character(s) in question. Suddenly you couldn't hit anything, but your opponent would always hit you. Not the best situation...

Somewhat back on track, if you consider a GM's role to facilitate a fun experience for your players then I certainly think a GM can cheat. He can cheat "for" the players (ignoring bad rolls, allowing re-rolls, giving the players pushover opponents, and so on) or "against" them (see the fifth level death gate I mentioned above...I've also had GMs who only 'learn' the rules when it favors NPCs...you had to read the rulebook very closely to make sure your character didn't get hosed by some provision or another). IMO a GM should stay as balanced as possible. You're creating the setting and then moderating the action (not necessarily directing it, which is something I think some GMs have real issues with). I've been known to allow a re-roll or two in the course of a game, especially if it's critical to the plot.

Re-defining the rules to favor NPCs or hinder the party is, to me, cheating. If you're tweaking the rules, people should know ahead of time and it shouldn't be done during play (or in the middle of combat...which I've seen happen).

[GrumpyOldFart]

I think that shows how "cheating" is more a breaking of the "deal" between the players and the GM than any specific example, since for each example, some people would shrug it off, and some people would storm out of the game never to return. . .since we all seem to agree there's a point where the GM is crossing the line, but apparently can't agree on a specific example as "That's blatantly cheating".

I guess the reason I didn't consider my above example of hanging upside down from a broken leg to be "cheating in the player's favor" is because of a rule I impose on myself in such situations: If I'm going to say no, he's not dead, I have to be able to come up with an alternative that's at least as "aw man, that sucks!" as dying.

That way "the deal" is still intact. You rolled, you sucked, the results say it sucks to be you, that's the deal. If you can't handle that, find a way to never roll badly or don't play. Victory has no savor if it's not possible to lose.

.02

[yammahoper]

Cheating involves deception and defrauding.  In a cooperative game, there is no deception, but I do think the nature of the act is fraudulant as it undermines the integrity of the system.  It is the one rule that should not be broken because the nature of the game has already compromised all other rules via RULE 1.

So fudging dice should not be done.  Rules that create an abort rule allowing modification are already acceptable.  New rules can be made that allow additional modification of the rules too.  The current system does it through talents, flaws, and items.  What I'm saying is a game rule could be made to mod rolls that are normally prima facie and you wouldn't be wrong.  Fuding to much can undermine the games integrity and should be avoided.

As proof, look at the doubt created with application of stun removal, which allows modification of the combat systems most important rule (stun).   RMI had no such rule.  It was an addition of the companions. We all know well the impact of stun removal on the game.

 I myself have drastically altered stun removal.  In my game, each rank in the skill negates one point of penalty to activity, with Sdx3 being the base bonus negating the penalty.  All rolls are on the very hard colum.  Percentage recieved is percent of total possible bonus used to offset stun penalty for mnv's.  I also allow spell casting of non force spells (unless in an item), but stun penalty is added to range for unmodified spell failure.  Additionally, the stun penalty rolled against is multiplied by three and added to any spell fumble rolls.  I have seen low level spell users explode and have worked this fact into the very narritive of my world.  Spell users are feared for many reasons and few would ever want to become a spell user, a predjudice a school or university must deal with.

In closing, I believe it is cheating, unless another rule is created, but then that rule must also followed by all without question.  Normally, following a rule without question is a very bad idea unless you know the intergity of the demands source to be worthy of submission.  This is the nature of cooperative gaming.