Could've been a fun "bluffer" concept. Imagine an actor character walking around in mock super armor with mock super weapons. Alas we have a cheater, not the type of In-game deceiver who shares it with GM and party, that they're bragging and flexing for the purposes of team play and character concept.
@@Bowserjr-wi4dn Oh no, you are mistaken. That is regular levels of weapon damage in a "mid tier" weapon in that system. Gets pretty whacky at that point, but the system still works
@@ProduccionesPaquito Ever since playing Starfinder and now Pathfinder, my group is pretty over 5e. I still like 5e, but it's lost its luster for them.
@@friendlyneighborhoodcomrade Me and my group like 5e for the newbies and for one-shots. We mostly Pathfinder 1st ed (this is the way) and Anima Beyond Fantasy (anime-inspired rpg for the weebs)
@@ProduccionesPaquito We're currently playing Pathfinder 2e. Soon, our GM is gonna take a little break and be a player again. We're either gonna play Vampire: The Masquerade again or I'm gonna GM Star Wars: Force and Destiny.
To be fair, it's possible that Charlie didn't intentionally cheat and and simply didn't know what they were doing. Knowing what your supposed to add your modifiers to and which modifiers you're supposed to add can get complicated. But then again it seems like Charlie wasn't new and should have known better, and also had a whole bunch of feats on their sheet for no reason. Regardless something feels slightly off about this group to me, the one leading the investigation and paying attention to the numbers is another player and not the DM. This can happen, but it seems like the DM wasn't paying attention to their sheets from the get go and also let them buy power armor. Maybe they just play the game differently then me, but as a DM I like to know what my players can do so I can challenge them or be prepared for providing situations for them to use their items and abilities. They did mention that people in the group had their reasons to be conflict adverse, and it does seem like Charlie's behavior was already a problem. I wouldn't be surprised if Charlie essentially cheating and trying to make a broken character was the result of the group not dealing with problems that arose previously.
Sometimes I cheat in Among Us (as in play the game wrong, I don't hack or anything) but I only cheat to stop other cheaters who cheat to win. Don't think I don't know how to sabotage as a crewmate;) But in this case I COULD say that it's your (the cheaters I'm making an effort to stop) fault that I cheated because I never would've tried to stop them if they'd been playing fairly. Still, this is all around a pretty bad argument and it's better to just own your decisions, for better or for worse
@@Nildread Even if he was new, his reaction is out of line. If you do something wrong you say sorry, and fix it. If it was unnoticed for to long find a solution with the DM.
to be honest this is not a good example of it but that is a thing at board games... not telling rules properly to a new player and correcting its mistakes can cause many "cheating" cases :D
Ffr! Charlie: * "I can blow up a city and kill everyone in a second if I wanted to." * "I'm holding a shield that gives me 30 AC, duel wield massive guns, and can blow away armies in heart beat!" * "I can survive any attack ever, and can't be killed!" Also Charlie: "All your characters are broken and evil, and you're a Cheater McCheaterson!" (Chara does low levels of damage, and only has the ability to heal others.)
As a DM, I only fudge numbers when my dice are being extremely vicious and are trying to create a death that falls in the realm of “not fun for anybody”. Thankfully normally this never happens and my dice usually just hate me, but still. Otherwise, I’m wholly honest about my rolls, no matter how Wheaton I seem to be
I fudge numbers a lot as DM. Mostly because that way I do not have to look up exact stats and do precise calculations and can simply eyeball results where I take the roll as guidance and nothing more. It saves A LOT of time on my part and allows me to deal with around 3 players at once in combat because I can fire my numbers on them quick enough that I can go through other players before the first calculate his results based on the number I told him (I play mostly Shadowrun where you have rolls for defense too, but you do not have damage rolls, those are already part of the attack rolls), Because honestly? I have enough of combat that in game lasts maybe two minutes but which we play IRL for 3-4 hours
I used to fudge my dice a lot, but after a few encounters of the party being generally unafraid of what I threw at them, I started open rolling. And then one of the next encounters I threw at them I rolled 3 natural ones for the boss and they curb stomped it
As a DM you have a responsibility to make the experience fun for everybody. It's competely different to a player cheating to be invincible and treat the game as a fanfic instead of, you know, an actual game.
I can never understand why cheaters would draw attention to themselves. Why would Charlie talk a lot of smack and potentially get people to look into his character sheet?
Power trip. Simple as that. The only reason they would cheat in the first place is to seem "cool", so they'll naturally want to draw attention to themselves.
The point of cheating isn't for your enjoyment, though. If you're having problems creating a good build in a TPRPG most people would just work with the DM. Cheaters are instead driven by the desire to be better than everyone else around them. They want to feel above everyone else, powerful, and heard. However, they also don't want to put much effort into it, and they also don't want to consider other people. They're cheating to cause problems, to feel stronger and better then everyone else.
@@yourbiggestfan395 I agree with everything but the first line. The two sentiments are not mutually exclusive as most cheaters do enjoy doing so. The superiority complex issues are just the fuel for this particular fire.
DND Games: "I was invented to take stress off of people's minds by giving them something to think of other then the boring real world." Toxic Players: *Laughs in chaotic stupid*
@@zainiadnan2335 Why do we play games where we do nothing but send our characters to their 9-5 job, feed them, and then make them sleep only to repeat it the next day? Psychology is weird. Fun game though.
As a Copper Dragon, it is my job to work hard to never be stupid at all. For example, I need to study the shit out of how certain foods effect certain humanoids to avoid accidently poisoning them. Trust me, there is nothing more damaging to your ora then murdering guests in your lair who you have promised food and safety. Not that, I've ever screwed up or anything.
Reminds me of a guy who i played for a little bit who would tell me how his dice loved him and rolled natural 17 to 20s all the time until we all rolled on the table for all to see. Then suddenly he didnt want to play anymore. Hrm. Weird his ratio of winning all the time went down to average quick.
The only times I cheat is when I'm the DM and I'm scared that a monster I made is going to kill everyone. Since it's my creation I feel I have the right to quickly fix the thing when nobodies looking. Now with that said I'll completely let my party die to 12 zombies in lost mines... They were sooooo confident.
This dude's out here cheating while I'm sitting here as a gimmick character that only serves as the face. Not because I'm a pacifist in-game no, but because I'm just weak lol.
It's actually probably the most common excuse cheaters use when called out. Most common I've encountered is "so-and-so's ability scores are so high I was just trying to keep my character relevant" or "you gave so-and-so this so I assumed..." Both when they are clearly the most op character in the party without the cheats. Or, as the forever dm, my personal favorite "I asked you and you said it was ok!" Like seriously, it could happen with some things, but I think I would remember letting your level 1 character start with a +5 holy avenger...
I'll admit, I've only ever cheated in a game once, and that was me fudging a roll. For reference, it was a New World of Darkness game and I had gone through effectively two sessions where I wasn't even able to scrape out a single success on the dice on any checks I made. So, at one point after this we got faced with a very important social check and I ended up having to be the one to make it. Rolled dice, did the "Picked up two dice as they hit the table before anyone could see the results", claimed they were tens and rolls...wouldn't you know it, those dice came up 8 and 9 respectively after I rerolled them. So 4 successes. Which, thankfully, was enough to pass the check and resolve the critical moment before we moved to the next plot-point. The DM did later confront me on it after session (Picked up those dice WAY too quick compared to how I usually did it) and I came clean, but he understood it was more me getting frustrated at my utter shit dice luck for two sessions straight then anything malicious with how the DM was running the game or wanting a power fantasy. He didn't retcon it, let it happen and we went on playing again with the proviso I don't do it again. Thankfully my dice luck never got THAT bad again in that game or any other game. I bring this up as I did have a moment where I cheated that was, well, maybe not sympathetic but you can at-least understand the motives. We've all had moments where the dice just HATED us for long stretches, and anyone will admit two sessions of nothing but rolling failures (and even dramatic failures!) would wear down anyone after a while. And sometimes, after one failure too many, you just end up saying "OK NO!" But lying about proficiencies, stats and capabilities of what you should be capable of at your level is just utter bullshit! Seriously, this guy just wanted to have his power fantasy early rather then just wait a little longer to be able to pull it off with some effort and levelling. Which, combined with asshole behavior, just makes him a shit-head. Anyone who has to not only bullshit their abilities to a point of being antithetical to their character class but also keep threatening to kill the party is NOT someone I want to be at a table with. I'm glad that asshole isn't at the table anymore.
As a dm i also cheat, mostly to save player characters from insta death or to see how something funny turns out. I really don't care much if someone wants an extra ability or something and askes me for it in character creation or even later on, but adding something without me knowing would probably get me mad. The dice rolling is another thing, i think messing up is part of the fun, if they cheat on that, they take their own fun away not mine, plus somehow everyone always rolls open bc the whole group then has the fun of watching the dice mess their in game lifes up.
Why would you do that? I always check carefully players character sheets before first session but after that what is the point? If they suddenly bring something that you did not give them and which was not part of their character from the start then it will be obvious, no?
@@iglidor It's a weird obsession I've gained, I don't know why. I constantly check their sheets when planning sessions and encounters so I know their strengths and weaknesses to balance combat so it doesn't crush them or they don't breeze through it. I try to make sure they kept track of random items I gave them, or see if I think they need something so I can make it available for them. I check their backstories and personality details as I'm writing up plots to see how I can best engage the characters and as a result keep the players engaged. My comment was a joke, but the truth is I'm obsessively checking player sheets because I think it's necessary to do.
@@romulus2473 Ah, I do these things mostly on the fly. I balance combat mostly by fudging rolls if the combat goes out of my expectations. Thing is that I expect players to actualy breeze through some combat. What is the point of powering up if entire world power up with you? That makes the harder combats against difficult enemies that much more meaningfull. Encountering enemies that few sessions ago gave you trouble, only for you to demolish them thanks to growth of characters is nice. Also I learned a lot from Apocalypse World on how to integrate players backstory into game. And that is to simply let them do it for you. In other words, if nothing interesting is going on, throw NPC or situation in their way and ask one player to describe it. Like "While you are standing in middle village, a certain middleaged man moves towards you. Player A, you recognize that man from your past. Tell us who he is and what does he want from you." Not only it is usefull to kickstart game if it got stuck in mud and players were not doing anything, but from experience when players make their background, GM will rarely get perfect understanding of the direction player wanted to take with it. So allowing them full control of such random meeting allows them to dig into their background however they like.
@@romulus2473 Agreed. Does help weed out cheating as a plus tho. I will always keep copies of character sheets as it's the best way to manage just about everything DM related if I know exactly what they have, want, and need both mechanically and RP based.
There was a fellow player in my group, and she would fudge her rolls. She was always "rolling" on her phone, and she always seemed to get the roll she wanted. One time, she started geeking out about how if she casts guiding bolt at a certain level and crit she could do 14d6 damage. She held her phone close and "rolled" and surprise, surprise she crit. It wasn't common enough for us to suspect anything at that point, but it just got worse. Every time she would roll for Divine Intervention, she just happened to get it. She got kicked out of the group for an entirely different reason, but she came back eventually. One of the conditions was that she show her dice rolls from that point on.
@@mikefang9995 there was this story where a DM had a problem with two players being a Same-sex couple in-game, so he pulled some underhanded sh1t out of his a$$ (Have to censor because RUclips can take down comments for cursing in them) to make what I can only describe as a weeb's fetish fueled r4pe fantasy.
@@mikefang9995 If I remember which story correctly, that was just the massive fugging half-ton of straw that broke the camel's back. He had forced one of the players of the two characters to change class for their character and pretty much shoe-horned them into their character being extorted between indentured servitude/apprenticeship or their village would be killed. I think it was one of those GMs that just kinda made everyone's character feel useless compared to DMPCs, and all of the players had intended on all of the characters teleporting out of there when shit started going down, and the lead up to "the lesbians are put up in stocks and the entire town is invited to rape them. The other characters who try to persuade the masses are attacked for sticking up for their party members," was the King of this f'd up society Power-word stunning everyone simultaneously without saves despite it being a one-target spell and one that evokes constant CON saves. So, yeah. Crappy DM with crappy NPC's and a crappy rapey society that should not just be slung upon your D&D party.
"Everyone knows dungeon masters never cheat or bend the rules even a little bit". Technically true. In that since I'm generally responsible for arbitrating the rules, it's difficult to define any call I make, however wild, as cheating. Technically. But colloquially speaking, I've resolved to cheat when it looks like a death will happen that isn't fun for the group. That's heavily dependent on the nature of the group, though. The group I'm currently running for are hardcore veteran players who take death in stride, so for them I don't have any stores of mercy invincibility in me.
Admittedly, my current AC is 24 in pathfinder, but I'm level 9 and ended up upgrading my armor and took many AC boosters. If you were playing 5E or are a newer player, then I definitely see calling them out. Luckily, we play online so my DM has full access to all of our sheets.
I allways ask my players for a copy of their character-sheet. I don't keep them updated but if they suddenly own something I did not give them and is too expensive... lucky us something like that has never happened and I have actually a really nice group! :)
Parents when they make you chronically depressed so you start failing your classes, then they yell at you for being lazy, which just makes you more depressed and less motivated to pass
"Solarian are accepted as one of the best classes" Sorry, hung up on that, what timeline is this? One of the classes with stuipd MAD stat scores and low save abilities is considered 'best'? What buff did they get when I wasn't looking?
Technically, for a long time it depended how you built your Solarian. A Solar Weapon Photon focused one can have crazy damage output even at level 1, Photon mode gives a +1 to all damage sources and Supernova lets them do 2d6 every 3 turns to everything in 10 feet, making them a walking, talking bomb. Both of these scale up as they level and the new equipment such as a fusion that lets you add your Charisma to damage on your Solar Weapon. And almost all Solarians can be crazy mobile with abilities like Stellar Rush and such, so the fact you build a primarily melee character doesn't often. Sure, you may only be able to get two good high Abilities to work with, but just Strength and Charisma can make you a line breaking powerhouse. You can easily minimize the drawbacks of your lower Dex and Con with Heavy Armor Proficiency and the Toughness Feat as well.
It's just a general rule in life. Never hesitate to apologize if you're in the wrong. Now learning how to realise that you are in the wrong is a whole other can of worms. But everyone needs to realise that apologizing to your friends and family is one of the best things you can do. It's called maturity.
Charlie-like players: "MY CHARACTER NEEDS TO BE ALL-POWERFUL AND HAVE NO FLAWS" Me: *Refuses to get my character's lost hand restored, because it's cooler that way (even though he was originally a two-handed weapon specialist)*
I often give my characters quirks of various kinds. Things that make them stand out. One of my current ones has a massive fencing scar, running from the bridge of his nose down his left cheek and down his neck before ending at his collarbone, which ties into his backstory. He was wounded in a duel with an npc, whom the dm is probably going to use at some point.
I remember I used to play a lot of Adventurer's League, which is the organized play for 5e. The groups at the local stores I played with were mostly fine, but at conventions, it was a completely different beast. I remember at one con I played with a guy at a tier 1 table (which is levels 1-4) who had a paladin/sorcerer multiclass and used a TON of metamagic. Every turn he was twinning this and quickening that and smiting. I asked him how he had so many sorcerer points (knowing full well that a paladin that could smite wouldn't have access to metamagic, and that he had spent like 10 sorcery points) and he just brushed if off as, "I converted spell slots to sorcery points." I wasn't the DM and I was only playing with him for that one 4-hour slot, so I didn't bring it up again, but I could definitely tell he was being shady. At another con, I remember this young kid who was playing a necromancer. He cast a whole bunch of pretty high level spells, supposedly from a Staff of Power and Staff of Fire. That was all fine, except at the end of the session, when we were deciding who was going to receive the reward, the kid demanded it. Back in those days, the way magic item rewards were determined was based on who had the fewest magic items, so whoever had the fewest got first pick. The cleric wanted it but already had a magic item, but the kid was demanding that the item go to him. I reminded him that he had more than one item, to which he replied that he didn't have any. I pointed out that he had used the Staff of Power to cast a bunch of spells, as well as the Staff of Fire to both cast spells and to resist fire damage. He said he didn't have those on his character sheet, so I asked the DM to look. The DM said they weren't written on his sheet, so I asked the DM to look at his log sheet (for AL, you have to write some of the details of the adventures you've played with each character, so a DM can theoretically look at your sheet to see what adventures you've played) and that's when he made a big fuss, packed his things rapidly and walked away from the table, almost in tears, saying that the DM and I were bullying him. The cleric ended up with the item. Oh, and post script to that story, I did eventually meet some folks from the stores that the kid frequented (AL is a relatively smallish community) and they not only confirmed he had a bunch of items but that he also would do things like that in other games, as well as other shady behavior, but usually only when he felt threatened or cornered.
On the one hand, since D&D isn't about "winning" per se and you're usually all there to power fantasy anyway, I don't see cheating as the biggest offense personally. I've even seen examples of house rules that are basically just ways to let the players cheat the normal D&D rules a bit because they find it more fun that way. On the other hand, D&D is a group effort, one wherein everyone should be on the same page, because one person doing everything while everyone else sits on the sidelines getting bored is terrible. Yes, a little cheating shouldn't be a big problem, and "cheating" via house rules should also be fine as long as everyone in the party gets to cheat equally; this kind of story shows exactly the kind of scenario when cheating becomes a big deal, when one person is cheating to an excessive and blatant extent, basically hardly following the rules at all. Furthermore, if you come to the table with no real intention of following the rules, and just cheat all the time, then what was the point of you coming to the table at all? Even if you're otherwise okay, you're still basically becoming a That Guy of the table, but with breaking rules instead of just acting like a prick. And yes, I do know the propensity for a That Guy to both act like a prick _and_ cheat excessively. I'm saying that doing just doing one or the other still arguably makes you a That Guy, even if you're not doing both.
Two things. 1. There are several reasons why people play D&D. Living out a power fantasy is just one of them. Sometimes people even play for a variety of reasons at the same time. 2. I'd argue that house ruling isn't really cheating. The reason I say this is that everyone is still following a set of rules that they agreed on. They are still following the rules. It's just that the rules have been changed. For everyone. A cheater doesn't follow the rules, whether we're talking the ones in the rulebook or the house rules.
To be fair, there’s a difference between a DM allowing some roll fudging for common player enjoyment and a sole player secretly cheating in order to be OP and (even unintentionally) lording that over the other players
@@ShinoharaMiyu I'm surprised that someone is interested in something like this omg-- Honk was this "act first, think later" spellcaster (I don't know what exactly) who felt dragged down by the party he was with. They were all too cautious, besides this homebrew-ish kobold named Ferret. The duo was pure chaos and I love them so much I can't-- Anyway!!! Honk has a big heart and wants to do good, but lacks the understanding to do it affectively. He's good at getting himself out of trouble he caused - the guy is like a toddler at times
@@abandoned__ arcane tricksters are less of spellcasters and more magic-assisted rogues. if you remember him being explicitely a spellcaster he might be a bard
Warning: This comment contains high doses of pedantry, and may not be suitable for all viewers. It is not an important comment, but the little demon that lives in my brain and yells at me when I don't correct things I know are wrong made me post it. Reader discretion is advised. 3.5 does NOT give a feat every odd level. It's one at 1, then an additional feat at each level evenly divisible by 3. For some unholy reason. Pathfinder and, to my memory, starfinder give a feat every odd level though, and that's so much better because then there isn't one outlier to an otherwise nice pattern of levels.
I’ve played a War cleric Human who wore +3 plate armor, had a custom made 3/4ths tower shield( basically a riot shield at that point ) which was +2. Meaning his Ac at all times was 25. And his tower shield gave him permanent 3/4ths cover. Now, this character was level 18 and had spent most of his money collecting the materials and finding the people to make them and enchant the items.
The first game i ever hosted was online. I fudged every single role, because i forgot what dice i have to use in which situation. But the one- shot ended in a PVP kill anyway...
I played a game that lasted almost 2 years. The DM caught one guy cheating with his D20 rolls. Instead of calling him out on it, making a scene, he reduced all of his damage by 50% Eventually someone said something and the guy never came back We didn't miss him, he was totally combat focused and when there wasn't combat he was trying to fudge the rules in other ways. Our DM was pretty lenient on fudging rules, but he made sure to tell us, every time, if I fudge for you then I fudge for the NPCs also. This guy didn't really care at the time, cause it benefited him in the short term, after he left most of the fudging stopped
I get the feeling that Charlie had some kind of superiority complex, and felt very threatened by OP. Like when he spouted that OP "always had to be overpowered", when really that fits his behavior to a T. Maybe he had a crush on one of the female players/the DM at the time and thought of OP as a rival. Or maybe he was just a bitter snark with very low self esteem.
two things I see over and over again with toxic "friends": 1) they treat any and all relationships like a competition in one form or another 2) when shit hits the fan, it's always the sweetest member of the group that gets targeted by the toxic member of the group, particularly with accusations of the sweet one being manipulative or having it out for the toxic one. This happened to my bff when we had to deal with an extremely toxic girl our friend group. Despite me being the most confrontational against her and always calling her out on her BS, toxic girl kept treating my bff, who's got a severe ptsd-induced fear of confrontation and conflict*, as if they were some villainous and petty puppet-master controlling me and everyone else in the group in order to keep her unpopular in our current fandom group (when rly, she was unpopular bc she never made any effort to gain people's interest in her content, and refused to listen to any advice given to her) it honestly felt insulting to not get proper credit for my own actions and treating me like I had no agency in the conflict, but I'm angrier at how badly it all affected my bff. not gonna got into details, but this toxic person's emotionally manipulative and downright abusive antics stressed out my already chronically ill and anemic bff so badly that they got a blood clot and had to go to the ER (and when I say blood clot I mean they couldn't even take a blood sample bc the blood in my bff's veins practically had the consistency of play-dough.) got off on a bit of a tangent, but yeh point is, it's interesting and useful to notice the patterns (*like srsly, after I had accidentally hurt their feelings once, they would act very quiet and awkward rather than talking to me about it for a short number of days. And when I finally tried to gently ask them what was wrong, they ended up crying after some gentle poking and prodding from me, bc they were terrified of us having a fight, and they almost never cry (another result of their ptsd) we worked it out in the end, but I'm gonna fucking punt the ppl who put that fear in my bff one day istg)
Your bff deserves only the best of friends and I'm glad they have you looking out for them. I'm hoping you and your group keep toxic people out of your interactions early to avoid bigger issues down the line
When we played the Lost Mines of Phandelver, the players and the dm agreed that there would be no fudging rolls. We would go where the dice take us, and that was death, multiple times. One of our party members is cursed with low rolls and we think it spread to the rest of us at the table. The party consistantly rolled crap while the dm kept rolling well. We all were watching his rolls too. His Cthulu dice just brought death upon us. In the end we had a great laugh and the dm used our deaths to add some more interesting roleplay (we got to meet the warlock's patron). Good game overall, though it's been on hiatus since March due to Covid.
Ever since i found this channel a few weeks ago I binge on it. I rewatch episodes constantly. And have alot of fun doing it! This is an amazing channel with amazing content
The problem with forgiving a cheater, whether he's still playing with you or not, is that it just encourages further cheating, whether in your group or somebody else's. This is one reason why, as a DM, I'm very careful to scrutinize every player's character sheet before play begins, and at every level increase or other improvement (in point-based games like Champions, for example). That way, you either resolve rules conflicts before they happen, or drive the players who are actually WILLING TO CHEAT away from the get-go, or early on in the campaign. Possibly both.
Listen, man, if I gotta fudge the numbers a little to keep my players from blowing themselves up while riding a minecart into a secret mountain base as a trio of security droids fires laser blasts at them from behind, well, I'll do it. I rolled 4 crits against my poor players that night, and no lvl 2 party deserves that.
"25 or so"(It was 27) was the AC of one of my palalocks that I played in a 5e Oneshot. He was 12th Level and the DM told us to spend 30k Gold on any official items. Plate Armor +2, along with Shield +2 and a Ring and Cloak of Protection does some stuff. On top of that I had Shield of Faith. My DM and I were happy this was just a one shot.
I'm always so worried I'm going to accidentally "cheat", like count something twice or add a bonus I'm not supposed to add, it sends me into high anxiety mode. I will never understand how and why people cheat in dnd on purpose.
I like how the guy who shared this story about Charlie offers an olive branch to Charlie at the end of this post, and then immediately offers to share more horror stories about Charlie with the rest of us.
In all honesty I see Charlie's point. OP sounds like a "That guy" or at least a power gamer. He knew their was an issue bewteen him and charlie and dogpile during the confrontation. Cheating was the absolute worst thing to do. Now OP won the moral high ground and would never stop bragging about it.
@@Minodrec i dont know what you mean by a that guy, but i dont see the power gamer part at all. Especially with just these two examples of a medic and just a sniper
Oof, in regards to the flame thrower incident I had a similar thing occur in a game where I called out that I was using a cone of fire spell effect the round before alerting the other PCs to move aside before the attack would begin. Each player took their turn and all but two players move out of the way. Having given the fair warning and time to move, I took the shot. We were playing a home brew game and we're up against a horde of spiders in their lair. There were webs and spiders all throughout the area I was focused on. When I told the players in the way that I was about to fire, and asked why they didn't move they said "go for it" and so I did. Needless to say it was a huge meltdown and I got an earful for the next 20 minutes from them. The DM told us that webbing was highly flammable and added a degree of damage to the fire attack based on how much webbing was there. The players in the way took massive amounts of damage and proceeded to freak out at me about how I tried to kill them. I didn't know the catastrophic effect flammable webbing would add onto the attack, as the characters in the way had high enough hp to survive the initial attack easily, and the players even said as much before I attacked. Truth be told I didn't really feel bad for them as they had been given time to move, and even told me to fire on them anyway. My character similarly felt no remorse as I was playing a chaotic good alignment, which can sometimes mean cracking a few eggs to make an omelette. No one died, the spider horde was irraticated, saving a farming village their livestock, and the only characters who took damage did so willingly. More than anything it was just a awkward moment that caused a lot of unnecessary tension that could have been avoided with proper communication, and strategy.
2 possible rationalizations, I can think of off the top of my head. 1: Due to the info someone else posted I thought this was ok. With either original poster posting it wrong or me misinterpreting things. 2. Due to the other players min maxing and focusing too much on being OP I decided to put the shoe on the other foot to teach him a lesson by "fudging the numbers" a bit. Only the cheater apparently never came up with either of those and if he was doing 2. he should have consulted the DM first.
I know, right?! There's absolutely no way it's even possible 😂 If you're going to blame someone else, at least blame them in a situation where it's feasible!~
Confession: as a player, I have fudged my rolls a few times. I don't like this aspect of myself, and if I ever start playing again I'll do my best to not do it. Still This guy Holy Fucking Shit
Starfinder is fun. It's literally Pathfinder in space. Same setting, just advanced in time to the point everyone has ray guns and space ships in addition to the usual magic, monsters and gods.
I boosted my characters stats (with permission from the DM) for a Fallout campaign because I'm going to be purposefully dodging my Subclass TWICE, meaning I won't get a Subclass until level 5, they agreed that the stat buff would be necessary for me to be able to keep up with the Party in combat
I knew a guy who would always, ALWAYS say "I rolled my character's stats already" and they're 18 18 18 18 16 14, before racial modifiers EVERY TIME we'd make characters with die rolls. Every time we'd be like "we said we're all rolling infront of the DM" and he'd either say "fine I re-rolled" but not where anyone could see and his new stats would be "18 18 18 16 14 12". Surprisingly nice guy though, even after we have to practically demand he rolls infront of the DM, when he does roll he doesn't complain or anything, doesn't get stroppy, dude just rolls normally and takes what he gets no matter how low, but even then if stats are really low people can re-roll if they want with permission from the DM. Edit: I also played with a sorcerer who'd "spend power points" to regain like 5 spell slots for disintegrate every combat, would use quickened spell to cast disintegrate twice in one turn on the same target, and demanded I shouldn't be allowed to play a sorcerer "because you don't even know how" when I pointed out to him you can't spend power points to regain more than 5th level spells. Unlike my friend who fudged stat dice, this guy was a complete ass nonstop and would his at-will disguise self ability he got somehow to do things like gain a tiefling's fire resistance or triton's swim speed and ability to breathe under water, also kept insisting he could turn an ancient black dragon into a maggot with polymorph and cut it in half and he'd have a dead dragon instantly and getting super pissy when we'd tell him no.
I once made a character, 5e human variant fighter eldritch knight, that literally rolled 18, 18, 18, 18, 17, 15 (in private).. I stopped... looked at the numbers and said to myself "literally no one is going to believe this happened legally" erased the stats and later rolled in front of my DM and still got two 18s pre racial boosts. My DM is very lenient and lets us rolls stats as "4d6 reroll 1s forever, reroll 2s once". I chose not to reroll at all and got an 8 charisma.. I loved failing persuasion checks.
@@shajirislamuddin-caycho6659 That's the way I always do it now. Even when everyone rolls in front of the DM there is always one player who is way above average and one who is way below. It isnt fun being that played with below average stats, especially if you're playing a class that brings a unique skillset to the party and you cant even succeed with it enough to shine.
you can't cast disintegrate twice in a turn with quickened spell, you can only cast one spell a turn. you can do quickened disintegrate and fire bolt, and counter spell or shield as a reaction, but can't double cast two spells of 1st level or higher
@@snailman7989 I know, that was my point. That sorcerer was always getting things completely wrong and making them super overpowered whenever he did anything with his own character. Shoulda seen the guy DM; immediately had a DMPC who was level 20 based off his character, surrounded by 4 women he had all impregnated and he talked about how cool and powerful and super handsome he was. Egomania xD
To the shield in the hand. I had something similar by my first battle in dnd. The whole group are beginners and our first battle was again 4 goblins. Two with swords. Two with shields. Each of them had a AC of 15. Later, i checked the goblins in the monster book and noticed, that they have only AC 15, because they have the armor and a shield. After this, i sayed to the gm, he had to reduce the Ac of the Bow-goblins, because, they can not wield a Bow and a Shield at the same time (he didnt checked and noticed it, for himself).^^
Ugh, reminds me of a guy I play with. Back when we could all play in person instead of over discord/foundry, he would always try to fudge his rolls and get away with shit like this. It’s gotten better now that he physically can’t do it bc dms have access to his sheet and the rolls are automated
Never cheated as a player as i don't see what that would accomplish given its a DICE ROLLING game, chance is a given. As a first time DM however i have pulled my punches and fudged rolls from time to time, especially early on when i was not sure about how to balance combat. Cheating in DND just makes no logical sense to me.
I’ve got a bad habit as a DM to pull all my punches, and it’s one I’m trying to break, but god does it feel terrible when one of my players’ characters dies.
My DM in one game has a homebrew rule that if we die, we get one "No, I'm not ready yet". It's fun and helps prevent problems. It helps us feel less stressed about making another character. But if I had that infinitely, I'd hate it. The fun is that the character can die without causing ME physical pain
"Dungeon Masters are different and that's a hill I will die on." I agree, but no. It depends on reasons behind the DM is cheating. I can support DMs cheats to prevent something horrific that would to totally destroy the party's fun. That is cool in my book. But a DM who cheats because, let's say, they want to win? As in those DMs who see their role in the game as a competition against the players. That I will disagree with you on, CritCrab. Die for the cool ones who wants everybody to have fun, not the sore losers who have to "cheat-to-win" a game that isn't about winning.
Honestly, it depends on how they cheat. Fudging a die roll to prevent a TPK is different than, say, deciding that the players figured out the traitor in a mystery too quickly, and then quickly pivoting to change the narrative. Fudging a skill check DC to prevent the game flow from stalling is different than rolling behind a screen and declaring that all the rolls are 20s to kill that PC they don't like. It honestly just depends on the situation and the relationship between DM and player.
Never had this happen, but I had something similar happen. We were starting at level 1, and one player's character sheet was jacked up big time. Proficiencies he shouldn't have had, numbers were all out of whack, he'd managed to give himself a PET BLINK DOG. I'm, like, 90% sure this dude wasn't actively trying to cheat, I think he just got confused making the sheet and possibly found a homebrew animal companion rule thing that he somehow thought was part of the base game, but JESUS. We helped him fix it, tho, and we never had any problems with him actively trying to cheat.
Man I love starfinder. Nice to hear stories of others playing it. Such an evocative and cool game. My group has been playing a 3 story arc campaign in that system in a homebrew setting for ... jeez like 3 or 4 years now. It's been epic, game changing stuff has happened. Characters have died, moved on from the party, and I think out of our 4 person group, only 2 of the original characters are left. Were about to start our 3rd story arc, and within 6-10 months of weekly sessions, will be seeing the epic conclusion of that campaign. Idk if I'll ever run that system again, I like rule heavy games, but that one is over the top, and tbh, the books are formatted pretty poorly, but it's been a good platform for narratively cool play, and we've had a ton of fun with it.
The cheater is clearly projecting when he accuses everyone else of being broken and is displaying narcissistic behavior. He brags about how powerful his character is, but when reality doesn't play along, he blames everyone else.
DMing a homebrew game w/ an old friend. He's the argumentative type. I move an enemy down a cramped hallway one way & he wants to know why I didn't do it "Like this/ that"...or "I don't understand why a drake can jump that far". I explained it as "The drake bringing the action to him", because otherwise, his character would be too far to do anything until it was too late.
People who cheat in Roleplaying games like this often have some underlying issue. These can range from real life events, mental issues, low self esteem leading to a need for validation, superiority complex’s that they MUST validate, even people who are subconsciously trying to talk about issues that they are or have dealt with (eg: the story of the wizard and his flying frog).
4:53 I have a level 5 fighter with an AC of 20, though as a reaction to a single attack, he can increase it to 23. The DM added a homebrew weapons and armor document, so I'm wearing Chain Mail (16) + Defense Fighting Style (+1 while wearing armor) + Tower Shield (+3), and then my weapon has the Parry trait (as a reaction to an attack, increase AC by half of your proficiency bonus, and the DM said to round up, so +2) and I have the Blade Master UA feat, which has a similar effect to the parry trait, so the DM just said to change it so they match perfectly and add them together. I have a very generous DM.
My usual group had to go through 2 ultimatums of the similar variety. Funnily enough both rogues who constantly tried to outdo each other to be the centre of attention. Now they’re both gone the group really does feel a lot more chill.
as a dungeon master i make the controversial decision that when my players roll their stats, i couldn't care less if they cheat, because ultimately it only makes the game less fun for them, i only kick cheaters when it comes to fudging rolls and pretending i didn't see it
legitimate question here but if one player has OP stats compared to the others doesnt that lead to an imbalance in the party where inevitably 1 player will take center stage through out most of the game?
@@mrroboshadow as dm i take responsibility to ensure that never happens. stat imbalances don't stop me from giving every player their spotlight one way or another. i sincerely thank you for asking me a civil question instead of being a typical internet troglodyte
@@TheDragonflyzero no problem as a follow up i can see you striving to share the spotlight evenly among the players but what stops the players from becoming overly reliant on the OP player? im relatively new to D&D but wouldnt OP stats also lead to very easy skill checks on a lot of things?
@@mrroboshadow i create situations where the op character cant be the savior, every class has a weakness and i just exploit it to keep the game balanced, obviously i dont let them have any proficiency they want so they cant be good at everything and great stats cant save bad rolls
@@mrroboshadow also if its pathfinder the way skills work is you put ranks in them. if your class if proficient you get a bonus 3 ranks if you put at least one rank in. your bonus is stat+ranks+bonuses. combined that with a vast amount of stat-boosting items and starting stats dosn't matter that much for skills starting at about lv 3
I actually have a friend who cheats a lot in games, but is often really weirdly cool about it as well. To the point where it's a meta-game for me and my friends to catch him in the act. He just puts his hands up and goes "Ah, you got me, yeah fine" and happily reverses whatever he did that was cheating, as well as takes whatever punishment we deem fair. I think it helps he never tries to do anything too over the top either, so if we miss it, it doesn't completely warp what we are playing.
God i relate so hard to OP. i had a player (ex best friend) who did this 100%. everything from blatantly cheating, to blaming me (the DM) and others, but he also told and encouraged the other players to do what he was doing and lie to the DM to get what they want- and when he was called out on it, it wasn't his fault. it was so and so's fault for not being honest with me. when called out again it wasn't his fault because so and so shouldn't have listened to him. Its not HIS fault the game ended because he had a OP magic item, its MY fault for not looking over his character sheet every session (not that it mattered since i checked all sheets every two levels and the item wasn't even in his inventory the last time it was checked). since the player was best friends with everyone, he didn't leave the discord, but he also bragged about everything, even admitted to lying and cheating specifically so i wouldn't nerf the item. Its been almost a year since that campaign ended and because of him (mostly him. everyone in that campaign contributed to this) i havn't trusted my friends or felt comfortable being a DM since. all cheating in a table top game does is get your game ended and your friends dropping you like a hot rock.
Charlie: *builds a character that can't legally exist*
Also Charlie: "IT'S ALL OP'S FAULT THE GAME'S RUINED!"
I get how people always try to shift the blame to others...but how on earth does he think it's OP's fault?!
😂😂
@@mishkarae Probably something along the lines of "OP's Character was so poorly buit, I OBVIOUSLY had to cheat to make up for their bad character".
Could've been a fun "bluffer" concept. Imagine an actor character walking around in mock super armor with mock super weapons. Alas we have a cheater, not the type of In-game deceiver who shares it with GM and party, that they're bragging and flexing for the purposes of team play and character concept.
@@destroyerinazuma96 I’m stealing that idea comrade
all-usernames-are-taken.tumblr.com/post/638792157333995520/inez-dar%C3%ADo-the-assignment-originally-posted-to
Even if it was legal, why would a Solarian take all those guns when they get an awesome laser sword that can do up to 18d6 damage per swing?
I'm sorry WHAT? How is that allowed in the game, that sounds so broken!
@@Bowserjr-wi4dn Oh no, you are mistaken. That is regular levels of weapon damage in a "mid tier" weapon in that system. Gets pretty whacky at that point, but the system still works
@@ProduccionesPaquito Ever since playing Starfinder and now Pathfinder, my group is pretty over 5e. I still like 5e, but it's lost its luster for them.
@@friendlyneighborhoodcomrade Me and my group like 5e for the newbies and for one-shots. We mostly Pathfinder 1st ed (this is the way) and Anima Beyond Fantasy (anime-inspired rpg for the weebs)
@@ProduccionesPaquito We're currently playing Pathfinder 2e. Soon, our GM is gonna take a little break and be a player again. We're either gonna play Vampire: The Masquerade again or I'm gonna GM Star Wars: Force and Destiny.
The audacity of "my cheating is YOUR fault" is just. Baffling. I'm curious as to the second story for sure.
To be fair, it's possible that Charlie didn't intentionally cheat and and simply didn't know what they were doing. Knowing what your supposed to add your modifiers to and which modifiers you're supposed to add can get complicated. But then again it seems like Charlie wasn't new and should have known better, and also had a whole bunch of feats on their sheet for no reason. Regardless something feels slightly off about this group to me, the one leading the investigation and paying attention to the numbers is another player and not the DM. This can happen, but it seems like the DM wasn't paying attention to their sheets from the get go and also let them buy power armor. Maybe they just play the game differently then me, but as a DM I like to know what my players can do so I can challenge them or be prepared for providing situations for them to use their items and abilities. They did mention that people in the group had their reasons to be conflict adverse, and it does seem like Charlie's behavior was already a problem. I wouldn't be surprised if Charlie essentially cheating and trying to make a broken character was the result of the group not dealing with problems that arose previously.
This is honestly worse than the "it's what my character would do" excuse.
Sometimes I cheat in Among Us (as in play the game wrong, I don't hack or anything) but I only cheat to stop other cheaters who cheat to win. Don't think I don't know how to sabotage as a crewmate;)
But in this case I COULD say that it's your (the cheaters I'm making an effort to stop) fault that I cheated because I never would've tried to stop them if they'd been playing fairly.
Still, this is all around a pretty bad argument and it's better to just own your decisions, for better or for worse
@@Nildread Even if he was new, his reaction is out of line.
If you do something wrong you say sorry, and fix it. If it was unnoticed for to long find a solution with the DM.
to be honest this is not a good example of it but that is a thing at board games... not telling rules properly to a new player and correcting its mistakes can cause many "cheating" cases :D
"You always need to be overpowered..." etc. etc. sounds like some hardcore projection on his part.
Like, c'mon man.
Compensation?
F
like dudes who drive jacked up pickups with no muffler
@@Romanticoutlaw And those really loud bikes.
Ffr!
Charlie:
* "I can blow up a city and kill everyone in a second if I wanted to."
* "I'm holding a shield that gives me 30 AC, duel wield massive guns, and can blow away armies in heart beat!"
* "I can survive any attack ever, and can't be killed!"
Also Charlie: "All your characters are broken and evil, and you're a Cheater McCheaterson!" (Chara does low levels of damage, and only has the ability to heal others.)
As a DM, I only fudge numbers when my dice are being extremely vicious and are trying to create a death that falls in the realm of “not fun for anybody”. Thankfully normally this never happens and my dice usually just hate me, but still. Otherwise, I’m wholly honest about my rolls, no matter how Wheaton I seem to be
I fudge numbers a lot as DM. Mostly because that way I do not have to look up exact stats and do precise calculations and can simply eyeball results where I take the roll as guidance and nothing more. It saves A LOT of time on my part and allows me to deal with around 3 players at once in combat because I can fire my numbers on them quick enough that I can go through other players before the first calculate his results based on the number I told him (I play mostly Shadowrun where you have rolls for defense too, but you do not have damage rolls, those are already part of the attack rolls),
Because honestly? I have enough of combat that in game lasts maybe two minutes but which we play IRL for 3-4 hours
I used to fudge my dice a lot, but after a few encounters of the party being generally unafraid of what I threw at them, I started open rolling.
And then one of the next encounters I threw at them I rolled 3 natural ones for the boss and they curb stomped it
I'll fudge the numbers occasionally but usually it's because one of the Party had an idea so awesome/dumb/funny I want to see how it plays out
As a DM you have a responsibility to make the experience fun for everybody. It's competely different to a player cheating to be invincible and treat the game as a fanfic instead of, you know, an actual game.
I only fudge rolls if it looks like my players are genuinely not having fun.
"Just Kirito your way through obstacles" hahaha nice
He at least had the stats honestly! Lol
@@mynameiskline6658 well said ballzdeep
@@chazzwozzio FleFleFle indeed
Hush, don't blaspheme our lord and savior Kirito.
Tatsuya Chiba is likewise OP
I can never understand why cheaters would draw attention to themselves. Why would Charlie talk a lot of smack and potentially get people to look into his character sheet?
Power trip. Simple as that. The only reason they would cheat in the first place is to seem "cool", so they'll naturally want to draw attention to themselves.
The point of cheating isn't for your enjoyment, though. If you're having problems creating a good build in a TPRPG most people would just work with the DM. Cheaters are instead driven by the desire to be better than everyone else around them. They want to feel above everyone else, powerful, and heard. However, they also don't want to put much effort into it, and they also don't want to consider other people. They're cheating to cause problems, to feel stronger and better then everyone else.
@@yourbiggestfan395 I agree with everything but the first line. The two sentiments are not mutually exclusive as most cheaters do enjoy doing so. The superiority complex issues are just the fuel for this particular fire.
@@vanzero356 True. I just felt it was more secondary to the goal of just feeling superior in some way to others.
@@yourbiggestfan395 Or maybe it starts as one, bleeds into the other? Hard to say what causes people to end up like this.
OP's Godfather: I'm gonna make you an offer you can't refuse: Play D&D with your father and I.
OP: =D
All while he menacingly pets a cat that has found its home on the lap of the God Father
He really pulled a DSP and blamed everything else but himself.
I suppose the more modern way of putting it would be pulling an Arin Hanson
DSP. That's a name I haven't heard in a long time. Nor did I want to hear it. But you're god damn right.
Broken dnd character and lying mechanics
@@Funnybones2020 Nothing he could do.
DSP?
“Dungeon Masters don’t cheat or bend the rules”
rule of cool and preventing tpk’s: “allow us to introduce ourselves”
That's why you give the dm your character sheet. So none of that insanity ever happens
DND Games: "I was invented to take stress off of people's minds by giving them something to think of other then the boring real world."
Toxic Players: *Laughs in chaotic stupid*
Me : playing Sim
Also me : ah yes, real life are boring
@@zainiadnan2335 Why do we play games where we do nothing but send our characters to their 9-5 job, feed them, and then make them sleep only to repeat it the next day? Psychology is weird. Fun game though.
I have once played with a player playing chaotic stupid sorcerer. It was really funny. Surprisingly, even chaotic stupid can be done right.
In some settings.
As a Copper Dragon, it is my job to work hard to never be stupid at all. For example, I need to study the shit out of how certain foods effect certain humanoids to avoid accidently poisoning them. Trust me, there is nothing more damaging to your ora then murdering guests in your lair who you have promised food and safety.
Not that, I've ever screwed up or anything.
Reminds me of a guy who i played for a little bit who would tell me how his dice loved him and rolled natural 17 to 20s all the time until we all rolled on the table for all to see. Then suddenly he didnt want to play anymore.
Hrm. Weird his ratio of winning all the time went down to average quick.
The only times I cheat is when I'm the DM and I'm scared that a monster I made is going to kill everyone. Since it's my creation I feel I have the right to quickly fix the thing when nobodies looking. Now with that said I'll completely let my party die to 12 zombies in lost mines... They were sooooo confident.
DMs never cheat.
@@hirokira8335 Can't break the rules if you make the rules
Ah yes, everyone else caused me to cheat
Logic is strong with this one bois
This dude's out here cheating while I'm sitting here as a gimmick character that only serves as the face. Not because I'm a pacifist in-game no, but because I'm just weak lol.
*Intellegence 100*
Same guy will defend himself in court with the "I'm the victim of society"- lecture.
It's actually probably the most common excuse cheaters use when called out. Most common I've encountered is "so-and-so's ability scores are so high I was just trying to keep my character relevant" or "you gave so-and-so this so I assumed..." Both when they are clearly the most op character in the party without the cheats.
Or, as the forever dm, my personal favorite "I asked you and you said it was ok!" Like seriously, it could happen with some things, but I think I would remember letting your level 1 character start with a +5 holy avenger...
"Other players and DM seen me cheat and i blame everything and everyone"
*Smort*
Charlie: I could TPK everyone at any second!
Also Charlie: OP is the evil sociopath, not me!
"Dungon masters never cheat"
Can't break rules when you are the rules.
Screw the rules, I'm the GM?
Screw the rules, I have gold.
"I AM the law!"
@@Elyseon "LAAAWW!!!"
I am the senate.
I'll admit, I've only ever cheated in a game once, and that was me fudging a roll. For reference, it was a New World of Darkness game and I had gone through effectively two sessions where I wasn't even able to scrape out a single success on the dice on any checks I made. So, at one point after this we got faced with a very important social check and I ended up having to be the one to make it. Rolled dice, did the "Picked up two dice as they hit the table before anyone could see the results", claimed they were tens and rolls...wouldn't you know it, those dice came up 8 and 9 respectively after I rerolled them. So 4 successes. Which, thankfully, was enough to pass the check and resolve the critical moment before we moved to the next plot-point. The DM did later confront me on it after session (Picked up those dice WAY too quick compared to how I usually did it) and I came clean, but he understood it was more me getting frustrated at my utter shit dice luck for two sessions straight then anything malicious with how the DM was running the game or wanting a power fantasy. He didn't retcon it, let it happen and we went on playing again with the proviso I don't do it again. Thankfully my dice luck never got THAT bad again in that game or any other game.
I bring this up as I did have a moment where I cheated that was, well, maybe not sympathetic but you can at-least understand the motives. We've all had moments where the dice just HATED us for long stretches, and anyone will admit two sessions of nothing but rolling failures (and even dramatic failures!) would wear down anyone after a while. And sometimes, after one failure too many, you just end up saying "OK NO!"
But lying about proficiencies, stats and capabilities of what you should be capable of at your level is just utter bullshit! Seriously, this guy just wanted to have his power fantasy early rather then just wait a little longer to be able to pull it off with some effort and levelling. Which, combined with asshole behavior, just makes him a shit-head. Anyone who has to not only bullshit their abilities to a point of being antithetical to their character class but also keep threatening to kill the party is NOT someone I want to be at a table with.
I'm glad that asshole isn't at the table anymore.
As a dm i also cheat, mostly to save player characters from insta death or to see how something funny turns out.
I really don't care much if someone wants an extra ability or something and askes me for it in character creation or even later on, but adding something without me knowing would probably get me mad. The dice rolling is another thing, i think messing up is part of the fun, if they cheat on that, they take their own fun away not mine, plus somehow everyone always rolls open bc the whole group then has the fun of watching the dice mess their in game lifes up.
"An arthritic spider is more threatening than me" 😂😂
Retorical questions: Why do criminals hate a snitch and hate being caught?
Rhetorical answer: Yes.
because snitches get stiches
Deep seated insecurities
Because then they have to own up to their bad decisions. Just thinking out loud though
Was clearly more of a problem with Charlie as a person then his cheating, though these things tend to go hand in hand.
Me, a DM, addictively scanning my players' character sheet for the 8th time in a week between sessions: I don't suffer a cheater to live.
Why would you do that? I always check carefully players character sheets before first session but after that what is the point? If they suddenly bring something that you did not give them and which was not part of their character from the start then it will be obvious, no?
@@iglidor It's a weird obsession I've gained, I don't know why. I constantly check their sheets when planning sessions and encounters so I know their strengths and weaknesses to balance combat so it doesn't crush them or they don't breeze through it. I try to make sure they kept track of random items I gave them, or see if I think they need something so I can make it available for them. I check their backstories and personality details as I'm writing up plots to see how I can best engage the characters and as a result keep the players engaged. My comment was a joke, but the truth is I'm obsessively checking player sheets because I think it's necessary to do.
@@romulus2473 Ah, I do these things mostly on the fly. I balance combat mostly by fudging rolls if the combat goes out of my expectations. Thing is that I expect players to actualy breeze through some combat. What is the point of powering up if entire world power up with you? That makes the harder combats against difficult enemies that much more meaningfull. Encountering enemies that few sessions ago gave you trouble, only for you to demolish them thanks to growth of characters is nice.
Also I learned a lot from Apocalypse World on how to integrate players backstory into game. And that is to simply let them do it for you. In other words, if nothing interesting is going on, throw NPC or situation in their way and ask one player to describe it. Like "While you are standing in middle village, a certain middleaged man moves towards you. Player A, you recognize that man from your past. Tell us who he is and what does he want from you."
Not only it is usefull to kickstart game if it got stuck in mud and players were not doing anything, but from experience when players make their background, GM will rarely get perfect understanding of the direction player wanted to take with it. So allowing them full control of such random meeting allows them to dig into their background however they like.
@@romulus2473 Agreed. Does help weed out cheating as a plus tho. I will always keep copies of character sheets as it's the best way to manage just about everything DM related if I know exactly what they have, want, and need both mechanically and RP based.
@@iglidor I’ve never actually played the game but that seems like a terrible idea to me.
Yay crab stories!
The first comment can be an actual comment, it doesn't just have to be the word "first" and this is a great example lol
Yay crab stories!
Yami pfp 😳
Crab story! Crab Story!
🦀🦀🦀🦀
The cheater: Yeah, this is big brain time.
There was a fellow player in my group, and she would fudge her rolls. She was always "rolling" on her phone, and she always seemed to get the roll she wanted. One time, she started geeking out about how if she casts guiding bolt at a certain level and crit she could do 14d6 damage. She held her phone close and "rolled" and surprise, surprise she crit. It wasn't common enough for us to suspect anything at that point, but it just got worse. Every time she would roll for Divine Intervention, she just happened to get it. She got kicked out of the group for an entirely different reason, but she came back eventually. One of the conditions was that she show her dice rolls from that point on.
"DM's never cheat or bend the rules, even a little bit..." 🤣
Did you catch the “DM’s are different and that’s a hill I’ll die on” a little before that? lol 😂. 14:38
Anything a DM does is within the rules. Wizards and tardiness and whatnot
Good on OP for being the bigger man. Mad respect for the guy.
"DM's never cheat or bend the rules, even a little bit."
*looks sternly at the crab.*
Shame on you. *wags his finger*
The rape dm begs to differ
@@TheBonkleFox EXCUSE ME? The WHAT DM?
*cracks knuckles, gets an eye tic*
@@mikefang9995 there was this story where a DM had a problem with two players being a Same-sex couple in-game, so he pulled some underhanded sh1t out of his a$$ (Have to censor because RUclips can take down comments for cursing in them) to make what I can only describe as a weeb's fetish fueled r4pe fantasy.
@@scr8846 Ugh, what an a$$#ole.
@@mikefang9995 If I remember which story correctly, that was just the massive fugging half-ton of straw that broke the camel's back. He had forced one of the players of the two characters to change class for their character and pretty much shoe-horned them into their character being extorted between indentured servitude/apprenticeship or their village would be killed. I think it was one of those GMs that just kinda made everyone's character feel useless compared to DMPCs, and all of the players had intended on all of the characters teleporting out of there when shit started going down, and the lead up to "the lesbians are put up in stocks and the entire town is invited to rape them. The other characters who try to persuade the masses are attacked for sticking up for their party members," was the King of this f'd up society Power-word stunning everyone simultaneously without saves despite it being a one-target spell and one that evokes constant CON saves.
So, yeah. Crappy DM with crappy NPC's and a crappy rapey society that should not just be slung upon your D&D party.
"Everyone knows dungeon masters never cheat or bend the rules even a little bit".
Technically true. In that since I'm generally responsible for arbitrating the rules, it's difficult to define any call I make, however wild, as cheating. Technically. But colloquially speaking, I've resolved to cheat when it looks like a death will happen that isn't fun for the group. That's heavily dependent on the nature of the group, though. The group I'm currently running for are hardcore veteran players who take death in stride, so for them I don't have any stores of mercy invincibility in me.
Fantastic!
Hearing Starfinder be called DND in Space nearly gave me a heart attack.
It’s more like Pathfinder in space, but that’s a helpful description for people who haven’t played Pathfinder or don’t know what it is.
@@grahamcarpenter691 its exactly Pathfinder in space. Poor Pathfinder, you've come so far but in the end it didnt even matter.
@@moviebuff3000 Our past is there to help push us forward. Do not be sad it is over, be glad that it happened. Insert inspirational phrase.
Admittedly, my current AC is 24 in pathfinder, but I'm level 9 and ended up upgrading my armor and took many AC boosters. If you were playing 5E or are a newer player, then I definitely see calling them out. Luckily, we play online so my DM has full access to all of our sheets.
I allways ask my players for a copy of their character-sheet. I don't keep them updated but if they suddenly own something I did not give them and is too expensive... lucky us something like that has never happened and I have actually a really nice group! :)
Parents when they make you chronically depressed so you start failing your classes, then they yell at you for being lazy, which just makes you more depressed and less motivated to pass
man this being a starfinder game absolutely caught me off guard. I'm so used to hearing the horror stories being WotC games instead of Paizos
"Solarian are accepted as one of the best classes"
Sorry, hung up on that, what timeline is this? One of the classes with stuipd MAD stat scores and low save abilities is considered 'best'? What buff did they get when I wasn't looking?
I mean... the Character Ops Manual gave more options for their manifestation.
Technically, for a long time it depended how you built your Solarian. A Solar Weapon Photon focused one can have crazy damage output even at level 1, Photon mode gives a +1 to all damage sources and Supernova lets them do 2d6 every 3 turns to everything in 10 feet, making them a walking, talking bomb. Both of these scale up as they level and the new equipment such as a fusion that lets you add your Charisma to damage on your Solar Weapon.
And almost all Solarians can be crazy mobile with abilities like Stellar Rush and such, so the fact you build a primarily melee character doesn't often.
Sure, you may only be able to get two good high Abilities to work with, but just Strength and Charisma can make you a line breaking powerhouse. You can easily minimize the drawbacks of your lower Dex and Con with Heavy Armor Proficiency and the Toughness Feat as well.
Op shouldn't said sorry at the end there. That would just make Charlie go like "see he guilty and I am right"
Completely agree. I’m here thinking OP, don’t be a pushover, you have no reason to apologize to that asshat for trying to gaslight you
I really want him to cover the Old Man Henderson story sometime lol
It's just a general rule in life. Never hesitate to apologize if you're in the wrong.
Now learning how to realise that you are in the wrong is a whole other can of worms.
But everyone needs to realise that apologizing to your friends and family is one of the best things you can do. It's called maturity.
Charlie-like players: "MY CHARACTER NEEDS TO BE ALL-POWERFUL AND HAVE NO FLAWS"
Me: *Refuses to get my character's lost hand restored, because it's cooler that way (even though he was originally a two-handed weapon specialist)*
I feel you. I -as the player- was dissapointed when my party was able to save my Pirate's hand after a fight. Eventually I'll get that hookhand 😭
I often give my characters quirks of various kinds. Things that make them stand out. One of my current ones has a massive fencing scar, running from the bridge of his nose down his left cheek and down his neck before ending at his collarbone, which ties into his backstory. He was wounded in a duel with an npc, whom the dm is probably going to use at some point.
I remember I used to play a lot of Adventurer's League, which is the organized play for 5e. The groups at the local stores I played with were mostly fine, but at conventions, it was a completely different beast. I remember at one con I played with a guy at a tier 1 table (which is levels 1-4) who had a paladin/sorcerer multiclass and used a TON of metamagic. Every turn he was twinning this and quickening that and smiting. I asked him how he had so many sorcerer points (knowing full well that a paladin that could smite wouldn't have access to metamagic, and that he had spent like 10 sorcery points) and he just brushed if off as, "I converted spell slots to sorcery points." I wasn't the DM and I was only playing with him for that one 4-hour slot, so I didn't bring it up again, but I could definitely tell he was being shady.
At another con, I remember this young kid who was playing a necromancer. He cast a whole bunch of pretty high level spells, supposedly from a Staff of Power and Staff of Fire. That was all fine, except at the end of the session, when we were deciding who was going to receive the reward, the kid demanded it. Back in those days, the way magic item rewards were determined was based on who had the fewest magic items, so whoever had the fewest got first pick. The cleric wanted it but already had a magic item, but the kid was demanding that the item go to him. I reminded him that he had more than one item, to which he replied that he didn't have any. I pointed out that he had used the Staff of Power to cast a bunch of spells, as well as the Staff of Fire to both cast spells and to resist fire damage. He said he didn't have those on his character sheet, so I asked the DM to look. The DM said they weren't written on his sheet, so I asked the DM to look at his log sheet (for AL, you have to write some of the details of the adventures you've played with each character, so a DM can theoretically look at your sheet to see what adventures you've played) and that's when he made a big fuss, packed his things rapidly and walked away from the table, almost in tears, saying that the DM and I were bullying him. The cleric ended up with the item. Oh, and post script to that story, I did eventually meet some folks from the stores that the kid frequented (AL is a relatively smallish community) and they not only confirmed he had a bunch of items but that he also would do things like that in other games, as well as other shady behavior, but usually only when he felt threatened or cornered.
On the one hand, since D&D isn't about "winning" per se and you're usually all there to power fantasy anyway, I don't see cheating as the biggest offense personally. I've even seen examples of house rules that are basically just ways to let the players cheat the normal D&D rules a bit because they find it more fun that way.
On the other hand, D&D is a group effort, one wherein everyone should be on the same page, because one person doing everything while everyone else sits on the sidelines getting bored is terrible. Yes, a little cheating shouldn't be a big problem, and "cheating" via house rules should also be fine as long as everyone in the party gets to cheat equally; this kind of story shows exactly the kind of scenario when cheating becomes a big deal, when one person is cheating to an excessive and blatant extent, basically hardly following the rules at all.
Furthermore, if you come to the table with no real intention of following the rules, and just cheat all the time, then what was the point of you coming to the table at all? Even if you're otherwise okay, you're still basically becoming a That Guy of the table, but with breaking rules instead of just acting like a prick.
And yes, I do know the propensity for a That Guy to both act like a prick _and_ cheat excessively. I'm saying that doing just doing one or the other still arguably makes you a That Guy, even if you're not doing both.
Two things.
1. There are several reasons why people play D&D. Living out a power fantasy is just one of them. Sometimes people even play for a variety of reasons at the same time.
2. I'd argue that house ruling isn't really cheating. The reason I say this is that everyone is still following a set of rules that they agreed on. They are still following the rules. It's just that the rules have been changed. For everyone. A cheater doesn't follow the rules, whether we're talking the ones in the rulebook or the house rules.
You’re right, dnd isn’t about winning, it’s about having fun. But I can’t have fun if the guy next to me is cheating
To be fair, there’s a difference between a DM allowing some roll fudging for common player enjoyment and a sole player secretly cheating in order to be OP and (even unintentionally) lording that over the other players
This comment has nothing to do with the post but last night I saw a D&D dream and I played a halfling named Honk 😭
Speak to us of Honk!
Tell us more
@@ShinoharaMiyu I'm surprised that someone is interested in something like this omg--
Honk was this "act first, think later" spellcaster (I don't know what exactly) who felt dragged down by the party he was with. They were all too cautious, besides this homebrew-ish kobold named Ferret. The duo was pure chaos and I love them so much I can't--
Anyway!!! Honk has a big heart and wants to do good, but lacks the understanding to do it affectively. He's good at getting himself out of trouble he caused - the guy is like a toddler at times
@Legisai I thought he was an arcane trickster rouge at first but I'm starting to rethink it. Honk The Bard anyone?
@@abandoned__ arcane tricksters are less of spellcasters and more magic-assisted rogues. if you remember him being explicitely a spellcaster he might be a bard
I scuttled over as soon as I saw. 🦀
"Its like you asking someone in 5e what their ac is and them responding with 25" laughs in 23 ac (28 with shield) wizard
Warning: This comment contains high doses of pedantry, and may not be suitable for all viewers. It is not an important comment, but the little demon that lives in my brain and yells at me when I don't correct things I know are wrong made me post it. Reader discretion is advised.
3.5 does NOT give a feat every odd level. It's one at 1, then an additional feat at each level evenly divisible by 3. For some unholy reason. Pathfinder and, to my memory, starfinder give a feat every odd level though, and that's so much better because then there isn't one outlier to an otherwise nice pattern of levels.
I’ve played a War cleric Human who wore +3 plate armor, had a custom made 3/4ths tower shield( basically a riot shield at that point ) which was +2. Meaning his Ac at all times was 25. And his tower shield gave him permanent 3/4ths cover. Now, this character was level 18 and had spent most of his money collecting the materials and finding the people to make them and enchant the items.
"Everyone knows that DMs never cheat or bend the rules in any way."
*cough*
That's true, we dms never ever ever cheat or do suspicious things behind our screens. We are all lawful good people.
The first game i ever hosted was online. I fudged every single role, because i forgot what dice i have to use in which situation. But the one- shot ended in a PVP kill anyway...
I played a game that lasted almost 2 years. The DM caught one guy cheating with his D20 rolls. Instead of calling him out on it, making a scene, he reduced all of his damage by 50%
Eventually someone said something and the guy never came back
We didn't miss him, he was totally combat focused and when there wasn't combat he was trying to fudge the rules in other ways.
Our DM was pretty lenient on fudging rules, but he made sure to tell us, every time, if I fudge for you then I fudge for the NPCs also. This guy didn't really care at the time, cause it benefited him in the short term, after he left most of the fudging stopped
I get the feeling that Charlie had some kind of superiority complex, and felt very threatened by OP. Like when he spouted that OP "always had to be overpowered", when really that fits his behavior to a T. Maybe he had a crush on one of the female players/the DM at the time and thought of OP as a rival. Or maybe he was just a bitter snark with very low self esteem.
two things I see over and over again with toxic "friends":
1) they treat any and all relationships like a competition in one form or another
2) when shit hits the fan, it's always the sweetest member of the group that gets targeted by the toxic member of the group, particularly with accusations of the sweet one being manipulative or having it out for the toxic one.
This happened to my bff when we had to deal with an extremely toxic girl our friend group.
Despite me being the most confrontational against her and always calling her out on her BS, toxic girl kept treating my bff, who's got a severe ptsd-induced fear of confrontation and conflict*, as if they were some villainous and petty puppet-master controlling me and everyone else in the group in order to keep her unpopular in our current fandom group (when rly, she was unpopular bc she never made any effort to gain people's interest in her content, and refused to listen to any advice given to her)
it honestly felt insulting to not get proper credit for my own actions and treating me like I had no agency in the conflict, but I'm angrier at how badly it all affected my bff.
not gonna got into details, but this toxic person's emotionally manipulative and downright abusive antics stressed out my already chronically ill and anemic bff so badly that they got a blood clot and had to go to the ER
(and when I say blood clot I mean they couldn't even take a blood sample bc the blood in my bff's veins practically had the consistency of play-dough.)
got off on a bit of a tangent, but yeh point is, it's interesting and useful to notice the patterns
(*like srsly, after I had accidentally hurt their feelings once, they would act very quiet and awkward rather than talking to me about it for a short number of days. And when I finally tried to gently ask them what was wrong, they ended up crying after some gentle poking and prodding from me, bc they were terrified of us having a fight, and they almost never cry (another result of their ptsd)
we worked it out in the end, but I'm gonna fucking punt the ppl who put that fear in my bff one day istg)
Your bff deserves only the best of friends and I'm glad they have you looking out for them. I'm hoping you and your group keep toxic people out of your interactions early to avoid bigger issues down the line
Looks like a case of "never my fault" cognitive dissonance.
When we played the Lost Mines of Phandelver, the players and the dm agreed that there would be no fudging rolls. We would go where the dice take us, and that was death, multiple times. One of our party members is cursed with low rolls and we think it spread to the rest of us at the table. The party consistantly rolled crap while the dm kept rolling well. We all were watching his rolls too. His Cthulu dice just brought death upon us. In the end we had a great laugh and the dm used our deaths to add some more interesting roleplay (we got to meet the warlock's patron). Good game overall, though it's been on hiatus since March due to Covid.
Ever since i found this channel a few weeks ago I binge on it. I rewatch episodes constantly. And have alot of fun doing it! This is an amazing channel with amazing content
Hope you've found the airship story. That one is a top tier dnd nightmare
Ok the entire group was fuel and any incident was fire
Not surprised things went badly there
Man everyone is quick!
Glad your back CritCrab, I hope you recovered well!
CRITCRAB is now in *BALDURS GATE 3* !! :D
ruclips.net/video/ABuCQEqb4QI/видео.html
Crab army be proud!
The problem with forgiving a cheater, whether he's still playing with you or not, is that it just encourages further cheating, whether in your group or somebody else's. This is one reason why, as a DM, I'm very careful to scrutinize every player's character sheet before play begins, and at every level increase or other improvement (in point-based games like Champions, for example). That way, you either resolve rules conflicts before they happen, or drive the players who are actually WILLING TO CHEAT away from the get-go, or early on in the campaign. Possibly both.
14:38 i saw that >> you ain't sly dawg xD Say it loud and proud if you're so sure of it, *_Mr.DMsAreAllowedToCheat_*
Listen, man, if I gotta fudge the numbers a little to keep my players from blowing themselves up while riding a minecart into a secret mountain base as a trio of security droids fires laser blasts at them from behind, well, I'll do it.
I rolled 4 crits against my poor players that night, and no lvl 2 party deserves that.
"25 or so"(It was 27) was the AC of one of my palalocks that I played in a 5e Oneshot. He was 12th Level and the DM told us to spend 30k Gold on any official items. Plate Armor +2, along with Shield +2 and a Ring and Cloak of Protection does some stuff. On top of that I had Shield of Faith. My DM and I were happy this was just a one shot.
*sees the title alone*
Me: ✨gaslightinggggg✨
I'm always so worried I'm going to accidentally "cheat", like count something twice or add a bonus I'm not supposed to add, it sends me into high anxiety mode. I will never understand how and why people cheat in dnd on purpose.
I like how the guy who shared this story about Charlie offers an olive branch to Charlie at the end of this post, and then immediately offers to share more horror stories about Charlie with the rest of us.
In all honesty I see Charlie's point. OP sounds like a "That guy" or at least a power gamer. He knew their was an issue bewteen him and charlie and dogpile during the confrontation. Cheating was the absolute worst thing to do. Now OP won the moral high ground and would never stop bragging about it.
@@Minodrec Nailed it.
@@Minodrec i dont know what you mean by a that guy, but i dont see the power gamer part at all. Especially with just these two examples of a medic and just a sniper
@@Minodrec what do you mean dogpile? Do you mean that the other players didn’t like that this guy was cheating?
Oof, in regards to the flame thrower incident I had a similar thing occur in a game where I called out that I was using a cone of fire spell effect the round before alerting the other PCs to move aside before the attack would begin.
Each player took their turn and all but two players move out of the way. Having given the fair warning and time to move, I took the shot. We were playing a home brew game and we're up against a horde of spiders in their lair. There were webs and spiders all throughout the area I was focused on. When I told the players in the way that I was about to fire, and asked why they didn't move they said "go for it" and so I did. Needless to say it was a huge meltdown and I got an earful for the next 20 minutes from them. The DM told us that webbing was highly flammable and added a degree of damage to the fire attack based on how much webbing was there.
The players in the way took massive amounts of damage and proceeded to freak out at me about how I tried to kill them. I didn't know the catastrophic effect flammable webbing would add onto the attack, as the characters in the way had high enough hp to survive the initial attack easily, and the players even said as much before I attacked. Truth be told I didn't really feel bad for them as they had been given time to move, and even told me to fire on them anyway. My character similarly felt no remorse as I was playing a chaotic good alignment, which can sometimes mean cracking a few eggs to make an omelette. No one died, the spider horde was irraticated, saving a farming village their livestock, and the only characters who took damage did so willingly. More than anything it was just a awkward moment that caused a lot of unnecessary tension that could have been avoided with proper communication, and strategy.
How could another player be at fault for me cheating with my character sheet? Like seriously :D
2 possible rationalizations, I can think of off the top of my head.
1: Due to the info someone else posted I thought this was ok. With either original poster posting it wrong or me misinterpreting things.
2. Due to the other players min maxing and focusing too much on being OP I decided to put the shoe on the other foot to teach him a lesson by "fudging the numbers" a bit.
Only the cheater apparently never came up with either of those and if he was doing 2. he should have consulted the DM first.
I know, right?! There's absolutely no way it's even possible
😂 If you're going to blame someone else, at least blame them in a situation where it's feasible!~
Just read who the others try to forget/ignore his cheating to keep the peace, they allow him to act like that.
Confession: as a player, I have fudged my rolls a few times.
I don't like this aspect of myself, and if I ever start playing again I'll do my best to not do it.
Still
This guy
Holy
Fucking
Shit
DnD in space? I have so much to catch up on...
Starfinder is fun. It's literally Pathfinder in space. Same setting, just advanced in time to the point everyone has ray guns and space ships in addition to the usual magic, monsters and gods.
It's absolutely amazing. Moreso if you've got a good group of friends or a community to play with.
@@nekoali2 What is pathfinder
Love your videos! And this length is perfect 👌 makes my work shifts go much faster lol
Its a crit.
Its a crab.
Its a Crit Crab!
Love the quick Sword Art shade near the end
It’s my bday so I’m glad an video came out at this time
I boosted my characters stats (with permission from the DM) for a Fallout campaign because I'm going to be purposefully dodging my Subclass TWICE, meaning I won't get a Subclass until level 5, they agreed that the stat buff would be necessary for me to be able to keep up with the Party in combat
I knew a guy who would always, ALWAYS say "I rolled my character's stats already" and they're 18 18 18 18 16 14, before racial modifiers EVERY TIME we'd make characters with die rolls.
Every time we'd be like "we said we're all rolling infront of the DM" and he'd either say "fine I re-rolled" but not where anyone could see and his new stats would be "18 18 18 16 14 12".
Surprisingly nice guy though, even after we have to practically demand he rolls infront of the DM, when he does roll he doesn't complain or anything, doesn't get stroppy, dude just rolls normally and takes what he gets no matter how low, but even then if stats are really low people can re-roll if they want with permission from the DM.
Edit: I also played with a sorcerer who'd "spend power points" to regain like 5 spell slots for disintegrate every combat, would use quickened spell to cast disintegrate twice in one turn on the same target, and demanded I shouldn't be allowed to play a sorcerer "because you don't even know how" when I pointed out to him you can't spend power points to regain more than 5th level spells. Unlike my friend who fudged stat dice, this guy was a complete ass nonstop and would his at-will disguise self ability he got somehow to do things like gain a tiefling's fire resistance or triton's swim speed and ability to breathe under water, also kept insisting he could turn an ancient black dragon into a maggot with polymorph and cut it in half and he'd have a dead dragon instantly and getting super pissy when we'd tell him no.
I once made a character, 5e human variant fighter eldritch knight, that literally rolled 18, 18, 18, 18, 17, 15 (in private).. I stopped... looked at the numbers and said to myself "literally no one is going to believe this happened legally" erased the stats and later rolled in front of my DM and still got two 18s pre racial boosts. My DM is very lenient and lets us rolls stats as "4d6 reroll 1s forever, reroll 2s once". I chose not to reroll at all and got an 8 charisma.. I loved failing persuasion checks.
My groups only do point buy or stat array. Stops this BS real quick
@@shajirislamuddin-caycho6659 That's the way I always do it now. Even when everyone rolls in front of the DM there is always one player who is way above average and one who is way below. It isnt fun being that played with below average stats, especially if you're playing a class that brings a unique skillset to the party and you cant even succeed with it enough to shine.
you can't cast disintegrate twice in a turn with quickened spell, you can only cast one spell a turn. you can do quickened disintegrate and fire bolt, and counter spell or shield as a reaction, but can't double cast two spells of 1st level or higher
@@snailman7989 I know, that was my point. That sorcerer was always getting things completely wrong and making them super overpowered whenever he did anything with his own character.
Shoulda seen the guy DM; immediately had a DMPC who was level 20 based off his character, surrounded by 4 women he had all impregnated and he talked about how cool and powerful and super handsome he was.
Egomania xD
To the shield in the hand.
I had something similar by my first battle in dnd.
The whole group are beginners and our first battle was again 4 goblins. Two with swords. Two with shields. Each of them had a AC of 15.
Later, i checked the goblins in the monster book and noticed, that they have only AC 15, because they have the armor and a shield. After this, i sayed to the gm, he had to reduce the Ac of the Bow-goblins, because, they can not wield a Bow and a Shield at the same time (he didnt checked and noticed it, for himself).^^
CritCrab: "DMs never cheat or fudge rolls"
Me: "You been actually watching some of these videos, buddy? Think Reddit might disagree" :P
I'm pretty sure it was sarcastic? Plus I know some DMs avoid doing that.
Ugh, reminds me of a guy I play with. Back when we could all play in person instead of over discord/foundry, he would always try to fudge his rolls and get away with shit like this. It’s gotten better now that he physically can’t do it bc dms have access to his sheet and the rolls are automated
It isn't only RPG players that cheat and project their crimes onto others. It seems to be part of (some) human nature.
This guy's genuinely unimaginably chill
Never cheated as a player as i don't see what that would accomplish given its a DICE ROLLING game, chance is a given. As a first time DM however i have pulled my punches and fudged rolls from time to time, especially early on when i was not sure about how to balance combat. Cheating in DND just makes no logical sense to me.
I’ve got a bad habit as a DM to pull all my punches, and it’s one I’m trying to break, but god does it feel terrible when one of my players’ characters dies.
My DM in one game has a homebrew rule that if we die, we get one "No, I'm not ready yet". It's fun and helps prevent problems. It helps us feel less stressed about making another character. But if I had that infinitely, I'd hate it. The fun is that the character can die without causing ME physical pain
"Dungeon Masters are different and that's a hill I will die on."
I agree, but no. It depends on reasons behind the DM is cheating. I can support DMs cheats to prevent something horrific that would to totally destroy the party's fun. That is cool in my book. But a DM who cheats because, let's say, they want to win? As in those DMs who see their role in the game as a competition against the players. That I will disagree with you on, CritCrab. Die for the cool ones who wants everybody to have fun, not the sore losers who have to "cheat-to-win" a game that isn't about winning.
Honestly, it depends on how they cheat. Fudging a die roll to prevent a TPK is different than, say, deciding that the players figured out the traitor in a mystery too quickly, and then quickly pivoting to change the narrative. Fudging a skill check DC to prevent the game flow from stalling is different than rolling behind a screen and declaring that all the rolls are 20s to kill that PC they don't like. It honestly just depends on the situation and the relationship between DM and player.
@@Alfrebaut Exactly!
In my experience, dm's that cheat to "win" are not dm's for long.
@@jakeand9020 We all hope so. The ones that don't are likely ones themselves, those who don't know any other kind of DMs exist, or just crazies.
Never had this happen, but I had something similar happen. We were starting at level 1, and one player's character sheet was jacked up big time. Proficiencies he shouldn't have had, numbers were all out of whack, he'd managed to give himself a PET BLINK DOG. I'm, like, 90% sure this dude wasn't actively trying to cheat, I think he just got confused making the sheet and possibly found a homebrew animal companion rule thing that he somehow thought was part of the base game, but JESUS. We helped him fix it, tho, and we never had any problems with him actively trying to cheat.
"kirito your way through everything"
* ah i see you are a man of culture as well *
Man I love starfinder. Nice to hear stories of others playing it. Such an evocative and cool game. My group has been playing a 3 story arc campaign in that system in a homebrew setting for ... jeez like 3 or 4 years now. It's been epic, game changing stuff has happened. Characters have died, moved on from the party, and I think out of our 4 person group, only 2 of the original characters are left. Were about to start our 3rd story arc, and within 6-10 months of weekly sessions, will be seeing the epic conclusion of that campaign. Idk if I'll ever run that system again, I like rule heavy games, but that one is over the top, and tbh, the books are formatted pretty poorly, but it's been a good platform for narratively cool play, and we've had a ton of fun with it.
The cheater is clearly projecting when he accuses everyone else of being broken and is displaying narcissistic behavior. He brags about how powerful his character is, but when reality doesn't play along, he blames everyone else.
DMing a homebrew game w/ an old friend. He's the argumentative type. I move an enemy down a cramped hallway one way & he wants to know why I didn't do it "Like this/ that"...or "I don't understand why a drake can jump that far".
I explained it as "The drake bringing the action to him", because otherwise, his character would be too far to do anything until it was too late.
New crab story!
JUST IN TIME!! I needed something new to listen to :3 thank you, king crab
OP is very forgiving in this.
People who cheat in Roleplaying games like this often have some underlying issue. These can range from real life events, mental issues, low self esteem leading to a need for validation, superiority complex’s that they MUST validate, even people who are subconsciously trying to talk about issues that they are or have dealt with (eg: the story of the wizard and his flying frog).
4:53 I have a level 5 fighter with an AC of 20, though as a reaction to a single attack, he can increase it to 23.
The DM added a homebrew weapons and armor document, so I'm wearing Chain Mail (16) + Defense Fighting Style (+1 while wearing armor) + Tower Shield (+3), and then my weapon has the Parry trait (as a reaction to an attack, increase AC by half of your proficiency bonus, and the DM said to round up, so +2) and I have the Blade Master UA feat, which has a similar effect to the parry trait, so the DM just said to change it so they match perfectly and add them together.
I have a very generous DM.
Imagine cheating in D&D. What do you even achieve?
My usual group had to go through 2 ultimatums of the similar variety. Funnily enough both rogues who constantly tried to outdo each other to be the centre of attention. Now they’re both gone the group really does feel a lot more chill.
as a dungeon master i make the controversial decision that when my players roll their stats, i couldn't care less if they cheat, because ultimately it only makes the game less fun for them, i only kick cheaters when it comes to fudging rolls and pretending i didn't see it
legitimate question here
but if one player has OP stats compared to the others doesnt that lead to an imbalance in the party where inevitably 1 player will take center stage through out most of the game?
@@mrroboshadow as dm i take responsibility to ensure that never happens. stat imbalances don't stop me from giving every player their spotlight one way or another. i sincerely thank you for asking me a civil question instead of being a typical internet troglodyte
@@TheDragonflyzero no problem
as a follow up
i can see you striving to share the spotlight evenly among the players but what stops the players from becoming overly reliant on the OP player? im relatively new to D&D but wouldnt OP stats also lead to very easy skill checks on a lot of things?
@@mrroboshadow i create situations where the op character cant be the savior, every class has a weakness and i just exploit it to keep the game balanced, obviously i dont let them have any proficiency they want so they cant be good at everything and great stats cant save bad rolls
@@mrroboshadow also if its pathfinder the way skills work is you put ranks in them. if your class if proficient you get a bonus 3 ranks if you put at least one rank in. your bonus is stat+ranks+bonuses. combined that with a vast amount of stat-boosting items and starting stats dosn't matter that much for skills starting at about lv 3
when Charlie started saying it was an error I can just hear Cr1tikal going “it was a miss input”
"Starfinder (DnD in Space)" this hurts me.
Yeah that was the moment i disregarded the rest of what he had to say
"For almost a decade now!"
Oh, my sweet, sweet summer child...
CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB 🦀
I actually have a friend who cheats a lot in games, but is often really weirdly cool about it as well. To the point where it's a meta-game for me and my friends to catch him in the act. He just puts his hands up and goes "Ah, you got me, yeah fine" and happily reverses whatever he did that was cheating, as well as takes whatever punishment we deem fair. I think it helps he never tries to do anything too over the top either, so if we miss it, it doesn't completely warp what we are playing.
CRAB COUNCIL, CONVENE!!!
God i relate so hard to OP. i had a player (ex best friend) who did this 100%. everything from blatantly cheating, to blaming me (the DM) and others, but he also told and encouraged the other players to do what he was doing and lie to the DM to get what they want- and when he was called out on it, it wasn't his fault. it was so and so's fault for not being honest with me. when called out again it wasn't his fault because so and so shouldn't have listened to him. Its not HIS fault the game ended because he had a OP magic item, its MY fault for not looking over his character sheet every session (not that it mattered since i checked all sheets every two levels and the item wasn't even in his inventory the last time it was checked). since the player was best friends with everyone, he didn't leave the discord, but he also bragged about everything, even admitted to lying and cheating specifically so i wouldn't nerf the item. Its been almost a year since that campaign ended and because of him (mostly him. everyone in that campaign contributed to this) i havn't trusted my friends or felt comfortable being a DM since.
all cheating in a table top game does is get your game ended and your friends dropping you like a hot rock.